People of the Vale

An elf hunter traveling with Orifin. They were looking for their sister Iliel, taken by Tylos. They joined the party at Fort Malus, where Iliel was rescued and the fort destroyed. Before returning to the Iron Forest, they promised the party a reward if they met again deep in the forest.

An elf the knights at Fort Malus wanted as a translator. She refused, so Tylos overpowered her and took her to the fort. Her brothers Aldonil and Orifin joined the party to free her before Rotlaug destroyed the fort. She returned with her brothers to the Iron Forest.

An elf hunter traveling with Aldonil. They were looking for their sister Iliel, taken by Tylos. They joined the party at Fort Malus, where Iliel was rescued and the fort destroyed. Before returning to the Iron Forest, they promised the party a reward if they met again deep in the forest.

An explorer who approached the party outside Fort Malus and asked for help freeing his travel companion Blutuld. After learning that Blutuld was dead, he fled when Arcturus demanded that his arm be checked for tattoos. Arcturus killed him, and the party found Sathmog's mark on his forearm.

A nature spirit bound beneath Fort Malus in perpetuity. When the party opened the cellar door, Rotlaug killed Niklion, brought down the fort, and merged with the withered golden apple tree. The restored tree and its roots now cover the ruins.

An ancient tree in the Iron Forest, there since before the dragon-worshipping empire. The wellspring's tendrils had half strangled him; after the pond was broken they left the roots, though he was still half withered. He gave bark, leaves, words of the oracle and old names, and the amber Hafarmal said could carry a soul.

An armored knight of the Heirs of the Immaculate Flame. He took Iliel after she refused to translate elf writing for him.

The party freed her while Tylos was away, and Rotlaug destroyed Fort Malus.

Tylos remains at large.

Toman's wife, who left for Dareholt and never came home. The party found her slender pipe in the innkeepers' room, a match to Drubar's, and Toman put it in Shanna's hands. Before that last trip he saw her speaking with a woman in one blue glove, and she was different after.

He left Outskirt more than a year ago for the Temple of the Purple Flame. The party found him in the portal chamber, twisted, milky-eyed, knowing Lou's name one moment and trying to stab him the next. Hafarmal says the portal is fueling what is left of his life, and that the shard has to come out before the gate can close.

An elf with a coarse voice, a pipe, and black eyes, living in a mossy hut a short walk from the Temple of the Purple Flame. He researched Dennis's portal-bound life and sent the party to Oak Sage for amber, the only way he knows to carry a soul.

A goblin who crawled out of Riddermound with the party. He stole the false statuette on the road, then pressed it into Shanna's hands in Outskirt and warned her that Ukka is coming when the snow melts. He would not be part of those new orders.

Gate warden of Outskirt. He let them in, later hid the chest Arcturus brought him, and said the town had no sheriff who could take Quasimund in the open. The next morning he found them in Annabella's house, Grimm told him the dead were on him, and he went to Vagnhild to have them sent away.

Master Ulvar's son. He came to the Three Stags with a message from Hardy, which pulled Vagnhild out of the inn. After the massacre he was the one calming a shocked Annabella while Hardy tried to take hold of the street. By morning Vagnhild was carrying the weight of five townsfolk dead and Jory clinging to life.

The woman who runs Rowan's Post. She mistook Lou for his brother Dennis, then told him Dennis had worked there before he disappeared, leaving more than a year ago with adventurers bound for the Temple of the Purple Flame. She sold them Silly, cross-eyed, a small limp, the hardest-working mule at the post.

A mallard with a gang of bullies who shook the party down on the way to Toman's. He drank at the Three Stags, kept men in a filthy barn, and screamed about stolen tax money after the chest went missing. Grimm found him in Annabella's house, begging her help; she cut his throat. His left forearm carried the mark of Sathmog.

Innkeeper of the Three Stags. She welcomed the party with mead, hired Shanna for the late shift, and trusted only Shanna's word when they said Annabella was not who she claimed. After the mob and the dead she told them to leave Outskirt for a few days, not as punishment, for the town's sake. When Kaelen walked in from the north gate, Vagnhild called her the saviour of Road's End Inn.

The inn worker at the Three Stags called herself Annabella, a member of the Truth Society. She is also Leanara, priestess of the cult of Sathmog, the one who gave Dennis's party work and later betrayed him. When Outskirt turned, Grimm saw her kill Quasimund; she fled south, and deserters on the temple road said that priestess had come back raging mad.

A flamboyant exile from a minor Dareholt merchant house, seen at the Split Cup with two bodyguards, Sorev and Brynn. He talked of taxes, councils, and rule. He remembered Dennis heading for the Vale years ago, and later offered Grimm work guarding a winter caravan through the pass.

Leader of the Heirs of the Immaculate Flame. In Outskirt she spoke with travelers at the Three Stags, chainmail under a cloak, a blue glove on her left hand, then left with a broadsword across her back. Tylos named her as the one the Heirs serve.

A scholar at the Paper Burrow in Outskirt. He summoned Igorrr when he did not know who else to trust, and he said the true statue fragments sing faintly to their kin. After Blackridge he remembered an old belief: an Oracle somewhere in the Vale, and a child missing three days.

An academic in a tent by the shimmering barrier. He spoke of an event horizon and showed them grains of guano draconis that glowed and vanished against it. When they came back from the loop they told him what they could remember. He had no way to stop it.

Trusted wizard of Emperor Eledain, his fief Blackridge. At the peak of the tower he lay ruined by stroke and fear, crawling toward a contract he could never reach, while Ix fed on that humiliation. They would not take his place at first; Kato died smiling when Arcturus burned the contract, and the afternoon returned anyway.

A mage in Blackridge whose mind had been chewed hollow by sleepless months. Grimm poisoned him and killed him in the first pass through the inn. Later he signed Ix's contract. When the fire came again he was still there, crawling where Kato had crawled. The loop did not break.

She was waiting to die in Blackridge, took a bargain from Ix, and walked out with a changed axe. Grub later warned Outskirt: she killed Maladûk and is gathering what is left of the clans for the old ways, not for cultists or the statue. To reach the Tower of Sighs she has to go through town. Expect no mercy.

An aged cave troll in velvet who keeps Kato's tower. The hills around Blackridge warn you not to approach the east side without a nose clip, and that Gorm likes plums. He barred the way. The loop did not let them out past him for long.

A wrinkled mystic in a grass-roofed hut by the old temple. He welcomed them with pastry in his mouth, dispelled the glamour on Grub's false statuette, and spoke of Um-Durman, four true fragments, and a crypt somewhere beneath the Vale. He asked for more doughnuts, and mentioned hissing voices at night near the old wall.

A carpenter in the southwestern corner of Outskirt, past the old well. Shanna brought him Drubar's pipe, his own work, and then Bela's matching slender one. He crumbled, asked to be left alone, then stepped back out and put Bela's pipe in Shanna's hands. Later he said that before her last trip she spoke with a woman in one blue glove, and was different after.

A Keeper knight, often in the common room of the Three Stags, bearing a refined form of Igorrr's emblem. She took word of Annabella seriously, hinted at a place among the Keepers for Shanna, and called the Heirs misguided knights who would use everything in their path to rid the world of Azrahel Koth with the sword of Eledain. Cultists dragged her northwest from the temple, chained and barely clothed, toward Mirror Lake; her plate turned up in Quasimund's barn, and nobody has gone after her.

A Keeper who hired Lou as squire and guide into the Vale after laughing at his poetry. Astara had summoned him, unsure who else in Outskirt could be trusted. The innkeepers drugged the house; his bone whistle lay untouched on the altar, and they put his body in the pit with Drubar's.

Niala's old hunting dog from the stables at Rowan's Post. Lou lured him back to the hut with a sausage and named him Baloo. Everyone else still calls him Bones.

A sturdy mule bought at Rowan's Post, cross-eyed, with a small limp, sold as the hardest-working animal there. She has carried the party's loads since they left Outskirt for the valley.

A vixen pup. Her dying mother spoke through the fallen stone and begged Arcturus to keep her safe. Anser would not leave him after that.