The following chronology traces the major adventures of the Brass Blades between the destruction of the Brass Bastion and the Harrowing, including the discoveries, alliances, enemies, and personal events that shaped the rebuilt company. During those years, the Blades grew from a handful of survivors and new recruits into an organization whose actions affected events across Patoris and beyond.
The Fall of the Brass Bastion
By 8751 SE, the Brass Blades had operated from Elgaard for thirty years. Davrek Valzorwyn accepted a contract conveyed through Brenton Woolfe on behalf of Darieth Ariessus and the Ariessus family. The Blades were to find or plant evidence connecting Luther Mortanas to the disappearance of Relvan Ariessus. What appeared to be another dangerous but profitable political job was actually a challenge to someone far more powerful than the company understood.
Mortanas retaliated by destroying the Brass Bastion and killing most of the Blades involved in the operation. Davrek and Phelps were the only members on the job to escape. The Ariessus household was attacked at roughly the same time, leaving Darieth believing that most of his family had been killed. Davrek and Phelps fled Elgaard for Trinswood, while Darieth independently made his way toward the same town.
Trinswood and the Reforged Company
The survivors’ paths converged at an inn in Trinswood. Abendigo was there pursuing his own magical studies, Chan Kong-Sang had arrived after fleeing the Leopard Song Order, and Darieth was exhausted from his escape. Tusky, whose search for Fenro had drawn him into the region, also became part of the group during this period.
An attack by lycanthropes turned the gathering into a fight for survival and left the inn burned. The people who fought together there became the core of the rebuilt Brass Blades. Davrek and Phelps brought the company’s name and surviving history; the others brought personal problems that soon became inseparable from the Blades’ larger conflict with Mortanas and Zhaken Amberheart.
Before returning to Elgaard, the new company took on smaller work while learning to operate together. Among these early adventures was the destruction of three two-headed giants that had been raiding settlements and using an old ruin as a lair. The expedition gave the group money, equipment, and their first experience functioning as a company rather than a collection of people thrown together by the attack at Trinswood.
The Road to Elgaard
On the road back toward Elgaard, the Blades encountered a traveling circus operated by the Swampboggle sisters, three hags using the attraction to prey on travelers. A magical carousel drew years of life from its riders and transferred that vitality to the hags. The Blades uncovered the deception, defeated the sisters, and ended the operation.
During the same journey Tusky suffered his first transformation after contracting lycanthropy. Once the company reached Elgaard, local mages were able to cure him. The episode became particularly significant when the city itself later came under pressure from organized lycanthrope attacks.
Ariessus, Woolfe, and Shadowmere
Back in Elgaard, the Blades searched both the abandoned Ariessus home and the ruins of the Brass Bastion. Their investigation led them back to Brenton Woolfe, the intermediary who had passed Darieth’s contract to Davrek. The confrontation became violent enough that Darieth killed Woolfe, after which the party restored him to life and continued questioning him.
The evidence pointed toward Shadowmere Cavern, where the Ariessus family had been harvesting motes of shadow for Mortanas. Inside the cavern, Darieth encountered a being tied to an old pact affecting his family. The encounter severed that pact, and the shadow-touched powers Darieth had previously wielded vanished with it. The Blades learned that the Ariessus relationship with Mortanas had been deeper and older than Darieth had understood, but the full history of the pact remained unresolved.
The Krynhold Expedition
Needing both information and money, the Blades accepted a bounty posted by the governments of Elgaard and Krynhold for an enormous cave-dwelling predator in the volcanic mountains north of the dwarven city. They killed the creature and collected the bounty, then continued into Krynhold in search of someone who could help them understand the symbols and archaeological clues connected to Fenro’s disappearance.
Their investigation brought them to Arcanist Thordahr, a dwarven artificer willing to trade information for assistance. Beneath Krynhold, the Blades found Duergar enslaved by a beholder. They persuaded the captives to cooperate against their master and then surprised the creature in its chamber. Davrek transformed it into a crab before it was plunged into lava, ending the immediate threat.
The caverns also contained a strange column or obelisk associated with much older powers. Davrek and Abendigo experienced visions connected to an entity from the Nascent Expanse, an encounter neither yet had the context to understand. Thordahr later identified the red-hand symbol associated with Fenro’s archaeological work as a sign connected to Zhaken Amberheart.
Adamantis Tower and Fenro
Thordahr’s information led the Blades onto the Aessjorthe Plains in search of Adamantis Tower. Inside they found evidence that Zhaken and Mortanas were cooperating in a larger scheme. At the top of the tower, Fenro was being used in a ritual involving an ancient Ordai mechanism called the Clockwork Heart.
Zhaken completed the attunement before the Blades could stop him. Exposure to the Heart’s vast network of simultaneous rhythms severely damaged Fenro’s mind, leaving him unable to speak or function as he had before. The Blades rescued him, but Zhaken escaped by invoking the tower’s spatial magic and teleporting the entire structure away. Fenro was left in Thordahr’s care while Tusky searched for a way to restore him.
Nmothusin and the Rift Spar
Information recovered during the Krynhold expedition led the Blades to Nmothusin. The inhabitants behaved strangely, and investigation eventually revealed a crypt containing artifacts left by the ancient magic user Talora. Among them were a staff capable of teleportation and a strange key.
The key opened a concealed route associated with the town well. Beyond it, the Blades entered an extraplanar space and recovered the Rift Spar. Soon afterward they witnessed or experienced a vision of an enormous otherworldly tentacle rising from the sea beside Nmothusin. They fled with the Spar and Talora’s staff, carrying an artifact whose importance none of them yet understood.
Abendigo later brought the Rift Spar to Mount Caraphat, an ancient installation involved in maintaining the Twilight Veil. Believing he was preventing a plan already in motion by Zhaken, he used the Spar within the mountain. Instead, the interaction destroyed Caraphat’s protective work and weakened the Twilight Veil in the region. The failure became one of the critical steps that made later contact with the Nascent Expanse more dangerous.
The Lycan Raids and Herzeiros
When the Blades attempted to teleport back into Elgaard, a new ward prevented them from entering the city directly. Guards at the gates were using divining rods as part of emergency security measures during the Lycan Raids of 8752 SE. One of the rods reacted to Phelps, and he was arrested. Using detailed maps prepared by Zackon Truehelm, the rest of the Blades ambushed the prison caravan and rescued him.
The company became entangled with Ronin Meruvis and the Moon’s Shadow, both of whom were involved in the lycanthrope crisis and in the struggle surrounding Mortanas. The Blades ultimately used those relationships to dismantle Mortanas’s political support in Elgaard and complete the Ariessus contract in a way that exposed much more than the original job had anticipated. They learned that Relvan was alive but had been made a vampire and uncovered evidence that Mortanas had been conducting magical procedures on abducted citizens.
The Blades were also drawn into a clandestine network operating beneath Elgaard around Herzeiros. When they first reached the network, Herzeiros was too weak to meet them. The company descended into the Underdark to obtain a rare medicinal fungus from a remote fungal sanctuary and returned with the material needed to restore her strength enough to speak with them.
During their subsequent audience, Herzeiros examined the pattern behind their recent discoveries: ancient Qhalleessean systems, the Rift Spar, Zhaken’s research, and repeated signs of danger from beyond the Twilight Veil. She recognized that the incidents were not isolated problems and warned the Blades that they were moving through the remains of a much older catastrophe. Akari Taiss, who had been working with the same underground network, crossed paths with the company during this period and traveled with them for a time.
Reforging the Brass Blades
With Mortanas’s position in Elgaard damaged, Davrek formally assumed the title of Blade Commander. The company established a new base near Trinswood, including a keep and a mining enterprise that provided the reforged Blades with a more stable foundation. Surviving members Bozas Dask and Zackon Truehelm also returned to the organization.
The old Brass Blades had effectively died with the Brass Bastion. The new company kept its name and traditions, but its identity was increasingly shaped by the people who had met at Trinswood and by the enemies and allies they had accumulated since then.
Odravos and Relvan Ariessus
Finding Relvan did not solve Darieth’s problem. Mortanas had made him a vampire, and the Blades needed a way to reverse a condition that ordinary healing could not remove. A vision led Darieth toward the Iron City, seat of the Master of Appointments on the Second Depth of Vharath.
In Odravos the Blades uncovered records showing that Mortanas had been sending stolen mortal souls into Vharath for centuries. His experiments in Elgaard were part of the development of a much larger harvesting operation. The records revealed the scale of the traffic but not the unusual method by which Mortanas could seize souls without conventional infernal contracts.
Darieth negotiated with Azradel, chamberlain to Vezhuran, the Master of Appointments. In exchange for Relvan’s cure, Darieth surrendered the eventual claim to his own soul and accepted future infernal service. Azradel provided an Elder Succubus whose specialized knowledge allowed her to separate the supernatural condition sustaining Relvan’s vampirism. Relvan survived and was able to give the Blades additional information about Mortanas.
Danto and the Defense of Entwood
The Blades’ attention increasingly shifted toward the wars spreading through the Djozanates of the Kenai Mountains. Refugees were reaching Elgaard, and Entwood stood directly in the path of expanding violence. At Tusky’s urging, the company traveled to Danto and asked its government for military help.
With a letter from Elgaard’s court wizard and Tusky’s knowledge of his homeland, the Blades argued that unchecked aggression in the Kenai Mountains could eventually threaten Danto as well. The Pradhan of Danto and Sabha of Danto accepted the argument and authorized an unusual foreign deployment. A division of Danto’s army was sent to help defend Entwood.
In Entwood the Blades learned that Mortanas had once spent time in the city and that some of his history could be reconstructed there. They also fought in the city’s defense, captured an enemy prisoner, and worked with the Council of Entwood and local military leadership. Nicomachus Ruanar asked them to obtain crystals needed for a defensive plan, sending the company beneath the Kenai Mountains.
Gorneduhr and Terl’Narquel
The search for Shriekstone took the Blades to the abandoned dwarven city of Gorneduhr. There they met Veris Imilar, a halfling scholar and storyteller traveling under a name different from the one he had been born with. Veris joined the expedition and remained with the company afterward.
The expected Shriekstone had already been removed. Following newly cut tunnels, the Blades descended into the Underdark and eventually reached the Drow city of Terl’Narquel. They discovered that the material had been taken by the clandestine revolutionary organization Venorik Killianen. When the Blades’ infiltration was exposed, they found themselves badly outnumbered and escaped with only a fraction of the Shriekstone they had hoped to recover.
The Fist of Beskatel
Nicomachus developed an alternate defense after the Blades returned with too little Shriekstone. During the next assault on Entwood, Tusky and Darieth operated the Fist of Beskatel while the rest of the company fought elsewhere in the city.
The defenders eventually discovered that part of the attacking army was concealed beneath a large-scale illusion. A force of Drow had been made to appear as troops from the Djozanates. Breaking the working and defeating the wizards sustaining it exposed the deception and threw the assault into chaos, weakening the wider campaign against Entwood.
The Dancing Hut
The Blades next pursued a more personal set of goals. With help from Rof Riverflame, they found a ritual that allowed them to reach the Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga. The interior extended through rooms that did not correspond to the hut’s outward dimensions and subjected the company to a succession of strange trials before they finally reached Baba Yaga herself.
She granted the Blades wishes and allowed them to draw from an enchanted deck whose effects were powerful and unpredictable. The bargain cost the group dearly, but two long-running goals advanced. Abendigo obtained an object that opened the next stage of his search for temporal magic, while Tusky was able to restore Fenro’s damaged mind.
The Cult of the Stars
After returning from the Dancing Hut, the Blades found the Huraz Confederation and Tadrium moving toward war. The Cult of the Stars had accumulated influence among important tribal leaders and within the increasingly centralized institutions of Qaranth. The company reunited with Akari, whose brother Saajid Taiss had joined the Cult.
With Akari’s help and assistance from Dardzada Tariq, the Blades traced the Cult’s leadership to a pyramid east of Qaranth. There they found Zhaken directing a ritual in which Saajid was sacrificed and the Rift Spar was used to reach toward the Nascent Expanse. The working established a relationship that Othrazhul was able to exploit. The Blades disrupted the ritual and banished the transformed Zhaken from the pocket realm, but they could not prevent Othrazhul’s larger intrusion into Kor Sirok’s physical universe. Saajid was later resurrected and returned to Akari while recovering from the Cult’s influence.
The War in the Kenai Mountains
By this point Tusky had become keeper of the Clockwork Heart. When the Blades returned to Elgaard, the growing number of refugees from the Kenai Mountains made the scale of the conflict impossible to ignore. The company set out to confront Hiuh Lao and the Leopard Song Order, with Chan returning to the institution he had fled years earlier.
The Heart could disrupt the synchronization magic underlying devices Zhaken had supplied to Hiuh Lao. This allowed affected defenders and leaders to break free of the magical system reinforcing his control. The Blades rescued Ip Cham, Djozan of the Bear Paw Order, and worked with the Bear Paw and Eagle Wing to organize resistance.
After weakening the Grand Army of the Djozanates, the Blades infiltrated the Leopard Song monastery and defeated Hiuh Lao. His identity was exposed as Dhuulan Havar, who had been manipulating Yuen Lung and the Djozanates through magic. Freed from that influence, Yuen named Chan his successor. He transferred the secret religious knowledge of the Djozans to Chan and died when the covenant governing that succession was fulfilled.
Abendigo’s Road to Time
Abendigo opened the object he had received from Baba Yaga and found a door to Morgrom. Beyond it, the Blades entered a hall of the Returning Flame, whose philosophers had long considered whether a mortal might become something greater than mortal. There they met Azarek, a master door-maker working under the faction’s patronage.
The search carried the company into the deepest reaches of the Eightfold Depths and then to Numedios. From there they learned how to reach the time dragon Giotractuszeit. The Blades thought of his remote lair as the end of time, not realizing that it lay within the Broken Hour. Giotractuszeit taught Abendigo how to conduct a ritual that could open a passage through time.
Mortanas Castle
One of the components needed for Abendigo’s ritual forced the Blades back into conflict with Mortanas. By then evidence suggested that Phelps was Mortanas’s biological son. Phelps’s blood opened a portal in Mortanas’s property in Entwood, allowing the company to reach his castle in the mountains of eastern Tadrium.
There Phelps learned that Rose Mortanas was his sister. The Blades also learned the history behind Mortanas’s centuries of soul harvesting. After his wife died and Rose was murdered, Mortanas bargained directly with Veshar to preserve Rose’s life. The required quota of souls doubled at each interval, eventually demanding 393,216 souls by 8753 SE. Mortanas had spent centuries developing a way to seize mortal souls and send them to Vharath without obtaining individual infernal contracts.
The Blades defeated Mortanas before he could meet the latest quota. Rose was finally able to pass on to the afterlife, ending the bargain that had sustained her and driven much of Mortanas’s violence.
The Closed Temporal Sequence
With the knowledge and allies gathered during their travels, the Blades completed Abendigo’s ritual and opened a passage through time. The journey did not create a revised history in which Abendigo’s family survived. Instead, the company became part of a closed temporal sequence in which their own interventions had always formed part of the history from which they began.
Within that sequence they encountered Abendigo’s future divine self and witnessed consequences associated with Othrazhul’s return. Their attempt to change the past therefore became part of the chain of events leading toward the crisis they hoped to prevent rather than a way to erase it.
The Harrowing
The sequence culminated in the Harrowing of 8753 SE. Othrazhul appeared around Kor Sirok as an immense moon-like manifestation while the dead rose and food decayed across the world. The Blades fought the Aspect of Othrazhul during the final confrontation and defeated it, but ending the greater intrusion required the Rift Spar.
Phelps intended to make the final sacrifice. Davrek refused to let his adopted son die and used Wish to force the other Blades to safety. He remained behind and drove the Rift Spar into the Aspect’s heart. The release destroyed the Aspect and the larger manifestation, severed the relationship sustaining Othrazhul within Creation, and killed Davrek. He was later restored through True Resurrection.
The Rift Spar survived. It fell from the collapsing manifestation and struck Abendigo, transforming the mortal wizard into the god of time. The Brass Blades ended the immediate catastrophe, but the Harrowing caused devastation across Kor Sirok and permanently changed how many governments and magical institutions understood threats from beyond Creation.
After the Harrowing
Davrek founded the Aegis Regnum to identify and counter future incursions connected to the Nascent Expanse before they could become global disasters. He remained Blade Commander rather than taking direct control of the new order, and his lieutenant Zurok became its first Grandmaster. Phelps also remained with the Brass Blades.
Chan returned to the Kenai Mountains to lead the Leopard Song Order. Darieth married and founded an orphanage in Rose Mortanas’s honor on the grounds of Mortanas’s former castle. Veris traveled Kor Sirok telling stories of the Blades and opening unauthorized franchises in their name. Tusky returned to Pakuley and joined his sister while continuing to aid the Blades when needed. Abendigo’s mortal career ended with his apotheosis, leaving the company with a former member who had become one of the gods of Kor Sirok.