In My Campaign: New Empire Edition, Part 1

The fearful denizens of the New Empire are known for two things above all others: bigotry and fear. These two tenets of their society are most idealized among the sadistic members of that cruel society called the witch hunters. For centuries these misguided fanatics have pursued an agenda of hatred and murder not only among enemies of the state but against the very citizens their order supposedly exists to protect. The witch hunters are almost as feared by the populace of the New Empire as the fiendish wielders of arcane power they supposedly hunter. When the men of the not yet Fallen Empire were cursed with undeath and were re-discovered by a new exploratory force from the Old Empire relations between the two nations were strained but there was peace and cooperation. That is until those men and women who would eventually form the infant witch hunter organization launched a series of bloody pogroms against the unsuspecting people of the Fallen Empire. Once spurned, the nation embraced their separation from the Old Empire and launched their own raids against the New Empire and the unending hatred and legacy of violence between the two nations was assured.

The witch hunters believe that the ideals of the Old Empire, those of a reliance on the mind and body and not external forces such as magic, are the only way for humanity to prosper. For the human race to prosper the unnatural forces of magic should be eradicated from the world, and this includes races such as the Fallen, Fell-Humans, and the elves who possess innate powers and abilities that in some way rely upon arcane forces built into their very souls. Though whether undead and demonically altered humans truly possess souls is a matter of debate among the more scholarly spects of the witch hunter organization.

The witch hunters are so powerful that the masters of that shadowed organization have been known to go directly against the will of King Rudolph II. In fact, the organization has been known to dispense propaganda denigrating the king and his practice of enslaving those who can channel arcane forces and binding them to his will. This practice allows him to control them and feed the power of his mind, which has been enhanced by his Elduman bloodline, through them while they do his bidding in the far corners of his empire.

Current gossip in the New Empire is that the witch hunters are on a collision course with King Rudolph II and that someday one will be forced to drag the other down. Should this occur and Rudolph be ousted from his throne the power of the witch hunters would be unstoppable within the New Empire. They would quickly seize power and lock down the nation, their control likely spreading into the Plains of Dust. With an entire nation under their stewardship and another as a staunch ally the witch hunters would have little trouble pitting the full weight of the armed forces under their control against the Fallen Empire of Man and re-opening the fresly scabbed over wound that is the Fallen Empire/New Empire border. Which nation would best the other in such a conflict is a topic of much speculation and such a war would further tear apart the eastern edge of the Known World.