Mark — The County Between Cleves and Cologne

Westphalia · County of Mark · Hamm and the Lenne · Two branches of one house

Five years after the last armies withdrew, a wagon arrives in Hamm carrying three bodies beneath a flour-stained sheet. The dead men were escorting iron from the Lenne valley. Their horses are missing, one wears a badge taken from a Dortmund soldier, and the surviving carter swears he heard hunting horns in the trees. Hamm’s magistrates want the killers. Count Gerhard’s captain wants the witness. Neither trusts the other’s inquiry.

Mark is a county divided against itself. Its ruler, Gerhard, had backed Cologne during the Soest Feud, while important towns including Hamm stood with Soest and his nephew John of Cleves. Families remember whose men burned their farms or took their kin hostage. Now the Hellweg carries grain and merchants again, while the Lenne and Ruhr valleys carry iron, charcoal and rumours of armed riders. Beyond the town walls there are ruined steadings, unpaid fighters and things that have never cared whose banner flies above a castle.

What Is Happening Right Now?

The Count and the Towns Took Opposite Sides

Gerhard fought his brother Adolf for Mark and secured rule over much of the county through settlements reached in 1430 and 1437. Adolf’s son, John I of Cleves, has an acknowledged claim to succeed him. Yet the sharper wound lies closer to home. Gerhard entered the Soest Feud as an ally of Cologne, while leading towns under his own authority—including Hamm, Unna and Kamen—supported Soest and John. The count’s formal powers survived; trust did not.

In Hamm, a councillor who supplied wagons for Soest must now receive Gerhard’s tax collector. At the castle, an officer once imprisoned by the town militia is expected to protect its merchants. Gerhard needs the revenue and fighting men these communities provide; they need him to restrain nobles who still regard them as disloyal. A seal may be authentic and its bearer still unwelcome. No general reconciliation has made every bailiff answer to John, nor erased the towns’ separate charter rights.

The Feud Ended Without a Clean Peace

The fighting over Soest subsided in 1449 without a comprehensive formal peace. During the war, raiders from Werl had crossed into Mark; in 1448 Dortmund, aligned with Cologne, declared a feud against Hamm and neighbouring Märkisch towns. There were burnt fields, captured men and claims for compensation. These are not distant diplomatic details. A missing prisoner may have a family waiting in Hamm; a burned grain store can turn its village into outlaws by winter.

Some soldiers went home. Others kept their weapons and discovered that attacking a rival town’s merchants paid better than farming. One wounded man is wearing a Dortmund badge he could have stolen. Another carries Gerhard’s old pay chit. Whoever is killing carters on the road is counting on each authority blaming the other.

Places Worth the Journey

Hamm — The Count’s Working Court

Founded in 1226 near the ancestral Burg Mark, Hamm grew into the county’s administrative and trading centre. Its market, civic council, gräfliche court and merchants provide places to petition, hire an escort, obtain credit and contest a toll. Hamm is not merely the town nearest a castle; it is where the count’s men argue over the language of a grant while merchants wait for an answer. Gerhard’s household occupies the town castle rather than treating the older Burg Mark as his sole residence.

At the market, three tradesmen disagree over a weight of iron that passed the scales without being recorded. One claims the omission is a clerk’s mistake; another says the metal has been diverted to an armed household. The party may trace its route from the foundry, speak to the weight-master or expose a perfectly lawful contract that was deliberately kept secret.

Burg Mark — Ancestral Name, Altered Purpose

The older castle near Hamm gives the county its name, but age is not the same as authority. Its holdings and maintenance obligations have changed as the ruling family shifted court business elsewhere. A dispute over an old tower’s repairs may concern its tenants more than any great lord. Those who claim the right to collect rents must also prove responsibility for the drawbridge and the people who rely on it.

Altena — The Lenne Valley Above the Forges

Burg Altena commands a steep site above the Lenne. It is a former family stronghold now used by officers and castellans, not an untouched palace filled with the county’s ruling household. Below it, fuel, ore and water power matter: a mill race cut by an enemy can stop work without a sword being drawn. Smiths need charcoal burners, carters and iron merchants. A stolen bloom or blocked sluice may imperil a whole group of households.

The climb to the castle is steep and difficult with a laden wagon. The drost’s men care more about the condition of the gate timbers, storehouses and roof than the family’s former splendour. A party delivering a legal summons can be delayed for hours while a cart is dragged through the narrow approach.

Iserlohn, Schwerte and the Other Towns

Iserlohn sits close to ironworking country and depends on access to markets; Schwerte guards movements along the Ruhr; Unna and Kamen connect to the fertile northern routes. Bochum and Hörde have local courts and fortifications whose loyalties cannot be reduced to a single county-wide order. Some castles remained under the Cleves line even when Gerhard held much of Mark. Ask whose writ a bailiff recognises before relying on a neatly drawn border.

Work, Trade and Useful Services

The county’s wealth is not yet the coal-fired industry of later centuries. Around the Lenne, Ruhr and their tributaries, charcoal, smelting, ironworking and water-powered hammers already provide livelihoods. Grain, livestock, timber, wool, tools and horse gear move by road, cart and pack animal. Merchants need honest weights and trusted carriers as much as skilled smiths; the count needs customs revenue, but every levy that delays an iron shipment makes him poorer too.

In Hamm and the larger towns adventurers can find hostels, guest rooms, armour repair, scribes, money changers, cartwrights and men accustomed to escorting valuable freight. In the uplands, a forge worker or charcoal burner may offer shelter but not food enough for a large armed company. Temple households observe local gods of craft, oaths, roads and remembrance. Those seeking magical healing or a sworn divination must persuade a priest or patron; supernatural testimony does not overrule written law simply because someone claims it does.

The Lore of Wulfseck and the Night Road

Why They Call the Castle Altena

The old story says two noble brothers built a fortress on the height once called Wulfseck. The neighbouring lord of Arnsberg protested that the new walls were all too near his own lands. The builders kept working and made the complaint into a name: Altena. Medieval chroniclers recorded versions of this tale, although the castle’s actual beginnings remain uncertain. At an inn, two travellers may argue whether the brothers were rightful founders or opportunists. The answer matters if an old boundary stone is now being used to support a claim on a charcoal woodland.

Hunters and woodcutters repeat a harsher version. They say that a wolf follows anyone who moves a boundary stone dishonestly. A poacher has already found tracks beside a disputed charcoal stand; the men sent to move the stone now refuse to return after dark. They may fear a spirit, a real pack or the person who ordered the stone moved.

Homburg’s Iron Chair — The Old Lippe Court

West of Hamm, near the older site of Homburg by Niederherringen, people tell of the knights who sat in judgment beneath the Krause Linde, on an iron chair set beside the Lippe. They were said to be cruel judges. In the tale, the chair was later seen rising out of the river. Some storytellers also give the ruined stronghold to Veleda, the ancient seeress, though no surviving wall can establish that claim.

A boy fishing in the Lippe has brought home a rusted iron fitting and refuses to say where he found it. His father wants it returned before the next flood; a councillor in Hamm believes it came from the lost court. Someone else wants the boy silenced. The old castle is a place to look for buried evidence, and the river is deep enough to conceal far more than a chair.

Alberich’s Dwarves Beneath the Felsenmeer

Near Hemer, broken limestone stretches across the hillside in a wilderness of crevices known as the Felsenmeer, the Sea of Rocks. The regional tale gives those stones a violent beginning. Dwarves mined treasure in caverns below them; giants came to seize it. The dwarven king Alberich spoke a spell that brought the chambers down upon the intruders, leaving the rocks scattered above the buried halls.

Now ironworkers report the ring of hammers beneath a shaft that has stood empty for years. A fresh opening descends farther than anyone remembers. Whoever is working below has taken a surveyor’s tools but left the iron ore untouched. The merchants of Iserlohn want the shaft reopened; the men who found it will not enter again. Beneath the fallen rocks, the old inhabitants might have a better claim than either group.

The Seven Maidens of the Hönne

At the disputed edge of Mark and Cologne’s Sauerland, the Hönne cuts through limestone beneath Burg Klusenstein. Seven stone pinnacles stand near the river. A local tale makes them sisters who sought the favour of the castle’s knight and turned to witchcraft when he remained loyal to his betrothed. Their bargain ended with the sisters changed into stone.

A girl disappears after following a path between the rocks. Searchers find her shawl snagged far above the track, on a ledge that cannot be reached from the river. The castle’s men suspect a fugitive using the caves; the villagers speak of the seven sisters. Finding her may require ropes, a guide familiar with the cliff hollows and the courage to go in before the next rain raises the Hönne. The stones themselves stand on a contested frontier: a rescued traveller can still find herself detained at the next gate.

The Horns Beyond Altena

The first sound is easy to mistake for a hunting party: horns on the distant ridge, then hounds answering from the wrong side of the river. The second is harder to explain. The dogs of the valley flatten themselves beneath the tables, and the forge fire burns blue for a moment. On such nights people bar their doors and refuse to answer voices calling from the road. The true Wild Hunt rides these hills when its own dreadful business draws it here. Its passage is rare and serious enough to empty a road; it is not an ordinary nightly patrol to be killed for bounty.

Men have learned to imitate the horns. A gang of deserters could scatter a convoy with a few trained hounds and a borrowed hunting call. But on the night the real riders pass, those same criminals may abandon their stolen goods and flee beside their victims. The hills around Altena also keep stories of a witches’ dancing place and the spring called Steinsbörnchen. A candle burning beside the water after dark may signal a human meeting or something worse; a sensible traveller first asks who needs that meeting to remain secret.

Dangers Beyond the Town Walls

The Men Who Stayed Armed

After the Soest Feud, some surviving mercenaries still carry helmets and crossbows but no lord will pay them. A band calling itself the Ash Company has taken over an abandoned farm between Hamm and the forest roads. Its leader, Dietmar of Schwerte, served under a real captain but has no commission now. He offers travellers protection from the very attacks his men arrange. Villagers know his face; they will not testify unless their families can be kept safe. A well-armed party may defeat the gang, but dislodging it without leaving the next farm undefended takes more thought.

Iron, Floodwater and Things Below

The Lenne valley is hazardous even without an enemy. Water races rise after rain, charcoal pits can smother men who fall into them, and narrow wagon tracks become traps once a laden cart overturns. A ruined waterwheel has stood idle since a miller dammed a tributary. Workers blame a Wassernixe for the drownings. They may be right: something beneath the wheel remembers an old bargain, and the missing children were last seen taking offerings to the bank. It wants the dam broken and the drowned mill bell brought up from the deepest pool. Until then, the current pulls even sure-footed adults off the stepping stones.

The Dead and the Riders

Burned steadings and unmarked graves leave people with good reasons to fear the dark. One old grave beside a forest track has been opened from within. Its occupant is no wandering skeleton but a wight bent on exacting payment for a betrayal. Where its footsteps go, somebody living knows why. Higher among the hills, the true Wild Hunt may ride. When the horns sound, anyone caught on the open road has only the darkness, the trees and whatever shelter they can reach before the hounds.

People and Interests

Gerhard of the Mark wants recognition of the authority he fought to secure, steady receipts from his county and no fresh destructive dispute with his nephew. John I of Cleves wants secure succession, compatible tolls and roads useful to his broader territories. Local councillors bargain for market rights. Castle officers want cash to keep bridges, armouries and towers serviceable. Cologne’s agents watch for failures they can exploit without necessarily starting another army campaign. Sworn Westphalian free-court judges may enter a dispute, but they are not Gerhard’s private executioners and their proceedings do not replace every town tribunal.

Johann of Lünen, an iron merchant, wants his seized cargo back before his workers abandon him. He also knows that one of his drivers has been secretly selling information about shipments. Heinrich of Cleves carries a valid ducal escort order but has begun taking unlawful tolls to feed his mounted retainers; he will protect his passengers fiercely if they keep quiet about the money. Grete of Altena, a hammer worker’s widow, holds the only surviving water-rights agreement for a disputed millstream. Dietmar of Schwerte, once a soldier, now leads the Ash Company and buys the location of valuable wagons from desperate men in market inns. When a convoy disappears, all four have something to gain or lose from the party’s investigation.

Adventures That Begin Here

• The Three Men from the Iron Road: the bodies brought into Hamm were robbed after they were killed. Their empty purses are a distraction: the missing cargo is a sealed chest being carried for Gerhard’s captain. A deserter at a roadside inn knows where it went. Rescue his captive sister, arrest him or follow the chest before the raiders reach the border. If ignored, another convoy is hit within days.
• The Water Under the Wheel: Grete’s mill-water agreement is the only proof that a forge may draw from the stream. Somebody diverts the water; then a child vanishes from the shallows. A Wassernixe knows who broke the old promise, but refuses to let the water be dammed again. Bargain for the child’s return, repair the channel or enter a creature’s own deep pool. The mill loses its livelihood while the party decides.
• A Grave with Two Owners: one family has reburied a feud casualty on land another household claims. The dead man has risen and is walking to the house of the officer who betrayed him. An undead wight can kill those standing in its way, but the stolen ring in its grave may reveal the actual target. The party can hunt the undead, recover the ring or confront the living man behind the betrayal.
• The Count’s Prisoner: a captured Dortmund soldier is held in Hamm, while the relatives of a burned farmer demand his death. A surviving witness claims the man tried to stop the attack. Guard the prisoner through an angry street, bring the witness to court or uncover a forged accusation. Delivering him to either side without proof may start a fresh feud.
• The Night the Horns Answer: raiders use hunting calls to clear a road before robbing merchants. The party can set a trap—until a second horn answers from the ridge with a sound no human makes. When the real Wild Hunt approaches, saving travellers and finding shelter matters more than capturing thieves. Anyone left in the open must face its passage.

Travel, Claims and Consequences

From Hamm, the main roads run west towards Dortmund and the Rhine routes, and east towards Soest; Cleves lies farther west. South of the Ruhr, tracks climb through wooded valleys toward Altena and the ironworks. Heavy rain makes a ford dangerous, an overturned charcoal cart can close the only narrow road, and armed men know which bends hide them from approaching riders. A wounded traveller who reaches a hamlet at dusk may receive help, but no household can feed a large armed company without warning.

Saving a smith’s family may earn supplies and refuge at the next forge. Returning a captive can reopen a market—or make an enemy of a bereaved household. Helping the count’s men against deserters wins protection in Gerhard’s territories but not necessarily inside towns that remember his old alliance. If the party ignores the killings, the iron road falls quiet and wages stop. If the Wild Hunt has passed, horses may refuse a forest route for nights afterwards. Choices change who will shelter the characters, which roads are safe and whose guards greet them at the next gate.

Historical Foundations

The LWL Westphalian history chronology records Gerhard’s support for Cologne alongside the Märkisch towns’ support for Soest; Hamm’s local feud records describe raids, the towns’ alliances and their fighting with Dortmund; the regional historical biography of John I describes the later agreement and succession; the foundation history of Hamm explains the count’s principal town. Burg Altena’s own historical chronicle supplies the documented castle traditions and early ironworking, while the museum history explains why modern views of the castle should not be mistaken for an untouched medieval building. The LWL study of Homburg near Hamm records the iron-chair and Veleda traditions; the regional account of Hemer’s Felsenmeer tells the legend of Alberich, dwarves and giants; and the Hönnetal historical and natural-history society records the Seven Maidens of Klusenstein. The Altena foundation tale appears in a medieval chronicle, but the other regional traditions survive chiefly in later retellings and should not be mistaken for independently attested events in 1454. The Ash Company, the wolf omen, the mill drowning, the walking dead, the riders’ passage and the particular disappearances in these locations are campaign events.