The Council of the Wound - Wundenbund

The Council of the Wound (Wundenbund) is an elite priest-warrior order within the Hesan War Covenant (Hesanisches Kriegsbund), founded in the aftermath of the War of the Wound by Emperor Isen I. They are not separate from the military—they are its sacred spine. Where the Hesan War Covenant enacts imperial will through steel and strategy, the The Council of the Wound ensures that every blade serves divine structure. They are the keepers of Erbbruchrecht, the adjudicators of legacy, and the ritual architects of imperial succession. Their creed is simple and terrifying: order is born from violence, and only through fracture can unity be sealed.

The Council is headquartered in Konigsheim, within a fortress-monastery known as the Wundfeste, built atop the scorched foundation of the old Kronehain. Its walls are inscribed with the names of every noble house ever accused of Erbbruch, and its bells toll only during executions, coronations, or cultural conversions. The Council is led by the Wundvater, or Woundfather—a masked figure appointed by the Emperor but ritually severed from courtly influence. The Wundvater speaks only during rites and is said to carry the original blade of Isen Aschenriss, a relic etched with the names of the dead and bound in ashcloth.

Beneath the Wundvater sits the Red Circle, a body of seven high priest-warriors who embody the principles of imperial structure: Silence, Memory, Flame, Stone, Blood, Ash, and Name. Each member wears red lacquered armor and ceremonial tabard and carries a ceremonial sword etched with ancestral oaths. They oversee succession rites, doctrinal enforcement, and the spiritual conversion of conquered peoples.

The Council’s field operatives are known as Woundbearers. These priest-warriors travel with imperial legions, leading rituals, judging legacy fractures, and overseeing executions. In newly annexed territories, they are responsible for cultural conversion—a process that involves the burning of ancestral texts, the renaming of cities, and the installation of imperial shrines. Conversion is not persuasion; it is ritual. Woundbearers are often accompanied by scribes who record these rites in the Book of Ash, a living archive of imperial purification.

In the era of Emperor Isen IV, the Council’s role has expanded dramatically. In Alendria, they oversee the systematic conversion of the populace, replacing local rites with imperial doctrine and silencing resistance through ritual erasure. In Horn’s Light, they prepare for a naval siege followed by mass conversion, where each citizen must walk the Path of Ash and be renamed beneath the shadow of the Iron Dragon Mask. Even within Konigsheim, the Council has begun purging minor houses suspected of doctrinal impurity, including secret trials of the Kronehain bloodline.

The Council teaches that the gods died in war, and their breath became law. To preserve the world’s structure, violence must be sanctified—not chaotic, but ritualized. They believe that Erbbruch is a spiritual infection, that unjust war is cosmological heresy, and that the mask is not mercy—it is structure. To name is to bind. To bleed is to seal.