AoS Homebrew: Isabella, Mortarch of Shadow

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**Malisteen**

Homebrew version of Isabella as a mortarch on Dread Abyssal.

Fluff:

Spoiler:

When Nagash called his new mortarchs, the Mortarch of Shadow, a silent knight wearing Vlad Von Carstein's armor, carrying his sword and ring, and wearing a helm that covered their face stood among them. Many assumed the Mortarch of Shadow to actually be Vlad, but in truth it was his lost love, Isabella Von Carstein.

In the World that Was, she had once abandoned her immortal life in grief at her husband's death. In the End Times, however, she had been reborn as a servant of chaos, and Vlad had sacrificed himself to free her from the clutches of Nurgle. Though she felt the pain of grief no less keenly than she had at Vlad's first death, this time Isabella could not bring herself to throw away the life that her beloved Vlad had sacrificed himself to save. Instead, she resolved to honor that sacrifice by carrying forward her husband's legacy, and one day rebuilding the home they had once ruled together.

Amongst the other Mortarchs, only Arkhan, who was privy to almost all of his master's secrets, and Neferata, who had carried Isabella from the final battle after Vlad's sacrifice, knew the truth. But even they might have wondered at the Mortarch of Shadow's identity, for she led the undead legions at her command with all of Vlad's honor, cunning, and ruthlessness. Nagash's enemies came to fear and respect the Mortarch of Shadow's reputation, and many of those who faced her chose to willingly submit. All of those who did not came to wish they had.

During the Age of Peace that followed the formation of Sigmar's Grand Alliance, Isabella founded a new city-state, Drakkenhold, in the image of old Sylvania. There she also created a new vampyric aristocracy, one sworn to the defense of the land's mortal inhabitants in exchange for a willing tithe of life blood. Vampires who abused this bargain by hunting or slaying the citizens of Drakkenhold were personally executed by their mortarch ruler.

During the wars to unify Shyish under Nagash's rule, Manfred, like most of the other mortarchs, had assumed the dread knight that bore the Carstein Ring to be Vlad himself. Mannfred in particular had avoided the Mortarch of Shadow during those early campaigns, fearing his sire and waiting for an opportunity to outmaneuver him through guile, rather than risk direct confrontation.

When he heard rumors of the city of Drakkenhold, Mannfred attempted to infiltrate its vampyric aristocracy, slaying one of the lesser vampire acolytes and disguising himself and take their place. He hoped to weasel himself back into Vlad's inner circle and make another bid to steal the ring, but when he discovered that it was not Vlad but Isabella who wore the ring, he instead revealed himself openly, mocking Isabella, and laughing at himself for avoiding 'Vlad' for so long and spending so much time trying to come up with plans to steal the ring through deceit or treachery when he could have just taken it by force. Isabella listened to all of this with a steely face, while the lesser vampires in her court shrank into the shadows, not wanting to be caught in the middle of what they knew was coming.

When Mannfred finished monologueing and did lunge forward to take the ring by force, the Mortarch of Night was in for an unpleasant shock. Mannfred had no respect for Isabella, seeing only the love-struck girl, impossibly out of her depth, that he new in ages past. He had avoided the Mortarch of Shadow on the field, and had no idea of her power. He thought her but a pretender hiding behind her fallen husband's legacy. Thus he was unprepared for her to slap aside his attack with contemptuous ease, and counter-attack with a vicious strike that cut into Mannfred's undead flesh, immediately putting him on the defensive and fighting for his life.

Now with neither side holding anything back, the duel began to drag on, though with Mannfred already grievously injured, Isabella's victory seemed inevitable. Hoping to regain an advantage, Mannfred unleashed a torrent of baleful magic, forcing Isabella back and buying him time to work a much more potent spell, plunging the bright moon above the castle into an eclipse and drowning Drakkenhold in inky blackness. Mannfred drew renewed vigor from the unnatural gloom, his strength growing and his wound beginning to heal, but too late he realized his error. The Mortarch of Night may have been empowered by darkness, but the Mortarch of Shadow was darkness itself. Isabella's blade, Vlad's blade, bit into Mannfred from every direction, her mocking laughter echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Desperate, Mannfred banished his spell, but when the moonlight returned, he found himself standing in an empty field. The castle, the entire city of Drakkenhold, was nowhere to be seen, and though he searched far and wide, hunting after rumors of its location, he never found it again.

When chaos came and the alliance between the gods was broken, Isabella used that same power as Mortarch of Shadow to shroud her realm in a spell of darkness, hiding it from the eyes of the chaos gods, moving it from place to place within the Realm of Shyish such that none who found it once might ever find it again, except by her invitation. In this way Drakkenhold survived through the Age of Chaos, fighting off the occasional roving warband, but never having to face a serious protracted siege.

Now the servants of Sigmar and Nagash alike seek her power in order to cloud the vision of Archaon's seers and gain a tactical advantage against the Everchosen.

Rules write up:

Spoiler:

EDIT: (2/12/16) Cleaned up a couple errors in the fluff section, made alterations suggested by Alex below.

**bleak**

The story is really amazingly done up that it left tears in my eyes.

**ALEXisAWESOME**

I really like the story behind this, i really do.

Rules wise she seems fair and slightly under preforming next to Manfredd, which is always a good sign. Homebrew rules should always be made to be slightly weaker than the normal stuff to avoid leaving a bad taste. Only changes I would make is to swap the 2d6 roll to D6 +3, it avoids the frustration of her coming back with full wounds and also circumvents coming back on only 2 wounds. And maybe drop the casting value on bridge of shadows to 8.

great job

**Malisteen**

Thanks for the feedback! The suggested changes have been made.

I was aiming for 'slightly weaker than the existing mortarchs', yeah. That said, if you think she's too weak overall, there was an earlier version where she had Vlad's command ability, and the Mortarch of Shadow passive extended out to the range shown in the chart all the times. Would that be more appropriate, or is it in the right place, now?

I'm also working on some units representing the living citizens of Drakkenhold - A grim bunch of humans and halflings descended from survivors of the World that Was.

I'm hoping to round it into something of a home made battletome.

**ALEXisAWESOME**

Great idea, with all the new mini-factions GW is coming up with why not create your own? Perhaps create your own Keyword and have synergetic abilities?

Just a suggestion, but a specific niche that hasn't been explored yet in AoS is unit sergeants being much more powerful then their unit. You could go down this route, with human and halfling militia being lead by a Vampire. This would be unique to other battletomes, as a mixture of undead and living (perhaps 2 leadership scores? Higher one with Vamp alive lower one with no vamp, but always use higher score if within 18'' of Isabella?). The actual humans would be mediocre but the vampire would be powerful and he would buff his unit while he is alive.

**Malisteen**

That is an interesting idea, but is not the path I'm taking with these at the moment. Instead, I'm currently looking to echo Isabellas "get back up the first time slain" ability from the carstein ring with mortals who, when they die, automatically get back up as undead. At first I considered doing living and undead versions of each unit, with killed models turning into the undead equivalent and being added back to the unit - but that proved hasslesome & confusing in practice, so instead I've got human and halfling units that, when killed, add models to nearby units of zombies.

How this effect is narratively justified would be either that the citizens are willingly magically bound to the land's defense in both life and death, or that they are just so suffused with necromantic energy a city clouded in perpetual darkness likely doesn't have much regular food, so perhaps the farmed vegetation instead is fueled by the ambient necrotic magic of Shyish?

In the latter case, it might not be 'Drakkenhold' specific, but rather just the way living things work in Shyish, which fits with fluff that the dead just naturally don't reast easily.

Anyway, here's the current draft:

Fluff:

Spoiler:

When chaos claimed the mortal realms and the gods withdrew - Sigmar to his Golden City, Nagash to his Underworlds, other gods to their own sanctums - there were some who fought on, pockets of resistance within the realms that managed to remain free from the depredations of chaos, whether through guile or strength of arms or both. In the ensuing Age of Chaos, most of these refuges were eventually hunted down and crushed by the legions of the dark gods, but a few managed to survive the centuries on their own terms, and now witness the return of the gods with a combination of relief and resentment.

One such bastion against chaos is the benighted land of Drakkenhold. It is a realm of contradictions, where the living and the dead live and work and fight side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Desperation and necessity have stripped from the citizens all fear and revulsion towards the undead. Indeed, corpse-servants and laborers are a common and necessary part of Drakkenhold life, while the tithe of blood demanded by Drakkenhold's vampiric nobility is a paltry price to pay compared to the horrors of Chaos waiting beyond Drakkenhold's shrouded boarders.

The human and halfling people of Drakkenhold, descended, it is said, from survivors of the World that Was, are a grim lot indeed, and their soldiers even more so. These fearless men and women defend their homes whether in life or death. Every one of them is willing to lay down their lives for their vampyric masters, for without their power Drakkenhold would have long ago been overrun. Their dedication is not purely born of necessity, but rather out of genuine respect and gratitude as well, for when even the gods abandoned the Mortal Realms to Chaos, the vampires of Drakkenhold stayed to protect their flock.

The ruler of Drakkenhold is the ancient vampire Isabella Von Carstein, beloved by her servants whether mortal or undead. It is her power as Mortarch of Shadow which shrouds Drakkenhold from the eyes of the dark gods, and ensures that those who find it once can never do so again, except by her personal invitation. As a result, while its citizens have had to fight off wandering armies of the enemy, in all the centuries of Chaos rule Drakkenhold has never faced a protracted siege.

While there are a few exceptions, particularly among the vampyric aristocracy, the vast majority of Drakkenhold's citizens are humans and halflings, though all are outnumbered by the living dead, Divided into guilds. Humans, being physically stronger are more commonly seen among guilds of craftsmen and artisans, or among the farming guilds who harvest the strange vegetation that grows under Drakkenhold's perpetually darkened skies. Additionally, their greater propensity for arcane talent means they form the bulk of city-state's necromancer guild, who direct the walking dead where crude labor is needed. Halflings are more commonly seen in commerce, banking, and trade. Halflings are stealthy by nature, easily slipping beneath notice, and the Halflings of Drakkenhold, touched by the magic of their countess, are all the more so, which is essential for trade caravans, which must venture beyond the boarders of Drakkenhold, avoiding the notice of the marauding forces of chaos behind, and taking care never to lead enemies back to their home. This makes the Merchant's guild the most dangerous of all, and consequently the most respected. All guilds are clannish, with several families sharing and contesting power, though individuals joining guilds other than those of their parents are not unheard of.

All of the guilds and noble families of Drakkenhold are led by immortal vampyric patriarchs and matriarchs. These and Drakkenholds templar order - who double as Isabella's enforcers - make up Isabella's vampyric court, who vie and scheme in a constant dance of politics. Isabella watches these games with considerable disdain, but though she finds the political maneuverings distasteful, she treats it as a useful tool to keep Drakkenhold's vampires, necessary for her realm's orderly operation and defense, occupied, intervening only to ruthlessly quash any feuds that might threaten the stability of her domain.

In times of war, the living and the dead of Drakkenhold fight side by side. The adepts of the Necromancer's Guild rouse hordes of rotting zombies while their lesser acolytes drive wagons heaped with the dead. Vampyric templar don enchanted armor and mount their deathless steeds. Undead aristocrats call out into the night, and are answered by spirits and beasts that haunt the enchanted forests that ever surround the city's walls. And among these unliving hosts can be found the grim countenances of living soldiers. Human Deathguard, bearing armor and weapons forged from lusterless Drakkensteel and wrapped in heavy black fur cloaks, fight to defend the immortal heads of their households, while halfling Blackfeathers, the Merchant Guild's elite caravan guards, skulk about the edges of the Drakkenhold formations, leaping from the shadows to pepper enemies with a deadly hail of crossbow bolts, or stab at their ankles with wicked paired daggers.

DEATHGUARD:

Spoiler:

BLACKFEATHERS

Spoiler:

Many Drakkenhold units are already well covered by existing units in the VC line, particularly:
- anything soulblight for the vampyric aristocracy and templar order
- anything deathmage for the Necromancer's guild
- anything Deadwalker for the zombies Drakkenhold relies on for brute labor and numbers in battle
- ghosts and creatures of the night for the denizens of the forests surrounding the city.

The new units are mostly stepping into the rolls of wights as middle elite units, trading the offensive ability of the wights for defensive power (better save, zombie recursion), some ranged ability, and the look out sir rule that allows a drakkenhold lists to lean more on vampire lords for a melee boost than they'd be able to without the look out sir rule.

Still remaining, mechanically:
- Halfling vampire (suped up hero version of the blackfeathers)
- Maybe a human deathguard hero (becoming a wight king when slain)? eh, maybe not, vamp lords already cover pretty well
- Maybe a signature big thing? Or maybe not. A hypothetical dread abyssal-riding Isabella already fits that bill pretty well.
- 3 to 5 formations using the homebrew units and combinations of the aforementioned VC stuff

Other stuff still to do if putting this together as an entire Homebrew battletome:
- Time of war rules for Drakkenhold
- A battleplan or two
- More fluff, including in-character story bits rather than just dry descriptions
- Conversion instructions & counts-as advice/models (how to physically represent most of these units?)
- Painting guide?