In the small city of Varna, KAEL the githzerai wizard, KALHENVASHIR the Kalashtar ranger, LUUMI the aasimar ranger, and TABRIUS the noble paladin of Aundair gathered again in a small tavern. They were listening to radio broadcasts transmitted by their newly acquired astral docent, which Luumi had named JIMBEI. Suddenly, they received another broadcast from the far future, warning them of the dire fate of Eberron’s timeline.
A familiar voice told them of a rogue time traveler and warforged ancient named BUTLER who had stolen the fruit of the d’Lorien Tree. Butler had returned to the years of the Last War and was plotting a conspiracy to change history by igniting a war between the warforged and humanity. His plan began with King Boranel of Breland and his warforged bodyguard Bulwark. Historians say that the friendship between the king and the warforged inspired Boranel to advocate for warforged emancipation at the Treaty of Thronehold.
The changes to history caused by Butler could be traced to a historic battle during the Hobgoblin Rebellion, when an army of goblinoids led by a hobgoblin leader known as the Llesh Haruuc declared independence and claimed the lands in the east of Breland beyond the Seawall Mountains, establishing a new state called Darguun. King Boranel attempted several times to quell the rebellion but was repelled by the rebels each time. It was during these early battles that Bulwark began to prove himself as a stalwart warrior and a loyal friend to the king.
However, something had happened in the timeline so that King Boranel no longer had a close bond with Bulwark. Therefore, he did not speak up on behalf of the warforged when the Treaty of Thronehold was signed. The warforged never gained their liberty, and in time their malcontent at being treated unequally led them to rise up against their masters.
The heroes were asked by the voice in the broadcast to journey to the past and restore King Boranel’s memories of Bulwark from the original timeline, so that he would be inspired to fight for warforged freedom. They were given four relics with which to fulfill their mission: a fruit of memory, an encrypted letter, a potion of portent, and a rusty longsword. Each relic had the power to restore the king’s true memories if it were delivered into the king’s hands.
A bright light engulfed the heroes. Moments later they found themselves in the year 971 YK. They had arrived in the rearguard of the king’s army in Marguul Pass, a narrow ravine in the Seawall Mountains. The army was in retreat from rebel forces that had captured a warforged titan. A great host of hobgoblins, goblins, and bugbears from numerous tribes had gathered around the captured titan like a banner of war.
The heroes found themselves in the attire of House Deneith mercenaries and were contracted to the king’s army. The general in charge of the rearguard approached them, and Tabrius was startled by the realization that the general was his own grandfather, Seteth von Einzbern, when he was a younger man. The Einzbern family was a noble house of Aundair, an enemy of Breland during the Last War. Tabrius had heard that his family had a dark past, and now wondered if his grandfather’s secret allegiance to Aundair’s adversary was the source of those rumors.
General Seteth naturally did not recognize his grandson, who had not yet been born in this time period. He took no notice of Tabrius’s shock as he briefed the heroes on their mission. The heroes were asked to disable or destroy the rebels’ warforged titan. If successful, the rebel forces might become demoralized and cease their pursuit, allowing the king’s army to escape.
To help them in their task, he allowed the heroes to arm themselves from the royal armory and offered to send one of his infantry companies to assist them. The infantry would occupy the hobgoblins long enough for the heroes to bring down the titan. Of course, the infantry company would surely sustain heavy casualties.
The heroes asked for a warforged infantry to accompany them, believing it might help improve the king’s opinions about the warforged. Yet they also wondered if there was another way to complete their mission without using the infantry as cannon fodder. At hearing this, General Seteth showed them the pieces of an old, rusty warforged titan in the armory. This particular model was designed to be worn by the pilot as a gigantic suit of mobile armor. Seteth suggested that if the heroes managed to reassemble the rusty titan and bring it to the field of battle, the proud hobgoblins might agree to a duel between the titans.
The heroes rolled up their sleeves and began to put the rusty titan together. Tabrius agreed to be the pilot and, with help from his companions, donned the rusty titan. They were helped by the soldiers of their warforged infantry and their warforged officer named BOLT who also happened to be an expert mechanic. While the others worked on the titan, Luumi wandered away from the camp and soon returned with a dire wolf that she had befriended in the mountains above the ravine.
Riding upon their newly assembled titan and Luumi’s dire wolf, the heroes led the warforged infantry to meet the hobgoblins in Marguul Pass. As they entered the narrow ravine, the ground shook with the footsteps of thousands of goblinoids, and the air was thick with their distant chanting. “Matshuc Atcha!” shouted the rebels in the goblin language. Jimbe translated it as “stolen glory” and explained that it was the name the rebels had given to their captured titan.
Tabrius in his rusty titan stepped forward, and the rebels accepted their challenge. The goblinoid army parted and allowed their captured titan to come forward. It had also been modified into a gigantic suit of armor. A hobgoblin captain piloted the titan from within a crudely built cockpit which was installed by the goblin artificers. A tall bugbear armed with javelins stood in one of the platforms of the titan, while two small goblins were crammed into the other platform along with a bag full of alchemical flasks.
Now the duel began, and a brutal battle ensued as the two titans clashed and grappled with each other. The goblinoids assailed the rusty titan with javelins and bombarded it with alchemical flasks. But Tabrius’ companions cheered him on and reminded him of the improvements they had made to their titan. Kael the wizard had used his arcane knowledge to reattach the titan’s jet propulsion system and projectile launchers. Luumi had installed a druidic device to allow the rusty titan to be fueled by goodberries. Meanwhile, Kalhenvashir used his powers of telepathy to discreetly create distractions in the mind of the hobgoblin pilot, causing him to lose his focus.
Yet the rebels had the stronger titan, and when it had landed a few solid blows with its mighty hammer and axe, the rusty titan nearly fell to pieces. In desperation, Tabrius opened the satchel of goodberries he had received from Luumi and poured them into the newly installed druidic device, giving the rusty titan a surge of energy. With its final ounce of strength, the titan struck at the goblinoids abroad the captured titan and knocked them off their machine. The unmanned titan ceased to operate, and the battle was won.
The rebels were dismayed by this sudden turn of events, and their loud cheers died in their throats. Without the captured titan to rally around, the hobgoblins, goblins, and bugbears dispersed and returned to their tribes across the Seawall Mountains, allowing King Boranel’s army to safely retreat. The heroes returned to rearguard with their warforged infantry intact.
The warforged Bolt later asked the heroes why they had not sent the warforged as cannon fodder as other human commanders might have done. The heroes replied that the inquiry itself should be their answer, for who but a sentient being could ponder such a question? And all sentient beings had the equal right to life and happiness. Bolt and the other warforged seemed moved yet strangely saddened by this explanation, as if reflecting upon all the sentient lives that they had ended in the course of the war.
The heroes had saved the rearguard from further bloodshed, and for their valor they had earned an audience with King Boranel. When asked to introduce themselves to the king, the heroes named themselves the Goodberry Brigade, for their clever use of Luumi’s magical fruit during the battle of the warforged titans.
The heroes found King Boranel in the royal pavilion, in the midst of his generals and the knights of his king’s guard. Among them was Bulwark, the tallest warforged they had ever seen. However, he did not look like a soldier at all. Instead, he wore a cape and a top hat and looked more like a headservant than a proud warrior. Bulwark served tea to the king and his generals, much to the king’s dismay. In the heroes eyes, a blue aura of chronomancy surrounded Bulwark, and they knew that he had been possessed by the temporal spirit of Butler.
When the king addressed the heroes, they tried to deliver one of the relics of remembrance, promising that it would offer visions of things to come, but Bulwark thwarted the attempt. General Seteth also schemed against them, for in the course of the royal audience, Tabrius had threatened to reveal his grandfather’s identity as a noble of Aundair, and Seteth was ill pleased at this. At last, Kalhenvashir produced the encrypted letter and convinced the king to examine it, and this time neither Bulwark nor Seteth could stand in the way when the king took the letter and began to read it.
At first, King Boranel seemed confused, for it was written by Bulwark in the future, when the war had ended and a treaty to formalize the peace between the nations was being signed. In the letter, Bulwark explained that he had to depart, fearing that the warforged would rally around him as their savior and make him their leader in a war against humanity. He would go on a pilgrimage into the Mournland and cast himself into the Purple Chasm at the heart of that barren wasteland where the arcane power that brought doom unto the nation of Cyre would end his own existence.
Now, a light of understanding came into King Boranel’s eyes, and he drew his longsword, which had the same pommel and shape as the rusty sword from the future. He bade Bulwark kneel before him and gave him his sword, beckoning him to rise as a new man and become a true knight of the king’s guard as he was meant to be. The heroes saw the blue aura of chronomancy around Bulwark flicker and dissipate as the temporal spirit of Butler was expelled from him. As Bulwark rose with the king’s sword in his hands, he cast off his cape and top hat, and proclaimed his allegiance to King Boranel.
“Long live the king.”
With a bright flash of light, the heroes returned to the present day and saw that the timeline had been restored. The history books confirmed that the warforged had been given their freedom at the Treaty of Thronehold. King Boranel, the leading advocate of warforged liberty at the signing of the treaty, credited his decision to his close friendship with Bulwark and to the bravery of a group of mercenaries who called themselves the Goodberry Brigade.