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Germany
Germania is an odd place. Never comfortable under the thumb of Pax Romana, the independent and individualistic German tribes were prideful and haughty. Nestled in the Northern spread of Europa, a land of deep forests and wending rivers, Germania has always been people by fierce and strong-willed. It was only with the surge of the Wastes down into the south that provided the catalyst for unification.
The wastes are forever in flux, this is known. They pitch and yaw, creeping forward, receding back. There is a decided tendency to drift southward, there’s been enough history told for that. However, there is also enough legend existing as to how it is Men who can push Chaos back. It is hinted that all of Europa once lay under the caul of Chaos, and it was Men (or… well, perhaps some other race) that strove against it, and carved out new lands and created new order. Be that as it might, there was a bleak summer where Chaos boiled south across the Continent farther than any could remember in history. Whole provinces were lost, and Germania became a battlefield, as far south as the Alpian mountains, with the natives struggling in vain against hordes of horrors.
In the midst of this turmoil, a simple man rose. Sigmar, he was, a smith from a small village (dozens now claim to be his original home, who is to say which is right?). Imbued with the voice of a God and the blessing of one as well, the Hammerheld fought and inspired others to withstand the onslaught. In this desperate time, his early successes made him into a lightning rod for all free peoples. Within a year, he led a horde, a year later, he was the head of multiple armies. The skies lit with comet-fall, an especially exotic one streaking across the night sky as Sigmar razed Praag and cleansed it of the taint of Chaos. The odd comet granted him a new name, that of Twintail, and as Twintail the General, he gathered even more men to his standards and broke the will of even the most driven chaos lord. Thousands died but tens of thousands of mutants and dark warriors were destroyed and fed to the purifying flames. Within 5 years, Chaos had relented and Sigmar consolidated his gains. His armies became his people, and suddenly Germania had a king.
It was only much, much later did the German folk realize that Sigmar wasn’t touched by a god, but was one himself, in fact. This was the prevailing thought with which the descendants of Sigmar himself consolidated their power. Within 5-6 generations, the fledgling church was off the ground. Championing decency and purity, it swept the Empire in its fervor, promising safe haven from the evils of the dark and the corruption of Chaos. Based in the Imperial seat of Altdorf itself, the religion spread and with it came the rigidity and order that allowed the Empire to flourish. Kingdoms were annexed and the Empire grew in scope, with thousands flocking to the church’s banner for succor and assistance. Many were the good deeds of the early church, focusing on protection and expansion. Water sources were codified and sanctified at the same time, saving the small-folk from disease. Education was opened to the merchant and soldiery classes, and religious orders spouted up in both the gentle and the common ranks.
The religion matured and grew even more rigid. Other churches slowly migrated from the capital and farther still, finding the climate too warm and intolerant for their beliefs. The other races of people were also disenfranchised, migrating steadily away from the icy attitudes of purity emanating from the capital and the Church. In time, tolerance became a rarity, and this attitude spread as far as the Throne itself. Emperor Markus II was credited as the ruler who married the church and state formally, wedding his centuries-old crown to the papal crown of the nascent religion.
The sole wrinkle in the Imperial fabric of this young empire was the city of Berlin. A brave converted templar from the barbaric Bavarian tribe-folk grew in renown through the prowess of his arms. Truly it was said that no force in combat could defeat brave Ulrich Vahn Berlinkolhn. Second to none, the knight bested all enemies and led what many thought a witched life. His piety however, was always the least bit in question, and many were his detractors. He grew up in the drakwalds of Germania only weeks from the capital, in its very shadow. His retinue continued to grow and before long an army bore the standard of his house, the white winter wolf of Bavaria. He based himself in his childhood home, a town named Berlin (all from Berlin bore the moniker Berlinkolhn). His stories are legend but it is said that before the man reached his centennial year, his modest folk town was a city, covering the entirely of the white bedrock butte it stood upon and sprawling out into the wood itself.
Perhaps it was in emulation of Sigmar (though some say it was in defiance thereof) Ulrich too ascended to godhood. Some 300 years after his disappearance (reportedly the eternal Berliner either never died or was murdered and spirited away), the knighthood that carried on his work named themselves a Holy Order, the White Wolves of Berlin. These knights errant were true to the Ulrich of old, barbaric in breeding and relentless in combat. Many were the battles fought against the Imperial orders and the blood between them grew bad indeed.
Elsewhere though, things continued along Imperial designs, as religious factions grew in prominence and replaced if not superseded governmental bodies. The Ordo Fidelis was born, the watchdog of the people’s spiritual existence, and it eagerly began the pursuit if purity and the hunting of heresy. The slow migration became a flood as all those of other callings and beliefs were quick to relocate away from the zealots. The empire continued it slow growth and consolidation, instigating border disputes with both France and Tilea. The construction of the Shining Bridge changed such imperial doctrine quickly however, both internally and externally.
In Britain, Germania found an irrefutable enemy. The hordes of Fellkirk were unmistakably evil and clear in their ill intent. They embody the very corruption that the Church herself has long feared and railed against. The devil has come to Europa and the church sits in its path, with no Sigmar ascendant. Quickly the Empire mended its fences with its brother kingdoms and treated favorably with them. To France it lends financial support through its two greatest markets: food and lumber. The citizens of Berlin were feted in the Imperial capital itself, wooed by promises of collaboration and unity. Berlin held vehemently true to its cult, but a peace was broached. The two factions would war no more, and a small, nominal tithe would be paid by Berlin to the Imperial throne that allows its continued existence and sovereignty. The knight-reavers of Berlin were already champing at the bit to battle the British anyway, the Germanians were only to happy to have such contentious brothers on their side at last.
The quiet war with the British has calmed the Empire a great deal. The battles are contained neatly in France, where the flower of the German war machine can expend its energies on a clear foe, and the German lands aren’t made to pay for the war with destruction and loss. Germany itself has become gentler in treating with others, tolerant of all ‘good’ people, although the definition of such varies with the local member of the Ordo or the reigning Burgomeister in the region. Trade, ever a slow arduous exercise became more fluid, and gold flowed into the coffers of the merchant class. Wealth has its usual effect, displacing values and even deities and so the Empire is perhaps more secular that they are reputed to be, regardless of how strenuous the Ordo is about its efforts.
The Empire is still a very chaos-phobic place, and deeply superstitious and religious for all its new secularism. It bore the brunt of the chaotic incursion that gave birth to the Empire, and the scars still remain, even now. Praag, the great eastern capital had completely fallen, and even now, so long after, seems a sad and tragic place. The remnants of chaos can be seen in every mutant (a horrible occurrence that is mercifully rare these days), and in the deep shadows of the drakwalds, where things still roam even now. The Ordo Fidelis continue to seek and hunt with fervor, and their writs of exterminatus still carry tremendous weight. For all of the secular corruption and heresy, there is much good the Imperial Cult achieves, even now.
The Empire, like so much of the world, is in transition. How it will evolve is any sage’s guess. Sigmar’s brave pennons still flap bravely, and perhaps so do some of his values still hold as relevant. Ulrich might well truly still be alive, still fighting evil in his savage dignity, lost somewhere in the impossibly deep drakwalds of Bavaria. The next few generations will prove most intriguing.