History Literature / LoLoApolloImAfraidOfAmericans

** Loser D. Tuanis is based on Lapis Lazuli from WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse -- from her blue skin, to her aloof demeanor, to her control over water, up to and including her ability to create aqueous wings that she uses to fly and her "water witch" epithet.

** The book is, in part, a modern retelling of the origin of Count Dracula, at least the one depicted in Film/BramStokersDracula:

''[=LoLo Apollo: I'm Afraid Of Americans,=]'' is a 2022 novel by Nicola Jonesy.

The book's central character is Bob Dracula -- a severely depressed, unstable, and direly underqualified intelligence contractor working for Pumpkin Hill, the largest free-market spy agency in North America. Despite being unfit for duty in almost every regard, his employers continue to send him into the field for one reason: [[ImmortalAssassin Bob Dracula is unconditionally immortal]], minimizing his incentive to relent to capture and negating the chance of a body turning up on foreign soil. He's a great favorite of the CIA, who intend to contract him to covertly train anti-annexation radicals in the [[TheNeutralZone Uvoginian-Kuroginian International Zone]]. When Bob, in a rare stroke of conscience, refuses to take the contract, his handler (and adoptive mother) Vampire – Pumpkin Hill's [[AncientConspiracy ancient,]] [[HiddenAgendaVillain enigmatic,]] [[EvilBrit Cockney-accented]] [[TheSpymaster spymaster]] – is forced to break a promise and once again perform the procedure she used long ago to sever Bob's tether to mortality.

[[IHateYouVampireDad Much to Bob's disgust and outrage]], Vampire has created another immortal agent and sent him in his stead. But when the new agent goes missing on the mission Bob was meant to accept, he agrees to travel to Interzone to track him down. There, amongst isolated villagers growing loathe of the international interest in their region and a nomad tribe with a strange, spiritual connection to the steppe land and its soil, Bob searches for his MIA charge, hoping, if nothing else, for a chance to "meet another freak that can't die." However -- when his investigation puts him on the path of [[TheCutie Filament Ugo]], a naive, young [[GoodShepherd religious functionary]] from an indigenous herder tribe of anthropomorphic goat monsters, Bob finds himself falling deep in infatuation with the boy, inciting a series of incidents that will test Bob's already-strained psyche, force him to question his devotion to his country ''and'' his agency family, ''and maybe even destroy the United States of America...''

!![[AC: Now -- how about those tropes? Let's shake on it:]]

* AffablyEvil: ''"People tended to be very fond of Vampire once they had spoken to her."''
** While "evil" might be too strong a word, [[spoiler: Igor]] is surprisingly hospitable and courteous to Bob, all things considered.

* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler: Was Filament's murder a product of Bob's neglect of his mental illness reaching a peak, or was Nick Trophy influencing his mind and working through him? Bob himself seems unsure.]]

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: Suggested to take place in the late 2010s, but it's made ambiguous by the noted absence of the Internet in this world, the late dissolution of a counterpart to the Soviet Union, [[CassetteFuturism and the arrested development of digital technology.]]

* ArcWords: ''Quite a few.''

** The syllable "Lo" is a near-constant motif and is ultimately tied into the Hawaiian concept of "Lolo" -- a time ''"at which a man's shadow has entered his head."''

* BadassPreacher: Old Zabri was a jolly, whiskey-drinking, professional wrestling fanatic -- universally beloved by his flock and almost everyone in Southwestern Bell Town. Even Beetle, [[{{Jerkass}} who rarely has a nice thing to say about anyone,]] was in awe of Zabri's zest for life and natural charisma.

** It seems like Bob was a sweet kid, once. ''Then he beat a classmate of his to death for stomping out a boy he had a crush on.'' After this, something turned off in his brain and it never turned back on.
** Holden Cooley -- figuratively ''and'' [[LiterallyShatteredLives literally.]]

* BullyingADragon: ''That's right, Redford. Keep talking down to the ancient, vampire-siring demon who likely founded your organization. See what happens.''

* CastFullOfGay: Many of the book's principal characters are implied or outright stated to be queer, with Bob, Filament, Vanilla, Loser, and Ridley confirmed to be gay. [[AmbiguouslyGay Halloween Jack could also qualify, if his flirtatious teasing towards Bob is taken at face value.]]

** From the moment of his deployment in Interzone, Bob is getting intoxicated on the job, throwing his weight around, and – as noted by Vanilla – itching for a chance to use his sidearm.
** Igor [[spoiler: a.k.a. Special Agent Werewolf D. Drismire]] is an American culture fetishist who ''literally'' dresses like a cowboy as he keeps law and order in Southwestern Bell Town. Despite this, he scolds and derides Bob Dracula for his field conduct, calling him out on the sort of bullying American policing that his countrymen have come to resent.

* Literature/CthulhuMythos: Nyarlathotep is mentioned in the Urduk scripture, being a healer and fortune teller who emigrated from ancient Egypt to Eurasia with his cult. He's believed by ''Maíruda'' practitioners to be the origin of the ''Devil in the Soil'' myths.

** Vampire is described as having fallen from the sky, "phosphorescent and burning," and as having "lain, howling and enraged, on the cracked salt" after hitting the ground, sounding very much like an account of Lucifer being cast from Heaven.
** [[TheAntichrist Vampire works diligently in the dark, manipulating people and nations,]] all for the professed goal of ensuring that everything "would fall into the perfect stasis of Order, and would be controlled, and there would be nothing that would not be controlled," sounding a great deal like a usurper of God, coveting dominion over a Creation they were denied a part in.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The world has frozen over and America as a country no longer exists. Bob Dracula is a delusional, helpless, [[TheCaligula mad king]], pitied by his family and his subjects. Filament is dead and it's implied that Dracula abandoned a portion of the Urduk tribe to die in the freeze as revenge against Ganvenden Ugo for denying him his blessing to have Filament resurrected as a vampire. Merry Christmas, everyone!]]

* EnforcedColdWar: The United States is trying to keep the post-Soviet states at each others' throats to prevent the Hypervirginian Union from reforming. [[GoneHorriblyRight Considering both superstates end up completely destroyed, unable to ever reform... they succeeded.]]

* EvenEvilHasStandards: While Bob (at least at the start of the book) isn't evil ''per say,'' he's still implied to be a manipulator, and the seeds of sociopathy that will later result in his HeelTurn are definitely present. Despite his dysfunction, radicalizing and arming farmers in Eastern Europe on behalf of the CIA is still a bridge too far.

*** His origin in his setting's equivalent to the Soviet Union, fondness for revolvers and western-wear, and [[spoiler: his status as a DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent]] are clear references to [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid Revolver Ocelot.]]
*** The skull mask he wears to the Saturday evening service and [[spoiler: his servitude to a motherly death god]] invoke Higgs from ''VideoGame/DeathStranding''.

* FireBreathingWeapon: Beetle uses a flamethrower to light the bonfire at the steppe church service. [[spoiler: He later uses it to kill Halloween Jack and torch the camp radio to keep Bob from evacuating from Interzone.]]

** [[{{Tykebomb}} Holden Cooley was an orphan groomed into a tool of the state]] by his adoptive mother, Vampire. When he was fatally burned by the detonation of a fertilizer bomb, [[EmergencyTransformation she performed an untested alchemical procedure to sever his ties to mortality,]] creating the first of the immortal humans that would later bear her name. [[CameBackWrong Being the first time she had ever attempted such an operation, it didn't go as planned.]] Ashamed of her failure, Vampire had Holden's [[AndIMustScream still-cognizant]] remains stored at an abandoned CIA black site in Kuroginia, where his consciousness expanded beyond the putrefied remains of his physical body, assimilated the legends of the Maíruda trickster god through the collective unconscious, [[EldritchAbomination and became Nick Trophy,]] [[BigBad a sapient, scheming cancer that would, decades later,]] [[GeniusLoci spread as an infection throughout the spirit of the land]] [[BigBad and threaten all of humanity.]]

* GeniusLoci: Interzone itself seems to have a will of its own, projected via the Steppe Giant, a skyscraper-sized [[{{Golem}} clay man]] that looms motionless over the plains, its dormant face twisting into a silent scream of rage when the land is in pain or danger.

* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler: Vampire.]]
** To a lesser extent, Anonymous Bosch, a [[TheGhost largely-unseen]] businessman with personal ties to Vampire and Vanilla von Dirge. [[spoiler: In the epilogue, it's revealed that Vampire was working with him to kickstart the Mercenary Age.]]

* GruesomeGoat: Filament states that the Urduk were this in the time of [[UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler Vlad Dracula]] -- a fearsome race of goat monsters that earned the ''voivode's'' favor when they emerged from underneath the Carpathian mountains and attacked Uvoginian emissaries on the road through their territory. [[SweetSheep In recent centuries, they've mellowed considerably.]]

* IHateYouVampireDad: Bob is not taking immortality well; the idea that he is now obligated to serve Vampire forever because she extracted his ''precious thing'' and now personally possesses it keeps him in mental agony. [[DrivenToSuicide It's implied that his torment is so severe that he would have killed himself several times over if he could.]]

* LateToTheTragedy: When Bob pursues Nick into the ruins of an old CIA outpost in Interzone, he uncovers overwhelming evidence of an ethnic cleansing carried out by the United States during the Cold War, including multilingual signposts directing persons to [[GasChamber an oversized communal shower]] and a "Maternity Ward" consisting of a small, concrete room with a hole in the floor. [[SafetyInIndifference He doesn't stop to reflect, though; finding Nick is his priority.]]

* LooksLikeCesare: [[InvokedTrope Invoked.]] Bob is described as such, once NoImmortalInertia starts kicking in.
--> "His face ash-white, lanky frame draped in a baggy, black sweater, his dark hair oily and plastered to his forehead, Bob looked for all the world like the ghoul somnambulist from ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.'' His mouth took up too much of the real estate of his face as he grinned in uncontrollable spasms. His eyes were pus-yellow and sunken into the centers of dark, maroon circles. He was beginning to look like what he really was: a dead shell, being remote-controlled at a distance."

* MadScientist: Vanilla van (sorry, [[RunningGag Von]]) Dirge, a [[UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} Marlayan]] ex-university student, run out of every accredited institution under the sun for her obsession with raising the dead. Presently living as an expatriate in Interzone due to their lax grave robbing laws, working out of an old pillbox bunker converted into a laboratory/living space described as "the very platonic ideal of a Hollywood mad scientist's lair." [[LimitedWardrobe She's obsessed with "branding" and only ever wears]] [[GogglesDoNothing ridiculous goggles]] [[LabcoatOfScienceAndMedicine and labcoats, regardless of her present climate.]]

* MeaningfulName: '''N'''ick '''Trop'''h'''y''' -- fitting alias for a primordial god of chaos. [[spoiler: [[InvokedTrope The name is meaningful by design.]] Vampire assigned the name to Holden Cooley before she turned him loose on the world as her agent of chaos. It was just happy coincidence that he later merged with Nyarlathotep.]]

** [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Bob Dracula]]. [[Main/{{Dracula}} Just take a guess.]]
** Gilman D. Drismire [[spoiler: a.k.a. Beetle]]. Named after [[Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon the Gill-man]], [[spoiler: thematically closer to TheRenfield. Fitting, considering the latter's association with insects.]]
** Werewolf D. Drismire [[spoiler: a.k.a. Igor]]. [[Film/TheWolfMan1941 Again, guess.]] His [[spoiler: enabling of Vanilla's grave robbing habit fits with his undercover alias.]]
** [[MadScientist Vanilla von Dirge]]
** [[OurGhostsAreDifferent Loser D. Tuanis]]
** [[OurZombiesAreDifferent LoLo Zombie]]
** [[HalloweenTropes Halloween Jack]]
** Filament, with his black fur, pink eyes, and horns, [[GruesomeGoat evokes a traditional demonic or a Satanic image,]] [[SweetSheep though he's actually quite nice.]]
** [[EldritchAbomination Nick Trophy,]] a shadowy, nightmare presence that delights in fear and moves through dreams, evokes [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight the Bogeyman.]]

* TheNicknamer: Why, '''Nick''' Trophy, of course! He starts calling Bob "Leatherface" once Bob begins wearing [[Wrestling/MickFoley Mankind's mask]], and refers to Vampire as "Queen Bitch" or "Dolorossa," and Filament, bizarrely, as "Prince of Onion Flowers." [[spoiler: He's also fond of "brother" and "buddy," both in and out of his Troy Phinks guise.]]

** His agency rival, Francis Drake, resembles Dennis Hopper -- part of an ongoing ''[[Film/EasyRider Easy Rider]]'' allusion within Pumpkin Hill.
** Halloween Jack is very obviously meant to resemble David Bowie. [[Music/DiamondDogs The name's even a reference.]]

* NoIndoorVoice: [[AC: Nick Trophy's speech, unless he's speaking through someone, is always rendered in Small Caps! He's described as SHOUTING inside the heads of those he is in communication with!]]

* [[NotUsingtheZWord Not Using the "V" Word]]: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with.]] By the end of the book, Vampire's immortal thralls have become known as "vampires," due to their publicized association with their creator. [[JustifiedTrope Justified, in that vampire fiction does not seem to exist in-universe,]] [[UsefulNotes/VladtheImpaler and Vlad Dracula is referenced only as an obscure historical figure.]]

* PrivateMilitaryContractors: Pumpkin Hill is a private spy agency that routinely takes contracts from the U.S. Government and isn't above armed operations and assassinations.
** By the end of the book, thanks to [[WarForFunAndProfit Anonymous Bosch]] and [[DevilInDisguise Vampire's]] machinations, the world is overrun with mercenary companies and a new war economy, backed by a digital currency developed by Bosch, is flourishing -- [[TheBadGuyWins ''all according to plan.'']]

** Vampire's Dupont lighter is a reference to Sanji's from ''Anime/OnePiece''. Bob's Zippo is [[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner Strong Bad's iconic BMW lighter.]]

** The film Loser describes, ''Druidi,'' is a clear reference to ''Film/TheWickerMan1973''.
** [[Film/BramStokersDracula "What protector of this land was ever so great as Dracula, whose blood flows in these veins?""]]

---> ''"He would drag them all down into the pit, and he would reorder the system so that nothing could exist within order. All the chaos, and the violence of beasts, would be ensured as part of the code then, and Death, in Nick's Earthly Kingdom, would be the Exalted Mother -- hated, feared, and yet, unerringly served."''
** Anonymous Bosch and [[spoiler: Vampire/Calamity/Death]] fit the bill as well, working to create a lawless era of pirates and mercenaries, maximizing individual freedom and cultivating "a Stronger World." [[spoiler: Considering Vampire's previously-stated desire to force everything in Creation into "the perfect stasis of Order," the two may not be 100% on the same page.]]

* SweetSheep: Darling Filament Ugo -- a gentle goat boy who has just taken on the role of his village's spiritual leader.
** The Urduk in general – a race of nomadic, humanoid goat creatures – are only ever depicted in a positive light. Every Urduk that features in the book is patient, hospitable to strangers, and compassionate; the nomads are a small group -- totally at peace with themselves, their society, and their place in the world, putting them at odds with the paranoid and endlessly unsatisfied American CIA.

* TokenGoodTeammate: Francis Drake just wants to drink a beer and catch the Mets game; spycraft is just a 9-to-5 to him, unlike his more ambitious coworkers and handler, who are busying themselves with trying to seize control of various nations for various ideological reasons.
** Drake is also noticeably affectionate towards Vampire in the manner of a dutiful son, earnestly complimenting her piano-playing, attempting to soothe her anxieties before the meeting with the CIA director, and tending to her wounds as soon as she returns from the tunnels under Southwestern Bell Town. Given that it's likely that he was another orphan she adopted and groomed into spycraft, he's certainly far less resentful and hostile towards her than the others.

* {{Ubermensch}}: It can be said that at some point, Bob begins seeing himself as this.
** It can ''also'' be said that despite whatever Bob, in his limited view of the world, thinks of himself, that Vampire fits the bill much better.

-->[[AC: ''Brother, that's a sale! This contract is SEALED.'']]

*** Vampire goes on [[Creator/FoxNewsChannel Fox News's]] ''[[Series/RedEyeWithGregGutfeld Red Eye]]'' program and is seated next John Bolton, just as Nick Mullen was in an episode.

** [[{{Tykebomb}} Holden Cooley was an orphan groomed into a tool of the state]] by his adoptive mother, Vampire. When he was fatally burned by the detonation of a fertilizer bomb, [[EmergencyTransformation she performed an untested alchemical procedure to sever his ties to mortality,]] creating the first of the immortal humans that would later bear her name. [[CameBackWrong Being the first time she had ever attempted such an operation, it didn't go as planned.]] Ashamed of her failure, Vampire had Holden's [[IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream still-cognizant]] remains stored at an abandoned CIA black site in Kuroginia, where his consciousness expanded beyond the putrefied remains of his physical body, assimilated the legends of the Maíruda trickster god through the collective unconscious, [[EldritchAbomination and became Nick Trophy,]] [[BigBad a sapient, scheming cancer that would, decades later,]] [[GeniusLoci spread as an infection throughout the spirit of the land]] [[BigBad and threaten all of humanity.]]

* AmbiguousDisorder: There is something ''deeply'' wrong with Bob Dracula.
** Taking into account the implication of the poem on the back of the book, Bob's fixed idealization of people close to him (that turns to devaluation and rejection at the drop of a hat), his constant search for a personal identity outside of his job, his extreme emotional highs and lows, and his tendency to become hyperfixated on objects of his affection (leading to implied past stalking incidents), Bob is probably afflicted with a Cluster B personality disorder, most likely Borderline Personality Disorder.
** Vampire's characterization is that of a high-functioning narcissist, specifically a narcissistic parent; her fixation on her appearance and how she is perceived by others, seeing her "children" as an extension of herself and her will, using guilt and manipulation to keep her thralls in line, and showering her chosen with affection in one stroke before rebuking and abandoning them in another are all indicative of this. [[SatanicArchetype Given the Luciferian implications of her character, being saddled with a toxic personality type commonly associated with Pride is apt.]]

** Vampire, with her skeletal face, protruding fangs, noted British accent, twee demeanor, and fondness for red-and-green lollipops, is a dead-ringer for Calliope from Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}.

*** The skull mask he wears to the Saturday evening service and [[spoiler: his servitude to a motherly death god]] invoke Higgs from VideoGame/DeathStranding.
** Filament, of Ralsei from VideoGame/{{Deltarune}} -- both being adorable, [[BespectacledCutie bespectacled]] goat-boy clerics.

* ReferenceOverdosed: Nicola Jonesy is a child of the internet of the 2000s/early 2010s; the book is laden with references to WebAnimation/HomestarRunner, Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}, and various memes, as well as later works that achieved online followings, such as WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse, WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall, and VideoGame/{{Undertale}}. There's also plentiful ProfessionalWrestling nods, references to real political figures and events, references to the culture and history of UsefulNotes/{{Romania}}, and extensive citing of Christian and Gnostic theology.

** Brent Halligan from VideoGame/TheMysteryOfTheDruids cameos, having been promoted from Scotland Yard to working for British Intelligence.
** Vampire's Dupont lighter is a reference to Sanji's from Anime/OnePiece. Bob's Zippo is [[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner Strong Bad's iconic BMW lighter.]]

** The film Loser describes, ''Druidi,'' is a clear reference to Film/TheWickerMan1973.

** Gilman D. Drismire [[spoiler: a.k.a. Beetle]], named after [[Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon the Gill-man]], [[spoiler: thematically closer to TheRenfield. Fitting, considering the latter's association with insects.]]

** Werewolf D. Drismire [[spoiler: a.k.a. Igor]], [[Film/TheWolfMan1941 Again, guess.]] His [[spoiler: enabling of Vanilla's grave robbing habit fits with his undercover alias.]]

** Werewolf D. Drismire [[spoiler: a.k.a. Igor]], [[Film/TheWolfMan1941 again, guess.]] His [[spoiler: enabling of Vanilla's grave robbing habit fits with his undercover alias.]]

** [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Bob Dracula]], [[Main/{{Dracula}} just take a guess.]]

** [[LooksLikeOrlok Vampire]], Film/Nosferatu.
** [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Bob Dracula]], [[Main/Dracula just take a guess.]]
** Gilman D. Drismire [[spoiler a.k.a. Beetle]], named after [[Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon the Gill-man]], [[spoiler: thematically closer to TheRenfield. Fitting, considering the latter's association with insects.]]

** Holden Cooley was an orphan groomed into a tool of the state by his adoptive mother, Vampire. When he was fatally injured by the detonation of a fertilizer bomb, she performed an untested alchemical procedure to sever his ties to mortality, creating the first of the immortal humans that would later bear her name. [[CameBackWrong Being the first time she had ever attempted such an operation, it didn't go as planned.]] Ashamed of her failure, Vampire had Holden's [[IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream still-cognizant]] remains stored at an abandoned CIA black site in Kuroginia, where his consciousness expanded beyond the putrefied remains of his physical body, assimilated the legends of the Maíruda trickster god through the collective unconscious, [[EldritchAbomination and became Nick Trophy,]] [[BigBad a sapient, scheming cancer that would, decades later,]] [[GeniusLoci spread as an infection throughout the spirit of the land]] [[BigBad and threaten all of humanity.]]

** Holden Cooley was an orphan groomed into a tool of the state by his adoptive mother, Vampire. When he was fatally injured by the detonation of a fertilizer bomb, she performed an untested alchemical procedure to sever his ties to mortality, creating the first of the immortal humans that would later bear her name. [[CameBackWrong Being the first time she had ever attempted such an operation, it didn't go as planned.]] Ashamed of her failure, Vampire had Holden's [[IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream ''still-cognizant'' ]] remains stored at an abandoned CIA black site in Kuroginia, where his consciousness expanded beyond the putrefied remains of his physical body, assimilated the legends of the Maíruda trickster god through the collective unconscious, [[EldritchAbomination and became Nick Trophy,]] [[BigBad a sapient, scheming cancer that would, decades later,]] [[GeniusLoci spread as an infection throughout the spirit of the land]] [[BigBad and threaten all of humanity.]]

** Holden Cooley was an orphan groomed into a tool of the state by his adoptive mother, Vampire. When he was fatally injured by the detonation of a fertilizer bomb, she performed an untested alchemical procedure to sever his ties to mortality, creating the first of the immortal humans that would later bear her name. [[CameBackWrong Being the first time she had ever attempted such an operation, it didn't go as planned.]] Ashamed of her failure, Vampire had Holden's [[IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream ''still-cognizant'']] remains stored at an abandoned CIA black site in Kuroginia, where his consciousness expanded beyond the putrefied remains of his physical body, assimilated the legends of the Maíruda trickster god through the collective unconscious, [[EldritchAbomination and became Nick Trophy,]] [[BigBad a sapient, scheming cancer that would, decades later,]] [[GeniusLoci spread as an infection throughout the spirit of the land]] [[BigBad and threaten all of humanity.]]

* FromNobodyToNightmare: The book is, in part, a modern retelling of the origin of Count Dracula, at least the one depicted in Film/BramStokersDracula:
** Bob Dracula is a soldier sent to a foreign land to protect the interests of his nation.
** Someone he loves dearly is lost in the conflict, causing him to rage against the powers he served and turn against them.
** Bob Dracula rejects his humanity and installs himself as a nobleman, casting a dark shadow over the territory under his control.
** Many years in the future, the now-christened Lord Dracula reigns undisputed over a desolate land of monsters, ready and willing to expand his influence beyond the borders of his nation.

* MadScientist: Vanilla van (sorry, [[RunningGag Von]]) Dirge, a [[UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} Marlayan]] ex-university student, run out of every accredited institution under the sun for her obsession with raising the dead. Presently living as an expatriate in Interzone due to their lax graverobbing laws, working in an old pillbox bunker converted into a laboratory/living space described as "the very platonic ideal of a Hollywood mad scientist’s lair."

* MadScientist: Vanilla van (sorry, [[RunningGag Von]]) Dirge, a [[UsefulNotes/Germany Marlayan]] ex-university student, run out of every accredited institution under the sun for her obsession with raising the dead. Presently living as an expatriate in Interzone due to their lax graverobbing laws, working in an old pillbox bunker converted into a laboratory/living space described as "the very platonic ideal of a Hollywood mad scientist’s lair."

* GruesomeGoat: Filament states that the Urduk were this in the time of Vlad Dracula — a fearsome race of goat monsters that earned the ''voivode's'' favor when they emerged from underneath the Carpathian mountains and attacked Uvoginian emissaries on the road through their territory. [[SweetSheep In recent centuries, they've mellowed considerably.]]