Rescue the Dwarven Engineers

Steel Realms
Dunstrand Rising Living World A n c i e n t   Blood – A Living World storyline
Set in the Grand Duchy of Dunstrand of the [Fantasy] Steel Realms.

Ancient Blood’s Due… Rescue the Dwarven Engineers

The Baggage Train is assembling the goods you will need, but there is something more pressing. Demis the dwarf brings dire news from his people. The engineers sent to collapse the entrance to the Orrish lands have been taken prisoner and are being taken as slaves. There are a couple of significant engineers with knowledge of the dwarven operations in the Riverdans that cannot fall into the hands of the Orrish. They will be interrogated and processed (branded, etc.) first, looking to find vulnerabilities in Neplanta Keep and the mines and ironworks nearby – then sent to the Dark Lands. They will hold out longer than normal… and in that space, they must be rescued or killed. They know this. The larger campaign may hinge on this. A daring raid into the foothills where the Ork champion Histrak Frostmonger currently makes camp. Somewhere near there is a cave complex that will have slave pens. The dwarves will be kept outside exposed to the elements, because the Orrish cannot stand the smell of Ducateon and their dwarven kin.

Demis Emishkir and De’Vosa are going to lead a band from the south, moving with aid from the magi of House Du’Orlok and the Tower of the Cloud Gazers to draw off their main force. Illusions of great power and cost will be used to make it seem like the dwarves are trying to rescue their own with De’Vosa lending credibility to this idea, while the rest of the group does the real attack. That means there will be no magical assistance. House Du’Orlok of the Riverdans has tried to scout the area multiple times, but there is a fell creature of chaos and its minions summoned by black magic keeping watch, and it keeps killing their familiars. Whatever it is, it is similar to the harpy of ancient legends, and its blood sucking minions are the plague known as stirges. There is at least a rough map of where the camp is in the valley.

The plan is to draw off a larger force and use a smaller one to rescue the captive dwarves. The “larger” force will be using all the immediately available powerful magics the two magus orders can bring to bear. They will draw the force away and retreat right before battle. Demis will then lead the smaller, but real, baggage train to a designated meetup point.

The 4 left of the _[name here]_ group will make the raid and free the captives, along with Hylia (the cook/Bard from the baggage train) bringing several mules in tow for the captives.