Xanlomin's Last Stand

The tactics of Xanlomin's gnome rangers puts the Iron Citadel on the defensive, forcing them to double back and retake lands they had moved through quickly on their assault against the Duchy of Solandir. Still the opressive weight of the wealthy city-states' alliance proved too much for the rebel armies of Vailin.

Tithnian soldiers returned from the duchy, their pockets full of coin and plundered riches, and they crushed the Emerald Blade's forces with their siege engines. Great Iron Golems moved south from Tithnia through the Thorndeep, carving a road through the wilderness, allowing safe passage for the Iron Citadel's legions of footsoldiers.

In Rana Moor, a dragonborn mercenary named Alukahn leads a power force from the Citadel of Iron's Grasp to defeat the Druid Isle's storm elemental that was plaguing the region. Worg Oswe, Half-Ogre takes a bride, Alrackis the Bloodhanded. They celebrate their new lands as the new Duke and Duchess of Solandir with public executions and trials by combat for the defeated nobles that fill their dungeon.

Worg Oswe's great red dragon moves to join a unit of infantry from the northern coast, where they had been occupying the Sand Sea tribes lands. New garrisons move in as they join an elemental force to destroy Xanlomin Goblinsfoe's mountaineers in the Black Stone Desert. Xanlomin's carefully laid trap defeats the infantry easily, leaving the Black Stone canyons littered with arrow filled corpses of hobgoblin soldiers.

The gnome's best laid plan is twarted when his carrion crawler is tied down by a storm elemental and his rangers must do battle with the great red dragon high atop the cliffs. The monster and elemental destroy each other and his rangers are picked off one by one against the dragon. Finally Xanlomin himself leaps onto the dragon and stabs it furiously, but he is crushed beneath the monster as it rolls into a cliffside. The dragon survives, but Xanlomin is no more.

Meanwhile, a Tiefling Warlock named Irielyassa disembarks from the Iron Circle's navy in the Emerald Blade Barony. She summons a great pack of Succubi and takes control of the Baron and his court with their wiles.

Castle Zembar

Admiral Norneiros Swordhand returns from the Sea of Ghosts a haunted and changed man. Having seen many men die at the Crimson Ramparts he brings news of the recent defeat to the Crown Prince of Vailindor. When he arrives at court he finds that the Prince has locked himself in the high tower, enveloped in the pleasures of his court, and avoiding the responsibilities of his office. Since the recent string of defeats the Prince has declared that he wants no further news of the war until there is good news and to that end, he cares not what actions his servants take, so long as he is secure in his palace.

Refugees from around the southern lands have choked the streets and the walled gates have been closed and all the knights pulled in to defend the capitol, effectively leaving the surrounding countryside to conquest. The admiral sneers at the Prince's advisers and heads to the royal treasury, taking a large sum with his men and loading it onto his ships. He takes the bravest knights from the surrounding lands and flight of griffons, along with the best stone and woodshaping mages in the kingdom, and sets sail for Zembar. When they arrive at his homeland, the admiral begins construction of a spartan, practical fortress along the cliffs overlooking the Zemish Strand.

On the peninsula ruled by the Iron Circle, the disparate forces of Vailin's southern kingdoms re-align themselves after the fall of the Duchy of Solandir. Choosing hit and run, guerrilla tactics they strike toward the weaker heart of the Circle's territories, rather than a full confrontation with Worg Oswe's powerful army. The Emerald Blade Baronies army moves west into Tithnia, their long-time rival, crushing the garrison left behind in the Circle's advance to the Duchy. Xanlomin Goblinsfoe the Gnome, leads his small band of rangers into the Blackstone Desert. The goblins there are taken by surprise as he sends an enormous carrion crawler (the unseen river monster from the Massacre at Thorndeep) up the side of the mountain pass to consume their archers, while the rest of his force scales the opposing cliff to gain higher ground and rain down arrows on the fleeing survivors.

The Isle of the Druids sends their Storm Elemental to Rana Moor, where their hippogriff riding soldiers are drawn up into the great magic vortex and burned and blacked by the lightning in its heart. The Prince's advisers send word to him in his great tower of ivory and gold, but they find him intoxicated in bed smoking strange spices from the lands across the the great eastern mountains. They resume their plans to restore their kingdoms glory and honor.

The Rain of Colorless Fire

In the Karkothi's northern lands, the dark lords send out word to their necromancers to begin a great battle ritual. Three great pyres are built and prisoners from the dungeons are marched into the flames. Three great pillars of black smoke rise into the heavens forming a great cloud that snakes along the coast to the southern lands.

On his flagship in the Sea of Ghosts, Admiral Swordhand witnesses the black cloud darken the skies above his blockade and the Crimson Ramparts. Over the ancient fortress a colorless fire descends, raining death upon Valin's guardians. The storm elemental hurls itself up into the cloud to dispersing it and the elemental in the process. Valin's dragons spread their wings to protect the vulnerable treants from the magical flames falling all around.

The Karkothi attack comes swiftly on the heels of the storms wrath. An ancient black dragon from the north leads the charge spewing acid onto the treants as they hurl boulders across the ruined walls to strike at Karkoth's undead soldiers, lead by the resurrected Elistine Gellantara, who is now a vile wraith. Valin's dragons take flight, strafing the undead legions, consuming Gellantara and her footsoliders in their flames. As the battle concludes, the two wounded and weakend metallic dragons stand against their larger chromatic foe. In a bloody land battle, the black dragon rends one in half with its claws while biting the head off the other. It burrows into the mud of the moat along one of the many battered walls to recover before its next flight. The carnage strewn battlefield is silent.

Further East in the Great Wildwood, the peaceful forest peoples had just begun to recover their wits and confidence with the help of a garrison unit of elf archers, lead by Richand Woodsheart the ranger, and Zannerios Dragonsbane the arcane archer. Both witty and cheerful and great storytellers and bards as well, they have lifted the peoples spirits after their successful liberation from the zombie hulk invasion. With their help the people train in archery and learn skirmishing tactics to help aid in their defense the next time they must defend the lands.

Still they are unprepared for what comes next. Yllakain, the Half-Orc Paladin of Orcus rides through the forest with a pack of dire wolves to sniff out the woodfolk, with a unit of ghouls stalking behind to catch any that are missed by the wolves. Overhead, a purple dragon circles the skies scouting out the locations of the wildwood people's refuge and leading the army to find their hidden forces, thwarting their ambushes. In a delicate game of cat and mouse the elves move carefully through the wood, trying to find the best terrain for their attack, but when Richand and Zannerios are finally captured and impaled on Yllakain's blade, the rest of the archers break ranks and begin to flee through the woods where they are run down by the ghouls and dire wolves. Yllakain cuts down the most ancient tree in the wood and has his dragon roll it's trunk over the captured soldiers as the rest of the forestfolk prisoners watch in horror. He then sends the forest folk in chains to the north to serve the Throneholds.

The Barony of Brandhil braces for the worst as news of the invasion to the north trickles in. A small force of townsfolk with light armor and pikes they take up positions on the edges of their town to guard against the horrific undead stalkers that have overtaken Cernal. Soon they too fall to the silent predators who pick them off slowly, savoring their cries in the dark night. The creatures leave no bodies in their wake, only cold hearths and abandoned homes, as they move further and deeper into the Walkingwood, home of the Treants. While the proud warriors of the Walkingwood die defending the Crimson Ramparts, the undead menace creeps into their forest groves, uprooting their seedlings and driving out the rare animals they had gathered and protected there. Poachers who once prowled the woods looking for easy meat in the Treants' absence now stay clear away from the Walkingwood, declaring it haunted.

Skalgard Keep liberated! Sinister secrets unearthed in Sarthel.

Laralove Dewshining rests from her expedition to the Sunless Citadel in Fallcrest then joins an arcanist named Xanroar Carter on a journey to the Trollhaunt Warrens. There they battle a tribe of hill giants loyal to Skalamad the Troll King. In the hill giant's lair they find a horde of gold. Xanroar uses the bones of the hill giants to craft powerful magic gauntlets that are shipped to all the fighters in the league. The two mages rest in Nera, among the ruins of the old Nerathi Empire's capitol.

The city state of Sarthel has been defiantly collecting taxes from neighboring villages and invading those who refuse to pay for their protection. Many refugees from the raided villages and those who have no more coin to sustain themselves head to nearby Vor Rukoth seeking sanctuary. The dwarves stationed there hear the villagers cries for help and mobilize their cannons and mountaineers. They also recruit a tribe of stone giants nearby who owe their clan a debt from ages past, and a silver dragon from Winterbole Forest who has sworn allegiance to the league for honoring an ancient Nerathi Imperial pact to leave his lands untouched by axe or plow.

When the force from Vor Rukoth arrives at Sarthel, many of the wealthiest nobles have already fled. The mercenary guards abandon their posts at the sight of the powerful army set to lay siege to their city. Only a handful of loyal warriors fiercely defend those few houses who remain. They are quickly overcome and the rabble flood through the gates alongside the army, rushing into the lush mansions to loot the remaining wealth within.

An elite unit of dwarves scales the back wall of the fortress and captures several fleeing noblemen. As they move through the nobles home making more arrests they make an unsettling discovery: a great subterranean temple to Asmodeus the Lord of Hell and signs of human and animal sacrifices. The nobles found in the home above the temple and inside are executed for devilry, and the remaining prisoners are held for trial later as investigations continue. The house and temple are razed to the ground by the great dragon.

In Skalgard Keep, the orcs reign of terror continues and the lands fall into chaos. Prince Stalkingwolf leads the Iron Wolfhold's liberation force. The orcs, too busy plundering to rebuild the main gates of the keep, which they had smashed with their siege engine, were unable to repel the Prince, though they held out long in their fight and claimed nearly one thousand of the Wolfhold's soldiers on the battlefield. Their great engine of war, with it's cloven skull rolled out from the keep, decorated with the bodies of Skalgard's finest knights. It's great wheels crushing many of the advancing troops before the Prince himself climbed atop the great machine, setting it ablaze with his flaming sword. A bronze dragon joined the strike, setting orc archers on the towers of Skalgard Keep aflame, as great stones heaved by trebuchets battered the walled defenses. The last of the orcs standing on the field of battle were cut down by the Ironwolf's berzerkers, a loyal shifter clan.

The King in Ironwolf Hold drank to his son's victory, and sent ale to all the villages in his honor.