Basic Description
Name: Celeste Dracula
Race: True Vampire
Age: Approx. 600 years, but appears 20
Birthplace: Targoviste, Romania (Then Wallachia)
Verses: HellsingRP / MVRP / BG3RP / WitcherRP / FantasyRP... And many more
Physical Description
Celeste stands at roughly 5'6 and has a petite frame. Her hair is like white gold and cascades in wavy curls past her shoulders and halfway down her back. Her eyes are crimson, but their vibrance can change based on whether or not she's fed recently, and her lips are plump and tinted red like rosebuds. If you catch a whiff of her perfume, you'll notice that she smells like roses with undertones of wood, petrichor, and the faintest hint of iron.
Her beauty is so captivating that it's caused even her enemies to hesitate in doing her harm, as described in Bram Stoker's novel. Most who meet her don't initially see her as a threat due to her stature and appearance, and she likes it that way since it gives her more control in her interactions.
Personality
Celeste has a very dynamic personality depending on the point in time when you meet her. She can come off as playful and flirtatious, or reserved and distant, depending on if she's trying to eat you or not. When encountering another immortal, she's more likely to see them as either an equal or a thrilling challenge. She's also quite curious, and her inquisitive mind has gotten her into trouble on plenty of occasions. No matter which side of her you see, she typically maintains her privacy about her life until trust is established. However, if you're lucky enough to make it past her initial demeanor without being drained of blood, you can truly get to know her.
I hesitate to write too many specifics about her personality because so much of it is informed by the time period in which a story is taking place. If you have any questions, feel free to DM.
Biography
Because Celeste has such a long history, I've broken it down into smaller bits so anyone who might be reading her bio can more easily navigate it and find any parts that you might be looking for.
1. Early life
Celeste was born in Targoviste on March 3rd, 1464 to her parents Sergiu and Adina Ionescu. She was the second of five children and the eldest daughter, which meant that as she grew older, she took on more and more responsibility to care for her younger siblings. Her father worked as a goldsmith, and she met her husband when her father was hired to do some work for him. Brief exchanges between the two turned into conversations held in secret whenever Vlad visited her father's shop, and before long, she had fallen for the Count. He told her a bit about his past and about how he was a vampire, and she surprisingly listened without judgment.
During one of their visits, Celeste allowed Vlad to drink from her when his fang grazed the skin on her hand. This caused her to fall ill, and there was nothing that could be done to save her. Days passed, and the young woman faded until at last, she died. Although her body remained still, internally, the woman writhed in painful agony as she became immortal. More days passed until at last Celeste awoke, reborn as a vampire, six feet beneath the ground in a coffin. Thankfully, Vlad sensed that she had not truly departed so not long after the funeral, he and a servant exhumed Celeste. She stepped out of the grave forever changed.
She awoke to a new unlife that was very different from what she always imagined having when she was a girl. She had always envisioned a happy life, surrounded by the family she already had and the family that she hoped to create with her husband. However, Vlad forbade her from seeing the family that she left behind so that they would not be made aware of her condition. For many years, Celeste held onto hope that perhaps she and Vlad could make a family together that would fill that void, but that dream never came true. Her vampiric condition rendered her infertile.
The only thing worse than all of that was the fact that now, her survival required the consumption of others. Victim after victim was lured to their castle by her husband to be devoured. Celeste was reluctant to drink at first, unwilling to hurt or kill the people who were brought to her, so Vlad kept her in their castle and starved her until she had no other choice. Most of the time the victims were strangers, but sometimes Vlad would bring her a familiar face, or worse yet, a child. Each time, she was so hungry that she couldn’t turn down the meal, and each time, another piece of her soul fractured. Her transition into becoming the monster that Vlad wanted her to be was a slow and painful one in every way.
As time passed, killing for blood became easier with practice, and so did controlling her bloodlust. The family hosted lavish courtly balls, and sometimes the Countess was allowed to leave the castle to hunt on her own, capitalizing on her beauty to lure in victims to consume. Although much of her time was still spent at the castle, she tried to find solace in her own way. The castle library boasted hundreds of books for her to get lost in, and after she read all of those, their collection grew to thousands over the years as the Count gifted his bride with new books. Time eventually robbed Celeste of the faces of her human family, so she developed a passion for the arts, learning to draw and paint so well that she would never lose another face again. She even learned how to fight with a sword, ride horses, and play as many instruments as she could so that her life would always be filled with music, even after the courtly balls were no more.
However, as centuries passed, Celeste’s loneliness became apparent. Rather than setting her free or allowing her to leave the castle of her own volition, Vlad suggested that he claim another bride to ease her loneliness. At first Celeste was skeptical - she wasn’t keen on sharing her husband - but the two came to an agreement. He would be allowed to claim another bride, but she would be subservient to Celeste. The Countess would always come before them.
During the next couple of centuries, Vlad would claim not one, but two more brides - Rebeca and Elena, both of whom provided companionship for Celeste. However, now that their family was growing, the nearby village wasn’t large enough to sustain them. As their need for blood grew, so did the humans’ fear as their population began to dwindle. Vlad was left with no choice but to forbid his brides from leaving the castle entirely once again, but not without making a new promise to them. He knew of a far-off land to the west that had little knowledge of their kind, where they would be free to feed as they pleased. In the weeks that passed, he began making arrangements for the four of them to move to England. London to be specific; a city with such a large population that their activities were likely to go unnoticed.
2. The Events of Dracula
An estate agent by the name of Jonathan Harker was sent by his employer to travel to their castle to complete the sale of a lovely mansion in Carfax. It took him weeks to travel, and all the while, the brides grew hungrier as they were denied proper sustenance. At best, Vlad would bring them a tasty morsel here and there for them to share, of which Celeste always had the first bite. Still, their hunger grew, and to keep the brides from preying on Harker, Vlad forbade them from entering his room without permission. Then one night, Mr. Harker foolishly left his room to roam the castle before falling asleep on a couch in one of the upstairs parlors. The brides came to him while he slept, and just as Celeste was about to sink her fangs into his neck, Vlad thwarted her. The two argued until he promised that they could have him once their business deal was done. Then he tossed them a wriggling bag containing a child that he’d taken from the nearby village - dinner.
After their business was concluded, Vlad left to prepare their new home in England. The brides were left behind to pack their belongings from the castle, along with Harker, who would’ve made a nice meal for their journey if he hadn’t escaped. The escape of a would-be victim would have normally been reason enough for them to flee the castle for a while, but their plans to go to England were already made, so they stayed to gather their things.
Soon, Vlad returned to their castle with news that Harker had gathered a party which was on their way to kill them, partly as vengeance for turning a woman by the name of Lucy, who the party quickly killed - but also to prevent Jonathan’s new wife, Mina, from completing her transformation and becoming another one of Dracula’s brides. While the hunting party traveled to Transylvania, Vlad began making preparations for them to flee to a remote family estate that lay further north. One night, the vampire hunting party made camp near the castle and the three brides attempted to lure Mina away, to save their soon-to-be sister from the fate they had planned for the rest of the group, but the hunter known as Abraham van Helsing thwarted their efforts. As dawn approached, they returned to the castle, unsuccessful.
The following day, van Helsing entered their castle and found each of the three chambers where the brides slept. Enchanted by Celeste’s beauty, he hesitated to kill her, but after hearing the soul wail of Mina Harker, he snapped out of his trance. One by one, he drove a stake through Celeste, Rebeca, and Elena’s hearts before hastily cutting off their heads with surgical tools and stuffing their mouths with garlic.
3. Aftermath
With that, the hunting party left, believing that they had dispatched the brides for good. In reality, van Helsing failed to get the job done. He missed Celeste’s heart by just enough that, with great difficulty, she was able to pull herself back together again. With her body intact once more and the garlic spat out, she used what little strength she had to revive her sisters with her own blood.
Once revived, the brides left the castle, first to feed and gather their strength, and then to track Vlad’s movements in hopes of finding him. They first headed north along the Borgo Pass towards the estate he was meant to prepare, only to find that the caravan he traveled in had been set upon. The trio located some of the people who were tasked with transporting him and questioned them, even draining them of blood in hopes that their memories might reveal where Vlad was taken, but it was no use. No one knew where he’d gone.
With no sign of Vlad and his power over them seemingly weakened, the women were left to their own devices and traveled back to the castle. However, rather than continue their search for Vlad, Rebeca and Elena decided to leave the castle and go elsewhere. Although they were never granted true freedom from Vlad, his weakened power enabled them to gather some supplies before setting off on their own, perhaps to start new lives. Celeste decided to remain at the castle in hopes that Vlad or her sisters might one day return. No one ever did. Celeste remained there for years, slowly withering away as she fed on any looters who were foolish enough to trespass. The castle became more lonesome and desolate than ever and fell into disrepair.
4. A New Awakening
Everything changed the day that a small group of travelers from England came. On their tour of eastern Europe, they stumbled upon the castle and, thinking it was abandoned, they decided to take shelter there during the night. By sunset, the starving draculina made her presence known and attacked the party with the intent of devouring them, but they were too well guarded. Ophelia, a former soldier, defeated the Countess, but rather than finish her off, she instead extended her mercy. With a slice to her palm, she allowed Celeste to drink from her.
With an uneasy truce formed, Celeste offered the party some wine from the castle cellar and they spent much of the evening in conversation. During this conversation, Celeste told them a bit about the siege on the castle, and expressed her longing to find her lost family and seek vengeance on those who tore them apart. The only thing stopping her was her fear of encountering monster hunters on the road if she traveled alone. Moved by the vampire’s plight, Ophelia offered to help with her quest in the form of safe passage to England. So, Celeste gathered her strength and joined the others on their journey.
During their travels, Celeste got to know the other members of the party while seeing more of the world than she ever had before. First there was Ophelia’s adoptive brother, Rivor, who was also a former soldier and a rather stoic man, and Saoirse, the kind healer from Scotland who looked after the party. Most notable though was Gale, a scholar with ambitions to write a book inspired by his travels across Europe. Not long after their journey began, she found him awake late at night with his nose buried in a book. The two struck up a conversation, and after expressing her love of reading and how she hadn’t read anything new in ages, the man generously permitted her to read the books that he packed for the trip. On more nights than not, Celeste would keep him up later than the rest of the party, discussing the things they read in his books. Eventually their conversations led to more personal topics, and as they got to know one another, they started to fall in love.
Her revelation of how she felt about Gale wasn’t welcomed by Celeste at first. She set out on this journey for a different purpose entirely, and she wasn’t looking to be a fool in love for a second time. But as time went on, she couldn’t deny her feelings for him, and neither could he for her. By the time they set foot on English soil, Celeste’s heart belonged to him. Her primary objective had shifted entirely to revenge against van Helsing, and the others in the party not only ensured her safe passage but even helped with this endeavor.
When they finally arrived at van Helsing’s manor, Celeste and the others were shocked to find that Vlad was not only alive, but enslaved by van Helsing himself. Bound by alchemical rituals, Vlad was granted more power than ever before, yet he was only allowed to use it at van Helsing’s order. As a result, her attempt to get revenge against the man who threatened her family was foiled, and for her actions, she was banished from England for the foreseeable future.
5. A Second Chance
Although she was disappointed by this failure, Celeste still had more reason to be hopeful than ever before. At long last, she was finally able to begin healing from all that she’d been through, and with Gale at her side. The two married and settled in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Gale taught at the university there. She stayed in touch with the others in their traveling party and eventually, Ophelia and Saoirse became lovers and moved to Scotland as well. Ophelia opened up an orphanage, and once she was ready, Celeste helped by taking up night shifts there and putting her skills as a socialite to good use in order to raise funds for the children. Although it wasn’t exactly what she envisioned, Celeste finally got the big family that she always dreamed of.
Celeste and Gale both became published authors, although Celeste exclusively wrote under various pen names. The two lived happily together for more than half a century before Gale passed away in 1951 at the age of 89 years old. By the end of that decade, the rest of the original traveling party had all passed away. With fewer social attachments tying her to Edinburgh and the threat of monster hunters diminished, Celeste opted to spend more time traveling the world.
To this day, Celeste continues her travels, making use of her immortality by experiencing as much of the world’s richness as she can. She never sold the house in Edinburgh and still visits there on occasion to take a break from her travels or revisit old memories. Her lifestyle is funded by the royalties she gets from she and Gale’s books, and she continues her writing career in secret. Not only does she work as a ghostwriter for various authors, but she continues to publish her own books under different pen names, drawing inspiration for her stories from her travels and the memories of those she drains.
Writer's Notes
Celeste is a character that I try to be flexible with so that I can be involved in not just Hellsing storylines, but also multiverse/crossover ones. Depending on the time period that your character is in, they will meet slightly different versions of Celeste that suit the time and place they're set in. Celeste is a character I almost always have muse for, so feel free to reach out and plot, especially if you're interested in some descriptive roleplay.