Welcome to the world of MIDNIGHT: Legacy of Darkness.
The fall of the Kingdom of Erenland at the end of the Third Age ushered in a reign of darkness and terror. Izrador's orc legions, marching out of the north, and his Order of Shadow, legates of his black temples hold the human lands and nations under their sway. The elves and dwarves have retreated to their forest and mountain holdfasts, and wage a bloody, desperate defense against the relentless attacks of the forces of Shadow. Civilization has been attacked at its root, books burned, art and cultural heirlooms destroyed, fields salted. Human sacrifices are monthly marched to Shadow temples that tower over the ruins of Dornish, Erenlander, and Sarcosan cities. Traitor princes preserved their cities at the cost of their souls and their peoples' freedom, while those who stood fast against the hordes of the Shadow were leveled to the ground. Ruinous tithes are exacted from desperate communities, and death or enslavement hovers near the occupied lands, waiting to pounce at the slightest breach of the Shadow's law.
Yet tales are still told, and hope and conscience are still free in the hearts of the living. Millenia ago, when legends say Izrador was cast from the heavens by the Lords of Light, the world was severed from Divine communion. It is said that the Elves still hold the lost knowledge and prophecies that limit Izrador's power and may even one day spell his ruin and the freedom of the mortal world from his tyranny.
You live in this occupied world under THE SHADOW.... and well you know the laws... but could there be more?
The Laws of the Shadow
All acts of direct rebellion or assistance to the elves and dwarves are punishable by DEATH:
Being of elven or dwarven birth
Collaboration with elves or dwarves
Aiding fugitives from the Shadow
Assaulting a legate or senior agent of Izrador
Possession of an enchanted item
Casting of spells or other uses of magic
Less serious crimes that are not considered a direct threat to the rule of the Shadow are punishable by ENSLAVEMENT:
Possession of martial weapons or armor
Assaulting any servant or soldier of Izrador
Unauthorized presence in a restricted area (includes traveling anywhere without proof of official business)
Resisting arrest
Worship of any deity but Izrador
Smuggling
Theft or withholding of items designated for the use of Izrador
Unauthorized travel beyond settlement borders
Possession of nonmagical books or scrolls
Teaching others to read
Failure to report a violation of the laws
Small infractions and minor crimes are punishable by the LASH:
Baden's Bluff In the Arc of Hanud of Year 99 of the Last Age
The early morning mists swirl around the Worm Docks as the fishing boats head out to sea. But across the Aranway, the Fabblestabble family was up earlier, swarming the Stone Docks, loading and unloading cargo from their sea barge. Quickly and quietly, the gnomes in their brightly colored vests unload crates of liquors and ales from Swift Water, and sacks of the more portable tithes gathered from beleaguered farmsteads and villages up and down the Eren.
Then, before the sun burns off the cold mist, they begin to load up the waiting cargo brought in by their associates. Servants of legates check off lists of supplies that will be sent south down the Eren River before leaving them in the hands of the gnomes. Crates of weapons and kegs of gunpowder from Steel Hill, for the front. Sacks of grain and wool from Bastion.
Gnome families living in Baden's Bluff send their contacts to deliver their own shipments; of these, just one box is flagged, wrapped in baling twine and left next to the green pennant on the side prow, with a smaller red streamer below it.
The gnomes communicate with one another with elaborate systems of streamers and flags, easy to see on a boat or barge at a distance, and little understood by anyone else. The green-and-red pennant and streamer on the side prow tells the gnomes of the Bluff where to leave illegal goods that need to make it to Caradul as quickly as possible. The box has only been there half a minute before Selphina picks it up, and squirrels down under the hold to unload it below the deck. The box is full of halfling-worked leather, and at first, Selphina can't find the contraband. No stores of Elvish arrows, sacks of mirrorglass, or preserved food rations… but then she finds it, tucked between two tanned deer hides---and gasps with excitement. In her wily little fingers she holds a single page of a book, written in a strange language she doesn't recognize.
Selphina has always been curious about the lost knowledge of the world. A hundred years ago Izrador's forces ransacked and torched every library, every piece of art of any culture, every record in Eredane, looting, burning, destroying. All anyone has left now is scraps--mostly oral, and sometimes, pieces like this, that are carefully smuggled away to the elves, out of reach of the Shadow.
Many of the gnomish trading companies have more than a passing involvement in the smuggling operations to and from both Caradul and more local resistance groups. Selphina herself has had secret lessons far down the Felthera with the elves, and from savvy channelers here in Baden's Bluff impressed with her performances between shipping ventures at the Beggar Bowl Tavern---though they all know she is a skilled musician and performer, not all of her family knows that Selphina has learned a bit of magic. She has also taught herself to read, in bits, scraps, and pieces. A page from a book is a priceless treasure to her.
The harbor bell clangs as the mist begins to burn away under the rising sun. Selphina stows the precious page back in the leathers, pushing the whole box securely below the false deck under the barge's hold, and climbs back up to the main deck.
Past the edge of the Stone Docks, seagalls call mournfully through the clinging mist. The sea stirs up; lapping waves churn and lick at the docks as a dark shape looms out of the fog. The shape breaks through into site; a hulking black three-masted troop carrier. A flock of seagulls flapping in and out around the sails follow it until it approaches the docks, and then, as one, turn and wheel away, screaming. Orcs from the north, likely to march south to Eisin. Selphina scans the docks and the alleyways winding towards them. The waves bob the huge ship up and down as it slowly maneuvers into position. From where she stands, Selphina can't see the crew on the deck of the huge ship, but she can see the docks below quickly emptying of workers and townsfolk, except for the sweating laborers tying off the ship.
Gang planks are thrown down onto the causeway from the towering seacraft, and Selphina hears the clanking roar of hulking, furious orcs. Then she sees them, hurtling down the plank, clad in black mail and armed with jagged blades. The laborers squirm and scrimp to get out of the orcs' path and line of vision as the brutes bluster off of the ship, roaring in foul temper at anyone they see.
Mad as an orc at sea too long. Selphina glances at the crew still unloading crates, and slips back down beneath the decks, where she bumps into her uncle Manvyn Fabblestabble.
"Stowed the goods then?" the older gnome asks, with a wrinkled smile.
"Of course." Selphina lowers her voice excitedly. "It's a--"
Manvyn holds up a hand to silence her. "I know." He chuckles at her obvious interest. "There'll be time. It's a long way to Eisin."
Selphina smiles wanly. "I'll take the--"
The sudden harsh squalling of a gull interrupts the gnomes' conversation. Manvyn and his niece exchange a mystified glance, and the older gnome climbs up to the deck. Selphina waits where she is.
The harsh squalling of the gull seems to get louder, more urgent. Selphina remembers that gulls don't come to the Tidewood. They always follow the ships in, and then wheel away. Cursed place. It's a cursed gull. It's a… oh no. Selphina finds her hands shaking, wrenching her gaze away from the false deck. Watcher, stay dry. Stay secret…
Selphina scrambles up onto the main deck. The orcs still hold the docks in the thrall of their fury, but they are beginning to calm down and muster themselves to stomp their way off of the docks. Manvyn stands on the deck of the barge, half behind one of the loaded crates, his long, orange-dyed leather vest flapping in the sea breeze as he looks out over the docks. Selphina tries to follow his gaze. As the gull squawks above her on the mast, she sees a human, dressed in the black robes and red sash of a legate, walking quickly along the causeway and onto the dock. Straight towards the barge. Turning her head just a little, she sees another legate appear out of an eastern alleyway, and head towards them as well.
Manvyn turns, furtively, and pushes Selphina back below the deck.
"What's going on?" she hisses in a whisper.
"I'm afraid we may have been betrayed. Someone, or something, tipped them." Manvyn's voice is even, his expression resigned. He pulls back the false floor of the hold, opens the box, and carefully pulls the fragile page from between the leathers. Folding it clumsily, he stuffs it in the pocket of Selphina's vest.
She stares at him in shock, the sudden thrill of adrenaline at having such an illegal object stuffed so casually in her vest pocket catching her off guard.
Manvyn points to one of the liquor crates from Swift Water. "Unload this. Don't come back to the barge. Get out of the city. Go! Go now!"
Numbly Selphina grabs the crate, her head swimming. I'm dead if they catch me with it. I'm dead if they… The thought rhythmically pitter-patters through her mind as she carries the liquor crate up onto the barge, across the loading plank, and onto the docks. I'm dead if they… The legates are closing in. Selphina keeps walking. She just keeps walking, through the line of them, past the gnomes carrying goods on and off various barges. Surely they can all hear her heart pounding in terror. I'm dead if they… well, they won't catch me then, will they?
Selphina is behind the legates now. She hears one of them shouting orders in a loud voice to secure the crew and search the barge. The orcs are swaggering onto the docks now to her left, and dock workers and laborers hurry to give them a wide berth. Selphina puts a hurry in her step too. She sets her crate down by the dock warehouse where the other supplies have already been unloaded and straightens, not daring to look behind her, back at the barge, at what's happening to her family. The page of a book is rolled up in one of her pockets.
The Veradeen In the Arc of Hanud of Year 99 of the Last Age
Eythorial has been captured. The news spread quickly among Roland's Riders, the messengers from one assault force to another spread across Eris Aman. Though they had lately been more often forced under the frozen eaves of the Veradeen by orc bands trailing their ambushes, and the occasional terrifying shadowspawn, the usual helps and secretive trade with the Erunsil elves were dwindling. One small raiding band retreated now to the eaves, and pitched their silent and fireless camp under the boughs of the Coldest Wood.
Sturmhalt, a century old and still in the saddle, told them of the orcish forces moving south from the Highhorns. "The Erunsil are hard pressed to aid us now," he said.
"Eythorial has never fought on the front," Hamnish Erplan, an outlander of House Dale still in his prime who had been riding with House Redgard for all his adult life, protested.
Vivid still in Hamnish's memory was the day he had gone hunting, illegally, in the Veradeen with his father, Dakerin Erplan. A scheduled orc patrol had taken too much of the village's winter store of food to allow them to survive until they could sow the next meager crop into the bitter soil salted from Jahzir's invasion a hundred years ago. The night was bitter, cold, with a wet sleet that cut through all but the thickest furs and obscured all but the sharpest vision. Dakerin thought they'd left unseen. But an orc ambush followed them… Hamnish shuddered at the memory. His father had told him to run, that his 14-year-old son would not be slaughtered at his side. Hamnish hesitated too long before he ran. The orcs caught him under the boughs of a frozen tree that danced with strange, flitting lights. Fear clogged him. The orcish voices laughed harshly… and then screamed. A gaunt and ageless man dressed in white winter furs wreathed from the light-filled tree appeared in a storm of magical fire. Hamnish didn't remember much after that, but he remembered, later, the man urging him. You must take these supplies back to your village in the stead of your father. We will not let them starve. Hamnish remembered his awe at the amount and quality of the food, furs, and tools the elf--for it was an elf, Hamnish knew when he saw the long, pointed ears--had wrapped onto his back. The patrol that ambushed you is dead. There was no one to take a report back. You will not be arrested. Not this time. Have faith. Persevere.
"No," it was 19-year-old Roland Redgard who spoke up. "No, Hamnish, his greatest crime was the boon he brought to all the Dornish villages of the North plains… you know that." None of the riders said anything. The young prince continued. "Who better to target than the Gift Giver of the Tree Lights? No elf has sacrificed more to give such hope to the Dorns."
"We must return the favor," Hamnish said, restraining his agitation by the long practice of silent watches and hunts.
"We have tried. Our scouts report he's being taken south to Eisin, but he is under heavier guard than we can manage. There are legates with him, not just orcs." Roland sighed. "We're hard-pressed here, too. If the Erunsil were able to spare the forces… but I doubt they are, either."
Sturmhalt smiled thinly. "Perhaps a party in the south would have more luck. Orcs are thick as the trees of Erethor north of the Ebon Sea. But not so south of it. They can't swim, you know. Sea travel terrifies them."
"There are orc legions occupying all of Erenland," Roland said. "Are you saying there's less of them across the sea? Or just that they're all a bit seasick down there?"
A few laughs, without humor, scattered among the men. Hamnish did not laugh. "If there is a chance of success," he said, "I would take the risk to aid the Gift Giver."
"Roland," Sturmhalt said, "you've grown up bitter… but some of us remember another time. I remember what hope looked like. And the elves remember, you know. They live for centuries… or longer. Sometimes it's worth to stand for that hope, even if the opposition is formidable. Even if you have to die for it." He raised his white bushy eyebrows. "There's no books left. No art. No legacy. Only the words and actions of those of us who still live and fight. That's all there is for anyone to see."
"We're all here because we're certain that we're going to die in the fight," Roland said, with a charming smile. "You've all signed a death warrant and were proud to do it. Shall we deny Hamnish the honor?"
A murmur of dissent rippled through the men. Roland spun slowly on his heel to face Hamnish, the smile still on his face. "I'll send a rider to contact House Norfall," he said. "You'll have passage south across the Pelluria, quick as we can arrange it. Orcs don't sail fast. We'll set you on the south shore west of Baden's Bluff, and you may be able to reach Eisin before Eythorial's vanguard does."
Hamnish drew himself up proudly and bowed deeply. "I would be honored, my lord."
"We're not here for honor," Roland said. "We're here to kill orcs and save our people."
"Honor meets hope in the bygone age," Sturmhalt added. "And never have they been seen apart."
"All right, you old cudgel! Let our hopeful man of Dale rise like a shooting star to save the Gift Giver, if he can!" Roland laid a rough and amiable hand on Hamnish's shoulder. "First thing tomorrow morning, take your pick of our steeds, and may Aradil's hope ride south with you."
The Westlands In the Arc of Hanud of Year 99 of the Last Age
Hamnish found himself little more seaworthy than an orc. His horse fared better than he aboard the small Norfall trading ship. He wasn't even sure how Roland had signaled the Norfall fleet, but he found the boat waiting for him when he reached the shore in the wee morning hours.
The hours were just as wee when it finally put him ashore, but even then the placid blue warmth of the southern shore was in evident contrast to the stormy cliffs of the northern reaches of the sea. The gently waving grasslands and soft pannock oases seemed an inviting journey for the ranger's fleet-footed horse. But the whirls, eddies, and channels of the land beneath the sea of sword grass slowed his progress considerably, and Hamnish worried if he would make it in time. The captain of the trade ship had advised him to avoid the roads. Old King's Roads of Erenland they were, now the Road of Ruin, and the Road of Woe, maintained by slaves and used for the streaming hordes of orc armies and the overgrazing herds of boro to feed them. The land is dead fifty miles out from the road, he said, and too easily will the herdsman and patrols spot you.
And so Hamnish took the way south across the wild plains, like the Sarcosans of old tale. They said Roland rides like a Sarcosan. How would they know? We've seen nothing but the bogs of Aman and the frozen eaves of the Veradeen for years. We see our own villages only on the horizon…
Lost in thought as the afternoon began to wane, his horse picking its way carefully at a slow trot through the swordgrass, Hamnish finds himself watching tiny circling shapes in the sky a great distance ahead. As he slowly moves closer, he can see the distinctive wobble and circling of vultures. Such a gathering of these scavengers only happens if there is something to attract them. The point they are circling is roughly a mile to the southeast.
Selphina has run drills for this situation before. At least every couple of months, the family and all the trusted workers run drills of different scenarios. They never skip this one. She heads to her stash location, grabs her go-bag, and starts walking toward the main gate out of the city. It's late enough in the morning by now that, it's busy enough to blend in with the crowd.
Baden's Bluff In the Arc of Hanud of Year 99 of the Last Age
After setting down her load, Selphina joins the warehouse workers in moving crates for a minute as she works her way towards the foreman, a gnome named Gonul Threadsifter.
"Message for the front," Selphina says, and he hands her a blue streamer which she loops around one wrist.
He then hands her the small go-bag, the contents of which she quickly empties into the various pockets of her vest. Gonul watches her for a minute. "Be careful," he says, and then turns to direct a group of gnomes to the next set of crates to be carried out to the docks.
Slipping out of the warehouse, Selphina follows the main road along the main canal, the Aranway, as it bends southward along the blocks of the Stone Docks. Carts and wagons, hauled by hand or beast, accompanied by human and gnomish merchants, orc and town guard patrols, and the occasional legate dominate the crowd at this time of day; the workers and fisherman largely already at their posts or out to sea.
As the Aranway reaches the bluffs, it burrows straight into them through a chalky, excavated tunnel, and the main road winds slightly to the east to make the climb up the Steeps, the difficult passage from the commercial center of the Docks to the Leeward, sometimes thought of as the city proper. As the road steeps and slants upwards, switchbacking frequently for the wagons to turn, town guard patrols line its edges at intervals, their eyes not now on the pedestrians, carts, and merchandise, but on the crammed and run-down buildings that choke the precarious sides of the bluff. A few figures move in and out of sight among the buildings, as if they're avoiding sight of the road, and scrawny stray dogs scavenge for trash. Selphina knows that the Steeps are a slum, passed through quickly on the main road only. She also knows that they are rumored to be an easy place to get lost in… or to lose others.
A muscular man with rough hands and clothing leads a small, skinny mule hauling a cart full of fish from the Worm Dock market. As he slowly leads his beast around the turn in the road, a pair of dirty urchins run up to the side of the road. "Please, sir, a fish for your charity?" they chatter in accented Trader's Tongue.
The man, his face dark with sweat and grime under his coif, pulls a fish from his wagonload and throws it quickly to the urchins. They snatch it and disappear up the slope into a ramshackle old house held up by rotting boards.
One of the guards, standing at the side of the switchback, attempts to give chase, but the wily children disappear too quickly. Angrily, he turns and cuffs the man leading the mule. "Don't rob your betters to feed these dogs," he growls.
No one has taken any notice of Selphina with her blue streamer, just one of many gnomes passing to and fro.
(There is a Map of Baden's Bluff below the spoiler tag. If you would like to choose your route through the city, or make Skill Checks as you travel, you may. Rolls of History, Investigation, Perception, or other relevant skills will sometimes gain you extra information.)
Hamnish hates his heaving stomach. Try as he might to quell the boat-induced roiling of his insides, he could not stop his feet rushing him to his now-accustomed place on the starboard foredeck. Just as he reaches his accustomed space on the railing, he woke up. Turning to his side, He prepared to be quietly sick, then realized he wasn’t on a ship and his stomach was not. As he fully woke to the pre dawn quiet, for the tenth time on this journey, Hamnish vowed to never set foot upon the deck of anything larger than a raft. After working through his morning tasks, Hamnish saddled his horse and rode away from the rising light The noon sun had passed its peak when he noticed a flock of birds in the distance. They were circling – what? – like a sea-borne whirlpool. Hamnish’s stomach lurched at the thought. What were the vultures circling, for there was no question that the birds were vultures. Since the vultures were close to the path he must follow, he decided to carefully see what attracted them. It wasn’t long before he smelled the unmistakable odor of burning. Fearing what he knew was obvious, Hamnish rode quickly into the middle of a still smoldering village. The vultures on the ground rose quickly as he rode into the center of the smoking ruins. Glancing around, the smell of burning in his eyes, Hamnish noted that there were no bodies to be seen. There were a few half-eaten cows and pigs laying about, but no sentients. There had recently been a massacre here, but there were no bodies to prove it. Then he heard a voice.
As he rides to meet the spiraling vultures, Hamnish sees little evidence of disturbance across the waving grass until he is nearly on top of it. As his horse crests a low hill, the shallow vale below him explodes in the flapping of vultures, startled from their repast on the ground. As the buzzards clear out, a gruesome sight greets Hamnish's eyes.
As a ranger, Hamnish recognizes the remains of a nomad camp. Not wanting to stay exposed on the low hill, he nudges his horse down into the vale amongst the wreckage. Hide tents are flattened and torn, and debris scattered across the trampled grass. But the worst sight is the corpses---Hamnish quickly counts 18 bodies of a small, fair folk---not elves---he thinks they must be halflings, though he's never seen one himself. There are three dead orcs, and four dead wolves---not wolves, exactly, he can tell even from atop his horse; their heads are broader, their tails longer. But the camp is of a size to easily have housed 50-70 individuals, especially if they are of the little halfling folk. Where are the rest of them?
A wide trail of trampled grass leads from the remains of the camp towards the east. Hamnish is not slow to recognize the probable work of orcs.
As he studies the slaughter before him, Hamnish wants to find those responsible for this horror, and make them pay a fitting cost. But he is also wary of wasting any time whatsoever. His speed might count for everything if he is to even have a chance to rescue Eythorial. And yet....Orcs are known to take prisoners and commit horrible atrocities on them. Could he let that happen without trying, somehow, to DO something? Not yet ready to decide, Hamnish looked more closely at the scene. Perhaps there were some clues to the identity of the folk? [rolls Investigation: 17] [rolls History: 6]
Hamnish dismounts from his horse to get a closer look. The mangled bodies of the small folk--the halflings--he notes with sorrow are mostly older individuals and young children, although there are some able warriors there too. He tries to recall anything he might have known about halflings, but they are a folk of the central Erenland south of the sea of Pelluria, and he can't recall anything about them, except that they are different from gnomes, gnomes being a people which he is slightly more familiar with. Hamnish's best guess is that the able-bodied halflings of the tribe were taken away by the orcs to be enslaved.
The three orcs are dead. Hamnish makes sure of that before getting too close. Small arrows bristle from them, and one looks like it got a lucky blade to the throat. The halfings put up a good fight. The four wolf-like creatures are also dead--but no, on closer inspection, Hamnish finds a reflex response in one of them. It's a female, badly injured from long, jagged blade marks that look like the serrated blades the dead orcs hold tight in their stiff fists. She's still alive, but barely.
Neither the orcs nor the halflings have been beheaded in such a way as to prevent their rise as Fell. Hamnish's best guess is that they've been dead three days. The Fell are one of the greatest plagues on Eredane. Scholars believe that their rise began as a combination of Izrador's corruption of the natural order and the Sundering that removed Aryth from the divine realm and prevents souls from leaving the world to their proper resting place. Hamnish doesn't recall when this started happening, except that it was a long time ago, in the First or Second Age. Since the dead began to walk lifeless and hungry, every culture changed their burial rites quite drastically to prevent their deceased from sharing this fate. No one really knows what makes a corpse rise as Fell, but precautions are always taken.
As he is pondering this unpleasant reality, a gust of wind flaps the torn leather hide of small, crumpled tents, startling him. As he peers in their direction, he sees, half-hidden behind the tents, an upright figure lashed securely to a bundle of tent poles that have been half buried in the ground. It's an orc. The orc's head lolls forward, and he is badly bruised, with long, shallow knife cuts slashed across his bare chest. His wounds don't appear mortal or even debilitating, but he's clearly been left there to die. At first, Hamnish thinks the orc is dead, but then he sees his chest rise and fall in a shallow gasp. He's not dead, but he's probably not far from death either.
Overhead, the buzzards interrupted from their meal circle high overhead, glowering down at Hamnish as if to see if he's left yet so that they can return to their meal.
Selphina is going to head to the main gate by going through the East Steeps and skirting the east side of Guildall into Hearthhome, staying south of the main road. She knows this city like the back of her hand because she's been running errands and doing deliveries since she was young (History: 16). As she makes her way to the main gate, she's going to make a point to listen to conversations around her to see if there are any rumors about the raid on the docks (Investigation: 18). She's also going to stop and lightly chat (asking after family members, giving news of deliveries to come, etc.) with folks she's known for ages just in case she's being watched (Perception: 8).
After first beheading the halfling and orc corpses, Hamnish walks towards the bound orc. Why is the orc alive? Why is it BOUND? As he nears the suffering creature, Hamnish notices the orc staring at him, but, oddly, not with hate and anger. Rather, the creature looks relieved? [Perception: 20]
Climbing out the Steeps with no mishaps, Selphina emerges onto the broad plateau of Guildall. Town guards flank the main road where it descends towards the Steeps, and patrol the alleyways and road attentively. This is one of the quietist and safest districts in the city, where the trades that the Shadow found useful were allowed to continue their craft. Shops and warehouses line the main street, many of them well-windowed for the dustier crafts, statuary and carving of ornate furniture. Artisans are hard at work inside as always, and wealthy buyers peruse the wares available in the shops. Southward on the main street, Selphina can see the enormous, torched remains of the old Grand Guildhall---left in dangerous ruins of rotting wood and stone. With all of the other buildings in good condition, this one has been left unrepaired and uncleared by the Shadow as a blight and a reminder of who has the power here. Selphina once poked her head inside the once-grand entry hall, dust and ash covering the murals and guild heraldry that had decorated it. She doesn't go near it now, though, keeping to the east side of the street.
"There's another galleon come through," a well-dressed woman says to a proprietor as she looks over a beautifully carved and varnished wardrobe. "I hope they sweep the streets after they march them to the gates! And all those gnomes running around... I can't abide them!"
"They keep the supplies coming," the shopkeeper, dressed in a leather apron, his linen shirt dusted with wood shavings, replies. "The price of wood keeps going up as the forests recede. You'd not see this piece in such quality if it weren't for the gnomes bringing hardwood up the river from Erethor."
The woman sighs. "I suppose that's so," she says. "They're rascals, though, I have a hard time believing they're trustworthy. I've heard they smuggle illegal goods! One of the merchants coming up from the docks said the legates caught a gnome barge full of stolen goods and they're stripping it and arresting its crew. Gnomes may be good for many things, but there's bad ones in the barrel, I tell you. I hope they make a good example of those varmints!"
After a few minutes of eavesdropping, Selphina leaves the main road, cutting through the alleyways towards Hearthome. She passes through the well-kept shops and warehouses of the guildmasters and past the several blocks of the Cerogans' smithies, warehouses, and quartering yards full of huge, black, iron-wheeled wagons. The black Cerogan mansion looms out from the middle of their assets, and Selphina gives it a wide berth. She knows that the Cabal has several legates there. Selphina doesn't know much about the Cabal, except that they're a faction of legates that operates somewhat independently of the main Order of Shadow headed by Izrador's Night King Sunulael.
The quartering yards give way to a district that seems to have barely changed with the occupation. Hearthome, full of older homes and properties of the city's tradesmen and government employees, shows little interference, and a neighborhood cadre of--at least outwardly--very pious citizens. Two citizen-led churches of Izrador here frequently gather neighborhood meetings. Children run and play in the alleyways and yards, and the good smells of canning and baking waft from the smoke of cookfires.
Pastor Menad's wife, Sidra, waves to Selphina as she passes by. Sidra is sitting outside in the yard, watching her young son play in the grass. Her home is quite cozy and situated just two blocks from one of the Shadow churches. "Good morning, Selphina! Did you come from Kingshand? The pastor just went there to deliver his tithe. Nice to see you!"
The orc's eyelids twitch and then struggle to open as Hamnish speaks in his tongue. As Hamnish walks closer, he can see large, ugly bruises covering the orc's body. The long, shallow knife cuts across his bare chest look like they're festering. His injuries certainly have the look of someone who was beaten unconscious and then trussed up. The orc struggles to raise his head as his eyes finally flicker open, attempting to focus on the human standing before him. He looks about, wild-eyed, his weakened muscles bulging against his bonds.
He seems to comprehend Hamnish's question, after a moment, and he stops struggling as he recognizes that he is bound. He looks for a moment at the bodies that Hamnish has just beheaded. He replies in Orcish, his voice weak and raspy from exposure and dehydration, "It seems I was left here to die by my companions, but that has not yet been accomplished." As the orc's gaze lingers on the beheaded corpses, it occurs to Hamnish that he might have been left tied here as prey for the Fell that Hamnish has just securely prevented from rising.
[Question to DM: are the Fell - I am supposing that a general miasma pervades the land that creates the Fell - still an active policy of Izarador, or just the leftover effects from the last war?] [History: 15]
Hamnish knows that the Fell have been a threat across all the land since sometime in the First Age---thousands of years ago. Horrid tales of battlefield dead rising to fight again in the last years of the Dornish War (the First Age conflict between the elves and dwarves and the invading Dorns, who were the first humans to set foot on the continent of Eredane) were later confirmed in official reports as the dead soldiers began returning to their encampments to attack the living. This put a huge strain on the resources of the war for both sides, as they were forced to spend manpower and resources patrolling against roving undead. The terrible pandemic of undeath quickly became universal, spreading to every race. Within a decade, however, dramatic changes in funeral practices across all cultures slowed the rise of Fell to a trickle. Battlefield casualties became and are now still the prime source of the Fell.
Many scholars believed that the rise of the Fell was due to Izrador's growing influence over the land combined with the horror and devastation of the long war. Some also said that with Aryth cut off from heaven, the souls of the dead had nowhere to go but to haunt their own dead bodies and the living. The Fell have been a universal horror for thousands of years, a tragic reminder of the terrible state of Aryth behind the Veil and under the Shadow.
However, this terrible scourge was a wakeup call for the elves and the Dorns alike of who their real enemy was. Aradil, the Elven Queen, sent emissaries to the Dorns, and treaties of final peace were signed in the year 4410 of the First Age.
The orc's dull, delirious gaze returns to Hamnish. "I'm sure it was my companions," he says, slowly. "They meant for me to die."
Hamnish considered the orc's question: he did believe orcs had no individual thoughts. They were just mindless brutes, weren't they? "Why did you oppose your clan?"
"Not all orcs are what they seem," the orc grunts stoically. He seems not to trust Hamnish enough to want to share the details of his disagreement with his warband.
Welcome to the world of MIDNIGHT: Legacy of Darkness.
The fall of the Kingdom of Erenland at the end of the Third Age ushered in a reign of darkness and terror. Izrador's orc legions, marching out of the north, and his Order of Shadow, legates of his black temples hold the human lands and nations under their sway. The elves and dwarves have retreated to their forest and mountain holdfasts, and wage a bloody, desperate defense against the relentless attacks of the forces of Shadow. Civilization has been attacked at its root, books burned, art and cultural heirlooms destroyed, fields salted. Human sacrifices are monthly marched to Shadow temples that tower over the ruins of Dornish, Erenlander, and Sarcosan cities. Traitor princes preserved their cities at the cost of their souls and their peoples' freedom, while those who stood fast against the hordes of the Shadow were leveled to the ground. Ruinous tithes are exacted from desperate communities, and death or enslavement hovers near the occupied lands, waiting to pounce at the slightest breach of the Shadow's law.
Yet tales are still told, and hope and conscience are still free in the hearts of the living. Millenia ago, when legends say Izrador was cast from the heavens by the Lords of Light, the world was severed from Divine communion. It is said that the Elves still hold the lost knowledge and prophecies that limit Izrador's power and may even one day spell his ruin and the freedom of the mortal world from his tyranny.
You live in this occupied world under THE SHADOW.... and well you know the laws... but could there be more?
The Laws of the Shadow
All acts of direct rebellion or assistance to the elves and dwarves are punishable by DEATH:
Less serious crimes that are not considered a direct threat to the rule of the Shadow are punishable by ENSLAVEMENT:
Small infractions and minor crimes are punishable by the LASH:
Selphina Fabblestable:
Baden's Bluff
In the Arc of Hanud of Year 99 of the Last Age
The early morning mists swirl around the Worm Docks as the fishing boats head out to sea. But across the Aranway, the Fabblestabble family was up earlier, swarming the Stone Docks, loading and unloading cargo from their sea barge. Quickly and quietly, the gnomes in their brightly colored vests unload crates of liquors and ales from Swift Water, and sacks of the more portable tithes gathered from beleaguered farmsteads and villages up and down the Eren.
Then, before the sun burns off the cold mist, they begin to load up the waiting cargo brought in by their associates. Servants of legates check off lists of supplies that will be sent south down the Eren River before leaving them in the hands of the gnomes. Crates of weapons and kegs of gunpowder from Steel Hill, for the front. Sacks of grain and wool from Bastion.
Gnome families living in Baden's Bluff send their contacts to deliver their own shipments; of these, just one box is flagged, wrapped in baling twine and left next to the green pennant on the side prow, with a smaller red streamer below it.
The gnomes communicate with one another with elaborate systems of streamers and flags, easy to see on a boat or barge at a distance, and little understood by anyone else. The green-and-red pennant and streamer on the side prow tells the gnomes of the Bluff where to leave illegal goods that need to make it to Caradul as quickly as possible. The box has only been there half a minute before Selphina picks it up, and squirrels down under the hold to unload it below the deck. The box is full of halfling-worked leather, and at first, Selphina can't find the contraband. No stores of Elvish arrows, sacks of mirrorglass, or preserved food rations… but then she finds it, tucked between two tanned deer hides---and gasps with excitement. In her wily little fingers she holds a single page of a book, written in a strange language she doesn't recognize.
Selphina has always been curious about the lost knowledge of the world. A hundred years ago Izrador's forces ransacked and torched every library, every piece of art of any culture, every record in Eredane, looting, burning, destroying. All anyone has left now is scraps--mostly oral, and sometimes, pieces like this, that are carefully smuggled away to the elves, out of reach of the Shadow.
Many of the gnomish trading companies have more than a passing involvement in the smuggling operations to and from both Caradul and more local resistance groups. Selphina herself has had secret lessons far down the Felthera with the elves, and from savvy channelers here in Baden's Bluff impressed with her performances between shipping ventures at the Beggar Bowl Tavern---though they all know she is a skilled musician and performer, not all of her family knows that Selphina has learned a bit of magic. She has also taught herself to read, in bits, scraps, and pieces. A page from a book is a priceless treasure to her.
The harbor bell clangs as the mist begins to burn away under the rising sun. Selphina stows the precious page back in the leathers, pushing the whole box securely below the false deck under the barge's hold, and climbs back up to the main deck.
Past the edge of the Stone Docks, seagalls call mournfully through the clinging mist. The sea stirs up; lapping waves churn and lick at the docks as a dark shape looms out of the fog. The shape breaks through into site; a hulking black three-masted troop carrier. A flock of seagulls flapping in and out around the sails follow it until it approaches the docks, and then, as one, turn and wheel away, screaming. Orcs from the north, likely to march south to Eisin. Selphina scans the docks and the alleyways winding towards them. The waves bob the huge ship up and down as it slowly maneuvers into position. From where she stands, Selphina can't see the crew on the deck of the huge ship, but she can see the docks below quickly emptying of workers and townsfolk, except for the sweating laborers tying off the ship.
Gang planks are thrown down onto the causeway from the towering seacraft, and Selphina hears the clanking roar of hulking, furious orcs. Then she sees them, hurtling down the plank, clad in black mail and armed with jagged blades. The laborers squirm and scrimp to get out of the orcs' path and line of vision as the brutes bluster off of the ship, roaring in foul temper at anyone they see.
Mad as an orc at sea too long. Selphina glances at the crew still unloading crates, and slips back down beneath the decks, where she bumps into her uncle Manvyn Fabblestabble.
"Stowed the goods then?" the older gnome asks, with a wrinkled smile.
"Of course." Selphina lowers her voice excitedly. "It's a--"
Manvyn holds up a hand to silence her. "I know." He chuckles at her obvious interest. "There'll be time. It's a long way to Eisin."
Selphina smiles wanly. "I'll take the--"
The sudden harsh squalling of a gull interrupts the gnomes' conversation. Manvyn and his niece exchange a mystified glance, and the older gnome climbs up to the deck. Selphina waits where she is.
The harsh squalling of the gull seems to get louder, more urgent. Selphina remembers that gulls don't come to the Tidewood. They always follow the ships in, and then wheel away. Cursed place. It's a cursed gull. It's a… oh no. Selphina finds her hands shaking, wrenching her gaze away from the false deck. Watcher, stay dry. Stay secret…
Selphina scrambles up onto the main deck. The orcs still hold the docks in the thrall of their fury, but they are beginning to calm down and muster themselves to stomp their way off of the docks. Manvyn stands on the deck of the barge, half behind one of the loaded crates, his long, orange-dyed leather vest flapping in the sea breeze as he looks out over the docks. Selphina tries to follow his gaze. As the gull squawks above her on the mast, she sees a human, dressed in the black robes and red sash of a legate, walking quickly along the causeway and onto the dock. Straight towards the barge. Turning her head just a little, she sees another legate appear out of an eastern alleyway, and head towards them as well.
Manvyn turns, furtively, and pushes Selphina back below the deck.
"What's going on?" she hisses in a whisper.
"I'm afraid we may have been betrayed. Someone, or something, tipped them." Manvyn's voice is even, his expression resigned. He pulls back the false floor of the hold, opens the box, and carefully pulls the fragile page from between the leathers. Folding it clumsily, he stuffs it in the pocket of Selphina's vest.
She stares at him in shock, the sudden thrill of adrenaline at having such an illegal object stuffed so casually in her vest pocket catching her off guard.
Manvyn points to one of the liquor crates from Swift Water. "Unload this. Don't come back to the barge. Get out of the city. Go! Go now!"
Numbly Selphina grabs the crate, her head swimming. I'm dead if they catch me with it. I'm dead if they… The thought rhythmically pitter-patters through her mind as she carries the liquor crate up onto the barge, across the loading plank, and onto the docks. I'm dead if they… The legates are closing in. Selphina keeps walking. She just keeps walking, through the line of them, past the gnomes carrying goods on and off various barges. Surely they can all hear her heart pounding in terror. I'm dead if they… well, they won't catch me then, will they?
Selphina is behind the legates now. She hears one of them shouting orders in a loud voice to secure the crew and search the barge. The orcs are swaggering onto the docks now to her left, and dock workers and laborers hurry to give them a wide berth. Selphina puts a hurry in her step too. She sets her crate down by the dock warehouse where the other supplies have already been unloaded and straightens, not daring to look behind her, back at the barge, at what's happening to her family. The page of a book is rolled up in one of her pockets.
What does she do now?
Hamnish Erplan:
The Veradeen
In the Arc of Hanud of Year 99 of the Last Age
Eythorial has been captured. The news spread quickly among Roland's Riders, the messengers from one assault force to another spread across Eris Aman. Though they had lately been more often forced under the frozen eaves of the Veradeen by orc bands trailing their ambushes, and the occasional terrifying shadowspawn, the usual helps and secretive trade with the Erunsil elves were dwindling. One small raiding band retreated now to the eaves, and pitched their silent and fireless camp under the boughs of the Coldest Wood.
Sturmhalt, a century old and still in the saddle, told them of the orcish forces moving south from the Highhorns. "The Erunsil are hard pressed to aid us now," he said.
"Eythorial has never fought on the front," Hamnish Erplan, an outlander of House Dale still in his prime who had been riding with House Redgard for all his adult life, protested.
Vivid still in Hamnish's memory was the day he had gone hunting, illegally, in the Veradeen with his father, Dakerin Erplan. A scheduled orc patrol had taken too much of the village's winter store of food to allow them to survive until they could sow the next meager crop into the bitter soil salted from Jahzir's invasion a hundred years ago. The night was bitter, cold, with a wet sleet that cut through all but the thickest furs and obscured all but the sharpest vision. Dakerin thought they'd left unseen. But an orc ambush followed them… Hamnish shuddered at the memory. His father had told him to run, that his 14-year-old son would not be slaughtered at his side. Hamnish hesitated too long before he ran. The orcs caught him under the boughs of a frozen tree that danced with strange, flitting lights. Fear clogged him. The orcish voices laughed harshly… and then screamed. A gaunt and ageless man dressed in white winter furs wreathed from the light-filled tree appeared in a storm of magical fire. Hamnish didn't remember much after that, but he remembered, later, the man urging him. You must take these supplies back to your village in the stead of your father. We will not let them starve. Hamnish remembered his awe at the amount and quality of the food, furs, and tools the elf--for it was an elf, Hamnish knew when he saw the long, pointed ears--had wrapped onto his back. The patrol that ambushed you is dead. There was no one to take a report back. You will not be arrested. Not this time. Have faith. Persevere.
"No," it was 19-year-old Roland Redgard who spoke up. "No, Hamnish, his greatest crime was the boon he brought to all the Dornish villages of the North plains… you know that." None of the riders said anything. The young prince continued. "Who better to target than the Gift Giver of the Tree Lights? No elf has sacrificed more to give such hope to the Dorns."
"We must return the favor," Hamnish said, restraining his agitation by the long practice of silent watches and hunts.
"We have tried. Our scouts report he's being taken south to Eisin, but he is under heavier guard than we can manage. There are legates with him, not just orcs." Roland sighed. "We're hard-pressed here, too. If the Erunsil were able to spare the forces… but I doubt they are, either."
Sturmhalt smiled thinly. "Perhaps a party in the south would have more luck. Orcs are thick as the trees of Erethor north of the Ebon Sea. But not so south of it. They can't swim, you know. Sea travel terrifies them."
"There are orc legions occupying all of Erenland," Roland said. "Are you saying there's less of them across the sea? Or just that they're all a bit seasick down there?"
A few laughs, without humor, scattered among the men. Hamnish did not laugh. "If there is a chance of success," he said, "I would take the risk to aid the Gift Giver."
"Roland," Sturmhalt said, "you've grown up bitter… but some of us remember another time. I remember what hope looked like. And the elves remember, you know. They live for centuries… or longer. Sometimes it's worth to stand for that hope, even if the opposition is formidable. Even if you have to die for it." He raised his white bushy eyebrows. "There's no books left. No art. No legacy. Only the words and actions of those of us who still live and fight. That's all there is for anyone to see."
"We're all here because we're certain that we're going to die in the fight," Roland said, with a charming smile. "You've all signed a death warrant and were proud to do it. Shall we deny Hamnish the honor?"
A murmur of dissent rippled through the men. Roland spun slowly on his heel to face Hamnish, the smile still on his face. "I'll send a rider to contact House Norfall," he said. "You'll have passage south across the Pelluria, quick as we can arrange it. Orcs don't sail fast. We'll set you on the south shore west of Baden's Bluff, and you may be able to reach Eisin before Eythorial's vanguard does."
Hamnish drew himself up proudly and bowed deeply. "I would be honored, my lord."
"We're not here for honor," Roland said. "We're here to kill orcs and save our people."
"Honor meets hope in the bygone age," Sturmhalt added. "And never have they been seen apart."
"All right, you old cudgel! Let our hopeful man of Dale rise like a shooting star to save the Gift Giver, if he can!" Roland laid a rough and amiable hand on Hamnish's shoulder. "First thing tomorrow morning, take your pick of our steeds, and may Aradil's hope ride south with you."
The Westlands
In the Arc of Hanud of Year 99 of the Last Age
Hamnish found himself little more seaworthy than an orc. His horse fared better than he aboard the small Norfall trading ship. He wasn't even sure how Roland had signaled the Norfall fleet, but he found the boat waiting for him when he reached the shore in the wee morning hours.
The hours were just as wee when it finally put him ashore, but even then the placid blue warmth of the southern shore was in evident contrast to the stormy cliffs of the northern reaches of the sea. The gently waving grasslands and soft pannock oases seemed an inviting journey for the ranger's fleet-footed horse. But the whirls, eddies, and channels of the land beneath the sea of sword grass slowed his progress considerably, and Hamnish worried if he would make it in time. The captain of the trade ship had advised him to avoid the roads. Old King's Roads of Erenland they were, now the Road of Ruin, and the Road of Woe, maintained by slaves and used for the streaming hordes of orc armies and the overgrazing herds of boro to feed them. The land is dead fifty miles out from the road, he said, and too easily will the herdsman and patrols spot you.
And so Hamnish took the way south across the wild plains, like the Sarcosans of old tale. They said Roland rides like a Sarcosan. How would they know? We've seen nothing but the bogs of Aman and the frozen eaves of the Veradeen for years. We see our own villages only on the horizon…
Lost in thought as the afternoon began to wane, his horse picking its way carefully at a slow trot through the swordgrass, Hamnish finds himself watching tiny circling shapes in the sky a great distance ahead. As he slowly moves closer, he can see the distinctive wobble and circling of vultures. Such a gathering of these scavengers only happens if there is something to attract them. The point they are circling is roughly a mile to the southeast.
What does Hamnish do?
Selphina has run drills for this situation before. At least every couple of months, the family and all the trusted workers run drills of different scenarios. They never skip this one. She heads to her stash location, grabs her go-bag, and starts walking toward the main gate out of the city. It's late enough in the morning by now that, it's busy enough to blend in with the crowd.
Selphina:
Baden's Bluff
In the Arc of Hanud of Year 99 of the Last Age
After setting down her load, Selphina joins the warehouse workers in moving crates for a minute as she works her way towards the foreman, a gnome named Gonul Threadsifter.
"Message for the front," Selphina says, and he hands her a blue streamer which she loops around one wrist.
He then hands her the small go-bag, the contents of which she quickly empties into the various pockets of her vest. Gonul watches her for a minute. "Be careful," he says, and then turns to direct a group of gnomes to the next set of crates to be carried out to the docks.
Slipping out of the warehouse, Selphina follows the main road along the main canal, the Aranway, as it bends southward along the blocks of the Stone Docks. Carts and wagons, hauled by hand or beast, accompanied by human and gnomish merchants, orc and town guard patrols, and the occasional legate dominate the crowd at this time of day; the workers and fisherman largely already at their posts or out to sea.
As the Aranway reaches the bluffs, it burrows straight into them through a chalky, excavated tunnel, and the main road winds slightly to the east to make the climb up the Steeps, the difficult passage from the commercial center of the Docks to the Leeward, sometimes thought of as the city proper. As the road steeps and slants upwards, switchbacking frequently for the wagons to turn, town guard patrols line its edges at intervals, their eyes not now on the pedestrians, carts, and merchandise, but on the crammed and run-down buildings that choke the precarious sides of the bluff. A few figures move in and out of sight among the buildings, as if they're avoiding sight of the road, and scrawny stray dogs scavenge for trash. Selphina knows that the Steeps are a slum, passed through quickly on the main road only. She also knows that they are rumored to be an easy place to get lost in… or to lose others.
A muscular man with rough hands and clothing leads a small, skinny mule hauling a cart full of fish from the Worm Dock market. As he slowly leads his beast around the turn in the road, a pair of dirty urchins run up to the side of the road. "Please, sir, a fish for your charity?" they chatter in accented Trader's Tongue.
The man, his face dark with sweat and grime under his coif, pulls a fish from his wagonload and throws it quickly to the urchins. They snatch it and disappear up the slope into a ramshackle old house held up by rotting boards.
One of the guards, standing at the side of the switchback, attempts to give chase, but the wily children disappear too quickly. Angrily, he turns and cuffs the man leading the mule. "Don't rob your betters to feed these dogs," he growls.
No one has taken any notice of Selphina with her blue streamer, just one of many gnomes passing to and fro.
(There is a Map of Baden's Bluff below the spoiler tag. If you would like to choose your route through the city, or make Skill Checks as you travel, you may. Rolls of History, Investigation, Perception, or other relevant skills will sometimes gain you extra information.)
Hamnish hates his heaving stomach. Try as he might to quell the boat-induced roiling of his insides, he could not stop his feet rushing him to his now-accustomed place on the starboard foredeck. Just as he reaches his accustomed space on the railing, he woke up.
Turning to his side, He prepared to be quietly sick, then realized he wasn’t on a ship and his stomach was not. As he fully woke to the pre dawn quiet, for the tenth time on this journey, Hamnish vowed to never set foot upon the deck of anything larger than a raft.
After working through his morning tasks, Hamnish saddled his horse and rode away from the rising light
The noon sun had passed its peak when he noticed a flock of birds in the distance. They were circling – what? – like a sea-borne whirlpool. Hamnish’s stomach lurched at the thought. What were the vultures circling, for there was no question that the birds were vultures. Since the vultures were close to the path he must follow, he decided to carefully see what attracted them.
It wasn’t long before he smelled the unmistakable odor of burning. Fearing what he knew was obvious, Hamnish rode quickly into the middle of a still smoldering village. The vultures on the ground rose quickly as he rode into the center of the smoking ruins. Glancing around, the smell of burning in his eyes, Hamnish noted that there were no bodies to be seen. There were a few half-eaten cows and pigs laying about, but no sentients. There had recently been a massacre here, but there were no bodies to prove it.
Then he heard a voice.
Hamnish:
As he rides to meet the spiraling vultures, Hamnish sees little evidence of disturbance across the waving grass until he is nearly on top of it. As his horse crests a low hill, the shallow vale below him explodes in the flapping of vultures, startled from their repast on the ground. As the buzzards clear out, a gruesome sight greets Hamnish's eyes.
As a ranger, Hamnish recognizes the remains of a nomad camp. Not wanting to stay exposed on the low hill, he nudges his horse down into the vale amongst the wreckage. Hide tents are flattened and torn, and debris scattered across the trampled grass. But the worst sight is the corpses---Hamnish quickly counts 18 bodies of a small, fair folk---not elves---he thinks they must be halflings, though he's never seen one himself. There are three dead orcs, and four dead wolves---not wolves, exactly, he can tell even from atop his horse; their heads are broader, their tails longer. But the camp is of a size to easily have housed 50-70 individuals, especially if they are of the little halfling folk. Where are the rest of them?
A wide trail of trampled grass leads from the remains of the camp towards the east. Hamnish is not slow to recognize the probable work of orcs.
As he studies the slaughter before him, Hamnish wants to find those responsible for this horror, and make them pay a fitting cost. But he is also wary of wasting any time whatsoever. His speed might count for everything if he is to even have a chance to rescue Eythorial. And yet....Orcs are known to take prisoners and commit horrible atrocities on them. Could he let that happen without trying, somehow, to DO something?
Not yet ready to decide, Hamnish looked more closely at the scene. Perhaps there were some clues to the identity of the folk?
[rolls Investigation: 17]
[rolls History: 6]
Hamnish:
Hamnish dismounts from his horse to get a closer look. The mangled bodies of the small folk--the halflings--he notes with sorrow are mostly older individuals and young children, although there are some able warriors there too. He tries to recall anything he might have known about halflings, but they are a folk of the central Erenland south of the sea of Pelluria, and he can't recall anything about them, except that they are different from gnomes, gnomes being a people which he is slightly more familiar with. Hamnish's best guess is that the able-bodied halflings of the tribe were taken away by the orcs to be enslaved.
The three orcs are dead. Hamnish makes sure of that before getting too close. Small arrows bristle from them, and one looks like it got a lucky blade to the throat. The halfings put up a good fight. The four wolf-like creatures are also dead--but no, on closer inspection, Hamnish finds a reflex response in one of them. It's a female, badly injured from long, jagged blade marks that look like the serrated blades the dead orcs hold tight in their stiff fists. She's still alive, but barely.
Neither the orcs nor the halflings have been beheaded in such a way as to prevent their rise as Fell. Hamnish's best guess is that they've been dead three days. The Fell are one of the greatest plagues on Eredane. Scholars believe that their rise began as a combination of Izrador's corruption of the natural order and the Sundering that removed Aryth from the divine realm and prevents souls from leaving the world to their proper resting place. Hamnish doesn't recall when this started happening, except that it was a long time ago, in the First or Second Age. Since the dead began to walk lifeless and hungry, every culture changed their burial rites quite drastically to prevent their deceased from sharing this fate. No one really knows what makes a corpse rise as Fell, but precautions are always taken.
As he is pondering this unpleasant reality, a gust of wind flaps the torn leather hide of small, crumpled tents, startling him. As he peers in their direction, he sees, half-hidden behind the tents, an upright figure lashed securely to a bundle of tent poles that have been half buried in the ground. It's an orc. The orc's head lolls forward, and he is badly bruised, with long, shallow knife cuts slashed across his bare chest. His wounds don't appear mortal or even debilitating, but he's clearly been left there to die. At first, Hamnish thinks the orc is dead, but then he sees his chest rise and fall in a shallow gasp. He's not dead, but he's probably not far from death either.
Overhead, the buzzards interrupted from their meal circle high overhead, glowering down at Hamnish as if to see if he's left yet so that they can return to their meal.
Selphina is going to head to the main gate by going through the East Steeps and skirting the east side of Guildall into Hearthhome, staying south of the main road. She knows this city like the back of her hand because she's been running errands and doing deliveries since she was young (History: 16). As she makes her way to the main gate, she's going to make a point to listen to conversations around her to see if there are any rumors about the raid on the docks (Investigation: 18). She's also going to stop and lightly chat (asking after family members, giving news of deliveries to come, etc.) with folks she's known for ages just in case she's being watched (Perception: 8).
After first beheading the halfling and orc corpses, Hamnish walks towards the bound orc. Why is the orc alive? Why is it BOUND?
As he nears the suffering creature, Hamnish notices the orc staring at him, but, oddly, not with hate and anger. Rather, the creature looks relieved? [Perception: 20]
"Why are you yet alive?" Hamnish asked.
Selphina:
Climbing out the Steeps with no mishaps, Selphina emerges onto the broad plateau of Guildall. Town guards flank the main road where it descends towards the Steeps, and patrol the alleyways and road attentively. This is one of the quietist and safest districts in the city, where the trades that the Shadow found useful were allowed to continue their craft. Shops and warehouses line the main street, many of them well-windowed for the dustier crafts, statuary and carving of ornate furniture. Artisans are hard at work inside as always, and wealthy buyers peruse the wares available in the shops. Southward on the main street, Selphina can see the enormous, torched remains of the old Grand Guildhall---left in dangerous ruins of rotting wood and stone. With all of the other buildings in good condition, this one has been left unrepaired and uncleared by the Shadow as a blight and a reminder of who has the power here. Selphina once poked her head inside the once-grand entry hall, dust and ash covering the murals and guild heraldry that had decorated it. She doesn't go near it now, though, keeping to the east side of the street.
"There's another galleon come through," a well-dressed woman says to a proprietor as she looks over a beautifully carved and varnished wardrobe. "I hope they sweep the streets after they march them to the gates! And all those gnomes running around... I can't abide them!"
"They keep the supplies coming," the shopkeeper, dressed in a leather apron, his linen shirt dusted with wood shavings, replies. "The price of wood keeps going up as the forests recede. You'd not see this piece in such quality if it weren't for the gnomes bringing hardwood up the river from Erethor."
The woman sighs. "I suppose that's so," she says. "They're rascals, though, I have a hard time believing they're trustworthy. I've heard they smuggle illegal goods! One of the merchants coming up from the docks said the legates caught a gnome barge full of stolen goods and they're stripping it and arresting its crew. Gnomes may be good for many things, but there's bad ones in the barrel, I tell you. I hope they make a good example of those varmints!"
After a few minutes of eavesdropping, Selphina leaves the main road, cutting through the alleyways towards Hearthome. She passes through the well-kept shops and warehouses of the guildmasters and past the several blocks of the Cerogans' smithies, warehouses, and quartering yards full of huge, black, iron-wheeled wagons. The black Cerogan mansion looms out from the middle of their assets, and Selphina gives it a wide berth. She knows that the Cabal has several legates there. Selphina doesn't know much about the Cabal, except that they're a faction of legates that operates somewhat independently of the main Order of Shadow headed by Izrador's Night King Sunulael.
The quartering yards give way to a district that seems to have barely changed with the occupation. Hearthome, full of older homes and properties of the city's tradesmen and government employees, shows little interference, and a neighborhood cadre of--at least outwardly--very pious citizens. Two citizen-led churches of Izrador here frequently gather neighborhood meetings. Children run and play in the alleyways and yards, and the good smells of canning and baking waft from the smoke of cookfires.
Pastor Menad's wife, Sidra, waves to Selphina as she passes by. Sidra is sitting outside in the yard, watching her young son play in the grass. Her home is quite cozy and situated just two blocks from one of the Shadow churches. "Good morning, Selphina! Did you come from Kingshand? The pastor just went there to deliver his tithe. Nice to see you!"
Hamnish:
The orc's eyelids twitch and then struggle to open as Hamnish speaks in his tongue. As Hamnish walks closer, he can see large, ugly bruises covering the orc's body. The long, shallow knife cuts across his bare chest look like they're festering. His injuries certainly have the look of someone who was beaten unconscious and then trussed up. The orc struggles to raise his head as his eyes finally flicker open, attempting to focus on the human standing before him. He looks about, wild-eyed, his weakened muscles bulging against his bonds.
He seems to comprehend Hamnish's question, after a moment, and he stops struggling as he recognizes that he is bound. He looks for a moment at the bodies that Hamnish has just beheaded. He replies in Orcish, his voice weak and raspy from exposure and dehydration, "It seems I was left here to die by my companions, but that has not yet been accomplished." As the orc's gaze lingers on the beheaded corpses, it occurs to Hamnish that he might have been left tied here as prey for the Fell that Hamnish has just securely prevented from rising.
[Question to DM: are the Fell - I am supposing that a general miasma pervades the land that creates the Fell - still an active policy of Izarador, or just the leftover effects from the last war?]
[History: 15]
"Who has bound you?", Hamnish asked.
Hamnish:
Hamnish knows that the Fell have been a threat across all the land since sometime in the First Age---thousands of years ago. Horrid tales of battlefield dead rising to fight again in the last years of the Dornish War (the First Age conflict between the elves and dwarves and the invading Dorns, who were the first humans to set foot on the continent of Eredane) were later confirmed in official reports as the dead soldiers began returning to their encampments to attack the living. This put a huge strain on the resources of the war for both sides, as they were forced to spend manpower and resources patrolling against roving undead. The terrible pandemic of undeath quickly became universal, spreading to every race. Within a decade, however, dramatic changes in funeral practices across all cultures slowed the rise of Fell to a trickle. Battlefield casualties became and are now still the prime source of the Fell.
Many scholars believed that the rise of the Fell was due to Izrador's growing influence over the land combined with the horror and devastation of the long war. Some also said that with Aryth cut off from heaven, the souls of the dead had nowhere to go but to haunt their own dead bodies and the living. The Fell have been a universal horror for thousands of years, a tragic reminder of the terrible state of Aryth behind the Veil and under the Shadow.
However, this terrible scourge was a wakeup call for the elves and the Dorns alike of who their real enemy was. Aradil, the Elven Queen, sent emissaries to the Dorns, and treaties of final peace were signed in the year 4410 of the First Age.
The orc's dull, delirious gaze returns to Hamnish. "I'm sure it was my companions," he says, slowly. "They meant for me to die."
"Why would they leave their companion to die?"
Hamnish:
"Do you think orcs agree on everything?" The orc glowers as he tests his bonds, but he is too weak to free himself. "I stood against them."
Hamnish considered the orc's question: he did believe orcs had no individual thoughts. They were just mindless brutes, weren't they?
"Why did you oppose your clan?"
Hamnish:
"Not all orcs are what they seem," the orc grunts stoically. He seems not to trust Hamnish enough to want to share the details of his disagreement with his warband.
"And what is it that makes you not beloved of your late companions?"