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]
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Broken Spire Keep [holding and sorting]
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Dawnforge copper mines [Brokenskull Orc handlers]
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The underground sea [toll: one non-spellcasting prisoner]
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The Derro [buying spellcasters]
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City of the Glass Pool [mind flayers]The party took this pipeline apart over the course of a year. 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
Valthor Kade — supreme commander, fighter and cleric of Asmodeus. Led the assault on
Broken Spire Keep and escaped the pursuit.
Lysara Vex — high priestess of Asmodeus. Replaced Markus. Led the rituals at the Mire
altar. At large.
Zorath the Ember — tiefling war mage. Red-skinned, robed, carrying a staff with a flame
burning on the end. Teleported out of the Mire when the fight turned against him.
Dren Shadowveil — spy and assassin. Replaced Tarmon Vale. His job is hunting Silver Raven
couriers. Escaped the pursuit after the battle for the keep.
Dead: 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; the party pursued and killed an enemy mage. Kade and Dren got away.
Their forces in the Spiderfell are significantly weakened. Their command structure is entirely intact.
What the party has cost them
Two lieutenants, 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. The Silver Ravens' assessment stands: not strong enough to take the city yet, and waiting for something.
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. Controls river trade into Fallcrest. Now building a stone wall around the town |
| Nenlast | Besieged and cut off for weeks. 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.