Player: Racheet
Rank: Baron (Rank 2)
Religion: Unknown
Email: haroun_ibn_rasheed@albion.chaosdeathfish.com

A mysterious eastern scholar, the Baron Eynesford has held his title for only three years.

Recently he has purchased a large brothel in central Oxford called “The Midnight Rose”, and has re-structured the esablishment to be suitable for a much better class of patron, and has opened a salon that meets in the lower sections of the building.

He is a scholar known to be well versed in the sorcerous arts, and claims La Valette College as his Alma Mater.

“After the tempestuous events of 1651, the heroes and saints of the great nation of Albion thought it had seen the last of that diabolic genius, Haroun ibn Rasheed, the Baron Eynesford, the Duke of the Vale of Tears. They thought that his exile to Hell would quell his taste for treachery and quench his hatred for the Tudor line.

They were wrong…”

From the secret archives of the Obfuscated Order for Special Circumstances, relating to the activities of the League of the Valiant Heart.

The party of enthusiastic undergraduates, Whig agitators and gawping locals rounded the corner at Carre-Fax, cheering and singing a rude song about the Vatican Ambassador. At their head, an effigy of the Pope swayed and bobbed, hoisted above the heads of the crowd. The man calling himself “Luke the Evangelist” sighed and tucked further into his doorway, glancing up at the corner of Cain's College, where his gargoyle spotter gave a brief wave; no trouble on high, no trouble below. He was beginning to regret taking this assignment. The mechanical head of Johannes Dee was a fickle oracle at the best of times, and it looked like this was just another student protest over the Greyhawk Laws. Someone set light to the effigy, and there were laughs and cries as fireworks burst over the roof of the Cathayan Embassy, almost simultaneously; perhaps in support of the protest, perhaps just in those mysterious funeral customs the heathen Chinee were so enamoured of.

Suddenly, at the head of the procession, Luke thought he heard a scream. He frowned and cocked his head. Another scream. With a screech of stone, above him, Caius the gargoyle was tearing itself from its perch and crawling with unexpected speed across the rooftops, gesturing and shouting something in its gravelly voice that was lost in the roar of the crowd as it started breaking and running.

Luke was almost knocked to the ground by fleeing students as he stared in horror at the crude wood-and-paper figure, still aflame, tearing free from its moorings and laying about itself with monstrous flaming fists. Caius made a heroic leap from a rooftop and was slammed aside almost instantly, as streams of Hellfire darted out from the abomination's eyes to send the gargoyle reeling and crunching against the wall. As the hell-spawned thing turned on Luke, wood and paper falling away and curling in the flame to reveal writhing skin beneath, he signalled frantically for Amenadiel. “Send reinforcements!” he screamed as the demon bore down on him, cutting through his wards and protective cantrips like a scythe through rotting flesh.

The Duke of the Vale of Tears pulled itself free from its puppet-strings and tore through the remains of the Whig protest, lurching through the streets of Oxford towards the Sheldonian with one hand raised in obscene benediction of the fleeing civilians. As Amenadiel winged overhead towards the nearest guard-tower, dodging blasts of Hellfire, the hidden priests of the Ashen Vale among the crowd threw off their robes and masks and strode to join their master.

“You've rescued your last diabolist, Sanguine Rose! Or should I call you… Baron Eynesford?”

The gathered Englishmen gasped as the dashing young Puritan pulled the mask from the cloaked figure, revealing fine, faintly Moorish features – features recognisable to every man, woman and child of Albion, painted in history books, crude woodcuts and etchings, everywhere that the reviled face of the Traitor ibn Rasheed was to be remembered in horror. This was the stuff of nightmares, the face that chiding mothers used to scare disobedient children.

One of the pompous French refugees who had been crouched, hidden beneath the canvas, blustered forward, sweating beneath the powder on his face. “Zees ees an outrage!” he gasped. “Zees is a French ship! You are on sovereign territory! You 'ave no auzoritee 'ere!”

“We are here by the authority of God!” burst out Stand-Fast-On-High Perkins. “Even your own Committee for Public Safety has decreed that noble blood is no protection from charges of diabolism. The evidence of your crime is clear to see! You will return to France, you will be extradited and tried in Albion, and you will answer to the justice of the Lord!”

“No man may call justice upon me!” cried the Sanguine Rose, his cloak swirling around him as if in a sourceless breeze. Even the brave young Rosicrucians and Sisters took a step back as he advanced upon them, seeming to grow taller and darker with every step, his features melting and shifting. “No Duke, no prince, no God!” Behind him, the refugee nobles were beginning to chant and sway in time, and the candlelight dimmed as an awful pressure seeped into the cabin. “These men have summoned me; they are my servants, and though you call them criminal they are subject to no law but mine!”

Perkins just had time to raise his thrice-blessed bible and scream the opening lines of a protective incantation before all Hell broke loose in the murky hold of the freighter.

“Rasheed! Rasheed! A thousand deaths were not enough for Rasheed!”

Fragment of a nursery rhyme, first heard upon the streets of Oxford, 1802.

“For Gods' sake, Carruthers, tell those Cornish auxiliaries to fall back! They'll be cut to pieces out there if the Prague reserves don't break through!”

“Will do, sir!” The young Horticulturalist saluted and threw himself onto the back of his sphinx, a slender tabby creature which launched itself into the air, barrel-rolled through a volley of repeating arbalest-fire from the Spanish infantry, and executed an altogether flashy dive straight across the breech of a great French artillery-piece just before it fired. Colonel Joseph Gray sighed and shook his head at the lad. These modern officers needed a damn sight more drill and a damn sight less desire to impress the ladies, in his opinion. Overhead, Major Blunte and the brave men of the 95th Airborne Rifles wheeled and fired, their colours blazing like the sun. He pulled on the reins of his great Worm and heeled it round to get a view of the battlefield.

The Cornish were falling back as ordered, through in some disarray as the trailing fragments of their line rushed back to slaughter one last Frenchman or six. The Prague reserves were finally - finally - starting to cut a swathe through the Spanish lines, but even as he watched they seemed to slow and stall, as if something at their rear was making them fight a holding action. He squinted against the light and stood up in his stirrups, the Worm obediently rearing up to expose its armoured belly to the enemy's artillery. From his increased height, he could just see a dark mass streaming out of the woodlands to the South, cutting into the flanks of the Prague golems, streaming onto the battlefield. Cavalry from the Americas? Surely not – not so soon, those boats were still a month out and being harried by the Privateers. He uncapped his patented “Grey Nathaniel” Spyglass, waited for the alchemical filters to calibrate themselves and peered through the aperture.

Before him, with tiny moving dots indicating declination and distance, was displayed a horrible sight. Great black spiders, taller than horses, stepped lightly over the shattered ground, their diabolic riders cheering and gibbering as they whipped them on. From the trees swooped bat-winged monstrosities, bearing down upon the allied magicians and snatching them, screaming, into the air; even as he watched the golems began to run riot, without the direction of their masters, and hack at each other, or wildly at the air. Finally, marching out of the forest in eerily perfect step came column upon column of black-armoured figures, attired in archaic, blackened steel plate and bearing cruel, hooked and barbed polearms and greatswords. Over the cries and screams of the Siege of Lyon, Gray thought he could hear them chanting in time with their step:

“Vive le Val de Cendre. Vive le Val de Cendre.”

The noise of monstrous drums beat across the battlefield as the columns tore through the Prague reserves and began to forge a path towards the Albion lines. As a pack of Hellhounds leaped from their handler's grasp to pursue Carruthers' sphinx, harrying it and leaping with great slavering jaws to bring it down, Gray stiffened his jaw and called for another messenger. They were going to need Theurges, and fast.

“This is out of your hands, girl.” The black-cloaked man threw back his cowl and stared at the smoking ruins of the factory, breathing heavily in the polluted air of Limehouse. Raised London was a thriving place, but a filthy one, and this was one of the worse areas. The Orichalcum processing plant had been noxious even before it burned to the ground; now it was positively dangerous.

“Who are you?” Wilhelmina demanded.

“No-one of consequence.”

“I must know!” Behind her, Amantecatl and William-037 nodded their agreement, frustrated.

“Get used to disappointment.” He flashed an Obfuscated Order badge from beneath his cape.

“Bloody Special Circumstances!” In her breast pocket, the rat which insisted the agents call it Phlegm swore and spat. “We almost had this bastard. Are you telling us you have to give up now?”

“I told you. It's out of your hands. We have reason to believe he's sabotaged one of the Chairs.”

Wilhelmina's eyes grew wide. “But that means–”

Her words were cut off as a shadow passed over the moon. Amantecatl muttered a word in his native tongue under his breath and a beam of light shone as if bent from a distant star, illuminating the great Zeppelin that was even now rising over their heads. At its prow, a cackling figure gave a final twirl to its clockwork moustache and a sardonic wave, and cast off the mooring-rope.

“He's heading for the river!”

All thought of competition forgotten, they raced together through dark and deserted streets. By the illumination of gin-palaces and electrum gaslights they tracked the shape across the skies.

“We have to stop him before he reaches the bridge!”

Behind them, the whistles of the Weavers pierced the night air, and running footsteps indicated that Limehouse's own police force had finally cottoned on to the unauthorised menace in their midst.

Dodging Hellfire grenades and Greek Fire drops from the Zeppelin above, horribly aware of its terrible cargo, the League of the Valiant Heart raced through the dark city, knowing they had no hope of reaching the river in time.

Sprinting in their wake, the “Obfuscated Order” man chuckled darkly to himself as the badge he had flashed them dissolved to ash and brimstone in his pocket. Just another illusion…