The Amethyst Wizard Elsepth von Draken, long a defender of her home city of Nuln, as depicted in Total War: Warhammer III.
Elspeth von Draken, called the "Dark Lady of Nuln," and the "Graveyard Rose," is a magisterix of the Amethyst Order and respected advisor to Elector Countess Emmanuelle von Liebwitz of Wissenland.[2a]
Von Draken was instrumental in defeating and slaying the Kurgan Champion of Nurgle Tamurkhan when the Maggot Lord launched a massive invasion of Wissenland with a great horde of the Warriors of Chaos and their Chaos Dwarf allies out of the Eastern Steppes that culminated in the savage Battle of Nuln in 2511 IC.
Quick Answers
What role did Elspeth von Draken play in the Battle of Nul?
Who is the Elector Countess Emmanuelle von Liebwitz that Elspeth von Draken advises?
What is the significance of Elspeth von Draken's nickname, the 'Graveyard Rose'?
What is the Amethyst Order that Elspeth von Draken is a magisterix of?
How did Elspeth von Draken defeat the Kurgan Champion of Nurgle Tamurkhan?
History
Origins
Elspeth von Draken, a powerful Amethyst Wizard and the "Dark Lady of Nuln," depicted here in Total War: Warhammer III, has long been dedicated to the defence of the Empire and of her home city of Nuln in particular.[4]
For three generations the name of of Elspeth von Draken has been spoken of in hushed tones in the reeking tavern gutters and vaulted noble halls of Nuln alike. And for three generations her lonely, blackened tower has stood at the edge of the Gardens of Morr on the outskirts of the great city, and stories of the "Graveyard Rose" have been used to frighten recalcitrant children home before nightfall lest "the dark lady snatch them up!".[1a]
Yet despite these stories few have ever paused to think what exactly the admitted presence of von Draken in the city actually means, and fewer yet could guess at her true power or influence. Furthermore the few foolhardy or overenthusiastic witch hunters -- unaware of her relationship to the governing powers of Nuln or too fanatically sure of their own righteousness to care -- who have attempted to delve deeper into her business or storm her tower have been swallowed up so completely that they have never been able to share anything they have learned.[1a]
The truth is that Elspeth von Draken is but one in a long bloodline touched by the Winds of Magic, a bloodline that has produced both monsters and saviours in its time. She is also one of the most powerful Amethyst Wizards of the age, but one who will have little to do with the daily machinations or power-politics of the Imperial Colleges of Magic in which she was once a student and still in theory holds fealty (for which many within its ranks are profoundly grateful), and with whom she now sits in an uneasy truce.[1a]
The heraldry of the Imperial army of Wissenland and Nuln commanded by Elspeth von Draken on behalf of Elector Countess Emmanuelle von Liebwitz in Total War: Warhammer III.
Instead, she is an obsessive experimenter and mystic who goes where she will, and has collected and collated a storehouse of mystical artefacts and lore which she guards jealously and has become so saturated with Shyish, the Purple Wind of the Lore of Death, that there are some who whisper she is no longer Human at all, a theory perhaps given credence by her almost spectral, pallid aspect, which has remained unchanged for decades.[1a]
Despite her reclusive nature, dividing her time it is said between her tower in Nuln and another like it hidden within the Grey Mountains, or in search of lost lore, she is however a true scion of the Empire of Man, and the bane of its foes where they cross her path. She also has long-standing pacts and alliances both with the Cult of Morr and the ruling council of Nuln to come to its aid in times of war in return for their alliance in turn.[1b]
Supreme Patriarch Thyrus Gormann regarded von Draken's independence as a liability and resented her enigmatic manners and evident power, with his agents failing to discover any hints of disloyalty.[3a] Balthasar Gelt, his successor as supreme patriarch of the Imperial Colleges of Magic, is understandably wary of von Draken's independence and power, and has long had his agents keep track of her where they can.[1b]
Over the last score of years they have reported a dozen conflicts both widely known and hidden where von Draken has proved the victor against terrible enemies such as the Mire Hulk Rawbones who had been devouring whole villages along the lower River Sol and demanding a bloody tribute in young lives, to the Vampire Vashara of Lahmia who had sought to corrupt the noble Jaegersbruk family of Pfeildorf and turn the city into a shadowy realm of Undeath. While Elspeth von Draken continues to concern herself with her own affairs, and stands as a protector of the Empire, Gelt must do no more than watch, but there are those beneath him in the hierarchy of Imperial wizards who fear that Gelt's suspicion of the powerful von Draken may yet provoke a deadly conflict one day between them.[1b]
Battle of Nuln
Elspeth von Draken atop her Carmine Dragon during the Battle of Nuln in 2511 IC against the Warriors of Chaos horde of the Chaos Lord Tamurkhan.
During the assault on Wissenland of the Chaos host of the Kurgan Champion of Nurgle Tamurkhan, Elspeth von Draken appeared in the Council of the Elector Countess Emmanuelle von Liebwitz like a spectre of death itself, gowned in robes so black as to appear as living darkness and bearing a keening scythe so sharp it seemed to murder the still air. It was her council that the countess took in forming up her armies to defend the great city of Nuln itself rather than meet Tamurkhan in the open field of battle, and such was the fear that came with Elspeth von Draken's presence that few gainsaid her despite the cost the strategy entailed in lands, livestock and Human life.[1b]
On the seventh day of the great battle, when Tamurkhan sought to raise up a nightmarish ritual to appease his dark god and brought forth an unholy tide of Daemons to attack the city, Elspeth von Draken took to battle aback a Carmine Dragon. She participated with Theodore Bruckner, the Elector Countess Emmanuelle von Liebwitz's headsman and personal Judicial Champion, in the Imperial assault on the fallen Abbey of the Lilies outside the walls of Nuln where Tamurkhan was seeking to ascend to become a Daemon Prince of Nurgle in a foul ritual. Before the assault began, von Draken had provided Bruckner with a magical talisman -- the Baleflame Amulet -- to use when he faced the Chaos Lord to protect himself from the malign powers of the foul servant of the Plague God. This was a decision that would have fateful consequences as events unfolded.[1c]
The assault was a desperately arranged affair, and would not have been possible without the combined reserves of arcane power possessed by the near-exhausted Battle Wizards of Nuln. The conjurations that let them speed and twist distance back upon itself to allow the war party to strike before it was too late were so grave that the Grey Wizard who wove the spell was consumed by it, burning coldly away to a cloud of fine ash in the casting.[1c]
The ragged column of knights -- the bloodied survivors of a dozen orders that had endured the battle of the day -- launched the attack, spearheaded by the Countess' Champion, Theodore Bruckner, riding his savage Demigryph, Reaper, the talisman at his neck flaring with amethyst light as it encountered the supernatural miasma that fogged the desecrated abbey. With them came Warriors Priests of Sigmar and footsoldiers, swordsmen and wizards, all volunteers who knew their survival was far from likely. Above them the Carmine Dragon's wings beat the wind-tortured air and the shadowy form of Elspeth von Draken raised up her glimmering scythe, which crackled with pale fire.[1c]
The armies of hell rose up to meet them. Daemon savagery tore at the knights, fetid claws gutting warhorses and dragging them down, but even as they died the armoured warriors slammed their lances into cataracted cyclopean eyes and drove their blessed blades deep into swollen Daemon-flesh. Zealots screamed and flung themselves fearlessly to their deaths, scourges swung wildly while holy prayers drove back hulking Plague Toads, burning them as if the purest vitriol acid had been poured over their flesh.[1c]
The shifting, savage form of a wizard from the Amber Order matched claw for claw and fang for fang against the horror but was quickly smothered and disappeared beneath a mass of rusted blades and scabrous limbs. The sorcerous breath of the Carmine Dragon lashed out, burning a blinding light across the abbey and smote the chest of a Great Unclean One which struggled to free its house-sized bulk from the choked river of decaying flesh and writhing limbs.[1c]
The true face of Tamurkhan the Maggot Lord revealed at last.
It was evident to the surviving Imperial forces that this would all be for nothing if they could not act quickly, for they were simply too few and the coming Daemon legion seemingly without number or limit. Tamurkhan was the key, and it was he that must die before the Chaos ritual being enacted at the abbey reached its zenith and a plague the likes of which had never been seen was unleashed upon the Empire. Theodore Bruckner's Demigryph Reaper bounded with long, talon-sure strides towards Tamurkhan, shouldering the Plaguebearer Tallymen who rose up to bar its path aside, pausing to savagely grab one and shake it to pieces in its razor-sharp beak and fling it aside as a cat might a mouse.[1c]
Bruckner raised his cold blade over his head and shouted out his challenge, undaunted. The enraged Tamurkhan, fearless and defiant, was swift to answer, yanking out his great axe from the tainted earth beside the body of his Toad Dragon and running full pelt towards the Demigryph with staggering gait, bones rattling wetly within his decaying Ogre flesh. Arcane fire burst upon Tamurkhan and swaddled him in torment, causing him to stagger. In that moment of distraction Reaper was on him, its scythe-like talons a blurred frenzy, slashing rotting meat from diseased bone, its beak shooting forward and plucking the rotted head of the Ogre clean from its body.[1c]
Tamurkhan reeled but did not fall and the great axe licked out in a whistling side-sweep and caught the Demigryph in the breast, staving in the noble beast's rib cage and cleaving its beating heart in two. Reaper reared up, screaming its death agony, dragging the axe from the Maggot Lord as it did so. Bruckner barely managed to scramble clear in time as the Demigryph collapsed, dead as a felled tree, and came up swinging, his enchanted blade stabbing and hacking relentlessly at the flailing bulk of the headless Tamurkhan, scoring wound after wound on the tainted flesh. The inhuman horror collapsed to one knee under the onslaught.[1c]
Gushing foulness filled with writhing, black worms spilled across Bruckner, and gagging he staggered backward and then slipped. It was enough for the Nurglite maggot that was Tamurkhan's true form to do its work. The obscene creature lurched forth like a striking cobra and fastened itself over Theodore Bruckner's terrified face, crunching through leather and bone and pulsing and writhing within the flesh, delicate bones splintering like pistols as the maggot forced its way down. Here was a proud mortal vessel that would be the last he would ever need. He would not be denied. He was eternal. He was...[1c]
The arcane talisman around Bruckner's neck burst into furious life, like a burning star unleashed in the night. With a roaring flash there was soon nothing left but blackened, crumbling bone where the Champion of Nuln had stood and an instant later even that had been consumed, and Tamurkhan the Maggot Lord had been incinerated along with it. High above the battle, Elspeth von Draken watched the fire-flash and allowed herself a brief moment of satisfaction in the instant before the Storm of Magic that the Maggot Lord had drawn to himself was abruptly cut and folded back on itself catastrophically. Her design had come to fruition.[1c]
A whipcord of oblivion snapped shut over the spot where Tamurkhan had stood within a hair's breadth of achieving Daemonhood as a Daemon Prince of Nurgle through the ritual being enacted at the abbey and all was laid to waste. The banks of the river thundered upward and quaked, and the Children of Chaos were scattered and withered to filthy ribbons of ash in the span of a heartbeat.[1c]
The Abbey of the Lilies and all within it ceased to be and in the wide crater that replaced it a tangled mass of tortured, green-black glass pierced the ground like a dagger stabbed into the earth. Her job done, the Carmine Dragon fell lifeless from the sky and Elspeth von Draken faded like smoke in the night, having sacrificed everything to save her beloved Empire. Tamurkhan the Maggot Lord was no more, and the great city of Nuln was saved.[1c]
After the battle, those that saw her claimed she had faded to no more than an insubstantial shadow from her trials, yet it was not the end for the Dark Lady of Nuln, for years later she was seen abroad again, her pale and youthful aspect restored once more.[1b]
Magic Items
- Pale Scythe - A pale scythe more made of shadow than substance, this weapon said to be of von Draken's own making is attuned to the power of Shyish, the Purple Wind of Magic, focusing and concentrating it to her will.[1b]
- Death's Timekeeper - This hourglass is an ancient and storied artefact, for it is said to contain as its measuring sand musty remnants of a dead god of old, and von Draken has spent much of her unnaturally long life studying its mysteries. With it she has perfected some limited measure of control over time and death itself.[1b]
Miniatures
Sources
- 1 Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos (8th Edition)
- 2: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Enemy Within Campaign Volume 5 Empire in Ruins (RPG)
- 2a: pg. 26
- 3: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Winds of Magic (RPG)
- 3a: pg. 120
- 4: Total War Blog - Thrones of Decay: Introducing Elspeth von Draken
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