It was hoped that with the death of the villainous lizard Reezal-Jul, we had seen the last of the blood-curse that had filled the streets of Crestshade with fiends and corpses.  Alas Moira’s Hope.  The small rural town lays in ruins, and the dead wander its gardens feeding upon the corpses of their former friends and neighbours.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

With the help of one of Count Verandis’s pets, the feline vampire Adusa-Daro, we gather together the few remaining survivors.  It is from them that we learn it was Lleraya, Baron Montclair’s daughter, who brought about this latest atrocity, and that a vampire commander, together with a small retinue of Montclair soldiers, still holds the mayor’s house overlooking the town.

S.K

Rivenspire teeters upon the edge of ruin.  As its armies’ march abroad towards the eternal conflict for the Ruby throne, its people are left without leadership or direction.   Men, Mer and beast are dying across the land in huge numbers, leaving fields abandoned and towns deserted.  Such is the upheaval and unrest that Tamriel itself awakens the warrior dead from their graves to protect the land from the scourge of the living.

S.K

The forsaken Breton burial grounds of Sanguine Barrows have long been overrun by troll and skeever, yet somewhere within these tombs and caverns hides a war criminal who must be brought to justice.

During King Ranser’s war, soon after Emeric had signed his alliance with the Wrothgar Orcs, Ranser’s head of security Gerard Althen, ordered the detainment and slaughter of hundreds of Orc civilians living within Rivenspire’s borders.

It speaks much of the delicacy of diplomatic relations within High Rock that a decade since the end of the conflict and Emeric will neither send his own Lion Guard into Rivenspire nor rely upon the loyalty of the Shornhelm authorities to bring this man to justice.  Instead he contracted a mercenary group, the Rings of Daggers, and they in turn hired me.

For his part Gerard Althen insists that he was only obeying his King’s orders, and that he has spent the last 10 years trying to make amends to the Orc people for his part in the atrocity.  I have not the wisdom or will to hold this man’s ledger to account and adjudicate whether his moral credits outweigh his debt.  I am just here to complete a job and deliver him to others so they might judge his moral crimes and restitutions.

… And I am fully aware that in this one regard, I am no better than he… just following my orders.

S.K

The local patrons of the Dusklight tavern in the wayshrine town of Hoarfrost Downs warn every guest and visitor to steer well clear of the Eastern foothills leading out of town.  For hidden amongst the rocks and crags the unwary traveller may have the misfortune to stumble upon a secluded camp known by the locals as Magdelena’s Haunt.

Magdelena is a hag, an old woman who has long lived in these most inhospitable hinterlands without worry or fear, for she has the certain knowledge that the barrens of Rivenspire hold nothing more terrifying than she. 

A practitioner of nature’s ancient magics that even the long-lived Mer refer to as ‘the old magics’.  Old magic is fuelled not by magicka, but by bloodlust and the savagery of the wilds.  To embrace it is to embrace the darkness of the land, to become unencumbered by compassion or pity or horror.  It twists its user’s body, mind and soul to feed upon barbarity.

This hag may fall to my blade today, but the old magic won’t die… It never dies.  It is the fate of the people of Tamriel to face it again and again, because for all her beauty, for all her splendour, for all she sustains us, Tamriel has a darkness that seeks to devour us, because we in turn must sustain her.

S.K

Surrounded by dusty hills and land inhospitable to crop and livestock, Hoarfrost Downs is a small, unremarkable town that survives only as a waypoint on the Westmark Moor road.  The Dusklight Inn provides modest accommodation for the weary traveller, whilst a small trading tent offers basic supplies, and a blacksmith can sharpen weapons and re-shoe horses.

Altogether it is the kind of town where the locals describe themselves as simple, humble folks.  Where a man may be born, grow old and die without ever encountering ambition.  Nobody is in a hurry here, and nobody aspires, because they have nowhere to go, nothing to buy, and no money to buy it with.

Captain Thayer has the thankless task of finding suitable recruits for the Shornhelm guard from the youth of the town.  Her only options seem to be a reluctant bandit, a love-struck dolt, and a petty criminal with an infamous father.

It is often said that it is the innocent who are the first casualties of war… actually it is the enlisted men and women who are the first casualties.  But when they begin to run short, it is to the unambitious and disenchanted youth of the country to whom that the nobles turn next to proxy their soiled banners upon the battlefields.

S.K