The Russian Campaign

**The Russian Campaign** took place in Russia, one of the nations on the planet of Zemlya. It centered around an effort by the Knights Mercantile to expand its influence within the Russian Empire by liberating the Russian city of Dalcia from the Aeldrum Trade Company's control, which culminated in the Second Battle of Dalcia.

## Summary

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### End of Campaign

The party narrowly avoided causing a Shambler pandemic across the Russian Empire, seized the city of Dalcia and the nearby etheric gate from the Aeldrum Trade Company, expelled the ATC from Russia and devastated its retreating fleet using a band of dwarven privateers and saved the imperial throne by introducing a steady supply of foreign grain to combat famine in Moscow.  The Order of the Knights Mercantile now possesses an exclusive right to trade with the Russian Empire and continues to enrich itself both by controlling the export of Russian silk and the majority of Russia's urban food supply.  The Knights Mercantile essentially control the only viable stopgap against Russian famine and the principal avenue for agricultural re-development (i.e. through machine and fertilizer imports), giving them vast leverage over the Russian financial system as well as the operations of several private companies held by Russian magnates.

A few short months after the victory at Dalcia, the KM Charter in Russia is already projected to show first-year profit of more than a million crecibles, despite an initial free-fall of expenses and mounting debt (mostly taken on in secret by Mr. Tenskwetawa).  The five-year prospectus forecasts profits in the tens of millions.

The present influence of the Knights Mercantile and, indeed, the very survival of the Russian Empire, is owed to the efforts of a handful of adventurers.  Some have a legacy beyond the KM Charter in Russia, but all contributed to the course of events, and their fates are recorded below:

"Mr. T" "Towelie" Tenskwetawa - After the battle of Dalcia, Mr. T. continued his leading role in negotiations with the Tsarevich and established contracts for silk and grain trade on behalf of the KM.  He was soon promoted to Secretary General of the Russian Charter of the Knights Mercantile and, despite himself, came to manage one of the most profitable operations among the KM's vast holdings (he accepted the position only after confirming the death of one Vinni Vitali).

Dr. Hans Schulz - After the battle of Dalcia, Schulz oversaw the (controlled) improvement of the Russian arms industry while the Knights Mercantile established new agreements with the tsarevich.  With the publication of the five-year prospectus for the Russian Charter, he sold his share for enough money to buy his way out of any obligation to the Knights Mercantile and to secure backup identities for his backup identities.  Finally free of his past and with a small fortune left over, Schulz became a freelance inventor, selling an improved version of his bolt-action rifles to his old clients, the Fialta States, and rolling the lucrative contract over into new projects.  New formulas for poison gas, improved containment chambers for hydrogen-propelled rounds, better belt buckles — all now sprang from the fertile mind of Dr. Hans Schulz (or his many namesakes on worlds that maintain extradition treaties with the German government).

Dr. Ingrid Gewerschmidt - After the battle of Dalcia and the successful quarantine, Ingrid returned to the Lubyanka, where she continued her research. With the crisis alleviated, however, the investigations of the Secret Department into her work became increasingly tiresome, and it was apparent that Russia's principal redeeming quality — the abundance of test subjects, would soon diminish. Unwilling, perhaps, to leave a trail for anyone in Russia to follow, Ignrid staged an elaborate suicide and disappeared from all active record of the Russians or even, as far any interested member of the Russian Charter could find, the Order of the Knights Mercantile.  Though her true legacy would remain forever hidden from the Russian people, a devoted collection of former research subjects moulded to Ingrid's will during her Lubyanka projects saw to it that a somewhat more favorable account of events would spread into Moscow and, perhaps, across Russia.  So was born the Cult of Ingrid, the fastest-growing religion in the Russian prison system.

Jabragu'ul of Clan Zangul - Jabragu'ul did not fall in battle, though his would have been a glorious death, having scythed through man and shambler alike in the assault and quarantine of Dalcia. In his triumph over the latter lay in his undoing; though wary enough not to feast on the putrid remains of these ambling foes, he could not avoid their infectious bile, which seeped into him. The process of his degeneration intrigued Ingrid, who took copious notes on the effect of the plague on a non-humanoid. She concluded that the partially eldritch nature of the Shambler Plague enabled it to transcend biological divides that might prevent lesser diseases from affecting the predatory reptile.  Whatever the mechanism, Jabragu'ul withered, then bloated, then took a bullet to the skull. His quest failed and his people languished in servitude to their conquerors.

Mickey "Chalupa" Finnegan - Finnegan died standing or, rather, prone but about to stand and certainly fighting to the last.  Few ever heard or knew of his death, but many felt its consequences. A young soldier, who had built himself in Finnegan's image, found himself the warden of Finnegan's estates and, most importantly, the Irishman's share of the Russian Charter.  Finnegan's heir walked away from his Russian adventure a rich man, seized by grief. He found solace in honoring his mentor, through charities for war veterans and drunkards and, ultimately, by living the free life that Finnegan had encouraged him to lead. If Finnegan had a legacy, it was in the men he had mentored, one preceding him in death, the other lasting well after him; the Irishman's example was one of the folly of pride, of bristly honor, but also of decency and resilience in the company of scoundrels and killers.

Barnaby - A simple death for a simple creature: a rickshaw loaded with explosives thrown into the gate of mansion with too little clearance for the thrower. Barnaby the yeti left behind a fine collection of half-eaten books and a pelt that would have been luxurious and warm had it not been ruined by burning alcohol.

Cameron Hidalgo - Cam died against the Iron Shoes gang in the course of the party's war with the Dalcian Opium Cartel.  Outside of a small town on the border between Texas and the Empire of Mexico, few would remember his name. Two outside that town, however, carried it until their last day — his protegees, Buck and Dalan, having fallen in with The Commission after the death of their mentor, were part of the evacuation of Dalcia as the plagued worsened and the Russians drew near.  Buck did not leave the city alive, but Dalan escaped, and returned weighed by wealth and regret (both diminished slightly by a few gambling and drinking stops along the way) to that little town on the border, before setting off again to follow Cam's example.

Nat - Nat was buried in a shallow grave by the railroad tracks, beaten to death by the Dalcian Communists. They (as it turned out) left little to speak of: a governess who had conspired to kill them (and drawn them away from home to allow a "clean" assassination of their parents), a confused mafioso who forgot about "her" shortly after leaving Russia and comrades who never knew much of them in the first place. Perhaps their most significant legacy was in the memory of a merry squad of Russian frontiersmen who, in-between grossly exaggerated tales of bear-wrestling and other vodka-induced stunts, would recount the story of a young mute who had saved a train from a communist bomb plot.

Roy Stallion - Roy died as he lived: overestimating himself. Yet in death, he took on a lasting meaning for at least one other: while his small personal fortune had been promptly claimed by Mickey Finnegan, a certain hostel-owner named Beatrice, who survived the four ravagings of Dalcia (first by the Shambler plague, then by the cleansing efforts of the ATC, then the wrath of the Russian guns and, finally, the massacre of the Dalcians during the week of lethally enforced quarantine), claimed to be the rightful heir to whatever pennies and gag gadgets she imagined he had amassed. Her entreaties to what passed for the law in a Dalcia under reconstruction fell on deaf ears at first, but she caught the attention of one former soldier who had known both men and now had more money than he knew how to spend; one evening, as she returned to the ruin that had been her hostel, she found a package containing a small fortune and a sheaf of oddly sharp playing cards. Beatrice would go on to open a successful chain of inns throughout the fast-spreading rail stations of Russia: the Stallion Railside Hotel Company.

Frederick Hopkins - Hopkins's grief at the death of Commander Finnegan was matched only by the vast fortune he derived from the Russian Chapter, both as one of its officers in his own right and as Finnegan's heir. Years after the events of the Second Battle of Dalcia, a now retired Hopkins wandered the streets of Aeldrum and saw in a passing elf the ageless beauty that had captured Roy's attention in the casino car of a Russian train so long ago (or so Finnegan's faithful corporal had heard); at her side was a young boy, half-elven and with Russian features unmistakable to any who had spent so long and lost so much in that country.  Hopkins followed her to a small trade store, which he discovered she owned; he inquired about her travels, her son (and then the fate of a brother she claimed to have lost), any items she might recommend. At last, he offered her an artefact in his possession (though he would never call it his own), explaining in what little Russian he could remember:  "Arcane Rapier - Never Drawn in Battle, Free to a Rightful Heir."