Heinrich Stark

Heinrich Stark is the Graf of Starkhundt. He is married to Magdalena Ulbrun. Their children include the recently late Richard Stark and Lisbeth Stark. His parents were Richard Klaus Stark and Helena Daubreisch.

The Graf of Starkhundt is a cruel man prone to black depression and sudden anger. Of late Heinrich has gone from quiet disdain for other nobles to a much harsher approach, openly mocking then for their faults and brutally taking advantage of perceived weakness. In part this change of perception is caused by Heinrich's mistress Gretchen Weisschal. Gretchen has fed Heinrich's feeling of superiority and natural cruelty and in so doing gained a substantial amount of influence over him.

One of the things that Heinrich is most bitter about is his bloodline - when his father died Heinrich inherited no strength from his father as the bloodline passed to another and Heinrich has a number of spies active looking for someone able to alter their appearance as a result. A number of performers and con-men have found themselves at the not-so-tender mercies of the Graf being accused of theft, their brutalized bodies have occasionally been found by the Hoklep lifeguards and rumors are starting to spread to Blackruft of slavers, assassin guilds and worse.

Heinrich routinely creates intrigues to detect disloyalty or excessive greed amongst his minions, on occasion these intrigues have grown beyond his control and he has then employed mercenaries to eliminate the evidence of his involvement.

Heinrich levies severe punishments in his courts - few escape the maximum punishment permissible under Danig law when they are brought before him and he has ruined many families with his fines. Heinrich is however equally harsh to the minor nobles who normally escape censure due to their status and this has earned him the intense dislike of many of the lordlings of Starkhundt.

Heinrich has grown increasingly harsh over time and some suggest that he now resorts to torture to extract confessions or punish those who are impudent to him in court; these rumors are whispered only however - Heinrich is said to have many agents who would carry such treasonous words to him. Count Erik Danig had spoken increasingly sharply to Heinrich in recent months regarding the Graf's brutality however Heinrich's clear efficiency at running his province had spared him any formal censure.

Heinrich's young son Richard was recently killed in a sudden, unexplained duel with Everard Tallon; the common reasons for a duel (women, some insult, drunkenness) appear absent, and the ferocity of the duel on both sides (Richard reputedly frothed at the mouth!) left witnesses shocked, the witnesses have vanished however aside from Gretchen Weisschal, and Heinrich exults in the approach of the headsman?s axe, and has openly boasted he plans to wield it himself.