Quick facts
Role: Owner of the Mercenary’s Rest, retired adventurer · Home: Saline Coast · Old party: Bran’s Old Adventuring Party · Status: Unknown, last seen fighting the VTC outside his inn (as of C2 Session 83)
Bran is a retired adventurer who runs the Mercenary’s Rest on the Saline Coast. He was The FAM’s host and ally from their first week in the city, and in Session 83 he and his old companions held off the Velvet Truffle Company so the party could escape.
Overview
Bran knows the city and its people, and the party often went to him when they needed a name. His adventuring days ended badly: his old party lost Elara Sunshadow at the Obsidian Spire, and his friend Sylas Riverstride blamed him for it.
History
The festival conspiracy
Bran greeted the group when they came back to the Mercenary’s Rest in Session 5. He gave the party a list of local shops: the Mariner’s Armory, the Potion Haven and the Arcane Emporium.
When Wilbur brought the poisoned Mayor Eliza Windrider to the inn in Session 12, the party turned to Bran for a healer they could trust. He told them about Sylas Riverstride, who lived south of the city.
The betrayer
Sylas and Bran had a history of betrayal (Session 20). In Session 21, “Bran the Betrayer,” the party learned about Bran’s old adventuring party and their quest for an “object that changes fate.” In Session 25, Bran admitted he and Sylas had once sought the item. He didn’t know where it was now, but said the mortician, Victor Blackwood, might have it, since Sylas suspected Victor had pocketed it during their failed quest.
Later years
In Session 45, when a young man ran in to say that Victor was in trouble at the morgue, Bran recognized it as the party’s cue. In Session 47 he asked Nelda to close out the night with a song, just before a red devil walked in carrying the Golden Bagpipes.
In Session 66, Arghen woke from a six-day trance in the back of a wagon crossing desert dunes. Bran explained that the VTC had seized the city after the death of Nelda’s father, and that the party’s families were being moved toward a desert sanctuary.
In Session 81, Wilbur thanked Bran for everything he had done and told him that with Masha as the sixth member of the FAM, Bran could be the seventh.
Elara’s return (Session 83)
When the party retreated to the Mercenary’s Rest after the gallows fight, the inn was quiet because Bran hadn’t been there in a while. They found him on his knees, crying into the waist of Elara Sunshadow, the sorceress his old party had lost years before. The FAM had freed her from a vat in Coghaven days earlier without knowing who she was.
The story came out: at the Obsidian Spire, fighting the spectral wraith that guarded its heart, Bran and Sylas ended up on opposite sides of a chasm with Elara caught in the middle. Bran hesitated, and Sylas has blamed him ever since. Both of them loved her.
Moments later, VTC forces surrounded the inn and ordered the Fellowship out. Bran told Wilbur they would buy him time. His four old companions cracked their knuckles, drew magic weapons and walked out the door, and the party heard Bran order “you motherfuckers” off his property as the fighting started.
Relationships
- Sylas Riverstride: Old adventuring companion who blamed Bran for losing Elara. They were together again by Session 83.
- Elara Sunshadow: Old companion, lost at the Obsidian Spire. Bran loved her.
- Victor Blackwood: Old companion, suspected of pocketing the fate-changing artifact.
- Wilbur and The FAM: His tenants and friends. Wilbur offered him a place as the FAM’s seventh member.
Notable quotes
- Bran ordering “you motherfuckers” off his property as he went out to fight the VTC (Session 83).
Appears in
Session 5, Session 12, Session 13, Session 20, Session 21, Session 25, Session 45, Session 47, Session 66, Session 81, Session 83