The year is I.C. (Imperial Calendar) 2521. The Empire of Man teeters on the brink of Armageddon, as a great Chaos Horde led by the dreaded Chaos Champion Archaon: The Three-Eyed King, Everchosen of Chaos, and Lord of the End Times sweeps southward into the Empire from the northern Chaos Wastes. The vast horde made up of forces loyal to all four of the Ruinous Powers has ravaged the northern kingdom of Kislev, sacking their two greatest cities Praag and Erengrad, pressing further south into the northern lands of the Empire. The eastern and western borders of the Empire have been assaulted as well by lesser Chaos Champions.

To the east, the forces of Crom the Conquerer have eradicated the war band of the Black Orc warlord Grimgor Ironhide in High Pass, laid siege to the Dwarven hold of Karak Kadrin, the Slayers Keep in the Worlds Edge Mountains, and have even entered the lands of Sylvania, home to the Vampire Counts.

To the West, the Witch King Malekith has broken through a nigh impenetrable High Elven naval blockade and has landed on the shores of Ulthuan.

The Storm of Chaos is upon us…

Which means extremely little to the inhabitants of the largely lawless, frontier known as the Border Princes, or the Borderlands. It is more or less business as usual south of the Empire. Surely the Emperor, and his alliance of Elves and Dwarves will be able to stop some filthy savages and Chaos-warped freaks from making it this far south. As a matter of fact, the influx of Imperial residents fleeing southwards into the Borderlands to escape the ravages of Chaos offers more opportunities for fleecing, robbing, and general exploitation than usual. This may prove to be an extremely profitable time for the residents of the Princes…

———

Tobruk Tobrukson of Clan Iron Cleaver (Bill), a dwarf from Karak Norn, was to make a high powered alliance for his family through betrothal, but the family was double crossed and the bride was given away to someone else. Tobruk still crashed the wedding, and although this is not unusual in the dwarf world, the Stone Biter clan used it as a reason to throw him in prison. With his honor lost, he knew the only way to atone was to seek a glorious death.

Brokk Udo of Clan Ashen Forge (Jon), one of the jailers of the prison, fully believed that Tobruk was being framed for political reasons, and disenchanted with his own lot in life, sprung the dwarf from his cell on the condition that they leave the dwarf holds in seek of adventure (and glorious death) elsewhere in the Old World.

Jean Christophe Moitessier (John), a Lyonesse cartographer from Bretonnia, has been commissioned to draw maps of the region known as the Border Princes for the purpose of setting up new trade routes. His patron, Duke Adelhard, reached out to a local KithLord from Athel Loren and asked for a guide to take John through the mountains to the Border Princes territory and assist him in his mission. An elf named Vedasi Avalmon (Paul) was assigned for this duty.

The two set off from Athel Loren, and later they met an elf mercenary named Maruviel (Matt) who also agreed to come along. As they moved south into Karak Norn, they happened upon the two dwarves who were traveling in the same direction. The elves and dwarves came to an agreement to assist Jean Christophe on his way through the mountains, and an unlikely alliance was formed.

———

Vedasi Avalmon has light blondish brown hair with icy/crystal blue eyes. 5’10” with a medium build. Woodland colored clothes (greens and browns) Leather Jerkin. Finely carved Elf Bow and a long sword that looks rarely used.

———

We come through Winter’s Teeth Pass and arrive in the Border Princes region on the 15th of Borgeheim, during summer.

On the northern side of the trail, we see something huddled in the brush. Tobruk goes to investigate, but Maruviel immediately shoots an arrow into it. Tobruk sees that the man now has two arrows in him. The other one is a black arrow with a note attached to it. The note reads “REWARD! Three hundred crowns to whoever can bring the head of the dastardly brigand known as The Black Arrow to his Grace, the Count Amadeus Von Drakensberg. His Grace has means of detecting substitutes.”

After checking the man, he has been robbed almost completely but a secret pocket is found with a rolled-up notice that says “Heroes wanted to go on a quest for hidden treasure. Some danger. Great reward. Contact Wolfgang Kellermann at the Sign of the Crossed Lances.”

Maruviel finds a trail that goes to the direction we were heading. The Cartographer reads out the note and says that it may be of interest. We continue west along the Khyprian road until it begins getting dark, and then we make camp for the evening. The place we find has probably been used as a stopover before.

During the night, while Vedasi is on watch, he hears something moving nearby. He kicks Maruviel to wake him and they hide. They see some orks and goblins coming by, and Maruviel is pretty sure that they saw him as well. Vedasi takes a couple of shots with his bow and the others wake up soon after. The greenskins start charging us but they come to a stop after they see that we have two elves with us. Apparently goblins are afraid of elves.

Vedasi moves up into the woods and sees that there is an ogre crashing through the trees toward us. He comes back to the campsite and sees that a goblin is coming toward Jean. He fires an arrow into a goblin, killing it instantly.

Tobruk slashes at the ork with his greataxe, severing its arm. Maruviel fires arrows at one of the goblins. The goblins and the ogre try to attack us but all miss. The ork dies from blood loss. The goblins are taken out in succession.

Tobruk moves up to attack the ogre and swipes at him with his axe. Vedasi shoots him with an arrow directly in the hand, which is made useless. Maruviel hits him in the leg and it turns into a bloody mass. He falls to the ground. Maruviel says “It looks like we got off on the wrong foot.”

Jean shoots an arrow into the goblin attacking Brokk and he stands there stunned for a moment, then dies. Brokk thanks him, and he replies “In my country, we all this a coup de grâce.”

The ogre doesn’t die immediately but Tobruk swings his axe again and smashes his face, killing him instantly.

We search the bodies and find that the goblins are of the Yellow Eye Tribe. The ork is a black ork, which is strange because they generally are not in this area. They have basic armor and weapons on them. We find a crumpled up piece of paper on the ogre that has a recipe for sheep’s bladder soup. The ork has a tortoise shell box that seems well made on him. Tobruk says that we could ask between 150-200 gold crowns for it. We also come up with 35 gold crowns from the other corpses. The coins are mixed denominations and types of currency.

Jean keeps the shield that the ork was using even though it is huge. It almost covers him and his pony as well.

Tobruk says to Vedasi that he didn’t need help killing the ogre, but that was good shooting. Vedasi nods, and Tobruk grunts and walks away. It may not seem so, but a great deal of respect was shown here.

The greenskins all killed, we bed down for the rest of the evening.