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Eldoran Barracks

Military Compound • Hall of Ascension • Third of Three Targets

Overview​

The barracks is the Empire's military compound in the capital, Eldoran: a walled complex several city blocks across, built in a U around a central courtyard. Inside it stands a concert hall where the Empire holds ascension rituals, using music to raise ordinary soldiers into winged, armored knights. Non-Eldoran prisoners are marched in to attend them.

George, serving in the city guard as a Twilight Company plant, named the barracks as one of the party's three sabotage targets (Session 58). Leliana armed one of Bru's suitcase bombs in its auditorium in Session 62; on George's advice the party planned to set it off at midday, when most soldiers would be out on patrol. In Session 63 the party's bombs went off at three sites across the city at once; the damage at the barracks has not been described.

The Compound​

  • Walls and approach — A walled compound bristling with iron pikes and patrolled by drones. Its entry road is a glowing blue levitation platform on which vehicles skate in and out (Sessions 60–61), and the barracks installed luminous "light lanes" in January (Session 62).
  • The courtyard — Hooded, manacled prisoners are marched across it into the buildings (Session 60).
  • The concert hall — An acoustically tuned auditorium with concessions, where soldiers, prisoners and musicians gather for the ritual (Session 61).
  • The rear wall — A fifteen-foot brick wall wrapped in heat-metal enchantment guards the compound's back approach (Session 61).
  • Overlook — Toothy's safehouse on the western hill looks out over the barracks (Session 58).

The Ascension Ritual​

In Session 61 the party watched the ritual from the audience. Musicians in civilian clothes, moving in unnerving unison with vacant eyes, filed onto the stage, and shackled prisoners — many of them non-human, some with religious tattoos or necklaces — were seated at the front. As the music built, the guards took off the prisoners' hoods; the prisoners' eyes began to glow and they chanted along with the soldiers. Soldiers marched to the stage, and one rose into the air, sprouting blazing white-and-gold wings and golden armor and summoning a greatsword. The party, their ears packed with Bru's mounting paste, resisted the music's pull. Leliana watched with open envy.

The party took the ritual as harmonic resonance at work — belief powering the god and the god empowering the believer — the same science they found in the university Research Tower that night, and reclassified the concert hall from venue to target.

Against the Barracks​

  • Scouting (Session 60). Disguised as orphans and a guard, the party watched prisoners marched across the courtyard and glimpsed George on the far side.
  • Infiltration (Session 61). Posing as orphans from "St. Olaf's Home for Abandoned Youth," chaperoned by Scarlet as the nun "Sister Margaret," the party talked its way past the gate guard, Derek, who gave them a tour and snack money and, moved by the "performance," smuggled them out the back with popcorn bags over their heads.
  • The bomb (Session 62). Disguised as a sergeant, Leliana carried a suitcase bomb into the barracks auditorium and armed it, then warned George to find an excuse to clear the building.
  • Detonation (Session 63). The party set off its bombs at the barracks, the Spaceport Factory and the Research Tower together.

Session History​

  • Session 58 — George names the barracks as one of the three targets the Twilight Company needs struck.
  • Session 60 — Scouting the barracks by night, the party sees manacled prisoners marched across the courtyard and glimpses George.
  • Session 61 — Disguised as orphans, the party watches a concert-ritual raise a soldier into a winged knight before a hall of chained prisoners.
  • Session 62 — Leliana, disguised as a sergeant, arms a suitcase bomb in the barracks auditorium and warns George to clear out.
  • Session 63 — The barracks bomb goes off alongside those at the Spaceport Factory and the Research Tower.