Campaign

The Story campaign of Dawn of Embers follows a young officer in the army of Ashmere, a forest kingdom of Ardenmoor. You serve as a captain under Commander Aldric Hale, and you take his orders: through every mission written so far, the Captain is his subordinate, not his equal. The missions are played in order, and each one unlocks the next.

The game is in development. Missions, their order and their text can change before release. Story details on this page and on the mission pages are hidden in spoiler boxes until you open them; see Template:Spoiler.

How the campaign works

• It teaches as it tells. The early missions are the tutorial: each objective says what to do, where, and with which control, and the commander's lines carry the story.
• It opens up gradually. Each mission decides which buildings and units can be built. Mages and their training grounds stay hidden until the story brings magic into the world.
• The early missions are pre-stocked. They start with enough resources for every building they ask for, so a lesson never waits on gathering.
• Your choices carry over. The Calling you declare in Mission 1, and the Disciplines you save, carry over to the following missions.
• Checkpoints. Missions save checkpoints as you progress. From the Story menu you can continue from the last checkpoint or restart a mission.
• Fixed layouts. Each mission starts from a town laid out for it, the same for every player, so a town built differently in an earlier mission cannot break a later one.
• The demo offers Missions 1 to 3. See Demo.

Chapters

The missions are grouped into chapters. A chapter ends at a turn in the story.

Chapter	Title	Missions
1	The Age of Iron	1 to 5
2	The Age of Ash	6 to 10

Later chapters have not been written yet.

Missions

The table lists the missions in the order the game plays them. The Summons (Mission 8) is played before The First Spark (Mission 7): the developer changed the order so the story flows, and kept the mission numbers.

Played	Mission	Chapter	Map	In brief
1	1. The Muster	1	Forest, Small	Choose a Calling, set your Disciplines, and learn to gather, build and train.
2	2. Before the Snow	1	Forest, Small	Grow the village, lay in food for winter and raise its first wall.
3	3. The Quiet Stone	1	Forest, Small	Command a real army for the first time and take the fight to Corvane.
4	4. What the Scholars Carried	1	Forest, Medium	Escort a team of scholars to a Pillar and bring them home safely.
5	5. The Day of Ruin	1	Forest, Medium	Hold the town against an army far larger than your own.
6	6. What the Winter Left	2	Forest, Medium	Repair a damaged town while the scholars argue.
7	8. The Summons	2	Forest, Medium	Escort the scholars on the long road to the capital.
8	7. The First Spark	2	Forest, Medium	The first mages join your line.
9	9. The Pillar Does Not Choose	2	Forest, Medium	A battle that cannot be won by numbers.
10	10. The Long Winter	2	Snowy Forest, Medium	Months later, a growing town under snow.

Playtime

The developer's estimate for a first-time player of average skill, on the default difficulty, from the start of a mission to its end screen. These are estimates from the design, not measurements, and they will be replaced by timed playthroughs.

Mission	Estimate
1. The Muster	15-25 min
2. Before the Snow	25-40 min
3. The Quiet Stone	35-55 min
4. What the Scholars Carried	25-40 min
5. The Day of Ruin	45-70 min
6. What the Winter Left	20-35 min
8. The Summons	50-75 min
7. The First Spark	35-55 min
9. The Pillar Does Not Choose	45-70 min
10. The Long Winter	25-40 min
Missions 1-10	about 5 h 20 min to 8 h 25 min

Story so far

Story spoilers: the whole campaign, Missions 1 to 10

This box is closed until you open it.

Chapter 1: The Age of Iron. A new recruit arrives in Ardenmoor and is taken on by Commander Aldric Hale of Ashmere, who calls the recruit Captain. Ashmere holds a small foothold in a valley that its larger neighbour, Corvane, claims. The Captain musters the foothold, grows it into a walled village before the winter, and holds it against Corvane's first probe. With a real army, the Captain drives off a Corvane patrol and takes Corvane's camp. In the valley stands a carved stone pillar that nobody can explain, and Hale tells everyone to leave it alone. The kingdom wants the Pillars studied, so the Captain escorts a team of scholars to a Pillar; they come home knowing nothing new. Then Corvane returns with an army Ashmere cannot match. As the town is about to fall, the stone wakes: lightning tears the attackers apart, Ashmere takes Corvane's camp, and the stone sinks into the ground, leaving ash and embers behind. Hale knows the victory was not theirs. This is the Day of Ruin.

Chapter 2: The Age of Ash. On the morning after, the town repairs itself while its scholars argue over what the stone was. A letter arrives: the King summons Hale and the Captain to explain what they saw. On the long road to the capital the column is attacked by day and ambushed by night. At court, the King shows his greed: he wants the Pillars' power for himself, and he keeps three of the scholars to teach his own. Back home, the embers have found people, and Ashmere's first mages join the line against Corvane. Then the King's own army marches on the town. A Pillar rises in the field, and the Captain's mages wake it; its storm guts the King's army but cannot save the battle, and it does not care whose side it strikes. The Captain retreats. That night Hale dies of his wounds, after giving the Captain the town and its people to look after and asking that the day never be forgotten. Months later, in a winter with no sign of the stones, a Pillar rises in the centre of the Captain's own town. The Captain spends the night studying it, and by dawn has resolved to learn to harness it and bring down the King.

The text of Missions 4, 8 and 10 is not final; their part of this summary follows the developer's design.

After Mission 10

The campaign continues. Missions after Mission 10 are still being written, and nothing about them is published yet.

See also

• Characters
• Ardenmoor
• The world
• Game modes: Story
• Pillars in story missions