First appearance: Pieces of a King Ep 2: The War Council · watch it on YouTube
The Blastlands are the kind of place where simply surviving the landing counts as an achievement. The party of the Pieces of a King saga learned this at the war council: they had landed in the Blastlands, lived, and were told how lucky they were. Beyond the wastes rises a large mountain range where the alliance says most of its troubles come from, and somewhere in those mountains sits The Warmind.
Description
The sources paint the Blastlands less by scenery than by reputation. Arriving there and living to tell of it is rare enough that the party “should count yourselves very fortunate” to have done it. When Muffy heard this, she put it down to being “very dextrous.”
The region runs toward a large mountain range, the source of most of the alliance’s troubles and, by the war council’s plan, the Warmind’s own location. The front line is a place of trenches, with ground forces and artillery stationed in the wastes. Folks out there sometimes need rescuing, and someone has made a job of doing exactly that.
History
Pieces of a King Ep 2 — THE WAR COUNCIL
The party entered the story fresh from the Blastlands. Grim walked them into a war-council tent full of bickering officers and a map covered in stone tokens. He announced his discovery with a showman’s flourish:
Grim: “Hey, everybody, look at what I found out in the Blastlands.”
The council soon revealed that two figures the party wanted to find had gone into the wastes. Triss’s scouts had followed them into the Blastlands toward the large mountain range. Grim then explained his own line of work. “Me and my red caps” rescue folks from the Blastlands and run commando operations out there. He told the party plainly that “this is our home.” He also laid out the stakes. There is a city with a gate, and “if the Warmind gets through, then it has access to the gate… it could spread everywhere.”
Pieces of a King Ep 3 — The Warhead
With the plan set, the Blastlands became the stage for the war’s distraction. The trenches were part of the battlefield, and the mountain was the target. Gund refused Muffy’s invitation to join the strike team. His task, he said, was to direct ground and artillery forces in the Blastlands to keep the Warmind distracted.
Muffy was not impressed. She asked whether he planned to “send them a letter” from “a tent outside of the Blastlands,” and the two squared off. She stood her ground with Grimnar looming behind her “like a giant bear.” Gund’s face twitched, but he would not wreck the alliance in front of Trissavin. Instead he promised, “I’m going to be out there so that we can be your path.” Muffy’s reply set The Physician snickering:
Muffy: “Have somebody paint me a picture so I can make sure of it.”
Notable Figures
- Grim: found the party in the Blastlands; he and his red caps rescue people there and run commando operations.
- The Warmind: the threat in the mountains beyond the wastes, which the alliance must stop before it reaches the city’s gate.
- Muffy: survived the landing (“very dextrous”) and challenged Gund about where he would really be during the fighting.
- Grimnar: loomed behind Muffy during her standoff with Gund.
- The Physician: watched Muffy’s standoff with Gund and enjoyed it.