Seven Nations' Alliance

### Binturian Enemies

Dayne, Theo Rothin, Spymaster Aubin, Aetorg Lands, Aiur, Coral City, Dilghao, Jericho, K'Vesten, Narak

## Common Knowledge

There was a recent alliance between nations who had felt wronged by the Binturian Party, with the aim of destroying them and, if possible, replacing them. This coalition was composed of citizens of the Aetorg Lands, Aiur, Dilghao, and K’Vesten, and surviving refugees of the Abyss, Coral City, and Jericho, for a total of seven nations.

## Contributing Factors

### Dayne

Dayne was a K’Vestenite raised by a red dragon, who witnessed some of the worst consequences of the Binturians’ actions. An older Binturian Party nearly killed his draconic mother figure, and later in life he watched his home fall to anarchy after Queen Amity’s death and the usurpation of Hierophant Xaoc. Dayne travelled around Orelisle in search of like-minded people, people who hated the Binturian Party and blamed them for the woes of the world. From this band the Seven Nations’ Alliance was born.

### The Binturian Party

Despite the Binturians’ involvement in major, continent-shifting events (most notably the Fel Invasion), the actions of the Binturian party often erred towards anarchy and even full-on malice. Even as the members of the party departed and new ones with newer, kinder practices joined, a stigma had developed against the Binturian Party as a whole in the minds of many people.

K’Vesten peasants blamed them for the political turmoil that followed Queen Amity’s demise; survivors of Jericho, Coral City, and Narak blamed them for the destruction of their homes; and citizens of the Aetorg Lands, Aiur, and Dilghao resented them for countless violations of their sovereignty and other offenses.

### The Seven Eves

The Seven Eves were a party of adventurers who reunited a few years after the Fel Invasion. Each of its four members (Myrna, Tael, Tirza, and Khazzrak) had some malice for the Binturian Party, but certainly not enough to properly act on it. In many regards, they were considered the Binturians’ equals in capability and efficiency.

## Binturian Involvement

The Seven Nations’ Alliance’s sole purpose was to eliminate the Binturians and install a new faction as the most powerful group of adventurers on Orelisle. The Binturians learned of the conspiracy against them, convinced their would-be replacements to defect, and over the course of a few weeks killed the Alliance’s leadership and its spearhead Dayne.

## Order of Events

### Striking the Bargain

In an Aiurian tavern, two years after the Fel Invasion, Tirza, Tael, Khazzrak, and Myrna were approached by Dayne who offered them a way to prevent the Binturians’ failings from harming anyone again. Only after they accepted did they learn that this way was to eradicate and replace the Binturian Party as a whole. Though they would be killed if they failed in their mission, they would be provided intelligence and arcane equipment from Dayne’s unseen ties to the Seven Nations’ Alliance.

### Meeting the Eves

In order to get closer to the Binturians and learn more about their abilities and current membership, the Eves split and each took on a different job which had been posted at Will’s Tavern. Tirza went to a village in the Amrali Republic afflicted by an illness, and did everything she could to study the disease while lying in wait. Khazzrak delved into a Titani mine in search of missing miners. Myrna investigated disappearing psions at the Barnia Arpeggiato Academy (a world-renowned bardic college), and Tael investigated reports of poaching bears in Adirondicka. By sheer coincidence, all but Tael were assumed to be members of the Binturian Party and treated as such, and since it benefited them no one corrected them.

With the aid of the Eves, the Binturians found that all four issues were connected: a wealthy Titani businessman hired miners and psions into a diamond mining operation, and paid poachers for bear pelts to keep them warm below the ground. Since the mine was directly beneath the Amrali village, its water supplies and soil was tainted by some of their mining equipment and techniques. With this all resolved (either by diplomacy or violence, who is to say), the Binturians and Eves parted on seemingly good terms, and the Eves’ reconnaissance mission was complete.

### Lightning Cube

Now having learned the strengths and weaknesses of the Binturian Party’s more powerful members, the Eves put their plan into motion with the aid of Aiur. Sending a false letter of distress to Will’s Tavern, the Eves claimed to be held in an underground gladiatorial arena in Aiur called the Lightning Cube. The Binturians rushed to their aid, and when Myrna met them just outside the Cube she lured them into a trap that saw all of them captured.

With the Binturians trapped in the Lightning Cube, they were pitted against wave after wave of trapped monsters and highly skilled mercenaries and gladiators, until finally they saw their penultimate foes in the Eves. They soon learned of the Eves’ betrayal, and despite the Binturians’ attempts to learn information or neutralize the situation the Eves opted instead to deploy their final measure: the once-more revived Fist the Puncher, longtime enemy of the Binturian Party. Though Fist was dispatched and slain once again, the Eves and their Aiurian cohorts escaped.

### High Stakes Diplomacy

Kaspar, an informant and ally to the Party, tasks the Binturians with learning more about the Eves to better fight them. To this end, he gives them four enchanted pages taken from Soul Weather, each of which reveals the whole truth of a person once enough information about them is written on it. The party journeyed through Narak, the Aetorg Lands, Coral City, and finally Aiur, learning more about the Eves and the contract keeping them at odds along the way. After leaving a tavern in Aiur-- the same tavern where the Eves entered their agreement with Dayne -- Dayne and the Eves walk in, arguing about the artifacts provided to them. Upon seeing the Binturians, Dayne turns to the Eves and mindfully said “Eve Three” before teleporting away.

As the Eves prepared themselves for a fight, though now they knew that the Binturians knew that they didn’t want to do this, the Binturians completely surrendered. Weapons clattered to the ground, spellbooks returned to their pouches, and hands went into the air. In knowing the terms of the deal with Dayne, the Binturians believed that with the Eves’ help they could undo their contract and none of them would have to be harmed. With a lot of convincing, and countless gestures of good faith, the Eves agreed to the Binturians’ terms. The Binturians would help the Eves escape their agreement with Dayne, and in exchange the Eves would act as double-agents among Dayne’s allies.

### Stealing a Ballista

Thanks to tips from Tael and Myrna, the Binturians learn of an Artificer working with Dayne who has developed weapons that could seriously harm them. With Myrna acting as support and surveillance, the Binturian Party infiltrated Theo Rothin’s secret Apotheosis vault, and stole the Artifier’s superweapon: an enormous crossbow and three bolts infused with the lost and powerful Sphere of Annihilation spell.

The Binturians disassembled the crossbow, and secreted it and the bolts out of the vault and stowed them away in Sanctuary with Aquano’s help. Meanwhile, other Binturians went to meet with the Artificer Theo Rothin directly, and came to blows with her and the Eves acting as her guard. Theo was defeated, but escaped before she could be slain.

### Slaying the Spymaster

Working again as double-agents, the Eves watched as Spymaster Aubin, the steward to Dilghaoan Lord Huldrek, sent false distress letters to Meredith, Sinbad, and N’Ras. Upon their arrival in Dilghao, all three were captured and tortured. The Eves could not send for the Binturians during this time, as the Spymaster had them under intense surveillance. Only with letters for information from the Order of Wakeful Sleepers, the N’Rasi government, and Soul Weather do the Binturians learn of their whereabouts and predicament.

The Binturians travel to the Dilghaoan town of Frunclia, infiltrate Lord Huldrek’s castle, and make contact with the Eves and formulate a plan. Executing this plan, the Binturians rescue their imprisoned allies, confront Steward Aubin, and kill him with the Eves’ help.

### Confrontation in the Binturian Forest

With the Alliance’s leadership in shambles and the Eves presumed dead, Dayne intercepted the triumphant Binturian Party in their home forest and called upon his mastery of nature to barrage them with Binturia’s wildlife and swarms of Owlbears. The Eves intervened on the Binturians’ side, and when Dayne realized that he’d been had he summoned hordes of gryphons, dire bears, dire scorpions, and all manner of other lethal beasts. Just when the Binturians thought Dayne was briefly cornered, he mounted the back of his faithful red dragon (previously in the guise of his cat) to entered the fray himself.

Beating back the tide of the dragons’ flames and Dayne’s arrows, he flew to a further clearing where the full force of the Seven Nations Alliance lay in wait, along with Artificer Theo, a mechanically reborn Spymaster Aubin, and two more dragons (one green and one white). The Eves were quickly pulled behind Alliance lines and captured, and the green dragon spewed a noxious poison over the Binturians, knocking about half of them out, but moments later the Binturian Patron William Wilson teleported away the felled Binturians and in their stead teleported in others.

In the blink of an eye, the Binturians split, with half going deeper into the Seven Nation Army’s lines to rescue the Eves, and the other half going with Aquano to retrieve the ballista and its arcane ammunition in Sanctuary. Once the Binturians and the Eves reconvened, the two legions clashed in earnest. Standing against the combined peasant army of seven nations, a powerful beastmaster, and three dragons, the Binturians assembled Theo’s great crossbow and used its Sphere of Annihilation bolts to fell the three dragons. With Dayne on the ground, he lept from line to line, tree to tree, narrowly avoiding death at the Binturians’ hands, until the army managed to resurrect the white dragon in a futile last-ditch effort to turn the tide of battle.

As Dayne grew weary, and the battle took toll on both sides, a glimmer of salvation echoed across the clearing. The Binturian animus Glenn had exhausted nearly all his mana, and saw the looming deaths of his allies approaching. In a last-ditch effort of his own, he cast the spell Cry of Life to revive all his fallen comrades. Unfortunately, at this time in history, this spell could not discern friend from foe, and thus much of the Alliance’s forces returned too -- including all three dragons.

The Binturians, now on their last legs with dwindling stamina, again killed the dragons, and finally put Dayne in the ground. In the moments before any could secure a final defeat for Dayne, the Binturians teleported him and Tirza elsewhere in the forest. They wanted answers, justification, some reason that they could pull apart and make an ally of Dayne. Whether it would have worked or not, history will never know, for Tirza interrupted their conversation, killed Dayne, and magically severed his spirit. The Alliance army collapsed entirely, some peasants scurrying home and others fleeing to nearby countrysides. The Seven Nations’ Alliance had fallen, the Eves’ contract had been cleared, and the Binturians stood victorious.

## Aftermath

The collective armies that formed the alliance dispersed, with their grievances unsettled for the foreseeable future. In the following months, Dilghao would extend an olive branch to the Binturians through the Courier Pigeon Initiative (though it largely backfired for them).

## Further Information

* Aetorg Lands
* Aiur
* Amity
* Apotheosis Desert
* Aquano Silfedis
* Binturia
* The Binturian Party
* Coral City
* Courier Pigeon Initiative
* Dayne
* Dilghao
* Fel Invasion
* Frunclia
* Gavaar
* Jericho
* K’Vesten
* Meredith Fenn
* Narak
* Owlbear
* The Seven Eves
* Soul Weather
* Starless Nights
* Theo Rothin
* United Sanctuaries of Orelisle (U.S.O.)