Ladies, gentlemen and other wonderful readers. Today, it is exactly two years ago that Abelhelm van Hal died tragically.
Abel, you always were something special. When we first came to you, we were just a fledging mage. Basically just scraps of the college thrown at you, a sacrifice to the ever hungry Stirland.
You could've left us as just a young woman who didn't know what she was doing, someone unable to help a province as cursed as ours. But you didn't.
You could've thrown us away out of a semi-justified fear of magic, no one would've batted an eye. But you didn't.
Even when you discovered that we were literally figuratively in the claws of the Lahmia, you could've struck immediately and remove what was literally a threat to your life. No one would've complained about it! But you didn't.
Instead, you took us in. You gave us room to grow, gave us what meager resources Stirland could spare and gave words of wisdom and encouragement when earned. You saw what we could be instead of just what we were. And the Karak-8-Peaks are thankful for that.
Even the strongest of flowers cannot grow in poor land, and it is only by setting roots in your fertile soil that Mathilde was able to grow into the beast of a monster-eating sundew she is today. Her vines might cast long shadows eastwards from her stem on the mountaintop, but her hypocotyl is still in the heart of Stirland.
And it wasn't just us, either. You took everyone, a ragtag bunch of conflicting loyalties, and managed to shape us into a group that shifted the Empire itself. You didn't do it yourself (not even remotely), but the vampire's stranglehold on the region is broken, the people are slowly coming back to an almost normal existance and soon Stirland will become a shining beacon of trade and prosperity with the trade from the dwarves. to change the world for the better -permanently-, do you know how hard that is!? It cost you almost everything you had, but we managed to do it together.
Of course, life still goes on. And in Eastern Stirland, even death goes on. We cannot keep looking back at past revelries, we have to bring them into the future to improve ourselves.
And while I may not always be the most... In tune with the rest of thread, I still think I speak for us all when I say NEVER AGAIN!
Never again shall our weapon prove lacking against the forces of destruction attacking our people!
Never again shall we be forced to rely on fallible humans and capricious gods to save our loved one from dying right before our eyes!
Never again shall the armies of the dead march on our lands without our explicit permission to not explode violently!
We shall never, under any circumstances, not divine nor profane, allow Belegar to end up like Abel! Mark my words, as long as we still draw breath we will make sure we do not lose another lord - and possibly even beyond that.
And so, I have a proposal for the thread: A simple, hopefully symbolic gesture to both honour Van Hal and help signify that lesson of Never Again. Something we can do if we manage to find the time in the future.
See, in the heart of Eastern Stirland, there is this ruin. It was once a mighty castle, but now it is just a giant pile of bricks and other building materials. And somewhere beneath that giant mound of rubble, there should be the corpse of a vampire who made the mistake of messing with the wrong motherfucker. What I want to do is to grab a bunch of dwarven miners, move out to former heritage site, excavate the so-called "countess" and mount her skull on our shelf.
Part of this is because she, as the last boss of Sylvania, is a notably missing piece in our skull collection.
And part of it is to make absolutely sure no one is bringing her back, because I do not want to give whoever does so Sigmar's spot on my list!
