Fallcrest Joins the Iron Circle!

As the milita's of the league call their bannermen to arms, all notice the absence of one particular flag among those assembled. The city of Fallcrest, lead by Lord and Lady Mackelroy of the Moonstone Keep have not sent any of their nearly 350 strong milita to join their strength to the others. Lord Ironfist of Hammerfast who was on the King's Road fighting bandits from Raven's Roost was sent to investigate. When he arrived at the King's gate he found no welcome among those manning the walls and was dismayed to find the banner of the Iron Circle flying above the city's colors.

Lord Mackelroy's own captain of the sixty man city guard rode out to meet Lord Ironfist, proclaiming that the city of Fallcrest had joined the Iron Circle, adding vaguely that the Iron Citadel had made them an offer they could not refuse. Lord Ironfist and his small band hurried back East to bring the grave news to the King of Mithraelfast. The loss of Fallcrest effectively cedes all of the surrounding lands and trade routes of the Nentir Vale to the empire in the South. The league is shocked by the betrayal of the Lord of Fallcrest, whose line was known to be loyal worshippers of Sehanine the Moon goddess, not the infernal gods of the southern lands.

Dragon on a Spit

Against the advice of the chief wizard and adviser to the Crown Prince of Vailin, Magus Graycloak, the prince's cousin and defender of the realm Alrick Silvanus orders his knights to ride to Brandil to meet the foe. They bring with them the weapons of war they built in the capitol, and a volcanic dragon summoned from White Plume Mountain. The ghouls on foot are no match for the mighty war machines crafted by the elves skewering them along the wooded landscape as they approach.

The dire wolves are run down by Silvanus' knights and driven off. The volcanic dragon seeks the majestic purple dragon and melts its necrotic flesh and bones. Alrick and Magus Graycloak ride into a sacred vale desecrated by Yllakin the half-orc paladin of Orcus. The magus is the only one to return alive. He speaks of Alrick's valorous defeat of the half-orc, though it cost him his life in the bargain. His soul no doubt found peace liberating the sacred vale of the four free gods of the elves.

Under the orders of the new captain of the king's guard Ser Ellert Rainwood, footsoliders march to protect the vulnerable southern lands from the remaining monsters left from Karkoth's incursion. In Zembar, Admiral Swordhand leads his griffons and army into the Dread Marches, hunting the Dread Lich Lord himself, though he finds only an empty crumbling mausoleum that was once his palace, and a trail of rotted flesh and bones that leads him further onward to the West into Amil Forest.

As the admiral travels on foot, his navy assembles its full strength in Vullwar Passage to blockade the island territory of Rellis Vullin from the lands of the Iron Circle to the south. Their lands and food already stripped by the Iron Circle's armies to the north, the people there grow so hungry and restless over the next several weeks that the bravest among them take up arms and hunt the sleeping red dragon sent by Worg Oswe. They carve the beast up and sell its flesh and bones in the markets, making for a bizarre spectacle. It's the tongue of the dragon that they say was the softest and sweetest bit.

Conclave in Marhad

The seven monarchs of Karkoth call a conclave in the high thronehold of Marhad, their Imperial capitol. After the crushing defeat of their northern allies by the Nerathi, they ponder their next move. Meanwhile, on the central isle, the Lich Lord of the Dread Marches enters the Amil Forest to the east to inspect the ruins of a long lost city from an age long past. He found the forest and lands abandoned, save for a few free forest folk, and some other magical beasts, all of whom fled before his undead soldiers.

Fall of the Gorgon King's Realm

Ella the Enchantress confirms the Iron King's suspicions that the true power behind the Orc Lord was the Gorgon King to the East. The Gorgon King spurred and supported the aggressions against Skalgard, acting on his orders from the Karkothi Throneholds. Gathering her siege engines she met with Toj Firebeard and the Lunarmancer on the great plains of ice and rock outside the Gorgon King's impressive thick-walled fortress.

Joining the cause were the remaining dire bears and four great metallic dragons: Copper, Silver, Iron, and Bronze. The dragons took flight and led the battle against the mighty stone towers of the Gorgon King. Soon they were met on the field by a menagerie of monsters. Orcs, skeletons, goblins, fowlspawn, and dark dwarves manned the defenses. The great gates opened to release a small army of infantry, supported by displacer beasts, fomorian giants, and even a dreaded rhemorhoraz, a creature so unruly it killed even its handlers when their guard was down.

As the dragons assaulted the walls they took much of the soldiers bolts and blades, relentlessly crushing the guardians in their claws and powerful jaws. Flames and lightning courses through the defenders ranks, but most stood their ground in the face of certain death, for all knew the gallery of statues that the Gorgon King kept of those who had betrayed him.

The displacer beasts destroyed the seige engines, before Ella could blast the tentacled beasts with blasts of light and acid. The Lunarmancer engaged the fomorian giants, dodging beneath the lumbering giants to release blasts of lighting and wind that knocked them to the ground. The rhemorhoraz ate the dire bears, ripping through their ranks a s Toj Firebeard rushed beneath the things many legs and through the main gate. When he arrived in the main hall, a gallery of somber statues met him. The Gorgon King's throne was empty, and so Toj crept carefully through the complex searching.

Outside the tide had turned decisively for the attackers. The infantry on the walls were all vanquished or surrendered, and a great blizzard dragon defending the main keep was surrounded by the four metallic dragons, who circled their prey, waiting for the inevitable opening to slay their foe. The Lunarmancer and Ella finished the fomorians and turned to the rhemorhoraz, driving the thing off into the cold wilderness.

When they claimed the keep they found Toj Firebeard's petrified remains in an adjacent antechamber. The Gorgon King's magic was such that even the Lunarmancer and the Enchantress could not free him from its grip. The evil tyrant had fled through a cavern system into the underdark and on to where, none know.

News arrived slowly of other victories. In the Skallan Reach an elemental from the Eastern Midnight Sea had sunk the Winterskull war galleys sworn to Karkoth. In the Gulf of Kar, a Templar from Zaarnath named Dolranth sailed with several Zaarnathi infantry and sunk the Karkothi's royal battle barges, and he established a monastery to his Order of Light on the Plain of Ebon spires, where the freed slaves had worked tirelessly to restore that ancient ruins of the ebon spires to some of their former glory.

By decree of Mithraelfast, all regions raised militias from the local populace to help protect the League. The greatest response was found among the newly freed folk of the Karkothi lands to the east in the Icebound Wastes, and in Sarthel, but there a sizable number of new recruits in the lands of Vor Rukoth, White Raven, and Skalgard as well. Free men all of tribes and peoples joined in a common virtuous cause.