Topic: A chance for us to add to the Olde World Continuity?

[Elder Days]

Now that I'm actively working on my empire army again I've been looking through some of my reference material only to come to a shocking realization. Which is the former province of Drakwald was never given a color scheme or heraldry. My proposition is that as a community we create an "official" color scheme and standard for the fallen realm. I think it would help boost morale to see a solid part of Empire lore being fleshed out even though official support has come to a halt.

My first couple ideas for brain storming are;
-the standard should contain a dragon. Maybe one with two tails linking it to Sigmar's comet and the Anglo Saxon belief that comets were dragons.
-one of the colors on the uniform should be red.

I'm certainly not married to either of these ideas at this point. Please share any ideas or suggestions you come up with!

[Fidelis von Sigmaringen]

SOF provided this overview on Drakwald:

Alright Averland is most of the way done and partials on a lot of others. But I have finished this for the Drakwald. Sources used Beasts of Chaos, Sigmar's Heirs, Sigmar Heldenhammer, The Loathesome Ratmen, and "The Story of Bernhardt the Brave" from Inferno 6.

The Former Grand Province of the Drakwald
Last Elector: Boris Hohenbach (died 1115 as Emperor)
State Livery: Yellow
Heraldic Devices: Thistle Flowers and Thorns

Geography
   The former province is dominated by the feature that gives it its name, the Drakwald Forest. The western reaches of the Drakwald have always been a foreboding place. In ancient times a great dragon inhabited the forest for which the wood was give its name. When the tribes that formed the Empire entered the land, it was the ferocious Thuringian tribe that made its home in the depth of the forest. Though battles were constant with beasts and goblins of the forest, the formidable wood preserved the Thuringians from the neighboring Teutogens, Norsii, and Jutones. As an Imperial province, the Drakwald’s wealth was based on the lumber and wood crafts the forest provided.  Furniture made from Drakwald Oak is some of the finest and highly sought after in the entire Old World. As the grip of the Empire has slipped from the forest, it has grown darker and more twisted under the baleful influence of its bestial inhabitants. The few settlements still found in the region today are under the protection of the Count of Middenland. However the vast majority of these are only a few centuries old, often having been rebuilt on several occasions already in that short of time.

The People
   The few human souls that dwell within the borders of the old Drakwald are the descendents of the Thuringians of old, though these days their blood is more often a mix of Thuringian and that of neighboring tribes. In Sigmar’s day, the Thuringians were wild berserkers. During battle Thuringian warriors, male and female alike, would chew on various plants and herbs that sent them into a frenzy of destruction and made them able to sustain injuries that would cripple a normal warrior. The Thuringians did not initially submit to Sigmar’s dream of unifying the tribes of man. Only after a great battle, in which Sigmar bested the Thuringian King Otwin in single combat, did the tribe join into Sigmar’s confederation. To this day, many suggest that Thuringians are tenacious to the point of self-destruction often disregarding risks for initial gains.

The Fall of the Drakwald
   The first millennium saw general prosperity and expansion for much of the Empire. Woods were cleared for farming, the foothills of mountains made safe for mining, and canals constructed for commerce. The rulers of the Drakwald did not share in these advances. Unlike the other provinces that were capable of expansion in multiple directions, Drakwalders only had the Forest of Laurelorn. Rather than beasts or greenskins, the armies of the Drakwald Electors faced significant kingdom of Wood Elves that reside to this day under the eaves of Laurelorn. Despite constant reverses, the Drakwald Electors continued to throw themselves at problem with traditional Thuringian reckless abandon. Never a particularly a wealthy province, the Drakwald had all but been bankrupted of money and men by the eighth century. In a bid to reverse their fortunes, the Drakwald Electors bribed their way into the Imperial throne through payments of gold and promises of reduced Imperial authority. The resulting Drakwalder dynasty was not only disastrous for the Drakwald province but the Empire on a whole. Freed from the comparatively spartan life back in Drakwaldschloss, living in Carroburg, the Imperial capital, was one of ease and opulence. As the generations pasted the Drakwalders became more and more detached from their native lands as well as increasingly corrupt producing two of the most infamous Emperors in Imperial history, Ludwig the Fat and Boris the Incompetent.
   Despite the money following into the House of Hohenbach’s coffers, little was invested in their own province. The goblin and beastmen tribes of the forest grew increasingly bold raiding and destroying towns and villages throughout the Drakwald. The issue came to a head in the first decade of the twelfth century. The Empire had suffered for fifty years under the terrible and unfortunately long lived reign of Boris the Incompetent. Beginning in the year 1106, beastmen attacks in the Drakwald increased precipitously. The Drakwald defender were hard pressed and eventually defeated by the far greater beastmen force. This loss was compounded by the death of the Drakwald general, Count Vilner Hohenbach. Vilner was Boris’s great nephew and heir to the Electoral seat of the Drakwald as well as the title of Emperor. Furthermore, Count Vilner was a man not of the traditional late Drakwalder mold.  He was raised outside of the Carroburg palace and had not succumbed to any of his line’s vices. Vilner would most likely never have sat to inherit the throne if it was not for his Great Uncle’s longevity and the prospect of his ascendance to both the Electorship and the Imperial crown looked to be very positive signs for the Empire’s future. His death destroyed that hope and when the Empire and Emperor Boris were ravaged by the Black Death a few years later, the entire Empire was thrown into turmoil.
   The Empire was immersed in a deluge of beastmen scant days following the Emperor’s death. Some scholars, either brave or foolish, argue that these beastmen were the ‘ratmen’ or ‘skaven’ of folk legend and some even argue that it was through there machinations that Count Vilner had been slain, as this work attempts to provides only the most core of knowledge ink shall not be spilt to affirm or deny such accusations. ‘Ratmen’ or not the Drakwald was devastated. Emperor Mandred’s dissolution of the Drakwald as a province hastened the regions demise. Without a Count over the course of the century almost all the towns and villages of the Drakwald were overrun by beastmen or goblins.       

The Drakwald and the Wolf Emperors
   The death of Emperor Mandred plunged the Empire into a dark period the country would not emerge from until the time of Magnus the Pious. During the era of three Emperors, the Wolf Emperor of Middenheim created a ‘rump’ Electorate out of the portion of the Drakwald under Middenland’s control. The Drakwald Runefang had been placed in the care of the Cathedral of Ulric during the time of Mandred and it was easy for the Middenheim Emperors to create the position in order to build some sense of legitimacy for their Imperial claim.
   Little is recorded about these ‘Elector Counts’ as it was for the most part a sham position and offered little aid to the Wolf Emperor’s struggles with his rivals. Sole among the men to hold the position that garnered any place in history was the last, Count Bernhardt sobriquet the ‘Brave’. When the majority of the Empire proved initially apprehensive to Magnus’s call to arms during the Great War on Chaos, Bernhardt quickly gathered what forces he could muster to aid Kislev. Bernhardt’s force consisted of a mix of cavalry and light infantry who were subsequently attached to Ar-Ulric Kriestov’s vanguard.  Berhardt and his Drakwalders executed several successful ambushes of Asvar Kul forces and was personally at the head of the decisive cavalry charge that ended the Battle of Kislev. Sadly for the Drakwalders, many Drakwald towns were overrun and Middenheim besieged in their absence. With Magnus’s election to Emperor and the reorganization of the Electors, the Drakwald was in no position to regain a full grand provincial status. It had been almost a millennium since the province had been official absorbed into Nordland and Middenland with neither province willing to forego territory. Further as the Ar-Ulric was granted an Electoral seat, it was the fear of many that a new Drakwald would be unable to escape Middenland’s orbit and add an additional vote to go the Elector of Middenland’s way. Bernhardt was instead granted the title Protector of the Drakwald and the right to bear the Runefang of the Drakwald for the rest of his life. Since that time the title has been passed to several families but maintaining it is most difficult as the beastmen seem to grow more powerful each year. Currently the title of Protector of the Drakwald is borne by Count Todbringer of Middenland himself. 

Famous Regiments
Drakwald Forest Legion
The Forest Legion provided the bulk of the infantry Count Bernhardt brought to. While elements of the Drakwald muster were armed in similar fashion to other Imperial regiments, the Forest Legion was not. Recruited from the villagers of the Drakwald, these troops were instead armed with woodsmen’s axes. Lightly armored and highly maneuverable, the Forest Legion were renowned for their ability to hit hard and fast, often through broken or wooded terrain skills they had undoubtedly acquired fighting off beastmen raiders at home.

But as SOF remarked elsewhere, the Inferno story is the only source referring to its heraldry, and that story is often at odds with the official fluff.

[Deuce]

Although it doesn't help much with the colour scheme, I did some writing on the history of the Empire a few years ago. I'm not sure if I'll ever get round to finishing it now (the blowing up of the world doesn't help my motivation) but one bit I did finish was on the Drakwald and more particularly the reign of Ludwig II. The following is largely my original content, but inspired by official material:

The Later House of Hohenbach – The Reign of Ludwig II (Part 1)[/b]

Early Reign

The sudden death of Emperor Humfried in 996 came as a relatively small surprise to the Electors of the Empire, who were used to the internecine squabbles within the Hohenbach dynasty that had already seen several Emperors die relatively young (although few would say before their time).1 Given that members of the bloodline seemed to have a propensity to live to an advanced age if not cut short, however, several senior nobles might have had cause to regret the death of an Emperor who, while by no means capable, had at least been mostly harmless in comparison with his predecessors.

The somewhat rash assumption on the part of many of the Electors that Humfried would live to see old age on the basis that nobody had much of a reason to kill him had prevented extensive political manoeuvrings prior to his death, and this combined with the elimination of rivals under the reign of Humfried's predecessor Quintus meant there was still virtually no opposition to the Hohenbachs at an Imperial level. Humfried's eldest surviving son Ludwig – three elder sons having predeceased him – thus emerged as one of the few credible candidates for election.2 When it became apparent to the Electors that Ludwig had struck a pact with the Grand Princes of Ostland to support his election, he was named Emperor unopposed.

Ludwig II, one of the mightiest rulers the Empire would ever see, was at that point twenty-six years old. Surviving images of his election and coronation show a dashing figure of a man, accompanied by his young and striking wife, Johanna of Ostland (the Grand Prince having insisted on the marriage's being formalised before Ludwig's election). Whether these images bear any approximation to reality is open to debate, but it is certainly possible that Ludwig's famous physique did not manifest itself until later in his reign. Indeed, the energy and decisiveness that characterised his early reign might have placed him among the ranks of the greatest of Emperors, and there are those who still believe he deserves his place in that pantheon.

Ludwig's first decree as Emperor was that he would spread the wealth of his office around the provinces rather than concentrating it in the capital at Carroburg as his predecessors had. A huge tranche of gold was set aside for the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Sigmar in Altdorf, with the intention that the new building would stand complete in the thousandth year of the Empire. Ludwig also uprooted the capital from the palace complex at Carroburg – known variously by courtiers as the “rats' nest” and “the warren” and returned it to the traditional site at Nuln.3

In the last years of the reign of Emperor Albert the Despoiler, a movement known as Millenniallism had grown up in the laity of the cult of Sigmar, which prophesied that in the thousandth year of Sigmar's reign, he would return and purge the Empire of his unworthy successors.4 Previous Hohenbach Emperors had attempted to suppress the movement, but Ludwig instead attempted to harness it, with the intention of having himself recognised as Sigmar returned. To this end he sponsored the cult heavily, to the point of granting the Grand Theogonist an electoral vote. While the cult never officially proclaimed Ludwig the heir of Sigmar as he had perhaps desired, the senior clergy remained firm supporters of Ludwig's for the remainder of his reign, even as the rival Ulricans choked down their outrage.

Whether inspired by the Millennial movement or not, Ludwig's early reign undoubtedly saw a great increase in the personal majesty of the Emperor. Where even the most potent Emperors of previous centuries had been regarded largely as governors or first among equals, the emergence of the theory of “divine right”  - that the Emperor ruled by holy mandate from Sigmar – began to take hold in Ludwig's reign. Modes of address around the court began to alter, with the titles accruing to the Emperor becoming ever grander and more distant. Perhaps to assist with the severance of the Emperor from the remaining nobility, Ludwig took the unprecedented step of divesting himself of his province. Announcing that the Emperor required no temporal fiefdom, for the whole of the Empire was his responsibility, Ludwig claimed he took only the grounds of the Imperial Palace at Nuln as his own, and appointed his brother Leofric his successor as Grand Duke of Drakwald.

“Ludwig the Fat”

The year 1000 and the anniversary of Sigmar's coronation arrived with great ceremony and jubilation; the streets of Altdorf and Nuln thronged with the ranks of the faithful, while the cult served a grand banquet for the Emperor in the newly completed cathedral. By this stage, whatever the intentions of Ludwig's early policies, few would compare him to Sigmar, for it was becoming apparent the young Emperor was all too human. His appetites had already earned him a substantial belly, and the moniker of “the Fat”, coined in response to his self-styled sobriquet “the Great” (or “der Grosse” as it appeared on his coinage) was already current across most of the land.

Ludwig's appetites in other directions were no less restrained. When Leofric had returned to govern the Drakwald, many had passed comment on the fact that Leofric's wife remained behind at court in Nuln, and rumours grew ever louder when it became clear she was with child. Nor was she the only court lady to catch the Emperor's eye. Such was the extent of Ludwig's proclivities that, for centuries afterwards, Nulners were known colloquially as “Ludwigsens” by denizens of other Imperial provinces.

Despite Ludwig's obvious cuckolding of Leofric, however, the two brothers seemed to remain on good terms, and upon the birth of the child, Leofric recognised him as his own son. His wife was in fact to bear the Emperor at least two more sons, each of whom was again officially accepted into the family as a child of Leofric. Early in the 1000s, an Imperial grant was made for further clearance and settlement of the eastern Drakwald forest.5 Previous rulers had not made clearance of the forest a priority, with the result it had become ever more dangerous and again begun to encroach upon settlements. The land given over to Leofric for settlement included a portion belonging to the Duke of Middenland, and it may be this was intended to mollify Leofric for Ludwig's disport with his wife. Alternatively it might have been simply a ploy of Ludwig's to weaken a potentially dangerous adversary, and sow discord between Middenland and Drakwald.

Ludwig was indeed starting to become increasingly paranoid about rivals to his throne. Most Emperors for the past century had died violently, often at the hands of their own family, and he was apparently beginning to fear that he would follow in their footsteps. At a banquet in 1004, not liking the taste of a dish of lampreys, he accused the Imperial chef of attempting to poison him, and had the man summarily executed. More chefs and stewards followed with increasing haste, until it reached the stage that any dish which Ludwig did not care for became a virtual death sentence for the cook.

Fearful not just of assassins but of armed revolt, Ludwig was also wary of the armed forces commanded by the Electors, especially now he had no province of his own from which to draw troops. His suggestion of the formulation of an Imperial army from state funds was shut down by the Electors, so instead he recruited an increasing number of private bodyguards, a formation which later became its own regiment.

Having stressed the need for Imperial unity at his coronation, Ludwig started to promote factionalism among the various Counts, handing out titles to favourites and stripping others of rights and lands. A delegation of Ostermark burghers and nobles was met with great favour and rewarded grandly, to tie up the resources of Talabecland in garrisoning the territory. After the daughter of the Stirland Count spurned his advances, he became a great patron of Sylvania. The Count of Averland's daughter likewise rejected him, so he took his revenge on both provinces when he created the new Electorate of the Mootland, to be ruled henceforth by his former chef Emmer as a reward for consistently satisfying the Emperor's palate.6

In 1013 Ludwig was visiting Wissenburg when a Dwarf, whose name has been lost to history, inexplicably leaped from a crowd and attempted to behead the Emperor with his axe. How the portly Emperor managed to avoid the weapon long enough for his bodyguards to come to his aid is a mystery; perhaps the Dwarf was simply drunk. The would-be assassin did not live long enough to disclose his motives, being skewered on the spot, but the paranoid Ludwig saw it as nothing so much as a conspiracy. He ordered all Dwarfs in his own realms arrested, starting with those in Carroburg, and sat in judgment on them himself. The sentences were universal and severe, and few Dwarfs escaped with their lives. Seeing conspirators everywhere, Ludwig ordered the net cast wider, and soon the madness had spread to the whole Empire. While some sympathetic rulers and communities were able to protect their Dwarven citizens or help them flee to their mountain cousins, thousands of Dwarfs were slaughtered in one of the worst peacetime eruptions of violence in Imperial history. Only in Middenheim and Averland did substantial Dwarf populations survive, and it would take centuries for relations between humans and Dwarfs in much of the Empire to recover.7

The Question of Succession

Nevertheless, despite the debaucheries, the atrocities, and the politicking, Ludwig managed to keep the Empire in relative balance, and commerce and culture boomed like never before. The coinage from Ludwig's reign is among the purest and most consistent of any Emperor, reflecting the great prosperity it attained under his rule. The seizure of Dwarven assets assisted with this, and was widely viewed as a good policy, increasing the sum of human wealth. As he advanced further into middle age, the pressing issue on the mind of many of the Empire's statesmen was not how to curtail the Emperor, but how to replace him when he eventually died.

Empress Johanna had stubbornly remained childless and by 1020 it was clear she would bear no children. Chroniclers disagree on the reasons for this: Erhardt of Streissen reports that Ludwig referred to her as “that Ostland mule” and neglected his spousal duty, but many contemporaries state that Ludwig was in fact particularly fond of his wife, and that she was one of the few people at court he seemed to hold a genuine affection and trust for. Whatever the reason, Ludwig had no son, but needed an heir. That the Empress was of the house of Ostland, perhaps the only family in the Empire Ludwig could not afford to offend, ruled out the possibility of divorce.

The bloody history of his family made Ludwig wary of naming an heir, but equally he was for all his faults a patriot and dynastic loyalist and recognised that the existing situation was unsatisfactory. Many of the Emperor's oldest illegitimate sons – both those recorded as his nephews and those just known to be his bastards – were coming of age, and their numbers, squabbles and entitlement had already earned them the derisive title of “Hohenbrat” or “Hohenbastard” among the remaining courtiers.

The eldest of these was Ludwig's favourite “nephew” Leofric, and it was he who Ludwig began grooming to succeed him, appointing him Chancellor of the Imperial Fisc in 1022, and in 1025 Imperial Chancellor, in theory giving him control over the finances and intelligence of the entire Empire.8 Leofric almost immediately began to try to augment the already swollen Imperial finances, raising taxation on trade and merchant activities year on year. By 1029 the taxes were considered wholly punitive and a delegation of burghers petitioned the Emperor to repeal Leofric's taxes. Among the nobility, however, the taxes were largely popular, as they curtailed any threat to their position from the merchant classes, and Ludwig declined the petition. The economy held, just, though many small traders were driven to destitution.

In 1029 Leofric the elder died, and Ludwig allowed his “son” to succeed to the Grand Duchy. Leofric continued his policies in Drakwald proper, where the years of bounty from the river trade had made the cities and merchants alike fat and prosperous. Leofric was no more popular in Carroburg than he had been in Nuln, but the coffers were soon overflowing, especially when Leofric increased feudal dues from the provincial nobility as well as trade duties.

Opposition to the Hohenbachs within Drakwald itself, which had been building almost ever since they first took the Imperial crown, became thunderous. Leofric responded with heavy investment in soldiery, reinforcement of the fortifications around the old Imperial palace, and increasingly repressive measures against public assembly. The Drakwald nobles, led by the von Bildhofen family, sent increasingly urgent representations to the Emperor pleading with him to rein Leofric in, but Ludwig, increasingly lethargic and troubled by illness, was happy to let his favourite continue in post.

In 1038, however, the situation was to change completely, as Johanna of Ostland died following a short illness. Deputations of nobles, alarmed by events in Drakwald, and burghers alike, descended on Nuln, petitioning the Emperor to take a new wife and conceive a legitimate heir. Ludwig's policies had successfully promoted enough division among the Electors that no individual among them had enough support to stand against the wealth of Carroburg, but it was clear that nobody wanted Leofric.

Ludwig finally assented, and took Mathilde von Bildhofen as his new bride in early 1039. While Mathilde was young and, reportedly, highly attractive, she was also Ludwig's cousin, and the decision was almost certainly politically motivated. Mathilde would make a hostage against any future agitations by the Bildhofens, while the marriage alliance between the Hohenbachs and their most powerful vassals would help to sever the Bildhofens from the resistance in Drakwald. The marriage itself, however, was a poor affair. Ludwig was nearly seventy years old, obese and suffering from crippling gout, almost certainly diabetic and impotent. Few expected the marriage to bear fruit before Ludwig's death.

[Deuce]

And continued, since my previous post would otherwise have exceeded the character limit:

The Later House of Hohenbach – The Reign of Ludwig II (Part 2)

The Late Reign

Early in 1040, Leofric's body was found in an antechamber of the palace at Nuln, riddled with stab wounds. There was little sign of a struggle, and it was concluded his bodyguards must have been paid off. Clearly, the risk of his succession had been too great for at least one party to bear. Suspicion immediately fell on Leofric's brother Hergard, who was in Carroburg to stake his claim to the Duchy almost before Leofric's body was cold. Knowing that his brother's policies had caused great anxiety, Hergard sought to garner support for his own position by reversing all of them. Having bought over Leofric's troops to his side, Hergard returned to Nuln to request of the Emperor that he be appointed to Leofric's other roles.

When Hergard arrived back in the capital, however, he was met by the news that the Empress Mathilde was with child. There could be little doubt whether the child was Ludwig's: court rumour had it that the Empress's bed could be rented by the hour (all revenues, naturally, accruing to the Emperor). It was a child nonetheless, though, which had the potential to cut Hergard and his brothers out of the succession altogether. At the same time, Ludwig had fallen gravely ill and, while never spoken aloud, it seemed common consensus was that he was imminently to die.

Hergard remained in Nuln, waiting either for an audience with Ludwig or news of his “uncle”'s death. Neither was forthcoming, and when the Empress was delivered of a healthy son, named Boris, the boy was presented from the palace walls without the Emperor present. When Mondstille came and went, Hergard lost his nerve, and elected to return to Carroburg to shore up his power base there. He left Nuln in early 1041, and was never seen again.9

There was still no sign of the Emperor, and early in Jahdrung a throng took to the streets of Nuln, proclaiming that Ludwig was dead. Their leader, and chosen candidate for the succession, was Paulus, another of Ludwig's “nephews”. This at last seemed to stir the Emperor from his torpor, and troops in his livery were dispatched to break up the throng. Ghastly pale and seated on a reinforced throne to bear his massive weight, Ludwig still made an imposing sight when Paulus was hauled before him for judgment.10 Hurled to the floor before the Imperial couple and Ludwig's son, he pled with humility for clemency, blaming malign counsellors and swearing his utmost loyalty to Ludwig and all his heirs.

Whether it was fatherly sentiment, pity, or whether he simply did not believe Paulus a credible threat, Ludwig agreed to spare his life. Speaking slowly and with great labour, Ludwig reiterated that the office of Emperor had been severed from that of Grand Duke of Drakwald. Paulus was welcome to the Grand Duchy, if he stood guarantor for the succession of Ludwig's infant son. Paulus immediately swore on all the gods he could remember. When the Imperial prince was eventually taken for his naming ceremony in the first church of Sigmar, the Grand Theogonist, the Reiksmarshall, and Paulus himself were appointed his guardians. Each of them swore to support with their life if necessary the succession of Prince Boris.

While the Grand Duchy had been disposed of, the remainder of Leofric's offices remained vacant, and were beginning to break up into factions of their own, with departments of the chancery setting spies on each other and embezzlement on a massive scale. Ludwig no longer had the energy to control them, and while he seemed almost to encourage the collapse of the chancery into a mire of mutual suspicion, was not prepared to allow Imperial finances to fall into ruin. Much to the surprise of many courtiers, Paulus was appointed the new Chancellor of the Imperial Fisc.

The new Chancellor found that, while the coffers remained well-stuffed, revenues had all but collapsed following Leofric's death, and in Drakwald in particular Hergard's policies had caused income to cease almost altogether. While taking care not to antagonise the nobility or merchant classes more than necessary, he soon began hiking up the tax rates. His particular targets were those which had escaped his predecessors, the cults. An early raid on the cult of Sigmar, perhaps to try to reduce the power of the Grand Theogonist, was headed off, but the remaining cults were taxed heavily. By 1048, scarcely a month passed when some new delegation from a cult arrived in Nuln, requesting leniency on some new duty.

Paulus's policies sounded the death knell for much of the diversity of cults in the Empire. Many had disappeared in the first millennium, as they were swallowed by larger faiths, but his taxes began to drive many of those remaining to bankruptcy. Whether they would have remained viable in the long term is doubtful, but the rates were so punitive that much of the organised religion in the Empire at anything below a provincial level was exterminated. Many cults which are now confined to a single village, with no priest, may once have spread across entire counties.

Ludwig retained a healthy suspicion of Paulus, though his “nephew” was careful never to give him further cause to doubt him. Nevertheless, the amount expended on espionage and security during that period from the Emperor's own pocket increased nearly four-fold. The princeling Boris was kept under the most secure guard, and, where Ludwig's health permitted, he began to move from city to city, cycling through accompanying courtiers apparently at random, never remaining in one place longer than necessary.

This period represented Ludwig's most extensive period of contact with his son. By all accounts, he took great care over Boris's education and expressed a great personal interest in the curriculum taught by his tutors. Almost from the time he could walk, Boris was present for court sessions, observing his father at work with the courtiers, and before making major policy decisions Ludwig would summon his son to him to discuss and explain the implications. Equally, sources indicate that on a personal level, Ludwig appeared to hold the boy in little more than contempt. He may have been keen to ensure his heir received the best possible political education, but despised Boris personally, probably certain in the knowledge he was not a true son.

As Boris grew, many expressed a (surprising) family resemblance, and, at least outwith the earshot of the Emperor, it was widely rumoured that perhaps the boy was a Hohenbach after all. The most likely candidate for the boy's father was Leofric the younger, who was known to have visited the Empress on at least one occasion, and who was killed only a few months before Boris's birth. On the other hand, Ludwig made an effort to have the boy dressed in Hohenbach colours, mirroring his own styles, and, since portraits of the Emperor still tended to depict him in a youthful aspect, and Ludwig was now half blind in any case, it is possible that the artists deliberately portrayed the youthful Ludwig as resembling Boris to flatter the young prince.


The Next Emperor

It is ironic, considering the number of bastards Ludwig sired, that his only recognised “legitimate” heir was almost certainly not his son at all. One individual who almost certainly was Ludwig's son, however, was Lorenz, another supposed son of Leofric the elder, this time by his second wife. As Paulus drove the cults away with his taxation policies, so Lorenz courted them. Young, charismatic, and handsome enough, Lorenz made a more attractive figurehead than the grasping Paulus, the aged, bloated Emperor, or the callow princeling Boris. Lorenz's badge of the winged lion became a popular one among disaffected younger sons of nobles in Carroburg and Nuln, and his wooing of the cults began to win priests to his banner too.

With Ludwig absent from Nuln and Paulus increasingly buried in responsibility, word began to spread that Lorenz was the true heir to the Empire, a hero who would usher in a new golden age. In 1049, Lorenz seemed to sense that his time had come. After gathering an army in Altdorf, comprised largely of templars and other soldiers of the cults, he marched to Nuln, his force swelling along the way. The Emperor's absence had denuded the city of many of its guards, and Paulus lost his nerve, fleeing the city, and, ultimately, the Empire.11 Bretonnian legend recounts the “deposed Emperor” who arrived at the court of King Louis with a handful of retainers.

Lorenz sent a deputation to his uncle, informing him that he had taken action against the corruption and treachery of Paulus and would humbly receive his predecessor's offices if the Emperor so desired. In effect, it was an ultimatum: Lorenz held the capital, and was wagering that Ludwig had neither the will nor the energy to recapture it by force. In this he was proven correct, and Ludwig duly returned to Nuln to invest Lorenz with the offices of state that Paulus had forfeited. What happened next astonished all those who witnessed it. After the wheezing Emperor read the bull that created Lorenz Grand Duke of Drakwald and Chancellor of the Imperial Fisc, Lorenz stood his ground, and all but demanded that he be named not only Imperial Chancellor, but granted the title to a host of further great offices. Most of the courtiers had grown up under Ludwig's rule and were used to the Imperial majesty, and for the Emperor to submit to Lorenz's demands was almost less shocking than the bare fact of the demands themselves. As the chroniclers put it, Ludwig “reserved his crown and sceptre”, and Lorenz received the rest.

Lorenz's victory was not total, however, for only Ludwig had returned to Nuln, and Boris remained elsewhere under guard of the Reiksmarshall. Witnesses report seeing a slight smile creep over Ludwig's face as Lorenz realised that he had only the ailing Emperor in his power, and not the heir. It was at this stage that Lorenz revealed his true colours, angrily demanding he be told where Boris was. The Grand Theogonist frostily informed him that it was not within the power even of Lorenz's mighty offices to demand access to Ludwig's heir, and apparently only the intervention of two of the Reiksnecht prevented Lorenz from striking the priest down.

Having failed to learn Boris's location from Ludwig, Lorenz deployed his spies, sending them to all corners under the pretext of locating the heir so he could be placed under proper protection. Assassins were sent to Couronne to eliminate Paulus and his young son, an event recorded in the Bretonnian chanson “Caerleond and the Scoundrels”. Any of the Hohenbrats in Nuln who became too egregious were arrested and executed on trumped-up charges. After two years of fruitless search, Lorenz finally permitted Ludwig to leave court, in the hope that he would lead him to Boris. This proved a blunder, for not ten miles from Nuln, Ludwig's escort was ambushed and killed to a man by the Emperor's loyalist supporters. When Ludwig next reappeared, it was in Carroburg, where he established his court and began sending out summonses to the Electors.

Ludwig finally died in 1053 in his bed. It reportedly took twenty men to carry him down the stairs to his funeral cortege. Most of the Electors had already assembled in Carroburg in accordance with his summons: Ludwig had not been a much-loved Emperor, but even at the end he had been well enough feared and respected, and even Lorenz walked quietly behind his carriage as he was taken to his final resting-place. After the funeral, they assembled in the old Volkshalle at the Carroburg Palace to elect his successor.

No single Elector could amass enough support to challenge the Hohenbach candidacy. Lorenz nominated himself on the basis of his provincial electorship, while the Grand Theogonist, fulfilling his vow to Ludwig, nominated Boris. The Ulricans, who had suffered under Paulus, threw their weight behind Lorenz, while the Sigmarite provinces of Reikland and Stirland voted for Boris. One by one the other provinces were won round to Boris's cause. Where Lorenz was a grown man of proven experience and power, the princeling was a boy of barely fourteen, had never governed so much as a village, nor had he any experience of managing money, and was unwed, making him a ripe prospect for a marriage alliance. The Electors had little doubt which candidate would be easier to manipulate once installed and apparently had no desire to endure another emperor as potent and wilful as Ludwig had been. When Ostland declared for Boris, the debate was effectively ended.

Lorenz was not prepared to leave it there. In front of the Imperial diet, he proclaimed that Boris was a bastard and not Ludwig's true son. A moment of shocked silence followed, broken by the Prince von Bildhofen, seated among the observers, leaping to his feet and demanding satisfaction for the slight on his sister's honour. Lorenz condemned the prince for treason, and had him dragged away by Drakwald guards. With the mood in the chamber growing uglier, he changed his approach and complained of Boris's youth and inexperience. No Emperor had ever been so young, he claimed, and insisted he was allowed to retain his Imperial offices at least until Boris came of age.

Reluctantly, and increasingly aware of the fractious armed retainers packing the hall, the Electors agreed to Lorenz's terms, as did Boris. Boris was crowned the following day, at a ceremony where the Grand Prince of Ostland was heard to mutter that in consigning the boy to Lorenz's care they had signed the young Emperor's death warrant.

Within a year, he might have made an entirely different complaint. He, and all the Electors, had underestimated the old Emperor and his young heir. Much of the intelligence establishment in the chancery had remained loyal to Ludwig throughout the upheavals in government, and Boris had inherited their fealty. For all that Boris's parentage was in doubt, in character he was a Hohenbach through and through. Less than two weeks after the return to Nuln, Lorenz's key followers were butchered, and Lorenz himself found dead, burned from within with a red-hot poker. Nor was Boris prepared to countenance the emergence of any other rivals: those Hohenbrats who had survived Lorenz's depredations were purged, with only a handful escaping into exile and obscurity. Although in truth few missed the entitled cabal of Imperial bastards and welcomed their removal from court, the slaughter was such that in some circles Boris became known as “the Butcher.” It would not be the last, nor the most damning, sobriquet that this Emperor would acquire.



Notes

There are several competing versions of the story of Drakwald, and addressing them has always presented something of a problem to those who care about such things. This version tries to reconcile all the existing versions as far as possible. Blighted Empire by C.L. Werner names Boris as Ludwig's son: the tale of Boris's conception so late in Ludwig's life is extrapolated from the author's comments on that interpretation. Warpstone 29,  which attempted to name all the Drakwald Emperors, inserts a further generation of Emperors between Ludwig and Boris: this version reinterprets them as powerful favourites or effective regents late in Ludwig's reign. The separation of the titles of Emperor and Count of Drakwald also allows for the later death of the Drakwald Count Vilner during Boris's reign.

[S.O.F]

SOF provided this overview on Drakwald:

This has required some revision since it was written particularly to the relative wealth of information provided in the Black Plague trilogy. Overall the Drakwald does continue to be very problematic from the usual basic information on Imperial provinces undoubtedly since until the 6th edition, and the more dedicated fluff looks at Beastmen, the region was largely ignored in the fluff. Solland, a province of a similar fate, had a great deal of information from the 4th edition on (Gorbad Ironclaw being an important fluff character certainly helped).

[Baron von Klatz]

Wow! Thanks for enlightening me with all this.

My knowledge of the Drakwald was just that it was a former ruling province of the Empire that took a downfall once their army was defeated by the wood elves.

[GamesPoet]

Quite the fluff piece here!