The campaigns¶

Locked What happened in play, in order. This is where the deep history ends and the table's own story begins.

Campaign	Protagonist	Span
One: The Rise of Ghost-9	Tristen (Ghost-9, "Lord Trevor Phillips")	From the betrayal to "the one morning" and its aftermath
Two: Alyssa Kruger	Alyssa Kruger	From three years after Solaris's fall to Malakor's death
Three: The Red Ribbon	Tristen, again	Starts six weeks after Malakor's death

Timeline at a glance¶

Dates use the shared calendar, counted from the Peace of Selorin (AP). Recent events carry a season.

When	Event	Status
About 800 AP	The Jade Lotus is founded	Locked
880 AP	The last war. Ashmar burns, and Ghost-9 is taken at about 5	Locked
Spring 900 AP	Ghost-9 kills the Trade Prince and is burned by his own side. Campaign One begins	Locked
900–903 AP	Recovery, then the climb as "Lord Trevor"	Locked
Spring 903 AP	"The one morning". Solaris falls	Locked
904–906 AP	Three years of peace. Lyra is crowned, and Tristen becomes King-Consort	Locked
Spring 906 AP	Campaign Two begins. Midwinter in Solis that winter, then war at the spring new moon of 907	Locked
Spring 907 to spring 909 AP	Alyssa's two years in Farrow. Aldoria is conquered	Locked
Late summer 909 AP	Malakor is killed	Locked
Autumn 909 AP	Campaign Three begins, six weeks later	Locked

The dates from 906 AP onward were worked out from the handoffs and confirmed in R-024. On this timeline Tristen is about 33 at the start of Campaign Three (R-015).

Campaign One: The Rise of Ghost-9¶

The betrayal¶

Ghost-9 was ordered to assassinate Aldoria's Trade Prince, the head of House Morrow, who was pushing for an alliance with Kaelen that cut out the Church. He succeeded.
The killing was cover for a secret accord: the Marches ceded to Kaelen, the Sunstone trade opened to the Empire, and Archon Solaris made Regent when the King died. Three sealed copies existed. Solaris held one, Vane held one, and the third was lodged in the Corvane vault as surety.
Publicly, Kaelen declared the killer a rogue Syndicate assassin acting alone, disowned him and reported him killed. Aldoria accepted the story, and an open trade accord went ahead: Kaelen silk, steel and spice west, Aldorian grain and timber east.
To protect the accord, Vane, Solaris and Malakor had Ghost-9 burned. (R-006)
Kira, once Ghost-12 and Tristen's childhood partner, was Vane's instrument. She led the hunt, lit the fire, and was raised to Ghost-Zero as her reward. Gorath became the new Ghost-12. (R-005)
As the fire took the safe-house, he swallowed a pulse-stopping herb and crawled into the drains, and the river carried him out. Vesper pulled him from the water before he drowned and nursed him back over the following months. That is the root of the bond between them. (R-004)

The revenge¶

Under the false identity of a bluff frontier hero, Lord Trevor Phillips, he climbed Aldoria's hierarchy while secretly dismantling his betrayers. From the Trade Prince's murder to "the one morning" took three years. (R-003)

He met Bram Ironfoot at Thornford and was hired to guard his caravan from Thornford to Oakhaven, where Campaign One begins. See The road to Oakhaven.
He became a hero at Oakhaven, honoured by Magistrate Vance. A few months later at Blackwater he destroyed a Syndicate operative's floating fortress, and when the barge went up in flames the whole river saw it: the name "the Torchbearer of Blackwater" stuck. (R-032)
He was knighted Lord Protector of the Marches (the "Warden").
He secretly cured the King, who was being slowly poisoned with Kaelen Pale Lotus root, by switching his medicine, and hid the recovery for over a year.
He exposed a Church scheme at Greyrock: Brother Cobb was starving the Hollowpass garrison to feed a hidden Kaelen advance army of about 500 camped above the pass under Captain Sarith.
He turned both spies planted in his household: Oren, Grandmaster Vane's personal Ledger-man, who then defected, and the chaplain Hollis.
He got betrothed to Princess Lyra, to block a rival Church plan to wed her to Cassian Corvane.
He discovered and collapsed the Serpent's Stair, the hidden invasion route, which stranded the advance army. He then made a humanitarian truce with Sarith, who wintered his men in the Marches.
At Blackwater he killed Kira, now Ghost-Zero and known in Aldoria as "Lady Kira", who lost the coin toss and took a clean death, and Gorath, the Ghost-12 he had sent there as a message. Later he killed Grandmaster Vane there too.
He engineered "the one morning": the secretly cured King walked into open court, ratified the truce, voided a Church power grab, and exposed the whole conspiracy (Cobb, the chamberlain Pell, the sealed accord). Archon Solaris was destroyed.
He later killed the imprisoned Solaris quietly in his cell.

The road to Oakhaven¶

Locked Spring 902 AP. The opening of Campaign One.

The hire. At Thornford, Bram Ironfoot hired the stranger "Trevor Phillips" to guard his caravan on the road from Thornford to Oakhaven.
The ambush. On the way they came on an abandoned caravan with broken wheels. It was bait: an ambush by low-level bandits hired by the Syndicate, set to steal the Sunstone being delivered to Oakhaven. Trevor recognized Lotus work, and cleanly killed every trap-setter and assassin before they could spring it.
The plot. In Oakhaven he uncovered the scheme behind it. Gorath, the new Ghost-12, working under Kira, meant to steal the Sunstone and secretly take over Oakhaven. Gorath had bribed Inquisitor Valerius, who served Archon Solaris.
Cragmaw Hollow. The bandit crew was based in Cragmaw Hollow, a cave near the town. Trevor went in alone and destroyed the entire crew single-handed. That is how he became the legend of Oakhaven.
The pawn. Trevor used fear to turn Valerius into his pawn: a collared servant, "the last man who knew the name".
The message. He disabled Gorath, carved him with "NINE", and sent him alive to Blackwater, to Ghost-Zero, as an example.
The hero. On the surface, Trevor had saved the town. Magistrate Vance honoured him, and he became the hero of Oakhaven. The name "Torchbearer" came a few months later, at Blackwater (R-032).

A real-world comparison

Think of a con artist who arrives in a frontier town just as the bank is about to be robbed, stops the robbery, and is made sheriff. The town sees a hero. He sees a badge that opens doors.

No goblins

Early play had goblins in the Oakhaven chapter. That's retconned: they were bandits hired by the Syndicate. Meridia has no goblins.

The betrayers' side¶

What Solaris and Vane were doing while Trevor rose, scheme by scheme, is on their pages: Archon Solaris and Grandmaster Vane.

Afterwards¶

King Aldor IV died of age. The poison had cost him too much.
Lyra was crowned Queen in her own right, and Tristen became her King-Consort.
The Order of the Sun was gutted and began to reform under Father Hollis.
Most of Sarith's stranded men chose to stay and serve the Aldorian crown.
Malakor lost a kingdom and his face. He was the one betrayer left alive, untouchable behind an empire. (R-006)

Between the campaigns: three years of peace¶

Aldoria was whole and stable under a beloved young crown. The betrayers were dead, the accord was public history, and the murdered Trade Prince's name was cleared. His grandson Edric Morrow never learned who actually killed him.

In the East, Malakor prepared an open answer. A new Grandmaster rode west with orders to confirm and destroy "the Ninth". A grey Lotus auditor, Yarek "the Counter", was sent west to investigate the failures and went silent.

Campaign Two: Alyssa Kruger¶

In the Hall of the Ninth Door, Alyssa raises a revolver at Emperor Malakor on his throne

Alyssa Kruger, a Kaelen-born Battle Master from Ashmar, came to Solis before the war. She shared a Midwinter season at court with the King-Consort and met Queen Lyra.
Kaelen bribe money had been running a false toll in Ardent lands through Morrow men to set the lords against each other. Alyssa cleared Edric Morrow's name, the Queen pardoned him, and he purged his house.
The war began at the spring new moon. Kaelen attacked Hollowpass over the walls and over the reopened Serpent's Stair. The pass held the first assault. Sarith's company held the southern ridge on the first night under the banner Stay, and none of them went home.
Alyssa sailed west through the Grey Wall on the Far Lantern and spent two years in Farrow.
During those two years, Kaelen overwhelmed Aldoria. Solis fell after a hard siege and lies in ruins. The old Emperor died and Malakor became Emperor. Lotus Numbers became regional warlords over former Aldoria. The great houses were tamed, and those who resisted were executed. The Tide Cities were annexed. Queen Lyra and the King-Consort escaped and were never captured.
Alyssa came home. At Westhaven Four's men captured the Far Lantern, and Four offered to make her his voice and took her under his protection. The Edge trained her, and Eight hunted her through the ruins of Solis.
Summoned to the Citadel, she told Malakor the truth: she didn't know where the Ninth was. He noticed she never asked who the Ninth was, and ordered her to hunt him with Eleven at her side.
Instead, in the Hall of the Ninth Door, she drew her Farrowan revolver and shot Emperor Malakor dead on his throne. (R-013)
The next morning in the Hall of Lanterns, Four's sealed confession was read aloud to the Imperial Council: the Ninth is Aldoria's King-Consort. Alyssa fought and fell. Eleven shot Eight through the arm to stop him finishing her. Alyssa died of her wounds a little after the seventh bell, with Four's bound hands pressed to her side.
The court physician Zehvar carried her body home. She lies beside her mother in Ashmar.

Campaign Three: The Red Ribbon (the present)¶

Autumn, about six weeks after Malakor's death. The mourning bells have just stopped. Queen Lyra and the King-Consort are hiding in a cold fisherman's house on a remote coast. A message reaches them: the Imperial Council knows who he is. "Then we move," he says. "Tonight."

For the state of the world at this moment, see Factions and Characters.

Since the handoff¶

Locked The Edge has become a wary, partial ally of Tristen and the Queen in the middle of the chaos. (R-014)

DM projection: the Age of Ribbons

This is the default trajectory if no one intervenes, not a script. The player's actions should bend it.

Over the next decade Meridia falls into a long time of broken loyalties that Kaelen scholars call the Age of Disorder Dur'makh, "the Unravelling" (R-021), and Aldorians call the Age of Ribbons.

The Red Ribbon story spreads faster than the Regency can hang the people telling it, and militias that once hid in ones and twos gather in the hundreds.
Eight stops reporting to the Citadel and rules the old Crownlands from the ruins of Solis. Other Numbers follow his example, minting their own coins.
Prince Hadrak comes to believe Rhazen arranged Malakor's death, and the hill provinces declare for "the true line".
Three Grass Sea chiefs unite for a single summer and break the frontier wall in two places.
The Tide Cities expel their imperial magistrates. The Sunward Isles stop paying tribute.
In Stonedeep, dwarf smiths paid in Lantern Road silver copy Eleven's drawings into crude "thunder-tubes".

By the end of the first decade, nobody can win and nobody can afford to stop. Somewhere among them, Queen Lyra and the King-Consort are still alive, and every faction wants either to crown them or to kill them.

Sources¶

Campaign handoff (Campaign Two), §5 "Recent History"
Campaign Three handoff, §2, §3 and §8
The Aldorian Codex, "Aldoria and the East"
The Aldorian Codex: Lands Beyond, "State of Meridia", "The end of Alyssa Kruger" and "The Age of Ribbons"
The Rise of Ghost-9, Chapter One
Rulings R-001 and R-003 to R-006, R-013 and R-014