Vlad Paripasu, it is said, was the illegitimate progeny of Mansit Mutandis, Prince of Carpathia — born in Bistrița in the high Carpathians.[1]

The JC’s fictional heroes
Preaching righteous truth with the power of metaphor.
Paripasu (the dishy dark haired-one behind and to the right) with fellow First Man, “Ginger” Reg Margin.
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He and the other wildling children would fence with wooden promissory notes under the tutelage of the Berber servant-warrior Uctis the Magnificent. Before long Vlad’s hand-to-hand discounting and factoring techniques were unmatched in the village and has he grew into a handsome young man, he displayed rare skill in all facets of riskless rent-extraction.

When he was eighteen years old, after deceiving his father into giving up his crown, Vlad was banished from Carpathia. He fled to the Northern wastes in search of the lost city of Salomoné, myths of which he had heard from his mentor Uctis.

There he met, and forged a bond with, ginger Norse kinsman Reg Margin. the two of them discovered, in the ruins of an abandoned, ransacked settlement of the Children of the Forest, the long-lost Dierne of Swæp — a mythical, sacred fruity knowledge believed for generations to be lost to the trading peoples of the world forever. Before long this knowledge was unleashed on the world like pandora’s box, and were were in a cold war, every party armed to the teeth with financial weapons of mass destruction.

It is said, but never proven, that he lives on, undead, a phantom of our unexpressed and recurring fears.

See also

References

  1. Rumoured — never proven — to be, or at least be descended from, legendary Romanian vampire squid Nosferatu, the Dark Lord of the Swaps.