 In 1897, Bram Stoker wrote his novel titled Dracula. This became the classic story of Count Dracula, a vampire who was of aristocratic means and fed on the blood of young, beautiful women. Now, of course, the story of vampires have been in human folklore and legend since pretty much the beginning of time. But if I had to guess, I would say that Bram Stoker was the one who pushed vampire folklore into our modern age. You see, after him, we now have Anne Rice, we have New Orleans, we have all these stories of vampires that still roam the earth. We even have a vampire here in Atlanta, Georgia. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. I also wanna give a shout out, a very special shout out to our producer, Tiffany Monroe. Tiffany is a Reiki master here in Atlanta, Georgia. She also runs a nonprofit where she teaches classes on Reiki healing, and she also does private work with individual people as well. So if you wanna check out Tiffany, go ahead and follow the links below. If you're not in the Atlanta area and you are still interested in Tiffany's services, please reach out to her via her contact information and I think you guys can work something out over Zoom. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta, my name is Bryce, and today we're gonna be talking about the Vampire of the Masquerade. His novel, he took the name Dracula from a living person in our history. And although this historical person is infamous for his cruelty and his genocide, there's really no links between him and vampirism. This, of course, was Vlad Tempest or Vlad the Impaler. Vlad was born into a world of violence in 1431. His father was the ruler of what was then called Wallachia. The same year of Vlad's birth, his father, Vlad II, was initiated into a group called the Order of the Dragon. Now, I'm sure there's a lot more to the Order of the Dragon and the information I could find, but we'll just use what I have. It seems the Order of the Dragon was a group of nightly men who were brought together to fight against the Ottoman Empire. And of course, the battle against the Ottoman Empire would pretty much be the story of Vlad III, Vlad the Impaler's life. We know that this Order of the Dragon is where we get the name Dracula from, but it is interesting to note that this can also be translated as devil. Now, the reason why this Order, again, was created to go up against the Ottoman empires because this area of Eastern Europe was constantly in threat of the Ottomans coming in and invading their territory. You see, the Ottomans were Muslim. And of course, this area of the world was Christian Catholic. Now, it's hard to figure out what makes a person tick. What makes them who they are? Psychopaths born or are they created? Is this an act of nature or nurture? Because again, as I said, Vlad III, Vlad the Impaler, was born into this world of violence. And as far as his upbringing, he constantly saw this strive to keep the Ottoman Empire at bay. Well, in 1442, his father, Vlad II, was called to have a meeting with the Ottoman Empire, with their Sultan, Mehmed II. For all intent and purposes, this meeting was supposed to be possibly a meeting of a truce, a peace agreement where they would stop fighting. Now, there are different accounts of what actually happened. Some people say that the whole meeting was a trick, a trap set up by Mehmed, where he compensated both Vlad and Radu, his younger brother from Vlad II, who was the ruler of Wallachia. Now, other people believe that Vlad II handed over his son Vlad III and Radu to the Sultan in order to ensure that Wallachia would not invade the Ottoman Empire. Regardless of how it all went down, the whole point is that Vlad III and his brother, Radu, became prisoners at a very young age. Now, many people will point out that Vlad and Radu were actually treated very well by the Sultan. They were given an education. They were respected as human little boys. Now, it is also important to point out that Vlad never took a liking to the Sultan. He was always very angry towards the Sultan. Now, this caused Vlad to have to be punished a lot by being whipped, which, you know, we spanked kids for a long time, so I don't really know if the whipping was super brutal or if it was more like the punishment of a child. I have no idea. I wasn't there in that time. But interestingly enough, his younger brother, Radu, started to favor the Sultan. This becomes important later on in both of their lives. In 1447, Vlad and Radu's father, Vlad II, and their older half-brother were killed in battle. You see their cousins in another royal house were always also battling Vlad II for his kingdom. So not only did they have the stress of the Ottoman Empire trying to invade and take land, but they also had the stress of their own family trying to invade and take over their kingdom. Now their cousins that killed the father and the older brother were did so with the support of the kingdom of Hungary. And so after Vlad II and Vlad III's older brother were murdered, the king of Hungary put Vlad's second cousin, Vladyslav II, on the throne of Wallachia. It was shortly after that that his second cousin, Vladyslav II, decided to use the support of Hungary to invade the Ottoman Empire. Well, our young Vlad III used this as momentum to try to take back the kingdom of Wallachia from his cousin. He then in 1448 went into Wallachia with the support of the Ottoman Empire to overthrow Vladyslav and take his throne. It is at this point from 1448 until his death in 1477 that Vlad became the king or the ruler of Wallachia three times. Yes, three times. It seems the whole of Vlad's life was one big military campaign. And I'm not gonna go into all the details of what happened with him going back and forth and reclaiming the throne and then losing the throne. If you're interested in that, there are a lot of great history channels that go into great detail over those incidents. What I'm gonna get to now is how Vlad now became infamous. It seems that Vlad, like many rulers before him and after him, realized that by ruling through fear and intimidation was probably the best way to keep hold of his kingdom. When Vlad took his throne, he made a list of all the men within Wallachia that had betrayed his father, resulting in his father's death. These were landowners. These were high nobility men in Wallachia. He invited all of these men over to his castle for an Easter feast. Now, once they got to the castle, he had these men arrested for what I assume would have been treason. Now, the older gentlemen, though the ones that were not gonna be of use because of their age were then impaled. This of course is what Vlad is pretty much notorious for. They would stick a spear up your body. You know what, you get it. You know what impaling is. And they just died a slow and horrific death. Now, the younger nobility were then put into slavery. They had to rebuild parts of Wallachia that had been destroyed, including one of Vlad's castles. Now, once they were no use anymore, that's when they were killed. Now, the most important thing to know about his torture of these noblemen was that their wives and their families had to watch. Vlad supposedly was notorious for not liking beggars. It seems that he didn't have a lot of tolerance for those that were less fortunate. And so once he became the king or the ruler of this area, he invited all of the beggars into this wood cabin out on one of his properties to have a meal where they dined and they feasted and they ate to the heart's delight. Well, once they were done with the meal, Vlad had the doors locked and he burned down the house with the people inside. Vlad also had an issue with women who were not virgins. Women who were not virgins had their breasts chopped off and then were also impaled, dying a slow death. Now, the breasts that were chopped off were then cooked and given to their lovers and forced their lovers to eat their breasts. The demise of Vlad the Impaler came around the time of 1462. This is when Medmed II told Vlad that he still had to pay homage to Medmed as the Sultan and Vlad refused. You see, he had never really, again, liked the Sultan. His brother, Radu, was still living in the Ottoman Empire and was embraced by the Ottoman people. Because Vlad decided that he was not going to pay homage to Medmed, Medmed devised a campaign to have Radu, his younger brother, take over the throne from Vlad. Well, Vlad wasn't gonna have this and so Vlad invaded and tortured a lot of the Ottoman Empire's citizens. Not just their military men, but their citizens too. Now, on January 10th, 1477, Vlad was killed in a battle with the Ottomans. Legend has it that the Ottomans cut his body up into a lot of pieces and even sent his head to Medmed himself. Nobody knows for sure where Vlad, the remains of Vlad are actually buried. However, he has lived on as this infamous creature of our history and of course, this again is where Brand Stroker got the name of Dracula. Now, besides Vlad's obvious bloodlust and his need to hurt people, there are no connections between Vlad and an actual vampire. We don't have any proof that Vlad was a vampire or did things that vampires do, which you obviously know what that is. But it still doesn't stop Vlad the Impaler for being thought of as one of the most famous vampires in the world. But regardless of Vlad the Impaler's history, he still doesn't come up to snuff on our vampire here in Atlanta, Georgia. This legend is a hard one to find online. And in fact, I have wanted to do this video before, but really couldn't find a whole lot because it seems that this legend is really only just known amongst locals. Here in Atlanta in 1989, the Masquerade venue was open to the public. This was a very famous music venue that is still around today, although it has moved locations, which we'll get to. This music venue had three levels, the levels of heaven, purgatory, and hell. Heaven was where very notorious bands played, including Dear Hunter, which is Josh McKay, our musician here at Esoteric Atlanta's band. You can also look at lists of other very famous bands that have come through the Masquerade. Now, purgatory was a place for the Goths to hang out before Goths were even cool. And then hell was where people would go to dance. Now, the Masquerade would allow people to come in who were under the age of 21. People over the age of 21 would get a wristband to notify the bartenders that they were legally able to drink. Masquerade was opened up in a building that used to be a mill here in Atlanta. We had a lot of mills in Atlanta back in the 1800s. And in fact, the Dupree Mill, which it was called, was built in 1890. Now, this mill had a lot of deaths. Obviously, back in those days, there were not as many safety precautions that were taken as there are now. There were a lot of kids that worked there, which of course now we do have child labor laws, so that wouldn't happen today. So the Masquerade already had a reputation for being haunted. And again, most of the hauntings can be traced back to the mill, but nobody knows where the vampire came from. You see, this legend of the vampire at the Masquerade is spoken by many people, both people that work at the Masquerade and the clientele. It seems that they see a very tall, darker man in a very aristocratic suit walking through the Masquerade nightly. Many people also say that the vampire of the Masquerade will occasionally turn the amps off. Now, for a man that is spotted a lot, we don't have a name for him. In my mind's eye, my imagination, and my spidey senses, I kind of feel like maybe this guy came up from New Orleans. Atlanta used to be a huge train depot, so maybe he was able to make his way to Atlanta and he found his home at the Masquerade when it was a mill. I mean, obviously a mill or a factory is a great place to find victims to feed on. Now, of course, I don't believe this myself, but back in that time, 1890s, early 1900s, people that worked at mills or the factories maybe weren't the richest people in a city. They were probably considered to be more of the poor class. And so that demographic of people would have been easier to pick off of during that time. It would have been a lot more dangerous to feed off of elitist or rich people because the cops probably would have been more apt to try to find a culprit. And then, of course, when the building became the Masquerade, what better place to find young flesh than drunk young people? Now, the Masquerade did move in 2016. The whole area surrounding the old Masquerade, where the mill is, has grown up and there's a market there now. I do know that the Masquerade is on the historical registry, so part of the Masquerade will always be standing and will be protected by the government. If you come to Atlanta today and you would like to go to the Masquerade, it is now located in Kenny's Alley in Underground Atlanta. You see in Atlanta we have this mall that was built underground a long time ago. Now, when I was a kid, it was pretty busy, but then it kind of turned into a ghost town. And I know that a few years back, they thought about putting a lot of adult entertainment places, clubs down in Underground Atlanta, which is kind of clever. So it's not surprising to me that the Masquerade moved to Underground Atlanta. That's gonna really up the real estate in that area a lot. And it also gives it a spookier vibe. Now my question is, and I don't know, because I haven't been there in a really long time. I'm just really old to go to those clubs. It just doesn't sound fun to me anymore. It used to be back in the day, but not anymore. My question is, did the vampire move with the club? It seems like Underground Atlanta would be a awesome place for a vampire to live, seeing that it doesn't get a lot of sunlight, right? And vampires don't do well in the sun. It's also pretty desolate as of now. I mean, the Masquerade's down there, but that's about it right now. So a great hiding place, right? Or has the vampire decided to stay at the Masquerade? And is he slipping into Ponce City Market across the street from the Masquerade to find his victims? All right, guys, happy Halloween. I hope you guys are all safe tonight as you go out and celebrate this spooky holiday. Eat lots of candy, be merry, be jolly, be kind to each other. And do let me know, do you have a vampire in your city? Are there legends that the kids talk about and have talked about for years? Thank you to Josh McKay for doing our music again. A link to his song is in the description box below. And again, thank you to Todd Roderick for being our producer. His band is also linked down below. Please be safe, be happy, be merry. God bless you all. If you're an American and you haven't gone out there and voted yet, please go vote. Our elections are Tuesday, November 3rd. I've already voted. We voted yesterday. It was super easy. It was fine. All right, I'll talk to you soon. Bye.