Battle of the Warlords

The Battle of the Warlords was a series of wars that took place in Duranil in the year 1421 after the successful coups of Ale Mightfang and Varuni the Uniter allowed them to take the lands of two warlords. While it initially began as Ale and Varuni defending their lands, Marko decided to send members of Raven's Mark to disrupt its status quo that favored Jend in retaliation against his many attempts to turn Avia against the Mark. Raven's Mark wound up fostering an alliance between Ale, Varuni, and their two allies in the territory of Salzar the Slaver - a paladin to Bahamut named Merialeth and a merchant with concealed necromancy abilities named Jekser Ah. This alliance would move to oust all other warlords from power - including Jend and his claim to fame, the Magpie's Nest guild.

### Escape to Ale Mightfang's Domain

The lands of Duranil are divided among a pool of warlords who run territories of the land. While rare for these warlords to unite under one banner, there was currently a tentative alliance between most warlords. Jend being one of those warlords, Marko decided it was time to repay his attempt at turning Avia against the guild by shaking up their alliance. He decided to start with a warlord known as Salzar the Slaver - known for spreading propaganda against tieflings and using them as slaves. A party of Carric, Frost, Alaunin, Whipporwhill and Seria went to meet with Merialeth - a paladin who had been helping lead anti-slavery rebellions and liberating tieflings. After gathering some intel, the party went about town to look and witnessed a caravan of slaves being transported. The party ambushed the caravan but made too public of a spectacle in doing so. In the ensuing chaos, Carric and Seria were thrown in jail. With some persuasion from the other three, the two were freed but the party now had to flee Salzar's domain out of fear of being caught. Merialeth had an idea that was risky and uncertain - head to the domain of the newly crowned warlord, Ale Mightfang and seek his help.

The party snuck out the gates thanks to Merialeth's contacts and headed onward. After some travel, they were found by marauders who worked on behalf of Ale Mightfang. The party convinced them of their abilities as adventurers and convinced them to let them meet with Ale. When they arrived at the newly appropriate manor that Ale used as a base, he sized them up and required them to complete a task before he would hear their plea. The party was to head into the base of a volcano and convince a fire giant blacksmith by the name of Grung to relinquish his greatsword.

After some navigating and difficulty with the heat, the party confronted Grung. When words would not work, blades and spells did the talking until Grung was beaten to submission. Upon sparing him, the party convinced Grung to relinquish his blade and forge weapons for Ale Mightfang. More than impressed by the party's work, the party told their story and Ale told them of Duranil's politics. Duranil had a tentative alliance between the previous six warlords. Ale had landed on the territory of one of those warlords and  led a coup when said warlord tried to take advantage of him via exorbitant docking prices. North of his territory, a woman known as Varuni the Uniter had united many of the undermountain dwellers under her banner when she helped them stave off mindflayers then took that momentum to dethrone the warlord there.

Ale was willing to invade Salzar's territory but first he needed to ensure his rivalry with Varuni would not cause problems.

### Uniting with The Uniter

Realizing what must be done, the party ventured on north to the domain of Varuni the Uniter. Convincing the guards that they were envoys of good will from Ale Mightfang, they were sent to a site where Varuni needed their assistance - a tower of arcane magics being held hostage by a silver dragon. The dragon seemed to refuse to leave from the tower to negotiate with Varuni and she was uncertain how heavy the losses from sending soldiers up would be. Upon meeting the party, Varuni agreed on brokering a compromise with Ale - with Marko as the arbitrator - as long as the party got the dragon out of the tower.

After navigating all sorts of arcane traps and mechanisms, the party found not a fierce, malicious killer but a child hiding an injured wing. Doing what they could top treat the wing, they learned that the dragon's name as Mihail and that he had to flee his home when the warlord Jend unleashed a powerful plague on the dragons and invaded. Wanting to help the dragon, the party escorted the dragon out of the tower and pleaded with Varuni to not kill him. She decided that she would take the dragon as Ale's peace offering and give him a home by her throne - planning to battle train him as a mount when he recovered.

With peace brokered, the party returned to Ale Mightfang - who gave them transport back to the guild and diligently endeavored to broker an alliance with Marko, Merialeth and Varuni to turn Duranil's rulership on its head.

### A Mysterious Merchant

The plan to invade Salzar's domain was simple: let the alliance of Varuni and Ale stir the other warlords into fortifying their own individual defenses while Merialeth mobilized the anti-Salzar groups into a rebellion. The rebellion would cause enough of a stir to let Ale slip forces in to invade while Varuni helped both herself and Ale keep strong defenses. However, Merialeth received a letter from a mysterious merchant named Jekser who was willing to be a benefactor for the anti-Salzar movements but needed two favors done for her first. The benefactor had two requests to prove the guild's loyalty to the cause: clear a hidden yet abundant diamond mine of her competitor's mercenaries and secure the mine under her name. The party of Neriana, Raoul, Carric and Frost went to help this benefactor.

Upon reaching the mine, the party had made work of the mercenary camp guarding it - even not letting their warnings of Jekser's intentions with the diamonds shake their resolve. The mine itself held greater terrors as evident by the rumbling they felt from outside the cave. When they ventured in, a horde of bulettes that made their home in this mine sprung at them. After struggling against body slams, powerful bites and strong hides, the party emerged  victorious and went to report to Jekser.

The party then learned that Jekser was a necromancer and leading a group of fellow merchants who studied necromancy - plotting on raising dead as soldiers among the rebellion. After a heavy exchange of compromises between the party, Merialeth and Jesker, they agreed on the following:

* "undead servitude" will be a permissible punishment for the most severe of criminals - enemy soldiers convicted of war crimes would fall under this belt as well
* Merialeth would take over as warlord with Jekser as her trade advisor

With this bolstering of the anti-Salzar forces within his domain, the time to end the reign of the Slaver was nigh.

### Sundering the Slaver

With all pieces in place, the time had come to march. Some members of the Mark would crawl through the tunnels to sneak into Salzar's stronghold while others would help take down Salzar's mechanisms used to attack the riots and help the riots scatter his defenses. The ground team made work of Salzar's attempts to police riots while the underground team found a druid using a magic circle to provide magical help to the defenses to Salzar. After taking down the druid, Salzar was next.

Neri, Liberty, Raoul, Cora, Frost and Alaunin barreled through his mansion - facing down Salzar and the last of his soldiers. After a chaotic battle in Salzar's study - the party managed to thin his numbers and behead him. The party returned to town triumphantly - giving Salzar's head to the freed tieflings to celebrate.

After a night of bloodshed, the streets became a scene of celebration as a reign of tyranny ended and the wish for a benevolent ruler was now to be a reality. Merialeth pledged to mobilize and pressure the warlords facing Ale and Varuni as soon as she could.

### Through the Giants and Trolls

While Varuni continued the fight north against Borin Forgewall to a standstill, Ale realized he needed to carve a direct path to Jend. He decided to start with brokering peace with the giants that lived in the Giant's Nest - the mountain range where members met Grung. Grung warned them of the folly of trying to reconcile the fire giant tribe and frost giant tribe that lived in the mountains but took them to meet with a general of the fire giant tribe - General Durak Fireshield. Due to intel he gained from his scouts that troll-like humans were sneaking around the range, King Fireshield was open to the idea of allying with Raven's Mark, Ale and the frost giants. However, without proof of these beings, there was no way to convince the frost giants to cease hostilities to discuss this new enemy. A party of Cora, Safewater, Raoul, Sunshine, and Erik ventured out of the fire giants' territory to search for signs of these humanoids. Eventually, they found a warband of trolls and worgs led by a smaller, more human-like troll. After a battle, the party managed to kill the trolls and capture the humanoid. The party learned that this person was a member of Magpie's Nest and an experiment of Jend's as a measure of good faith to the trolls - a humanoid infused with troll blood and magic, called a trollkin. With this prisoner safe in the fire giants' hands, the king of the fire giants - King Borgen Flameplate - a meeting with the frost giants would have to be arranged.

The next phase to have a route to Jend was to broker peace with the frost giants. A party consisting of Folly, Erik, Kosj, Raoul, Rathmi, and Safewater went with King Borgren to meet with Chief Korgmun of the frost giants. Their trek took them to the heights of snowy mountains until they encountered a settlement of frost giants and winter wolves. When they arrived, a chorus of bellowing voices and drums accompanied the march of larger than normal frost giants that had three heads instead of one. One particularly larger and more decorated multi-headed frost giant introduced herself as "Chief Korgmun, Alpha Trolleater." After some negotiations, Korgmun agreed to an alliance on two conditions: troll corpses be cauterized by the fire giants for the frost giants to consume and that Raven's Mark prove themselves by doing her a favor. When Korgmun took the blessings of Varpak the Destroyer and performed the ceremonial troll eating for power, a frost giant fled and planned on seeking refuge with the trolls in exchange for giving them intel. The party managed to corner this traitor then subdue her and her pack of winter wolves - killing her and bringing proof to finalize the deal. Now all that was left was to cut through the trolls in their stronghold.

The final step of the plan was to cut through the trolls and establish a base in the desecrated swamp that was once the Wyrm's Nest. Srinshe, Jeezls, Frost, Safewater,, Raoul, and Alaunin swould break into the troll's stronghold as the fire giants and frost giants initiated a siege of it to draw out most of their forces. After cutting their way through various types of trolls, the party made their way to their leader - a two-headed troll with both heads wearing crowns and calling themselves The Queens - guarded by trolls and trollkin. After a fiery battle, the party managed to cut the heads of the Queens off and claim the trolls' fortress - sending those that escaped to retreat into Jend's domain. Now all that was between Ale and Jend was the battleground that Ale would try to fight through - a swamp filled with stray trolls, dragon corpses, and the possibility of Magpie's Nest acting anywhere to make their march hard.

### Unstoppable Uniter vs. Immovable Impediment

With Jend and Merialeth mounting attacks on Jend, Varuni took advantage of Jend's lack of support for Borin Forgewall to make a break into her territory. Mounting victory after victory, the final obstacle to conquering Forgewall's territory was the Rainbow Citadel - a stronghold of Forgewall's design that beguiled intruders with labyrinthine architecture, arcane puzzles, and Foregwall's most devoted soldiers and staff. A party consisting of Sloane, Eris, Kya and Aukan would sneak into the citadel while Varuni led a siege on the fortress to draw her army. Upon breaking their way through the front gates, the party was greeted with a strange message and a green bell resting on a fireplace of green flame:

*"Greetings from General Forgewall! It is*

*Requested that all soldiers, staff and*

*Visitors should ring the*

*Bells six times in*

*Order that*

*You may be admitted"*

Upon realizing that the first letter of each line was the first letter of a color, the party followed the path of flaming portals to rooms with unusual defense mechanisms - such as waltzing helmed horrors made to look like dancing noblefolk, a librarian with a library of animated books, chefs that commanded animated puddings into battle, a room that filled with poisonous gas that required the party to solve riddles and place things on their proper spots to open, a room with a sleeping yeti, a dining hall that seemed to conjure food after it was verbally requested with a devout maid that tried to negotiate with them, and then the party made their way to Forgewall's throne. Despite her attempts to use her magic hammer to conjure walls of stone to separate the party and pick them apart, combinations of enlargement, brute force, and clever use of magical abilities allowed the party to down her soldiers and take her prisoner. After Forgewall's defeat, Mikhail crashed into the room while slugging it out with the yeti and Varuni came to finish the conquest by sitting on the fortress' throne. Forgewall's soldiers surrendered at their now hostage commander's request and the battleground became a place of celebration for the party and Varuni.

With this victory and afterparty, all that was left was Jend.

### The Siege of Magpie's Nest

After Srinshe, Elvyra, Cora, Safewater, and Frost thwarted Jend's plans to resurrect a dead god trapped in a plane that divine and hellish being alike could not enter, the party of recently-crowned divine champions turned their sights on finishing of Jend for good. They met with their allies on the front lines of Duranil to figure out how to deal with Jend's hordes of soldiers, trolls, undead dragons, and top-notch guild members to get to Jend. Gambling on her status as Lathander's champion, Cora had managed to entreat with celestials of Lathander in order to aid in their battle via a *planar ally* spell. Elvyra called on Aurylon's forces to assist. Fighting their way through hordes of loyal guild members, the party found themselves in Jend's experimental chamber of arcane power - something that felt similar to the apparatus he used to resurrect a dead god. Despite a perilous battle between the strongest of Raven's Mark against the strongest of Magpie's Nest and their leader, the party managed to thin Jend's numbers and reduce Jend to his phylactery - which they found out to be a fragmented version of the item that once reduced the land to rubble. Realizing their options were to cast *wish* on the object and risk wiping the continent that they knew as home, the party decided to give the item to the celestials of Lathander to lock it in a celestial vault that requires the unanimous consent of a council of good-aligned deities to even enter.

With this victory, the alliance of Merialeth, Ale Mightfang, and Varuni the Uniter would work to rebuild the war-torn land and create an age where virtue and prowess ruled over the people of Duranil.