In 2523 IC, during Volkmar the Grim's crusade against Sylvania a young man called Dieter, an uninspired and minor apprentice of the Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic Balthasar Gelt, came to his master with an idea. By using the icons of faith that Mannfred von Carstein had cast out buried throughout the region, Gelt could combine magic and faith in such as way as to imprison all Undead within the borders of that blighted region.[1a][1b][1c]