Red skies

The sun rises red, sets red, and in between, the seas run red.

Pure Morning

The sun drags itself from its bed, spilling crimson across the eastern skies. It rises over Sarvos, where the Red Wind Corsairs have left the safety of the shores and now ride the waves. The expertise of the corsairs of the Brass Coast has transformed the army into a naval force of swift, deadly Freeborn vessels. Many of the soldiers are scions of the corsair families of Madruga and Feroz, eager to take their vengeance on the Children of Wrecks who stole their island homes. They are not alone.

Over a hundred and fifty ships belonging to Imperial captains come to fight with them as the red dawn breaks. It hearkens back to the days of the Freeborn Storm, when the sailors and marines of the greater Empire fought the Grendel in the waters off distant Urizen. While the majority of these crews are Freeborn, a great many sail under the glorious flags of Dawn. Indeed, there are representatives of every nation save the Imperial Orcs here - a nation not much known for its maritime prowess. There are even a scattering of ships from Urizen who have swept west across the Bay to bring justice to the Gathered Storm. Many of these vessels and crews are enchanted with a newly established ritual that fills the crew with boisterous Summer magic, and with the certainty that they can take on the entire world and win. Over the screams of the gulls, the wind resonates with voices raised in song and challenge.

For their part the Gathered Storm, the naval forces of the Children of Wrecks, are likewise bolstered by the ragtag mess of raiders, and murderers called to the Bay of Catazar by the promise of blood and loot from across the six seas. The Storm's Child is the vicious heart around which they gather, the flagship of the navy brought together by wrack and ruin. As well as dozens of disparate pirates there are those Imperial traitors who have escaped justice - perhaps they relish the chance to test themselves against the ships of those still loyal to the Empire?

Two navies face off then, surrounded by a penumbra of independent vessels. The coast of Sarvos is not big enough for the both of them, and as the sun crests the vault of the heavens, the sharks of war are loosed.

The Red Wind Corsairs, as deadly at sea as they are on land.

In the waters off Trivento

The Gathered Storm have twice now attempted to raid the shores of Sarvos, with mixed success. In the run up to the Autumn Equinox, their attempt to pillage Trivento was stymied in part by the presence of the Red Wind Corsairs. After the Equinox, their approach changes. With base cunning, they lay a trap for the Corsairs. Rather than attack the coast directly they plan to assail the Corsairs directly, obviously expecting them to be focusing their effects on defending the coast.

In this, as in so much else, the bloodthirsty pirates inspired by the ruinous power of Maelstrom demonstrate again that brutality is no substitute for strategy. As the pirate ships rally, vessels from across the Empire converge on the Red Wind Corsairs. As the raiders deploy their strategy, they find the corsairs committed to a furious offensive.

Swift Freeborn vessels, supported by an array of Imperial warships from across nine nations, sweep along the coast. They intercept the Gathered Storm coming the other way, and battle is joined. At first it looks as if the forces might be just matched enough that the engagement will be inconclusive. The Gathered Storm has been weakened by six months of ineffective fighting along Sarvos, but the Red Wind Corsairs have suffered losses of their own in the defence of the League coast. It would be hard to predict who would win - a coin toss whose outcome would be shaped by the vagaries of wind and water as much as skill or strategy.

Corsairs! Sarvos is safe, by freeborn steel and league ingenuity. With the bold fleets of the Empire, we give chase. The children of wrecks and off the coast of Sarvos. Chase them where they run, as far as Feroz if necessary. Take them in a naval engagement, Chiara i Zayden i Riqueza takes the helm. The words of Constanza i Kalamar i Guerra go with us. Sink them to the bottom of the bay.

Joaquim i Erigo, General of the Red Wind Corsairs

Yet the Red Wind Corsairs are not fighting alone. As the battle begins, dozens of Imperial vessels arrow in from the south. Used to operating individually, the captains of the Empire's independent ships flank the 'Storm and punish their miscalculation with ruinous effect. Most of these fleets are bolstered by Summer magic that, while it does little to help their cohesion, grants supernatural strength to the marines and the hulls of the ships and drives them to seek victory over the foe.

A Grendel force faced with such odds might seek an orderly retreat, an opportunity to reevaluate their strategy in the face of such an egregious error. Not the Gathered Storm; the madness of Siakha flows through their veins like crimson seawater. They relish the opportunity to fight the sailors of the Empire. With bloodthirsty roars, they leap into the fray with only scant concern for their lives. The decks of Imperial and pirate ships alike are awash with violence and death.

Joaquim i Erigo, General of the Red Wind Corsairs

The heralds of Siakha are here as well, the carcharadon and the tempests and a handful of even stranger creatures. The waters churn, and anyone who goes overboard is unlikely to survive long enough to be rescued. There is no finesse on the part of the Children of Wrecks, just blunt savagery employed to shed as much blood as possible in the name of their crazed mistress.

Ships burn, ships sink, ships are captured. Sailors die on all sides, coughing out their life onto salt-slick decks. The preternatural servants of Siakha exult in the chaos and ruin. Yet the outcome cannot be in doubt. Inexorably, it becomes absolutely clear to the Gathered Storm that they cannot prevail against the commitment of the Red Wind Corsairs. Years of anger, brewed and banked since the loss of the Freeborn Storm, stewed in the frustration and feeling of powerlessness in the wake of the fall of Shantarim and the harrowing of Osseini, of a decade of struggling with superior naval forces, is unleashed against the Children of Wrecks.

The sun turns the western sky crimson as it tumbles down behind the mountains of distant Kahraman. As the evening gathers in, pirate vessels begin to break off from the battle, fleeing west along the coast. A handful at first, then more and more, as if those first few were the cracks in the dyke that presage utter destruction. The Gathered Storm breaks, routed, and flees. There is little enough discipline among pirates in the first place, and that is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because once the tide turns against them it turns hard, bad because the individual vessels are used to working on their own and though they are scattering they are not falling apart. Not yet.

A red sky at night may be a good omen, but as the sailors of Wintermark might be quick to point out, the risk with omens is that one can never be sure who they are for.

The Corsairs do not falter. They take a moment to regather - to assess those ships too damaged to join the pursuit and send them to the safe haven of the Sarvos docks, to Caricomare and Trivento - and then they are after the fleeing pirates. "Chase them where they run, as far as Feroz if necessary."

Swords of the South

Kobol is named the Maiden of Battles, and is said to be the most popular of the Suranni gods.

And speaking of Feroz... let our minds eye arrow south and west along the coast. Past the cities of Madruga, where the vigilant watch the sea with trepidation. Past the great marshes woven with chaos magic, and the place where the City of Sails once stood. Past Oran, still seeking the shape of its future. Down along the coast as we angle out to sea, across the scattered islands of the Cazar Straits.

Once upon a time these islands were the pride of the corsair families of Shantarim, and Cazar and a dozen smaller households. The pride of the justicars, those priests whose calling was to tend the dead of the Bay of Catazar. Sapphire blue waters and golden beaches and... now twisted by the magic of the Spring realm, waters seething with immature kraken and haunted by worse things. Wracked with storm winds and hail. The towns that once welcomed Freeborn sailors home now battered and broken first by the Asavean allies of the Grendel then by the Children of Wrecks.

While the majority of the Wreckers' forces are in the north eager to batten on the wealth of Sarvos, there are still Wreckers who have stayed "home" preferring the easier pickings along the coast of Feroz. Of late they have found their prey less amenable to being savaged, however. The orc soldiers of Gallum Firesach, the garrison of Mora's Rock, have been true to their words and deploy their forces to protect the southern Freeborn coast from the raiders and their unnatural bloodhungry allies.

Yet it is not the Grendel protectors who the Wreckers should be afraid of. It isn't just the Empire that has suffered indignity at the hands of the chosen of Siakha. Last year the Wreckers launched a raid against Axiom prison, freeing prisoners including high-ranking magicians and cultists of the Surrani God of lies and corruption. Rumour suggests there has been some back-and-forth negotiation between the Iron Confederacy and the Empire, but it seems to have come to nothing. Now though, the Suranni are on the move. There is speculation that a wicked curse on the lands of the powerful Duke of Arbonne has been the final straw. While suggestions from the Ambassador to the Iron Confederacy that the Wreckers may have been involved were initially greeted with scepticism, it looks as if opinion has shifted. One insult from the Children of Wrecks too many, perhaps, means the Dukes are seemingly done with waiting. Perhaps also they are done with diplomacy, at least on this matter.

Enough is enough. We sail in the shadow of Kobol, north from Arbonne to the islands of Feroz. We do not fear the tempest, or the beasts of the storm, for the Maiden of Battle stands beside us at the wheel. Only those who collude with the slaves of Dumon need fear; and they will learn the is a heavy price of harming the children of Suran.

Baroness Ursule DuMoi, Admiral of the Wings of Kobol

While the Gathered Storm and the Red Wind Corsairs clash off the coast of Sarvos, a Suranni navy - the Wings of Kobol - unexpectedly sails up the coast from the south, into the Cazar Straits. The ships have none of the grace or beauty of the vessels that once formed the Freeborn Storm - they are blocky and ugly to the eyes of the corsairs. Slower, but also sturdier than equivalent Imperial ships. Rich moody greens, dark reds, and threatening black flags and standards fly above their decks, and the sails of each ship are marked with the naked sword of the Maiden of Battle. The ships attract the seabeasts like a dinner gong, but the immature kraken are no match for a full strength navy. Some ships are damaged but the immature kraken - barely a show of what they might become if allowed to mature - are taught to seek easier prey. The Wings of Kobol ignore the Isle of the Osseini, targeting instead the ruins of Shantarim and Cazar.

The Suranni ships do not sail alone. There are reports of not one but two armies; one in the colours of the Duke of Arbonne, the other bearing banners of the white bird against the golden sun - the army encountered by Marko Siwarsbairn in Veroigne earlier in the year. Both forces are supported by disciplined soldiers of the Iron Confederacy bearing the livery of half a dozen of the southern Dukes accompanying them. They do not threaten the Freeborn - they do not attempt to approach the coast of Fortargenta or Oranseri. Their focus is entirely on the Children of Wrecks.

Tethros i Zuhri i Erigo, Ambassador to the Iron Confederacy

And that focus is utterly without mercy. Those pirates who do not die in battle are summarily executed; beheaded with the same uncaring ruthlessness that one might squash a fly. Panic sets in among the Children of Wrecks, but they are in no position to launch much of a defence. The bulk of their forces are busy fighting the Red Wind Corsairs; their magical protections are centred around the churning maelstrom that was once the Shining Pillar. They are barely able to put up a fight against the tide of iron that crashes down on them from the south.

As the Winter Solstice draws closer, and the weather worsens even more, all signs point to a crushing Iron Confederacy victory over the Children of Wrecks in Free Landing. In a very real way, however, this seems to be simply a case of one problem being replaced by another. The islands were not Imperial territory, but surely the Suranni must know that this is only a technicality - that the islands belong to the Freeborn? Yet they show no signs of withdrawing, and there has been no official correspondence as far as the Empire can say. Gallum Firesach has been swift to respond - his soldiers will attempt to defend the coast of Feroz against the Iron Confederacy if it comes to it. The Grendel warriors have no love for the Suranni. Yet the Castellan of Mora's Rock is under no delusions - the garrison cannot hope to do more than delay any serious invasion from the Confederacy and his Fidelity means he will not throw away the lives of his loyal soldiers if there is no profit in it.

What are the Suranni doing? What are their aims? Eyes turn toward the office of the Ambassador to the Iron Confederacy.

Harbinger of chaos and ruin, Maelstrom does not care who is on the receiving ends of her boons.

Chase them where they run

The Gathered Storm and the Red Wind Corsairs know nothing of this, of course. They know only the immortal dance that is predator and prey. The Children of Wrecks have gone from driving the hounds to running before them. They sail out of Sarvos into Calvos Sound, with the Corsairs hot on their heels. Matters are complicated by the thunderous deluge battering Madruga, but the worst of its effects are focused inland. The seas, while their rise wild, are only a little more dangerous than usual for the experienced captains fighting across the western Bay. There are multiple smaller engagements - those captains whose crews revel in Summer's bounty tear ahead of the bulk of the navy tearing into the routed Wreckers whenever they can.

There is nowhere for the Wreckers to hide. They could try and run to ground at Calvos, but they are not foolish enough to get themselves caught between the defenders of Calvos and the pursuing Corsairs. Nor are they desperate enough to stand and fight (not yet at least).

Unfortunately, the decision about whether there will be another battle does not lie in the hand of the Wreckers. The Red Wind Corsairs are ultimately faster, and more focused on bringing an end to the Gathered Storm. Ships clash, and drown in the hungry waters of Calvos Sound, and the Wreckers continue to flee. If they can make it to Free Landing they may have a chance. The maelstrom there still spits out the blood-mad servants of Siakha. The tumultuous gyre there serves their mistress, not the Empire. If they can reach Atalaya they might turn at last, and face the overwhelming Imperial force toe-to-toe with a chance of at least holding them back until High Priestess Shivaarn and her sorcerous lieutenants can draw more power from the Spring realm to stymie the Empire again...

Everything falls apart a scant two dozen leagues or so from the northernmost islands of Free Landing. With their destination almost in sight, the Red Wind Corsairs finally catch up with them. To their "credit" the Wreckers turn to face the coming storm - but only when it is clear that continuing to flee will seal their fate regardless. The battle of Calvos Sound is even more bitter, more soaked in blood and slaughter, than that fought in the waters south of Trivento. There's neither mercy offered, nor quarter demanded. In the end, perhaps, the Wreckers pay the price for relying on the boons of Siakha. The bloodlust overwhelms their self preservation, pushes them to fight and to take as many Imperial sailors as they can, with them down into the ravenous waters of death.

Scores of Siakhan beasts pour up from the islands to the south, from the open vortex torn into the world by the treachery of High Priest Shivaarn. With them comes the storm. The sky darkens, black clouds racing north against the wind in defiance of natural lore. Rain pounds the decks, the waves thrash against the hulls of fragile ships locked in a fight to the death. Lightning rips across the sky, thunder drowning out the cries of the dying and the damned.

(And perhaps there is an irony here. Siakha relishes the unleashed fury of the Freeborn just as she does the bloodthirst of the Children of Wrecks. She is an even-handed monster, after all, and today she does not play favourites, not when there is such a feast of death and ruin and carnage to harvest. There are witnesses, shuddering as they speak, who report carcharadon forgetting whose "side" they are on and falling on the defeated Wreckers they fought beside only moments before. There is no mercy for Imperial sailors... but no mercy for the pirates, either. At the end of the day, when the sky burns red, Siakha does not care who spills out their lifeblood into the depths of the thirsty sea as long as someone does.)

The Freeborn Storm are gone, their fire might still blaze again.

Suddenly, between one breath and the next, the winds die. Sails hang loose and empty. The waves still, the roar of the tempest goes silent. The standard of the Red Wind Corsairs raised on the bloodsoaked decks of the Storm's Child, the flagship of the Gathered Storm, stolen figurehead gleaming at the prow. The supernatural servants of Siakha fall back into the water, begin to scatter, called south by some unheard sound only they can hear. The last few ships of the Gathered Storm limp desperately away, but they do not get far. The short-lived naval forces of the Children of Wrecks founder on the rocks of the Empire, on the passion of the Red Wind Corsairs, the courage of Imperial captains who heard the call and answered it in force.

The Red Wind Corsairs have suffered losses, but only in a limited capacity. Their superior strategy, in the face of the Wreckers' hubris, means that while the 'Storm is utterly broken less than four hundred sailors and mariners have fallen. Many more are injured - even in defeat the Children and their Siakhan allies are utterly brutal - but the Corsairs themselves are victorious.

Not everyone is accounted for; some of the pirate fleets hold together under their ruthless captains and break for open waters while the Gathered Storm and the Red Wind Corsairs fight. High Priestess Shivaarn is not accounted for, either, and it is not clear the elusive chosen of Siakha was ever here. Yet there can be no doubt that the strength of the Children of Wrecks has been broken. They still control their stronghold in Free Landing, but their ability to reach beyond the islands has been savagely curtailed. Their forces in Feroz have been crushed by the Suranni, and their hold over Madruga is now tenuous at best. It is not even entirely clear if they will continue to "enjoy" the favour of the fickle Mistress of Tooth and Gale in the face of such utter defeat.

The Flight of Gulls

It is a small thing, but there is one last matter to mention. As the last of the wreckage sinks beneath the waves, as the Red Wind Corsairs dock at Calvos and the Suranni forces complete their harrowing in Feroz, a message wings its way east from Madruga. Tied to the leg of a mad-eyed gull, wings wide as it glides along the coast.

The gull does not reach its destination, whatever that might be. A keen-eyed soldier watching for just such a messenger from the Great Chain in Sarvos brings it down with a well placed crossbow bolt. The message tied to its leg is in code, but not a particularly complex one. It is a short message, and one whose contents spread quickly through the markets and alehouses of the City of Masks.

"The Red Wind Corsairs have taken to the sea," it reads. "They are in Madruga."

Perhaps it is the only such message to be sent, in this familiar Grendel cipher. Perhaps this interception means the orcs of the Broken Shore will remain unaware of the lone Imperial navy now sheltered in Calvos Sound.

Perhaps.

Game Information

• The Gathered Storm has been destroyed
• The Red Wind Corsairs have moved to Madruga
• The Iron Confederacy has conquered the Cazar Straits in Feroz
• The Children of Wrecks continue to hold Free Landing in Madruga
• The General of the Red Wind Corsairs has possession of the stolen figurehead

The Empire has been victorious, in part due to a miscalculation by the Children of Wrecks but mostly thanks to the overwhelming numbers of Imperial fleets that joined their assault. The Gathered Storm is destroyed, and with it the Wreckers' ability to directly threaten the coast of the Bay of Catazar. The Red Wind Corsairs have pursued the Gathered Storm to Madruga; this is not a standard situation but we've made the decision to do this to support the narrative and in accordance with the orders of the General.

The General of the Red Wind Corsairs has captured the Storm's Child - the flagship of the Gathered Storm which bears the stolen figurehead which once sailed at the front of the Freeborn Storm. The decision about what to do with this spoil of war is ultimately up to the General of the Red Wind Corsairs. The figurehead would make a fine prow for any Freeborn fleet, inspiring everyone who sailed in it (it would allow a Freeborn fleet owner to upgrade their fleet for two wains less than normal). Alternatively the prow could be given to the Freeborn egregores who would use it to rally Freeborn families to support the creation of a new navy, creating an opportunity for the Freeborn Storm to ride the waves again. The general can make their decision known by speaking to the Herald of the Council or the egregores of their nation.

At the same time the Empire is sinking the Gathered Storm, a navy and two armies has come north from the Iron Confederacy and scoured the Children of Wrecks stronghold in Cazar Straits. They have not engaged Imperial forces at all, but they have now claimed the island region. It's not clear what the diplomatic situation is; its possible the Ambassador to the Iron Confederacy knows more.

Free Landing remains in the hands of the Children of Wrecks, and the maelstrom that churns where the Shining Beacon once stood continues to offer magical protection to the region. Following the changes to the fortification rules, The Maw of Siakha represents magical wards fuelled by ongoing Spring magic. These wards provide 4,000 strength towards determining victory and inflicting casualties, but only if Free Landing is directly attacked. The wards do not suffer casualties - there are always more Siakhan heralds and monsters to contend with - and it is not possible to enchant them, nor support them with military units.