Domain of the month - Gundarak!

[Vlad]

I was planning to do the same, creating a map of Hunadora and yes, I also noticed the splendid real life Hunadora (your pictures), it doesn't, however, fit the description in Knight of the Black Rose.. and the picture in Gaz IV is also hard to match with KotBR, so I created a castle which fits both descriptions more or less.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

I was planning to do the same, creating a map of Hunadora and yes, I also noticed the splendid real life Hunadora (your pictures), it doesn't, however, fit the description in Knight of the Black Rose.. and the picture in Gaz IV is also hard to match with KotBR, so I created a castle which fits both descriptions more or less.

The castle rested atop a manmade mound of earth, a gently sloping hill to its front, a steep, rocky precipice to its left. Thick pine forest grew to the rear and right of the keep, a perfect cover for a siege. Hunadora’s walls were of dark stone, with lighter rock framing the arrow loops and crenelations. The main section of the castle was bordered by a square curtain, with small towers at the corners and in the middle of each wall. In turn, a wide moat filled with fetid water circled the walls, its dark surface broken occasionally by a bloated, white-skinned corpse or a pale tentacle slithering into the light.
...
Protected by the curtain and the moat, a massive tower and a large keep rose high into the sky. Two smaller buildings squatted nearby, their peaked roofs barely pushing above the battlements. Finally, the gatehouses and main portcullis jutted out from the curtain.
...
He pointed to the stone curtain, where a half-submerged grate opened into the moat.

Well it isn't the same word by word but it is similar I guess. The picture of Castle Hunadora from the Gazetteer is not how I imagined it too be, it is too fantasy for my taste more like a castle made of rough stone and I believe originally the castle to be based on Castle Hunedoara (aka Corvin) in Romania. It is considered one of the largest castles in Europe and is featured as one of the Seven Wonders of Romania.

The first phase of the construction of the castle began shortly after 1421 and was aimed at expanding and strengthening the defensive capabilities of the old city. Thus, the decision was made to increase them by extending the outer wall and building a circular tower on each corner, which was a novelty for the Transylvanian military architecture. The extension was made to the edge of the rock on which the fortress is located and by enclosing St. Peter's Hill, where a part of the fortress garrison was located. A further expansion of the fortress can be identified by the construction of the 33 m gallery and the Nje Boisia tower, which, in fact, represents the only unaltered construction dating from that period.



The shape of the castle as we know it today was conceived in the second half of the 15th century. Due to the developments that took place during that period, with the start of the use by the Turkish army of firearms in parallel with the granting of a high-ranking position in the Hungarian Kingdom, the master of the fortress made the decision to remodel it into a castle. After the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire led by Sultan Mehmed II continued its territorial expansion through Europe, preparing to conquer the next state entity, the Hungarian Kingdom. At that time the Regent of Hungary was precisely the owner of the castle, John Hunyadi (Ioan de Hunedoara). What characterizes the works from this period is the transition from Gothic to Renaissance, especially eloquent in this respect being the semicircular arched portal with Gothic profile through which one enters the diet room today. As it seems, this construction phase ends around 1480.

The fortress was last used for military purposes in 1784 when most of the Transnistrian nobility found protection here against the uprising of Romanian peasants. At the beginning of the 19th century, the castle was burned several times by flames, but due to the attention given by the Austro-Hungarian leadership, it was restored. Initially, it was rebuilt for Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, in gratitude from the Hungarian nation.
It was intended to transform the old fortress into a royal castle in which "the medieval charm with the comfort of the 19th century" could be combined, a concept that leads to the profound alteration of the original character of the fortress.
Until 1874, the architect in charge of restoring the castle reimagined the monument and added roof tiles, arches and the statue of John Hunyadi (Ioan of Hunedoara) above the Painted Tower, raised the level of the roof with various vaulted ceilings and contributed to a variety of features (for example, battlements, a small tower) that reminded of the castle's origins as a fortification.









Castle Hunedoara is featured in the new Nosferatu movie (2024)



Is that Duke Gundar's skeleton in the video?

[Vlad]

Well, I do like the gothic feel of the Gaz picture, didn't find it too fantasy for me. I liked it more than just the square curtain with a keep from KotBR. So I made a picture of a mix of those 2: square curtsin but the keep in such s way that it resembles the Gax picture. I do like the real life Hunadora, but it just doesn't fit the KotBR description: square curtain, moat....

How do you think the author intended it to look like: the manmade mound, would that apply to the keep within the curtain, or is thar curtain on top of that mound? I thought the former.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Well, I do like the gothic feel of the Gaz picture, didn't find it too fantasy for me. I liked it more than just the square curtain with a keep from KotBR. So I made a picture of a mix of those 2: square curtsin but the keep in such s way that it resembles the Gax picture. I do like the real life Hunadora, but it just doesn't fit the KotBR description: square curtain, moat....

How do you think the author intended it to look like: the manmade mound, would that apply to the keep within the curtain, or is thar curtain on top of that mound? I thought the former.

Here is Castle Hunadora from the golden map, too basic in my opinion. I believe the whole castle to be on a mound.
Also someone could add some walls to the complex I uploaded in previous posts to have the square curtain wall as in KotBR. Since there is a road going uphill there can be a moat too surrounding the castle in the 3D printed version. Castle Corvid (Hunedoara) used to have a moat as seen in older illustrations of it. Due to environmental or geographical changes it now just has a small creek passing under that long bridge.

The real version Hunadora (Hunedoara) is a large and expensive structure, really appropriate for a sovereign who drains the people with his extreme taxation, as it is written in Gundarak's black box description.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

I am also thinking of doing a rewrite on Duke Nharov Gundar based on the Book of Secrets article Gundar, Sometimes They Come Back by Pierre “Gomez” van Rooden. I like what Gomez has done but I believe it should have more horror elements to make him appropriate for a freedom fighter turned darklord.

Jan Van Leiden the Anabaptist king of the Münster Rebellion comes to mind, (this can justify the use of German words as Teufeldorf and Dutch/German Zeidenburg) as Münster is located close to the German borders with the Netherlands. Maybe with some additions from the Hussite Wars and the fearless Taborite general Jan Žižka, a pioneer in warfare who never lost a single battle, can be added to the story. The horror here is in the corruption of power, Gundar a rebel hero turned into a bloodthirsty sociopath before becoming a vampire.

Jan Van Leiden ticks a lot of boxes for Duke Gundar, he was a "ladies man" and was pro-polygammy (for men), proclaimed himself "King David" of the "New Jerusalem" (Münster) and behaved as king, when previously evrything was common. He made elaborate banquets for his court while the rest of the besieged citizens of Münster were starving.

"A reign of terror began, with the death penalty now being applied for “blasphemy, seditious language, scolding one’s parents, disobeying one’s master in a household, adultery, lewd conduct, backbiting, spreading scandal, and complaining”
Juhász, Translating Resurrection, p. 281.

The problem with this story is that we don’t really know how much of it is actually true. If the story reads like sensational reporting, it could be because it really was. Much of what we know about the Münster Rebellion, specifically about what went on in the city, comes from hostile sources who would of course play up the scandalous and sensational aspects, in order to discredit Anabaptists and similar groups.

[Vlad]

Hi, what a coincidence. I was planning to write something on the Hymn of Life from the same article, also involving Gundar of course. I was trying to fit it in the story written. Would you like to align our stories a bit, so the articles complement each other?

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Hi, what a coincidence. I was planning to write something on the Hymn of Life from the same article, also involving Gundar of course. I was trying to fit it in the story written. Would you like to align our stories a bit, so the articles complement each other?

I wouldn't mind, I could focus mine before him being turned into a vampire and you could write his post-vampire-turning story.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Also the Great Peasants' War, a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525 is a good source of inspiration for Gundar's background.

The heavily taxed peasantry continued to occupy the lowest stratum of society. In the early 16th century, no peasant could hunt, fish, or chop wood freely, as they previously had, because the lords had recently taken control of common lands. The lord had the right to use his peasants' land as he wished; the peasant could do nothing but watch as his crops were destroyed by wild game and by nobles galloping across his fields in the course of chivalric hunts. When a peasant wished to marry, he not only needed the lord's permission but had to pay a tax. When the peasant died, the lord was entitled to his best cattle, his best garments and his best tools. The justice system, operated by the clergy or wealthy burgher and patrician jurists, gave the peasant no redress. Generations of traditional servitude and the autonomous nature of the provinces limited peasant insurrections to local areas.