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"Drachenfels. The Great Enchanter. A devil in human form, who cheated Death for centuries unknown; a man with appetites so base they lay beyond satiation; a necromancer, torturer of the dead, dismemberer of spirits; a vileness made flesh; a wizard, a scholar, a monster. Untold are the reaches of his barbarities, uncounted the number of his treacheries, beyond belief the depravities of his practices. Was ever such a vileness born of mortal flesh?"

Lives of the Depraved by Konrad Steinhoff (Talabheim, Schnuffler & Son Publishers, 2099 IC)[4a]
Constant Drachenfels

Constant Drachenfels, the Great Enchanter

Constant Drachenfels, called the "Great Enchanter," but who called himself the "Darkness That Would Not Be Defied" and the "Eternal Champion of Evil",[1p] was an infamous daemonologist and necromancer who plagued the Empire for millennia until he was slain by Genevieve Dieudonné, a Lahmian Vampire, and Detlef Sierck, the most famous playwright of the Empire. [4a][4b]

By any Human standard, Drachenfels was evil given physical form. His actions had never been kind, just or noble, although they had a quality that some might consider purity. For example, his plots had a certain directness about them. When he allegedly "repented his sins" before the court of Emperor Carolus II, a less trusting man than the emperor would have seen through his new-found goodness, or at least have had the sense to listen to those who did have such doubts. Drachenfels "repented" only so that he could strike down his unwary, trusting enemies. But beyond such whimsies, he has killed, crippled and driven men insane, plotted and destroyed nations in a calculating fashion and in the heat of terrible rages.[4c]

Behind all his evil actions, Drachenfels had only his own dark motives which some men claimed had little to do with "evil." He was the ultimate pragmatist, it is said: any act could be contemplated and carried out if it served his survival. Continued existence was his ultimate purpose, beyond any moral consideration.[4c]

"Good" and "evil," such men say, are latecomers to Human affairs, and Drachenfels dates from a time before such niceties had meaning. But it is what Drachenfels did when his existence was not at stake which marked him out, and his indulgence in atrocity and carnage marked him out as unquestionably evil.[4c]

Drachenfels returned as a disembodied Undead spirit known only as the "Nameless" in the service of the resurrected Great Necromancer Nagash during the End Times.[2a][2b]

History[]

Origins[]

Constant Drachenfels was part of a primitive humanoid race that inhabited the world before the arrival of the Old Ones. The specimen of this species that would become Drachenfels was abandoned in the icy plains by his tribe.[1o] He survived the millennia by taking the bodies of others as his own, transferring his malignant spirit into his victims and subsuming them. Even Drachenfels himself did not know why he had this power.[1o] As a being older than the Coming of Chaos, he looked down upon the Dark Gods as amateurs, without proper discipline to achieve their goals, yet took to dealing with them nonetheless.[1c]

The Grand Enchanter terrorised the realms around his land for millenia. At the Battle of Drakenmoor in 11 IC, Drachenfels led an army consisting of enslaved Daemons and Goblins against Sigmar's growing empire. It was here that he suffered the first defeat in his long existence and was apparently slain.[2a]

Little was heard of him afterwards, but his evil never vanished. He built Castle Drachenfels around 184 IC and began to terrorise the realms around it, using the castle as his seat of power.[4b] During this period Drachenfels was reduced once more for a thousand years, his body ruined beyond repair, but he was not destroyed. Eventually, as he had done before, he possessed another body.[4c]

The most infamous incident involving Drachenfels after his latest return had been the so-called "Poison Feast" during the Age of Three Emperors in 1907 IC. Drachenfels approached Emperor Carolus II, offering penance for his sins. He paid generous reparations to his living victims and abased himself before the graves of his victims. He swore loyalty to the Empire and the gods he had previously cursed. He also invited Carolus and his entire court into his castle to celebrate his new life, vowing that his abode would forever after be a home to orphans and the destitute.[4b]

Against the wishes of his advisors, the emperor accepted the invitation, arriving with his court, as well as his wife Irina and his children. When they began to eat the food the Great Enchanter had prepared for them, they became paralyzed, helpless to witness the obscenities Drachenfels conducted before their eyes afterwards. He then left the royal party to starve with the feast before them. [1b]

Another less infamous, but equally despicable act was the Leper's Pavanne of 1104 IC, where Drachenfels duped nearly a thousand souls into attending a ball within his halls, beguiling the people with stories that would appeal to their greatest desires. Then he forced them to dance until their limbs fell off.[4b]

Königswald Expedition[]

"Let joyful towers a tintinnabulation sound
That the Enchanter Great is under good ground
And let th’infernal churches sound their bells
To welcome Constant Drachenfels
"

—The Tragedy of Oswald, introduction.[1f]

In 2480 IC,[2b] Crown Prince Oswald von Königswald began an expedition to free the Known World from Drachenfels' tyranny. A scholar named Sieur Jehan had warned von Königswald of a dark vision, of a masked man who walked across a blasted land, with the forests transformed into deserts and the rivers filled with blood. Drachenfels was building his strength and apparently planned to herald the end of days. As Emperor Luitpold I did not believe Jehan's prophecies, Oswald took it upon himself to slay the Great Enchanter.[1a]

Recruiting several adventurers, among them the Vampire Genevieve Dieudonné, the prince breached the castle, although many of his companions were slain by Daemons and other servants of the Enchanter on the way. Despite the dangers, they braved the labyrinthine halls of Castle Drachenfels and confronted its master in his throne room. Of the survivors, Oswald faced Drachenfels alone. And alone, he managed to do the deed and kill the monster that had terrorised the world for millennia.[1b]

After Drachenfels' apparent death, the repercussions wwere felt all across the Known World. His agents were either revealed as monsters or simply died as if struck down by invisible arrows. A castle in Kislev collapsed, crushing a coven of witches to paste. In Gisoreux, the statue of a martyred child came to life and spoke with an ancient dialect no one could understand. Thousands of spirits could leave the world behind to travel to Morr's Gate.[1d]

Emperor Luitpold ordered Castle Drachenfels cleared, although it was left standing as a reminder of the evil that had been vanquished. The library and possessions of the Great Enchanter were divided across the shrines and libraries of the Empire, open only to the most esteemed and unblemished scholars.[1d]

Tragedy of Oswald[]

In secret, Drachenfels had planned his resurrection. Oswald von Königswald, in actuality the Great Enchanter's accomplice, hired Detlef Sierck, a playwright with financial troubles, from the prison of Mundsen Keep in order to make a play commemorating Drachenfels' defeat. One of Drachenfel's minions, Laszlo Lowenstein, a pedophilic actor with a penchant for sadism on the run from the witch hunters , got the role of Drachenfels.[1e]

On the orders of the Great Enchanter, Lowenstein took the eyes and heart of Erszbet, one of Oswald's companions who had died in the Frederheim Asylum afterwards, from the Garden of Morr in Altdorf.[1g]

During the preparation for the debut of Sierck's play, Rudolf Wegener the Outlaw, another of Oswald's companions, was found sliced open, with all of his body fat extracted and his eyes removed.[1h] From Menesh the Dwarf, he took the eyes, the skin, the kidneys and the reproductive organs.[1i] From Anton Veidt the Bounty Hunter, he took the eyes and the skeleton. Each time, a bit more of Drachenfels replaced a piece of Laszlo until the Great Enchanter nearly overtook his minion. All that remained was the blood of Genevieve Dieudonné to make his resurrection complete.[1k]

Sending the actress Lilli Nissen the face of his latest victim, the Enchanter ensured that the frightened actress would not play her part as the vampire, forcing the real Genevieve to assume the role.[1l]

All of the Empire's higher nobility were invited to witness the premier of the play, including the family of the emperor, the Electors and other powerful merchants and nobles.[1m] As the play began, Laszlo gave himself over to possession by Drachenfels' spirit, effectively becoming the Great Enchanter for all intents and purposes, seeking to fulfill his plan in the fifth act.[1n]

Here, Oswald revealed his treachery. Instead of having defeated the Great Enchanter, he had made a pact with him. Drachenfels felt the need to rejuvenate his body and offered Oswald to kill him and become a hero. In exchange, he would bring the Imperial court to Castle Drachenfels, where the emperor would be slain, the Electors either bent to their will or killed as well and Oswald would proclaim Drachenfels as the new ruler of the Empire. To make the victory appear real, he even loosened some of his own enchantments.[1o]

In the end, Drachenfels was slain again, by the hand of Detlef Sierck who took up an ordinary sledgehammer to bring the monster down when it tried to claim Genevieve Dieudonné's blood. Bystanders swore the hammer shone with golden light, as if Sigmar himself had guided it.[1q] With each blow, one of the Great Enchanter's stolen lives was shattered, until nothing remained but the savage creature he had been fifteen thousand years ago. With the last blow, the spirit of Drachenfels was finally shattered, and the Great Enchanter was apparently slain for good.[1r]

Aftermath[]

Drachenfels faceless ones

The symbol used by the cultists of Drachenfels

The Great Enchanter was a creature of living legend. He has lived, so rumour has it, forever. Certainly, for as long as anyone can remember -- and for as long as histories have been written and folk tales told -- there had been Constant Drachenfels in his castle. He was a dark figure who stalked the dark corners of history, emerging into the light and committing some gratuitous, bohemian atrocity, almost as a reminder to Men that he existed and should be feared.[4c] The final story of his defeat is told in Detlef Sierck's play, The Tragedy of Oswald, but many believe that the tales about him were exagerrated or could not possibly have been committed by the same person.[9]

In truth, Drachenfels' body was slowly, slowly being regenerated by the magic of Castle Drachenfels itself, similar to how the Black Pyramid of Nagash works, a process that was sped up upon the arrival of new adventurers to attempt to defeat him once more.[4c]

In Ubersreik, the remaining servants of the Great Enchanter had organised a cult called the Faceless Ones, dedicated to fulfilling the wishes of their dark master. The remnant of Drachenfel's spirit influences the weak-willed, calling out to them and infiltrating their souls with tendrils of malice and spite.[3a] Some of Drachenfels' victims whose souls remained tethered to the mortal world became his slaves, with some even becoming followers, forming an order of spirits called the "Monks of Drachenfels." [1j]

End Times[]

Vermintide[]

Castle Drachenfels had been targetted by the Ubersreik Five twice, thankfully without encountering its dread inhabitant. During the first assault on the fortress, in ca. 2522 IC, the Five stole several artefacts from its dungeons, which were also sought by the vile Skaven of Clan Fester.[8]

During the Five's second visit, they stopped the Chaos Sorcerer Nurgloth the Eternal from unleashing a Daemon sealed within the castle by Drachenfels. During that visit, the Five were tormented by an unknown voice -- later revealed to be that of the disembodied Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided Be'lakor -- that confronted them with their past failures.[9]

The Nameless[]

Constant Drachenfels Archaon

Constant Drachenfels, now the Undead spirit known as the Nameless, possessing the body of Luthor Huss.

By the dawn of the End Times, Drachenfel's spirit had reformed once more within the Grey Mountains, where it lurked. This creature was one composed of raw power, its mind shattered by its recent defeat and the death of its latest mortal form, and it vowed its service to the recently resurrected Nagash on the condition that the Great Necromancer would see its memory restored, and that it would be "Nameless" no more. The Nameless went forth with Vlad von Carstein, Walach Harkon and the Knights of Blood Keep to fight the Chaos forces moving across the border of Sylvania from Kislev.[5a][5b]

Defence of Alderfen[]

At the Auric Bastion during the battles of the End Times, Vlad von Carstein and the Nameless took a section of the wall to defend, quickly making it one of the strongest points on the Bastion. However the Nameless, frustrated with Vlad's refusal to tell it its name, spent its time invading the minds of the Imperial soldiery such as Captain Harald Dreist, forcing them to butcher their compatriots to a degree that they were misconstrued as the machinations of a Daemon or Beastman. Yet their depredations were considered far too civilised to be the work of the latter, for they had slit throats, cracked skulls and undertaken similar acts of murder and mayhem. Upon the end of the Battle of Alderfen, the Nameless left with von Carstein and his allies, not having given away their true identities nor allegiances.[5c][5d][5e]

In a portion of the Bastion known to Ostermarkers as the Helreach, the Nameless continued its machinations, dominating the minds of every soldier and ritualist for a twenty-league span of the wall while Vlad von Carstein controlled the Rackspire garrison. Due to their direct control of the soldiery to prevent routing and the use of necromancy, this portion of the wall became the most strongly defended along the entire Bastion.[5f][5g]

Over time, the Nameless took to increasingly vile tortures. Some of the soldiers he targetted fought their fellows to the death in makeshift arenas, spurred to engage in the bloodsport by the cruel whispers in their minds. Others had gnawed at their own flesh, for no other reason than because the Nameless wished to sample the experience through his borrowed senses.[5h]

One day the dark spirit would have them flay their compatriots' skins to make banners, the next the Nameless would change its mind, have the banners torn down and totems built using the same soldier's bones. Despite his desire to kill Supreme Patriarch of the Imperial Orders of Magic Balthasar Gelt when he found out about the disturbances at Helreach, von Carstein intercepted the Magister before he could land his blow.[5h]

After the fall of the Auric Bastion following the revelation that the Gelt was a burgeoning necromancer, von Carstein gave the Nameless the task of maintaining the Empire-Kislev border whilst he himself travelled elsewhere.[5i]

Further Ambitions[]

The Nameless was delighted at the turn of events that came in the wake of the fall of the Auric Bastion. An army of Undead was at his command, and three of Nagash's five remaining Mortarchs were his for the taking. The Nameless had visions of challenging Nagash once the power of three Mortarchs was added to his own.[6g]

The spirit had all but forgotten about his latest mortal host, Luthor Huss, thinking the warrior priest's mind completely smothered beneath his own dark will. However, Huss was a meal that had lost its flavour, and the Nameless wanted the battle done so he could seek out another living host. Glory awaited, of that he was sure.[6g]

Final Destruction[]

The Nameless, forgotten by Nagash, who was preoccupied with the other unfolding events of the End Times, betrayed his Undead master and turned to the service of the Chaos Gods.[7a] The Nameless attacked Vlad von Carstein, the Mortarch of Shadows, during the battle for Sylvania. The Vampire Lord, having experienced the might that faith had over the Undead firsthand, managed to reawaken the Nameless' current mortal host, the warrior priest Luthor Huss, by reminding him of his faith in Sigmar and that the violation he had experienced through possession by the Nameless was merely a test of his faith.[6g]

Spurred on by the words of his former adversary, Huss managed to break through the cage that the Nameless had spun around his soul, breaking free of the dark spirit's control with a wordless cry, the power of his faith transforming into a raging column of holy fire that engulfed him and cleansed the Undead taint from him. The Nameless, unable to flee, was caught in this explosion of faith-fuelled magic and evaporated like a shadow caught in the noon-day sun, ending the dark legacy of Constans Drachenfels at last.[6g]

Appearance[]

During his lifetime before becoming the disembodied spirit called the Nameless, the Great Enchanter Constant Drachenfels was well over six feet tall and a physically imposing man -- if, of course, he actually was a man. His face was always hidden behind a mask, his hands covered by soft gloves and his body draped with fine robes. No one had seen his face and lived long enough -- or remained sane long enough -- to tell of it.[4c]

Drachenfels never showed his face, hiding it behind a featureless mask of tin and iron. Beneath it, he wore the body of his latest victim, usually rotting away unless the transference was fresh. [1o]

Sources[]

  • 1: Drachenfels (Novel) by Jack Yeovil
    • 1a: Prologue, Ch. 2
    • 1b: Prologue, Ch. 3
    • 1c: Prologue, Ch. 5
    • 1d: Act 1, Ch. 2
    • 1e: Act 2, Ch. 9
    • 1f: Act 2, Ch. 12
    • 1g: Act 3, Ch. 3
    • 1h: Act 3, Ch. 9
    • 1i: Act 4, Ch. 1
    • 1j: Act 4, Ch. 2
    • 1k: Act 4, Ch. 7
    • 1l: Act 5, Ch. 1
    • 1m: Act 5, Ch. 2
    • 1n: Act 5, Ch. 3
    • 1o: Act 5, Ch. 8
    • 1p: Act 5, Ch. 9
    • 1q: Act 5, Ch. 11
    • 1r: Act 5, Ch. 12
  • 2: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Core Rulebook (RPG)
    • 2a: pg. 272
    • 2b: pg. 275
  • 3: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: A Guide to Übersreik (RPG)
    • 3a: pg. 64
  • 4: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition: Castle Drachenfels (RPG)
    • 4a: pg. 4
    • 4b: pg. 4
    • 4b: pg. 95
    • 4c: pg. 96
  • 5: The End Times Vol I: Nagash (8th Edition)
    • 5a: pg. 179
    • 5b: pg. 180
    • 5c: pg. 266
    • 5d: pg. 268
    • 5e: pg. 271
    • 5f: pg. 276
    • 5g: pg. 277
    • 5h: pg. 280
    • 5i: pg. 296
  • 6: The End Times Vol V: Archaon (8th Edition)
    • 6a: pg. 51
    • 6b: pg. 52
    • 6c: pg. 53
    • 6d: pg. 56
    • 6e: pg. 57
    • 6f: pg. 64
    • 6g: pg. 60
    • 6h: pg. 64
    • 6i: pg. 68
    • 6j: pg. 69
    • 6k: pg. 70
  • 7: The Lord of the End Times (Novel) by Josh Reynolds
  • 8: Warhammer: The End Times - Vermintide (Video Game)
  • 9: Warhammer: Vermindtide II (Video Game)
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