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ImmortalIty

Visit: www.privateerpress.comPrivateer Press, Inc. • 1705 136th Pl. NE, Ste. 120 • Bellevue, WA 98005 • Tel (425) 643-5900 • Fax (425) 643-5902

For online customer service, email frontdesk@privateerpress.comThis book is printed under the copyright laws of the United States of America and retains all of the protections thereof. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks herein including Privateer Press®, Iron Kingdoms®, Full Metal Fantasy, Immoren, WARMACHINE®, Convergence of Cyriss®, Convergence, Cryx, Cygnar, Khador, Protectorate of Menoth, Protectorate, Retribution of Scyrah, Retribution, warcaster®, warjack®, HORDES®, Trollbloods, Trollblood, Circle Orboros, Circle, Legion of Everblight, Legion, Skorne, warbeast, and all associated logos are property of Privateer Press, Inc. This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental. No part of this publication may be stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form without written permission from Privateer Press. Duplicating any portion of the materials herein, unless specifically addressed within the work or by written permission from Privateer Press, is strictly prohibited. In the event that permissions are granted, such duplications shall be intended solely for personal, noncommercial use and must maintain all copyrights, trademarks, or other notices contained therein or preserve all marks associated therewith. Product information is subject to change. Not interested in becoming immortal? Consider copyright violation! One-hundred percent guaranteed to shorten your lifespan.

First printing: March 2016. Printed in the U.S.

Immortality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ISBN: 978-1-939480-99-6 . . . . .PIP 424

CREDITS

President Sherry Yeary • Chief Creative OffiCer Matthew D. Wilson • Creative direCtOr Ed Bourelle direCtOr Of Business develOPment William Shick • direCtOr Of OPeratiOns Jason Martin • direCtOr Of PuBliCatiOns Michael G. Ryan

WarmaChine Created & designed By

Matthew D. Wilsonlead designer & develOPer

Jason SoleseditOrial & Writing manager

Darla KennerudseniOr Writer & COntinuity

Douglas SeacatWriters

Matt GoetzMichael G. Ryan

Aeryn RudeleditOrs

Michael G. RyanAeryn RudelPrOOfreader

Kelsey Fox

liCensing & COntraCt manager

Brent Waldher game develOPer

William SchoonoveradditiOnal develOPment

Jack ColemanOrganized Play develOPer

William HungerfordrOlePlaying game PrOduCer

Matt GoetzadditiOnal editing

Dan HendersonCal Moore

exeCutive assistant & OffiCe manager

Michelle Horton

graPhiC design direCtOr

Laine Garrettlead graPhiC designer

Richard AndersongraPhiC design & layOut

Shona FahlandMatt Ferbrache

Jessy StetsonAinsley Yeager

art direCtOr

Mike VaillancourtCartOgraPhers

Ed Bourelle Laine GarrettMike SchleyHugo Solis

CustOmer serviCe

Justin CottomAllen Krause

Matt Razinckamarketing manager

JR Godwinit administratOr

Micah Scott RalstonCOnventiOn manager

Michael PlummerCOnventiOn COOrdinatOr

Brian GreensOCial marketing manager

Simon Berman sOCial media COOrdinatOr

Valerie HerronvOlunteer COOrdinatOr

James Arbuthnot

COver illustratOr

Mathias KollrosillustratOrs

David AravenaBrian Despain

Imaginary Friends StudiosJohan Grenier

Sang HanAndrew Hou

Aleksey KovalenkoNéstor OssandónKristen Plescow

James Wolf StrehleAndrea Uderzo studiO direCtOr

Ron Kruzie

retail suPPOrt & develOPment sPeCialist

Charles AgelvideO PrOduCer

Tony KonichekNo Quarter editOr-in-Chief

Lyle LoweryNo Quarter editOrial

assistant

Kelsey FoxPrOduCtiOn direCtOr

Mark ChristensenteChniCal direCtOr

Kelly YeagerPaCking & shiPPing manager

Joe LeevendOr COOrdinatOr

Geoffrey Konkel

sCulPting manager

Doug Hamiltonstaff sCulPtOr

Brian DugasstudiO mOdeler

James A. Thomasdigital engineer

Nathan Lombardistaff Painter

Dallas KempstudiO administratiOn

assistant

Dan RomanhOBBy & terrain manager

Stuart Spengler

metal Casting suPervisOr

Marcus Rodriguezresin Casting suPervisOr

Scott PaschallPrOduCtiOn

Oren AshkenaziNelson Baltzo

Thomas CawbyJohan Cea

Stephen CoxBryan DasallaAlfonso Falco

Joel FalkenhagenDelilah Gearhart

Brian GreenTrevor Hancock

Mike HarshbargerChris LesterDavid Lima

hOBBy & terrain sPeCialist

Michael ArcherPhOtOgraPhy

Matt FerbracheStuart Spengler

seniOr PrOjeCt manager

Shona FahlandPrOjeCt manager

Gabriel WaluconisPlaytest COOrdinatOr

Jack Colemaninfernals

Peter GaublommeTravis MargJohn Morin

Gilles ReynaudD. Anthony Robinson

Donald Sullivan

Clayton LinksKeith Loree

Bryan McClaflinAntonio Mora

Phuong NguyenSoroth Penh

Antwan PorterSam Rattanavong

Erik ReiersenYami Rios

Rob SeamountJesse Sterland

Colton StoddardChris Tiemeyer

Ben TracyThanh TuDara Vann

Ryan WalkerZixiao Zhou

additiOnal staff suPPOrt

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immortalityTable of ConTenTs

Prologue: Spirit in Steel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p . 5Interlude One: Dead in the Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p . 15Part One: Undeath Metal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p . 22Part Two: Act of Murder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p . 32Interlude Two: Making Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p . 47Part Three: Mercilessly Alive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p . 52Part Four: Many Deaths, One Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p . 67Interlude Three: Wracking Havoc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p . 79Part Five: Stone Cold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p . 82Part Six: The Death and Life of Vladislav Abrosim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p . 98

InTroduCTIonBack in last days of 2013, the then-new Editor-in-Chief of No Quarter magazine Michael G. Ryan approached me with an idea. He wanted to write a serialized adventure that would span six issues of the magazine, playing out over the course of an entire year. I fondly remember his question to me: “How hard could it be?”

Over the following year, he and I would learn exactly how hard it could be. The magazine needed to be written on a tight schedule, which meant the two of us would need to have even tighter control over each adventure’s production. Mike threw himself into writing the adventure himself, cranking out 500 word blocks of text each day, every day, that I would then mark up and return to him for revision. And so Immortality unfolded, 500 words at a time. It was like running a marathon but running a sprint at the same time. We couldn’t afford to fall behind our schedule, but the finish line was way, way off in the distance. Sometimes it felt like it took forever. Sometimes it felt like it was over in a flash.

Yet it came together. The story of Immortality wrapped up on time in issue #59, never having skipped a beat. Unfortunately, neither one of us is the sort to leave well enough alone.

A little while after the final installment went into circulation, I approached Mike with an idea. “How great would it be,” I asked, “to compile the whole adventure into a single volume, adding some bridge material between each of the story’s major acts?” Mike was wisely cautious, but he quickly came around to the idea. I think it was my last comment that really won him over:

“How hard could it be?”

—Matt Goetz, RPG Producer

Pretty damned hard, it turns out.

—Michael G. Ryan, Director of Publications

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spIrIT In sTeel Spirit in Steel takes place in the Cygnaran countryside between Mercir and Highgate and serves as a prelude to the Immortality campaign. It is not necessary to play through Spirit in Steel or Interlude 1: Dead in the Water; for groups of a Khadoran origin, the Game Master can skip directly to Part 1: Undeath Metal. The prologue and interlude work well to introduce characters with Cygnaran or other origins to the story, however.

PRologuE

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Spirit in Steel

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sCenarIo synopsIsIn Spirit in Steel, the PCs investigate a savage attack on a coastal fishing village between Highgate and Mercir. Information discovered at the village sets the heroes on the trail of the attackers, and they soon uncover a nefarious plot to use innocent souls in hellish necromantic experiments at an abandoned farmstead. All is not as it seems, however, and the true villain in this scenario watches the heroes’ actions from the shadows while they battle his pawns.

for The Game masTerBowden Haightly is a young and gifted Cygnaran arcanist with a sordid past. A year ago, shortly after he joined the Fraternal Order of Wizardry, Bowden spent some time secretly pursuing an unrealistic dream. Although he was a skilled arcanist, he longed to harness the power commanded by Cygnar’s warcasters. Bowden began researching ways that he might empower himself with this ability. Failure after failure in the more accessible arcane arts eventually turned him to a dark path.

Bowden’s initial research was predicated on the misguided theory that a warcaster transfers part of his soul into a warjack in order to command it. This belief forced him to explore dark lore. The arcanist finally reached a point where theory and simple experimentation would no longer suffice; he needed souls in order to continue. Staring over the precipice of true madness and evil, Bowden could not bring himself to take the plunge. Feeling his own soul in mortal danger, he abandoned his research and vowed never to return to it. He focused instead on his work at the Fraternal Order Lodge in Mercir, assisting more senior arcanists with their research.

Unfortunately, Bowden’s activities had not gone unnoticed. Shortly after giving up on his research, he was contacted by men in the employ of a powerful man named Vladislav Abrosim, an exiled member of the Greylords Covenant. The men brought him an ultimatum: Bowden would continue his work on granting warcaster talents, or his illicit research would be exposed to the Fraternal Order and the Order of Illumination. Knowing the Order of Illumination—a Morrowan order tasked with rooting out dark magic—would likely sentence him to death for practicing necromancy, Bowden reluctantly agreed.

Abrosim set the arcanist up in a laboratory on an abandoned farmstead in the countryside between Mercir and Highgate, complete with guards and a Talon warjack. Bowden abruptly left the lodge and the city, hoping to return after finishing his work for Abrosim. The note he left his superiors said only that he must attend to a personal emergency.

The arcanist quickly found himself at a dead end in his research. He did not possess the knowledge of necromancy and infernalism necessary to proceed—but he knew where he might find it. Ulther Vara, the most senior member at the Fraternal Order Lodge in Mercir, had received special dispensation to translate a fragment of the dreaded Librum Mekanecrus into Cygnaran. Bowden had been a favored apprentice to Ulther, who had foolishly confided in him.

Bowden knew the fragmentary copy of the book was safely locked within the Lodge’s vault but that Ulther kept his own work in his chambers. Bowden returned to Mercir and, using a combination of obfuscating magic and simple stealth, entered Ulther’s chambers

in the dead of night and absconded with the arcanist’s notes and translation of the Librum. Ulther reported the theft to the Order of Illumination immediately, and soon Bowden became a suspect. The man’s desperation had made him incautious: he had been seen on the premises despite his supposed leave, and numerous people had witnessed him entering and leaving Mercir on the night the book was stolen. The Order of Illumination set a group of Illuminated Ones on his trail.

The Librum mekanecrus

The Librum Mekanecrus is an ancient and much-reviled tome that purportedly details the melding of mechanika with ancient Orgoth rites. Its pages are said to contain designs for all manner of terrible necromechanikal constructs; according to legend, the helljacks of Cryx are based on such schematics. Organizations such as the Fraternal Order of Wizardry and the Order of Illumination work to keep the few known copies of the Librum from falling into the hands of those who would use them for nefarious purposes.

VladIslaV abrosImGreylords Covenant, serving Khador and his order for nearly twenty years. Behind a façade of extreme patriotism and advocacy for progressive arcane research, however, Abrosim hid a terrible secret: in private, he pursued the vilest necromancy and studied forbidden tomes and scrolls.

In public, Abrosim espoused a policy of repealing safeguards put in place to protect the nation from magic and lore deemed too dangerous and corrupting for use. He argued that men strong of will and pure of heart could control such magic despite its intrinsic evil and could use it for the betterment of the nation.

Abrosim’s words swayed many, but they also aroused suspicion from the Greylords Covenant, who launched a clandestine investigation into his activities. What was uncovered was nothing short of horrific. Abrosim had established secret laboratories across Khador designed to glean power and information from Orgoth tomes, captured Cryxian technology, and other items of dark magic. Far worse were the subterranean cells he maintained to hold future research subjects. These lightless prisons were packed with captured enemy soldiers, Abrosim’s political enemies, and even simple beggars plucked from the streets. Shockingly, the former Greylord was claiming as many as three victims per day.

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