Guns and Snow

Tonight was a relatively low-key installment of our Iron Kingdoms game. For those of you following along at home, this is a campaign about the remnants of a mercenary company that was nearly wiped out during the Khadoran invasion of Llael. We're playing with the Escalation timeline as a backdrop, so as we're taking small jobs trying to rebuild our company, the war is raging on around us.

This week's session picked up right where last week's left off, with the four of us making our way through the winter landscape of northern Llael to slip behind the Khadoran lines. Our goal is to rescue the nephew of a dwarven arcane mechanic who has agreed to help us construct the steam armor one of our party members is working on. Last week we had been attacked by Cryxian bonejacks, so we were understandably a little jumpy to start out. This week we had two encounters with victims of the war. The first was a group of Menite pilgrims being escorted to safety by a Paladin of the Order of the Wall, which proved to be a little tense due to my character's bad history with the Menites. Fortunately, nothing much came of it. The second was a young woman who turned out to be the recently orphaned daughter of the Archduke of Esmynya, whose father had died when the Khadorans had taken Riversmet. Unfortunately for her (and us, I suppose), she had come into possession of a Fell Blade, an ancient magical weapon that drives its wielders insane. (The Khadorans chain them to convicts and use the resulting madmen as shock troopers.) Thankfully we were able to subdue her and rid her of the sword. With her help, we were able to find a way across the river that didn't involve getting too close to the Khadoran army, and now our target is in sight. We should be able wrap this section up in a session or two.