The Old World: Dark Age of the Empire

The Grissen Border
It is the natural state of a border lord to be concerned with the geopolitics that define those borders. This close to the birth of your second son several parts of governance have moved into Castle Liebwitz and the Count of Grissenwald arrives at your invitation. Conversation swiftly drifts towards the Count's natural state of mind.

The conflict between Wissenland and Reikland has been quietly sizzling for several years but the Empire has taken a turn towards open violence since you ascended to the throne of Nuln. At the moment your place within that web of violence is complex. Nulner cannons were at Carroburg and Salzenmund, indicating perhaps support for the Wolf Emperor alliance; but they are also in Ostland with whom your Pact of Brotherhood pledges mutual defence and a similar pact pledges to supply war materiel to Ostermark in case of Sylvanian attack and these two provinces are ostensibly part of the Ottillian Empress.

The recent denunciation of Stirland by the Sylvanians, and the responding denunciation of Sylvania by Reikland, sets the stage for the Grissen becoming a possible war front should you throw your hat in with the Sylvanians. Of course, you know that this supposed Nulner support for the Wolf Emperor is not an official policy. You mention that you're not exactly interested in bringing open war to the Wissenland in support of either side at the moment, the Iron Companies are still returning to full strength after all.

All the same, the Count of Grissenwald's concerns remain. He has a number of solutions to the problem of the Grissen border in mind. Currently the border is maintained by the fortified town of Grissenwald itself but also by the privilege of retainment granted to the Count to maintain a larger standing force than usual provided he ensures the border is patrolled.

[ ] Fund the Grissenwald
Count Pfeifraucher has Dwarfen labourers to hand, but to improve the fortification at Grissenwald he'll need your funding.
[ ] Expand Pfeifraucher's Free Companies
Issue an expansion to the privilege of retainment granting the Count of Grissenwald further permission to expand his own forces.
[ ] Side with Reikland
War with Reikland will not come, if you swear fealty to the Reikland Emperor first. Pledge to reach out to repair the schism.
[ ] The Border is Secure
The Grissen border is already secure, send the Count home without making any promises.




The Birth of Reinhardt
Two important events happen in your family this year. Firstly, Fiorella goes into labour in Castle Liebwitz. You're told it happened shortly after word came down from Kreutzhofen of your battle in the Brenhein. Apparently news travelled faster than the messengers assigned to carry it, but didn't arrive with the greatest veracity. Word hit Castle Liebwitz of the battle and of the loss of one of the two charges of the Greatswords in the Brenhein. Assumptions were made, the matrons of Shallya were unhappy with the end result.

The birth of your second son, Reinhardt, was a drawn out affair with a number of complications. But in the end, both mother and child made it through to a healthy and hale conclusion. You arrive at Castle Liebwitz, after a delay in Kreutzhofen to be patched up, slightly injured but to a very warm welcome as your family embraces you as tightly as they can and introduce you to the newest member.

If Eldred is the picture of his mother, then Reinhardt is his father's son. Brown hair, brown eyes, the image of an Imperial baby boy. He takes to your arms happily enough, though wants for his mother quickly. The matrons insist that all of the family needs their rest, the birth took its toll on Fiorella and the baby will need rest to grow and your injuries will take their own time to heal.

This gives you plenty of time to sit down with Fiorella and plan out the other important event. Eldred is turning two in the summer and that means he is old enough for the ceremony to become Heir Apparent. It is a simple affair, as wont of any event where a two year old is a central figure. Eldred is presented to various noteworthies and the upper nobility who are expected to make their customary oaths to uphold his right to inherit the Grand County, in theory they should take up arms in his name should anyone attempt to seize the title while he's still a child.

And then three ceremonial regents make their own oaths, at which point Eldred actually has lines to say. You'll need to pick these ceremonial regents you suppose, the council that you leave behind will continue in their posts until he is an adult and actually run the Province though historically the regents did this. Should a councillor die or retire while Eldred is still a child though, the regents might vote on a replacement.

The ceremony will be a small thing, held in the Imperial Palace at the start of 2011IC to give Reinhardt time to grow up enough to travel. Fiorella actually designs much of the event herself, you cannot remember your own ceremony at all and base most of your suggestions on the later ceremony of the heir crowned when you were sixteen. But you spend some of your bedrest teaching Eldred the appropriate lines. He enjoys his father-son time you think. How old were you when Father had you shadow him and began to teach you? It was after your schooling with the tutors you think.




Fortify Heisenburg Village
The Granite Pass ascends from Meissen into the Grey Mountains and directly to the great Dwarf city of Karak Norn. Of all the Dwarfen Kingdoms, Karak Norn is the one with which Wissenland has the longest positive history. Indeed it is Karak Norn which founded Nuln's Imperial Gunnery School in truth, the consequences of which you understand the kingdom is still negotiating.

Of late your relationship with Karak Norn remains largely positive if occasionally rocky, mining operations in your childhood were dangerously close to impinging on the defined boundaries between the Electoral Estate and Karak Norn but the reclamation of Grung Ardzufak has quite weighed against that. As such when it comes to fortifying Granite Pass there's little expectation that the Dwarfs of Norn will actually try those defences.

Heisenburg is mostly intended to hold back Beastmen crossing the Grey Mountains from their constant warring with the Wood Elves to the west, which the village has seen an increase in of late, and the occasional Greenskins descending. Indeed much of the Grey Mountains are not actually inhabited by the Dwarfs who supposedly rule over them, the space within the Great Kingdom between Karak Norn and Karak Azgaraz has only a handful of Dwarfen resource outposts scattered amidst the dangers of the mountains.

The Chamberlain of the Province is sent out to Heisenburg in light of the news that Beastman raids are increasing to ensure the western approaches to Wissenland are secure. While reports indicate most of the Beastmen attacks are further south, in the Wusterburg Flat, there's an old saying about prevention and cures and you'd rather the Duchy of Meissen not need any cures.

Work progresses on expanding the fortifications at Heisenburg at a steady rate.



Restore the Ironsides
Your project to restore the ranks of the Ironsides continues. The Iron Companies have settled back into the Militarstutz and the officer academy there is busy picking through the returning veterans and promising new recruits, though there's only a handful of promotions available with the Ironsides in particular.

The end of last year wasn't as productive as you'd like, the program recruit five new Ironsides and ordinary recruitment paths saw another two slot into the Company. This year saw a small uptick in the program's efforts. Seven new recruits passed through training having attributed their recruitment to the talks at the end of lectures at the School.

Despite being one of the Companies with the highest standards, and smallest possible recruitment pools, the Ironsides actually turn away relatively few people. The physical fitness standards are met more often in the School than by the recruits of Faulestadt or Neustadt.



Restore the Elector's Own
It isn't the easiest thing for the Iron Companies to recruit out in the Sudenland. Even when not recruiting for the Elector's Own specifically, which has the additional costs and skill requirements of horsemanship, the Iron Companies generally are made up of Nulners or Wissenlanders.

And yet the early half of this years sees almost half a flight of new horsemen cross the Soll and sign on with the Elector's Own. Perhaps it was the founding a new flight this time last year, perhaps it was the news of your smaller battle in the Brenhein Pass or perhaps it was simply a matter of chance.

The Elector's Own did put out a recruitment program in major settlements in the Sudenland. Pfeildorf and Steingart in particular, played host to posters and flyers and a flight was sent to tour the Province in their gear and flying the old battle-standard of Solland.



Modify the Company Wagons
The Iron Companies are supplied and maintained by a network of barges and wagons responsible for keeping the men paid, fed, clothed and most importantly in good ammunition. Barrels of blackpowder, crates of bullets and all the pouches and bags that the actual gunners will need to hold it all when in the firing lines.

Those wagons could be transformed, according to some of the Ironsides, to serve as pavises while actually in battle. The effort to modify the wagons is permitted to go ahead on a trial basis and a few of the logistics wagons are sent to the workshops where the Ironsides begin working on their prototypes. Naturally there are trade-offs with this sort of work, the integrity of the wagon interior is breached by having firing slots worked into the walls which means those wagons will need to carry bullets rather than blackpowder.

Some of the engineers work to emphasise the additional firing height, building steps or banks into the side of the wagons for Ironsides to kneel or stand upon, others aim to improve the fortification of the wagon wall itself since these wagons were not originally designed to be actually in the battle-lines before.

You know that militarised wagons are used in Stirland, though the Ironsides are quite unwilling to borrow the designs of Stirlanders. Those wagons are open topped with an upper deck behind crenellations and are manned by crossbowmen and sometimes by... Mangrabbers? When a summary of the Stirlander War Wagon hits your desk you quite agree that whoever thought these wagons should be host to swords, spears and mechanical claws was a madman and their designs probably can't be fully trusted.

Proper Nulner engineers however, believe in maintaining the roof provided by the logistics wagons and in using pavises for handgunners. The first few prototypes have come out of their workshops and the chief engineers of the Ironsides have begun testing and trialling them to determine which design they'll use to actually overhaul the fleet.



The Geschburg Quays
Geschburg's quays are situated in the heart of the lower quarter, though in truth Geschburg doesn't have so much of a disparity between the upper and lower quarters. The temples of Sigmar, Soll and Lacothea; a local river goddess; are all by the river and the Hall Guild and Counsel sits amongst them. Ostensibly this building is where decrees are read and representatives of the people may make clear their views on important matters to the Baroness, in reality these are the offices of the local guilds and government and since the Pfeildorfs moved into Geschburg there hasn't been a Baron's Counsel in the Hall since.

The Chief Mourner has gone to Geschburg to handle the investment you've laid out for the quays. He has started by shifting the ferry dock downstream towards the confluence with the Salm to make space for the barge docks. He's decided against expanding the ferry dock since the ferry actually doesn't see much use.

Perhaps because there's no major routes or settlements on the other side of the Soll from Geschburg and the ferry must stop off at a small ferry post or otherwise travel all the way to Auggen on the Salm. Or perhaps because the bank opposite of Geschburg is rumoured to be home to ghosts, and some suggest even worse, lingering around ancient barrows.

The barge docks allow for travel over much greater distances and allows the hillier Barony of Geschburg to be better connected to the rest of the Province since the only roads in Geschburg are internal connections that don't meet up to the rest of the Sudenland's wagon network except by the odd track and trail.



The Little-Town Docks
Nuln is home to hundreds of mooring posts, jetties, quays and wharfs. From the Militarstutz's wharf where the barges of the Iron Companies are kept, to Hindelin Dockyard in the Neustadt where the fortified barges of the Bank of Nuln are kept, to An-Der-See Island where the main habour master's tower sits out on the Reik and oversees traffic in and out of the vast Faulesatdt harbour.

Any effort to develop the City's riverside is a complex and ungainly affair, historic privileges and rights abound and every inch of the bank is owned by someone somewhere and is usually already built upon. Some options exist for expansion beyond the River Gates themselves, there's a ferry dock at Westdorf outside of the City walls on the Stirlander side of things.

The Grand University and the College of Engineering are contracted to survey the river, charts of the Reik around Nuln and surveys of the banks are frequently updated anyway but if you're going to invest in the river's infrastructure you'll need to know where the river currently stands. The report that comes back suggests that the Reik needs dredging, especially around An-Der-See, and assesses that the strip of the river directly across from An-Der-See could be re-developed. It is currently jetties for private use, small slips behind taverns and the like where they no doubt smuggle alcohol into the city without paying their tariffs. Being directly across from An-Der-See the strip of riverside could still be under the oversight of the tower allowing for the manouvering of significant numbers of large barges safely.

And so Patriarch Richthofen is sent out with a decree informing the residents of the Little-Town that the Count of Nuln was enforcing his rights on all that the Reik touches to tear down the slips and jetties behind the Little-Town and replace them with a barge port. He makes the suitable arrangements to pay off the gangs with too much sway to be ignored or easily frightened away and he quietens the usual grumblings of the citizenry when their perceived property rights turn out to be less legally protected than they hoped.

In time you're sure the new Little-Town Docks will bring them plenty of work, legitimate and taxed shipments of alcohol and food for their taverns and that the gangs will move back in in no time at all. But for now, work continues.



Support the Trantine Canal Project
Following Trantio's elections the Prince-President is hoping for the project to come to a swift conclusion so that he can have a grand opening before the next election and then use projects surrounding the canal's supporting infrastructure to win that election. Whatever happens with that, it will be companies and tradesmen in Trantio who actually carry out that work and the Nulner engineers will be able to come home.

The project is hit by the loss of the Ambassador-At-Large in the early months of the year. But his charm and charisma seems to have left significant marks on the engineers and workcrews running the project. In his memory they've made huge progress, the workcrews have cut the canal all the way out to the docks hollowed out by the Trantine workers in the Trantine Hills. All that remains is the intergration of the actual watersource.

A reservoir in the high hills fed by mountain streams, the canal will need to be properly insulated against spring melt lest it become an annual source of flooring for the City of Trantio.



The Shadow Company
Not all those veterans who returned from the Mondidier, or indeed from any of your battles, return to active service. The Militarstutz keeps a treasury especially for paying out pensions to those who are permanent casulaties of war. But a great many of these wounded veterans are still staunch patriots with a habit of following orders and plenty of military training.

There are already existing support groups, mostly sponsored by one Company or another, for veterans wounded or not. The Confidante works to co-opt many of these groups from across the various Companies to fill in one of the gaps in her repertoire at the moment. She has the Children to serve as thieves and listeners, and the Tomes are directly responsible for securing libraries and record rooms, and the Iron Tower does plenty of hunting down and killing but by and large is an authority all unto its own.

And so the Confidante wants trained killers at her disposal with a certain loyalty and less of an inclination to wander off into the wilds without a warning and more of an inclination to go after whomever they're pointed at. The Shadow Company is something of a support group for wounded veterans and something of a secret society of assassins then.



Salzenmund falls to Great Cannons, the Wolf Emperor has secured much of the Nordland shortly thereafter. Whatever arrangement there once was between Nordland and Reikland appears to have floundered and failed. The War on the Reik seems to have come to an end. Meanwhile the countdown for the Royarch has come to an end. The Duke of Lyonesse has been named the new Royarch after their predecessor failed to return from Athel Loren. A hero of the age, a peasant woman from Lyonesse has been knighted as the first act of the new Royarch after she defeated a Chaos Warlord in single combat.

Meanwhile in the south, beyond the Icy Wind Pass, Waagh! Zurgad had fought its last battle. On the doorstep of Tordorno, a Miraglian colony in the Lands of the Border Princes, the Waagh managed to overwhelm the principality and its Dogs-Of-War. Reports indicate that it was something of a slaughter, proof that Dogs-Of-War remain fickle things and certainly less dependable than your own Iron Companies. A rout, which some accounts suggest began when one of the largest companies of Dogs-Of-War fled the field in the height of the battle; and then a mad rush towards Tordorno pursued by Greenskins.

And then King Grimbrow and the armies of the Great Kingdom of Karak Izor descended from the Vaults. Shimmering gromril and steel bursting down through the valleys and intercepting the flight of the humans and the pursuit of the Greenskins with a blow so brutal that several of those fleeing actually stopped to fight against the Dwarfs in the confusion. The city will survive, provided the political chaos following the battle doesn't cause it to implode. There's a question as to whether King Grimbrow intends to demand restitution for his aid. North of the Black Mountains Karak Izor is also busy. A detachment of royal guard Hammerers has arrived in Kroppenleben with chests of gold and the heads of a hundred Orcs including the warboss of the Necksnapper tribe.

The Sylvanians have issued their final warning. The Grand Count of Stirland will abdicate by the Summer solstice, or the Sylvanian State Troop will cross the border. The Grand Marshal warns that there's no real way of assessing the current strength of the Sylvanians, their lengthy quiet period had most people quite surprised when they suddenly shot to the forefront of Imperial geopolitics. Still, he does know that the Stirlander State Troop is one of the weakest State Troops if not the weakest. A natural consequence of being centrally placed but separated from the Great Forest.

If the Reiklanders don't intervene, and their losses at Carroburg suggets they won't, then Sylvania will probably defeat Stirland. Of course, the Count of Wurtbad may very well be able to appeal to other Provinces. Averland is riding on a high from a victory at Grenzstadt, and Talabecland has been getting into arguments with the Sylvanians for a while now.

And of course, there's Wissenland. An ambassador from Stirland has arrived in the Imperial Palace requesting your most urgent attention. With the build up of Sylvanian forces on the border, and the sorry state of the Stirlander State Troop, the Grand Count of Stirland is willing to agree to essentially any price should the full might of the Iron Companies come to his rescue.

At home, your days are spent caring your new baby boy Reinhardt and with ensuring Eldred doesn't feel neglected following the coming of his little brother. The matrons have warned you and Fiorella against having another child so soon, the birth being more difficult this time is a warning all of its own they say.



Meanwhile the Wissenland Gazette has news concerning the wider Empire.

The Empress of Marienburg has run into trouble with regards to her bet with the Royarch. A Chaos warband ferried by Norscans landed in the Dukedom of Lyonesse putting much of her investments into Bretonnian maritime routes into hot water as the new Royarch doesn't look upon Marienburg with much favour. Had she not pledged to prevent just such a landing?
The Emperor of Sigmar's Holy Empire has launched a massive recruitment campaign throughout the Reikland, though it is largely focused on the City of Altdorf itself the Reiksguard have always recruited from the Province as well.
The Ottillian Empress has withdrawn, at least temporarily, from Mordheim. The cursed city has claimed too many workcrews and caused too many problems. Work is on pause indefinitely and the city is ostensibly returned to the responsibility of the Hertwigs.
The Wolf Emperor has taken Salzenmund and the Grand Baron of Nordland has submitted to Middenlander rule, a force of White Wolves has been left in the Nordlander capital to ensure he doesn't change his mind and the heir to Nordland is due to marry the Wolf Emperor's sister.




Intelligence Report:
The Confidante of the Seat has been overseeing efforts to watch over the underworld of Wissenland.
- Serial killings continue in the City of Nuln. The Confidante hasn't been able to nail down whether the killer is part of a larger group or whether they act alone. Tensions are rising however and the Cult of Ranald has put out propaganda suggesting that this lack of security in Nuln reflects poorly upon yourself.
- The Grand Marshal's nephew has rallied the Free Companies loyal to the Barony of Wusterburg and marched out against the Beastmen slowly but steadily crossing the Grey Mountains. Hammering a series of raiding parties and rescuing a few outlying villages on the Wusterburg Flat, the problem seems to have significantly lessened.



You have 11 Action Dice. You must apply at least one Action Die to the Province.