Side-quest: Oaths in the Stone

Plot

While the rest of Kyrus teeters on the brink of civil war, The Warguard stand watch over the mountainside town of Velmora, in the valley north of Tsarigrad, their iron discipline strained beneath the relentless siege of a roaming Ogre tribe. Perched atop the cliffs above the settlement, the Ogres hold a brutal advantage, not through wit or cunning, but sheer happenstance. From their lofty perch, they can spot and bombard any approaching force with boulders, making a direct assault suicidal. As such, the Ogres raid the surroundings freely. Supply lines are cut, farms burn, and the townsfolk live in terror. The famed Warguard, for all their prowess, are reduced to grim containment.

Dynamic & Play

Tasked by the town's Warguard commander, Vasili Orlov, the players are given a single, harrowing objective: find a way to reach the cliffs above and ambush the Ogres before the siege breaks Velmora apart. While the town's guards man the barricades and the Warguard hold the gate, someone must brave the unknown and find an advantage.

According to local miners, a series of natural winding tunnels connect to the old mine shafts beneath Velmora. These passages are suspected to lead to higher elevations up in the mountains, and perhaps, if fortune favors the bold, they do. However, these tunnels have long been sealed off and forgotten due to dangerous creatures roaming the deep. No map exists, and few who explored them ever returned.

Armed with sparse directions and fading torchlight, the players must venture into the dark beneath the stone. The mines are not abandoned without reason, and the deeper they go, the less the mountain feels empty.

Resolutions

Victory

The players emerge unseen from a cave and find themselves upon a wide ledge overlooking the Ogre encampment. When the Warguard are informed, this tips the scales. The Warguard launch their attack, raining death upon the Ogres from above, and drive them into a rout. Velmora is saved.

Failure

The players fail to navigate the tunnels to any useful conclusion, or are driven out from the maze of tunnels by too many hostile creatures, or have managed to collapse the tunnels and have thus made their mission impossible. As a result, the Warguard are forced to evacuate the town and protect the civilians as they flee to Tsarigrad, allowing the Ogres to subsequently roam and pillage it's surroundings.