Tal'Dorei Campaign Guide PDF

the illusionary magic of the locale left the army without a

target, and vulnerable to ambush. The retribution of the

forest merged with the weapons of Zan’s warriors, striking

with enough ferocity that Neminar and his blighted sol-

diers were crushed, signaling a shift in the tides of war. As

word of Neminar’s defeat and death spread, hope grew for

all the oppressed peoples of the realm.

Even so, the last years of fighting were still ahead of them,

for Warren’s youngest son stood to take power, and was

sworn to avenge his family and protect their seat of rule.

Battle of the umBra hills

King Trist Drassig, second-born son of the despotic

Warren Drassig, took the throne, envisioning the end of

the Scattered War, and tasting victory on his lips. Trist

was neither as brilliant nor as charismatic as his father;

his armies were stretched thin and his people rose up. The

rebels, led by the young warrior Zan Tal’Dorei, found

themselves winning one minor victory after another. Soon,

King Trist’s army had its back to the imposing base of the

Cliff keep Mountains north of Westruun.

Riding the tide of certain victory, Zan and her rebels,

allied with the Elves of Syngorn, pursued Drassig to a

valley in the Umbra Hills, but fiends fought in the ranks

of their enemy. The spawn of the Betrayers had returned

to the world from beyond the mountains and spilled into

the battlefield like a river of nightmares. The surround-

ing hills ran dark with blood and ichor, and the bodies

of humans and demons alike littered the battlefield. Yet,

against all odds, the hero Zan ended the Drassig blood-

line, and with it, the infernal pact it had made. The grass

and flowers of the now-named Umbra Hills grow black

and burnt as an echo of this battle, their sap coursing with

the searing blood of the demons that was spilled that day.

the rise of tal’Dorei

Society had all but collapsed during the war. The leaders

of the Verdant Expanse assembled a council of trusted

and proven minds, but the people were accustomed to a

singular leader, a king. The council nominated the war

hero Zan Tal’Dorei to take the seat, and she humbly

accepted, but rejected the title of King or Queen, instead

wishing to be addressed as Sovereign if a title was

required.

Despite Zan’s protests, the council unanimously agreed

the realm should be renamed “Tal’Dorei.” With power

divided amongst the Sovereign and the council, Emon’s

leaders cleared their realm of most corruption and brutal-

ity. The leading clans of Kraghammer claimed they had

been manipulated, and spent many years making amends,

but the trust between the kingdoms was long to heal.

the iCelost years

Not two years into Sovereign Zan’s reign, a cataclysm

struck, testing the limits of the new council. An agent

from the Frostfell, the elemental plane of ice, slipped

through a secret tear between the worlds housed in the

forested region now known as the Frostweald. This

unknown agent watched as the realm was torn and dis-

tracted by the aftermath of war. Knowing the weakened

state of the denizens, this agent returned to the Frost-

fell to inform its master, a cruel elemental behemoth of

incredible power called Errevon the Rimelord. A short

time later during a celestial solstice, the peace was sud-

denly sundered by a rift that opened deep within that

same forest, blanketing much of the surrounding land in

a terrible winter of ice and snow. An army of frost giants

marched through the chasm, accompanied by sentient

blizzards led by the Rimelord himself, conquering all the

land they could cover in snow and death.

Many brave warriors fell beneath the weapons of the

invading force, unprepared for such an onslaught so

soon after a protracted war. The storm of ice widened

over the course of a few years, consuming most of the

mid-continent as Errevon claimed as his own all lands

that fell beneath the ice. It built a great fortress of frost

north of the rift and forced conquered folk to swear

fealty in exchange for warmth and unfrozen water. This

“A king should not stand apart from the people. A ruler should know sacrifice, for how else is he to know those who harvest
our grains and wheat, who tend to the cattle, and who raise our children? A ruler should know pain and sorrow, for war is
bloody and cruel, and for a ruler to ask the people to fight, is to ask them to die for the kingdom. A ruler should know justice,
but also reason, for not all crimes are committed with ill intent or malice, but rather with grieving and shame. I am no ruler
of this land. I am the peasant in the fields. I am the painter at his easel. I am the young soldier donned in rusted armor. You
will not find me sitting upon a gemmed throne answering the questions of those in need with disdain, but working beside
your mothers and fathers, fighting beside your soldiers, and aiding those wounded in the name of this kingdom.
“Tal’Dorei is not just a name; it is a principle. Tal’Dorei is a principle that stands for honor, an everlasting honor that
binds its people. A principle that is a beacon for the lost, the helpless, and the forgotten. Tal’Dorei is a principle that you
should be proud of, a principle that you stand side-by-side with as the people of Tal’Dorei stand beside you. Tal’Dorei
is not a name, it is to be proud, it is to have honor, it is to be loyal, and loving, and kind. Tal’Dorei is not a name; it is a
people. And you are the people of Tal’Dorei! I wish not to be your King, but a Sovereign for the people, and if you let me, if
you accept me as such, the Sovereign of Tal’Dorei! For the Honor of Tal’Dorei!”

—Acceptance speech of Sovereign Zan Tal’Dorei to her people