379YE Winter Solstice winds of war

Overview

• In Spiral, Fort Mezudan is destroyed by powerful magic. Imperial forces and Grendel forces engage in a battle for Ateri, which the Empire wins. The Grendel are pushed back, but the Empire makes little headway into liberating the rest of the territory.

The Storms of Spiral

The Ruin of Fort Mezudan

Fort Mezudan lies in ruins.

Shortly after the Autumn Equinox, a luminous greenish-yellow effulgence engulfed the highest spires of Fort Mezudan. It leapt from roof to battlement, coiling across the ramparts and the rooves like a living thing, before striking down to the lower levels. For a few minutes, every item of metal larger than an eating knife was wreathed in the cold flame. Then it was gone, and the first rain began to fall, and wind began to wail between the towers.

The storm gathered strength over the course of a day, battering the castle with increasingly powerful winds and pounding rain.

Shortly after sunset, the first spear of lightning hammered into one of the towers with an ear-shattering explosion, sending shards of sharp stone in all directions. For four hours, the castle was pummeled with thunderbolts. As the lightning cracked and broke the stone, the wind howled louder and louder. The rain thickened until it was a veritable deluge, cascading water making the courtyards and stairs treacherous and click. The rain sent cold, questing fingers searching for any crack in the white granite walls, and where they found them they tore them open to the hungry wind.

For four hours the storm raged. Then silence. People began to pick themselves up and assess the damage. The rain continued to pour down but the winds were silent. There were a few guarded expressions of satisfaction that the Fist had weathered the magical storm. There had been some loss of life - two sentinels thrown from the ramparts by the wind, a tragic tumble down a rain-slickened staircase resulting in a broken neck - but it could have been worse. Yet the clouds continued to swirl above. A desperate warning came from Illuminate Nissea, the otherwise unflappable commander of the castle. The storm was not over.

The final hammer struck out of the eye of the storm. A whirling tempest, roaring like some abyssal behemoth, smashed down from the churning sky into the heart of Fort Mezudan. A thaumaturgic gyre, summoned and unleashed with the most potent of Spring magics, tore the central tower to pieces and sent boulders of white granite spinning through the air like so much lethal chaff. The devastating column of wind, water, and stone lasted no more than ten minutes, and then collapsed violently one final apocalyptic detonation of thunder. The wind died. The rain continued to fall, heavy enough to hamper efforts to find survivors beneath the rubble.

With Urizen thoroughness, a tally of the dead, the injured, and the lost was quickly prepared. Seventy sentinels, magi, and spirefolk are accounted dead. This number including Illuminate Nissea, along with the majority of the stone-crafters guild, slain while attempting to shore up the collapsing central keep. A further sixty serious injuries are listed, along with eight souls unaccounted for either lost beneath the rubble or hurled to their deaths on the lower slopes by the cruel winds.

Fort Mezudan, the lonely sentinel in the east, stands watch no longer.

The War for Ateri

Had the storm struck earlier, it might have caught the army of the Granite Pillar still billeted at the Fist, and the death toll would surely have been higher. Yet when the Fist fell, the Highborn army was already marching. With the Quiet Step, they were marching north-east towards Screed and the slumbering horror of the Black Plateau. Had the storms struck a week later, it might have caught the Northern Eagle, the Wolves of War, and the Citadel Guard marching east from Highguard. As it was, they arrived several days after the destruction, after the last of the bodies had been recovered from the wreckage, just in time to attend the last of the funerals.

There is little time for grief. Imperial strategy is straightforward and ambitious. The Empire's forces intend to push cautiously through Ateri, driving the Grendel out. Then, on to Screed and the looming shadow of the Black Plateau; then onward to liberate the Legacy. A bold plan.

The Grendel strategy also appears to be quite straightforward. They launch a major offensive into Ateri the very morning after the ruination of Fort Mezudan. Despite being outnumbered by Imperial forces, they drive a spear-thrust of orcs and beasts into the heart of the Imperial armies. Perhaps a thousand-score barbarians, with siege weapons and unfamiliar warbeasts attempt to consolidate the gains made last season in Ateri.

If the Granite Pillar and the Quiet Step had been the only Imperial forces in Spiral, they would have outnumbered them two-to-one and we might be telling a different story here. With the relief column marching down from face nearly, however, they instead face nearly thirty-thousand Imperials. Not only are there three extra armies, but the Wolves of War are supported by one of the most significant forces of independent captains seen in recent memory, nearly ten thousand strong.

The Grendel respond quickly to the new threat. For all their savagery they are able to react quickly to unexpected Imperial tactics - perhaps supernaturally so. The soldiers who fight beneath the banner of the wading bird are particularly adept at countering Imperial stratagems. Their captains swathed cinnamon and scarlet silks direct a significant force of more traditionally dressed barbarians to cut off the Imperial advance, while avoiding Navarr attempts to lure them into ambushes, and countering the cunning feints of the cause-bound mercenaries of the Wolves of War.

The Wolves of War, advised by mercenary Urizeni strategists and supported by Varushkan and Wintermark sellswords with long experience of fighting in hills and mountains should have easily outmaneuvered the Grendel and attacked them from their rear. Unfortunately, the Grendel are already on the move by the time the Wolves of War arrive - they are not taking defensive positions, but pushing forward towards the Fist. They also enjoy the support of the naval vessels anchored on the southern coast; hard-bitten marines support the rear encampments of the Grendel, delivering valuable supplies to help the Grendel against their Imperial enemies.

In the end though, the campaign is proof that any while strategy is important, it helps to have your plan backed by superior numbers. Slowly but with growing confidence the Empire pushes north-east, and the Grendel fall back. That said, the Imperial forces never see the Black Plateau (except perhaps in their dreams). None save perhaps the scouts of the Quiet Step get to see the Legacy in distant Ossuary. The fighting is bitter, but it is largely constrained to the western foothills.

The Grendel cannot hold back the Imperial advance - over the course of three months they are slowly, slowly pushed back out of Ateri. The majority retreat toward Apulus (no doubt the take advantage of the supplies offered by their naval forces), but perhaps a third of the force retreats north-east, to defensive positions scattered around the outskirts of Screed.

During the Imperial advance, the soldiers of the Empire account for as many as three thousand Grendel orcs, while suffering barely half that many casualties themselves. Yet the Grendel show no signs of being routed - quite the contrary. Even in retreat the core of their barbarian forces remain disciplined. They do not flee, they withdraw in good order - all the while gathering up as much mana as they can find, and as much metal as they can claim from the mines on the mountain slopes.

The Grendel forces are a long way from home ... but they are well supplied and the Empire has seen in Sermersuaq how deadly a committed barbarian force can be if it chooses to make the Empire pay blood for the territory it seeks to reclaim. If the rate of Imperial advance stays constant, Urizen mathematacticians estimate it may take as long as six months to conquer Screed alone - assuming the Black Plateau remains quiescent in the face of the tide of death and hatred that armed conflict will doubtless stir up around it.

Game Information

Fort Mezudan has been destroyed by potent Grendel sorcery. The Empire has recaptured the region of Ateri from the Grendel, but made no headway toward Ossuary; the rest of Spiral is firmly in the hands of the Grendel. The campaign continues.

The Rains of Reikos

The Fall of the Stone Toad

The citadel of Urith Barath lies in ruins, and with it the ambition of the Stone Toad clan.

The orcs are not gone from Reikos entirely, but they are broken and scattered. The majority of the Stone Toad army retreated into Urith Barath after their defeat on the open fields in the Summer. Much of the garrison fell when the Bounders, the Strong Reeds, the Citadel Guard, and the Valiant Pegasus broke through the fortress walls. Then, at the height of the Autumn Equinox, after days of vicious fighting, the Sentinel Gate opened to the foot of the Druj citadel and the heroes of the Empire poured through. In a brutal and risky battle, they broke the defensive forces and gave the Imperial armies the final opening they needed to take High Chalcis back from the barbarians - and with it Chalcis Mount. Any orc who did not flee paid for their overconfidence with their life - and many of those who did run as the walls came down gained only an extra day or so of life.

The great granite walls, built from looted stone and stolen weirwood, mortared with the blood of slaves, have been torn down and with them the last significant sign of barbarian occupation of Reikos. The banners of the Stone Toad have been trampled into the mud. The handfuls of surviving slaves within the castle have been liberated. And for the first time in years, the banners of the Highborn Chapters have been raised on Chalcis Mount once again ... raised over a shattered ruin.

The Rain Falls on the Just

It rains in Reikos. But for the first time since the liberation began, the water is fresh, and clean, and cleanses what it touches. It washes away exhaustion, it washes clean the wounds of those fighting to free the scattered enclaves of Highguard citizens still surviving in the bleak plains and hills of Reikos. Perhaps most importantly, it washes away the taint of the Reikos Flux, the remaining foulness that the Druj used to poison the land. Any wound short of a mortal blow heals overnight ... which is good for the Imperials, but makes little difference to the scattered, outmatched, broken orcs who are often as not executed where they fall. There is little taste for mercy among the soldiers of the Empire. The water brings fresh life to the ruined landscape, a promise of a better Spring to come. It also brings hope.

Speed and righteousness are the key to the Imperial strategy. The armies of the Empire leave little space for the druj miasma to assail their spirits. Yet the miasma still clings to Reikos - the black stones that anchor its foulness still stand. In the long nights, in the face of each little horror uncovered as the Empire advances north and west, the miasma still whispers of despair, and failure; of weakness, of futility.

As the cleansing rains begin to fall, the Hounds of Glory and the Eastern Sky have no time for introspection or fear. They break from the ruins of Urith Barath and launch an overwhelming assault against the scattered orc emplacements in [{Reikos#Longshire|Longshire]]. There is little coordination to the barbarian resistance. The orcs here live the scattered, selfish lives of brigands. Few of them squat beneath the banner of the Stone Toad - they seem barely to care that the citadel has been destroyed. They also seem unable to understand the scale of the threat facing them.

They close the doors of the stone halls, and the gates of the makeshift palisades they have erected around the ruined towns ... and the Dawnish wash over them in an irresistible wave.

Triumphant. Overwhelming. Glorious.

Broken chapter after broken chapter falls before the Dawnish armies. Teams of heavily armoured knights and relentless war witches sweep the ruins after the main force has passed over, rousting out stragglers and would-be assassins from their hidey-holes and hidden cellars, and giving them the only mercy they deserve - a quick death.

At the same time, the Black Thorns explode northwards into Broken Ride. They catch the bulk of the Druj fleeing the fall of the Stone Toad citadel and ruthlessly put an end to them. They skirt the open plains and low hills, scouts spreading out through the trees of the southern Great Forest looking for orcs. There are more signs of active resistance here - especially around the ruins of Exile - but they soon reach the slave-camp that stands where the lumberyards of the Great Forest of Peytaht once stood.

For a moment, it seems that the horror of the Vigilant Swan might be repeated - that the slaves forced to fell the weirwood trees in Broken Ride will be murdered by their bitter Druj captors. Yet the speed of the Black Thorns is not to be underestimated. They have outpaced the news of the fall of Urith Batol, slaughtered the messengers who would have brought confirmation that the Stone Toad has fallen. As a result, the Druj are only just rousing themselves to kill their slaves as the Navarr arrive - and the Scions of Terunael waste no time.

They pour down in a flood of vengeance against the oversees of the Stone Toad. As the Navarr attack, the slaves see their chance. They are tired, broken down, desperate ... and filled with the healing, renewing energy of the magical rain. They rise up en masse, with improvised weapons, throwing themselves at their orc captors. Many are cut down, but the deaths simply fuel their anger and their hate. Better to die on their feet than die on their knees. Some hundred and fifty slaves are liberated, saved not just from death but from the depths of despair.

Not everything goes the Imperial way. Despite the rain, the camp overseer seals herself behind the barricades where the season's harvest of weirwood is stored. Once it is clear the battle is lost, she immolates herself and her inner circle ... and the bounty of weirwood that has been gathered. Despite the rain the fire spreads quickly. Some alchemical essence has clearly been employed that tinges each licking tongue with a sickly green taint and makes it burn hotter in the face of water rather than being quenched by it. It takes all the effort of the tired Navarr and the exhausted slaves to prevent the flames spreading into the forest itself, growing into a conflagration that might devour a vast tract of the ancient forest. Yet they do stop it - not least in part due to the timely arrival of cadres of Dawnish nobles and yeomen send north to support the Navarr advance. This time at least the Druj efforts to poison the well, to stab back at the Empire from the bring of the Howling Abyss, are thwarted.

With Longshire swept clean of orcs, with the Great Forest at Reikos liberated, the two forces converge on Exile. The site of the first atrocity of the Druj invasion when their armies somehow overcame generations of superstition to pass from the Barrens, down through the haunted depths of Peytaht. Exile itself is a twisted parody of what it once was. Once a place of learning, of meditation, it is now an abominable temple dedicated to fear and suffering. The druj miasma is stronger here. It clings to the wet soil beneath the trees in the form of a physical, rolling mist. There are hints of shapes in the fog. Ghosts. Dead spirits of Highborn soldiers and civilians and oh! so many priests. There are no signs of any bodies, however. The Spring magic that pulses in the rain and the soil allows for no corpses, not this season at least..

The Druj warriors that defend the temple are unfamiliar. They wear dark hoods, wield curved blades, fight in almost total silence - fight like cornered rats. To their credit they stand and fight to the death. They rely on the aura of fear and the darkness beneath the trees ... but it avails them naught in before the might of Dawn, and the keen eyes of the Navarr. Examination of the fallen orcs reveals eerie tattoos, unsettling piercings, lips sewn together with old cord.

There is some debate as to whether it might not be wisest to burn the ruins of Exile to the ground, if that might not put an end to the blasphemy that taints the air itself. In the end, an agreement is reached that the question of what to do with the ruins is not for the Dawnish or the Navarr to make.

With Longshire and Broken Ride liberated, the majority of Reikos is now under Imperial control. There are still orcs in Tamarbode and Grey Charge, but where can they go? West into Casinea and the waiting arms of the Silent Sentinel? South into Bastion, the heart of Highguard? North into Broceliande? There is nowhere for them to hide. There are also some orcs in the Great Forest, and hiding in the ruins of the central plains, but they are scattered and broken - they might continue to plague the people of Reikos as bandits but they are in no position to rise as an organised force.

The land itself has not fared well under Druj dominance. Signs of their occupation are everywhere. The rain has cleansed the Flux, but Reikos itself is ruined. The eastern barbarians have taken their vile pleasure in defiling, corrupting everything they can. For now, though, there is the hope that peace may once again come to Reikos, that flowers might bloom once again in the Garden of Highguard.

This is not the end of the campaign for Reikos; but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.

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GAME INFORMATION

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Reikos has been recaptured by the Empire! A Senator can raise a motion of Assignment during the Winter Solstice and determine which nation the territory will be assigned to. If Reikos is assigned in a timely fashion, it may be possible to elect a senator to represent it (ideally if the assignent passes before the afternoon session of the Imperial Senate on Sunday we should be able to arrange an election).

Regardless, even though two regions (Tamarbode and Grey Charge) are still technically under orc control, Reikos is now an Imperial territory again (which is relevant for use of the Imperial regio at Anvil. The orcs there are scattered and weak. They are unlikely to be able to launch any sort of campaign to reclaim any part of Reikos. Unless a new force enters the frame, perhaps through the Great Forest of Peytaht or out of Broceliande, it is unlikely the Empire will lose Reikos again any time soon.

Both the Vigilant Swan and the Great Forest at Reikos are once again in Imperial hands. Any senator can raise a motion of allocation for one of these two imperial Bourse seats. The motion can declare that the Seat should be either Imperial (auctioned openly on the Bourse, any Imperial citizen may taake the seat), or National (appointed by decision of those members of the nation who have appropriate personal resources, on a citizen of that nation can hold the seat). Now that the territory is Imperial once again, which nation controls the Seat if it is made national depends entirely on which nation the territory is assigned to.

If the Vigilant Swan is allocated in plenty of time, then the civil service will attempt to auction it, or help the nation appoint someone to the position. Whoever takes the seat will keep it until the Summer Solstice 380YE (Event 3-2016) which is when white granite seats are usually appointed or auctioned. The Great Forest at Reikos is a little trickier; there is no production to assign, so even if it is allocated during the Winter Solstice, it will not be auctioned or appointed until Spring at the earliest - and whoever takes the seat will have a shorter tenure than normal as the resource will again be appointed (or auctioned) during the Winter Solstice 380YE (E1-2017) alongside the other weirwood seats.

Finally, the civil service are already assessing spoils of war, and it is likely a list will be submitted to the Military Council during the Winter Solstice. It must be stressed at this point that Reikos is in a parlous state, with much of the population either exiled to other parts of Highguard or simply dead.