During Winter 582 CY, towards the end of the Greyhawk Wars, the Scarlet Brotherhood had conquered a large part of the peninsula of Onnwal and, circumvented the domains of the mountain dwarves of Irongate, was about to conquer the lower slopes of the South Province of the formerly Great Kingdom, now completely disrupted by internal strife linked to the struggles for succession to power in view of the imminent end of the war.
At that time the ruler of the province in the south was Chelor III, known for its hardness and unconcern for the common good, as it was voted mainly to the maintenance of the advantages that his rank reserved to him. Threatened within his borders by the advance of the troops of the Scarlet Brotherhood, Chelor then turned to his advisers, ordering them, under the threat of death, to find a cheap and fast way to stop the advance of their enemies.
You should know that even then, the most distant regions from the central government were entrusted to the management of counts, barons and marquises that somehow had won control of small portions of the Great Kingdom through favors, subtle political machinations or military field actions of strategic importance for increasing the power of Chelor itself. Among the latter was baron Andrew Greyson, commander of the Silver Gryphon, a unit of heavy cavalry paladins devoted to Pelor - under the control of the Knight Protectors - whose headquarters was located in a fortress 70 miles south-west of Trennenport, in the hills near the town of Chirpetev.
The idea that solved the problem of Chelor, and that somehow turned the tide of this front in the war, came from commander Llarenden Valender, the military hand of Hextor’s church bishop in Zelradton. Evaluated the proposals received, Chelor III instructed Valender to proceed in person on his behalf, giving him a special warrant so that he could act of authority, and arrange for its execution even if by force.
The plan of Valender was simple and subtle at the same time, because it could achieve the purpose and free the church of Hextor from an awkward opponent who would not hesitate for a moment to wipe from the face of the earth all traces of the cult he represents. Through the use of a powerful evil artifact, known by the name of Dread Forge, together with the collaboration of the Hidden Sickle, the secreting leader of Midnight Darkness, he had to proceed to create a unit of undead so devastating by forcing the enemy to renounce to advance. The only prerequisite to succeed in this endeavor - through this necromantic process - was to get not a bunch of mindless walking corpses, but motivated warriors able to control their own actions and, if possible, those of other troops under their control.
What was needed by Chelor were Death Knights, and Valender was able to give them to him. It would just be enough to convince Andrew Greyson and his Silver Gryphon, by will or by force. Greyson's first reaction to the proposal of the representative of Chelor was returned to sender, ignoring the authority of which he was invested, by virtue of the precepts of Pelor, showing undeath as the first of earthly ills to defeat and exterminate. The next day, claiming the warrant in his possession, Valender conscripted all the male inhabitants of age and older of Greyson’s barony, and marched them against the armies of the Scarlet Brotherhood armed only of pitchforks and scythes found in the surrounding agricultural areas.
Reached by a messenger at his fortified citadel only the day after the battle, Greyson could not help but rush to the site of the battle to watch the carnage at the hands of the enemy. Stuck in the ground with a pitchfork, a message left by the master of the Scarlet Brotherhood quoted verbatim "Thanks for your steel, soon we will take the wheat and women too." A couple of weeks later, a second visit to Valender at the citadel of Greyson found the latter much more sympathetic, especially when faced with the threat to post on the front of the women and the children of his barony, if the response of the Silver Gryphon continues to be negative. After sending a brief message to his life-long friend and comrade Atanas Midenov, commander of the infantry units based in Chirpetev, Andrew Greyson and his Griffin rode away with Valender, missing since then from the history records.
At the same time, Trenrast of Trennenport, directly responsible for the territorial barony of Greyson within the county of Tren (now Nasavta), was informed of the desertion of the Silver Gryphon, AWOL from the fortress for over a month. Trenrast, as an immediate reaction, erased any right of Greyson on the barony, by sending a messenger that would communicate this decision to Baroness Jennifer Tanner Greyson by his home at Treborne, administrative seat of power of Greyson’s family, a village situated at the crossroads of the old south trading route, the coastal road of Dunhead Bay and the track that connects the county to the Kingdom of the Iron Hills. The message also gave order to give away all the wealth of the family to the commander of the infantry garrison stationed in Chirpetev, Atanas Midenov - as a compensation for the image damage done to the County - and his fortress into the south-eastern hills dismantled, burned and razed to the ground. Already decimated by conscription and deprived of any administrative power, the village of Treborne became shortly semi-abandoned, while the few surviving women and their father’s orphans children found refuge in the countryside farms abandoned by the victims of the massacre ordered by Valender.
Few months later, back from the victorious expulsion of the armies of the Scarlet Brotherhood from the Kingdom boundaries, Andrew Greyson found his citadel destroyed, his village empty and his wife held captive by his friend Midenov by order of Trenrast. Unable to reappear in public claiming his true identity and heritage, Greyson requires a meeting with Chelor because it honors the promise of Valender to return him to life, along with his faithful companions who followed in this foolish mission. But Chelor does not respond to his request for the hearing, but rather sends a messenger to inform him to find shelter in the Iron Hills as long as the war is not over, waiting for further orders from him. For Greyson this is proof that Chelor do not want to honor his word and that there will be no future for him as long as Chelor live. But fate is sometimes mocking, and Greyson’s revenge takes place at the hands of others.
Few months later, back from the victorious expulsion of the armies of the Scarlet Brotherhood from the Kingdom boundaries, Andrew Greyson found his citadel destroyed, his village empty and his wife held captive by his friend Midenov by order of Trenrast. Unable to reappear in public claiming his true identity and heritage, Greyson requires a meeting with Chelor because it honors the promise of Valender to return him to life, along with his faithful companions who followed in this foolish mission. But Chelor does not respond to his request for the hearing, but rather sends a messenger to inform him to find shelter in the Iron Hills as long as the war is not over, waiting for further orders from him. For Greyson this is proof that Chelor do not want to honor his word and that there will be no future for him as long as Chelor live. But fate is sometimes mocking, and Greyson’s revenge takes place at the hands of others.
During Spring 583 CY, Herzog Chelor is condemned to the Endless Death by Overking Ivid V, Reydrich of Naelax is pronounced ruler of South Province, while Greyson had no opportunity to rip Chelor the location of the Dread Forge, nor the identity hiding behind the Hidden Sickle and the procedures to restore him to life.
* * * * *
I used this story to define the background of one of the main NPC for my Ehlissan Campaign, started 4 years ago in Coldeven 597 CY and currently running Reaping 599 CY (it is a dense and complex campaign).
By 2009 late summer, after re-reading Oerth Journal 16, I followed one Scott Casper's suggestion found in his article (Ahlissa, A Greyhawk Gazetteer), where he was wondering about epic subjects to start a campaign in Ahlissa.
The paragraph that lit my brain was the following, found at the end of the section about Adventure in the Principality.
“An even more unusual tact for an epic adventure would be to restore the Principality to the Flan. It may be slightly less impossible than it would seem, for the last Flannae herzog of Ahlissa slumbers in a crypt under Icespire, long since protected by a divine pact between Beory and Telchur. That herzog, if awakened by powerful magic, knows the secret location of Queen Ehlissa’s Marvelous Nightingale. And if the Nightingale were to sing again in the lands of Ahlissa, then Ehlissa’s silver palace would reappear and the queen of old and her castle full of loyal retainers would stir again. Any attempt to return Queen Ehlissa would attract the attention of her old nemesis, Acererak, and that insidious horror has never entirely turned his gaze away from her lands.”
Thanks to this, I started to arrange things to bring down Prince Reydrich Naelax from his seat, involving in the project in some way all the major groups of power of the Principality, lots of NPC driven by obscure plots, many secret cults and sects, competing adventuring parties driven by NPCs of great power to slow down the main campaign plot, hidden locations and artifacts source of great arcane and divine power, and of course, my player’s party.
All this ended up in a very exciting project that involved me almost 16 hours per week, not counting playing sessions, ran on a regular basis on Monday evenings from 9.30 PM to 01.30 AM every week since then.
If You liked this article, I’ll continue to post abstracts from my Marvelous Nightingale campaign on a regular basis. You will find copies of all material I’ll post also on this Blog, The Ineffable Lure of Magic, currently almost empty due to the fact that until now I organized all the playing materials using Google Drive and a dedicated Google Site.
I posted this here because, like the most of You, I’m a long time player and, being also a seasoned GM, I wanted to start sharing with the community the work I developed in my many years of Dungeon Mastering.
Hope You’ll welcome me as all of You are welcome to me… and excuse me if my english is not perfect: I’m italian, and this is not my mother language.
Fabio “Monty” Montanari
aka PaleMage
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