Glossary
The vocabulary of the night — folklore terms, literary coinages, and the persona's own words, each labeled.
Terms marked [folklore] come from real folk belief and are cited. Terms marked [literary] come from books and films. Terms marked [persona] are inventions of the Vizlings character's world.
Strigoi [folklore]
Romanian folk belief: the restless dead — troubled spirits or reanimated corpses that leave the grave to harm the living. Among the closest real-world analogues to the modern vampire. Protections in folk practice included garlic, holy objects, and staking the corpse.
Upir / Vampir [folklore]
Slavic terms for the reanimated dead. The Serbian vampir entered Western European awareness through 18th-century reports from the Habsburg military frontier — including the famous Arnold Paole case of 1732 (see mythology).
Nosferatu [literary — with a folk footnote]
The word Bram Stoker uses for the undead in Dracula (1897). Stoker took it from Emily Gerard’s 1885 essay “Transylvanian Superstitions,” which presents it as a Romanian word for vampire. Its actual etymology is disputed — scholars have proposed Greek nosophoros (“plague-bringer”) among others — and it is not standard modern Romanian. The site states this plainly: nosferatu is a literary word with murky roots, not an authenticated folk term.
Dhampir [folklore]
In Balkan folklore, the child of a vampire and a mortal — said to be able to see and destroy vampires. A folk category the persona finds “tedious but flattering.”
Vrykolakas [folklore]
The Greek revenant of folk belief: a corpse animated by demonic force, blamed for plagues and misfortunes. Documented in Greek sources from the medieval period onward.
The Turning [persona]
The persona’s word for his transformation into a vampire — “not a curse but a bargain.” Persona canon holds it happened in the late medieval era; the details are deliberately vague (see lore).
The Old Laws [persona]
The persona’s binding code: hospitality once offered cannot be withdrawn; a threshold must be crossed freely; a guest under his roof cannot be harmed. In-world, these are absolute. Out-of-world, they dramatize the folk motif that vampires must be invited in — a motif Stoker uses in Dracula (1897).
The Brides [persona, after Stoker]
The Count’s three vampire companions — Vespera, Ravenna, and Odette in the persona’s canon. Stoker’s novel features three unnamed vampire women (“the weird sisters”); the persona’s brides are original characters, not those figures (see brides).
Renfield [persona, after Stoker]
The Count’s devoted mortal servant in the persona’s world — an homage to R. M. Renfield, the insect-eating patient of Stoker’s novel. The persona’s Renfield is an original character.
The Sealed East Wing [persona]
The wing of the fictional castle no one has entered in two hundred years. A load-bearing mystery of the persona’s lore — permanently unanswered by design.
The Dissolving [persona]
The persona’s signature escape: cloak to mist, mist to wings, wings to bats. Signature scene 6 on the scenes page.
Children of the Night [literary]
Stoker’s phrase — “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!” (Dracula, 1897, Chapter 2). The persona quotes and riffs on it constantly; genuine quotation cited on the lines page.
Carmilla [literary]
Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella about a female vampire — a major influence on Stoker, published 25 years before Dracula. Not connected to the persona’s brides, despite the shared first syllable with none of their names.
The Vampyre [literary]
John Polidori’s 1819 short story, which created the aristocratic vampire archetype (Lord Ruthven) that Stoker — and every theatrical count since — inherited.
Sighișoara [real place]
Transylvanian town, birthplace of Vlad III (1431). A real place with a real history, covered on the transylvania page. The persona claims to have “known it when the walls were new” — persona fiction, not a historical claim.
Poenari [real place]
The ruined mountaintop fortress associated with Vlad III, in Argeș County, Romania. Real, visitable, steep. Covered honestly on the castle page.
Bran [real place]
Bran Castle, near Brașov — the 14th-century fortress marketed worldwide as “Dracula’s Castle.” Stoker never visited it and there is no evidence it inspired his novel; the association is 20th-century tourism. Covered honestly on the castle page.
The Mockup Stream [site]
Source notes
Folklore entries summarize standard scholarly accounts; key cases and sources are cited in full on the mythology page. Literary entries refer to works listed on the sources page. Persona entries are original fictional writing for the Vizlings character. The uncertainty around nosferatu’s etymology is stated as uncertainty per the methodology policy.