The Nikros-Marked Raiders

A coordinated raiding force has been moving through the Vale, and the heroes were the first to take its measure. Those they met at Aelamir were no common bandits: humans, elves, halflings, a wolfman, and an ogre-sized warthog-folk warleader, all of them bearing the same crude red mark of three crossed lines, the symbol of Nikros, god of death and war. Maps taken from the bodies showed organised search-routes traced up out of the Ashlands and across the southern Vale, the work of a single directing hand rather than scattered opportunists. They are searching for something. What they seek, and for whom, the heroes do not yet know.

For roughly half a year, travellers' accounts of such raiders have grown steady enough that the Concordate has taken notice and begun to reinforce its watch. Some of the rumours run back toward the Fingers, where, it is said, people grow strange.