Chateneau Wardens

Chaplain (Top), Specter (Left), Alto (Center), Scythe (Right)

The Chateau Wardens were a group of 12 warforged created to serve as guardians and caretakers of the Chateneau Reach, a massive castle and fortress on the border of Bordoria. The four who remain were the first warforged to fall victim to Igor's reconditioning machine and spent just under four centuries in his service. They currently serve as founding members of League Zero.

## Origins

Long ago, when Chateneau was its own kingdom, the king and queen of Chateneau always kept a council of 12 warriors loyal to them that would serve specific goals inside the kingdom. To keep their identities a secret, these defenders of Chateneau became known by the code names: Rook, Bishop, Knight, Squire, Champion, Magus, Marshall, Falcon, Hunter, Lance, Nightmare, and Chameleon.

Over the years as their fame spread throughout the kingdom of Chateneau, traditional chateneau chess changed to adopt these names and pieces into their play. When any one of these defenders was killed, they would be replaced by another who would take their code name.

Eventually though, all these warriors fell when the kingdom of Bordoria conquered the small kingdom of Chateneau. It wasn't until Centuries later that the new Chateneau warden warforged were created and named after the original defenders of the chateneau kingdom.

## History

The Chateneau Wardens were forged over five centuries ago by the renowned machinist Alphisa Agemo for the purpose of maintaining and serving the denizens of the Chateneau reach. Alphisa's research and achievements in artificery were unparalleled at the time, as she was the first to create a living warforged.

In the year -214, Bordoria was invaded by the Bandeshi nation to their west. The Bandeshi were ruthless and cunning conquerors. Their nation served and revered the god, Red Will and nation after nation to the west fell to the Bandeshi tide of war. It was only a matter of time before the Bandeshi would muster enough strength to attack the magically advanced nation of Bordoria.

### The Siege

The invasion began on the march equinox during a blood-storm moon. The lands around the reach glowed as the farmlands were burned and the armies of the Bandeshi laid siege to The Chateneau reach.

The castle was protected by a large domed shield, (Courtesy of Chaplain) that protected against large scale bombardment. But the Bandeshi were aware of this ahead of time and when faced with breaching the wall, they chose to tunnel beneath the castle and undermine its supports.

While defending the east tower from a siege engine, Chaplain, Specter, Scythe and Alto were trapped when the enemy tunneling caused the east tower to come crashing down on top of them. Alto held up the portion of the tower they were under to keep it from crushing them completely, but Alto was the only one to stay conscious after the collapse and the four of them spent the rest of the battle trapped under the ruble.

It wasn't until after the battle was over that they began to regain consciousness. The four of them stayed hidden under the rubble until late at night when Chaplain was contacted via sending by one of his brightest students, a gnome illusionist named Igor. The battle was already lost, but there was still time for them to escape the Bandeshi forces if they were clever. Igor and Chaplain devised a plan for Igor to distract the enemy soldiers with his illusion magic, which allowed Chaplain and Alto to knock enough rubble away for the four of them to escape.

### War of Intelligence

The Lord of the Chateneau Reach had been flayed alive and hanged over the gate as a warning to all who dared oppose the Bandeshi. But his son and heir, Ginos Chateneau, survived, and the Wardens were sworn to serve him. Specter smuggled him and several of the more precious magical artifacts she could find out of the castle and they all retreated to the nearest stronghold.

Once in the stronghold, the Wardens were ordered to do everything in their power to ensure the reach would be retaken by the Bordorian forces. Alto and Scythe were sent to help the armies on the front lines to fight and reclaim the castle. Specter and Chaplain on the other hand were assigned to work covert operations, intelligence and espionage.

The war was long, and bloody, with the Bordorian forces facing defeat after defeat. It became clear pure might would never suffice to overcome such a powerful enemy, the war became about intelligence and espionage. Igor worked closely with Chaplain and Specter, creating new methods of interrogation and mind manipulation to try to pry information from enemy operatives they could capture.

Igor, Chaplain and Specter's work began to pay off as they used captured enemies to subvert several major enemy operations, but they needed something revolutionary to really turn the tide. Igor designed a device that could turn their enemies into sleeper agents by changing their memories and giving them subconscious commands. The idea was Igor's, but he needed chaplain to help him make the device and use the more advanced spells needed in its mechanisms.

They initiated a long term plan, using the covert operatives under their command to flood the enemy ranks with sleeper agents to capture ranking members of the Bandeshi army, and this method met with some success. Eventually they caught one of the high Bandeshi generals and subjected him to the machine, which they used to force him to command his armies into an unfavorable position where the Bordorian forces crushed his numerically larger force.

Igor took credit for the creation of the device, and Chaplain allowed him to do so, since Chaplain was never interested in the glory, just in retaking the reach.

### Reclaiming their Home

The wind control device was the turning point in the war. Whether the device itself was solely responsible for turning the tide is impossible to say. But the Bordorian forces, against all odds, began to defeat the Bandeshi and drive them back. The Chateneau wardens reunited in a battle to retake the Chateneau Reach in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. But after nine days of fighting, when the smoke settled, the Bordorian flag once again flew over the Chateneau reach - what was left of it anyway.

The Chateneau wardens left the main army to repair and protect the castle and its Lord once again, and at first this worked well for all the parties involved. But without Chaplain's magic, Igor suddenly found himself stretched thin, the expectations of his superiors were far too much for him to accomplish without his assistant. Igor asked Chaplain to return to help him, but Chaplain refused. As the war continued, Igor began to fall behind and the Bordorians threatened to replace him with another, more powerful mage who could do his job better.

### Igor's Ego

Igor kept this knowledge to himself and asked Chaplain for one final favor that he said could end the war there and then, which Chaplain agreed to help him with. When Chaplain arrived, Igor and several enemy sleeper agents which he had reprogrammed subdued Chaplain and put him in the machine. Igor had originally intended to simply remove Chaplain's desire to defend the reach, so he would return to be his assistant, but while chaplain was subdued in the chair it seemed pertinent to use it to ensure his cooperation. Just in case.

The Machine worked and Chaplain agreed to be Igor's assistant, but remnants of his old personality kept causing problems. Chaplain kept trying to use the machine to reverse the effects on himself, so his personality overall would need to go as well.

When Chaplain sent word to the other wardens that he would not be returning, Lord Ginos, who was now getting on in years ordered Alto to go retrieve Chaplain and remind him his duty was to the reach. When Alto arrived, Igor tried to subdue him, but failed. Alto nearly killed Igor, but he ultimately hesitated and Chaplain subdued him and ran him through the machine as well. Igor was not interested in another incident like that with the other wardens or Lord Ginos. Igor sent Chaplain and Alto to the Chateneau reach, where they subdued Scythe and Specter, rewrote their minds as well, and then killed Lord Ginos and his children to ensure no one would miss the wardens or want them back.

Igor went back to work immediately and with all four wardens he began to perform exceptionally and his station was ensured. But suspicions over the death of Lord Ginos and his children followed Igor, and his methods and morals began to fall under scrutiny. When it was mind control or annihilation, no one batted an eye at the morality of rewriting a person's mind, but when the war was less dire, suddenly rewriting a person's brain becomes morally questionable. It was a preposterous notion to Igor that one thing could be right in war time and wrong other times.

### Leaving

In the end, the war against the Bandeshi was a success and the Bandeshi empire, based on raiding and plunder began to crumble from the inside as their conquests began to become defeats.

When the war ended, Igor wanted glory for his deeds, but his methods of brainwashing, murder espionage and the like were not to become public. The Bordorian nobility decided to pay Igor an exceptionally large sum of money and asked him to quietly retire. Igor was outraged, as he felt the war had been won because of him. But he was afraid of what the Bordorian nobility would do to him if he refused, so he accepted the money and retired. He left Bordoria just in case the Bordorian nobility decided to re-evaluate how they treated 'war criminals' later.

He found it Ironic that they had so heavily criticized him to brainwashing humans, but found no objection to him doing the same to warforged. This Irony crossed his mind again when he came across another warforged mercenary in his travels. With the wardens under his control to subdue this warforged, he easily added them to his collection.

### Igor's Travels

As Igor traveled he gathered more warforged under his command. He created his magnificent festival of wishes, which Chaplain worked tirelessly on to create the necessary enchantments for. He had done the impossible, and stopped the most bloodthirsty empire in recent history, but no one acknowledged his accomplishment. So he set up a series of unfair and unpredictable puzzles and traps to lead to a disappointing ending in his magnificent challenge maze. A cruel irony that accomplishing the nigh impossible gives no reward.

The wardens, now named Units 1-4 spent the next 400 years, forced to make new puzzles and items for his games, protecting him, setting up his tents, advertising his magnificent puzzles, and kidnapping other warforged to add to his slowly growing collection.

That was until the year 198, when Igor died, and the Wardens were set free by one of the warforged they had unwillingly captured, named Daisy.

### Phoenix Rebirth

After being freed, with no one to take revenge on as Igor had already passed away, the wardens directed their hatred toward an aaracocra named High Builder Alcionne. Alcionne had figured out Igor's codes he used to control the warforged and had chosen not to free them in the year 186. The Wardens came for their revenge on Alcionne, but were unable to defeat him as the city of Avalon, fresh out of a devastating conflict with the Githyanki were ruthless in their defense against the wardens. Unwilling to kill innocents, Chaplain ordered the wardens retreat rather than fight, but as they retreated they were bombarded and attacked by Horus's mechanical dragon. (Which they did not see through the snow, but it is what bombarded them.) They sought out a hidden forge, underground in Astazia, and down there made unlikely allies with the burned Phoenix, and his bodyguard, Dartak, founding League Zero.

From there they repaired the damaged ethereal copy of Faerbaron and created Zero Base as a place to exact their revenge from.