Dracula (Lords of Shadow)

Gabriel Belmont, later known as Dracula and Dracul, is a Knight from the 11th century and the main character of the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow saga.

He was originally a member of the Brotherhood of Light, an elite group of holy knights who protected and defended the innocent against supernatural threats. But after losing everything he loved on his quest, and obtaining astounding powers from an ancient demon, he became the powerful Vampire Dracula, and started a war upon the Brotherhood of Light.

Gabriel Belmont is voiced in all three games by Scottish actor Robert Carlyle.

Appearance
Gabriel is tall with a muscular build. His hair is brown and sometimes depicted as curly and long though in the actual game it appears to be straight and about shoulder length.

The armor he wears is based on Simon's from Castlevania II: Simon's Quest but with notable differences. It is emblazoned with a skull, and consists of thick plates that covers all of his upper body. His legs are covered with ironclad boots. In addition, Gabriel's armor also contains a hood which he can wear to conceal his face should he need to.

Originally, Gabriel's design resembled a classic barbarian, before Kojima then advised the staff to refine him into a character that was more relatable for the player. David Cox mentioned that Robert Carlyle, who provides the voice for Gabriel is a bit similar to the character.

In the epilogue of Lords of Shadow, Gabriel is changed significantly. He is bare-chested and only wears a sort of cloak/skirt about his waist held up by a sash with a large face as a clasp. Instead of his old gauntlets, he now wears bits of two steel gauntlets held on by scraps of fabric. He is less muscular than he was in the past but is still formidable, as seen when he survived the fall from his lair onto a paved street. His hair is long and white, as is his skin. His eyes glow orange and he has the ability to grow fangs.

In Mirror of Fate and Lords of Shadow 2, Gabriel appears as a fusion of his original form and his latter Dracula form. His hair is still long and brown, but he wears his old armor with the chest exposed with a large face set in a belt. He has abandoned his Dark Gauntlet in favor of two identical red gauntlets and wears a red cloak. He has also abandoned his Cyclone Boots in favor of simple leather ones.

Powers and Abilities
Gabriel was trained in the arts of combat from a very young age, though he has showcased incredible powers of strength, stamina and agility far beyond human ability as well. His standard arsenal consists of the Combat Cross and other supplementary weapons such as Silver Daggers and bottles of Holy Water Flasks.

The Combat Cross, also known as the Vampire Killer is a multifunctional weapon invented by Rinaldo Gandolfi. Gabriel upgrades his combat cross throughout his journey. It consists of an iron crucifix with a retractable chain quenched with Holy Water hidden inside the main body of the weapon. Hence, the Combat Cross is a very effective weapon against the undead and also allows the wielder to channel either their light or shadow magic into it.

On his left hand Gabriel wears the Dark Gauntlet. The Gauntlet is an ancient relic forged in the pits of Hell. It grants him tremendous superhuman strength, able to move heavy obstacles by punching them, conjure Hellfire from his fist to incinerate all enemies, and overpower Satan with ease. In addition, it also grants him the ability to defend and counter magical attacks.

Additional relics acquired by Gabriel are the Cyclone Boots and Seraph Shoulders which allow him to sprint with amazing speed and double jump respectively. Gabriel has the ability to utilize magic in combat as well. Light Magic and Shadow Magic are both at his disposal and are used for healing his wounds or boosting his offensive power. Combining magic with his combat allows Gabriel to use new and devastating moves on his foes as well.

As Dracula, he has all the common powers of an immortal vampire and the immense power of the ancient demon known as the Forgotten One who was the sovereign of the elemental plane of darkness. This makes Dracula one of the most powerful beings the Castlevania world has seen to date. In the Lords of Shadow 2 trailer, he is seen to possess even greater strength, telekinesis, and the ability to transform into magical smoke and to manipulate this smoke to a variety of effects; flying through the air and landing with enough force to stagger a battalion of knights, creating a magical whip of red energy that slices enemies with great speed and force, instantaneous teleportation, and transforming into a giant dragon. In later trailers, he is shown to possess the power of holy light; able to create a magical light sword and to create bursts of powerful light.

Early Life
Some years ago, a child was found on the door of one of the Brotherhood of Light convents. It is not known who his original parents were though some suspected he was an unwanted bastard from a local wealthy landowner, most likely the Cronqvist family, though this has never been proven.

The order gave the nameless boy the Christian name of one of the blessed archangels, Gabriel and raised him as one of its own members. The precocious child quickly proved to be extremely talented, developing a mastery of the fighting arts unprecedented in the Brotherhood. However, he was also prone to dark moods and moments of brooding that only his beloved childhood sweetheart, Marie, could pacify.

The two youngsters were made for one another; they grew together and soon started to make promises of their future, promises that were always kept. One idyllic morning, with the blessing of both her family and the Brotherhood, the couple was married.

Gabriel took the surname of Belmont, after his love of mountains and the high places of the World.

Before Lords of Shadow
In 1046, Gabriel was sent by the order to capture a dangerous creature called the Daemon Lord. Injured by the beast, he used his blood and a magical device to lock the beast away.

When Gabriel was on a mission for the Brotherhood, Marie gave birth to his son Trevor but knowing of Gabriel's eventual descent into darkness, decided to leave the child in the hands of the Brotherhood and to hide the birth from Gabriel.

Events of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow


Some time before the events of the game, the heavens were cut off from the earthly plane, thus leading the people to believe that God had abandoned them. The Brotherhood of Light knew otherwise. After receiving a message from the 3 founders of their order in heaven, the Brotherhood sent Gabriel to contact the dead and ask Marie if she knew of any means to save the world. Taking up the Combat Cross and an amulet connected to the old gods, Gabriel begins his journey.

He meets an old god, Pan, who allows him to communicate with Marie who, throughout the game, aids Gabriel in times of peril. Next he meets a supposed comrade of the order, Zobek, who instructs Gabriel to destroy the Lords of Shadow, the rulers of the demonic forces now driving mankind into extinction. Both Pan and Zobek desire an end to their tyrannical rule, but for very different reasons.

His first great test comes when he meets Claudia, an innocent young psychic and her enchanted guardian the Black Knight, who briefly aid him in his journey. However, when they stop to camp, Gabriel dreams that he stabs Claudia in the night, only to wake and discover her dead body, indicating that it was not a dream. Finding Claudia dead, the Black Knight becomes enraged with grief and attacks Gabriel, forcing him to kill it in self defense. This act grants Gabriel the Knight's enchanted Dark Gauntlet, allowing him to launch flame based attacks as well as fight back mystical attacks from enemies.



The first Lord of Shadow he faces is Cornell, who reveals that the Brotherhood of Light was founded by three divinely empowered saints who led God's army and defeated Satan. And in doing so were rewarded with monumental bounties, transcending human parameters and becoming divine beings in Heaven whose power was second only to God's, but at the cost of discarding all chaotic elements within themselves. The result of this transformation was that the leftover bodies of each of the three lords in Heaven now arose as their demonic counterparts on Earth, and thus the Lords of Shadow were born. This creates a poetic irony, since the Lords of Shadow were the ones who created the very demons now driving mankind to extinction. This revelation causes Gabriel to begin to lose faith in the Order. Killing Cornell grants him the Lord of the Lycans' Cyclone Boots, which grants him the speed of a beast.



After the Lycans he faces off against the vampires. Gabriel continues his journey killing their champions, Olrox and Brauner, and facing the puppets of Laura, second in command of the vampire race and the only enemy not killed in the entire game, until finally he reaches Carmilla, queen of the vampires, and the second Lord of Shadow. In the dialogue with Carmilla, she hints at Gabriel's future when she states he indeed will be "one of us." Her death grants him the third of the enchanted gear granted to the Lords of Shadow by Heaven, her Seraph Shoulders which grant him angelic wings and the ability to double jump.

Interestingly we learn about a "King of Angels" who has been helping Gabriel on his quest.



Before he heads of to the Land of the Necromancers, Gabriel faces Pan, his guide throughout his journey. Pan teaches Gabriel how to battle against light and dark magic, knowing well the final battle Gabriel would be facing at the end of the game, and then sacrifices himself, as the death of a god was needed to proceed to the land of dead. Eventually Gabriel learns that, in fact, Zobek was the third Lord of Shadow all along.

Zobek had engineered his entire journey. Using the Devil Mask, Zobek made Gabriel kill Marie so that he would end up focused on revenge, and thus blind to the truth of the quest for the God Mask. He also had Gabriel kill Claudia so that the Black Knight would attack him, granting him Zobek's own Dark Gauntlet, as Gabriel would be powerless against Zobek while wearing it. Zobek loathed how each of the Lords of Shadow harbored a piece of the God Mask, each possessing their share of the power and unwilling to compromise to actually make use of it. Thus Gabriel was the ideal pawn to eliminate them and reunite the pieces, which he did. After revealing all of this, Zobek electrocutes Gabriel, and is in turn burned alive as Satan materializes from the flames that consume him.

It is revealed that Satan was the real mastermind behind the whole plot, implanting knowledge of all the dark arts into Zobek to aid him in his quest to set up the entire charade with Gabriel, and was the real power behind sealing off access to the heavens for all deceased pure spirits. Marie persuades all the souls trapped in limbo to revive Gabriel. Satan offers Gabriel a place at his side, but Gabriel refuses, telling Satan that his lust for power was what caused his fall from grace. Angered, Satan puts on the god mask and initiates the final battle.

At the climax of the duel, Gabriel grabbed Satan, and after opening himself to the light, invokes a divine ritual, possibly the same that gave birth to the Lords of Shadow, sending Satan back to Hell. After this, Gabriel meets with Marie one final time, discovering that the God Mask does not hold the power to resurrect the dead as he had hoped. Giving her husband one last kiss, Marie departs for Heaven, taking the God Mask with her. Watching as she and all the other dead depart, including Claudia, who appears briefly to say goodbye, Gabriel is then left alone and on his knees, weeping for his beloved.

Events of Reverie and Resurrection


Soon after, Gabriel is summoned by Laura to the Bernhard castle. There he learns that by killing the three Lords of Shadow, Gabriel has unleashed a new menace: the Forgotten One, an incredibly powerful demon whom the Brotherhood imprisoned deep in the center of the castle. Laura and Gabriel decide they must find the entrance to the ancient fortress of the Brotherhood.

After opening the gate to the Brotherhood fortress, Gabriel and Laura travel through the ancient castle. They gather the blood of the three founders in order to open the gate to the Forgotten One's chamber. However, only dark beings can enter into the dimension where the Forgotten One is kept. To bypass this, Laura asks Gabriel to drink all of her blood. With reluctance, Gabriel does this, killing Laura but freeing her from her eternal torment, while he himself becomes a creature of the night. After this, he steps through the gate, alone, to confront what awaits him.

Gabriel enters the Dimensional Prison to seek the Demon. Gabriel shows signs of darkness, which includes renouncing his humanity, hunger for violence, and partially uncontrollable insanity. After unlocking the doors, he finds The Forgotten One emerging from the lava, climbing the rocks to open the portals to the original realm, despite the sealed beast in a weakened state. The two battle, and result in a draw, causing The Forgotten One to retake his power and move on to the Underworld, the final place before entering the mortal world.



Gabriel also follows The Forgotten One, and shows more signs of darkness. Gabriel now states that he is darker and more terrible than The Forgotten One, and that the creature will beg for mercy before the end. He confronts the demon again, and after the battle, The Forgotten One finally opens the portal, mocking Gabriel that the portal is open and that he will let him live, having him watch the world's destruction and claiming that he failed his mission. However, just when The Forgotten One was about to reclaim the part of his power that he had sent to unlock the seal, Gabriel intervenes and absorbs The Forgotten One's demonic power. While the Forgotten One begs for mercy, Gabriel uses his new-found power to destroy the beast once and for all. Just before leaving the Underworld, Gabriel destroys his Combat Cross, leaving the pieces lying broken and forgotten within the dark dimension.

Events of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate


Gabriel became an immortal vampire and took on the name of Dracul, but the people knew him as Dracula. He made Carmilla's castle his own fortress. The Brotherhood of Light seeks to kill Dracula, since he is a vampire and indirectly their fault, while Dracula seeks to take his revenge on the Brotherhood and remake the world as he sees fit. Gabriel's son, Trevor Belmont, was finally informed by the Elders of the truth of his parents, and started a journey to defeat his demonic father and avenge his mother. His son, Simon, did the same years after.

Dracula is confronted by Trevor, and after intense combat, defeats him by stabing him with his own Combat Cross. As Trevor is dying, Dracula learns he is his son. Remorseful and horrified of his own actions, Dracula desperately attempts to revive him with his vampire blood. As it does not seem to work, Dracula decides to place his son's body in a coffin, on which is written the name Alucard, since he never learned his son's real name. In anger, he sends his werewolves to attack the Brotherhood's sanctuary, killing all who lived there, save for his grandson Simon, who escapes to the mountains.

Years later, Dracula is confronted by Simon, and as he prepares to attack him, Alucard enters the room. Dracula had hoped Alucard would side with him, but when his son refuses, Dracula fights both of them. He is defeated and thought destroyed during the battle. However, Alucard remarks that Dracula's "death" is atypical of that of a vampire, suggesting that he survived the encounter.

Events of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2


Dracula managed to survive his supposed "death" by the hands of Simon and Alucard and remained in his castle. The Brotherhood of Light considers him an enemy (or at least a significant threat) and launches a massive invasion of his castle, which is defeated single-handedly by Dracula himself. Dracula survives his encounters with the Brotherhood but lost much of his power.

Lords of Shadow Epilogue


Dracula found himself awakening in his old castle with no memory of how he got there or of who he was. However, the famed Belmont clan still seeks his ultimate destruction.

Over the centuries, Gabriel eventually became weakened and yearned for release from his immortal bonds, and went into hiding in an old church. Years later in modern times, he met Zobek again who predicts that Satan's return to the Earthly realm is not far off. His "old friend" urges Gabriel to prevent the resurrection. The two engage in a short fight after which Zobek reveals it is Gabriel's only chance to be freed from his immortality. Gabriel disappears at the end of the conversation, transforming into a flock of bats or possibly mist. Whether he chose to join Zobek to face-off against Satan's acolytes or not has yet to be answered.

Robert Carlyle

 * Robert Carlyle, Gabriel/Dracula's voice actor, is one of the stars of ABC's Once Upon a Time, where he plays Mr. Gold, whose real identity is that of the mythical Rumpelstiltskin. Both characters are similar to Gabriel, in that they were both cursed with great dark power, were greatly feared by the people of their world, and both killed their own wives and lost their sons.
 * Robert Carlyle has also played Durza in the film and videogame adaptations of the popular Eragon series. In it he plays a Shade, a creature similar to a vampire with powerful magic.
 * In a behind-the-scenes video for the videogame, Carlyle reveals that he is a gamer himself, seen here.

Name and origins

 * Gabriel's origins remains unknown. Some have argued him being named Gabriel is no coincidence and hints towards a darker destiny the order knew about.
 * The game developers stated that Gabriel chose the name Belmont due to his love for mountains, since Belmont connects to them. In fact Belmont means "Beautiful Mountain" in old French.
 * Gabriel's appearance is the result of input from Hideo Kojima. Kojima felt the main character needed to look more "heroic" than his original design implied. Kojima Productions also advised the team on facial animations and character design in general.
 * The original intent for Lords of Shadow was to be a reboot of the Castlevania franchise with Simon Belmont as the protagonist. Footage of this intended game can be seen here. Eventually Mercurysteam was given free reign to write a new story, and decided to tell the origin of Dracula, and invented Gabriel.

Lords of Shadow and DLC

 * Before his fight with the Forgotten One, Gabriel says the classic line from Symphony of the Night: "Enough talk...! Have at you!"
 * It should be interesting to note that Gabriel does not refer to himself as Dracula (which means Son of the Dragon in Romanian), but Dracul, the Dragon. Vlad III, aka Vlad Țepeș (on which the literary Dracula is based), was the son of Vlad II Dracul, who in turn was named as such for his affiliation with the knighthood know as the Order of the Dragon. In the Resurrection DLC, Gabriel begins comparing himself to a dragon, which could be the origin of the name, and in Lords of Shadow 2 he turns into a ghostly dragon. However, it has been confirmed that Gabriel is indeed the Dracula of the Lords of Shadow Timeline.
 * Interestingly, although Gabriel calls himself "the Dragon" in Romanian at the end of Lords of Shadow he never actually names himself. He only refuses to take his old name.

Mirror of Fate

 * Before the announcement of Mirror of Fate, Gabriel was never mentioned as having fathered any children with Marie before she died, which left the future of the Belmont line in question as to whether it would continue in future games. However, the Dracula of the original series fathered Alucard, meaning the possibility of Gabriel fathering children was not out of the question.
 * Confirmation of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate also brought news of further descendants of the Belmont Clan, Trevor and Simon. They are, respectively, Gabriel's son and grandson. The official backstory of Trevor is that his birth was kept secret from Gabriel in the event that he should fall to darkness, and thus Marie died without telling him of his son.
 * The announcement of Lords of Shadow 2 confirmed that a Belmont would be returning to fight Gabriel, and Alucard is a confirmed character. Who the new Belont is is currently unknown.

Lords of Shadow 2

 * In the first trailer, Gabriel takes the appearance of a dragon. It is a reference to the names Dracul and Dracula, but also to the original Dracula's second (and sometimes third) forms.