Teutonian Ancestors

Found among other paperwork, Autumn 1124

Before the coming of civilised man to Teutonia, there were two sister ancestors – Sithis and Vouivre. Sithis was the eldest and when she came into the world she went off by herself to raise a mighty church of faithful. In those times ancestors walked the earth in the same way we do. Some years later, her sister was born into the world, and was taken by a count of house Tepes and watched over and guarded, for he had been told by the elder god that his house should protect Voiuvre for all eternity. In celebration of her coming, the count sent word to the great nobles of the land, urging them to his castle with gifts and blessings, that the child might know the love and support of the humans. And far away, in darkening corners of the land, Sithis was brought word of the count’s message and she grew jealous, and knew that the time had come…

For years before Sithis had truly come to power, the people had worshipped the pagan spirit of the forect. Baba Yaga, a young and beautiful maiden had watched over her followers with blessings of good harvests and bountiful crops; and she in turn was loved by them with care and reverence shown to the sleeping giants of the deeper woodland.

But now treachery had sent its twisting fingers over the land, and the honeyed tones of Sithis lay in her ear. Years before, Baba Yaga had been promised by the ancestor that her new followers would leave the forest intact and in her care. Baba Yaga, trusting and unknowing had gone to Sithis with her thanks, only to find that the land of Sithis had become corrupted and twisted. Trapped by the seeping evil she herself was made dark by Sithis’ influence.

Now the beautiful young maiden had become hateful of herself and of the world around her. She wanted to hate Sithis, to hate she who had withered her, but caught in the ancestor’s influence she could do nothing against her. Sithis upon hearing of her Sister’s location promised to free Baba Yaga from her twisted grap, and, in payment, sent her out into the world with three divine gifts, and three demands.

Days became weeks and weeks changed to months until, at length, Baba Yaga came upon the castle of the Teutonian Count. Given entry to the castle and access to the young child Sithis hated so much, she brought with her the three gifts. First, Baba Yaga gave Vouivre the gift of Beauty, and in its stead she took a cutting of the child’s hair, secreting it amongst her clothes. Second, she gave the child the gift of charm, and took from her a clipping from her finger, hiding it from the eyes of the humans. Third – and finally – she gave her the gift of wisdom, and stole the child’s water in its place. Then, with the three demands safely stored in three bottles, she left the castle and returned to her dark mistress.

Sithis was please with the bottles, and with them set in motion a curse – a curse that would prevent Vouivre from realising her divinity and herself. She would wander throughout the world as an unknowing and harmless woman. Sithis smiled as she considered this. Her sister would probably die worthless.

Then Baba Yaga felt a sudden pain in her body, a pain which spread throughout her form. Slowly her frame began to wither and die. Her uncomprehending mind clawed at her consciousness as she became old and ugly. In desperate expectation she looked to Sithis for the answer, and there found one more terrible than she could imagine.

The beauty she gave to the child was her own, so too the widom and the charm. Time had fooled Sithis and Sithis in her turn had tricked Baba Yaga into giving away what little remained of her virtue. Wracked by seething hate, the witch broke free of Sithis’ control and stormed out of her home for the great forest – hoping there, in the company of the trees – to revive her virtue. But Time had already taken a hand. Baba Yaga would never recover what she had lost, and would from that day hence live out her corrupted life in hatred and anger for Sithis and her followers. Sithis would respond by keeping Baba Yaga at a distance by trapping her within the great forest, a priosoner of her own fallen virtue.

Over the years that followed the hope and aspirations of many turned to disappointment as Vouivre – a maiden wh possessed an unworldly grace and beauty – walked the land, yet failed to inspire those who were fated to flock to her side. Vouivre, cursed by Sithis to never know herself, walked with innocent wonder, but would not – could not – ascend to greatness. Only the great and noble house of Tepes – true to the promise made to the One – continued to support and watch over Vouivre, but as time went on they found themselves ridiculed by other great houses for doing so.

Sithis, in contrast to her sister, grew in strength – but found much of her attention drawn away to the great forest, where the Hag had begun to exact her campaign of hateful revenge. She had little time to attack her sister, and, when she did, she found the child protected by House Tepes.

Unable to hurt her directly, Sithis’ followers turned their attentions away from Vouivre and instead brought their anger to bear upon the few temples that Tepes and others had erected to her. Outposts protecting the temples were slighted, and their structures razed. The temples were damaged, icons defaced and texts destroyed as Sithis iconoclasts swept in an angered frenzy throughout Teutonia. An age of depredation had begun, where religious fervour was measured only by man’s destructive zeal.

Spurred on by the actions of those Sithis and those of Vouivre, the great houses of Teutonia began to argue amongst themselves. Land became disputed, treaties of demarcation began to crumble, and tentative peace agreements wre set aside as the lords – carried forth of a tide of religious unrest – descended into bloody feudalism. This time was referred to as the Age of Strife.

Great armies rose and fell, brother turned against brother, and a plague of inquisitors were born to stem the half-imagined tide of unorthodoxy. There came days of torture and fear, where the hysterical were revered, the good destroyed and the evil cherished. The land wept and grew darker. Teutonia of old was dying, and from its corpse there rose a new land. A place of high and jagged peaks, of boiling seas, of dark hollows. The undead stalked the land and the black – bleak – forests lay fat and squalid upon the land like feasting leeches.

The great houses – their virtues shattered – limped back to aging castle and crumbling halls, to complete their lives in suspicion of one another. And Vouivre – affected by her sister’s curse and unaware that she was fated to oppose the Age of Strife – did nothing. Unable to understand herself she wandered through the Age of Strife with an air of unnerving serenity, until, eventually, she was found by the worshippers of Sithis. Brought before her dark sister, Vouivre’s body was slain. Affected by the curse, the spirit of Vouivre was doomed to drift aimlesslly, unable to understad who she was and thus unable to resurrect herself into the world – an eternal testament to Sithis’ victory.

Before Vouivre’s mortal body was destroyed she prophesised that she wuld return. The prophecy said that when the number of her paladins matches the number of the years that pass she would come back to Teutonia. Then she knighted 1000 of House Tepes as her paladins. In the war between the Noble Houses, the Sithis worshipping houses versus the Vouivre worshipping houses the actions of Ordos changed the dates. As described in the secular history Ordos joined the side of Sithis, taking 146 of the paladins with them. Vouivre was originally meant to return in 1247AF, but this had changed the dates to 1101AF.

In 1101AF, through engineering from Baba Yaga, Morachi (a Baba Yaga follower) and Ssissya (a Sithis follower) produced a child. Vlad III wanted this child as it had been foretold that she was the new Prophet of Vouivre. Baba Yaga kidnapped the child and gave it to him, as she knew that he would protect it with his life. Ssienna is still under the care of Tepes and she heralded the return of Vouivre as the stories told us. It is also commonly believed that it is Ssienna that will bring peace between the religions in Teutonia.