The Fallen World

Morrschatten

5 min read

Southernmost of the western kingdoms — harsh, divided, and repeatedly the Deceiver’s foothold.

Overview

Uneven terrain, hard travel, harsh winters that can isolate small communities. Its river is the Saale (the same river called Isolia in Cardacci, Isole in Averoigne). Protected by the Order of the Raven.

Rougher and less densely settled than its neighbours, but not uniformly poor: it supplies much of the raw material moving through the western economy — timber, wool, ores and metals, some grain, and specialized dwarven metalwork. Much Morschatti wool is woven into cloth in Averoigne; its timber and minerals feed Cardacci manufacturing. (GM)

Land & Centers (GM)

  • Krenau — near the center, on the Saale (not navigable there); old Imperial administrative center, later royal; university.
  • Koblenz — northeast; some of the country’s best wheat land; closely tied to Averoigne by trade and marriage, and the least isolated of the centers.
  • Weissbaden — famous for its hot springs and baths; a spa drawing nobles, merchants, clergy, and physicians — unusually cosmopolitan and visitor-facing. Where the plague first appeared.
  • Chemnitz — south, on the pilgrimage road between Chlumzen and The Holy City.
  • Grand Abbey of Chlumzen — farther southwest near the southern danger zone: wealthy, heavily landed, walled — an abbey, not an Order fortress.

History

  • Its tribes were the last subjugated by the Old Empire (MCY 755).
  • Its young Betrayer Queen — who was also head of the Order of the Raven (GM) — defected to Iuz at the climax of the Third Crusade (1446). She died or vanished without an heir, the old monarchy did not survive, and Morrschatten was split into three Princedoms (only Strelitz borders Averoigne). The current war is that old unresolved rivalry turned violent.
  • Iuz’s hidden stronghold in the northern wilds was destroyed in the Fifth Crusade (1715).

House Bethlen (S5)

  • House Bethlen ruled Morrschatten until it was deposed after the Third Crusade — the deposition that split the kingdom into three princedoms.
  • In 1720 the family was murdered outright — the whole house, then holding only Krenau, supposedly including the infant Constanza. Kristof Gruben took the city; the Bethlens’ court magician Amalricht von-Haup survived and went to Matthias Melnich. (S6)
  • Bethlen is almost certainly the Betrayer Queen’s house. Constanza Bethlen carries the House Bethlen gift — the same one the Betrayer Queen possessed — and that gift was not considered Corrupted until the aftermath of the Third Crusade (GM, per Madeline). Same gift, same war, same settlement: the dynasty was deposed, the kingdom partitioned, and the bloodline’s magic reclassified as Corrupted, all in one act. (The GM didn’t state the identification outright — but the wiki no longer has grounds to call it unconfirmed.)
  • Constanza Bethlen has a better blood claim on the throne of Morrschatten than any of the three princes — one the current Church would never accept. (GM)
  • The house was reduced to holding the single city of Krenau.
  • Constanza Bethlen comes from a side branch, was raised in secret from at least age five to marry one of the princes, and fled west with Owl help. She was the charge of Matthias Melnich, Prince of Strelitz (GM) — who then sent Phoenix knights to have her burned. (Madeline said she was raised to marry one of the princes, and that that prince was later killed in the civil war. She did not say the death caused or preceded her flight — the wiki previously claimed she did, and the GM has corrected it. See Constanza Bethlen.)

The War of the Three Princes (GM)

The Morschatti civil war now has a name and dates:

  • Spring/Summer 1731: hints of conflict among the three princes bring Owl knights here to assess the situation — the visit on which they extract Constanza Bethlen.
  • Summer 1731: skirmishes break out. The War of the Three Princes begins.
  • Fall 1731: Prince Udo besieges and sacks Krenau; the university burns.
  • Fall 1732: Owl knights kill an unformed demon of warped white radiance in southern Morrschatten, summoned from On the Summoning of Guardian Spirits.
  • Fall 1732: the war settles into vicious stalemate — small-scale raids from all sides devastating the common people, with Cardacci mercenary companies particularly noted for their savagery in the princes’ service.
  • Spring 1734: Matthias Melnich, Prince of Strelitz, is murdered by unknown persons, presumed rival assassins. His son Gunter succeeds.
  • Summer 1732: the plague first appears at Weissbaden — now confirmed a Morschatti city (GM). War and plague compound: at times plague has halted military operations more effectively than diplomacy. (GM)
  • The Order of the Raven has refused to become any prince’s personal force — institutional neutrality rooted in the Betrayer Queen having been its own head. It remains one of the few institutions with a Morschatti identity crossing princely lines. (GM)

Still unresolved in 1739. The refugee waves reaching Hazad are largely this.

Peoples

  • Clan Grum, a dwarven clan of metalworkers and device-makers, holds its current major clanhold in far western Morrschatten — likely makers of the orrery Estelle gave the party. (S6) See Dwarves.

Current State

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