Dieter und die Baronie von Schoenvortz

[Shawn Duggins]

The Barony of Schoenvortz was established by Emperor Conrad II in 1030, when it was decided he needed to curtail river piracy along the Donau (and needed more votes in a local Diet). The Schoenvortz family was brought south and east from their original holdings in the Northwestern reaches of the Empire, near Halle in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), to form a Barony spanning both sides of the river.

The Thirteenth Baron von Schoenvortz, Dieterich was born on a freezing Tuesday morning on November 6, 1488, while his parents were touring their southern holdings - the childbirth killing his mother, Margaretta, in the process. Dieterich, Dieter to his friends, was schooled by the best tutors his father, Friedrich, couldn't afford, being Baron of a stretch of land small enough to spit across in some places, but located very conveniently on BOTH sides of the Danube, downriver from Regensburg, allowing them to demand tolls on passing vessels by means of a heavy chain between castles on both pieces of land. Imperial vessels were unmolested, but anyone else would be extorted of a decent tax, allowing the family to live in relative comfort with little to do other than maintain their men-at-arms and spend the gains from their toll station.

Most of the time, Dieter was left to his own devices, ignored by his father, and motherless from childbirth, until he was twelve, and he was sent to be a standard bearer for one of the other local lordlings in a feud between a family friend and his enemies. They were overrun, the friend slain, and Dieterich was taken captive for ransom along with a few of the other boys that were being used as standard bearers.
Bankrupted by paying the ransom, Friedrich lost half of the land they owned, and the chain was cut from between the castles, losing the family their ability to tax passage down the most heavily used waterway in Europe and moving the family to the much smaller southern castle. This then negated the family's ability to pay their taxes as well... which weren't reduced by the Emperor. Then, Friedrich was called upon to raise soldiers for the Emperor to fight against Venice in the War of the League of Cambrai.

Taking the remnants of his men at arms and adding to them any man willing to march for the Emperor and the almighty Taler, Friedrich formed a body of troops for Jakob von Ems, who's regiment eventually fell under command of the French commander Gaston de Foix. And so, at the age of 24, Dieterich, along with his father who was Hauptmann of a Faehnlein under Jakob Empser, found himself oddly, on the wrong side of the field at Ravenna, as his father and almost everyone else he knew were blown away by imperial guns. Dieter salvaged his father's Faehnlein, and survived that bloody battle, only to be among those shocked and outraged to find that orders to return home had been ignored by their commander the night before. Dieter took what he could of his men and left with the Imperial Messengers, returning to the Empire in shame but determined to both avenge his father and restore his name, swearing at those who decided to continue to fight for the victorious French.

Finally, after more than a decade of campaigning for both Maximillian and his Spaniard Grandson, Karl, Dieter and his Faehnlein finally got their chance a lucky thirteen years later to fully redeem themselves at Pavia as they were among the Faehnleins that first dealt with the Swiss Reislaufers, then the traitorous Landsknechts who continued to fight for the French.

With the restoration of Honor, Dieter successfully campaigned to the Emperor for the restoration of his lands, and was granted the northern lands once again, though no chain was to be linked between northern and southern holdings across the Donau.

The Holy Storm then marched in the Bauernkrieg, putting down multiple rebellions across the Empire, before then being sent on to the Siege and Sack of Rome with Frundsberg and Bourbon... Most recently, fighting for Nicholas von Salm, Dieter led the Holy Storm to Wein to assist in repelling the Turkish seige. They helped hold the breach of the walls, and participated in the sortie to try to slow the diggers, AND helped themselves to abandoned booty in the remnants of the Turkish camp when the Turks finally gave up and left.

Dieter and his Holy Storm have returned to Koroneburg, hailed as heroes once more (tho most remember more vividly the horrors of the Sack of Rome only two years ago, and the slaughter of thousands and thousands of peasants during the Bauernkrieg), replenishing their ranks, licking their wounds, and happily spending their pay and plunder!

We once again raise soldiers to face our new enemy, the Turk, as Suleiman the Magnificent raises more forces to march upon Vienna with, yet again! A great Muster has been called at Regensburg, a stone's throw upriver from Dieter's lands, where they were headed after a pointless but successful harvest of Koroneburg's youth in late 1531.

NOCH WEITER!!!!

[Shawn Duggins]

By Nature, Dieter believes in the Natural Order of Things, God set the kings and nobles above the rest to manage and oversee the world, the rest to accomplish the tasks needed to survive and flourish. He is very fair when dealing with his peasants and townsfolk, unless he sees laziness or corruption. He is a FIRM believer in the Holy Church, and is disgusted by the excesses that led to both the Bauernkrieg AND the schism of the heretic Martin Luther. When he led his men to Rome with Bourbon and Frundsburg, it was with the intent that the church answer for FAR more than just siding with the French, and when Frundsburg fell, Dieter himself took up the silken noose meant for Pope Clement's neck.

Most of the Holy Storm was spent like small change that day, thrown against the Swiss Guard that died to a man to protect their Pope. So many friends and brothers lost, and to no avail. The Medici bastard escaped into hiding, only to negotiate a deal later to ransom his life with those FAR more powerful than a Landsknecht Hauptmann.

His soldaten, he considers his chosen family, from the newest soldat to the oldest veteran. He does not sup at an officer's table, unless ceremony dictates, preferring to eat with his men, ensuring they are as well fed as he, or vice versa. Among those who HEARD the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximillian, order his officers from their horses, to cut their pants short like soldiers, and to take up hand weapons and lead their men from the FRONT so that the soldiers would take heart from their officers' bravery, Dieter has ALWAYS fought to be a soldier's captain, having seen those with high and lofty ideals torn down all too often!

His biggest sadness is his inability to marry the woman who he carried away from Roma, Adelheide deHarlet; however, Tradition dictates that he, a nobleman, must only marry from another noble family, and then, only one of their true daughters. Sadly, only her father is noble, and French at that... Dieter continues to seek a bride to continue his line with. Sadly, a life of constant campaigning has left him without issue or heir. Time will tell if his family will manage to continue in his wake. He remains, however, a devout servant of the Emperor, glad to sacrifice everything, including his very Barony, for the Emperor's glory.

[Shawn Duggins]

Those wondering WHERE I got Von Schoenvortz from, are directed to Edgar Rice Burroughs' story The Land That Time Forgot. My family certainly DOES continue on with both the Holy Roman Empire, and the German Empire that followed it. The last of our line, Baron/Kapitan von Schoenvorts, was presumably lost at sea after having his U-boot commandeered by American and British pirates and then sailed in various directions as control of the vessel shifted back and forth between the two factions, until all contact was lost somewhere north of Antarctica in 1919 in the final stages of World War One.

Rumors of Cavemen and Dinosaurs on some sort of Lost World are completely outrageous, of course, and have been deemed the raving fantasies of a marooned madman, regardless of any alleged journals found adrift in a very worn and weathered German thermos years later...