This warband was first put together to antagonize the Coldwood Smugglers, for the simple reason that I had a number of spare Undead to use. I choose the Restless Dead" rules to build it and I must say it came out alright, and it is actually quite fun to play.
The leader of the warband is of course his Majesty the Liche King, C18 Undead from 1983 (sculpted by the Perrys, I suspect). I found this beauty on eBay, already painted, at a ridiculously low price some time ago. It's really beautiful, but since it is really small compared to the rest of the warband, I decided the Liche King is actually a Queen. What follows is the story of how she came to the Wasteland.
Lavinia von Enzesburg was the only daughter of old Graf Maximilian. At her father's death, she inherited vast lands in east Stirland, to rule with her husband, young and handsome Udo, at her side. However, Lavinia was not interested in lands or husbands: her one true love was knowledge, which she had pursued since early childhood under the tutelage of many respected teachers. History, astronomy, mathematics were her daily bread, but the field sheloved most of all was magick. Her father had first forbidden this, then allowed some simple rudiments to be taught, but when he finally died Lavinia was free to pursue the study of magick under several famous teachers. She would spend most of her time studying, delegating government to her council. Her husband did not complain: blonde-maned Udo had always been more interested in the company of men than women, and he often scoured the country on wild hunts with a number of young and merry companions. All seemed well, until the Black Year came: storms striked first, flooding the country and ruining crops; famine followed, and then plague spread through every village, taking its grim toll in lives.
Lavinia, avoiding council meetings, was oblivious to the gravity of the situation until it was too late: one day an army of peasants wielding torches and pitchforks laid siege to her castle, raising as their grim standard the impaled corpse of her husband Udo, a shameful reference to his sexual habits. Only then did she realize how unfitting her council was to rule, a flock of corrupted sicophants who had grown rich and fat off the power she had entrusted them with. The peasants were calling for their heads and a new, more fitting lord, in the person of her cousin Luther the Just, standing among the rebellious scum in his gold-inlaid ceremonial armour.
Lavinia had never been good with people, talking to them or understanding their motives, but she was used to be in charge and she would not bow to any mob of rioting curs. The fat was in the fire, but she would not go down easily: someone else would pay for this, and dearly.
She fried the first speaker of the rebels, the town mayor, with a bolt of lightning, just to remind everyone of what she was capable of, and stated she would only negotiate with her cousin. Luther was a reasonable man, and he was happy enough to receive the title of Graf from Lavinia, along with lands and castles she did not care for. The former Gräfin was exiled in a remote manor, well provided of lands and revenues to sustain her for as long as she needed. Anonimity and isolation would be a benefit, not a punishment to her. The bloodthirsty mob was satisfied when they were allowed to unleash their rage on the councilmen, and that evening their heads were mounted on pikes on the battlements of the castle.
Dunkelulm was a good abode as any to Lavinia. She had space for her studies, a selected few servants and no courtiers to distract her. Those were happy years for her - no one would stay awake to spy ar the strange lights at night coming from her windows, nor wake her up during the day for boring social activities; no one raised questions about the teachers who would visit her. In a way, Lavinia had too much freedom, perhaps. Someone was concerned for the corpses disappearing from the local graveyard, but then those people disappeared. A few priests came to visit and left in a hurry, terrified by nightmares and visions or forced to flee after infamous accusations were made on their good names. For Lavinia, the years at Dunkelulm were fruitful: she delved deeper and deeper into her magick studies, and her fascination for forbidden knowledge and the dark arts grew out of control, even her own. Lavinia's descent into darkness was slow but steady, until one day, in her old age, she achieved the ultimate goal of the scholar of the dark arts and the necromancer - lichehood.
Unlife was not much different than life for Lavinia, who had been a night ownl and a reclusive for years. Now, however, she could no longer meet any outsider, nor could she conceal her immortality. She then took an apprentice, a young man with a basic education and a fascination for the dark arts: Adalbert Keller. After a few months she adopted Keller as her heir and by the end of the year he announced his adoptive monther's death. A mausoleum, built in the hills behind the castle, would be her resting place.
The mausoleum was now a perfect place to be for Lavinia: she needed no food, no sleep, no air and no light, only quiet. It was surrounded by a hunting lodge where no one was allowed and conveniently linked to the keep of Dunkelulm by a tunnel. Adalbert Keller, now Adalbert von Enzesburg, lord of Dunkelulm, was the proxy of Lavinia and her tool to keep her unlife of research quiet and funded.
Liches have few needs indeed, but one thing they cannot do without are the spells that bind together their black souls and their rotting corpses. Such powerful spells are not eternal and need to be regularly renewed and fuelled with raw magickal energies, normally found in specific places of power, where the leys of the earth cross and the winds of magick meet. Such places are never unguarded, though: within the Empire, the local Inquisitions maintain permanent lodges of witch hunters there, and out of the Emperor's bound there are creatures and monsters that feed off the steady flow of energies. Lavinia is now getting weaker and tired, and she needs a new ritual of undeath: weeks ago, while she was looking at the stars to divine future events, she observed a rare phaenomenon, the fall of a rain of comets, which she traced to the borderlands between Marienburg, Reikland and Middenland. There, in the ground, she knows, there are pieces of stars made of pure magickal energy: each shard could easily fuel a single ritual, and so she set journey for the Wasteland, gathering her retinue for the long and dangerous trip.
During her life Lavinia was rarely able to move without the protection of her loyal guards. In unlife, she keeps them around: Captain Ulrich Krieger (Grave Guard), Dieter, Irmingard, Friedrich and Karl (4 Skeletons), all built from the Vampire Counts Skeletons set from GW.
The Necromancer Adalbert Keller is the only living person Lavinia trusts, and the only link between her and the world of the living. He travels with her mistress, now garbed as a travelling scholar, and drags behind him 3 zombies reanimated from bodies of travellers and villagers found along the way. Keller is completely submissive to Lavinia and is constantly fawning at her feet, hoping to receive one day the secrets of High Necromancy. Keller is a GW Necromancer and the Zombies are also from a GW set.
