They came from Sylvania and into the neighbouring provinces of Stirland and Ostermark. Inhuman ghouls would skulk about graveyards at night, scrambling atop the graves and scrabbling for purchase, tearing the coffin asunder, ripping rotting flesh from bone, slurping up the entrails and scooping out the brains. Ghouls with more human centred fancies would converse with the corpses, even dance between the gravestones with them as if they were inside a bustling tavern cutting dancesteps around patrons.
Among the ghouls, there are those that who fashion themselves chiefs and leaders that sort the packs into a pecking order. One such particularly large ghoul was the self styled Ghoul Lord. A true ghoul and not a Strigoi vampire, it was said he sat upon a throne of bone, and though his mind was as sluggish as a sewer of filth, when he was sat upon his throne all the packs of ghouls would listen to him.
Word of the Ghoul Lord’s strange influence became known to the vampires. The talk of the throne stirred up memories in their dusty malevolent minds, the legendary Throne of Bones, made from the bones and skulls of the first victims, those thralls that gave themselves willingly to the first vampires. Legend said the Throne would call out for more skulls, more bones, and all the night-kind would flock to obey. Whoever sat in the Throne could exert their will over all nearby undead, and the stronger the will, the further the influence would reach, until all the creatures of the night in the Old World would march to bring tribute.
The first to arrive were the Strigoi. Always drawn to the company of ghouls and perhaps arriving without a real knowledge of why or what influenced them, they made nests and began to search. The Ghoul Lord was no match for the Strigoi in terms of strength and brutality, and subsequently disappeared. The Strigoi – unlike all other vampires – have no desire to lead and conquer. Instead they carry out frantic searches, attracting hordes of terrified, worshipful ghoulkin in their wake. They don’t understand what they are searching for only that they are drawn to it, and should a Strigoi ever sit upon the Throne it is impossible to say what their fractured, hateful minds would do to those they would have influence over.
The rulers of the Van Carstein and Lahmian clans do not formally admit that their vampires are part of this search, but their representatives are present, cloaked in darkness or leading thralls by lantern light, unwilling to trust the ghouls or enlist their help unless they must. Whether they are there as secret emissaries or whether they have disobeyed the orders of their masters it is impossible to say, though there is little doubt that should one find the Throne, loyalties and treaties would be sorely tested.
Having noticed the increased activity of packs of ghouls terrorizing the local populace, the witch hunter guild have focused some of their attention from Mordheim onto the region within Sylvania from which these packs seem to have originated. Authorities within Stirland and Ostermark fuel this fervour by offering a reward for removing whatever is responsible for this increase in attacks. Mercenaries are always drawn to coin and have joined the good cause but have also found traces of wyrdstone in Sylvania. Indeed there is coin to be made, and if the sum is large enough, then it matters not who is the employer.
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