Gou is a dark elf in Warhammer

269. Chapter 251 101 Emperor Haken’s Great Empire

Author: The Fish Daxian who can’t swim

Chapter 251 101. Emperor Haken’s Great Empire

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

"This is the Vampire Coast, and we are dead." - This is the last entry in the logbook of the Marienburg merchant ship Fortune. The ship was found abandoned, like a ghost ship at sea.

Drift with the waves.

Dark stories of the mysterious continent have long been circulated in various ports in the old world, but the reality of the Vampire Coast of Lustria is even more terrifying and horrifying than the rumors.

Courageous captains will dare to go to Skogi for trade and exploration, foolish captains will seek out the Vampire Coast, and only those seeking death will think it is profitable to dock at the cursed New Baker Harbor.

However, these guys looking for death finally set off, and Darkus led the black ark fleet of Druchi that covered the sky and set off!

The Vampire Coast is located in the southeast of the Lustria continent, extending from the Broken Point in the east to the mouth of the Kuweizha River in the southwest. In between, there are five small rivers that flow through the jungle and into the sea. From north to south they are

The Xingo River, the Pakutl River, the Tieto River, the Abosi River and the Cavatl River, these five rivers are distributed as evenly as the teeth of a comb, as if they were intended by the ancient saints to be distributed in a certain place.

It is adjusted within an unknowable grand plan.

These five estuaries are full of dangers 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 ferocious pliosaurs. These pliosaurs can both swim in the rivers.

Live and forage in the ocean.

Within this nearly 1,600-mile coastline, the visiting adventurers saw sandy beaches gradually resisting the swamps. On the far side of the coast, a complete jungle and swamps were waiting for them to go deeper. The intricate environment made them weigh.

I wonder if I can find my way back.

However, the mouth of the Kuweizha River is the "core" of the Vampire Coast, where there is the Traxor Strait, the Volcanic Islands and the "capital" New Baker Port.

The Traxor Strait is a strange, unnatural area where the sea currents become sluggish and the water is filled with vast clumps of seaweed that are so strong that they can entangle ships and require an ax to cut them off. Belongs to the Haken Fleet

Some ships seem to know instinctively how to cross, while others require pilots from New Baker Harbor to guide them, but not all pilots are alive.

On the seaward side of the Traxor Strait stands the volcanic islands, namely the larger Serpent Smoke Island and the smaller Serpent Breath Island. Both islands are composed of black marble, except for places burned by lava.

Covered by dense jungle.

At the mouth of the Kuwaiza River sits New Baker Harbor, which was built by Luther Harken to mock the towns of the old world and based on memory. It is the living people who were captured by the dead but not killed, as well as those who were captured by the dead in the early days of the catastrophe.

The eerie home of the descendants of the captives in the Plunder, it also serves as an emergency food supply for Harkon and his court.

A fetid quagmire called the Blood Swamp is located to the north of the mouth of the Kuweizha River. In this quagmire, you can find the dark castle where Hakon lives. Its gloomy outline can only be vaguely visible on a clear day. Except for him and his most core minions,

No one else is allowed to enter the Blood Swamp, living or dead.

It is said that there is an ancient temple deep in the Blood Swamp, which is dedicated to a powerful being. Hakon imprisoned a group of wizards and asked them to awaken and bind this being through centuries of rituals.

The mouth of the Queveza River forms the southern boundary of the Vampire Coast, a polluted area that stretches inland from the ocean, gradually rising through the jungle until it reaches the summit of the Lagrimas Mountains. Here, the stretch stops abruptly and is revealed by the gods.

Blocked by temple cities and ruins.

"Five years have passed since I escaped from the Vampire Coast and returned to my beloved Reikland. Although I thank the kind Maul every night for showing me a way out, I also feel sorry for those who tormented my sleep.

The dream cursed Moll. I, a fool who longed for wealth, entered the jungle, but found a terrifying monster more terrifying than a crocodile. I was a beggar on the streets of New Baker Port, a city where dead people walked casually on the streets.

Walking on the mountain, and the living are their food. I was tied up in chains in the court of "Emperor" Luther Harkon, watching my crew being slaughtered and turned into a feast for Harkon and his minions.

.Haken looked at me and said I was still of some use, so I escaped."

"Every night I wake up screaming, realizing that this is not just a dream, Hakon's chains are still binding me, and I am still his prisoner. I have no way to escape but to use fire

Come and free me." This was a captain's last statement before his execution, which was sealed by order of the Temple of Mor.

When Luther Harkon first began to occupy this land, he knew that he needed to govern this new territory first. Even a wizard and vampire as powerful as him could not be everywhere at the same time and issue every order.

Although the dead are ideal subjects, the "Emperor" also needs to be able to implement his plans from paper to reality. His army must have commanders who monitor the enemy's movements, and he also needs courtiers to advise and praise him.

His achievements, and acted as an agent in government affairs when he was "unwell".

So Haken chose to draw on a model he knew: the Empire!

The Emperor lives in his palace in the Blood Swamp and rules the Vampire Coast with an iron-blooded hand, although this method is becoming increasingly unstable and unreliable.

Built over centuries, this dark castle is a nightmare reflection of the Emperor's memories of the Empire. Towering towers erupt outward at crazy angles, and rooms and halls were built that were never used a second time.

, the distinctive spiers protect against the snow that never falls. In his throne room, he sits on a bone throne made from the remains of the lizardfolk, elves, and humans he killed.

While in his right mind, the Emperor took charge personally, issuing orders based on the reports submitted and planning how to defeat the lizardmen's army. It is said that he still maintained relations with the vampire families of Sylvania through his contacts with the Border Princes.

maintain contact and have dealings with unknown forces from Cathay.

When the emperor's mental disorders became more and more frequent, he let the powerful people whose will was bound to him make decisions on his behalf. This was a group of intelligent dead and living councils, led by a food man named Heijens.

A ghoul, and his "right hand" is Captain Drejka who has lost his left hand and usually resides on the sea. When he is absent or unable to govern, Heijens will issue orders in the name of the "Emperor".

Hajens was the Norscan captain who transported Luther Harkon to the continent of Lustria. He chose to give up his soul and volunteered to become a servant of the Midnight Noble. As most of his humanity gradually decayed and withered, he became

He became a more clever and cunning ghoul than before.

The emperor found Heijens very useful, so he appointed him as the "Parliament Speaker". From then on, he began to rely on Heijens, and even trusted Heijens a little. However, as he suffered from schizophrenia, and his growing

Resentment, the fragments of Heijens's life returned to his mind more and more. Although the slight whisper was still very small and weak, he could still hear it: My ship! My crew! My

Life!

In order to maintain his rule, the emperor divided the territory into six "provinces". Five of them are located near the mouth of the river between Broken Point and Traxor Strait, and the sixth is the "empire" that includes Blood Swamp and New Baker Port.

district".

Each province is named after the river that flows through it and empties into the sea, and the count who governs each province is the emperor's trusted midnight dignitary.

Of course, the reason they are trustworthy is that these counts know that the emperor will kill them without hesitation at the slightest sign of betrayal.

The Counts rule their own provinces, and their fortresses are located at the mouth of the river, which are strongholds used to monitor the situation on the sea and serve as a rallying point for the Lizardmen expedition.

But there was no official count at the mouth of the Singo River in the far north, and after the Lady of Saltwater massacred the last count sent there by the Emperor, the Emperor made an agreement with her in which he recognized her as the sole authority in the region.

The imperial area named Kuiweizhahe and Inland Counties reflected the emperor's ambition, and he ruled the area personally to prevent the rise of other powerful rivals.

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

New Baker Harbor is the only place on the Vampire Coast that can be considered a town. It is home to approximately 2,500 humans, dwarves, and halflings, as well as a larger number of dead people, but it is unknown how many exactly there are.

Created to commemorate and mock the town that the Emperor once called home, New Baker Harbor served a variety of purposes. Ostensibly it was a port and trading town, although few ships docked here.

New Baker Port is the capital of the Harkon Empire, but the living residents are afraid of the emperor's occasional visits. It is also a paradise for the dead, where they can roam freely without worrying about being hunted by witch hunters.

When the ocean and jungle fail to provide the Midnight Nobles with fresh food, New Baker Harbor becomes a reserve food source for the Emperor and his minions. The Midnight Nobles rarely refer to New Baker Harbor by its official name.

, usually directly referred to as "emergency food pantries".

The living residents here are either survivors who were captured by the Midnight Nobles, or descendants of survivors, or adventurers who are crazy or desperate enough to come here to seek shelter and adventure. This looks like a "normal" imperial town

There is a market, dock, tavern, city hall and temple. They are trying their best to maintain it, but their expressions are extremely unnatural. They even dare to walk out of the house at night when the dead are haunted, as if they have already resigned themselves to fate and accept what belongs to them.

fate.

If friends, lovers, and family suddenly disappear one day, or return in a worse identity, the reaction of the surviving residents is usually calm, and they call it "this is the emperor's wish."

Although few and far between, a few ships do call at Neubeckerport. Crews who are not crazy usually choose to stay on board rather than risk their lives walking around the shadowed streets of Neubeckerport. But

After all, there are still crazy adventurers who come to the Vampire Coast for their own reasons and need a safe place to spend the night and eat and sleep behind locked doors. For these people, the Gravesend Inn is the perfect place to stay in this bad town.

the best choice.

During the day, this gloomy tavern built of mud-stained wood looks like an inn that can be found everywhere in the old world, an ordinary tavern with a very depressing atmosphere. Humans, dwarves, halflings and occasionally elves will come here.

Drinking, eating or chatting, but there is almost never any laughter or ambiguous interactions between customers and waitresses, only desperate resignation and a fate that no one can escape.

However, at night, this tavern bursts with vitality and vitality. As soon as the living people leave, the dead come in with their hind legs.

Most of the customers who come 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 job in the tavern is one of the most desired jobs among the living people on the Vampire Coast.

.

Those few living customers who remain in the tavern after dark usually regret this decision. Although the laws of the empire prohibit the dead from hunting living people in the tavern, this is just a law. The dead can make the living pay some

Pay the price to enjoy some "beautiful and pure fun".

After the founding of New Baker, the emperor discovered that the growing population had a great need for hunting and fishing. To solve this problem, he ordered that large tracts of jungle be cut down and burned to create farmland.

The emperor and the midnight dignitaries in charge of the project had long forgotten how to eat vegetables and grains, let alone how to grow them, but the orders were still carried out, and the peasants were filled with living and dead people, and with their cooperation they cleared out

A lot of land.

It's hard work, as the jungle regenerates almost as quickly as it can be cleared with axes and claws. To make matters worse, the creatures of the jungle prey on the working farmers as easy prey, and many farmers become

Prey for jungle tigers, leopards, blood wasps and hyenas.

From a distance, these lands appear to be ordinary farms and pastures, but a closer look reveals horrifying scenes. The crops growing in the fields are severely stunted, the apples hanging on the trees in the orchards have withered and rotted, and the livestock raised

They were all thin and disfigured, leaving only a skeleton.

The living beings called "new meat" by the midnight dignitaries were either snatched from the old world, visiting crew members, or criminals sentenced to hard labor in the Emperor's unjust and cruel courts. They entered the farm

Very few survived. Some went crazy and ran into the jungle, while others died at the claws of the same farmers. Even after death, there is no way to escape from here, because the corpse of the deceased will be resurrected and then continue to be destroyed.

Sent back to work in the fields.

The powerful man who manages the farm is a guy with a Ricky upper-class accent, nicknamed "Governor of the Border." The clothes have been faded and worn by the sun, but the expensive and fashionable citizen's clothes are worn by a man who once had distorted facial features, ugly appearance and uniform appearance.

The bloated creature with a dead face looks particularly funny in its clothing. But he is a cruel ruler. It is said that he can cast powerful necromancy magic, although no one can be sure that he is a living person.

Or some kind of midnight noble, or a descendant born after the emperor first embraced him.

When the Emperor built his capital, he also ordered the construction of a Temple of the Dead that mocked the Temple of Moor in Port Baker.

The temple is built of black marble and looks like the Temple of Moorish.

There are carvings of dead people on the ebony doors on the front and entrance, but unlike the old world, occasionally the dead would climb down from above and 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 blood-stained silver-white altar stands in front of a huge statue of Emperor Luther Harken.

The temple's high priestess is a deranged renegade priestess of Morr, who performs rituals in front of a mixture of living and dead cultists, and anyone who sees her will see that she is clearly being transformed into a midnight dignitary.

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

The door of the temple is always open, and residents can come and go as they please at night. When a living person disappears from New Baker Harbor, the relatives of the missing person often come here, leave a silver coin at the threshold, and demand to know about the missing person

Are you "living" there now? If the answer is "yes", then the relatives of the missing person will no longer interfere.

——

"It was a vicious fate that brought me to this land. Thank you, fate." - Luther Harken after arriving in the continent of Lustria.

From the horror stories whispered in the taverns of Sartosa to the excerpts of research by scholars at Marienburg, Luther Harkon is indispensable, but little is known about him and how he opened up Lustria.

Almost nothing is known about the kingdom's story.

A mage with a similar name is mentioned in long-ago Imperial archive fragments, but over the centuries many documents have been lost, and many scholars, while acknowledging the mage's antiquity, refuse to believe that he even predates it.

Sigma.

Ironically, however, the most powerful statement about Luther Harkon's origins comes from questioning him himself. Since the first survivor reports came out, a handful of people, including Old World visitors and

The elves saw him, talked to him, and were allowed to leave the Vampire Coast relatively intact, returning to tell others about their experiences. Even the most radical skeptics have to admit that there is a gap between the words of these survivors.

Some kind of consistency.

According to these accounts, Harkon claimed to have originated in the Far East, outside the Empire's borders, in one of the many remote valleys there. Although he often claimed to be a Lahmian officer, he spoke with an accent from the Eastern Empire.

, speaking an ancient and almost poetic dialect.

The strange thing is that Haken has no memory of how he became a vampire, which may be the result of schizophrenia. He only said that one night, he realized that he had been reborn.

According to Haken, he was forced to flee under the persecution of Joachim II in the ninth century. His coffin was smuggled onto a Norse ship and he barely escaped from the port of Marienburg.

A few months later, the ship he was on ran aground on the coast of the Salamander Islands. He was the only survivor. The rest of the crew died when he drank, but were resurrected by him as his servants.

, and the captain of that ship is Heijens.

Luther Harkon has many self-proclaimed titles, such as "Supreme Commodore of the Harkon Fleet", "Pirate King of the Vampire Coast" and "Great Emperor of Lustria", etc. His plans have unlimited breadth.

, his cruelty has no end, he is a terrifying haze that threatens all land on the vast ocean, and he is also a completely crazy maniac.

Haken, who escaped from the old world, found his destiny in the continent of Lustria. Washed up by the ocean currents to the east coast of Lustria, he looked around and saw that this ancient land full of magic was full of opportunities.

.Although it took several centuries, he still formed a decent army of undead and began a slow conquest. He drove back the lizardmen's attacks in battle after battle, and conquered the world.

Killing the wild beasts of the jungle taught them to avoid his lifeless army.

However, a disaster broke out as Hakon advanced towards the temple cities and ruins along the Lagrimas Mountains. When he tried to break through a magically sealed door in the ruins of Huta, a powerful magical force

Tearing his troops apart and destroying all the undead except himself.

When Haken finally crawled out of the jungle and was brought back to the dark castle by his men, his spirit was obviously shattered. The arrogant leader who was once at the peak of his power was now a child singing children's songs, followed by a

A scholar on a research expedition, then a pirate captain looking for a good time, then nothing and shattered again.

You never know when, pressure from frustration or other emotions will awaken another personality. Even when Haken rises from his coffin at night, his slaves cannot predict who he will be at this moment.

When Haken returned to normal, he realized an even worse fact. He could no longer control the wind of magic, and he could no longer even see the existence of the wind of magic!

It was only then that Hakon realized that whatever happened beneath Huta's Great Pyramid, that failure not only shattered his spirit but also robbed him of his ability to use magic.

During a period of sobriety, Haken formulated a plan. He would stay in the castle as much as possible and reduce the chance of exposing his weaknesses. His generals would continue to lead the troops on crusade, and he would only

He would only show up when the victory of the battle was certain. In order to continue to expand his power, he had to recruit necromancers and those weak vampires he could still control.

While Harkon's mind is possessed by another personality, a council of Black Jans and Midnight Nobles will rule in the Emperor's name so as not to expose his true identity. So far, the plan has been working out to a moderate degree.

, as for how long it can last is unknown.

Although he was deprived of the ability to cast spells, Hakon did not give up his ambition. He has adjusted his strategy according to the current situation and turned his focus to obtaining power through other means. He sent people to redouble their efforts to study the volcano under the Serpent Island.

A mysterious existence, thinking about how to control its will or become an ally with it.

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

"The black storm carries thunder and lightning, flashing in the sky~, the blue wave beats the war drum, and the war cry is in the jungle~."

"The black storm is like a furious dragon, roaring on the sea~, and the blue wave is like a green forest, rushing across the earth~."

"The black storm brought heavy rain, and the strong wind blew down the big trees~, while the blue wave marched forward with a steady pace~"

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

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

Wilhelmina is a lost little girl. She is timid and frightened. If she is treated well, she will appear friendly. If she cannot find her doll "Anna", she will show her fierceness and her mood will change.

Became extremely angry and irritable.

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

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

(End of chapter)