Oh for Morrow’s sake, let me tell the story, Beazel, you suck at it. You do. And I outrank you.

 

So, yeah, we’ve finally drawn the warcaster into the open, right by the pool. I guess even warcasters get thirsty after a couple days in the desert. We’d whittled his group down throughout the day to just him.

 

We’d let his men approach the pool, and then shoot them when they’d try to get water back to him. Well, we were shooting at the warcaster–trying to anyway, and not having much luck. He could duck and cover, that Menite bastard could. Havlock would blast the men with the canteens. Great bolts of lightning crackling out of his hands. We were all pretty beat by that point. None of us were shooting well, not even Havlock. Sometimes it took a couple lightning bolts blasting the already blasted red dirt before nailing the poor sucker with the canteen. The Menite wasn’t shooting that well either. More than once he lobbed magic fire at us, and missed.

 

Finally, though, Havlock sets us up in ambush, after dark. He set some kind of magic boobytrap, then pulled us back from the pool so that the warcaster will make a try for the water. He does make a try for it, starting with raining down a shitload of fire right on top of the pool. It’s a good thing we’d pulled back or that would’ve been the last of us, I’m sure. So he drops fire on us–or what he thinks is us–then he heads to the pool.

 

Before he can get there, Havlock and the Sargeant come running over the rise. The warcaster gets off a shot with his pistol, winging poor Tev here. Even after three-four days in the desert, Tev was still the largest target among us. Anyway, then Havlock demands the warcaster surrender. After all, he’s outnumbered five to one. The warcaster struggles with it–you can see it on his face, he really wants to burn us all right then and there–but finally he drops his empty pistol and surrenders.

 

Havlock has us bind his arms. Then–and this is what we mean when we call Havlock a right bastard–then he tells the warcaster to help himself to the pool. Yeah, that’s right, the same pool Havlock boobytrapped with some kind of magic. Beazel makes some kind of bonehead comment about the pool, but the warcaster doesn’t seem to hear him. Havlock did hear you, though, you better hope he forgets.

 

Anyway, his hands are bound, but the warcaster–I think his name was Villius–he goes to the pool, kneels down and puts his face to the water to take a drink. And BOOM! All our ears are ringing and the warcaster has been blown back from the water. He lands in a face up heap, his ears and nose bleeding, but still living.

 

Smiling, Havlock stands over the warcaster–and then hits him with bolt after bolt of lightning. Yeah, he killed him. Maybe four times, at least. There wasn’t much left.

 

That Havlock, he’s a right bastard. Don’t get on his bad side.

 

Treasure-hunting in the warzones of the Iron Kingdoms.

 

The PC’s are ex-military (or ex-something) bad-asses, hunting artifacts of power as the wars of the Iron Kingdoms rage around them.

 

 

 

GURPS 4th Edition

 

150 Character Points

-75 Max Disads (includes quirks)

-5 Max Quirks

 

-David

 

 

A group of friends in western Cygnar come together to seek adventure, explore ancient ruins, find treasure–and try not to get killed/eaten/digested/et cetera.

 

 

576 AR – Death of Vinter Raelthorne III, crown passes to Vinter Raelthorne IV.

 

579 AR – Vinter Raelthorne IV creates the Inquisition.

 

584-588 AR – Scharde (Cryxian) Invasions harass the Cygnaran coasts. Many villages are razed, their inhabitants’s bodies taken. Cygnaran navy and army are hard pressed to defend against these seemingly random attacks.

 

594 AR – Leto Raelthorne leads a coup and deposes his brother, Vinter Raelthorne IV. Vinter IV escapes into the Bloodstone Marshes before he can be tried. After the coup, Leto Raelthorne dismantles the Inquisition, restructures several duchies and reforms the military.

 

595 AR – The present.

 

 

All PC’s begin the game as 1st level. Attributes are purchased with point buy (as described here) from 32 points. Classes are from IKCG (with occasional house rules as described on the Wiki), based on my d20 house rules. IKCG Wiki overrides the d20RM Wiki.

 

PC’s start with 200 crowns (gp) to buy initial equipment. Equipment in the IKCG is available. Most equipment listed in the PHB is available, as well. No more than 50 crowns can be spent on one item. (Starting money can be modified with the Money perk or the Poor disad.)

 

All PC’s are currently living in the town of Brockerton, near the Cygnaran port city of Ramarck. Brockerton isn’t very large, but there’s enough diversity such that any Iron Kingdoms race (except blighted) can be chosen, as well as any Iron Kingdoms class. Races with a level adjustment will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis to keep things equitable.

 

Each PC will have a mentor (free Contact perk; up to 5 pts) in Brockerton or Ramarck or environs. The name and nature of this mentor will be determined by the player (with some GM input, if necessary). The mentor doesn’t have to be the same class as the PC. The mentor can be family, or not. The mentor can be up to 6th level.

 

(example) Mentor: Contact 11-, Contact has very useful skills or resources, Good relationship.

 

PC’s can feel free to take advantage of the Perks & Disads house rule. Up to 50 pts (no more than 25 pts on a single disadvantage). Please make DNPC’s, Rivals, Psychological Disads and more.

 

 

I’m planning to have rapid advancement of the PC’s through the first 5-6 levels. After that, we’ll see.

 

A part of that rapid advancement includes “gaps” in the timeline between adventures (jumping from one month to the next, for example, or encompassing entire “seasons” like in Henry’s Ars Magica campaign, but with no need for Companions), where I expect the players to provide a bit of narration about what their PC’s are doing.

 

The structure of the campaign as a whole, though, depends on the PC’s (very unlike Empty Eye Sockets, much more like the Three Prawns Crew).

 

I got the idea for this campaign from a couple of sources. First, all of the ribbing I take for not handing out treasure prodded me to, second, consider a more traditional D&D campaign that’s not like one I would usually create in which I could hand out all that missing treasure. Third, I haven’t run a campaign from 1st level since The Shackled City in 2006. And finally, I remembered something Ian once said, “I’m all about the clichés, man.” Clichés or not (and there were, in abundance), I really enjoyed Ian’s campaign. (James and Zac have likely already noticed that I borrowed the “you have a mentor in town” idea from Ian. What else did I borrow? Glass-eyed cows? Mentor-eating harpies? I’ll never tell…)

 

If there are any questions, please feel free to ask.

 

-David

Cormin Fellblade (Mike)

Pali (Zac)

Taryn Go’vena (James)

Callus (Steven)

 

Morning dawned over the Satyxis jungle, bringing with it the sound of something large and mechanikal crashing through toward the party’s camp. The party, led by Pali on his riding dog, Simon, broke camp in a hurry, heading east, toward the city. The sound of another Something Large coming at them from the east, caused them to speculate on being herded and to turn to run south, to the beach.

 

Callus, a combat alchemist, slipped into the underbrush and hid to await the Something Large and maybe blow it up. At the same time, Taryn told the rest of the party to get to the beach, and she would try to distract the Something Large and head it away from them. Just as the Something Large came into view from Taryn’s position–and revealed itself as a Deathripper bonejack–it passed Callus’s position. Callus threw one his hasty concoctions, exploding a fireball against the back of the bonejack, damaging it. Taryn yelled to get the bonejack’s attention–and to tell Callus to get to the beach.

 

Pali, Cormin and Doldrum reached the beach and found that, yes, they were being herded. A Leviathan helljack waited on the beach, just past the waterline. The Leviathan turned and headed at them. Cormin launched a fireball at it, and rocked it some, as Pali cast water breathing on all of them and headed into the surf. Doldrum followed Pali, then paused to use a fell call on the Leviathan. The Leviathan closed distance, and used one of its hooks to knock Pali and Simon out of the water and back to the beach.

 

Callus reached the beach then, saw the Leviathan, and threw another of his hasty concoctions. Doldrum got caught in the blast and enraged. The trollkin charged the Iosian.

 

Meanwhile, Taryn had led the Deathripper on a curving path to the south and west. She heard a third Something Large, presumably another bonejack, in the jungle heading towards her. So she lost the bonejack and raced up the beach to rejoin the party. She arrived in time to calm Doldrum down and see the Leviathan take more damage and, finally, explode into pieces in the water. But there was still a third bonejack crashing through the jungle toward them. Callus threw down a fog concoction to obscure their escape.

 

Having made sure that everyone could breath under water, with the added benefit of freedom of movement, the party headed into the surf just as a Deathripper bonejack came out of the jungle. The bonejack, barely visible through the fog, stomped around on the beach, followed them a short distance, but didn’t go into the water.

 

The party stayed under the water as they made their way around the outer breakwaters and into the main harbor below the city. Pali used his turning ability to destroy the occasional bits of undead detritus they saw moving around in the muck at the bottom of the harbor. Pali and Doldrum worked together to remove the iron grate from the large storm drain Taryn had found on her earlier reconnoiter.

 

The party worked its way through the sewer and storm drain system of the city, following the Orgoth compass up to the fourth level of the city. The pipes then became too small for Doldrum and Cormin. Callus was able to whip up a grease potion, though, and used that to coat the trollkin and the gun mage and the party was able to force their way to the fifth level of the city.

 

Taryn, along with Cormin and Callus, went out to reconnoiter again. The fifth level of the city seemed to be mostly wealthy multistory residences made of white stone. Though there was a clear space before the last, innermost wall of the city, a number of houses seemed to have been built into it. Taryn spotted guards moving atop the wall, but there wasn’t much else going on. The three of them went back to report and plan their assault on the large temple-palace complex that dominated the sixth, topmost level of the city.

 

The party waited until midnight, then left the storm drain holding tank they had been hiding in and went to the wall. Pali used shape stone to create a narrow, up-angled crawl hole through the wall. They went through the hole and found themselves inside the temple-palace complex. The temple-palace was two back-to-back ziggurats topped with massive, twisted horns. Consulting the Orgoth compass, they saw it pointed just past half way up the southern ziggurat.

 

Picking a point as far as possible from the main stairway up the south face of the ziggurat, Taryn climbed up to the first level. She secured a rope so Doldrum could come up. Then, while Doldrum assisted the rest of the party up, she waited in hiding for the lone guard on patrol of this level. She came out of the shadows, stunned the guard and then broke her neck. As the party continued up to the fourth level of the ziggurat, she had to kill another guard. This one didn’t go quite as smooth, but still Taryn was able to silence her before she could call out.

 

On the fourth level, the Orgoth compass pointed into the heart ziggurat. Callus pulled on a stone to mud concoction and poured it, quietly, against the wall. The wall collapsed, opening a view of an audience chamber.

 

An audience chamber full of undead thralls, ranks of Satyxis guards, a Satyxis in warcaster armor, an iron lich, and, dominating it all, what could only be the Orgoth artifact they had been sent to find and destroy. The artifact was a huge collection of interconnected spheres, covered with Orgoth runes and supporting itself on at least a dozen long, metal spider legs.

 

A voice echo-boomed out of the artifact, “Thank you for bringing my brother.”

 

Doldrum, still holding the Orgoth compass–perhaps something more important than a compass–suddenly found himself magically compelled to give the object to the artifact as alarms rang out all over the city.

 

As Doldrum stepped forward, Taryn hit him with her stunning fist and stopped him as the thralls and Satyxis guards surged forward.

 

Pali resisted the urge to burn-burn-burn! the thralls, and grabbed the Orgoth compass from Doldrum before  darting back toward the edge of the tower. Taryn caught up with Pali, who handed her the compass as she passed, and she leaped from the tower, barely touching each level with her toes on her way to the ground. Cormin used alter self to become a winged creature, picked up Pali, and leaped over the edge into the air. Callus threw another stone to mud so that it collapsed the wall and ceiling above the iron lich and the artifact, then pulled out an impact grenade, waved it at Doldrum. “I’ve got the compass,” he shouted and then leaped down to the third level. Doldrum followed Callus over the ledge down to the third level and used his spiked chain to snatch the supposed compass from Callus’s hands. The grenade came loose, flew over Doldrum’s head and exploded against the wall behind him. Doldrum resisted the urge then to charge after Callus, and turned to look around and find the real compass.

 

As they flew off, Cormin and Pali saw the Orgoth artifact leap out of the ziggurat and become airborne. Cormin went into a dive, headed for the safety of the water in the harbor. Pali used sending to communicate with Captain Dromere, telling her to stay away for three days, then make one last check of the planned rendezvous point.

 

The real compass, though, was on its way out of the temple complex. Taryn dodged around and through a growing number of guards who were forming around the hole, and dived into it, sliding down and coming out the far end with a roll and into a run.

 

Pali saw that the Orgoth artifact wasn’t pursuing he and Cormin and seemed to be following Taryn. Pali convinced Cormin of what they had to do, and they banked and headed for the artifact.

 

Taryn went into the sewer system, past where Simon waited for Pali to come back, looking for a place she could use to–hopefully–destroy the compass.

 

Callus went into hiding, trying to find a way out of the temple-palace complex as Doldrum leaped down to the ground level and found himself ringed by Satyxis guards. The guards weren’t attacking him, only surrounding him and threatening him with their halberds, but they were hindering Doldrum’s compulsion to find the compass and give it to the artifact. He whipped his spiked chain around and launched a whirlwind attack.

 

Pali readied himself, holding his bag of fire seeds in front of him, as he and Cormin dived toward the Orgoth artifact. It seemed unaware of them until right before they smashed, as fast they could, into the largest of the rune-engraved iron spheres that made up its body.

 

A massive explosion lit up the night sky above Satyx.

 

Having made her way down to the fourth level of the city, Taryn found a closed off pipe just large enough for the compass to be wedged in. She pushed it in, packed in the explosives they had brought for the destruction of the artifact, added the exploding sling bullets she had been carrying since she first left on this mission, and stepped back just far enough to be out of the direction of the blast, and threw an impact grenade into the pipe.

 

A second explosion rocked the ground throughout the city.

 

Taryn found herself blown out of the sewers, deafened, but still able to land with some minor amount of grace on the edge of a wall that had once been part of a larger structure.

 

Taryn and, from inside the press of Satyxis temple guards, Doldrum saw the Orgoth, belching fire and black smoke teeter in the air, and then fall to the earth, exploding on impact.

 

Taryn went back into the crater she had created to make sure the Orgoth item was destroyed. She found it cracked, and a mummified skull inside. She tore the skull into pieces and smashed the pieces.

 

Seeing that confusion now reigned in the complex, Callus ran for the hole in the wall. He saw Doldrum in the midst of the guards, and threw his last fireball concoction, hitting Doldrum in the side of the head. Doldrum’s fire-protected greatcloak took most of the blast for the trollkin, but it devastated the closest guards, pushing them back and away from Doldrum like a flower blooming.

 

Doldrum spotted Callus, and then ran to the hole and followed the Iosian through the wall. They reached the sewer chamber where they had made their plans and found Taryn there, convincing Simon to come with her. The four of them sneaked through the wreckage of the sewers until they could go no further because of water. Callus used the last of his alchemical supplies to whip up some potions of water breathing, and they headed out.

 

They waited in the jungle at the rendezvous point, for Captain Dromere, and for Cormin. Doldrum had seen Pali, but the couldn’t be sure that the creature that had been flying with him was Cormin and not some beast that Pali had been able to summon. Doldrum’s survival skills kept them alive as they waited.

 

On the third evening, just after sunset, a light appeared on the water, nearly at the horizon. Callus used a flare to signal back, and within a couple hours they were back on the Wicked Little Sister. Captain Dromere told them about Pali’s message, explaining why she had not come earlier.

 

They took a long route back to Five Fingers, avoiding any other ships.

 

They told their story to Bastian Lattimore. They mourned for Pali and Cormin, and then they headed up the Black River, each of them going home. Doldrum went back to his Kriel. Callus returned to Ios. And Taryn took Simon with her back to her family in Corvis.

 

Thus ends the campaign “Empty Eye Sockets”.

Cormin Fellblade (Mike)

Pali (Zac)

Taryn Go’vena (James)

 

Aboard the Wicked Little Sister, the party found the Orgoth compass pointing to an island. Tacking around the island, a starkly beautiful city built of white stone came into view. The city was built in terraces leading from a large harbor to a palace or temple on the peak of the hills. Two curved and twisted spires rose from the palace like giant ram’s horns. The harbor had a number of large ships of the line and merchant vessels. Terraced fields surrounded the city. Captain Dromere recognized the description of Satyx, the city of the Satyxis, and she immediately set sail to put distance between the city and her ship.

 

The party arranged with Captain Dromere to drop them off around the curve of the island, out of sight of the city. Captain Dromere agreed to revisit that spot after sunset for the next 8 days and pick up the party if they were there.

 

The party headed into the jungle, moving at a very quick pace due to Pali’s magic. They setup camp when the magic wore off. Just before dawn, a large, blighted beast attacked the camp. The beast pounced on Pali and took off with him. Taryn and Doldrum followed the beast and killed it, rescuing Pali.

 

The next day, Taryn and Doldrum reconnoitered the city of Satyx and the surrounding terrace fields. They observed very few men, and most of those were undead working the fields around the city. Doldrum saw an iron lich with entourage headed down to the harbor from the palace or temple. Taryn used more of Pali’s magic to sneak into the harbor under water. She found a large sewer pipe that she was able to follow, through various and ever-smaller pipes into a holding tank beneath the first level of the city.

 

When Taryn and Doldrum returned to the party’s camp, they spent the evening planning how they would infiltrate the city with their casks of explosives.

Cormin Fellblade (Mike)

Pali (Zac)

Taryn Go’vena (James)

 

The party met with Bastian Lattimore. The party said they planned to follow the “Orgoth compass” on the assumption it pointed to the missing artifact. Lattimore introduced the party to Captain Nivenne Dromere. “Captain Dromere is one of the most feared pirates from Five Fingers. Her schooner Wicked Sister frightens merchant shipping up and down the coast.”

 

Captain Dromere sneered at the introduction. “You can flatter me all you want Bastian, I still won’t fuck you.” Captain Dromere offered to take the party on her smaller vessel, the Wicked Little Sister, evidently as repayment for a favor she owed Lattimore.

 

Lattimore also told the party that Ginari had not left Five Fingers as planned. The merchant had booked passage on a boat bound upriver. The boat had left that morning without Ginari on it. Lattimore suspected Cryxian agents had taken Ginari, and were undoubtedly questioning him. “Whatever Ginari knew, you now must assume that the Cryxian agents know.” In a related development, Lattimore told the party that he had received word that a cleric of Toruk was in Five Fingers.

 

The party worked out travel arrangements with Captain Dromere, and went their separate ways to get ready to leave.

 

Early morning two days later, Doldrum and Pali walked together to the Wicked Little Sister’s berth. On their way, they found themselves face to face with still-living but horribly decayed and corrupted form of a cleric of Toruk. The cleric used domination to find out when one carried the Orgoth compass. A net fell on Doldrum from the heights as a black ogrun moved in to attack. Doldrum and Pali fought the black ogrun as smoke grenades fell and obscured the street. The cleric disappeared during the fight. The black ogrun picked up Doldrum and attempted to carry the trollkin off. He didn’t get far before he was toppled under attacks from both Pali and Doldrum. The two left the ogrun bleeding to death on the street–but took his large mechanikal chain sword–and rushed to waiting Wicked Little Sister.

 

Wicked Little Sister put to sea, heading due west in order to triangulate a rough location of where they were headed.

 

Two nights out of Five Fingers, while the boat was at anchor, roiling smoke on the water erupted into a small pirate vessel that pulled alongside and attacked Wicked Little Sister. As the battle progressed, the party realized they were fighting revenants, undead sailors that reformed themselves after being destroyed, attacking over and over.

 

The party fought the revenants on their own black boat. Taryn fought her way to the wheeldeck to face the revenant captain, and the Satyxis woman with the broken horn who was the source of magical attacks. Pali forced undead away from him, and unleashed searing light against the mast of the pirate ship. Doldrum and Cormin fought and destroyed revenants one after the other, but the creatures kept reforming and attacking.

 

Finally, Captain Dromere’s crew cut Wicked Little Sister free of the pirate vessel and pulled away. The party leaped back to the boat. When the pirate vessel made to follow, its mast broke. They fell behind.

 

Everyone went up a level.

Doldrum Deepthroat (Henry)

Pali (Zac)

Taryn Go’vena (James)

 

Doldrum, Pali and Taryn had a long talk with Genari. Genari kept trying to get them to go back to his shop so he could retrieve “some things”. Finally, the party admitted they had already found his secret vault and had both his spell book and the odd Orgoth device.  Ginari took back his spellbook, but said the party could keep the Orgoth compass.

 

Ginari told them he acquired the “Orgoth compass” in late 604 AR in a trade with a junk dealer, Elder Boggins, who had collected it on his travels up the coast of Cygnar. The compass, a sphere obviously old and almost certainly of Orgoth manufacture, had value. The trick was to figure out who would want it. There were collectors of Orgoth artifacts, even ones that appeared to be as useless as this one. So Ginari held onto it. Which is to say, it sat on a shelf of his antiques and arcane mechanika shop in Crucible Alley on Doleth Island.

 

One day it occurred to Ginari, out of the blue, that maybe the compass pointed to something interesting. Something  interesting right here in Five Fingers. He hired a few men to help him and he headed into the sewers and caverns of Hospice Island. That was early 605.

 

In late 605, with a few replacements for the men lost to various perils of labyrinth under Five Fingers–and more than a few Orgoth (and more recent) treasures to augment his collection–Ginari found himself in a treasure trove beyond his imagination: an Orgoth laboratory. There was a huge construct in the library, composed of metal spheres bound together and what appeared to be spider-like metal legs. There was no way to get that construct out without dismantling it, but Ginari didn’t mind. The rest of the laboratory was a treasure trove.

 

Over the next months, Ginari and his chief sewer stomper, Mikolo Rastov, made numerous trips to the laboratory, taking out carts and carts of Orgoth implements and equipment. Ginari made a lot of money. People noticed. Ginari said he believed that Rastov had sold him out, either to High Captain Waernuk or to the Cryx.

 

After the invasion, Waernuk found Ginari and offered him a “safe haven” in exchange for Ginari’s knowledge of the location of the Orgoth laboratory. Not trusting Waernuk (who didn’t seem to know about the compass), Ginari hid the compass in the once-secret vault in his shop and told Waernuk nothing about it. The compass no longer pointed to the laboratory, but it wasn’t necessary any more. The Cryx had blasted the existing Orgoth tunnels and sewer pipes and caverns to create a wide, direct path to the laboratory–and to take out the huge construct. The Cryx didn’t leave much behind, but they hadn’t found everything.

 

In the weeks since the invasion, Waernuk had Ginari on a short leash, pumping him for more information about Orgoth artifacts–especially about the huge construct. But to Ginari, all it looked like was a collection of spherical boilers on spider legs. He had never seen anything like it before.

 

Hoping to discover more information, the party had Ginari lead them to the Orgoth laboratory. They also discussed the possibility that the “compass” had never pointed simply at the laboratory, but at the huge construct which the Cryx had taken. And might be pointing at it still.

 

The Cryx had created a wide path starting in the Chatterstones, the crypts for the poor of Five Fingers, and extending in the underbelly of Hospice Island, heading down in a wide spiral. The party encountered Orgoth-style undead creatures, men and women who had been fused with various types of weapons. Then the party fought a hideous creature that used a still-living torture victim to attack them with waves of pain.

 

After that, they searched through the gutted remains of the laboratory. In what appeared to have been some kind of office, they found a secret chamber with an old scimitar and a collection of parchment plans nearly destroyed by time. Pali managed to reconstruct the parchments with magic, but they fell apart again when touched. The plans seemed to be mechanikal-like schematics, with corrections and Orgoth notes scribbled on them. Ginari told them that the plans resembled the huge construct. Using a book to keep the parchments intact, the party took them along with the scimitar.

 

No one wanted the scimitar because it’s blade seemed to absorb light, giving it a black aura. Taryn took the scimitar back to the Temple of Menoth and handed it over to her contact there, for investigation and destruction.

 

Ginari said he wanted to make a long trip inland, as far as Corvis maybe. The party bid him good-bye and went to the Cutting Board to discuss what their next step should be.

Doldrum Deepthraot (Henry)

Pali (Zac)

Taryn Go’vena (James)

 

Not wanting to trust the locals, the party decided to have Cormin carry the spell book and have Doldrum keep the Orgoth device. (Unless the GM remembered that wrong.)

 

The party went to the Laden Galleon to find Devlin Darkmantle. Unfortunately, Cormin was unable to go. Much  to his disappointment. Doldrum introduced himself and sat in on Devlin’s game while Pali and Taryn kept their eyes on the crowd. Doldrum told Devlin he was looking for the next location of Waernuk’s Death Pits. Devlin said he had never been, but knew someone who might be able to help.

 

Pali and Taryn tailed Doldrum and Devlin as they moved on to another casino. Taryn saw a woman in a black overcoat follow Doldrum and Devlin out of the Laden Galleon and signal someone else. Unfortunately, Taryn missed who the signal went to.

 

The next morning, the party met Devlin at the Brideless Bogey on Chaser’s Isle. Devlin introduced them to Montador Masi, a pit fighter. Masi agreed to lead the party to the Death Pit event that night, though it would cost them 100 crowns each. He told them to meet him at the Cacogen Tavern after nightfall.

 

Masi took an interest in Taryn, and offered to show her around Dag’s Ward. He introduced her briefly to “Dainty Dan” Haggise. Taryn was shocked to see a couple of Thamarites walking around openly.

 

That night, the party went to the Cacogen Tavern. While they waited for Masi, a tall, thin older man with dark eyes and hollow cheeks accompanied by a woman entered and headed for the back. Both wore black and red robes, and the man had gold brooch in the shape of a Telgesh rune. The woman looked at Pali and seemed to recognize him, though she continued on her way.

 

Masi arrived soon after. He took their money and led them through the restaurant to the basement, and down into what he said were Orgoth torture chambers. They walked through tunnels and chambers. Masi told them that the Five Fingers sewer system, such as it was, interconnected with old Orgoth tunnels and some natural caverns. As they walked, other small groups joined up with them, obviously heading to the Death Pit, as well.

 

They finally came to a large chamber that Masi said was an Orgoth torture chamber. Masi looked spooked. “These Orgoth torture chambers give me the creeps,” he said. “I don’t fight in the Death Pits for that reason. They seem to want my soul.” The room had a raised gallery over a 50′ diameter pit. The gallery extended 2/3 of the way around the pit, with raw cavern wall completing the circle. Faded and marred Orgoth runes were etched in the stone floor and worked into the gutters for blood, all of it forming a leering face.

 

Velter Waernuk opened the Death Pit and the fighting began. The earlier bouts weren’t to the death, though the crowd didn’t seem to mind if that happened. Taryn spotted a man who matched Genari’s description standing near Wearnuk, and she went over there. After the first fight, Waernuk had Garrigan Hern take over and left. Genari didn’t leave with him. Taryn spotted a black ogrun, obviously armed with a large sword on its back, that she had seen the night before while keeping an eye on Doldrum and Devlin.

 

An ogrun confronted Doldrum, and then attacked when Doldrum–”For the Brethren of the Wurm!”–confirmed his identity. The crowd pulled away from the two large combatants. Doldrum used his spiked chain while the ogrun attacked with a mechanikally enhanced warcleaver. Pali took part in the battle, dropping flame strikes on the ogrun. Taryn bet on the outcome of the battle, and used the opportunity to talk to Genari. When the ogrun stopped getting back up again, Doldrum thanked Pali and took the ogrun’s warcleaver. Someone in the crowd told Doldrum that the ogrun’s name was Gorlick. The crowd went back to watching the fight in the pit.

 

Across the pit from him, Pali saw a woman he had seen at the Laden Galleon the night before draw a gun and shoot one of the combatants in the pit. At the same time, a smoke grenade went off near where Taryn stood. Pali air walked over the pit for a better vantage point, while Doldrum pushed through the crowd toward Taryn. Taryn saw the black ogrun loom over her and grab Genari. Taryn used her light chain to pull a surprised Genari out of the black ogrun’s grasp and move into the crowd. Doldrum moved to block the ogrun. Pali used shatter to delay the ogrun’s drawing his sword. Another smoke grenade went off.

 

The crowd were all trying to leave the chamber at once. Taryn navigated through the scrum, keeping a tight hold on Genari. Pali and Doldrum joined up and headed out after Taryn.

 

After the first couple turns, Taryn was no longer sure which way to get back to the street level. Fortunately, Genari seemed to know. Most of the crowd followed them, including Doldrum and Pali. They emerged under the cloudy night sky just before midnight.

Doldrum Deepthraot (Henry)

Cormin Fellblade (Mike)

Pali (Zac)

Taryn Go’vena (James)

 

Doldrum Deepthroat, a trollkin fell caller of kith Gordon in the Bydand kriel of the Vescheneg Headlands on the coast of Khador, arrived in Five Fingers. He checked in with Olvemir Crenichko of the Greylords Covenant, his contact in Five Fingers, then walked to the Kithgrav Bourg on Hospice Island to meet Heath Bluetongue.

 

Cormin Fellblade, a gun mage of Cygnar, arrived and went to Bull Island to meet his contact, Ambassador Lord Dardan Wyatt. Wyatt sent Cormin to a hotel on Captain’s Isle.

 

Pali, a gobber cleric of Dhunia from the wilds of Ord, walked into Five Fingers and crossed the bridge to Bull Island. His contact, Belchor Degrata, offered him a room in his brownstone.

 

Taryn Go’vena, monk of the Order of the Fist and mother of tree, arrived and found the small Temple of Menoth on Doleth Island. Larkin Kaddock, priest of the temple, welcomed her and told her where she could find lodging.

 

On 8 Solesh, 606 AR, Bastian Lattimore summoned the party to the Cutting Board restaurant of the Rivergrav District on Captain’s Isle. They met in a private room in the rear of the restaurant.

 

Bastian relayed the information he had available:

 

 

Which meant that the party need to find out:

 

Thus, the first step was for the party to find Zakar Ginari. And to do that, they needed to find the date and location of the next Death Pit event. Bastian explained that deep within the Orgoth ruins below Five Fingers, Waernuk’s Death Pits take pit fighting to new levels of violence. The main event at each Death Pit features no limits on the betting, and no limits on the bloodshed.

 

To help get a lead on the Death Pit, Bastian told them, “There’s a gun mage I’m aware of who has done bodyguard work for some of Five Fingers’s pit fighters, though not at a Death Pit. His name is Devlin Darkmantle. Look for him at the Laden Galleon on Captain’s Isle. He’s there most nights.”

 

The party decided to check out Ginari’s wrecked shop, then find Devlin Darkmantle.

 

At Ginari’s shop Doldrum and Cormin explored the wreckage. Doldrum saw evidence that the shop had been searched recently, within the past few days. Cormin found a very well-hidden secret compartment in the floor at the rear. The compartment had a crate and a heavy book, both of them sporting complicated mechanikal locks.

 

Taryn talked to the owner of the shop next door, a gobber named Silk of Silk’s Dusts and Powders. Silk told her that he had seen Genari only once since the invasion. That been 6 weeks ago, in the first days after the Cryx forces had withdrawn. Genari had gone in with a box but came out empty-handed. Silk expressed his own interest in finding Genari, so he could take over the space Genari had seemingly abandoned.

 

Taryn and Pali waited for Cormin and Doldrum on the street across from the shop. Taryn spotted a gobber watching them and went up into the Rigs to chase the gobber down. The gobber used a smoke grenade to make his escape. Down in the street, Pali made Silk very nervous by waving fire about.

 

Taryn and Pali also noticed that a sausage-on-a-bun vender seemed to be interested in what they were saying to each other.

 

Cormin made the crate invisible so that Doldrum could carry it out of the shop without attracting attention.

 

After some starts and stops and lots of discussion tinged with sarcasm and tension, the party went back to the Cutting Board. There Taryn used a couple of Pali’s extra accumulators to open the locks on both the crate and the book. The crate contained a spherical metal object covered with Dodrum identified as Orgoth runes. The object had protoburances and depressions, and a flat gauge on one side. The gauge seemed to function like a compass, always pointing in a south-by-southwesterly direction, even when the gauge was held so that it was vertical.

 

The book proved to be a spell book and mechanikal schematic book of Genari’s.

 

Night became to fall, and the party considered its next move.

 

My Esteemed Colleague,

 

As you no doubt are already aware, in the month of Rowan 606 AR, Cryx landed invading forces in–of all unlikely places–Five Fingers of Ord. The invasion was short-lived. Rallied by Lord Governor Eilish Doyle, who showed previously unseen depths of leadership in the midst of the crisis, the city fought back and drove off the invaders. Unfortunately, the Lord Governor has not been seen since the attack, and is believed to be dead.

 

Indeed, losses on both sides were high, but especially among the poor on Hospice Island. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of men, women and children were forcibly loaded onto numerous ships and taken away in the Cryxian retreat. It was thought at the time, by myself and others, that this harvest of flesh and blood must have been the primary reason for the invasion.

 

We were wrong.

 

The invasion, I have since learned, was a cover, the tragedy of lost lives a smoke screen. The Cryx were after something very different. Based on what information I have been able to collect, I now believe they retrieved and took away with them an artifact from our shared past, a construct or conduit or worse of Orgoth manufacture.

 

In light of recent events in the Thornwood, involving the Lich Lord Asphyxious and the Orgoth Temple of Garrodh, it must be assumed that anything the minions of Lord Toruk valued so highly and took such pains to conceal their interest in affects all free, living, breathing citizens of the Iron Kingdoms. Thankfully, Asphyxious was thwarted in his plans–but this was more by the grace of our various Gods and the chaos of war than by the any effort from the hands of men and dwarfs and elves.

 

And so it is with the intent that the Iron Kingdoms not again be brought to the brink of apocalypse and ruin by a lack of coordinated effort against a common threat of great evil, I, Bastian Lattimore, servant of King Baird Cathor II, have sent you this humble request…

 

–excerpt from a letter sent by Bastian Lattimore to the spy networks of Khador, Cygnar, the Protectorate of Menoth, Rhul, and Ios

 

In game terms:

 

The party is a special team assembled by Bastian Lattimore of Ord. Each PC is a volunteer and a representative of their nation, one per nation. The PC’s are specialists (at whatever they do), but they have a background of working as a spy or covert operative.

 

Any Iron Kingdoms class can be taken (even the ones that haven’t been added to the Wiki yet), including prestige classes. And feel free to take skills from the Five Fingers Underworld Professions list on the Wiki.

 

PC’s will start the campaign as 10th level. Lattimore requested, by name, operatives he knew were in the 12th-15th level range, demonstrating that he knew of those operatives in exchange for being taken seriously and not being sent some bureaucrat or low-level functionary. None of the nations who chose to respond sent the requested operatives–at those levels, the operatives are truly national resources. Instead, they looked for volunteers with proven track records–and perhaps, though not necessarily, with issues about authority and/or a tendency to be a loose cannon.

 

Nations of the Iron Kingdoms to which Lattimore sent his request:

 

(Links are Wikipedia.)

 

Each PC represents one of those nations. No nation sent more than one operative (there’s a war on, after all).

 

Since the PC’s have the background they do, they can be *from* any of the nations of the Iron Kingdoms, including Cryx. But they *represent* the nation that sent them.

 

Any Iron Kingdoms race can be chosen (except blighted).

 

The party members don’t have to like each other (political and religious differences can be points of tension and rivalry), but they do have to be professional enough to work together. In fact, they were chosen for that professionalism (within some flexible definition of “professional”; see “issues about authority” above).

 

In addition, each PC, before he (or she) was sent to Five Fingers, was given the same orders (though spoken in different languages):

 

 

Finally, if a PC wants to have disadvantages and perks, those disadvantages and perks should be “portable”, and not tied to a location that the party isn’t likely to travel to or a situation that isn’t likely to occur within the scope of the campaign. So if you’re Hunted, the hunters must be able to find you even in Five Fingers. Or if you have a Contact, it would only be useful if the contact is in the city of Five Fingers or within Ord or along the Cygnar coast or in the Scharde Islands. And so on.

 

If there are any questions, please feel free to ask.

 

-David