Lands in Shadow for

Shadow of the Demon Lord ~Credits~

Writing, Design, and Art Direction:
The Northern Reach offers much to see and to explore,
but of all the features found in the province, the Fall Robert J. Schwalb
commands attention. An enormous cliff that extends Editing and Proofreading: Jay Spight
some five hundred miles, from the Iron Peaks on the
edges of the Desolation, south, where it curves around Graphic Design and Layout: Kara Hamilton
Sixton and vanishes into the Tumbledowns. At a mile Illustrations: Cagdas Demiralp
high in many places, it’s no wonder people include the Northern Reach Part III is ©2023 Schwalb Entertainment, LLC.
Fall as one of the great geographical wonders of the All rights reserved.
world. Live within sight of the fantastic long enough, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Lands in Shadow, Northern Reach Part III,
and even the most extraordinary becomes ordinary, Schwalb Entertainment, and their associated logos
yet somehow, people still look upon the Fall with awe are trademarks of Schwalb Entertainment, LLC.
and amazement. Schwalb Entertainment, LLC
The importance of the Fall and how it divides the
east from the west makes it an obvious stop on the
tour through the Northern Reach. In the following
pages, descriptions of the people, places, and events
that inhabit the narrow strip of land in the middle of PO Box #12548, Murfreesboro, TN 37129
the Empire’s northernmost province take center stage. info@schwalbentertainment.com www.schwalbentertainment.com
You can use the information as a mini-setting or as
part of the greater exploration of the Northern Reach
series.

1

Lands of the Fall
The region known as the Lands of the Fall
encompasses the territory out to a few miles on
either side of the great cliff. The country here rises
and falls, an uneven expanse that gradually climbs
as it nears the foothills of the Iron Peaks in the
north and the Tumbledowns in the south. Not much
adorns the landscape; necessity saw the forest cut
until not even the stumps remained. Open country
prevails, prairies in the south, badlands in the north,
with scrub brush, cacti, and dusty, rubble-strewn
plains. Yet to the east, about a mile down from the
cliffs’ top, stretch green fields and country. West,
the lands gain elevation, bit by bit as they approach
the distant mountains bounding the province.
Temperatures are as hot as elsewhere in the Reach,
though the climate is humid in the south, and dry in
the north, as one nears the desert.
Iron Peaks
The Fall terminates at rugged mountains that block
the Desolation’s spread southward, here at least.
Brown, gray, and rust red peaks stand in a row, their
appearance broken, cracked, and rubble-strewn.
The south-facing side drops away into boulder fields
that form a skirt around the mountains’ base. From
and through them streams form the sluggish Blood
River, red from the ubiquitous iron in these peaks
and valleys.
Smokestacks rising from Foundry’s smelters and
forges feed the haze that hangs over the mountains
lower slopes, cinders and soot cover everything in
greasy ash. Chemical waste turns bright green and
queer blue the nearby pools of standing water, none
of which is safe for consumption. The pollution
comes from Foundry’s forges and laboratories, as
well as from the waste byproducts of mining efforts,
making the region anathematic to flora and fauna.
The Mines
Even if the rest of the Empire no longer had need for
steel, Foundry’s consumption of the material would
be enough to keep the mines open for generations
to come. Iron has become a crucial commodity and
thus prospectors scour the lands, searching for ore.
So far, no place has yielded more iron ore than has
the Iron Peaks and along with that metal, miners
find copper, tin, silver, some gold, and precious
stones, which keeps Foundry’s mining bosses
focused on gutting these mountains.
Dwarfs have been mining the Iron Peaks for
centuries and they have never, not once had an easy
time of it. In the mountains’ roots live gnomes and
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kobolds, who resent intrusions into their respective
domains. Skirmishes threatened to become all-
out war several times and dwarfs still bitterly
recall such conflicts as Broken Cliff, the Seven-Day
Siege, and War of Dark Waters, an especially nasty
conflict that saw the gnomes flood mines with a
subterranean lake, drowning hundreds of miners.
The earthquake brought a sudden end to the
fighting in the mines. While the dwarfs claim to
have had nothing to do with the catastrophe, the
earthquake did put an end to years of skirmishes
between the miners and the people who live under
the mountains. Of the gnomes, the survivors of
the collapse came bobbing up out of the depths of
Mirror Lake, leaving them a problem for the east to
handle now.
Even though dwarfs run the operations into the
mountains, most of the miners belong to the human
and orc ancestries. The mines offer reasonable
pay, although that pay often comes in the form of
company scrip, and housing. The dwarfs serve as
foremen, directing the workers and solving the
engineering problems.
The miners have been content for the most part,
but now that the gnomes have stopped giving them
trouble, the miners have begun to look toward their
future. The scrip they receive for their work has
value only in the trade depots and in some places in
Foundry. Workers have begun to meet in secret and
plot to take control over their working conditions
and compensation. The Lampers, as they’ve come to
be called, plan to strike until the dwarf bosses meet
their demands.
Unintended Consequences
Ogres live in tribal groups all over the Iron Peaks
and have done so since the faeries broke the trolls
and sent them fleeing for the western mountains.
A people boorish, brutish, and disgusting, their
mere presence has been enough to keep outsiders
from trespassing into their territory in the high
valleys and deeper caves. But food becomes scarce
and water unsafe to drink, even for these voracious
monsters. So, following their appetites, the ogres
have begun descending from their camps to take
 what they need by force from farms, small towns,
caravans, herds, and anything else that comes across
their paths.
While many such attacks appear random, driven
by ogre appetites, reports to Foundry’s leadership
mention some organization uncommon to ogres
and a name, Goombak, has begun to circulate. It’s
believed that Goombak is a cunning warrior who
named himself chief-of-chiefs and has been forcing
other ogres to follow him, earning their loyalty with
regular feeding.
Boggart Invasion
The practice of hunting boggarts for sport and
taking boggart noses as trophies goes back to
Foundry’s earliest days, before there was really
much of a settlement at all. Not long after arriving,
the dwarfs found themselves beset by the hairy,
multilimbed monstrosities, and were nearly
overwhelmed by them. After throwing back the
initial attack, the dwarfs went on the offensive,
tracking the boggarts and putting them to death.
Rather than drag the carcasses back to stink up the
place, the dwarfs took the noses and left the bodies
to rot where they laid.
A combination of declining interest in boggart
hunting, likely due to their diminished numbers,
and the influx of hungry, angry ogres drawing all the
attention has allowed the boggart population of the
Iron Peaks to rebound. Breeding rates and the short
time it takes to reach maturity result in a boggart
population boom. Foundry has ignored the problem
for months, but hunger and hate make the boggarts
more aggressive, leading to several attacks within
Foundry’s walls.
Foundry’s leaders offer a bounty for boggart
noses, paying 2 cp per pound of nose. So far, all the
bounty has accomplished is the deaths of several
unready adventuring bands. Rumors swirl about a
raising of the bounty and thus more sellswords and
freelancers descend on the region to start collecting.
Troll Ruins
There were twenty troll strongholds once, but
nearly all have collapsed into ruins, and most are
now little more than rubble piles and old bones.
From time to time, mountaineers stumble across
a ruin and, if they’re lucky, come up with a few
trinkets and treasures. If they’re not lucky, and few
are, they vanish, victims of old, dark magic, traps,
and the undead trolls that lurk in these places.
Troll ruins share certain qualities. Being sized
for trolls, every door, window, and ceiling looms
large, sometimes twice the size of what a typical
human would expect. The places have labyrinthine
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floorplans, riddled with traps, both magical and
otherwise, while the décor tends toward the
macabre, feature trolls in positions of authority,
lording over their smaller, weaker subjects.
Death Troll
Most records concerning troll magic speak of their
skill at transformation, how they bred giants and
terrible things to fight on their behalf. In addition
to their monster-making abilities, trolls also knew
a bit about Death magic and Necromancy. The
death trolls survived the fall of their civilization by
imbuing in themselves necromantic energies that
extended their existence long after death should
have claimed them. Few exist and the ones who do
dwell in the ruins scattered across the Iron Peaks.
Death trolls resemble other trolls, but they have
thin, emaciated bodies. Their black rubbery skin
resists blows, and repairs itself when cut. They
have glowing white eyes set in faces so warped they
appear lopsided.
DEATH TROLL DIFFICULTY 250
Size 2 frightening undead
Perception 13 (+3); darksight
Defense 12; Health 140; Insanity 5; Corruption 6
Strength 18 (+8), Agility 12 (+2), Intellect 7 (–3), Will 12 (+2)
Speed 10
Death Field A death troll emanates a field of death magic
that drains life to sustain the troll. The field extends out
to short range from the troll. Whenever a living creature
in the field takes damage, the troll heals half as much
damage.
Death Burst When a death troll becomes incapacitated,
it petrifies until it becomes a stone statue. At the end
of the round, the statue explodes, dealing 4d6 damage
to each creature and object within short range of it. A
creature can make an Agility challenge roll and takes half
the damage on a success.
ATTACK OPTIONS
Claws and Teeth (melee) +8 with 3 boons (6d6)
SPECIAL ATTACKS
Frenzied Attack The death troll makes three attacks,
choosing a different target for each.
Foundry
The second largest town in the Northern Reach rises
from the polluted badlands south of the Iron Peaks.
Smoke belching from the forest of smokestacks
rising from the town’s north side casts a pall over
the lands for miles around and stains the slopes of
the mountains themselves.
About a thousand years ago, dwarfs spread out
from High Stone to establish new strongholds
throughout the region. Foundry was the last
established and also the last to survive. The
community outgrew the walls of the stronghold and
this fortress commands the center of a larger urban
 center with five walled wards that extend out
from the center like spokes of a wheel.
Other peoples have settled in Foundry, drawn by
the promise of wealth, work, and shelter. Humans
outnumber the dwarfs, but not by much, and
Foundry remains very much a dwarfen city. The
architecture favors large, functional buildings with
little sense of artistry. So large are the buildings
that even jotun feel small when wandering
around them. The same sense of scope found in
the construction shows in the wide streets, with
metal plates set into the ground displaying, in
Dwarfish, the name. Statues depicting dwarfs at
work, mining, forging, fighting, adorn almost every
intersection, nameless figures to the humans and
others who live here.
The old stronghold remains the seat of power
for Foundry and the Autarch, always a dwarf,
rules over the city and the lands all around for as
far as they can see. The current Autarch is Regnis
Regnisson, a portly dwarf in his middle years,
saddled with three wives, a dozen children, and
a bad cough. Sixton paid him handsomely to gain
his support in joining the Empire, and he was glad
to defer to the governor so long as the governor
stayed in Sixton and out of Foundry’s politics.
Since, Foundry’s fortunes have only grown, as
Sixton and the Empire prove eager consumers of
the goods this city produces.
So far, Foundry’s official stance regarding
imperial troubles is simply to stay out of provincial
politics. Foundry banned slavery ages ago, so the
orcs living here have been free for generations.
The policy against slavery helped Foundry avoid
the uprising, but no one should mistake the town’s
illegality of slavery as a sign of progressiveness.
Rather, people sell their labor to the mine
magnates cheaply, and the scrip can purchase
shoddy clothing, substandard food, and barracks in
which they sleep. Miners sign contracts that bind
them to their employers for years, and few live long
enough to ever be free of them.
Foundry’s wards comprise the enormous
Industrial District on the north side of the town,
flanked by dirty residential districts, Westhome
and Easthome. The southern districts include
High Gate, a wealthy mercantile district, and the
Yards, a former commercial district fully taken
over by the train depot, manufacturing for rails
and ties, as well as several large hangers where
new locomotive engines sit in various stages of
completion.

People of Foundry
Foundry’s population includes a growing number
of humans, dwarfs, goblins, and orcs. Nearly
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 everyone in the city works in a trade related to
mining, smelting, construction, and engineering.
Humans, and some orcs, have difficult jobs, often
unskilled and demanding long hours under deadly
conditions. Those who escape the mines or the
factories might tend the city’s other needs: cleaning
the streets, removing rubbish, and clearing the
sewers of goblins, mutated rats, and other, nastier
things.
Where humans have it hard, dwarfs live in
comparable luxury. They control the mines, the
factories, the mills, and everything else. Some
dwarfs work alongside the other miners, but most
find employment making things, from pots and pans
to the magnificent steam engines that have made the
town famous.
As one might expect, resentment toward the
dwarfs grows and a few uprisings and strikes have
unsettled the city. The dwarfs crack down on the
workers whenever they make too much trouble,
and think nothing of breaking a few skulls to keep
the population firmly under their control. Such
draconian tactics have had little luck in suppressing
the discontent; demonstrations occur with greater
and greater frequency.
Silver River
The days when the Silver River was as clean as
the name suggests are long gone, for the lesser
waterways feeding this watercourse carry coal
dust, rust, and chemicals from the mining in the
Iron Peaks. Once, this was a fast-flowing river, with
abundant wildlife, but now debris and sludge block
portions, causing the waters to flood the lands
around, as they flow east.
Gordon’s Fall
The Silver River eventually reaches the Fall and
spills down as Gordon’s Fall down to Mirror Lake
below. The falls take their name from a lovelorn man
MUCK FIEND
Change type to monster
Perception Increase by 1
Defense reduce by 4; Health increase by 30%; Insanity +1d3
Strength increase by 1, Agility decrease by 1, Intellect 5 (–5),
Will 12 (+2)
Speed Reduce by 2
Wet Mud A muck fiend takes half damage from fire. When
the muck fiend takes damage from fire, its wet skin
hardens, increasing its Defense by 5 until it takes 10
damage or more.
Infectious A flesh and blood creature injured by a muck
fiend’s attack or that takes damage from a muck fiend
while injured makes a Strength challenge roll with 1 bane
after it next completes a rest. On a failure, the creature
contracts a lethal disease. If the disease kills the creature,
it immediately heals all damage and becomes a muck
fiend, applying these changes to its stat box.
5
named Gordon who threw himself off the cliff after
being jilted by the Maiden in the Moon. As polluted
as the waters have become, the water becomes clean
again before it crashes into the lake, which keeps
the lake as pure and as magnificent as it has always
been. Some believe the goddess herself cleanses the
water out of memory of the devoted mortal.
Muck Fiend
The foulness contaminating the Silver River has
killed off much of the wildlife, but those that
somehow manage not to sicken and die find
themselves changed into muck fiends. They keep
the forms they once wore, but instead of flesh and
blood, these animals appear made from mud, thick
and viscous. Any kind of creature, big or small,
that comes to the river’s edge must at some point
contend with these strange creatures.
Muck fiends do not speak and have no languages.
You can create a muck fiend from any creature of
flesh and blood by applying the appropriate changes
to its stat box.
The Fall
A terrific earthquake could have created the Fall,
causing the eastern lands to collapse, but powerful
magic or some divine act might also have been
responsible. So enormous is this place and so large
does it live in the minds of the Reachers it’s no
wonder the fall has found a place in myth. The Old
Faith, for example, teaches that the World Mother
was born in the lands east of the cliffs and when
she sat up, she took with her the ground. The Cult
of the Destroyer claim their god, Shuzik, descended
from the stars and landed here with such force and
violence that the ground collapsed beneath him.
Some faeries who claim to remember these lands
suggest a different origin, though, one that resulted
from the Hateful Wars that wrecked so much of the
continent. The trolls used terrible magic to wipe out
an army of faeries that marched against them.
Whatever its origins, the cliffs have stood for
as long as any can remember and were, for many
years, an impassible barrier between east and
west. Too sheer for beasts of burden, travelers
have to climb it and with few breaks since ledges
and gaps can be scarce. However, people did not
let the Fall stop them for long as evidenced by the
numerous switchbacks and steps carved into its
surface. As people mastered the wall, they also
began excavating in it, opening gaps in which they
constructed cliffside villages, some of which remain
populated to this day.
 Caves and fissures appear all across the Fall.
Drakes nest in many, as do birds, but some caves
remain empty and lead miles into the darkness. Foul
odors waft out from within, stenches redolent of
waste, smoke, and decay. As degenerated troglodytes
sometimes emerge from the caves to hunt and raid,
there’s little doubt about the fates of the people who
once lived in the now-emptied settlements clinging
to the cliffside.
Routes up and down the Fall might be uncommon,
but travelers can find reliable passage at Sixton,
Foundry, and at some of the smaller settlements that
have built up around the Iron Road. Most of these
places have stable lifts that raise and lower on thick
metal cables. Cages contain the lifts to make them
stabler. Early efforts used ropes and open platforms
that on windy days would smash against the cliff.
Recently, dwarfen engineers revealed steam-
powered climbers, machines designed to crawl up
and down the side of the cliff on tracks similar to
those used by the locomotives. The climbers offer
swift and stable passage, while also being able to
move much heavier weight than can the traditional
lifts. Two stations operate currently, one in Sixton
and the other in Foundry. Work is underway for
more stations along the Iron Road.

Wedge Town works four copper mines. Aside from the

Most inhabited cliff-face settlements were
established by long-vanished peoples of mysterious
origin and have since been exploiting by miners
digging tunnels into the side in pursuit of precious
stones and metals. The town, Wedge, has become
one of the most successful mining communities.
Gallows & Glint Mining Consortium owns the
settlement and pays its miners in scrip. The miners
seem content as security is anything but strict and
most supplement of their meager earnings with
whatever nuggets of gold or silver they can stuff in
their pockets.
Chain Town
As impractical as it might seem, the mining industry
has been interested in burrowing into the Fall. Early
efforts revealed quantities of copper, silver, gold,
along with lesser metals. Chain Town demonstrates
the lengths to which these outfits will go to fill their
coffers.
About one hundred miles south of Foundry, there
stands a village at the cliff’s edge. The village grew
up around the cranes jutting out over the side. From
them hang dozens of scaffolds on chains. Lower,
permanent platforms jut out from the cliff. Ladders
connect the different levels to enable workers to
move easily between the various sites. So far, Chain
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copper ore, miners have also discovered enormous
bones, probably of giants, buried in the rock.
Iron Road
The steam engine overshadows just about every
other innovation that has come out of Foundry.
Rodren Clawfist invented the locomotive a
century ago, but it took him fifty years to create
a prototype that didn’t explode. And then there
was the matter of laying the tracks on which the
engine would travel. Orc labor, cheap and supplied
by an interested emperor, saw rails stretched from
Foundry to Sixton and with stops all along the
way. Since the first track, two more make the same
journey, and plans are now under development to
run lines west along the border of the Desolation.
The locomotive’s benefits realized themselves
right away. No longer did one have to spend
weeks traveling between the two cities; a traveler
can make the trip in a matter of days. Weapons,
armor, marvels of engineering, and more come
out of Foundry to sell in markets throughout the
Northern Reach, all thanks to the speed of the trains.
The intent was to extend the track through the
Tumbledowns and spread out through the Empire,
but war and calamity have put an end to these plans
and left much of the work undone below Sixton.
 Three locomotive engines (see Demon Lord’s
Companion, page 32) race back and forth along
the iron roads. The engines, named Fury, Pride of
Foundry, and the Iron Horse, have crews of ten
engineers, all dwarfs, responsible for their operation
and paid from Sixton’s coffers as well as from
the merchants whose cargo they carry. Recently,
raiders and monsters have begun attacking the
engines; boggarts nearly derailed the Pride of
Foundry, sending the train toppling off the edge of
the Fall, while there have also been rumors about
a dragon striking the lines not far from Darksville.
As protecting these investments remains a high
priority, the engines have armored plating to protect
the steam tanks, coal supply, and cargo cars. Missiles
fired from the heavy ballistae turrets mounted atop
the train can make even the boldest dragon think
twice about messing with these marvels.
Rail Wardens
A king’s fortune might come close to being able to
afford just one of the steam engines traveling along
the Iron Road, thus neither Foundry nor Sixton, who
share the burden of maintaining the rails and the
trains on them, can tolerate anything that imperils
the operation. The rail wardens have earned their
value so far, and recruitment and training for new
members continues. Rail wardens ride in the cars
drawn by the steam engines as they follow the rail.
Most times, six roam the various cars, but high value
cargo can warrant twelve or more.
Rail wardens include dwarfs and some humans.
All wear metal breastplates, long leather coats,
wide-brimmed hats, and carry pistols and rifles.
Professional killers all, they show no hesitation
when it comes to protecting the rails and grant no
quarter to would-be robbers and saboteurs.
RAIL WARDEN DIFFICULTY 10
Size 1/2 dwarf
Perception 11 (+1); darksight
Defense 17 (plate and mail); Health 32; Insanity 0;
Corruption 0
Strength 12 (+2), Agility 11 (+1), Intellect 10 (+0), Will 11 (+1)
Speed 8
Robust Constitution A rail warden takes half damage from
poison. The rail warden makes challenge rolls with 1 boon
to avoid or remove the poisoned affliction.
Rail Fighting A rail warden makes challenge rolls to climb,
maintain balance, and jump with 1 boon.
ATTACK OPTIONS
Axe (melee) +2 with 1 boon (1d6 + 1)
Pistol (medium) +1 with 1 boon (2d6)
SPECIAL ATTACKS
Double Shot The rail warden uses an action to make two
pistol attacks. Once it makes this special attack, it must use
an action to reload both pistols before it can use it again.
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Thorpe
Without the Iron Road, Thorpe would still be a
minor, inconsequential village of a few buildings
and uncommonly devout followers of the New God.
Thorpe’s location about halfway between Foundry
and Sixton made it an obvious choice for a stop, so
that engineers could make whatever repairs they
needed and replenish supplies of coal, passengers,
and food stuffs for the people who ride it. In the
span of a decade, Thorpe became a sizeable village
with a population that continues to grow.
Whether Thorpe’s people wanted to fill this role
was not up to them; others moved in to build inns,
restaurants, and brought in all kinds of business
to cater to travelers’ needs. The sudden boom in
population left the Thorpers in straights. They could
have made some gold from selling off their land,
but they refused so the newcomers simply built a
community around the old. Now, Thorpe’s original
inhabitants live in a squalid center, blocked in by
multistory buildings, warehouses, and fortifications.
The new mayor, Edna Rolf, sees the natives as an
annoyance and would just as soon see them carted
off to live somewhere else. The trouble, she has
found, is that the Thorpers gained their land with
aid from the Cult of the New God and earn ongoing
support from the faith by maintaining a shrine to
a minor holy man who performed a few miracles
here—he made a tree bear fruit and cured a baby
of having a tail. Any move the mayor makes risks
inviting attention from the religious leaders, which
could then bring scrutiny from Sixton, scrutiny that
might reveal some of her shady dealings with crime
families that have enriched her and kept her hold on
the mayorship secure. So, the mayor bides her time
until the people give up and either abandon their
community or assimilate.
Darksville and Devil’s Breach
The Last Train to Darksville by Matt Forbeck
mentions two towns, Devil’s Breach and
Darksville, but sets them in no particular place,
leaving their location to you for placement.
That the adventure deals with a steam engine,
it always made sense to me for these places
to exist somewhere in the Northern Reach,
preferably along the Iron Road north of Thorpe.
Placing them here and unleashing a dragon onto
the region introduces a serious threat suitable for
high-level characters.

Threshold
The town of Threshold stands just outside
Sixton’s sphere of influence and though loyal to
the government, Thresholders see themselves as
being apart from what they view as the decadent
and corrupt. The town began as a trading post
about a thousand years ago, a launching point for
explorations into the rest of the province. In those
thousand years, the town maintained its general size
and drew little attention to itself, aside from the odd
cult seizing power, a few outbreaks of disease, and
being the place where the Beer Rebellion began and
ended two hundred years back.
The Iron Road forced Threshold to meet the
demands of travelers and trade, and thus a
station appeared on the edge of town, along with
accommodations for travelers. Unlike Thorpe,
Threshold has been a grudging adopter of modern
conveyance and thus maintains a footprint not that
much larger than it did before the orcs laid tracks
for the trains. The community sits about a mile from
the station and huddles behind steep stone walls. A
turret tower, despite being ten stories tall, appears
squat, perhaps due to the flattened dome that caps
it. Buildings feature stone and timber construction,
much like everywhere else in the Reach, and
features a mix of residences, shops, and industries.
Fizzen IV rules Threshold and he inherited the
position from his father, who did the same from his
father. A bookish man, freighted with the effects of
too much ale and too much food, he ambles about
in his tower, complaining about the stairs when not
reading or attending to the three dozen cats who
share his domicile. People embrace his eccentricities
and seem to adore him; he’s fair in his rulings
and exacts little from his subjects. He maintains a
small standing army of professional soldiers. Since
Fizzen has no heirs and seems to have no interest in
correcting this, locals worry about how things might
change when he finally passes and it’s believed that
ambitious Sarey, the commander of Threshold’s
defenders might move to take his place.