Session Write Up: Brandan’s Pact (Dwarven Campaign) Part 1

Published by Karsten on The Dark Eye Blog. Written by Kulmineo. The Dark Eye: Brandan’s Pact – Our Adventure So Far

Maybe a little introduction first: These write-ups cover our playthrough of Brandans Pakt (English: Brandan’s Pact), an official campaign for The Dark Eye (DSA5), published by Ulisses Spiele. It is an epic, dwarf-focused fantasy campaign for the pen-and-paper role-playing game. We aim to publish a new write-up every two months, with occasional bonus posts during holidays and vacation periods.

You asked for write-ups, and write-ups you shall get!

Since The Dark Eye is a German game and we play it in German, I’ll do my best to translate and explain the terminology as we go along. However, I won’t necessarily use the terms from the official English edition (yes, you can actually buy and play this game in English!).

A Little Background on The Dark Eye

The game is set on the high-fantasy continent of Aventuria. Think The Lord of the Rings: humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, and all sorts of magical creatures. Despite this classic fantasy setting, The Dark Eye has a distinctly low-fantasy feel in many respects. Powerful magic and dragons exist, but your characters often start out as ordinary people simply trying to make their way through the world.

So far, our story has taken place in the Middle Realm, a vast human kingdom stretching from one ocean to the other across the continent. It is ruled by Empress Rohaja and is the largest of Aventuria’s realms. It is also one of the continent’s two major empires ruled by an emperor or empress.

But enough background. Here’s what has happened so far!

Meet the Party

Our group consists of four players, myself included, with the following characters:

Gwyn – A human blacksmith whose father was an ore djinn. As a result, Gwyn has grey skin and a few limited magical abilities.

Arombolosch – A hill dwarf healer and alchemist.

Ingrascha – An anvil dwarf soldier specialising in siege weapons and two-handed weapons. She is usually the one dealing the most damage while also taking the biggest beating herself.

Lagrosch – Last but not least, my character! He is a hill dwarf and a Wandering Sword, fighting with a sword and shield. Swords are rather unusual weapons for dwarves, which makes him stand out a little. He currently works for Nirwulf, the highest-ranking authority among the hill dwarves. Lagrosch comes from a family of brewers and is also a fully trained chef. In fact, he even wears a chef’s hat into battle! I commissioned some character artwork, and the artist gave him a chef’s hat. I decided to roll with it because it was a fun little touch. And honestly, why shouldn’t a dwarf chef be ready to fight?

The Four Dwarven Cultures of Aventuria

There are four distinct dwarven cultures in this world, each with its own traditions, values, and specialities.

Ore Dwarves

Usually the most conservative of the four groups, the ore dwarves are renowned for their smithing skills and their preference for tradition, order, and established knowledge. They tend to keep to themselves and often believe that the other dwarven cultures have strayed from the proper path.

They generally live deeper underground than the other dwarves. Xorlosch, the most important city in dwarven culture, belongs to the ore dwarves.

Diamond Dwarves

The most widely travelled of the four groups, diamond dwarves are often found working as merchants, particularly in jewellery and gemstones, which are their speciality.

They build their settlements inside mountains, using enormous glass windows to let natural light into their underground homes. My character’s swordmaster comes from this culture.

Anvil Dwarves

The anvil dwarves primarily inhabit the Anvil Mountains. Like the ore dwarves, they prefer mountain settlements, and the two cultures are closely related, although the anvil dwarves tend to be more open-minded.

The current High King of the dwarves, Albrax, belongs to this group. Anvil dwarves are particularly renowned for their engineering and mechanical ingenuity. Lifts, cranes, locks, crossbows, siege weapons—you name it, they can probably build it.

Hill Dwarves

Think Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, but with beards and a serious appreciation for beer.

Hill dwarves live in hill houses, love cooking and brewing, and generally prefer a peaceful life to adventuring or fighting wars. That is, until they absolutely have to.

They are the most open-minded of the four cultures and tend to get along well with their human neighbours. Thousands of years ago, when the hill dwarves left their mountain homes, they shared their religion with humanity. Humans subsequently adopted their worship of the dwarven god Angrosch, whom they call Ingerimm.

I know, this is already a massive info dump, and I haven’t even started recounting the actual adventure! But most of this context will help make sense of what follows.

All Aboard! (Much to Our Dwarves’ Displeasure)

Our adventure began on a boat. Yes, a boat. All our characters hated it.

Dwarves can barely swim and tend to sink like stones, so travelling by water was hardly their preferred method of transport. Unfortunately, it was also the fastest way down the Big River.

As it turned out, our characters had all crossed paths before on a battlefield years ago. Once they realised this, they began to suspect that their meeting was more than mere coincidence.

Fate is a very real force in this world, and many people try to interpret signs and clues left behind by the gods. Our characters were therefore already wondering whether their shared history meant something.

Those suspicions only grew stronger shortly before we reached our destination: the city of Calbrozim, a fortified dwarven city with a human settlement built above it.

A ship travelling ahead of us was ambushed by pirates. As we soon discovered, none other than High King Albrax was aboard, travelling incognito! He thanked us for our assistance and recruited us as his temporary bodyguards, as he had only one guard accompanying him.

Once we reached Calbrozim, we met Count Ghambir, whose human county included the city, along with his two sons and daughter.

The count explained that strange dreams had been haunting the city, leaving the dwarves frightened and increasingly restless. To understand just how unsettling this was, you need to know that in the world of The Dark Eye, dwarves don't dream when they sleep. If a dwarf does experience a dream, it's a highly unusual occurrence, often taken as a sign that something is seriously wrong. Illness, magic, curses, or other troubling influences might be at work. To make matters worse, the local ore dwarves had been harassing a delegation of diamond dwarves that had settled in the city years earlier, after losing their own kingdom and being forced to seek a new home.

Things were already looking rather unpleasant.

Strange Dreams and the Stone Brotherhood

Before long, our characters began experiencing strange dreams of their own. Something deep beneath the mountain was trying to awaken and make its way to the surface.

Meanwhile, trouble within the city escalated. One of the count’s sons died, and we uncovered a sinister organisation known as the Stone Brotherhood. Its members were determined to drive all the diamond dwarves out of the city.

This eventually led to a bloody battle inside the tavern of the Stone Brotherhood. Not exactly the peaceful evening we might have hoped for.

Our investigations revealed that the Stone Brotherhood had been receiving support from a Geode.

Geodes are dwarven spellcasters who practise elemental magic. Dwarves are generally suspicious of magic users, so Geodes often live alone or apart from the rest of dwarven society. Many prefer to be left in peace and are only sought out for advice when there is absolutely no other option.

Naturally, our next step was to track down this particular Geode and try to talk some sense into him. And if talking failed, well, we could always try hitting him until he reconsidered his life choices.

Instead, we encountered a friendly Geode who had already been beaten up by the one we were looking for. According to him, the other Geode had completely lost his mind and was attempting to control an Elemental Master of Ore named Murtosch—a powerful elemental being made of stone.

We followed the trail to a cave, where we confronted the rogue Geode. We managed to stop him from taking control of the Elemental Master of Ore and won the fight, although our enemy escaped. We only managed to kill one of his henchmen.

The Elemental Master introduced himself as Murtosch and then revealed just how serious the situation really was.

The mad Geode was trying to awaken a powerful Kaiser Dragon  (literally translated to English as “Emperor Dragon”) and follower of Pyrdacor, the ancient golden dragon and the dwarves’ greatest enemy.

The dragon, Ishlarin, had been sleeping beneath the mountain for thousands of years, but was slowly awakening.

And, because things apparently weren’t bad enough already, the Elemental Master delivered another piece of terrible news: the ancient pact between the dwarves and the Elemental Lord of Ore was growing weaker and would soon be broken.

The pact had helped the dwarves defeat Pyrdacor more than 5,000 years ago. If it failed, the consequences could be catastrophic.

The Unthinkable: Asking a Dragon for Help

To prevent Ishlarin from awakening completely, the Elemental Master advised us to seek help from another Kaiser Dragon sleeping nearby.

This dragon had fought against Ishlarin and Pyrdacor during the ancient dragon wars. The Elemental Master gave us an artefact that could be used to wake him.

Our reaction? Let’s just say we weren’t thrilled.

Except for Gwyn, none of us was particularly keen on waking up a dragon and asking it for help. Dwarves see dragons primarily as ancient enemies and existential threats. Slaying one is considered the ultimate act of courage and a religious duty to their god, Angrosch.

Asking a dragon for assistance? That is the sort of thing that could bring shame upon your ancestors for generations.

Unfortunately, we were running out of options.

So, together with our new friend, the friendly Geode, we climbed higher into the mountains. Before long, snow surrounded us.

Eventually, we reached the cave where the dragon we were looking for had been sleeping. And, of course, he was resting on a huge pile of gold.

For a moment, we seriously considered whether we should simply kill him first and take the treasure.

Our Geode companion and Gwyn reminded us that we actually needed this dragon alive and on our side. Reluctantly, we abandoned that plan and woke him up.

He turned out to be a complete arse. However, he quickly realised the danger we were facing, as he could sense Ishlarin awakening himself.

He instructed us to travel to the ancient dwarven city of Romdrolosch. We already knew the name from ancient legends, but we had no idea where the lost city was located or how to get there. He told us more about Romdrolosch and, crucially, how we could find our way there. Furthermore, he gave us a flute and instructed us to play it when we reached the heart of the ancient dwarven city of Romdrolosch, a long-lost settlement that had faded into legend.

As soon as we arrived, my character began sketching the city as best he could. Lagrosch is a chef by profession, but apparently, he also fancies himself an amateur cartographer when the opportunity arises.

The Lost City of Romdrolosch

Inside Romdrolosch, we fought a cave dragon. That encounter later earned us the prestigious title of Dragon Slayers.

We also discovered a divine sword. In the original adventure, this was a dagger, but since nobody in our party was particularly interested in fighting with daggers, our Game Master changed it into a short sword that I could use.

Then we arrived just in time to witness the rogue Geode awaken Ishlarin.

The Geode seemed shocked when he realised what he had done. Unfortunately, it was already too late.

Ishlarin looked deeply unnatural. Parts of his body seemed to consist of molten magma, while a thick crust formed his outer shell. Even for a dragon of his immense power, something was clearly wrong. He should have died while sleeping in lava aeons ago, yet here he was, very much alive—and far more terrifying than he had any right to be.

We sounded the flute to summon our dragon ally and prepared for battle.

While the dragons faced each other, we dealt with the lesser enemies surrounding us, mostly weaker ore elementals and a golem.

Then came the moment that crushed our hopes.

As we fought the smaller enemies, we saw Ishlarin overpowering our dragon ally. Despite all our efforts to bring him into the fight, our supposed saviour was beaten and killed by Ishlarin.

So much for that plan.

Once we had finished off the lesser enemies, Ishlarin turned his attention to us.

He delivered a full-blown villain’s monologue, announcing that we should spread the news of his awakening and the breaking of the ancient pact.

Soon, he declared, the dwarves would be annihilated.

Cue the evil laughter: Mwahahahahahaha!

And just like that, the campaign’s Big Bad had finally revealed himself.

A Grim Return to Calbrozim

Our mood was understandably terrible on the journey back. Lagrosch, in particular, was lost in thought.

We gathered some of the treasure from the now-empty dragon’s cave and returned to Calbrozim, where we informed Count Ghambir and High King Albrax of everything that had happened.

Neither of them was particularly pleased to hear the news.

An ancient enemy had returned, more powerful than ever, and the pact that had protected the dwarves for millennia was on the verge of collapse.

What does the future hold for the dwarves of Aventuria?

Who knows. Before they can even think about confronting Ishlarin, they will have to overcome their own divisions and unite against this new threat. Every dwarven kingdom has its own interests and agenda, and convincing them to stand together will be a challenge in itself.

What Comes Next?

This session covered the second adventure that can be played before diving fully into the campaign. Normally, this part of the story would take considerably longer, but we opted for the abridged version to get through the essential events.

I’ll write up the next part of our adventure, so stay tuned!

And if you have any questions about the characters, the world of The Dark Eye, or the events of our campaign, feel free to ask in the comments. I’m happy to explain anything that might be unclear!