*Spoilers* The Torture Victims

[superluser]

It took 80 fairly blatant kidnapping/murders to get the higher-ups to do anything about Elizabeth Bathory. I imagine it would take more if Alexander were being careful, using prisoners, and staging the kidnappings as the victims of supernatural forces. The Thirty Years' War was 200 years prior, the Gatherers could have been taking a lot of scapegoating for him.

That makes it slightly more plausible. Note, however, that those 80 kidnappings/murders took place over the span of 7 years. We're talking about maybe 15 per year. Alexander's were ten times that much--a full order of magnitude--and they continued at that rate for hundreds of years. Note also that this means that he can't use the thirty years war to excuse this. The closest that he could come to doing that would be to use the German Peasants' War as cover. That war extended as far north as Goslar, but nowhere near the Baltic Sea, where Brennenberg is said to be located.

I don't know. It still seems improbable to have Alexander kill that many people outside of war and still get away with it. As you say, Bathory was put on trial for killing 80 people over the span of a decade. Not also that there would have been ample reason for the nobles to go against Alexander, since he would have been ruling in that area during times when it was not under Prussian control. Depending on where exactly it is, this would have been the time of the Second Northern War or the period just after the Thirty Years' War, when this area would have been under Swedish or Holy Roman Empire control. Being a future member of the Order of the Black Eagle at the time would have been cause for nobles to spread rumors (founded or not) about you.

Even if he did kill that many, it still makes it very difficult to relate to any of the actual victims, since they just blur together.