The war against The Drowned has never been an easy one. Fighting these accursed creatures strains the body of a soldier, forces the mind to its breaking point, and tests the soul in seeing how such horrors can be possible. But the Concord has no choice. The western cape of southern Esterra is not only a dangerous thorn in the Concord’s side, but it is home to lands once held by Lerona Mere, lands that could be the Concords once again.
If these lands are still recognisable. If these lands are still habitable. If these lands still exist within the holy gaze of the Spheres. All of these things and less are guaranteed.
This past season the Concord has given the lion's share of its might to this war, battling the Drowned on two fronts, not only on the defence, but also in attempts to push these foul creatures even further from the Concordian heartland.
We pray for our soldiers, we pray for their souls.
Those Who Seek Death
“How do you want to die?”
A challenge commonly screamed at overwhelmed first and second sword Ritter apprentices by their teaches. Do you want to die because you couldn’t keep up and the army left you behind? Do you want to die because you didn’t know your forms and couldn’t foresee the pattern in your enemies strikes? Do you want to die because you couldn’t keep your head when the fighting turned to chaos?
The Ritters who form the officer cadre of the Legion of the Blackheart Bear would look back on these times with rueful joy, a simpler time. But that training didn’t ask them if they wanted to die speared through by living coral. It didn’t ask if they wanted to die when arcane foulery caused their lungs to sweat seawater, drowning them where they stood. It didn’t ask if they were ready for the swamps of La Dove Dormani.
Thirty-six hundred soldiers from the Weald, with Blasserstreit sweeping through their ranks, marched as far south as their feet would take them to bring the fight to the Drowned. Their advance was an essential one, not only reclaiming lost territory for The Concord, but also cutting off the retreat for Drowned forces to the north on the Plateau of the Gods. Failure here would likely mean the end for the Legion, and shame for the War Chamber. It was time to ask themselves; “How do you want to die?”
Supporting the Legion, nearly doubling its numbers, came Concordian mercenaries as diverse and skilled as any Legion soldier. Valleyfolk veterans calling themselves ‘Stonebound’, Lerona Mere bravos clutching a banner of a bloody hourglass calling themselves ‘Sablier Rouge’, and Greenweald fighters burning with flame known as the ‘Scorched Serpents’. This is but a sliver of the free-fighters that came to the Drowned Swamps to stand with the Legion and see their orders fulfilled. Many will wish they had made different, perhaps better choices.
The fighting began in the north, around Lake Deios, a wide and shallow thing where it is impossible to determine where the swamps end and the lake begins until you lose your boot in it. But beneath the surface of the lake was wonder. A coral reef plucked from a distant tropical sea blossomed and crackled with growth, only it was as translucent as glass. The forces of The Drowned that emerged from the calm shallow lake would take fallen Concordians back to these crystal sepulchres, their blood and viscera slowly dissolving in the translucent hell. Concordian forces based themselves out of an old bawdy house known as ‘The Manero De Vizio’ that once appealed to rich clientele looking to mix their lake holidays with bodily pleasure. They found these same glass crystals growing in the walls, tinkling with arcane energy, and whispering the discordant choir of The Drowned.
In the east, along the coast, a detachment of the Legion supported by the bulk of the Lerona Mere mercenaries attempted crossings of the Vaddios Bianca, where it let out into the Bay. The fiercest fighting took place around an old Eelery, where the once skittish and inquisitive eels of the river grew immense with arcane engorgement. Soldiers hid behind their bloated forms for cover from enemy archers and spellcasters, while the slime-covered creatures attempted to scratch themselves to death on the soldiers who carried weapons, desperate to end their existence. The attack through Bacino Del Rosso Eelery was ultimately a failure due to the overwhelming stench of the place, and the continued outflanking of Concordian troops from the Bay of Promised Gold.
Where there was success was wherever the hands of humanity had not been overcome by the sapping swamp and the desperate clawing of the Drowned. The Black Bridge ‘Il Ponte Nero’, twenty paces across and quarried from good stone, standing firm over the Vaddios Bianca and its filmy surface, gave Concordian forces an unbeatable path into the enemy centre. Led by General Isolde Wulfden, fresh from the fighting in Eisen against the Onyx Aristocracy, The Legion marched down the Bravo’s Way southwards. With fire and steel they pushed the misbegotten monsters of Drowned back into the swamps to be pursued by mercenaries and free fighters. Over twelve days the Legion did naught but march, camp, and fight until they stood on the solid ground to the south of the swamps of La Dove Dormani. They had left hundreds of their allies behind in those swamps, dead from the ‘Streit, the Drowned, and the darkness. Now they only had to march further south until the La Calidez mountains began to pull away west.
On this first day of rest out of the embrace of the swamps, the Legion camped within sight of a small abandoned Orchard. Rumour had it that the General herself visited it only to find that the trees there grew kelp rather than leaves, and their fruit contained naught but fish eyes beneath the skin. Even outside of the swamps they would find no relief.
But time and tides waits for no mind to break. When the campaigning season began to drift away and Spring curled its way from the seas, soil, and sun to warm the bones of all, it found Concordian forces split. Less than a thousand Legion soldiers, those who had survived the sickness and the fighting, held the long front between La Dove Dormani and Sylvestrelli Mare, while a smaller contingent held the northern reaches of the Bravo’s Road, preparing to block the retreat of any forces from The Plateau of the Gods. Against all odds, against a foe that should not be, the Legion and The Concord had found victory.
They had done their duty.
Game Information
Over the past winter season the Legion of the Blackheart Bear along with a considerable number of Concordian mercenaries moved into La Dove Dormani to claim back the territory from The Drowned. There it battled the Drowned army known as the Reaching Tide, a name given to it by Concordian forces.
Concordian forces suffered heavily, as the ground was disadvantageous, the Legion was suffering from Blasserstreit, and the enemy was brutal in their defeat. When the campaigning season was over, the Legion of the Blackheart Bear had a strength of 1300, 50 strength above the number that would force it to disband.
The Reaching Tide suffered its own losses, but they were not as significant as The Concord’s. The Tide retreats to Sylvestrelli Mare at a strength of 3900. The Concord has become aware that the reaching tide has the following trait:
| Name | Casualties Inflicted Mod | Casualties Suffered Mod | Claim Mod | Special |
| Cutting Barnacles | - | - | - | If this army loses a Defensive Campaign, it inflicts 500 additional casualties, split evenly among enemy forces. |
Reclaiming La Dove Dormani has brought some spoils of war, but not as many as elsewhere. The Drowned do not leave pleasant rewards for the victor. The War Chamber will need to disperse these spoils of war, once pertinent decisions regarding such matters are resolved by the War Chamber and the Senate. The spoils of war include:
- Manero De Vizio (Tier 2 Leyline)
- Altipiani Orchard (Tier 2 Farm)
- Bacino Del Rosso (Tier 3 Wilderness (Shimmering Scales)
- Il Ponte Nero (Tier 2 Business)
These locations were the site of much of the fighting this past season, and there are considerable concerns for the danger they may present as they are deeply corrupted by the magic of the Drowned.
There will be decisions relating to the reclamation of La Dove Dormani for the Senator of Mancante Terra.
Apex Predators
“I don’t care if the High Priest of Panoply gives me a vault and swift kick in the arse, I’m not going down there.”
Sargent Oswald ‘Evil Eye’ Dunwall rubbed at his forehead and tried to do his very best to not throttle Liam into the stone of the cellar they found themselves in. He could admit that he saw what the younger soldier was getting at. Yes, night was fast falling outside. Yes, there was a layer of half-solid grey-green mist settled halfway down the stairs into the sub-cellar level. Yes, there had been a gurgling noise like a hangover gut echoing up from whatever lay below. But orders was orders, and Evil Eye wasn’t going to go back to their captain and tell them that his troop didn’t clear their buildings because lilly-livered Liam had a bad feeling about it.
“What about get in the fucking hole or we tie you up and throw you down there as bait?”
That was William ‘Axewound’ Silas, the troops resident nasty-bastard and all round tough customer. He was busy wrapping a section of cloth around his mouth, while a selection of serrated shortswords were splayed out in front of him for his perusal. Little Liam gritted his teeth and snarled back at Will defiantly.
“Farkin’’ go die Silas, I’ll take you with me if you even take one step towards me.” A threat which only caused Silas to take three jumpy steps towards the defiant younger man.
A big woman slapped Liam on the back and made him jump. Cassidy ‘Bad Luck’ Welcher, the troops resident door-kicker, too tall for the cellars low ceiling and too kind hearted for this shitty war.
“Listen laddy-Liam. It’ll be simple. In, out, twenty minutes. We plug the mist-hole with some bung, and then you’ll be back at the camp before you have to breathe it in.” Liam shrugged her well meaning, if patronising arm off and slipped away.
“No no no no! This isn’t right I tells yah. Between those statues, and this farkin’ mist, and whatever the fark happened to Hodder, I’m not farkin’ doing it.” Like many young men with not much schooling and a lot of righteous anger, Liam tended to make up for a slim vocabulary with a hefty love of expletives.
And so on it went, for the next ten or so minutes as the troop of a dozen or so Bordevarian’s readied themselves to march down into whatever fresh hell the Spheres had let the Drowned cook up. In the end they left the younger man curled up in the corner, ostensibly watching their backs. Behind Bad Luck’s door-shaped shield, they crept down into the half-light to bring steel and strength to whatever was curled away in this damned lost city.
This time it was worms. Evil Eye was pretty sure this meant he owed someone two keys, but as he was struggling to to crush one of the blood red, writhing bastards with his plate gauntlets, he struggled to remember who it was. The worm was as big as his thigh, and it snapped at him with a serrated maw on each end. Something wet and heavy slammed into his back and he saw Axewound slump down next to him, one of the worms buried in his neck, crunching through his collarbone like it was snapping a turkey leg. As he redoubled his efforts, an ugly noise like a yowling cat, split the room. The blood-worm in his grip began to whip back and forth as it added its own tongueless cry to the chorus, before it exploded in his grip, turning to chum and gristle under him. Looking up, Evil Eye saw little Liam Ludley standing over a massive stone casket, his billhook awkwardly skewering the mass of flesh that had been the worm’s nest, set in the centre of the casket. He was breathing as heavy as everyone else in the room.
“What happened to the High Priest of Panoply huh?” Chided Evil Eye as he groaned to his feet, his back popping and crunching like crushed stone as he subconsciously started counting for losses.
“Well… I couldn’t let you go wiff-out me.” mumbled Liam, quietly. “What if you needed me?”
Bad Luck pulled the young soldier down from the open sarcophagus and tussled his hair, making to say something suitable chiding before her face ran pale and her voice curdled in her throat. The room ran silent as all eyes settled on the human form beneath the worm-nest.
A human form nearly twelve feet tall.
A human form with gray-leather skin, hollow caverns where its single massive eye should be.
“Huh.” mumbled Bad Luck, in a matter-of-fact way.
-=-=-=-=-
The fighting over the Plateau of the Gods is horrifying. In this, no one is surprised. Any well informed officer from the Iron Brawlers had read the reports from the Greenwealders last time they were here, or from the local Lerona Mere who had been stationed here since the city was taken. But there was something different in the air this time.
This time, there was a plan.
Sure this plan required an army stricken with Blasserstreit marching halfway across the Concord, and the Iron Brawlers to stick their heads in the maw of this Spheres-damned beast. But if the War Chamber was right, and surely they had done their sums, then this Drowned army would be crushed between the right hook of the Iron Brawlers and the left cross of the Legion. This time, the Concord was the predator in these waters, not the drowned.
But the fighting between here and there was no mean feat. ‘The Grasping Current’ as the clever thinkers at the War Chamber had dubbed the Drowned forces moving up onto the Plateau were bloody beasts. Dedicated to tearing Concordians limb from limb. Using routes that only they were cursed enough to follow, they flooded into Mandrianos and moved about the Plateau with startling speed. Everywhere they clashed with Concordian forces, the losses were near-equal, not that it was easy to tell what exactly counted as a Drowned casualty.
But despite their enemies' inhuman ferocity, it was not enough. Bordevarian forces were simply too well placed, too carefully prepared, too stubborn to give up the ground. Step by bloody step they pushed the Drowned back, first from the city, then from the Plateau as a whole. Then their steps became hammer blows as blocks of Billmongers ground the Drowned into paste against the mountains, against the earth, and against the shields of the Legion of the Blackheart Bear.
The War Chamber had done their sums, and done them well. Yes, there were troubling reports from below the city, but when has there not been? Yes the casualties were more than thought, particularly in the swamps to the south, but such is the cost of war. The Concord had seen a weakness in the enemy line, and like hunting hounds they had latched onto this weakness until the kicking death-throes of their enemy turned still.
It is good to be deadly.
Game Information
Over the past Winter Season the Iron Brawlers fought an army of the Drowned on the streets of Mandrianos, and further afield across the Plateau of the Gods. Supported by Concordian investment and heroic actions, they have defeated the Drowned Army (known as the Grasping Current).
Concordian forces have taken considerable losses, despite the orders of Brigadier Griff Baker. Following casualties from the enemy and the foul nature of fighting in Mandrianos, the Iron Brawlers will begin the Summer season with a strength of 3700.
Matters are far worse for the Grasping Current, who are pinned in place between brutal Bordevarians and disciplined Greenwealders. With no valid retreat, the Grasping Current is hunted down and destroyed.
There will be some spoils of war for the War Chamber to disperse, gained from defeating the Grasping Current, but Drowned supplies are not the most transferable.
The fighting in Mandrianos and further afield has revealed opportunities to help cleanse the cursed city. There will be opportunities and additional information for the Senator of Mancante Terra and the Champion of the Revolution.
There have been some mysteries revealed about Mandrianos’ original purpose by the soldiers on the ground. There will be additional information for the Heterodox and the Archmage.
Blood in the Water
Baccio di Surabonde was busy having the worst month of his life, and these Spheres damned Drowned was not exactly helping. “Can you believe this, mon ami?” He exclaimed, as he parried a particularly brutal swipe by the strangely wet foe across from him. “A swamp! They have us fighting in a swamp! This mud will never get out of my boots. I’m going to have to burn them when-”
“Oh schiesse, just shut up already!” shouted a Wealder in dark armour somewhere to his right, as her polearm cracked against an enemy’s helmet. Lorena von Wolstad, she had told him as the various militias and militaries set up camp one night. At least, he thinks it’s Lorena. With the muck and filth covering her face, she looked closer to some awful swamp spirit than a person. “We get it, Surabonde! It’s dirty, we’re all uncomfortable. Can you stop complaining about it already?”
“Well excuse me for not wanting to look like a drowned rat!” Baccio shouted back, slicing the Drowned soldier across the chest. It did not stop chanting even as it fell, that strange, terrible rhythm that had almost burned itself into Baccio’s brain.
“The tide will swallow the land. All will return to the sea. The tide will swallow the-”
With a squelching splutch, the tip of Baccio’s sword sliced through the figure’s throat. The chant was cut off in an instant but started back up again less than a moment later, as another foe took the last one’s place. A woman with pale skin, odd rivulets of dark blood pouring from her scalp and fingers.
A hoarse voice cried out on Baccio’s right, as Lorena took a nasty blow to her side and fell heavily into the swamp. It clung to her greedily, pulling her almost out of sight in an instant.
“Lorena!” The Lerona Merean cried out. Baccio struggled against the knee-deep mud, and grasped the Wealder firmly by the shoulders. He slowly heaved her backwards, the rest of the Concordian lines moving to fill the gaps left behind. Baccio looked up, frantically searching for a medic, a healer, anyone who could help, as a hand with nails stained by blood and swamp alike grabbed at his own. He turned to look at Lorena as she coughed, a thin spray of blood-flecked spittle spraying his face. Three minutes ago, he would have made some disgusted remark. Now all he felt was fear.
“Medic!” He screamed, praying to the Spheres that anyone could hear him. But Baccio di Surabonde’s cries, and the cries of countless others stretched across the wide warfront, would go unheard, as the Drowned, in all their unstoppable unity, began to crack. Their endless chant faltered, as in clusters of blood and bile across La Dove Dormani, where their nailbeds and scalps dripped crimson into the brackish depths…
The Drowned began to scream.
Game Information
Based on actions taken by the Ritter-General Isolde Wulfden of the Legion of the Blackheart Bear, the Legion will lose its ‘Plagued’ trait at the end of this season. The Legion of the Blackheart Bear managed to cross numerous Concordian regions without spreading the plague to them. It is unclear if this is luck, the will of the Spheres harnessed through Ceremony, or professionalism of the force and its Doktors.
The following investments have been exposed to blasserstreit over the past season, and have been damaged:
- Aedric Blueward
- Lysander
- Jeivier di Carbonizzi
- Morgan “Morgue” Thatcher
- Sir Aethelwulf Pendragon
- Genfriede Vischerin
- Sir Escanor Lionheart
The aforementioned Heroic characters have recovered from experiencing Blasserstreit this past season, but will have one less Base HP for the duration of this coming Summit. They do not currently have Blasserstreit; this effect is instead due to the lengthy recovery process.
The following investments have experienced heavy casualties on the warfront, and have been damaged:
- Brigitte Helbrecht
- Griffin Baker
- Gunther Eberhardt
- Laurence Coin
- Miles Brackenweild
- Wenche Vanatoure
- Cypress Orhead
- Giovanni Vinci
- Leofric of Baelags
There will be information for the Krahenmeister of the Schloss Mortis regarding Blasserstreit infections among our foes.