History

By all accounts Leopold Tiefanue, the Crown Prince of the holy kingdom that bears his surname, is a good, just, and honourable man. During the peace summit of 2257 that took place on the Isle of Melinda, he gathered those who refused to bend the knee to the Empire of Berphaunt, and signed the Whiteraven Accord shortly thereafter.  While the Accord was meant to unify its disparate kingdoms and present a united front against the Empire’s imperialist ambitions, global events would preempt a war between the two powers that many saw as inevitable.

The invasion of the insectoid Brood hordes meant that for a time, the two global powers would fight alongside each other. While many in the Whiteraven Alliance blamed the Berphauntians for leading the Brood to their shores when they fled their old homeland on the southern continent of Amaranthia, none could deny the reality of the menace they faced was beyond simple blame.

Even in the face of annihilation there were some that could not resist the opportunity to advance their own underhanded schemes. A young Princess Louisa Berphaunt sought asylum with Prince Leopold and his forces, claiming that Imrik Adalite, the Dragon Knight of Shiloth and First Hand of the Empress of Berphaunt Annadonna Cordelle, had murdered her brother and had almost claimed her life as well. After consulting with his advisors, Leopold granted her request. The Emperor Louis Berphaunt was, of course, furious, having believed that Leopold had kidnapped his daughter and murdered his son. As the Whiteraven ships sailed away, it was thought by the Emperor that Leopold displayed his treachery for all to see, when in reality the Prince was trying to save Louis’ daughter.

While most of the adventurers had worked diligently with the Summer Court of the True Fae to save the corrupted and dominated Firstborn Essyllt, the Empire’s most loyal warriors had made their own deals. They struck alongside the Winter Court while the Summer Court was weak, taking the unhatched egg of Essyllt for themselves.

Despite the acrimony between the two powers, the Brood were far from finished, and barely a year later Leopold was called to war once again. In the preceding months he and Princess Louisa had fallen in love, and she now carried his child. He begged her to stay behind, but she refused to leave his side. It came as no surprise when tragedy struck the young couple.

The reborn Firstborn Essyllt had provided passage through the nightmarish Far Realm to the shores of Amaranthia in an attempt to obfuscate the adventurer’s advance from the sight of the Brood. However, the journey through such an awful place was not without hardship. The adventurers were met by thirteen Demon Lords that served the Demon Prince of Fear, Nilestromus. They demanded thirteen true names to return them safely back to the Material Plane, else they would be left to wander the Far Realm for eternity. Leopold could not abide the sacrifice of these heroes on his behalf, and rather than let any one of them agree, he offered himself up entirely. As he was a Prince of a powerful Kingdom, the Demon Lords agreed to this amendment and the deal was struck. Louisa was left heartbroken and abandoned by her former lover.

Further tragedy would strike when three Minotaur warriors who it is said were being alchemically puppeteered by the Firstborn Shiloth, attacked Louisa. She survived, but the child stirring in her womb did not. Thus, when an Avatar of the Goddess of Vengeance, Raze, came down to Arthos and offered Louisa the power to avenge herself, she agreed, becoming her Darkweaver. After losing Leopold and her child, she had naught left but hate and revenge in her heart. Although she eventually used an ancient artifact, whose location was revealed to her by Raze, to summon Leopold back from his imprisonment in the Far Realm, she refused any further contact with the heartbroken Prince.

Two years later Leopold would be sighted once again at the head of another army headed for Amaranthia, for this time he had managed to win the friendship of the disparate alliance of Greenskins now called the Amaranthine Legion. Combined with these stalwart allies were forces drawn from his own Kingdom, as he fought to slay the Ruinous Dragon Matriarch of the Brood, Ta-Ba-Ret, who was the mastermind behind puppeting the corpse of the God of Domination, Ga’more. Once Ta-Ba-Ret was slain, it was revealed within the bounds of the Prism Discordia that the Empress of Berphaunt was actually the Firstborn Shiloth in human form. The true extent of her schemes was brought to light, for it was she who had ordered the deaths of the Emperor’s beloved children, and was she who demanded his last remaining child, Louisa, be slain in front of her eyes. As the Emperor refused, Leopold and the adventurers closed ranks around her. Shiloh did not accept his defiance of her will, and proclaimed that the Emperor’s life was forfeit. She plucked an enchanted, poisoned needle from her hair and threw it at Emperor Louis. It flew with unerring accuracy, flitting around anyone in its path as it was attuned to the Emperor’s bloodline. Such a needle would undoubtedly have claimed the Emperor’s life, had it not been for Louisa throwing herself in its path. As she was of her father’s lineage, the needle did not swerve to avoid her sacrifice. Shiloth quickly fled the Prism Discordia not long after.

The two men, who had both loved the former Princess in their own ways, forgot their past hatreds as they mourned. In Louisa’s honour they forged a new pact. Leopold was without his crown, but Louis swore to help him regain it. As the two men of royal blood guided their troops home from Amaranthia and made their plans, Roderick Hale and his ilk were enacting their own schemes back home on Tiefanese soil. When Leopold returned to Tiefanue, he found his beloved father slain, murdered on the orders of Hale himself. To make matters worse, the Church of Light accused him of the very same crime of regicide, branding him a traitor and giving him little choice but to flee Tiefanue. As Hale consolidated his gains and usurped more power from the once righteous Whiteraven Alliance, Leopold began to travel and recruit those who could not abide this new, twisted Church of Light.

Current Events

Leopold has spent much of his time in recent years either in hiding, or on the run. Archbishop Roderick Hale has laid all manner of crimes at Leopold’s feet, the least of which would see him drawn and quartered in the public square for all to see.  By the Church’s account, Leopold, now deemed “The Blackguard,” is in league with the Church of Darkness and seeks solely to corrupt the good people of Maud’madir and turn them from the righteous path. Furthermore, he stands accused of High Treason and Regicide, being purported to have murdered his father and thus betraying the entire Whiteraven Alliance.

Leopold has categorically denied and denounced these charges, and has spread word across all Maud’madir that he intends to stand against Hale and end his tyranny. Felnir and much of Aslak have already sworn to his cause, and march northward to meet him in the Einish town of Mordenholt. It is believed that he resides there now, recruiting and training new followers as the town raises fortifications that will greet Hale’s rapidly approaching armies.