⚙️ Iron Dominion: The Blistered Reckoning

GM-Only Lore Guide — Spoilers

Players should not read below. This guide contains core twists and secret faction motives that define the arc.

Campaign Premise

The fragile peace between Tarsus and the Iron Dominion collapses when border skirmishes along the Blistered Expanse escalate into open war.
The Dominion’s new campaign — The Equation of Fire — seeks not mere conquest, but proof: the Emperor intends to demonstrate that war itself is a divine calculation.

Unbeknownst to most, the Wardenship of Redmarch Hold stands atop the Infernal Ratio — an ancient engine buried beneath the Expanse that fuels both Dominion prophecy and Bragrash’s mysterious strength.
If the Dominion seizes it, the Emperor’s vision of a “Perfect Empire” may be realized… or the world itself consumed by order’s flame.

⚔️ Act I – The Emberfront Uprising

Location: The Blistered Expanse / Redmarch Hold

Participants:

• Warden-Commander Ranulf Bragrash (defender of the frontier)

• Legatus Primus Agrippa Desticius Eugenius (Dominion warlord)

• Princeps Titus Melissus Alectian (overseeing the campaign for “inheritance by conquest”)

• PCs (as envoys, spies, or soldiers)

Events:
Dominion legions test Redmarch’s strength through calculated raids. The Wardens discover the enemy builds enormous siege forges powered by volcanic vents.
The PCs must aid Ranulf in holding the Ember Wall, uncovering strange Dominion devices that “record” battle deaths as numeric data.

Choice Point:

• Hold the Line: Prevent Dominion advance, but the Emperor takes personal notice.

• Counterstrike: Reveal Redmarch’s pact-fire weaponry — risking exposure of its infernal source.

• Retreat: Preserve forces, sacrificing outposts to buy time for diplomacy.

🩸 Act II – The Formula of Dominion

Location: Dominion’s Throne City / Red Archives

Participants:

• Imperator Maxen Sidonius Alectian (the Iron Emperor)

• Praefectus Kaeso Laetorius Draco (High Ordinal of the Iron Law)

• Ordinal Magistrate Gaius Trebatius Callisunus (Crimson Numerator)

• PCs (as infiltrators, prisoners, or envoys)

Events:
The Iron Ordinals unveil the Equation of Fire — a doctrine that predicts victory through mathematical prophecy.
The Emperor decrees: “Redmarch will fall on the 333rd flame-cycle.”
The PCs can uncover evidence the Ordinals’ calculations derive from a devlish algorithm buried beneath the Blistered Expanse — the same that saved Ranulf years ago.

Choice Point:

• Expose the Algorithm: Sabotage Dominion’s faith in their own prophecy.

• Steal the Equation: Give Tarsus forbidden insight at grave cost.

• Serve the Math: Bargain with Ordinals, ensuring survival through submission.

🔥 Act III – The Pyric Conclave

Location: Temple-Fortress of the Nine Flames

Participants:

• Praefectus Decius Epidius Laetinianus (High Pyric)

• Legatus Ignia Severan Caldus (Tenth Flame aspirant)

• Brother Talven Vire or another faith figure from Tarsus (counterpoint)

• PCs (negotiators or saboteurs)

Events:
The Circle of Nine Flames gathers to sanctify the coming Burning March. The PCs learn the Emperor’s heir, Princeps Titus, seeks to prove worth by commanding the assault personally — to “ignite the world and inherit its ashes.”
The Circle believes the Infernal Ratio beneath Redmarch is the Tenth Flame: divine completion.

Choice Point:

• Assassinate the High Pyric: Delay invasion, risk martyring him.

• Corrupt the Rite: Turn Dominion fire against itself.

• Join the Flame: Embrace pyric philosophy, blurring hero and heretic.

🕯️ Act IV – The Infernal Ratio

Location: Subterranean Vault beneath Redmarch Hold

Participants:

• Warden-Commander Ranulf Bragrash (secretly bound by pact)

• Praefectus Kaeso Draco (arrives to claim the Ratio in the Emperor’s name)

• PCs

Events:
Deep beneath the fortress lies the ancient engine — a fusion of pre-Dominion mathematics and infernal design.
The truth: Ranulf’s pact sustained Redmarch by feeding the machine souls through fire; the Dominion wants it to mechanize eternity.

Choice Point:

• Destroy the Ratio: Saves the realm but ends Redmarch’s strength.

• Seal It: Contain the power, ensuring another age may find it.

• Activate It: Grant Ranulf godlike might or doom all to the Emperor’s equation.

⚖️ Act V – The Perfect Sum

Location: The Dominion’s Throne / Battlefield of Cinder Vale

Participants:

• Imperator Maxen Sidonius Alectian

• Princeps Titus Melissus Alectian

• Legatus Primus Agrippa Desticius Eugenius

• PCs and any surviving Tarsian allies

Events:
The Emperor declares the war concluded mathematically: If Redmarch still stands, the equation is flawed; therefore, Redmarch must not stand.
The PCs confront the Emperor’s legions — or perhaps the Emperor himself, manifesting through living iron.
Titus may waver, questioning the perfection his father promised.

Choice Point:

• Kill the Emperor: Break the Dominion’s unity; chaos follows.

• Convert the Heir: Reforges the Empire’s purpose toward balance, not domination.

• Accept the Equation: Submit, ensuring “peace by proof.”

🎲 GM Notes

Themes: Logic vs. Faith, Obedience vs. Autonomy, Fire as both Weapon and Revelation.

Tone: Gothic-industrial Rome meets infernal bureaucracy — the horror of perfect order.

The Iron Ordinals: Portray them as eerily calm, never cruel in tone — cruelty lies in their precision.

The Pyric Legates: Religious zeal in contrast to the Ordinals’ mathematics; together they are faith and function of Empire.

Ranulf Bragrash’s Secret: His infernal pact is the mirror of the Dominion’s engine — both feed the same flame.

Titus Alectian’s Arc: The most potent emotional thread. The heir torn between inherited perfection and the truth of human imperfection. PCs can be his teachers, betrayers, or saviors.

Possible End States:

1. Broken Equation: The Dominion collapses; chaos reigns.

2. Refined Empire: Titus survives to build a tempered Dominion.

3. Infernal Dominion: The Emperor ascends as living fire, consuming both realms.

4. Redmarch’s Pyre: Tarsus wins, but its soul burns away.

🌒 Adventure Seeds

• The Ash-Engine: PCs infiltrate a Dominion excavation team uncovering the Ratio’s outer ring.

• The Blood of the Numerator: Hunt or protect Ordinal Magistrate Gaius Callisunus, who can recite the Equation of Fire from memory.

• The Heir’s Pilgrimage: Escort or corrupt Princeps Titus as he witnesses the Expanse’s devastation firsthand.

• The Tenth Flame: Prevent the Circle of Nine from completing the Rite that would summon the living fire.

• The Betrayer’s Pact: Discover Ranulf’s infernal contract — and decide whether to free him or let him burn for his sins.

Summary for GM Use:
Use The Blistered Reckoning as a moral crucible: every faction — Tarsus, Bragrash, Dominion — believes they act for order.

The tragedy is that they may all be right.


🩸 Wildcard Faction Appendix — The Graskul Reavers

Spoilers. GM-only material.

⚔️ The Feast of Ashes — Chaos Ascendant

Theme: Chaos beyond measure; the uncounted variable in the Dominion’s perfect equation and the faith of Tarsus alike. Though both evil, demonic influence always fights lawful devilish influence.
Creed: “Iron melts, faith burns, but bone endures.”
Motif: Bone totems, flayed banners, volcanic horns made from the skulls of giants. The Reavers wear armor scorched with ritual flame, their chieftains anointing themselves in ash mixed with blood.

🔥 Narrative Function

The Graskul Reavers are neither ally nor enemy — they are entropy given flesh.
While Tarsus and the Dominion war for divine order, the Reavers embody the rejection of both: they believe the world must burn until nothing remains but the truth of survival.
They can appear as opportunists during border wars, a prophecy-driven third force, or even a supernatural plague unleashed by the Infernal Ratio’s awakening.

⚙️ Integration Points in the Campaign

• Act II – The Formula of Dominion:
  The Iron Ordinals classify Reaver raids as “unquantifiable deviations.” Their failure to predict them begins to undermine faith in the Equation of Fire.

• Act III – The Pyric Conclave:
  Reaver shamans appear in pyric visions, declaring the Circle’s flames false. One claims to be the Voice of the Ash-Gods, older than the Emperor’s law.

• Act IV – The Infernal Ratio:
  A bound Reaver oracle is discovered beneath Redmarch, kept alive as a living key to stabilize the Ratio’s power. Freeing her unleashes uncontrolled firestorms across the Expanse.

• Act V – The Perfect Sum:
  During the final confrontation, the Reavers descend from the north in a tide of screaming bone and fire. Neither Dominion legions nor Tarsian knights can contain them.

⚔️ Optional Fifth End State — “The Feast of Ashes”

Outcome:
The Graskul Reavers succeed in breaking the Infernal Ratio. Fire floods the world; iron and faith crumble alike.
They become the inheritors of a dead age — the only ones left to feast upon the ashes of order.

Resulting World State:

• Both the Iron Dominion and the Kingdom of Tarsus collapse into ruin.

• The Blistered Expanse becomes a living storm of fire, ash, and bone.

• PCs may emerge as warlords, shamans, or exiles shaping a new barbaric dawn.

• The Ash-Gods awaken: vast, unseen powers that predate both empires, whispering promises of rebirth through destruction.

Tone:
Primal apocalypse. Civilization ends not in darkness but in light — the final fire reclaiming the world.
For the GM, this ending provides a total reset — a perfect segue into a new age or campaign built upon the ruins of both order and faith.

GM Notes:

• The Reavers should feel alien and ungovernable; even if allied, they cannot be controlled.

• Their shamans may speak truths that unsettle both Tarsian priests and Dominion Ordinals — perhaps they alone understand the nature of the Infernal Ratio.

• Use them sparingly early, then increasingly as omens: flayed banners found in the dust, night drums on the wind, a heart left burning in a fortress hall.

• Their arrival should feel inevitable — the world’s recoil against perfection.

Quote for Flavor Text or Session Openers:

“From the north they came, bone and ash, screaming the death of counting.
The fire we kindled to light our order—they came to feed upon it.”