Skull beneath the skin

Ravening Winter spirits take the bodies of the fallen and use them to devour the living, and in Sarangrave there are so, so many bodies for them to choose from.

From the Fens of Varreth

The vallorn of Béantal Dol is quiescent. The Druj stranglehold on the Sarangrave has been broken. Yet still there is no peace in the marshes of the southern Mallum. Three barbarian armies have collapsed here, a crucial strategic victory, but one that leaves thousands of vicious orc warriors scattered across the marshes. Worse, the garrison of the Tower of the Skink has been displaced by the fall of their bastion, and have fled to the recesses of the Sarangrave to hide and plot their vengeance against the Empire and the people of Urizen. Such mundane threats are par for the course when dealing with the Druj, but there is worse to come.

When the Hidden Snake and the Poison Crane disbanded, they were under the influence of Winter magic - an enchantment reminiscent of Quickening Cold Meat. The Winter spirits called by that enchantment were set free, and while there was a valiant attempt made by Imperial heroes to contain the danger it was ultimately unsuccessful. Worse, many champions of the Empire fell in that desperate attempt to reduce the potential threat to the Sarangrave. Worst of all, the bodies of many of those same champions were dragged from their final resting place by that same corrupt magic and turned against their own people. Flesh-hungry husks, more cunning and vicious even than those raised by Imperial magicians, now hunt the Sarangrave and even when their bodies are cut down, the spirits within simply seek out another host.

Just as bad as the Winter spirits are the tormented souls, created by the blackest apothecary arts from Imperial heroes whose spirits have been broken. The many victims of the twisted Het Trakaa now stalk the Turan Flats, killing and torturing any innocents they find, and striking terror into the hearts of those they encounter.

The Druj are scattered, their armies broken, but their threat remains. Both Trakaa of the Hidden Snake and Sul Maggotgnaw of the Poison Crane still raise their tattered banners in the Sarangrave, and seek to marshal the guerillas and raiders that still operate here. They may have been betrayed by their own people - there can be little doubt that they hate their fellow Druj - but they hate the Empire more.

Shield and Scale

There is no peace in the Sarangrave. With the vallorn driven back by Imperial armies, the Empire turns their attention deeper into the Mallum. They entrust the defence of the southern marshes to their Axou allies. The Shield of Ipotavo is still stationed at the Tower of the Skink, in the sodden marshes of the Thornfen. Imperial magicians have even laid an enchantment over the fortification, to help the Axou raise their garrison there. It is slow going, however, and the chaos in the newly Urizen territory offers them little opportunity to catch their breath.

The Axou soldiers stationed at the Tower of the Skink have been ordered to remain behind the walls. There are less than three hundred of them, now they have had an opportunity to assess the threats in the north it is clear they will be slaughtered with nothing show for it. Discretion appears to be the better part of valour, for now at least. The bastion can defend the Axou within its walls, although a message goes out to the small number of Urizen establishing spires in the territory offering them sanctuary within the walls of the citadel if they desire it. The Tower, mighty as it is, can do nothing to face down the Druj insurgents gathering in the corners of the territory, to contain the Winter ghouls rippling slowly outward from the Fens of Varreth, or to deal with the tormented spirits unleashed by Het Trakaa. Instead, the defence of the northern Sarangrave falls to the Shield of Ipotavo.

The Senate has chosen to accede to the request that the Axou military be granted freedom of movement and engagement within the borders of the Sarangrave. There is some uncertainty as to whether this applies to armies or only to the garrison of the Skink, however. When the Shield of Ipotavo mobilize and begin to move north they claim the Ambassador to Axos has given them leave to do so and there is little interest amongst Imperial citizens in the Turan Flats or in Kroll in challenging them on this matter.

Ipotavo's forces move cautiously. The Agema are at the forefront, clad in their traditional neatly-cut leathers, armed with crescent shield and the long, thin sword favoured by these heavy skirmishers. Behind them comes a solid corps of sable-robed necromantia, magicians versed in realm lore and battlefield magic alike. There is a noticable absence of any of Tavos Ageli - the porcelain masked immortal warriors that reek of death - choosing to leave them behind in the Tower of the Skink. If they bear any enchantment, it is subtle enough that it is not apparent to the Urizen in a position to mark the army's passage.

The husks in Sarangrave are inhabited by Winter spirits drawn to the mortal realm with the aid of the King of the Feast.

As they reach the Turan Flats, the husks are already feasting. When they are not encased in dead flesh, the spirits are all but invisible. As such it is very hard to get a feel for exact numbers, but the necromantia will later estimate their number at some two thousand ravenous beasts of the Winter realm. All of them have found hosts, not least due to the glut of bodies left behind on the Fens of Varreth. Human or orc, Druj or Imperial, soldier or slave, it matters nothing to these anthropophagous ghouls what remains they don to allow them to touch the mortal world. The husks that have been inhabited the longest bare little resemblance to the person they once were; their mouths jut with fangs, their fingers end in razor-sharp talons. In some cases their stolen bodies have become stretched and warped by the influence of the spirit within them and some are clearly as comfortable running on all fours like beasts as they are on two

At first the Shield face only small bands of husks, easily dispatched, but each day their numbers grow greater. The necromantia can weaken the spirits, and if they can trap a husk they can try to bind its spirit and force it back whence it came, but the odds are against them. Taking one of these horrors "alive" is no easy matter, given they must often be chopped limb-from-limb to stop them trying to kill anyone who comes near them. The magicians of Axos establish a small number of warded camps, marked with smooth posts of polished weirwood topped with the brooding face of the legendary sorcerer-king Ipotavo themselves. The predatory corpses avoid these encampments, but prowl around their outskirts at night looking for anyone foolish enough to step beyond their bounds.

The best the Shield of Ipotavo can achieve is to stop the Winter husks utterly overwhelming the people of the Turan Flats. They focus their efforts on ensuring the paltry few newborn Urizen spires are safe, but there are still large numbers of former Druj slaves here. They have mostly been left to scavenge the war-torn farms as best they can. These folk are almost exclusively orcs and they flee when the Axou approach, terrified that they are here to kill them. They flee the tormented souls that roam the region. They flee the marrow-suckers that would prey on them. They even flee the Urizen who try to reach out to them. The tyrants of the Mallum may be gone, but their legacy lives on in the fear that dominates the lives of so many of these people.

The Axou strategy is to deal with the spirits and their husks where they can, but they avoid forcing a major engagement. They prevent the creatures from overrunning any of the slave villages or spires that dot the plains, and delay the spread of the spirits into Kroll for six weeks or so, but their main focus appears to be on making sure that their soldiers' lives are preserved. The Axou have a particular fear of death believing it puts them into the hands of the Creator they hate and despise; that fear of death drives their strategy.

As the Autumn Equinox approaches, it is apparent to Imperial observers that the Shield intends to fall back toward the Tower of the Skink. Their tactics mean that they have significantly reduced their potential losses to the ghouls of Turan, but every one who fell is a potential pawn for the cruel spirits that still swarm and seethe in the northern marshes.

Shadow of Hunger

While there is fighting in the north, the rest of Sarangrave is no more peaceful. There are significant numbers of refugees in Whisperwood - the former inhabitants of Thornfen exiled by the Axou. The number of former slaves here has swollen to unmanageable proportions. The statement of principle of the Urizen assembly urging the few spires in Sarangrave to welcome the orcs has done nothing to reduce the scale of this problem. The former slaves do their best to avoid the Imperials entirely, and there are many more of them in Whisperwood than there are Urizen in the entire territory. These displaced folk have joined with the mass who were once the thralls of the Thornwasp sept in Uklead and the eastern forest-farms. Winter is approaching, and those in a position to see the scale of the problem first-hand predict that the coming months will not be kind to these folk. Cold will likely not be a major factor; a bigger issue is going to be food and shelter from the winter rains. If nothing is done it is likely hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of deaths will take place and leaving aside questions of empathy or sympathy, it is rarely a good idea to leave fresh bodies lying around when there are Winter spirits looking for new hosts.

Whisperwood is the worst, but there are folk in Bloodwater Marsh, the Flats, and even the lakelands of Kroll who are likewise in a parlous position. The Druj left few supplies behind when they retreated, even being so spiteful as to befoul and destroy what they could not carry. There are farms here, and there are people working them, but their industry is haphazard and uncertain as their future. The Bloodwater Spears have reached out to the orcs in their former homeland to the south, and others have sent messengers to the Turan Forest. The heralds and mortal friends of Shacklebreaker have reached further afield - there are reports of a few being spotted speaking with the refugees in Whisperwood - but the rebels have little enough aid to offer to those who shared their durance under the Druj. It is hard not to imagine that a catastrophe is approaching in the Sarangrave. How many people have been freed from the shackles of the Druj, only to die before the year turns again?

If it was just these refugees and exiles that were the problem in Sarangrave it would be bad enough but there is more. There are still Druj in Sarangrave. They gather and regroup in the hidden corners of the territory, in old tunnels dug beneath dry ground, in the depths of the woods and the marshes. Some have even apparently taken up residence in Bendol, within the bounds of the vallorn of Béantal Dol, using lessons learned in Therunin and Brocéliande to build a kind of steading of their own. Even the other Druj consider those Druj mad.

Worse still, there are Druj hiding in plain sight. Soldiers of the Marshlizard and the Poison Crane, warriors who once served in the garrison of the Tower, concealing their true identity among the very survivors and exiles that strive desperately to survive in the face of the coming Winter. There is little chance that they will be content to stay in hiding - and while they may not be organised enough to threaten the Tower of the Skink the same cannot be said of the farms, and the villages, and the bands of displaced, and the spires brave enough to try and raise themselves in this chaotic land where peace is oh-so-far away.

Game Information

Sarangrave is mapped, but parts of the territory remain unknown.

Sarangrave

The fallout from the battle during the Summer Solstice continues to be felt
The Winter Spirits in Turan and Kroll will continue to rampage as long as those regions have the tormented quality

Sarangrave is an Imperial territory, and part of Urizen, but the Nesustak Forest is controlled by the eponymous rebels, Thornfen is under the jurisdiction of Axos, and the central region of Bendol is a vallornheart. If the Empire loses control of any region of Sarangrave, they will lose control of the territory.

Several regions of Sarangrave have gained qualities reflecting the presence of tormented spirits, inhabitants of the realms, and Druj guerillas left from the collapse of the Marshlizard and the Banded Snake septs. The details of these qualities are discussed in more depth in the TBC wind of fortune.

The Shield of Ipotavo prevented the Winter spirits doing any significant damage in Turan Flats this season, but they took significant casualties in the fighting. Their efforts have not depleted the forces terrorising those regions.

Thornfen and the fortification known as the Tower of the Skink are controlled by the Axou. Imperial forces are free to move through those regions but Axos could withdraw this right whenever they wished. The Civil Service estimate that thanks to six months of magical enchantments placed by the magicians of Urizen, the garrison of the massive Tower is likely to stand at around 500 soldiers.

The Empire has limited ability to move through the Nesustak Forest. At the moment, the rebels there are not minded to prevent Imperial forces doing so given the protection the Empire's armies have provided over the last six months. Again, this could change at any moment, should the Nesustak rebels choose to do so.

Skull beneath the skin

Contents

From the Fens of Varreth

Shield and Scale

Shadow of Hunger

Game Information

Sarangrave

Further Reading

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