The Last crusade of Jacques, Duc de Parnasse.
The chapter below was translated from a manuscript, found by the brave Bretonnian errant Curtio du Bois de Bucq, during the third campaign to reclaim Moussillon from the undead.
“… and it was then, in a time when the DrachZahn vampire brothers and minions of my master failed to complete their tasks in the lands of the Dragon Riders, that we were in desperate need for fresh followers. Since our previous laboratory was burned down by our renegade enemies, we still didn’t find a suitable lair to install a new one.
It was when the bells of Moussillon sounded another change of day that we found ourselves in an obscure and unexploited part of the city. Although we found a mausoleum erected in the middle of a sinister square, only a slight smell of decayed corpses could be scented. This probably was the temporary resting place of the first of Nobles, fallen long before to the great Plague.
I say temporary, for my master did not hesitate to enter the shrine, looking for what might be left and useful. The stairway down took forever, only to find cave after cave of numerous motionless skeletons, all dressed for battle. The place reminded me more and more of the Necropolis Cities of the deserts below the great lake, for all soldiers looked ready to attack, but remained silent no matter what spells we used.
And it was then that my admiration of my master Herr Blechbecher grew to unexpected heights. When all courage left me for not one single soldier obeyed our prayers, he searched for the Noble of Nobles amongst them. Guided by the heraldry of the only former Grail Knight, he unwrapped our sacred Graal Tenebreux, and poured the contained liquid into the throat of the withered Knight.
I cannot describe the perils that took part of me in the very next moment, for all the soldiers lined up in ranks, took firm their weapons and boomed “Nous sommes prêts, Monseigneur”. Slowly, red pulsing lights came into the once black eye sockets of the Noble of Nobles. Then, in a bare fraction of a second, he drew his massive sword, ready to decapitate me.
I again praise my ever-lasting master, for he threw himself in front of the fierce warrior, shouting with his screaming but compelling voice “Remember the Master of the Grail that brought back life to your dying corpse ! For only then you will ride your horse again, and command your army in battle !”
All motion in the tomb stopped at once, including the advancing pack of soldiers, and leaving the man-sized sword only a fraction of an inch from my frail neck. Silence again filled the underground, but the red pulses in the Noble’s eyes remained. After a moment that could have last ages, the Knight spoke to us. “I am Jacques, Duc de Parnasse. In life I served the Grail. In the afterlife, I will continue this noble act. Please give me my orders.”
And this is how I found myself standing again in the battlefields of the Realm of Conflicts, accompanied by the entire once buried retinue of the Duke, to aid us in whatever Quest my master was up to …”
The original manuscript suddenly stops here. It was believed to be of the hand of Herr FrommelFratze, servant and apprentice of the infamous Necromancer Herr Blechbecher. This document gives the only known clue to what might have happened in the Realm of Conflict, shortly after the massacres in the land of the DragonRiders in a not so recent past …
Heinrich Blechbecher
Born
in a small Averland mountain village in the
emperial year 2208, Heinrich Oberdorfer grew
up in the worshipping of Sigmar. When he was about six years old, his village
was visited by a rather strange person. Strange things started to happen at
night, and citizens disappeared, only to be found dismembered or turned into
grotesque variations of the human shape. Only when word came to the Warrior
priest Faust, and the resulting Inquisition,
the strange visitor was recognized as a vail Necrarch
Vampire. Alas, before he was burned to the stake, the vampire fled across the
borders with Bretonnia, taking with him our boy Heinrich. Not completely
understanding the situation, and feeling pity with his abductor, he helped the
vampire escape. By this twist of faith, Heinrich
was kept alive, and in the end inaugurated in the dark arts of Necromancy.
Vampires are told to be ever living; alas this is a fairy tale. The Necrarch
vampire finally got staked by the cunning plan of Vipère
Noire and Bauldrique,
two famous Bretonnian witch hunters.
Now left completely on his own, Heinrich started his own “practice”, only to find out he wasn’t welcome apart from the once pestilence infested Moussillon. Still no match for the other dwellers of the night, he magically constructed the Graal Tenebreux, a false grail, to lure unknowing brave Bretonnian questing knights into eternal life, although not the kind the knights were looking for. This gave our Heinrich the underworld nickname “Blechbecher”, for his fiends initially laughed with his invention. However, many of them ended on the receiving end of a Wight Lord’s blade.
So now, our protagonist still lures in the Moussillon area, always looking for a place to conduct his mentor’s experiments in a well-equipped laboratory. It is on one of these quests, that we can find him in the lands of Conflict …
Rudolf FrommelFratze
Some
people suspect that even at the beginning of his life,
Rudolf was destined for bad luck. He was
born as the thirteenth son of a goat farmer, he was delivered seconds after his
mother broke a mirror, and the neighbour’s black cat just came across under the
thatcher’s ladder down street …
As a baby, nothing really happened, apart from his mother’s milk to dry few days after his birth. So, his parents had no choice but to give him goat milk.
Our Rudolf grew older, and in the process all small pets he played with died within two months by several coincidences : one cat drowned itself, two mice were found dead after eating each other, and a rabbit family was seen jumping up and down before an eagle’s nest.
In his juvenile years, several of his teachers got quite ill after punishing Rudolf for misbehaviour, and several times his playmates turned pale and fainted when they wanted to start a fight with him over whatever kids like to fight about.
But all this time, Rudolf stayed frail and introvert, even a little shy. He didn’t want those things to happen, but couldn’t help it. And although he tried to hide it, the other people in his town started to avoid him. So in the end, he saw no other option but to start packing. He travelled through the Old World for more than eighty years, but didn’t find a place where people accepted him the way he was. Until one day close to Moussillon, he stumbled upon Heinrich Blechbecher. The necromancer, in desperate need for an acolyte and apprentice, saw the capacities hidden within Rudolf, and persuaded him to experiment with his tendency to draw bad luck.
At first, Rudolf
didn’t like all that stuff with dead bodies and so, but the alternative was to
be all on his own again. So, having found somebody who even encouraged him in
exploiting his tendency to draw bad luck, he started to learn from
Heinrich.
After a few months, Rudolf found out his master was quite immune to his
“unlucky” habits. This only made his awe and admiration for Heinrich grow, and
he became his loyal servant in the dark arts of Necromancy.
So on the day Heinrich woke up Jacques from his eternal sleep, he didn’t hesitate a single second and followed him into everything Heinrich had planned …
The necromancer’s Missgestälte
During an extremely
harsh winter, these once Bretonnian mountain
villagers were driven to madness by hunger and lack of resources. They saw no
other option then eating the flesh of their already dead beloved ones. They
survived the winter, but word came to a bunch of dwelling witch hunters, who
immediately saw the hand of evil resting on them. The hunters launched a
merciless assault on the village, burning it down to the ground. Only a few
villagers escaped, and gathered in the surrounding woods. They wanted revenge
on the witch hunters, and ambushed them. In their rage, they not only killed
the hunters and their retinue, but ate their brains and other body parts. Once
this came out, they weren’t welcome anymore, and doomed to wander through the
woods and caves in the dark hours of the day. Feeding on the unlucky that
happened to fall into their hands, their bodies slowly started to twist, and
they were even more fanatically hunted, finally ending up in the surroundings of
Moussillon.
It was on one of those midnight hours that they saw two necromancers busy with their experiments on human bodies. When the necromancers left, they ate the leftovers, and decided the two could secure a constant flow of meat. So, they followed the two, as they have been doing ever since.
Jacques, Duc de Parnasse
Jacques
saw the light of life for the first time in 1422 in
Chateau de Parnasse, as the first
born son of a Bretonnian Duke. As an
adolescent, he joined several Errantry crusades against everything that possibly
could cause harm to his homeland. He was granted the status of Knight in 1442,
after slaying a marauding beast herd all on his own, and inherited upon his
father’s death two years later the title of Duc
de Parnasse.
In 1449, word came to his ear about a Grail that should be hidden near the city of Bilbali. In his Quest to find this Grail, he joined the Bretonnian crusade to reclaim Estalia from the Arab invasion. He took with him all his comrade knights and most of his men-at-arms and hunting hounds, leaving behind only a few to defend Chateau de Parnasse and his beautiful wife Jacqueline.
Alas, after countless heraldic victories, his army was ambushed by an Arab force during the siege of Bilbali in 1452, and they were slaughtered by the man. A few days later, their corpses were found by local farmers. The Estalian nobility, relieved by the retake of Bilbali, funded the return of Jacques and his men back to Moussillon, where they were buried in full battle dress in a tomb just outside Chateau du Parnasse. They have rested there ever since, until today …
Les Chevaliers du Graal
During his Errantry
crusade years, Jacques made a couple of good friends, mainly in combat, but also
during jousting tournaments and banquettes. Being the first among them to
receive the knighthood, he earned quite some respect. When he became Duc de
Parnasse, quite a few of them accepted to
reside in the Chateau and help him defend his Dukedom.
No need to tell these fresh knights were eager to join Jacques’ crusade, for
they might prove their courage and skills in battle, or find a grail for
themselves.
Countless were the feat of arms, and surely they earned their part of the glory, if not for that dreadful day. Completely surprised by the enemy, they were ambushed close to Bilbali. Their loyalty to Jacques saved him from many arrows or deadly weapon blows, but in the end even the bravest of knights fell, taking with him the Grail standard.
In memoriam, all knights were placed in the mausoleum, next to their comrade Jacques. Now, after so many centuries, they are asked again to ride out and keep the standard of the Grail Quest up in the air …
Jacques’ Men at arms
During
the fifteenth century, most of the Bretonnain
Dukedoms didn’t maintain large and expensive standing armies. In times of
despair, the nobility called upon the local peasants and city folk to take up
arms. To avoid massive butchering of these regiments, training sessions in
archery and hand to hand combat, as well as regimental drills were frequently
held.
So when Jacques, Duc de Parnasse, prepared
himself for his Quest to the Grail, he ordered two regiments of foot troopers to
accompany him. If it was to defend their homesteads, the countrymen never
refused to take up arms. But now, being asked to join a war party with a
questionable motive and large uncertainty on the time frame, it didn take long
before the first complaints were heard. Alas, an example was quickly made for
the first complainer was ripped from his lands, tortured in public and thrown in
jail. No further complaints were made, but their loyalty to the Duke was at
least questionable. And right they were, if you see how they ended up …
The gatekeepers of Chateau Parnasse
To
defend Chateau
Parnasse and its inhabitants, a small number of foot soldiers were always
maintained. In times of war, or when soldiers retired, their ranks were
refilled with the most loyal and combat handy countrymen. Of course, the annual
trainings formed an ideal opportunity for the captain of the
Gatekeepers to look for worthy freshmen.
Now when Jacques ordered his countrymen to join his Quest for the Grail, and the following punishment of one exemplar complainer, he was wise enough to understand the consequences. So to tackle any peasant and city folk from running away back home at the first encounter in battle, he ordered a detachment of Gatekeepers to follow him on his Quest. The Gatekeepers were known for their loyalty to the Dukes, so he could rely on them to keep the countrymen in line.
So although it’s quite strange to find Gatekeepers in the Memorial Crypt for the battle near Bilbali, there is always a logical explanation …
Jacques’
Hunting hounds
In the Dukedoms of Bretonnia, the sports of jousting and hunting were frequently practiced in former and current days. For the latter, several packs of hunting dogs were bred in the castles. In times of need, they even were used as hunting packs in war.
So, when Jacques left for his Crusade, he took a bunch of dogs with him, just in case.
The Mausoleum Dwellers
If one thinks of a mausoleum, one immediately has the picture of dark, moist caves in mind. And let this be the ideal home for creatures with leathery wings and subsonic shrieking voices. So no wonder the Tomb of the army of Jacques was infested with these “birds of the night”.
Why several beasts followed the now skeletal army of Jacques once it was raised again with the Grail, no one knows. How they will react in times of combat, and how long they will stick to the army, is as uncertain as the shifting of the earth plates …
Jacqueline
When
Jacqueline was born, no one can tell, but
her stunning beauty and charm, everybody knew of. So, no wonder Jacques
completely lost his mind and senses on the day he met her on one of his hunting
trips through the forests near Chateau
Parnasse, not long after being appointed
Duke.
At first, it did appear to Jacques that it’s not that normal to encounter two women wandering on their own in an unknown forest, but when she spoke to him, he was enchanted right away. He immediately offered her and her maiden the protection and comfort of his Chateau, and she gracefully accepted. In fact, she never left. Things started to go prosperous, fewer children died of diseases, and cattle turned out to be much more fertile, and trade flourished.
A few months after she first set foot in the Chateau, Jacques announced his forthcoming Quest for the Grail. On his leave, everybody expected Jacqueline to leave, for what unmarried Lady would stay in a castle without knightly company, waiting for the return of a Questing knight. Little did they know, for she stayed for more then two years. One day in 1452, her maiden found her lifeless body in the chapel of the Chateau. No one, not even the best physician, could explain what the cause of her death was. Suspecting suicide, they burned her body only a day later.
No one ever linked all these facts together, for if one did, one came to the conclusion Jacqueline was a damsel of the Lady of the Lake, seeking for Knights honorable enough to grant a search for the Grail.
She hopelessly fell in love with Jacques, but stayed faithful to the Lady of the Lake. So when Jacques announced to go on a Quest, she was both relieved and in emotional pain. Will he succeed and return safe and sound ?
So on the day Jacques was ambushed, she felt his end was near. In a desperate attempt to grant the blessing of the Lady to Jacques, she made her soul depart her earthly body. Alas, even with the speed of ethereality, she arrived too late, and Jacques’ body was already cold. In her rage, she mercilessly screamed all remaining foes to their final death. Then, she lured a nearby peasant to the plains of battle, and desperately begged an Estalian nobleman in his dreams to treat the corpses of Jacques and his men with honor and send them back to Chateau Parnasse. Upon her arrival home, she could not find her body for it was burned to ashes, so she was doomed to stay in the ethereal world.
Knowing all this, one should not be surprised to hear stories many many years later of a woman’s whisper when passing the mausoleum of Jacques.
And then came the day when Blechbecher woke up her beloved Jacques. She tried to warn Jacques of the false grail, but he did not listen to her. In fact, he didn’t listen at all. But so powerful was her Love that she accompanied him anyway, keeping him out of harm’s way this time, and hoping on a miracle that would bring back her damned lover …
