Olrox (the incorrect romanization of Orlok) is a powerful Vampire Lord, fought as a boss in the Castlevania video-games Symphony of the Night and Moonlight Rhapsody.
He is based on Count Orlok from Friedrich Murnau's 1922 movie Nosferatu, in turn based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Like the movie and book characters they are based on, Olrox shares similarities with Count Dracula. He returns as the main villain of the novel Reminiscence of the Divine Abyss. An unrelated character with the same name appears in the reboot game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.
The character was later also adapted into the animated series Castlevania Nocturne.
Characteristics[]
Olrox is just a boss without dialogue or plot relevance in Symphony of the Night. The Enemy Data describes him as a Vampire Lord with considerable powers of Dark Magic, ruling the upper section of the Castlevania. He is one of the few bosses able to assume a mightier form, aside from Dracula and Death, the franchise's main villains.
Olrox resides in large and lavish quarters named after him, including dungeons, lavish halls, a villa and a courtyard with a blood fountain. Whether the "upper part of the Castle" he rules only includes Olrox's Quarters or a larger part of the Castlevania is not explained. Given his second form, his status as a Vampire Lord of a similar standing to Carmilla herself, and the wing of the Castle built for him, he appears to be a very close and high-ranking vassal of the Count. Still, the lack of intel leaves much unexplained. Moonlight Rhapsody develops his character, establishing him as a mad scientist of sorts, experimenting with dark sorcery to turn humans into monsters.
The novel establishes him as an extremely powerful being equal to Death himself, able to claim dominion of Dracula's kingdom, albeit contested by Death. He exerts a tremendous control over Evil; can drain energies; absorb or harm souls, even passively; create pocket dimensions; distort space to cause shockwaves; conjure objects and overwhelm foes with thousands of summoned bats.
Personality[]
Olrox has no dialogue, but given his posture and his formal greeting to Alucard, Dracula's son and the hero of the game, he appears to be poised, regal and courteous, yet violent and ruthless in battle.
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O'Rourke: Olrox's hideous alternate aspect (in the Bestiary).
He is developed in Moonlight Rhapsody, being regal and polite, but haughty and condescending. He enjoys experimenting on humans and takes great pride in his work, taking offence when it is impeded.
He despises vampire-hunters, dismissing them as a nuisance, but finds beauty in humans, albeit fleeting, and views the mutations he inflicts as upgrades they should be grateful for, like an artist crafting a collection. As such, he considers his guinea-pigs his property.
The novel further unveils his personality and his motivations. While cruel, uncaring and confident, Olrox is not sadistic, and "lives" (so to speak) for the thrill: Thrill of battles of course, bearing no grudge in defeat as long as he enjoyed a good challenge, but especially the thrill of knowledge, starting experiments just to observe the result. Contrary to most vampires of the franchise, Olrox does not scorn humans. Quite the contrary he finds them interesting, entertaining even. He regards them as preys, but desires to explore their actions, or their role in the cosmic order, and acknowledges them as foes.
Like Dracula and Death, Olrox is a highly talented manipulator and strategist, able to sway people with inspiring words following their needs, and to predict his enemies' actions to trap them, or counter their powers efficiently.
Biography[]
Symphony of the Night[]
Olrox is seating by a table in his dining room, and makes a polite gesture, as if inviting Alucard before fighting. His normal form is at level 25 with 666 life-points (a nod to his Evil nature), while his transformation is at level 26 with 800 life-points, both forms proving pretty challenging. He resists the Dark element, but the spell "Hellfire" (Dracula's signature fireballs) proves useful against both forms, to strike him and destroy his attacks in one move.
He can leap backwards, glide very fast, hover above the ground and teleport to avoid blows; and he attacks with magic. (Best to strike him after he attacks or while he is hovering.) He calls forth a swarm of bats and infuses them with purplish dark energy, which proves pretty tricky to avoid. He opens a dark gate to release a swarm of ghostly skulls that track Alucard down without end and must be destroyed. (The Bible sub-weapon being quite useful here.) His most dangerous attack summons tormented souls erupting from the ground, shaped like enormous pillars of energy. (Alucard must stand between two souls, red sparks on the ground show where they will appear.) After a while, he shoots a powerful blue beam instead of calling bats, which can be ducked under or jumped over.
Olrox's reptilian transformation can punch Alucard by expanding his forearms or jump to crush him. He breathes a beam conjuring a fiery wave from the ground on its wake, and a stream of fireballs. Alucard must get away from the beam and can guard against the fireballs, before attacking; and he must avoid getting trapped into the corners.
The more he gets wounded, the more dangerous his attacks get. He will start firing several beams in succession, (up to four) and bigger, continuous streams of fireballs; (which culminates into an extremely fast-paced onslaught of fireballs, very hard to block and nearly impossible to dodge). Turning to mist at the right moment is a good solution.
Moonlight Rhapsody[]
O'Rourke as seen in the Bestiary
In this scrapped IOS game that was only made available in Japanese demos, Olrox is called O'Rourke, another mistranslation of Orlok. He looks like a noble yet grotesquely deformed vampire, clad in refined Victorian clothing and using a cane, who still salutes his foe before fighting. He still resides in his Quarters, as lavish as ever but more furbished.
Yolanda, a vampire lady among the playable heroes, and Fei, his former guinea-pig, confront him, calling him out for his twisted experiments, to which he calls the latter his "masterpiece", lamenting that she kept her consciousness. He is then fought and killed.
Olrox fights just as in Symphony albeit easier to beat, walking slowly instead of flying, jumping back and teleporting. He summons bats, and conjures homing darkness discs from portals instead of ghostly skulls. His true form looks and fights exactly the same as before. Both forms telegraph their attacks and can be knocked-out.
Castlevania Novel: Reminiscence of the Divine Abyss[]
| “ | I am different from Dracula. I like humans, the emotions of forgotten humans. They are interesting and there is one more desire I wish to understand. | „ |
| ~ Olrox (explaining his motivations) |
Olrox is the main villain of this novel set in 2037, set in a canonical continuity, one year after the events of the game Dawn of Sorrow. Dracula has been destroyed for good in 1999, and the Castlevania has been sealed in the darkness of a solar eclipse. Since then many have tried to become the new King of the Night. Meanwhile Soma Cruz, Dracula's reincarnation who wants Evil to remain sealed, had to fight them and destroy their ambition.
Dracula's demise left Olrox without purpose, and he seeks to establish his own rule, and to take over both the world and the Chaotic Realm, though he does so more for the sake of curiosity than for power… Since Chaos, the Root of all Evil, including Satan, which used to manifest itself as Dracula, is bound to humanity's malice, he wants to know what would happen to it and anyone linked to it if he were to control the heart of all humans. Also, like Walter Bernhard centuries prior, he yearns for a challenging battle similar to his fight against Alucard.
As such, he gathered the cultists following Graham Jones, winning their allegiance with promises of resurrecting their demented prophet. With their help, he absorbed energies from the eclipse sealing the Castlevania, summoning Legion and the Puppet Master from the Castle's remains. He turned Legion into a replica of the Castle and created lookalikes of Dracula's monsters from the puppets, all under his total control, to build his power base.
Olrox reunites with Death when he investigates the "Castlevania", but his former associate deems him a traitor to be killed and attacks him at once. Having the worthy foe he desired at last, Olrox battles the equally powerful Death to a standstill, countering his scythe with conjured swords and his waves of sickles with summoned bats.
Olrox leads Death into a magical trap laid by Graham's cult, defeating him, and seals his power into a bloody hand. Death's soul is forced to possess the dying body of Julius Belmont's apprentice Curtis Lang, who tried to storm the Castle but was defeated and left for dead. Death as Curtis is then saved by Soma Cruz's and Julius' friend Hammer, along with Curtis' partner Michelle Danasty.
Posing as an amnesiac Curtis, Death teams up with Michelle to storm the Castle and settle their score. The pair confront Olrox, who reveals who "Curtis" truly is and the true nature of his Castle and army. Death engages a rematch, but respects Curtis' wish to keep Michelle safe by having her stand aside. Olrox summons again the bloody hand but Death destroys it and regains his powers.
Michelle takes profit of the battle to shoot Olrox with a silver arrow, enabling Death to destroy him and his servants, but Olrox dies satisfied. As the fake Castle crumbles, Death, who still possesses Curtis, disappears ignoring Michelle's pleas, but it is eventually revealed that his possession protected the young vampire hunter, whom he released without harm.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow[]
| “ | You shall not pass through here. | „ |
| ~ Olrox when encountering Gabriel. |
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Commander Olrox
In this reboot game, Commander Olrox and his younger brother Lieutenant Brauner are the main henchmen of the Lady of Shadow who rules over Vampires, one of the three major evil races, Carmilla (Brauner and Carmilla being like him based on two major villains of the mainstream franchise).
The brothers are demonic vampires summoned directly from Hell, who never were humans to begin with; hence their bat-like wings and features. Olrox serves as Carmilla's bodyguard, and is fought as a boss in her castle. He is a very violent foe who teleports frequently and constantly lunges towards Gabriel Belmont, trying to bite him to suck his blood, viciously swinging his claws, or striking with either one or two sabres.
He is also able to throw his sabres like boomerangs, spinning so fast that it creates flames on their wake. When wounded enough, Olrox crashes open one of the coffins in the room and drinks blood from the dead werewolf inside to regain health. Gabriel must strike him to get him away from the corpse, which must then be destroyed. Olrox can only be defeated when no werewolf's corpse remain.
Castlevania: Nocturne[]
- Main article: Olrox (Netflix's Castlevania)
External links[]
- Olrox at the Castlevania Wiki
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 Villains
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Dracula's Army Dark Lords Others | ||