Warhammer Fantasy: A Dynasty of Dynamic Alcoholism
- Thread starter torroar
- Start date
- Mature
-
- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy intrigue happens male protagonist ck2 quest belief stronk count of cannons drunken wisdom foes in the shadows graf of guns if you have a question check the front page first it begins... mountain vietnam ogres paranoia rising unseen enemies everywhere use the search function before asking waifu wars wake the bull
ShyPerson
Guardian of the dead’s final rest.
- Location
- Sweden
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Honestly I always assumed that Magnus could channel the power of Sigmar due to this bit from long ago:
The colored text usually indicates that divine power is running through his words, and that a golden aura is described as suffusing him. I always read that as channeling divine power.
The colored text usually indicates that divine power is running through his words, and that a golden aura is described as suffusing him. I always read that as channeling divine power.
Genevieve can summon forth a searing holy aura that is notably Sigmar-based. She is a vampire, and she is not capable of casting from the Divine Lore of Sigmar.
^ is correct.
Furthermore...
^ is correct.
Furthermore...
Past said:
Last edited:
Massgamer
Advance toward the Future
- Location
- The Future
Gotcha, so Magnus is blessed by all the Order Gods but has no ability to use Divine Lore. Still find that odd even though it makes sense, since you'd assume Magnus of all people would be able to use Divine Lore of Sigmar at least, but that is not the case.
Kinda like how Everchosen was blessed by all the Chaos Gods but doesn't mean he had access to their lores to cast spells.
I would not assume that, no. Not everyone who accomplishes things needs to be as fantastically empowered as an Everchosen, or of a great and powerful bloodline such as Aenarions. One of the ingrained aspects of Warhammer Fantasy is that, at the end of the day, a terrified peasant with a rusty spear really does have a chance. It's noted in the rulebooks too, how even the mightiest blade nevertheless has the potential to be turned aside or dodged. Even by a peasant with a bucket for a helmet.
Cults said:
This is what Magnus the Pious does: he speaks with such conviction that the people are enflamed by hope after centuries of decay and ruin, and the Gods themselves respond in affirmation. He is not Valten.
He is, at the end of the day, just a human who earnestly, purely, believed, without hesitation or condition.
I explicitly made it uncertain for Frederick to tell what he saw for certain at Nuln, and I refuse to say one way or the other. Magnus isn't 'Blessed by all the Gods', he doesn't carry a cross-pantheonic array of Divine Marks, he is not a priest or a paladin or cleric or whatever. He's Magnus the Pious, not Magnus the Blessed, or Magnus the Everchosen of Order. He believes, and worships, and is, well, Pious. Blessings are not required to be Pious, nor should they be.
He's just a guy.
And at the end of the day, that's sort of the point.
Last edited:
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
I mean...just meeting and talking to him a little bit after that first Elector's Meet was enough to give Frederick a point in Piety, didn't it? I could see how that could lead to the idea that Magnus is blessed by at least one of the Gods, and even Freddy seeing that. But what you say here is also a good point. Magnus isn't a priest, he knows the Gods and venerates them, but he doesn't really...overcompensate on the piety. He supports the churches, but he doesn't play favorites with them, either between the churches and cults themselves, or between the Churches and the Provinces. He's just a man who has great faith, not only in the gods, but in humanity. And really, I could see Magnus' faith in the men and women in the Empire in equal parts to the gods being inspiring to Frederick, who early on had faith in men but not in the gods. Not enough to openly worship the gods, no that took being literally blessed by Sigmar, literally meeting Gazul, and enduring the horrors of Karak Ungor. But enough to be more open and accepting of them.
- Location
- U.S.
wonder if anyone ever wrote a story about a lone farmer killing the everchosen in single combat to protect his cabbages
yannoshka
Thunda birb
- Location
- Smartarse cramschool
By braining him with a hefty beetroot.wonder if anyone ever wrote a story about a lone farmer killing the everchosen in single combat to protect his cabbages
Those things can get up to 20 pounds (Mind the varieties that grow that big are not meant for human consumption)
Ah yes, the last thing any foolish enough to cross this certain man and harm his Cabbages ever hear:wonder if anyone ever wrote a story about a lone farmer killing the everchosen in single combat to protect his cabbages
"MY CABBAGES!!!"
the best part is thats its actualy possible
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
Hell IRL there was a chinese farmer that build a bamboo rocket launcher in his barn and fired at local thugs that tried to make him sell his land.
Now imagine such farmer killing Everchosen with a shot from that while aiming for something else just to rub salt to the wound.
Now imagine such farmer killing Everchosen with a shot from that while aiming for something else just to rub salt to the wound.
Last edited:
kelgar04
Knight Watcher
- Location
- Here and no were
The face palm of the dark gods would be truly epic.
This has the same feel as Carolus Rex being killed by some stray grapeshot from a distant fortress
Many years ago, a weathered Witch Hunter Captain slammed a dagger down onto the map of the Empire atop the desk of her office in Wulfenburg. A healthy blanket of silence spread throughout the rest of the room.
"These past few years have been disastrous," Emilia promptly began.
That was an understatement. Farm animals screaming in human voices while stumbling about on their hind legs, wells overflowing with clotted blood, plagues of insects with leering humanoid faces had continually devastated crop yields, when those crops didn't simply shrivel away in moments. To the common citizen it was obvious a terrible curse had befallen the Empire. To the Order of the Silver Hammer, it was obvious that they had failed. Filthy magic users had been growing in number for years, some even getting more organized. More than a few Witch Hunters had been forced to coordinate with their lesser counterparts in Sylvania and elsewhere, necromancy growing to be even worse of an issue than usual. Others were plainly just joining the forces of Chaos outright, stepping past the point of redemption entirely. When they died, there would be no salvation for their souls, only the endless hunger of daemons and the laughter of dark thirsting Gods.
"I'm guessing there's more than that, else you wouldn't have called us all in on such short notice," Marlisa said aloud, getting some grim chuckles from the others.
Emilia narrowed her eyes at her daughter, but let it pass. It would have been impossible to deny their relations, and so long as Marlisa kept up her hunts with consummate professionalism, accusations of nepotism died as quickly as all mutants, heretics, and witches could only hope to. Besides. It was preferable to the past, and Marlisa was certainly capable of straightening up and falling in line when required.
"For one thing, I've only called those not actively pursuing certain long-term targets in. Secondly, it's getting worse," Emilia nodded. "There are rumors of a new Everchosen."
That quite cleanly and rapidly killed whatever little amusement there was in the room.
"Impossible-,"
"That's-,"
Even saying the word seemed to make the shadows in the room grow longer. Morkar. Vangel. Kharduun. An Everchosen was a terrible thing to conceive of, let alone comprehend on any appreciable level. Someone capable of binding together the normally fractious denizens of Chaos, whose lack of long-term unity was one of the sole things preventing the Empire from sliding outright into ruin.
"I'm not finished!" She said loudly, waiting until they'd quieted again. "Hordes of Chaos worshippers are trickling out of the Wastes in greater numbers than in generations, we've got massive movements of mutants and cultists heading north to Kislev to join them, but more importantly," she slid her finger down on the map to Nuln, "We have rumors that there's some idiot noble named Magnus von Bildhofen who is trying to rally the whole of the Empire behind him."
"…and?" One, a Gunther, asked.
"He wouldn't be the first," another veteran hunter scoffed. "One of the Three will put him down soon enough."
The last Emperor who'd ruled over a unified Empire was several centuries dead. The Era of Three Emperors was a bloody one, marked by warfare between the divided nation like never before. It was, fairly said, that the idea that someone, anyone, could simply come along and bring them all together was patently ridiculous. If anything, the last person to come close was the abominable Vlad von Carstein and his ilk, which only soured her further on the entire thing.
"Except he's got Wissenland behind him, and people are saying he's been blessed by Sigmar," she cut in, cutting them all off again.
It was enough. She could practically smell the abrupt, seething anger. False messiahs were a dime and a dozen, and there were few things than falsely claimed divine favor that could set them off.
"The Lord Protector himself has called upon all of the Chapterhouses to join him in the south, at Nuln, to ascertain the purity or lack thereof of this…Magnus," she nearly spat the name before sighing. "That will leave Count Hohenzollern without our support, however, and he'd been asking us to join him in Kislev."
"He aims to try and face this Everchosen alone?" Marlisa said, eyes wide.
"No, but he does aim to aid Kislev. He's been marshalling his strength for some time, but if there were ever a time to use it…" Emilia shrugged.
"If would be if there is an Everchosen coming south," Marlisa finished, to grumbling agreement from the others present. "Makes sense."
"Aye," Emilia nodded before leaning against the table with both arms. "The Lord Protector has called, and we are headed south. All of us."
"All of us?" Gunther said, eyebrow raised. "What if something happens in the city while we're gone?"
"Would you like to tell the Lord Protector-," she began, only for Gunther to wave his arms about.
"No, no, I get it."
"Then it's settled. We go south," Emilia grunted as she pulled up her crossbow onto the table and loaded a pure silver-headed bolt into it. "Get your gear and get moving."
"I can't believe it," Emilia burped as she slammed her tenth tankard of beer down.
"He's real," Marlisa said, naked awe in her voice. "He's real."
The two of them drank amongst their peers and kin in the tents, the chilling winds of Kislev practically blowing them down.
When the Lord Protector had gathered together the largest single assemblage of Witch Hunters in the entire Empire together to possibly have to put down a massive heretical uprising deep in the heartlands, they had been prepared for the worst. To have to, perhaps, even burn down Nuln entirely. Or more. But due to the speed of their travel south, they bore witness to it all. In Altdorf, Emilia herself had joined the other Captains of the Chapterhouses and lashing the man to the stake, only for the fires to gutter out even as the oil was splashed upon him in the gallons. In Middenheim, he walked through the Flame. In Talabheim, the wolves had deafened them with howls as loud as a storm's thunder, a white hammer marked Stag appearing before them all. Even in Marienburg, where faithless money-worshipping fools held power, the seas had tossed themselves about angrily when the merchants had at first denounced him. Triton, it was said, was said to have swum between the islands by many, and Emilia swore she had seen a tossing tail the width of a cathedral in the dark waters.
The Gods were with him. Were with the man that some were whispering would be the new Emperor, a true Emperor.
Magnus the Pious, some were already calling him. The man hadn't even taken up Ghal Maraz, instead favoring his family's sword in battle thus far.
"And then he ruined it," Emilia growled.
Marlisa grunted in agreement. The rest of the Ostland Witch Hunters did the same, many of them too drunk to manage much more. The others of their kind would have agreed if they hadn't already passed out or had refused entirely. Far too many of the southern Witch Hunters swore off imbibing anything that might 'alter their minds and compromise their judgement'. Just as many smoked holes through personal funds with tobacco instead. Some didn't even do that much, relying on flogging themselves or refusing most all possible earthly pleasures to polish their souls through suffering that they might prove that much more inviolable to the eternal enemy. Or at least, that was what they said.
"Witches," she hissed, gaining another round of agreeing noises.
It had all been going so well. A truly holy man. And then he brought forth the witches from all over the Empire, tutored by a foreign inhuman witch, an elf of all things! Elves had raided the shores of Ostland practically since the founding of the Empire, and then he brought forth one? Asur, Druchii, these were just names, and surely ones they appended or discarded as befitted their purposes. But no, Magnus had summoned her, had summoned all the Captains and even the Lord Protector, and had spoken to them in person. Of necessity. Of stringent protections and protocols, of lessons. The Grand Theogonist, three Arch-Lectors, and more had been convinced, and so the man who might become Emperor had sought to convince them as well. To Emilia's shock, she had been convinced. At first, at least.
But as the weeks went on, her own zealous outrage billowed forth once more, and she sought out another meeting. She was joined by other Captains in this, as they marched across the Empire, and then north. Every time, she walked away convinced, every time, she struggled to come up with arguments enough that she could convince him otherwise. That he was their leader was undeniable. Chosen by the Gods, or at the very least accepted by them, of course! But magic?! Witches?! Or, to use the parlance that he continually yet gently insisted to her, 'wizards'. Only the Lord Protector had not seemed so conflicted, had not met with Magnus once after the initial proclamation and meeting.
"Is there any news of the Count?" Marlisa abruptly asked.
"He's dead," Emilia sighed. "Last we heard he was still recovering from his wounds but was riding out to Salkalten. We'll have to negotiate with Victor, then."
Victor von Hohenzollern was not nearly as devout as his father, though that was not as much of an insult as it might have seemed. If anything, Victor was simply less inclined to solely support the Cult and its Templars as much as the others. The other siblings had varying levels of worthiness in terms of succession, but really the only major difficulty would be if something happened to the Ostland Runefang when the current Count went and got himself killed out of sheer stupid stubbornness. Then again, it was that same Ostlander stubbornness that had seen Emilia and her Chapterhouse outright exhaust their targets with how doggedly they pursued them.
A shame that Hohenzollerns rushed into danger so easily.
"If we survive what comes next," Marlisa noted cynically. "The city of Kislev awaits."
"Should we live or should we die, it will be Sigmar's will," Emilia shot back.
The snows billowed, the winds howled, and the war raged on.
"Die!" Emilia snarled as she stabbed her rapier into the Chaos Warrior's eyes, that single vulnerable spot proving to be the divide between life and death for the both of them.
Their armor was far too strong, blessed by infernal creation, for even the deadliest of her weaponry unless applied correctly. She'd watched plenty of men and women uselessly pound their swords, their spears, their pikes against that armor, only to be slaughtered in turn. But this one, this seven-foot juggernaut of death and fell blessings, had fortunately not yet gained any mutations to provide them with eyes elsewhere on their body. As such, the slit to allow them to see the world outside allowed her to plunge her rapier right in. The push, the give of it, was not quite human, the organic matter within hardier than it should have been, but it was enough to kill them. A daemonic scream and shaking impact knocked her off her feet and nearly snapped her rapier from her death grip on it.
"Bloody Hellcannons!" She snarled beneath her breath.
Then the Chaos Warrior's body fell atop her, the sheer weight of all that bulk certainly bruising her and cracking at least one rib.
"Shit!" She spat, struggling against the weight futilely until another Imperial in battered armor appeared out of the snows.
"Hold on!" They cried before sheathing their sword and crouching down.
The two of them grunted and sweat to heft the corpse aside.
"My thanks," Emilia coughed a bit of blood as she was helped back up to a standing position, stooping momentarily to reclaim her rapier.
"Of course," the other woman nodded, her blue eyes cool but fierce in her helmet.
Ah. Young Ortrud Hertwig, one of the most high-profile members of the northern provinces to join in with Magnus from near on the very beginning.
"We have to keep moving, come on!"
Then they moved on, joining with others and fighting off the enemy here and there. Marlisa reappeared, as did others, gathering a rag-tag band of fighters from shattered formations. It was a rough and tumble affair. The snowstorm obscured most vision, but there were more than a few guiding lights. The magics of the wizards and the sorcerers both. The booms of fire from Imperial cannons and the infernal machines of the forces of Chaos that cracked the earth with each blast. But more important than them all was the city of Kislev itself, its massive dark stone walls providing the most visible guide than anything else even with so many holes blown through it. They were surrounded, cut off, but damn if they were not going to make a fight of it.
But then they saw it. Him. Them.
The duel.
Emilia would never forget the sight of it. Magnus the Pious stood alone against the Everchosen, locked into mortal combat. His armor bore many tears and rents, the skin revealed blistered and burnt. He was clearly on the retreat as the Everchosen advanced with fury – for the blessed of the Dark Gods was not without his own wounds. The sword that Asavar Kul wielded burned with hellish flames, yet it could not yet find more purchase against his foe. For Magnus wielded a sword that burned as well, but it was with a righteous blue and gold fire, something that Emilia had never seen once before throughout the entire campaign. The thought of intervening in their contest was paramount, but none of them seemed able to move anything but their eyes. It was a phenomenon that seemed shared, for opposite them, on the other side, were Chaos Warriors, daemons, spawn, mutants, and more.
Both sides were equally enraptured, and so they all watched as what felt like the fate of the entire Old World was decided in front of them.
Each clash of the blades let loose eruptions of sound equal to the boom of a storm's thunder. The flames of their weapons seared their flesh so quickly that barely a drop of blood could be spilt. The boundless fury of the tribes met the tireless conviction of the Empire, and Emilia could scarcely have said who she thought would win at the time. The world had become so terribly focused on that instant, and she knew then and there that should Magnus fall, should he fail, then all would follow him into the grave. There would never be a leader like him again in time, if ever.
Until it finally happened. A final clash, the blades somehow moving faster than before, a powerful upwards cleave that transitioned into a downward pommel strike that cracked Magnus' helm and the skull beneath. The Imperials and what few dwarfs that had accompanied them let out groans and gasps of horror, while the forces of Chaos cheered with glee and anticipation at the bloodshed to come. Magnus stumbled backwards, the strange but surely holy light of his blade guttering out as he fell to one knee, blood seeping from his head. Kul stood over him in silence, the nimbus of dark power around him growing stronger in that instant. A dead Imperial was uncovered from the snow by the violence of his fall, a young man not even past his second laying there, hands still clutched around his spear's upper half, eyes staring unblinking at the sky and skin already tinged blue. Magnus visible grimaced at the sight.
Emilia could see it, then, in a curious but horrifying effect that followed. Behind him, as if the Everchosen had become the lens in an eyeglass, the world stretched out behind him in detail changing before her very eyes. Behind Kul she saw the world as it would be, blasted and burnt, a hellscape of insanity that would forever be in chaotic flux. It was the world he and his Dark Gods would leave behind. It altered everything, left nothing untouched, nothing untainted. And their last chance to stop him had fallen to his knees before him, blood pouring across that bald pate, coating his entire face in a crimson sheen. And yet Emilia couldn't seem to move. As if the world itself wasn't letting her.
"You have failed, stripling. A worthy effort, but a futile one. None can stop the coming darkness," Asavar spoke, his words a vicious icy hand gripping and tearing at Emilia's soul. "When I strike you down, your paltry army shall die with you, and soon your weakling Empire. They shall break, they shall flee, and they shall die like the cattle they are."
It was true. It wasn't a proclamation; it was an undeniable fact. The tears that fell from Emilia's eyes were frozen solid, and yet she continued to shed them.
"Your Gods cannot save you, they are too weak. Your soldiers cannot save you, they are too weak," the Everchosen continued, taking heavy steps forward as he spoke. "Your allies cannot save you, they are too weak. Your rotting, pathetic husk of a nation shall burn, because you are too weak. For I am Asavar the Annointed...and you…? You are nothing, mortal. Nothing."
Emilia slumped to her knees, as many of the others around them did as well. Each word was a hammer blow to their spirit, to their already flagging energies, practically a physical blow to their bodies. A thin curving line of pure darkness illuminated by hellfire burned into existence behind the Everchosen, haloing him. Magnus gasped for breath, one hand on the ground, the other on his midsection where he'd taken too many blows which had cracked armor and bone in the same strikes. Asavar Kul bore strength beyond mortal men, mutated and warped, daemonically empowered. A casual blow could rend whole knights apart, or so the rumors had gone. Emilia knew them to be truths, not rumors at all, the sight of it all outright forcing her gaze away. Her own body rejected her intent, and out of uncontrolled impulses of self-preservation turned her slightly until all she could see was Asavar's victim.
But then Magnus spoke, his voice breathless and pinched by pain yet somehow clear despite the snowstorm and the sounds of fighting elsewhere.
"Even if you strike me down, another shall take my place. And another after that," he said, gritting his teeth as he looked up defiantly, his voice somehow growing stronger and stronger. "You think that the people of the Empire will simply shatter like glass? I think not. They will defy you even if the world itself was breaking."
The hand that clutched at his broken ribs reached out and clasped around the hilt of his sword, and yet no holy flames enveloped it once more. The Everchosen let loose a sound of amusement that rumbled like a distant avalanche.
"You put too much faith in them, fool. They are far weaker than you think," Asavar declared as he raised his sword high, the flames around it writhing as if alive.
It fell like a guillotine, that Bretonnian execution device which had become slightly more popular amongst the southern Chapterhouses, only to pause midflight.
"-hkk!"
"Or maybe," Magnus said with a growl that carried through the air effortlessly as he plunged the tip of his sword into the Everchosen's throat and twisted it out and to the side, sending Asavar stumbling back. "We're stronger than you think."
The holy blue and gold burned brighter than they ever had before, seemingly leaping from the blade into the wound of the Everchosen outright. In an instant, his sword became a simple, mundane thing. The family blade of the Bildhofens seemed to age a hundred years as it fell to the ground, all wonder and splendor gone from it as if spent as fuel. Asavar Kul the Annointed, High Zar of the Kurgan tribes, let loose a monstrous pained scream as the fires hungrily burned in his throat, his sword flung from his hand by some unseen force to disappear in the snows. The nimbus of dark power around him wavered and flickered away, the dark halo of power dissipating entirely.
"Because sometimes!" Magnus continued, reaching into the snows and pulling forth the upper half of the spear from the corpse he'd fallen over. "OUR FAITH IS ENOUGH!"
And he plunged that half of a spear – its point still sharp – directly into Asavar's throat, up into his head with such force that it tore head from neck entirely.
At once, the omnipresent pressure, the painful dread, was gone. Emilia stood as if fired out of a cannon, as did everyone else. The hordes of Chaos reared back, hundreds of daemons disappearing instantly. They milled, perhaps for a second or two before Magnus the Pious coughed out some blood and stood up once more. His sword remained transformed into that dull and unimpressive sight as it had become, yet he grasped it firmly nonetheless as he glared defiance at the assembled hordes of Chaos. Behind them, the Gates of Kislev screeched and roared as they were forced open faster than they should have been. Screaming shouts and howled battle cries erupted from the city as they charged out in their hundreds, their thousands. Emilia swore she could see a young blonde in royal garb thundering out on a blue horse made of ice at the head of them all.
Magnus, for once, did not use his words, nor the voice that had caused the Gods themselves to respond, that had reforged an Empire.
He simply pointed his sword at the enemy…and took a step forward.
Chaos Warriors, mutants, cultists, beastmen, daemons, near numberless and mighty enough to raze the entire Old World to the ground…faltered.
Turned.
And ran.
It was one of the most glorious days of Emilia's life as she screamed and charged alongside everyone else.
"WHAT! THE HELL! DO YOU MEAN! THEY'RE ALL DEAD?!"
Emilia shrieked at the top of her lungs at the rest of her depleted Chapterhouse.
"The Everchosen is dead. The Old World is saved, the Empire has an Emperor again, a true one, the best since Sigmar himself!" She ranted, eyes bloodshot. "And you can't find me one fucking living Hohenzollern?!"
Their return to Wulfenburg had been confusing, then horrifying, then horrifyingly bloody. The Hohenzollerns, the ruling family of Ostland since the founding of the Empire, had been wiped out. There was no branch family hiding somewhere, only a cult that had somehow gone under their noses this entire time. Worse, she knew exactly who had helped them. The signs were there, now that she'd interrogated and flayed who she'd needed to from amongst their ranks. This had the hand of Heart-Taker in it, either as a backer or a founder to the cult. When? Why? She didn't know, she didn't care to know. Never before in her time as Captain had her Chapterhouse failed so completely. Never had Heart-Taker acted so brazenly, but no doubt the coming of an Everchosen would force boldness, it had for so many other cults in the Empire that the Templars of Sigmar were still working to put down as Magnus made his way south to be crowned Emperor properly.
"If the Lord Protector hadn't summoned the whole of our Chapterhouse south-," one began.
"I don't want excuses, I want results! I want this cult dead! All other operations and hunts are suspended until further notice until this cult is gone!"
"But-,"
"GO!" Emilia bellowed, outright throwing her snapped rapier's hilt at their head until they all fled her office, leaving her to slump back in her seat.
Alone, save for Marlisa, at least.
"…FUCK!" Emilia shouted at the top of her lungs before slumping again in her chair, the violence of her screaming straining her ribs. "Agh, damn it," she winced.
"You know, you could have accepted healing, mother," Marlisa began what was already becoming their newest recurring argument. "The Jade-,"
"You might have let those filthy witches touch you, but I won't," Emilia grunted.
"Mother-,"
"This is not the time, daughter," Emilia glared at her. "We either need a Hohenzollern or the Raukovs and Freuds are going to start jockeying for the position. Everyone else failed, and we've been gone from Ostland for a year, but you said you had information?"
"Well," Marlisa shrugged, "I found a Hohenzollern."
Emilia's entire body twitched.
"Excuse me?"
She'd waited until now to tell her? Why? That alone made Emilia suspicious.
"It's…well," Marlisa sighed, a hand going to her face. "It's their youngest."
"Well how-,"
"It's Frederick von Hohenzollern. The one that got exiled for impiety by his father and questioning the existence of the Gods as a child. By all reports he took up the commoner's job of a blacksmith for lack of anything better to do. No major accomplishments, scholarly or militarily, no Knightly Orders joined, and his impiety is brazenly open."
Emilia blinked, slowly, as Marlisa did not immediately recant her awful joke.
"Sigmar's…fucking…I…-,"
The litany of curses that followed took five minutes to complete.
"Fine…," Emilia snarled as she finished, rubbing her face vigorously. "Go get him. Now."
"Me? Why can't-,"
"Marlisa?" Emilia looked at her daughter through her fingers. "Go. Get. Him."
Only after Marlisa did so did Emilia angrily rip the lower drawer of her desk out and pull out her bottle of Bretonnian brandy and start drinking from the bottle directly.
An impious Hohenzollern who'd been out of the court and high society for the majority of his life.
Wonderful.
Just.
Wonderful.
"These past few years have been disastrous," Emilia promptly began.
That was an understatement. Farm animals screaming in human voices while stumbling about on their hind legs, wells overflowing with clotted blood, plagues of insects with leering humanoid faces had continually devastated crop yields, when those crops didn't simply shrivel away in moments. To the common citizen it was obvious a terrible curse had befallen the Empire. To the Order of the Silver Hammer, it was obvious that they had failed. Filthy magic users had been growing in number for years, some even getting more organized. More than a few Witch Hunters had been forced to coordinate with their lesser counterparts in Sylvania and elsewhere, necromancy growing to be even worse of an issue than usual. Others were plainly just joining the forces of Chaos outright, stepping past the point of redemption entirely. When they died, there would be no salvation for their souls, only the endless hunger of daemons and the laughter of dark thirsting Gods.
"I'm guessing there's more than that, else you wouldn't have called us all in on such short notice," Marlisa said aloud, getting some grim chuckles from the others.
Emilia narrowed her eyes at her daughter, but let it pass. It would have been impossible to deny their relations, and so long as Marlisa kept up her hunts with consummate professionalism, accusations of nepotism died as quickly as all mutants, heretics, and witches could only hope to. Besides. It was preferable to the past, and Marlisa was certainly capable of straightening up and falling in line when required.
"For one thing, I've only called those not actively pursuing certain long-term targets in. Secondly, it's getting worse," Emilia nodded. "There are rumors of a new Everchosen."
That quite cleanly and rapidly killed whatever little amusement there was in the room.
"Impossible-,"
"That's-,"
Even saying the word seemed to make the shadows in the room grow longer. Morkar. Vangel. Kharduun. An Everchosen was a terrible thing to conceive of, let alone comprehend on any appreciable level. Someone capable of binding together the normally fractious denizens of Chaos, whose lack of long-term unity was one of the sole things preventing the Empire from sliding outright into ruin.
"I'm not finished!" She said loudly, waiting until they'd quieted again. "Hordes of Chaos worshippers are trickling out of the Wastes in greater numbers than in generations, we've got massive movements of mutants and cultists heading north to Kislev to join them, but more importantly," she slid her finger down on the map to Nuln, "We have rumors that there's some idiot noble named Magnus von Bildhofen who is trying to rally the whole of the Empire behind him."
"…and?" One, a Gunther, asked.
"He wouldn't be the first," another veteran hunter scoffed. "One of the Three will put him down soon enough."
The last Emperor who'd ruled over a unified Empire was several centuries dead. The Era of Three Emperors was a bloody one, marked by warfare between the divided nation like never before. It was, fairly said, that the idea that someone, anyone, could simply come along and bring them all together was patently ridiculous. If anything, the last person to come close was the abominable Vlad von Carstein and his ilk, which only soured her further on the entire thing.
"Except he's got Wissenland behind him, and people are saying he's been blessed by Sigmar," she cut in, cutting them all off again.
It was enough. She could practically smell the abrupt, seething anger. False messiahs were a dime and a dozen, and there were few things than falsely claimed divine favor that could set them off.
"The Lord Protector himself has called upon all of the Chapterhouses to join him in the south, at Nuln, to ascertain the purity or lack thereof of this…Magnus," she nearly spat the name before sighing. "That will leave Count Hohenzollern without our support, however, and he'd been asking us to join him in Kislev."
"He aims to try and face this Everchosen alone?" Marlisa said, eyes wide.
"No, but he does aim to aid Kislev. He's been marshalling his strength for some time, but if there were ever a time to use it…" Emilia shrugged.
"If would be if there is an Everchosen coming south," Marlisa finished, to grumbling agreement from the others present. "Makes sense."
"Aye," Emilia nodded before leaning against the table with both arms. "The Lord Protector has called, and we are headed south. All of us."
"All of us?" Gunther said, eyebrow raised. "What if something happens in the city while we're gone?"
"Would you like to tell the Lord Protector-," she began, only for Gunther to wave his arms about.
"No, no, I get it."
"Then it's settled. We go south," Emilia grunted as she pulled up her crossbow onto the table and loaded a pure silver-headed bolt into it. "Get your gear and get moving."
=====================================================
"I can't believe it," Emilia burped as she slammed her tenth tankard of beer down.
"He's real," Marlisa said, naked awe in her voice. "He's real."
The two of them drank amongst their peers and kin in the tents, the chilling winds of Kislev practically blowing them down.
When the Lord Protector had gathered together the largest single assemblage of Witch Hunters in the entire Empire together to possibly have to put down a massive heretical uprising deep in the heartlands, they had been prepared for the worst. To have to, perhaps, even burn down Nuln entirely. Or more. But due to the speed of their travel south, they bore witness to it all. In Altdorf, Emilia herself had joined the other Captains of the Chapterhouses and lashing the man to the stake, only for the fires to gutter out even as the oil was splashed upon him in the gallons. In Middenheim, he walked through the Flame. In Talabheim, the wolves had deafened them with howls as loud as a storm's thunder, a white hammer marked Stag appearing before them all. Even in Marienburg, where faithless money-worshipping fools held power, the seas had tossed themselves about angrily when the merchants had at first denounced him. Triton, it was said, was said to have swum between the islands by many, and Emilia swore she had seen a tossing tail the width of a cathedral in the dark waters.
The Gods were with him. Were with the man that some were whispering would be the new Emperor, a true Emperor.
Magnus the Pious, some were already calling him. The man hadn't even taken up Ghal Maraz, instead favoring his family's sword in battle thus far.
"And then he ruined it," Emilia growled.
Marlisa grunted in agreement. The rest of the Ostland Witch Hunters did the same, many of them too drunk to manage much more. The others of their kind would have agreed if they hadn't already passed out or had refused entirely. Far too many of the southern Witch Hunters swore off imbibing anything that might 'alter their minds and compromise their judgement'. Just as many smoked holes through personal funds with tobacco instead. Some didn't even do that much, relying on flogging themselves or refusing most all possible earthly pleasures to polish their souls through suffering that they might prove that much more inviolable to the eternal enemy. Or at least, that was what they said.
"Witches," she hissed, gaining another round of agreeing noises.
It had all been going so well. A truly holy man. And then he brought forth the witches from all over the Empire, tutored by a foreign inhuman witch, an elf of all things! Elves had raided the shores of Ostland practically since the founding of the Empire, and then he brought forth one? Asur, Druchii, these were just names, and surely ones they appended or discarded as befitted their purposes. But no, Magnus had summoned her, had summoned all the Captains and even the Lord Protector, and had spoken to them in person. Of necessity. Of stringent protections and protocols, of lessons. The Grand Theogonist, three Arch-Lectors, and more had been convinced, and so the man who might become Emperor had sought to convince them as well. To Emilia's shock, she had been convinced. At first, at least.
But as the weeks went on, her own zealous outrage billowed forth once more, and she sought out another meeting. She was joined by other Captains in this, as they marched across the Empire, and then north. Every time, she walked away convinced, every time, she struggled to come up with arguments enough that she could convince him otherwise. That he was their leader was undeniable. Chosen by the Gods, or at the very least accepted by them, of course! But magic?! Witches?! Or, to use the parlance that he continually yet gently insisted to her, 'wizards'. Only the Lord Protector had not seemed so conflicted, had not met with Magnus once after the initial proclamation and meeting.
"Is there any news of the Count?" Marlisa abruptly asked.
"He's dead," Emilia sighed. "Last we heard he was still recovering from his wounds but was riding out to Salkalten. We'll have to negotiate with Victor, then."
Victor von Hohenzollern was not nearly as devout as his father, though that was not as much of an insult as it might have seemed. If anything, Victor was simply less inclined to solely support the Cult and its Templars as much as the others. The other siblings had varying levels of worthiness in terms of succession, but really the only major difficulty would be if something happened to the Ostland Runefang when the current Count went and got himself killed out of sheer stupid stubbornness. Then again, it was that same Ostlander stubbornness that had seen Emilia and her Chapterhouse outright exhaust their targets with how doggedly they pursued them.
A shame that Hohenzollerns rushed into danger so easily.
"If we survive what comes next," Marlisa noted cynically. "The city of Kislev awaits."
"Should we live or should we die, it will be Sigmar's will," Emilia shot back.
===============================================================
The snows billowed, the winds howled, and the war raged on.
"Die!" Emilia snarled as she stabbed her rapier into the Chaos Warrior's eyes, that single vulnerable spot proving to be the divide between life and death for the both of them.
Their armor was far too strong, blessed by infernal creation, for even the deadliest of her weaponry unless applied correctly. She'd watched plenty of men and women uselessly pound their swords, their spears, their pikes against that armor, only to be slaughtered in turn. But this one, this seven-foot juggernaut of death and fell blessings, had fortunately not yet gained any mutations to provide them with eyes elsewhere on their body. As such, the slit to allow them to see the world outside allowed her to plunge her rapier right in. The push, the give of it, was not quite human, the organic matter within hardier than it should have been, but it was enough to kill them. A daemonic scream and shaking impact knocked her off her feet and nearly snapped her rapier from her death grip on it.
"Bloody Hellcannons!" She snarled beneath her breath.
Then the Chaos Warrior's body fell atop her, the sheer weight of all that bulk certainly bruising her and cracking at least one rib.
"Shit!" She spat, struggling against the weight futilely until another Imperial in battered armor appeared out of the snows.
"Hold on!" They cried before sheathing their sword and crouching down.
The two of them grunted and sweat to heft the corpse aside.
"My thanks," Emilia coughed a bit of blood as she was helped back up to a standing position, stooping momentarily to reclaim her rapier.
"Of course," the other woman nodded, her blue eyes cool but fierce in her helmet.
Ah. Young Ortrud Hertwig, one of the most high-profile members of the northern provinces to join in with Magnus from near on the very beginning.
"We have to keep moving, come on!"
Then they moved on, joining with others and fighting off the enemy here and there. Marlisa reappeared, as did others, gathering a rag-tag band of fighters from shattered formations. It was a rough and tumble affair. The snowstorm obscured most vision, but there were more than a few guiding lights. The magics of the wizards and the sorcerers both. The booms of fire from Imperial cannons and the infernal machines of the forces of Chaos that cracked the earth with each blast. But more important than them all was the city of Kislev itself, its massive dark stone walls providing the most visible guide than anything else even with so many holes blown through it. They were surrounded, cut off, but damn if they were not going to make a fight of it.
But then they saw it. Him. Them.
The duel.
Emilia would never forget the sight of it. Magnus the Pious stood alone against the Everchosen, locked into mortal combat. His armor bore many tears and rents, the skin revealed blistered and burnt. He was clearly on the retreat as the Everchosen advanced with fury – for the blessed of the Dark Gods was not without his own wounds. The sword that Asavar Kul wielded burned with hellish flames, yet it could not yet find more purchase against his foe. For Magnus wielded a sword that burned as well, but it was with a righteous blue and gold fire, something that Emilia had never seen once before throughout the entire campaign. The thought of intervening in their contest was paramount, but none of them seemed able to move anything but their eyes. It was a phenomenon that seemed shared, for opposite them, on the other side, were Chaos Warriors, daemons, spawn, mutants, and more.
Both sides were equally enraptured, and so they all watched as what felt like the fate of the entire Old World was decided in front of them.
Each clash of the blades let loose eruptions of sound equal to the boom of a storm's thunder. The flames of their weapons seared their flesh so quickly that barely a drop of blood could be spilt. The boundless fury of the tribes met the tireless conviction of the Empire, and Emilia could scarcely have said who she thought would win at the time. The world had become so terribly focused on that instant, and she knew then and there that should Magnus fall, should he fail, then all would follow him into the grave. There would never be a leader like him again in time, if ever.
Until it finally happened. A final clash, the blades somehow moving faster than before, a powerful upwards cleave that transitioned into a downward pommel strike that cracked Magnus' helm and the skull beneath. The Imperials and what few dwarfs that had accompanied them let out groans and gasps of horror, while the forces of Chaos cheered with glee and anticipation at the bloodshed to come. Magnus stumbled backwards, the strange but surely holy light of his blade guttering out as he fell to one knee, blood seeping from his head. Kul stood over him in silence, the nimbus of dark power around him growing stronger in that instant. A dead Imperial was uncovered from the snow by the violence of his fall, a young man not even past his second laying there, hands still clutched around his spear's upper half, eyes staring unblinking at the sky and skin already tinged blue. Magnus visible grimaced at the sight.
Emilia could see it, then, in a curious but horrifying effect that followed. Behind him, as if the Everchosen had become the lens in an eyeglass, the world stretched out behind him in detail changing before her very eyes. Behind Kul she saw the world as it would be, blasted and burnt, a hellscape of insanity that would forever be in chaotic flux. It was the world he and his Dark Gods would leave behind. It altered everything, left nothing untouched, nothing untainted. And their last chance to stop him had fallen to his knees before him, blood pouring across that bald pate, coating his entire face in a crimson sheen. And yet Emilia couldn't seem to move. As if the world itself wasn't letting her.
"You have failed, stripling. A worthy effort, but a futile one. None can stop the coming darkness," Asavar spoke, his words a vicious icy hand gripping and tearing at Emilia's soul. "When I strike you down, your paltry army shall die with you, and soon your weakling Empire. They shall break, they shall flee, and they shall die like the cattle they are."
It was true. It wasn't a proclamation; it was an undeniable fact. The tears that fell from Emilia's eyes were frozen solid, and yet she continued to shed them.
"Your Gods cannot save you, they are too weak. Your soldiers cannot save you, they are too weak," the Everchosen continued, taking heavy steps forward as he spoke. "Your allies cannot save you, they are too weak. Your rotting, pathetic husk of a nation shall burn, because you are too weak. For I am Asavar the Annointed...and you…? You are nothing, mortal. Nothing."
Emilia slumped to her knees, as many of the others around them did as well. Each word was a hammer blow to their spirit, to their already flagging energies, practically a physical blow to their bodies. A thin curving line of pure darkness illuminated by hellfire burned into existence behind the Everchosen, haloing him. Magnus gasped for breath, one hand on the ground, the other on his midsection where he'd taken too many blows which had cracked armor and bone in the same strikes. Asavar Kul bore strength beyond mortal men, mutated and warped, daemonically empowered. A casual blow could rend whole knights apart, or so the rumors had gone. Emilia knew them to be truths, not rumors at all, the sight of it all outright forcing her gaze away. Her own body rejected her intent, and out of uncontrolled impulses of self-preservation turned her slightly until all she could see was Asavar's victim.
But then Magnus spoke, his voice breathless and pinched by pain yet somehow clear despite the snowstorm and the sounds of fighting elsewhere.
"Even if you strike me down, another shall take my place. And another after that," he said, gritting his teeth as he looked up defiantly, his voice somehow growing stronger and stronger. "You think that the people of the Empire will simply shatter like glass? I think not. They will defy you even if the world itself was breaking."
The hand that clutched at his broken ribs reached out and clasped around the hilt of his sword, and yet no holy flames enveloped it once more. The Everchosen let loose a sound of amusement that rumbled like a distant avalanche.
"You put too much faith in them, fool. They are far weaker than you think," Asavar declared as he raised his sword high, the flames around it writhing as if alive.
It fell like a guillotine, that Bretonnian execution device which had become slightly more popular amongst the southern Chapterhouses, only to pause midflight.
"-hkk!"
"Or maybe," Magnus said with a growl that carried through the air effortlessly as he plunged the tip of his sword into the Everchosen's throat and twisted it out and to the side, sending Asavar stumbling back. "We're stronger than you think."
The holy blue and gold burned brighter than they ever had before, seemingly leaping from the blade into the wound of the Everchosen outright. In an instant, his sword became a simple, mundane thing. The family blade of the Bildhofens seemed to age a hundred years as it fell to the ground, all wonder and splendor gone from it as if spent as fuel. Asavar Kul the Annointed, High Zar of the Kurgan tribes, let loose a monstrous pained scream as the fires hungrily burned in his throat, his sword flung from his hand by some unseen force to disappear in the snows. The nimbus of dark power around him wavered and flickered away, the dark halo of power dissipating entirely.
"Because sometimes!" Magnus continued, reaching into the snows and pulling forth the upper half of the spear from the corpse he'd fallen over. "OUR FAITH IS ENOUGH!"
And he plunged that half of a spear – its point still sharp – directly into Asavar's throat, up into his head with such force that it tore head from neck entirely.
At once, the omnipresent pressure, the painful dread, was gone. Emilia stood as if fired out of a cannon, as did everyone else. The hordes of Chaos reared back, hundreds of daemons disappearing instantly. They milled, perhaps for a second or two before Magnus the Pious coughed out some blood and stood up once more. His sword remained transformed into that dull and unimpressive sight as it had become, yet he grasped it firmly nonetheless as he glared defiance at the assembled hordes of Chaos. Behind them, the Gates of Kislev screeched and roared as they were forced open faster than they should have been. Screaming shouts and howled battle cries erupted from the city as they charged out in their hundreds, their thousands. Emilia swore she could see a young blonde in royal garb thundering out on a blue horse made of ice at the head of them all.
Magnus, for once, did not use his words, nor the voice that had caused the Gods themselves to respond, that had reforged an Empire.
He simply pointed his sword at the enemy…and took a step forward.
Chaos Warriors, mutants, cultists, beastmen, daemons, near numberless and mighty enough to raze the entire Old World to the ground…faltered.
Turned.
And ran.
It was one of the most glorious days of Emilia's life as she screamed and charged alongside everyone else.
=========================================================================
"WHAT! THE HELL! DO YOU MEAN! THEY'RE ALL DEAD?!"
Emilia shrieked at the top of her lungs at the rest of her depleted Chapterhouse.
"The Everchosen is dead. The Old World is saved, the Empire has an Emperor again, a true one, the best since Sigmar himself!" She ranted, eyes bloodshot. "And you can't find me one fucking living Hohenzollern?!"
Their return to Wulfenburg had been confusing, then horrifying, then horrifyingly bloody. The Hohenzollerns, the ruling family of Ostland since the founding of the Empire, had been wiped out. There was no branch family hiding somewhere, only a cult that had somehow gone under their noses this entire time. Worse, she knew exactly who had helped them. The signs were there, now that she'd interrogated and flayed who she'd needed to from amongst their ranks. This had the hand of Heart-Taker in it, either as a backer or a founder to the cult. When? Why? She didn't know, she didn't care to know. Never before in her time as Captain had her Chapterhouse failed so completely. Never had Heart-Taker acted so brazenly, but no doubt the coming of an Everchosen would force boldness, it had for so many other cults in the Empire that the Templars of Sigmar were still working to put down as Magnus made his way south to be crowned Emperor properly.
"If the Lord Protector hadn't summoned the whole of our Chapterhouse south-," one began.
"I don't want excuses, I want results! I want this cult dead! All other operations and hunts are suspended until further notice until this cult is gone!"
"But-,"
"GO!" Emilia bellowed, outright throwing her snapped rapier's hilt at their head until they all fled her office, leaving her to slump back in her seat.
Alone, save for Marlisa, at least.
"…FUCK!" Emilia shouted at the top of her lungs before slumping again in her chair, the violence of her screaming straining her ribs. "Agh, damn it," she winced.
"You know, you could have accepted healing, mother," Marlisa began what was already becoming their newest recurring argument. "The Jade-,"
"You might have let those filthy witches touch you, but I won't," Emilia grunted.
"Mother-,"
"This is not the time, daughter," Emilia glared at her. "We either need a Hohenzollern or the Raukovs and Freuds are going to start jockeying for the position. Everyone else failed, and we've been gone from Ostland for a year, but you said you had information?"
"Well," Marlisa shrugged, "I found a Hohenzollern."
Emilia's entire body twitched.
"Excuse me?"
She'd waited until now to tell her? Why? That alone made Emilia suspicious.
"It's…well," Marlisa sighed, a hand going to her face. "It's their youngest."
"Well how-,"
"It's Frederick von Hohenzollern. The one that got exiled for impiety by his father and questioning the existence of the Gods as a child. By all reports he took up the commoner's job of a blacksmith for lack of anything better to do. No major accomplishments, scholarly or militarily, no Knightly Orders joined, and his impiety is brazenly open."
Emilia blinked, slowly, as Marlisa did not immediately recant her awful joke.
"Sigmar's…fucking…I…-,"
The litany of curses that followed took five minutes to complete.
"Fine…," Emilia snarled as she finished, rubbing her face vigorously. "Go get him. Now."
"Me? Why can't-,"
"Marlisa?" Emilia looked at her daughter through her fingers. "Go. Get. Him."
Only after Marlisa did so did Emilia angrily rip the lower drawer of her desk out and pull out her bottle of Bretonnian brandy and start drinking from the bottle directly.
An impious Hohenzollern who'd been out of the court and high society for the majority of his life.
Wonderful.
Just.
Wonderful.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That was freaking awesome!!
The sheer aura possessed by an Everchosen, a being fit to drown the world in Chaos...
The sheer aura possessed by an Everchosen, a being fit to drown the world in Chaos...
hah, nobody would have predicted freddy's rise from that start. Shows them right for underestimating Hohenzollern blood
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And now I'll forever wonder what The Duel would have been like had Magnus been fortunate enough to wield Ghal Maraz.
I know strength of belief and will can do great things with the Warp but this seems a bit much for just that.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
I suppose the gods were tired of the infighting when Chaos was very much beating at the door.
I was tempted to try to color the words of Asavar, but I couldn't quite get the pigments to fit in. And doing it in the 4 of the 4 would just look a bit silly. Black might work, but you'd have to highlight it. Perhaps I'll change the font in the final product.
That is a near exact paraphrase of canon from this page of the wiki which itself sources from the 2ED Tome of Salvation.
That is a near exact paraphrase of canon from this page of the wiki which itself sources from the 2ED Tome of Salvation.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh I know. I'm just saying...seems a bit much to not be blessed by the gods and "just" that strong of will.
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
I can't wait for Emilia reaction to what old Freddy boy will do over the years. Cause don't get me wrong we weren't great to begin with but boy do we grow up.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Take current Freddy, and distill him down into a know-it-all teenager with a chip on his shoulder the size of Durthu. Just about that.