The Life, Death and Unlife of Heinrich Kemler, the Lichemaster
Heinrich Kemler is a well known name in early Warhammer and his tale is known far and wide. Lets recount it and look at who he was, and was again.
We mostly have three sources of information, however only two of these are ‘official’ (in whatever way you want to count that, as warhammer has rarely had any stable list of events and many were subject to later change). But the story of Kemler itself is… not really told in a linear way. End of the day, this was written to give a narrative story to your games and campaigns so, does it greatly matter? We start in 1986 with the main two releases, Terror of the Lichemaster Scenario pack, and the Vengeance of the Lichemaster mission from Citadel Journal #3 which was done to tie in and advertise the scenario pack. It is from Vengeance that we get the full backstory of Kemler.
Heinrich Kemler, otherwise known as the Lichemaster, was a feared and powerful Necromancer, however as is true with such power, his body and soul have been damaged by controlling the powers of darkness for many years.
[Now.. There is a possible bit which takes place around here and covers the span of atleast 5 centuries. For information on this, scroll down to the bottom of this article, for the section marked ‘Possible History’ which will explain some of this with notes. On top of this, stuff which is underlined is ‘technically not official’. It’ll be explained with the content, just wanna make it a bit clear.]
His powers starting to wan led him to go into hiding and move from city to city, then town to town and village to village, knowing that his death was soon to arrive for good with his enemies and rivals in hot pursuit.
After heading to Brettonia and the city of Quenelles, he seeked sanctuary from his pursuers at the temple of Taal, but he was soon caught and a battle took place, lasting 3 days. When the villagers returned, all signs of the Lichemaster were gone. Many Believed him slain. But this was not the case, and while mortally wounded, and weak of power, he headed to the lands of the Princes, where be became a wandering beggar, with his mind in as much ruin as his body.. One night, he found a grave of a long day ancient Chaos Warrior, and on it, the black War-blade. Reawakening his mind, he wanted revenge on those who almost destroyed him, but he was still weak and only had a brief bit of life remaining.
We then move onto the Terror of the Lichemaster Campaign itself..
However, his quest for Revenge appeared to come to an end as he found the legendary mound of Krell in a small valley in the Black Mountains. This mount was the raising place of the legendary chaos Champion, Krell, once known as the scourge of the world. Casing his spells, and many sacrifices, Kemler was able to raise Krell, a large skeleton with his murderous black sword.
With him, Kemler had a skeleton force lead by Captain Ranlac the Black and the rotting zombies lead by Lieutenant Mikeal Jacsen, who issued a foul thin shriek from his dead teeth which few could listen too without sickening.
Krell made a Deal with Kemler, for each life taken by Kemler and his undead army, Krell would grant him 1 day or life (or 1 magical constitution point up to his maximum amount… ehuh). With Kemler agreeing to the deal, Krell called upon the Chaos Gods and granted Kemler 7 full days of life and restored magic. It was now time for the Terror of the Lichemaster.
Kemler and his army moved throughout the Frugelhorn Valley, with his magic war-blade, a black rune-sword. However, in the end, he was defeated by a force including Antonio Epstein, the Half-Italian (?) and half-Reiklander who lied in Albion, and rich young elf adventuress Riolta Snow, after over a century of life.
Following on from this, we go back to the Citadel Journal to see what happened next, with the vengeance of the Lichemaster.
After his campaign in the Frugelhorn Valley, Kemler moved westward, back into Brettonia, and to the Monastery of La Masiontaal, on the edge of the Loren Forest. Kemler had studied there in the past and considered the wizard-monks and thir heirophantic leader, Bagrian, to be his friends. However, in his decline, the Monks did nothing to help him and he believed they had deliberately aided his foes.
However, unknown to him, the Monks were in fact busy with their own bitter fight for survival against the Chaos Ratmen, the Skaven, from the city of Skavenblight. Bargrian had indeed helped the Lichemasters rivals, as a way to fund his experiments into artificial mechanical life-forms, and had used this money to created his goal, the mechanical humanoid. But the only way he had to power it, was the Awesome Black Arc, an artefact of great power and the greatest treasure of the Skaven.
The Skaven were far from happy with this and attacked the monastery, intent on burning it to the ground, lead by the Grey Seer Gnawdoom. As it was burning, was when the Lichemaster returned.
Now, while the mission does give some rules on what to do if you played terror and Kemler won, or if he lost, there wasn’t anything after this mission so.. did Kemler win? was the Monastery destroyed? did the Skaven get back the Black Arc? We don’t know cause that’s up to how the players play. However, some un-released pages for the Advanced Hero Quest ‘Terror in the Dark’ Mission generator system do give some further adventures for Kemler which… appear to say the Monastery survived, and so did Kemler.. and there was two more visits he paid to the Monastery… or to another Monastery of la Masiontaal.
It is not know what happened in the aftermath of the Battle, but rumours have it that Kemler still lived. Years later, he returned to La Maisontaal, posing as a traveller. However, the master of the Monastery at that time, Rene de Muscadet, recognised him and using his Staff of Ether shivering, battled the Necromancer.
Several years later, Kemler returned, but this time as a Liche serving the forces of Chaos and intended to destroy the monastery again. While de Muscadet had died in his battle, the Monks knew well of what had happened and hired a group of Heroes to help defend the Monastery and recover some magical objects in order to defeat Kemler, yet again.
This does imply that after Vengeance, Kemler returned posing a a traveller (I would have said this maybe could be a reference to Vengeance but a number of bits don’t add up. You would need to replace Rene de Muscadet with Bargrian, and say that Kemler tried to sneak up at first before sending in an army. All possible of course, but well, maybe it would have been tweaked before being published, or maybe It was just a later event. Either way, we know that Kemler did die as he is very clearly stated to be a liche when he returned for his (as of now) final battle. Though that said, maybe he always was a liche when he appeared? not just a master of Liches but a liche who is a master? not sure as it never 100% said. I said it might be another Monastery. Well, that’s cause the original one is said to be by Quenelles, at the edge of the Loren Forests. While the one mentioned in the unpublished AHQ stuff, says in the Grey Mountains.. which is the opposite side of the Loren Forests. So it is possible there are two Bretonnia houses of Taal. Oh and by the way, Taal is the God of Nature and Wild Places. Think of him as Herne really.
One thing that is easy to notice is due to the early nature of Chaos in the Warhammer World. Kemler is a Necromancer. No problem there, so he is with the undead really, and he appears to be very much self-interested. Then has to make a deal with a Chaos Champion (Krell) but we don’t know WHICH Chaos God this skeleton serves. By the time Realms of Chaos came out, Undead were not a Chaos Faction at all but had been clearly stated as their own faction. This isn’t to say that a Chaos God might not use the undead but still. With the Skaven involvement (who have a very… conflicted relationship to Chaos, mostly serving their own Chaos God, the Horned Rat, but also originally having some Khorne links) we can probebly say which forces of Chaos Kemler was not aligned with. And the unpublished stuff made it very clear that Kemler was now Chaos Aligned.
How would I say this happened? well, how about this….
Kemler was forced back by the Monks of La Masiontaal. While Krell had been good to his word during the attack on the frugelhorn valley, when he fell yet again, the deal was over and Kemler was life with only the life he had gained up to Krell’s death. And now he could count the days of his life in digits he brooded over, and his power was yet again fading.
Still enraged by his defeat, and now without an army, Kemler tried, what he felt would be one last attack on La Masiontaal, this one via trickery which had served the Skaven so well when they had reclaimed the Black Arc. Posing as a wandering traveller in search of shelter for the night, he entered the monastery. however, it wasn’t long before Rene de Muscadet, the newly appointed Master, taking over from the deceased Bargrian, Noticed who he was and attacked. In a bloody magical battle which lasted three days and three nights, the two wizards fought.
At the end, the smoke cleared. de Muscadet lay dead, this magical staff by his side, but near him, in a heap, were the remains of the necromancer. de Muscadet was buried in the crypt under the monastery while Kemler’s remains were burnt and spread across the land so he may never return.
However, the powers of a necromancer are many and can go beyond life itself. Only the most desperate magician would attempt such a thing as to bind his soul to his body after death, and Kemler was one such being. while normally a Liche required his own body to be bound to, Kemler had something else in mind and was able to bind his soul to the body of his once friend turned enemy, Bragian. Using the catacombs of La Masiontaals as a new base, he once again began to see his revenge.
Any good? technically, a Liche in WFB is a necromancer who has bound his soul to his body in an extreme way, which it is possible Kemler did, thus giving him the name of the Lichemaster, but looking through the notes, he isn’t declared to be one, nor given the rules which go along with them. So why not? He had probably made liches before and was a master of them, thus his name which he appeared to have gained BEFORE Terror of the Lichemaster, So as a final gamble for life, he became a liche himself. And one of the possible missions setups for the generator in AHQ unpublished stuff has him in the catacombes under the monastery, so while Rene de Muscadet was meant to be buried there and one thing the heroes needed to do was to get to his tomb, nothing was said about the previous master, Bargrian. so why not have Kemler get more revenge by twisted his former friends body for his own goal.
Possible History
Now.. you might have noticed something I’ve missed out… yeah.. the published AHQ stuff.. I said about this in part two of the AHQ lore but… I really get the feeling it is MEANT to be Kemler.. the unpublished parts appear to really make it clear, however, it doesn’t quite fit. BUT.. if you want to try to fit it.. It would be before Terror of the Lichemaster. He didn’t have his War-blade, he was laying waste to the world and if you came here directly from the note, yep, it is this place it happens. While I did cover it before, for the stake of completion, I’ll briefly cover it now:
Kemler had wreaked a terrible trail of destruction all across the Empire, even heading as far south as Bretonnia, when he made a stand in the Grey Mountains against an army of the Empire, and with them, Four Heroes with four Magical weapons. While little is known about what happened, Kemler was not seen after a powerful magical blast, and the four heroes were dead, their magical weapons lost. The remnants of the Empire army made it’s way back home and told tales of the death of Kemler and the bravery of the Heroes. However, Kemler was not dead. He was highly weakened but five centuries later he returned and Baron Gunther von Mecklenberg, ruler of the Empire town of Felspraag, hired a group of heroes to find the four magical weapons of the legendary heroes. They did this and Kemler was left highly weakened and on the run.
It kinda fits but… I’m not sure. Technically, If I included the unpublished AHQ stuff, I should include the published stuff.. but that never called him by name, just his nickname of the Lichemaster. It must be stated though, a retelling of this event appears to happen in the 4th Edition Undead Armies book where Kemmler (yep, that spelling which appears to have been a mistake in the unpublish content for AHQ in 1991, is now official in 1994) was making his last stand where he was defeated. Cursing his foolishness, he went on the run where he heard about a weapon of Power, once held by a Champion of Chaos which he was hoping to find. His war-blade, now renamed the Chaos Tomb Blade. The other information in 4ed mostly says a quick retelling of his pledge with Krell and has him carry on from that point, so it offers nothing new, but doesn’t really take away from what was already set up.
Really, Heinrich Kemler is one of Warhammer’s long standing characters, as he predates the introduction of Special Characters in 4ed (which was really just an slight advancement from the systems in earlier Warhammer anyway) being that he first appear in 2ed, and went well into the 4ed. While they had kinda hinted (and partly outright stated) with 4ed having the rival camps in the undead, they were still one army. With 5ed, the undead was completely split into two different armies. The Vampire Counts, and the Tomb Kings. What happened with the Lichemaster? well.. He didn’t fit the Egyptian vibe they were going for the Tomb Kings, so he is allied with the Vampire Counts for whatever reason. Even with this split, the 5ed army books are mostly minor tweaks of the 4ed ones, with things taking into account the rule changes. After that.. what happened? No clue. However…
The current version of WFB is ‘The Old World’… despite featuring lustra and new world stuff… They are being a bit half-arsed about this return to WFB with some armies being ‘supported’ with new rule books and figures (mostly re-issues of 6ed and newer) but they also have ‘legacy’ armies. Ones which they SAY they won’t support with figures and stuff (but are clearly gonna do some re-issues if they can make a quick quid). One good thing is these legacy ones, if you want to do something stupid and play them (which of course, they don’t recommend and aren’t legal in big time Warhammer Events), there are free PDF army books for them. These are very cut down and are just basic army lists with no fluff or lore.
There are no characters…. there are also no liches at all, so the Liche master has gone. So I decided to look at that Age of Sigma stuff… first, I had to get past the ‘What the hell is this rubbish’ impression it gives (hee.. people moaned at Gary Morely’s Nagash.. you haven’t seen this ‘new’ one with his pin head have you?). After looking through alot of rubbish with very weird (but not in a good way) design choices.. Nothing. No Lichemaster.. or Liches at all. So… is appears Warhammer’s most long lasting terror has finally died for good.
Rene de Muscadet features in the WFRP adventure “Lichemaster” which is an expanded and slightly different version of events. There Kemler doesn’t find Krell, but a dead bandit leader called Adolphus Zwemmer.
Ah, I didn’t really know about the Roleplay game. interesting. I’ll have to look into that one. an interesting alternative ‘what if’ scenario then. It’s one of the problems with Narrative gaming lore. How the story turns out can have such major differences based on the player, so doing a follow up becomes very tricky. Riolta Snow, for example, who I mentioned, was in soo many early Warhammer scenarios, but if you try to put her lore together, you have to say she never died, even if when someone played that scenario, she did. Then we have the problem of Juggo Joricksonn… who appears to be two completely different characters.. but like I said, thus the problem with Narrative gaming lore ^_^ still fun to look into though.