Sylvania, the land of the Von Carsteins, the province the Elector Counts look at with disdain and that most of the Empire citizenry would prefer to forget. The winter is harsh and long here, and the winds howl mournfully over fens and bubbling swamps. Under the heavy boughs of dark forests, monsters and worse stalk. In lonely moors, shadowed figures and flickering lights dance under a gibbous moon.
Sylvania is a land unwelcome to the living. The frigid winds carry the whispers of tormented spirits, and maladies that wither both body and soul. The waters are tainted by a yellowish gleam and burn throats when one drinks them. The ground is tough and chalky, and requires a lifetime of work to give up just a meagre living.
The dead don't rest easy in Sylvania. Haunted castles and watchtowers dot the countryside, with the undead remnants, and worse, left from the Vampire Wars nestling in dust and shadow, ruling over terrified subjects or just waiting for new prey. When the Dark Wind blows, skeletal hands push through the mud and earth, and the dead tramp across the hills.
Nor the past alone holds danger. Acolytes of the dark arts, former disciples of the Von Carstein, gather in disturbed graveyards or around fissures in the ground glowing a noxious green to perform their unholy rituals. Bandits, beastmen and chaos worshippers infest the forests, preying on isolated villages and the few caravans struggling through the countryside. Ghouls, the degenerated cannibals of old, come sneaking from the shadows in search of fresh meat.
A superstitious, hardy people live here, stunted both physically and mentally by the unwelcome land they inhabit. While physical deformities abound, it's in the sciences and minds that the Sylvanians truly lack behind the rest of the Empire. Still regarding gunpowder as a terrifying marvel, they look at anything new and different with a deep distrust, and wish only for merciful masters and blessed ignorance. This folk huddle in miserable villages, don't even daring to peer outside their windows, in fear that what stalks the night come knocking.
The Empire doesn't love Sylvania, and the feeling is mutual. The people of Sigmar remember how the misshapen inhabitants of the forsaken province marched beside the shambling undead of the Von Carstein during the Vampire Wars, and they neither forget nor forgive. For their part, the Sylvanians look at the outside world with distrust and horror for what they believe mad changes in a perfect order, and never doubt that their loyalty toward the vampires was well-placed. More powerful, better-looking, wiser; how could it be wrong for them to serve such masters? These people don't understand the danger of dark magic, seeing it only as gods-given powers of divine masters.
This clash of ideas and visions has brought many to consider Sylvania as a land stranger to the civilized Empire, a notion the Sylvanians embrace gladly, and to treat it effectively as a conquered land from another, unholy kingdom. This has brought heavy-handed government from the Elector Counts the province has been split between since the end of the Vampire Lords. Heavy taxes and harsh, uninterested lords have seen what little economy and security the province treasured under the Von Carstein come crashing down. The church of Sigmar has only added to the pressure. The fire-brand crusades the Sigmarites launched into Sylvanian territory aimed to weed out vampire-friends and dark mages, and bring back the flock to their god's light, but only managed to further alienate the local population with its unrestrained trials and savagery.
Decades have passed from the Vampire Wars and all the Empire managed to garner from Sylvania is a population hostile to its foreign masters, filled with nostalgia for a time when powerful lords protected them from the creatures of the night and the worst tax was having to shed a few pints of blood.
The Elector of Stirland, while conscious of his duty over the Sylvanian peasantry, doesn't dare to march openly in the ex-province, lest he loses more than he can afford. To stop him, it's the many vampire-held petty kingdoms in which the province has divided, dregs of the unified rule of the Von Carstein. Alone, they don't prove a match for Stirland forces, but should the Count march in the province, there's no doubt they'd put aside their rivalries to join against the invaders, a possibility that, in the dark lands of Sylvania, could lead to catastrophe. Nor the various human-held counties, ruled by disinterested lords sent from outside, can be a sufficient counterbalance.
As things were, with the Emperors absorbed by internecine politics and outside invasions, it seemed that the trend was to continue indefinitely, with Sylvania destined to remain a dark backwater for decades to come. So it has come with great surprise when Emperor Karl Franz declared that a long-lost heir to the Von Drak line had made his appearance.
Renowned for their cruelty and dabbling in dark magic, the Von Drak were the unluckily rightful Counts of Sylvania and the main reason for the province's dismal state. It was their last scion, Otto, that allowed Vlad Von Carstein to take control of Sylvania, in a transfer of power that was shockingly legitimate and that compounded many of Vlad's claims. His own daughter, Isabella, would become the Vampire Count's wife, joining him in undeath.
With Otto's death at the hands of his erstwhile heir, it was supposed that the Von Drak line was extinguished. And yet, the Emperor himself declared the newly-appeared noble's claims to be true, compounding them before the reunited Elector Counts with a room-worth of papers taken from the genealogy records of the capital's archives.
With Alberich of Stirland far too happy to relinquish the troublesome province and the full approval of the Grand Theogonist, the election of the new Count Lorenz Von Drak happened remarkably quickly. Most of the grumblings have also been kept down by the swift departure of the Count for his new domain. Leading a small army of warriors, knights and priests, Von Drak has taken residence in Castle Drakenhof. His first act has been of cleansing the castle from any unwholesome influence, a process that the Count has taken part in personally, both by joining his priests in the rituals and by pacing the darkened, skittering-filled dungeons with the sword bestowed unto him by the Emperor in hand.
With his new home cleansed and sanctified, the Count launches himself into a flurry of activities. He removes dozens of corrupt lords, replacing them with men of his choice. He reforms the administration, favoring decentralization in matters of justice and culture while pressing for the centralization of military and authority. In this sense, he introduces the ranks of Sheriff and Mayor. He also institutes the Travelling Tribunal and sets its yearly path across Sylvania.
He favors internal commerce, setting the Moonglow and Riphstadt Fairs. He encourages the economy with grants and state help for the development of herding, lumber and peat industry.
He founds the Sylvanian state army, dubbing it the Iron Bastion, and chooses as its banner the hammer crushing a fanged skull. As his personal banner, he instead takes a flaming sword crossed with a radiant hammer. He allows and encourages Knightly Orders to build chapterhouses in the many abandoned castles dotting the countryside, with particular favor given to the Sigmarites and the Knights of Morr.
He leads dozens of campaigns in the countryside and in the forests, crushing vampire potentates, dark cults and rebellions, beastmen and greenskin tribes.
To prevent the proliferation of dark cults, he founds the Ash Watch, staffing it with priests and his own men. More than anything, he encourages the widespread of the churches of Sigmar and Morr, investing considerable resources in the building of places of worship, even in the remotest village.
It has been ten years now since the new Count took power, and the results speak for themselves. Sylvania shows nowhere near the same degree of civilization as the other provinces and yet there are changes nowhere seen from the time of the old Von Drak. Now, there's no village in Sylvania where the banner of the Bastion doesn't flap atop even a dusty guardhouse, no hovel where the tramp of boots is unknown. The soldiers of the state army, well recognizable in their black uniform trimmed in red, patrol newly-built roads and man newly-erected palisades and fortifications.
Grim castles showing the banners of the Knightly Orders dot the countryside, their gates swinging open as columns of armored knights ride thunderously into the countryside.
In mud-caked villages, priests of Sigmar in plate mail and white robe preach to fearful congregations, steeling their souls against the darkness. Somber priests of Morr watch over the dead, while black-robed Inquisitors do the same over the living, bringing harsh judgment over those that would threaten them.
A glimmer of trade blossoms, with wobbling carts carrying produce to Fairs and marketplaces. Great herds of sheep and cows graze over the chalky hills, while a primitive industry sends modest plumes of smoke over the rugged moors and swamps.
The villages dotting Sylvanians, once little more than clusters of miserable hovels huddling against the dark, have been turned into small bastions of civilization, with both walls and hearts keeping the night at bay. While cities proper are effectively unknown, somewhat prosperous towns have grown around great, somber castles, with peasants working and living under the watchful gaze of knightly, military leaders. This system keeps expanding, and is on its way to replacing the old ways of scattered hamlets.
But more than any economic and societal change, it's in the hearts and minds of people that an invaluable shift has come. For the first time since living memory, tentative smiles appear on the faces of Sylvanians. Eyes that once had only disdain as they gazed over the Empire and count's banner and soldiers, now hold glimmers of patriotic pride and gratitude. Something even more unlikely than change has come to Sylvania: hope.
Much remains to be done. Dark magic still sweeps across Sylvania. Unholy cults and practitioners of the blaspheme arts congregate in the dark, and the legacy of the Von Carstein still infests both land and mind. The forests are infested with all manners of monstrous creatures, and many Sylvanians still refuse to accept the end of vampire rule. And yet, for the first time since the Vampire Wars, a glimmer of defiant light seems to have arrived in Sylvania. Hope for the victory of humanity, once an impossible fantasy, now looks like a distant, if possible dream.
People, once bowed and bent under vampire tyranny, now march together, working and fighting for a day when the night's terrors are extinguished. Proud knights and grim priests lead the fight, repelling the encroaching night with the glint of their swords and faith. Under the stern gaze of their Count, Sylvania buds with light, wavering and small under the all-encompassing night, but very much alive.
Faction Overview
The Iron Bastion of Sylvania is the newly founded State Army of the reinstated province of Sylvania. Led by the fearsome Count Von Drak, it relies on masses of well-trained, faithful Silvanians soldiers and coscripts compounded by foreign expertise. Stern, knightly marshals and Inquisitor-lords lead with a mix of iron discipline and inspired command, while orders of devoted templars and priests offer both guidance and force of arms. Together with the constant drive for innovation and mechanical support, the Iron Bastion's spirit is one of relentless, inspired crusading against the horrors of the dark.
Still young, the Iron Bastion lacks the expert veterancy or long-standing traditions of the other armies. Still, it makes up for it with grim resolution and relentless technological advance. Also, the constant dangers and battles of the ten years since its foundation helped forge a veteran core of battle-hardened soldiers.
An Iron Bastion army relies for its operations on the rugged terrains of Sylvania on masses of well-trained, well-disciplined light infantry and cavalry, named Ashbringers. Composed of a mix of tough Sylvanian peasants and foreigners, these soldiers range across hill, fen and forest, bringing the fight to the creatures of the night with rifle, spear and weaponized mutation. Well-organized and well-structured, they are led by officers of the Ash Watch, each a demon-hunter in training and weapon master.
Still, when the time comes for open battle, the Iron Bastion relies on a core of heavily armored infantry, the Flamebearers. Less numerous, with an above-average percentage of foreigners, it's these soldiers that stand firm against the undead stampede. Well-versed in the use of rifles and halberds, they proved themselves in the ten years of Von Drak's rule, annihilating dozens of undead forces. Masses of Ashbringers and Sylvanian conscripts compound the heavy infantry, fighting with spears and axes as light infantry and skirmishers. The Black Guard, the Count's personal retinue and strongest knights, make for the core of the Flamebearers.
The support for technological advances advocated by the Count means that marvels rarely seen elsewhere in the Empire are a common sight in the Iron Bastion. Apart from the use en-masse of the rifle, chugging machines of war can be seen rattling and bellowing smoke beside the common soldiery, as well as the Empire Engineers taking care of them.
The Sigmarite and Morrite Churches bring a heavy contribution as well, with formations of heavy-armored knights and scouts, as well as plate-mailed Warrior Priests and dark-garbed Death Prelates.
Given the unforgiving nature of Sylvania, discipline in the Iron Bastion is ironclad, with stern Watch-Captains and Sheriffs overseeing both the training and conduct of troops. Ash Inquisitors, instead, take care that no unwholesome presence manages to implant itself, even forming squads of specialized vampire slayers when the need arises.
An oddity among the Iron Bastion, and what may possibly be the lonely gesture of kindness offered by Von Drak to vampires, are the Cowled. Vampires turned turncoats upon their own kin, these mercenaries go around swathed in heavy fabrics and armor, all to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Under the watchful eye of the Ash, they offer their particular brand of expertise to the Iron Bastion, in exchange for limited leave to slake their thirst.
Still, where the Iron Bastion's true difference shines is in its coming together with its Sylvanian heritage. Favored by Von Drak, the State Army welcomes mutants and hedgewitches of all kinds. Organized under the Good Society of Drakenhof, strictly regulated and controlled by Von Drak's witch confidants, these oddities in human nature offer the millennia of Sylvanian peasant culture and witchery. The results are the grotesque, loud-mouthed Frosch, the monstrous Hund and the dark, veil-covered Krahe. Oddballs and outcasts that wouldn't be welcomed anywhere in the Empire, but that Von Drak doesn't hesitate to implement in his crusade against the undead.
As he expands his domain over the world; as he conquers hill and dale, as he burns the forest, replacing the natural domain with mechanics born from his desire. As he grasps at knowledge sublime, ascending to the pinnacles of mind and reason; as he sees the faces of the Gods, their numinous gazes raising his soul above. As he does this and more, leaving no corner darkened by the shadows of ignorance, seeing all, uncovering all with the light of his understanding... and then, at day's end, when he stands atop the mountain, laying his gaze over the conquests blazed by his hand and logic, all bowing before him. Even if that comes to pass, man will do well to remember the beast lurking inside, and how thin are the walls holding it in the dark.
- Count Lorenz Von Drak
Next chapter: Army Special Rules, Legendary Lord and Lords