Count Von Roo: Amendments

Enough with the odd expressions, please, else your name will go on the list of potential meals. Thank you.

Count Von Roo

Count Von Roo, for those who don't know, is a Halloween Blumaroo (or "vampire" Blumaroo, as he is more often called). He was born in 200 BN, and his remarkable paint job has kept him in fine health to this day. Which is an awful long time to be despised without proper reason or evidence. Von Roo lives on Roo Island, land of Blumaroos, in a lovely year 200-style castle. Crumbling walls; torch brackets; tricky stairs - this wonderful piece of old age architecture has it all. Reports have also come in that Von Roo lives "in the darkest reaches of the Haunted Woods." This is easily explained; as the majority of other Halloween Blumaroos live in the Woods, he was most likely paying a visit to those there when he was spotted.

Von Roo himself is just amazing. How can anyone believe that someone of his glorious visage might be even slightly evil? For a start, there's his hair. What raving monster would bother to keep it so finely cut, so sleek and tidy? Plus, Von Roo always very carefully cleans his fangs after every meal, so as not to scare his visitors. He also has a good dress sense, if perhaps it is wanting in change. His feet - for Adam's sake, his feet are heart-shaped! Not a customary feature for evil beings, I think!

Manuscripts

Certain texts about Neopia mention his greatness, although not in a very good light. This is because they are mistaken, and so now I am finally going to set things right. To begin with, there is Von Roo's Neopedia article. It starts off with a story, one passed down to the next generation again and again, whenever an appropriately dark and stormy night settles over the lands. The tale goes as follows: one day, two young Blumaroos were playing ball together. One was repeatedly throwing the blumaball much too high, as this tactic was a sure winner against his friend. But then, on one of these impossible throws, the blumaball sailed right over the crumbled wall that stood nearby - from there it tumbled down some stairs into darkness. After some discussion and hesitancy, the two Blumaroos set off after their blumaball. As they hopped down the staircase into the musty gloom below, a supposedly "evil, mocking laugh" reverberated up to them from the darkness. It continues that what light there was seemed to dim, and then ahead the pair saw a figure, of which the only visible details were two glowing red eyes.

Von Roo tells me that what was interpreted as evil and mocking was in fact a laugh of joy and amazement, as he had thought for a few blissful moments that someone from above had decided to be kind and had found something for him to stave off boredom with. Ahem, I mean to prevent boredom with. Von doesn't like the S-word; it's too similar in definition to the other S-word: s-t-a-k-e. Von Roo soon realised, however, that the blumaball had dropped into his realm by accident. He came to this conclusion when two small Blumaroos came down the stairs in search of their lost toy. He had gone to give it back to them, but at the sight of his figure emerging from the darkness the two had hurried back to the bright world above.

Other points that Von Roo had explained for me included the dimming of the light (at his quick passage along the corridor, the single flickering torch light there had been unintentionally blown out) and the glowing red eyes (a perfectly ordinary thing for a Halloween Blumaroo, y'know).

Von Roo is also mentioned in the Gallery of Evil (an outrage!), in which he is unfairly depicted as a merciless, bloodsucking creature of shadow and shade. An utter untruth!

And lastly, someone has even written a book about him, entitled "The Legend of Count Von Roo". It is a fictional account of a fictional night in the life of a fictional Von Roo, who is nothing like the real dead thing!

Kind Acts

Von Roo has tried his hardest to fit in. He tells me he dearly wants to be recognised as a fun-loving friend of the community, rather than something along the same lines as how the Gallery of Evil recognises him.

As a natural loner, Von Roo has found it very difficult to come up from his dwelling solely for the purpose of socialising. The fact that most are not around at the time he can safely emerge makes the whole thing twice as tricky! In an effort to lure Neopians out at the correct time, Von Roo created the game known as Deadly Dice. In actual fact, it was originally named "Random Risks", but was dubbed Deadly Dice by those who came to play. It was not as if, Von Roo has said to me (whilst looking gorgeously sulky), the game was even fixed! They just wouldn't give him a chance. They even interpreted his enthusiastic and passionate manner as some kind of manic attitude.

Von Roo has recently affixed a notice to the door to his castle, which says that if any Neopian Times writer might be interested in interviewing him for Neopia's favourite paper, they would be most welcome to call sometime between 10 pm and 5 am to ask him a few questions.

After all, Von Roo pointed out to me, what better way was there to make lots of people understand who he really was?

And there you have it: the truth at last! Von Roo will be sooo grateful! He's already said that if this is successful, he will have to invite me round for lunch. I can't wait!

'Til next time!

Sincerely,

~Star (one big Von Roo fan)