Revenge of the Countess of Fire: Background Info

These are the notes from my Burning Wheel game Revenge of the Countess of Fire,the last session of which is this Sunday. I figured that now that we're at a certain point I'll put up the play report. Check out the tag "Revenge of the Countess of Fire" for more posts!

Fifty years ago, a boy was raised by wolves in the far away Iron Forest. They lived there for many years until the dwarves harvested the metal trees for their smithing. The dwarves were not kind; they took the entirety of the forest and killed the wolves who opposed them. The boy fled with the survivors and gathered the surrounding packs together for a counterstrike. But it wasn't enough, the dwarves were too powerful for them. So the boy led his pack of wolves to conquer tribes of orcs and trolls, and even got the giant spiders who dealt in deeper and darker forests involved. With these resources the boy destroyed the dwarven kingdom that had destroyed his home.

This did not sit well with the human kingdom of Ardent, who were enthusiastic customers of the dwarves. They declared war on the boy.

They lost.

So did the elves.

All the civilized world was enraged. They called the boy The Demon, The Destroyer, and many other things. But the name that stuck was The Vermin Lord. He was a tactical genius, and perfectly in tune with his monstrous brethren. And he started to pillage and destroy the known world.

Desperate, the civilized races gathered together and formed The Alliance of Free Races. While autonomous the three races formed a single government, with a temporary dictator in place, called the Eaten One. The Eaten One was selected by the enigmatic entity only known as The One in the Deep, who he was to be sacrificed to at the end of his term. The Eaten One strode out with the Federated Armies and smashed the Vermin Lord and his army after a bloody fifteen year conflict. It was not a question of tactics, but of superior numbers, which The Eaten One used to great effect. Thirteen years into the conflict he captured and publicly executed The Vermin Lord.

The savage races were brought into line fairly quickly after that. The orcs were scattered throughout Alliance lands, with the wolves mostly sticking with them. The trolls fled back to the mountains, the vast majority of spiders were captured and forced into slavery. The Alliance strengthened its internal bonds, convinced they were untouchable. And for all intents and purposes, they are.

From anything that's mortal, anyway.

Initial Characters

Elenor Grinslow: Daughter of Baron Grinslow, she ran away from home at around the age of 15, and worked as a fence of stolen objects. While out in the world she came to the realization that the enslavement of the race of spiders was evil and must be stopped. With the reported death of her father, she returned to become Baronness Grinslow so that she can aid the slaves however she can.

Prince Kincaid: One of the few elven princes to disapprove of the election of the Eaten One, Kincaid became a wanderer after the War of the Vermin. He stumbled upon a growing revolution of slave spiders, and took their leader Honey under his wing as his protege. They both recently came into contact with Baronness Grinslow, and have made arrangements to take shelter under her banner along with 50 or so spiders they have freed from slavery in the surrounding baronies.

The Hungry One: The Hungry One is a great wolf, captured and caged by a well-meaning (but naive) family. The Hungry One finally broke out and killed all but the last child, who vanished. In looking for her, he bumped into Jarl Grinslow, Elenor's half-brother, who had the ability to manipulate his own bio-electricity forced upon him by Baron Grinslow. The two of them determined to help the spider resistance so that no one should suffer the way they did ever again.

Thieran Markov: Son of Baron Markov, Thieran ran away from home when he was turned into a were-tiger because of his father's human supremacist leanings. He has been made Kincaid's bodyguard, and helped rescue some spiders from his father's clutches.