After years of civil war, the Iron Kingdom crumbled. During the Night of Treason, a great Malediction was placed upon the kingdom. The forests became dark and hostile. Wolves and creatures even worse stalked the land. Slowly the kingdom recovered, but it was not what it once was. The knightly order was all but destroyed, and the Master Smiths had disappeared. The secrets of blacksteel were forgotten. An order of Black Priests emerged in Ulm in the last days before the civil war. They formed an Iron Cult, consolidated their position, and forbade the use of magic. Magic outside religion was announced to be sacrilegious and the few surviving Master Smiths were put to the flames. Although magery is forbidden, there are some fortune tellers and members of the Order of the Illuminated Ones who secretly ply their trade in the arcane.

Sanguine Heritage Path Requirement: 3 3 Cost: 44

During the Malediction, evil was let loose in the kingdom. The Hunger that was aroused resulted in cannibalism and practices even worse. Some of the warring nobles succumbed and became Vampires thirsting for human blood. Most of them have disappeared or fallen into perpetual sleep since then, but if enough blood is sacrificed, they might well awaken and serve the Dark God of Ulm. This ritual uses 44 blood slaves to awaken one of the sleeping nobles.

Ritual Summon Unique Vampire Commander:
Note that unless specified otherwise, all vampires have Regeneration 10%, Resist Fire -5, Resist Cold 15, Resist Poison 25, Darkvision 100%, Stealthy +40, Invulnerability 25, and Immortal (1 Month), and dominion spawn thralls

Img	Unit Name	Magic	Special Attributes	Comments
	Ludolf von Achenbach Vampire Count	22	Kills Population 10
	Burkhard Nachtzehrer Blood Marshal	2	Does not have fire vulnerability Pillager (20)
	Erzebet Blood Countess	3	Blood Searcher +2
	Mircalla Vampire Countess	21	Seducer
	Artur Von Dirksen Vampire Count	22
	Lothar Blumenreuter Vivisectionist	22	Adept Researcher (8) Causes Unrest (+1 Per Month)
	Orlak Vampire Count	31	Fear +8
	Hellenbrecht Blood Graf	213	Fear +6

Iron Darts Path Requirement: 1 1 Combat

The Black Priest throws darts of cold iron against his enemies. The iron and the antimagic theurgy of the darts will severely hurt magical beings.

Range: 40 - Casting Time: 100% - Number of Effects: 3(+2/Level) - Precision: 5 - Fatigue: 10 - Damage (x2 vs Magic Beings): 13

Iron Blizzard Path Requirement: 1 1 Combat

The Black Priest throws a swarm of cold iron darts against his enemies. The iron and the antimagic theurgy of the darts will severely hurt magical beings.

Range: 30 - Casting Time: 100% - Number of Effects: 30(+5/Level) - Precision: 3 - Fatigue: 50 - Damage (x2 vs Magic Beings): 10

Gift of the Moon Path Requirement: 1 Combat

The caster calls on the powers of the moon and enchants his wolven companions with invulnerability. Magic weapons and spells will still harm the wolves. The spell can only target wolves.

Range: 30+ - Casting Time: 100% - Area of Affect: 1
Grants Wolves Invulnerability 15

Tempering the Will Path Requirement: 3 Combat

The forces of Ulm have their strength of mind enhanced by magic. Soldiers and beings with high magic resistance are rarely affected by this spell.

Casting Time: 100% - Area of effect: 100% of the battlefield - Easy MR Resist
Raises the Magic Resistance of any unit which fails the check to resist

Sloth of Bears Path Requirement: 2 Ritual Cost: 8

The caster summons a sloth of Great Bears and binds them to service.

Summons 10 Great Bears + 1 per cast level.

At a glance Astral (2, rare 3), Earth (2), Blood (1, rare 2), Death (1), Fire (1), Air (1), Nature (1)
Summonable 3, 3, but cannot summon natively
Heroes give 2, 2, 2.

LA Ulm has a widespread of path access but at very low levels. Luckily, you have easy access to cheap communion slaves, so in battle, this isn't a problem; your wide path access allows you to cast any non-water spell you'd like. However, this will require forging Communion Matrices for your Black Priests. (An important use for their Astral random.)

Outside of battle, LA Ulm will struggle to move up magical paths to cast big rituals. Your vampire summons will give you 3 and 3, though you'll likely already have this on your pretender in order to cast Sanguine Heritage in the first place. Your vampires can be used to site search for better income. Since LA Ulm cannot reliably recruit blood over 1, there is a strong argument to lean into the vampire theme and summon Vampire Lords. With blood thorns and brazen vessels, you can get them up to 5, which gives access to many important spells. Once you have Blood 9 researched, you can empower a select few one further to cast Forces of Darkness.

Your heroes will give you limited access to extremely useful blood cross paths, especially fire and air. Use blood/fire to summon Arch Demons, which will break you into higher fire magic as well as give you some excellent commanders. Blood/air will allow you to summon storm demons (which are excellent).

LA Ulm's most common cross path is 2 1, which comes out of the box on every Member of the Second Tier. This allows Ulm to summon lots of horrors, and with an astral booster and blood-booster any of your Members can cast Call Lesser Horror.

When designing a pretender, be sure to consider how you can build them to cast Sanguine Heritage. While your summons aren't absolutely necessary for your success, without at least 2 (ideally, you'll want 3) and 3 you'll be locking them away from your reach for some time. In doing so you'll also lock yourself out of further access to blood and death.