Kaiser Vlad

Kaiser Vlad
Species	Human(?)
Affiliation	Xylvania
Hair color	White
Eye color	Red
Base	The Vladstag
Voiced by	Wolf Kahler
Debut	Battalion Wars

Kaiser Vlad is the iron-fisted Emperor of Xylvania, with his eyes set on re-establishing the worldwide Xylvanian Empire of long ago. To this end, he is supreme commander of the Xylvanian armed forces.

Background

Inciting War

Thirty years ago, Kaiser Vlad was personally responsible for inciting war between the Tundran Territories and the Western Frontier. By planting information about the Frontier possessing a superweapon, Tsar Gorgi invaded the Frontier to determine its location. This was a simple ploy to allow Vlad to continue his life long goal of finding the Staff of Qa-Len. When Tundra was defeated and a shaky peace between the two nations was achieved, Kaiser fled to Xylvania.

Battalion Wars

When the Frontier and Tundra were locked in stalemate, Vlad tempted Tsar Gorgi into partnership with the prospect of giving Tundra the edge needed to finally overcome their enemies. Gorgi accepted and permitted Xylvania to move into many of their strategic locations, like the Dune Sea.

Shortly thereafter, however, once Xylvania was firmly entrenched inside Tundra's territories, Vlad double-crossed Tundra and led a surprise assault on both superpowers. Vlad's forces devastated Tundra from within and seized control of their assets, redirecting them to increasing Xylvania's war machine exponentially. Soon, Vlad's armies became the dominant force in the world.

Rather than focusing his power on simply defeating the Western Frontier, however, Vlad, mad with power and obsessed with settling historical rivalries, Vlad opened up a third theater of war against the Solar Empire, choosing to take on three world powers at once (Frontier, Solar Empire, and the nearly-defeated and now Frontier-allied Tundra). This critical mistake gave the allies the opportunity to defeat the new mega-power.

The Xylvanian forces proved unable to hold up the fight on three fronts and were pushed back to their own borders. This caused panic among his top lieutenants, Ubel and Ingrid, who resorted to stealing Vlad's sword and using it to resurrect the old Iron Legion, the over-powered super-army from Xylvania's past. This new force, however, proved impossible to control, and led to the demolition of Vlad's defense forces. Later, when the Iron Legion was broken, there was nothing to stop the allies from pushing into Vlad's headquarters. There at the Battle of the Vladstag, Vlad's final fortress fell. When Marshal Nova attempted to revenge himself upon Ubel, Vlad intervened and saved his lieutenant. When the Frontier arrived, he escaped in a helicopter, leaving his lieutenant at the hands of his enemies.

Battalion Wars 2

While in hiding, Kaiser Vlad hatched a new scheme to simultaneously bring ruin to the Solar Empire and to make one last attempt at discovering the top secret hiding place of the Staff of Qa-Len. Revivang an old tactic, the cunning Kaiser provided Anglo Military Intelligence with faulty intel suggesting that the Sols were constructing a top secret superweapon. The ploy worked, prompting Colonel Windsor of the Anglo Isles to launch a pre-emptive war on the Solar Empire. The Sols successfully repelled the invasion, but escalated the conflict when the fanatical Admiral A-Qira launched a retaliatory strike against the Anglos.

This struggle wreaked havoc on both sides, and resulted in the disgrace and ruin of the Solar Navy. During the closing hours of the struggle, with the Solar forces in full retreat, Vlad breached A-Qira's flagship and acquired the top-secret hiding place of the Staff of Qa-Len. Flushed with success, he then appeared before the disgraced A-Qira moments before the horrified Admiral succumbed to a poison which the Kaiser had administered via his canteen. He then relayed the new data to his Xylvanian forces, who were at that moment marching through Tundra.

The Xylvanian forces met with little resistance from Tundran forces, due to the majority of Tundra's forces having been diverted to aid the Solar Navy in their war on the Anglos. On the way, Kaiser Vlad liberated his henchman, Kommandant Ubel, who had been imprisoned in a Tundran gulag by Marshal Nova. Vlad explained to Ubel about the importance of the staff, and of his plan to use it to deploy the Solar Light Beam against the nations of the world, and charged Ubel with the task of preventing Allied forces from disrupting his mining operation to recover the staff.

Ubel, however, was once again unable to stop the Allied forces. Seconds before his mining operation was destroyed, however, Vlad acquired the staff, and escaped with Ubel into the massive crevice that had been dug. Vlad activated the staff, but his careless use only resulted in causing a cave-in, trapping himself and Ubel miles below the ice.

Undeterred, however, the Kaiser dismissed this as a temporary setback for Xylvania, and vowed that Xylvania's destiny would yet be achieved... as soon as Ubel finished digging them out.

Trivia

• Vlad's early concept was changed a bit in early production. His early plan for world conquest involved using genetic engineering to create super soldiers who breathed chemical gas who would sweep the world. This was later taken out of the story.