Missive to His Supreme Highness, Emperor Herroll Golden Helm

To the attention of his worshipful eminence in state in his fastness at Pennol on the Lake. 

It is my great honor to write to you of the recent battle between the forces of Zorn and the Black Hand, fought only yesterday. Local informants had told me that the Black Hand might attempt an incursion to test the willingness of the orcs of Zorn to defend their borders. Given the event, I am inclined to lend credence to this assessment of their motives.  It is difficult otherwise to explain their decision to come down from the valleys of the Shards of Lor to engage Sirdar Draschgig's forces.

 

As Your Grace is aware, the lands in the region between your own kingdom, Zorn, and the Black Hand have been desolate for many generations.  As a consequence, I was able to locate the advancing forces of the latter without difficulty and establish their numbers as follows:

Of skeletal knights: 70

Of skeletons: 320

Of zombies: 180

Of ghouls: 60

All of these were lead by a necromancer whose name I have heard variously reported, but I believe he is best known as Flavin the Perplexed.

I still have not been able to identify their intention, save to drive into the rocky wastes of the Zorn kingdom, but their ruler thought the threat sufficient to dispatch his well-known warlord,Tûrn the Belligerent and the force recorded below to meet them:

Of  goblins: 480

Of goblin riders: 80

Of wargs without riders: 100

There could be no doubt as to the plans of either side, My Lord.  Flavin's men dashed forward as best they might, though I know you are well aware that zombies are not fleet of foot.  Thûrn, however, proved true to his nature and was only too willing to sacrifice the smaller goblins, even as his wargs and riders made a swift dash for the safety of the nearby hills.  The orc chieftain miss-apprised the situation, however, and found himself surrounded by a horde of slavering deathless.  He killed many of their number, notably a great many skeletons, but was lost under their forward press and is believed now in the hands, if you will forgive my unworthy witticism, of the Black Hand.

By My Life, Your Grace, I cannot say who it is that won this battle and lost, with many orcs making good their escape, but many left dead and wounded on the field.  What is certain, and what I most fear, is that neither the orcs nor we have seen the last of the wicked machinations of the Hand.

I will presently return to see Your Grace in person, but wanted to send this missive by courier as quickly as I might so that you might be aware of all it contains.  Until I have the great pleasure of your presence,

I remain,

Yours Most Unworthily,

Galen of Basimar, Outrider 

Post Script:  If I might suggest to Your Grace that you relay to your own practitioners of the arcane that this Flavin did not appear to be a master of his arts.  He seemed to possess no great power.

(For those wondering what in the blue heck this is about, it's my first contribution to the cool "Campaign Carnival" idea.  It's the first of what promises to be several battles that are intended to be resolved by multiple gamers using whichever rule sets they choose.  In our case, the battle was resolved using Battlesystem (2e), the TSR classic played in the world of Divine Right, the board game from the same company.  My video of the festivities is below.)