The Company of the Wolf

This is a summary of the first Dragon Princes campaign that I ran. It has very little to do with the current game: I'm including it here for the sake of interest and completion.

The Company of the Wolf was a condottiere (mercenary) company, operating mostly out of Fiumenze. They focussed on undertaking special missions for their employers, and had a reputation for being able to pull off the seemingly impossible through skill, quick-thinking and guile. Their silver-haired commander, Capitano Muzio di Brabazoni, personally recruited each member of the Company, and their bonds of loyalty to one another were unshakable. Less well-known was the fact that the Company of the Wolf were also humanists, working to overthrow the dragon princes who rule Tirenia.

Zaffiro the Magnificent, the blue dragon lord of Fiumenze, hired the Company to retrieve a series of embarrassing letters written by a young blue dragon relative of his to a certain member of the Church. The letters were held by Rubina, a red dragon and heir to Vanzenia, in her personal fortress, the Castello Acciaio. The castle was reputedly impregnable, but the Company learned about a series of caves near the castle. They entered the caves (bypassing a plague colony living in them) and tunneled through to the basement of the Castello. From there, they managed to capture Niccolo Pirte, the necromancer condottieri leader of the Legione Morte, whose undead soldiers were defending the castle. The mercenaries located the letters, but Rubina returned early: they had been betrayed. The group escaped back into the tunnels with the letters, but Niccolo was killed by Rubina, before she melted the castle in a rage. The group returned to Fiumenze, where they learned that Zaffiro had betrayed their mission to Rubina, as a way of distracting her attention from other schemes that he was carrying out at the same time. 

After they received payment, the Company was hired by Sindaco (Mayor) Ludovica of the Salassi Valley, nestled in the White Mountains to the north-west of Tirenia. This area was traditionally ruled by the white dragons, who would show up irregularly every few years to collect 'taxes'. The Salassi Valley had been plagued by a terrible winter that had lasted for five years. To make things worse, the bronze dragons of Staglia, led by the young dragon Generale Coraggio, had decided to annex the valley. The Company of the Wolf travelled to Salassi and used guerilla to harry the Staglians as they advanced up the main road to Salassi. They raided Coraggio's camp at night-time, and assassinated his mage Giulia when she tried to harness the powers of a strange ancient monolith. However, while the Company was able to extract a heavy too-heavy cost from the Staglian invaders, Generale Coraggio's pride meant that he refused to withdraw, and his victory was inevitable.

At this point, a mysterious message arrived, claiming to know the origins of the endless winter. Some members of the Company of the Wolf travelled north into the mountains, where they met Pietro, a local man who had been warped by the magic of Ghiacciolo, the local white dragon lord. The group entered Ghiaccolo's lair, to find that the white dragon had perished five years ago fighting the Lady of the Mountain, the powerful elemental genius loci of the Salassi Valley. However, the white dragon had frozen her solid with his breath, and as a result the valley had frozen. The Company rescued her, ending the eternal winter, and she was able to use her connection to the valley to make the very land itself attack the invading army. Coraggio's forces were forced to retreat. 

The Company of the Wolf left the Salassi Valley, accompanied by the Lady of the Mountain. She and Muzio were very interested in the ancient monolith, and they discovered that the bronze dragons were also interested in them. The Company travelled to Auromia, the ancient and nearly-abandoned capital of the Auromian Empire. The Arch-Ordinarch had died, and there was fierce negotiation over who would be the new leader of the Church. Muzio had learned that one of the leading candidates was offering to give the bronze dragons information from the Church Archives about monoliths across Tellaia in exchange for their support. The Company met up with the local humanists, and with their help infiltrated the meeting. Little did they know that they were walking into a trap. Rubina the red dragon was also interested in the meeting, and she had a spy inside the Company. She stole the information from the archives and sent troops after the Company, who barely managed to escape a massacre, along with a dissident preacher called Salvatore that they rescued from the dungeons.

Using the information that they did have, the group learned that the network of monoliths was created by the last gold dragon emperor to focus all the magic that flowed through Tirenia's ley-lines, so it could be used to break the ban between Tellaia and Paradise. However, Rubina intended instead to use it to unleash the Inferno. They travelled to the Leaning Tower, where Rubina was doing her ritual. She had already managed to summon an army of demons to defend her, and the Company fought her while Muzio, now revealed to be a silver dragon in disguise, attacked Rubina, and the Lady attempted to disrupt the portal. They were both unsuccessful, but the members of the Company of the Wolf managed to fight Rubina and kill her, as well as disrupt the ritual. The resulting magical backlash destroyed the monolith network, and the Tower exploded, killing Rubina, her demons, and the majority of the Company of the Wolf. The only survivor of the battle was Salvatore, who took Rubina's skull as a sign that dragons could be killed.

Art: 'The Battle of Pavia.' Bernard van Orley, c. 1530.