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Season 1:

Exactly one year after Dracula threatened to rain Hell down upon the villagers of Targoviste for the death of his wife, Lisa, the villagers gathered together at the Church to celebrate the fact that Dracula had not, in fact, returned. The Cardinal blamed it on mass hysteria, a vision that was just an illusion, toothless and without merit. Almost as if he was setting up the most elaborate punchline he could think of, as his ended his speech the clouds covered over the town and the face of Dracula emerged in flames. He told them he would burn the village to the ground, with all the villagers in it, and he had returned to fulfill his promise. There would be no reprieve this day as the sky began to rain blood and then the hordes of Night Creatures emerged from the clouds to attack and dismember everyone in sight. And, once they were done with Lupu the creatures were ordered to descend upon the rest of Wallachia and kill everyone they could find.

While this was happening, drunken lout Trevor Belmont tried to get a drink in the town of Murdenu. Sometime prior his whole clan had been excommunicated by the Church (for supposedly practicing the Dark Arts even though his family was sworn to protecting the lands from the darkness). Their titles were seized and their lands burned. Before too long Trevor was the only one of his clan left alive and he saw little interest in protecting Wallachia from anything; all he wanted was a drink (or several). Sadly the patrons of the tavern didn't take to kindly to having a Belmont in their presence, and this led to a bar fight between Trevor and the lot which left him a little more bruised, a lot more sober, and much lighter of coin.

Taking his leave of the town he ventured out, eventually stumbling (quite literally for the drunk) to the town of Gresit. The town had already been terrorized by the Night Creatures of Dracula, but it was also the tyrannical rule of the Bishop, the mad leader of this local section of the Church; during the night the villagers had to be wary of the Night Creatures, but during the day they found themselves under the constant watch of the church's goons. Trevor wandered the town, learning all about this situation, all while spending his last coin on some jerky and information.

Things quickly took a turn as Trevor wandered a back alley, stumbling across a couple of the Church's goons giving a hard time to the Elder. Although he knew he should stay out of it -- he hadn't been a warrior for months at least -- Trevor stepped into the fight, besting the two goons handily (taking a finger and an eye from them respectively). Although the Elder abhorred the violence he did appreciate Trevor stepping in, and so he welcomed the hero to his clan's cottage for respite and information.

Trevor was struck by the oddity of the Speakers taking of actual residence in a town as, generally, they were a nomadic tribe, but the Elder explained that there was something quite special about Gresit. Legends foretold of a hero buried beneath the town, a protector that could aid the people and save the land from great evil. The Speakers had come to the town to lend aid and seek out this buried hero and one of their number, the Elder's own granddaughter, had gone in search of the hero only to disappear in the crypts beneath the town.

Despite his own gut instinct Trevor took upon himself the quest to go in search of the granddaughter. His family, the Belmonts, had dealt fairly with the Speakers in the past and Trevor didn't want to see this group fall prey to either Dracula's minions or the goons of the Church; in exchange for finding their lost family member, the clan had to move on that night. A agreement forged, Trevor quickly made his way to the crypts to seek out the lost family member and save the Speakers.

Down in the crypts Trevor found the granddaughter but she was, sadly, turned to stone. He realized, right before it was too late, that the girl had been turned to stone by a cyclops. This led to a fight between the monster and the hero, with the fiend firing his eye-beam all around trying to catch the hero and turn him to stone as well. Eventually Trevor impaled the Cyclops's eye with a dagger, felling the beast. This then freed all the people that had been turned into stone over the years, although sadly only the granddaughter was still in one piece (the rest turned back to mortal, and then promptly died from wounds).

Introducing herself as Sypha Belnades, she stated that they had to find the hidden hero if they wanted any chance of defeating Dracula. Trevor, though, took the girl back to the Speakers as finding the hero wasn't part of their bargain. They had to get out of town, fast, before the mad Bishop had them wiped out. Of course, the goons tracked Trevor back to the cabin and demanded he follow them to the Church so he could speak to the Bishop. The Bishop demanded fealty from Trevor, that he flee the town and never return lest the Church (i.e., the Bishop's goons) be forced to kill the hero. Trevor, being quite the lout, threw the words back in the Bishop's face before leaving the Church. Then he prepared for he knew a battle was sure to follow.

Setting up outside the cabin, Trevor prepared and waited for the Church to arrive. While he waited, though the Bishop got an unexpected visitor at the Church: an arch-demon that blamed the Bishop for all that had happened. God no longer existed in the Bishop's Church as the evil that the Bishop had caused forced God to turn a blind eye. The Bishop was not a man of god but a corrupt evil. Then he became a feast for the demons.

As the goons of the Church came to Trevor, he launched into a fight, taking them on and battling them all around the town, leading a merry chase through the streets of Gresit. He then found unexpected aid from Sypha who had left her group of Speakers to stand by his side in defending the town not only from the foul Church but also the coming of the Night Creatures. They battled the goons, and then had to use all their skills -- Trevor's consecrated whip and Sypha's powerful magic, to take on the beasts that haunted Gresit.

Once the forces of darkness, on all sides, had been bested, though, Trevor and Sypha found themselves in further danger. The crypts beneath the town had been weakened in the battle and suddenly the two heroes descended through an ever widening pit into the depths of the town's underbelly. They traversed through massive rooms with towering mechanisms until they came upon the crypt at the deepest depth. Even before they saw the coffin there and the lid opened, Trevor has his suspicions about what lurked in that final room: not a fabled hero but a vampire. And then a vampire (of a sort) did rise from that coffin.

Wary of the fiend, hero and vampire suddenly found themselves engaged in battle. Trevor had a sworn destiny to uphold, while the vampire... well, it seemed like he was testing Trevor, to see the hero's true intent. The two men battled back and forth but it was Sypha who stopped the fight, using her magic to threaten the vampire; she was sided with Trevor, who had saved her life, and while she didn't want to kill the vampire she would if they didn't call of their petty little fight. The vampire respected this and withdrew.

Introducing himself as Alucard, he explained that he was the son of Dracula but had sworn to fight his father and the mad vampire's plans to wipe out all humanity. After a brief discussion, Alucard revealed he knew about the story of the buried hero and also that the story told of a warrior and a sorceress that would aid the hero. Agreeing to work together the three set off to find Dracula and stop the vampire, no matter what.

Notes:

We're assuming the Elder, and the rest of his clan, are all Belnades clansmen (and clans-women), although that detail is never directly provided. The Elder only every identifies himself as such, without ever giving his proper name. Sypha is, in fact, the only one of the Speakers to directly give her name, and she gives the full clan name of Belnades. it's entirely possible that she has a different last name from her grandfather, the Elder -- mother who was a Speaker, then marries outside the clan so her last name changes -- but we're going to assume, for now, that Belnades is the name of at least this group of Speakers from the show. It's really not a huge detail, regardless, as the speakers don't show up again after season one.

The show establishes that "Alucard" is the name given to Dracula's son by the villagers. The name, in this context, is meant to convey that he's the opposite of Dracula, a protector of the village where Dracula seeks to destroy it. He's since adopted it as his de facto name instead of keeping the name given to him by his father.

Season 2

Dracula, meanwhile, was massing his forces at this castle in Wallachia. A bevy of vampire lieutenants had come from around the world to aid in Dracula's ultimate plans, and this included the Viking vampire warlord Godbrand and, eventually, the noble vampire lady Carmilla. Of all his lieutenants, though, Dracula trusted his two Devil Forgemasters -- Hector and Isaac -- the most. They were human, but served him loyally despite his plan to wipe out most (or, realistically, all) of humanity, and for that he made this the head of his war council, above even the vampires in his army.

For the vampires under his thrall, this was a galling move. They were the "superior race", of course, and to have to serve under two humans was a move they simply couldn't stomach. That, coupled with the fact that Dracula seemed hellbent on eliminating most of their primary food source (although they suspected his "promise" to make a small herd of humans that vampires could continue to feed on was an empty one), meant that the vampires that served the Dark Lord plotted and schemed to take his throne.

Of the two vampire leads, Godbrand was certainly the least successful in his schemes. A loud, drunken braggart, Godbrand could talk a lot but no one really listened to him. His complaints fell on deaf ears when it came to Carmilla and Hector, and Dracula only tolerated his whinging so much before he threatened to kill Godbrand. That left Isaac, who at least seemed willing to debate the vampire lord, even if he didn't like the Viking much. This came to a head after Godbrand went off on a raid one night; elated at the thrill of battle (battle, in this case, being attacking an unsuspecting and unprepared village) and drunk of ale and blood, Godbrand talked at Isaac until he thought he had the Forgemaster convinced to come to Godbrand's way of thinking. Elated at this move, he let his guard down and that's just when Isaac struck, stabbing Godbrand with his forgemaster knife, killing the vampire instantly (and permanently).

Meanwhile, Carmilla worked on her own schemes. Unlike Godbrand, the noble lady was much more effective in finding someone that would work with her. She whispered into the ear of Hector, convincing the loyal (if naive and innocent) man that she had his best intentions at heart, that she would help him cull back humanity but keep a herd that was properly treated and left to be happy, much like Hector wanted. All she needed was his help and she could invade the castle with her own men and take the throne, doing the right thing for the world (unlike Dracula).

While Carmilla schemed (and Godbrand failed), our three heroes -- Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard -- made for the old Belmont estates. While the manor house proper had been burned to the ground by the Church, the crypts underneath had been left untouched. magically sealed against all interlopers. With Sypha's magic the team was able to enter the subterranean hold which had all of the Belmont family's old secrets dating back all the way to Leon Belmont in the 11th Century. This wealth of knowledge, and the many artifacts within, were what the Belmont brought to the table in their fight against Dracula.

Sypha and Alucard, meanwhile, performed research. There was much knowledge in the libraries deep underground, knowledge that could help them create some kind of invocation or enchantment that could defeat Dracula. Trevor, though, mostly just played with his whip and annoyed Alucard. It was truly a fair distribution of labor.

Carmilla convinced Hector that they needed to have Dracula move his castle to the seaside town of Braila Ostensibly this was so they could cut off access to the sea, trapping the residents of Wallachia within the country. In reality, though, Carmilla's forces had massed at Braila and lay there, in ambush, to strike when the moment was ready. Dracula willingly moved the castle as the logic of cutting off the sea from the land made sense, and Carmilla threw up a cheer as her plan was all coming together.

As the castle landed at Braila, Sypha came up with a wicked idea. She realized that she could cast a spell that would grab ahold of Dracula's castle, all she would need was a way to see it. Alucard, meanwhile, could make a scrying mirror in the Belmont hold actually function -- he'd direct the mirror at Castle Dracula and Sypha would see it and could send her magic at the castle. While all this was going on, though, a contingent of Dracula's minions went to the Belmont estate and worked to break into the underground hold. Trevor held off the monsters while Sypha and Alucard worked.

At Braila, Carmilla and Hector went out to the sea. They dragged the reanimated body of the Bishop behind them so he could stand in the sea and bless the waters. This made the sea into one big pond of holy water (which also incinerated the undead Bishop). Dracula's forces didn't realize this was going on, though, and as they crossed the bridges that led to Braila, Carmilla's forces attacked and destroy the bridges plunging Dracula's forces into the holy sea, destroying them. Carmilla's armies then launched wooden bridges (attacked to ballista bolts) across the sea, allowing them to cross in return and lead an invasion into the Castle.

As Carmilla's forces entered, though, Sypha cast her spell, causing the caste to bounce around Braila (as it resisted her magic) before finally getting sucked to the Belmont estate, landing there quite permanently (as Sypha just so happened to burn out all the magical clockwork that made the traveling castle function). Carmilla and Hector were cut off from most of her forces, left in Braila to regroup and consider their next steps. This also meant Dracula, and a force of vampires, were right on top of the Belmont hold.

The three heroes changed up to the castle and invaded, working as a team to take on the various vampires still left in the castle. These they dispatched handily, which left only Dracula himself. This was a much tougher foe and if any one of the heroes had tried to take on the vampire on their own they surely would have perished; together, though, they were a force even Dracula could not fight off. They battled each other to a standstill, and then Alucard went chasing off after the vampire, father and son in a battle to the death through the halls of Castle Dracula.

It was when they reached the old family quarters, though, that the battle ceased. There Dracula saw the room of his son, remembered the good times they'd had as a family, and he wept for he realized he was trying to kill his own son. He paused, unwilling to kill his child, and that gave Alucard the opportunity to strike. He put a stake through his father's heart, sending Dracula's soul to Hell and saving the world from his darkness and evil.

Victorious, the heroes regrouped and tried to figure out what to do next. Seeing as the castle was stuck in Belmont lands, and that the keep was now open and in need of protection, Trevor bequeathed his family's estates, and everything within, to Alucard, putting him in charge of protecting both the Belmont legacy and Dracula's own research and magics. Trevor and Sypha then went off, via wagon, in search of her clan so she could rejoin her family for a time before they found some new quest to handle.

Episodes Referenced

• Season 1:
  • "Witchbottle"
  • "Necropolis"
  • "Labyrinth"
  • "Monument"
• Season 2:
  • "War Council"
  • "Old Homes"
  • "Shadow Battles"
  • "Broken Mast"
  • "Last Spell"
  • "The River"
  • "For Love"
  • "End Times"