The Outer Wards (Mission)

This Mission is part of the Chapter 0 - To Reclaim the Step central storyline. It is Part 1 of the Siege, the very first offensive of the Dawnbringer Crusade against the Keepers of Flux and details not only this attack, but narrates the player characters journey from Azyr to the Step. While any character fits into the mission, it is thematically most matching with Freeguild characters as the offensive itself is a massed ground assault with high expected casualties. Should characters that would be considered lore-wise to be more valuable than the standard foot soldier which to participate in this mission, they may justify doing so by the "this cannot fail" nature of said mission.

For players not wanting spoilers, do not read further ahead.

Opening Narration:

"A Dawnbringer Crusade, a holy mission enacted upon the will of the gods themselves, to venture forth into the many realms and reclaim that which has been lost to us. The Spiral Step, once Vollmund by the memory of Men, Barak-Drekbar in Old Khazalid, and Tor Tirval in the Aelfish tongue, a colossal spire-city within the realm of Chamon housing an ancient arcane device dating all the way back to the Age of Myth. Though by all accounts this device is largely defunct, the potential it holds, alongside the strategic position of the spire itself, makes the Step a worthy target for a crusade if there ever was one. Thousands have answered the call to arms, you among them, each with their own reason and desire, and it is tens of thousands that depart the realm Azyr under the Gold Wheel Banner of the Spiral Restored. The moment is momentous, the cheering crowd heralding your future glory near deafening, the mighty Stormcast Eternals, chosen warriors of the God-King Sigmar, standing ever vigilant in their defense of the Realmgate salute your departure.

Yet passing through the Realmgate is a harrowing experience. In the blink of an eye, your senses are stretched across a thousand miles while simultaneously floating in a void far too small for you to exist within, it lasts only a heartbeat, the stride of a single step, yet as you emerge on the other side your ears pop, your teeth hurt, and your eyes seem overly sensitive to the glaring sun above. The shape of these Realmgates are never the same, in Azyr you stepped through a marble archway crowned with golden statues yet here in Chamon you emerge from what appears to be just the mouth of a craggy cave, completely unremarkable if it were not at the center of a plaza with an entire city built around it. This place is Swartzhafen, the closest of the known and secured Realmgates to your destination and yet still weeks away, the Crusade does not pause here for even a day.

Northward you go across the hard landscape of Chamon. There are always mountains looming in the distance and at times it feels like you are working your way through an unending forest of boulders and crags. The great throng that is the Crusade stretches out in a line that goes unbroken for miles, most travel by foot, some on horseback or in cart and wagon, others reside in entire prefabricated buildings pulled by teams of Aurochs. The logistics of this journey is staggering in its emencity, foodstuffs enough to feed entire cities distributed by hand daily, teams of people over a hundred strong just to manage the storage, transportation, and proper rationing of the water alone. To be a part of such an effort, to even witness it, is awe inspiring yet the question of what horror awaits you that requires such a force lingers as a constant tension at the edge of your mind.

You cross a great river with water the color of bright brass, its bed littered with raw copper ore, traveled by fish with glittering orange scales. As you reach what is marked as the second half of your journey the landscape suddenly shifts, turning from a jagged mountainscape to a sea of swirling gray and white dunes as far as the eye can see. Here the temperature in the day is the same as what you've grown used to, though the sun's glare on the sands is irritating, but at night it suddenly plunges to near freezing. All are forced to wrap their faces with scarves or rags as the gray of these sands is iron powder that threatens to tear scars into your lungs with each unprotected breath. Twice you are hit with a whipping sandstorm that begins without warning and travels quickly blocking all visibility and halting all movement, while it passes over you in less than ten minutes it is a painful and uncomfortable experience that forces everyone to dig the wagons out before the line can continue.

Three days you spend in this desert until finally the ground returns to the hard, ravine-filled, jagged landscape it was before. Then just after the following midday, you see it, The Spiral Step, rising like the hilt of a colossal sword thrust into the realm itself, this tower of stone and steel is situated at the center of a great crater and wrapped with a nimbus of iridescent light. The realization comes with some dismay that simply seeing the target of the Crusade does not mean you are near to it and it takes another two full days of travel before one can be called close. Yet already the leaders of the Crusade are acting in preparation for the siege, reorganizing the battalions and formations, issuing commands and battleplans that will be revised and then revised again in the lead up to the assault.

The current rulers of the Step are a group known as the Keepers of Flux, a congregation of mortal followers of Tzeentch beneath a sorcerous Magister by the name of Avegdathil. Though the obfuscation of the Changer of Ways is potent, the great seers of Azyrheim have been able to glean much of the Step's condition that has been mostly confirmed by preliminary scouting conducted by the Kharadron Overlords. The first major threat that must be addressed if one is to siege the tower is the sorcerous dominion its masters have imposed upon it and much of the surrounding lands. Maintained by heavily guarded totem-wards positioned around the edge of the forests surrounding the outer walls of the city the fell magics of Chaos are especially potent within their reach and any attempt to deploy heavy assets, take formations, or occupy any of the airspace around the tower will be met with ruin.

There is no clean way to approach this, as such Crusade leadership has decided to surround the city and launch a simultaneous massed ground assault on all identified totem locations to prevent the enemy from focusing their sorcery too heavily in any one area. Resistance is expected to be heavy, fighting fierce, and losses high but if the totem network can be successfully disrupted the warmachines of the Crusade can be deployed and the siege can truly begin.

Camp is made in the shadow of the great spire only an hour's march from what is marked as the outer reach of the enemy's forces. Horrible noises drift out from those dark woods, and the mood around the campfire is dour indeed as all know that at dawn, with the sun to your backs, the assault will begin. In your time with the Crusade you have met a great multitude of peoples hailing from nearly every realm but now it would seem that fate has deemed these your companions for the coming battle. Is there anything you would like to do before you settle down for what might be your last living night?"

\*Let Players talk amongst themselves, perhaps introduce their characters, and RP any before-battle activities.\*

(If any player character is skilled in Stealth, they can choose to be part of an advanced infiltration force. If so, have them test Stealth (DN 5:2), to see if they can find an opening in the enemy's surveillance to slip in. They get 2 attempts, failure simply means they join the rest of the players during the assault, success means they do not take part in the charge and instead can place themselves hidden within any of the Zones south of the dotted yellow line during the Crag Fight (they remain hidden to the enemy until they act in any way, which they can choose to do whenever they decide).)

You wake to the sound of war drums, trumpets blare, orders are barked by grim-faced officers and hundreds gather on the dust-swept plain before the rim of the Step's crater. There are a total of only ten places where the mountains that are the rim open up to allow for mostly unobstructed passage into the crater, but these gaps are each miles in length making them hardly a chokepoint. Still the enemy has fortified the region, sporadic outposts dot the outer reaches, built atop the ruins of checkpoints and stations of long before, and gathered a sizable host to meet any who wish to enter their domain. Even by the more generous estimates, this is only a token force of the Keepers total army, clearly they do not consider the gaps to be a defensible position and what remains here is simply to slow the Crusade forces from taking down the totems.

The Crusade army is gathered in loose formation and the instructions given are simple: cross into enemy territory, regroup with anyone else who makes it, and destroy the totem you are assigned to. Crossing into enemy territory is certainly easier said than done, the land leading up to the gap is flat and barren, a veritable no-man's land that will place any encroaching force in the range of not only the Keeper's greater magics but also their arrows and slung warpfire. Once you reach the edge of their lines, they will not be able to target you without endangering their own wards, so all you can do is say a prayer and put as much speed into your legs as you can manage. Are you ready?

\*Crossing the plain will be done in 3 tests, in which each players picks a range of 5 numbers between 1 and 100 (ex: 15-20) and the GM rolls a d100 - if one of the player's numbers is rolled they are targeted by a Tzaangor Bow (Ranged Attack (Average), 5d6, 1+S Damage).\*

With the roar of hundreds of screaming voices the charge begins, the Hellstorm Rocket Batteries fire leaving trails of smoke in the skies above. Most of the rockets explode in the air, as if hitting some invisible barrier, though some make it through and impact somewhere behind the enemy line. It is not long before the enemy unleash their own torrent of fire, arrows and streaking bolts of pink warpflame fill the gap and men begin falling all around with screams of pain.

\*Do first arrow test\*

Progress is being made, and the majority of Crusader forces are still up and running. The sound of your own heart beating in your ears is as loud as any of the explosions rocking the plain. There is a flash to your left, ten men are engulfed in blue flames in the blink of an eye, at least their screams did not last long.

\*Do second arrow test.\*

You've crossed the halfway mark, though the veritable wall of charging soldiers is showing significant gaps now. There is a roiling kaleidoscope of energy in the air above, pale lightning lashes out at random leaving charred scars on the earth and incinerating anyone unfortunate enough to be caught by it. Your target is in sight, a spike of black rock that creates an outward facing crag, there you will have cover from the rain of arrows and fire even if the enemy is not likely to let you linger.

\*Do third arrow test\*

You make it, nearly throwing yourself into the shadow of the spike, your lungs burning and your legs screaming. Of the over sixty soldiers who were part of your section of the charge only (# of players x 2) actually made it. The ground behind you is littered with their bodies, some still cry out in pain, begging for help they know will not come. Already you can hear movement from the other side of the crag, shouts and commands, the enemy is coming and you have a job to do. The totem should be just around the bend, reach it, destroy it, end this madness.

\*Crag Fight - Enemies: 1 Pink Horror, 2 Tzaangor, 5 Kairic Acolytes, 1 Vulcharc (that targets any spellcasters first), and 1 Tzaangor Shaman (not on Disc; this lowers its Armor by 1, Toughness by 3, and Wounds by 2, alongside losing the Disc of Tzeentch Trait) that is preoccupied controlling the totem and does not engage until the players enter its Zone or attack it in some way.

Special: To represent the other soldiers that reached the crags with them, but not bog the fight down with NPCs, each player has 1 Freeguild Soldier (Minion) guarding them - they have the same Defense as the player (as they will step in between any blow to protect them) and being Minions only have 1 Wound. They do not attack, using their Action to Defend their player.\*

The totem is a warped construct of wood, metal, and crystal all fused together into the form of screaming daemonic faces and eldritch symbols that hurt the mind to witness. It crackles with raw energy, radiating a profane heat. The command was to destroy it, and a good swing is likely to do just that, but you also get the feeling doing so will unleash whatever energy the totem is channeling - it could be deadly. How do you wish to proceed?

(The totem is volatile and will explode when destroyed, dealing 5 damage ignoring Armor to anyone within Close Range of it. The totem has 7 Wounds, melee attacks treat all their dice as natural 6s, it responds to any attack that doesn't destroy it with Violent Feedback (Average, 4d6, S Damage) but otherwise does nothing. A caster can attempt to Unbind the totem as if it is a just cast spell, DN 5:2 to successfully destroy the totem (which explodes as normal) and a failure triggers Violent Feedback. If players have a creative solution, such as stacking gunpowder next to it should they have some, then GMs are encouraged to reward it.)

With the totem destroyed there is an immediately noticeable change to the world around you, an ominous pressure lifted from your shoulders, the buzzing of eldritch energy in the air above fading. The totem network is collapsing, though not every assault is successful enough are that the enchantment begins to buckle under its own weight. You are successful, victory is yours this day, but you can feel the lingering effect of your exposure to such energies on your soul.

Everyone receives +1 Doom and +2 Exp.