Editing The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy) (section)

==History==
[[File:Old-world-map-1024.jpg|right|800px]]
Once upon a time there was a badass called [[Sigmar]] Unberogen. Sigmar was actually a good man <strike>in spite of</strike> '''BECAUSE''' of being a Germanic [[Conan the Barbarian]]. Sigmar's copious asskicking allowed him to befriend the [[Dwarves|Dwarfs]], whose King Kurgan Ironbeard granted Sigmar a masterfully-crafted warhammer known as ''Ghal-Maraz''. (As a side note: Yes, this is ''the'' hammer for which Warhammer is named.) He did so after Sigmar single-handily saved him from a band of [[Orc|Orcs]] that had kidnapped him. Because Sigmar is hardcore like that.

So after yet more adventures where Sigmar pretended to be Pagan-Charlemagne, included his girlfriend's brother turning into a [[Slaanesh]] [[Chaos Lord]] and ripping shit up alongside a [[Khorne]]-worshipping Norscan Chaos Lord called Cormac Bloodaxe.

Sigmar's unification of the clans is commonly thought to have been completed in -15 IC, where he brought the belligerent (and totally awesome) Teutogens under his banner by defeating their leader Artur in single combat. Sigmar then went on a campaign of purgation, freeing the ancestral lands of his people from Greenskins and [[Beastmen]], which culminated at the Battle of Black Fire Pass where he and the Dwarfs crushed a massive Orc WAAAGH!!!. Sigmar then retired to Reikdorf, where he was crowned Emperor by Ar-Ulric, the High Priest of [[Ulric]]. This remains the holiest day of the Imperial calender and is celebrated in the summer, on the 18th of Sigmarzeit.

His rule was just, fair and prosperous and he helped unify and reform the legal code and calendar systems of the tribes until 50 years later Sigmar abdicated the throne, decided he was Grimnir the Fearless, and thought he could go to the Chaos Wastes past the [[Worlds Edge Mountains|World's Edge Mountains]] and survive. To do this, he teamed up with his old buddy Kurgan Ironbeard. Neither of whom were heard of again after they left.

And now, they are never to be heard from again. <s>Such is the fate of those who trifle with the Northern gods</s> WALK THE WOLF-PATH OF ULRIC!

===The Expansion===
Sigmar leaving his young Empire left a wee bit of an issue among his chieftains, now known as the Counts: he'd never married or left an heir (at least none anyone knew of), nor had he left any instructions on what the fuck they should do in case he'd want to fuck off and leave the Empire all of a sudden. Apparently they thought he was just going to sit there and rule forever like [[Emprah|a certain other failure]], but since that didn't turn out to happen they had to do something about it. After a bit of hilarity involving several of the Counts claiming the throne or otherwise infighting, until in a rare moment of clarity they decided that maybe they should vote for it. So they did, and a guy named Fulk of Wissenland got the biggest chunk of votes and thus became the next Emperor. They also renamed themselves as Elector Counts, 'cuz they're the counts that elect.

Fulk moved the capital into Nuln, where it stayed for a good while because plenty of other Emperors came from there and saw no reason to change this happy little thing. The Empire was doing pretty great at this time, so everyone decided to spend all this energy and prosperity for expanding even more. They went to where Kislev is today, poked around the foothills of Dorf land, integrated a bunch of tribes and petty kingdoms Sigmar had overlooked in his time, and pushed themselves into Bretonnia and Border Princes.

But as much as they could deal with dwarves and orcs and their fellow men, there was one bunch that wouldn't take no shit from the Empire, and that was - in a rare moment of manliness - [[Elf|Elves]]. Three different Provinces wanted a piece of the pie that was Laurelorn Forest, but the wood elf hippies kicked them out of their lawn time and time again. This culminated into the crushing defeat of a Drakwalder Count known only as [[Lamenters|"The Unlucky"]], which should tell you everything you need to know. In fact, this defeat pretty much kickstarted the Empire's decline: Drakwald never really recovered from the defeat, and they were pretty instrumental in bringing the rest down with them.

===The Clusterfuck===
As badly as Drakwald was doing after the defeat, they still had enough money to bribe their way into the Emperor's lofty seat a few times. And boy were they some corrupt fucks, caring far too much for [[Slaanesh|their own pleasure]] than they cared for the Empire. One of particular note was the fat fuck named Ludwig the Fat, who elevated his [[Hobbits|Halfling]] chef into an Elector Count, giving the little hobbits their own vote for the Emperor - a fact that they will never shut up about. (He also got to troll the two provinces under which the Moot had initially belonged, because the daughters of their Counts had given him cold shoulder.)

This sort of incredibly decadent fuckery continued and escalated for over a hundred years, and it was finally brought to an end by a bunch of [[Skaven|rat men out of fucking nowhere]]. They popped up, spread plagues everywhere, conquered roughly half the Empire, and drove its people into infighting and [[Chaos]]. Quick and decisive action was required if anything was to be saved, and so the current ruler (and incidentally Ludwig's son), Boris the Incompetent... well, the populace gave him that name, what the fuck did you expect he was like? Obviously he and his court locked themselves into his palace to party and wait for it to blow over. Instead they all got killed by the Skaven, who let him live just long enough to gloat over their impending victory to him.

Most of the Empire easily fell to Skaven, but there was one badass named Graf Mandred von Zelt, that decided he wouldn't be putting up with this shit. So he rode down from Middenheim and spent the next nine years rallying the human defenders and kicking the disgusting furries out of their land. Subsequently he was elected the new Emperor, nicknamed "Ratslayer", and dissolved the province of Drakwald to punish them for their fucktarded rule.

Mandred went on to slowly rebuild the Empire for the next twenty-five years, before the Skaven killed him in his sleep for revenge of their defeat. Afterwards the Empire would pretty much forget they even existed (partly due to Skaven machinations, partly due to bureaucratic incompetence, but mostly because the writers gobble on furry cock and suck at their jobs), and instead followed on with another four hundred years of decline, only this time in the name of [[Khorne|war]] instead of decadence. Hilarity ensued when two guys, a girl, <s>and a pizza place</s> simultaneously declared themselves the Emperor, and fun was to be had for all - unless they died, and many did. The Empire pretty much collapsed.

===Armies of Darkness===
[[File:Keeper of Secrets Empire.jpg|"This wouldn't be so bad if they didn't moan when we stab them."|thumb|300px|right]]
Eventually the Empire got its shit together, just in time for a new threat to arise. After Drakwald, Sylvania was the nastiest province of the Empire, a place where dark magic flowed strongly and its rulers were still corrupt. As the current count lay dying, a man came up, married his daughter and became the new Count of Sylvania. As you may have guessed from the name, [[Vlad von Carstein|he wasn't a man (as in "not human", he was a marvelous, ballsy badass)]]. Count Vlad spread the curse of vampirism among the nobles and was an iron fisted yet surprisingly benevolent Count to his people. Then, when everyone started noticing the unnatural aspects of his reign he used some of [[Nagash|bone daddy's]] cliff-notes to summon an undead army and rofltstomped several provinces until he reached Altdorf. Before he could win, his magic ring stolen (which had brought him back each time he died no matter how it happened), he was staked by a heroic Empire pope (who was also staked, on top of him), his wife killed herself Juliet-style and his armies were scattered.

Since the Empire had suffered too many losses to pursue them, Vlad's progeny successfully retreated to Sylvania and fought among themselves. This led to Konrad von Carstein (vampire Caligula) rising to power. Though he sucked at necromancy, he had many necromancer subjects Once he allied with the Blood Dragon vampires he launched another war on the Empire. They even attacked the Dwarfs who came to help, with a Blood Dragon killing the Dwarf High King. An Emperor died during this time and there was a new candidate, who everyone supported until his skin peeled open and one of his eyes fell out; Konrad, in a rare moment of cunning, had tried to trick them into electing a zombie under his control as Emperor. Eventually Konrad's insanity wore his army down or turned them against him and while in an insane fit he was captured and killed with a runefang to the heart.

After this Vlad's first vampiric son, Mannfred von Carstein had returned from travelling around the world. Mannfred was the most cunning, he'd betrayed Vlad so he would die and spent his journey learning magical knowledge. After assuming rulership of Sylvania he spent ten years gathering his power in secret before launching an invasion when the Empire was at its weakest. He did well until he got to Altdorf; Manny wasn't the only one who'd been learning and the Empire pope at the time used magic to unbind his army. After a cat-and-mouse game across the Empire, the humans (with elf and dorf help) cornered Mannfred at Hel Fenn. After the humans and dwarfs defeated his army (the elves were needed elsewhere), an Elector Count chased him down, split his head open with a runefang and his body fell into the swamp where they couldn't find it, ending the Vampire Counts bid for power ([[The End Times|for now...]]).

===Great War Against Chaos===
MEANWHILE, IN THE CHAOS WASTES...

As the Empire was doing pretty much worse than it ever had or ([[The End Times|probably]]) ever would, someone else was doing awesomely, and that someone was the [[Warriors of Chaos|lords of the north]], who were feeling pretty fuckin' strong right now and thought that time was ripe to unleash the rapetrain to the south. They started by marching to Kislev, which sent distress messages to the Elector Counts, but that didn't go down too well: no one could trust anyone enough to choose someone in overall command, high priests of Sigmar and Ulric squabbled over who got to lead, and a lot of the nobility just flat-out refused to send help because they were afraid someone might blindside them when no one was looking. Several decided to fuck it all and converted to Chaos. Shit was looking real grim.

But there was this one nobleman and a priest of Sigmar named Magnus ([[Magnus the Red|not that one]]) who didn't give in, and so he began to wander about and bitchslap the others into line, taking the charge of this whole shitfest when it didn't look like anyone else was going to. In a particularly [[Heresy|controversial]] move, he even gathered up a bunch of [[Wizard|magical misfits]], witches and hedge wizards and other such that had been persecuted throughout Empire's history, and with [[Teclis|a little help]] formed them into a more or less coherent magical army that almost never spontaneously exploded. Then, as word came that the city of Praag had fallen, he marched his ragtag army north to face Chaos.

When he got there Kislev was under siege, so he added his force to the defenders and bitch-slapped the Chaos forces away from there. He followed them and fought them everywhere (mostly woods, though) until they broke and ran right back to their wastes like pussies. Then he marched home and was immediately crowned Emperor because everybody loved him. He ruled for sixty-five years, the best years in the Empire since Sigmar himself, and was forever known as Magnus the Pious - even despite the clearly heretical move of founding the great Orders of Magic instead of putting the whole lot to torch ([[Genevieve Sandrine du Pointe du Lac Dieudonné|and a rumour that he once tried to put his hand up a vampire woman's dress]]).

===Present Day===
It's been a couple hundred years since Magnus's time, and the Empire is doing okay. Nothing of particular interest has happened in this time: there was [[Storm of Chaos|a bit of shenanigans]] going on about [[Archaon|some guy]], but it got retconned away. The current Emperor is a dude named [[Karl Franz]], and somewhat unusually to a guy that was elected rather than taking the throne by liberating the Empire of some great enemy, he's pretty badass.

Then [[The End Times|shit happened]].

As in the [[Age of Sigmar]], the realm of [[Azyr]] may be considered its distant descendant. With the '''Cities of Sigmar''' Battletome, we now have an up-to-date but still very clusterfucky mishmash of germans, [[Elf|Aelves]] and [[Dwarfs|Duardin]] all to represent the various settlements and strongholds where the average folk who haven't sworn themselves to Chaos or Nagash reside. Alongside this, these cities can also include [[Stormcast Eternals|Fantasy Marines]] to complement your [[Imperial Guard]]-like men without having to include any allies. Though you could ally with other Order forces, these are limited by city, and the proposed "Build from any realm" mechanic was woefully limited to locking your choices between two realms (Fire and Life). Not to matter, the build options are still quite staggering, and you also cast all Endless Spells as if you were in the native realm.