Retribution (The Commander)
Retribution
Formerly: The Commander
GM Reference | The players created her. She is not asking for their help.
Origin
The Commander was the leader of the imperial soldiers who died during the Sja arc in the cave. The players rolled a critical success on an extraction attempt, and the mechanics of the cognitive realm did something that had never happened before: she came back.
She did not come back as herself. She came back as the first of something new, a proto-sprin shaped by the cognitive realm and by the moral weight of everything that had happened in that space. She emerged draconic, transformed, and oriented toward a single purpose.
She flew off after the players identified Rayze as the one who had manipulated Sja. She did not ask for company.
The Moral Arc
The players watched her walk through this in real time:
Honor - She began the cave arc as an imperial officer. Duty, hierarchy, the chain of command. That is what she was.
Justice - The cognitive realm and what she witnessed there shifted something. Honor is not enough when the structure that defines it is corrupt or being used as a weapon.
Retribution - When she understood what Rayze had done to Sja, and by extension what the Winnow’s real purpose was, she arrived at a different place entirely. Not justice as a process. Retribution as a force.
She named herself. Or perhaps the cognitive realm named her. The distinction may not matter.
What She Is Now
Retribution is a proto-sprin, the first of her kind. The Sprin as a concept is being invented through this campaign. She is figuring out what she is as she goes.
What she knows: she is draconic, she is oriented toward hunting the Winnow, and she is moving north. She has been tracking Winnow activity. She is dismantling operations when she finds them. She is not leaving survivors who can report back.
When She Returns
Retribution reappears in Act Three. The players will encounter signs of her work before they encounter her: Winnow operations that have been hit too cleanly, too completely, by something that does not match any known asset.
When paths cross, she recognizes the players. She is not hostile. She is not warm. She is focused, and she is operating on a timeline she has not shared with anyone.
She may have information about Rayze’s movements that the players need. She will not simply hand it over. She will want to know if they are actually working against him or just disrupting the edges.
The Four Soldiers
The four soldiers who came back with the Commander have not been fully resolved. They are proto-sprin as well but in earlier, less formed states. Their arc is pending. They may appear with Retribution in Act Three or they may appear separately, still figuring out what they are becoming.
How to Play Her
Retribution does not posture. She does not perform. She was a soldier and she is still moving with soldier precision, except now the thing she is hunting is the source rather than the symptom.
She respects the players because they did what she could not have done alone in the cognitive realm. She does not owe them anything for that, and she will say so if asked. It is not hostility. It is honesty about how she operates.
She is not cruel. She is not enjoying this. She is doing what she has determined needs doing, and she will keep doing it until it is done or she is.
Connections
- The players: Created her, in a sense. She remembers. She will not pretend otherwise.
- Rayze / The Winnow: Her target.
- Sja: The weight of what happened to Sja is part of why she is what she is. She carries that.
This content is part of the Shadows of the Ancient Dawn campaign. GM reference only.