Below the thunders

The drums of Madruga are drowned out by the worst storm in a century... but still they beat.

In the Abysmal Sea

Almost immediately after the Spring Equinox, the skies over Madruga darken with storm clouds. Heavy, dark, and pendulous. As the Imperial soldiers gathered in Lightsea begin to press forward into Siroc Plains, a downpour that will last three days begins. The wind gets stronger, howling around the Freeborn and Marcher forces as they advance. Lightning cracks the sky over Free Landing. Peals of thunder roll back and forth across the grasslands. As a band of scouts from the Red Wind Corsairs engages a furious gang of Storm Sharks in an abandoned village not far from the coast, the sun slips away, and it will not be seen again in Madruga for the next three months.

Noon is like twilight, the sun and the sky hidden behind the stormclouds, conjured by Spring magic and infused with the devastating destructive force of the Mother of Wrecks.

The Imperial armies that fought the Grendel here last season remain, and their numbers are further bolstered. The Wolves of War and the Eastern Sky come west out of Dawn; the Red Wind Corsairs hurry east from Kahraman, trusting to their Imperial allies to deal with the Lasambrian Jotun. With the Wolves come perhaps as many as six hundred soldiers and warriors from across the Empire, Bound by Common Cause to fight the Grendel invaders in Madruga. A handful of soldiers fight with other armies – including that youthful warband of Maracossans out of Trajadoz who join the Red Wind Corsairs in their daring raids into the heart of Grendel-occupied Madruga.

There are surprises as well. A new army of Winterfolk – the Narwhal's Spear – marches all the way from Sermersuaq to the southern coast of the Empire. With the aid of the Lord of the Crossroads, the Eastern Sky find the roads shorter and the path easier, and rest by night near Summer regio that grant strength and endurance to the knights and yeofolk who compose the army. Thanks to wily Suaq hunters and the gifts of Barien, both armies arrive in plenty of time to join the battle, fit and healthy and ready to fight.

A single region more. We are close. Close to our territory being ours again. This is the season of true conviction so my Kohan, my beautiful Freeborn Flames I invite Janon to fight with us again and ask of you one thing. Put on your War Paint.

Aracelis I Erigo, General of the Burning Falcon

We remain in the land of dust and glass, we the fire of the south are the flame, tempered by winter, with their soldiers by our side we raise our banners once more as we continue to push into the heart of the Grendel forces. We march to reclaim Madruga

Vincente i Zayden i Guerra, General of the Fire of the South

Soldiers of the Drakes, we finish what we started last season. Our bills will be the wall upon which the waves of Grendel break, our bows the spears that will fish the siakha cultists and their herald allies from the seas. We will engage in a campaign of steady conquest, driving our foes before us into the seas they hold so dear. Not one step back!

Tancred of Meade, General of the Drakes

Mind your step into Barien's Domain, dear Sky, as we pop through a Portal and back out the other side. I've become good friends with the Iron Duke in recent times so please, pay your respects to our generous Earl. There's unfortunately no time for sunbathing. As soon as your fleet hit the sand - charge. This season, we hunt Grendel. PS we'll be back in the Barrens in no time.

Dame Aurum De Castellan, General of the Eastern Sky

My siblings of snow and Ice, we stand at the beginning of our story. We Suaq, Kallevesi and Steinr shaped by our harsh homeland will bring our resiliance and adaptability to the Imperial foes. We Charge to Madruga, across the length of the Empire to support and inform the Freeborn. Let us reclaim Imperial homes with the same Vigor and determination as if it were our own!

Determination of Ice Kaisa, General of the Narwhal's Spear

Freeborn! Did you take heart? Did you hold each other, as I asked? Did you celebrate our lives in a dance of sorrow, joy and flame? The Flowers bloom on the clifftops but also in our hearts, our souls; great stained reliefs of colour, beauty and dust. We dream of a future in the homes that we have lost. A future in which friends and family can watch the sunset across the grasses and share syrah, stories and siblingship. My freeborn, my family take me home. To Madruga!

Delora i Sol-Devorador i Erigo, General of the Red Wind Corsairs

Wolves, our rest is over. We march to Madruga to remind the Grendel the taste of our steel. Secure every inch of land and push them back into the Bay. Do not let them stand in the way of this Empire's Destiny. Steel guard our bodies, virtue guard our Souls!

Marcus Derivian di Sarvos, General of the Wolves of War

Faintest Sunlights Flee

The Empire's magicians have provided boons of their own, weaving Day magic over the 'Falcon, the 'Spear, and the 'Corsairs that grant them supernatural clarity, helping them to coordinate their maneuvers despite the worst of the storms.

The clarity begins to break down a little for the Burning Falcon as the season presses on. A number of unpredictable warriors loyal to the eternal Janon arrive to aid their Freeborn allies, and while their presence stokes the flames of passion among the kohan that make up the bulk of the army, it does little to aid complex strategy or rational clarity. These supernatural warriors – indefatigable red-skinned spear-fighters in burnished scale with glowing eyes and bull-like horns; spinning blue-tattooed axe-wielding warriors with cerulean cloaks and sapphire flames set upon their brows; yellow-and-orange rage-dancers with biting glaives that leave burning footprints behind them on the grasses where they fight - stoke the flames of their fellows. As the battle rages, as the storm thunders, as the wind howls in from the sea, fragments of the tumult around them seem to enter the Freeborn warriors, and they exult in the passion and fury of the storm. By the time the Summer Solstice dawns, the flames of Night and the tempest of Spring will have formed a crucible from which the Burning Falcon will emerge transformed. But that's for the future.

In contrast to the Burning Falcon, the Fire of the South are accompanied by a thousand soldiers from the Winter realm. Knights of the Bound King fight with cold dispassion, unconcerned by the winds and the pounding rain and the rolling thunder. They kill without compunction, urging the soldiers who fight with them to give in to the cold anger in their hearts, to take vengeance on those who have slighted them, to teach them terror, and to fight without mercy. Some listen to their words, and intentionally seek out opportunities to fight beside the Winter knights whenever possible. A cadre of the Fire of the South begin to show the marks of Winter on their bodies and, more concerningly perhaps, in their hearts.

The Latter Fire

The Grendel close ranks against the Empire. Supported wherever possible by what seems to be the bulk of their armada – red, yellow, green, and blue sails – they battle to keep control of Siroc Plains. It's not clear what their wider strategy is; but they refuse to give any ground. Perhaps they have not yet finished picking over the bones of ruined Siroc, perhaps they simply fight to delay the Empire from reaching the border with Feroz. Perhaps forty thousand Grendel against maybe thirty-five-thousand Imperials.

The barbarian forces include a number of mercenaries; the warships and soldiers of Asavea are here in force. They maintain their own discipline, not mingling overmuch with the Grendel alongside whom they fight. They seem to relish every chance to face Imperial warbands, their battle-prowess bolstered by the chants and icons of their Red God of War. Disturbingly, there seem to be a number of assassins and scouts in the Asavean contingent; rumours spread like fire through the Imperial lines of humans who seem at first to be Freeborn but strike with cruel precision against officers and captains with envenomed daggers or poison phials before disappearing into the storm. The priesthood of Tlangg and Sanit, the twin gods of Vengeance and Ambition, hide in plain sight until it is too late to fend off their blows.

There are also reliable sightings of Governor Rahab here in Siroc Plain, fighting with his personal guard. A few hundred warriors – orcs and human mercenaries – raising his banner. It's said he's placed a bounty on Freeborn taglemusts, but few outside his own warband seem interested in trying to claim it. It's well known among the Grendel that Rahab may be offering bounties his treasury cannot back. There's some speculation about what might have lured Rahab out of his fortified palace in Feroz, what prize he might be seeking. Surely it must be more than just the chance to finally gain some vengeance against the Freeborn who have humiliated and taunted him, time and again?

In Roaring, Rise

Armies clash, the fighting is fierce, blood is spilled, but the real battle is not orc and human but mortal and the elements. The storms that have been brewing over Madruga are just the herald of what is to come. Three weeks after the Spring Equinox, the true fury of the tempest is unleashed. A cataclysmic peal of thunder, heard as far north as Caricomare in Sarvos, breaks and keeps breaking. A rolling, deafening drumbeat that seems to go on and on, but in truth lasts barely a minute. Thunderbolts rain down from the black clouds, raking grassland and sea with equal abandon. As with natural lightning, they strike the tallest thing in the world below the clouds. Elsewhere, this would likely mean trees. Here in the flatlands of Madruga, it means masts, and spears, and sometimes soldiers. When a thunderbolt comes to ground through a warrior, human or orc, nothing remains save fused soil and perhaps a few blasted metal fragments.

The rivers burst their banks; the Scorerro first and then the Aleatorio that rises near the Great Grasses and runs through Lightsea to the Bay. Pounding, unceasing rain combines with floodwaters to transform swathes of Madruga into sucking quagmire. The Bay rises too, pounding the coastal towns, flooding Quzar, and Calvos sending hundreds of Freeborn refugees inland as they try to escape the rising waters.

And not just the waters, either. At the height of the storm, monsters attack Lightsea and Calvos Sound. Carcharadon and less-identifiable horrors emerge from the surging waves. Storm-marked pirate ships strike against the coast, many with tattered sails and torn rigging that nonetheless does little to slow their zeal for attacking Freeborn and Grendel alike. Clearly Siakha makes no effort to spare her followers from her furious devastation, any more than she does the innocent Freeborn.

Lives are lost across Madruga as the storms intensify. Perhaps the cruelest loss, however, is in Calvos. A loss that will be felt across the Coast, and beyond. The Seminary of Zemress is after all important not only to Imperial citizens but for those who walk the path of Prosperity across the world – including some orcs of the Broken Shore. Unfortunately, that inspirational place of learning that draws pilgrims from three rival nations together, is built on a wharf that protrudes out into the Bay. When the catastrophic storm comes, it shatters the great glass windows of the Seminary, douses its hopeful lights. Priests and pilgrims alike fight desperately to defend the place but it is for naught. The waves smash it to splinters and rubble, sweeping its beauty into the careless sea.

Little built along the coast survives unharmed. The tempest floods the House of Guerra, drowning many of those who sought to build a place of sanctuary in Madruga. It dashes against the Zemress Naval Academy, flooding the lower level and inflicting serious damage. It floods the drydock where lies the Kraken's Bane, the ship of Zemress and monument to the memory of the exemplar. Yet, amazingly, when the waters begin to recede the ship remains. Battered by the floodwaters and the tempest, certainly, but both the ship itself and the aura of Prosperity that surrounds it, endure. A sign of hope for the Freeborn, perhaps?

Delora i Sol-Devorador i Erigo (left), General of the Red Wind Corsairs

Determination of Ice Kaisa, General of the Narwhal's Spear

Far, Far Beneath

The storm also brings the fighting in Siroc Plains to a halt. For two weeks in the middle of the season, when the unnatural tempest is at its worst, the Grendel and the Empire are forced to suspend hostilities. No treaty is signed, no ceasefire agreed, but it simply becomes impossible to continue in the face of the howling hurricane. Soldiers of both sides huddle in their tents, trying desperately to get warm and dry. Burnable firewood becomes a premium, hot food and drinkable water because treasures everyone seeks. A good night's sleep becomes harder and harder to get.

The weather claims lives, indiscriminately, as if it were an enemy army all its own. Not one army, nor one navy, escapes unscathed. Rough estimates suggest as many as fifteen hundred fighters and sailors lose their lives in the teeth of Siakha's gale.

Once the weather starts to slacken, though, the hostilities resume. Across a landscape transformed by the wind and the rain, the Imperial and Grendel forces clash once again, Both sides are exhausted, slogging through the cold and the mud to manoeuvre and fight. The exchange of advance and retreat seems to take place in slow motion, and the Grendel are slowly pushed south towards the ruins of Siroc.

A fortnight before the Summer Solstice, the sun is seen again. It peeps through a gap in the clouds, glancing down at the devastation of Madruga. Despite the light rain, for the first time in two months people turn their faces towards the warmth of the heavens. Rainbows sparkle. The storm has broken.

Aracelis i Erigo, General of the Burning Falcon

Game Information : Madruga

The Empire has made inroads into Siroc Plains, despite the devastating weather. They are two-fifths of the way toward claiming the region, and thus the territory.

The region of Free Landing can no longer be reached by armies, unless those armies are carried by a navy. This is due to the fane of Siakha, and the monsters unleashed during the Spring Equinox by the followers of the eternal.

Only military units who supported the Wolves of War in Madruga received shares of the Imperial Guerdon. A standard military unit received five shares, with additional ranks from upgrades or enchantment providing an additional share each.

Game Information : The Storms

• Devastating storms have ripped across the territory of Madruga, conjured and empowered by the might of Siakha

Empowered by Siakha, the curses of Thunderous Deluge and Foam and Spittle of the Furious Sea have combined to cause major damage to Madruga. Numerous personal resources have already been impacted, but the curses have also had widespread effects elsewhere.

All the coastal settlements in Madruga have been battered by storms and flooded. Quzar, Calvos, and the ruins of Siroc have been damaged. It seems likely that Mudport and Atalaya will also have been harmed – even moreso given that they are on islands.

The Seminary of Zemress has been destroyed. The House of Guerra has been flooded, and there has been some loss of life, but it will be repaired. The Zemress Naval Academy likewise has suffered extensive flooding, but the academics and retired naval officers have undertaken the task of restoring it to function – it will however not be able to make any progress on new ship designs in the coming season.

Dame Aurum De Castellan, General of the Eastern Sky

The Kraken's Bane likewise has been wracked by storm, and many of the artistic embellishments added in recent years lost, but the ship itself and its true liao aura remain.

While it is not in Imperial hands, the Freeborn Flame Marina in Free Landing has likewise sustained major damage. It's not certain but its likely that it will need significant repairs or possibly completely rebuilding. Obviously, while Free Landing remains isolated from the rest of Madruga it's impossible to say one way or another what state it is in.

The stream that runs past the Crimson Drummers in Torres has flooded, but here the damage is less severe as the shrine is well inland. The Crimson Sutannir will not receive any liao or money following the Summer Solstice – they will be needed to support the rebuilding effort.

The Marracossa Sendito has not at this time lost access to their ministry. The Marracossan settlement at Trajadoz has suffered damage from the storms but the artisans there indicate that they intend to honour their contractual obligations even as they are forced to rebuild. To secure the resources they need to repair their homes, they are prepared to offer the Sendito an additional Raptis Hook, and an additional Ichos' Fork for at least the next year albeit at a slightly higher price. They anticipate that the funds will help them secure the materials they need to recover from the unnatural storms.

All the armies in the territory – both Imperial and Grendel – have taken a share of 750 casualties from the combined, empowered storm curses. Likewise, the Grendel navies have shared 750 casualties between them thanks to the hurricane.

The banner of the Burning Falcon army.

Participation

• Military units who supported the Burning Falcon or the Fire of the South may choose to receive a boon from an eternal

If your military unit was assigned to support the Burning Falcon this downtime, you may have been inspired by the heralds of Janon fighting alongside - and aiding in the transformation of - the army. If you wish, you may experience a roleplaying effect: You are filled with passionate intensity, and find it difficult to keep your emotions under control. You find it very difficult to resist the urge to step up and confront people or situations that make you angry, especially if those situations involve challenges to your personal beliefs or philosophies.. If you choose to embrace this roleplaying effect, and have the Hero skill, then for the duration of the Summer Solstice you have an additional hero point. If you are a Freeborn character with the kohan archetype, you gain two additional hero points for the duration of the summit instead. These bonus hero points remain until the end of the Summer Solstice, or until you use a source of spiritual strength to overcome the powerful roleplaying effect. Once lost they cannot be regained.

By contrast, if your military unit was assigned to support the Fire of the South you may choose to have fought alongside the knights of Tharim. In this case, you also experience a roleplaying effect albeit one with a darker theme: You are reminded of everyone who has ever wronged you, let you down, or belittled you. Confronting them in person, or working to undermine or punish them by subtle means, feels immensely satisfying. As long as you continue to experience the roleplaying effect, however, you gain an additional rank of endurance. This bonus persists until the end of the next battle, skirmish, or quest you take part of, or until the end of the Summer Solstice, whichever comes first. In addition, if you are an unlineaged human, you may choose to develop the draughir lineage as a result of prolonged time spent in the company of the knights of Tharim eating and drinking and fighting with them. To do this, you should email plot@profounddecisions.co.uk before the 19^the of July, with your CID, and request your character be updated. Note that the change is permanent, and you will need to adopt at least one of the physical trappings of the draughir going forward.

One final note; the orders of the General of the Eastern Sky suggest they will “pop through a Portal and back out the other side.” Their favoured quality allows them to take the traverse the crossroads order, and move with aid from the eternal Barien. This does not mean the army teleports or uses supernatural paths outside the material world. Rather, the boons granted by the eternal help the army find shortcuts, ease their passage along roads and trods, and infuse soldiers with enchantments that let them march faster and for longer. At no point do they pass through “portals”, and as such this part of the order should be treated as “flowery language” on behalf of the general.

Get Rahab (Battle Opportunity)

• In spite of everything the Grendel still hold Siroc Plain, but there is an opportunity to challenge their control of the region

There is a chance for Imperial heroes to face the Grendel on the Siroc Plains, which includes a promised opportunity to deal once-and-for-all with the hated Governor Rahab of Feroz - complicit in a number of crimes including the ruin of the Isle of Osseini and the burning of Shantarim.