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The Whispering Ember

The wind howls over the steppe, biting at your skin and clawing at your breath. The earth is hard and frozen beneath your boots — the frost creeping through your soles feels almost like a warning. Ahead, smoke rises in a thin, pale thread from what should be a thriving encampment. But no sounds of life greet you. No laughter, no barking dogs, no crackle of burning wood. Just silence... and cold.

You find them huddled in what was once the heart of their home — their hearth. The stones are blackened, cold to the touch. No embers remain, no flicker of life. They died here, clinging to the memory of a warmth that failed them. Their faces are pale, their eyes frozen open, yet there’s something else — an emptiness in their expressions, as if they knew they were forgotten before the cold took them.

You kneel by the hearth. Once, you might have whispered a prayer for their journey. But you know this death was not natural. The hearth’s fire did not burn out — it was stolen.

From your belt, you draw your Ember-Stone — a shard of sacred flame passed down through generations. Its warmth is faint, flickering unsteadily as you hold it over the cold ashes. The ember feels wrong here, weak... as if something is drawing the heat from its core.

A whisper curls around the edge of your thoughts. Faint... persistent.

"You cannot stop it."

You snap your head toward the doorway. For a moment, you glimpse a figure — cloaked in shadow, crowned with curling tendrils of smoke. Blue flame flickers where their heart should be. A Frozen Fire-Bearer — a vessel of vengeance, feeding on forgotten warmth. Their gaze locks with yours, and the whisper returns.

"You cannot stop it... but you will burn trying."

The figure vanishes into the snow, their cold trail cutting a path toward the horizon.

Your Ember-Stone flares suddenly, warmth blooming against your palm. The fire is weak — but still alive. You cup the flame, feeding it with your breath. The flame dances, uncertain but defiant.

The cold is spreading. Hearths are dying. The steppe is turning to ice.

And unless you act... the warmth will die with it.

Campaign Overview

The Whispering Ember is a campaign of survival, mystery, and desperate hope set against a frozen world teetering on the edge of death. As Flamewardens — keepers of the sacred fire — you are tasked with protecting the warmth that binds your people together. The cold that creeps across the steppe is more than winter; it is a consuming force that feeds on forgotten hearths and lost kinship.

Your Role

• Protect the Sacred Flame: Each of you carries an Ember-Stone, a shard of living flame that grants warmth, protection, and power. This fire is your strength — but it can be stolen, extinguished, or corrupted.
• Rekindle Forgotten Hearths: Communities that have lost their flame risk turning bitter or falling under the influence of twisted spirits. You will seek out these darkened homes and restore what warmth you can.
• Face the Outcast Hosts: Bands of desperate exiles — forced from their tribes — have gathered under ruthless Strongmen. These groups raid for warmth and survival, warping kinship into something brutal.
• Confront the Frozen Fire-Bearers: Twisted by spirits of forgotten hearths, these beings wield cold fire and spread unnatural frost wherever they walk. They are not always beyond saving... but some will stop at nothing to see warmth die.

Victory and Loss

• Hearths you save will provide new allies, safe refuge, and strength to push back the cold.
• Hearths you fail to protect may become the seed of future Frozen Fire-Bearers or fall to the Outcast Hosts.

The cold is rising. The steppe is dying. The warmth of your flame is all that stands between your people and endless winter.

Will you hold the flame high... or will the whispering cold snuff it out?