The Eagle Reborn: Snippets from an HRE Campaign (Stainless Steel 6.4, RBAI, Early Era)
These are short snippets collected from my HRE campaign. They'll range all across it (I took notes) and vary from humorous to historical.
The year is 1224. The Holy Roman Empire has grown rich on the Crusades, conquering lands holy and heretical alike, driving back the heathens with fire and steel. The Fatimids and Seljuks are defeated and broken, their lines extinguished and their cities turned to pointless squabbles, the richest prizes, Jerusalem among them, in Imperial hands.
In Europe, the French overreached themselves, and found every nation turned against them, their armies shattered and their riches taken to ornament the halls of the Imperial castles. So too of the Danes, hardiest of all, beaten down only by their own people turned against them, the scions of Heinrich and Hardrada working together.
The Germans have grown strong from their enemies. One would think the pattern of conquest would dissuade any from giving them a casus belli, but one would have failed to reckon with the foolishness of merchantmen and traders.
The Geonese, greedy as ever, laid siege to the Empire's Italian protectorates in 1199, hoping, perhaps, to cut the rising power from the Mediterranean and gain a foothold to rival Venice.
What it gained them instead was the same fate that befell the French they themselves forced into vassalage- an angry Pope and the wrath of a people who seek to claim their title with strength of arms rather than birthright.
Twenty-five years of war have passed. Albrecht I, first of the Josef dynasty, Kingslayer and Bane of Danes, leads a host against the last continental possession of the Geonese, Toulouse. His young son Conrad leads a vanguard of knights ahead, waiting to strike...
###
It should have been simple. Wait in ambush, fall upon the enemy with a cavalry charge, kill their general and enjoy the slaughter as the enemy broke and ran as they always did.
Not this field of dead.
Scouts, a timely message, a chance reflection... whatever it was, it had warned the Geonese captain well enough that he had perched his force at the crest of a hill rather than continue down the eastward road.
Perhaps he felt Father was here instead of him.
Whatever the cause, he still had had his duty, to drive the man out. But these were no militia, no- he'd been forced to fight the professional army, that rare force for a nation of shopkeepers.
They'd won. Barely. Worst of all were the knights, a third dead and more wounded, and his foot archers and infantry were little better. He'd lost all but four of his elite guard.
He staggered up the hill, mounted his horse and let out a breath as his men tightened ranks behind him.
Ahead stretched a thousand fresh Geonese, led by Doge Puccio, a man hardened in the Paris Crusade. Against that, all he had were five hundred weary men, led by himself...and yesterday, Pyrrhic as it was, had been his first battle.
He was going to die today.
So be it.
###
He thanked the messenger as the man, dirty, bloodied, and battered, left the tent.
The letter lay on the camp desk, crumpled.
He had never asked for this. When war with the Danes had come, and Old Arnulf had made him heir, he had fought as well as he could, untrained and unskilled. Despite that, he had sacked Stettin, killed King Viln, undone the last of the Danish holdings on German soil. When war with the Geonese had come, he had gathered what men he could and gone south. When Arnulf had at last died, leaving no heir beyond a child barely out of swaddling clothes, he had listened to the nobles, and laid claim to the throne, reclaiming Milan, fighting beside Papal legions at Pisa, sacking Genoa and Marseille...
All to secure that which was rightfully German.
And God rewarded him thus. With the loss of his blood, that which he had cherished, a boy barely a man who had been granted a command that should have been ease itself to use...gone.
He stood, marching to the suit of armor on the rack in his tent, tracing a finger along the surface. Polished, but it still bore the scars. Here a nick from a quarrel, there the mark of Viln's axe.
It would have more, ere the day was done.
###
Puccio was, quite often, a man of few words. This trait had served him well. When the Germans had distracted the French hordes from their southern border, his quiet confidence had convinced men to follow him, to conquer the south. Let the barbarians pretending to ancient titles claim Paris, Dijon, Lyon, Rheims. What Puccio had desired had been the armories of Bordeaux and Toulouse, the ports of Marseille, the libraries of Clermont. And he had claimed them all, in the name of Genoa. The French were little more than a shadow now, pretending to chivalry in the northern coasts, cowering from the mere threat of German retaliation.
When his skill at arms and inspiration had brought him to adoption by the Doge, he had said little beyond required.
When all their conquests had been undone, Clermont and Bordeaux taken by lowborn captains, the rich Italian cities sacked by their false Emperor, Genoa itself out to the torch...he had said nothing save acknowledgement, and the orders for more men to be mustered.
He had not said a thing when the Imperial heir had made his foolish last stand on the hilltop to the west, trying to meet him blade for blade. He had granted the young man death, and said nothing.
Now, as he saw the hills above bristle with black and gold, led by an iron-crowned figure atop a white horse, he only needed a single word.
"."
###
The battle was well underway. The Geonese had rushed to reposition, and instead been caught between his companies of heavy cavalry, his right flank crushing them down. On the left, his infantry fought along the ridge line, as medium and light cavalry hacked apart the fleeing remnants of the enemy crossbowmen.
But Albrecht only had eyes for one banner, in the crush of heavy horse.
There, trying to rally a group of rogue Templars to his side as he rode to rescue his beleaguered heavy horse.
"CHARGE!"
Down the hill he rode, fifty at his back, as his men fought on.
The two companies of cavalry met with a horrendous crash, men spilling from saddles, lances splintering. He ignored it all in favor of the man in front of him.
"Puccio."
"Albrecht."
"You killed my son."
"And?" Behind that helm, a raised eyebrow, and his blood simmered softly in his ears. He drew his sword.
"Ah." The Geonese drew his own blade. "Come, th-"
A knight in black and gold stabbed him through the throat as he trotted past, and the Doge fell.
As the word spread, and the Geonese broke and ran, all Albrecht could do was stare at the corpse.
"What."
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Originally Posted by reaper101
Your description of his reminds be a bit of Stannis Baratheon from Game of Thrones, a staunch and inflexible general, another man of few words. Also, love the irony of his short, but really easy to emphasize with words at the sight of the full majesty of the Imperial Army!
