The Drow War Book Two. The Dying Of - RoseRed

Traitor’s Gambit
The drow commander Drozen Vellish is currently
stationed in one of the outer cysts of the
underground cavern network, on the northeastern
fringes of Jehannum. This proves to be a
dwarven iron mine that the drow are running with few
personnel, in order to keep it secret. The mine is of
course being worked with slave labour – imprisoned
dwarves captured when Jehannum was taken, who
are treated abominably. The drow are working them
like dogs in order to extract enough ore to make the
Ironclads, which are mighty war machines designed by
Rannirak.
The Player Characters’ mission is to bring Drozen out
alive, so that he can betray his masters and tell the
enclave of Xoth Sarandi what he knows. They will have
to use stealth and subterfuge, as a frontal assault will just
lead to the mine being sealed off, with reinforcements
being called in from deeper in the caverns.
Making their way through to Drozen will be a harrowing
experience for the Player Characters. They will have to
watch captive dwarves die under the lash without lifting
a finger in their defence, since they cannot blow their
cover without bringing the whole installation down
upon them. Of course, they can always attempt to lead
the exhausted dwarves in a revolt, but if they do so they
risk losing Drozen or their own lives.
Drozen Vellish has no noble motives. He is simply
selling out and expects to be rewarded for it. He will
refuse to tell the Player Characters anything at all until
he is safe at Xoth Sarandi. Once there, his reward
collected, he will tell them about the drow’s new project,
the Ironclads. This story thread continues in Chapter 9,
Genesis of the Ironclads.
Event: The Briefi ng
The adventure begins with a briefing from Nimian
Archimandrus:
‘We may have our most important lead yet, my friends.
One of the drow officers wants to turn traitor and tell us
all he knows. Naturally he wants political asylum and
the best protection we can give in return, along with a
sizable sum of money, but that’s for us to worry about.
I’ve pulled what remaining strings I still have to make
this happen. The response was that the High Council
are willing for us to go ahead with this, just so long as
they never find out about it, if you see what I mean.
‘The officer’s name is Drozen Vellish. His rank is
Toz’capfa, or Fourth Claw, which means he would
have been trusted with leadership of multiple divisions
on the battlefield. For some reason that we don’t yet
know, he’s been serving in a mine facility since the fall
of Crom Calamar, acting as supervisor. Not the most
complimentary posting you can give an officer, really,
which is possibly why he wants to leave... you know
what the drow are like, haughty blighters to a man…
ahem. Excuse me.
‘It’s not common for a Toz’capfa to be privy to important
discussions at a strategic level, nor to be cleared for
information that the rank and file don’t also know,
unless he’s been given a special assignment. So, given
Vellish’s unusual posting, we’re guessing that the drow
command have given him some job that relates to a top
secret project, and he’s guessing that we’d be interested
in knowing more about it.
‘So far as we can tell from divinations, he is sincere in
his wish to defect. We’ve considered using scrying on
him and trying to pull the thoughts out of his head, but
if he detected us he’d pull back like a scalded cat and
the deal would be dead in the water.
‘He won’t talk until he’s safely out of there, so we have
to extract him and bring him back here to Xoth Sarandi
before we can make any use of him. We have the
location of the mine where he’s being kept, so it should
be simple enough to teleport you in behind enemy lines.
If we’re lucky, we should be able to send you straight
to Vellish’s chambers, so you could be in and out again
in moments. We’ll prepare a scroll of ‘word of recall’
that you can use to bring yourselves back here instantly,
with or without Vellish. Any questions?’
Some likely questions are listed below:
How did Vellish make contact?: ‘He sent his familiar,
a raven, with a message tied around his foot. The
raven must have taken a ride on a ship – it could never
have flown that distance alone. When it reached here
it made straight for the Council chambers, where the
Council caught it and passed it on to me. The message
Ibon Presno Gonzalez (order #73006) 8
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