Count Bindewald

Count Bindewald (ビンデバルト伯爵 Bindebaruto-hakushaku) is an archnoble from Ahrensbach who is interested in Devouring commoners.

Count Bindewald is a rather short and severely overweight person with a face that is often compared to a Talfrosch, a feybeast that looks like a giant toad.

Bindewald is arrogant and disdainful of anyone who is beneath him in station.

He planned an assault to obtain Myne during Spring Prayer using his Devouring soldiers. Thanks to the unpredicted presence of Sylvester and Karstedt the ambush failed, but with all attackers either being killed or successfully fleeing, the puppet masters' identities remained secret.

The following year Bindewalt schemed with an assortment of Ehrenfest nobles, including Gloria, Grausam and most importantly Bezewanst the High Bishop. They intended to abduct Myne and force her into a submission contract, while Sylvester and Karstedt were absent for the Achduke's Conference.

When Bindewald tried to enter the city of Ehrenfest like usual with just a letter of invitation by the High Bishop, he found out that the rules for entry had been changed and only a personal invitation of the Archduke himself granted entry into the city. Bezewanst managed to convince his elder sister Veronica, the moster of the Aub, to forge such documents, which allowed Bindewald and several of his devouring soldiers to enter the city, thanks to the negligence of the Gate Commander of the eastern gate, who had been warned about the possibility of forged documents, but unlike the commanders of the other gates failed to inform his subordinates of this in a timly fashion.

At the temple Bindewald signed a submission contract with the devouring baby Dirk, disguised as an adoption contract.

Meanwhile the first a group of Bindewald's devouring soldiers tried to capture Myne in the city streets, but since they hadn't been given a detailed enough description, they ended up capturing Tuuli along with Myne. Either way they were overcome by Damuel and Gunther.

After the attackers were defeated, Myne, Damuel and Gunther headed to the temple to seek Ferdinand's protection, but were intercepted by Bindewald, Bezewanst and the remaining two devouring soldiers before they could make contact with Ferdinand. Despite his lack of physical fitness, Bindewald's much greater mana capacity allowed him to easily toy with Damuel for a while and eventually defeat him. While Myne was able to use her Crushing to incapacitate Bezewanst and hold even Count Bindewald at bay in a mana duel for a short time, the greater numbers of power of Bindewald, Bezewanst and their subordinates were too much for Myne and her companians to overcome. Just when everything seemed lost and Bindewald was about to force Myne's bloody hand onto the submission contract, Ferdinand emerged from his chamber.

Bezewanst accused Myne of attacking nobles - a crime punishable by death for a commoner. Reluctantly Ferdinand moved to subdue Myne, but quickly found out that Myne had already stamped her own blood on a charm that Sylvest had given her, before the encounter with Bindewald started. This meant that Myne was already the adopted daughter of the Archduke and thus well within her right to defend herself against Bindewald and Bezewanst. In fact this turned the situation around, since attacking a member of the archdukal family is a serious crime, even if the attackers did not know at the time who they were hurting.

Now free to act against Bindewald in accordance with the law, Ferdinand moved against Bindewald. Initially the Count was confident and arrogantly mocked Ferdinand, believing that as a mere blue priest he would have neither the training nor the mana capacity to put up much of a fight against someone who graduated from the Royal Academy, but to Bindewald's surprise and dismay, Ferdinand summoned his own schtappe and used it to restrain Bezewanst with ropes of light.

In the following mana duel, the two devouring soldiers and some of Bezewanst's attendents were vaporized completely, leaving no trace behind. Bindewald was badly injured and captured by members of the Knight's Order who arrived shortly afterwards. While technically the crime of attacking a member of the archdukal family is punishable by death, Sylvester decided to put him in a dungeon instead, due to the delicate diplomatic relation with Ahrensbach, where he has remained to this day.

Due to the mana scarcity, Sylvester began to drain mana from Bindewald and use it for Ehrenfest's sake. Among other thing his mana has been used to fill some of the small harvest chalices for Frenbeltag.

His contract with the Dirk was later annulled.

After his imprisonment thirteen of Bindewald's devouring soldiers were used in the attempt to kidnap Rozemyne from the Achduke's castle. They were left behind in Giebe Gerlach's province when Bindewald moved through on his way to Ehrenfest and later transfered to Viscount Joisontak without the latter knowing they were Bindewald's until after he had already used them try to kidnap Charlotte. All of the devouring soldiers attacking the castle were killed in the incident. When the first of their number was slain by Bonifatius it triggered some kind of fail-save enchantment that blew up the others in a chain-reaction.


 * Myne calls him a "toad" due to his outward appearance