SPOILERS – Basically everything that occurred in Eps. 1-13
68k words and going into the third act seemed like an appropriate time to pause and reflect. A lot has happened to Hob in the last 13 episodes: 10 new bonds with friends and allies, numerous new assets, a knife of dark power, and foreboding hints to the blood-stained blade’s history and purpose. And now, as Hob sets off to thwart a dire threat and ensure her love’s safety, it seems fitting to first consider how we got here.
I’m super happy with how the various open threads are starting to weave together into something interesting. Hopefully something more exciting than tragic but we shall see. The story of Hob and Pella, Hob and the Blade, Hob and Lightdrinker, Hob and the Sustainers, Hob and the Three. The various arcs are all veering towards the same destination, the flooded valley in the Wilds. I can’t wait to see what we’ll find there.
What follows is a fairly detailed summary of everything I could remember that was likely relevant to what might happen next. As a warning, it’s a lot of information presented in a very condensed manner so please feel free to skip if that kind of thing doesn’t interest you.
Prelude
Basira, ‘Hob’ of the Gate, after her parents were taken by the sea, was raised by her uncle Temir and cousin Bastien, the Watchers of the Gate and custodians of the fort and lighthouse that were built by the first landers’ after fleeing the Old World and brutal Skulde. The brave yet untested young woman discovered the blood-stained blade on the water-bloated body of an unknown warrior that washed ashore on the island. Soon after, she started having visions of auroras and towers and fog. The blade sought its owner, and she was not it. Hob left Sota’s Gate for Autumnrush, the largest port along the Ragged Coast and the most likely place to find a swordsmith and answers. And that was when her story started.
The Piercing Swan
In Stoneharbor, Hob helped Elstan, a resolute sailor from Whitbarrow, avenge his slain kin and crewmates against a party of Red Bolg raiders and their tide controlling mystic, before joining up with Mira and the Piercing Swan, a ship of Sustainers on a divine expedition for knowledge relating to the ancient Iron Pillars that predated the arrival from the Old World. They assisted Brokefall, a circle besieged by both raiders and the encroaching Wilds, and in the process, Hob developed quite the crush on Perella (affectionately, Pella), a brash and confident Sustainer from the Hinterlands. After slaying the brood mother and clearing the harrow nest that threatened the settlement, the Swan sailed south to its destination, the Desolate Beacon, a towering alien column on the edges of the Barrier Islands.
In the caverns below the Beacon, Pella and Hob became separated from their comrades in the consuming darkness. Overcoming the numerous dangers and trials below, the two discovered Kodroth’s journal, which contained notes and sketches of the runes carved into the Beacon, before finally rescuing Mira from a giant skeletal horror and escaping the depths.
Their prize in hand (the journal), the Swan sailed for Autumnrush. Pursued and forced to battle, they defeated Haf and his crew of raiders, those that had previously harried Brokefall. After slaying and routing the raiders, many were found to have boar’s head tattoos across their shield arms, possible brands of fealty to some higher warleader or raidcaptain. The swan stopped for repair and recovery at Spotter’s Ridge before they pressed on to weather the stormy and treacherous shoals of the Broken Isles to eventually reach the safety of the coast and finally arrive to Autumnrush, the Gateway to the Havens.
Autumnrush
Autumnrush, the primary trading and travel hub between the prosperous Havens inland and the circles along the Ragged Coast and Barrier Islands. The port was massive, on a scale Hob did not know could exist outside of the stories from the Old World. Hob was so overwhelmed that she spent the next week secluded in the Sustainer camp, relaxing and deepening her relationship with Pella. The camp sat on Pillar Hill, so named because of the twin towering Iron Pillars at its center. The numerous rival factions of the Iron Priests had flocked to the hill, competing for proximity to the Pillars, the Sustainers being one of the first and larger sects to stake their claim. Pella explained to Hob their beliefs and motives, to understand the Pillars and Ironlands herself, to embrace her challenges and thus earn her favor. From others, Hob learned of the Resurrectors, the Sustainers’ most hated rivals who claimed the Pillars were conduits capable of fracturing the cruel shell of the Ironlands and revealing paradise within, a resurrection of the Old World.
Hob was finally forced to leave the comfort and security of the camp when Mira asked her to approach their secret patron, Cera of Longbridge, to ask for supplies. A task made complicated by a recent escalation of tensions between The Three, the de facto bosses of the port. An attempt had been made on Lio the Guide’s life and the old truce was at risk of disintegrating. The slain attacker’s motives remained unknown so the other two, Cera of Longbridge and Sayer the Shipbuilder, were eyeing each other and sharpening their knives.
Hob approached Cera and was able to convince her to provide the Sustainers with their needed supply, for a price. The price of service, Hob must stand with Cera as Mira’s proxy, serve her in the conflict that was about to boil over. Hob agreed and, after saying her temporary goodbyes to Pella and the Sustainer camp, moved onto Cera’s grounds.
Cera’s first task for Hob was to humiliate Reese, a free warden turned thug who had taken advantage of the Three’s turmoil to establish an extortion racket. With both fist and cudgel, Hob beat the former free warden and his companion, a swift and ruthless archer, on the crowded docks, displaying their weakness to the ship crews that were victims of their extortion. Following their defeat, Reese’s companion marked Hob for vengeance.
Cera was impressed with Hob’s competency and offered her banner to stand behind, asking Hob to be her voice and hand in what was to come. Hob accepted and though there were setbacks and conflicts over mixed loyalties, agency, and boundaries, Cera eventually learned to trust Hob and recognize that she was her own master, with her own purpose and goals. In the process, Hob also made peace with Verena, Cera’s bodyguard since childhood, who had been haughty and spiteful out of distrust but became a steadfast ally after the two voiced and accepted their differences.
Verena and Hob traveled to Mouth’s Watch, an old island fort at the mouth of the fjord, to approach Lio the Guide and convince him that Cera had nothing to do with the attempt on his life. They found the man unwell, wasting away. Hob was successful in renewing the truce but Lio’s healer, an enigma behind ashen curls, revealed that Lio was cursed and would die if the second assassin and their ritual was not stopped. The healer provided Hob with the weapon used by the first failed assassin, an ebony-handled knife, to follow its thread and locate the ritual.
Before searching for the ritual, Hob approached Cadigan the Swordsmith to appraise the blade. Cadigan pumped her for information to report back to his patron and Cera’s rival, Sayer the Shipbuilder, but also provided insight into the blade’s history. The blade was crafted in the style of the Old World but had been forged in the Ironlands before the ancestors had arrived, fleeing the Skulde. Under the leather grip, he also discovered its original bone hilt, covered in rune engravings that reminded Hob of those under the Beacon and in the journal. She feared the implications of this knowledge as it hinted towards those that came before, whispering of the Broken.
Verena and Hob followed the knife’s thread to the Hovels east of the port and discovered a gate to the darkness in one of the shacks. Entering, they found a twilight forest full of dried leaves and shadows. The blade led them to a gruesome altar to some dark hunting god, bearing similar runes to those on the bone grip and the Beacon. They pressed onward and, pulled by the blade, Hob drove off the assassin, a wild eyed hunter, saving two children in the process and breaking the ritual and ending the curse by reuniting the knife with its sheath.
Under the ashen curl’s guidance, Hob later returned to the twilight forest to confront the hunter, who was still trapped there after fleeing their first encounter. The forest turned out to be some sort of realm created by and residing within the ebony-handled knife, Lightdrinker. Wielding Lightdrinker, Hob was able to drink from flames and paint greys upon shadows to navigate the dark forest. She found the hunter and again defeated her, but not before she was stabbed by a poisoned blade.
The defeated hunter hinted to threats and knowledge, claiming Lightdrinker and the blood-stained blade were “forge mates”, warning of torches set alight and vines erupting outward to strangle the world, and revealing that she’d targeted Lio because of a memory of the knife. She also revealed a name, That Which Hungers, the owner of the grim altar, some dark and old power. Her words made little sense and, as the poison took hold, it became clear that the hunter was distracting Hob with riddles, waiting for her to weaken. Realizing this, Hob fled and barely escaped the forest before the poison took her breath, leaving the hunter still trapped within.
Badly wounded, Hob was saved from the poison by the ashen curls. While she recovered, Pella watched over her for days before announcing that the Sustainers were leaving on another expedition. To a newly discovered Pillar on the borders of the western Wilds. Their departure was urgent as their rivals, the Resurrectors, who were allied to Sayer the Shipbuilder in some way, had already left. Hob, still too injured to travel with them, tried to be happy for Pella. They said their goodbyes, and Hob continued to rest.
During Hob’s recuperation, Elstan of Whitbarrow, recently arrived in the port, visited with his partner, Nisas of Tidewater, warcaptain of the Starving Wolf. They brought a gift from Lio as gratitude for breaking the curse, a set of sailor’s wargear (very nice leather armor).
Cera revealed her motives for supporting the Sustainers. Though not spiritually, she shared their belief that the Pillars needed to be understood and new trails blazed in order to thrive in the Ironlands, new routes for a new world.
And finally, after ten days of recovery and many bonds refreshed, the Threat revealed itself. A blooming aurora and dancing tendrils of bright transparent greens blossomed from the west, from the Wilds and the Pillar. From the way Pella and the Sustainers’ traveled. Vines erupting outward…to strangle the world.
Assets
Here’s what Hob’s assets look like these days (a lot more to work with than what she started with, just Blade-Bound, Swordmaster, and Storyweaver)
Hob's Edge 