Flo's History

  We already talked about vampires quite a bit on this blog. Dracula himself was already mentioned in the Dearg Due post a while ago. Today, I thought it would be nice for this famous prince of Walachia to receive his own post. Bring on the stakes, the Impaler has arrived. Vlad III Dracula, the son of Vlad II Dracul, prince and then ruler of Walachia, is a pretty controversial figure. Though in his homeland of modern Romania, he is revered as a national hero and one of the defenders of Europe against the Ottoman expansion, in other places he is viewed as a cruel tyrant. And both sides are kind of true. You see, Walachia was at the time, in a difficult position. Stuck between the behemoth Ottoman Empire and the mighty Kingdom of Hungary, the tiny principality was in a fishy position. Try ally with one and the other will steam role through your lands. Both sides would also constantly keep interfering with Walachian politics, overthrowing the current leader to install a puppet one and...

  Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist religion, is one of the most well-known figures in India and Tibet. However, his path to illumination wasn’t an easy journey, with one encounter in particular, which will be today's topic of interest. This being is known as Mara, the demon King of the Sixth Realm. Mara is a recurrent figure in Buddhist texts, being a usual adversary of Prince Siddhartha before he became Buddha. But first, we need to understand where this figure comes from. Unfortunately for us, his origins are incredibly blurry, with no legend covering where this being came from. Regarding inspiration, it is highly debated that its creation might have been inspired by an entity dating back from an even older folklore, now forgotten. It was noted that every culture based in India had its own version of Mara, making him a rather widespread concept. Regarding his various conflicts with Buddha, there is one for which he is truly known for. The demon always had a grudge against the ...