Bronze Blades

From Deez Nuts' Sword Coast Campaign
Revision as of 18:04, 11 July 2026 by Wvaske (talk | contribs) (Comprehensive rewrite from session transcripts: full Deez Nuts interaction history (Council reveal, Garmok's Mine rescue with Whisper's death/Revivify, aftermath), new Mistaken Identity & Reputation Warfare section, enriched membership/mission and red-coin frame with quotes)
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Bronze Blades

The Bronze Blades are a renowned adventuring company active along the Sword Coast during 1486–1488 DR, operating out of Baldur's Gate. They present as "problem-solvers for the common folk," but their contracts and contacts suggest a deft hand with faction politics and covert missions. Commissioned by Marshal Ulder Ravenguard to move against the Cult of the Dragon, they have been credited with a string of actions against the cult—some firmly verified, others… vigorously disputed. To their considerable misfortune, most of the disputing is done by Deez Nuts, the one company that has repeatedly saved their lives and holds them in open contempt for it.

Mission and Allegiance

The Bronze Blades were dispatched by Marshal Ulder Ravenguard of Baldur's Gate to investigate dragon activity and disrupt the Cult of the Dragon—the same charge later handed to Deez Nuts by the Council of Waterdeep. Because both companies serve the anti-Cult cause, the Council recognizes the Blades as sanctioned allies and has repeatedly refused Deez Nuts' requests for a license to "take them out." One councilor noted the Alliance keeps "a long history of information about the Bronze Blades" and ordered the two companies to cooperate: "This is all for naught if we just end up fighting each other."

Membership

  • Sir Cedric Lightbringer – Human Paladin (shield-leader, spokesman, negotiations). Fights with greatsword and warhammer backed by Divine Smite, and sustains the company with Cure Wounds and Heroism. Earnest and gracious—repeatedly thanks and defers to Deez Nuts even as they rebuff him.
  • Thistle Quickfoot – Halfling Bard (face, logistics, morale). The company's "very verbose" mouthpiece; buffs allies with Bardic Inspiration and Faerie Fire. Fragile in a fight—knocked unconscious twice during the Garmok's Mine ambush.
  • Whisper Willowshade – Half-Elf Rogue (infiltration, countersurveillance). A shortbow-and-shortsword skirmisher and the butt of a running "wonderful but useless Whisper" joke. Slain during the Garmok's Mine ambush and restored to life by Silster Elira's Revivify.
  • Boddynock "Boomer" Cogsprocket – Gnome Artificer (sapper, alchemy, field repairs, battlefield control). Casts Web, Color Spray, Shatter, Entangle, and buff spells such as See Invisibility; has little answer to airborne threats.
  • Silster Elira (also recorded as "Sister Alira") – Half-Orc Cleric (battlefield medic, rites, undead interdiction). The company's healer and anchor: Guiding Bolt, Sacred Flame, Mass Healing Word, and the Revivify that pulled Whisper back from death.

Heraldry

A burnished bronze shortblade over a laurel; field of river-green. Camps fly a brass wind-chime that doubles as a coded signal (three notes = regroup). In the field the party has learned to recognize them on sight.

Reputation

  • Lauded by law-minded orders for clean, public victories.
  • Whispered about in spy circles for quiet, surgical work.
  • Rumored to "do business" when it keeps tyrants off the board.
  • Increasingly slandered—entirely by Deez Nuts—as frauds, cowards, and credit-thieves.

Accomplishments

  • Hunted and destroyed a cult operation south of Waterdeep. The cultists were reinforced with numerous guard drakes and even drove off a Wearer of the Purple.
  • Infiltrated a black-market ring supplying the Cult's river smuggling, replacing manifests and turning the ring against its patron.
  • Disrupted Cult logistics by storming Castle Naerytar and driving one of the Wyrmspeakers into fleeing with her Red Wizard companion.
  • Found a lost calf during a night march and returned it (after it ate half their rations).
  • Mapped a forgotten cellar under a Daggerford cooperage; left a note: "Not a cult lair. Yet."
  • Brokered a three-day truce between reed-cutters and river druids so both could harvest at dawn.

Interaction History with Deez Nuts

First Encounter (Session 42)

The companies first crossed paths during Session 42 - Bagpipes, Blood, and the Bronze Blades, where the Blades demonstrated disciplined combat and tight tactical coordination against Cult forces. Deez Nuts came away resentful, convinced the Blades routinely take public credit for work the party had actually done.

The Council of Waterdeep (Session 43)

At the Council of Waterdeep (Session 43 - The Council of Waterdeep), a freshly deputized Shade asked Marshal Ulder Ravenguard for authority to remove the Blades outright—"so we can kill on sight without any repercussions"—only to learn they were Ravenguard's own Baldur's Gate agents working the same anti-Cult mission: "they are working on behalf of Baldur's Gate towards the same goal that you are. So if you see them, please offer whatever assistance you can." Shade's attempts to discredit them ("they might take credit for the work of others… maybe you should get some eyes on them") went nowhere. Far from a license to kill, the party left the Council under orders to assist the Bronze Blades wherever they found them.

The Rescue at Garmok's Mine (Session 44)

Hours later, deep in Garmok's Mine in the Mere of Dead Men (Session 44 - Garmok's Mine), Deez Nuts found the Blades being annihilated by a massed Cult ambush—"the number of cultists is more than we've ever heard of in any encounter with the cult." Boomer and Sir Cedric were fleeing the entrance with cultists on their heels ("we might be in over our heads in this one"), while Thistle, Whisper, and Silster Elira fought for their lives deeper in. The party cut down the pursuers and charged in, saving the company from a near-total wipe:

  • Whisper was killed in the ambush and brought back by Silster Elira's Revivify—reviving at a single hit point, and greeting her rescuer with "oh, Silster, how did you fight them all off?" ("We didn't. Help arrived just in time.")
  • Thistle Quickfoot was knocked unconscious twice and healed back each time.
  • Sir Cedric closed the fight by Divine Smiting a Dragonclaw to death; Silster Elira's Mass Healing Word kept the whole company standing.

Afterward Cedric acknowledged the debt—"I don't know how to thank you enough. This looked like it might have been the end of the Bronze Blades. I think we owe you guys"—a gratitude the party pointedly refused to reciprocate ("Except not us, buddy.").

The Blades also handed over hard intelligence. Their divination had confirmed a black dragon lurking within roughly five miles of the mine that they could not pinpoint, and they warned that the Cult presence there was larger than anything they had ever encountered. That scrying proved exactly right: Deez Nuts went on to locate and slay the dragon, Voaraghamanthar, in the same complex—prompting the party's backhanded verdict, "It's a W for the Bronze Blade."

Aftermath and Reporting

The Blades recovered from the mine and departed to report back to Marshal Ulder Ravenguard, with Whisper rousing both companies at dawn ("we need to report back to the Marshal from Baldur's Gate who sent us here"). They carried word of the party's deeds onward to the Council of Waterdeep—so much of the Council's intelligence about Deez Nuts comes secondhand from the very company the party despises. True to form, Deez Nuts afterward described the encounter to a merchant as having been "swindled by the Bronze Blades."

Mistaken Identity and Reputation Warfare

As the Blades' fame spread, so did a sustained, one-sided reputation war against them. NPCs up and down the Sword Coast repeatedly mistake Deez Nuts for the Bronze Blades—a mix-up the party finds deeply insulting:

  • Recognized after a great battle near Candlekeep, an orc gate-captain asked, "Are you the Bronze Blades?"—drawing Shade's wounded "Oh. Do they call it that? …My feelings are hurt."
  • Shade then set about poisoning the company's name, recasting the Garmok's Mine rescue for a northern orc clan as a humiliation: "the paladin was on the ground, the bard was hiding, a rogue was crying… they soiled their pants… Bronze is in their name for a reason," and winning a Deception check to have the clan carry her version of events instead of the Blades'.
  • Shade has sarcastically claimed to be the Blades to Cult lords—"We are the frauds. The Bronze Blades. Maybe you've heard of us"—and, to a captured cultist who made the same assumption, delivered the now-infamous line: "You dumb fuck, we're not the Bronze Blade."
  • The Blades' renown is uneven elsewhere: the party's ally Shanna once named them "the best bet" against the greater threat, while a long-serving dungeon guardian who had watched party after party die admitted the Bronze Blades "doesn't ring any bells."

The Red-Coin Frame-Job (Session 51)

The Blades were nowhere near Luskan during the red-coin crisis of Session 51—which did not protect them from it. Shade planted an entirely false rumor that the Bronze Blades carry cursed blood-red coins and should be searched "thoroughly." She sold it first to the cured dockmaster Bargan Thrust, who pledged that Ship Kurth would "check all their gold" and "search them good… they've probably got their coins hidden somewhere that they don't want us to find"; then, with a Deception 26, to the cured Zelene of the Arcane Brotherhood, who vowed that "we'll make sure the mages know when they're headed to Waterdeep… and search them thoroughly in case they're trying to hide anything."

Two powerful Luskan factions therefore stand ready to enthusiastically and repeatedly strip-search a completely innocent adventuring company the moment it shows its banner—and because the Blades are in fact traveling to Waterdeep to report the party's exploits, they are walking straight into the Arcane Brotherhood's watch. The Blades know nothing of this. An unresolved (and ticking) comedic time bomb—see the Quest Tracker.

Relationship Summary

The rivalry is entirely one-sided. The Bronze Blades regard Deez Nuts as the heroes who twice pulled them out of certain death, speak of them warmly, and believe they owe the party a genuine debt. Deez Nuts, by contrast, hold the Blades in open contempt—resenting their reputation, refusing their thanks, smearing their name to anyone who will listen, and quietly arranging for them to be harassed and searched in distant cities. The Blades remain cheerfully oblivious to nearly all of it.

Allies and Relationships

  • Order of the Gauntlet – Respectful partners; the Blades' public rescues and oath-clean conduct win them temple contracts.
  • Zhentarim – "Professional courtesies." They don't cross streams unless profit or tyrants demand it.
  • Emerald Enclave – The Blades can hunt or parley as the grove requires—one reason circle elders keep their door open.
  • Council of Waterdeep / Baldur's Gate – Sanctioned agents of Marshal Ulder Ravenguard; the Council treats them as trusted allies and a primary source of field intelligence.
  • Deez Nuts – Their rescuers and, unbeknownst to them, their most dedicated saboteurs.

Appearances

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