Blaize rushed to the railing of the ship and looked over to see the dragonspawn splash into the river and disappear below the surface. The accompanying trenchers swept their rifles over the open sky for additional threats. What worried Blaize wasn’t the dragonspawn they had spotted
above the ship but rather the bellowing roar they had heard shortly afterward.
“Incoming! Starboard side!” shouted a Precursor knight.
Just then a pair of monstrous winged creatures took flight from the nearby cliffs. A set of four wings propelled the beasts through the air, and barbed tails lashed out behind their serpentine bodies. Blaize had encountered dragonspawn before and recognized these as seraphs, death on wings that came bringing poison and fire.
A commotion broke out on deck at the sight of the incoming dragonspawn. Blaize was already in motion, moving among the crew and shouting orders. “To arms!
Stoke the boilers, and get the ’jacks topside! Keep watch for boarders!”
A dozen rifles barked as the trenchers took up positions behind the railing and opened fire on the incoming enemy. One of the seraphs jerked and dove from sight as bullets tore through the thin membrane of its wings and punctured its flesh. The second horror swept along the side of the ship and from its maw unleashed a torrent of blue flame that consumed several trenchers. Those set ablaze collapsed or leapt screaming from the deck to extinguish the flames in the river.
With a keening screech, the wounded seraph came back into view and strafed the deck, belching flames of its own.
Precursor knights cooked inside their armor, and members of the crew were engulfed in the blue inferno. The smell of charred flesh filled the air.
The sailor at the ship’s helm was caught in the torrent of fire and turned into a human torch, his arms flailing in vain as his skin cracked and blackened. In his death panic, he fell upon the wheel, twisting it hard to the right as he collapsed. The ship lurched suddenly, pulled to the side.
The vessel rose and tilted at an alarming angle as it veered toward the rocky riverbank, and those onboard fought to maintain their footing.
The impact, underscored by the sound of splintering wood, rocked the whole of the ship. The hull cracked and strained as the vessel collided with the promontory of stone at the river’s edge. The uppermost reaches of the rocks sheared away the railing and portions of the deck.
The ship tilted even further, leaning into the rocks on which it had impaled itself, and only the extensive combat experience of the defenders kept them organized and upright if no less desperate.
The voice of Chaplain Corley carried over the screams of the dying as he addressed the Precursor knights. “Form ranks and lock shields! The beasts come around for another pass!”
The monotonous clanking of the cargo lift signaled the arrival of the warjacks from below. Smoke billowed from their massive steam engines, and their eyes glowed bright with intensity. Gallant lumbered across the deck to Blaize’s
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side and took a protective stance beside the warcaster while the Centurions moved to shield the remaining trenchers. With their repairs complete, they were prepared to do glorious battle in the name of Morrow once more.
The mechanik Reynolds had ridden the lift beside the warjacks and now joined the defense, a wrench in one hand and a pistol in the other.
Trenchers fired as fast as they could reload while the seraphs circled above the boat and dive-bombed the vessel in tandem. The dragonspawn descended with mouths agape, intent on washing the deck in flame once more.
Bullets tore into the creatures, causing more horrifying wounds, but the beasts came on.
Runes flared around Blaize’s outstretched hand, and a blast of holy light engulfed the winged abominations.
Their blighted flesh smoked and seared; they collided with the deck, sliding and rolling over the planks. Chaplain Corley and his Precursor knights fell upon one with their blessed maces to finish the job while Blaize commanded her Centurion to skewer the other with the ’jack’s massive piston spear.
With the seraphs downed, Blaize rushed to the shattered railing in time to see a dozen dragonspawn of varying shapes and sizes emerge from the trees and charge the moored ship. Two blighted Nyss moved among them.
One of the pale elves wielded a sword, the other a spear, and Blaize was certain these warriors led the assault—the dragonspawn answered to their will.
She issued a mental command to the Centurions and positioned them to receive the incoming charge. The Precursors formed ranks in front, locking shields once more, ready to repel the oncoming draconic boarders.
Chaplain Corley stood beside Blaize with his own shield at the ready. “First the Cryxians, now these. Whatever our relic is, the evils of every hidden corner in Immoren have taken notice.”
“All the more reason it must remain in our hands,”
Blaize replied.
The dragonspawn clambered up the rocks and over the side of the ship in a wave of flesh and teeth to crash upon the wall of Precursor shields. Though the blessings of Morrow aided their cause, the knights were sorely outmatched. Slashing talons knocked shields askew, and barbed tails whipped over the line of defenders to open throats and separate heads from shoulders. Rows of jagged teeth crunched through armor, and blue flame exuded from draconic mouths to blister faces and warp steel.
The two Centurion warjacks fell back and served as the anchors for the wall of knights, their towering mechanical bodies protecting the flanks from assault. Beasts hammered against their massive shields, their attacks turned harmlessly aside while the Centurions retaliated
with their spears and skewered the blighted horrors, pinning their thrashing forms to the deck.
Gallant had taken a more proactive approach, moving beyond the Precursors and, under Blaize’s direction, wading into the enemy with sword and buckler. Broad strokes from the warjack’s blessed weapon cleaved into the spawn, eviscerating torsos and sending limbs to flop on the vessel’s planks in their last spasms of life. The ’jack’s eyes burned a bright yellow as though it relished doling out such punishment, and the black ichor that splattered its chassis dripped from its armor as if repelled by the holy rites bestowed upon it.
“Hold the line!” Blaize shouted. Runes materialized around her as she gathered the holy might drawn from the power of the souls of the dying to shield those who fought on, forming a shimmering aura around them, fed by the purified energies of the departed.
Bolstered by the sacrifice of the initial casualties, the Precursors pushed forward, wading with mace and shield into the throng of dragonspawn. The knights’ blessed weapons swept down to crack the thick carapace armor of their foes, and prayers to Morrow rose up and down the line. Among them, a knight cried out line after line of the Enkheiridion—their most holy tome—and the words of their faith seemed to lend strength and courage to the embattled knights. Before long, the deck was awash with blood from beast and man alike, and the structured clash devolved into an all-out brawl.
Amid the chaos, one of the Nyss cut a bloody swath through the Precursors with the curved length of her blade.
A trencher attempted to impale her spinning form with a bayonet, but the Nyss spun inside the man’s defenses to disembowel him in one fluid motion.
A spear protruded from the back of another nearby Precursor, and the knight fell away to reveal a second Nyss. Horns jutted from her head, and dragon scales marked portions of her arms. The focused expression on her face was identical to that of the first Nyss. Upon seeing Blaize, she invoked a spell and sent a spray of acid splashing over the warcaster’s shield and armor to eat away at her defenses with a persistent hiss.
“Warlocks,” Blaize said under her breath. Ignoring the acid, she charged forward, shield raised and spear angled to skewer the spellcaster before she could contribute to the fight any further.
A sphere of shadow concealed Blaize’s intended target from her, and when the effect vanished she found herself face to face with the sword wielder rather than the sorceress. In a blur of movement the Nyss struck Blaize’s shoulder with her blade, spinning her about and stealing her balance. A second strike threatened to separate Blaize’s head from her shoulders, and she barely raised her shield in time to deflect the blow. Steel rang on steel. The Nyss probed Blaize’s defenses, driving her back and putting 82 skull island expeditions
her on her heels. While the Nyss was lightly armored, her speed and technique more than made up for it.
Blaize issued a mental command to Gallant; the roar of the ’jack’s steam engine filled the air as it headed for the elusive spellcaster. The Nyss sidestepped a downward cut from the ’jack that splintered the boards beneath her feet. She responded by sending a large dragonspawn with snapping jaws and several arms barreling into Gallant, and together beast and machine tumbled over the edge of the open cargo doors and into the depths of the hold.
All across the ship, the defending forces were beleaguered.
For each beast that had been slain, two of Blaize’s soldiers lay dead or dying. The Centurions were battered, one having lost the function of its shield arm and the other possessing only limited range of movement. And while Blaize could still sense Gallant’s cortex in the hold below, she could not establish control of the warjack over the distance. Even Chaplain Corley, who had dashed the skull of a cat-like dragonspawn with his mace and helped bring down several other beasts while directing his knights, now rested on one knee, a trickle of blood pouring from the side of his head, his breathing ragged.
There was a crackling sound, and Blaize was caught off-guard by the unexpected sight of a young woman with a braid of golden hair and bursts of arcane energy emitting from her fists as she ran across the deck of the ship. The Nyss appeared equally surprised; they turned on her only in time to be struck full on by a blast of kinetic force that threw them backward across the blood-streaked boards.
The young woman chased after with fists poised to deliver another strike, and she didn’t give Blaize so much as a passing glance.
Another familiar figure—clad in exotic voltaic warcaster armor—floated over the railing. She immediately delivered bolts of arcane energy at the dragonspawn.
Though her face was obscured beneath a cowled hood and goggles, and her hair was gray, she still resembled Major Victoria Haley, at least in Blaize’s eyes. Her confusion was compounded when yet another figure—this time confirmed to actually be Major Haley—climbed aboard accompanied by Arlan Strangewayes and a team of rangers and trenchers.
“It looks like you could use some help,” Haley said, speaking over the staccato gunfire of her rangers as they zeroed in on the remaining dragonspawn, adding their support to the arcane blasts of the older woman. Haley positioned herself at Blaize’s back, drawing her hand cannon and opening fire as she did so.
“Not to be seen as ungrateful, but last I heard, you were recovering in the infirmary at Point Bourne,” Blaize said.
“And we’re a long way from Point Bourne.”
“There’ll be time for explanations later,” Haley replied.
“Right now, I think we have more pressing matters to attend to.”
The Nyss sword wielder had recovered and was now slashing at the young woman with the kinetic fists, each combatant ducking and weaving out of the other’s reach. It was then that Blaize noticed the young one also resembled the major. It was as if she had brought an older and younger sister to fight at her side. This martial dance continued a moment longer before the second Nyss warlock battered aside a knight with her spear and summoned runes to surround her outstretched hand. A shimmer of arcane force sliced through the air and cleaved into the young woman, but rather than falling beneath a wave of her own gore, she simply vanished.
The Nyss then came at Haley and Blaize as a pair, the movements of one an extension of the other, as though they had been fighting alongside one another all their lives. Haley locked spears with the horned spellcaster while Blaize pushed into the one with the sword. The Nyss kicked the base of Blaize’s shield, driving it downward, and at the same moment launched a sword strike over the top to cut through the power field and score a hit on the warcaster’s shoulder. A warm trickle of blood ran down Blaize’s arm and pooled within her armor, but she ignored the pain and continued to trade strikes. She managed to score a hit on her opponent’s side, carving a deep gash in the Nyss’ flesh. As soon as the wound appeared, however, it closed—nearby, one of the dragonspawn collapsed to the deck with a similar wound opening its hide.
Around them, the tide of battle had shifted, though the enemy was far from routed. A handful of dragonspawn remained, but their fearless nature would brook no retreat unless their masters commanded them to do so. Likewise, faith in Morrow kept those knights who still drew breath in the fight, and with the help of the reinforcements, they were slowly gaining ground.
A roar rolled over the hills then—deep and powerful, like the one Blaize had heard just before the assault began. The very sound seemed to give the warlocks and their beasts pause. A shadow fell across the ship, and combatants on both sides looked up to see a winged figure the size of a mountain peak eclipse the sun.
Blaize felt her heart rise up into her throat as the dragon swooped down, its massive fanged maw open wide as if ready to swallow the ship and all on board whole.
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Immortality: An Iron Kingdoms Adventure hits stores in April. It was born as a serialized Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy campaign in the pages of No Quarter, and has now been collected and expanded for its own standalone release. We caught up with Matt Goetz and Mike Ryan to get some more info on Immortality ahead of its release.
84 SEEKING IMMORTALITY
An IntervIew wIth rPG Producer MAtt Goetz
And PublIcAtIons dIrector MIchAel G. ryAn
No Quarter: What is Immortality?
Matt Goetz: Immortality is a full campaign for the Iron Kingdoms Roleplaying Game. It started as a linked series of articles written for No Quarter, which we’ve compiled with some new material as a full campaign book.
Michael G. Ryan: Its uniqueness stems from how it was created—over the course of a full calendar year, it grew stage by stage in the pages of No Quarter, each chapter or pair of chapters capable of standing alone. We’ve expanded the content to make the chapters tie together even more effectively, allowing a Game Master to run the Immortality adventure across multiple sessions.
NQ: You both mentioned new material. What will be included in this Immortality publication that was not part of its original No Quarter release?
MG: There are interludes in the book that act as bridges between the major parts of the campaign. In them, we tried to give a little more depth to the campaign (and tie up a loose end or two).
MGR: Game Masters get a bit more freedom with the interludes as well—the causes and effects of the interludes allow the Game Master to pick and choose the elements that keep the story moving, and in many cases, those elements can be presented in most any order. The interludes move the adventure along at a pace that works best for your gaming group.
NQ: Can you give us a little summary of what the campaign is about?
MG: The campaign is about the rogue Greylord Vladislav Abrosim and his plot to achieve immortality. The PCs get embroiled in the story early on, so there’s a bit of give and take between Abrosim and the heroes. They start to get in the way of his plans, so he does his best to get them out of the picture.
That’s the short version. But I think the story is also about the pursuit of power at any cost. As you play through the campaign, you see the really heinous things that Abrosim is willing to do to achieve his goal. He’s not just killing people or robbing them of possessions. He’s robbing people of their humanity—and often leaves them alive in that inhuman state.
MGR: I’d love to say it’s about man’s inhumanity to man, but our story doesn’t end with a great white whale obliterating the PCs’ entire party except for a lone mechanik named Ishmael.
Still, that would’ve been cool—Abrosim turns out to be a great white warjack. In truth, it’s a universal story: crazy people do crazy stuff, and sane people need to rein them in. Abrosim is not above sacrificing even his closest lieutenants to get what he wants, and if he’ll kill them, what’s to keep him from killing everybody else along the way?
NQ: Greylord Abrosim sounds like one frightening foe. How many heroes will it take to challenge him?
MG: The campaign is designed for four or five Hero-level characters. It’s best to start with new characters during the prologue scenario, and each major milestone has guidance for how the Game Master should reward experience to the players. While the adventure won’t take you all the way to the Veteran level, by the time a group of PCs finish the adventure they should have a hefty chunk of experience under their belt.
NQ: What kinds of players will enjoy Immortality?
MG: The kinds of players who enjoy a mixture of investigation and action. There’s a balance of both in each installment of the campaign. Going in guns blazing is certainly an option, but when the campaign was first being written, we tried to provide extras for the players who took the time to look around and talk to the NPCs and dig up exactly what was going on.
There is extra information, extra equipment, and a fuller story
There is extra information, extra equipment, and a fuller story