Editing The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy) (section)

===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...]]).