Episode 10 Glossary

Characters

• Bjorn: Revealed as the former chief of Norn, once proud, violent, and certain that death in battle guaranteed honor. In the present he explains the rage mushrooms and accepts that his old traditions cannot govern his conduct among new allies.

• Byor Kavaar: Chief of the Shadowclaw clan and Bjorn's former lover. Their relationship was forbidden by tribal custom, but Bjorn treated her companionship as a chief's privilege.

• Magda Navaa: Mother of Mothers, eldest of Norn's elders, and the Crone. She warns Bjorn that rage and strength will not recover Ingrid or break the Chain.

• Ingrid: Bjorn's sister, taken by a cult in the memory that precedes Norn's destruction.

• Dyre Nik'Vosh: Ingrid's husband, overcome by grief and rage after failing to prevent her capture.

• Phineas Moon: Refuses borrowed life, dies beside his Panthex, and willingly passes beyond Torin's ability to prolong him.

• Vyr: Receives Phineas's soul within the Ix Crystal without deliberately drawing it in. She later helps interpret the script on the map from Sethis's treasury.

• Torin: Conducts Phineas's funeral rite, wakes from a phased racial slumber when Normandy's Message reaches him, and heals Ma Pie enough for the party to escape.

• Ma Pie: Proprietor of Velkommen's longhouse. The Raven throws her down the stairs while searching for the party, and she dies the following morning.

• The Raven: A red-haired Shadowed Dawn mercenary sent to capture the party dead or alive. She is defeated, disarmed, and taken into Gavra as a prisoner.

• The Lion: A formidable Shadowed Dawn figure who rejects the simple contract against the party and offers them a mission to disrupt Yore and Gander in the Shattered Isles.

• Old Maggie: A Stalker who confronts Whisper in Gavra's undercroft and reminds him that he was warned not to return.

• Madame Iris: Warns that the Shadowed Dawn outranks the thieves' and assassins' guilds in influence and that the Raven is a replaceable title.

• Aggie: Reunites with Normandy at the Blooming Petal and agrees to listen for information while adults underestimate her.

• Zandra: Remains at the Blooming Petal with her crew and allows her unseen protector to accompany the party as far as the fountain if he chooses.

Gods and Religion

• Y'Lach: Norn's Dragon of the Mist. Bjorn says the ancestors return upon Y'Lach's mist and that death in battle once represented his people's highest honor.

• Sethis: Torin invokes the twilight aspect of his faith while laying Phineas to rest. Relics from her treasury continue to reveal connections between death, light, and forgotten peoples.

• Funeral Rite: Torin covers Phineas with snow, earth, and native plants, returning the Light Bender to the land rather than stretching the twilight of his life.

Organizations and Societies

• Shadowed Dawn: An elite Gavran mercenary company of roughly ten titled members who operate above ordinary law. The Raven and Lion represent different approaches to the contract placed upon the party.

• Dread Stalkers: Zandra's pirate crew remains lodged at the Blooming Petal. Their funds are nearly exhausted, and Courtier wants them gone within two days.

• Stalkers: Whisper's former criminal associates control portions of Gavra's undercroft and remain hostile after his earlier escape.

• Yore and Gander: The Lion identifies the company's Shattered Isles operation as the target the party must stop.

• Velpa Trading Company: Controls the Maelstrodomus, which the Lion promises to procure if the party completes his mission.

• Gavran Government: Officials issue contradictory orders, attack Piln, embargo New Norn, and prepare an armada for the Maelstrom. The Lion believes the corruption reaches the highest levels.

Creatures and Nature

• Panthex: Mourns Phineas, accepts Torin's funeral rite, and remains behind at the grave rather than following the party.

• Rue the Darkling: Identified by Th'Marck as a darkling, a shadow creature that lost its physical form and eats light. Rue later enters Whisper's shadow without harming him.

• Th'Marck: Recognizes Rue's nature only intermittently and becomes confused when the darkling is nearby, suggesting an unresolved interaction between them.

• Rage Mushrooms: Nornian mushrooms cultivated for generations to unlock extraordinary battle strength at the cost of sanity and control.

Items and Technology

• Ix Crystal: Vyr's crystal receives visible wisps of Phineas's departing soul without Vyr invoking her usual death magic.

• Cache Map: The scroll from Sethis's treasury proves to be a map to a cache south of Andros Port. Its script resembles Vyr's language and translates loosely as "life without death has no meaning."

• Helvaegan: Bjorn's ancestral axe, present in the memory of his chieftain days and still his primary weapon.

• Link Breaker: Ernan's rapier, used effectively against the Raven when negotiations collapse.

• Raven's Arsenal: Three jeweled daggers, a Damascus-patterned rapier, a sturdy yew bow, and additional plain daggers are confiscated after the Raven's defeat.

• Raven's Pocket Watch: The Raven's most treasured possession. Torin secretly returns it to her after the party searches her belongings.

• Shadowed Dawn Cloaks: Dark cloaks handed to the companions at the episode's end as part of the plan to fake their deaths.

Magic and Cosmology

• Phineas's Soul Transfer: Phineas's soul enters the Ix Crystal willingly or through an unknown force, unlike Vyr's previous need to take a life with her magic.

• Torin's Phased Slumber: Torin becomes intangible during a deep racial rest. Normandy's Message reaches him only after another presence within Normandy amplifies the spell.

• Bjorn's Mushroom Rage: A hereditary Nornian practice creates immense strength while weakening judgment and the ability to distinguish ally from enemy.

• Darkling Interference: Rue suppresses Torin's light, aggravates the presence inside Normandy, and appears to disrupt Th'Marck's memory while nearby.

• Contradictory Officials: The Lion observes leaders reversing major decisions from one day to the next as though they are not the same people, suggesting magical replacement or control.

Locations and Realms

• Norn: Bjorn's original mountain homeland, shown before and immediately after its destruction roughly twenty years ago.

• New Norn: The surviving Nornian settlement now subjected to a politically motivated embargo.

• Velkommen: The lumber village where the party rests, defeats the Raven, and witnesses the death of Ma Pie.

• Blooming Petal: The party's Gavran refuge, where Aggie and the Dread Stalkers wait under Madame Iris's protection.

• Gavra Undercroft: A vaulted network of catacombs and aquifers reached through a hidden stair beneath the central fountain. Both the Stalkers and Shadowed Dawn use its passages.

• Andros Port: The nearest named landmark to the cache shown on Sethis's map.

• Shattered Isles: The Lion's chosen destination for the party and the site of Yore and Gander's hidden operation.

• Maligned Maelstrom: Destination of a gathering armada and the barrier the Maelstrodomus was designed to cross.

History and Lore

• Fall of Norn: Bjorn ignores Magda's warning and rides out after Ingrid. The memory ends with him waking to the burned remains of his people and homeland.

• Nornian Warrior Tradition: Generations used rage mushrooms, tribal warfare, and belief in ancestral honor to transform battle into both ritual and social order.

• Raven Title: The Raven is a mantle earned within the Shadowed Dawn. Killing its current holder would cause another mercenary to take the name.

• Shadowed Dawn's Game: The Lion describes Scarsden as a chessboard manipulated by fear and treats the party as the only loose pieces capable of disrupting the design.

• Planned Disappearance: The party agrees to be declared dead so it can leave Gavra unseen, investigate the Shattered Isles, and gain access to the Maelstrodomus.