Andrew Cooper Almost too much Awesome.

The Enemy

Two powers on the surface, allied by a contract the party is holding.

The Iron Circle

A mercenary company devoted to Asmodeus, combining genuine military discipline with infernal devotion. For most of the campaign they have been the party's most immediate enemy.

Base: the Dawnforge Mountains, with a semi-permanent camp outside Fallcrest.

The business

The Iron Circle's actual operation is trafficking. Dorakor gave the party the route under interrogation in the Dawnforge mines:

  Caravan raids, kidnappings        [the Spiderfell, the roads]
              ↓
  Broken Spire Keep                 [holding and sorting]
              ↓
  Dawnforge copper mines            [Brokenskull Orc handlers]
              ↓
  The underground sea               [toll: one non-spellcasting prisoner]
              ↓
  The Derro                         [buying spellcasters]
              ↓
  City of the Glass Pool            [mind flayers]

The party took this pipeline apart from the top down, starting in the Spiderfell. They also learned that surplus captives — the ones nobody would pay for — were fed to Araniax's spiders.

The pact

Confirmed at the Mire altar in the Shrieking Mire: the Iron Circle is allied with Gulthias, the Lord of Mist.

The coded letter, decrypted by Jocelin:

"Contact established with the Lord of Mist. Vale to confirm Gulthias' pact at Mire altar. High Circle arrives in four days."

The party recovered the signed contract itself and handed it to Banner.

Command

Still at large

Valthor Kade Valthor Kade — supreme commander, fighter and cleric of Asmodeus. Led the assault on Broken Spire Keep and escaped the pursuit. He is the last of the Iron Circle's named leadership still alive.

Killed in the Spiderfell

All three died in the battle the Iron Circle brought to Broken Spire Keep.

Lysara Vex Lysara Vex — high priestess of Asmodeus. Replaced Markus, and led the rituals at the Mire altar. Killed in the Spiderfell.

Zorath the Ember Zorath the Ember — tiefling war mage. Red-skinned, robed, carrying a staff with a flame burning on the end. He teleported out of the Mire when that fight turned against him, and did not get away a second time. Killed in the Spiderfell.

Dren Shadowveil Dren Shadowveil — spy and assassin. Replaced Tarmon Vale, and his job was hunting Silver Raven couriers. Killed in the Spiderfell.

Killed earlier

Markus, priest of Asmodeus, who ran Broken Spire Keep, escaped the party twice and was killed in a night attack in Fallcrest. Tarmon Vale, spy-hunter, killed over a courier's satchel in a Fallcrest alley.

The battle for Broken Spire Keep

Roughly 150–200 troops against the keep and 50 against Goblintown, sent to remove the "upstarts in the forest."

The party's twenty human guards and fifty goblins destroyed them. Kade tried to withdraw and the party pursued.

Lysara Vex, Zorath the Ember and Dren Shadowveil all died in that battle. Kade got away.

The Iron Circle lost its army in the Spiderfell and three of its four remaining leaders in the same day. Valthor Kade is what is left.

What the party has cost them

Five of its six named leaders, a stronghold, a portal, an army, a signed contract now in enemy hands, at least seven mercenaries fed to a giant spider, and the entire prisoner pipeline.

Where they stand

No contact since the party went north. The camp outside Fallcrest was looking permanent the last time anyone was there, and the Silver Ravens' reading of it was that the Circle was not strong enough to take the city and was waiting for something.

That was before the Spiderfell. Whether a company that has lost its field army and all but one of its commanders is still sitting outside Fallcrest, nobody has been back to see.

Gulthias

Gulthias Vampire lord. The Lord of Mist. Seat: the Mist Tower at Fastormel.

An ancient vampire, entombed in a stone sarcophagus beneath the Gulthias Tree in the Sunken Grove of the Sunless Citadel.

The party let him out. Kvothe burned the tree, the trunk split open over the sarcophagus, and he opened the lid out of curiosity.

Front Action
Territory Holds Fastormel, at the outflow of Starfall Lake. That is the head of the Eel Run, which feeds Lake Wintermist and the Sapphire River down to Fallcrest. Now building a stone wall around the town
Nenlast Besieged and cut off for a little over a week. Siege lifted as a term of the truce
The Iron Circle Pacted. Confirmed at the Mire altar; the party recovered the contract
Zytherion A young black dragon, bought with the promise of becoming a dracolich
The Shrieking Mire Building a ritual portal to move undead forces
The Winterbole Tribes Courted them via an emissary, Vareth the Pale Voice
The Shadow Bear Raising tribal ancestors from their barrows

What he offered the tribes: vengeance against the southlanders in exchange for living warriors who can fight during daylight hours.

His officers

  • Varnak the Hollow — vampire lieutenant. Killed by the party at the Ruined Temple of Gozreh. His body was carried off by Zytherion. His last order was keep Agatha alive, kill the rest, and nobody knows why.
  • Vareth the Pale Voice — his emissary to the Winterbole Tribes, working out of a lone grey yurt set apart from the four camps. The party never met him. Withdrawn intact as a term of the truce.
  • Caldris — the wight who commanded the siege of Nenlast, and who is now in the party's marching order.
  • Zytherion — young black dragon, not very big, pacted to Gulthias and guarding the Mire portal. It took Varnak's body, negotiated with the Iron Circle's High Circle on Gulthias's behalf, nearly killed a party member, and told them not to come back.
  • A winter wolf in the Winterbole that talks, takes over ordinary wolf packs, and reports to Caldris. It escaped the fight outside Nenlast.

The phrase

The runed stone recovered from the Shrieking Mire spoke when Ysolde Flint touched it:

"From mist to mist the dead shall march."

Nobody has worked out what it means.

The truce

Since the 30th of Autumn, the party and Gulthias are allies of convenience.

He walked out of the mist himself to propose it, having concluded that the womp womp — "the one below" — was disrupting his designs more than anything the party had managed. He expected the psychic attacks to get more specific, and he wanted them stopped.

What he gave What he keeps
Halted all current dealings and attacks Fastormel, the river, and the trade through it
Lifted the siege of Nenlast — Caldris dismissed the army in person The tribes' formal resolution not to oppose him so long as he stays south
Returned the tribes' ancestors' bodies to the clans A live line into the party, in the person of Caldris
Withdrew Vareth from the tribal council
Loaned the party Caldris as guide and liaison

In exchange, the party go below and find out what is causing the womp womp, and both sides make joint cause against whatever is down there.

What ends it: nothing in the terms says. The pact is scoped to the womp womp — he halts "currently", and once the party bring back information the two sides "discuss next steps." There is no expiry, no penalty clause, and no stated condition for what happens afterwards — at which point the party have a vampire consolidating a walled town on their northern flank and no further use to him.

The party cannot end this alliance unilaterally without giving him back everything he suspended.