Chapter 251 101. The Great Empire of Emperor Haken
(This chapter is all about popular science and background content)
"This is the Vampire Coast, and we have entered the dead end." - This is the last sentence in the logbook of the merchant ship Fortune in Marienburg According to one record, the ship was found abandoned, drifting on the sea like a ghost ship.
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.
Bold captains dare to travel to Skogi for trade and exploration, foolish captains seek out the Vampire Coast, and only those seeking death would consider it profitable to dock at the cursed port of New Baker.
However, these guys who were looking for death finally set off. Darkus led the black ark fleet of Druchi that covered the sky and set off!
The Vampire Coast is located in the southeastern part of the Lustria continent, extending from the Broken Point in the east to the mouth of the Kuwaiza River in the southwest. In between, there are five small rivers that flow through the jungle and flow 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. The river was as even as the teeth of a comb, as if it had been adjusted in some unknowable grand plan as intended by the ancient saints.
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, which can both swim in the rivers. Live and forage in the ocean.
Along this nearly 1,600-mile coastline, the visiting adventurers saw sandy beaches gradually resisting the swamps, and a complete jungle and swamps on the far side of the coast waiting for them to go deeper. The intricate environment made them weigh. I wonder if I can find a way back.
However, the mouth of the Kuiweizha 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 currents are 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 break. Ships belonging to Harken's fleet seemed to know instinctively how to cross, while other ships required pilots from New Baker Harbor to guide them, though not all pilots were alive.
On the seaward side of the Traxor Strait stand 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, built from memory by Luther Harken as a mockery of old world towns. It is the eerie home of the living who were captured but not killed by the dead, as well as the descendants of those captured in earlier raids, and 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 mire, you can find the dark castle where Hakon lives. Its gloomy outline is only faintly visible on clear days. All but himself and his most inner circle of minions are prohibited from entering 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. Harkon imprisoned a group of sorcerers and had them perform centuries-old rituals to awaken and bind the being.
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, blocked by temple cities and ruins.
"It has been five years since I escaped from the Vampire Coast and returned to my beloved Reikland. Although I thank the benevolent Maul every night for showing me a way out, I also thank those who tormented my sleep. The dream cursed Moll. I, a fool who longed for wealth, entered the jungle, only to find a terrifying monster more terrifying than a crocodile. I was a beggar on the streets of New Baker Harbor, a city where dead people walked casually on the streets. Walking on the ground, and the living were their food. I was chained 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 that I was still of some use, so I escaped." "
Every night I wake up screaming, realizing that this is not just a dream, Haken's chains are still binding me. Holding me, I am still his prisoner. There is no way for me to escape but to use fire to free me." This was the last statement of a captain before his execution. This statement was ordered by the Temple of Mor. Sealed.
When Luther Harken first began to occupy this land, he knew that he would need to rule this new territory first. Even a powerful mage and vampire like him couldn't 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 can monitor the enemy's movements, and he also needs courtiers to advise him, praise his achievements, and deputize for him when he is "unwell."
So Haken chose to draw from a sample he knew: the Empire!
The Emperor lives in his palace in the Blood Swamp and rules the Vampire Coast with an iron-blooded hand, albeit in an increasingly unstable and unreliable way.
Built over centuries, this dark castle is a nightmare reflection of the Emperor's memories of the Empire. Tall towers shoot out at crazy angles, rooms and halls are built that are never used a second time, and spiers of different styles resist the snow that never falls. In his throne room, he sits on a throne of bones fashioned from the remains of the lizardfolk, elves, and humans he has killed.
In a sane state, the Emperor himself ruled, issuing orders based on reports and planning how to defeat the Lizardmen's army. It is rumored that he still maintains contact with the vampire family of Sylvania through his contact with the Border Prince, and has dealings with unknown forces from Cathay.
When the emperor became increasingly mentally disturbed, he allowed the powerful, whose will was bound to him, to make decisions on his behalf. This is a group of intelligent dead and living councils. The leader is a ghoul named Heijens, and his "right hand" is Captain Drejka who has lost his left hand and usually lives on the sea. When he is absent or unable to govern, Hejens will issue orders in the name of the "Emperor".
Hejens 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 much of his humanity slowly decayed, he became a more cunning and cunning ghoul than he originally was.
The emperor found Heijens very useful, so he appointed him as the "President of the Parliament". From then on, he began to rely on Heijens, and even trusted Heijens a little. However, as he develops schizophrenia and grows resentful, fragments of Heijens's past return increasingly to his mind. The slight whisper was still small and faint, but 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 was named after the river that flowed through it and emptied into the sea, and the count who governed each province was 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 earls ruled their own provinces, and their fortresses were strongholds located at the mouths of rivers. Used to monitor the situation on the sea and serve as a rally point for the Lizardmen expedition.
But the northernmost mouth of the Singo River had no official count, and after the Lady of Saltwater massacred the last count sent there by the Emperor, an agreement was made with her in which the Emperor 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 terrible 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 about 2,500 humans, dwarves, and halflings, as well as a larger number of dead people, but it is unknown how many there are.
Created to commemorate and mock the town the Emperor once called home, New Baker Harbor served multiple purposes. Ostensibly it is a port and trading town, although few ships dock here.
New Bakerport is the capital of the Harkon Empire, but its remaining residents fear 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.
If the sea and jungle fail to provide fresh food for the midnight dignitaries, New Baker Harbor becomes a reserve source of food for the Emperor and his minions. This group of midnight dignitaries rarely refers to New Baker Harbor by its official name, usually simply calling it the "Emergency Food Supply Station."
The living residents here are either survivors captured by the Midnight Nobles, descendants of survivors, or adventurers who are crazy or desperate enough to seek shelter and adventure here. This seemingly "normal" imperial town has markets, docks, taverns, city halls and temples. They are trying their best to maintain it, but their expressions are extremely unnatural. They even dare to walk in the place where the dead are infested. Walking out of the house at night, it seems as if they have already resigned themselves to fate and accepted their 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 rare, some ships do call at New Baker Harbor. Crew members who are not crazy often choose to stay on the ship rather than risk their lives walking around the shadowed streets of New Baker Harbor. But after all, there are still crazy adventurers and 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 a locked door. For these people, the Gravesend Hotel is the best option in this bad town.
During the day, this gloomy tavern built with mud-stained wood looked like an inn that could be found everywhere in the old world, an ordinary tavern with a very depressing atmosphere. Humans, dwarves, halflings and the occasional elves would drink, eat or chat here, but there was almost never any laughter or ambiguous interactions between customers and waitresses, only desperate resignation and the inability to escape. fate.
However, at night, the pub bursts with life and vitality. The front legs of the living have just left, and the hind legs of the dead have entered.
Most of the customers who come are midnight dignitaries. They come to enjoy the "night menu". The emperor requires that the tavern must provide these services for them. 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 and enjoy some "beautiful and pure fun".
After the founding of New Baker Harbor, the Emperor found that the growing population greatly increased the demand for hunting and fishing. To solve the problem, he ordered large tracts of jungle to be cut down and burned to create farmland.
The emperor and the midnight dignitaries who managed the project had long forgotten how to eat vegetables and grains, let alone how to grow them, but the orders were eventually carried out, and the peasants were filled with both living and dead people, and with their cooperation they cleared out Lots of land.
It's hard work, as the jungle regenerates almost as quickly as it can be cleared with ax and claws. To make matters worse, the creatures in the jungle regard working farmers as easy prey, and many farmers have fallen prey to jungle tigers, 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. Few of them survived after entering the farm; some went mad 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 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 expensive and fashionable citizen clothes that have been faded by the sun and worn out by the sun are particularly funny when worn on a human who once had distorted facial features, ugly appearance, and a dead look on his face. The creature's body was also very bloated. But he was a cruel ruler who was rumored to be able to wield powerful necromancy, although no one is sure whether he was a living man, some kind of midnight grandee, or a descendant born of the Emperor's first embrace.
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.
The ebony doors on the facade and entrance have carvings of the dead, but unlike the old world, occasionally the dead climb down 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 bloodstained silver altar stands in front of a massive statue of Emperor Luther Harkon.
The temple's high priestess, a deranged renegade priestess of Morr, performs rituals in front of a mixture of living and dead cultists, and anyone who sees her sees 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 wraiths.
The doors of the temple are always open and residents can come and go as they please during the night. When a living person disappears from New Baker Port, the relatives of the missing person often come here, leave a silver coin at the threshold, and demand to know whether the missing person now "lives" in it. If the answer is "yes", the relatives of the missing person will no longer interfere.
——
"It was a vicious fate that brought me to this land. Thank you, fate." ——Luthor 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's figure is indispensable, but there is little 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 Sigma.
Ironically, however, the most powerful statement about Luther Harken's origins comes from questioning the man himself. Since the first survivor reports came out, a handful of people, including Old World visitors and elves, have seen him in person, talked to him, and been allowed to leave the Vampire Shores relatively intact, returning to tell others of their experiences. . Even the most radical skeptics have to admit that there is a certain consistency between the rhetoric of these survivors.
According to these accounts, Harkon claims to have originated in one of the many remote valleys in the Far East, outside the borders of the Empire. 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.
Strangely, Harken has no memory of how he became a vampire, perhaps as a result of schizophrenia. He simply said that one night he realized he had been reborn.
According to Haken's account, 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, his ship ran aground on the coast of the Serpent Islands, and he was the only survivor. The rest of the crew died when he drank, only to be resurrected by him as his servants. , and the captain of that ship is Heijens.
Luther Harken has many self-proclaimed titles, such as "Supreme Commodore of the Harkon Fleet", "Pirate King of the Vampire Coast", "Great Emperor of Lustria" and so on. His plans have infinite scope, and his cruelty has no end. He is a terrifying haze that threatens all land on the vast ocean, and he is also a complete madman.
Haken, who escaped from the old world, found his destiny in the continent of Lustria. Washed 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. . It took him centuries, but he managed to assemble a decent army of undead and begin a slow campaign of conquest. He drove back the lizardmen's attacks in battle after battle, slaying the jungle beasts until they learned to avoid his lifeless armies.
However, a disaster erupted as Harkon advanced toward 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 Harken finally crawled out of the jungle and was brought back to the Dark Castle by his men, his spirit was visibly shattered. The once arrogant leader at the height of his power was now a child singing children's songs, then a scholar on a research expedition, then a pirate captain looking for a good time, then nothing and shattered again.
You never know when stress from frustration or other emotions will awaken another personality. Even when Harkon rose from his coffin at night, his servants could not predict who he would be.
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 then that Harkon realized that whatever had happened beneath Huta's Great Pyramid, that failure had not only broken his spirit but also robbed him of his ability to use magic.
During a period of sobriety, Harken devised a plan whereby he would stay in the castle as much as possible to reduce the chance of exposing his weaknesses. His generals would continue to lead the troops on crusade, and he would only appear when victory in 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 other personalities, 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, this plan has been relatively successful, but it is unclear how long it will last.
Although stripped of his ability to cast spells, Harken did not give up on his ambitions. He has adapted his strategy to the current situation, shifting his focus to gaining power through other means. He sent people to redouble their efforts to study the mysterious existence under the volcano on the island where the giant snake lived, 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 charging~!" "The
black storm is carrying thunder and lightning, flashing in the sky~, the blue wave is beating the war drum, and the war cry is in the jungle Inside~."
"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 brings heavy rain, and the strong wind blows over the big trees~, the blue wave steps steadily , and fight forward~."
"The black storm and the cyan wave are brave and tenacious~, they defend the world and guard peace~."
"No matter the storm or the wave, they are united as one~, the glory of black and cyan will always shine In the world~."
Wilhelmina is a lost little girl who is timid and frightened. If you treat her well, she will appear friendly. If she can't find her doll "Anna", she will show her fierceness and become 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 this chapter)