Iron and Sorrow: Episode 01

### YouTube VOD

***Iron and Sorrow* Episode 1** was streamed on Arcadum's Twitch channel on September 9, 2019.

## Summary

*Summary taken from Google Docs made by User:Rxvenfeather*

The party arrives through a steampunk portal with Tesla coils and some copper and gold-plated piping into what looks like an abandoned factory or warehouse of some kind. The ground and walls appear to be gray stone that has been cracked and broken apart, and there is a rusted catwalk overhead. The room is littered with wooden crates and broken machinery. They mess with some buttons and levers that cause the electricity within a tesla coil to spin, leading them to leave it alone.

While exploring, they discover lots of crates with various otherworldly items, including a silver-colored metallic sand, copper wire, bullets, rifles with bayonets, grenades, some type of green corrosive acid, a sink with rusty brown water, glass cups, jars of strawberry jam, a crate of soda that gives them haste, and an empty cardboard box which becomes Alice’s new helmet. Dhax finds a pocket watch with some twine on the end of the string instead of a clasp or brooch. They attempt to read a stack of papers, and Horras attempts to contact Runethares to learn the language, but there is no response and they are unable to understand the strange, perfectly spaced script. They bring it with them to decipher later. Dhax finds a swivel chair and Horras pushes him around the room before breaking it.

When they finish looking around, the party heads outside to find a ruined city entirely unfamiliar to them. The air is filled with smog and silt, and the ground is dry and rocky. They find a massive barricade of destroyed houses and machinery, a broken stone bridge with street lines and a metal structure bridging the chasm the bridge was supposed to cross. After climbing onto the bridge, they get a view of the city beneath, which is covered in an ugly green smog.

Just then, Alice feels undead nearby, and a terrible shriek pierces the air as a mob of blood bound appear from the wreckage and begin to leap towards the group with the ribs spilling out of their chest cavities. Some of them impale themselves on rebar, but continue running. The party decides to get right out of there, drinking the soda to give themselves some extra speed to cross the precarious metal bridge. Horras trips and nearly falls into the chasm, but Dhax jumps down to grab him and thundersteps back upwards without losing momentum as the party continues their sprint.

As they reach the edge of the bridge, it begins to give way and fall out from beneath them, forcing them to make one final jump towards the other side. Most of the party makes it, but Horras slips and lands on a piece of rebar, wrenching himself free to make it the rest of the way. While some of their pursuers fall, others clung to the cliffside and continue to climb their way up. On the other side, a barely standing structure contains a massive pile of bone and an undulating egg-like structure, which fires out a barbed tongue attempting to consume Archibald as the party sprints past. Luckily, the rogue easily slides under it and continues to run.

As the chase continues, it gets harder to breathe as the smog grows thicker. Horrible shrieks split the air as hundreds more undead begin to flood into the streets. With no other hope, the party keeps sprinting towards a tiny set of glittering lights. At what looks like a dead end, they dive into a small crevice in a heap of scrap metal as the horde of undead slam into it behind them, collapsing the opening behind them. Their limbs snapping and tearing, the pursuers snap off pieces of themselves in an attempt to chase further.

Appearing on the other side of the barricade, more begin to leap down on top of them from a nearby rooftop, but they are rescued by a hooded man clad in a black coat and a plague doctor mask, who fires an explosive at the building before beckoning our heroes to follow. As the party moves to shelter behind him, he cooks the creatures alive with a flamethrower before pushing them into a moving train car and pulling the door shut behind him just in time as the undead slam into it in a fit of scratching and clawing. It subsides as the train gets up to speed.

As the train continues to move westward, the setting outside shifts from the ruined city to a dusty grassland. Their savior introduces the party to Letol Flarde, the leader of a group of survivors called Iron Maiden, who injects them with a psych-kinetic substance that allows them to understand and speak the spoken language of Azengolt, although they still can’t read it’s written language. As he goes to inject Alice, it doesn’t work because Alice is a Dhampir, so she is given a special injection that restarts her heartbeat.

He explains that the train is called the Iron Maiden, and serves as their “stalwart protector as they travel the lands of Azengolt”. He also explains that they are located South of the Blackened Sea in a place called Narse. Letol introduces them to the rest of the group, which consists of himself, the party’s savior Adrian Vayne, their resident sniper Veil, and their Eldar, whom he describes as a “precious commodity”. He explains that the Eldar are an immortal race that carry with them centuries of wisdom and reveals that they are not the first group of adventurers to arrive from Kalkatesh.

Azengolt is much more technologically advanced than Verum, but their wars consumed the magic on their planet, allowing the Depthar to arrive from the stars. He explains that Azengolt is locked in a conflict of life vs death, survivors vs the Depthar hivemind, and that it’s a battle they are constantly losing. This group was sent on a mission by Principus Prime to find an ancient power generator that could power the shields of the city of Argoth. Letol invites them to train in Azengoltian weapons, which are equivalent to guns. Arcadum then goes out of character to explain the new mechanics and things about the world.

* Characters will still advance in their normal classes, but will also advance in their Powered archetype. Weapons from the old world (axes, swords, etc.) are considered “Ancient” and are still effective, but may be utterly useless against certain enemy types. Items with the “Powered” property will be effective against everything.
* Faith-based spells are now cast using Processed Faith, which can be refilled with Faith Canisters. Arcane casters have a similar mechanic with Arcane Vessels.
* If you find somebody alive, they are *always* your ally against the Depthar. This doesn’t mean they are your friend, but they will recognize the Depthar as the greater threat.
* The Depthar become more powerful as their host lives longer. Because Eldar are immortal, their infection is extremely dangerous. None have turned undead since the infections began since they are executed as a holy and solemn duty if they get anywhere close to being infected. The Eldar know and accept this as necessary to protect the living. The Azengoltians are unhappy about having to do this because every Eldar’s death means the loss of gigantic amounts of wisdom and knowledge. While they live, the Eldar provide grace, spiritual guidance, and tremendous power to the living as wells of magical energy.
* The Eldar on the Iron Maiden is a seer, which means she can give hints as to the future.
* The party can succeed in the campaign by either helping the Iron Maiden all the way to the end of their mission or by gathering enough energy to return home to Kalkatesh through the portal they arrived in.
* Arcadum tells them not to worry about their current stats and skills when choosing their archetype. The normal stats will matter for some stuff, but not too much.

## Featured Characters

### Main Characters

* Alice Price
* Archibald Niles Kranebeard
* Dhax
* Horras Venril
* Lene

### New

* Adrian Vayne
* Alosondoria
* Letol Flarde
* Veil