Heirs of Sigmar

[Chehrazad]

Yjsbraant was tired. Tired and frustrated. His city - his beautiful fair Marienburg for which he would give everything in the world - lay in rubble, the statues of mighty Mannann and strong Sigmar were stolen, wealthy Haendryk and worst of all his beautiful Myrmidia. Beautiful, marble Myrmidia whose face was modeled after the most beautiful woman in the world, carved by the greatest Tilean artists, guilders could pay, meticulously polished and prepared for the grand reveal, whose face had been covered with a veil to hide her beauty until it was time. She had been like a star to him and how she had been stolen, robbed away and taken from him, taken from Marienburg and all the Empire.

He was a shadow of his former self, his hair was a wild mess from months of siege in Nordland, wounds of battle still covered his body, albeit barely held by shitty bandage-jobs his Norscan barons had helped him with in the lulls of Van Hel's siege. In haste, he had fled back to Marienburg to raise more fleet, more armies, anything to come to the aid of his fellow co-religionists in Ostland and Nordland against the scourge of Van Hel.

He had arrived in an empty city.

Of course it wasn't literally empty, but it all but felt like it. The statues had been robbed, he had all but shaken and yelled at Konstantin in frustration he had not at least brought back at least the tiniest of marble shards from the statue of Myrmidia, his beautiful Myrmidia. The salt of the Sea of Claws struck him in the nose as he walked down the pier, not even having with him his faithful Marinieren supposed to be his bodyguards. He gazed over the sea, steeling himself as he saw its waves, the true sign of Mannann manifest. In the end, his ships still sailed the sea uncontested, Van Hel called herself ruler over all the north by the power of nothing but rot and worms and his ships sailed unmolested in the Sea of Claws. Hah! Let her break herself upon the faith of Ostland, she could no more touch Marienburg than Mannfred could!

Marienburg was still resplendent, even now in her immaculate dress which had been torn by the wind she strode like an empress over the waves. Unconquerable and invincible, even in her moments of vulnerability. She had lost her jewels and pearls but the sea was full of both and he would make her shine again, even if he had to fish out every pearl and every jewel by hand and place them - meticulously, oh so carefully - upon her diadem and dress. Altdorf was grand but boorish, Nuln was industrious but ugh, so loud. His Marienburg was greater than them both, and she smiled like a goddess and shone like the evening sun that clothed Mannann's ocean in the resplendent gold his eyes idly inspected in the cool of the evening air.

And as for the statue, well it might have been stolen but the real Myrmidia lived still. And the face, well it might have been taken but the real Jana breathed still. Marble was cold and without the passions of life, much unlike the beautiful Jana it had been patterned off. Even adrift at storm, he still had his guarding star to guide him home and as long as she lived, none of the troubles of the world could harm him. Every sailor at sea knew Mannann could be fickle, after all, that was simply life at sea. He was the father of Marienburg and his children knew well not to offend their father, so they dreamt of returning home one and all to those whom they loved and trusted in Mannann to see them through. And if he didn't? Well then they'd be dancing a stormy jig in the Gardens of Morr and that would be it. Marienburg was invincible and so was he. He was in control.

Not far from him, only a few piers down, a merchant ship docked. It was not the most graceful and it was somewhat hasty, but he couldn't blame them, after all these dreadful days had made them all uneasy. He slowly made his way up and down the pier again, measured steps resounding against the well-made wood underneath him. As the crewmen saw him, their seemed to be great worry in their eyes, one of them whispering to his crewmate, which Yjsbraant paid no mind. They were sailors and he could sadly not come to these parts of the city as often as he would, especially not when he didn't even have some obvious purpose in coming here.

He greeted them somewhat informally - he was an Elector Count and not a god after all - he could afford to be a bit relaxed now and then and especially on an evening as pleasant as this. He asked into their shipping and what they had been doing and after a bit of awkwardness, the men enforced him that they had been trading furs up north and had docked in Salzenmund on their way back. At these news, a smile came to Yjsbraant's lips. After all, Salzenmund was the - far too inadequate for one of her beauty - home of his beloved Jana and news from that city always pleased him, even if it pained him to know that his beloved lived in such a hovel compared to the grandeur and history of Marienburg. He was planning to propose to her in truth in the coming year, something that was a bit of an open secret in Marienburg. Talk of his attempted courtship of Jana had become a popular subject in the Wereldtheater and he would be lying if he said he had not laughed and clapped greatly at the exaggerated performances of "Leopoldo and Julia". What a classic piece of entertainment truly, he hoped that this "Schuddenspeer" who had written it would be remembered for his comedic talents.

"Now now, bring me the news," he said, as teasingly as an Elector Count could to his subjects, "What of the less commercial matters of Salzenmund?" he asked, knowing well the crewmen would understand what he was fishing for. Actually, hadn't one of these men been with him on Grotgraav Friederyk in the bombardment of Talabheim? Ah yes, good to know, thank you good man. Ivan - he was named - a Kislevite émigré. You did some fine shooting against those Talabeclanders, yes yes, now come with the news.

"She's dead, milord."

The words struck him much like the crashing coastal waves of Norsca, striking and subsuming him, breaking and crushing him. He excused himself, realizing he must behave with at least some modicum of respectability in front of his subjects. It didn't matter, even if they couldn't see his sorrow directly, soon the entire city would know it. There was no sense in trying to prevent it, but he had to pretend to anyways. He walked back the way he had come, letting the sentence flow over and drown him, the undertow of the implications dragging him against the figurative rock bottom.

She was dead.

It could not be true, it must have been a mistake. She simply could not be dead. It was absurd and how would a bunch of merchant crewmen know anyways? They said she had been killed by the Knights of the Eternal Light but what possible reason could they have to perform such an act of murder and regicide. No, it must be a trick or simply rumor-making, of little consequence to him and Marienburg. He would regain his statues, invite Jana to his great city and show her the face of Myrmidia, he would propose to her and she would either reject him and the chase would resume or they would be wed. It would turn out as planned, it had to turn out as planned.

But what if it was true.

His subjects had no reason to lie to him after all, and these were merchants, not some backwater Middenlander peasantry, they would surely know better sources than inns and taverns. Maybe she had simply been wounded in battle and the news were exaggerated. That sort of stuff could happen to even canny merchants and in their telling it had happened in a border village, so the news would have travelled far. Yes, he thought as he walked by the spot Myrmidia's statue would have stood, gazing at the emptiness where his star should have shone, that must be it. Jana had been wounded in battle and in the confusion had been reported dead.

But she was an Elector Countess, not some footwoman or reiter. She bore Crow Feeder and rallied the men of Nordland to proud battle, whether she was dead or not would surely be noticed?

The cold truth increasingly struck him as he walked up the way to the New Palace. She truly was dead. Wretched and turning in his guts like a stomach, the reality of the situation was impossible to grasp. He didn't even notice that his fingers had instinctually found a familiar home by his side; the pistol that had killed Gormar Herdkiller. His hands were cold as ice, his fingers sweat-drenched, his knuckles white as snow. She was dead. His guiding star was dead. Jana von Moltke - his beloved the maiden who had conquered his heart - was dead. A man cast adrift at sea can always rely on the stars to guide him home, but a man who could not even see the stars was truly at the mercy of the gods.

Yjsbraant was not sad. He still hadn't processed the facts. He was simply not capable of grasping it, even as he walked through the evening-lit corridors of the New Palace interior, making his way to his study. Shambling upwards, corpselike and pale, he barely mustered the ability to open the oaken doors that separated his private sanctuary from the remainder of the palace. As he closed the door behind him, he could feel something new, something more than a hollow hole inside. His eye twitched, he ground his teeth, his gaze fell upon the shape of his Runefang, hanging on the wall. On the ground beneath him laid a map of the entire world, illustrated by the finest Meyeran cartographers. It had been a gift to him by the Consortium and now his right foot rested on Middenland.

How dare they? A quiet but rising voice within him asked.

Was he not the man who had left Marienburg a city of marble? Was he not the man who had tamed the Westerland and fought in the front by Reiklander ranks and Wissenlander shot? Had he not fought with steel and shot and defied Van Hel? He all but raved to himself as he lit the lights in the darkened study, calling for a servant to bring him Bowman and a scribe. Oh, he would pay them back in kind. They who had extinguished his star with the justice of dust he would give the mercy one might give to dust. The mercy to be trampled underfoot. The mercy to be scattered. The mercy to be ground beneath. Had she not fought for all of Nordland and defied the Kislevites? Had she not suffered enough? He would give her a funeral to be remembered into eternity, a send-off greater than any.

Word by word, he dictated to the scribe, all but shouting them out with venom to carve his fury into the air. Yes, I do mean that much money. Yes, I can possibly be serious. No, I will not consider mercy. Let the Knights of the Everlasting Light be repaid in kind for what they had done. He would do this the Nordlander way, the Norscan way, the way Westerlanders liked to think they had forgotten. He would pay cruelty with cruelty, blood with blood, ashes for ashes. Yes, he meant "to the last man" literally. Yes, it would be sent to and received by all. No, no exemptions. He stopped mid-sentence. Good question. Yes, let's say both Stirlands and Natternland. No, you can't write that, find some way to handle it. Just avoid using the Electoral dignity, thank you.

Yjsbraant chased out the scribe and Bowman, his Stadtholder would understand even if he was tired and would likely have preferred if he didn't summon him so late in the evening. In the haffengilde it was not unknown that blood had to be repaid with blood, he would understand. He cast a look at Lotho's portrait hanging on his wall - a baleful smoulder in Yjsbraant's eyes. Lotho would understand as well, Lotho would have approved of this. Perhaps he was with Esmeralda now, shaking down poor souls for their pie recipes and breaking legs for the Many-Times-Grandmother. Truth be told, he'd never asked about Halfling practice. He'd meant to ask but after the Shear, it had never felt right to do so. He hoped Lotho saw and approved.

Without an immediate target, it did not take a long time for his fury to die down, replaced by the sad and ashen remnants of a fire that had burnt with great intensity. Now he had nothing but the profound emptiness of the knowledge that the one he loved was dead and gone. Of course he'd loved before and many times so, he used to chase skirts all but daily after all, but it had been different. Those days had just been the playful games of nobility, the summer of his life spent on the greatest amusement he could think of at the time. Jana had been a peer, an equal, and the - honestly terrible but oh-so-genuine - poems he had sent her had been from his heart. The late Malasangre had certainly been right about one thing, once La Vendetta walked among them, she had to be sacrificed. This was the way of the world.

But Yjsbraant was in little state to satisfy Myrmidia's bloody handmaid as it stood.

Ceasing his constant wandering, he turned to his balcony. The evening-fire image of the Paleisbuurt, Suiddock and Guilderveld greeted him in its red resplendency, unveiling itself before his eyes like some vision of the divine, dancing playfully over the gentle waves of the river Reik. How bitter and how worthless he felt now that he stood here, thinking of his proud thoughts from merely a year ago. How ironic that where he had stood and dreamt of Marienburg's transfiguration he saw now only emptiness.

A clenched fist struck an artfully wrought balustrade and a curse escaped his lips.

He turned his back on the brilliant vision and ventured back inside his half-lit sanctuary, doing his best to pretend the tears he was far too old to cry had simply been the sunlight blinding his eyes.

For the first time in his life, Luccinanto Yjsbraant van Hoogmans-Palutano felt well and truly alone.

Article:

To the Grand Count of Averland Francis Ludwig von Ellinbach (@100thlurker),
the Grand Baroness of Hochland Theophaneia Ysmay Gloriana Hochen (@Mina),
whoever follows the beloved Grand Baroness of Norland Jana von Moltke, may Morr rest her name (@Crilltic),
the Chancellor of the League of Ostermark Frederick von Schaffernorscht (@Bandeirante),
the Grand Princess of Ostland Astrid von Wolfenburg (@EarthScorpion),
the Electorate-Lords and Ladies of Stirland (@Maugan Ra),
the Grand Duchess of Talabecland Brigette II (@Scia),
the Grand Prince of the Reikland Konstantin Rannulf Engel I (@TenfoldShields),
the Emperor-Elect of Wissenland Friedrich von Schwarzburg (@SirLagginton),
the Countess-Palatine of Sylvania Carlotta Malasangre (@Wade Garrett)
and the Elector-Count of Middenheim and Middenland Leopold Todbringer (@Maugan Ra),

It is in our Function as Baron of Marienburg and Elector Count of the Westerland that we have shed the tears that mark this message still. Our Most Austere Ally the Beloved Baroness Jana von Moltke of Nordland who loved Sigmar and her People dearly with all her Heart is dead. She fell upon the Treacherous and Wicked blades of the knights of the so-called Everlasting Light. Against all Law and Custom of the Empire of Sigmar, they turned their blades upon first the Populace of Nordland for crimes which they - in the manner of Tyrants - invented to suit their Foul Purpose. When her Majesty our Beloved turned to the Most Holy Defence of her Populace, they brought her into Morr's Garden as well, after many Hours of valiant Fighting, making Proud the Nordlander Blood that flowed in her Veins and still flows in that of her Grieving Descendants.

The Empire of Sigmar must rally. We, the Empire of Sigmar are beset from without by Monsters, Mutants and Marauders, but within the Traitor, the Heretic and the Witch lurk among our Ranks.

I name the Knights of the Eternal Light Anathema to All Good, I name them Traitors and Heretics, guilty of Mispronouncing Verena's Holy Sentence not out of Honest Error but out of Hatred of Life, Treasonous Thoughts and Doubtless as part of their Most Foul Worship of the Four Ruinous Powers. Let it be Promulgated throughout the Empire that any Man or Woman irregardless of Standing, Status or Grandeur shall be offered full Sovereign Annulment of their Debts, should they Credibly take Action against these Arch-Traitors Most Foul. Let it be known to those Lords who wish to take action that they shall be Compensated and Financial Assistance shall be Promised and that Any Province which Thoroughly Annihilates their respective Chapter of the Knights through Any Means Deemed Necessary be granted a Reward Commensurate to their Effort in Wealth. Let it be known that it is the desire of the Sovereign Monarchy of the Westerland that the Heretics which name themselves Knights of the Eternal Light be eradicated and cruelty be paid in cruelty, unto the last man unto the last generation.

Source: By the Grace of Mannaan His Illustrious Majesty Elector Count of the Westerland Baron of Marienburg the High and Mighty Lord the Lord Electoral Luccinanto Yjsbraant of the Well-Bred House of van Hoogmans of the Honourable Branch of Palutano and the Most High Well-Born Peers of the Rijkskammer and Most Excellently Thrifty Peers of the Burgerhof in Stadsraad assembled

 

[Cavalier]

Schloss Wolfbach

It had been months since the Archduke of Wolfbach had set foot in his own estates. He had been met with flowers garlanded on his steed Ghalid as he had ridden through villages along the way with a small escort, ahead of the carriages in his train. It was heartening to see the harvest beginning without any sign of panic or disorder so prevalent in the rest of Stirland, and though it remained to be determined if releasing his serfs would yet be a costly error at least it had bought him trustworthy loyalty.

And that was a quality in truly short supply, he thought bitterly.

At last though he had arrived back at the Tilean-styled estates, weary from a ride, with liveried servants ready to greet him. His responses were perfunctory as he wiped the travel-dust off his cloak and set about arranging to have the escort billeted. The staff knew him well enough to start drawing a heated bath upon his return, so there was only a little wait before he could indulge in soaking his weary frame. His father had insisted on cold water baths only to build hardiness but as in many other ways he admitted he fell short of the ideal of Horst von Wolfbach.

Affairs had been settled in his absence by the mistress of the estate, his youngest sister Elsa. He met here in the family dining room, a smaller and more intimate set of tables than the grand dining hall.

Her appearance worried him. She was still dressed in plain mourning clothes, and still casting glances down to the floor and away from Maximilian. "Elsa. Please, join me. Have you been eating properly?"

She sat beside him as one of the kitchen maids delivered bowls of soup with plates of bread, butter, cheese, and jam. Elsa nodded over to him, and for the first time he could see her face clearly; gaunt, with her once-bright blue eyes seeming duller even as her features had sharpened into a near-copy of those of their mother. But there was no sign of deprivation there, no sunken cheeks or loose skin. As a student of Shallyans he might have expected her to take care of herself regardless of any prolonged sadness, and she confirmed as such.

"I make myself," she replied, and tore off a chunk of the bread to eat with butter. She took no relish in it.

By contrast Maximilian was famished and ate like it, taking big hunks of bread with butter and cheese between gasping down spoonfuls of the hearty mutton and vegetable soup. He was briefly chagrined but he'd been riding since dawn and had nothing save water and some hardtack with preserved mutton and berries along the way. It would have been a smoother ride in the coach, but Ghalid had needed the exercise after being cooped up in Wörden and so had he.

But finally Maximilian took a break for a glass of wine, letting him come to the matter at hand with her.

"Somehow, Van Hel has returned," she blurted out, beating him to the punch. "The merchants from Marienburg sent notice of- horrible tales out of Ostland. Surely she'll come to Stirland next?"

"I think so," Maximilian replied, confirming the worry carried in his sister's voice. "What Stirland has done to merit this past decade, I know not. But it would be at a piece with everything else. I would expect her to march on Wurtbad against our former Elector-Countess, since Malasangre and Ellinbach are now dead."

Francis-Ludwig had in fact died at Maximilian's own metaphorical hand, shot through the throat with a borrowed hunter's rifle. The oath-breaking dandy had deserved it. Twice he had come into Stirland with a foreign army and brought death with him. And to issue a personal challenge after having disgraced parley and sanctuary rights, while bearing a Runefang and the finest armor, was beneath contempt; he had wanted to put on a gallant but fundamentally safe show for his men, not to put his life on the line for honor or principle. Sigmar had surely guided this aim that day.

"What are we to do, brother?"

There was a hesitation in her voice that made Maximilian wince. "Trust in the gods and follow their example," he answered. It sounded hollow even to his ears. He was unsure how to follow up, and hesitated himself before continuing.

"We may pray the new Grand Theogonist is worthy of his position. Our duty in this is clear, at least. When I return to Wörden I'll speak before the Diet and propose an offer of truce toward Eliana and the Pact. It will be up to them if they wish to reject it. In the meantime..."

He paused to down another glass of the wine. "In the meantime I'm having you depart for Marienburg. Klaus has a villa in the city and I have certain guarantees regarding his safety. And yours."

Elsa gasped, and then turned to glare at him with a surprising spark in her eyes. "You can't do that! If you send me away then who will look after the estates?"

"Markus has been a trusted Seneschal for father for twenty years and then some," he answered. "And should the Pfeildorf Pact come seeking vengeance for Francis Ludwig they'll as like burn the estates down. You've seen father's letters from the Slice and those reports from Talabecland. I don't want them claiming you as some sort of prize, or worse. And that gives me greater pause than any threat from Van Hel."

"Then let me go with you, then, brother! The Shallyans trained me enough to be of help. And I can shoot a bow better than you or Klaus."

Maximilian furrowed his brow as he realized the trouble he was in. Normally Elsa was extremely biddable, a sweet-natured maiden eager to help and please. Until she dug her heels in. The defiant pride in her voice spoke of a stubborn streak that did not come from their mother. But he had a duty to secure the family's survival.

"Absolutely not. We can only expect the most desperate fight ahead. You are not a trained warrior or a trained nurse, and are too important besides. You will join Klaus at Marienburg, and that is final."

"No. I will not."

Maximilian poured himself another glass of wine and prepared for a very long night. He wondered how his father would have dealt with this, and remembered his other sister Katarin. That was not an encouraging thought.

Before the argument would turn into a blazing row, though, the majordomo of the estates made a discreet entrance into the dining room. Albert looked harried and carried with him a sealed letter. He bowed at Maximilian and his sister, apologizing for the disturbance.

"However, my Lord, I believed it would be best for you to see this right away. A courier came from the docks to deliver it this very evening. It bears the seal of the Elector-Count of the Westerlands. The courier also brought news that Jana von Moltke has been slain."

"Gods above," Maximilian swore, taking the letter and dismissing Albert. Had Van Hel been moving that rapidly? And his ropes had ridden high on the Black League, for it to be in further disarray could be a disaster for Stirland and the cause of the Diet.

He gingerly opened the seal and what he found there was not at all what he expected. "Send a footman to the port in the morning to collect as many accounts as he can. And to rush the Manaanite broadsheets to the estate when they arrive in."

Albert bowed again, and left out as suddenly and without fanfare as he had appeared. Meanwhile Maximilian reviewed the letter yet again to try to alleviate some measure of the shock the news had brought.

"Thank the gods they went off and got themselves killed at Siegfriedhof," he said halfwise to himself. "The Knights of the Everlasting Light were responsible for the death of the Elector-Countess of Nordland. At least that's what Marienburg is claiming. They're offering an enormous bounty for the Knights of the order so I think they believe it at least."

Elsa took the letter from his hands and read it herself. "Why would they do that? Why does Marienburg care?"

"She was being courted by their Elector-Count," he responded. "And that city does nothing by half-measures. But this is terrible news when we face a Vampire War, and when the entire Pfeildorf Pact might ignore the bloodsuckers to lay waste to Stirland. Lay more waste to Stirland. Gods, I can almost sympathize with Van Hel."

"Brother!" Elsa was quick with a scandalized admonishment.

"I have spent the past year begging for support against the tyranny of Countess Eliana from every quarter only to find the only force willing to fight alongside me has gone completely mad. And before that our father spent three years struggling against Averland, Wissenland, Sylvania, Kemperbad, the Ranaldites, Reikland, Countess Eliana, even the gods-damned Cult of Taal and your friends among the Shallyans making everything worse for this country. I'd be tempted to cut all their throats too, would only that Sigmar give me a knife long and sharp enough for the job!"

She speared him with a look of disapproval. "You sound like Father in one of his moods. Where is your hope and faith in Sigmar now?"

Maximilian looked aside, abashed, before draining his last glass of wine. "We'll finish discussing your sanctuary in Marienburg in the morning. I'm heading for sleep."

He stood and walked out, leaving Elsa sitting at the table behind him as he left for his bed. He changed quickly into a night robe that had been left out by his valet and eagerly sought out the refuge of his dreams. But of course it fled from him.

 

[Maugan Ra]

When she returned from Ostland in the final weeks of summer, Matriarch Leentje van Moddejonge was a changed woman. Though Van Hel and her undead host hadn't managed to lay a hand upon her, had barely done more to her templar-fleet than slow it down, the experience had brought home the truth of her mortality in a way no number of cutthroat political dealings could ever hope to. She could die tomorrow, whole nations could fall in the blink of an eye… what would her dreams matter then, if they perished with the dreamer? No, private ambition was clearly no longer tenable, and so the Matriarch retreated into seclusion and began to write.

For months she laboured, composing draft after draft, consulting every friend and expert her significant degree of reach and influence could sway into granting a meeting. This would be her magnum opus; an in-depth examination of political strategy, self management techniques and universally applicable advice, all packaged together with cutting insights into the states of the modern era and the paths they had walked to reach this point. If she was successful, then one day every statesman and politician in the Empire and beyond would keep a copy close at hand, and her name would live forever.

Of course, Manann was ever the god of those who helped themselves, and so as winter deepened its grip and the year drew to a close, priests of the Sea in every court and palace found themselves presenting personalised copies of the completed manuscript to their hosts, compliments of the Matriarch's personal regards.

-/-

One should never hesitate to make friends, or failing that a profitable business relationship. The fool hunches over his ledgers and sees the worth of such ventures entirely in little numbers on the page; the wise listens to her employees and neighbours, and keeps careful note of even the most irrelevant detail. A coming storm can be betrayed by a hundred tiny details, if one knows where to look, but without eyes to see the most abundant signs may readily be missed.

-/-

The Middle Mountains had long been a place of fear and suspicion, abandoned by the Dawi long ago in the wake of some silent calamity and never once reclaimed. Tentative prospecting in recent years had uncovered rich veins of ore and rare stone, but many were reluctant to invest in ventures to exploit such things despite the potential wealth they offered. Ostlanders were a suspicious people, generally unwilling to court disaster in the name of petty greed, but they were also pragmatic.

With the coming of Van Hel, the calculations had changed, and many in the province were willing to court a potential doom in the future if it meant keeping the vampire's fangs from their throats today. With the blessing of their Grand Duchess, merchants and nobles poured resources into the mining project, expanding and reinforcing the local river network with a series of dykes and canals in the process. Soon enough, great barges full of mineral wealth were flowing downstream to the waiting markets of the wider Empire, blessed for the journey by resident priests of Manann.

-/-

Those who sail with you in fair weather alone are useful, but cannot be relied upon. More valuable by far is the comrade that will stay by your side when the wind is high and the waves dash against the shore. Therefore, when one sees a potential ally in distress, it can only be of benefit to step in and assist them - gratitude will bind them to you with chains stronger than the finest steel.

-/-

The Salzenmund Arsenal, Jana von Moltke's grand bid for a modern, industrial Nordland, had suffered so greatly in the years since its founding that many now believed the whole endeavour to be somehow cursed. Riots, sabotage and a thoroughly slandered reputation at home and abroad had dented the confidence of all involved, and it had long since become apparent that in its current form, the Arsenal would not survive much longer. A reimagining, therefore, was required.

With funding and political support from the Cult of Manann, a grand realignment was undertaken, shifting away from direct competition with Nuln in favour of those areas which the foundries of the south could not or would not service. Salzenmund guns were refitted, designed for lighter and more mobile use, with pivot cannons for one's ship and a brace of pistols for one's personal protection. Let Nuln handle the grand artillery, the real money was to be made in specialised personal scale armament, each piece proudly emblazoned with the crossed hammer and trident of the reinvigorated Salzenmund Arsenal.

And if such arms found their way into the hands of those that Emperor-Elect Friedrich would rather not be carrying blackpowder, if the pivot-cannons were a huge hit with Norscan Jarls and the shot-pistols beloved of Stirlish rebels… why, such things were merely a coincidence. Would any accuse an organisation so heavily supported by the Cult of Manann of anything more? Would any dare?

-/-

Never overlook the value of simple friendship. When confronted with a peer that has everything they could ever want, who has funds and connections and resources beyond your imagination, do not despair. It is tempting to go hunting for the exception, for that one thing you and only you can provide, but while such is not to be dismissed neither is it as necessary as one might believe. The courts of lords and princes are filled with many who possess no greater right to be there than the pleasure of their company, and their words find a readier ear than any the listener is less fond of.

This is not to say, of course, that friendship cannot be parlayed into personal gain...

-/-

The docks of Altdorf were a mighty and expansive institution, but before the demands placed upon them this year even they were forced to indulge in temporary expansions. Civilian traffic had spiked with the ending of the war and the resumption of trade, but the bulk of the yards were still set aside for a purpose ostensibly militant in nature: the refounding of the First Reikland Navy, cognomen 'Crocodilian'.

Charred name plates were dragged from the river, broken wood recut and repurposed, and around such inherited glories was a new fleet built, one grander and more magnificent than any which had come before. Flags waved gaily in the breeze, sailors trained under the barked commands of a dozen burn-scarred veterans, and new officers were commissioned to bring the fleet back to full strength.

And everywhere, the priests of Manann walked. They blessed the figureheads for each new ship, led the newly impressed crews in prayer, and signed off on the gold required for the raw materials. Reikland could be beaten down over and again, they said, but it would not matter so long as its people were willing to stand once more… with a little aid from the Cult, of course.

-/-

Similarly, do not confuse one's rivals with your enemies. The latter must be rooted out and destroyed, their assets eliminated as thoroughly as circumstance allows, but a rival is simply that - a limited source of competition, nothing more or less. If their works offer no immediate threat to your interests, let them proceed unhindered. You will never be free of rivals, not while life resides in your body; better, then, to control which ones you do have, and turn your attention to other works entirely.

-/-

The Cult of Myrmidia had always advocated for the waging of just, civilised war. Quarter should be offered, neutral parties respected, collateral damage kept to a minimum and, most relevantly of late, the wounded should be permitted care and recuperation after the battle ended. It was that principle that lead High Priestess Hildrun to found and promote a series of hospices, retreats and well funded pensions for the wounded veterans of the Empire's many wars - isolated to those soldiers who had fought for the Pact at first, but with clear ambition to extend one day to all associated states and perhaps even the mercenaries who fought in their name.

Significant amounts of gold and favour were invested in this endeavour, a mighty undertaking to hopefully reshape a major section of Imperial society for good and supported appropriately, and for a time it seemed as though the issue might take root. Francis-Ludwig of Averland was known to be in favour of the idea and in the process of arranging some form of complimentary arrangement, while those who thought fondly of the Myrmidian faith allowed themselves to gradually be convinced. Alas, no project of any scope is insulated from all consequences, and so it was that before the year was out problems had already begun to arise.

Francis-Ludwig perished outside the gates of Wurtbad, and in the scramble to confirm his heir it was discovered that the eccentric Count had never actually formally committed his nation to the undertaking. Nobles across Averland were only too happy to make vague statements of support for the initiative, but in the wake of their liege's unexpected demise and the first stirring echoes of a succession crisis virtually all had more pressing needs for their actual coin and land. Without a state backer, the Cult was left bearing the weight of this initiative entirely on their own, and their rivals were only too happy to see them commit themselves to such a potentially ruinous expense.

The project was far from doomed, but it was clear that without assistance from those in power, it would never truly amount to anything more than a minor side aspect of the Myrmidian Cult itself.

-/-

First impressions are a valuable tool, and a wise leader pays significant heed to how best they might be employed, but it is important not to become so invested in your initial assessment that you disregard future discoveries. Those who appear to be trustworthy paragons may in truth be the basest of foes, while those who seem sinister and villainous may yet provide the strongest alliances. Look to where their interests lie, and how those interests intersect with yours, in place of anything more prosaic.

-/-

Sylvania is a land many hundreds of miles from the sea, and afflicted with an unfortunate history besides, so few among the priests of Manann were surprised to discover that their latest effort displayed a somewhat eccentric taste. That they had committed to building a temple to the Sea Lord at all was commendable, and if they happened to have taken their reference material from anybody willing to speak with them instead of something more reliable, well… one simply had to allow for creative differences, at times.

The architects were quite clear as to their intent, after all. The roughly humanoid crab-like figure with aquatic tentacles for a beard was clearly Manann, simply one patterned after the Norscan understanding of the longship-claiming 'Mermadus' rather than anything more orthodox. And certainly the Sea Lord would be attended by a faithful court of local river deities, such as Father Aver (a grotesquely muscular man with the head of a long-jawed pike) and Mother Stir (her lower half that of something sinuous and scaled and vaguely aquatic). The inclusion of 'Byorlak' as a local swamp deity was perhaps slightly more controversial, especially given the pincer-hands and the many scuttling legs, but at least all the statues were united in their ritual slaying of an avatar of Stromfels (though the fact that none of the architects had ever seen a shark imposed certain difficulties on the project).

Yes, despite the numerous and increasingly glaring artistic liberties, this was still quite clearly a temple to Manann and his court, and an impressively large and grandiose one at that. The choice of dark, oily stone etched with primordial drawings of beings that were just as obviously the Sea Lord and his court was unconventional, but Thiago Malasangre had spoken at great length as to the necessity of incorporating local materials in his work, and of his gratitude to the Cult for their extensive patronage of his artistic vision.

Sylvania, he promised, would remember this kindness for many years to come.

-/-

In conclusion, then, one should never be afraid of ambition. It is by aspiring to more than we have that we rise, and by dreaming of that which is not that the world is brought closer to perfection. But ambition alone can be twisted to unclean, counter-productive ends, and so it must be tempered with insight. Through wisdom, reason and an enlightened understanding of the world around them, a man or woman or ambition might clearly see their vision realised, and fortune itself bent to their will.

• Except from "Enlightened Ambition", the definitive work by Matriarch Leentje van Moddejonge

 

[Maugan Ra]

The Judgement of Von Midwald
(Written jointly by @Imrix and I)

The precise nature of the rights and responsibilities of Imperial lords has always been as much a function of perception and politics as the letter of the law. Perhaps there is a realm where aristocrats inherit their holdings without dispute and are content with the lot of their rule, a place for every one and every one in their place - but the Empire is not such a realm. In a country where the highest noble offices are elected, it naturally follows that the power of any given aristocrat ebbs and flows according not just to the wealth of their holdings, but the wealth of their relationships; a lord with powerful friends is powerful themselves, and a lord who is powerful finds it easy to make friends.

Thus, it should be no surprise that the question of how many troops a lord is entitled to maintain is a complicated one. In theory, the answer is decided by the lord's station; a count may raise this many troops, a baron that many, and so on and so forth. In practice, every lord recognises the power bestowed by an armed body loyal to them, and the means to circumvent the laws intended to curb that power are multifarious. Home-grown mercenary companies kept on retainer, particularly vigorous militias, suspiciously well-equipped hunters… On one memorable occasion, it turned out that the Baron of Kreutzhofen had for several years been levying extortionate tolls across the three passes his holdings controlled, enforced by the threat of several thousand 'chambermaids' whose uniform apparently included a breastplate, pot helm, and an arquebus, Baron Greuber being possessed of some unorthodox opinions on what sort of chambers said maids were charged with overseeing.

Historically, the reaction of the ruling Elector to these schemes has tended towards the unamused, and indeed the Elector Countess of Wissenland at the time was quite incendiary in her ruling that while a gun barrel might be a chamber of sorts it requires no maids, but as with anything there are exceptions. Lords who were powerful backers in putting their Electors on the throne, for example, have enjoyed significantly more latitude with their excuses for maintaining the odd regiment or two of 'butlers' than ones who, for example, brazenly began raising an entire army all at once without even the fiction of pretending it was anything else, on the pretext of arming for a supposed threat posed by a polity with whom the province maintained friendly relations, and whom the lord in question's holdings were separated from by a considerable stretch of their liege's domain.

Electors have historically taken a dim view of such ploys, and Chancellor Frederick was no exception. But age had also made him a cautious man, and as much as Elena von Midwald's open challenge to his authority had earned his ire, it had not escaped his notice that the Baron of Blut River was following her lead. For one peer of the realm to foment such troubles – that could be quashed. For two? That began to look like the kind of coordinated action which the League of Ostermark so fiercely prized among the qualities which set them apart from the Principalities and Counties and Duchies of the rest of the country.

History does not record the precise details of the arrangement which Chancellor Schaffernorscht and Baron von Bluttstrom came to in private, but it does record that the army which the Baron raised received the Chancellor's blessing in recognition of the 'pressing need' to guard the road to Karak Kadrin, and that administrative records show that the process of raising this army began considerably before the Chancellor's blessing. Subsequent events would give Chancellor Schaffernorscht considerable cause to regret this decision, but in the moment it seemed to prove wise; when elements of the 2nd Ostermark 'Bearslayers' arrived in Nagenhof to arrest the Gravine, they found von Midwald without allies and willing to come quietly.

Their journey back to Bechafen proved blessedly uneventful, hastened to some degree by the Gravine's own work in improving the local roads, and safeguarded from banditry by the heavy guard under which she travelled. That same heavy guard, however, made the journey a slow one, something which later scholars would come to theorise was to the Chancellor's design; confined to her carriage for the journey, von Midwald's could only confer with her immediate retainers, consult a small selection of the League's law books, and go over her notes to prepare her defence. The Chancellor, meanwhile, was free to spend the accused's travel time preparing the ground in Bechafen.

And prepare the ground he did.

The Cult of Manann had agreed to lend their mercenary grasp of public opinion to the Chancellors cause, and with their aid he embarked on a campaign of propaganda designed to ensure that only the most hostile audience possible would be waiting to greet Von Midwald upon her arrival. The triumphs of his reign were highlighted, with particular emphasis placed on economic prosperity and strong military allies, while the weaknesses and deficiencies of his rival were smeared across the public consciousness like so much mud. Elena had spent her youth as a hedonistic embarrassment to her family, after all, only for her character to radically change once she spent some time beyond Ostermark's borders - was she, perhaps, some kind of foreign agent sent to destabilise the League, or merely a young fool grasping for power that should never have been hers?

Her case too was derided in depth, with the confirmed good health of the Custode (as attested to by numerous impartial observers) and the complete lack of any kind of verifiable threat from Sylvania in recent memory a noted highlight. Her words were misquoted, her argument poorly framed, and her very name blackened as thoroughly as the Chancellor's extensive resources could conspire to make it. By the time that the accused arrived, the verdict was all but a foregone conclusion in the mind of most, and it was no surprise when the procedural formalities ended up taking more time than the actual case itself.

Elena von Midwald was found guilty of raising armed forces in excess of her rights as a vassal and in direct contravention of her liege's explicit command. Her actions were entered in the official record as one step short of sedition, her own arguments taken as justification, and the right of any Cult or extra-national body to rule on the case summarily dismissed. With a voice of iron, Chancellor Frederick levied upon his wayward vassal fines sufficient to see her family beggared for years to come, and stripped from her domain several minor villages and profitable mining concerns, awarding them to less troublesome neighbours. Humiliated before her peers, her name covered in filth by town criers on every corner and utterly without allies, Elena von Midwald was unceremoniously stuffed back in the coach and sent back home.

If anything, it was the degree to which her argument and case had been so thoroughly crushed that elicited some sympathy among those witnesses granted the right to observe the trial. Certainly the young woman had been brash and outspoken, certainly she had violated the law, but to disgrace and belittle her so for simply wishing to defend her people as best she saw how… was the Chancellor so fearful? Was any threat to his power and authority, no matter how spurious, to be met with such heavy-handed tactics?

Such opinions stayed as little more than a rumour for the duration of the trial itself, but as the weeks passed and news began coming in from Ostland and Stirland and even distant Marienburg they grew ever louder. Frederick had been so focused on crushing some upstart girl that he had allowed the undead to savage no less than three of Ostermark's friends and neighbours! In days as dark as this, could Ostermark truly afford a leader so blinkered and tyrannical?

The question remained idle rhetoric for now, no immediate alternative stepping forth to declare their intention to challenge Frederick for the Chancellor, but it was increasingly clear that a powerful gesture (or ten!) would be needed to quieten the calls altogether.

 

[DeMarcheese]

OSTERMARK
(Zeisholz - First Aubentag of Brauzeit - 2206)


​

Night was almost upon them and Mannslieb was already visible on the gloomy sky but the small curtains of the carriage's windows remained closed.

Elena did no longer cared for such trivial things. The darkness engulfed the interior of the coach, much like it engulfed her entire life.
She closed the curtains before departing Bechafen after the trial. Years of hardships on the road, bloodied battles against monstrous foes or even the strict punishments her instructors could have ever conceived... none of that had prepared her for this day.
The Gravine felt a lump in her throat, some invisible obstruction made of anger, guilt and sorrow, an almost asphyxiating thing making her unable to utter a single word. Not unlike the throats of those at Bechafen.

Madwoman. Lunatic. Traitor. Whore.

Shallya's Mercy, she did not saw them but she heard them all right. Even over the sound of trotting horses and wheels of the coach, she could still head them: Men and women alike, saying their goodbyes among laughter and ridicule. The children's songs about how she was fearful of her own reflection. The complicit silence of the bailiff. The condemnation on the priest street sermon.
By the Grace of Ulric, she stood strong throughout all the trial, the false accusations and even the insults. Proud and firm. She did as a knight was required by honor and presented her defense as Verena demanded of those honest and righteous. Her lips remained sealed in front of her betters and her superiors, for Ulric teaches to respect them in all circumstances. She did everything as the laws of Gods and Men demanded.

And she lost everything.

None came to defend her honor. None answered the call for justice. None cared about the truth.
The Knights of Morr were swallowed up by the sylvanian horrors, the Knights of the Everlasting Light did the inconceivable and broke their word, the Knights of the Black Rose did not even bothered to send a single knight. Even Verena herself allowed this mockery of justice to be conducted under Her gaze. Elena realized how truly and absolutely alone she was in the world.
Even her own past came to haunt her and nibble at her conscience, gnawing further her very soul. Was she not now a faithful and dedicated servant of the gods? Had she not proven herself enough to them? What more sacrifices they required of her?

Elena's mind briefly and painfully went back to her son Siegfried. How the little boy cried when she left the farm... all to fulfill her duty to the von Midwald name.

In the span of a year, she has brought shame and dishonor upon that name, lost rights, titles and land, forever ruined the coffers of the state and failed to preserve the province from the growing terror that reigned the nights of the living.
She closed the curtains before departing Bechafen after the trial.

She did not wanted anyone to see how she cried in silence.

​

 

[Maugan Ra]

(Written by @Havocfett with my approval)

Beate Von Drachenhertz and the Goblin Plot​

Adventure in Estalia! Accompanying her mothers on a thrilling campaign in the Estalian Civil War, Beate learns about Estalian culture, local politics, and Brettonian chivalry! However, all is not well on the campaign trail. A chance encounter sees her save the life of Henri d'Carcassone, son of Duke Albrecht of the same, from a goblin scout!

It's the adventure of a lifetime for the young duo. Can they escape the clutches of Krog the Kunning? Can they convince the Duke of the Greenskin army on the approach? And, most dangerous of all, can our young heroes handle….friendship?

Click to shrink...

The push through the mountains picked up speed as the Brettonian-Imperial force marched on. Bilbali had pulled its forces back, while the greenskins were coming thinner and thinner. Retreating to their deepest holds and looking for less dangerous prey. Estimates were made, and Duke Albrecht was sure that they'd have the city by the end of the summer, and as such be able to halt the invasion of the perfidious Zenatans.

Then Beate and Henri arrived in camp, battered and bruised, yelling of a goblin horde on the march. The scouts initially dismissed them, none of them had spotted such a thing and Beate was relatively easy to dismiss on the matter.

Then Henri started challenging people to duels to prove that he was true.

He lost the one he took, but it was enough to prove his determination. His father dispatched some outriders to check for goblins.

They returned, chased by goblin outriders on monstrous spiders.

Lines were dressed, camp broken, and even as the allied army assembled on the field a tide of ragged greenskins poured out of the rock. Spiders and wolves and goblinoid artillery, great chariots and hails of arrows. This was not the great horde of a true Waagh, but an impromptu goblin army united in the name of loot, easy prey, and unaware humans.

Thanks to Beate and Henri, such was not the prey they found.

Knights of the Black Rose thundered down the pass, flanked by the flowers of Brettonian chivalry. Imperial infantry and the twin terrors of Adalwolfa and Bem anchored the line, turning back cavalry pushes, crushing goblin infantry underfoot. Mercenary outriders hunted goblins in the rocks, pushing their bodies over cliffs as they marched on.

Krog the Kunning died swiftly and ingloriously the moment Bem caught him.

And with the goblins routed, scattering into the mountains and looking for undefended prey, there was nothing between the army and Bilbali.

River of Steel​

With the route around Estalia becoming ever more perilous, Emperor-Elect Friedrich opted to secure his routes to his foreign allies. Tilea was a historic friend, and Zenata was increasingly deemed a vital asset to Imperial interests.

As such, the Steel River was established. An ambitious project of canals, marked rivers, and dedicated trade barges to vastly increase the river trade, married with an ambitious regime of shipbuilding and warehouse construction in the ports of Tilea. It was well funded and well planned, and though it would take years to truly take fruit

The problem, as always, was the locals. For many Tilean merchants, this represented a threat to their interests. A new, well funded, and relentless competitor with foreign connections they didn't have and the backing of a foreign prince. And while Friedrich was popular enough, as Wissenlanders go, the River was still fundamentally seen as a threat.

Merchants began to petition their lords and approach Friedrich's agents. They wanted in. A slice of the pie and a modicum of control, or they would attempt to throttle the River into a more manageable competitor via the action of their lords.

This, in turn, was complicated by the success of the first voyage. The new world ambassadors were well received, and more than that, the warm climate of the Southlands was eminently agreeable to the skink priests who made the journey. The cannon, as always, sold well and the profits were spectacular. And letting Tilean merchants in on this would lessen those benefits considerably.

The Anarchy​

Upon her return to the empire, Lulu would write in horror of the war in Estalia. Not of any particular crime committed, but at what it had done to the land.

Estalia, wrote Lulu, was the failure state of the Sigman Empire. Living proof that the Age of Three Emperors could not, must not, continue. Here, the feuding of states and principalities had brought ruin. Foreign nations invaded with impunity, looting and sacking and enforcing their will. Greenskins built up unopposed and terrorized the populace. Beast-folk encroached on the edges of civilization, and the entire nation was plunged into an brutal conflict of all against all.

Grudge built upon grudge, vendetta against vendetta, and the end result, the only result, was ruin. Zenata and Brettonia achieved their own objectives at the expense of Estalia. Tileans raided freely. And nowhere, nowhere, did there seem to be an end to the fighting. The fate of Middenland, wrote Lulu, would be mercy if the Empire were to truly war with itself.

That return, and these writings, would come sooner than most had expected. The Brettonian army marched freely upon Bilbali, and there settled for siege. The city-state had withdrawn its armies to the walls and stockpiled for a long fight, planning to outlast their foes while they called for help. Zenata had little interest in relieving the city, more keen upon achieving glory against Magritta then fighting Brettonia, while Duke Albrecht had prepared for a protracted siege.

So camps were set, siege weapons began to fire, and the siege began.

Then news returned from the Empire. Of Van Hel. Of necromancy, and the Fourth Vampire War. Hushed words were had, but the Brettonian reaction was immediate.

The Empire had come to Brettonia's aid, when asked. The Black League had fulfilled their end of the bargain. They would be ill-allies, dishonorable men, to fail to do the same, or to keep them here while their homelands were burned by the ravenous undead.

Simultaneously, Duke Albrecht did not have enough men for the siege without Imperial troops.

As such, the siege was lifted. The Brettonian army retreated to a more defensible position, while the Imperials set sail aboard a Brettonian fleet. Joined by the armies of Couronne and a host of knights.

Casualty Roster:

Greenskins:
Krog the Kunning:
2x Goblin Militias: Destroyed
2x Goblin Knights: Decimated

Assorted Warbands:
1x Greenskin Army: Scattered, light casualties.

Bilbali:
1st Bilbali: Reduced
2nd Bilbali: Reduced

Brettonia:
Militia: Bloodied
4x Knights: Light casualties

Imperial:
Mercenaries: Reduced
2nd Hochland: Reduced
All Others: Light casualties.

 

[Revlid]

Article:

As servants of Verena, it is our duty to illuminate the truth, to exonerate the innocent, and to reveal the guilty with only the greatest certainty and care. It is therefore with a solemn heart that the Order of the Empyreal Eye has turned our gaze upon once-feted champions of justice. In the course of our investigations, we have unearthed much disturbing rumour surrounding the conduct of the Knights of the Everlasting Light; of sponsoring necromancy and other witchcraft amongst Talabecland's scholars, of massed sacrifices in the streets of Wurtbad at the behest of its rulers, of worshipping unliving, daemon-tongued skulls taken from Nehekhara.

Yet the servants of Verena do not traffick in unsubstantiated hearsay, and I have little space to enumerate or repudiate the details of these accusations. Instead, we have elected to focus entirely on the known and objective facts of a grave crisis now facing our faith.

1. It is known that the Knights of the Everlasting Light rode alongside Mathilde Van Hel, during her expeditions into the darker and untamed depths of Sylvania. Mathilde Van Hel has been revealed in these last days as a vampire, a necromancer, and a heretic most foul.
2. It is known that these Knights and Van Hel rode also alongside the Knights of Sigmar's Blood. The Knights of Sigmar's Blood are known to have delivered Van Hel to her dark master, in the depths of the Forest of Shadows, and surrendered their own souls to vampiric corruption.
3. It is known that these Knights and Van Hel rode also alongside the Knights of the Raven. The Knights of the Raven are known to have betrayed their oaths, murdered priests of Morr and violated the sanctity of His gardens, and have been condemned by the Custode de Portale himself as blasphemers, corrupted by their hunger for power.
4. It is known that these Knights rode also to oppose a sanctioned Black Crusade of Morr, accompanied by condemned heretics. During this conflict, these Knights vanished into the so-called Hunger Wood. In their place emerged a monstrous vampiric force, vanquished only by the intervention of Baroness von Templehof, acting as an agent of Verena herself.
5. It is known that these Knights also stripped Stirland of its defenders in the Stirland 2nd, veterans of combat against the vampire scourge. These brave men and women were manipulated into war against a sanctioned Black Crusade of Morr, resulting in their destruction and the death of the celebrated vampire hunter Luciano Malasangre.
6. It is known that these Knights also engaged in the murder and/or unsubstantiated accusation of Imperial authorities throughout Stirland, Nordland, and Talabecland. This has spread confusion and misrule throughout the Imperial territories surrounding Ostland, where Van Hel has begun her foul war against the Empire.

Until such a time as sufficient counter-evidence presents itself, the Order of the Empyreal Eye must conclude that the leadership of the Knights of the Everlasting Light have been corrupted into agents of the vampiric scourge, have abused the name of Verena to weaken the Holy Sigmarite Empire against the predations of the undead, and have misled virtuous Imperial servants through the sin of ignorance, including the sponsors and novices of their very own Order.

We therefore issue the accusation that the Knightly Order's claimed devotion to Verena is nothing but false worship, intended only to mask their allegiance to Van Hel, and condemn them as heretics who have sullied Her good name. Let it be known that the Empyreal Eye will not be blinded by the Everlasting Light, but shall act without hesitation as an instrument of Verena's wisdom officially sanctioned by mortal law in the Witch Finder's Commission, and implore all true devotees of Verena to support us in this holy act of correction.

Jeorg B. Tzuchalosse
Chamberlain of the Order of the Empyreal Eye
Tenured Professor of Morgwache University and Observatorium
Annointed Truth-Seeker of Verena
Devotee of Her Holy Archivist Khadan

 

[Carol]

ARRESTING DECLINE: OR ON THE PREVENTION OF THE ESTALIAN FATE FOR SIGMAR'S HEIRS
(Excerpt)​

Article:

When the humors of the body are uneven, torn from its natural state of health, does not the healer prescribe medicines to correct the imbalance? It is so with the subject of human governance for all who cherish the privilege of power (legitimated by good stewardship, good heritage, loyalty to rightful liege, and godly favor) are responsible for its care. While I lack the practice of the healing arts, for these hands have held the steel of swords and not scalpels, my eyes have witnessed what untreated maladies does to the body of both men and realms. On the scorched plains of Estalia, where banditry flows as freely as greenskins, I make an example of the latter. These southern princes, through of the same blood, lack the virtual adherence to the healer archetype as individual vices sow the sickness of division, sedition, murder, rapine, and worse that others take advantage of; it is not Magritta, Bilbali, Novareno, or Obregon that are masters of their fate but foreign Zenata and Bretonnia.

I fear when I look upon Sigmar's heirs what damage has been done without a strong pillar to arrest the dangerous ambitions that the allure of violent solutions bring. See the Stirlish debacle and ask what fortune the participants have received in full aside from the blood of their kinsmen and a vengeful vampire. And that all the good of provincial prosperity through provincial rule does not extend to other provinces in the same manner and rate as that of calamitous events: the farmer of Reikland is unaffected by the enrichment of his Hochland peer but he feels now the tremors of the beastmen or vampiric horde traced to the direct actions of Elector Counts. I tremble at the thought that in defiance of the concept of a tyrannous emperor (in of itself justifiable and even desirable) we have forsaken a united defense against the dark beings which haunt us in moments of weakness. The humors are imbalanced, the necromancer Van Hel is at the gates of civilization, and the cure, on the lips of all, is the elected heir to Sigmar's throne. Either we unite and survive or divide and die.

 

[Maugan Ra]

The Mystery of Oskar Meyer
(Written by @Revlid with my approval)

Oskar Meyer had a dream. It was a dream that had been brewing for years, fermenting like fine Stirlish grapes, a dream of untasted spices and untouched silks, of exotic songs and outlandish blades, of golden rivers that flowed into Marienburg only through the hands of its greatest explorer - Meyer! Of contracts signed with foreign kings who knew the Empire only by its greatest ambassador - Meyer! Of trends set, of gambles won, of maps redrawn - by Meyer!

Meyer's meeting with Old Coyote was the perfect foundation, for in the distant land of Aztlan he had seen opportunity beyond measure. Lustria was a grand market waiting to be tapped, a place where the cheap and mundane was exotic and vital, and if the danger was clear, so too were the margins for profit. Meyer had barely set foot in Marienburg before he announced his plans to return to the Golden Continent - and as he delved into ledgers and logbooks, the mother and sister of House Meyer were already hard at work preparing the ground. Krafta and Heinzietta Meyer knew that Old Coyote's imperial wealth was the perfect seed - and Marienburg could be the perfect soil.

In public, the proudly Austere households of Marienburg rankled against the foreign cults and enticingly, exaggeratedly flimsy styles of dress promoted in the Meyers' stories, yet they flocked to listen all the same, talking loudly of the need to civilize such savages while demanding ever-more lurid detail to feed their imaginations. Ostland preachers warned in vain against exposing the Westerlands' youth to decadent Lustrian luxuries, for how could Sigmar's children serve the Empire if they were busy stuffing their mouths with lawyer's pear served atop toasted bread? Alas, this only fueled the typical arms race among the noble classes to be the first to sample such a sinful spread.

Exotic and unique, these fruits of unseen soil sashayed around Marienburg like socialites at a summer ball, kept fresh and vibrant with buckets of ice and sealed glass dishes. When preservation failed, the Meyers turned instead to resurrection, quietly employing a Morrin undertaker to repaint dulled hues, plump wrinkled skins, and stiffen withered leaves. Soon, fruits that were more artifice than arboreal found themselves loaned to the great and good of the port city, each eager to liven up their balls with an extravagance disguised as an education. Guests could only speculate as to the taste and scent of the hoyriri's golden flesh, guarded by its leathery, spiny skin like a dragon atop its hoard.

The Cockerel, a periodical sprung from Marienburg's new halfling-owned printing houses, scored an early coup by actually tasting some of these forbidden fruits. Its editor wrote of seeds and spices with a mouth-watering passion that far eclipsed her dry, exhausted commentary on changes in the wool trade. Her musings on Lustria's culinary potential displaced much academic discussion throughout the city, birthing common names for produce such as the meaty red wolfpeach ("Ulric's fruit") or the foul, toxic spud-leaf ("I'd rather eat the roots").

As the city's Consortium raised the Great Pyramid of Thumis stone-by-stone on the shoreline, Heinzietta Meyer capitalized on the craze with sketches and dubiously-sourced dissertations on the pyramids of distant Lustria, a clear sign of the shared wisdom of the ancients. By year's end the city's opinion had decidedly turned against Nehekharan culture, and Heinzietta pivoted with vicious confidence into public diatribes against the inelegant pyramids of the cursed sands. They were little more than a bare-bones parody of the lush, stepped ziggurats of Aztlan, so rich with lore and ornate golden decoration.

Cosseted away in the newly-expanded solarium of the Meyer estates, waited upon by their human servants and Marienburg natives, the cabal of skink priests were living proof of these exotic traditions. Debate raged among the devout as to whether these were beastmen, dragon-spawn, or - as the Meyers claimed - simply another breed of being, as distinct from humans as humans were to dwarfs. Hochland academics delivered fine glasswork gifts and offers to study the stars, Wissenland dragon-cultists came seeking the wisdom of Taal's dragon-form, an ambassador (or so they claimed) emerged even from the Elfsgemeente, and Prince Konstantin himself paid a personal visit to "Marienburg's Monitors".

For their part, the skink priests were patient. Lacking any clear means to spread the word of Chaac, they drove hard for an understanding of the Old World's tongues, devouring books on history, on faith, on mathematics. Visitors came from far and wide to meet (or view, from behind glass) the scaled pilgrims at their studies, a desire that their host Krafta Meyer exploited to squeeze favours both political and economic from her tight-fisted rivals. And all the while, the lizardmen communed with each other in Aztlani, in a Marienburg patois speckled with sailor's slang, and in an altogether different language, one of hisses, and clicks, and flared crests, one that politely evaded any attempt at translation.

Others, too, came at Meyer's invitation, their purpose more practical by far. Ogres hauled great casks into waiting ships, clerks tallied incomings and outgoings, navigators pored over and replotted maps. A fleet of Norscan ships docked at Marienburg, repairing the scars of last year's tropical voyage as its burly, sunburned crew made trouble on the waterfront. The Knights of the Black Rose rode through the city gates, Stirlish gore still fresh on their boots, boasting of the exotic hides and feathers that would soon adorn their ebony armour. Hochland astronomers gifted Meyer's household with modern starmaps and fine telescopes from the Morgwache workshops, and sent home precise rubbings of Lustrian tablets and calendars.

Meyer worked in a frenzy, buying, selling, bargaining, dreaming. In his sleep and in his study, he drew up plans for a Marienburg District - no, a Meyer District! - in far Texcoco, a home away from home that would secure his investments and rights for generations to come. And, he assured Manann's priests, a district that would surely feature a temple to the Sea-King who had seen him safely there. He dithered and deliberated over what to offer Old Coyote as gifts, what to offer as bribes, how far he could go with threats, how far he could stretch a given truth… and all the while, pressure mounted on his shoulders like heat on the ocean horizon.

Vultures follow lions, and to many, Lustria seemed a carcass laid bare by the claws of Imperial adventure. The River Reik Company were buying up Norscan mercenaries, with an eye to those who knew Skeggi. The River Reik Company were visiting the Cathedral of Storms, speaking in low voices about their Princely Director's upcoming baptism. The River Reik Company were buying guns and maps and supplies in bulk, and who was to say if a few of Meyer's private charts were no longer so private as he'd hoped?

The River Reik Company left Marienburg at the turn of spring, a small fleet of heavily armed merchant ships. Drawn into deeper waters than ever before, their sails filled by the winds of wealth, their hulls painted with Meyer's dreams. Visions of a crumbling monopoly dancing behind his eyelids, Meyer hastened his preparations and launched within the week - headed not for Skeggi but to the South, to Araby. Let the Reiklanders follow in his footsteps - the ultimate voyage, he now judged, would be safer and more certain from Zenata. There he would commission new warehouses and compounds, there he would stock up on further supplies and crew, there he would build one corner in a Lustrian Triangle that would bypass the Sea of Mists and some day dominate the trading world.

As Meyer's fleet set sail at last to a chorus of cheers, he gazed out into the Manannspoort Sea, and then looked upward, at the grand colossi of Manann and Sigmar that stood, half-finished, astride Rijker's Isle. He thought, perhaps, that he would see them finished upon his return - but it was not to be. Oskar Meyer could not have guessed that both statues would soon be lost forever - that this was the last time he would sail beneath Manann's mighty gaze.

The complete record of Oskar Meyer's Second Lustrian Voyage would be pieced together from Zenatan letters and receipts, from salvaged logbooks, from bitter or maddened tales told by scant survivors. It would trickle in, piece by piece, over the months and years that followed, forming a murky chain of events that would be argued over and replotted for centuries to come, each scrap of news a two-edged dagger of hope and despair for House Meyer.

All began well. Letters from the Sunset Empire, the memoirs of the Zenatan Sultan, and the newly-built Meyer trading facilities all attest to Oskar Meyer's safe and industrious arrival in Araby. His departure was unremarkable, if hasty, marked by bold promises of the profit to come for all his investors. A half-intact logbook records an unnatural storm off the Sorcerer's Islands, where leering faces danced between thunderbolts, but this seems to have caused little material damage. Instead, it served as an omen of things to come.

Merwyrms. Searkrabs. Jelly Medusae. Blind, eyeless, pale things that danced aboard one night, moving like elves and killing like daemons with great guillotine-blades. A vessel that spat fire and danced above the waves like a shining insect, manned by women without navels whose hair was the colour of cherries. An island that promised fresh water, where rats held mass in priestly robes and offered cups of acrid sludge. Deserters who abandoned the voyage as a hopeless, hasty, undermanned endeavour and urged others to join them. And worst of all, most crushingly of all - the River Reik Company, its flag flapping high and proud against the ice blue Lustrian sky.

To have suffered so much, yet still be beaten to the ultimate prize? Meyer urged his straggling fleet on, desperate to salvage his dreams, to salvage his pride. The Reiklanders hadn't beaten them yet! They couldn't beat them! Look, as we draw closer, see how ragged their sails are! See the holes gaping in their hulls! See now the wounds that tattoo their crew, crusted and unbleeding. See the dragging guts that mop the decks with crimson varnish, the febrile shapes that stir in the murk below, the twitching shadows that scuttle from the crow's nest. See the grand cannon that points your way, the sodden fuse that burns like a will o' wisp. Hear the crack of salt-clogged guns, the wet and guttural roar, the scream of green-limned flame from every barrel. See your captain crumble, his face wrought from despair. Hear him command the scuttling, that the ships be rendered beyond repair or misuse. Turn, and run for your longship, and pray to a dozen gods, for death has caught up to you at last.

This last report was from no logbook or letter or even a reliable man of the Broterberer Company. No, it was a tale told by an old Norscan, half-mad from sun and saltwater. Arvid Shadowhand claimed until his dying breath to have served on Meyer's last voyage, to have served as an intermediary between the great explorer and his Norscan mercenaries, to have approached him just off the Sea of Serpents, to have negotiated the end of their contract. He claimed, though none could vouch for his story, to have been the last man to see Oskar Meyer alive.

Legends feed legends. Who can say if the stories are true? Who can say if Oskar Meyer escaped, if he swam to shore and penetrated the jungle depths, accepted by its natives as a friend and champion? Who can say if Oskar Meyer made it to Texcoco, only to die in the prisons of Aztlan's wily emperor, tortured for the secrets of black powder and deep vessels? Who can say if Oskar Meyer still sails on, lashed to his wheel by a madman's dark arts, doomed to explore unplumbed waters forevermore, a gloomy lantern on the edge of an unknown sky?

Only dead men can tell those tales - and for once, they're keeping quiet.

Article:

I thought I saw him glance above
Where his god stood in hand with mine
Their faces, rude unshapen stone
Their presence still as two divines

Then he away'd, that mighty man
And gods and mortals watched him go
To see the world and bring it home
From lands of sun and lands of snow

Yet the horizon's lonely still
And that gold sail's seen nevermore
The gods have gone to look for him
And roam forever on the shore

They were perhaps, a marble dream
The giants that we lived amid
Gods live for true in hearts of men
For Manann left when Meyer did
-inscribed plaque on Rijker's Isle

 

[Maugan Ra]

(Written jointly by @Mina and myself)

The wedding of Thiago Malasangre and Princess Sicriu of the Strigany was planned from the start to be one of the most lavish, spectacular and above all successful public events that this miserable corner of the Old World had ever seen… at least if Bianca Malasangre had anything to say about it, and as mother of the groom and liege lady of Sylvania she had quite a bit to say indeed. Her lord husband might have fallen in battle, her daughter might yet be too riven by grief and fury to properly take over the duties she had just inherited, but by all the gods Bianca would not tolerate her son's wedding to be anything less than perfect.

The first obstacle was, perhaps inevitably, deciding on a venue. Riders sent out from Drakenhof found their steeds stumbling on the roads, messenger birds returned to the roost with letters still affixed to their legs, and whole shipments of party supplies managed to misplace themselves within the castle's echoing vaults with remarkable frequency. Only when the Lady Bianca at last surrendered to the inevitable and announced that the wedding would happen at the province capital instead did the mysterious setbacks abruptly cease, replaced instead by a string of fortuitous developments and easy successes that at last offered the workers some relief from the sharp edge of their lady's tongue.

Invitations were sent out to all and sundry of course, for it would be an insult not to at least offer such things to any of proper station and proximity, but no one was surprised when the only outsiders to attend the wedding came from Hochland and Ostermark. To hear Grand Baroness Theophania tell it, the joint party had quite an adventure getting from their respective homes all the way down to Drakenhof, an ordeal silently attested to by the condition of their coaches and the severely reduced number of fine steeds the Ostermarkers had intended to offer as a wedding present. The Lady Bianca waved aside such petty concerns with stately gracing, embracing her daughter in law and associated companions on the castle steps, and seamlessly added them into her ever growing list of tightly managed variables for the wedding.

Attempts at protest over the intensive oversight were generally waved aside by the benign authority of the Countess Dowager, who only wanted the best for all involved, and had murdered a vampire with a silver garrotte not too long ago and was entirely prepared to do so again. In the face of her unfailing support, opposition to the marriage among those with opinions on the Strigany rapidly came to be viewed as rather more trouble than it could possibly be worth.

And so, with screaming and shouting and not a little bit of indiscreet weeping, the wedding finally reached a point where all involved were willing to see it go ahead. Thiago and Sicrui were joined at last in holy matrimony in a grand ceremony overseen personally by Matriarch Leentje of the Cult of Manann (somewhat unhappy to have been forcibly summoned to a celebration so far from the water), the traditional pause for any outspoken challenges to the match ended in silence, and the afterparty was finally allowed to begin.

Well funded and supported by the various guests and patrons of the newly married couple, the celebration was a glorious success. Thiago got into a fistfight with the Grand Baroness of Hochland, then made peace through an excessive display of camaraderie that Theophania apparently felt was rather charming. Carlotta drank far too much wine and found herself on the battlements swearing bloody vengeance on everyone who had ever wronged her family before an appreciative audience of nobles and attentive stonework. The Strigany made a policy of trying to keep everyone calm and civilised, in the interests of not ruining their one decent chance at formal acceptance into an Imperial state (even if that state was Sylvania).

The highlight of the night was, unquestionably, the unexpected appearance of the Priests of Taal and Rhya, who had elected to invite themselves to the celebration and had brought along a suitably grandiose gift to bless the union with - a live, halfway insane Terrorgheist. Naturally the beast slipped its chains and violently devoured the last of the Ostermark horses before trying to do the same to several incautious partygoers, but thanks to the heroism of Matriarch Leentje's templar-guard no one of any consequence was excessively harmed.

Eventually the party came to an end, with the happy couple rapidly conveyed to their new demense at Templehof amid a grand procession of guests, grandees and silently watchful guardians. There they were met by the surprisingly cheerful and well fed locals, given a grand tour of the new temple dedicated to Father Morr's three daughters - Shallya, the White Lady of Sorrow; Gretchen, the Crimson Mother of Sacrifice and Achana, the Black Widow of Vengeance - and formally invested with the full rank and title of Baron and Baroness of Sylvania.

All in all, most concluded, the event had been an unqualified success.

Well, by Sylvanian standards anyway.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Turn Eight Has Begun
It is now 2207 IC
​

As the new year begins, a shock announcement from Altdorf! Grand Theogonist Bitten, newly elected head of the Cult of Sigmar, has called an Elector's Moot. He summons all Electors or their chosen representatives to the Grand Cathedral in Altdorf, there to cast their votes for the first Emperor of Sigmar's People in over seven hundred years.

-/-

OoC:

Turn Eight is, in effect, a 'mini-turn'. There will be no tracking of capital or influence this turn, nor will I process any major plans or orders sent in other than those which directly pertain to the electoral vote. There will be a negotiating period of approximately a week; at the end of this time, I will ask all players who could conceivably hold an electoral vote to send me a PM with their vote for Emperor. I will resolve this in secrecy and post the result.

The Electoral Votes are held, at this time, by the following:

1. Averland. (NPC)​
   1. Averland is currently ruled by Marius von Ellinbach, cousin to the late Francis Ludwig; a caustic, cunning man renowned for his financial genius and streak of absolute ruthlessness.​
2. Hochland ( @Mina )​
3. Middenland (NPC)​
   1. Leopold Todbringer is compelled via the terms of his surrender agreement to cast his vote for Friedrich of Wissenland. He is an honourable man, and also desirous of avoiding further war with the south. Any plans targeting him should take this into account.​
4. Mootland ( @Admiral Skippy )​
   1. The legal status of the 'New Moot' is presently a matter of dispute. Ultimately, the deciding factor will be whether or not the remaining electors accept the right of Bowman Brandywine to cast the vote legally held by the Elder of the Moot.​
5. Nordland ( @Crilltic )​
   1. With Jana von Moltke dead without any children, it is possible that the legitimacy of Nordland's current ruler could be disputed. This is largely a matter for the Electors as a whole to decide.​
6. Ostermark ( @Bandeirante )​
7. Ostland ( @EarthScorpion )​
8. Reikland ( @TenfoldShields )​
9. Stirland ( NPC)​
   1. Eliana Haupt-Anderrsen and Maximilian von Wolfbach are both deceased. Stirland is therefore without a ruler and will effectively abstain from the voting.​
10. Talabecland (@Scia )​
11. The Westerlands (@ManusDomini )​
12. Wissenland (@SirLagginton )​
13. The Cult of Sigmar (NPC)​
    1. The Grand Theogonist is not legally obligated to vote for any particular person at this time. He is accepting arguments from all involved as to who would be the best person to vote for.​

A simple majority of votes is required to be recognised as Emperor. Note that this means any votes which are not cast or which are held to be invalid for one reason or another effectively reduce the overall number of votes necessary to win.

 

[Carol]

A Gift​

---

Lulu von Drachenherz ignored the stiff contours of her courtier's outfit. For two years she had lived amongst Bretonnians and Estalians, and Imperial wear paled in comparison to their beautifully monstrous creations. Her current attire had bits and pieces of those strange lands: the golden Fleur de Lys imprinted on a black-and-red cape had a distinctly foreign look. The boots that clicked on smooth stones reverberated around with triumphant glee. She was happy to be back home and in the company of her sovereign. She had tales aplenty to share -- on untainted heroism, false glory, hilarious victories, and dark tragedies. But, most of all, to a land and Grand Baroness that shared a historical enmity towards goblins, her hands held a gift most worthy of celebration.

@Mina

Article:

"Sire, the Estalian venture has been a profitable one. Already we have silenced a warboss by the name of Krog the Kunning."

The aforementioned goblin, whose skull was cleaned of brain with jewels for eyes, could make no clever retort as it was taken by the chamberlain.

"My husband now marches with a sizable host of Bretonnian knights with the promise of slaying another. We shan't stop until the dead return to Morr's Garden in peace."

 

[Crilltic]

Jutone's Nest
Salzenmund

The throne-hall of Nordland felt empty. Decorated as it was with the bronze anchors of Manaan and the gun-metal grey stylings of the Austere tradition, it loomed large all around those that stood in it. All together, it felt cold, not the least that there was still snow near the windows even this late in spring. It was cold and severe, and it felt imbalanced. Although nothing had changed physically, there was the sense of palpable loss that had settled over the room like a heavy cloth, one that had settled over the province as a whole.

Angela von Ristedt-Hofburg had never expected to be here, seated alone on the throne of Nordland. Her elder cousin had always seemed...implacable. Angela brushed her fingers over the silver medallion of a hammer that she kept pinned to her chest. Up until recently, it had been her most prized possession. A testament to the struggles and scars she had endured to earn it. The Order of the Silver Hammer was filled with hard teachers, but she had managed. She owed the inspiration to try to Jana, for giving her an example to strive for, and now she was dead.

She had arrived in Salzenmund after the funeral, after they had laid the body of her cousin to rest in the portion of Salzenmund's Garden set aside for the rulers of Nordland, but Angela had visited it all the same. When the weight of the iron circlet on her head had felt the most alien, so different it was from the familiar weight of a broad-brimmed hat. To say her goodbyes, and to recognize that she really was the last of the von Moltkes left. Angela's mother had married for love to a baron on the border between Hochland and Nordland, only to die in childbirth. Angela rubbed her face at the memory, even though she had long ago cried the last of her tears for a mother she had never known it seems she still had some left for a cousin she had admired, and brushed a piece of straw-colored hair cut short back behind her ear.

She currently sat in Jana's solar. Seated in a hardwood chair that had been Jana's before hers, and Angela's uncle before Jana, and their grandfather before him. Crow Feeder was in her lap, and it was the most beautiful thing that Angela had ever seen. It shined so brightly that even the weak morning light that filtered through the window set it ablaze when Angela held it aloft. No evidence remained of the fate of its previous wielder, but it still made Angela feel small just to hold it, but she pushed those feelings down. She was an ordained with hunter of the Order of the Silver Hammer. She had faced things beyond the mind of mortal men, and she had done so with a smile, and she would do the same to the shoes of her cousins legacy.

A Vampire Lord had arisen in the Forest of Shadows, and the peasantry and nobility of Nordland were out for blood just as much Angela was herself for the crimes that had committed against her family. Now, a letter had arrived from the south, signed and sealed by the Grand Theogonist himself. The Imperial Diet was assembling, to see an election for Emperor.

Article:

The new Grand Baroness of Nordland is Angela von Ristedt-Hofburg, 1st Cousin of Jana von Moltke by blood. Due to circumstances, she has elected not to travel to Altdorf for the Imperial Diet herself. Instead she has empowered Conrad von Leonding, heroic veteran of the sieges of Dietershafen and Delberz and faithful servant of the Nordland crown, to act as her representative in this most historic of occassions.

 

[Maugan Ra]

One by one, the assembled worthies of the Empire congregated in Altdorf. Some came in person, others sent trusted subordinates empowered to speak in their name, but none would shun the summit entirely. They were gathered in Sigmar's own city, in the very heart of his faith, to choose from among their ranks a new Emperor - the first in close to eight hundred years, the figure of unity around which they would rally in the face of this new and terrible Vampire War.

But alas, such high minded ideals would have to wait. First, there was the matter of Stirland.

Stirland, land of the Asoborn Tribe, riven by discord and civil war. Torn apart by strife and sectarian conflict, divided almost clean down the middle around the central question of rule. Maximilian von Wolfbach, granted the right to address the Electoral Moot via patronage from the Chancellor of Ostermark, held that Stirland's electoral vote should be recognised as being held collectively by the Stirlish Diet, of which he was the empowered spokesman... or failing that, at least held in abeyance. He held that the Grand Countess Eliana had broken her oaths and disgraced herself before the gods, and therefore been lawfully removed from power by vote in the Diet and held no right to stand in this chamber or cast a vote for the next Emperor.

Eliana, needless to say, disagreed. She was Grand Countess of Stirland by blood and legal title, elevated to her position in accordance with all due process and tradition; Wolfbach, she claimed, was nothing more than a liar and an usurper, an honourless rebel motivated by nothing more than base greed and petty ambition. More, she named him puppet of the Ruinous Powers, clearly responsible for or at least consenting of the attempt by mutant assassins on her life but days before his army arrived outside the gates of Wurtbad.

Such words, once spoken, could not be taken back. Wolfbach, incensed and outraged, demanded that Eliana answer for her insult on the duelling field. His call was backed reluctantly by Theophania of Hochland, who though despairing of the utter travesty was unwilling to let a man fight for his honour while so unarmed, and consented to the use of her Runefang. Eliana agreed to the duel, murderous hatred in her eyes, and before the assembled grandees the match was sanctioned.

Grand Theogonist Bitten, chosen as mediator and guarantor of the duel, formally requested that both parties lay down their weapons and seek a peaceful solution, as had every mediator since the dawn of the Empire. Neither combatant was willing to do so, of course, and so with a heavy heart the high priest of Sigmar's Faith did lay out his terms - this would be a duel fought here, before the eyes of Sigmar himself, and would end only with the willing forfeit of one duellist or the death of their opponent. Eliana and Maximilian agreed, and with a powerful shout, the duel was begun.

In years to come, the fateful match would be immortalised, famed in song and story over and over again until all truth and nuance was lost. The proceedings would take on the air of a morality play, a grand message to the audience of the importance of honour or else in laying aside grievances for the greater good, as best suited the playwright's temperament. On that day, however, in that room, the duel itself would be over almost shockingly quickly.

Five blows were exchanged, three of them parried in a shower of brilliant sparks and the ringing of blade against blade. The fourth would open von Wolfbach's throat to the spine, severing his jaw and coating the ground with his blood. The fifth, driven more by instinct and dying spite than any true skill, would pierce Eliana Haupt-Anderrsen through her all-too red and human heart.

Both combatants died, slain before any divine blessing or magical aid could treat their wounds. They fell as one, ungainly corpses sprawled out upon the floor of Sigmar's temple, warriors slain before their god's mournful eyes. Stirland was left divided, leaderless and aflame, it's voice in the coming election silenced in its entirety.

And in the north, the dead marched ever on.

 

[Carol]

"Well, I'll be damned. Sigmar must really hate Stirland right now."

-Lulu von Drachenherz.

 

[Maugan Ra]

The conclave at Altdorf would last for days, filled with furious debate and sly implication, the halls and chambers of the Great Cathedral of Sigmar echoing with the argument that would shape the Empire for generations to come. Outside, couriers and town criers waited on tenterhooks, paid by any number of nobles and worthies to carry word of the verdict far and wide as swiftly as possible.

Eventually, something approaching consensus was reached, and the Grand Theogonist called all of the Electors and their representatives to the central nave. There he led them in prayer, invoking the aid and judgement of Mighty Sigmar over the proceedings, and clarified the rules. With the death and subsequent abstaining of both claimants to Stirland's throne, there were a total of twelve votes to be cast. By ancient law, a majority of seven would be required for any candidate to be declared the new Emperor or Empress. The Grand Theogonist would vote last, as the final sanction of the proposed heir to Sigmar Heldenhammer, and would officiate over the coronation of the victor.

With that, the vote began.

First to rise was Friedrich von Schwarzburg, chosen candidate of the 'Pfeildorf Pact'. Resplendent in clothing of imperial purple, the Grand Count of Wissenland cast his vote for himself, formally confirming the claim he had pursued with coin and steel over five years of relentless campaigning. All present had expected this, and it was widely believed that his status as the clear favourite had prompted the new Grand Theogonist to call the vote in the first place.

Second was Theophaneia Ysmay Gloriana Hochen, Grand Baroness of Hochland and the most obvious challenger to the southern lords. Her vote was for herself, an act of defiance against the man many believed to be a heretic and tyrant in the making, claiming for her own the banner of the righteous servant of the people. That the north had chosen to rally around a candidate of their own was no surprise, that it was Theophania was perhaps more of one, but no amount of scurrilous rumour or open speculation would shake the loyalty of her supporters.

Astrid von Wolfenburg could not attend the conclave in person, too preoccupied with the frantic efforts to rally her forces against the terrifying scourge of the undead, but her representative carried out her wishes flawlessly. Ostland's vote was delivered to its neighbour of Hochland, bringing Theophania to two.

Similarly, the newly crowned Angela von Ristedt-Hofburg was too preoccupied with assuming her command over the province, the death of her cousin having left her with far too many duties to attend to in the immediate future to spend her days in distant Altdorf. The Grand Baroness of Nordland sent a representative in her stead, the commander of her Second Army, and in her name the officer cast Nordland's vote in favour of Theophania.

Frederick von Schaffernorscht of Ostermark was too aged to reliably make the journey to distant Reikland, especially not with vampires on his borders (arguably more than one), but he sent his son with clear instruction to vote for Theophania. That all the states of the Black League had voted the same way would cause some to speculate on the contents of their charter, whispering of some hidden clause that compelled their common vote, but others dismissed such talk as paranoid speculation. Of course close economic allies would continue to aid one another at this level of politics, it was only natural. Still, it left Theophania of Hochland with four confirmed votes.

Next up was Grand Prince Konstantin of Reikland, widely rumoured to be the shadow behind the throne of Wissenland. None doubted that Friedrich led the charge, but his was the iron gauntlet, the inflexible fist of imperial authority. Konstantin was a man of velvet and whispered words, of important dealings made in salons and bedrooms. That he cast his vote for Friedrich surprised nobody, even if it did draw a few derisive sneers.

Luccinanto Yjsbraant van Hoogmans-Palutano, his full name regretfully and awkwardly recorded in the records by the priests of Sigmar present to observe the vote, seemed almost distracted and mournful as he cast his vote. He was bound by common interest and sworn pact to vote for Friedrich, and so he did, but all present could tell that the man wished he was elsewhere… or, perhaps, that another was here to share in this moment with him.

With those votes given, none of any surprise to those who had watched the development of these talks, attention turned to the remainder - the 'neutral' parties, the independents, those that both sides had thought to sway.

First up, or at least first to speak, was Bowman Brandywine. After a brief diversion where all present agreed to recognise the 'New Moot' as a direct political successor to the old, and thus confirming that the halfling retained the Elder's vote, the cunning merchant and criminal lord rose to cast his ballot. Both major claimants had made an escalating series of offers and proposals to the halfling in an attempt to sway his allegiance, but Brandywine fancied he might win yet more should the voting proceed to a second round. He therefore placed his name firmly behind that of Yjsbraant of Marienburg.

There was a brief delay at this moment, as a furious argument broke out and had to be quelled by the roaring demands and brandished warhammer of the Grand Theogonist.

Once order had at last been restored, attention turned to the newly inaugurated Marius von Ellinbach of Averland. The cattle baron was well known for being a ruthless businessman, interested solely in what benefitted him and his province more, and he had used his leverage to encourage (some said extort) promises of sizable financial aid from all who sought his vote. In the end, it was Friedrich who promised more (backed up by similar promises from both Reikland and Marienburg), while the League's dire warnings of a selfish tyrant and offers of northern friendship were complicated by their patronage of the now-deceased Maximilian von Wolfbach, whose death Marius had observed with great pleasure. Averland, therefore, voted for Friedrich of Wissenland.

Leopold Todbringer of Middenland had cause to hate Friedrich and all the south, but he was also an honourable man, and his word had been given. A vote was promised, and a vote was delivered, the pale young man glowering at everyone involved. Middenland for Wissenland, as had been agreed.

Brigette of Talabecland seemed to hesitate before casting her ballot, but ultimately settled on honouring her own treaty as well, and cast her vote for Friedrich. This took Wissenland's candidate to a total of six votes, and with a dawning sense of dread all realised that this was not, in fact, enough. Six for Friedrich, four for Theophania, a single unwanted vote for Yjsbraant… and only one vote left to come.

Slowly, with great dignity, Grand Theogonist Bitten rose to his feet. He thanked all present for having done their duty to Sigmar and Empire, for answering his call. He proclaimed that, in this grim time, what the Empire needed was a strong leader, a proven warrior that had crusaded without fear against the ancestral enemies of man and Sigmar alike, one sworn publicly to Sigmar and willing to defend Sigmar's people from all enemies. One who acknowledged the importance of the Cult, and had been willing to make the appropriate promises to secure its support.

The Grand Theogonist bowed to all assembled, and cast his vote for Friedrich of Wissenland.

FINAL RESULTS

1. Averland
   1. Votes for Friedrich, Wissenland
2. Hochland
   1. Votes for Theo, Hochland
3. Middenland
   1. Votes for Friedrich, Wissenland
4. Nordland
   1. Votes for Theo, Hochland
5. Ostermark
   1. Votes for Theo, Hochland
6. Ostland
   1. Votes for Theo, Hochland
7. Reikland
   1. Votes for Friedrich, Wissenland
8. Stirland
   1. Dead, votes for nobody
9. Talabecland
   1. Votes for Friedrich, Wissenland
10. Westerlands
    1. Votes for Friedrich, Wissenland
11. Wissenland
    1. Votes for Friedrich, Wissenland
12. Mootland
    1. Votes for Yjsbraant, Marienburg
13. Cult of Sigmar
    1. Votes for Friedrich of Wissenland

TOTALS
Theophania of Hochland: 4
Friedrich of Wissenland: 7
Yjsbraant of Marienburg: 1

Friedrich is the winner, by the narrowest possible margin.

 

[EarthScorpion]

Wolfenburg

It is raining in Wolfenburg when the news comes.

The grand duchess is in bed, recovering from a hard day. She is still weak, still tires easily, still not with full movement in her arm. She can still write - thank Shallya and her Pure Doves! - but she cannot lift it high yet. All she can pray is that her shoulder will heal. But it is in the hands of the gods.

Her servants have bought her a letter. A letter from Altdorf, embossed in gold. She fears she knows what it is. She hopes otherwise. She had dreamed. So many plans, so much work, so many grand ideas. Thrown aside and cast down by the fact that she is the poorest prince of the Sigmans. Torn apart by the sheer, ruinous, blatant unfairness that the Grand Theogenist she had helped elect chose to call this year - of all years - for an election.

Well, she would pray for him. Pray that whatever bribes he took from the blasphemous southerners who push their heretical 'Divine Marriage' would salve the screaming void that is his moral core. For Sigmar would surely not forgive if he lets his name be slandered in this way.

Its seal gives away what it is. The Imperial seal, with Wissenland's arms. The letter is mere confirmation.

But she is an Ostlander to the bone, no matter what others say. She knows who is responsible for this, and she will hold this grudge until her dying day. They say that there is some dwarven blood in the Ostlanders, and perhaps it is true. But they will not give up their land to some Stirlish vampire, no matter what dark and cursed gifts of evil gods she has taken, and vengeance against Van Hel is a greater grudge to avenge.

She has already sent letters to the League, and to her husband - and made moves to ensure that her daughters can be safely moved to Couronne. She has not sent them yet, though. She will not send them in winter, and doubly not when Van Hel could be lurking to target them in her inestimable cruelty. She has sent letters to the Marienburg lenders, calling on ties of faith and of credit, to get money for this war; she has already pledged the output of the mines in the Middle Mountains as collateral.

'Tis a good thing that she can still hold a quill, for she would have gone quite mad without being able to write in her incapacity. Write poems; write treaties; write diplomatic letters and lines of credit. When the cruelty of the world unleashes a vampire unaffected by running water, holy symbols and thresholds upon Ostland, she must wield words as her recourse.

Take her revisions to the Treaty of Wolfenburg, for example. She will not give up on the Black League. Not while she breathes. The North needs these ties. It needs the ability to stand together against threats like Van Hel - and threats like the Tzarina. It needs the Black League Bank and its capacity to get better lending rates from greedy southerners. There will be no leadership to be seen from Middenland or Talabecland, so the poor northern states must stand together or fall apart. And so a few changes to the articles, and nothing in it will breach Imperial Law.

@Mina @Crilltic @Bandeirante

Article:

Revision to the Treaty of Wolfenburg

In the name of Lord Sigmar, Manann, and the other gods,

From this day forth, the Treaty of Wolfenburg shall be modified in the following ways, such the spirit of fellowship and brotherhood which binds us under Sigmar's wise rule might be best maintained through the trying times which lie ahead.

Article 6 (Revised).

(Appended to end): This clause shall not supersede the authority of a duly elected emperor whose authority is recognised by all voting members of the Black League. While such an Emperor rules, the Black League shall not presume to override Imperial policies upon trade or taxation, save when the Emperor seeks to overreach their customary and traditional authority.

Article 9 (Revised)

(Replaces "Other parties within the Black League are obliged to offer assistance proportional to the threat posed to the party by the Forces of Evil. The obligations under Article 9 only extend to the maintenance of the current borders as of the signing of this treaty, unless a unanimous agreement is made by the voting members to adjust the records as described in Annex D. ")

Other parties within the Black League are obliged to offer assistance proportional to the threat posed to the party by the Forces of Evil should the current Emperor, if any, be lax in their duties to maintain the soundness of Sigmar's Empire. The obligations under Article 9 only extend to the maintenance of the current borders as of the signing of this treaty, unless a unanimous agreement is made by the voting members to adjust the records as described in Annex D. Should the ruler of a voting state hold the throne, the obligations of members of the Black League only extend to the signatory state, and exclude other Imperial holdings.

She sighs.

And there is another letter she must write. A letter which makes her gut churn with acid to write, yet nevertheless she must.

@SirLagginton

Article:

Your Imperial Highness Friedrich,

I most wholeheartedly and seamlessly, in this otherwise dark hour, congratulate you on your victory in the electoral convention. I pray that the favour of the gods fall upon you, and that you rule with all the wisdom and sensibility of the emperors of old, first among the great tribes of Sigmar, and that Sigmar himself can safeguard you from the mistakes of more recent claimants to the throne. May - Shallya willing - you rule in good health for many a year to come.

Alas, dark years have come and the shadow of undeath falls once more upon His blessed lands. Sigmar calls upon you, my Emperor, to show all the wrath and fury you have shown in past battles against the hideous threat of Mathilde Van Hel, once-called Elector of benighted Stirland. Perhaps with her death, the curse of the past decade might even be lifted from that province.

Ostland shall stand against this horror, as we have watched the northern reaches for two thousand and more years. We will fight, and we will die if needed, though death is not our ally against a vampire. But should we stand alone, we may fall - and in our fall will horror be unleashed upon the softer, gentler lands to the south. So I implore you, your imperial majesty, and I beseech you; come to Ostland's aid.

Your loyal subject,

Astrid von Wolfenburg

It is a first draft. She will work on it more later; add more platitudes, remove the desperate edge of her letter. But he must know that the Fourth Vampire War is upon them.

She is not crying. She is not.

 

[Maugan Ra]

After the stunning defeat at Raxenberg, Astrid von Wolfenburg pulled her forces back and began her preparations. The war before her promised to be long and bloody, a desperate struggle for survival in the face of the oncoming night, but when had Ostland known anything else? Her people were loyal and strong, stubborn to the point of fault and united in their unyielding faith. They would stand against this foe and fight to the last, Astrid knew; it was her duty as Grand Duchess to see that they did not fight alone.

Letters were sent, born by hardened captains and carried in the hands of fleet-footed couriers, to the courts and temples of everyone she thought might yet aid her. To the High Priests of the Empire, to her peers of the Black League and Bretonnia, even to the newly elected Emperor Friedrich of Wissenland, formally requesting - requesting, not begging, Ostland had its pride even now - for whatever aid could be spared.

While she waited for their response Astrid set about preparing her own people for the coming clash. Vulnerable towns and villages were evacuated to hardened redoubts, fortifications were set up at the key river crossings, the knights were called and the militia raised. Such things cost money of course, and the Grand Duchess did what she could, selling stakes in the Middle Mountains and unclaimed fiefs throughout Ostland to finance the war; mortgaging the present to buy the future. Under tolling temple bells and on city walls, the folk of Ostland watched the forests with fearful determination. They knew, better than most, just how vulnerable they were; knew full well how badly Van Hel could hurt them, if she pursued straight away.

And yet, as days passed and word came in from the wider Empire, the forests remained quiet. Grand Baroness Angela von Ristedt-Hofburg led Nordland's armies across the border to answer her neighbour's call, the Cult of Manann bought and shipped armies of mercenaries and vast quantities of material supplies to the front, and in Hochland a grand army began mustering. Armies from many lands and supplies from many more, knights and templars and officers in gleaming steel, all mustered and organised beneath Theophania's watchful eye; yet only one other Elector, in the form of Yjsbraant of Marienburg. Indeed, of all the southern nations, only Wissenland sent its own men in response, two whole state armies under the newly-appointed Emperor's Champion Nathanine von Ussigen, the runefang Bloodbringer in her hands, while Friedrich himself went north to Kislev to bargain for their aid. Reikland provided shipping and funds, Talabecland promised a safe home for any refugees, Averland not even that much - deeds to be remembered, one and all.

In years to come, military historians and priestly scholars would offer endless debate over the cause for the ease with which this initial muster was arranged. Had Van Hel gathered her forces and launched an immediate attack she could have done terrible damage to Ostland and presented serious problems for her enemies and their plans. An endless stream of explanations were offered and discarded, but few ever came close to the truth; Mathilde Van Hel, for all her villainy and spite, simply did not care about Ostland. Her objectives lay elsewhere, and three months to the day after the Battle of Raxenberg, the Empire learned them at last. Three devastating hammer blows she delivered, coordinated with inhuman skill and insight, and with them threatened to bring the Empire to its knees.

In Ostermark, a tidal wave of shambling undead and necro-engineered monstrosities emerged from the north and laid siege to Bechafen, Van Hel at its head. The capital of the League had been carefully fortified years ago in preparation for just such a threat, and from behind dwarf-made walls Chancellor Frederick stared out over the besieging horde and frowned. He would, it seemed, need to play the anvil, and his people along with him.

In Middenland, the armed forces of the Drakwald under Henryk von Bildhofen marched. Their mustering had been mistaken at first, assumed by all sane observers to be in preparation for the vampire war, but Duke Henryk was never so easy to predict. He was indeed moving to strike against the vampires and their puppets, he proclaimed - specifically, the perfidious Middenlanders and the Cult of Ulric, who were clearly in thrall to the forces of darkness and in need of a good purging. With the Duke at their head, the Drakwalders burned their way north, slaughtering all in the path as they made directly for Middenheim.

Finally, in Talabecland, chaos erupted as the Grand Duchess Brigette vanished from her fortified castle, only to reappear among the ranks of the rebels in the southern regions of her province. Some said they had kidnapped her for ransom, while others proclaimed that the Grand Duchess had escaped the capital bare inches ahead of a Kaiserjaeger kill team. The truth was whatever any given listener decided it was, and soon enough Talabecland was consumed in brutal civil war.

It is in such times of adversity that the true worth of a person's soul is determined. Some rise to the challenge, others fall short among their own inadequacies, and still others break and buckle completely. The deeds and choices of all involved would shape the history books and determine the course of the Empire for centuries to come.

In Middenheim, a desperate and furious Leopold Todbringer went before the White Flame, emerging a full day later as both Grand Duke of Middenland and Ar-Ulric of the Cult. With Legbiter in his hand and the White Wolves at his back, the young Elector broke the invading armies before the walls of Middenheim, cleaving von Bildhofen's head from his shoulders in a single bloody stroke. Furious blizzards covered much of the province as the Son of Ulric led his forces south, the God of Winter granting them passage as men howled his praises from a thousand throats. No organised resistance stood in his path, for von Bildhofen had left no clear heir and two clear claimants, and as Sigmarite and Khainite spilled each other's blood all across the Drakwald the Ulricans rose in favour of their saviour from the north.

When spring came, Leopold and Konstantin were forced to the table once again, the topic of Drakwald a thorny issue neither had truly wished to discuss yet again. In the end the terms they settled on more or less mirrored the reality on the ground; Reikland would retain possession of Carroburg and the surrounding lands, which had been long since fortified beyond the point of easy capture, while Middenland reclaimed the vast majority of the breakaway province as its own. Perhaps the two sides might have fought on, but with the vampire war still ongoing pressure from the rest of the Empire to settle matters peacefully was immense, and in the end both bowed to the demands of their peers… with some rancour, it would be admitted.

In Talabecland, the Emperyal Eye joined forces with the Kaiserjaeger to hunt rebels and necromancers throughout the province in a brutal shadow war. Though the Society of King Kruger lent its aid and that of their allied wights to Brigette's supposed rebellion, they lacked the experience to counter the Kaiserjaeger or the knowledge to protect themselves from the Eye's mysterious backers. Attempts to rally additional forces from Stirland were thwarted by the appearance of banners bearing the Red Scythe all through the Stirhugel; Carlotta Malasangre would tolerate none but her in command of Stirlish nights.

Ultimately, the fate of Brigette and her supposed backers in the Everlasting Light (or darker places yet) would never be truly answered. The Grand Duchess vanished, either slain or fled, and though grand rewards were promised to any who could bring forth her corpse or the runefang she had taken with her, it would be decades before any sign of either was found.

In Ostland, the counter-attack began in force, the mustered forces of the alliance taking the opportunity presented by Van Hel's distraction to launch their offensive. The glittering host of Bretonnia seized much of the coast and began pushing inland, while Theophania's united force broke through the relatively small rearguard the vampire had left behind in short order. The honours that the Grand Baroness would win in this campaign, taking direct battlefield command while the Emperor was abroad, would stand her in good stead for many years to come.

Tragically, such successes came too late for Bechafen. The city's walls fell, its fearsome defences compromised from within, and with the gates opened by a traitor's hand Van Hels' forces stormed the city. Thousands died, nine in every ten citizens of Ostermark's capital torn apart or devoured by unliving horrors only to be reanimated by dark sorcery and turned against their surviving kin. Van Hel remained in the capital for three days, solidifying her victory, and then she marched south, the winter snows all but irrelevant to an army that no longer needed to eat or rest or even breathe.

Elena von Midwald, Veiled Knight and Arch-Traitor of Ostermark, marched at her side. Broken in spirit by the injustices heaped upon her, her final appeal for mercy waved aside by the Chancellor with casual scorn, she had found it all too easy to make contact with Van Hel and open the city's gates for her.

To the east, the small column of terrified refugees that managed to escape Bechafen before the fall were met by a relief column of troops coming from the south. Chancellor Frederick, having been bodily carried from the capital once his bodyguards realised what was happening, led the refugees in a prayer of thanks to Sigmar for his deliverance, then went to meet the commander of the relief force in person. His reception would be considerably less friendly than he had expected.

Dieter von Blutstrom had watched in silence for years as his supposed liege had disgraced himself and Ostermark, making decision after decision that reeked of incompetence to the point of outright sabotage. Now the capital had fallen, thousands of their fellow citizens were dead, and the old man oh-so-conveniently escaped? No, no on Blutstrom's watch. In the name of the newly elected Emperor Friedrich he had the Chancellor pronounced traitor and heretic, and placed him under arrest.

Three weeks later, called south with haste by the messages bearing the public announcement of this action, Friedrich arrived at the head of a vast host of Kislevite lancers and foot soldiers, their path through the winter snows cleared by several of the Tzarina's most skillful ice witches. Baron von Blutstorm greeted his Emperor with a warm smile, and as a gesture of loyalty presented his liege with a most exceptional gift; the traitor Frederick's decapitated head.

He was, according to rumour, rather shocked to lose his own five heartbeats later.

Word that the Chancellor of Ostermark had been executed on orders of the Emperor was not well received by those forces that had just reclaimed Ostland, to put it mildly. Indeed, it was only the winter snows that forced a period of communication and contemplation which saved the Empire from immediate civil war in the aftermath. Friedrich's story of his authority being wildly misused and punished appropriately was eventually accepted, at least in public, but the incident would tarnish his name for decades to come, and the distrust engendered meant that coordination between the associated forces was remarkably slow and difficult to manage.

Spring saw the combined host pursuing Van Hel's trail of devastation southwards, slowed and harried at every village and town across Ostermark's border by fleeing refugees and roving columns of undead hunters. It was summer by the time they finally caught up with the majority of the vampire's forces, and found them dug in and around the blighted ruins of Mordheim. Twisted mutants and nameless monstrosities had been added to the Necrach's forces, her dark sorceries augmented by vast quantities of recovered warpstone, and the thought of the fighting involved in clearing the undead out from the ruins made even the most veteran commanders among the host wince.

It was Theophania of Hochland who proposed an alternative solution. At her direction the allied force drew up in battle lines, sighting their artillery on the ground outside Mordheim while a messenger soared north on eagle's wing. Two days later, the call was answered, a favour owed and repaid in fire: the Ash Princess, draconic ruler of the Middle Mountains, descended from amid the iron-grey clouds and set the whole city ablaze. The undead did what they could to stop her, unleashing vast swarms of bats and winged vampires to contest the skies, but Adalwolfa and Friedrich took to the skies in turn on dragonback and together they brought purifying flame to the whole wretched host.

The tainted, poisonous fumes from the Burning of Mordheim would go on to taint the earth for leagues in every direction, bringing with them an agonising and drawn-out death to several units of the grand alliance that had strayed too close to the outskirts, but all involved agreed that the price for a conventional assault would have been so much higher. For a time, it even seemed that the decision might have brought victory outright, but then word from Sylvania arrived; though the bulk of Van Hel's host had been destroyed in the battle, the vampire herself had not been there.

Accompanied only by the finest of her undead knights - Sigmar's Blood, Black Rose, even a small company of Everlasting Light that had sought to reason with her in covert diplomacy - the Necrach had gone south, punching through Sylvania's border guards to reclaim her ancestor's home. Vanheldenschlosse was hers for but a handful of weeks, but that was all it seemed that the vampire needed. Whatever dark secrets she had unearthed there, whatever foul allies and twisted relics she had obtained, Mathilde Van Hel seemed satisfied. She turned west, and with the best of her forces around her, made for the only goal in this entire war she truly cared about; Wurtbad, where this whole sorry tale had begun.

That, after all, was the simple truth at the heart of this entire war. Mathilde Van Hel was not the von Carstein come again; she did not care for victory or territory or dominion over the living. She cared only for vengeance, for bloody payback on everyone that had ever spat on her and her efforts, on all those who had held her responsible for an ancestor's crimes and ignored generations of heroes that strived relentlessly to atone for them. If they would damn her for the name she held, then let her be damned… and let the world be damned along with her.

The defences of Wurtbad had been compromised more than once in Stirland's bloody civil war, and before the advance of a necromancer of Mathilde's skill and the vampiric might of her closest allies and minions, it crumpled like so much paper. The city was put to the sword, the slain raised once more to buy time for their mistress' dark ambitions, and in the ruined shell of the palace the twisted echo of a woman who had once ruled there began her final work. The light of her magic lit up the horizon for leagues in every direction, stirring the dead from their graves in a thousand different towns across five provinces, and gave the grand alliance one final target to aim for. On they came, in frantic haste and grim resolve, to stop the necrach before she could complete her bloody work.

The stories of that final battle will live in story for as long as men remain to tell them, the subject of song and sermon a thousand times over apiece. The Dragon of Nuln, with Ghal Maraz in hand and an Ice Witch at his side, leading the charge; Brandywine and the Ogres storming the docks; Theophania hunting wights through the ruins with a blessed rifle; Astrid and Bitten reclaiming the temple district at the head of a host of templar-knights. The dead mustered against them in strength, knights in twisted plate leading hordes of slavering monsters in merciless ambush strikes, warped monstrosities of flesh and bone taking to the sky to hunt dragons for their prey, rippling bolts of jagged lightning flaying flesh from bone. And at the heart of it all, the chanting form of Mathilde Van Hel, lit by hellfire as she lifted her hands towards the tortured sky.

If there is one thing that all the stories agree upon, it is this; Van Hel came within inches of victory. What her ritual was intended to do is known to few, but every version of that final confrontation maintains that it was not the mustered forces of the Empire that finally stopped her. Some credit divine intervention, others speculate that some final spark of humanity stayed her hand, and a few even report sightings of a twisted and misshapen woman in a magical cloak intervening at the very last moment. Regardless of the cause, Van Hel's ritual was broken mere heartbeats from its apex, and the destructive force of her uncontrolled magic shook the world.

Hundreds died, flesh and bone dissolved by the raw tidal surge of necromantic energy, and thousands more would bear the scars and sickness brought by proximity until their premature deaths years later. Wurtbad was ruined, the land twisted and poisoned beyond all mortal artifice by the darkest kind of magic, a place where the dead would never again lie quiet in their graves. The cost was high, almost more than the new forged Empire could bear to pay… but, in the end, the day was won. Van Hel was defeated, her forces broken, her schemes undone. All that remained was to pick up the pieces.

So ended the Fourth Vampire War.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Averland

Marius von Ellinbach was always an opportunistic sort, always quick to see the profit in any situation and quicker still to seize it, no matter how ruthless the actions required truly were. The Van Hel Incursion, as the Averlanders would swiftly begin to call it, represented a marvellous opportunity in that regard.

Alone of all the major states, Averland contributed no armies and minimal funding to the fight against the vampires. Instead it sent men; noble lords seeking glory, peasant militia wishing for freedom and adventure, dispossessed warriors hired on as mercenaries and all manner of other landless, rootless and problematic elements. With his enemies temporarily banished, Marius took full advantage; some were declared dead and their estates passed to more pliable hands, others were labelled criminals and their possessions confiscated by the state, and with ruthless efficiency the newly-enclosed land was parcelled out to Marius' supporters and would-be neutral parties in Averland. The move did much to solidify his rule and, combined with the staggering amount of bribes extracted for Averland's electoral vote, paved the way for a visionary set of legal and economic reforms that would see the von Ellinbach name immortalised in history.

Of course, such moves were not popular among those whose lands had been stolen to pay for them, and the returning waves of dispossessed nobles and soldiers triggered a major groundswell in anti-Marian sentiment. The Grand Count's plan to use his newly-secured armies and mercenaries to crush such sentiment was derailed by the intervention of the Cult of Taal and Rhya, who openly supported the rebels and stridently called for his execution and a change of regime in the province; attempts to call upon Myrmidian Justizars to help secure the disputed territories and maintain order were complicated by the fact that the Myrmidian priests were often too moral and principled to be nearly so ruthless or loyal as von Ellinbach might have wished.

In the end, the Grand Count's salvation came from Sigmar. The newly elected Grand Theogonist Bitten, looking to shore up his support and win over his critics with a strong display of theological strength, took the militant Hammer Kinships in hand and approached the Grand Count with a simple offer; he would save Marius from the consequences of his own folly, and the Grand Count would give him everything he ever asked for in exchange. Faced with little other option, Marius consented, and with the full weight of the Sigmarite Faith behind him secured his reign through a series of brutal military crackdowns and anti-Taalite purges. At Bitten's urging most of his opponents were exiled in place of any more serious punishment; many headed to the Westerlands, while others filtered south through Black Fire Pass to seek their fortunes amid the Border Princes. That this created an endless source of embittered exiles and their descendants with grudges against Ellinbach and a blood debt to the Grand Theogonist was, quite simply, a bonus as far as Bitten was concerned.

By the time that Marius died, several decades on, the Grand Country of Averland was almost unrecognisable. Vast tracts of the province had been enclosed and broken up into carefully parcelled out allotments, each ruled in isolation by the petty tyranny of nobles and merchants whose support the Ellinbachs had bought. Beneath them, however, would form a seemingly endless series of guilds and political unions, each accorded powerful legal rights under the sponsorship of the Cult of Sigmar, a source of near-continuous tension mitigated solely by the growing tradition of exiling local provocateurs beyond Averland's borders. How the nation's neighbours felt about this habit, especially when combined with the near-constant stream of hardened Kinship bands with their hammers bloodied in battle against greenskin raiding parties, is widely believed to be the root cause of at least a dozen major border conflicts and inter-provincial wars over the following centuries.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Hochland

Perhaps it was inevitable, that a province as small and undeveloped as Hochland would be forced to look beyond its borders for a source of power. The descendants of the Cherusen people had always been renowned for their warm hospitality, and having come through the tail end of the Era of Three Emperors almost entirely unscathed - one of precious few indeed that could boast such a thing - Hochland found itself positioned atop strong foundations for the Empire that would follow.

The now traditional vocational sponsorships would continue unabated for centuries to come, Hochland's sons and daughters sent abroad to learn what they could in any school or nation that would consent to teach them, returning home decades later to share their gathered wisdom with friends and family. Such a sprawling network would feed the continued success and prominence of the Morgwache University in much the same way as the roots would nourish a tree, allowing it to steadily grow with every passing year until it resembled less a campus and more a sprawling city of knowledge and mystery. Sponsored and funded by the Cult of Verena as much as the various secular powers of the province, the University soon acquired an excellent reputation as a site of generalist learning, with something of a focus on astronomy and historical theology. If you wanted your child to know how to fashion clockwork you would send them to Altdorf or Nuln; if you wanted them to learn the basic principles behind everything else, you sent them to Morgwache.

As with students, so too with soldiers, as over the next two decades Hochland's state armies found themselves hired out or otherwise sent abroad on no less than two dozen separate occasions, supporting provincial allies or hunting down their foes in exchange for gold and political considerations that the resource-starved province was frequently in need of. More common still was the habit for individual units and hunting groups to up sticks and head out towards the horizon, hiring out their skills and uniquely motivated troops to anyone that would reasonably have them. Many would sneer at such mercenaries as little more than backwards yokels, but many more would come to find in their hearts a measure of respect for anyone able and willing to fight with such vigour and boundless determination. The Smiling Hochlander and his or her exciting adventures (often embellished with tales of their 'innovative' personal arsenals) would soon become a beloved fixture of tavern stories and children's tales the length and breadth of the old world.

And at the heart of it all, overseeing the growth of her province from backwater woodland to hub of learning and culture, was the Grand Baroness Theophania Ysmay Gloriana Hochen, a woman of glorious and uncountable contradictions. A steadfast conservative who oversaw some of the most ambitious reformations the province had ever known; a pious servant of the heavens who approached both science and magic with a pragmatist's welcome; a woman of intellect and education who preferred to spend her holy days hunting deer in the darkest woodlands... there were as many stories and impressions of Theophania as there were people to tell of them, but none would ever be found who denied her skill or personal charm. A 'friend to all and enemy to none', according to one contemporary's glowing account, the Grand Baroness spent the formative years of the new Emperor's reign establishing solid diplomatic ties with all her peers and neighbours in turn. The border of Middenland was secured and peaceful cooperation extended, her family in Sylvania were honoured and supported, and even the initially rocky relationship between her and the Grand Theogonist was eventually repaired and forged into a lifelong friendship.

Such gentle work would eventually pay dividends; when Friedrich of Wissenland eventually passed away, some two and a half decades after assuming the throne, it was an older and wiser Theophania who was elected by clear majority to replace him. With Hochland itself safe in the sensible hands of her son and heir, the newly crowned Empress would set about applying her cheerfully mercenary policies to all matters of statesmanship and diplomacy. Old bonds were respected, new allies courted, and the myriad squabbling factions of Sigmar's Empire balanced against each other with a veteran's steady hand. Denied the chance to shape the new Empire in its entirety, Theophania's legacy would be one of enduring continuation, cementing in the public mind the idea of an Empire that endured across the generations.

When she died at last, four score and ten years after being brought into the world, it was with a smile on her face and a family larger than several state regiments at her side.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Middenland

The Grand Duchy of Middenland took relatively little part in the Vampire War by most standards; though many would argue that von Bildhofen's doomed march must surely have been some scheme of Van Hel, the only evidence of such collusion was the simple fact of its timing. Beyond that unexpected assault and the vicious winter counter-attack, the sole contribution that Middenland made to the fighting in the east was of a chapter of local knights... which, as it happened, were members of the Everlasting Light fighting in total anonymity while Leopold filled their heraldic armour with dead Drakwalders to claim the bounty on their heads.

Such deeds neatly highlighted the young lord's priorities; having come into his majority in charge of a war-ravaged and increasingly isolated province, Todbringer's most immediate and overwhelming need was for food and coin, and all he had to offer in return was a large body of increasingly bitter and radicalised warriors. The simple arithmetic of statesmanship saw him throw his full weight behind the renewed Great North Road project, funding and legalising a great swathe of new financial and mercantile interests that stretched from one side of his province to another and taking full advantage of his neighbours' desire for stabilised relationships. Future decades would see Middenlander troops laying claim to significant portions of north-west Talabecland, legitimised through blood ties to the late Grand Duchess, and also playing a serious role in the pacification and settlement of the Westerlands.

As for Leopold himself, he would go on to earn his place in the history books, almost the archetypal example of the 'Great Man' around which whole academic wars would be fought in taverns and university halls for centuries to come. As both Grand Duke and Ar-Ulric, Leopold unquestionably played an important role in the unification of theological and secular authority throughout his province. Under his reign the White Wolves expanded to become almost synonymous with Middenland's nobility, the priests of Ulric were commissioned as officers in the state armies, and both tithes and taxes found themselves flowing into the same singular treasury. Leopold's popularity skyrocketed, all negative impacts of his decrees carefully blamed on feckless advisers and untrustworthy subordinates, and tales of the Grand Duke leading his armies into battle became a popular topic of sermons and tavern stories all across the province. The strength of Middenland's divinely blessed and battle-hardened armies was one of the few resources the Todbringers had to call upon, and the following decades saw them lend their arms to every other state and province in the Empire at least once, in exchange for appropriate payment and diplomatic concessions.

Of course, when a state comes to revolve around a single man and his desires to such an extent, it is not merely his admirable qualities which become enshrined in law; many of Leopold's grudges and prejudices would be taken up by his loyal subjects as fundamental parts of their national culture, and it would be centuries before any citizen of Reikland could count on any kind of reception from their northern neighbours that was warmer than a murderous glare - a fact that Grand Prince Konstantin was said to take great personal satisfaction in. Similarly, to name a child 'Jana' was to curse the girl to a life of treachery and feckless immorality in the eyes of a Middenlander, and tensions along their northern border would periodically erupt into warfare every dozen years or so for centuries to come.

Ultimately, while Middenland would never regain its position as hegemon of the north, dictating the policy of half an empire through sheer military and economic might, neither could anyone afford to ignore the Sons of Ulric in their entirety.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Nordland

Some rulers lead unexceptional lives, dying old and in their beds only to be swiftly forgotten by the march of history. Others cast a shadow that stretches across the centuries, reshaping all that comes in their wake by simple fact of their existence. Jana von Moltke, martyred daughter of Nordland, was most assuredly to be counted among the latter. Already a folk hero by the time of her death, the following decades would only see her legend grow, and future generations of Nordland's rulers would choose policy in large part based on how they thought the idealised form of Jana would have wanted them to act... or, failing that, how they could take some historical comment or deed of hers and use it to support their own ambitions all the same.

The economic development program that Jana had started was certainly popular enough, an easy means by which future rulers could prop up their support. Great foundries were built in over a dozen locations along the coast, Nordland's northern border painted in the firelight of industry, while long pipes served to carry their waste far out into the Sea of Claws to be washed away by the current. Owned in large part by the crown, the profits from this industry were carefully distributed to the peasantry and the rising merchant class alike, buying their loyalty in the most literal fashion even as they populated the ranks of Nordland's new model armies. Modernity became the fashion of the day, with prosperous merchant houses going out of their way to sponsor new and exciting forms of industrial and scientific development that the province would surely benefit from in generations to come.

The increasing drift towards centralised, absolute rule from Salzenmund was considerably less popular, at least among the nobles who had once been trusted to manage their own fiefdoms all but unsupervised. The Crown of Nordland was ever hungry, ever ambitious, ever quick to seize more power and authority for its own in the wake of increasingly flimsy pretexts. Over a dozen major wars and rebellions would be sparked during the century and a half that followed Friedrich's ascension to the throne, discontented nobles switching their allegiance to Ostland or Middenland or else being brutally crushed by the Royal Armies and their cutting edge arsenals.

Denied a strong corps of loyal vassals to marry off in diplomatic marriages, future generations of Nordland's rulers would look abroad for the allies necessary to keep their realm stable. They built ties with Norsca, willingly mingling faith as well as blood in exchange for allies unaffected by broader imperial politics, and lent whatever financial and diplomatic weight they could to keeping the Black League alive and bound together by carefully written treaty. If it served the ambitions of the Crown or could be made to do so, then it was good and deserving of support; if it obstructed what the monarch wished to do, then it was evil and worthy only of destruction. Such an absolutist mindset eventually culminated in the Wars of Steel and Smoke, a decades-long period of rebellion and civil war triggered when the first Nordland Emperor attempted to sweep away the power of the Prime Estates and rule by absolute diktat from the capital, a period only brought to an end by the ill-considered attempt to cancel the next election entirely and hand the throne down to his son.

Jana von Moltke died before she could see her ambition realised, never knowing what her successors and descendants would make of her ambition, but her name would be remembered for centuries to come.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Ostermark

Although badly damaged in the course of Van Hel's March, the League of Ostermark would ultimately recover from its woes with a speed and strength that many beyond the borders found surprising and near inexplicable. With an array of allies and trade partners willing to invest coin and material in its recovery, and strong democratic traditions better able to weather a sudden loss of leadership than more autocratic neighbours, Ostermark would spend no more than a generation in relative financial and demographic distress before recovering its old strength once more.

Among the factors for this success, and perhaps the least expected, was the League's northern neighbour of Kislev. The Tzarina and her predecessors had often eyed Ostermark's rolling plains and riverways with greedy eyes, a possessive attitude that had triggered no end of skirmishing and border conflict, but with the royal line now bound by blood to the first Sigmarite Emperor in seven hundred years Kislev suddenly found great interest in helping its southern neighbour rebuild. Much of the stone required to repair Bechafen's defences was brought down from the north, and many of the immigrants allowed to replace the slaughtered population had been Kislevite serfs until very recently indeed - a fact which would inevitably lead to ethnic tensions in future eras, especially as Kislevite merchants did all that they could to buy up land and resources previously owned by those slaughtered when the city fell.

Such rapid economic redevelopment did not extend to the southern parts of the province, however, where much of the land had been tainted by warpstone ash from the Burning of Mordheim. Though the city itself was no longer a nest of crawling horrors, the poison it spewed across the landscape ultimately gave birth to a vast population of displaced workers and villagers, many of whom would end up adopting a migratory lifestyle atop shallow-bottomed 'house barges'. Grim and undaunted, many of these migratory convoys would end up acting as host to mobile temples, bearing pilgrims and mendicant priests to and fro across the Empire in exchange for modest payments and sincere blessings.

With Wurtbad destroyed, the Cult of Morr in the Empire found itself in need of a new High Temple, and though the Emperor enticed a number of priests into establishing themselves in Nuln, it was Bechafen that the renewed order ended up choosing for their new capital. Well funded by private and state donations alike, and located in a city that would spend the next few centuries wracked by haunting every year on the anniversary of its fall, the Cult of Morr would ultimately exert a most profound effect on Ostermark and its citizens. The walls of the capital were decorated with morbid statues of skeletal protectors, and the sonorous ringing of the temple bells would be the first thing that many visitors to the city would know of their impending arrival.

In years to come, Ostermark and its Chancellor would often find themselves playing the role of 'loyal opposition' in the Emperors court. Though all professed to disbelieve Bludstrom's supposed imperial backing for the coup, the mere idea of it went a long way towards hardening Ostermark's attitude of grim suspicion towards any and all attempts to centralise or strengthen state power. Such an attitude granted them a prominent role in the Wars of Steel and Smoke, as they reflexively opposed virtually all of the Nordland Emperor's attempts at imperial diktat, and were targeted for strong reprisal as a result.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Ostland

Never the richest or most populated nation, Ostland suffered significant damage in the vampire war, as much from their own preparations and emergency measures as from the actual doings of the undead. Mass evacuations ruined the harvest season, and while outside aid prevented outright starvation on a large scale it did little to help undo the damage of a year's lost economic windfall. To recoup their losses would be a monumental task requiring both hard work and sheer stubborn grit in unheard of quantities. Fortunately, Ostland had never been short of either.

The ascension of a new Emperor was received with lukewarm reactions by most of Ostland's people, as much because of his foreign ties and unpopular faith as for his seizing of a position many Ostlanders felt should have belonged to their own liege. Astrid herself was no more enthusiastic, but while the ruin of her ambitions burned like acid in her throat the sheer pragmatic necessity of her situation yet presented a path forwards. She needed southern coin and southern aid if she was to rebuild her ravaged land and stabilise her teetering economy, it was true, but Friedrich needed her support just as much. The first Emperor in centuries, elected by a razor thin margin that relied on votes coerced by swordpoint? He needed the support and consent of Astrid and the other northern Electors, and the Grand Duchess of Ostland planned to make him pay an exorbitant cost for every last drop of it.

Under her guiding hand, a full charter of Imperial laws and regulations took form, defining and limiting the powers of the Emperor even as it strengthened their legitimacy. The Prime Estates were reintroduced, the informal veto power they had once exercised in the face of weak or unreliable Emperors formalised in the shape of the Imperial Diet, and edicts of religious toleration and regulation were passed throughout the land. Legal precedent, religious doctrine and millennia of tradition came together to form a solid, mutually agreed upon body of law, one that would guarantee the strength and stability of the Emperor's reign at the cost of making him fundamentally accountable to those beneath him.

Such was the legacy of Astrid von Wolfberg, Grand Duchess of Ostland. Destined to never claim the mantle for Empress as her own, she became what many in the Empire came to regard as the next best thing; the voice that delivered the Emperor's will to his subjects, the hand from which rivers of ink flowed to bind the people together in common cause and name. When she eventually died, her name was granted to the first of the Ostland Seminaries; cold, practical institutions of learning where the scribes and lawyers of the future would be produced, where all those who wanted a learned man of true faith and unquestioned character would go to seek their new agents.

Faith had ever been Ostland's greatest strength, its sword and its shield, and in the years following the Crisis of the Early Twenty Third Century it would be faith that lifted Ostland higher. Faith in Sigmar, yes, and also in Manann - faith shared with all the provinces along the Empire's coastline, and increasingly with Norsca too. The formation of the so-called 'Convoy League' that would come to dominate the Sea of Claws was a slower and much less obvious process than the formation of the original Black League, but the strength and support each member loaned the other would go a long way towards helping them endure in the face of a hostile and unrelenting world.

Ultimately, Ostland would wind up among the most pro-Imperial of all the Sigman states, relying on the bonds of law and common culture to hold itself above water in the face of endless horrors from within and the most ferocious pressure from without. Too poor and small to take the throne directly, Ostlander nobles and politicians frequently found themselves taking power in its shadow, trading their unfailing support and loyalty for the wealth and resources necessary for their grim, oft-deprived homeland to endure another day.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Reikland

As far as the Grand Principality of Reikland was concerned, a 'vampire war' was something that happened to other people. Oh, certainly the threat was real, and certainly if nothing was done then the undead hosts would be knocking on Altdorf's walls as they had once before, but even so. Reikland would contribute food and funds and the material ingredients of war in staggering quantities, coordinating it all in a feat of logistical acumen that would be studied by students of war for centuries to come, but the actual process of bleeding and dying... that was left to proxies and agents. Reikish knights hunted necromancers in Talabecland, Reikish agents duelled with vampiric infiltrators in the corridors of southern courts, Reikish fleets escorted troop convoys as they sailed off to war... and if, in the process of such careful coordination and containment, a remarkable number of Reikish rivals turned out to be in league with the vampires? If the Grand Duchess of Talabecland was forced to flee her capital and ultimately vanish beyond the gifts of mortals to track? Well, that was just a fortunate coincidence.

Already wealthy beyond avarice, Reikland only grew richer and more secure as the vampire war dragged on, and when at last Van Hel was vanquished they were in the perfect position to exploit what came next. Reconstruction was an expensive task, after all, and when the smiling Reikish ambassador came with so many shining gifts, when he spoke with such eloquent admiration for your struggle and such pious devotion to the idea of doing his part, few were willing to turn them down. Soon there were agents of the Grand Prince in every court and castle in the country, friendly and smiling and politely insistent, and all they ever asked for in return for their help was that it be remembered, down the line. Should it ever, in some fashion, become relevant.

In Altdorf, Grand Prince Konstantin expanded his court with representatives of every major faith and belief system in Reikland. Sigmarites, Ulricans, Taalites and Shallyans, all benefited from his funding and support, all experienced for themselves the limitless magnanimity of a man who demanded only one thing in return - that they remembered that they spoke for the faithful in Reikland, and none other. When his good friend and Emperor Friedrich looked to expand the Imperial diplomatic corps with ambassadors and plenipotentiaries, Reikland was there with a seemingly endless array of well spoken and well connected nobles to fill any position that might open up. They had friends in Zenata, colleagues in Kislev, a few correspondents in distant Aztlan and the other nations of the New World... were they not the obvious choice, the most reliable option, the most trustworthy of all possible partners?

The choice to make one's untouchable influence the bedrock of their foreign and economic policy did, inevitably, require certain other decisions to be made in support of it. Popular, ruthless and supported by the experienced Kaiserjaeger, Konstantin made a thousand such decisions every year, spilling rivers of blood and ink behind closed doors to make sure his power remained unquestioned. The merchant houses were bound by coin and contract, their economic might bent into a tool of Reikish foreign policy; the colleges and institutions of learning were supported and patronised, provided they served the state when asked; the nobles who played along with their liege's ambitions were gifted with vastly increased wealth and power at their rival's expense. It became a common, half-ironic joke in many courts that the only thing stopping a given conspiracy from seizing Reikland and then the Empire was unyielding competition from all the other conspiracies operating in the Grand Prince's shadow.

And when the kaiserjaeger were not enough? Well, then the State Armies stood ever-ready to enact their liege's will. Never as large or battle-hardened as their northern peers, the armies of Reikland compensated with unmatchable equipment, the finest training regimens, and a seemingly endless well of eccentric 'specialists' that could be applied to any given foe or situation.

It was towards the end of Konstantin's life and reign that his true legacy would begin to take shape, however. Inspired by tales from foreign lands, stories of the tiger-folk of Ind and the Lizardmen of Lustria, the mercurial Konstantin commissioned a study from the College of Creatures that confirmed his growing suspicions; there was, in truth, a significant gulf between those who were undeniably creatures of chaos and those who merely happened to suffer from certain... defects of birth. With subtle grace and ironclad secrecy, steps were taken - hidden villages were established, sanctuaries for those unable to coexist with wider society, a structure onto which law and trade could be hung like chains of gold around some of the last necks unburdened by either in the new Imperial Reikland. Sometimes it worked, other times it backfired tragically, and though the true consequences would not become clear for many centuries to come the deeds were enough to earn the Grand Prince his place in the history books - Konstantin, the Saint of Beasts.

(Whether that was an accolade or slur depended very much on who one was speaking to at the time.)