Black Eagle Barony

Ludwig von Hendriks always had a flare for the dramatic, driven by a relentless need for power and a feeling of paranoia bordering on the insane. He was awarded the westernmost town of Halag as a base for his barony by his cousin, then-Grand Duke Stefan, soon after their arrival in Karameikos.

Halag was the largest village on the gulf of the same name. Von Hendriks took an armed force and seized the village by the sword. Once it was conquered, von Hendriks celebrated by announcing to the population his appointment as its new baron. He renamed the village Fort Doom to suit his sense of the theatrical, dubbing his new lands the Black Eagle Barony after his ancestral coat of arms.

Von Hendriks began constructing a castle suited to his tastes, pressing many of Halag’s residents into service. He stripped Traladaran landowners of their properties and installed his own followers in their place. He placed guards on the roads out of the region and forbade his subjects to leave the barony. He was openly contemptuous of “those ignorant, foul-smelling Traladaran swine” and took every opportunity to oppress them.

Reports of his activities did reach the duke, but Stefan was dealing with similar reports from all over the duchy; most were so exaggerated that the accurate descriptions emerging from Ludwig’s territory did not draw a second glance from him. Stefan had difficulty believing that his cousin was truly evil. Whenever Stefan visited the realm, Ludwig put on the mask of a loyal, devoted, and often overworked courtier striving to maintain order over a rebellious barony on the frontier of the nation. Satisfied with the baron’s fealty, Stefan directed his attention elsewhere, and Ludwig returned to his plots.

The Black Eagle Baron recruited nonhuman tribes of orcs, goblins, and gnolls into his service, allowing them to raid neighboring towns (those he did not control), including the town of Luln, and range into the halfling nation of the Five Shires.

The villainous Iron Ring, a criminal organization of slavers and assassins, found a welcome home under Ludwig’s protection, as did Bargle the Infamous, an evil wizard.

Personalities
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Baron Ludwig von Hendriks

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Bargle the Infamous

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