@criver
Jeffery Dahmer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer
Serial killer raped, murdered, dismembered and in some cases engaged in necrophilia and cannibalism of 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Just imagine his body count if he was in a position of power in a fantasy medieval society, and you got our general right here. Fun fact he is the reason why parents were terrified of letting their children wander out of sight in the 90's.
The princess is likely based off Elizabeth Bathory, link here if you're not familiar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory
Actual body count varies but between 300-650 young women were killed by her over a period of 24 years, with numerous mutilated dead or dying found imprisoned in her dungeon. Archaeological evidence backs the higher end of the body count.
And history is filled with horrendous shit that people did to each other. King Ashurnasipal of Assryia:
I built a pillar over his city gate, and I flayed all the chief men who revolted, and I covered the pillar with their skins; some I walled up within the pillar, some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes, and others I bound to stakes round about the pillar; many within the border of my own land I flayed, and I spread their skins upon the walls; and I cut off the limbs of the officers, of the royal officers who had rebelled.
The Mongol conquests were terrifying too, I mean they killed so many people that the world was forced into cooling down. If they had too many people surrendered, they cut off your head if you were too high, they cut off your knees if they were too low. Prior to sieging Delhi, one general built multiple pyramids with the skulls of people who they killed in battle, a pile for men, a pile for women, and a pile for children, something around 90,000 skulls.
Here's an excerpt from Ibn al-Athir, a chronicler from the 13th century , who sounds like he went half mad from writing down everything:
O would that my mother had never borne me, that I had died before and that I were forgotten [so] tremendous disaster such as had never happened before, and which struck all the world, though the Muslims above all . . . Dadjdjal [Muslim Anti-Christ] will at least spare those who adhere to him, and will only destroy his adversaries. These [Mongols], however, spared none. They killed women, men, children, ripped open the bodies of the pregnant and slaughtered the unborn
So yeah man, these guys aren't over the top at all. It's a nation where the Crown Princess is Elizabeth Bathory, has a general who's Jeffrey Dahmer, and probably has a few other people like Luka Magnotta or Yoo Yung-chul that are high functioning psychopaths in a few other key positions. I mean, battle meant that bathing in the blood of your enemies was gonna happen literally, whether you wanted to or not, so the ones who enjoy it are gonna go join the guards or knights or be like Mr. Cannibal General.