Welcome to the table. You are stepping into a massive, dark, and politically complex world—a campaign that has spanned 75 sessions of grueling survival, bloody revolution, and ancient magic. To help you find your footing, here is the story of the campaign so far. <br> ## The Setting: A Bitter Spring For 99 years, the world was choked by the shadows and rime of the **Black Winter**. Though that apocalypse was ended three centuries ago, the world never truly healed. You are in the **Ousländ** (known to its native Dunnish inhabitants as the **Bannwch**). It is a harsh, storm-swept land of barrows and dark forests, centred around a seething caldera known as the **Godseye** that produces soul-eating storms called **Gallowgales.** Five years ago, the highly-organized, bureaucratic, and ruthless empire of **Elgarde** invaded the Bannwch in a brutal campaign called the **Pacification**. They colonized the land, subjugated the native barrowmen, and established the Elgardian Ousrijk. But Elgardian rule is collapsing. The Bannwch is currently being torn apart by a multi-sided war: * **The Elgardian Ousrijk:** The colonial occupiers, possessing advanced technology and brutal military might. * **The Bannorn:** Native Dunnish partisans and freedom fighters, led by the fierce warrior Fralka the Wælcyrge and the last living Bonesinger, Hara. * **House Harrodyn:** Led by the enigmatic "Leech Lord," Lorst Harrodyn. A cruel Andaran house pushing in from the west, infamous for flaying their enemies alive. * **The Flagellants:** Brutal, self-mutilating religious zealots from the south who fervently worship Saint Wulfsige the Penitent. * **The White Lady:** An ancient, fallen entity of ice and sorrow who rules the forest of the Celendrin Holt. She seeks to end all life to save souls from the suffering of mortality; she is allied with the undead "Lycht" and the tortured spirits of the "Gravenmind." <br> ## Who Are the Player Characters? The party began as lowly prisoners sentenced to hard labor in an Elgardian penal colony. Through cunning, magic, and extreme violence, they escaped and began a bloody trek across the land. Following the assassination of an Elgardian Burgraaf and the massacre of his village, the Elgardians officially branded the party with an infamous moniker that has stuck ever since: **The Doom of Garnwych**. To the Elgardians, they are the most wanted terrorists in the realm. To the barrowmen, they are legendary folk heroes. The party has seen many comrades fall over their long journey. The current core members include: * **Dannahym (Danny):** An exiled elven Magic User and necromancer, infamously dubbed the "Lord of Bones" by Elgardian propaganda. * **Cadoc:** A Dunnish Bard and apothecary who recently died a brutal death... only to be resurrected as an undead revenant, anointed (reluctantly) as the new **Barrow King**. * **Ekan:** A Dunnish Druid and "skinwalker," capable of possessing the minds of beasts and men. He is tied to a secret coven led by the Mother of Wolves. * **Wolfgang:** A halfling Cultist who once served an ancient green dragon called the Emerald King, only to later renounce the dragon to resurrect Cadoc, becoming a servant of Xythr the Shepherd (the god of death). * **Orin:** A hideously mutated urgot Artificer, missing a foot, wielding explosives and a deadly black-powder weapon. <br> ## Act 1: The Wailing Crown and the Shadow of the Past The central driving force of the campaign is the **Wailing Crown**. Wielded millennia ago by the first Barrow King to control the "Gravenmind" (a psychic sea of dead souls) and defeat an army of undead skinwalkers, the Crown was later shattered into seven fragments. Every major faction is desperately hunting for these shards. The Elgardians want it for control, the Harrodyns want it for mysterious rituals, the Flagellants want it for holy crusade, and the White Lady needs it to enact her apocalyptic "summer unending." The Doom of Garnwych stumbled into this arms race. In their travels, they navigated ancient, trap-filled labyrinths like *Madrycg's Labyrinth* and *Andrycg's Folly*, delving into forgotten Eavrish ruins. They retrieved several shards of the Crown, swearing blood oaths to keep them from the hands of tyrants. <br> ## Act 2: The Rise of Dun Darrig Needing a sanctuary, the party cleared out an ancient, ruined fortress called **Dun Darrig**, slaying the cannibalistic gnolls and a massive wyvern that had come to inhabit it. They claimed the castle as their own, attracting a diverse and highly volatile population of refugees: native barrowmen, fleeing Elgardian colonists, and a rogue sect of Flagellants. Their rule was immediately tested. A massive army of Harrodyn knights and Flagellant zealots besieged the fortress. Through a combination of Dannahym casting apocalyptic magic and Wolfgang calling upon the **Emerald King** to glass the valley with green fire, the party utterly annihilated the besieging army of 2,000 men. <br> ## Act 3: Horrors of the Deep and the Holt The party's travels have taken them to the edges of the map and back: - **The Harpies of Ravensgarth:** In the town of Ravensgarth, the party contended with a vicious Harpy Broodmother. They forged a relationship with "Lily o' the Woods," an ancient Bucca spirit, and navigated the fanatical politics of Confessor Borch and his Flagellant inquisitors. - **The Chronomancy Towers of Darn Rythrych:** Seeking a key to the White Lady's domain, the party explored a trio of ancient Eavrish mage towers frozen in a time loop. Battling mutated Urgots, a horrific flesh-and-steel Belphegor demon, and a young Balor, they ultimately broke the chronomancy spell, deciding the tragic fate of the archmage and his witch lover. - **The Massacre of Cynfyd:** In a coastal village split between Elgardian colonizers, gnomes, and the native Sistermen, the party discovered that ancient, Lovecraftian "Merewives" (Deep Ones) had awoken. Seeking to breed an army to oust the colonizers, the Merewives mind-controlled the village's non-natives during a magical holiday, causing a horrific massacre. Navigating the chaos, the party fought a titanic Sea Wyrm and struck an alliance with the Sistermen. In a final, devastating blow, Dannahym channeled the Merewives' magic to unleash a massive tidal wave on the Elgardian docks, forcing the colonizers to abandon the town to the natives. - **Deadman's Cove:** Seeking coin, the party infiltrated an Oenician slaver cartel operating out of a ruined fortress. Hired to stop a monster sinking cartel ships, the party commandeered a stolen Dreadnought. Out on the open ocean, they battled a Sea-Elf submarine (which Dannahym blew up from the inside with thunder magic) and decapitated a towering Storm Giant. Back at the cove, Ekan took matters into his own hands, mind-controlling a guard to slaughter a slaver crew and successfully freeing their captives. - **The Haunting of Tarloc:** In a Harrodyn-occupied village, the party investigated a series of grisly disappearances. They struck a deal with a massive, grotesque leech-monster (a Bloedzuiger) that was secretly protecting the town from the White Lady. This culminated in a desperate evacuation of the villagers and a terrifying, blood-soaked battle in the snow against a towering shadow-demon: a Nightwalker. - **The Celendrin Holt:** Venturing deep into the cursed, frozen forest of the White Lady, the party encountered a tribe of goblins worshipping a frost-fey, rescued a glint named Elena, and faced the White Lady's mind-bending psychic powers in her Palace of Rime. Surviving her "daughters" (frost dryads) and her undead husband (the Pallid Knight, Ser Chyde), they eventually made a blood pact with the towering green dragon, the Emerald King. <br> ## Act 4: The Fall of the Ousrijk Everything culminated in the last ten sessions, when the party undertook their most audacious mission yet: sneaking into the occupied capital, **Endrycg, the City of Bones**. The city was starving due to the White Lady's prolonged winter, and ruled by Obergruppenkoroner Josef Grobben, who was secretly developing a horrific biological weapon (Generaalprojekt Roed) to wipe out the Dunnish population. The party navigated the **Undergrave**—a terrifying, pitch-black ossuary stretching for miles beneath the city. There, they fought drow elves harvesting "godblood," communed with the spirits of ancient Bonesingers, and entered the Chamber of the Heart, where the divine, beating heart of Mor Menragen, the Shepherd's Son hung over a bottomless abyss. In a brutal fight against a towering bone-construct Warden, **Cadoc was killed**. Through a dark pact, Wolfgang sacrificed his youth, his draconic powers, and his own flesh to resurrect Cadoc as an ash-skinned **revenant**. Cadoc claimed *Grymcleaver*, the legendary glaive of the first Bonesinger, his eyes now burning with divine golden light. The party then infiltrated the towering Elgardian citadel of Dunethraen. They incited a massive prison riot, used a massive siege weapon to blow the top off a tower, and chased the fleeing Elgardian high command into the harbour. On the Elgardian flagship *The Endeavor*, Dannahym tore open reality to summon a **Nightwalker** (a shadow-demon of death), which ripped the Kanselier (supreme leader of the Elgardians) from his cabin and decapitated him. <br> ## The Current State of Affairs (Where You Come In) In the past few sessions, the campaign landscape shifted forever. The party allied with the Cult of Many-Faces to fake the Kanselier's survival, and trickled the majority of the Elgardian army into marching out of the city. The party then forced the surviving Elgardian Admiral to order a complete, bloodless evacuation of Endrycg. As the Elgardian ships sailed away, abandoning their colonial capital, Hara the Bonesinger projected an immense magical image of **Cadoc** into the sky, proclaiming the undead bard as the new **Barrow King**. **Here is where the campaign stands today:** 1. **Elgarde is retreating, but not defeated.** They have abandoned Endrycg, but their biological weapon testing site (the *Roedenkamp*) is still out there and their army marches west. 2. **The Harrodyns are advancing.** With the Elgardians gone, the cruel Leech Lord and his massive army are poised to sweep across the Bannwch. 3. **The Flagellants march north.** They are headed straight for a confrontation with both Elgarde and the Harrodyns, heralding a bloody battle for the ages. 4. **The White Lady is waking.** The eternal winter is worsening. The White Lady possesses a shard of the Wailing Crown in her Palace of Rime, and her undead forces are growing bolder. 5. **The Crown Must Be Reforged.** To truly save the Bannwch, the party must gather the remaining shards of the Wailing Crown and take them to the center of the Godseye. You are joining a party of king-makers, monsters, and legends. The colonial oppressors have been ousted from the capital, but the true war for the soul (and survival) of the Bannwch has only just begun. Welcome to the Doom of Garnwych.