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Author Topic: Brennenburg Timeline  (Read 6937 times)

Offline wissenlander

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Brennenburg Timeline
« on: February 23, 2005, 11:26:16 PM »
This is the history that I have so far of my town.  I wanted to write it like the section in the Empire book dubbed "Some Great Events in the History of Our Empire."  Also, some of the information is sorta vague because of the length of time that has passed and if there's some sort of bias it's because I'm trying to make this sound 'authentic' and make it seem like an actual history.  This is sort of lacking, and I'm going to go back and add revisions where applicable.  Also, I stopped before the Battle of Hel Fenn so I can work out the history during the upcoming compaign. :-D  Any comments would be appreciated.  Especially if you think this makes sense or not.  Thanks!

History of

1707-Fortress upon the Upper Reik was destroyed by a contingent of Gorbad Ironclaw after a short siege
•  Survivors of the greenskin invasion gather around the destroyed fortress and set up a refugee settlement

1709-Construction of the palisade begins

Around 1720-palisade completed

1734-First historical account of Reinhard.  During a goblin raid, Reinhard loosed his bow at the chieftain from 500 paces killin it which caused the raiding party to flee

Around 1740-Reinhard emerged as the first prominent leader of the Brennenburg settlement, after continued leadership and skill as a warrior
•  With Reinhard’s growing influence and increasing attacks, the people of Brennenburg begin reinforcing the palisade with stones from the old fortress

By 1800-Accounts tell us that the new castle of Brennenburg is completed with a stone keep and the outer wall being constructed of wood.
•  The Count of Wissenland grants upon the aged Reinhard the title and authority of Graf of Brennenburg and the surrounding territories

A year after Reinhard’s rise to Graf he perished in battle with orcs after slaying many of the foul beasts

For fifty years there was no prominent ruler of Brennenburg.  The Graf’s were weak and the peasantry struggled to maintain their existence.  Reinhard outlived his only son, so the Graf’s grandson Reinhard III took power.  He was ineffective and turmoil erupted amongst the family

1854-Reinhard IV, the great grandson of Reinhard emerges as a strong ruler and sets about increasing the wealth of his land.  The realm was extremely poor and subsisted mainly on farming and fishing.  At this point Reinhard IV ordered the construction of a port facility on the Upper Reik.  This mainly served as a rest stop as their was nothing in the region to profit from

1863-An army from Averland crosses a ford upstream and proceeds to lay siege to the castle of Brennenburg.  The outer wall is burned to the ground but the stone keep holds for over a month, giving time for reinforcements from Pfeildorf to arrive and drive the weary attackers away

1864-Because of continuing hostilities between Averland and Wissenland, Reinhard IV petitions the Count in Wissenburg for assistance in expanding the castle.  The Count declines the request because there is no money to spare.  Reinhard IV raises taxes to buy stone for expansion of the castle.  This causes more strain on the people and famine plagued the land.

1866-Reinhard IV is killed by his personal guard.  Some believe it was due to the heavy taxation upon the people.  Construction of the wall is half completed at this phase
•   Reinhard’s son, Dieter becomes Graf and lowers the taxation on the people, but puts a large portion of Brennenburg’s military up for hire as sell swords in order to increase revenue

Within three years the new wall was completed but Dieter continued to force the Brennenburgers to be mercenaries.  This was his opportunity to increase his wealth hugely.  The people hated their loved ones being away from home but did notice how Dieter put the wealth gained back into the land.  Dieter was being praised as a hero for his plan and people flocked to the town.  

During this period Brennenburg is known for its mercenary regiments of spearmen and archers.  Men come to the town to join these units and obtain glory and wealth

The land of Brennenburg prospered greatly from its mercenary regiments until 1941.  The line of Reinhard died out with Reinhard VII, the great-grand nephew of Dieter.  Several leading families vie for power whilst the mercenaries answered to no one

1944-With no less than three families claiming the title of Graf, provincial troops march into Brennenburg and ensure that the Geilhof family will hold the power in the land

Mercenary troops begin to trickle home around 1960 bringing with them a renewed wealth.  Many of these men joined the town forces while others plotted to overthrow the Geilhofs

Within the next one hundred year, five families claim rule over Brennenburg:
•  The Geilhofs are driven out by supporters of the Heindorfs
•  The Heindorfs were all murdered by the displaced ruler of Pfeildorf, Otto Glebmeir
•  Glebmeir is poisoned and without any relatives the Rochenbach’s take control
•  The Olenbays then enter the picture and claim they are blood descendants of Reinhard.  The people tired of constant upheaval take this as the truth and oust the Rochenbachs

2075-Klaus Olenbay, the first Graf in the Olenbay family takes power.  He immediately tries to gain the people’s confidence and eliminate any opposition.  He orders the construction of a stone wall to surround the town.  This would be funded by taxation and large portions of the Olenbay family’s wealth.  This encouraged the people who wholly supported the idea.  The Count of Wissenland also provided some assistance, reversing his predecessor’s decision, as he realized the strategic value of a secure outpost upon the Upper Reik
•  Klaus sends a request to the Dwarf king in Karaz-a-Karak to offer help in the construction of the great wall.  The Dwarf King sends an entourage to oversee construction, due to the longstanding ties that men and dwarves have had

2086-The outer wall of Brennenburg is finally completed after great expense to the people and the Olenbay family.  Soon thereafter, Klaus dies of an unknown sickness, leaving the land to his eldest son, Frederick Klaus

For the next few decades, the town continues to grow, mostly because of the defenses the wall provided

Thus begins an unfortunate tale, for in the year 2105 Frederick Klaus dies of an unknown disease.  Gunther Klaus, Frederick’s younger brother was killed in battle, while serving in the Wissengaurd several months earler.  With no other closely related male heirs of age, their sister, Andrea, becomes Grafin.  This is the first time a woman is to rise to the seat in the recorded history of Brennenburg.

Word spread quickly that Andrea was now Grafin, and a young one at that (sources say she was barely twenty years of age. She never knew her father Klaus; he died before she was born.)  She was highly sought after; for it is told she was very beautiful and now controlled an amount of land that was growing in size and importance.  Many knew that attacking Brennenburg would be unwise.  Many suitors entered the picture, vying for the hand of the young woman.  

Before the end of Andrea’s first year as Grafin, a great famine plagued the land.  Crops were poor and many grumbled that it was a sign from Sigmar that he disapproved of the new ruler.  As always, when ill events occur, it happens all at once.  Just as winter’s cold grip started to release its hold upon the land in early spring, an orc force attacked the beleaguered citizens of Brennenburg.  After two weeks of continuous attacks, the orcs broke through the northern gatehouse and swarmed over the town.  The greenskins ransacked the town and burned the buildings to the ground and set about laying siege to the castle within.  Another week of continued assaults battered the walls and the defenders inside, but the castle would not fall.  The Captain of the Castle Guard sensing the weakening attacks of the orcs sallied out and smashed through the foul greenskins, and scattering them in confusion.  

As the remaining citizens began to piece together their shattered lives, they demanded that Andrea be banished from the town.  In her stead, a distant cousin named Olaf stepped forward.  Seeing that the young woman was forsaken and left without a powerbase all suitors withdrew their advances.  Andrea fled from the city, fearing for her life.

So began the reign of Olaf the Vile.  Being a greedy man, he taxed the poor inhabitants of Brennenburg heavily, making it nearly impossible to live.  The citizens were unable to rebuild there destroyed homes so they lived in squalid holes in the ground covered by their previously destroyed homes.  Thus it was, for the entire length of Olaf’s reign the people suffered and perished.  

In the year 2127 Sigmar answered the prayers of the beleaguered people, with the arrival of Wolfgard.  He was the son of Andrea, and bent on avenging his mother’s disgrace.  Raised in Tilea, he set forth to reclaim his family’s right to the throne of the town.  While Olaf was out on a hunting trip, he was accidentally shot by one man of his hunting party.  Seeing a large deer in the distance of the woods the man loosed his arrow but it struck a tree and ricocheted finding Olaf, killing him instantly.  With this, Wolfgard moved quickly to lay claim to the town.
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Offline Nulnsmarshall von Brauer

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Brennenburg Timeline
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2005, 12:51:54 AM »
I think its pretty good.  I think that it is very interesting.  And don't worry about being too vague.  If you go too much in detail, you could have 2 or 3 pages by yourself. :P   So, no complaints from me.  Also, brilliant idea on waiting for the campaign, as it could provide some awesome material.
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Offline rufus sparkfire

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« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2005, 08:04:30 PM »
Very good indeed - it does sound authentic, with a nice attention to detail.
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Offline wissenlander

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« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2005, 03:35:55 AM »
Thanks a lot for reading.  I know it's a bit much so I appreciate it.  I'm glad that it's feasable, which was my major concern.  Thanks again!
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Offline FR1DAY

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« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2005, 03:11:28 PM »
I like it, It's great that the fluff of wissenland be filled in. It adds so much more depth to it and your army.
There are 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack.

So why you complaining!

Offline wissenlander

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Brennenburg Timeline
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2005, 05:01:50 PM »
I know whta you mean Friday.  It's a little disapointing to have nothing to go off of, so to have something makes me feel a lot better.  Thanks a lot.
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Offline BAWTRM

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Brennenburg Timeline
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2005, 09:17:41 AM »
It looks very good though I have one remark.

11 years to build a pallisade???? Though I realise that constructing a formidable pallisade with not too many people is an ardous task I cannot see people starting a project that will only get results in eleven years while they hardly have anything to begin with.
I'd rather expect them to have started preparing in advance (by building up a store of felled trees) and build the pallisade in a relatively short time instead of breaking their backs for 11 years.

Just an observation, the timeline is very believable there are just some little things to touch up IMO. :-D
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Offline wissenlander

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« Reply #7 on: March 04, 2005, 04:32:23 PM »
I did think that maybe an 11 year time period for building a pallisade was a bit much.  The more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that people would want something up fairly quickly for defensive purposes.  I just wanted to show how the people were very poor and it took them a long time to construct what they needed.  But maybe I did go a bit overboard with that one.  I'll probably scale back the length back some. Thanks a lot.
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Offline Kernschatten

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« Reply #8 on: March 04, 2005, 04:57:26 PM »
Quote from: wissenlander
I did think that maybe an 11 year time period for building a pallisade was a bit much.

Hadrian's Wall only took six years. Fort William Henry was built in less than a year. A simple palisade really should take less than that.
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Offline wissenlander

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Brennenburg Timeline
« Reply #9 on: March 04, 2005, 11:58:59 PM »
Understood.  But Roman legions built Hadrian's wall, not the humble peasantry who are also trying to irk out some sort of existence. :wink:   But I will amend the length to probably less than a year.  I like what BAWTRM said about them gathering the supplies before setting out to build it.  After all it is just a pallisade.  Thanks for the help.
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Offline GamesPoet

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Re: Brennenburg Timeline
« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2008, 03:40:48 AM »
Wow, good stuff here.  Hope you don't mind that I found this and raised it from ... so far back.

I've continually been working on creating a background to the area where I'm placing my army to be from.  I recalled this early on in my W-E readings, but only browsed quickly, but this time read it in more detail.

I've been working on creating and Empire/Averland timeline to better align what I'm planning for my background stories, and intend to creat a timeline for the area I'm creating as well.  I've also been reading backgrounds of historical locations to genrate ideas and concepts for structuring my locations history, too.  I'm going to look further on this site for more efforts such as your's and see what else I can find that might generate more inspiration.

So ... two questions ... how did you come up with the name Brennenburg, and how did you develop this timeline?

 
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Offline wissenlander

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Re: Brennenburg Timeline
« Reply #11 on: September 30, 2008, 11:52:05 AM »
It rises from the grave... :ph34r:

Brennenburg came about when I was looking through the history of Wissenland.  The town's establishment dates back to the invasion of Gorbad Ironclaw (1707 IC) and his destruction of the area.  One of the orc's bunch of hooligans burned down a fortress and kept on moving.  Refugees moved into the area next to the ruins.  Brennenburg translates as 'Burned Castle.'

The timeline came from different facets of history and my particular interests.  Reinhard is a name that I used to joke around with some friends in middle school about some imaginary cheesy Mel Gibson flick, plus it's a cool name.  I wanted some prominent figure to rear his head every so often with a good name...sort of a demi-god/ancestor god type thing.

I like my stuff to be realistic, so a lot of the happenings are bad.  I mean we are in WFB where everything's supposed to be 'end is nigh' and stuff.  Wolfgard Olenbay coming to power is inspired by English history.  I cannot remember the name of the King, but he was actually accidentally killed while hunting and his successor seized the throne before anyone else had a chance.  Wolfgard was my character during the War of Ostermark Succession (last campaign W-E.com had).

I like being able to tie in campaign events with my timeline, and I will expand this to include Sepp II and Reinhard VI.

I wanted to make this fairly detailed but not too incredibly detailed at the same time.  I tried to portray this as a work done by historians that were piecing together bits of information over hundreds of years of bad record keeping.  The bigger events would have greater detail, plus, this is just a general timeline anyhow.  Not everything that happened within the town would be recorded here.  This gives me leeway as well, just in case there's an event that I need to backtrack and take care of down the road.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2008, 11:56:16 AM by wissenlander »
Me and Wissenlander had babies!

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finding photographic evidense that Wiss smiles is going to be hard...

Offline rufus sparkfire

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Re: Brennenburg Timeline
« Reply #12 on: September 30, 2008, 11:56:50 AM »
Wolfgard Olenbay coming to power is inspired by English history.  I cannot remember the name of the King, but he was actually accidentally killed while hunting and his successor seized the throne before anyone else had a chance. 

William Rufus! Succeeded by Henry I.
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Offline wissenlander

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Re: Brennenburg Timeline
« Reply #13 on: September 30, 2008, 12:48:35 PM »
Of course he had to be named Rufus. :icon_lol: 

I heard that in my English history class while in my last year of University and thought it was brilliant.  I had been stuck for a while on how to have Wolfgard come in and claim the throne, and that was perfect.
Me and Wissenlander had babies!

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finding photographic evidense that Wiss smiles is going to be hard...

Offline GamesPoet

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Re: Brennenburg Timeline
« Reply #14 on: August 10, 2020, 05:05:41 PM »
This thread rises again. :icon_mrgreen:

I was reading due to revisiting the fluff for my own town in Averland, which I have now, after all these years, given it the name of  ... Verborgenburg, "hidden castle".  I have been reviewing and revising some of its fluff today.

Thank you Wiss ... for helping to inspire the creation of my own town so many years ago.  :icon_biggrin: :icon_cool: :::cheers:::

By the way, noticed that there seem to be some typos in that initial post's timeline, perhaps when software or hosting sites have been changed. 
"Not all who wander are lost ... " Tolkien

"... my old suggestion is forget it, take two aspirins and go paint" steveb

"The beauty of curiosity and creativity is so much more useful than the passion of fear." me

"Until death it is all life." Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Offline wissenlander

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Re: Brennenburg Timeline
« Reply #15 on: August 10, 2020, 05:14:05 PM »
This thread is so old. :icon_lol:

I think that's a pretty common thing for older posts.  You're probably in the ball park of what the issue is, but it's a bit of an annoyance.  Glad I could provide any sort of help.
Me and Wissenlander had babies!

not together.

finding photographic evidense that Wiss smiles is going to be hard...