Editing Drachenfels (section)

==The Legend==

A long time ago (15,000 years to be exact) before the arrival of the [[Old Ones]] to the world, there lived a tribe of [[neanderthal]]-esque pseudohumans by a river during the ice age of the world. Drachenfels was among their number, and after becoming sick in his old age he was left out in the wilderness to die. He feigned death by exposure, and when one of his tribe came close he somehow (unknown even to himself) managed to kill the man and absorb his life energy (keep in mind this is before [[Chaos]] entered the world or Necromancy was invented).

[[Image:Castle Drachenfels.jpeg|right|thumb|200px|Casa De Drachenfels.]]
He used his newfound power to continue living. His body still rotted though, and he took to forming a new body out of the remains of his victims to continue looking human. The faces he likes the most are preserved with magic, and he wears them to go amongst the mortal races of the world in disguise.

At some point, he used magic to build a fortress named after himself in the [[Old World]]. From here, he launched attack after attack at the races of the mortal world using all the armies of Destruction, as each submitted to him as a superior being. After the collapse of the [[Warp Gates]], he traveled to the Warp and looked upon the [[Chaos Gods]]. As powerful as they were, he declared them to be his subordinates and demanded tributes of [[Daemon]] forces periodically afterward. They obliged each time, and Drach in a show of (mocking) gratitude, created some shrines to them and [[Khaine]] in his new castle though he made sure his throne "looked down" at their depictions since he still considered himself superior [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|because even a dead, rotting carcass of an archaic human was far superior to some retarded barely sentient tulpas.]]

Drachenfels has never pursued specific goals. Each time he attacks the outside world, he does so merely out of boredom or to satiate sadistic indulgences. He has no desire to prove he is the most powerful being in the world because he believes he has already proven it and enjoys the process of tormenting and breaking the free-willed over making them his unthinking slaves. He usually takes plenty of captives which he tortures or otherwise "plays with" in abominable ways before consuming their souls and using their flesh to keep himself spry. Since he tends to completely destroy anything he attacks, the only recorded incidents involving him in history are times that he was beaten, his servants were captured, or for some reason he chose to spare the conquered.

There has been some speculation (based on his speaking their language according to the 1st edition RPG and the fact he could have been in Tylos given his immortality) that Drach was the wizard who created the [[Skaven]] and doomed the city of Kavsar, but this is just an unconfirmed theory at this time. The first time he undeniably ventured forth to ravage the Old World was just after [[Sigmar]] had united the tribes that would be the [[Empire]]. Before Sigmar could celebrate the founding of his new nation, the land fell under attack from an army of [[Orcs & Goblins|greenskins]] led by Drachenfels. Drachenfels was rallying in support of his ally [[Nagash]] but was defeated and the greenskins driven back to his castle. Although Sigmar believed he had dealt true death to the vampire/necromancer/devil/whatever, Drachenfels regenerated his body from nothing after 1000 years.

The next time he appeared, he marched his forces of Daemons and [[Vampire Counts|Undead]] through [[Wood Elves (Warhammer)|Athel Loren]] and attacked a [[Bretonnia]]n province called Parravon. Once there, he defeated the guard of the city to the last, then demanded the wealth of the province in tribute. After receiving it he executed the nobility of the region, then returned to his castle with his army. Among those killed was the father of [[Genevieve Sandrine du Pointe du Lac Dieudonné]] (quite a name, eh?) who would become a vampire shortly later and travel the world.

Some time later during the Age of the Three Emperors, Drachenfels went unarmed to the Empire and announced he'd reformed and would be an ally from that point onward. He put on an elaborate PR campaign of using the wealth from Parravon to pay reparations to the victims that had escaped his castle and pled for forgiveness at the graves of those whose bodies had been recovered. After the dimwitted public accepted that he'd turned good, Drachenfels invited the entire court of the Elected Emperor Carolus II and his wife Irina, along with some Bretonnian nobility, to a feast at his castle. There, while dressed in rags and wearing a simple tin face mask, he served them an elaborate feast of wine and food laced with paralyzing poison. Once the nobles were incapacitated he had the nobles' children tortured to death within earshot of them and mocked them by slowly and nonchalantly eating food in front of them before leaving the paralyzed nobles to starve to death while a constant feast was brought out and served in front of them. [[Edgy|What the actual ''fuck'']].

Centuries later Oswald von Konigswald, the son of the Elector Count of Ostland and relative to one of the feast’s victims, decided to seek revenge. He hired the now-adult (and kung fu master) Genevieve (who had become a bar wench in Altdorf) along with a few other no-name adventurers (a dwarven warrior with a grudge, a mercenary, a brigand leader lured with the hope of a pardon, a wizard, another dwarf who in fact turned out to be a disguised demon working for Drachenfels that they ended up having to kill, and an insane assassin woman) to travel with him to Castle Drachenfels and put the monster down for good. Oswald managed to deal the killing blow to Drachenfels and his death destroyed the Undead and Daemons in his service. The greenskins fled the fortress, and anything that remained was killed. The fortress itself was left intact but abandoned.

Years later, Oswald bought Castle Drachenfels and hired a great playwright to direct a production within it of Oswald's heroic defeat of Drachenfels. The most important individuals in the Empire attended, as well as the newly crowned [[Karl Franz]] and his son Luitpold II. The production was hindered by many spooky incidents, not the least of which was the eccentric behavior of the actors and the death of all of Oswald’s old battle buddies save Genevieve. As you probably already guessed, all this creepiness heralded Drachenfels returning to life during the play and the slaughtering of a fair number of the audience and cast.

* Spoiler: See what people didn't know was that Oswald was [[That Guy]], secretly a bitter, power-hungry pussy. After shitting himself when it was just him and Drachenfels (the others having been wounded and/or rendered unconscious), Drachenfels took one look at the whimpering weenie and decided to spare him both for the lulz and as part of a scheme. Oswald would "kill" Drachenfels (but really only destroy his physical form) while Drachenfels would sacrifice a lot of his servants to sell the act and then lay low until it was time for his revival. At that point, Oswald would stage a play about his defeat of Drach, gather all the big shots in the Empire together to see the performance, and then Drach would resurrect via a ritual involving the body parts of his former enemies and the possession of a willing mortal servant in the form of the actor playing him. [[Just As Planned| Then Oswald and a revived Drach intended to kill Karl Franz and take over the Empire together with Drach being the power behind the throne]].

Unfortunately for Drach and his patsy, Genevieve and the director of the play, her mortal lover Detlef Sierck, proved to be far harder to kill than expected [[Not As Planned|which threw a wrench in the works.]] In the end Genevieve went full vampire blood rage on Drach’s ass and wounded him enough that Detlef (now blessed and buffed up by Sigmar) was able to deal a killing blow to Drachenfels (again) before moving on to kill Oswald. Although this incident is described as having killed Drachenfels once and for all, everyone who has killed him has thought the exact same thing. It also didn’t stop him from seeking revenge on his killers even indirectly as later on one of his creations (a sentient magical body-snatching mask called the Animus) would possess some folks and seek the Vampire and her lover out in an attempt to kill them. Though it failed in its ultimate task it did manage to break up Detlef and Genevieve’s relationship for a time through its actions so it wasn’t a total loss. Regardless, after all this craziness Castle Drachenfels was finally razed to the ground on Franz's command, only for it to be found mysteriously intact again during The End Times (in fact it was a map in Vermintide).
 
Other than the above, the castle itself hasn't been seen by a living being in ages, as no sane creature would travel there.