The Fifth Crusade
For over a century, the demon-haunted wasteland of the Worldwound has bled into the world of mortals. As the magical Wardstones that hold back the tide begin to flicker and fail, a new generation of crusaders must take up the sword. But this war requires more than steel; it requires the power of Myths.
Paladin / Wizard
Monk / Paladin
Inquisitor / Rogue
Paladin / Oracle
Intelligence Report: The Drezen Approach
Its watchtowers broken, its roof breached, its upper halls cleared, and its master dead on the floor of his own map room. Still not taken — everything that matters now lies below, past a stair the old maps mark only for storage, where the stolen Banner waits in the dark. The war ends here.
Cleared. Four chained beasts meant to drop the span are dead; engineers shore the piers. The road west is open.
Some two hundred prisoners freed. Many now carry bows for the crusade.
Taken and held. Paradise Hill sealed at its back — nothing reaches the hill now but wings or magic.
The towers are down and the signal given. The army has the upper hand on the field below while the four cut the citadel apart from inside. A bound prisoner waits here for the Queen's judgment.
The curse is broken and the tomb re-hallowed. The dead of the First Crusade sleep clean at last.
Seventy-five years in demon hands. The citadel is not a target in the war — it is the war. Its upper halls are cleared and the traitor who held them is dead, but the fortress is not yet taken: what matters most lies far below, past a stair the old dwarven maps mark for storage and nothing more, in chambers no dwarf ever drew.
"Vhane is dead, and I'll not pretend I'm sorry. But mark what it cost us: a demon wore a goddess's face, and then a rescued man's, and one of them fought at our own side for two rooms before it struck. Below us are halls no map of ours has ever shown. Trust the work of a thing, not the face of it."
The Worldwound
Session XVI — Sword of Valor
They fought the length of the citadel's northern wall to reach him. Goat-headed demons on an open parapet; a winged horror in a barracks, feeding on the dead of its own garrison — the price, as Korroc named it, of thinking there is ever a bargain with such things. In a locked bunkroom they found a chained man with no evil on him at all, broke the spell binding him, gave him back his sword, and took him along; and he fought at their side through two rooms before the shape came apart and a demon stood where he had stood, with a blade of ice already in Caleth's back. And in a chamber hung with maps of the Worldwound, the name the company has carried north since Kenabres finally walked out of the dark and greeted them by their father's house: Staunton Vhane, traitor of the Fourth Crusade, who once sat at the table of the two dwarves now come to kill him. He named them cowards. He put a monk on the floor and a killing blow through a paladin that the stone in that paladin's blood refused to let land. He died with holy steel through him — and with him died every name he could have given up. Behind him knelt a younger brother he had used badly for years, who was offered a judgment instead of a grave, and took it.
Fallen Guardian
Silver Dragon · Protector of Kenabres
“She wore a plain grey face over all her glory, and died as a shield for people who never knew what stood among them. Her four survivors have now met every other kind: a demon in a goddess's face, a demon in a rescued man's, and at the last a traitor who wore a crusader's face for seventy-five years and used it to sell the men who trusted him. Three lies and one gift, and only her face was ever the gift. That is the arithmetic of this war.”
The Answering Blade
Paladin / Wizard
Twice in one morning a demon wore a face he could not see past: first a goddess’s, which he named correctly and was taken by anyway, and then a chained prisoner’s, which he never doubted at all until the blade went into his back. He turned inside its guard and destroyed it — which settles nothing, and he knows it. Then, with the traitor of the Fourth Crusade on one knee and still refusing to fall, he stepped past a burning dwarf and put Radiance through Staunton Vhane three times, ending the name this company has carried since Kenabres.
The Word Before the Fist
Monk / Paladin
Was told to talk instead of strike, in the middle of the worst fight of the campaign, and did it — offering the traitor’s ill-used brother a place among good dwarves, and then the smaller mercy underneath it: stay here, and we will not hurt you. That offer is the only reason a man knelt at the end instead of dying. He paid for the words: three glaive-thrusts put him on the stone, and he rose again and went back in.
The Patient Dark
Inquisitor / Rogue
Distrusted the chained man from the first word and was overruled, and was proved right in the worst way. So he did what he does: went unseen, waited behind a man who had forgotten there was a behind, and put five blades into Staunton Vhane before the traitor knew the room had a back to it. He asked for the man alive — a living door into the whole rotten chain — and was refused by his own cousin. He wiped both blades and said nothing about it.
The Open Hand
Paladin / Oracle
Found no evil on a chained prisoner, broke the spell on him, and told his cousin to give the man his sword back — and the man was a demon, and it cost them dearly. Minutes later he opened his hand again anyway, calling for the traitor’s brother to be spared. He burned, for the second time in his life, as a thing of golden fire; he took a blow meant to kill him and the stone in his blood would not let it through; and he offered a dwarf sworn to the Dark Smith a judgment instead of a grave.
Current Status
A debt three generations old · The way down still ahead
The upper citadel is cleared, and Staunton Vhane is dead — the traitor who broke the Fourth Crusade from the inside, who sat at the table of two dwarves whose sons finally reached him, and who was killed with holy steel in a room hung with maps of the Worldwound. The victory is not clean. The whole Templar chain he could have been made to name died with him, over one cousin's objection. But his brother knelt rather than fall beside him, and has agreed to lead the four to what they came for. The Banner they seized above was a decoy; the true one lies below, in chambers no dwarf ever drew — where a sorceress is said to wait, and where the whole war may turn on what is found at the bottom.
Retrieving field report...
A visual record of the Worldwound and the souls caught in its wake
End of Record
