[Inspectre]

The Baron of Gast was a particularly cruel man, made all the more so by his general intolerance and lack of humor. He was not without his pleasures, however, most of which involved inflicting pain on the weak and helpless. With the King away in the Elvish lands, personally leading his troops in a foolhardy crusade against them, the Baron was able to indulge in his pleasures much more openly.

Shortly after the King left, the Baron converted one of his larger fortresses into a brutal prison, a place where he could gather all of the “undesirables” into one place, a place where they could all suffer and die for his own amusement or simply for the sake of cruelty. Formerly known as Fort Ironheart, this ancient fortress was henceforth renamed the Ironheart Bastille, or more commonly, “Hell’s Gate Prison”. All sorts and shapes of people from across the Baron’s lands went into Ironheart, but it was rare to see a prisoner emerge from it, and often they were only destined for a “personal” meeting with the Baron.

As time dragged on, the King failed to return, and the Baron continued in his evil ways, although he began to find it harder and harder to keep Ironheart fully stocked with “interesting” captives. As such, he began to rent out space to his fellow lords, allowing them to imprison their own enemies within Ironheart’s dreary halls. There are also whispers in black alleyways that in addition to his fellow lords, the Baron allowed sections of the prison to be rented out to darker powers, allowing them access to handfuls of prisoners for “experiments”, “rituals”, and other nefarious purposes.

Like their Baron, many of the guards at Ironheart are cruel and despicable, rarely showing mercy, often showing the iron-shod heel of their boot. First and foremost in cruelty amongst the guards is the Warden’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Delran. Many prisoners cringle when they see him coming, and often he is the last person that they see. Not even the guards themselves are spared his wrath, and more than one guard has suddenly found himself seized by his former comrades and thrown into a prison cell. No doubt one source of his anger was the fact that despite his “exemplary” record within the prison, he was passed over for Warden at the time of the current one’s death.

Instead, an outsider was brought in to continue management of the prison, and even though he has only been Warden for a year, security within Ironheart has at least doubled. In addition, new programs within the prison have started up, no doubt with the intention of expanding the Baron’s coffers. First, a gladiator arena has been built within Ironheart’s walls, and there are rumors that the top fighters from the upcoming Ironheart tournament will be released into the underground gladiator circuit currently sweeping through the kingdom’s underworld. Secondly, the catacombs and tunnels beneath Ironheart have expanded greatly, as prisoners are forced to mine deep into the earth, no doubt with the hope of finding precious minerals. This does not seem to be going quite as well as planned, however, as many prisoners say that they now only dig on the first few levels, with even the guards afraid to tred down into the deepest levels of tunnels beneath Ironheart. The occasional missing guard seems to lend credence to the fear that something is living in the darkest tunnels beneath Ironheart, but no one seems to have any idea as to what that may be.

Despite these recent changes to the operation of Ironheart, it is still mainly a prison and place of suffering for those who have had the misfortune of displeasing someone in power. The days are mainly a monotony of boredom and fear, broken by occasional bouts of suffering as the guards pick out their latest victim. This is all about to change, however, because someone is about to accomplish the unthinkable, and Escape from Ironheart.

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This is my latest go at a thread, and since my recent RL campaign has crashed and burned, I’m in a bit of a need of a pick-me-up when it comes to DMing. So, take it easy on the old man, eh? :-p

This thread is obviously a prison break thread, somewhat like Bakan’s Trapped, only set in a fantasy realm, and obviously with more NPCs to interact with. :-p The thread will be mainly freeform, and as such there would be no class or weapon lists to choose from. You want a weapon, either make it or pick one up off a guard’s body. :-p Obviously, all of you start out as unarmed and unarmored, although I *may* allow one or two people to have small knives on their person provided they ask first, and can explain how they’ve kept it hidden from the guards.

I will post a description of Ironheart’s various areas later, once a few people have shown interest in this thread. What I need from everyone right now is the following information:

Name:
Gender:
Race: (standard fantasy races apply, PM me if you want something weird)
Class: (typical one or two word description of your character’s abilities, or if you want to be atypical, a short paragraph explaining what your character’s abilities are)
Background/Why you’re here:
Anything else you wish to include:

Keep in mind while making your character that this is a prison, and as such, you aren’t going to be godmodding your way through the prison guards anytime soon. :-p While relatively “harmless” characters will probably simply be locked in a cell, any “Archmages of Great Power” show up, and they’ll quickly find themselves bound, gagged, cut off from the source that lets them wield most of their magic, and then locked in a cell. You’ll get your chance to mow through prison guards soon enough, trust me. :-D