Blood And Fire: The von Carsteins

Aristocracy Of The Night: The von Carsteins
compiled by Thanis Ianakussis

There are few facts but much legend surrounding the origins of the von Carstein bloodline, destined to become the most powerful and important in the history of the Old World. It is known though, that the zenith of their time came when Vladimir von Carstein took over the rulership of Sylvania, an Imperial province. Before the advent of Vladimir, and, in fact, since the beginning of recorded history, Sylvania had always been known to be a cursed, and evil land. Its surface was thick, for the most part, with dark and dangerous forests, homes to bandits and beast-men, and its soil was poor and unproductive. However, it is a land where the Wind of Shyish, bearer of the darkest energies of magic, blows strongly. The dead long had the reputation of resting uneasily there, as attested by the local tradition of burying deceased friends and relatives face down, in deep graves, so that it was more difficult for them to dig their way out.

Rumours circulated in the rest of the Empire, accusing the nefarious von Drak counts and other Sylvanian nobles of being corrupt practicioners of the black arts. Indeed these rumours are founded in reality. The noblemen built their castles at mystical points, where Shyish was concentrated highly, and power could be be gathered for their iniquitous spells. Ancient rituals of death were celebrated in dank dungeous, and the name of Nagash was secretly praised. The Sylvanian people were kept in a state of misery and superstitious ignorance, and their squalid hamlets were dominated with ruthless cruelty.

Sylvania was a haven for necromancers expelled from the other Old World realms, and its accursed presence only tolerated because, in theory at least, the land was Imperial, and its people loyal to the Emperor. This, however, was to change. In the year 1797 I.C. Count Otto von Drak died, with no male heir, but a mysterious stranger married his daughter, Isabella, and seized power over Sylvania. The name of this newcomer was Vladimir Von Carstein. At first the nobles of Sylvania refused to recognise the authority of an outlander, but soon were persuaded to accept Vladimir as their ruler, when two of the most influential lords disappeared suddenly. The other Imperial Electors witnessed the change of power in Sylvania without interfering, for the new Counts seem to be far better a government than the von Draks. Under Vladimir's astute ruling and iron hand, Sylvania was transformed, becoming an efficient, and productive province.

Over two hundred years later, Vladimir revealed his true nature; he was a vampire, and had changed names periodically so as not to arouse suspicion in the rest of the Empire over his un-natural longevity. The Sylvanians themselves knew no better, and Vladimir's court had long since been murdered or turned to vampiric thralls. At the head of a massive army, made up of Sylvanian regulars and hordes of skeletons and zombies, and with his former rivals as his lieutenants, Vladimir attacked Stirland. The Vampire Wars had begun. Stirland was devastated, and Ostermark followed. Vladimir struck out towards the heart of the Empire, and for forty years, his armies rampaged across the land. During this long period, the fortunes of war were fickle, and many a time Vladimir was cut down, smashed by a cannonball or taken by a hero's blade. But he always returned from the netherworld, a mystic ring he wore granting him amazing regenerative powers, even for one of his kind, while the casualties themselves replenished his army's ranks.

In 2051 I.C., after a series of great victories, Vladimir's army was immense. The Sylvanians, with not a living soul amongst them, reached Altdorf, then both the capital and the greatest city of the Empire. The city was besieged, and the Altdorfians lost all hope. The final assault came, and the Grand Theogonist Wilhelm the Third faced Vladimir himself on the battlements, shortly after the vampire had slain the Lord Mayor of Altdorf Franz Grunmann with a single blow. Knowing that he couldn't hope to win the duel, the Theogonist sacrificed his own life, in an attempt to destroy Vladimir. He allowed the vampire to stab him, and, with his last strength and Vladimir's sword deep within his ribs, Wilhelm dragged both of them from the walls. The two fell in an embrace of death, their bodies impaled by the stakes lining Altdorf's moat. This time, Vladimir did not return. Whether as legends say, his magical ring was stolen the night before by the greatest thief in the Empire, the man sent by the Theogonist himself, or that Wilhelm's holy blood, a living incarnation of the god Sigmar, countered Vladimir's regenerative prowess, is not known. What was for certain, was that Vladimir was finally slain, and the Sylvanians retreated. Many of Vladimir's vampiric lieutenants were dead, slain during the siege or cut down as they turned to flee, but also great were the casualties on the people of Altdorf, and so no pursuit was possible. The pernicious vampire lords of Sylvania escaped, and were granted an interval in which to lick their wounds and regain their strength, although Vladimir's copies of the Nine Books of Nagash were recovered by Witch Hunters in the vampire's tent, pitched outside the walls of Altdorf. These were hastily placed under lock and key within the Temple of Sigmar.

Isabella von Carstein, having followed her husband since he'd set out from Sylvania, killed herself before the eyes of the would-be Emperor Ludwig at the broken gates of Altdorf. Unable to face eternity without Vladimiar, she drove a stake into her heart, taken from amongst those which pierced her beloved's corpse, and then shrivelled to dust.

The remaining von Carsteins fought each other for supremacy, and after years of strife, Konrad von Carstein prevailed. He was a mad, and violent individual, feared just as much by his servants as his enemires. He immediately launched another campaign against the Empire, in a vain attempt to emulate Vladimir's victories. Far less skilled a tactican than his predecessor, Konrad was stopped in the Battle of Four Armies in 2100, and finally slain twenty-one years later, at Grim Moor, crushed under the battlehammer of the dwarf Grufbad, of Karaz Dann.

The last significant von Carstein was Mannfred. In stark contrast to his predecessor, Mannfred was a subtle, devious, and treacherous individual, who some believe to have been present when the Carstein ring was stolen, and laid a glamour over the sentries - others say that Mannfred himself initiated the theft, although he is never chronicled to have worn the ring itself. While Konrad von Carstein ravaged the Empire in the name of the great Vladimir, Mannfred laid low and studied necromancy, and the Lore of Death. It is said that he travelled as far as the Land of the Dead in search of the secrets of unlife, returning to Castle Drakenhof with an ample fund of Dark magics, and then bade his time until he felt sure of his power. After Konrad's death, Mannfred became the undisputed overlord of Sylvania and the von Carstein vampires. For a full decade, he did nothing, letting the contenders for the Imperial throne ignore Sylvania and fall out amongst themselves.

In due time, they did, and with the Empire racked by vicious civil war, Mannfred deemed it time to strike. His undead legions crossed the Sylvanian border in the depths of winter, and marched through the snows to Altdorf, leaving razed villages in their wake, and adding to their ranks, in the form of vampire underlings or mindless zombies. In the Winter War of 2032 I.C. he defeated several hastily assembled Imperial armies sent to meet him, and the men of the Empire trembled at the fast-spreading rumours of Mannfred's imminent sacking of Altdorf. The vampires and their armies reached the Imperial capital in late winter, to find the city battlements empty of defenders.

Triumph filled the von Carsteins, but this soon turned to fear, as the Grand Theogonist Kurt III appeared on the upper ramparts, reciting aloud from the Liber Shyish the Great Spell of Unbinding, a spell created by the High Elves of Ulthuan to strip powerful undead of their force of un-life. Such was a terribly dangerous thing to do; the Theogonist clearly acted in desperation, and needed months of rest afterwards to recuperate, but his suffering was not to be in vain. As the spell's first lines echoed around the city walls, the zombies and skeletons of Mannfred's army fell broken to the ground, the ghouls and ghasts fled in fright, and the weakest of the vampires too fell, their skin melting, and their screams of death striking terror into the unbeating hearts of their fellows.

Mannfred retreated his battered forces, just as the Theogonist collapsed into the arms of his acolytes on the rampart. The von Carsteins marched to the port of Marienburg, but found an Imperial army and a contingent of elves from Ulthuan led by the great mage Finreir waiting for him. Mannfred prepared for a lengthly siege, but his scouts revealed a further battalion, from Altdorf, fast approaching from the north. Mannfred was forced to lift the siege, and flee back across the Empire. His armies would be whittled away by various Imperial state regiments, and were eventually driven back to Sylvania. The Imperial nobles, united in the face of such a heinous danger, swore to scour the Sylvanian woods of undead, and relentlessly went about their task, zealous warrior-priests and witch hunters too, playing their part in tracking down and destroying their unliving enemies. Several months later, Mannfred was finally brought to battle at Hel Fenn, and cut down by the Count of Stirland, Martin, who claimed the province of Sylvania as part of his domain, for the feat. No other Elector chose to lay claim to the accursed land, and so none opposed Martin. Thus was ended the threat of the vampiric Counts of Sylvania, though Mannfred's body was lost in the marshes. Whispered rumours warn that he will return, with his vampiric children, and once lead the undead to battle, but as far as history is concerned, Mannfred von Carstein perished at the battle of Hel Fenn - and long may he rest.

Contemporary von Carsteins

Today, Sylvania is officially part of Stirland, but in practice is an abandoned territory, where the dead are still easily stirred from their slumber. Many attempts have been made to reclaim this accursed area, but the dark forests of Sylvania are still prowled by horrors, bats fill the blackest skies at night, and the people hang daemonbane and garlic at their windows, and rarely venture outside after dark, though there are many who consider the von Carstein Counts as their legitimate rulers and gladly fight for them. There are whispers of a new vampiric Count of Sylvania rebuilding the Drakenhof Castle, traditional capital of the von Carsteins, though nothing is confirmed.

The von Carsteins are surely descended from the Masters of Khemri, though their creator is not named in any text. Some believe that it was Vladimir himself, who had changed his name to something suitably Imperial, so as to infiltrate Sylvania more easily - 'von Carstein' is by no means Nehekharan in origin. Others claim that Vladimir himself had a sire, whose name is lost in the depths of Time. Vladimir was a towering, imposing figure, blessed with feral charm and a wicked intellect, but bore none of the traditional traits associated with the other four Bloodlines - neither the enchanting beauty of the Lahmians, nor the martial code and skill of the Blood Dragons, while he was certainly not of the Strigoi or the Necrarchs, theirs being a terrible visage to behold, and by all accounts Vladimir was fine-featured. While Vladimir's own sire remains unknown, scholars accept all Warhammer vampires which aren't immediately identified to belong to one of the other bloodlines, to be von Carsteins. Thus the 'blood-less' vampires, children of one of the lost Masters, are historically a part of the von Carstein line, as are all other-World vampires which are encountered (The vampire Dariusz famously slain by Hellscream Warsong at Blood River is named in both Cyprian and Imperial history as Dariusz von Carstein) - simply because a von Carstein is assumed to have sired them, however much actual truth there be in the postulate.

With the death of Mannfred, the immediate threat of the von Carstein vampires to the rest of the World has ceased, or so it seems. Though the emergence of a new Count of Drakenhof to rise up and lead the vampires in another savage campaign against humanity is unlikely, there are far more subtle means known and practiced by the von Carsteins. Theirs is also a political campaign, and, through the promises of wealth and power, and the like, the von Carsteins have won many followers from amongst the ranks of their Imperial neighbours, and often play a hand in matters where the vampires' corrupting influence would be least expected. Let us pray, then, that the vigils of the Ordo Malleus and the Witch Hunters of Sigmar never wane, for it is the von Carsteins who many consider the von Carsteins as the most dangerous of all Warhammer vampires, and I would hasten to agree with them.

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