The Adventures of Brum Bloodstone and Mort de Lumiere

[Kindling]

Hey everyone. I've made a few references recently, I think, to the Iron Heroes game I'm currently running. It's not set in either Reth Jaleract or Knife's Edge, but rather a somewhat more generic vaguely-iron-age setting that I'm making up as the plot and characters demand.

On Thursday I will be running our last session until the new year, and I want to try to somehow get a feeling of... I dunno, as if it was a place in the narrative where in a novel, "book one" might end. To this end, I am asking the advice of my esteemed colleagues at the CBG!

Here is an extremely sloppy description of the Story So Far...

Having witnessed various horrors in the homelands of the Coronii, the barbarian tribe that Brum Bloodstone, the savage Weapon-Master, is one of, they travelled north through the lands of the neighbouring Dragorii (they being Brum and the diminutive Thief, Mort de Lumiere).

In the Coronii lands they encountered the living dead, glimpsed werewolves, and interrupted Momokan cultists in the middle of a strange ritual atop an ancient barrow, with resulted in Brum's blade, Bigsword, being possessed by some demonic entity that he, for some reason, believed to be the spirit of his ancestor, Garrett Bloodstone, a famous warrior of ancient times.

Then, they helped the battle-weary remnants of the Dragorii tribe fight of the troglodytic Ghouls that plagued them, before continuing into the unknown wilds of the North, following the urging of the spirit in Bigsword, commanding Brum to seek out the city of Skraag.

Now, in a hilly region of the North known as the Grimdowns, they have battled a quintet of werewolves, after which they both passed out from exhaustion, waking to find the spirit gone from Brum's weapon.

As Mort bandaged up their wounds, they found themselves set upon by a band of Snake-Talkers (my setting's equivalent of Orcs) just as the already-wounded heroes were about to succumb to their assailants, the Snake-Talker shaman commanded them to halt, as he could sense the demon-taint on Brum, and wanted to see if he could learn more, possibly to use him to his advantage to gain increased political power in Skraag.

As they spoke, however, a trio of hideous, red-scaled monsters with extra limbs arrived and wiped out the majority of the Snake-Talkers. The shaman bolted, and Brum joined battle with the newcomers. Mort chased the shaman down and interrogated him as Brum traded blows with the horrific beings. He slew one, but was overwhelmed and knocked to the ground. As the devils came after Mort, he had to flee, letting the shaman escape. Now, Mort is hiding nearby, watching what the monsters will do to the now-defenceless Brum.

Well, that's the story from the PC's perspective... this is what's REALLY going on...

In ancient times a Dark Queen conquered the greater part of the world and forged the first great empire in history. Her lieutenants were her demon lover, Ektherion Tath-Kra, one of a family of demons that came to the mortal world to escape the wrath of the arch-fiend Skith-Rhu Volos, and the mighty barbarian warrior Garrett Bloodstone, so named because, when he led the sack of Skraag, the stones of the mountain-city were awash with blood.

Eventually, though, a great part of the empire rebelled against the Dark Queen's tyranny. Knowing that he could not win, she sent Ektherion to fight the rebels in a holding action, while she mustered her forces for the true battle to come. The mighty demon wreaked havoc among the rebel army, but was eventually overwhelmed by their weight of numbers. Garrett Bloodstone, who had come to think of Ektherion as a friend after their long campaigns together, took the dying demon and buried him in a great barrow, so that he might remain in the mortal realm when his body perished, and not have to return to face Skith-Rhu Volos' anger. One day, he might rise again.

The rebellion crushed the Dark Queen's loyalist forces, and her empire was shattered. She retreated to the far eastern city of Momoka, where she rules to this day, worshipped as a sinister deity by her subjects.

Now, three cultists of the Dark Queen have journeyed into the West on a quest to win her favour. They have discovered the burial place of Ektherion Tath-Kra, and seek to resurrect the Dark Queen's lover, and return him to her, having misinterpreted the now-mythical events of their final parting.

Having allied themselves with a tribe of werewolves and ravaged the lands of the Coronii, the cultists came to the barrow, and began the ritual. However, in his centuries of living-death entombment, Ektherion has become warped by anger with the Dark Queen. At the first sign of weakness in the ritual, he bolts, propelling his incorporeal spirit away from the cultists. He finds Brum, and sensing in him the blood of his old comrade, dives into his sword.

Ektherion decides he must now go and try to gather the similarly entombed or weakened Tath-Kra, his brothers and sisters, and use them as allies in his vengeance on the Dark Queen. To this end, he speaks to Brum with visions and dreams, commanding him to go north, to Skraag, where is brother Kharkus Tath-Kra is now worshipped as a pain-elemental by the Snake-Talker population.

Two other factions, however, have parts to play. The werewolves' chieftain is the son of an ancient barbarian witch, who has magically prolonged her life, and was young in the days of the Dark Queen's empire. Her brother, who was then king of his tribe, had his soul wrenched from his body by the Dark Queen, as punishment for defying her.
Learning, through, the werewolves, that the Tath-Kra may be starting to return to the world, this witch (so far named only the Woman in Yellow) plots to try to use them to battle the Dark Queen on her behalf, so that she might free her brother's soul after all these years, completely unaware that this is not so far from Ektherion's own plans.

Meanwhile, Skith-Rhu Volos has found a way into the mortal world. In the North-East, beyond the mountains, there is a fortress-city named Sulbokis that is rising in power. It's king, Chaknarion IX, has been experimenting with ancient rituals has contacted Volos. The demon has semi-possessed him and gifted him with dark powers and insights. He has formed the Jade Legion, a fighting force of 3,000 soldiers, now the best trained and equipped force in the world, and, at Volos' bidding, marched west across the mountains, heading for Skraag, so that Skith-Rhu Volos might finally take his revenge on the Tath-Kra.

So, as you can see, I have a lot going on behidn the scenes that my players can only guess at the significance of. The werewolves that attacked them were working for the Woman in Yellow, hoping to kill them in order to steal away the possessed sword. When Brum slew the last of them, Ektherion used the killing blow to transfer his spirit from the sword to the body of the werewolf, and then, as the PCs fell into exhausted unconsciousness, escaped towards Skraag under his own power, now a weird demonic-zombie-werewolf-thing. The three red-scaled demons were summoned by the Dark Queen in order to correct her misguided servants' mistake, and make sure that Ektherion cannot truly return to kill her.

So, I think that's basically it. There are a few other plotlines going on too, a woman mercenary they met who is searching for clues to her mother's origins, and also things connected to Mort's childhood (his parents were nobles who lost everything after they were involved in a failed coup).

Now... As it stands, Mort is free and in hiding, and Brum is unconscious and bleeding - about to be taken prisoner and interrogated by the red-scaled monsters as to what has happened to Ektherion. How, in one session, do I go from that to the start of the next "arc"?

One thing I want to do for sure is a lot of exposition, so they start again in the new year with at least a vague idea of the forces at work and what has been set into motion, so they can start making their own plans instead of being buffetted around from one assailant to the next...

[Mason]

Awesome. I'm interested to see how this very intricate backstory is revealed to the players. I have often had trouble revealing what is really going on to PCs.
 Thanks for this.

[Kindling]

How it's revealed? Well... slowly, I suppose :)

I think that while there's a good time and place for the info-dump, it's almost always more satisfying to have several small info-dumps spread out throughout the arc than one major one. That way it a) allows the DM to hang on to secrets for much more of the campaign, as they are useful tools and b) hopefully gives the players more of a feeling of discovery.

I tend to have the idea in my mind that every session or two they should come across someone who knows about at least part of what's going on. However, how much of whatever information that particular NPC has gets told to the players should probably be dependent on their actions or choices.

This way it's less "well, the wizard told us this is what's going on, so, let's do something about it" and more "oh! so that's what the wizard meant when he hinted at such-and-such, it must be because the runes we translated in the catacombs point to it too!"

Also it leaves plenty of room for the PCs to get completely the wrong idea about things, which can be very fun!

[Llum]

Perhaps after they extricate themselves from their current predicament, do a kinda "time-lapse" and have them journey somewhere.

Recount rumors they hear on the road (everyone knows rumors travel faster than the speed of light) about things going on in the world. Maybe mention some kind of decomposing wolf-beast? Or troop movements or all kinds of thing.

This will let you be as vague as you want, or twist things however you wish. The PCs also *should* take it all with a grain of salt, so they know stuff is happening. They know kinda what it looks like, but they can't be sure until they see for themselves.

Throw in a trustworthy firsthand source if you want them to anchor onto something.

Secondly, this will set the mood for the "book2-ness", since its a "break" for them.

Finally, no wizards involved ~~