Ceilin and Hugo were crouched in the bushes outside Ingkar, catching their breath and contemplating their next move in combating the orcs and cultists holed up in the ruin below, when they were surprised by a figure that suddenly emerged from the forest behind them. They whirled, preparing to defend themselves, but stopped short when they realized it was Naga Frostfire. Naga had found the note that Ceilin had left, and decided to catch up with his friend.

Naga helped the men bind their wounds while they told the story of their adventure up to that point. Upon learning of the situation, Naga became excited about the opportunity to kill orcs, and offered his assistance with the expedition. Ceilin gratefully offered Naga the majority of his share of the reward money, and Hugo gladly kept quiet when no one mentioned parceling up his share.

Still smarting somewhat from their previous exertions, Hugo and Ceilin were hard pressed to keep up with Naga who, in his eagerness to murder orcs, plunged down the temple stairway with very little planning.

Unsurprisingly, Naga was greeted by an ambush at the bottom of the stairs, being simultaneously bombarded with orc arrows and falchions. He was thrown back onto the stairs by the attack, and struggled to pull himself to his feet as Ceilin used his magic to fly over the heads of the assailants. All three adventurers quickly found themselves engaged in combat with the orc mercenaries.

Ceilin invoked the will of Thunor to fill the lower stairway with dense fog, allowing the heroes to ambush the orc reinforcements that quickly began to ascend. The orcs had been preparing another ambush of their own in the room below, but became enraged and abandoned the plan when Naga began hacking off heads and other extremities of each orc he defeated and rolling them down the stairs while taunting the orcs below. The group continued this grisly practice as the battle went on, further infuriating and disorganizing the band of orcs.

The tactic worked well for awhile, but fate soon caught up with them. As they slew the final orc (the heavily armored leader of the mercenaries), one of the Helic bloodpriests staggered up the stairs, covered in his own blood – he had expended all of his bodily and spiritual energy on a powerful necromantic spell, stitching together all the discarded body parts of the orc warriors into a monstrous abomination of lacerated flesh and twisted bone. The necromancer cackled as he died, and his creation plodded forward with murderous intent. A great roar emerged from its many mouths, and it swung its five fists in great arcs, pummeling the explorers.

The heroes fought valiantly against the corpse golem, but the fight looked grim – until Ceilin managed to coat the monster in lantern oil and kick a brazier at it. It burst into flames, and soon the thing’s flesh had become too charred for the priest’s magic to hold together.

With their enemies slain, the trio delved further into the ruin, stopping briefly to collect the purses of the orcs, and to pry some rubies out of a pair of statues of Hela.

(Inevitably, the session naming convention set out in Session I has been defeated by a session featuring players from both groups. This session primarily featured the plot of the VT group, and was held in a VT venue, so I’m including it in that group’s timeline. – GM)

While the rest of his party was finishing up their business in Nara, the priest Ceilin was relaxing in a cozy common room reading his new book. A rough but charming individual approached him, recognizing Ceilin as a priest of some power.

He introduced himself as Hugo Zurn, and explained that he was a treasure hunter tasked by the local order of Lorekeepers with finding a voicestone – an ancient relic supposedly secreted by cultists of Hela in a nearby ruined temple known as Ingkar. Hugo needed an extra pair of hands on the expedition, and offered to cut Ceilin in on the Lorekeepers’ reward in exchange for his help. Ceilin agreed, and after leaving a message for his fellows set off on the short trip to Ingkar.

When the two arrived, they saw signs of recent occupation – below a crumbling foundation, in a half-collapsed cellar, they found a set of stairs leading down into the earth, and the clear flicker of torchlight cast along the stairwell wall. The pair delved stealthily into the recently cleared passage, with Ceilin anxiously cursing the curve of the stairwell that quickly cut off his line of sight to the darkening sky.

The stairs opened up into an old, cavernous temple hall, with dropping flagstones, a pitted stone altar, and a pair of armed orcs standing watch near a second set of stairs leading further down into the ruin. Ceilin conjured a cloud of fog, from which the two adventurers leaped, taking the orcs by surprise and quickly dispatching them.

Venturing deeper into the temple, Ceilin and Hugo got a taste of their own tactics when they were ambushed on the lower stair by another pair of orcs, led by a vicious orc commander with a large axe and accompanied by a pale man with dark robes – a priest of the dark goddess Hela. Hugo held off the orcs on all sides, while Ceilin dodged the sangromantic spells of the deathpriest and slew him with a great slash of his sword, but ultimately the militant might of the well-trained orcish warriors was enough to drive the explorers back up the stairs, and they were forced to retreat out of the temple to the realtive safety of the starlit forest.

Quickly checking to ensure that the orcs hadn’t pursued them out of the ruin, Hugo and Ceilin tended to their wounds and wondered what their next move should be, and whether they could convince the Lorekeepers in Nara to add a hazard bonus to their pay.

(An excerpt from the notes of Gray Sage Eloisa ap-Hanry, dated Werremonan I.R. 501)

There are few trustworthy accounts of the most recent siege of Brightstone Keep, and reports vary as to the exact nature and size of the attack, as well as to the fate of the individual members of the Brightstone League.

What is known is that in the spring of I.R. 500, before the snow had had a chance to truly melt, a large, powerful group of orcs laid siege to Brightstone Keep. They breached the defenses that the residents had managed to erect over the winter, and after a difficult battle between the orcs and the defenders, the orcs successfully routed the keep’s inhabitants, leaving many dead.

Among the many that are said to have died in the siege are Begrow Frith, a wealthy merchant with large holdings near Beckinsire, Silas Padfoot, an avowed criminal wanted for larceny in Dalsetter, and Sir Fallion of Beckinsire, the youngest son of Duke Rodderick of Beckinsire.

Brightstone Keep is currently assumed to be under orc occupation.

(Over a year has passed in the real world between the playing of this session and the writing of this entry. The details below may not be 100% accurate to the way events actually unfolded, but such is the nature of recording history. – GM)

The Brightstone League reunited after their separate scouting trips. Trein Stonehelm was shocked and angered to discover that the blizzard his party had been ambushed in was the work of the frost mage Chillhollow. Chillhollow and the other league members were similarly upset when they realized that so many of the militia had been killed, and Chillhollow blamed their deaths on Trein’s poor leadership.

Back at Brightstone Keep, tension filled the air, rippling at the increasing gusts of cold winter winds. The families of the militia men living at Brightstone Keep were distraught over the loss of their husbands and brothers. Funeral rites were prepared for the fallen warriors, and disagreements among the League’s clergy over the proper rituals soon boiled over into a huge argument in the courtyard about Trein’s role in the men’s deaths.

Trein held that his scouting operation had been undercut by his distrustful superiors – The Mighty Storm, who had not allowed him to take the full compliment of men he desired, and Chillhollow, who had hindered the party’s fighting ability with his foul sorcery. Most of the other league members insisted that it was Trein’s foolhardiness and inexperience that led directly to his party being ambushed.

While some of the residents of Brightstone Keep refrained from holding Trein responsible, he had few vocal supporters – the death of the militia men had shaken the vulnerable community, and there were many grievers looking for someone to blame. Eventually, Trein Stonehelm was asked to leave Brightstone Keep. At first he refused, but over the week that followed the atmosphere grew more and more hostile, and he left of his own accord just as other League members were preparing to forcefully oust him.

Mage-Knight Ferion and Sir Fallion of Beckinsire, whose family Trein had been beholden to, decided to stay on at the keep to salvage the alliance between Beckinsire and Brightstone, assuming that Trein would return to Beckinsire and report the events to their father.

With Trein gone, Chillhollow became nervous. He had played a large role in turning the sentiments of the keep against the dwarf, hoping that a pariah would distract the keep residents from himself. Hrimwisards and frostborn were often distrusted and occasionally persecuted in Rassilon, and Chillhollow worried that his conjuring of the blizzard would worsen the keep’s already dim opinion of him. What’s more, winter was coming. It seemed to come earlier every year, and this fact always prompted a renewed prejudice against his kind during the changing of the season. There were more refugees and pioneers arriving at the keep every week seeking shelter or a new life, and the newcomers would not easily distracted by tales of a villainously incompetent dwarf who wasn’t there and they’d never met.

Even as winter started to settle in and the weather became more comfortable for him, Chillhollow was still unnerved by the increased murmuring and furtive glances from the rest of the keep, and decided to find a new place to stay for the winter. Without a lot of fanfare, he packed up his belongings and left, bidding the rest of the Brightstone League farewell.

Meanwhile, The Mighty Storm had also decided to leave the keep, for different reasons. He had kept mostly to his quarters for the last week, buried in his research of elemental magicks. He had arrived at some new hypotheses about alternate forms of elementalism, and was seized with the desire to test out his ideas. He saw the coming winter as the perfect opportunity to explore his theories on the nature of coldfire, and set out to do so with haste, charging his Seneschal, Makkal of Psen, to govern in his stead.

The remaining members of the Brightstone League had little time to determine the consequences of their reduced membership though – the reports of orc activity in the upper valley were increasing, and the residents needed to prepare as much as they could for the possibility of an attack on the keep.

After fighting off the Eye Piercer orcs in the night, Alewine decided that Nara wasn’t the right destination for him, and set off on his own. Considering that Nara is a favored destination of many skalds and scholars, the rest of the group suspected the bard had an ulterior motive, but they bid him farewell without questioning him.

The road they traveled on to avoid the major trade routes was sparse and treacherous, and their path brought them into the territory of a small bandit gang who were quickly discouraged from their midnight theivery when Ceilin made a show of his god’s power. Naga and Attis decapitating a few of them helped as well.

They finally arrived on the outskirts of Nara, and Naga was able to purchase some herbal remedies for wounds from a traveling merchant. In the city, Ceilin found a valuable tome about various Thunoric practices, and Attis found some valuable ale and whores.

They spent a couple days in the city, but soon realized that there was little work for them there. Also, Naga was unable to find a healer with enough skill to repair the terrible scarring he suffered while attacking the cultist of Vali. It seemed they would have to return to the rough city they had been trying to avoid – Aslov

The night that the griffin killed Bjorn, the keep gave him a warrior’s wake. His pyre burned all night long, and many a mug of ale was lifted in his name. A few of the adventurers even composed an overindulgent ballad, the Ode of Bjorn, the Hero of Brightstone, the tune of which was quickly spread around the keep and surrounding valley.

The following morning, the heroes rallied their men and formalized a plan for scouting out the orc forces. They discovered the campsite of up to a dozen orcs, but the site was days old and the trail split in two directions from there. One path led further up the valley, the other led back towards Brightstone Keep.

Trein Stonehelm took five men with him and followed the trail leading towards the keep, while Chillhollow, Aho Filsgar, Begrow Frith, and The Mighty Storm stayed at the site with the remaining men and made preparations – mainly they had a meal and waited while Chillhollow collected herbs and made a few remedies. After he finished, the hrimwisard performed a ritual to summon a heavy blizzard across the valley. This was met with many skeptical looks from the militia, but he reassured them that he would be able to better lead the way through the snow, and that they would be able to surprise the orcs.

And that they did. Coming upon a group of three orcs standing lookout in a copse of trees, the three mages were able to take them by surprise, and slew them handily with elemental magic.

Meanwhile, to the southwest, Trein and his men were on the lookout for griffins. Unfortunately, their attention was divided, and the group of orcish scouts they were tracking ambushed them, slaying nearly half their number before they were even aware of what had happened. Just as the melee broke out, Chillhollow’s blizzard caught up with them, and they were soon fighting for their lives against a vicious foe that they could hardly see through the heavy snow and sleet.

When the last orc fled, Trein and a single mercenary stood alone in the heavy, silent snow, surrounded by the steaming blood of their friends and their enemies.

(Written by CodyHall )

(An excerpt from the journal of Mage-Knight Ferion, Heir to Beckinsire, dated Third Waescdaeg of Falmonan, 499 IR)

I arrived at the keep in the evening with the help of Trein. Once shown to my private quarters, Fallion revealed that he had disguised himself as a hireling and planned on staying with me in my adventures, though he did not know what they were. When I asked if the church would be angry with him, Fallion responded that his duty was to Eostre, and not the church. I turned my attention to unpacking my things, while Fallion made a FANTASTIC first impression by convincing Trein and an uneducated drunkard named Aho to a strength and drinking contest. I had no intention of watching these fools make idiots out of themselves, plus I had more important things to do.

I had noticed a strange blue elf in one of the towers, and instantly knew that he was a Frostborn. I had only read about these strange creatures, and had to find out more. He let my inside his tower, and I learned his name was Chillhollow. He told me all about his upbringing and beliefs and parents and… I can already tell there is much information I can learn from him and his travels. I feel sorry for his hardships, and I want to prove to him that my family is different, and possibly convince him to ally himself and his brethren with my father. If I can learn more of these Frostborn and their connection with ice, I may learn the secrets of this mysterious cold energy.

When I returned to the dining hall, I found that my idiot brother had conjured a dozen barrels of ale, and many of the men and dwarves had passed out. Begrow had admitted to putting and end to the debauchery with a fatigue spell. I’m glad at least one morally driven man exists in this keep. I’m even more glad that he’s part of my father’s council.

Once the mercenaries came to, an argument arose about how to deal with the rumored Orcish camps. Some of the less educated felt that we should attack the Orcs head on, while us true leaders decided we should increase our scouting, and deal with the situation once we have a clearer understanding of the enemy.

Trein took it upon himself to leave and find the Orcs himself, and he took five other men with him. He continued into the wilderness even after I commanded him to stay, and when he returned one of the men was dead. I learned that the man’s name was Bjorn, and that the party had killed a Griffin. I know that Griffins are territorial, and that fighting one was not necessary. I then learned that Trein had taken feathers from the dead Griffin, and was planning on burying them with Bjorn. Needless to say, Fallion and I did not attend the funeral, and instead paid our respects to Bjorn’s family in private. I understand that Trein was following his beliefs, but he had no right to go off into the woods after been commanded not too. The fact that his actions led to the death of a man only hurts the situation. Although he and I have been friends since childhood, I feel he cannot be forgiven for this. Perhaps the ale he drank was still in his system… Regardless, Fallion and I need to go out tomorrow and give the Griffin a proper ceremony. It will be a day or so before we meet the Mighty Storm, and I feel that he will appreciate my efforts more than the others.

- Ferion

The Brightstone League heeded the distress call of the Roadwardens, and set off to their aid.

The five men traveled east for two days before reaching a small Hearth Knight outpost under the command of Shield Knight Horacius ap‐Schell. Ap-Schell informed them of the status of the nearby travel towers. The Roadwardens stationed at the three nearest along the road to the east had gone missing. Each tower was spaced about 50 miles apart, so it was two days’ travel between each one. The Roadwarden from the central tower, a Frostborn called Aaron Frostpicked, had disappeared in mid-Hegmonan, nearly two months previously. One after another, the other two Roadwardens went to look for him. When none returned, volunteers from the scant local villages formed search parties and went in search of the missing. The groups that returned told tales of shapeless flying creatures that were black shapes against the night sky.

After staying the night and enjoying the hospitality and thin meals of the Hearth Knights, the League headed east towards the first travel tower. They found the place nearly empty of the standard provisions. They searched the tower top to bottom, and came across the journal of the missing Roadwarden who had been stationed there. The last entries in the journal confirmed the villagers’ tales – the Roadwarden wrote of strange shadows overhead on particularly dark nights.

Determined to make good time and increase their chances of finding survivors, the League marched through the night to the next tower. Looking in the same hiding spot they’d discovered in the first tower, they found Frostpicked’s journal. The last entries, nearly two months old, held accounts of a strange nocturnal screeching sound from the north-west, and indicated that Frostpicked was going to investigate them.

With a heading in hand, the group immediately headed north-west into the craggy forested foothills of the Icebarrier Mountains. Following a disused game trail, they came across a scrap of torn cloak, which reassured them of their direction. Nearly a mile into the forest, they were able to spot a cave opening partway up a steep hillside. Investigating, they found that the cave was nearly ten feet across, and went deep into the rock, sloping down and widening as it went. Sliding down a slick drop-off, the heroes found themselves in a large cave strewn with bones, human remains, and huge quantities of guano. Looking up, they discovered the culprits – over a dozen enormous bats. The creatures spread their wings, nearly a man’s height across, and attacked. Their fangs left wounds and frostbite, and Chillhollow soon realized his icy attacks had no effect on them – these creatures were frost bats, native to the frozen peaks and icy woods much further to the north. Luckily, they proved susceptible to the attacks of The Mighty Storm’s captive fire elemental, and though many of the League were wounded by the beasts, the bats were all killed in the end.

The group found the remains of the search party members, as well as those of the two Roadwardens. Surprisingly, they found that Aaron Frostpicked was still alive, though in some kind of catatonic state – his inborn resistance to the cold had apparently saved him from death at the icy fangs of the frost bats. They carried the Roadwarden back to civilization, and headed back to the Hearth Knight outpost to update Shield Knight ap‐Schell on the situation. He was very interested to hear of the frost bats, and wondered at what might be forcing them south out of their typical habitat. He also revealed that a message had arrived for The Mighty Storm in the group’s absence – an urgent missive from Brightstone Keep. The league had solved a problem for their neighbors, but what new trouble might be brewing at home?

(Sessions involving the first (Brattleboro) player group will be cataloged with Hindu-Arabic numerals, while sessions involving the second (Keene) player group will use Roman numerals. Gods help me if there’s ever a joint session. – GM)

Brightstone Keep sat about a day’s march outside of the frontier trading town of Marikest, nestled into the rugged, craggy foothills of the western Icebarrier Mountains. The keep guarded the mouth of a small valley that had a perennial problem with orcs and other nasty creatures. A small army of mercenaries had recently marched through and pushed the miscreants back into the mountains, but the army moved on when the operation was done, and Brightstone Keep and the valley were left in a power vacuum. It wasn’t long before an enterprising orc necromancer took advantage of the opportunity and took Brightstone Keep as a base from which to raid the surrounding area for slaves and valuables to fund his necromantic practices.

The necromancer was promptly dispatched by a group of adventurers answering Marikest’s call for help. With the slaves freed, the undead destroyed, and the orcs scattered, Brightstone Keep was empty once more.

One of the adventurers, a vociferous Finnar elementalist and warrior known as The Mighty Storm, laid claim to the keep. In the months following, he begain to rebuild Brightstone Keep, and established it as the home base of the Brightstone League, an adventurers guild.

One day, Storm and his compatriots received a messenger from the town of Beckinsire, accompanied by a dwarven bodyguard, and carrying a letter heralding the impending arrival of the son of Beckinsire’s lord, Mage-Knight Ferion. Storm offered the messenger the keep’s hospitality for the evening, in accordance with Finnar custom.

The next morning, the League sent the messenger back to his master, with the message that they’d be expecting his arrival. However, unbeknownst to the rest of the group, the missive that Chillhollow gave the illiterate messenger indicated that the messenger had offended his hosts, and that Mage-Knight Ferion of Beckinsire would not be welcomed at the Keep.

After the messenger had departed, the League was approached by two visitors – another man and dwarf. One was Makkal of Psen, a frost dwarf who had assisted them in scouring the keep, offering his services to the League. The other visitor was a man with a message from the east seeking assistance – recently, three Roadwardens had gone missing from their posts at travel towers along the eastern road. The man asked for the League’s help in finding the missing Roadwardens, as the road is largely unguarded without their presence. Makkal offered to help supervise operations at the keep while the heroes were gone, so that they could devote all their energy to ensuring the safety of the eastern road. The Mighty Storm graciously accepted, and appointed Makkal the position of Seneschal of Brightstone Keep, charged with ruling in Storm’s absence.

Finding the climate in Dalsetter a little too chilly (of the metaphorical variety), the party decided to move on. Alewine desired the materials for explosives, and Naga wanted to stock up on healing materials. Attis wanted to continue to wander in search of good looking women and tasty food. Ceilin rather liked these people and decided to continue traveling with them on his mission to enjoy the world, follow his god by moving about with the wind, and try to prove to others and himself that he wasn’t stupid.

They debated on Aslov or Nara. Aslov had a dangerous reputation, so the rest of the party tried diligently to sway Alewine from heading in that direction, and pulled things in the direction of Nara.

In an attempt to divert around Aslov, they traveled a longer route, and on the second night of camping were awoken by Naga, who was on watch and had heard suspicious noises.

Naga was shot in the shoulder with an arrow, and as Ceilin got into his leathers, another arrow almost hit him. He wielded his axe wildly and with a tribal ululation charged the fiends… seeing sign of an orc crouching in the wood. He attacked and chopped the foul beast in twain, realized there were more, and shouted back “There’s MORE!”

Alewine took up his long spear and threw it an impressive distance, but to no avail. It clattered to the ground behind Ceilin. Attis deemed he was too far even for a charge and held his action. Alewine charged in and scooped up his spear, flinging it out at the second orc in one long motion. It stabbed the orc, and Naga followed up with a slicing charge with both swords flashing. He knocked the orc out with one pommel. The party heard the rest of the orcs – an unknown number – running away.

Upon searching the bodies, they discovered black fletched arrows and marks on the bow that indicated these orcs were part of the Eye Piercer Tribe. The day’s adventure ended with the party wondering if these orcs were tracking them as a result of their previous run-ins with this tribe.