Archea Player Campaign Reference

Player reference · Through Session 36, January 28, 974

This reference records the campaign through Session 36, including explanations learned after the events they concern. Statements made by witnesses or factions remain attributed where the party cannot independently confirm them. Unresolved questions are collected after the chronology. Session numbers and linked summaries provide routes to fuller accounts.

Archea at the campaign’s beginning — Campaign introduction and Pregame

Archea is a hereditary monarchy governed by King Harold III and a Council of Nobles elected by other nobles. Commoners and slaves have no representation. The Crown controls military and foreign affairs, appointments, and much of justice; the Council controls taxation and can overturn royal decisions with a two-thirds vote. Public offices are sold, including tax-collecting posts whose holders can profit from the collection process. A professional army operates alongside poorly trained conscripts, and the kingdom possesses considerable magical expertise.

The law distinguishes protected “Creatures of the Light” from other intelligent peoples denied its protection. Orcs in particular are hunted, enslaved, and bred in captivity. The official history presents the Righteous War as a justified defense against Orcish aggression; the party’s discoveries progressively challenged that account. Cambria, formerly the Orcish kingdom of Goghnol Mogh, was annexed by Archea at the end of the Righteous War. The province supplies important raw materials and coastal access. Devon shares its northern border and a long rivalry with Archea; the Treaty of Dominica established borders and trade after earlier conflicts over conquered territory. The party has no confirmed account of Devon’s present intentions.

The adventurers came together in Edicaria during a recession. Having left ordinary employment for adventuring, they found that jobs had disappeared and employers demanded experience they did not possess. M. Crezia’s Cambria posting repeatedly lowered its requirements until it admitted beginners. It offered transport to Cambria but no salary and instructed them to follow up on alarming letters from Captain Nelson, who was posted there and to take necessary action to restore royal authority. This assignment to serve the Crown eventually drew them into opposition to it. See the Introduction to the Adventure and Guide to Archea. The guide’s wartime history records the conventional account available at the outset.

Chronology

1. Nelson’s warnings and the journey to Cambria — Pregame and Session 1

Pregame and Session 1 · September 973

The campaign began with an investigation that the government had repeatedly declined to undertake. Captain Alistair Nelson, stationed in Manchester, the capital of Cambria, had sent alarming letters to Captain Monpierre, stationed in Edicaria, the capital of Archea. After Monpierre’s death, Captain Arbuckle tried to get the correspondence taken seriously. It eventually reached M. Crezia, a minor Ministry of the Interior official with little authority and no useful budget. Crezia retrieved material others had discarded and recruited the party as independent adventurers to go to Manchester, speak with Nelson, and discover what was happening in Cambria.

The letters described several crises that were already overlapping: undead encounters, blighted land, the wasting disease called the Withers, organized opposition to the Crown, and suppressed investigations, all complicated by Governor Kanwal’s genial incapacity. Nelson had also found evidence of a literate, sophisticated Orcish civilization that contradicted the history taught by the Crown. He described Colonel Varnes’s altered behavior and suspected that Varnes no longer served the Crown. The party later understood these discoveries as signs of the Reclamation’s emergence and of the buried history surrounding the Righteous War. The plague and some of the apparent obstruction remain less fully explained.

Pfinder and Wolfgang helped decipher Nelson’s correspondence. One letter used a book cipher: its key was the restricted military manual Standardized Use of Magic in Archean Battlefield Contexts (SUMABC), also called the Red Ledger. Monpierre had contributed to it with Nelson and Warlord-Colonel Scarn. Wolfgang obtained a red-covered diary from Monpierre’s surviving relatives, but that was not the manual. Ministry records and the notebook confirmed that the actual manual existed.

The search brought the party to Kardan, a knowledge broker found through an Edicarian speakeasy whose numerical countersign Wolfgang solved. On September 18, Kardan supplied a gem giving access to a pocket-dimensional Maze. He wanted an artifact at its center, which he could not reach himself, and promised the manual in return for retrieving the artifact. He described the Maze as safe but difficult and described the party’s choices as capable of changing history. The players have worked on its puzzles throughout the campaign with the Ring of Dawn rewarding Wolfgang’s progress. One final puzzle remains; Kardan has not yet obtained the central artifact or supplied SUMABC, and the book-cipher letter remains unread. See the Pregame narratives and Kardan’s original bargain.

After meeting Kardan, Ant encountered through a mirror a cloaked figure who claimed intimate knowledge of her and her possible choices. The figure told her she was different and instructed her to tell the party in the morning. She did so, and the group researched warlocks and patrons together. Her patron’s identity and larger purpose remain unexplained; its later visitations and interest in Hollowmere form a continuing personal thread. See Ant’s first patron encounter and the party’s research.

On the caravan journey from Edicaria toward Manchester, the party survived an organized goblin and hobgoblin attack involving wargs, aided by Ironbark’s warning. On reaching Manchester, they found that Nelson had cut his own throat. What had begun as a mission to help a living officer became an investigation into his death and the warnings he had left behind.

Source accounts: Session 1.

2. Manchester: the sewers, the Teacher, and the first revolutionary contacts — Sessions 2–4

Sessions 2–4 · Early October 973

Paid work in Manchester’s sewers brought the party into contact with abnormally aggressive giant rats, a dangerous giant snake, and the lizardfolk Druid of the Sewers. The Druid treated the underground waterways as a living ecosystem rather than a simple refuse channel. The abnormal rats and their Broodfather were traced to illegally dumped industrial and alchemical waste from the Phlogiston Works, which supplied potions and preparations to the army. The party dealt with the immediate threats, and the Druid urged them to address the dumping when they returned to the surface. Other pressing matters intervened, however, and they never returned to the problem. The Druid later lost patience and led the sewer creatures to the surface to destroy the Phlogiston Works. The Crown responded by sending troops, officers, and hired mercenaries underground to subdue the sewers. The fighting continues, and newspapers portray the Druid of the Sewers as a dangerous public enemy.

Vren was killed by the giant constrictor snake during the sewer expedition. The party killed the snake, and Ironbark recovered her remains and equipment. Gareth joined afterward and took part in the jailbreak. Sessions 3 and 4.

Also in the sewers, the party discovered the tomb of an Orcish Teacher: a respected scholar whose burial and writings contradicted the notion that Orcs had possessed neither learning nor civilized institutions. Copies of the inscriptions were brought to scholars studying Orcish culture, including the clandestine Society for the Study of Orcish. This was the first substantial physical corroboration of the historical doubts expressed in Nelson’s letters.

Using a forged authorization and an accommodating official, the party arranged to question Nelson’s corpse. He confirmed that his death had been suicide, undertaken to prevent something within him from using his hands and voice. He also reiterated the larger dangers: rising dead, the Withers, the Blades’ conspiracy, and the sleeping Governor. Varnes’s officers later confirmed that Varnes had tried unsuccessfully to recruit Nelson. Together, those accounts make coercion connected with that attempt a serious explanation for Nelson’s death, but they do not establish its exact magical mechanism.

In Dolven’s Hollow, Barin the blacksmith and his son Phineas became the party’s principal contacts with the Ebon Blades, an insurgency dedicated to overthrowing the Crown. Having witnessed royal cruelty, repression, and incompetence, the party sympathized with their cause. Barin asked them to free Kenning from prison, initially presenting him as a victim of official repression. Kenning’s actual arrest involved distributing copies of the Ember, an underground broadsheet, and a violent confrontation with guards when he was arrested. That discrepancy mattered: the Blades could offer the party genuine resistance to the Crown while still presenting it with a convenient account of a particular recruit’s conduct.

Cassyndra’s aunt Grelda had also fallen into Crown custody. To frustrate interrogation, she had cut out her own tongue; she was subsequently transferred to the newly constructed Northmarch Correctional Bastion near the village of Bastionstead. Pfinder meanwhile left active adventuring for journalism, supporting himself with paid work through the Royal Standard and undermining the Crown after hours by contributing to the Ragged Quill. He introduced Merrythought, who joined the party.

Wolfgang arranged reconnaissance for the jailbreak through the itinerant meat peddler CMOT Dibbler: the party bought one hundred meatpies and paid him to introduce them to the guards as food wholesalers offering samples. This let Wolfgang distribute pies inside, inspect the prison, and locate Kenning’s second-floor cell. Session 4.

On October 12, the party broke into Manchester’s Sovereign Street prison and freed Kenning, the forger Silas Venn of the Black Lily, and other prisoners. They took and ultimately destroyed prison records. Some of those inadvertently freed in the chaos were members of the Cult of the Unmaking, which the party later encountered in Briarfell, and at least one other was a murderer. Silas and the Black Lily became useful contacts. Silas later repaid his rescue debt by arranging a forgery for the party’s Bastionstead operation.

Source accounts: Session 2, Session 3, Session 4.

3. The tax ambush and the waterworks — Sessions 5–7

Sessions 5–7 · Mid-October 973

At Barin’s urging, the party attacked tax collectors described as brutal instruments of oppression. The paperwork they recovered included evidence of forbearance, complicating the justification offered for the killings. The party concealed the deaths and destroyed identifying evidence to frustrate investigation through the dead. The party nevertheless concluded that Barin’s description was accurate and the forbearance documents were false.

During the withdrawal, the party encountered Rudric Thorn, an undead mercenary carrying a shovel with fresh earth on it and the red-and-blue jagged sigil that would recur across the campaign. They later understood the shovel and subsequent grave disturbances as part of Soulreaper’s systematic recovery of bodies for an undead army.

A sinkhole near Dolven’s Hollow exposed ancient Orcish waterworks that had become a refuge during the Righteous War. Their engineering, records, and murals showed scientific knowledge and cooperation across peoples. Their dead showed something else: workers, refugees, and worshippers had been killed by catastrophic necrotic violence. The party later understood that massacre as an application of the Crown’s Sereth weapons, rather than evidence of the inherent Orcish savagery claimed in official history.

Deeper within the complex, a Sereth trapped for centuries possessed Ironbark and animated skeletons. It described being summoned and shaped for the Crown’s war and then abandoned and sealed away. It tried to cajole and then force the party to release it. The party responded by joining forces with the Argent Company, another adventuring group exploring the facility. Together they discovered a water elemental that had remained there since its use as an Orcish waterworks.

Both groups agreed to kill the Sereth but disagreed over the water elemental. The party wanted to release it; Argent wanted to capture it, arguing that it could be dangerous if free, useful to Archean industry, and personally lucrative. They deferred the argument until after destroying the Sereth.

Ironbark died during that fight, falling down an elevator shaft in circumstances that suggested the gods had singled him out. The survivors killed the Sereth, then resumed the argument over the elemental.

The resulting argument became a second fight after the Argent Compan took a hard line and Laveleen responded with violence. A fireball from Argent’s wizard nearly destroyed the party. Alaric, their leader, stopped the engagement and withdrew, but subsequently helped pull the adventurers to safety as the panicking elemental broke waterways and brought down the complex. The elemental escaped into the river and subsequently proved a benign, occasionally helpful presence in local waterways, contrary to Argent’s warnings about releasing it. The episode established a lasting disagreement with Argent over control and freedom, while also showing that Alaric was capable of restraint and assistance after open hostility.

Source accounts: Session 5, Session 6, Session 7.

4. A tavern restored and eight very troublesome companions — Sessions 8–10

Sessions 8–10 · Late October 973

At the Broken Handle in Miley, the party investigated an infestation of rum gremlins whose presence spread drunkenness and misery. They also encountered the history of Templeton Bramblebee, an ancestor in Ant’s family whom the Crown had executed after he predicted the kingdom’s eventual destruction.

The tavern’s troubles were addressed with the aid of Oban Bryne, a clurichaun who had spent centuries wandering after heartbreak. The party helped restore his purpose through a new drink and a role at the tavern. They defeated the gremlins’ attempted ritual of perpetual drunkenness, but spared eight who surrendered and placed them under elaborate promises governing travel, drinking, behavior, and obedience to Cassyndra. The party’s plan was to take the captured rum gremlins to the Northmarch Correctional Bastion and sneak them inside so that they could inflict their unique brand of misery on the Crown. Oban remained as the tavern’s guardian.

The gremlins then accompanied the party northeast. What began as an inconvenient collection of supernatural nuisances acquired individual attachments and unexpected usefulness. Pabst adopted Wolfgang as a father figure; the gremlins helped on watch, reacted to invisible dangers, and showed concern for others. On the road the party received a message invoking Getty and Shamus, survived invisible attackers using necrotic attacks, and recovered Getty’s bracelet. The bracelet later proved mundane; its emotional and investigative importance did not depend on enchantment.

The party also carried the Ring of Dawn from the Maze strand. It was eventually identified as a hospitality ring that could summon a barmaid spirit, raising questions about the terms of magical service as well as providing a useful resource.

Source accounts: Session 8, Session 9, Session 10.

5. Northmarch’s foundation and the rescue beneath it — Sessions 10–14

Sessions 10–14 · Late October–November 6, 973

At Bastionstead, near Northmarch, the party found a prison whose authorities divided responsibility among military, civil, administrative, and magical commands. The Crown had built the prison above an antimagic field to confine powerful magic users on its lowest underground levels. Formidable mundane and magical defenses, together with the field, made a direct rescue of Grelda impossible.

A paid investigation sent the party into the caves to find the missing Plumbline Four surveyors. Crown troops sent after the surveyors had also disappeared. Underground, the party rescued the injured Corporal Isembard Pike and Private Renn Ivar from the military expedition and encountered a kobold colony whose clash with the soldiers had already cost lives. Instead of continuing an extermination, the party reached an accommodation with the kobolds.

The investigation then found an enormous empty cylindrical chamber containing a floating sphere and numerous six-legged caretakers maintaining Orcish inscriptions. They learned that the sphere generated the antimagic field exploited by the prison. The Plumbline Four determined that the installation predated Orcish civilization; the Orcs had maintained an inheritance older than themselves. Kardan later explained what lay beneath Northmarch: a Balrog contained by the ancient system. The prison thus exploited a containment structure its present owners did not adequately understand.

The system could defend itself by flooding the caves. The military expedition’s attack on the six-legged caretakers had triggered this defense, killing most of the soldiers. The party brought out the Four and the two surviving soldiers. The Four agreed not to expose Wolfgang, who was wanted for a substantial bounty. The Crown then ordered the surveyors back toward the cylinder under the auspices of a new, larger military expedition to extend its investigations.

First Sergeant Elowen Thatch quietly asked the party to move the kobolds before her platoon arrived to wipe them out as ordered. An enemy mother’s mercy years earlier had taught her to distinguish obedience from needless killing. She offered to delay her platoon so the party could evacuate the kobolds before it arrived.

The party planned to relocate the kobolds within the cave system and collapse tunnels to prevent the Army from reaching them. The preferred site was occupied by giant spiders and ettercaps, who refused to move or admit outsiders. Negotiations ended in violence; the party killed them and resettled the kobolds there. Plans for the tunnel collapse were cancelled because of the risk of attracting umber hulks. Using ettercap and kobold bodies, the party staged an apparent massacre at the kobolds’ former home, hoping the Army would abandon its search. The relocated colony’s current condition is unknown.

Source accounts: Session 10, Session 11, Session 12, Session 13, Session 14.

6. Grelda’s release and the first view of the undead army being assembled — Sessions 15–17

Sessions 15–17 · November 7–17, 973

Warden Celene Rauth was assassinated while traveling toward Manchester and her killers preserved her amputated right hand as proof for a paid contract. The party tracked and killed the assassins and recovered the hand. The employer and political purpose of the murder remain unresolved.

Colonel Holt of the Northmarch garrison then hired the party to carry a secret message north to Inspector Fenworth at Fort Arcadia and warned of reported undead along the route.

Before leaving Northmarch, Ant found instructions in her own handwriting, although she did not remember writing them. Her patron required six ingredients for a ritual she would learn later: a written judgment bearing her full name and the Crown’s seal; a fragment of Orcish script older than the Conquest; a promise freely given to someone who later betrays her; blood willingly taken from her own hand; a document intended to erase someone she cares about; and her signature on a document she knew was wrong. The instructions expressly forbade substitutions or attempting the ritual early. See the Session 16 preview.

At Willowhollow, on the northward journey from Northmarch to Fort Arcadia, the party discovered that graves had been emptied and organized skeleton work parties were recovering more bodies. The party rescued Tomas Rook and confronted undead bearing the sigil they had previously seen on Rudric Thorn. Curiously, during the fight, a late-arriving mounted commander ordered a withdrawal of the undead rather than completing the party’s destruction. The party later understood these events as Soulreaper’s military preparations: the undead were gathering bodies discreetly and avoiding unnecessary deaths that might attract attention.

At Fort Arcadia, Inspector Fenworth and Brigadier Malrec Vorn heard the party’s report of the undead. The local officers took the danger seriously despite higher authorities’ denial and their own shortage of resources. Reconnaissance was assigned to the Selene Scouts. Balreth Korn mentioned Warplan Bone Chorus, an existing Crown contingency for organized undead warfare. Its later appearance in the party’s hands showed that the Crown had doctrine and institutions available even where its early local response had been negligent.

After delivering Holt’s letter to Inspector Fenworth, the party carried Fenworth’s reply south. As they travelled back south, they encountered a smuggling network moving goods between Devon and Cambria. Its proceeds supported weapons, supplies, printing, and resistance infrastructure. Adrian Valcour—an officer with bird tattoos mentioned by Nelson in his letters—proved to be an Ebon Blades member. Nelson’s message about the leaking hourglass and the black-feather response belonged to this network. The party helped Blades escape, using a staged attack and illusions that falsely implicated the Argent Company. Friendly relations deepened, but the party declined formal membership in the Ebon Blades and accepted a recognition ring rather than an unrestricted guarantee of trust. The party recommended Pfinder in Manchester as a useful contact.

Colonel Holt, frustrated with civilian misuse of troops and the secret experiments surrounding Grelda, used the prospect of scandal and Fenworth’s oversight to secure a quiet release. Grelda was handed over at a midnight rendezvous, with identifying records retained and the party held responsible for her future conduct. Her captors had regenerated her tongue for interrogation, then removed it again. Prolonged exposure to the antimagic field had damaged her as a magical being.

Grelda’s earlier escape magic had transformed Kasian into Cassyndra, her niece rather than nephew. The possibility of restoring Cassyndra’s original form remained a personal question. Grelda’s freedom did not resolve the larger danger below Northmarch.

Seven gremlins were smuggled into the prison under the delivery scheme using a forgery that Silas Venn had provided them in gratitude for his jailbreak. Pabst remained with the party after giving up his drunkenness aura. The group also acquired a bottle intended for later use, under a warning not to open it yet. The prison gremlins’ subsequent activities and the bottle’s purpose remain live threads.

Source accounts: Session 15, Session 16, Session 17.

7. Kardan’s invitation across sixty-eight years — Session 18

Session 18 · November 20, 973, with an excursion to 905

At the Big Four in Thimbleton, a painting and a letter left by former innkeeper Edric Hale led the party through a hidden mirror into the past. They met the young Hale and Kardan in 905 and helped make the inn’s future possible by killing four ogres—the Big Four of its name.

The temporal tear associated with the mirror grew with observation and clearly needed to be addressed. The party helped arrange its containment and concealment within the future inn. Their letter and the commissioned painting became parts of the very history that had brought them there: the invitation helped produce its own origin. On returning to 973, they found the painting newly intelligible and Kardan ready to accept an invitation to drinks issued sixty-eight years before.

Kardan explained the Balrog containment under Northmarch and the antiquity of the machinery the Orcs had maintained. The episode made him a direct witness to the campaign’s temporal complications as well as a source of historical knowledge. The Maze and Red Ledger strands remained attached to him, rather than being resolved by the journey alone.

Source accounts: Session 18.

8. Barrow’s Edge and the Compact’s concealed patrons — Sessions 19–20

Sessions 19–20 · Late November–December 1, 973

At Barrow’s Edge, the party investigated an agricultural blight. Before they set out, Barin told them that an Ebon Blades scout had observed four people working in the area, then withdrew after concluding that they were harmless. The timing suggested he might be the apparent Blade Nelson had seen near the ruins.

The investigation led to the ancient barrow that gave the village its name. Inside, they discovered that roughly a thousand ancient warriors’ graves had been emptied.

A huge necrotic mass on the lower level proved to be the source of the blight. Once it was destroyed, the blight started to recede and a symbol similar to the one on Rudric was discovered. In retrospect, it seems likely that Soulreaper’s agents had visited the area to resurrect the dead for use as an army and to leave the necrotic mass behind as a means of pre-war economic sabotage.

The party learned that the four people had been a Crown scientific expedition investigating the blight before disappearing. The party discovered their remains in the barrow arranged unnaturally with their left ears removed. They had been killed by ordinary violence before being moved; their deaths could not simply be assigned to the necrotic mass the party found. Their killer and the reason for their deaths remain unknown; the scout’s report did not mention the killings.

At Nareen’s Hill, the party investigated the chapel archives described in Nelson’s letters. The Brethren of the Veiled Bell had guarded a secret history of the Righteous War, using bells as coded communications. Varnes had emptied the archive, taking material and burning records, including material relevant to fighting undead. Defensive glyphs and the mechanical bell system explained the disturbing effects on Nelson’s runner Farris and the apparently haunted chapel.

Under the chapel, the party encountered the Cambrian Compact’s Warg Squad: fighters pursuing human liberation from the Crown, operating under cover at the chapel. They were conducting long-range reconnaissance and preparing to receive commandos from Marybelle’s Ambition at Manchester on the first day of war. The commandos were to destroy the port. After a fight and Shamus’s parley, the party showed them evidence of the undead and the sigil. The squad realized that Varnes had concealed a crucial part of the cause it was serving, namely its use of the undead. Its members rejected him and sought contact with the Ebon Blades. The party arranged the introduction through Barin and encrypted exchanges.

Source accounts: Session 19, Session 20.

9. Briarfell, the Cult of the Unmaking, and Shamus’ death — Sessions 21–22

Sessions 21–22 · December 973

After visiting Barin in Dolven’s Hollow, the party planned to head north to Hollowmere, a village that had figured in Captain Nelson’s letters as well as some of Ant’s encounters with her patron. Barin asked the party to stop by Briarfell on the way north to look into alarming reports from the area.

In Briarfell, the Circle of the Second Growth used druidic magic to practice sustainable forestry, papermaking, and the shaping of living trees into useful forms. Its work was threatened by disturbances whose causes included commercial sabotage and a separate assault on General Sherman by the Cult of the Unmaking. Competing timber concerns were suspects in the sabotage; suspicion was never proof against any particular company.

The Circle also quietly protected an isolated Orc tribe. The party promised to preserve that secrecy, and Laveleen remained to study Orcish language and culture. This tribe’s life offered a contemporary counterpart to the civilization being uncovered in tombs and ruins.

Corrupted experimental shambling mounds killed Shamus and the guide Edrin Mossfall. Calder Voss, a cleric of Pelor, joined the party and took up Shamus’s concern for Getty. A vampiric being had killed their parents, kidnapped Getty, and taunted Shamus during their childhoods. Encounters with visitors apparently from another world were an early sign that the problem around General Sherman extended beyond ordinary forest magic.

The Cult of the Unmaking worshipped Zaldru and sought to destroy Rivets: anchors shared across realities. Its adherents expected the collapse and remaking of the multiverse to make them gods. They had attacked General Sherman, a Rivet, with their ritual apparatus. Some members had previously escaped in the party’s Manchester jailbreak.

The party attacked the cult’s camp, broke the active frog-shaped idol and its magical beams, and captured three cultists. They also captured a list that identified further possible targets, including Governor Kanwal, Elvys Pressley, CMOT Dibbler, the Titanic, and General Sherman, alongside places, people, and things beyond Cambria or of uncertain location.

The party had stopped the active local operation, but later events showed that Briarfell had not been fully healed.

A newspaper report of Dibbler’s execution at the hands of the Crown completed Wolfgang’s radicalization and gave the remainder of the party another reason to oppose the Crown.

Source accounts: Session 21, Session 22.

10. Hollowmere: a missing-person case opens the buried war — Sessions 23–28

Sessions 23–28 · Late December 973

During the journey north, Wolfgang proposed obtaining several of Ant’s ritual ingredients through a petition to the Crown. Ant wrote to Governor Kanwal concerning Wolfgang’s purported willingness to surrender, requesting a formal judgment and assurances about his treatment.

A subsequent visitation gave Ant an unexpected glimpse of her hooded patron’s surroundings: a makeshift shelter assembled from broken crates, patched canvas, and scavenged supports, suggesting someone being hunted. Maps showed Cambria with differing armies, borders, roads, and battles; the patron concealed them after noticing her interest. The patron warned that the party would soon encounter Varnes and should not attack him immediately, because “that doesn’t work.” Neither the circumstances nor the warning’s unusual certainty was explained. See the Session 26 preview.

In Hollowmere, the party investigated the disappearance of Lysa Harrow, who had gone looking for the missing Crown surveyor Corvin. A copper mine dominated the town and concealed the Crown’s years-long search beneath Mira’Thar, led by Colonel Varnes, whom Nelson had mentioned in his letters. The investigation drew in local constables, Professor Harrow, the rival adventurers of Blackvein Company, a fence dealing in Crown artifacts, and goblin and hobgoblin forces operating underground.

Kesh, a captured goblin, won his release with a promise of assistance and then warned his own people about the party. When the party reached an outpost under Captain Tharok, its occupants, warned by Kesh, were already withdrawing and had prepared exceptionally personal taunts to leave behind. Beneath the jokes lay evidence of an organized community recovering its civilization: logistical work, archives, artifacts, religious and civic remains, and undead used as labor. The intelligence designation RAPTOR was eventually identified with Colonel Varnes and confirmed Captain Nelson’s suspicions about him.

Blackvein recovered Lysa’s body. She had been killed by Zeppie’s bandits while searching for Corvin. The party returned her to her family. Her disappearance was therefore resolved.

After repeated military losses investigating a new breach in the mine, Major Thorne compelled the party to enter it. Thorne had assumed command following Varnes’s disappearance. Beyond a basalt-and-lead barrier they found multiple Sereth like the one at the waterworks. Kesh and Throk’s trapped workers became allies in the attempt to escape, while refusing to free the creatures. Corvin was found alive after weeks below, deeply traumatized by the voices and their demands. Surviving members of one of the lost military expeditions had opened further prisons under the Sereth’s influence and sought to free the remainder in exchange for promised riches; the party nicknamed them “Cat Company”.

Within the complex, the party found Colonel Varnes, Lieutenant Colonel McAllister, and Captain Billings. Varnes explained the conflict he had joined. He said King Harold III and Vizier Ergon had survived for centuries by transferring themselves into their children’s bodies, killing those heirs in the process. He described the Crown’s conquest of Goghnol Mogh as a war for land, resources, and domination, erasing an earlier history of treaties and cooperation. In his account, atrocities accumulated on both sides during the long war: the Orcs resorted to undead, while the Crown summoned and bound the Sereth under Option Black, used them for mass killing, and finally sealed them away here in Mira’Thar. The waterworks and Mira’Thar provided substantial corroboration for the weapons and the suppressed civilization; his more sweeping claims about the rulers and their continuing crimes remain testimony the party has received.

According to Varnes, Soulreaper was Queen Arashka, the last queen of Goghnol Mogh, who had preserved herself through undeath. Varnes had joined her after learning what lay beneath the Crown’s version of history and had accepted his own transformation. Her coalition included living Orcs, goblins, and hobgoblins alongside the undead being recovered from graves and battlefields. Varnes described their plan as emerging from hiding, conquering Archea, and restoring the kingdom of Goghnol Mogh under Orcish rule that would govern both humans and Orcs fairly. The party has learned this account of Soulreaper, as well as the King’s alleged centuries-long existence and lethal body transfers, through Varnes; it has no independent confirmation of those claims.

Varnes advocated controlling the Sereth to shorten the coming war and reduce its overall casualties. The party agreed that the Crown’s history and rule required an answer, but resisted both the weapons and the prospect of simply replacing human domination with permanent Orcish domination.

His first attempt to control an awakened Sereth failed catastrophically. The creature resisted, Varnes collapsed, and several of Throk’s people died. A threatened execution of Varnes offered no leverage over it. The party also fought the remaining Cat Company renegades; Broadmoor was captured and publicly executed, while others escaped. McAllister and Billings insisted that their allegiance to Varnes reflected conviction, not magical domination.

The Crown’s reinforcements arrived with Inquisitor Lucien, whose orange forearm jewel later proved to be a means of rapid communication with the Crown.

Source accounts: Session 23, Session 24, Session 25, Session 26, Session 27, Session 28.

11. Mira’Thar falls, and the Reclamation begins its war — Sessions 29–30

Sessions 29–30 · January 1–9, 974

Lucien questioned the survivors and explained his mandate: recover and securely control the Sereth for the Crown if possible; destroy them if they could escape or fall to another power. The party advocated destruction. Gareth instead helped turn the immediate problem into a question of coalition: Crown officers, Blackvein, Throk’s people, Varnes’s officers, and the party could work together against the awakened creatures without resolving every political disagreement first.

Lucien approved their operation. During the battle, a Sereth took control of Varnes and Billings, turning them against their allies. They later recovered and rejoined the fight. The coalition destroyed one awakened Sereth, but Kesh and Throk’s other companions died; Throk survived. The survivors escaped through the barrier into Soulreaper’s substantial forward base. Its forces marched back toward Mira’Thar.

The coalition captured the complex and destroyed the Crown expedition. Varnes subsequently reported that Lucien, Thorne, and nearly all the garrison had died, with a few prisoners and no escapees. The remaining loose Sereth was killed. Lucien had controlled one Sereth and used it against the attackers; it too was destroyed. Of the five then left imprisoned, Varnes controlled four and the fifth resisted and was killed. Four Sereth therefore remained in Reclamation custody, pending further study and a decision on their use.

Lucien’s jewel had transmitted his report before his death. The Crown knew of the coalition and the weapons. Secrecy was lost, and the long-planned war began early under the coalition’s declared name: the Reclamation.

Varnes supplied its Soldier’s Articles, which committed the army to preserving its peoples, history, promises, discipline, and future self-government; paying or recording its debts; protecting prisoners through judgment; and punishing guilt rather than ancestry. Those principles were visible in safe passage and controlled conduct, but were tested immediately by the methods chosen to begin the war.

Varnes admitted that he had recommended deceiving approximately a thousand Cambrian Compact fighters into launching the opening attacks. They believed a broader human revolutionary alliance would support them. In fact, they were clearing the way for the Reclamation. Heavy losses were expected and helped reduce the number who might survive to expose the deception. Varnes did not regret the decision. The party raised the possibility of restitution and a future reconciliation with the survivors.

The party rejected an offer of transformation into undead Reclamation members. It accepted an independent-agent arrangement: it could refuse assignments, but must preserve confidences entrusted to it. Its first mission was to approach the isolated Briarfell tribe about joining the coalition, without making binding commitments. Mukden volunteered to accompany them as an Orcish representative.

Hollowmere was now an occupied town, with its constables retained for civil affairs, a curfew, disarmament, and requisition receipts. Undead provided labor. An armed adventuring company had been killed after refusing to surrender its weapons. Refugees departed in large numbers, fearing both the occupiers and a Crown counterattack. Mukden explained that bodies could be animated once; destroyed undead could not simply be raised again. The war was already changing ordinary lives before any settlement of its political aims.

Corvin was released to go home. Professor Harrow accepted books and instruction and a role as an academic intermediary; Blackvein contracted to escort him to Manchester. The party surrendered the recovered Orcish artifacts to the Reclamation.

The Crown’s reply to Ant’s petition supplied a written judgment bearing her full name and the royal seal, while refusing advance guarantees and directing her to deliver Wolfgang to Manchester’s magistrate. It also reminded both adventurers of their outstanding tax obligations. Ant had secured the sealed judgment and her signature on a document she knew was wrong. A copied inscription from the Teacher’s tomb might satisfy the requirement for ancient Orcish script, but the party did not know whether the originals, held by academics in Manchester, were necessary. The remaining ingredients and the ritual’s purpose remained unresolved. See the petition and Crown reply.

Source accounts: Session 29, Session 30.

12. Wolfpine: overthrowing a ruler and leaving people to govern — Sessions 30–32

Sessions 30–32 · January 9–12, 974

Traveling south with Mukden, the party encountered refugees, broken communications, and news of Compact attacks on Crown headquarters and administration. At Wolfpine, the tax farmer Horace Bell used his pre-existing taxation powers cloaked in patriotism to enrich himself through confiscations, forced contracts, and imprisonment. The party infiltrated his operation and launched a coordinated attack on the inn. Bell survived; his lieutenant Captain Wilkes gathered the remaining guards in the smithy and was killed when the party stormed it.

The villagers repeatedly asked their liberators to decide ownership, punishment, redistribution, and government. The party declined and continued toward Briarfell, leaving Bell and the other prisoners in local custody. On returning later, it found the villagers had devised their own arrangement: Bell did hard labor by day and supplied his administrative knowledge as mayor from the stocks by evening. This became a practical example of local people constructing an imperfect settlement after the adventurers had removed the immediate threat.

Source accounts: Session 30, Session 31, Session 32.

13. Briarfell’s guardian becomes its prisoner—and its salvation — Sessions 32–34

Sessions 32–34 · January 12–18, 974

Briarfell’s settlements were deserted. The druids’ orderly departure indicated a search for missing druids rather than outright flight; the Orc camp showed an organized retreat after attacks by awakened trees. Corrupted growth, dead animals, and bark wounds pointed toward a forest turned against its inhabitants. Visitors from another world appeared with increasing frequency, which the party understood as a consequence of damage to General Sherman’s function as a Rivet.

Three United States Forest Rangers—Tom, George, and Judy—accepted that they had crossed into Archea and joined the investigation. Their radios, firearms, materials, and institutions were unfamiliar but appeared to accomplish miraculous things without magic. A Crown patrol also arrived, searching for an operative. General Sherman had uprooted himself and moved through the forest; when the groups reached him, he subdued them all.

They awoke beneath the forest, stripped of non-plant possessions, alongside the two Circle of the Second Growth Druids Oakbeard and Mossyrock, Laveleen, five tribal Orcs, the missing Crown operative Helen, and two supposed merchants, Heward and Sister Eliria. Root Tenders supplied food, water, and care while preventing escape. General Sherman’s contradictory speech reflected a struggle between his own protective purpose and the corruption affecting him.

The party traced the corruption deeper underground and excavated a path to it with Cassyndra’s magic. The Root Tenders allowed this passage to remain, although they had filled in earlier escape tunnels to the surface. The expedition crossed a shark-filled river, passed peacefully through a Myconid colony, and fought corrupted trees before reaching the Root Nexus. Helen meanwhile gathered information, developed her arrangements with the merchants, and offered the Rangers royal protection in exchange for knowledge of Earth. Merrythought detected that Heward’s caravan story was false.

Laveleen, whose known patron was a Great Old One seeking knowledge, heard a private summons and departed abruptly; later it was learned that she was responding to a command from her patron to return to the surface to gather the scattered Orc tribe and to leave the fight with the Root Nexus to the party. Concerned for her safety, the party sent the five tribal Orcs with her to protect her. At the Nexus, the party and Crown soldiers initially fought together. Mukden, George, and Gareth died in the battle; Gareth repeatedly returned to the line after being healed before the tree killed him outright.

Helen, Heward, and Eliria turned the evacuation of the wounded into an abduction. They bound Oakbeard and Mossyrock, subdued Tom and Judy when they objected, and withdrew behind the Crown detachment. The party later understood this as an attempt to let it exhaust itself against the Nexus before taking it prisoner. Cassyndra sealed the passage with earth, preventing the Crown from returning, while the party destroyed the subsidiary root spheres.

General Sherman then broke through into the cavern and grappled the Nexus with his roots. He drew the corruption into himself and destroyed its source at the cost of his own life. The mental pressure and forest blight lifted. His earlier captivity of travelers was understood as a damaged guardian’s attempt at protection, rather than a simple wish to harm them.

Later, the party found his remains and recovered its equipment, the Rangers’ belongings, and the equipment previously carried by the Crown contingent. It planted a sequoia cone in his old grove, blessed by Calder, leaving the possibility of a successor. Surviving druids and Orcs returned to rebuild and search for their scattered companions. Merrythought left word that the Orcs could find refuge among their people at Hollowmere, without attempting to commit them to the Reclamation.

The party then set out in pursuit of Helen’s convoy and, at Wolfpine, learned that she had also captured Laveleen and some of the Orcs accompanying her and was heading toward Manchester. Cassyndra sent Heka to Barin and Phineas in Dolven’s Hollow asking the Blades to delay or intercept it. Gareth’s final letters urged the party to build workable coalitions and a peace ordinary people could live in. His family’s needs remained concrete: sell his useful equipment, deliver the proceeds, and return his family portrait and his father’s Guard token. Ant left for Gozneth to carry out that duty.

Source accounts: Session 32, Session 33, Session 34.

14. The convoy rescue and Saint Mercy — Session 35

Session 35 · Late January 974

The party pursued the Crown convoy south. A Crown sergeant recognized the adventurers but deliberately avoided a confrontation, while warning them that orders to watch for them were circulating. They left the watched road and closed Helen’s lead by traveling cross-country. Further undead carrying picks and shovels showed that Soulreaper’s grave harvesting continued even after open warfare began.

At King’s Rest, Cassyndra poisoned the convoy’s communal breakfast with assassin’s blood. The attempt caused limited illness, including sickness in a captive Orc, and did not stop the convoy. The party had considered the danger to innocents and of reprisals but proceeded despite uncertainty about who would eat the food. The Crown treated the incident as bad cooking rather than sabotage and sought a refund, without punishing the village.

Barin and Phineas had arranged two ambush sites, committing twelve Blades to each possible route. The party followed the convoy into the attack at the occupied site and struck from behind. It killed the rear scout after a cordial conversation, then fought Helen, her elite companions, ordinary troops, and clerics around the prisoner wagons. Nine of the twelve Blades at that site died; three survived. The other twelve, including Barin and Phineas, were not engaged. Thus fifteen of the twenty-four Blades committed to the operation survived overall.

When the Crown began losing, its priorities shifted to denying rescue of the Rangers. The elite cleric killed Tom and the Orc bound beside him. Helen killed Judy, then attempted to escape rather than killing the remaining prisoners. Merrythought overtook and captured her alive. Oakbeard, Mossyrock, Laveleen, and one tribal Orc were freed. All three Rangers were now dead. The elite rogue and cleric escaped, leaving the approaching Manchester relief force with both the opportunity and reason to pursue.

Source accounts: Session 35.

15. Saint Mercy: interrogation, executions, and the dragnet — Session 36

January 23–28, 974

The survivors removed the nine dead Blades’ heads and hands to prevent identification and withdrew about twenty-five miles cross-country to a safehouse near Saint Mercy. The farmhouse was believed locally to have burned after a lightning strike ten years earlier; the Saint Mercy Ebon Blades cell had secretly rebuilt it. The removed remains were burned and buried. Barin, Phineas, and the twelve from the unused ambush site reunited with the three surviving fighters. The plan was to hide for roughly two weeks, but the Crown’s search would make that increasingly difficult. See the Session 36 summary.

Ant remained away, carrying Gareth’s effects toward Gozneth. Cassyndra was largely confined to bed by divination sickness, while Wolfgang helped arrange watches outside. Oakbeard and Mossyrock intended to return cross-country to Briarfell with the rescued Orc, avoiding roads where he might be enslaved. Laveleen intended to help reunite the tribe for further study and then go west: her patron had instructed her to investigate the plague’s origins and find its first case. Her pact was to acquire knowledge for a Great Old One; the patron’s ultimate purposes remained unknown.

Grelda and Getty. Earlier, while the party was in Reclamation custody, Grelda had urged Cassyndra to return to Dolven’s Hollow because something was ready. Barin now relayed that the lucid dreams were ready. He had asked what that meant, but Grelda said he would not understand and he did not press her. In a recent divination, Cassyndra had seen Grelda absorbed in her own work, apparently unaware of a pale young woman in dark, travel-stained clothes behind her. The woman had blood on her hands and wrists, looked directly through the vision at Cassyndra, and compelled her to answer a question despite her attempt to resist. The woman identified herself as Getty and said she was coming for Cassyndra. The party knew Getty as Shamus’s younger sister, taken by the creature that murdered their parents. The Tower appeared in Cassyndra’s cards, suggesting upheaval and destructive revelation rather than necessarily death. Getty’s nature and intentions, and Grelda’s present circumstances, remain unresolved.

What Helen disclosed. Helen was held in anti-mage restraints and questioned with Laveleen’s Detect Thoughts assisting. She admitted she was a Crown spy. Most answers appeared truthful to the magic available, although that did not guarantee completeness. Her original mission had ended before she reached Briarfell, where she was awaiting retrieval. She refused to explain it, but said it was unrelated to the forest, the cult, Soulreaper, the Reclamation, or the war. She first learned of the war through Heward and the ensuing conversations below the forest.

Helen explained why the Rangers had been killed. Their unfamiliar materials, equipment, and knowledge could offer a strategic advantage. She intended to get them to Manchester for examination by people better able to understand that knowledge. When the ambush made their rescue likely, she considered denying that advantage to an enemy more important than keeping them alive. Tom and Judy died for that reason. The explanation settled her stated purpose without making the act acceptable to the party.

Helen also said that Heward and Sister Eliria had admitted concealing their identities and pursuing a separate mission. They cooperated with the Crown for protection and force; Helen had been told not to ask their purpose. They were pleased on learning that General Sherman had died, declared their work finished, and left. Combining this with the cult’s earlier assault on Sherman, the party inferred that the two were members of the Cult of the Unmaking sent to complete the killing. Their precise identities, location, and any connection to other factions remain unestablished. Helen appeared unfamiliar with the cult and treated the discussion as new intelligence.

The interrogation was also an exchange of intelligence in the opposite direction: Helen listened, tested explanations, and tried to discover what her captors knew. When asked about Varnes, she claimed not to know him. Merrythought challenged the denial, and Helen began conceding ground. At that point Laveleen telepathically told Hunkle to snap Helen’s neck. He did nothing. Laveleen then killed Helen with a knife to the throat, ending the questioning just as Merrythought believed it was becoming productive.

Laveleen’s execution. The group expressed its anger at Laveleen’s unilateral decision and its timing. Her explanations varied: the discussion was taking too long, yielding too little, becoming boring, or giving a dangerous bard too much opportunity to speak. Merrythought suspected there might be something behind the timing, but no betrayal was established.

Barin argued that intent was not the decisive issue. Laveleen knew the insurgency’s people and secrets, acted unpredictably, and owed obligations to a patron whose purposes they could not assess. Hunkle favored killing her. Merrythought reluctantly agreed after Barin’s argument. Calder and Zborch opposed the killing: Calder saw rashness without demonstrated malign intent; Zborch favored simply letting her leave. Neither would fight the others over the decision, and neither was asked to participate. Barin took responsibility, went downstairs, and returned after killing her. His method was not disclosed. Wolfgang returned from outside to discover both Helen and Laveleen dead. Her reason for killing Helen remains unanswered. See the interrogation and decision in Session 36.

Technology and diplomacy. The party entrusted the Rangers’ equipment to the Blades, except for binoculars retained by Merrythought. Barin and Phineas hoped to learn nonmagical principles useful to the insurgency; possessing devices did not give them the science, materials, or manufacturing capacity to reproduce them immediately but they hoped to be able to construct much cruder versions eventually.

The Blades supported Orcish freedom but opposed replacing a human Crown with Orcish government over humans. They proposed separate human and Orcish states, negotiating borders, roads, rivers, trade, migration, treaties, and common security. The party found that acceptable, while remaining opposed to the Reclamation’s undead methods. The convoy losses had demonstrated that the Blades could harass the Crown but could not yet defeat its armies alone. They needed a channel to the Reclamation if they hoped to influence the peace. Barin and Phineas asked the party to approach Varnes as their representatives, establish communication, explain their position, and explore cooperation. Negotiating a final alliance or territorial settlement was not yet the assignment.

The stolen Warplan Bone Chorus and the Royal Standard editorial reinforced the Crown’s continuing capacity. The contingency plan coordinated military, magical, civil, and religious action: protect the living, deny usable remains, and destroy undead. The paper promised reinforcements and resources from the wider kingdom despite simultaneous rebellion, plague, sewer fighting, Devon’s mobilization, and economic strain. Its claims remained partisan, but the Crown was neither confined to Cambria’s resources nor out of the war.

The search. Saint Mercy supporters supplied the farmhouse through a dead drop without knowing its exact location. A courier warned that Crown troops and a sharp-eyed woman in civilian clothes had arrived in the village. One dead Blade had been a local grocer; removing identifying remains could not conceal his prolonged absence. Both retreating groups had used the same bridge, creating a possible point for reconstruction of their movements.

A giant owl was searching the countryside and could see both at distance and at night. Four-person ground patrols visited farms, with at least one using a familiar to scout beyond a hill. Wolfgang observed unusual ravens flying repeatedly along a route; communication was a plausible explanation, but neither their controller nor their purpose was confirmed. The party considered nighttime departure, splitting up, disguising itself as penitents, false trails toward Alderwick, and diversions at crossings. No escape plan had been chosen by the end of Session 36. The intended destinations remained Dolven’s Hollow first, then Hollowmere.

Open issues

These entries distinguish current commitments from continuing questions. An unresolved matter is not necessarily a mission the party has accepted.

Immediate plans and commitments — Sessions 30, 34–36

Leave Saint Mercy without exposing its supporters. Choose an escape plan for the party and consider Barin, Phineas, the surviving Blades, the druids, and the rescued Orc. The giant owl sees at night; ground patrols use familiars; roads and crossings constrain travel. A missing local grocer may connect the battle to the village. The ravens’ role remains uncertain. Session 36.
Reach Grelda in Dolven’s Hollow. Learn what the lucid dreams are and why Grelda considers them so important. Establish Grelda’s safety and the meaning of Getty’s contact with Cassyndra. Getty’s identity as Shamus’s missing sister is recognized; her present nature, motives, and abilities are not explained. Session 36.
Open communication with Varnes for the Ebon Blades. Present the Blades’ preference for separate self-governing human and Orcish states and test the possibility of continuing cooperation. No alliance or settlement has been agreed. Borders, mixed communities, other peoples’ rights, trade, migration, and enforcement would require later negotiations. Sessions 30 and 36.
Mukden’s unfinished mission. His task was to introduce the Reclamation to the isolated Briarfell tribe, without committing it. Both he and Laveleen are dead. The rescued Orc speaks little Common, and the party speaks little Orcish. Decide whether to take on the mission directly, seek interpreters or new instructions, or leave Mukden’s mission in its current partly completed state. Refuge and political allegiance remain different choices. Sessions 30, 34, and 36.
Gareth’s family. Ant is carrying his effects toward Gozneth. His instructions are to sell useful equipment, deliver the money, and return the family portrait and his father’s Guard token. Session 35 and Gareth’s letter home.
Finish the Maze. One final puzzle separates Kardan from the artifact and the party from SUMABC, needed to read Nelson’s remaining book-cipher letter. This inquiry began in the prologue and has continued alongside the main campaign. Kardan’s bargain and final assembly.

Political and personal questions — Pregame and Sessions 16–36

Ant’s patron. Who is the hooded figure, what does it want, and how does it know about the consequences of the party’s choices? Its makeshift shelter suggests it may be hunted. Why do its maps depict differing versions of Cambria’s military situation, and what underlies its warning that attacking Varnes immediately “doesn’t work”? Its identity, circumstances, and larger purpose remain unknown. Session 26 preview.
Complete Ant’s ritual ingredients. The sealed Crown judgment and her signature on a document she knew was wrong are secured. The copied Teacher’s inscription may qualify as pre-Conquest Orcish script; whether a copy suffices remains uncertain. Blood willingly taken from her own hand can be obtained whenever needed. Still outstanding are a promise freely given to someone who later betrays her and a document intended to erase someone she cares about. What is the ritual intended to accomplish, and when should it be performed? The patron forbade substitutions and premature casting. Original instructions and Crown correspondence.
The four Sereth. Varnes reports controlling four, with combat use deferred pending study. Can that control endure, and what follows if it fails? The party has witnessed failed control and a Sereth taking his mind. The waterworks Sereth was killed; its fate is resolved. Sessions 28–30.
Varnes’s account of Soulreaper and the King. Soulreaper’s identity as Queen Arashka, her survival through undeath, and the King and Vizier’s centuries of lethal body transfers are revelations from Varnes. What independent evidence could confirm them or persuade others? The ruins corroborate a sophisticated Orcish past and the Sereth’s use, not every political claim. Session 27.
The Reclamation’s intended state and its methods. Varnes describes restored Goghnol Mogh ruling humans and Orcs fairly. The Articles promise discipline, preservation, honored commitments, recorded debts, and judgment rather than inherited guilt. How do occupation, grave harvesting, undead use, the Compact deception, and prospective Sereth use fit that future? How can the party influence it while remaining independent? Articles, Session 30, and 36.
Compact survivors and Warg Squad. The Compact was deceived into opening operations whose beneficiary it did not understand. Its surviving strength, leadership, and reaction remain unclear. The Warg Squad rejected Varnes and sought an Ebon introduction; the introduction was arranged, but its lasting outcome is not established. Restitution and reconciliation remain proposals. Sessions 20–21 and 30.
Helen’s withheld information. Her stated reason for killing the Rangers is known, and she admitted being a spy. Her earlier mission and concealed knowledge of Varnes remain unanswered. The surviving Crown rogue and cleric may carry information to the Crown that the party cannot control. Session 36.
Laveleen’s death and its consequences. Her patron’s summons at the Root Nexus is explained, but her decision to kill Helen precisely when questioning about Varnes advanced is not. No treachery was proved. Her execution divides the party morally and removes a trusted link to the Circle and Orcish tribe. What will those communities be told? Session 36.
Heward and Sister Eliria. Helen’s testimony led to a strong inference of cult membership and a mission to kill General Sherman. Their present whereabouts and actual identities remain unknown. Session 36.
The murdered agricultural investigators. Who killed the investigators at Barrow’s Edge, arranged their bodies, and removed their left ears? The party has no established culprit for the killings. Nelson’s letters and Session 19.
The Warden’s assassination. Who commissioned Rauth’s killing and why? The hired killers are dead, but the employer and larger purpose remain unidentified. Session 15.
Relationships left unsettled. Argent helped at the waterworks, fought the party over the elemental, rescued it afterward, and was later falsely implicated in a staged attack. The elemental’s benign conduct contradicts its warnings. Professor Harrow’s work, the Blackvein escort, Corvin’s recovery, and the Black Lily also remain possible future connections. Sessions 7, 17, and 30.

Continuing developments beyond the party’s immediate route

The Withers in western Cambria. Nelson described a wasting illness principally affecting humans, moving along travel routes and incompletely relieved by healing. Responses were obstructed and a healer’s work destroyed. Druid involvement was a suspicion in those papers, not a proved cause. The epidemic continues offscreen. Laveleen’s intended investigation ended with her death. Nelson’s letters, current newspaper, and Session 36.
Manchester’s sewer war. The party did not return to address Phlogiston Works’ dumping. The Druid attacked the Works from the sewers, and the Crown sent troops and mercenaries below. The fighting continues, while official accounts cast the Druid as a public enemy. Its present extent and possible resolution remain open. Sessions 2–3 and current newspaper.
Devon and the wider kingdom. Devon’s reserve mobilization, rivalry with Archea, and cross-border smuggling make it a possible participant. Its intentions and relationship to the resistance are unconfirmed. The Crown is drawing reinforcements, money, transport, engineers, healers, and magic from other provinces amid wider economic strain. Session 17, background guide, and current newspaper.
Bone Chorus in practice. Killing an animator disrupts command but does not eliminate its undead. Destroyed undead are permanent losses; unused corpses remain military resources. The plan’s activation levels determine surveillance, registration, compulsory cremation, and exhumation. How implementation affects civilians, armies, refugees, and opinion will matter as the war develops. Warplan Bone Chorus.
Northmarch and the Balrog. The Crown uses and investigates a containment system older than the Orcs without adequate understanding. Grelda’s rescue did not remove the risk. The caretakers’ function and the outcome of Crown experiments require follow-up. Sessions 12, 18, and 20.
Briarfell and the loss of its Rivet. The Root Nexus is destroyed and the corruption lifted; the Circle and tribe are rebuilding. Sherman is dead; whether his planted cone could become a successor remains unsettled. The commercial sabotage also lacks a confirmed sponsor. Sessions 21–22 and 32–34.
Other Rivets and the cult. The local ritual was stopped, but the wider organization and target list remain dangerous. Governor Kanwal and Elvys are among nearby targets; Dibbler’s execution may have consequences beyond its political effect. The list does not establish that every target is located or under attack. Session 22 and Session 36.
The relocated kobolds. The party staged an apparent massacre at their former home and cancelled the tunnel collapse because of umber-hulk risk. Their current safety and the Army’s response are unknown. Session 14.
Gremlins and other obligations. Seven gremlins were delivered to Northmarch; Pabst remained with the party after relinquishing his aura. Their later status, the unopened bottle’s purpose, and the terms of summoned service through the Ring of Dawn remain threads. Cassyndra’s original form and the restrictions attached to Grelda’s release remain personal concerns. Sessions 9–10, 15, and 17.

Factions, allies, and other significant actors

The Crown, the Ebon Blades, the Cambrian Compact, and the Reclamation are separate organizations. Shared enemies do not give them shared aims. Individual officers and communities also differ within those organizations.

Faction, ally, or resource	What it believes and wants	Position and conduct by Session 36	Relationship to the party / principal tension
Crown leadership: Harold III, Ergon, and central authority	Preserve Crown rule, its territorial control, and the official order. Varnes alleges that the rulers have preserved themselves through lethal transfers into heirs.	Maintains institutions across the kingdom; mobilizes against rebellion and undead.	The party is being hunted by the Crown. Disagreement with the rulers is increasingly open; the political allegations still need usable evidence.
Crown army, magistrates, and civil services	Defend the kingdom, preserve government, protect populations and resources, and obey orders. Motives range from sincere service to careerism and exploitation.	Warplan Bone Chorus coordinates a real response. Fenworth, Holt, Thatch, and the road sergeant demonstrate discretion or restraint; other commands conscript, suppress, torture, and kill.	The Council of Nobles and the Crown share governmental power, while commoners lack representation. Potential interlocutors exist within hostile institutions. A peace must distinguish the rulers from everyone who keeps roads, courts, medicine, and food functioning.
Governor Kanwal / the Man of Leisure	His observed priorities favor comfort, amusement, and sociability over competent administration; a deeper purpose is not yet apparent and, at the moment, seems rather unlikely.	Early reports portray a likable but dangerously ineffective governor. The cult identifies him as a Rivet.	His weakness is not the full measure of Crown capacity. His response (if any) to the developing crisis and vulnerability to the cult remain questions.
Reclamation / Soulreaper (identified by Varnes as Queen Arashka)	As described by Varnes: defeat the Crown and restore Goghnol Mogh under fair Orcish rule over humans and Orcs; recover the dispossessed peoples’ civilization and prevent renewed conquest. The Articles oppose inherited guilt and uncontrolled vengeance.	Holds Mira’Thar and Hollowmere; fields living and undead forces; holds four Sereth. Occupation shows discipline and receipts, but also curfew, disarmament, requisition, and lethal enforcement.	The party is an independent cooperating agent, not an enlisted or transformed member. Permanent sovereignty, human rights, undead use, and the Sereth are unresolved.
Varnes and his committed officers (serving the Reclamation)	The Crown must be overturned; decisive measures may reduce a much larger war’s total deaths. Varnes regards control of the Sereth and the Compact deception as justified means.	Varnes has accepted undeath, concealed the coalition, sacrificed Compact fighters, and secured four Sereth after earlier failure. McAllister and Billings profess voluntary allegiance.	A principal negotiating partner who values the party’s judgment but demands secrecy. Agreement about injustice has not produced agreement about means or the next state.
Ebon Blades: Barin, Phineas, Adrian Valcour, various associates, and a compartmentalized network	End Crown domination and support self-government. Favor separate human and Orcish states over Orcish rule of humans; inherited prejudices complicate that position.	Smuggling, forgeries, clandestine organization, and the convoy ambush; nine dead out of twenty-four committed. Study Rangers’ technology. Barin killed Laveleen after her killing of Helen.	Close operational allies, now potential sponsors of a diplomatic approach. Their selective early accounts and willingness to silence Laveleen complicate trust and moral authority.
Cambrian Compact	Its fighters believed they were acting for a human revolutionary cause supported by wider underground allies.	Launched coordinated opening attacks; was deliberately deceived by Varnes about the beneficiary and expected support. Current survivors and leadership are unclear.	Potential claimants against both Crown and Reclamation. Cooperation cannot erase the deception or substitute for restitution.
Warg Squad (previously members of the Cambrian Compact)	Liberation from the Crown, but not unwitting service to concealed necromancy or an undisclosed power.	Rejected Varnes after seeing the party’s evidence of undead use and requested an Ebon introduction. Reconnaissance unit whose planned wartime task involved receiving commandos from Marybelle’s Ambition at Manchester’s port.	A concrete possible bridge between surviving Compact fighters and the Blades. The outcome of the introduction of Warg Squad and the Ebon Blades is, as yet, unknown.
Circle of the Second Growth	Steward the forest, practice sustainable production, protect its communities and the secluded tribe.	Lost members to Briarfell’s disasters; Oakbeard and Mossyrock were rescued. Surviving druids are rebuilding after the Nexus and Sherman’s death. The Circle of the Second Growth has a long-standing relationship with Argent and may call on it for assistance.	Allies with reasons to expect protection and truthful explanations. Laveleen’s death, Crown attention, and unresolved sabotage may change the relationship.
The isolated Briarfell Orc tribe	Its demonstrated priorities are survival, community, and remaining free of persecution. It has not collectively committed to the Reclamation.	Scattered by tree attacks; survivors returning. One rescued Orc remains alive; others died. Mukden’s mission was interrupted and Laveleen, who was going to carry it forward, is now dead.	A community whose own choice has not been made. Continued refuge in Briarfell, flight to remoter areas, and enlistment in the Reclamation are possibilities.
Cult of the Unmaking / Zaldru’s adherents	Destroy Rivets, unravel and remake reality, and obtain godhood in the remade order.	Local camp and idol destroyed; three captured; target list recovered. Wider reach presumed.	Hostile. The party’s jailbreak helped release some members; stopping one operation has not secured other Rivets.
Druid of the Sewers	Protect the sewer ecosystem against destructive intrusion and waste.	After the party failed to return to the dumping problem, attacked Phlogiston Works; fighting continues against Crown forces in the sewers.	An earlier ally whose environmental dispute has become another armed conflict. The party has not resolved the wider dispute.
Argent Company	Its observed choices favor managed danger and Crown usefulness, including binding the water elemental; Alaric also demonstrated restraint.	Cooperated against the waterworks Sereth, fought the party, then aided its escape. The freed elemental proved benign and sometimes helpful. Later falsely implicated by the party in a staged attack.	A relationship damaged by conflict and the false accusation. Practical cooperation remains conceivable but carries an unsettled debt of truth.
Blackvein Company	Survive, obtain payment, and take workable mercenary contracts.	Helped at Mira’Thar; contracted to escort Professor Harrow to Manchester. Was not offered the party’s special agent relationship.	Rivals who became useful allies. Their commercial pragmatism differs from the party’s desired influence over the peace.
Scholars and custodians of Orcish history	Recover, interpret, and preserve material excluded from Crown history.	The Teacher’s texts, waterworks, archives, Mira’Thar, and Harrow’s instruction provide increasing evidence.	Sources of public credibility and potential intermediaries between Humans and Orcs. Provenance, access, protection, and independent publication matter.
Black Lily / Silas Venn	A clandestine criminal organization; Silas provides forging expertise but has paid off his rescue debt.	Silas freed in Manchester; forged delivery documents aided the Northmarch operation.	Useful contact. Its relationship to other factions is not clear.
Devon	State interests and border security; wider ambitions remain uncertain.	Cross-border contraband routes exist; reserves reportedly called up.	A strategic neighbor, possible influence or partner; its intentions toward the present conflict remain unconfirmed.
Displaced civilians and local communities	Safety, food, shelter, livelihoods, workable government, and an end to compulsory sacrifice for others’ causes.	Refugees flee armies; Hollowmere loses supplies against receipts; Wolfpine improvises its own government; Warplan Bone Chorus burdens funerary customs and labor.	The people a settlement is meant to serve. Their consent and capacity to live under it matter as much as agreement among commanders.
Rum gremlins and Oban	Drink, belonging, and purposes shaped by their new promises and attachments.	Oban guards the Broken Handle; seven gremlins were delivered to Northmarch; Pabst remained with the party after surrendering his aura.	Unlikely allies rather than a political bloc; their obligations and present status need follow-up. The unopened “For Later” bottle remains a resource of unknown purpose.
Pabst	Regards Wolfgang as a father figure and wants to remain with the party.	Remained after relinquishing his drunkenness aura; will now take an active adventuring role following Gareth’s death.	A companion becoming an active adventurer.
Ant’s patron	Claims knowledge of Ant and the possible consequences of her choices; larger purpose unexplained.	First appeared through a mirror in the prologue; later visitations draw attention toward Hollowmere.	A continuing personal and campaign mystery. Its identity is unknown to the party. Prescribed ingredients for a future ritual; a later visitation revealed precarious shelter and unfamiliar campaign maps.
Plague-stricken western communities	Survival, effective care, and an explanation or remedy for the Withers.	Epidemic continues offscreen; early response was obstructed.	A continuing crisis with no confirmed cause; Laveleen’s planned investigation will not proceed.
Ring of Dawn	A hospitality ring that summons a barmaid spirit.	Acquired through Wolfgang’s Maze progress and retained by the party.	A useful resource; the terms of the spirit’s service remain unresolved.

Clarification of Names

Professor Marseth and Professor Harrow are different scholars. Tharok and Throk are different people. McAllister is the officer also called Halifax in some earlier accounts. The missing surveyor is Corvin; the party’s cleric is Calder Voss (not Voxx); Fenworth’s title here is Inspector. These conventions reconcile variant names on the website.