Deadwood and Rot
Introduction
During the Summer Solstice 386YE, the Minister of Historical Research, Vaclav Mladenovich Kosti, requested that Octavia of Streams Source Spire research the story of Peter of Culwich, also known as the Schlacta of Rot or the Deadwood Knight. The minister suggested that the investigation should focus on its origins, the sword that defeated it, and the House of Dawn of which it was a part.
This matter proved quite challenging to investigate because it deals with matters of pre-Imperial Dawnish history. Even a methodical researcher like Octavia struggled to find much in the way of verifiable facts, despite several months immersed in the libraries of northern Weirwater and southern Karov. She notes that this report was greatly facilitated by the assistance not only of troubadours and wise ones, but by Imperial citizens from all walks of life from both Varushka and Dawn who shared old folk legends relating to the creature.
Peter of Culwich
None of the sources agree, definitively, whether Peter – or Piotr – of Culwich was originally Dawnish or Varushkan. In pre-Imperial times, relations between the two nations were often quite volatile. The border between Weirwater and Karov in particular was prone to move, and at various points, Varushka claimed ownership of Wickmoor or Weirmoor, while the Dawnish likewise from time to time claimed either Skoremujac or Malimorzi.
Most accounts agree however that Peter – or Piotr – was born nearly two hundred years before the fateful meeting at Anvil that led to the founding of the Empire. Octavia was able to narrow down his birthplace only to “either Wickmoor or Skoremujac”, and there is almost nothing about his early life or his family.
The first reliable stories of his activities place him at Culwich, in his early twenties, as a knight-errant. Along with several companions, he faced and defeated an ogre that threatened what was at that time little more than a village, a far cry from the bustling port it is today. He also apparently helped destroy a large gang of outlaws operating across the border, avoiding Dawnish justice by hiding out in the woods of Karov, and vice versa. In the end, Peter led a mixed group of Varushkan and Dawnish folk to hunt and ultimately destroy the outlaw gang.
In following years there are several events that Octavia believes involve the man who would later become the Deadwood Knight/Schlacta of Rot. A story of a fight against a dangerous mob of wolves near Delev; battles with orc raiders from Semmerholm; resisting an incursion of creatures believed to be the spawn of Dho'uala Seeking to drown the fisherfolk of Tamnis, a village that would ultimately be claimed by the Semmerlak some time during the reign of Emperor Giovanni. A common element in these stories is that the knight-errant Peter/Piotr fights with a furious strength, offering no quarter to any who dare to stand against him, slaughtering all who stand in his way. While he is a capable warrior, however, he is described as a poor leader, demanding and unforgiving, and few can tolerate being part of his warband for long.
There is no record during this time of his completing a test of mettle. While Dawnish stories agree he is a knight, they do not always agree as to whether he is a noble. Likewise, while some stories of his exploits in Varushka refer to him as a schlacta others claim he is actually an opportunistic sell-sword – a mercenary warrior who fought for pay. His cruelty continues to grow with his reputation, and while he is recognised for his prowess he is by no means popular. It's interesting that the Dawnish of this time refer to him as the “Varushkan schlacta” and the Varushkans commonly call him the “Dawnish knight”. Octavia sketches a picture of man of two worlds, entirely welcome in neither.
Encounter With Nemoc
At some point in his thirties, Peter fought with the household of Earl Sederat. Octavia speculates that if he did actually receive a test of mettle, it was into that earl's house – before the noble household was swallowed up by the Semmerlak of course. It is during this time that he is first referred to as "Peter of Culwich", which perhaps adds some circumstantial evidence to this supposition.
During a particularly harsh winter, Peter was part of a band sent to deal with an incursion of Varushkan wolves across the border into northern Wickmoor. The stories claim that he and his fellows met the wolves in a snowstorm, and many of the band, including the Earl himself, were slain. When the fallen rose up and fell on their former companions, however, it must swiftly have become apparent that there was more than a mere band of wolves – no matter how dangerous. Indeed, this is where Peter/Piotr encounters the emissary of the Howling Queen, the plaguewulf known as Nemoc.
The details of this meeting are not known for obvious reasons, only that they took place in the ruins of the village of Ismir, in south-western Skoremujac. The village was a crossing place between Varushka and Dawn, along a road that fell out of use long before the present day. Some of the stories say that Peter of Culwich died fighting the plaguewulf, but was cursed in the process. Others suggest that he turned on his surviving fellow, betraying them at the urging of Nemoc, sacrificing them to the monstrous creature.
All that's known for sure is that when the blizzard cleared, Peter/Piotr was gone and all that remained was the Knight of the Dead Wood – the Deadwood Knight – who would quickly be dubbed Schlacta of Rot across the northern border. Nemoc disappears from the story here – but appears a few times in later tales indicating that whatever else happened, Peter did not kill the beast. The tale continues to recount how Peter marched at the head of a mob of unliving horrors – not only the original wolves but a band of former Dawnish knights now bound to the Deadwood Knight. These monsters assaulted Culwich, but were turned back by a great ring of steel thrown around the village by the remaining nobles of Sederat. Peter was apparently slain by the new Earl of the house - the furious widow of the former Earl - and it was believed that that is the end of the matter.
Erroneously, as it would turn out.
A Grim Pattern
Over the next four hundred years or so, the creature that Peter of Culwich became emerged several times. Each time, the pattern was the same. He would send out an invitation to a champion from Karov, and a champion from Weirwater, to present themselves before him. They were expected to fight each other in a duel. The winner would gain a "great boon" for their people; the loser incurred a curse that fell on the territory of their nation. The victor then faced the challenge of the Schlacta of Rot himself. If they refused to present a champion, the curse would fall on both territories. Usually, the fight resulted in the defeat of the victorious champion by the Deadwood Knight - although not necessarily their death. The knight invariably marked the one who failed to defeat them, and then withdrew to deliver boon and curse before disappearing again for a generation or more.
In the time of Empress Varkula, however, the champions refused to fight. Their warbands attacked the Knight and ultimately overwhelmed him. The Deadwood Knight was slain... but rose a week later and began gathering his strength. Attacks around the border regions took place over the next three or four months, and each time the knight raised those they killed as part of an unliving host. In Summer 125YE, the Imperial Military Council was forced to send the Hounds of Glory and the Northern Eagle to face an army of the unliving that was in the process of attempting to conquer Skoremujac and kill every living person it could find, to add them to its army. The fighting raged for six months, with the Eastern Sky eventually joining the struggle to destroy the monstrous force. They were eventually successful, and the Deadwood Knight vanished... until 204YE when he again emerged to issue his challenge.
This time, however, things did not go as expected.
Elise of Culwich
After having spent a year in preparation, and issuing several dire warnings about the threat of the Deadwood Knight, a Dawnish woman named Elise of Culwich attempted to end the threat of the Schlacta of Rot once and for all. A proud enchantress who passed her test of mettle as part of House duLac, Elise believed that the Deadwood Knight – or Peter/Piotr at least – was a distant ancestor. After receiving a potent vision of the creature's imminent return, she spent a significant amount of time in Varushka speaking to Wise Ones, and scouring the histories of Dawn for information about the Schlacta of Rot.
No stranger to Anvil, Elise met with representatives of several eternals. From Kaela, she apparently learned of a certain weakness possessed by the Schlacta, although its nature was frustratingly not recorded anywhere Octavia could find. For several seasons she sought a certain weapon, but it eluded her quest. Frustrated, she was apparently visited by a band of guisers who promised to help her find her target in return for an unspecified favour – Octavia believes that these guisers were either operating on behalf of, or delivering a message from, the Whisper Gallery.
Regardless, when the Deadwood Knight arose in 204YE as Elise had predicted she was ready for it. It issued its challenge, and Elise managed to persuade the Senator of Weirwater to send her as champion. She is known to have prevailed on the Cardinal of Courage to bless her weapon with a potent hallowed aura before venturing through the Sentinel Gate. On the other side, she faced the Varushkan champion – Boric “The Ox” Eskalovic – and fought him for the right to challenge the Deadwood Knight. She managed to outmanoeuvre Boric, and defeat him in single combat, but only just. She then turned to face the Schlacta of Rot, to fight for his boon – and to avoid having Weirwater cursed.
According to the account written by Tamara Hanovitch Eranya, one of the Varushkan wise ones who had accompanied Boric, Elise fought with incredible courage. He noted however that her blade was not the one she had wielded against Boric, being significantly older; rather it was the blade that had been hallowed by the Cardinal. The duel ended with Elise's defeat, slain by the Deadwood Knight. Despite all her courage, she was overwhelmed by the supernatural strength of the Schlacta of Rot and felled with a fatal blow.
To the surprise of those present, however, the Schlacta of Rot demanded that she be interred in Weirwater, with her accoutrements of battle. He then departed, and while no boon manifested, neither did any curse. Nor did he begin raising his forces to try and conquer Weirwater or Karov. He simply disappeared. It was as if something had interrupted his usual pattern.
Dawnish troubadours at the time claimed that this was because of Elise's courage, but the Varushkans were more suspicious and wondered about the provenance of the blade the enchantress wielded, speculating that it was a gift from Kaela perhaps. When Tamara Hanovitch Eranya asked to examine the sword, the Dawnish refused. According to a report from the time, they accused the Varushkans of being sore losers and attempting to tarnish the glory of a brave woman by trying to infer she had beaten Boric in some underhand manner. Tempers flared on both sides and this misunderstanding was unfortunately never resolved.
The Senator for Weirwater ultimately had enchantress Elise interred in a tomb in the hills of Wickmoor, which is believed to still stand to this day. The weapons and armour she bore when she faced the Deadwood Knight were placed in the tomb with her, and for several years afterwards the Troubadours sang the sorrowful tale of “Lady Elise and the Knight of Death.”
Tamara's Scroll
Tamara Hanovitch Eranya, however, did not let the matter lie and spent several years investigating the history of the Schlacta of Rot before her own death in battle against the Thule in 208YE. While visiting wise ones in Delev, Octavia was fortunate enough to find some of Tamara's writings, preserved in a private collection.
The scrolls detailed the day to day concerns of a Varushkan wise one, and had not been particularly well maintained. There was one section, however, that proved particularly apposite. In it Tamara indicated that one thing she had managed to learn from Kaela was that the Schlacta of Rot would always return to the place where he first died – where he ceased to be Peter/Piotr of Culwich and became the beast he is today. Specifically, this seemed to point to the ruins of the village of Ismir in Wickmoor.
Time and again, however, the wise one speculated about exactly why the Schlacta had demanded the internment of Elise, and why he had not delivered his boon and curse or started to raise his conquering army. Perhaps it was as simple as his recognising Elise as a distant descendant, as she claimed. Perhaps it was something more. But in the absence of any evidence, Tamara was forced to let the matter drop – after all, she would likely be long dead before the knight rose again and had other concerns to attend to.
Conclusions
Octavia writes that it is frustrating how much is speculation and uncertainty, but there is one thing she is confident of and that is that before the Deadwood Knight begins his conquest, he will rally his forces at one of the places important to him in life. If Tamara is correct, it will likely be the ruins of Ismir in Skoremujac, deep in the woods but right up on the border with Weirwater.
The sword that defeated the knight is almost certainly in the tomb of Elise of Culwich, and Octavia passes along Tamara's belief that it was some combination of the sword and the potent hallowing that had been placed on it that gave the Knight pause. At the very least, it may be sufficient to return it to slumber but it's possible that it may be the weapon needed to end the thing's threat once and for all.
Addendum: The Recent Rise
As an addendum, the Imperial Archivist Leontes the Scribe has added a few notes about the most recent rise of the Deadwood Knight, which began in 385YE and apparently concluded during the Autumn Equinox 386YE.
In Summer 385YE, the Deadwood Knight rose again. They issued their challenge, which was answered by a Dawnish and a Varushkan champion; Tadhg Blackthorn and Slawomir Vasiliev. The knight was defeated, and its boon fell on Weirwater - but no echoing curse befouled Karov. This, perhaps, was the first sign that something had gone awry. Following the Autumn Equinox, stories began to surface of attacks against foreigners and bandits in northern Weirwater and southern Karov. The first reports of attacks against innocent merchants reached Anvil at the Winter Solstice - the Schlacta of Rot and its Servants slaughtered both a merchant caravan in Wickmoor and a band of refugees fleeing south to escape scions of Cold Sun north of Hawksmoor. Reports confirmed in some cases that the dead were being forcibly "recruited" into the Deadwood Knight's entourage.
Spring 386YE saw more odd indications that this rise was not quite like those that had proceeded it. There was the matter of the Schlacta of Rot's minions breaching the traditional wards that protect the roads of Varushka, for example. In Dawn, there were equally strange events; a band of "black knights" attended a tourney sponsored by House Seerkan in Wickmoor as part of the Grand Tour. The tourney had already raised eyebrows, having being thrown a "season early" according to the agreed on schedule, but the "Tourney of Ash and Bone" will mostly be remembered for the bloody events during the Grand Melee. The band of black knights demonstrated a ruthless, brutal approach to the various challenges and events arranged by the Seerkan, and it slowly became clear that their heavy armour and full helms concealed the dead flesh of monstrous abominations. During the final event of the tourney - a traditional Grand Melee - the servants of the Schlacta of Rot abandoned all pretence of civility and sought to slay as many participants as possible. In the end the Schlacta of Rot and its gruesome servants were driven off, but not before several brave Dawnish knights had been slain and restored to a mockery of life, driven to assail their former comrades.
It became clear that the Deadwood Knights threat was escalating, seeking to grow their numbers exponentially by targeting innocent citizens of Dawn and Varushka. During the Spring Equinox in particular, the heroes of Anvil used the Sentinel Gate to face the threat directly, protecting people from both nations from abhorrent "recruitment" into the Knight's army. Yet the Knight itself continued to evade capture or defeat, and after each defeat its forces regrouped and regathered, and after a short respite simply focused their attention elsewhere.
At the same time, the priests of Dawn and Varushka joined the fray in earnest. One of the consequences of this was an attack against the estates of the Earl of Fools shortly before the Summer Solstice, apparently in response to a challenge issued in Spring. The fighting was bitter, but the attackers were fought off, and the response provided valuable insight into the character of the Deadwood Knight - that it somehow became aware of, and could not resist, a formal challenge. This provided a possible answer to the threat the beast posed - and perhaps a chance to end it once and for all.
Time was running out, however. As the Autumn Equinox dawned it became apparent that the Deadwood Knight had gathered enough followers to move to the next, inevitable, stage of its plan - to attack in force and attempt to conquer Weirwater and Karov. Fortunately, the efforts of Imperial heroes meant that the Schlacta's rise had been significantly slower than in previous generations - providing an opportunity for those working against its schemes to uncover secrets and prepare to end the threat. The historical research commissioned by Vaclav Mladenovich Kosti arrived at the Autumn Equinox, and Leontes hopes provided some assistance to those seeking the destruction of the Deadwood Knight.
Lord Alistar de Vere, Oswald Hooped, Marigold Companer, Hypatia Raincourt, Olwyn Pickle, Lord Aubin Gildaryn, and Lord Commander Leonar Gildaryn all of Dawn, along with Twig of Varushka, have shown their complete Loyalty to the defeat of the Schlacta of Rot, also known as the Deadwood Knight, engaging in a trade with a herald of the Whisper Gallery to find the sword required to defeat him and turning themselves in to the Anvil militia, They further showed great Courage, sharing the personal secrets they gave to the herald at their trial, They were fined one Throne each for this crime, and so the General Assembly awards eight thrones total, one for each person.
Anatolij Paukov Zorkin, General Assembly, Rewarding, Autumn Equinox 386YE, Vote: Upheld (448-438); no funds availableExact details of what happened are not public knowledge. Initial reports suggest that a combined effort of Dawnish and Varushkan heroes with significant involvement from the nobles of House DuLac - the heirs to Elise of Culwich - ended the rampage of the Schlacta of Rot. They apparently faced the creature in the ruins of Ismir, and re-enacted the initial challenge in some capacity.
A grand melee ended with the destruction of the Knight - and by all accounts the army it had raised began to collapse almost immediately. Some of the Knight's unliving lieutenants may still lurk in the woods of northern Weirwater and southern Karov, but without the animating will of the Schlacta of Rot, the majority seem to have returned to the merciful embrace of death.
The Deadwood Knight, champion of the Howling Queen has been vanquished! We anticipate her call. Her howl for a new champion. Any person who answers this call commits treason against the Empire. I call for the combined wrath of all nations to put to death anyone who answers this call. Many lives were saved this day, innocents of Varushka and Dawn let this not be in vain.
Orchard Gildryn, Statement of Principle, General Assembly, Autumn Equinox 386YE, Vote: Upheld (488-368)An End?
It remains to be seen if the threat of the Deadwood Knight has been permanently ended. A judgement of rewarding presented by Anatolij Paukov Zorkin certainly suggested that the Schlacta had been extinguished through the use of a certain sword, and named those they believed most responsible for the success. A statement of principle, from Orchard Gildryn, warned that the Howling Queen would no doubt seek a new champion, and that Imperial citizens should be vigilant against a new Deadwood Knight being recruited.
Is this really the end of the grim tale of Peter/Piotr of Culwich? Only time will tell, one way or another. It is likely to be many years before the people of Weirwater and Karov can be entirely sure that they are free of this dreadful cycle of destruction and death.
Further Reading
- Tourney of the Damned - Autumn 386YE Wind of Fortune discussing ways to end the threat of the Deadwood Knight
- Tales of mystery - Summer 386YE Wind of Fortune detailing developments in the Deadwood Knight's campaign against the people of Dawn and Varushka
- Momento mori - Spring 386YE Wind of Fortune detailing the Knight's efforts to recruit an army of the dead
- The lake and the deep, dark woods - Winter 385YE Wind of Fortune recounting the start of the creature's rampage
- The horror and the wild - Summer 385YE Wind of Fortune introducing the knight