Blood Keep

Blood Keep is a ruined fortress which lies in the Grey Mountains, which separate Bretonnia from the Empire. The ruins lie to the southeast of the city of Nuln, and can be reached only by a lonely mountain trail. Before its destruction it was the fortress monastery of the knights of the Order of the Blood Dragon. The fortress guarded the mountain pass to Bretonnia, and the order's knights were pledged to the protection of the people of the surrounding area.

The fall of the order came when the vampire Walach of the House of Harkon travelled to the keep. Entering the gates, he issued a challenge to the entire order garrisoned there to single combat. The knights were obliged to accept, and in any case certain that an entire order of knights against one man could have only one conclusion. But, one by one, each knight fell to Harkon. He spared those he found worthy opponents, giving them some of his blood and cursing them to the immortality of vampirism.

With a new order of vampiric knights under Walach Harkon, the living people of the area suffered the long years of a reign of terror, until the witch hunter Gunther van Hel revealed the truth, leading to a lengthy siege of the order's keep by an imperial army and the eventual destruction of the order.

Sources

• Warhammer Armies Vampire Counts, 7th edition, p. 46