#hellsrebels

Happy New year everyone!

May 2026 be prosperous and fortunate to you. 🌟

-

The Silver Ravens are also taking a few days off to celebrate.

Thearean - Witch by me 🔮

Julio - Swashbuckler by @nathalaen ⚔️

Fortuna, Tiefling Bard [old]

Excerpts from “Ravounel: A History” by author-unknown 4719, Ravounel.

“The truth is, revolution is an ugly affair.  The short-short version goes like this: citizens of Kintargo had enough. They rose up, killed their Lord Mayor that the capital had sent to bully them, and seceded from Cheliax. 

This was a struggle 100 years in the making. Starting the moment Abbie 1 swore allegiance to Asmodeus, people in the North didn’t take to it. They grumbled and they swore ‘better not try to bring that devil-talk up here...’ Well, they did just that. 

The Silver Ravens were like the city’s elite defense force. They had chased off or killed many great threats to their home that came from Nidal, or the Sea, or the mountains. Now they faced a threat from within.

They fought the new order laid down by Thrune and they did well at first, but they faltered. They went too far and turned on each other. Kintargo’s celebrity defenders all turned up dead or disappeared, and things were quieter for about three quarters of a century.

One thing tumbles into another though. A hell-knight raids the mansion of a nobleman found in violation of some this or that. There he finds a sword Iomedae used to carry. So he takes it and proudly hangs it up in Citadel Dinyar. When the Iomedaeans get wind of it, they feel they should have it instead. The hell-knights, never much for words, just say ‘No.’

The paladins take this harder than anyone expects, and raise a force. They storm the hell-knight’s fortress, lock them up or kill them and they take the sword. Seeming surprised at their own success, they figure they’ll just press on and see what else they can trash in Cheliax, Iomedae’s old stomping grounds. Fools from afar flock to their banner and soon they’re not just a band of upstarts, they’re downright “Glorious” in their own words.

This sends Cheliax into a panic. You know when you’re real scared and all the blood rushes into your body, your limbs go numb, and your head and heart start going fast as they can? That’s what Cheliax does. They pull back the army. The Navy blockades the Inner Sea. They close all the passes and so Kintargo is left to its own devices and a crazy Thrune-cousin named Barzillai is put in charge.

This ‘Barzillai’ is a cruel sort but he loves Kintargo. He moves into the Opera house, sees shows every week, has big expensive dinners and buys up art from all over. He also publicly humiliates anyone who goes against him and puts the city on a curfew. Imagine that? He’s loving and enjoying the Kintargo night-life but he tells the common-folk they’ve got a bedtime. Nope.

So the Silver Ravens emerge again. Different people, same anger. They start picking old Barzillai apart. They make a fool of him so he squeezes harder but they don’t bend. He gets really mean and they leave his Dottari dead in the streets. Then the city’s at war with itself and the rest of the world goes dark to us. Nidal closes it’s borders. No more ships come up the coast. Menador pass is shut.

So we Kintargans hash this out ourselves. Barzillai lays trap after trap and does some damage, but the Ravens keep escaping. Finally it’s just fighting in the streets, only Barzillai don’t step in the street, he flies over us all on his blue dragon breathing hellfire. He’s had enough. He’s fallen out of love with Kintargo and just wants to watch it burn.

That’s when the Ravens crawl out of the river, the dark alleys, even the taverns and just take him on. He tries to burn the library and they put it out. He tries to hold Bleakbridge and they cover the stones in Dottari blood. Barzillai even sneaks in some Thrune warships from Pezzack but mother nature herself rises up and beaches a couple of them before the last one stands out to sea.

Now B.Thrune is hopping mad. He sends the dragon to Aroden Plaza where the Ravens & Dottari are mixing it up, and breathes fire on the lot of them. Killing his friends and enemies alike. The Ravens survive it and a local boy, Lothario, lands a lucky shot wounding the drake and she retreats back to the Temple of Asmodeus - highest building in the city.

The Ravens clean up the streets with the help of the Hellknights of the Torrent. No one knew who’s side they’d come in on until Barzillai hedged his bets and banned them, took their holdings, and locked them up. That pissed them right off and they are Blue as the ocean now, not a spot of red on them.

The Ravens and Knights of the Torrent siege the temple, pinning the Asmodeans in there, but Barzillai has his dragon fixed up. He rides out to destroy. Throwing punches in the air, we call it, only these fists are 200 foot pillars-of-flame. He kills some good people and destroys some parts of Kintargo we still don’t have back.

He even goes for the orphanage but old Clenchjaw draws him off. Nobody rightly heard what Clench said to Barzillai  as he sailed past on his dragon, but it must have been something. Thrune turned, spared the orphanage and dropped a building on old Clenchjaw. Took us a week to dig him out, dead with a smile on his face and his hands clenched in fists.

The Ravens work up the nerve to go into the devil’s home, and this flushes the dragon out. That’s when we learnt that the Ravens fight devils with angels. A huge man made of pure silver wielding a green-glass sword fought that dragon and knocked old Barzillai clean off it and into the streets. Most will say the Angel killed him, but I saw it with my own eyes. 

Gabriel, the Angel Raven did knock him off of Rivizair, the great blue drake, but Barzillai wasn’t done. He took them all on toe to toe and killed Elia Nones of the Scourge of Belial and Chuko the priest / weapon-trader from the Northside. The Captain of the Scourge was also present. And as the dragon had burned his ship to the waterline two days prior, and Barzillai had just killed his first mate, he’d had enough. He stepped to the Lord Mayor and ran him clean through.

But he didn’t die. Friends of devils are the Thrunes. It took a bit of help from Gabriel but they got him properly chopped up and moved onto his next life. We all thought that’d just be the end of him.

Lictor Octavio Sabinus, Hellknight of the Torrent.  18th of Neth, 4716

Boudicca aboard the Scourge of Belial just outside Vyre, wakes from this dream on the evening of the first of Neth (November), 4716 Your chest heaves like a blast furnace as you sprint up a circular stone flight of stairs. It's a long slow curve, clockwise. A dark grey bladed Katana with a golden hilt is in your hands and dripping with blood. You have no time to clean it, you know more foes are ahead.

As you reach the next landing, your path is blocked by an armored figure. Shining silver full plate fashioned to look like an angel, complete with silver and feathered wings seems familiar to you. The figure draws her longsword which is wreathed in a pale light that shines about her.

She charges in, swinging in controlled, heavy blows. She is experienced, strong, and her god is with her. As you parry each slash you feel the strength of an ogre on the other end of her sword. You score a number of strong hits, clearly superior. Yet she seems to recover from them and no blood flows from what should be gaping wounds.

Finally your team is with you, and together you disable her and execute her. You feel a surge of righteous anger flow through every part of you as you shove her body off the end of your sword with a boot. Before your team can break into endless debate, you charge up the last stair to the roof. You hear their footsteps racing to keep up with you. Still breathing hard, you reach the top of a huge, round, castle tower and come face to face with a man.

He wears typically gaudy armor of his order. Hideous gold lions on his shoulders, silver, and red ornamentation covers him head to toe. He faces away from you, his long red cape flowing in the wind as he gazes at the city below. Your team is shouting at him, they read him letter but you cannot hear what is said. Rage overcomes you. This man has violated the greatest laws of your land. He  has killed agents of the government. He has sown rebellion. He has caused incalculable death and loss for this region. You have never been within reach of such a dangerous threat to all that you hold dear. Your team is shouting at him. He is slowly turning, tears streaming down his face.

With a primal roar, you charge. He is nothing next to the knight below. You quickly overwhelm his extensive magical defenses and find a lackluster sword arm. His heart is not in it. Perhaps guilt over his treasonous crimes has finally overwhelmed him?

22nd of Rova, 4716

The Silver Ravens receive a message from Laria Longroads. They meet her in her coffee-shop. Laria says someone has asked for help and she recommends they take the job.   The team agrees to meet the person and hear them out.  The person in question is Setrona Sabinus, a fixture of old Kintargo. Small of stature with a larger-than-life personality, she is the owner-operator of a bar on the South side of Kintargo called the Tooth and Nail. 

She says she came here to ask Laria for assistance, since they go “way back” and Laria used to be a well connected lady.  She hoped to meet the Silver Ravens or anyone capable of helping her find a missing person. Her cousin, Octavio has not been seen since the Night of Ashes, yet she believes he is alive. Her suspicions are more than just instinct, as Octavio was the highest ranking Hellknight in Kintargo in the Order of the Torrent and a “very resilient and resourceful man” according to her. The team is doubtful he will be so easy to find, given how long he’s been missing but they politely hear her out.

Setrona informs them that one of Barzilai Thrune’s first proclamations when coming to Kintargo was to outlaw the Order of the Torrent, sieze their citadel, and arrest any members the Dottari could lay their hands on. 

Setrona has one lead to follow; she knows Octavio used a shrine to dead sailors Southwest of Kintargo to hide people the order was protecting from their enemies.  She suspects he may be hiding out there.  She requests that they check on him and adds that he might be of use in resisting Thrune’s tyranny. 

The team decides to head out of Kintargo and investigate the shrine right away, but there’s a problem: All gates and bridges are now taxed a few gold pieces with names entered in a log for added security and enforcing the curfew. The Silver Ravens quickly hire/befriend a riverboat captain by the name of Hank Marlow who joyfully (and musically) sails and sings them across the Yolubilis River to South Kintargo.

<< ^ press play and let it run for the full “Cap’n Hank Marlow” experience.

After a delightfully filthy and smelly trip across the river bay aboard the Fortune Star, Captain Marlow’s fishing boat, they disembark and head for the South Gate. This looks a bit heavily guarded for their tastes but Caleb has a plan. They turn Westward and make their way to the Kintargo Docks, searching for a famous pirate-hunting ship called “The Scourge of Belial.”

Asking to see Captain Cassius, they are lead up the gangway and introduced to the first mate. She is a half-elven gunslinger and the only name they get is “X O.”  She says the Captain will speak with them shortly and has them wait at the top of the ramp.

Within minutes the Captain emerges and they greet him politely, having only met him once at the funeral for Rexus’s parents. 

He asks how his ship can be of service to the friends of his friend? They share with him that they are meeting a friend at the shrine to dead sailors South of town and would rather not have the fact known to the Dottari. 

The party shows their rebellious hand deliberately knowing that Captain Cassius is known to be displeased with the Thrune proclamations, one of which forbids non-native captains such as him from leaving their ships for any reason. He had to obtain special permission to even attempt a funeral, and was required to return straight to his ship after.

Cassius agrees but requires a favor from the party, and it must be very soon. Tomorrow, preferably. He says he needs a message delivered discreetly across town and cannot do it himself. He could send his crew but they are busy repairing and refitting and even allows that perhaps they are less subtle than his new friends might be in executing this delivery.

They agree and they are rowed through the night and down the coast to the shrine. The sailors commanded to row them inform them a little about the shrine. It is dedicated to Saint Senex, patron saint of sailors lost at sea. 

Arriving on land, they are given directions to the shrine and they promptly find it, in all it’s glory. The Shrine of Saint Senex is, for the most part, a pile of flotsam from various shipwrecks. It leads into an underground chamber and the party is quickly climbing down the iron ladder, after using spells to evade the shrine’s guardians: an older pair of Seers of Senex.

Downstairs they find what they seek: a room full of dead sailors and one very-much-alive Hellknight. He is on his guard but greats them politely, and they reveal that his cousin Setrona sent them to find him.

Octavio, able to discern lies constantly due to his status as a Hellknight, trusts the party and shares with them some new information. He tells them of the Order of the Torrent, a group of Hellknights dedicated to the rescue of kidnap victims. Why they were instantly outlawed by Thrune, he does not know, but he is certain the move is illegal and thus he may cast the unjust law aside to some extent. 

He offers the party a deal: free his arrested/captured Hellknights from whatever jail holds them in Kintargo, and the Order of the Torrent will join forces with the Silver Ravens. They accept!

With this bargain struck, they return to their oarsmen who return them to the Scourge of Belial. The XO leads them down the gangway and reminds them “The Captain expects you tomorrow.” And they slink away into the night. 

Femmik and Boudicca use their various contacts to attempt to ascertain which prison the Hellknights are being kept in. This proves more difficult than anticipated, as there are no records of anyone with their names or ranks being entered into the system. 

Given the utter ruthless redundancy of the Chelish bureaucracy that governs Kintargo, they take this to mean that the Hellknights are being incarcarated illegally at one of Barzilai’s “black sites.”

They go deeper. Eventually they learn of four prisoners taken on the day the Order of the Torrent was outlawed to one of the off-the-books prisons the Dottari use in Southern Kintargo, known only as “The Holding House.”

Femmik hatches a plan to free the prisoners, using his stolen identities of “Captain Yuri” and “Corporal Foxworthy.” He strides into the Holding House as Captain Yuri at 1pm, and informs them that he will be arriving with prisoners for intake at 4pm. They explain to him that they can do nothing without paperwork, but Femmik brushes off their formality and leaves.

At 4pm, Boudicca, Femmik, and Azwraith arrive at Holding House disguised as Dottari and are lead into the cell block. There, the desk sergeant and guards turn on them and club Femmik unconscious with their batons. 

Azwraith is subdued shortly after while Boudicca escapes into an obscuring mist she has cast. She reduces her size to 1′ tall with a second spell and renders herself invisible via a third. She slips into a cell through the open view port and hides.

Many guards search the prison for hours but they are unable to find her. The party is well and truly stuck.

With their equipment taken, they wait in a cold cell and in the dark they make a new acquaintance. In each case, it is a civilian who has been severely tortured to the point where they can barely speak, and they spend most of their time huddled in the corner. They warn the new acquisitions that they will come for you, “she” will torture you and ask you many questions, some meaningful, some not. 

They soon meet the torturer. Her visage is terrifying. A tall, thin, hairless women with pale grey skin and dozens of spikes protruding from her head. Her eyes and cheeks are marked with a dark and twisting tattoo. Most disturbing of all, she is pierced in many places by many daggers and the wounds do not bleed, as if she sheathes her many blades in her own body.

She straps her victims one at a time to a stretch wrack, and slowly works through her extensive knowledge of inflicting pain. Azwraith and Femmik both resist her questions for now, but they notice she exudes an aura of truth. Within her aura they hold their tongues and refuse to speak at all, so as to deny her any truth.

26 Arodus (August), 4716, Kintargo

Kintargo is known as the “Silver City.”  Sediments in the water give it a silvery shine at dawn and dusk. Every year silver salmon pass through to spawn up river. Many buildings and pathways are made from silver flecked stone. It is a beautiful city.

What’s not in the Kintargo tourism brochure, is the murder. Since the city has been placed under martial law, mysterious murder and disappearance is an ever increasing worry for the citizenry. 

In recent weeks they’ve survived fires, killings, gang wars, theft, and all the government has given them is rules, a curfew, and more taxation and regulation. The city is boiling with anger.

The Silver Ravens send Femick undercover again as the Dottari Leiutenant Yuri. He infiltrates the nearby guard keep and learns that the Hellknight Order of the Rack has taken over part of the keep, as they have at many locations in the city, apparently under the direction of Paracount Thrune. When asked about his investigations of the Longroad Coffeehouse, he keeps his answers vague and uninformative. 

Femick files a written report saying the leads that took him to the Longroads Coffeehouse proved to be a dead-end and no further investigation is required. He also steals information about the Dottari patrol routes and schedule.

Rexus comes to the team with some good news, he has set up an arrangement with a local blacksmith to supply the Ravens with gear, repairs, ammunition and anything else they can provide.  

He takes the group to meet the owner/operator of Falco Steel. An older man, Falco relies on his granddaughter, Lore Falco to do most of the smithing work. Lore is a strongly built and stern young woman who dutifully helps her grandfather keep the family business going. She does the smithing, and Gramps does the enchanting.

After leaving Falco Steel, the team heads for their next target. They have solid intelligence suggesting that a group of dissenters from the Thrune take-over are being held by a mercenary group at a local salt granary where the prisoners are used as slave labor.

While traveling to the salt granary, Boudicca suspects they are being followed, she sees someone spying on them from a nearby rooftop before they duck out of sight. While the party attempts to pretend that they don’t notice their follower, the mysterious figure appears out of an alley before them. 

She introduces herself as the Silver Raven. They in turn introduce themselves as THE Silver Ravens. They find that they have a similar aim: the liberation of Kintargo from the oppressive Thrune regime. The Silver Raven is welcomed into The Silver Ravens, for now...

They storm the building together. Femick and The Silver Raven charge in first, engaging the front lobby guards. Gabriel and Azwraith follow, blocking the hallway to the guard barracks. The mercenaries attack at the command of their leader, a stout dwarven warrior named Kossrani.  A deadly battle ensues that leaves the team injured but triumphant and Kossrani is dead.

They free the prisoners who are badly malnourished and exhausted. Laria helps find sympathetic homes to hide them while they recuperate. 

They thank The Silver Raven for her assistance and vow to work with her again soon.

The next day, the team is enjoying complimentary eel-sticks at a local market. The Ravens hear that the Chelish Citizens Group, a glorified gang of thugs that claim to represent the Thrune government, has taken Clenchjaw a prisoner and are planning their own crude version of a public excrutiation for him today at an old public fountain.

Gabriel, Boudicca, and Celeb immediately head to the site to stop the CCG and rescue Clenchjaw. There is already a crowd gathered. The Ravens worry that the crowd will be encouraging the torture but to their relief they are trying to intervene to save Clenchjaw.  The CCG has a platform in the middle of the pond covered by armed thugs on both sides.

In the middle is Clenchjaw, chained to the center of the platform with two starving feral mastiffs on either side of him. He is already beaten to a pulp and bleeding from multiple bite wounds from the dogs. The Silver Ravens fly into action immediately.

Celeb uses a sleep spell to pacify the two outer thugs, while Gabriel and Boudicca charge the platform to fight the others. Boudicca lands a powerful color-spray spell and knocks several thugs unconscious. The first danger is defeated but now the Ravens struggle to quell the crowd’s anger. Celeb’s goal is for no deaths at this incident today, but the angry mob has descended upon the two sleeping thugs and he fears they will tear them apart.

A voice rises above the crowd at the center of the platform, it is Gabriel, towering above them with his great height and shining armor. He pleads with them to show the villains mercy that was not offered to Clenchjaw.  

They calm and release the thugs. Clenchjaw is healed and freed from his chains. Celeb throws what food he can find on hand to the dogs to calm them, and using minor calming spells, he removes their collars and they flee. 

Clenchjaw promises them drinks are on him back at his place and thanks them again and again. The Ravens return to base and consider which Dottari patrol they will rob tonight.

The plan is, to stop the Dottari patrol and retake the money they have stolen from various businesses along their route and return it as they did before, but things go slightly awry. 

In the heat of battle, Boudicca kills one of the Dottari, and the others are killed as they attempt to flee. The patrol is a bloodbath, and the Ravens flee the scene, forgetting to take the stolen money.

The hornets nest has been suitably whacked. Dottari and Hell Knights descend upon the North side of the city from all points, and the Ravens are driven to their underground hideout beneath the Longroad Coffeehouse. 

Femick goes undercover as Lt. Yuri again, this time using sleight of hand to ensure that he leads the patrol that will scour the neighborhood near their hideout. He has to go a bit farther than he hoped in playing his role, but he is able to keep his squad of 10 Dottari from looking too hard at Laria’s.