Vladislaus Straud

Vladislaus Straud, also known as Count Vladislaus Straud IV or Vlad, is a pre-made vampire who resides in Forgotten Hollow, the world introduced in The Sims 4: Vampires. He lives on his own in the Straud Mansion lot and begins with §20,000.

Vladislaus is a young adult, even though he has the appearance of an elder. He also claims to be an elder when he welcomes a Sim through a text message on their phone after their vampire transformation. This is most likely due to vampires not aging past the young adult life stage. He is unemployed and has eight skill points in charisma and ten points in both pipe organ and vampire lore.

Vladislaus has lived in Forgotten Hollow for 200 years. There is a statue of him in the town center, though the town's Sims think the statue is of his Great Grandfather, Vladislaus Straud the First. However, the local vampires know the truth; Vlad founded Forgotten Hollow and he still runs it.

According to his painting that is found inside Straud Mansion, Vlad was the sole survivor of a settling party of 25 Sims that disappeared. He was impacted so deeply that he never explained what happened to them, but founded the town on their last known location in their memory.

By sunset, Vladislaus starts his daily routine which includes playing some haunting melodies on the pipe organ and taking a walk through the cemetery of his estate. When the sun starts coming up, he spends some time in dark meditation to re-energize himself and reading through the Encyclopedia Vampirica, most of which is about him, before he descends into his crypt.

Vlad dislikes his neighbors, the Vatore siblings, Caleb and Lilith, as they believe in alternatives options to the traditional drinking of Sims's plasma. They will also object to Vlad's wardrobe choices, personal hygiene, and showing his dark form in public. Vlad owns a hundred grey coats as he believes they go with everything and always stay in style. At high moon, Vlad and Caleb once had a duel which Vlad won; because of this, many Sims strongly dislike him.

An official blog for The Sims 4: Seasons reveals that Vlad has a cousin named Arthur Climate. The Climates reluctantly invite Vlad over for a Harvestfest gathering, unaware that he is a vampire.

As a vampire Vladislaus has a human appearance as well as a dark form. Apart from the size of the ears and eyes, his facial features are the same in both versions. However, Vlad looks drastically different in his vampiric form due to not having any hair, including facial hair. His skin possesses visible facial lines as a vampire. Additionally, he has protruding fangs and radiating eyes.

According to a teaser for Vampires, Vladislaus turned Miss Hell into a vampire, who then turned Caleb Vatore. Vlad also turned Caleb's sister, Lilith Vatore.

Trivia

 * Vladislaus Straud's Sim design highly resembles Count Dracula played by John Carradine in the film House of Dracula (1945).
 * Vladislaus Straud's Dark Form design highly resembles Count Orlok from the film Nosferatu.
 * "Vladislaus" is Latin version of Slavic name (Polish "Władysław", Czech, Slovak and Russian "Vladislav" etc.).
 * He is most likely named after Vlad III Tepes Dracula, the 15th Century Prince Viovode Of Wallacia and Trasnylvania. His name Dracula comes from his Father, Vlad II Tepes Dracul, Whichu in Old Medieval Romanian means “Dragon”. This is because their family were esteemed memebers and Knights of the Sacred Order Of The Dragon, loyal to the Roman Catholic Church, who led the Last Crusade in Varna. In turn, Dracula means “Son Of The Dragon”, however in some modern mistranslations it came to mean “son of the devil”.
 * "Straud" may be a play on 'Strahd' von Zarovich, the vampiric antagonist of Dungeon and Dragon's Ravenloft setting.