Cold to the Bones

Table of con­tents

Ice and snow chills the bones of those who suf­fer a life in De­nau. This chapter gives you in­form­a­tion you need to pre­pare for the ad­ven­tur­ers’ jour­ney into the re­gion. This chapter out­lines the his­tory and goals of Ely­dir the Van­quished so that you’re pre­pared for what awaits the char­ac­ters.

Ely­dir, the Van­quished 2

Ely­dir is an an­cient high-elf wiz­ard. Her hair is grey and face wrinkled; poin­ted ears poke out un­der a circlet with a ruby gem­stone set, and her robes are a deep dark red with in­tric­ate sym­bols laced in a golden thread.

The circlet is dec­or­ated in the im­age of the sun on a ho­ri­zon with a down­ward sword pier­cing the ho­ri­zon. The ruby is the sun, spikes of gold show the sun rays, and an iron cru­ci­form is the sword.

Ini­tially, she will be en­countered in the Lonely Tower, but will be en­countered else­where if she is freed.

Ely­dir’s his­tory 2

Ely­dir, born Une, was born into no­bil­ity in the elven com­munity Ay­meluma, the daugh­ter of the elvish Lord Ik­anyr Glyn­lamin. She stud­ied nat­ural ma­gic dur­ing the early years of her life.

Prom­ised to the prince Prince Lainot of Re­hani to end a en­dur­ing war between Ay­meluma and De­naura, the young Une was taken from Ay­meluma and raised to be the lady con­sort of Lainot. Lainot was an ab­us­ive hus­band and, after suc­ceed­ing his father, a feeble vi­ol­ent leader. Through the en­dur­ing ab­use, Ely­dir be­came for­lorn and dis­trust­ful of hu­mans.

To dis­tract her­self from her hus­band’s ab­use, Ely­dir found solace in the study of ma­gic, es­pe­cially en­chant­ments. Dur­ing her study she met Faurin, a kind and gen­er­ous man. His care lead to de­vo­tion and love and in­tim­acy. To­gether, Ely­dir and Faurin dreamed of na­ive grand plans to rule for the bet­ter­ment of the realm. Ely­dir, already in a place of power, took these plans more ser­i­ously than Faurin. Over the next few years, she star­ted put­ting plans into place. Her study also took a darker turn, delving into powers for the con­trol of minds and un­sa­voury creatures. It was then, over 500 years ago, Ely­dir used these skills to kill Lainot, over­throw gov­ern­ment of the De­naura and take con­trol of its people. Yet, for Ely­dir, des­pite the power she had amassed, her greed was un­ful­filled and her de­sire for power con­tin­ued to grow.

It was only by Faur­in’s wish that Ely­dir was cap­tured and im­prisoned in a power­fully war­ded tower. Ely­dir’s last act, be­fore she was im­prisoned, was to curse on those of De­nau in re­venge. She un­leashed her power to rip a portal to the ice plane, bring­ing a raw and bit­ter life to those who fought against her.

Un­able to leave her prison, she spent years ded­ic­at­ing her­self to means of in­flu­en­cing the out­side. To one day again be free and to take back her right to rule.

Goals 2

Ely­dir has the fol­low­ing goals in the cam­paign.

Es­cape the Tower 2

Trapped in the solace of her prison tower, Ely­dir has be­come mas­ter of il­lu­sion and divin­a­tion. To es­cape, she needs the Dawns­word Am­u­let. Us­ing her powers the elf-wiz­ard has watched from afar. She has ma­nip­u­lated his­tory through ap­par­i­tions and dreams, caus­ing tur­moil and trouble, and at­trac­ted fol­low­ers.

The wards pro­tect­ing the am­u­let have frus­trated Ely­dir’s plan to use her fol­low­ers to re­cover it. She has dis­covered that the am­u­let can only be found by those who do not aim to free Ely­dir. This fail­ure has lead to her plan to de­ceive ad­ven­tur­ers into re­turn­ing this am­u­let to her and has been do­ing so by bring­ing mis­for­tune to Ay­meluma.

Once she has es­caped the tower, she will for­get about the ad­ven­tur­ers as they have fin­ished their use, to fo­cus on her other goals. At least, that is, un­til they next in­ter­fere with her plans.

Rule De­nau 2

Pun­ish the Ay­melumans 2

Find the Shards of the Ful­crum 2

Role-play­ing Ely­dir 2

Ely­dir be­lieves she has the right to rule and she has the will to dom­in­ate. She be­lieves that she will cre­ate a bet­ter, fairer world. One without ab­use ruled through might and power. If the char­ac­ters ask why she should rule, she tells them it is be­cause she was taken from her safe world into their treach­er­ous one and no oth­ers in their world have the will to fix it.

There are very few things Ely­dir would­n’t do to achieve dom­in­a­tion but she will avoid hurt­ing the in­no­cent, es­pe­cially chil­dren. In spite of this, it tales very little for the in­no­cent to be judged as guilty and she is mer­ci­less to those who are guilty - as all Ay­melumans are.

Be­fore her im­pris­on­ment, Ely­dir was im­puls­ive and fiery. Over the four cen­tur­ies in the Lonely Tower, she has be­come calm and cal­cu­lat­ing but she seeks an un­feel­ing and cold ven­geance. She cares little for the free­dom and live­li­hoods of those that she would rule. While she has be­come de­tached in most ways, she fears be­ing con­trolled, as she was by Lainot, or be­trayed, as she was by Faurin.

Ely­dir is pa­tient. Her plans take years to un­fold, she and she is un­likely to be de­terred by fail­ure. Through her schem­ing, she will ex­ploit oth­ers but will dis­card them when they are no longer use­ful. Us­ing her powers of divin­a­tion and per­sua­sion, she will in­vest­ig­ate those who op­pose her ends and use their fail­ings to her ad­vant­ages.

Para­noia forces Ely­dir to rule from afar. She in­flu­ences her own forces and other fac­tions through care­fully se­lec­ted few in­ter­me­di­ar­ies pre­fer­ring de­cep­tion and an­onym­ity. Even with her in­ter­me­di­ar­ies, Ely­dir is cau­tious and will use her powers of pro­jec­tion to con­ceal her true loc­a­tion.

Ely­dir’s in­ter­fer­ence 2

Ely­dir will meet the ad­ven­tur­ers early in the cam­paign out of ne­ces­sity. Un­less they are a clear threat, she will for­get about them. However, it’s un­likely to take long be­fore she re­cog­nises their threat if they op­pose her. When she is free, she will aim to be un­known to the world. She will avoid dir­ect con­front­a­tion but the char­ac­ters will face those who fol­low her or those who are ma­nip­u­lated by her.

Us­ing her powers of divin­a­tion, Ely­dir will spy on the char­ac­ters and their al­lies. In this way, she finds the ad­ven­tur­ers use­ful and will want to keep them alive un­less they be­come too much of a threat. She will ac­cept stra­tegic losses and al­low the char­ac­ters to have short term suc­cess to gain the up­per hand. Lim­ited re­sources and grand goals stand in the way of Ely­dir fo­cus­ing dir­ectly on the ad­ven­tur­ers but she will use her re­sources to weaken.

Ely­dir re­lies on oth­ers and her ma­gic items for her im­mense power. Alone and sep­ar­ated, she is still a force to be reckoned with - us­ing ma­nip­u­la­tion and en­chant­ment to con­trol oth­ers.

Ad­ven­ture hook 2

The char­ac­ters start their ad­ven­ture await­ing a meet­ing with Lady Alymir Glyn­lamin. The party will start in the elven vil­lage of Ay­meluma.

You have been in­vited to meet Lady Alymir Glyn­lamin who is con­cerned about re­cent wolf at­tacks in her vil­lage of Ay­meluma. You have each trav­elled there. It’s one hour be­fore the meet­ing is planned.

Start the wolf at­tack event.