Ilse Sarren van Malaborg

(a.k.a. Ilse the Mad)

Countess Ilse Sarren van Malaborg, sometimes known as Ilse the Mad, was a prominent Alderni noble and member of House Sarren who was a close ally both of Queen Heliodora and of her daughter, Queen Theodike I Erastes. Renowned as the architect responsible for the creation of Gildenschloss and Tonnenkreek Schloss, history remembers her as a brilliant but troubled woman, a skilled military commander, and one of the foremost magicians of her age.

Early Life

Ilse was born in the closing month of 694 AK, into the newly formed House Sarren. There is some confusion around her precise parentage; the traditional account assumes that she was the child of Erastes Tideborn's daughter Theomache and Jarl Dag Sigmundsson of Sassenheim, however is said that she was raised by Dragomir, ruler of the Principality of Malaborg (who is, confusingly, referred to both as Dragomir Sarren and Dragomir Malaborg-Sarren in contemporary accounts, in a somewhat interchangeable fashion) and some historians have claimed that Dragomir may have in fact been her true father. Furthermore, whilst the traditional view implies that Ilse was the grandaughter of Erastes Tideborn, it has on occasion been suggested that this may not have been the case either - it is suggested that she may have simply been the child of Prince Dragomir of Malaborg and his wife Ulfhild, who was formally adopted as a member of the House of Sarren when she was born. It is perhaps fortunate that Ilse never had any children of her own, or else the precise line of her descent would likely be a far more politically charged matter, rather than a fairly inconsequential academic debate as it is today.

Commander of the Dread Cohort

Ilse rose to prominence in the latter years of the War of the Frog , having joined the Dread Cohort of Malaborg at the age of eighteen in 712 AK. She is said to have been a skilled knight and magician, and by 718 AK had been granted command of the Dread Cohort, which she led to victory in the decisive Battle of the Mitstoen . It was in the aftermath of this battle that she is said to have discovered information from the Batrarchiarchy of Verag that led to the rediscovery  of the Howling Hill later that year.
When Heliodora led a coup against the "Tyrant Queen" Pyronike in 721AK, it is said that Ilse was one of her main co-conspirators, and that she may have even gone as far as to have the Dread Cohort assassinate several of Pyronike's inner circle in preparation for the coup. In any case, when Heliodora's aunt Kydomene raised an army against her to prevent the "Queenslayer" from taking the throne, Ilse and the Dread Cohort joined Heliodora's cause in the War of the Queen's Knife , eventually marching on Ysberinge in 724AK and forcing Kydomene to renounce her claim on the throne in favour of Heliodora.

Ilse the Architect

Whilst she had initially made her name as a military commander, it is said that Ilse's great and abiding interest in life was the study of magic. At the age of thirty she passed on the command of Dread Cohort to her cousin, Gherard Sarren, and returned to the site of the Howling Hill, where a small settlement had begun to form. She had initially spent some time at the site prior to the War of the Queens Knife, and had drawn up plans for an arcane fortress that would tap into the power of the Pylon of the Howling Hill; but whilst work had begun on the Great Tower in 720 AK, it is said that in the four years of her absence the construction had diverged from her plans. Whilst she continued to oversee the construction of the tower, it is said that within a year she had begun to lose interest in the project (which would eventually be completed in 731AK), and had another plan in mind - the construction of a larger and more elaborate fortress at Malaborg.
With the Queen's backing, in 725 AK Ilse commissioned the great fortress of Tonnenkreek Schloss, which she proposed would be an impenetrable citadel, the pinnacle of all arcane engineering. The fortress was supposed to be completed within a decade, but it was delayed many times over; by the time of Queen Heliodora's death in 743 AK the fortress was a vast and sprawling maze of towers, ramparts, and courtyards, with an equally labyrinthine network of chambers below ground, much of which appeared to serve no obvious purpose but which was declared essential by Ilse. During this time she would return on occasion to Gildenschloss, building the Star Tower and several other parts of the town, all of which she described as experiments in magical engineering, prototypes of what she intended to achieve at Tonnenkreek. The castle was eventually completed in 756 AK, decades later and at a vastly greater expense than had been forseen.

Relationship with Queen Theodike

Whilst there was a substantial generational difference between Ilse and Theodike - Ilse potentially being claimed as Erastes's granddaughter via Theomache (whether or not this was actually the case), and Theodike being Erastes' great-great-grandaughter via the line of Pyronike - the significant difference in age between some of Erastes' daughters resulted in the two being of a similar age. The two were said to have developed a fierce rivalry in adolescence, though one which mellowed into a close friendship in adulthood, especially after the death of Theonike's husband-to-be, Oric Bheuren in a hunting accident in 713 AK mere days before they were due to be wed. Theodike would famously never marry following Oric's death, claiming that she was so heartbroken that she could not love again; however she is known to have drawn increasingly close to Ilse in the wake of Oric's death. For her part, Ilse never married either, and is famously quoted as turning away a would-be suitor saying that she had "never seen the point in men"; these two facts have led a number of scholars to conclude that Ilse and Theonike were probably lovers, and some have gone as far as to suggest that had Ilse outlived Theonike, she may have been named as the Queen's successor.
Though none dared to question it openly at the time, there have always been rumours that Oric's death was no accident. Ilse was present when Oric was thrown from his horse, and claimed that she had tried to save his life but that his neck had been broken by the fall and he had died before she was able to get help; it has been since suggested that she may have either killed Oric, or at the very least may have allowed him to die by delaying in seeking assistance until it was too late. Two theories have been put forward as to the motive that Ilse might have had for killing Oric - some claim that she did so out of jealousy for his relationship with Theonike, whereas others have suggested that in truth Theonike despised Oric and had no intent on entering into a political marriage with him, and that Ilse may have killed him on her command.

Ilse's Madness

Whilst rarely used in her lifetime, Ilse's epithet of "the Mad" emerged in the latter half of her life whilst she was overseeing the construction of the citadel of Tonnenkreek. It is said that over the passing years her behaviour gradually became increasingly strange and erratic, and that she would often be observed walking the corridors of the partially-constructed fortress at night, mumbling nonsensically to herself whilst seemingly in a trance. At other times she would take to her rooms for days on end, refusing all visitors and neither eating nor drinking, drafting and redrafting the plans for the fortress until her fingers bled; on one occasion it is said that she methodically smashed every window, mirror, and reflective surface in the castle over the course of a single night. Every few months she would abruptly dismiss all the workers from the construction, halting progress for weeks at a time, or otherwise demand that some part of the fortress be demolished or altered in ways which seemed nonsensical to the builders. Some reported that she seemed increasingly distracted and frantic at times, sometimes referring to people that she had known for many years by the wrong name, or talking about events that occurred many years before as if they were happening in the present. Perhaps the most extreme episode occurred in 755 AK, when she set fire to the castle's library and had to be physically dragged from the chamber as it was engulfed in flame, suffering severe burns that almost cost her her life.
It is notable that Ilse's bizarre behaviour occured only when she was in the vicinity of Tonnenkreek, and that it intensified the longer that she remained at the castle - which, as she inisisted on overseeing the construction herself and dwelling within the castle whilst doing so, became increasingly problematic over time. There were few aside from Theonike who were able to convince her to take her leave of the construction work, but it is recorded that when she did so, she recovered her senses rapidly and enjoyed weeks or even months of lucidity before returning to Tonnenkreek. Whether Ilse's madness was due to some malady of the brain or the result of some more esoteric cause is uncertain, many therefore assume the latter - that in attempting to master the esoteric geometries of the Periphery she had thoroughly broken her mind, and that for all her brilliance she should be remembered as a tragic warning for those who would venture too deeply into the study of the mysteries of the Blue Abyss.
It has been suggested by some that Ilse's so-called madness was nothing of the sort, and rather that the entire thing was a very carefully orchestrated ploy to distract attention from her true intention - though quite what these may have been are unclear, as whilst the entire structure of Tonnenkreek is interwoven with incredibly potent magic, it has never been conclusively determined what the magic actually does.

Death

In 756 AK, a little over thirty years after the foundation of Tonnenkreek Schloss was laid, construction on the citadel is finally completed. It is said that Ilse looked out from the highest tower of the castle and, at the age of sixty two, pronounced her life's work complete. She then took to her bed, and is said to have died a scant few days later, supposedly from sheer exhaustion. She was buried in a crypt deep within the labyrinthine tunnels below Tonnenkreek - though by all accounts the precise location of the crypt has since been lost.

Species

Human

Ethnicity

Ald

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Countess of Malaborg
Knight-Banneret of the Dread Cohort of Malaborg
Archmage-Emeritus of the Covenhall of the Gilded Tower

Date of Birth

16th day, 12th Moon, 694 AK

Life

694 756 62 years old

Birthplace

Malaborg

Pronouns

She/her

Aligned Organization

Aldernord

Other Affiliations

• House Sarren

Other Known Aliases:
Insight of the Tower
Ka'oa'ka