The Empire in 2201
A guide to the past and present of a shattered country, by Ruprecht Breytenbach of BechafenA Timeline of Important Events in the History of The Empire
The Empire, that great state forged by Holy Sigmar from the twelve tribes of man, was never destined to last. For while Sigmar himself was able to control the tribal chiefs who would one day be known as Elector Counts, future Emperors were to find the task next to impossible. For centuries, Sigmar's Empire endured as a collection of independent (and often warring) territories, watched over by a mostly impotent Emperor.
But even this situation could not continue forever. Electoral and religious disputes led to war on a scale that had not been seen before, and to the foundation of first two, then three, then finally four, separate and antagonistic Empires.
On Empires and Emperors
Each of these Emperors claimed to be the true and only legitimate heir to the throne of Sigmar. To each one, their rival claimants were variously traitors and heretics. But as none of the 'Emperors' had been both elected by free and fair decision of their peers and crowned by the serving High Priest of Ulric or Sigmar, not one of them possessed even the shadow of a true claim. In the eyes of Holy Sigmar, the Imperial Throne stood vacant.
Thus, in describing them, we could fairly call each claimant 'Emperor,' and the lands they ruled 'The Empire.' For the sake of clarity, each Empire and Emperor has been given a distinctive name.
The False God and the Wolf: The Otillian Empire, Ostermark and the Kislev connection
First to claim the title of Emperor without election was the Countess Otillia of Talabecland. A series of bitter wars had resulted in a feud between the states of Stirland and Talabecland, and Stirland's victory in the Imperial election of 1359 was the final insult. Small wonder then, that Otillia was so receptive to the Ar-Ulric, when he came to her with his evidence.
The Ar-Ulric had discovered proof that the Cult of Sigmar had been created by liars and demon-worshippers. The founder of the Cult was a man who later admitted (or so the Ar-Ulric's documents claimed) to have been a demonologist and a heretic. Here, at last, was a weapon for the resentful Ulrican clergy to use against the upstart Cult of the First Emperor. Here also was the excuse Otillia needed. Backed by the Ar-Ulric, she declared herself the rightful Empress, under Ulric the Father of All, and in so doing removed her province of Talabecland from Sigmar's Empire. Talabheim became the new headquarters of the Cult of Ulric.
In Otillia's domain, the Cult of Sigmar was suppressed with a determination that was as stubborn as it was bloody. Otillia's soldiers, under the direction of Ulrican priests, tortured and executed thousands of Sigmar's faithful, at times burning entire villages to the ground. In response, The Grand Theogonist of the Cult of Sigmar called for crusade against Talabecland. War after war followed.
So it continued. Otillia died and was succeeded by her daughter - who assumed the name Otillia as a mark of respect. Over time, passing by hereditary succession with female heirs taking precedence, this became the title carried by the Emperor of Talabecland and Talabheim: the Otillian Empire. In 1547, the Ar-Ulric moved the centre of Ulric’s Cult back to Middenheim, and at the same time the Elector of Middenland declared himself Emperor. The Age of Three Emperors had begun. The Otillian Empire waxed and waned in size over the years, yet it prospered and endured.
In 2146, the Otillian Empire became involved in the brief but bloody struggle over ownership of the province of Ostermark. Under the able command of Marshall Huppert Gernot, the Otillians secured the capital city of Bechafen and much of the surrounding area. With Stirland routed and the Middenlanders withdrawing upon the sudden death of Severin I to elect their new Emperor, only Kniaz Makari's Kislevites remained a serious challenge to Otillian domination.
The Otillia’s Ostermark campaign was more successful than she could have hoped. And yet, despite the pleas of her advisors, she could not tolerate the presence of large numbers of Sigmarites in her new possession. Empress Reinhilde sent Inquisitor-General Treitzsaur to Ostermark, with a mandate to convert every Sigmarite by one means or another. When his efforts were frustrated by Gernot, she recalled the Marshall under the pretext of defending the border with Middenland.
These actions were to cost the Otillia dearly. Treitzaur’s ‘spiritual crusade’ cost thousands of lives – not only those who were executed by the inquisition, but also those who were killed in the violent uprising that followed, and the many more who died from hunger and exposure during that terrible winter after they were forced from their homes. For weeks, Reinhilde refused to concede, spending yet more lives for the sake of her dignity. But at last she was forced to meet with the rebels, and at the so-called Diet of Bechafen in 2148 agreed to crown the Gräfin Helena as Elector Countess of Ostermark. Shortly afterward, Tzarina Tamara of Kislev persuaded the Otillia to allow Makari and Helena to marry, thus creating an understanding between Kislev and the Otillian Empire that remains strong to this day.
The terms of the agreement with the rebels also guaranteed the right of free worship for the Ostermarkers, and it was this concession that cut the Otillia most deeply. Even though Ostermark remained a vassal state of the Otillian Empire, Reinhilde could not view the situation as anything but a failure. When at last she died, in her bed at the age of eighty-three, her last words were to declare the toleration of the Sigmarite cult within her Empire to be the only regret of her long reign.
The Diet of Bechafen was to set in motion the eventual collapse of the Otillian state. Reinhilde's concessions in Ostermark weakened her iron grip on her own people. The demand for workers to aid in the reconstruction of Ostermark caused a manpower shortage in Talabecland, overcome only when a large number of Kislevites were encourage to immigrate. This change in the demographics of the population, together with the improved trading links with Kislev, brought new ideas to the Otillian Empire that overcame centuries of isolation. To begin with, this gradually increasing liberalisation came alongside military successes. Marshal Gernot's assault on the Empire of Middenland in 2152 increased Otillian holdings by nearly ten percent. In 2160, Otillian troops broke the Middenland forces in Nordland and helped to retake Salzenmund.
Yet by 2165 the tide had turned. Middenland, under yet another new Emperor, declared an end to its own toleration of the Cult of Sigmar. Buoyed up by new-found religious fervour, the Middenlanders retook their lost lands, swallowing up Hochland and Ostland in the process. As the power of the Otillian army waned, the Cult of Sigmar began to grow in Talabecland.
In 2190, the new Otillia declared a formal end to the persecution of Sigmarites. The announcement caused spontaneous rioting across the Otillian Empire. and resulted in the desertion of many of the most devoted Ulrican priests, knights and noblemen to the Empire of Middenland.
The Empire of Talabecland had been founded as an absolute monarchy, but the personality cult centred around Otillia herself was already in evidence when the first Empress died. Her crown was passed to her daughter, and thereafter, the Otillian throne was always the birthright of the eldest daughter, a unique example (in Sigmar's Empire at least) of female precedence. When the Ar-Ulricate retired from Talabheim to Middenheim in 1547, the Otillia assumed the title of 'Consort of Ulric,' and with it the primacy of the Cult of Ulric within Otillian lands. Thereafter, the Otillia was to be a focus of religious devotion, a living connection to Ulric, the Father of All.
Now, in 2201, The Otillian Empire is a shadow of its former self. The Otillia rules with the consent of an assembly of priests, guildmasters and lords that is similar in many ways to Marienburg’s council. Emperor Marius V is both loved and hated by his subjects. To the rest of the Old World, he is the least credible of the four claimants to Sigmar’s Imperial throne.
Ostermark, ruled by Gabriela Steinhardt, the daughter of the Gräfin Helena, has become comparatively prosperous. Its workshops and foundries produce weapons for the Otillian armies, while its soldiers serve alongside them as equals.
Kislev, meanwhile, remains a collection of independent principalities under the nominal rule of Tzar Dmitri, a weak man who can do little to calm his squabbling nobles.
Winter's Dominion: The Empire of Middenland, Hochland and Ostland
The Imperial election in 1547 was to prove just as disastrous as that of 1359. The Grand Duke of Middenland had been led to believe that he would be the next Emperor, but instead found his life threatened by Sigmarist thugs when he attempted to cast his own vote. Driven back to Middenheim, the enraged Grand Duke declared the holy elections a vile Sigmarite lie, and proclaimed himself the true and rightful Emperor.
Shortly afterward, the new Emperor of Middenland convinced the serving Ar-Ulric to depart from the Otillian Empire and renew Middenheim’s position as the centre of the Cult of Ulric. The Otillia replied by declaring herself the ‘Consort of Ulric,’ and excommunicating the Ar-Ulric and the entire Empire of Middenland.
The Emperor of Middenland was anxious to prove that he was no usurping tyrant, and to do so he instituted a new Electoral Assembly. To fifteen prominent nobles and clergymen of Middenland he granted electoral votes, held as proxies for the treacherous Elector Counts of the other provinces. These ‘Proxy-Electors’ immediately voted to legitimise the rule of the new Emperor.
Later Emperors used their powers to revise the Electoral Assembly, altering the weighting of the various proxy-votes, and even creating new Electors. In each case this was done to cement their own power, and to clear the way for their sons to succeed them on the throne. Yet these rampant displays of favouritism fed into the natural rivalries of the Middenland nobility. Again and again, the Empire of Middenland collapsed into brutal civil war.
In 2086, the young Emperor Severin I took the throne. He was a foolish and headstrong boy, and quite unable to control his new dominion. In 2100, he was almost killed by Otillian assassins during the Battle of Four Armies, and subsequently lay for many months in a deep sleep.
When he emerged from that sleep, Severin was a changed man. He reformed the Electoral system, removing the system of unequal weighting of votes and creating enough new Electors to balance the Electoral Assembly in a way that had never been achieved before. Under his leadership, the Empire of Middenland ceased to tear at its own body, and began at last to prosper.
In his last years, Severin’s mind drifted away from him. In 2146, he was steered into an alliance with the rogue prince Makari of Rahkov, and thence into war in Ostermark. Middenland’s attempt to gain control of Ostermark was ultimately a failure, giving lasting benefit only to their Kislevite allies. By 2148, Severin was dead. The Middenland Electors were unable to agree on a successor, and civil war began.
It was in 2151 that the former commander of the Middenland forces in Ostermark, Herzog Adalbert Richter, finally overcame his rivals and crowned himself Emperor Adalbert IV. The new Emperor was a cruel and petty man. His reign saw the end of Middenland’s long alliance with Nordland, and the commencement of a bitter war that still continues to this day. Middenland invaded Nordland, killing its Elector and seizing its Runefang at the third siege of Salzenmund. Adalbert’s assassination in 2157 brought a brief respite, but the next Emperor was to renew the attack. Salzenmund fell the following year.
In 2160, Nordland’s salvation arrived in the form of Otillian and Kislevite troops. The allied forces retook Salzenmund and drove the Middenlanders back. The defeat caused waves of panic to spread throughout Middenland. The belief in the invincibility of the Empire, forged during the reign of Severin the Great, disappeared: taking its place was a new-found religious fanaticism.
In 2165 the Emperor banned the Cult of Sigmar throughout his lands. That same year, Middenland soldiers ranged deep into Otillian territory, the standard of the White Wolf moving always before them. Hochland was absorbed by 2169, Ostland by 2175. The Empire of Middenland had become great once more.
2190 saw Emperor Marius V of the Otillian Empire proclaim an end to the persecution of the Cult of Sigmar within his lands. The result was an influx of devout Ulricans, especially priests and knights, into Middenland. First to take advantage of the situation was the young Proxy-Elector of Wissenland, Baron Titus of Delberz. Borrowing heavily from Marienburg’s merchant families, Titus assembled a large army of fervent Ulricanists. Swiftly gaining control of Middenheim, largely through bribery, the baron proclaimed himself Ulric’s chosen, appending the name of Middenheim’s legendary founder to his own. Emperor Titus-Artur I lost no time in creating twelve new Electors, all of them leading Ulrican priests. At the vote to confirm his office, thirty-four of the forty Electors gave Titus-Artur their support. Winter that year was fearful indeed: a sure sign of Ulric’s favour.
War with the North: Middenland and Norsca
Titus-Artur began a massive program of construction, regenerating the towns and cities of his empire with fine new public buildings (paying particular attention to Middenheim itself, and to Carroburg, home of his summer court). To fund this, he borrowed more and more money from Marienburg, and pushed for continual expansion of the Empire of Middenland into profitable new territories.
A fresh opportunity came from the north. The Norscans had always been a threat to the costal regions, especially to Marienburg. Now the Empire of Middenland had a substantial coast of its own, made up of land that had once belonged to Nordland. Several years of sporadic raiding led to a huge invasion in 2198 led by Thialfi Swiftaxe, uniter of the southern Norse. The Norse overcame two hastily-assembled armies sent against them, but were themselves defeated by an outnumbered army commanded by the Grandmaster of the Knights of the White Wolf, a brilliant general by the name of Lucius Wolfram. Wolfram himself slew the Norse Chieftan, thus delivering to Titus-Artur the overlordship of the southern Norscan tribes.
But Titus-Artur feared Wolfram's new-found fame and influence, and refused to reward him as was expected. Instead, he sent the Grandmaster to defend the Otillian border, appointing his most loyal courtiers as his liaisons to the Norse (appointments which would inevitably bring with them great riches).
This ungrateful move was a serious blow to the Emperor's popularity. A month later he had been poisoned, seemingly by Werner von Feuchtwangen, one of the new Electors he had himself created. Although Titus-Artur survived, he did so only at the cost of his physical strength. Thereafter, the Emperor trusted no one, commissioning an elite body of Norse Guardsmen to protect him at all times.
The Sinews of War: The Empire of Marienburg
Marienburg's history is both long and complex. Since its foundation upon the ruins of ancient elven and dwarfish settlements, its position at the mouth of the mighty River Reik has made it a source of considerable wealth. Over the centuries, the city has prospered and faltered, bringing forth Emperors and falling to conquerors.
Though the Norse have always been a serious threat to Marienburg, it was the Bretonnians of L’Anguille who succeeded in holding onto the city for the longest period. From 1597 until 1602, when the Empire of Middenland drove them out, the Duke of L’Anguille subjected Marienburg to an occupation that would be considered excessively violent and oppressive even in Bretonnia itself.
This incident was to have a tremendous impact on the social structure of Marienburg. Two years after the occupation ended, the Elector Count assembled a council of state from leading members of the city’s merchant families. Before long, deregulation of trade and abolition of many of the more restrictive taxes brought about a golden age for the merchants of Marienburg. They commissioned their own fleets, raised private armies, and steadily chipped away at the powers of the Elector and the aristocracy.
In 1979, the merchant families embarked on their boldest venture yet. Working together, they bribed enough of the remaining Imperial Electors to pledge their votes to Countess Magritta, the so-called Iron Woman of Marienburg. In effect, they had bought the Imperial throne itself. The Countess arrived for her coronation in Altdorf at the head of a vast procession, only to find the gates barred to her. A brief siege followed, climaxing in the Grand Theogonist throwing the imperial crown into the river and declaring that Sigmar’s Empire was at an end. Eventually, the Iron Woman retreated to Marienburg uncrowned. Yet she was Empress to her own people, and she passed on the title to her descendants.
The wars with the vampiric aristocracy of Sylvania touched Marienburg only a little. But in 2100, necessity forced the Emperor Helmut to join the alliance against Konrad von Carstein at the Battle of Four Armies. The battle is famous for the mutually-arranged assassinations of the Middenland and Otillian Emperors, and for Helmut’s own death at the hands of Konrad - a death that was at least in part caused by the treachery of Helmut‘s brother Philip. Helmut’s corpse was re-animated at the vampire’s command, and paraded around for a further twenty-one years until his son Helmar hunted down and slaughtered Konrad.
Helmar died childless, possibly due to an illness contracted from the vampire, and the throne passed to his uncle’s son. The current emperor, Philip III, is of this line. The Emperor rules with the consent of Marienburg’s council, the great merchant families (the Winklers, Koopmans, van Onderzoekers, Stegers, Starkes and van Marnixes) sharing their power with belligerent guild leaders and all-to-worldly priests. Philip is a frustrated man, given to episodes of the deepest melancholy. It is often claimed that he is haunted by the ghost of Emperor Helmut in payment for the sins of his ancestor, and that he will lead the city of Marienburg to its doom.
The Hammer Denied: The Ruin of Stirland and the Birth of The Sigmarite Empire
If the failed election in 1979 seemed to be the end of the Sigmarite Church's hope of salvation, the destruction of Mordheim twenty years later confirmed it. Ghal Maraz, held at the cathedral in Altdorf, was surrounded with a cold, angry fire that scorched any who dared set their hands upon it while the Empire lay broken. Sigmar had turned away from His children.
Beset by enemies on all sides, not least by the vampires of Sylvania, the church looked everywhere for a new champion, an Emperor who could undo the damage of centuries. The final stages of the war with the vampires produced two great heroes: the Grand Theogonist Kurt III, who drove Mannfred von Carstein from Altdorf, and Graf Martin Volker of Stirland, who slew the vampire at Hel Fenn.
Martin's victory brought new hope for the followers of Sigmar, and new opportunities. The League of Ostermark, struggling to survive after the destruction of the Vampire Wars, quickly became the focus of a tremendous power struggle. Middenland and Talabecland both laid claim to the province, but the Sigmarite Church had produced what they claimed to be the true heir to the Electorship. The Grand Theogonist gave his blessing to Martin for a new crusade against the Ulricans, a crusade that would end with Ostermark's return to the arms of Sigmar. Lurking behind Kurt's words was the implicit offer of the Imperial crown if Martin was successful.
The invasion of Ostermark in 2146 was a terrible and humiliating failure for Stirland. Worse than that, it caused a loss of life and resources that the already-faltering province could simply not bear. Martin's army was routed, and the Graf himself died (exactly how is not known). In 2151, Martin's heir Graf Erik invaded Ostermark with a new army. His failure was even more drastic than Martin's, and by 2153 Stirland retired from Ostermark forever, its economy shattered and its people starving.
With Stirland lost, the church returned their attentions to their old favourite, the Grand Prince of Reikland. Money and favour flowed both ways between the wealthy province and the church. In 2197, the same year that the Volkers were deposed by the von Huttens in Stirland, the Grand Theogonist offered the Imperial Crown to the Grand Prince. There was no election and no true legitimacy to the coronation, but no shortage of ceremony and gaudy display.
The new Sigmarite Emperor ruled over a lose confederation of states - Reikland, Wissenland, the church-controlled dominions of Altdorf and Nuln, and the remnant of Stirland. The following year, the Emperor's army invaded the Otillian Empire and gained control of a huge portion of its western territories.
Profit in Death: The Marienburg Alliance
In 2150, a strange vessel sailed close to Marienburg, and was met by four warships. Soon after, the vessel chose to dock in the city. Those aboard were alien, unfriendly, arrogant and enormously wealthy. Within a year they had established a walled trading community in the heart of the city. The elves had returned to Marienburg.
The monopoly on trade with the elves increased the prosperity of the city by an amazing amount. As the years went by, Marienburg's merchants cornered the market on more and more commodities. Averland, the only other state to recognise the Marienburg Emperor’s claim, shared in this economic boom. It controlled the Black Fire Pass, and through it trade with the dwarfs and the Tileans. Averland’s leading families were Marienburg’s too, and in 2187 the Emperor Philip III married the daughter of Joachim II Sigmarus, the Grand Count of Averland.
In 2199, terrible weather and poor harvests meant that in many parts of The Empire, the people found themselves facing food shortages. Demand for imported food increased enormously. Suddenly, the merchants of Marienburg were in a position of unprecedented power. To begin with, they supplied food to the starving populations, only gradually increasing their prices as they made more and more journeys. But little time passed before they recognised the scale of the opportunity presented them.
Marienburg’s ruling council called together a meeting with the rulers of Averland and with every one of their main trading partners: Estalia, a patchwork of petty kingdoms, was dominated by the two great (though mutually antagonistic) cities of Magritta and Bilbali; Tilea, also a mess of perpetually warring states, comprised the Despotate of Remas, the Duchy of Miragliano, the Kingdom of Luccini, the Republic of Tobarro, and the Principality of Sartosa.
In partnership with the elves, this unwieldy collaboration of former enemies set out to blockade the Sea of Claws and thus gain complete control over all food imports to The Empire. In particular, they suppressed the activities of ports in Nordland and Kislev, who responded by forming the League of Free Traders. The following year, harvests were no better and the Marienburg Alliance was able to tighten its grip yet further.
Running the Blockade: Nordland and The League of Free Traders
Nordland’s many years of war with the Empire of Middenland had left it a tired fragment of its former self. The Otillian Empire had saved them, at least for the time being, but the cost was all but unbearable. Otillian troops were everywhere, acting as so-called ‘defensive garrisons.’ By 2197, Emperor Marius V was making overtures of marriage towards the young Grand Duchess of Nordland, the last surviving member of the old Electoral family. Nordland, had escaped Middenland only to fall by stealth to a self-proclaimed friend.
The events of 2199 threw everything into chaos again. As the harvests failed, ships from Nordland and Kislev raced to bring in imports from the fertile south of the Old World, only to find themselves blockaded by the Marienburg Alliance and attacked by its privateers. In response, the merchants and ship owners banded together to form what they called the League of Free Traders. The League was established with the aim of breaking the blockade, but the combined fleets of Nordland and Kislev, even backed by the troops and resources of the Otillian Empire and their Ostermarker allies, were simply not equal to the task.
In 2200, a bizarre metal fish surfaced in the harbour at Hargendorf and disgorged a small group of dwarfs. These dwarfs had travelled all the way from the sea hold of Barak Varr in the distant south, sailing under the blockading ships in their peculiar underwater craft. They brought a message from King Garazi Stroldreki: the dwarfs of Barak Varr would join the League of Free Traders in order to smash the commercial interests of their old enemies, the elves.
Some suspected the dwarfs of deeper motives, fearing that a terrible price would be owed in the end. Nevertheless, the League council had little choice but to agree. By the end of the year, a huge task force under Admiral Zan Nagnoli had arrived in the Sea of Claws.
The Traitor and Sigmar's Chosen: L'Anguille's pact with the Sigmarite Empire
The first Sigmarite Emperor died towards the end of 2198, during the aftermath of the invasion of Talabecland. An unfortunate lapse in communications caused the Emperor and his retinue, which included the Grand Count of Wissenland among its number, to ride into an area filled with patches of quicksand. Word of the disaster spread rapidly, and soon even the highest ranks of the church were whispering about Sigmar’s judgement on the unholy.
The Grand Theogonist, Fulmar IX Cruentus, counteracted the rumours of a curse with a stirring speech from the steps of the cathedral in Altdorf - and through the ministrations of his ever-vigilant legion of inquisitors. The Emperor’s heir, the thirteen-year-old Hermann, was more than ready to take the throne (or so Fulmar claimed), having been personally taught the art of statecraft by the Grand Theogonist himself. What was more, the young Emperor would immediately marry the Grand Countess Rosina von Orsbeck, widow of the Elector of Wissenland - though the marriage would of course remain unconsummated until Hermann reached the age of maturity.
Fulmar had succeeded in placing his puppet on the Imperial throne, and in binding Reikland, Altdorf and Wissenland together more closely than they had ever been before. His one remaining rival was the Arch-Lector of Nuln, an ecclesiastical inferior but in practical terms the ruler of a large city with a still larger artillery train.
The mass starvation of 2199 and 2200 hit the heavily-populated Sigmarite Empire harder than anywhere else. By 2200 the Emperor had reached the point of threatening war with Marienburg if it did not relent, but without access to the sea it seemed an empty threat.
In 2201 the King of Bretonnia sent out a call to all the knights in his realm to band together and rid the land of orcs forever. This declaration of war was met with massive enthusiasm everwhere but in the Duchy of L’Aguille, on the northern coast. Duke Henry Le Véloce, a devious, cruel man, saw the perfect opportunity to reassert his ‘rightful’ claim to the city of Marienburg without royal intervention. Dispatching a token force to join the Errantry War, the Duke offered an alliance to the Sigmarite Emperor: L’Anguille would supply a well-equipped war fleet to assail Marienburg by sea, while the Emperor would attack by land. The city itself would be divided between them.
Crisis in Marienburg: The War Begins
In 2201, three desperate, hungry groups of nations declared war on the Empire of Marienburg and her Averlander, Estalian, Tilean and Elvish allies. The dwarfs broke through the blockade and anchored their fleet in Hargendorf. Norse longships, flying Middenland colours, raided the Westerland coast. Bretonnian galleons swept gracefully between the lines of enemy ships, raking them with massed cannon fire.
On land, the armies of the Sigmarite Empire, the League of Free Traders and the Empire of Middenland assembled, ready to march on Marienburg.