To understand Stanengist is to understand the Ravenlands

Raven’s Purge, as written, is conceptually railroaded. The players will discover mystical elven rubies in magical items, either in standalone items or in the Stanengist crown (they have an illusion of agency here, in that they can assemble most or all of the pieces of the puzzle in any order). They will assemble an army to march on Vond, where there will be a final showdown, with every key player getting their moment to shine, before a final decision is taken on what will happen to the Ravenlands.

This decision depends on two crucial bits of information, asserted by NPCs, which the players cannot challenge in any serious manner: that anybody demon-tainted wearing Stanengist will go mad; but throwing Stanengist through the protonexus will close it permanently, at the cost of destroying the crown and the rubies inside it.

This essay offers an alternative model: where only some people know some of the truth about Stanengist at the start of the campaign, and how the whole truth can emerge.

As written: there are two things to know, surprisingly-distributed

The campaign expects the PCs to eventually acquire Stanengist, and the two crucial bits of knowledge, by the climactic scene in Vond; but for some crucial key players to not have all of that information. For instance, Merigall knows that Stanengist will send them mad; Krasylla wants it for its nexus-closing capabilities and has no intention of ruling, so not knowing this doesn’t hamper her; Zytera, Kartorda and Zertorme do not know this, and could potentially go mad if they decide to don Stanengist.

Kartorda can be excused because he’s very much a patsy, a second-in-command to Zytera who’s having second thoughts, designed as an end-of-disc-1 boss, a palate-cleanser for the PCs before they get to the really important key players. Zytera fought through all of the Alder Wars, when Stanengist probably made a minor appearance, but in truth it was never a factor (apart from maybe explaining why Zygofer was able to hear apout the rift in 841 AS, a reason the arrogant sorcerer is probably inclined to dismiss), so they probably think it’s just an archaic ceremonial crown with maybe some minor magical power. Zertorme knows that there have always been demons (he was 7 when his father found the rift), and all of his family are demon-tainted (he’s in denial about what that means for him), so has no reason to be curious as to why they’re here; and otherwise knows even less than his father about Stanengist.

What’s more interesting is who knows that throwing Stanengist through the protonexus will rid the Ravenlands of the threat of demonic incursion for good: Krasylla, Soria and Kalman Rodenfell. (Virelda knows the crown exists, but it’s not clear she knows anything more than it’s an item of magical power that must not be allowed to fall into demonic hands.) As written, Krasylla knows this from the start, but Kalman Rodenfell will be told this by one of the elves in Stanengist during the campaign, as will Soria be told by Iridne.

The problem is: why should any of the ancient elves know that Stanengist can do this? Even if you buy that Stanengist constantly chants an annoying psychic mantra of “kill the demons, rule the land” that any elf stuck in it can hear, hence why they know that wearing it will drive a demon or demon-tainted person actually mad, why should it follow that they know that it can also affect a weird magical dimensional tear in space? OK, that would also thwart the plans of most demons other than Krasylla, but that doesn’t seem like a good enough explanation?

And, of course, why the hell does Krasylla know that Stanengist can close the rift?

Knowledge of the Land and the Crown should go hand in hand

At the beginning of the Raven’s Purge campaign, there have been 260 years of enforced isolation and nobody really knows anything about the entire Ravenlands. If you were to draw a political map of the Ravenlands, in the sense of “who ultimately controls which continguous bits of land?”, it would look like mid-19th century Germany: yes, there’s a a couple of big blobs of Harga / Bavaria and Margelda / Prussia where one person has sway, but as a whole it still looks like confetti compared to, say, Alderland / France. Most people’s knowledge of the world is similarly limited.

As written, the players find Stanengist, the ancient elves inside say “thank heavens that you’ve found us! You must throw us through the protonexus to stop there being demons any more; if demons put us on they’ll go mad; please temporarily enjoy these sweet magical powers while you go looking for the remaining plot coupons”, and the players are supposed to take that at face value. There is no way for the players to put the weird ancient elves’ theories to the test.

But what if you say that knowledge of Stanengist is also fragmented and incomplete, even among those who profess to be experts (including the elves in the crown)? Then whatever the players start off knowing about Stanengist will inevitably be biased and partial, then as they meet more NPCs and find out more they’ll develop a more complete picture, until by the end they have a proper understanding of how the crown works, and what they’re going to do with it. That sounds a lot more exciting to me, both as a GM and a player.

This also feels like what should be happening to their understanding of the Ravenlands as a whole, as befits Stanengist as a Fisher King analogue. If they have ambitions to rule the land, or to decide who should, they need to understand the land, and the people who live there.

And similarly, as the players criss-cross the Ravenlands and learn about the previously-isolated key players, so should the key players be learning about each other, and knowledge of Stanengist should likewise be spreading. Not complete knowledge, though: Zytera may start to hear increased mutterings about Stanengist, and that may prompt the plan to crown Zygofer and an eligible female ruler, but everyone who knows about the crown driving demon-tainted people mad will have every interest in not telling Zytera, and Zytera still doesn’t have the skills or background to find out independently.

Conversely, general chatter might cause Zertorme to reconsider his plans to crown himself with Stanengist.

So should there be a final confrontation at Vond, it will be between PCs and key players who each understand each other a lot better, and are far more aware of the Ravenlands, than when the campaign started. Whatever ends up happening as a result can reasonably be said to be a joint decision about the future of the entire land, by more or less informed people.

How do we make there be more things to know?

Let’s recap my headcanon’s changes to how Stanengist came to be and how it works:

New name and shape: The original circlet that Nebulos built for his sisters and Algared was not called Stanengist, and it was built to be a convenient way for someone to carry them around rather than an impressive crown. It’s such a huge fantasy trope to say that a mystical thing was reforged and then given a different name – e.g. Narsil being reforged as Andúril – that it seems a pity to pass this one up.

Reforging opened the rift: The circlet was reforged later on into a crown, as an explicit expression of domination and superiority; this act of domination caused the rift to open. The wisest demons know that anyone demon-tainted wearing Stanengist will go mad.

Reforging enslaved the orcs: As per Bitter Reach and the Bloodmarch, the orcs were not enslaved before this; rather, Stanengist and the ancient elves jointly powered a ritual that enslaved the orcs. Iridne almost immediately repented being part of this, and asked to leave the crown.

(Note that one consequence of Iridne leaving Stanengist almost immediately after the subjugation of the orcs is that the crown becomes basically useless as a magical item, and by the time the elves bring their own orcs out for the Third Alder War, it has probably been sent back to the Stillmist for safekeeping, and to stop people asking awkward questions like “why don’t we use that awesome crown again?”.)

Who knows what?

I originally wrote this for my own satisfaction, but it turns out that if you also say that not everybody knows all of this, then you get more narrative richness.

The elves and their friends know about the ancient elves

Elves and the most learned of elvenspring will know that there was originally a circlet created for the elves of the Heart of the Sky, and they may know many legends of the ancient elves. In particular, they may well know the legend of Viridia and Scrome, and how Viridia’s ruby turned into the green Gall-Eye. They can also know that there were already only 4 of the possible 7 rubies in Stanengist when it was reforged: the Shardmaiden had already shattered her ruby, Algared had put himself in a sceptre to help his Frailer offspring, and Viridia was off rampaging.

The Redrunners will have spread word that Stanengist and Maligarn are missing, but what’s important to the elves is the elven stones in those artifacts, not the artifacts themselves.

As an example of who cares about what, I think that elven centres of learning like Maidenholm will mostly know about the circlet and the ancient elves; more human-oriented places like Farhaven will know more about Stanengist and its brief use in the war.

There may be clues in ancient dwarven sorcerer writings

It’s very possible that reforging the elven circlet into Stanengist required the help of powerful dwarven sorcerers, who either knew what the consequences of their joint acts were likely to be, or realised after the fact what it was that they’d done. Either way, they’ll almost certainly have written this down for subsequent generations of dwarves to remember or rediscover.

If you decide to have there be a secret ancient order of dwarven blood sorcerers, I suggest you have their tunnels hidden under an otherwise spectacular, radiant and definitely-not-evil dwarven city, like Beldarand, rather than sticking them in, say, Stoneloom. And if the PCs discover this, Arvia can discover it as well, and decide “Excellent! This way we can enslave all of the humans as well as the orcs!”, which is exactly the maddeningly-wrong take your players should be dreading to hear from her by now.

The ancient dwarven sorcerers probably worked out their theories about how Stanengist worked after it was sent back to the Stillmist, which will have frustrated them to no end. Maybe they decided to forge a second crown, and experimented with abducting less-powerful elves and sticking their rubies in there, to see what happened?

This almost certainly did nothing, because (a) the rubies weren’t powerful enough, (b) the rift had already been opened so couldn’t be opened again, (c) the point of a crown that belongs to the person who rules the land is that there can’t be more than one, (d) forging a crown that could be powered by elves required the cooperation of Nebulos, which the dwarven sorcerers won’t have had for their second attempt, or (e) any/all of the above. But if you want to spice things up by there being stories of a second Stanengist…

The orcs remember being enslaved, and can provide historical clues

The Viraga make it their life’s work to make sure the orcs are never enslaved again, and make sure to collectively remember very strongly and furiously how that came to pass. They can disabuse PCs of the official history (the orcs were created at the same time as the Shift, as slaves to the dwarves and elves), albeit not with any great persuasiveness.

If the players really get on with the Viraga, they may be allowed to hear some of the most carefully-guarded Viraga poems, which have been passed on by mother to daughter in secret since the enslavement. These poems are by necessity fragmentary, smatterings of memories that somewhat survived the subjugation ritual. The PCs should be sure to memorise them exactly, as an ancient tradition of the orcs is to add code words to poems that indicate “this was said in confidence as a true account” vs “this was overheard by a third party” vs “this was surrendered under torture and should not be trusted”. (Do not make the players do this, unless you really fancy yourself as a poet and they like your poetry enough to memorise it!)

Regardless, the orcs can point to… weirdnesses in the official histories, and that then can lead the PCs to go digging through ancient documents / asking elves. Why did the orcs fight on the side of the dwarves (Second Alder War, GM’s Guide pp. 24-25), and later also on the side of elves (Third Alder War, ibid. p. 27), but not before in the First Alder War? Is there any relation between the sudden arrival of orc armies in 826 AS, and Zygofer’s discovery of the rift in Shadowgate Pass in 841 AS? Why aren’t the orcs in immediate danger of being enslaved again? If your players like a mystery, this should be catnip for them.

Ancient and learned demons understand how rifts work

The most powerful of all demons in Ravenland, Krasylla, obviously remembers being drawn to the rift at the time, and should be learned enough to know that this sort of act tends to open rifts between demon and non-demon worlds. (Other friendly demons may similarly know this sort of stuff.)

A reasonable study of Ravenland Kin history and culture, as well as reports of anyone wearing Stanengist during earlier battles, will be enough to convince her of the existence of a crown, even if she’s never seen it first-hand. And she knows that when this sort of thing happens, you can never win the war, only come to an agreement to stop fighting; a plan which she’s happy with, albeit that she plans on carrying out from the “wrong“ side of the demonic rift.

The elves of the Heart of the Sky remember the old circlet

Once the players acquire Stanengist and can talk to the elves inside it, they have a final way to find things out: ask the elves in Stanengist (Neyd, Gemelda, Nebulos), or who used to be (Iridne), or who were never inside the crown but were in the circlet at one point (Algared, Viridia). They can all tell them that the circlet used to look a lot different, and that it felt different to be inside it as well. The old circlet was a quiet place; the crown constantly chants mantras of domination, supremacy, and, increasingly, victory over demons.

How does knowledge spread?

As the Ravenlands come to life again, after 260 years of dormancy, people will travel, talk to other people, swap legends, start asking questions, and by the time of the final confrontation in Vond there should be a general ambient increased level of understanding of the lands’ history. But there are also particular ways that knowledge can spread inside and/or between the four silos of knowledge (elves, dwarves, orcs, demons).

Per the three clue rule, while you should aim for this to be a way that the PCs can find out stuff, there will be a few other key players who are also trying to find this stuff out, and if the PCs have decided to ignore a crucial bit of information, a smug NPC can discover it and sell it back to them.

Elves: this one is the easiest. The grand temple of Maidenholm is devoted to the Shardmaiden’s memory, and will be more than happy to tell anyone who asks how awesome she was, and by extension what her sisters got up to. Other elves elsewhere will similarly remember, and elvenspring should likewise have well-preserved records.

Dwarves: Arvia has been travelling the dwarven world for years now, and should have sorcerers among her followers. Any news of what the players have done, or other significant developments regarding Stanengist, will prompt her and her followers to consult their memories, go through ancient documents again, and come up with new plans. Independently, more strangers will be travelling to dwarven cities, which means an increased likelihood that someone will discover something buried for centuries.

Orcs: whether the division of orcs into multiple rival clans is just what orcs do, a deliberate divide-and-rule tactic by their enslavers, or a consequence of their period of enslavement leading them to trust nobody, is uncertain and down to you as GM. But once the blood mist falls, and enough Viraga from different tribes can swap stories, that makes it more likely that one orc will pass on the story of how the conclave was a communal gathering that suddenly stopped; another will volunteer a tale of orcs remembering in bitter confusion how they were told, firmly, that they had never been free and they should disregard their memories that said otherwise; from yet a third source will come a tale of a magical crown, brought by guile to a conclave and unveiled in surprise.

Even if the players do nothing, the orcs will gradually come to a collective understanding that there was a crown that enslaved them, and that is not going to happen again!

Demons: after the bait-and-switch of “OMG the rift to this new world is open wide, let’s go” and “damn, our food supply is gone”, any significant demon remaining in the Ravenlands will have a comfortable power base and will be reasonably happy in this world. And while technically that means being at war with elves and suchlike, there’s no reason to fight all the time, especially if the forces are evenly-enough matched that it’s not clear who would win.

So demons who know about rifts, crowns and the likely way this is to play out – in all probability, neither side can ever win – may start talking to people allegedly on the other side of the conflict, trying to work out ways to defuse things. This will especially happen if they’ve both fought each other a few times and neither has won, and a certain grudging level of respect has built up. So eventually you’ll get demons and elves meeting on neutral ground, like Cold War spies, and tentatively reaching towards a managed solution.

If the players find out that they can perform a ritual to become the rightful owners of the crown, this may attract demons who can tell them what it is that they’re wearing.