Backstage: Gap: Magic, Locations, and General Setting Info

Section 4: A Brief History of Dracula & Vampires in General
Dracula was a shaman (see the Magic section for more details) with more ambition than sense, who figured out how to consume spirits, and then proceeded to metaphysically 'eat' the spirit of the local-Dutch-empire-equivalent because they were being imperialist dicks to his country.

It turns out that doing that causes a very through absence of the thing you 'ate.' The not!Dutch vanished overnight- not in the sense of 'inexplicably experienced terrible governance, lost a series of wars, and ceased to be an empire', but rather, they literally vanished. Everything that could be considered part of the empire disappeared overnight. Every primary, secondary or tertiary source that could directly prove their existence similarly stopped existing, including memories. They were effectively unpersoned at the empire level.

It is, however, still possible to deduce the non-existence of the missing empire. If the empire itself is a boulder thrown into a pond, then the boulder is gone, and the ripples it created are gone. However, you can still tell that something was thrown into the lake, because those ripples made other stones shift and the magic didn't put them back. No individual stone will tell you that something was thrown into the pond, but together...

And, of course, there were the more immediate ramifications for the other countries of suddenly having all their interactions with an empire vanish overnight. There was a period of global famine, upheaval, and war, all of which could be traced ultimately to the sudden nonexistence of the Gap!Dutch.

Additionally, the actual land that the Gap!Dutch were occupying was Gap!Dutch enough to count as part of the empire, thus resulting in a big metaphysical hole in that area, which the local non-empire spirits then proceeded to fill. That area is now known as Oceania, and it is alive. Even small spirits like rocks are much more aware due to the additional metaphysical living space. (Once again, see Magic for more details.)

Meanwhile, the idiot shaman who did this was experiencing the problems with consuming an energy field bigger than your head - namely, being more Dutch Empire than human. Perhaps this was the reason why he then attempted to do the same thing to the moon- he was trying to grab the biggest power source available in order to counterbalance. Or perhaps it was the ambition of an entire empire distilled down, or he simply was testing the limits of his newfound power. In any case, he tried to eat the moon.

Fortunately for the entire planet, the spirit of a single large piece of rock in space is much less fractious than the spirit of an empire, and therefore harder to tear bites from. The shaman was dislodged by the Moon's not-inconsiderable power as soon as he was noticed, which meant that he only took a single 'bite.'

Unfortunately, 'Moon' as a spiritual energy is incredibly potent, enough so that even a small shard is sufficient to work massive magic. (Werecreatures harness tiny amounts of reflected moonlight, and even that much is enough to perform the incredibly complex magic of forming a new body on the fly.) Using that stolen power, the shaman went on to found an entire society outside regular space, anchoring the a chunk of the metaphysically untethered land and buildings of the former empire in a sub-dimension, then doling out thin slivers of his power to anyone he found useful and inviting them into his plane. Thus was vampire society brought into the world: as a tool to produce agents for Dracula to act within Gap without drawing the attention of the Great Spirits, which are now eager and waiting to squash him as soon as they manage to find him.

Time passes, things settle after the wars and spiritual upheaval, Dracula fades into memory and vanishes from vampire society. The Shadescast we know and loathe is born.