Difference between revisions of "Waldemar Zinkgraven"

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nationality = [[Batavia|Batavian]]|
 
nationality = [[Batavia|Batavian]]|
 
allegiance = [[Shireroth|Imperial Government]]|
 
allegiance = [[Shireroth|Imperial Government]]|
occupation = Regent of [[Batavia]], Director of the [[Puritanian Guidance Authority]], [[Office of Bounties and Factorage#Subordinate Offices|count and accountant]] of the general tribute in Dietsland, Puritania and Voltrue |
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occupation = [[Steward]], Regent of [[Batavia]], Director of the [[Puritanian Guidance Authority]], [[Office of Bounties and Factorage#Subordinate Offices|count and accountant]] of the general tribute in Dietsland, Puritania and Voltrue |
 
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Revision as of 07:26, 7 December 2017

Waldemar Zinkgraven
Full Name: Waldemar Zinkgraven
Alias The Collector

Waldemar Zinkgraven.png

Physical Description
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Race: Batavian
Hair Color and Style: Fair, long and unkempt
Eye Color: Blue
Skin Color: White
Other: Pronounced frown lines

Biographical Information
Father: Norbert, Burggraaf van Zinkgraven
Mother: Felicia Corrie, Jonkvrouw van Bosch
Date of Birth: 1590 AN
Place of Birth:
Date of Death:
Place of Death:
Current Residence(s):
Nationality at Birth: Batavian
Current Allegiance(s): Imperial Government
Occupation: Steward, Regent of Batavia, Director of the Puritanian Guidance Authority, count and accountant of the general tribute in Dietsland, Puritania and Voltrue

Waldemar Zinkgraven is a Batavian-born Shirerithian official and the present Steward of the Imperial Republic (since 1654). Zir Illustris & Restaurator Occidentis, Regent of Batavia, Administrator of the Froyalan National Reservation, Martial Law Administrator of Oleslaad, Director of the Puritanian Guidance Authority & count and accountant of the general tribute in Dietsland, Puritania and Voltrue, for the Office of Bounties and Factorage. Amongst Waldemar's many duties are the collection of revenues to sustain the Confederacy of Puritanian States, whilst providing a return to the Imperial coffers, and the supervision of the generous Imperial subsidy provided to the eldritch munition factories of Voltrue.

Biography

Born of noble but middling parentage in the old Batavian province of Dietsland, Waldemar received an education that reinforced in him the notion of the dignity of his rank as well as the bonds of obligation that would tie him to his estates for the rest of his life. To this end his tutors, and later the grammarians and academicians who supervised him through his higher education, were careful to teach him the skills of literacy, numeracy and attention to detail that would prove vital to any competent lord who had a care for his estates.

That the fates would decree that he would never come into his title and that he would have to witness the death of his parents, the ruin and confiscation of his estates and finally the destruction of his country through civil war and Jingdaoese occupation, would leave Waldemar with a lasting bitterness and hatred that would express itself subtly in a myriad of ways. He eventually gravitated towards a career in accounting.

From his years spent pouring over estate ledgers and learning by rote the art of mental computation, Waldemar had developed the calibre of mental faculties that would render him indispensable to the courts and civil services of the various monarchies of Benacia. For a time, after 1618, he served King Jean of Amokolia, but never felt any abiding bond of loyalty to the Amokolian people and thus, when that regime subsequently fell, he experienced little difficulty in transferring his allegiance to the Elwynnese Union. To the White Orchid Throne, whose elitist values mirrored his own, Waldemar proved a diligent servant, albeit one occasionally frustrated by the tendency of the Princess of Anun to grant overly generous tax-breaks to Bailiwicks that conducted certain rituals which appealed to her sensibilities.

In 1635, following the Elwynnese conquest of Shirekeep, Waldemar followed the Princess of Anun to the capital, where he served in the Ministry of the Interior looking after what remained of the old Ministry of Trade. While the loss of revenues following the creation of the Imperial States, combined with the general slackening off of international trade, meant that there was precious little in the way of capital flows for Waldemar to monitor, it was generally remarked that he kept a meticulous set of books and after a while settled down into his comfortable appointment wherein he direct bailiffs to pursue revenues owed to the Imperial Court throughout what remained of the Imperial Dominions where the Kaiser's writ still ran unchallenged.

In the 1640's Elwynn began its great push westwards into what was once Batavian territory. Although conflicted at the thought of foreigners ruling over his ancestral lands, Waldemar was nonetheless enticed by the prospect of being able to return to his former estates, even if under the Orchid banner. However the UDF and Fleur de Lys-Longships Guard stopped short of the frontiers of Dietsland, leaving him once more frustrated.

However, that changed in 1642 when Puritanians, resisting the encroachments of Siseran cultists, sought and obtained the assistance of the Imperial Republic. Waldemar quickly attached himself to the civilian staff of the notorious revenant Laqi Hyrrion whom the Kaiser had dispatched at the head of the Dietsland Expeditionary Force to pacify the Dietsland-Puritania-Voltrue region, which was the last 'ungoverned' space on the continent of Benacia. His diligence and professionalism was quickly recognised and rewarded in the form of promotion to the post of Director of the PGA Economic Directorate.

In the aftermath of the Oustfest Massacre of 1644, Laqi Hyrrion, Gwilherm Albus (Crypteia), Maela Magali Soler (Imperial Forces) & Lucretia Raggi (Imperial Constabulary) were liquidated in a series of ambushes and massacres that left the PGA in Waldemar's care. Zinkgraven followed the interests of the Office of Bounties and Factorage, distancing himself from the regime of Kaiser Aurangzeb II Steffki when his patron, Ludovic Verion, did so, and later pledging allegiance to Kaiseress Noor when it became clear that her cause was in the ascendant.

By refusing and prevaricating over repeated summonses to Shirekeep, Waldemar was able to ride out the wave of judicial and administrative purges that accompanied Noor's accession to the throne until they had lost their impetus. After 1651 and the Auspicious Occasion, the Froyalanish in particular and the Elwynnese in general were out of favour and Imperial officials with experience of governing in the boreal forests of the west were suddenly in high demand amongst the Imperial Government.

In the third month of 1652, Waldemar received an order from the Steward, Liv Dravot, to cross into Batavia and take possession of Tuulersbýur as a seat of government for the Imperial Forces in the west. Following the Partition of Elwynn, the formerly vast Kingdom of Amokolia, comprising mostly of forests and tundra, had been left in a chaotic situation, parcelled out between a number of dominions and the Froyalan National Reserve (FNR). The policy contemplated by the Imperial Advisory Council was to establish a chain of fortified garrisons and stations linking west to east, garrisoned by Auxiliaries, and to award infrastructure and mineral exploitation contracts so as to bind the vast region more firmly into the Imperial Republic than had been the case under the lax and self-deceivingly idyllic mixture of manor farms and pastoralism favoured by the House of Ettlingar Freyu. Zinkgraven, seemingly, was the man chosen to drive this newly emerging policy.

On 8.VI.1652 the expulsion of the Froyalanish from Batavia escalated into a ferocious pogrom. Zinkgraven, dissatisfied by the slow progress of the deportations to the FNR and burdened by the high costs of feeding and sheltering the deportees whilst they were in-transit to the borders of the FNR, unleashed the locally raised Batavian auxiliaries on the Froyalanish in order to speed up their departure. The result was a frenzy of violence, rape and systematic looting.

For Zinkgraven, the only good Froyalaner was a burning one, and this was an attitude he carefully instilled into the Corps of veterans of the crusade against Siseraism as they moved into Batavia to take up positions facing the borders of the FNR, Gascony and Kalgachia. Zinkgraven argued for repressive measures to enforce the deportations and to put down the armed bands of Froyalaners who had formed into self-defence groups after the impossible scale of the relocation to the FNR had become apparent. Following his appointment as Regent of Batavia and overlord of a third of the continent on 24.VI.1652, Zinkgraven, with the blessing of the Steward, advanced his plan; beginning with the arrest of remaining Froyalanish notables, including the natural leaders of the national community such as the magistrates, merchants and landowners who had established themselves during the rule of Fjorleif. All their property was confiscated and Zinkgraven's net was widened by information gained under relentless interrogation. One hundred and four recalcitrant nobles were executed in Tuulersbýur on specially erected scaffolding. The following day a dozen Vanic Priestesses were burned in the town's Godsgrove for refusing Protective Custody and continuing to propagate the forbidden heretical doctrines of hierogamy.

The policy of repression was a shock that initially cowed all communities as eight full legions and an equal force of auxiliaries traversed Batavia and Oleslaad. In the early days Zinkgraven hoped to finance the expulsion of the Froyalanish through confiscations and compulsory purchases, below market value, of property.

Elated, and at the height of his powers, he decided that it was time to find himself a wife of suitable birth and bearing.

In 1653 he ordered the destruction of the Vineta Temple so that a new over-the-horizon radar for MoMA Station Tuulersbýur could be built, at a time when tensions with Jingdao were once again rising and an attack from the Jingdaoese enclaves in Western Benacia and or the Keltian island of Nandao where much of the Jingdaoese court had relocated following the War of Jingdaoese Immolation.

Preceded by:
Liv Dravot
Steward of the Imperial Republic
1654–
Succeeded by:
Incumbent