# [[Dread]] Dread is a male hobgoblin who is part of [[Calamity's Ruin]]. He seems to be some sort of fighter, with a huge mining pick that looks like a warhammer. Dread seems to be their leader, and the one who came up with all the cool codenames. He seems to be of a *lawful* persuasion. ## Recent Activities After [[Calamity's Ruin]] killed [[Graulgust]] and his loyal bodyguards, Dread has taken over as the new leader of the remaining morlocks in The Gauntlight. He has established diplomatic agreements with both Calamity's Ruin and [[The Fogfen Mitflits]], instructing the morlocks not to fight either group. The party learned that they would need to negotiate with Dread to gain access to the morlock workshops, as he now controls access to these areas. ## Recent Developments Dread has some sort of aura and claims that the undead presence is gone. He revealed to the party that [[Karsh]] and [[Gear]] turned on them and betrayed them. According to Dread, Karsh got bitten by a ghoul while with the party, and the ghoul poison got worse and worse. [[Gloam]] couldn't cure it, and neither could the clerics they paid. A few weeks ago, while in the [[Gauntlight]], Karsh died fighting a devil named [[Korlock]]. Despite this, they won the battle. With the ghoul poison running through his veins, Karsh rose again at midnight, becoming the very thing he hates. He still remembers his skills and his values, although he's occasionally overcome by his hunger. ## Session 125 - Cleared Ground Back at [[The Gauntlight]], [[Grumblebum|Grumble]] spotted markings Dread had left behind — shorthand notes on what Calamity's Ruin has fought there and which areas are marked cleared. ## Session 128 - Through the South Door Dread announced himself mid-fight with a mechanical click from the south door and walked straight into a three-way battle to call out the Vordine [[Echbos]] by name, [[Shawanti|Bee]] tumbling in behind him with her arrows drawn. He divided the room without asking: *they* would handle the devils, the party would handle the constructs. His crew's arrival forced the party to choose a side, and they chose his. Notably, he brought [[Gears]] with him — the gnoll who supposedly betrayed Calamity's Ruin — and Gears fought feral and out of control the whole time. ## Session 129 - The Aura and the Hunt Dread showed the party two things they had never seen from him. The first is a **purplish marshal aura** that surrounds most of the people near him. [[Ashnefrotty|Ash]] initially worried it was an aura of pain; it is the opposite. Anyone Dread counts as an ally deals **+2 damage** while standing inside it, and he counted the party as allies for the duration of the fight. He has never shown it outside combat, so it is either new or something he keeps in reserve. [[Grumblebum|Grumble]] also noticed that Dread moves faster than he does (25 feet, countering the penalty) despite both of them wearing full plate. The second is how badly he wants [[Echbos]]. He used **Rallying Charge** to flank with Gears, chased the fleeing devil across two rooms, landed a 16-damage opportunity attack as Echbos ran, and intimidated him into Frightened 1. When Ash offered to help, Dread said only: *"leave this one to me."* He also shouted at Gears to leave Echbos alone before Gears exploded anyway, which Gears never heard. The exchange that mattered most was two lines long. Echbos: *"The others will know what you've done."* Dread: *"The others have been dealt with."* He took 12 damage from a Dreshkan over the course of the fight and is looking rougher than the devil he is hunting. ## Session 130 - He Means to Kill Him Dread's intent toward Echbos stopped being ambiguous. He is not out to subdue the Vordine the way he usually does with monsters; he is out to kill him. He pressed the attack with Bee, missing once and hitting once to leave Echbos bloodied, and when Echbos moved off and vanished again he took Bee and ran south after him rather than turn back to help the party with the Quadruped Construct. He also brought Gears along to the point of collapse: the gnoll was 16 damage from death before the party cleared the [[Dreshkans]] off him, and Dread did nothing visible to pull him out. Whatever Dread is settling with Echbos, it currently outranks his own crew's safety, and Ash glimpsed something new happening in the southern rooms where he went. ## Session 131 - Two Things He Never Said Dread was off-screen for the whole session, in the south rooms chasing [[Echbos]], and two things came out about him anyway. The first is that **Calamity's Ruin has a truce with [[Graveknight Armor|Sythra]]**. When [[Vayle]] called for help against her, [[Shawanti|Bee]] came back to the party and refused to fight on those grounds. Dread never mentioned this: not when the party was negotiating with Sythra themselves in Session 125, and not when he walked into this fight and assigned everyone their targets. He was willing to hand the party the constructs and claim the devils, but a graveknight is apparently off the table for his crew entirely. The second is that he has a **second problem in the south**: Bee shouted to him that the [[Flesh Warps]] are taking the devil corpses. So his hunt for Echbos is now happening alongside a third faction looting the battlefield behind him. He has not come back, and the party is fighting Sythra without him. ## Session 132 - Retreat and Return Dread and [[Gears]] fell back from a ranged fleshwarp healed by a soul-tongue creature, then moved up to rejoin the fight as the zombies and [[Graveknight Armor|Sythra]] clashed. ## Session 133 - "We Will Not Forget This" Dread brought what was left of Calamity's Ruin to [[The Rowdy Rockfish]] and shared the loot. All three are infected with the [[Black Hollow Curse]], and without [[Odasa|Gloam]] they have no healer. When Vayle healed them, Dread said: *"We will not forget this service that you have given to us."* He wouldn't promise more, because Gloam is still one of them, but he would remember it. He then walked with Grumble to the [[Dawnflower Library]], saying little; both understand warfare lore. Echbos's glaive, whip, and breastplate came back with the crew ([[133_20261018 Healer Heal Thyself]]).