Sylvanian Hunter-Chief
Sylvanians don't live happy lives. The threat of monsters only adds to the constant struggle against famine, the pervading ignorance, the generation-old pain from mutations from exposition to dark magic. Sylvanians don't live happy lives. From the dark that encompasses their miserable villages, they only hear hisses, hear only stalking figures and the crunching of bones, see only red eyes that watch them like juicy morsels.
That they don't know any better way means little. Most of the Sylvanians live miserable, wretched lives, spent struggling in withered fields to rip out the next scrap of food from a land that doesn't want them, the best they can look forward to is dragging their pain-riddled bodies into dingy taverns. The only lords they ever looked up to, the vampires, look down at them, considering them sheep to be protected at best and prey to feast upon at worst.
Is it surprising then that the Sylvanian farmer turns dark and bitter? Ignorant, his body riddled with pain, he's more beast than man, a parody of anything called civilized. He doesn't know anything, he doesn't believe in anything and he has nothing to look forward to. He hates himself, for his betters tell him to, and he hates his land. He has seen countless abominations and suffered countless indignities, surviving only because he closed his heart to all. His mind never blossomed beyond the primal urges for shelter and food. The only tint of beauty he can see is the cold visages of his vampire masters, and for that, he adores them like gods. He believes blindly and rejects all the rest, scrapes for a piece of wormy bread and begs for a kind word. His back is bent, his soul is bowed, his mind and heart are as barren as the field he consumes his life upon.
Sylvanians don't live happy lives. But Von Drak's arrival meant a change even for them. The Count gruffly dotes on his farmers. He protects them, teaches them, shows them that even they have worth, that the vampires were liars and monsters, not the gods they passed themselves as; that their lives could be better if only they try. Many refuse to listen, many go mad with grief for being lied to again. But some, some get up again. They push their crooked backs to stand tall, they face their sorrow and pain, and stare into the dark with the stubbornness that is the heritage of these failed farmers.
Those form the Ashbringers, prey turned to hunters, and the Ashbringers are led by the Hunter Chief.
The Hunter Chief is a Sylvanian ex-farmer. Maybe he was some chief before, but it matters not. Like all his kin, he raked in the dirt for scraps for food, begged and abased himself before smirking, inhuman masters that told him that he was only good to be food. And he believed it all. Each day, he stood still, ears and nose twitching like a prey animal, heart pumping as he fought to catch those hints that would save him from a horrible death. Each day, he looked in the mirror, hating what he saw. Each day, he watched friends and family wither and disappear, telling himself that to be the way of the world. Once, he wasn't a man, but a frightened, self-hateful animal.
But no more. The Count gathered him like a beaten puppy from the roadside. He taught him the errors of the past, showed him the truth of the present, ripped off the liar's face. The Chief despaired, cursed, cried for his and his ancestors' wasted existences. But he didn't break. He stood tall, grim rage and thirst for vengeance and justice burning beneath his weather-beaten features. He didn't run from the past. He faced it head-on, turning toward the future. He's the strongest among the Sylvanians, the one whose soul blazes the most brightly among the all-encompassing night. His chains have been broken, freeing the beast, turning it into a man.
Now, he has a mission: to cleanse his land from the taint that he had believed for so long to be inevitable, and to break the chains of his people, to lead them into a better tomorrow. Where other Ashbringers struggle enough to embrace their own destiny, he crusades so that others do so. And nobody embraces this crusade with more fervor than he.
He studied, he learned, not books but the ways of the hunt. Now, he leads his brothers and sisters against the liars that wanted to crush their souls. When the Ashbringers take to the haunted hills and the dark forests, it's the Hunt Chiefs that stand at their fore. Not as glamorous as the Marshals or imposing as the Black Judges, the Chiefs are brutes and crooks clad in mud-spattered clothes and armor, their features wizened by a life of misery. They all sport some kind of mutation, more or less debilitating, the result of generations of inter-breeding and exposition to dark magic. They aren't mages, they don't have arcane powers or skills. They aren't nothing but mortal men. And yet, nobody takes the fight against the night more zealously. Nobody coming from Sylvanian stock is more disciplined, nobody is more rugged and quietly stubborn, nobody racks more kills. How could it be any different? The Chiefs carry centuries of indignity upon their back, the strongest of those first to finally take arms against those that oppressed them, be it ignorance, stupidity or cruel masters, humans or inhumans.
There's no Sylvanian that doesn't look at the Chiefs. Some call them mad, others blasphemous, others are ready to follow them into the jaws of hell itself, their own bondage broken by their words and examples.
Chiefs don't bring holy powers or magic to the fight. They are but men, carrying all the skills refined by lifetimes spent struggling and surviving in the haunted lands of Sylvania. To all these now they add the technology and the martial abilities taught by Von Drak and his retinue. The result is hardened hunters that any beast of the night do well to be wary of, for a Hunter Chief's blows and arrows are filled with a stoic rage that can fell even the worst monsters, even the lords of the night themselves.
On the battlefield, they bring the same stubbornness they brought against barren fields and barren lives. The hard-rock resignation of farmers determined to survive, no matter what life threw at them, now focused, converted into a weapon of war that lets them fight with grim sturdiness any monster, any shadow. For they have seen them for they truly are: liars, deceivers, and they will be punished.
Eyes once empty, now filled with baleful light. Backs once crooked, now standing tall. Souls once broken, now surging again, and leading others into the light. It's a miracle, and yet it's true. Those that counted on Sylvanians remaining forever crushed under their boots beware now. The Chiefs were once but mice, frightened and helpless. Now they are wolves, standing tall and with steel in their hearts and hands.
Equipment: Light Armor
May be upgraded to:
- Salt-strewn Outfit
- Encrusted Outfit
Weapons: Rifle-Scythe
May be exchanged with:
- Axe & Rifle
- Heavy Rifle & Knife
- Blood-Rake & Rifle
Magic Items: the Hunter Chief can pick Items from The Count's Armoury and Sylvanian Angry Gubbins
Mounts:
- Giant Bat ( may be upgraded with A Taste for Dead Flesh, Burning Blood)
- Giant Dog (may be upgraded with A Taste for Dead Flesh, Burning Blood)
- Worgar (may be upgraded with A Taste for Dead Flesh, Burning Blood, Silver Sheathes)
Special Rules:
- This unit has Stalk
- This unit has Vanguard
- This unit is a Salt of the Earth type
Stoic Soul: A Hunter Chief brings the grim attitude of Sylvanian peasants to the battlefield. No matter how much you hit him, he will always get back up again, ready to retake the fight. If anything, pain and oppression only make him hit back harder.
Mutation is Me: Generations of exposition to dark magic and Wyrdstone have warped the physique of Sylvanian peasantry, and the Chiefs are no exception. But differently from the rest of their kin, the Chief has learned to accept and make cunning use of his mutations, with surprising results.
Possible mutations:
- Mutated arm: the chief's arm is a grotesque mass of mutated flesh. Maybe it's shrunken and withered, or maybe is massive and knotted. Either way, the chief has learned to use it, being by attaching implements to it or using its superior strength and durability
- Mutated leg: one of the chief's legs is a different size, giving him an awkward gait. What he misses in speed, he makes up with specialized stances in stability and kicking power
- Mutated senses: an uncanny mutation in the senses has attuned the Chief to the world beyond normal vision. Maybe his sight is weaker in daylight and stronger in dim lighting or darkness. Or maybe he can see magic as faint trails or smell it. Whatever it is, this mutation gives him advantages in his fight
- Mutated connections: the chief has a strange bond with animals, allowing him to communicate more easily with monsters and mounts
Hunter's Mark: There's a special kind of hatred in the Sylvanian hearts reserved for those monsters, humans or not, that preyed upon their people for centuries. The Chief can tap into this inner hatred, marking an enemy monster, dark mage or vampire as an Enemy of Us. Marked units find themselves the target of the wrath of the chief's kin. No matter how terrifying the monster marked, he'll soon find himself brought down by a flurry of arrows and furious axe strikes.
Redemption's Call: After centuries of indignity and self-loathing, the Chief calls on his kin to break the chains of the past and rise to self-acceptance and pride in themselves and their country. Emboldened, the Sylvanians fight all the harder against the creatures of the night, uncaring of the horror they project.
We got the gubbin for ya: Years of living beneath and then fighting the undead scourge has taught the Chief a wealth of tricks and tecnique to bring in the war against darkness. By instructing his kin, he commands them to adapt their tactics to the type of monsters they are facing.
Anti-Undead tactics:
- Get the goat, and then the rakes!: at a command of their chief, the Ashbringers use a blood-covered goat or sheep as live bait for a frenzied monster. Any creature that loses time gorging on it ends as the target of a concerted attack by Blood-Rakes.
- Don't look, you idiots! And don't listen!: knowing the vampires' insidious power, the Chief has his soldiers stuff their ears with wax or rotten leaves and hunker down behind their shields. They may lose in mobility, but the defensive capabilities are made all the better.
- Light them up!: at their Chief's behest, the Ashbringers unleash a flurry of firecrackers straight into the enemy ranks. The gunpowder in the projectiles cover the enemies, the flames taking to undead flesh especially well.
- There's the bugger! Net him down!: having spotted the necromancer holding the undead up, the Chief orders his soldiers to throw nets at him. Entangled, the monster won't be able to escape the charge of the Ashbringers.
- Scatter!: seeing a reversal of fortune, the Chief orders his soldiers to break combat and run. With surprising swiftness, the Ashbringers run, leaving their foe in the dust and disappearing into the countryside
- Use everything you have! Just resist, damn you!: in a desperate bid to resist the enemy onslaught, the Chief orders the Ashbringers to take out all the implements they have. Garlic, salt, mirrors, holy water and more trinkets are brought out, the haphazard assortment somehow managing to at least weaken undead assaults.
Dunno what you think is doing, and dun't care. But lemme tell ya sumthink. We hate yo. Yo and all yus damnable kind. We was like babies, and you betrayed us. Well, we is babies no more.
We's never stopping. We's never stopping our hunt, no until you's all gone and dust. You ain't escaping us, liar. No, no, you is not. Not until you is paid for all you is done to us folks. We's gonna rip ya apart, put yous bones out nicely for the crows. And then, when you're nice and naked, the spirits of us murdered folks is going to get to work on ya. You ain't going nowhere, not here, not in the other place, liar. Angry children get nasty when they all grown-up.
Hunter Chief Konig "Ironjaw" Freiks
Honorable Alchemist
Among the many changes brought by Von Drak, one of the most weighed with consequences was the institutions of the Houses of Drakenhof. All of them nominally under the command of the judicial House of Mercy, each House carries massive political and economic power, enough that even the Dread Count has to keep their opinions in account. Such influence means that the Houses find themselves often at odds. The Sigmarite House of Hammers and the Morrite House of Silence, in particular, are almost always at odds, each House determined to expand the reach of their churches across Sylvania.
So, it's quite strange to see that one House keeps itself aloof from all these struggles. Tucked in a secluded corner of Drakenhof, the House of Alchemy – or, as per its complete name, the Honorable House of Alchemy, Engineering and Progress - is a stark building, with no windows, constantly pouring fumes from a multitude of chimneys and multi-colored liquids from a veritable maze of sluices.
Appearances are deceiving. Inside, the House is a chaos of activity. Honored Alchemists, recognizable from their colored outfits, pace corridors cluttered with boxes filled with spare parts and discarded sections of machines. Master Engineers, their aprons and faces stained with grease and soot, are followed by apprentices, struggling to jot down their masters' ramblings. Fizzles and hooray fills fume-filled laboratories as contraptions jolt and shudder to life, or their would-be inventors scream and run for the door as they start bucking and jumping, throwing lightning and steam everywhere. On stained chalkboards, grinning teachers show to wide-eyed students the latest in empire technology, while in lead-lined halls, the best, or the less stable, minds of humankind pull and twist at massive machines, or labor at twisting constructions of glass filled with bubbling liquids, struggling to unlock the mysteries of steam and alchemy.
The Empire is not a nation that favors innovation. Choked by the grip of ignorance and zealotry, those that chase knowledge and technological change are looked upon as crazy at best and as heretics to tie on the stake at worst. The Empire Engineers are an exception, but they remain just that, and their steam technology has nowhere the expansion that the same has among the Dwarfs. It's not surprising then that when the Elector Count of Sylvania invited all those with mechanical and alchemical knowledge to his newly-founded House, many would leave everything behind and risk the travel to the province. And it's not surprising that the House of Alchemy became in record time one of the most renowned centers for technological and alchemical research in all of the Empire.
"The Alchemists are up to something", the saying goes, and it's quite an understatement. The Honorable Alchemists are always up to something, be it a new warmachine, a steam-powered version of an everyday object or a useless thingamajig made to show off. Handed out unprecedented respect, a massive budget and an almost complete free rein on how to conduct their experiments, these innovative minds have flocked from all the Empire to work at Drakenhof at the employ of Count Von Drak. The results speak for themselves. Nowhere else in the Empire, the provincial army is equipped with as much cutting-edge technology as in the Iron Bastion. It can be unstable sometimes, but the pros far outweigh the cons. The charred, crushed and pulped remnants – sometimes all at once - of the province's enemies can attest to that.
The Honorable Alchemists usually keep to their laboratories, eschewing politics and interesting themselves only in their experiments to push the boundaries of human understanding. But from time to time, one of these human geniuses give up the safety of their walls to personally oversee the implementation of his more violent inventions. When this happens, one can see the Honorable one standing among officers and commanders, its strange, clanking contraptions and colorful attire make him stand out like a rooster between peacocks. A strange sight, made even stranger by the fact that more often than not the Alchemist is more interested in the performance of his machines than into the battle itself.
And yet, it happens that a whole army is entrusted to one of these strange minds. One shouldn't consider it foolishness. An Honorable Alchemist is an expert in a multitude of fields, military matters being only one of many. The veterans among them make for a surprisingly effective general, especially when surrounded by a staff ready and able to put his eccentricities under control. Nowhere else the various branches of the Empire would accept such a general, but the authority of the Dread Count can and does much.
The martial-oriented Honorables even take to the battlefield themselves. These are rare, since the Alchemists are men of science rather than action, but those that make the exception make for a sight to behold. Arrayed in their clanking arrays, they blast enemies to pieces with blasts of lightning, jets of steam and violent machine strength, while handing out all kinds of alchemical blessings or devastation. They do so with a glee that is only half-explained by the zeal they share with their fellow man to make their land safe. At last, they are allowed to unleash the whole range of their knowledge. That they can help save the world by doing so, and receive respect due to such academically high minds, only adds to the long-awaited satisfaction.
Equipment: Heavy Armor with Steam-powered Array
May be upgrated to:
- Vulcanite Armor
- Heavy Steam Array
- Steam Armor
Weapon: Long Rifle with Optics
May be exchanged with:
- Steam-Blower
- Electrical Scourge
- Heavy Prongs
- Flame-thrower and Prongs
Mounts:
- Barded horse (may be upgraded with Sylvanian Resilience, Grave-Stench, Feueraugen)
- Mechanical steed (may be upgraded with OVERDRIVE!, Reinforced Frame)
- Steam Tank (may be upgraded with OVERDRIVE!, Double Cannon)
- Steam Behemoth (may be upgraded with OVERDRIVE!, Double Cannon, Steam Onslaught)
Magic Items: an Honorable Alchemist can take items from The Count's Armoury and The Arsenal of Tomorrow
Special Rules:
- This Unit has Frenzy
- This unit is considered a Machina
Master of Alchemy: the power of human alchemy is not something to underestimate, and the Honorable Alchemist is ready and willing to show its marvels to all. Each turn, he picks a marvelous elixir from his supply, or just concocts it on the spot, and uses it for himself or for his troops. It could be a rejuvenating mixture, reknitting wounds and re-establishing humors; a potion of strength and resistance, or a makeshift bomb. Both enemies and allies are sure to be amazed!
Master Engineer: fretting over his precious machina, the Alchemist personally oversee their workings and uses, making sure that both are optimized to perfection. Lesser engineers may grumble, but it's undeniable that machina under the Honorable One's management spit out outputs like never before. And since nobody can be truly trusted with them, the Honorable takes care of fixing and mending the worst damage.
Eureka!: the genius of the Honorable Alchemist shines even, and maybe especially, during the worst crisis. By adapting his rigorous logic mind to the battlefield, and adding to it a dash of innovative thinking, he makes a prediction of what the enemy will do in the next future. If it comes true, maximum damage are sure to come. Also, he'll get the chance to brag once he makes it back home!
Philistines' Spurner: undead, dark magic and misguided superstition are the faces of a world where man is crushed and humbled, one that the Honorable Alchemist, for all his eccentricities, is very much interested in seeing wiped out, in the name of reason and humanitarism. Every time a dark spell is cast, the Honorable One redoubles his efforts to free mankind from the grip of the dark.
Herr Doktor Heinz Von Kinkeneweir
Originating from an aristocratic Middenheimer family, Heinz Von Kinkeneweir defied all expectations by chasing after his dream to become a doctor. A kind, jovial man, he was one of those rare few among the imperial elite honestly interested in the abysmal conditions many among the labor classes were forced to live and work. Leaving behind a life of comfort and wealth, Heinz dedicated his life at improving the lot of the less fortunate.
Prodigiously strong and fit, Heinz studied for his doctorate while working as a strongman at the Puppenheimr Circus of Altdorf. After that, he opened a little study in the slums, from which he offered his services, very often at purely nominal prices, to factory workers with blackened lungs, orphans, prostitutes, maimed veterans and all the countless destitute living on the poor side of imperial life.
His efforts earned him the title of "Herr Doktor" among the lower classes, among which he became nothing less than a hero. But that wasn't the end of it. Even among the very elitist academic world, Heinz made his way. Through talent and indefatigability, his papers on hygiene and health practices earned him the attention of the most eminents doctors.
Handed out grants to finance his research, he used part of the money to build a hospital where his study had been. Always a pious man, Herr Doktor had his newly-fonded Institute of Good Practices and Health staffed by sisters of Shallya and consecrated to the Goddess of Healing. At the same time, he bought an abandoned factory, refitted it and turned it into a laboratory, inside which many poor were given good jobs and salaries.
Among his many correspondents and friends, Heinz formed a friendship with the eminent Doctor Festus. Sharing a passion for the improvement of mankind through health and practice, the two doctors became fast friends and colleagues. That is why when the shocking news that Doctor Festus had turned to abominable practices reached him, Herr Doktor hastily left Altdorf to meet with his old friend and receive an explanation.
The meeting didn't end well. Thoroughly corrupted by the Chaos God Nurgle, Festus welcomed his stunned, former colleague with paternal glee and a vile concoction. In agony, Heinz fled, the chortling laughter of his former friend echoing behind him.
His skin erupting with boils and pustules, Heinz managed to drag himself to an altar of Shallya, before his ravaged body gave way. Falling to his knees, Herr Doktor used the last of his strength to end his life the same way he had lived it, in service of others. Taking his knife, he turned it on himself, defiantly ripping away at boils and pustules until all his lifeblood was gone.
That should have been the end of his tale, if not a miracle happening. The statue of Shallya wept over the fallen doctor, the tears of the Goddess falling on his blood-spattered, ravaged frame. Instantly, Heinz was revived. Standing tall, Herr Doktor took in with incredulous awe his untouched body. Impossibly, Grandfather Nurgle had been denied.
Deeply grateful and with a new sense of purpose, Heinz dedicated himself to fighting the forces of ebullient Nurgle. Imbued with the Goddess of Healing's blessing, he worked long and hard, forging for himself an armor and a weapon worthy of such a crusade.
His first target couldn't but be the artifice of his rebirth. But Doctor Festus was nowhere to be found, the wily heretic emerging only to reap the results of his horrible efforts.
Knowing the ex-doctor better than anybody else, Heinz exploited character flaws that he believed not even madness could fully erase. Paying a printing press, he had thousands of manifests printed and distributed, each saying that the eminent Doktor Festus would have his doctorate revoked in a formal ceremony.
It stood to reason that such a ruse wouldn't work, but the peculiar madness of Festus meant instead that he felt the sting deeply. Fretting over the loss of his title, Festus burst into the chamber where the ceremony was taking place.
Before terrified notables, the two old friends faced each other again. As Festus lobbed spurts and jets of liquid sickness, Heinz waded through the sludge, an armored giant fully enclosed in his experimental outfit. This time, it was the dark apotechary's turn to flee, as Herr Doktor sprayed his former colleague with a generous amount of liquid fire from his flame-thrower.
Grandfather Nurgle wouldn't allow for his favorite to be destroyed, and so the two doctors entered into a long, bitter rivalry, one made equally by direct confrontations, plagues and remedies. When Festus unleashed a fetid plague fog through the city of Seventett, Heinz led the Shallyan priesthood in a ritual that repelled the creatures appearing in the mist, turning them into simple fog. When Heinz opened a hospice for orphans at Salzenmund, Festus corrupted the nurses into gore-splattered monsters that fed on the children, until Heinz torched them all. When Festus sponsored a chaos cult in Cappel, Heinz led a charge of empire soldiers in the building, forcing the Fecundite to escape. And so on, again and again, as the two battle without rest.
Through them, their Gods battle, the merciful Goddess of Healing fighting against the ever-potent Lord of Plagues. And who the victor will be, this is a story that needs to be written yet.
Always in stained doctor's robes, Heinz Von Kinkeneweir is a smiling giant of a man. He's gentle and caring, always taking time for his patients, fretting over their health and making sure that they're comfortable and without pain. Indefatigable, he moves from patient's bed to laboratory's table to academic desk almost without stop, his passion carrying him on.
Nobody would guess that the smiling Doktor and the giant wrapped in iron and leather, his head completely hidden behind a massive helmet, are one and the same, especially when the latter raises his flamethrower to bathe miscreants in liquid flame. On the battlefield, Heinz uses his strength and intellect to deadly effect, annihilating both sickness and its spreaders with blessed flame or just smashing to dust those that get too close with his steam hammer-fist. A flick of a trigger activates the injectors inset in his armor, flooding his body with elixirs and potions that turn him into a true juggernaut, more than able to block a minotaur's axe swing with the bayonet inset in his flamethrower, before knocking the monster down with a well-placed headbutt. The blessing of the Goddess of Healing writs large over Heinz, cleansing the places where he threads of the taint of Chaos and revitalizing allies in a manner similar to his own rebirth, proof of Shallya's mercy.
Even behind his visor, Herr Doktor's smile remains undimmed. It it's a hard smile or a concerned one, it depends if he's spraying a chaos spawn with liquid fire or casting a spell of healing on a friend in need.