The epilogue section also covers the last seven sessions of the forty-one total sessions, entitled Sacrum, which wraps up the remaining mysteries of the Saga's main plotline.
Please note that while real dates, real events, and real people are interspersed throughout this tale, many of the events occurred in a slightly different way in our history of Mythic Europe, and historical figures do, obviously, have motivations and actions ascribed to them that they did not have in the real world. Many things which seem historically mundane are complete fabrications, such as the Peruzzi alliance with the Templars. Finally, there are a number of liberties taken with dates and family trees; the Peruzzi lineage and chairmanships, for example, while based on the real family tree, is not strictly accurate.
In other words: This is a work of fiction. However, any resemblance to actual events and persons, living or dead, is probably completely intentional.
In the year 1308, the Teutonic Knights entered the city of Gdansk, in Poland, putting its inhabitants to the sword, killing methodically and without mercy. This was no coincidence; it was in that year that the magi of the Order of Hermes met in Gdansk for their Grand Tribunal, drawning the most powerful of their number, as well as the younger magi eager for the rare opportunity to socialize with their fellows. Among the magi present was Marius Alienus, a recently-Gauntleted wizard of House Bonisagus, accompanying his former master to this historic meeting. He was fortunate; sent off on an errand, he returned just in time to see his parens dragged out and butchered, his head placed in a bag, his last moments spent crying out impotently as his magic failed him utterly. While Marius managed to escape the city, few others were so lucky.
The massacre broke the Order utterly; without Redcaps for communication or Quaesitors to maintain order, the fragmented remains of once-powerful covenants vanished into hiding. Marius himself eventually fled to Ragusa, to the court of Aristecchio di Philippi di Venezia, Ninth Count of Ragusa. He found another magus already in Ragusa, a Bonisagus and Quaesitor by the name of Vaticanatus, posing as an astrologer. Marius, breaking the Code of Hermes, offered his services to the Count as his court wizard.
Meanwhile, in Arabia, Tariq al'Imi, a Saracen trained loosely in the traditions of the Order of Hermes, left his village for a brief journey. When he returned, he discovered that it had been utterly destroyed, in a manner that he could not fathom. Devastated, he left the remnants of his home and set out to wander the world, swearing off magic completely.
Back in Ragusa, some years later, a young woman called Lidija Glodnowclew was attempting to wrest her inheritance, an ancient lighthouse on a tiny island off the Dalmatian coast, from the greedy hands of the Count, who intended to use the island as a training grounds for his Ferali, an elite band of soldiers recruited to combat the Montenegran tribesman whose raids plagued the caravan route across the mountains. Marius, aware of magical aura which pervaded "the Rock", had his own ideas for the place as well, and Vaticanatus attemped to interfere in the affair. The Count attempted to compromise by offering to marry Lidija to his nephew Marco, but, unfortunately, due to an earlier agreement, the young man had already been promised to the Hospitaller Knights. The Senate intervened in the matter, taking wardship of Lidija, but the Count responded by levying a tax upon the land that Lidija could not hope to pay, hoping to force her to default so that the land could be reclaimed.
It was at this point that Tariq arrived in Ragusa, and championed the girl, ending up in a somewhat fatherly, protective role. He managed to pay off the first year of taxes, and established a home for himself on the Rock. Two years later, a Jewish Kabbalist named Elijiah, arrived, convincing Tariq to abandon his self-pity and use magic again. Elijiah, a "man of the people", deeply religious and skilled at protective magics, founded the Concilium together with Tariq.
Over the next few years, others came to the Concilium, fleeing their pasts. The covenant survived its early years in relative quiet. It was not until the Autumn of 1325 that the first truly earth-shaking event occurred. A storm in the Adriatic resulted in the violent impact of a waterspout with the cliffside wall of the Concilium. It opened a breach in the side of the cliff, leading into a long-forgotten, sealed chamber. A capstone, carved with the symbol of House Criamon, had been cracked, making accessible a stairway to the depths down below, to what the magi would later term, "the basement".
Exploration and later investigation yielded the fact that there had once been a covenant of Criamon magi living beneath the Rock. Their quest was the Enigma, and it appeared as if they had been at least partially successful; this barely-controlled magic, and the five magi in Final Twilight, seemed responsible for the Rock's magical aura. Five ghosts, former consortes of the magi, guarded the place with fierce zeal.
The magi decided to simply seal the capstone and go about their lives. Unfortunately, other events interrupted. In the Spring of 1326, Marius came to the Concilium, with a mysterious box. Within it was a bit of paper reading "uno di scopetti da fuoco morte" -- "one of the dead-fire weapons" -- and a single wheel-lock pistol. Marius asked the Concilium magi to investigate; the box was taken from some Montenegran raiders, who presumably had taken it from a merchant caravan attempting to cross the mountains.
The magi agreed to take up Marius' quest, in return for the lifting of the Count's tax upon the Rock, and an offer of protection from the Count; Marius, as the Count's close advisor, was empowered to sign documents in his name. The next several seasons were spent trying to find the source of the weapon, and, in the process, retracing the history of the Deadfire Weapons.
In the year 1263, in France, a smith of extraordinary skill forged the Deadfire Weapons. They numbered thirty in all: ten pistols, and twenty muskets. By some method unknown to the magi, the weapons were eventually hidden in a cave in Hungary, perhaps lost even to their original owners, men who were part of a secret society that, among other things, were responsible for the Teutonic Knights' slaughter of the population of Gdansk in 1308, and the attendant destruction of the Order of Hermes.
In 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of the Knights Templar. In 1314, their last Grand Master was burned at the stake. Sometime during this period, a few of the Order managed to escape, and were brought into the service of the Peruzzi Company of Florence, as special, exceptionally loyal agents.
In 1319, Charles Robert Anjou, then the annointed King of Hungary, fought the Aba and their allied clans, on the plains near Rozgony, not overly far from Budapest. When the Aba clansmen were routed, they fled into the foothills, towards the safety of the Carpathian Mountains. Anjou's force, including a sizeable contingent of Hospitaller Knights, pursued the clans into the hills.
One maniple of Hospitallers was unknowing host to a spy -- a Templar in service of the Peruzzis. The maniple evidently stumbled upon the cave, and the Templar turned upon his fellows, slaughtered them, and then fled to Florence with a single Deadfire pistol.
In Florence, Giotto Peruzzi, then Chairman of the Company, decided that the weapon was too dangerous to deal with, put it in a box, and stuck it in the back of a storeroom, where it remained for the next several years.
In 1324, Castruccio Castracani was appoined duke of Lucca, and soon entered into a war with Florence, winning a decisive victory at Altopascio, in 1325. Among the men of the Florentine forces captured at Altopascio were Pacino and Simone Peruzzi, two of the younger members of the Peruzzi family. This experience apparently drove Pacino to seek something which would aid Florence in defeating the Luccans; it was then that he located the Deadfire Weapon, sitting forgotten in the Peruzzi warehouse.
Taking this weapon, and some of the Peruzzi's "pet Templars", Pacino planned a journey to Rozgony, in order to find more of the weapons. He took ship from Florence to Ragusa. The box for the weapon was damaged in transit, and thus he had it replaced by a Ragusan goldsmith and Peruzzi agent, Alouiso di Farigi. Then, he hired a caravan guide named Sergei Yaroslaw, for the expedition across the mountains.
By sheer chance, Pacino's party were attacked by Montenegran tribesmen in the mountains; the raiders attacked and slew the "merchant" and his guardsmen in a fierce fight, and took the box. Sergei was the only member of the party who survived, feigning death to avoid being slaughtered. He robbed what he could from the dead and fled back to Ragusa.
Not long later, a band of the Count's Ferali guardsmen, on their routine patrol against the Montenegrans, attacked this band of raiders and killed them. The Ferali took the box to Marius, who, in turn, brought it to the Concilium magi.
Alanus and Vasha returned to Ragusa to continue investigating, and to meet up with Amanda Boldofor, who remained in the city to pay off a protection racket, under a crime lord known as "Senore Vermicelli" ("the Worm"). Vasha was dismayed to see that someone had attempted to break into his shop, only to be turned away by the explosive wards upon the door. Further questioning allowed the magi to discover word of a Florentine ship which Pacino might have been associated with.
The next morning, after encountering an enraged Alouiso di Farigi, who, unbeknownst to all, was robbed in the night by Amanda, (she was trying to get the money needed to pay The Worm's blackmail), the magi went to visit the docks. This, however, produced an unwelcome encounter with some armed men in the service of the ship's owners, the Peruzzi Company of Florence, one of the most powerful mercantile companies in the world. Alanus, in an attempt to extract information from one of the men, accidentally killed him, and the two magi fled back to the Concilium.
However, all had not been quiet. The day before, a visitor came to the Rock. His name, he said, was Girard Savoir, and he claimed to have been a consors at Cain's apprenticeship covenant of Redcairn. Cain, unfortunately, was well aware that Redcairn had been destroyed in a magical "accident" triggered by his own magic addiction in the Winter Covenant's vis storeroom, though none of the other covenfolk knew of this, due to the Concilium's sworn policy of, "the past is forgiven and forgotten".
Girard Savoir, evidently, managed to extract a great deal of information about the Concilium and its inhabitants from Gregor, and used it to his advantage, rapidly sowing distrust and dissension, culminating in forcing Cain's confession of his past to Tariq. Girard's statements made it extremely ambiguous what the true state of Redcairn was, or what Girard's mission at the Concilium might have been; finding no good alternative, Tariq merely decided to permit the man the standard hospitality extended to a guest.
The next morning, when Alanus and Vasha returned, and told their story, Cain and Asid took the opportunity to gloat at the Scotsman's accidental slaughter. Furious, Alanus stomped off, intending to leave the Concilium; Tariq left the magi's breakfast to try to talk him out of it, promising that he'd have the others apologize.
However, while this was going on, it was discovered that not only had Girard been out of his rooms against orders (and guards) the previous evening, but he had spent the night in the bed of Maggie May, Alanus' common-law wife. An enraged Alanus, a mildly panicked Cain, and an exasperated Tariq, encountered a bemused-looking Vasha, who reported having just spoken to Girard (who, among other things, let the astrologer in on the secret of the Deadfire Weapons, as well as "the basement"). Girard looked into Vasha's eyes, told him to leave, and the astrologer found himself obeying, only snapping out of his entranced daze under the frantic queries of his fellow magi.
A search was mounted for Girard, which, eventually, resulted in Tariq's use of a spell to see through the rock of the entire island. This had the interesting side-effect of also allowing him to see within "the basement", discovering the existence of the Enigma and the five Criamon magi who opened it. Unfortunately, the magi then received a report that Girard had thrown himself off the battlements; further spellcasting revealed that he had shapeshifted into a shark. Giovanni piloted a small Concilium ship in pursuit, and in the ensuing battle, Hassan succeeded in harpooning the shark, who then dissolved into naught but a bundle of weeds and a round, black, stone.
More pressing matters were at hand, however, and the Concilium put off further investigations into Girard's nature, instead mounting an expedition to Florence, led by Cain. In Florence, the covenfolk first met with Guido Peruzzi, acting Chairman of the Peruzzi Company. This meeting was largely unproductive, culminating in the covenfolk being surrounded by crossbowmen. Faced with this dilemma, Cain chose to agree to Guido's offer to keep a single member of his party as a token of good behavior, and selected Vastin for the "task".
After leaving the Peruzzi palazzo in Florence, the covenfolk discovered, after Gregor waylaid Guido's messenger, that Guido did not know what was in the box, but, by comparing handwriting on records, Asatar discovered that the person who had written the note in the box with the Deadfire Weapon was Giotto Peruzzi, the former Chairman.
Cain led the expedition out to Giotto's country estate. Giovanni, however, informed him of a curious encounter with a leper at the Hospitaller hospice in Florence, mentioning the existence of a colony founded twenty years ago, near the town of Fiesole. Cain chose to investigate, finding this date to correspond suspiciously to the approximate time of the Massacre at Gdansk.
Cain's suspicions were confirmed; the colony was apparently really the vis source for a covenant in the nearby swamp. The Terginum Excubitoris, as these three men called themselves, were, in Cain's memory, the most Traditionalist of the Quaesitors, and the covenant built on the former stronghold of the Transitionalists, prior to their destruction in the late thirteenth century. They claimed to be working to rebuild the Order, and Cain told them of the Concilium and the quest for the weapons. He was then dismissed, and told that he would be contacted in three years.
The covenfolk then journeyed on to Giotto Peruzzi's country estate, disguised as Guido Peruzzi and a band of retainers. Cain-as-Guido walked about the estate gardens with Giotto, attempting to extract more information and being berated by the old man for his stupidity; Giovanni, meanwhile, was startled by the flash of a Templar battle-sign by one of the Peruzzi "Hospitaller" guardsmen. When it appeared as if Giotto would order their deaths, Cain reached out and used destructive magic to reduce Giotto's mind to that of a three-year-old; switching disguises, so that the magus looked like Giotto and Giotto looked like Guido, the covenfolk managed to escape from the estate grounds, though they were escorted back by several Templars, who they killed along the way back to Florence.
Once back in Florence, Cain, still disguised as Giotto, sought an audience with Guido, and berated him in much the same manner that the real Giotto had berated Cain-as-Guido. Vastin's release was secured, and they obtained a ring that had once belonged to Pacino. However, an unfortunate slip of the tongue aroused Guido's suspicions, and some quiet slaughter quickly took place; with a bit of careful persuasion, Gregor managed to convince the now-childish Giotto to take him to the records room of the Peruzzis, where all records pertaining to the weapon, the Templars, and the Order of Hermes were quickly gathered up. Giotto was then strangled.
Upon the expedition's return to the Rock, Asid and Alanus took Pacino's ring and used it to find the man's unburied corpse. Asid called up Pacino's spirit, and coerced it, by threatening the welfare of Simone, to tell them where he had been planning on taking the weapon. The magi were thus able to plan an expedition to Rozgony, in Hungary, after stopping back in Ragusa to frighten the Peruzzi factor in Ragusa with images of the Infernal.
The magi decided, however, that the journey to Rozgony could wait until the next spring, and that other matters pressed more heavily. Specifically, the magi, most of them well into their third decade of life, felt the pressing need to hunt for vis, in order to brew their longevity potions. Thus, Tariq al'Imi, together with some of the other covenfolk, ventured into the Balkans, based on some notes of Elijiah's. There, they discovered the remnants of the covenant of Maurath's Retreat. Maurath, a maga of House Jerbiton, had, many years before, taken the womb of the ancient dragon Kheft. She wrapped it around a staff, fashioning an item of great magical power. When she died, one of the covenant's custos took the staff, but was consumed by its magic. Over the years, the descendents of the covenfolk, under the intense magical aura generated by the staff, mutated into a society that most closely resembled an insect hive.
Tariq, encountering Kheft, in what the local folk of the village of Critierus called "the cave of the Dead God", promised to return her the womb, in exchange for his life, the body of her dead son, and the dessicated eggs of her unhatched children. The covenfolk ended up killing Belorix, and though Bisclavret was nearly overcome by the staff's power, Tariq was able to return the womb to the dragon, and returned successfully to the Rock with his vis-laden prizes.
Late that summer, Vasha decided to return to "the basement", with Paul Archlien, in order to attempt to retrieve the remnants of the magical library of the Criamon clutch. Though successful, Vasha and Cain managed to earn the personal enmity of the ghosts Ivanic and Garoth, respectively. They did manage to retrieve a fair number of books, and Vasha earned himself some respect, as well as something he kept secret -- a gift from Lailoken, a penny which allows them to keep in contact.
In the spring of 1327, Marius came to the covenant, asking for a report on the investigation thus far. The ever-suspicious magi refused to tell him anything useful, so he insisted on accompanying them on their next planned step -- Rozgony, in Hungary. Warily, the magi insisted that Marius first secure an end to the Count's taxation of the Rock and the Count's protection over the Concilium's lands, as originally promised; Marius complied.
That done, the magi proceeded onwards, sending a party under the direction of Alanus. The expedition to Hungary started well enough, with an uneventful trip across the mountains, arriving at the fairgrounds of the castle of Visegrad, not far from the city of Budapest. Marius presented himself as a representative of the Count of Ragusa, at the pageant being held in Visegrad to celebrating the minting of gold coins. Giovanni discovered the presence of a commander of the Knights Hospitaller, one Frederich von Halten.
Some years previous, Giovanni had been part of a somewhat unusual political struggle. Giovanni's father Iago, younger brother of the Count of Ragusa, made an agreement with his older brother Aristecchio -- Giovanni (then Marco, his given name) would join the Knights Hospitaller when he was old enough, and Aristecchio would donate the land on which Giovanni would run his hospice. This indeed happened, though Giovanni became a pawn of the Deacon Antonio di Serra, who coveted his lands; Aristecchio supported his political ally over his nephew. In 1322, some of the Count's Ferali troops, in the guise of Montenegran raiders, slaughtered the villagers in Giovanni's lands, and destroyed the hospice. Giovanni's own life was only spared by the recognition of one of the Ferali, who realized the ill being done; the man, Petro, insisted that Giovanni swear not to reveal that he knew the truth.
Giovanni was then put on trial for desertion and cowardice. Bound by the oath, he could not explain his actions, and he was saved only by the intervention of some mysterious Hospitaller Knights, who reduced his sentence from execution to penance. He was demoted to Initiate, and Aristecchio publicly renounced familial ties to him until such time that Giovanni could prove himself. Giovanni's lands were given to Deacon di Serra.
Returning to 1327 and the story at hand: The Knight Commander was somehow aware of Giovanni's past, and, stating he had faith in the young man, gave him his badge to wear in the tournament the next day. The Concilium party soon discovered that they were in the midst of a tense political confrontation developing between King Charles of Hungary and some of his Saxon lords.
Von Halten even loaned Giovanni his warhorse, and with it, the young knight made a good showing at the tournament, until he was dealt a grievous wound by the Saxon champion for Baron Luthor of Poszony, who insisted on fighting with real weapons. That champion, however, went on to the last round, defeating King Charles' own champion -- who died, rather than surrendering to the Saxon. For his valor, however, Von Halten gave Giovanni his own personal badge.
The next day, after the rest of the covenfolk departed to do some investigation in Rozgony, Giovanni went to see Von Halten again. The Knight Commander of the Hungarian Langue offered Giovanni a chance to be initiated into some sort of deeper mysteries. He told Giovanni that a Spanish assassin would soon to try kill King Charles, and that Giovanni would be free to do as he chose with this information, as a test of whether or not he was ready to be inducted into greater secrets. Furthermore, Von Halten told Giovanni that he was aware of the Concilium's quest and actions, including full knowledge of the Deadfire Weapons, save for knowledge of their current location.
Shortly after Giovanni left Von Halten, he encountered Shaoroch (Marius' fanatically loyal Danish bodyguard), mortally wounded, stumbling through the crowds, crying that he and Marius had been attacked in the praedia (the King's private hunting preserve). Giovanni was unable to learn more from Shaoroch, who died after gasping out this last message. The knight, investigating, discovered Marius, decapitated and blood-eagled, the word "WITCH" written in blood on a placard around his neck, together with the inscription, "mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" (taken from the Book of Daniel, where a ghostly hand writes upon the wall, declaring the end of the Belshazzar's kingdom).
The covenfolk, meanwhile, in Rozgony, had managed to hear a folk story of seven ghosts in the mountains, guarding a cave. Alanus Scotus had expended over half a rook of vis conjuring up a feast for the villagers. In the middle of the night, Giovanni rode in, bearing the bad news about Marius and Shaoroch.
This bit of news, coupled with Giovanni's guarded explanation of Von Halten's words, spurred the covenfolk to action; Alanus and several others went off into the woods in search of the cave, and soon found it, and, ignoring Giovanni's warnings not to disturb the weapons, took the boxes of the weapons, and hid them in a bear-cave, intending to retrieve them later. Giovanni did not see this part of the operation, and Alanus later lied to him, claiming that the weapons had not been removed from their hiding place.
The covenfolk returned to the fairgrounds and set about other tasks. They discovered that the Dominican friar and Papal legate, Dejardins, was Spanish, and, in fact, spoke with another Spaniard, staying near the Saxon tents, about an assassination, coupled with the cryptic words, "Make sure the bolt goes to the Saxon." That night, Gregor quietly entered the mysterious Spaniard's tent, slit his throat, and took his crossbow. The crossbow, upon later inspection, turned out to be very interesting -- lightweight, with two unsual bolts, one tipped with poison, and the other a fragile quarrel without any barbs.
Gregor also visited the tent of the Papal delegation, intending to investigate Dejardins, but he was unsuccessful, due to an unusual encounter. The Captain of the King's Guard, and apparent assassin, an albino Siciilan called Pietro di Drugethi, was also lurking in the tent; in the exchange of throwing knives which followed, he managed to nick Gregor with a blade coated with a paralyzing poison. Gregor, however, managed to make it safely back to the covenfolk's tent, with Gaius covering his exit with a manufactured commotion.
The next morning, however, the covenfolk found their tent ringed round with guards, and were surprised by a visit from King Charles himself. The covenfolk explained the assassination plot, and King Charles ordered them to stay put. Alanus, however, managed to arrange to take Dietrich, in the company of a few of the King's guardsmen, as well as Pietro di Drugethi, to investigate in the praedia. He left Gregor in charge, with orders to meet him in Belgrade if he did not return.
Alanus used the opportunity to make his escape, and used his magic to investigate Marius' death, before heading back into the wilderness to retrieve the hidden Deadfire Weapons. Marius and Shaoroch had been in the woods, and had stopped in a clearing. Shaoroch had his back turned to his charge, and they were ambushed; Shaoroch's arbalest discharged into nothing, and he was cut down by men wearing the badges of Teutonic knights, unable to go to Marius' aid. Marius himself tried to spellcast, but was unable to do so, as they tortured him. Before Marius died, a man robed all in black stepped from the trees, with silver shackles around his wrists, saying, "These are the chains that bind you." Then, the mysterious assailants cut off his head, put it in a bag, and left for parts unknown.
Back at the fairgrounds, the Dominican, Dejardins, escaped on horseback, eluding the King's guards. Giovanni, deeply troubled, went out to wander the fair again. He was openly followed by a King's guardsman, but, mysteriously, his "escort" disappeared, and the young knight went to see Von Halten again. He received only cryptic responses -- but he informed the Knight Commander that he had found the cave where the weapons were located. Gaius quietly wandered the fairgrounds, looking for some sign of the Teutonic knights; his uneasy premonitions drew him to the tent of the Knight Commander. However, when Gaius tried to return to report this to his comrades, he found the covenfolk's tent openly surrounded by guards, at the orders of the albino Pietro di Drugethi, due to Alanus' escape.
Gaius found a place to hide, but after nightfall, his comrades were disarmed and led off to the castle, to see King Charles. A guardsman searched for Gaius, but as he neared Gaius' hiding place, the guardsman was attacked from behind and dragged into the shadows. Seeing this, Gaius resolved to wait out the night in as a secure a location as he could find.
As the covenfolk marched to the castle, a mysterious man, evidently an agent of Von Halten's, came up to Giovanni, pressed a dagger into his hands, and told him to kill King Charles with it, in their upcoming audience. Giovanni, near the castle's moat, quietly dropped the dagger.
The covenfolk were placed in the King's prison, left unbound in the darkness. King Charles, together with the albino and some guardsmen, arrived soon thereafter. Giovanni blurted all the details, save for the information about the Deadfire Weapons, and this information filled out the remainder of the picture for King Charles, who had Luthor of Poszony executed; he discovered, by torturing one of Luthor's Saxon allies, that they had plotted to stage an assassination upon the King, with Luthor throwing himself in front of the King and being hit by the false bolt, thereby earning the King's gratitude. In exchange for the information, King Charles permitted the covenfolk to live, ordering them to leave Hungary immediately, and never return.
The next morning, Gaius discovered that he had been deserted by his companions, and eventually secured, from the castle, his horse and some provisions. He fled by a direct route, and thus encountered neither Alanus nor his other friends, who journeyed to Belgrade by circuitous routes. Unfortunately, he was followed by several Teutonic knights, though he managed to elude them, safely meeting the others in Belgrade for the journey home to Ragusa.
A lengthy Council meeting ensued upon Alanus' return the Rock. Eventually, the magi decided to keep the weapons, rather than destroying them, and began training grogs in their use, in preparation for an attack by their "rightful owners", presumably associated with Knight Commander von Halten and his secret masters.
A few days after Alanus and company's return, several of the covenfolk paid a visit to the Count of Ragusa, Aristecchio di Philippi, delivering the bodies of Marius and Shaoroch. Asid took the opportunity to offer his services as Court Wizard, nearly provoking a violent confrontation with Cain. Nonetheless, Aristecchio permitted the covenfolk to stay as guests, until after the funeral of Marius.
By a somewhat complicated method, Cain and Alanus contrived to "liberate" Marius' spellbooks, though the rest of the wizard's possessions were destroyed, as per the orders he left prior to his death. The funeral itself was uneventful, but Giovanni cornered Aristecchio afterwards, demanding to speak with him.
Giovanni had, the day before, discovered the presence of his cousin, Guillermo di Bargheri, who apparently was destined to become the childless Aristecchio's heir. Giovanni presented his uncle with the Knight Commander's badge, and asked to be his heir, since he had freed himself from the stain of cowardice. Aristecchio told him that he lacked the guts for it, and said that if he were truly worthy to become heir, he would go to Revicci, captain of the Ferali, and tell him to have Guillermo murdered. Unexpectedly, Giovanni did so, and the deed was done. Aristecchio held to his promise, taking Giovanni -- now Marco once more -- as his heir.
Meanwhile, the covenfolk had discovered that there had been Teutonic knights at the court, recently. They found them in an abandoned villa not too far from Ragusa, questioned them, and killed them. They discovered that one of the "Binders" was coming to Ragusa, to report success to the Count; evidently, the Count, deciding that Marius was getting uppity, had arranged for the wizard's murder. Further details were not discovered, though a return visit to the Count resulted in the discovery that the Count had summarily dismissed the Binder and his men from his Court, forbidding them from returning to his lands. (This last was thanks to a somewhat wild tale spun by Asid, covering Cain and Alanus' theft of the books, claiming that the Teutonic Knights and the Binder were diabolically linked.)
That settled, months passed in fearful anticipation as the Concilium waited for the invevitable attack. It came, but not in the form anticipated. In November of 1327, a small army, mostly recruited from local peasants pressed into service, under Papal control in the form of a Cistercian monk and the Deacon di Serra, massed upon the beach by the Concilium causeway. Though the Concilium lands were technically protected by the Count's pledge to treat an ill done to them as an ill done to him, the Count was unable to react, due to a threat of interdict. The army's ultimatum to the magi was simple -- leave the Rock immediately, or die.
Unsurprisingly, the magi chose to stay and fight. However, another attack came, before the tide went out again and the army was able to attack. A magus named Joachim Ravensward teleported into the Concilium with a squad of men, and proceeded to burn the barracks of the Grog Turb, slaughtering two-thirds of the Concilium's custodes. Joachim was subsequently grievously wounded in the battle with the magi, but he managed to escape by teleporting out.
The magi discovered that there had been a traitor in their ranks -- the Ragusan caravan guide and gambler Roberto, who, while not consors, had accompanied the covenfolk on several of their missions. Roberto had evidently fled during the chaos of the morning. He had been employed by Tomasso Peruzzi, who took over Chairmanship of the Company after the deaths of Giotto and Guido. The Peruzzi wanted revenge, and, though they were perhaps manipulated by other forces, this was the way they had chosen to take it -- by hiring someone to spy upon the magi, learn their strengths and weaknesses, obtain an Arcane Connection to the Concilium grounds, and then to send a renegade wizard after them all.
The army was dispatched by the elemental wizardry of Tariq, as they attempted to cross the causeway between the beach and the docks of the Rock. Both the Cistercian and the Deacon di Serra were killed during the "battle", which never even reached the Concilium docks.
At the end of it all, the Knight Commander Frederich Von Halten crossed the causeway to speak with the magi, telling them that he had failed in his mission to recover the Deadfire Weapons, and that death would be his reward. The magi, having proven their strength, were now to be the guardians of the Deadfire Weapons, and Von Halten's secret masters would disturb them no further.
Though some closure was provided in the form of the end of the story of the Deadfire Weapons, many plot threads were left unresolved. Mike ran out of time to StoryGuide, but we all wanted to continue, so we elected to change to running Troupe-style, continuing where Deadfire I left off, at the beginning of the Winter of 1327.
The story continued, picking up some unrelated threads, until Mike decided he wanted to run an Epilogue, so we could all finally find out just what it was that the Concilium was up against. This postlude, was intended to clear up the remaining mysteries of the center plotline; it also turned out to serve as the closure for the entire Saga.
The third visit was to prove the most important. Pietro di Drugethi encountered Gregor near Ragusa. He had with him a child; grievously wounded, he could only scrawl SANGRAAL in the dirt, and make it known to Gregor that he was to protect this child.
And so it was that Gregor returned to the Concilium, the child in his arms. The magi, after some deliberation, decided to arrange to have the child taken away by Alanus and Asid, while Cain went to the Provencal (thanks to Tomasso and Simone Peruzzi) to further investigate these matters. The child seemed to radiate an extreme aura of the Dominion, and, indeed, seemed to have the properties associated with the Holy Grail, including the ability to miraculously heal.
Cain gained little in the Provencal. He discovered that their center of power seemed to be centered upon the castle of the Blanchfort family; he also encountered several of the Binders, and, after a number of violent encounters (during which he experienced firsthand the terror of the magic drain, and learned that the Binders could cause effects as well as suppress them), he returned with his party to Ragusa. In the meantime, Alanus had returned to the Concilium, but Asid and Gregor had departed for Antioch, where Asid felt he would be safe from the mysterious Order that the Concilium had run afoul of.
Tariq had already had his unpleasant encounter with Viddar. It became apparent that Viddar was a high-ranking individual within his Order, a nautonnier, one who leads a Circle of Binders. Tariq permitted Viddar to search the island for the child, but refused to permit Viddar to station a garrison there.
When the other magi returned, they decided to attempt to bluff the Binders into thinking they had the child. This led to a pitched battle in a churchyard outside Ragusa, and the deaths of several of the Binders.
Returning to the Concilium, the magi met with Viddar under a flag of parley. When Viddar proved recalcitrant, however, an order was given to have him killed; as Deadfire Weapons roared, Viddar reached out with his own powers and crushed Tariq's heart in payment for this treachery, very nearly killing him.
The remaining Binders of Viddar's circle prepared for battle. But before this could occur, King Charles Robert Anjou of Hungary made a reappearance. The magi had sent him word of Pietro's death (the man had been investigating the secret Order on behalf of his king), and King Charles planned to avenge the death of his familiares (not to mention getting back at those who had plotted his own assassination). King Charles brought with him his own small personal army, which was quickly used to supplement the Concilium defenses.
Eventually, after a long, tense, wait, a Binder, projecting his image through an Arcane Connection, negotiated with the magi. He demanded the death of one of the magi, as only fair given the other Binders the magi had killed. Tariq refused; given this impasse, the Binder withdrew, taking his forces, coldly telling Tariq that the magi had no honor... and thus need not be destroyed, for they would destroy themselves.
In Antioch, despite Asid and Gregor's best efforts, they were cornered by another Circle of Binders, and the child was taken from them. The wounds that the child miraculously healed returned, after some time had passed. The covenfolk that Cain had accidentally turned invisible during a bout of magic addiction gradually reappeared. King Charles returned to Hungary. Asid and Gregor returned to the Concilium. The fragments of the chains were studied, and found to be gold turned to pure lead, in an alchemical process using enormous amounts of vis. The vis stores, nearly totally depleted in the battles against the Binders, were slowly replenished. Artorius, unhappy with much that he had seen, departed, planning to form a new Order of magi, without the rules and regulations of the old.
For the others, the routine of covenant life went on; the last scenes of the magi can be found in the fifth and final Act, Endings. Peace had been achieved... for at least a while. Perhaps we will one day return to this story, for there are many tales left untold, but for now, this must be the end.
The Binders, of course, are the StoryGuide's invention. They are capable of both draining magic that is being cast, and of causing magical effects, with a potency that is equivalent to the purity of their bloodline, generally equalling about what Hermetic magical theory calls three to five magnitudes. They can combine their powers for cumulative effects; there are nine Binders in a Circle. The chains dissipate magic as heat, and explode when overloaded; the trick to defeating them, then, is to pour as much magic into them as possible, within a single round of combat, using either enormous amounts of vis, or multi-cast spells.
The Deadfire Saga ran a grand total of forty-one sessions, with the last one on January 17th, 1996. Though there were still many plot threads left unfinished, several players felt that the stories of their characters had been told, and thus, the book must close, for now, on the history of the magi of the Rock.
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