| Current Campaign: New Blood For An Old Sword | |
| Episode 5: "The Defenders of Eatonshire" | |
| Year: 1763 Fall | |
| Location: Eatonshire | |
| PCs: | |
NPCs:
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| Previous Episode: "Trickery at Taros" | |
| Next Episode: "?" | |
| Previous Campaign: The Knights of Eaton | |
Story
Act One
The Silent Wake docks in Kandorr and Carlo leaves the employ of Artemis on bad terms. They are disturbed by the despondency and desperation of the people of Kandorr and the refugee tent city beyond its walls. Carlo finds Kandorr's populace hostile and unreceptive to mercenaries, and Clay learns that the mercenary guild-house has been burned to the ground. Carlo hires on Clay, Angus, Kamil and Ambrose to accompany him. They decide to pose as agents of the church on a charity mission and tarry in Kandorr for a week, gathering information and supplies for the perilous trip west to Eatonshire. Ambrose checks in at the charterhouse, where he is warned by the magus captain that several of his charges attached themselves to a contingent of horsemen who mean to fortify Eatonshire; they rode out three weeks ago but never reached the city. The mage warns them against taking the main road directly to Eatonshire.
As they leave the city a voice calls out to them and they see Valrick, the cabin boy for the Silent Wake, sitting astride Bancroft. Valrick says he was insulted by Artemis and the captain so he quit the ship, stole the lord's horse and kit, and wishes to join them. Kamil expresses doubt, but Valrick dazzles them with a display of his knife skills. Carlo welcomes him to the group, warning him of the danger ahead. They ride together out of the west gate and past the tent city. Their intent is to journey south to Greendale to avoid the well-trod main road between Eatonshire and Kandorr and then cut north to approach Eatonshire from the smaller, the less-traveled road.
On their journey they pass emptied villages and the smoldering ruins of towns, bodies litter the shoulder of the great road. Valrick tracks a recent mass of movement headed over the hills outside Greendale, where they encounter a gruesome sight: the corpses of the horsemen out of Kandorr hang from trees in the peach orchard of House Windsor. They ride to the manor and find it sacked, with the corpses of servants and livestock slaughtered alike. Ambrose enters the ransacked main hall and discovers a young squire alive but sorely wounded, lying beneath the body of a house guard. They unpack Artemis's enchanted pavilion, stow the young boy inside, and roll it back up.
They arrive in Greendale, which has enlisted a company of Inyaré rangers from Elys to help defend the area around the city. They are escorted through the main gate where they meet Chaugaur Cromwell, Lord Lieutenant of the city. He introduces Carlo and Clay to their local compatriots in the Dread Legion, thirty survivors of the Rainbow Bay who swam to shore and fled south, regrouped outside of Greendale, and reconstituted as a platoon. They are led by Lieutenant Redpike, a half-orc of great reknown who was discovered near-death by Chaugaur and restored to full health—Redpike has since pledged himself to the defense of Greendale. He detaches half of his platoon under Carlo's command for the purposes of reinforcing Eatonshire, and after a day of rest the group rides out north the next morning.
The trek across the bleak, still countryside is unsettling and the group keeps morale up by telling stories, singing, drinking, and playing road games. On the fourth day of the trip they arrive at Old Oak Tor to bear witness to another dismaying tableau: the families of those lords who lived outside the walls of Eatonshire City hang from many trees. They spend the day cutting bodies from the trees and burying them as the warmage and former cleric, Gavril, blesses the grave. During the ceremony Ambrose discovers a group of serfs hiding in a nearby gully and they assure the frightened peasants they mean no harm; on man among them, Erdric, says they were hiding from local brigands who were hunting for their women.
Incensed upon hearing this, Clay suggests they lie in wait and ambush the brigands. They draft a plan and used Edric as a lure, dressing him as a traveling tinker with a cart of goods. When the brigands arrive on the road the group attacks them and slays all but their leader, a Grief Eater deserter named Tarn. Carlo recognizes Tarn as one of the platoon members who burned his village and he interrogates him, learning the possible whereabouts of his children and of the likely troop movements of the Grief Eater host. He kills Tarn and leaves him in the ditch alongside the other dead brigands.
Meta
- House Croydan has set up a provisional government as Garn rules in exile from Erelaan,