Gou is a dark elf in Warhammer

Chapter 251 101. Emperor Harken's Great Empire

(This chapter is all about popular science and background content)

"Here is the Vampire Coast, and we are on our way to death" - the last entry in the logbook of the merchant ship Fortune in Marienburg, which was found abandoned at sea like a ghost ship Go with the waves.

The ports of the old world have long been spreading the dark stories of the mysterious continent, but the Lustrian Vampire Coast in reality is even more terrifying and frightening than the rumors.

Daredevil captains dare to trade and explore in Skogee, foolish captains seek out the Vampire Coast, and only a deadly captain would find it profitable to dock in that cursed port of New Baker.

However, these death-seeking guys set off after all, and Daxus set off with Drucci's Black Ark Fleet, which covered the sky and the sun!
The Vampire Coast is located in the southeastern part of the Lustrian continent, extending from Broken Cape in the east to the mouth of the Kuweza River in the southwest.In between there are five small rivers that flow through the jungle and flow into the sea. The river is as even as the bristles of a comb, as though it had been intentionally made by the Old Ones, adjusted in some unknowable grand plan.

These five estuaries are full of danger and will not provide shelter for incoming ships. Not only are there strongholds and guards stationed at each estuary, but the swamps and estuaries are inhabited by huge and fierce pliosaurs. Live and also forage in the ocean.

Within the nearly [-]-mile coastline, what the visiting adventurers see is the sandy beach that is gradually resisting the swamp. A complete jungle and swamp await them in the far distance of the coast. The intricate environment makes them weigh See if you can find your way back.

However, the mouth of the Kuiweiza River is the "core" of the Vampire Coast, where there are the Strait of Traxor, the volcanic islands and the "capital" New Baker Port.

The Strait of Traxor is a strange unnatural area where the currents have become sluggish and the waters are filled with vast mats of kelp so strong that it can entangle ships and require an ax to cut through.Ships belonging to Harkon's fleet seemed to know instinctively how to cross, while others needed pilots from New Baker Harbor to guide them, not all of which were alive.

On the seaward side of the Traxor Strait stands the volcanic islands, namely the larger Snake Smoke Island and the smaller Serpent Breath Island. Covered by dense jungle.

On the mouth of the Kuweza lies New Baker Harbor, built from memory by Luthor Harken to mock the towns of the Old World.It was the eerie home of the living who were captured but not killed by the dead, and the descendants of those captured in earlier raids, and an emergency food supply for Harkon and his court.

In a fetid quagmire called the Blood Marsh, just north of the mouth of the Kweweza, you can find Harkon's dark castle, whose eerie silhouette can only be seen on a clear day.Except for him and his most core minions, no one else, living or dead, is allowed to enter the blood swamp.

It is said that there is an ancient temple deep in the blood swamp, which enshrines a powerful being.Harkon imprisoned a group of wizards and had them awaken and bind this being through centuries of ritual.

The mouth of the Quiveza River forms the southern boundary of the Vampire Coast, a polluted region that stretches inland from the ocean, rising through the jungle until it reaches the summit of the Lagrimas Mountains.Here, the extension stops abruptly, blocked by temple cities and ruins.

"Five years have passed since I fled the Vampire Coast and returned to my beloved Rickland. And while I thank the gracious Maul every night for showing me a way out, I also mourn the I cursed Moll for my dreams. I, a rich-hungry fool, went into the jungle and found horrors worse than crocodiles. I was a beggar in the streets of Port New Baker, a city where the dead roam freely and the living were their food. I was chained in the court of the "Emperor" Luthor Harkon and watched as my crew was slaughtered and turned into a feast for Harkon and his minions .Harken looked at me and said I was a little bit better, and I got away with it."

"Every night I wake up screaming, realizing that this is not just a dream, that Harken's chains still bind me, and that I am still his captive. I have no escape but fire Come and set me free." These were the final statements of a captain before his execution, which was sealed by order of the Temple of Maul.

When Luther Harken first took over the land, he knew he needed to govern the new territory first.Not even a mage and a vampire as powerful as himself could be everywhere and give every order at the same time.

While the dead are ideal subjects, the "Emperor" also needs to be able to put his plans on paper.His armies must have commanders who monitor the enemy's movements, and he needs courtiers to advise him, praise his exploits, and stand in for him when he is "unwell."

So Harken chose to draw on a sample he knew: Empire!

The Emperor lived in his palace in the Blood Swamp, ruling the Vampire Coast with an iron fist, although this method became more and more unstable and unreliable.

Built over the centuries, this dark citadel is a nightmare reflection of the emperor's memories of his imperial days.Soaring towers erupted at crazy angles, built rooms and halls that were never used a second time, and spiers of very different styles warded off the snow that would never fall.In his throne room, he sits on a throne of bones fashioned from the remains of lizardfolk, elves, and humans he has slain.

In a sane condition, the emperor himself ruled, he gave orders based on the reports he submitted, and planned how to defeat the lizardmen's army.It is rumored that he still maintains ties to Sylvania's vampire families through contacts with the Border Prince, and has contacts with unknown forces from Cathay.

When the emperor became more and more insane, he let the powerful and powerful whose will was bound by him make decisions instead of him.This is a council of a group of intelligent dead and living people, the leader is a ghoul named Heyens, and his "right hand" is Captain Dreka who has lost his left hand and usually entrenches on the sea.When he is absent or unable to govern, Heynes will issue orders in the name of "Emperor".

Heynes is the Norse captain who transported Luthor Harken to the continent of Lustria. He chose to give up his soul and volunteered to become a servant of the midnight nobles.With much of his humanity rotting away, he's become a more cunning and cunning ghoul than he should have been.

The emperor found that Heynes was very useful, so he appointed him as the "President of the Council". From then on, he began to rely on Heynes, and even trusted Heynes a little.However, as he developed schizophrenia, and with growing resentment, more and more fragments of Heyjens' past life came back to him.The slight whisper, though still small and faint, he could still hear: My ship!my crew!my life!

The emperor divided the territory into six "provinces" in order to maintain his rule, five of which are located near the mouth of the river between Broken Cape and Traxor Strait, and the sixth is the "Empire" including the Blood Marsh and Port New Baker. district".

Each province is named after the river that flows through it and flows into the sea, and the earls who manage each province are the emperor's trusted midnight dignitaries.

Of course they were trustworthy because these earls knew that the emperor would kill them without hesitation at the slightest sign of treachery.

Counts ruled their provinces, and their fortresses stood at the mouth of the river, that is, the strongholds.Used to monitor the situation at sea and as a rallying point for expeditionary Lizardmen.

But the northernmost estuary of the Singo River had no official count, and after Lady Saltwater slaughtered the last count the emperor sent over, the emperor made a deal with her in which the emperor recognized her as the sole authority in the area.

Reflecting the emperor's ambitions, the Imperial District, named Kuiwezahe and Inland County, was ruled by him himself to prevent the rise of other powerful rivals.

"I don't know if there is a human city in this world that is more terrifying and sad than that." From the memory of a Tobaro captain.

New Baker's Harbor is the only place on the Vampire Coast that counts as a town, and it is home to about [-] humans, dwarves, and halflings, and a larger number of dead people, but it is not known exactly how many.

In honor of and in mockery of the town the Emperor once called home, Port New Baker served multiple purposes.On the face of it, it is a port and trading town, although very few ships call here.

Port New Baker was the capital of the Harkon Empire, but the living inhabitants dreaded the Emperor's occasional visits.It is also a paradise for the dead, where they can roam freely without fear of being hunted down by witch hunters.

If the seas and jungles were unable to provide fresh food for the midnight dignitaries, Port New Baker became a source of food reserves for the Emperor and his minions.This group of midnight dignitaries rarely use the official name of New Baker Port, usually directly referred to as "emergency food supply".

The living inhabitants here are either survivors or descendants of survivors who were captured by the Nobles of the Night, or adventurers who came here insane or desperate to seek refuge and adventure.There are markets, docks, taverns, town halls, and temples in this seemingly "normal" imperial town, and they are trying their best to maintain it, but their expressions are extremely unnatural, and they even dare to stand in a place where the dead are haunted. Walking out of the house at night, it seems that they have already resigned themselves to their fate and accepted their fate.

If friends, loved ones, and family suddenly disappear one day, or return in a worse capacity, the reaction of the living residents is usually calm, they say "this is the emperor's will."

Although rare, there are some ships that call at New Baker Harbor.As long as they aren't mad, crew members usually choose to stay on board rather than risk their lives walking the shadowed streets of New Baker Harbor.But in the end there are crazy and adventurers who come to the Vampire Coast for their own reasons and need a safe place to spend the night, eat and sleep behind locked doors.For such people, the Gravesend Hotel was the best choice in this dreadful town.

By day, this spooky tavern of mud-stained wood looks like any old-world inn, an ordinary but depressing tavern.Humans, dwarves, halflings, and the occasional elf drink, eat, or chat here, but there's almost never any banter, let alone flirty interactions between patrons and waitresses, just hopeless resignation and no one to escape fate.

At night, however, the pub bursts with life and energy.As soon as the living person left, the dead entered with his hind feet.

Most of the customers who come here are midnight dignitaries. They come to enjoy the "night menu". The emperor requires the tavern to provide these services. The strange thing is that the work in the tavern is one of the jobs most desired by the living people in the whole Vampire Coast. .

The few living patrons who stayed in the tavern after dark usually regretted this decision. Although the law of the empire forbids the dead from hunting the living in the tavern, this is only the law. The dead can make the living pay some money. The price, so as to enjoy some "good and pure fun".

After the founding of Port New Baker, the Emperor found that the growing population required greatly increased hunting and fishing needs.To solve this problem, he ordered the felling and burning of large swathes of the jungle to create a farmland.

The emperor and the midnight dignitaries in charge of the project have long since forgotten how to eat vegetables and food, let alone how to grow them, but the order must be carried out after all, and the peasants are full of the living and the dead. Lots of land.

It was hard work, as the jungle healed almost as quickly as it could be cleared with ax and claw.To make matters worse, the creatures of the jungle took the working farmers as easy prey, and many farmers fell prey to jungle tigers, blood wasps, and hyena dragons.

From a distance, these lands seem to be ordinary farms and pastures, but a closer look reveals a horrible scene. The crops growing in the fields are severely stunted, the apples hanging on the trees in the orchard have withered and rotted, and the livestock raised They were all thin and out of shape, leaving only a skeleton.

The living beings called "new meat" by the midnight dignitaries were either snatched from the Old World, visiting sailors, or criminals sentenced to hard labor by the Emperor's unjustly cruel courts.Few of them survived their entry into the farm, some went mad and ran off into the jungle, and others died at the claws of the same peasants.There is no escape from here even after death, as the dead body is resurrected and sent back to work in the fields.

The rich man who manages the farm is a guy with Rick's upper-class accent, nicknamed the "Governor of the Frontier".It has been faded and worn out by the sun, but the expensive and fashionable citizen's clothing is worn on a human with distorted facial features, an ugly appearance and a dead face, and a very bloated creature looks extra funny.But he was a ruthless ruler, rumored to be capable of powerful necromantic magic, though no one is quite sure if he was a living being, some sort of midnight dignitary, or the offspring of the Emperor's First Embrace.

When the Emperor built his capital, he also ordered the construction of a Temple of the Dead, a mockery of the Temple of Maul in Port Baker.

The temple is made of black marble and looks like the temple of Moore.

The ebony front and entrance gates have carvings of dead men, but unlike the old world, occasionally dead men climb down from above to eat the living.

Inside the nave, hundreds of smoky candles and fat-burning braziers illuminate the polished black marble floor, giving the illusion of a bottomless abyss.

In the apse, a bloodstained silver altar stands before a huge statue of Emperor Luther Harken.

The High Priestess of the Temple is a deranged Apostate Priestess of Maul who presides over a mingling of living and dead worshipers, and anyone who sees her notices that she is apparently being transformed into a Midnight High Priestess.

Below the temple are countless catacombs, and although no one is actually buried in them, they are home to countless ghosts, banshees, and morons.

The gates of the temple are always open, and the inhabitants can come and go as they please at night.When a living person goes missing from Port New Baker, relatives of the missing person often come here, leave a silver coin on the threshold, and demand to know whether the missing person is now "living" in it.If the answer is "yes", the relatives of the missing person will stop asking.
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"It was a vicious fate that brought me to this land. Thank you, fate." ——Luther Harken after coming to Lustria.

From the whispered horror stories in the taverns of Sartosa to the summaries of the studies of the scholars of Marienburg, Luthor Harkon is indispensable, but people still don't know much about him and how he opened up Lustria. Almost nothing is known about the kingdom's story.

A mage of a similar name is mentioned in fragments of the Imperial archives long ago, but much of the text has been lost over the centuries, and many scholars, while acknowledging that the mage was ancient, refuse to believe that he was even older than sigma.

Ironically, however, the strongest statements about Luthor Harken's origins come from interrogating him.Since the first Survivor Reports, a handful of people, including Old World visitors and elves, have seen him, spoken to him, and been allowed to leave the Vampire Coast relatively intact to return to tell others what happened to them .Even the most ardent skeptics have to admit that there is some consistency between the survivors' rhetoric.

According to these accounts, Harkon claims to have originated in one of the many remote valleys in the Far East beyond the borders of the Empire.Though he often claimed to be an officer of Lahmia, he spoke with the accent of an Eastern empire, in an ancient and almost poetic dialect.

Strangely, Harken has no memory of how he became a vampire, perhaps as a result of his schizophrenia.He just said that one night, he realized he had been reborn.

According to Haken, he was forced to flee under the persecution of Joachim II in the ninth century, and his coffin was smuggled onto a Norscan ship, barely escaping from the port of Marienburg, A few months later, his ship ran aground on the coast of the Salamander Islands, and he was the only survivor. The rest of the crew died while he was smoking, only to be resurrected by him as his minions. , and the captain of that ship was Heynes.

Luther Harken has many self-proclaimed titles, such as "Supreme Commodore of the Harken Fleet", "Pirate King of the Vampire Coast", "Great Emperor of Lustria" and so on.His plans are infinite in scope, his cruelty knows no bounds, he is a terrible shadow that threatens all lands on the vast ocean, and he is also a complete madman.

Harkon, who escaped from the old world, found his destiny on the continent of Lustria. After being washed to the east coast of Lustria by the ocean current, he looked around and saw opportunities everywhere in this magical ancient land in front of him. .Though it took centuries, he raised a decent army of the undead and began a slow campaign of conquest.In battle after battle he pushed back the Lizardmen's attacks, killing the beasts of the jungle until they learned to avoid his lifeless army.

However, a catastrophe broke out on Harkon's push towards the temple cities and ruins along the Lagrimas Mountains, and when he tried to break through a magically sealed gate in the ruins of Huta, a powerful wave of magic Tore apart his troops and destroyed all undead but himself.

When Harkon finally crawled out of the jungle and was brought back to the Dark Castle by his rushing men, his spirit was visibly broken.What was once an arrogant leader at the peak of his power is now a child singing a nursery rhyme, then a scholar on a research expedition, then a pirate captain looking for a good time, and then nothing, falling apart again.

At some point, the stress of frustration or other emotions will awaken another personality.Even when Harkon rose from his coffin at night, his servants could not predict who he would be at that moment.

When Haken returned to normal, he realized a worse fact. He could no longer manipulate the magic wind, and he couldn't even see the existence of the magic wind!

Only then did Harken realize that whatever had happened beneath Huta's Great Pyramid, the failure had not only shattered his mind, it had taken away his ability to use magic.

During a period of sobriety, Harken formulated a plan that he would stay as close as possible in the castle, reducing the chances of exposing his weaknesses.His generals would continue to lead the troops in crusades, and he would only show up when the victory of the battle was assured.In order to continue to expand his power, he had to specifically recruit necromancers and those weak vampires he could still dominate.

While Harkon's mind is being taken over by the other personalities, the Council of Black Jens and the Night's Nobles will rule in the name of the Emperor, so as not to reveal his truth.So far, the plan has been somewhat successful, but it's unclear how long it will last.

Although deprived of the ability to cast spells, Harken did not give up his ambitions.He has adjusted his strategy to the current situation, shifting his focus to gaining power through other means.He sent people to redouble their efforts to study the mysterious existence under the volcano on the giant serpent's resting island, and figured out how to control its will or form an ally with it.

"The black storm is coming, the blue wave is coming~, they are brave and mighty, rush forward, rush forward~!"

"The black storm is carrying thunder and lightning, flashing in the sky~, the cyan wave is beating the drum, and the battle roar is in the jungle~."

"The black storm is like a raging dragon, howling on the sea~, and the blue wave is like an emerald green forest, galloping across the earth~."

"The black storm brings torrential rain, the strong wind blows over the big trees~, and the cyan wave moves forward with a steady pace~"

"The black storm and the blue wave, brave and tenacious~, they defend the world and protect peace~."

"No matter the storm or the tide, they are united as one~ The glory of black and blue will always shine in the world~."

Wilhelmina is a lost little girl, timid and frightened, who can be friendly if treated well.If she can't find her doll "Anna", she will show a fierce look and become very angry and violent.

At this time, Harken's personality was controlled by Wilhelmina. He sometimes held Anna in his arms, and sometimes he held Anna in his arms. He danced and sang happily around the coffin where he slept like an intern who had practiced for two and a half years.

　This article is from the lustria running group book released in March this year

　　
　
(End of this chapter)