Episode 1 of Season 1 of the Once and Future campaign.

For the last five seasons, the Ascadian Empire has warred with Tirnor and Dennoth in a campaign of naked aggression, claiming sovereignty over all lands of man. Their surprise attack caught the free men of these peaceful realms by surprise, and it took some time to rally the people to defend against this existential threat. But rally, they did, and at the peak of summer, the free people of the mainland massed an army unlike any that had been seen since the Auld Empire...

And they were crushed. Shattered by the weight of the Ascadians' devilish technology. Their steam pistols and ironclads were surmountable--if formidable--technologies, but they had saved the newest and best monstrosities to reveal at the most dramatic moment. On a dark day in late summer 1192, at the Battle of Alburspont, they revealed the Skyships, and ushered in a dark future for all free folk.

Since the treaties were signed, Tirnor and Dennoth are all but slave states, and have lost many lands besides. Those who fought are impressed or imprisoned, and those who defy the Empire's authority are silenced. A terrible shadow is creeping over the lands, and it is sure to spread. Few dare to hope it can be stopped before swallowing every scrap of free land in the realms.

In the ancient land of the Crownholds, once the seat of the Kingdom of the Sword in a land then called Uldenor, winter has come when lower lands are still readying for the harvest. Miners race against the snows to secure their meager living, and this year was not meant to be any different. Until, that is, the Empire arrived. Bearing down on the village of Noxbury, near the Sundered Crown, the Empire has all but taken over the nominally free city, marching in dozens of prisoners of war, who serve them as virtual slaves in the copper mines.

They have not come in search of meager copper; that much is clear. Indeed, what they seek is so rife with potential that people far away have grown concerned. To that end, the Sisterhood of St. Devorah has dispatched one of their agents, the Noviciate Dalia Cinders, to investigate the matter, and, if possible, prevent the Empire from finding whatever it is they seek.

Boldly, she sets forth, alone, to confront the mightest empire of men in the world, to stand between their inconquerable ambition and the freedom of all mankind...