Ripples and shadows

We don't often put a "Content Warning" on a Wind, but this one merits it. Please bear in mind that the text includes depictions of brutal violence and feelings of helplessness. The campaign summary is out-of-character and matter-of-fact and sums up the events without going into detail. It can be found here.

From the Sydathian Fens

Last season, tens of thousands of western humans began to invade the Salt Flats of Sanath. Folk fled ahead of them, and the Druj sent their own armies against them. Shortly after the Autumn Equinox, the human armies withdrew before the might of the Druj.

In their wake, terrible curses settled across the territory. The trees walked, smashing villages and settlements across the forests and marshes and laying siege to the fortifications and the distant "city" of the Mallum orcs. The weather turned, unseasonably chill and damp. A terrible rust infested the herb fields, and half the seasons produce turned to filth even as it was harvested. At first, people feared that this was some punishment from the Druj. The folk of the Salt Flats are used to leaving with fear, with the terror of offending their cruel masters.

The Druj are quick to point out that this time they are not to blame, telling everyone that the curses are a parting gift from the invading humans. The murderous trees, and the terrible weather, and the cruel withering of the herb gardens that made it impossible to meet the masters' tithes, they are all portrayed as acts of malice by the Imperial Humans. The maledictions were their attack against the people of the Mallum. Proof of what the Druj had always taught; that the humans hate all orcs and that it is far better to serve the Druj than to be slaughtered by an Empire that seeks only their lands and their deaths.

At least the humans are gone now, back to the crucible of the Barrens, where everything is so much worse.

Thundering Trees

When you read on, remember that the Barrens still labours under the curses of the Druj. The trees still walk, the vines and bramble bushes still pulse from time to time with unnatural life. Structures are assailed, armies attacked, settlements crushed beneath the march of bark and thorn. A blank-faced vegetable horde, a destructive force, guided by instincts no orc could hope to understand to crush and rend and break.

Raised by the Druj, the trees are insidious. They pretend to be friendly at first, their spreading branches offering protection from the elements. Then, when their unwitting prey drops their guard, they strike without mercy, strangling and ripping and smothering and clubbing, binding in root and branch, squeezing until the blood rains down.

The magic is fading, thank the ancestors. The trees are returning to the places they once stood – although they do not fail to smash anything in their way. By the Spring Equinox, it is believed, the curse will have run its course. The trees will be quiet, rest until they are next called to war.

Saltmarsh

The Imperial armies that were in Sanath return the way they came, back across the Nameless River, into the lands of the Vendarri. Into Saltmarsh. By this time whispers of the Senate's decision - to name the Vendarri enemies - have begin to reach their ears. The people of Saltmarsh eye the Imperial soldiers nervously. All their desperate attempts to ingratiate themselves with the Empire appear have clearly failed, what it is not clear is what future that augurs. A few flee, fearing the worst, but where will they go? Into the Mallum, where none will hide them and the Druj will ensure that a brutal death awaits them? To the lands of the other septs, who have never liked them and who have troubles of their own?

A few try to hide, but where is there to go that they could not be found? There is nowhere in Saltmarsh they can hide that the Empire will not be find them. Some talk of fighting, of seeking allies of Flame to aid them. But how can a sept like the Vendarri hope to stand against tens of thousands of soldiers? What magic can they work that will offer any protection against a people who can drown Saltmarsh with a wave of their hand?

Most just wait, full of dread. They are used to dread, like all those who have laboured under the unpredictable lash of the Druj, it is a familiar burden to them. The best way to survive the Druj is to do nothing you are not ordered to. Don't catch their eye, don't single yourself out and never, never do anything to risk their ire. It is a bleak and exhausting way to live... the only thing worse is the alternative.

The blade does not fall, though. Most of the armies that ventured into Sanath leave the Barrens entirely. The Vendarri - for the moment - are left unmolested. Despite their status, it seems that the Imperial generals have no interest in them at all.

Show them how we fight so that they understand us as well as possible.

Murderdale and Eastward

The Gryphon's Pride – an army whose banner has a long history in the Barrens – pass west into Semmerholm, and in their place come the Golden Sun fresh from their furlough in Astolat.

Their armour shines, their shields blaze with colours of the sky in Summer, their swords are sharp, and they kill without mercy, efficiently, effectively. They annihilate the Druj, cutting the enemy down like farmers harvesting the corn.

There is no doubt who will win in Murderdale. The Druj forces there are still reeling from the events of the Autumn Equinox, and the Imperial humans outnumber them. Cut off from the rest of the Mallum, the few stragglers who manage to escape the steel net of the Summer Sun flee south toward the Heart of Peytaht. The Dawnish know better than to give chase - confident that the enemy will find no succour there.

Under your general the strike into Murderdale was a success, no fortress of the dead awaits us. But no doubt some Druj will remain. We shall take a Grinding Advance across the territory marching alongside the heralds of Zakalwe. Show them how we fight so that they understand us as well as possible. They are here to help appraise us to provide options for change.

Zoran De Orzel , General of the Golden Sun

If we are to be liberators not conquerors, then our pride must be conveyed by actions not by words alone. We send Skywise Rykana with 75 Thrones to provide food and other vital supplies to the Rahvin in Bitter Strand. All that is worthwhile is shared with those who deserve it.

Bleakshield Zorra, Imperial Orc Assembly, 385YE Autumn Equinox, Vote: 78-0 (Greater Majority)

Instead they sweep east, through the entirety of the Barrens, seeking out any remaining Druj that are still resisting. They pass briefly near the Teeth, and the Rahvin in their caves and camps there tighten their grip on their makeshift weapons. There are other orcs among the Rahvin, Imperial orcs from the Sunstorm sept of the far north. They have brought donations from their people, food and other vital supplies. Warm clothing against the Winter chill; healing herbs; lantern oil. Seeds. A flicker of hope. Yet they can only watch, stony faced, as the Dawnish pass by.

Through Saltmarsh again, and again the Vendarri fear this is the end. Yet the Summer Sun does not rest here, just passes through. Down through the Plains of Teeth, resting for a time at the great castle, the Spires of Dusk, and then back west through the lands of the Karass.

The orcs of the Bleaks do not welcome the Dawnish knights but neither do they turn them away. If they know they are protected by their status as “foreigners”, then it appears they have decided it is better not to take this for granted. Some, given the chance, flee the army, disappear into the depths of the forests they know so well.

The Karass are busy with matters of their own, and beyond a cursory check to ensure there are no Druj living openly among them, the Dawnish knights move on. They have a lot of territory left to cover.

With the Dawnish are a small contingent of warriors who are not mortal. In human-like shape, they are servants of the Weapon-Wise, of the realm of Sky and Sea. They observe, occasionally offer counsel. Their eyes are silent, and they do not speak to the orcs of the Barrens.

But by the time of the Winter Solstice there is no doubt that the Barrens is secure – or as secure as it can ever be. Like the Druj before them, the Dawnish must know that the great rambling borders can never be truly secured. That there are too many neighbours for this village to ever rest easy. Not until the whole of the Mallum is settled and fortified, and perhaps not until the threat of the Druj has been broken once and for all.

We invoke the Spears of the Pines, together we will claim for them their home from Druj Oppression.

Eaves of Peytaht

The spears are called. We are going home. The Navarr march with us as allies, but we must be the spear-point and they the shield. Strike, oh you children of the Great Forest, and let none stand between us and our ancient hearth.

Valack, First Spear of the Great Forest

Thorns, we march to the Heart of Peytaht in the Barrens. To aid our allies the Great Forest Orcs. We invoke the Spears of the Pines, together we will claim for them their home from Druj Oppression

Farenthar Shattersong , General of the Quiet Step

For too long the peoples of Navarr have struggled to claim the entirety of their homes. Let us not sit idle whilst those who have stood with us suffer a similar fate. We send Enis Rootbloom with 50 doses of liao to encourage the people of Navarr to help the Great Forest Orcs in the fight to reclaim the Heart of Peytaht.

Enis RootBloom, Navarr National Assembly, Autumn Equinox 385YE, Vote: Greater Majority 355-0

While the Imperial humans of Dawn march into the Barrens from the west, another army enters from the south. The Spears of the Pines have been called. A thousand or more orcs of the Great Forest Sept, returned from exile among the humans of the south. Returned at last to claim their home, their chieftain at their head.

With them come almost five thousand humans, an army of the Navarr. The Quiet Step fight alongside the orcs of Peytaht, as they fall on the Druj gathered beneath the eaves of the Great Forest. Those who have fled the humans of Dawn find they have run into the teeth off the gale. The surviving warriors of the Mallum fight, but they are no match for six thousand spears. They fall, and they are not mourned.

The fiercest battle takes place at the weirwood grove, on the edges of Peytaht itself. Faced with the choice between death by spear and arrow, and the terrors of the heart of Peytaht, the Mallum Orcs choose to stand. They know there will be no mercy, not from the orcs of the Great Forest and certainly not from the humans of the Navarr. They stand, they fight, they die.

In the end, perhaps a hundred or so Druj escape the Barrens. Those who fled west into Brocéliande will be hunted by human and orc alike and live out their lives in fear. Those who fled south will know terror like never before, and be devoured by the Silence Beneath the Trees. It is fitting.

When the Groves are liberated, when the orcs look again on their homes, there is fierce weeping. Some weep at the devastation the Druj have caused, at trees clear-cut, at the monstrous things carved into their bark. They cut down the bodies hung on the trees, orcs slaughtered as a warning, a punishment, or on a whim. They grieve for the centuries of tending, undone in less than a decade by the locusts of the Mallum.

But most who weep, do so not form sorrow but from joy. They are home. Their people can come home. And beneath the last leaves of late Autumn, many of them embrace their human allies, their human friends, and call them sibling of the spirit.

It is rare that there is even a moment of joy in the Barrens. Perhaps that is changing now at last?

We are called upon to take the hardest path.

Hope's Rest

A single moment of radiant triumph, but it cannot last. How could it, in the Barrens? A land scarred by three centuries of war. Three weeks before the Winter Solstice, a mere three days after the last Druj are driven from the Heart of Peytaht, news reaches the Spears of the Pine of what has happened at Dourfell Keep.

The folk of the Keep were human, but they won themselves a place among the septs of the Barrens. Their story is well known in the Barrens Fierce, implacable enemies of the Druj, they used human magic to fight off the orcs of the Mallum. They wore the bark of the forest on their skin proudly. They went as messengers between the septs, urging them to seek their freedom from the Druj. They fought one sept or another, sometimes, but they knew the value of respect and peace. There were never many of them, but when the time came, they raised their own banners, and fought alongside the Rahvin, and the Black Wind, and the Spears of the Pines. When the Great Forest Orcs fled the Barrens, they took as many of them as would come along with them into exile in Therunin.

When the Druj returned in force, they swept into Hope's Rest to enslave, to finally breach the walls of Dourfell, to show the world what happens to those who think they can live free. Those who chose to stay behind fought to the bitter end and when it was clear they were overwhelmed, they used the power of the Realm of Bark and Blood to transform the walls of their home into a storm. They sacrificed the Keep and their own bone and their breath, to create a thunderbolt that scythed through the ranks of the orcs at the very moment of their victory.

History... is a circular thing that meanders round and round and comes back often to where it was before.

Since a month or so before the Autumn Equinox, the bark-marked humans of Hope's Rest gathered at the ruins of Dourfell Keep for a council. A meeting with their allies in the Barrens and beyond to speak freely of the future, of what it means for the septs to be in land claimed by the Imperial humans. Not all of them attended; a few felt that they should accompany the Spears of the Pines to fight the Druj on the skirts of Peytaht. Some chose to stay behind in Therunin rather than look once more on the ruins of their home. The heirs of Montane follow their own paths.

Proud Soldiers of the Eagle, we are called upon to take the hardest path. We go to Hope's Rest to put an end to the Dangerous blasphemies of the Montanians. Traitors Seek to shield them from us, so we move with haste so this sorry matter is brought to an end. Harm none but our chosen foe, but be relentless against these anarchists. The time has come for us to win the last battle of the freedom heresy. Vigilance guide our spirits as we do what we must.

Jaromir Ostrovyn Kostka, General of the Northern Eagle

The fundamental right of any being is to live the life that they want in the manner that they wish..

Allan of Dourfell

... to wipe you out. I am sorry, my Empire works on conveniences rather than Virtue... They are planning to act when you have the meeting with the septs, get out of there. Get to safety.

Fragment recovered from a fire

Flee. Tell everyone to flee. The Empire cannot be reasoned with and it is better to live running than die standing. Please.

Fragment recovered from a fire

Freedom is the only meal that goes further, the more mouths it feeds. None of us can call ourselves free until everyone is free.

Ursol Gwin

The eagle banners of the Varushkans come in many shapes. In one, it has two heads, facing in different directions, and in each claw it holds a golden axe. Appropriate perhaps. The human warriors beneath the eagle banner come up from the south, from the mountains they say lie beyond the forest and the marshes of Therunin. They come up through the Tarn Valley. They crossed the borders into Hope's Rest, and come through the hills to the ruins of Hope's Rest, eager to reach the Montanians before a traitors words tip their hand, allow them to flee what is coming.

… The Montanians have not fled. Not all of then, at any rate. A few hundred humans, most of them briars but not all. A score of allies from other parts of the Empire. A handful of orcs who will not desert their friends and allies. Their armaments are an eclectic mix of Navarr, old Dawnish yeofolk, and Barrens orc, a legacy of decades of desperate resistance against the Druj in the Barrens, hastily supplemented by the bounty of their years in Therunin. Spears, bows, sharp knives. Old swords. Old shields. Old but not rusted, not dulled. Cared for, kept ready for the future that nobody wanted to see but everyone knew might eventually come.

Arrayed against them, four and a half thousand Varushkan humans, grim-faced, cold eyed, bound in fine steel, with more than enough axes to go around. The outcome is never in doubt. No force can withstand such a tide. Nobody at Dourfell Keep, on any side, thinks that the Montanians can win.

Even so, there is no talk of surrender.

They fight, the people of Hope's Rest. They use every advantage they have; their knowledge of the terrain, their passion for freedom, any trick they can find to drag the battle out for one more minute. There is no rout, not a one of them loses their nerve as the fight inevitably turns against them. Their lines never break, but inexorably they shrink as one after another is cut down. Still they stand, shoulder to shoulder, faithful to their friends in the face of certain death. They burn brightly, secure in the knowledge that whatever else happens they have sold their lives as dearly as they can. Their faith, their belief, their principles have been tested and they have held. Idealists all, they fight, knowing they cannot change the inevitable, but hoping against hope that things will go differently.

It is over within two hours. Hope dies with them.

Every single defender of Dourfell Keep is slain by the Imperial attackers. They fight as long as they can, but the victorious Varushkans quickly tend their own fallen. Maybe fifty casualties among the attackers, if that. No particular order is given, but the bodies of the fallen are gathered together and burned in pyres.

A sweep of the ruins finds books and scrolls that join those who penned them in the flames. Heresy, blasphemy. Just kindling for the funeral flames.

If there is a surprise, it is how few there actually are when the bodies are counted. Mostly warriors, a few healers and physicks who met the same fate as the fighters they tended. The fate of the heretic.

It's late evening before the scouts report that the final stand at Dourfell Keep may have been a diversion, whatever else it was. A few hundred stragglers, the young and those too old or too sick to fight were moving west through the hills even before the Northern Eagle entered the Barrens. The army will not catch them, not in time, before they reach the safety of the Heart of Peytaht and the lands of the Great Forest Orcs.

There is some discussion about simply pursuing then, taking the battle to Peytaht, and killing the rest of the heretics. The orders are clear – none are to be spared; but they also make clear that only the anarchists are to be slain. To attack the lands of the Great Forest risks a spiralling conflict, given their allies are with them. In the end, the humans of Varushka are content to ensure no anarchists who can carry a sword have escaped them in Hope's Rest.

Our mission is clear and our will is iron.

Black Wind

Our mission is clear and our will is iron. We target with merciless Onslaught the leaders of the Black Wind in the Barrens. This is an assassination not a decimation. We kill the snake by cutting off its head. The fire of our courage will illuminate these heretics and our constant vigilance rewarded.

Alderei the Fair, General of the Iron Helms

When Rahvin boasted that he would bring together “a black wind that would sweep the Druj from the Barrens,” he brought orcs from across the Barrens together under a single banner. Before, it was each band of orcs against the Druj alone. After, they were a sept, united. Strong.

Unity did not last long. When the Empire and the Mallum agreed to split the Barrens, the Black Wind were caught in the middle, and the sept broke in two. Some followed Rahvin to their deaths; some saw that the only hope of survival was to surrender and bend the knee to the hated Druj. The Druj are never magnanimous in victory, and a tenth of their people died before they were allowed to rise to their feet. Rise, but not look up. Chained to the Druj, chained to the threat of annihilation, of a whole people fed screaming to the Howling Abyss.

They paid heavily, but the Black Wind survived, The remaining sept kept “safe” by the Druj as surety. As long as the warriors who had once fought against them now fought for them, then their people would survive. Try to resist, try to rebel... and everyone would die.

An army of black Wind warriors is in the Mallum, now, with the rest of the Druj forces. The people of the sept, though - they are still in the Barrens. A few in Dawnguard and the Bitter Strand, most in the Carmine Fields and Murderdale. The Golden Sun passed over them, too busy chasing the Druj to care about scattered communities of farmers and hunters. As long as they did not look up, did not draw attention, did not raise a fist against the knights they dared to dream that they might be safe.

Then the Iron Helms came back from the Salt Flats, from the Sydathian Fens, and even the illusion of safety was torn from them.

Methodically, systematically, from east to west they travelled, through Saltmarsh and into the western half of the Barrens. Each Black Wind settlement they passed through, they dragged the people out of their homes. They spoke in reasonable tones, their dogs leashed. “Tell us who your leaders are,” they said. “Point to them and this can be over. Keep silent, and we will have no choice but to kill you all.”

The Black Wind are used to such tactics, they know the price that must be paid so that the rest may live. In many settlements, the chief or the elder, or the speaker-of-spirits, or the best hunter, or the wisest healer, stepped forward. Head bowed. Trembling. In other places, people wept, and in the end someone crumbled and identified the leader, or begged them to give themselves up. Some even stayed silent, but not for long. Not once it became clear they were dealing with the Iron Helms.

And as soon as they were sure who the leaders were, the humans killed them. Quickly, mercilessly. A sword through the heart, a head lopped off with an axe. The body sometimes left where it fell, sometimes mounted on a stake. Then the rest of the message. “If your people do not come home, you will all die. Make sure they know this.”

Terror began to spread across the western Barrens, like the violent ripples of a boulder in a still lake. Some of the Black Wind tried to flee. Some even escaped, losing themselves in the Untrod Groves or the Bleaks. Some were pursued, caught, forced to give up their leaders. Those who escaped... it's hard to imagine they met a better fate at the hands of the Karass.

Through Murderdale and the Carmine Fields went the Varushkan humans, and their dogs, and their raven-cloaked mystics, and their drummers and their torch-bearers. If a village tried to resist, they killed as many as it took for them to surrender. No hesitation, no mercy, no compassion.

Everywhere they went, the same message. “If your people do not come home, you will all die. Make sure they know this.”

Barely one village of the Black Wind remained untouched, and those that escaped the notice of the Imperial humans heard well what had happened. No effort made to keep it quiet – after all the whole point of this act is to make sure the Black Wind who fight for the Druj, who are somewhere in the Mallum, hear of it and know that their families, their children, their parents, their siblings, all those they love, all are at the mercy of the Iron Helms...

… and the Iron Helms have no mercy.

A tally of scores settled, marked in blood.

Saltmarsh Redux

As the Iron Helms move east, and the Golden Sun move north, the Karass also move. They have been preparing for some time, it seems. Without preamble, without any warning of any kind, the warriors of the Karass move north into Saltmarsh, into the lands of the Vendarri.

Perhaps it is made easier because the orcs of the marshes there think themselves safe for the moment. So concerned were they that the Empire would attack them that they forgot they had older enemies in the Barrens. Old enemies with old scores.

The Karass are utterly ruthless. They attack by stealth, slaughtering every Vendarri they can find, looting their villages, leaving the bodies for the marsh birds to feast on. By the time the Vendarri realise what is going on, it is too late. A small number of their settlements survive untouched, but hundreds of Vendarri are killed.

Nobody lifts a hand to help them; the Senate has declared them barbarians and the Karass confirmed as friends of the Empire. By the time anyone really realises what is happening, the slaughter is well under way, the pools of the Saltmarsh choked with bodies of dead orcs. All the fire magic in the world is no match for the ruthless Karass with their envenomed spears and their barbed arrows.

Not every settlement is hit by the Karass raids. A few of the more isolated, a few closer to Bitter Strand survive. Some of the Vendarri escape into the depths of the marshes - they know them better than the Karass even in their transformed state. But it will take generations for them to rebuild their numbers, assuming they get that long. By the time the Winter Solstice rolls round, the Vendarri have effectively ceased to exist as a sept in the Barrens, all hope of a home away from the Mallum extinguished.

Stillness

The Barrens is in shock. There's no other way to describe it. The destruction of the Montanians, the subjugation of the Black Wind, the bloody settling-of-scores by the Karass. The surviving septs reel.

The Rhavin look around, at their little camp huddled atop the great reserves of mithril, and they hear the sound of the future. The Great Forest Orcs stand amidst the ruins of celebratory fires, listening to the rustling leaves of the great weirwood trees, hearing their end. The orcs of the Black Wind, the survivors of treachery and tyranny, know that if their soldiers do not return they will die at the hands of the Varushkan humans and their dogs.

Three of the remaining septs have seen what the Empire will do to those who dare to resist them, and they know that there is nothing they can do in the face of such an implacable force.

And the Karass?

When the first human knights come upon the Karass after they have finished with the Vendarri, when they meet some of their warriors on the verges of Saltmarsh, the leader of the orcs throws a sack full of orc heads at their feet.

“We have dealt with the Vendarri,” she says, and spits, and shrugs. Then she smiles “If your Senate gives the word then we will deal with the Rhavin next...”

Game Information: The Barrens

Doing this would please the Karass who are known to dislike the Montanians but it would outrage every other Barrens faction bar the Black Wind. It would however send a clear message that the Empire will not be trifled with.

Not to Conquer Wind of Fortune, Montanian Military Opportunities

Any action in this vein would damage the Empire's standing with the Rahvin, Montanians, and Great Forest Orcs. Although the Black Wind no longer speak to their former comrades in arms, they are widely viewed as fallen allies rather than enemies by their fellow rebels. There is clear evidence that the Druj have been adept at maximising the propaganda benefits of actions of this kind by the Empire in the past.

Not to Conquer Wind of Fortune, Black Wind Military Opportunities

This Wind of War is written slightly differently to others, being largely from the point of view of the orcs of the Barrens. To summarize the events and outcomes more clearly:

The Golden Sun have driven the Druj out of the Barrens, and every region except the Heart of Peytaht is now Imperial and part of Dawn
With the help of their Navarr allies, the Great Forest Orcs have conquered the Heart of Peytaht region. They now control that region, and the Eaves of Peytaht weirwood grove.
The Montanian faction in the Barrens has been destroyed. Despite the warning they clearly received, those who could chose to stand and fight. There are survivors, who have managed to find sanctuary in the Heart of Peytaht with the Great Forest Orcs. Without the warning, every single Montanian would have been caught at Dourfell. Everyone in the Barrens knows what has happened.
The Iron Helms have decapitated the leadership of the Black Wind sept, as proposed in the Not to Conquer wind of fortune. There is no doubt a message has been sent to the army in the Mallum. The Iron Helms have taken a number of hostages, and the Black Wind are in no doubt that if they do not comply the Varushkans will kill them all and likely destroy their entire sept.
The Vendarri sept has been slaughtered by the Karass, who launched a surprise attack against Saltmarsh. Their settlements have been destroyed, and most of the former sept is either dead or in hiding in the deep marshes. The handful of survivors are no longer a factor in Barrens politics.
The Rahvin have received aid from the Imperial Orcs, and remain in control of the the Fangs mithril mine.

When reading this wind of war it is important to appreciate that no crimes have been committed under Imperial Law by anyone involved. The Montanians, the Black Wind, and the Vendarri were all barbarians by decree of the Senate and the Imperial armies acted on the orders of the Military Council. While there were numerous dissenting voices in the Synod, only one of their statements of principle was upheld with a greater majority and that was in the Wintermark assembly. Whether it leads to anything will be a matter for Winds of Fortune

The merciless onslaught of the Iron Helms is obvious to everyone in the territory. it will also be known in the Mallum simply by the nature of what it achieves.

Lastly, it is important not assume that things are worse than they are depicted. Don't invent any new atrocities in the Barrens. If we didn't say it happened here, then it didn't happen. This is especially relevant to the Northern Eagle and the Iron Helms.

Participation: Varushkan Armies

If your military unit accompanied the Northern Eagle or the Iron Helms, you may choose to email us at plot@profounddecisions.co.uk with your CID before the 18th of April and request a spontaneous aura. The aura will be an item aura suitable for a weapon.