Tier IV, Levels 10-12: Landed Lords

Scope: the party’s new dominion and the prime mover’s stronghold. Goal: take and hold land, break the conspiracy at its head, and arrive at the threshold of Companion-tier domain play. New kind of play: the party now has subjects, borders, and enemies who move armies.

Taking the land (level 10)

The charter names a frontier, pick one that fits the campaign’s geography and leaves CM1 room to breathe. The party must clear and claim it:

A coastal or river dominion near the home base, so the whole campaign’s map stays in play; or
A hard frontier like an Icereach or Final Range valley, where the wilderness itself is the first enemy [Alm-Icereach] [Alm-FinalRange]; or
A recovered dominion, one of the spy-lords’ forfeited holdings or (if the campaign began there) Two Lakes Vale itself, to be cleansed of the darkness the party fled at level 1 [CM2].

Clearing it is a mini-campaign: evict the monsters, win the folk already living there, raise a keep, and name the first retainers. This is the moment the rules set’s dominion or stronghold rules come online [CM1].

Defending the land (level 11)

The dominion is barely raised when the enemy answers. Run one or more:

The retaliation. The conspiracy’s surviving agents turn the neighbors, a rival lord, bought humanoids, a Heldannic raiding column, against the new keep [Neri-RBP] [Alm-Kamminer].
The hard winter, one last time. Whatever the party broke at the Ice Tomb has one stroke left: a final assault across the ice, now against their walls [Neri-TG].
The lords’ politics. Other dominion-holders test the newcomers, by embassy, marriage offer, border raid, or lawsuit at Ericall’s court [Alm-Alpha] [Gander-Dom].

The party learns to rule: to spend a treasury, levy troops, and answer a siege.

Breaking the head (level 12)

The campaign ends by striking at the prime mover’s seat, named at last by the Crones in Tier III. Depending on the DM’s choice of engine:

A Thyatian spymaster’s island or Isle-of-Dawn stronghold, reached by a running sea-and-land assault [Phindar-Aftermath];
The heart of the Ice-Witch power, if the native evil was the true master [LoZ-R2R] [Neri-TG]; or
A Heldannic fortress-city at Landfall or on the Kamminer coast, if the Knights were the engine [Alm-Kamminer] [Alm-Oceansend].

It is a capstone dungeon-and-battle: the party’s gathered allies (Banner, dragon, lord’s levy, their own new soldiery) against the architect of the Unmaking. Win, and the conspiracy is broken and the north is theirs to help hold.

Where it leaves the table

The party are now landed lords of Norwold at roughly name-plus level, holding a dominion in a kingdom still pressed by Thyatis, the Knights, and the watching dragons. That is the exact premise of CM1 *Test of the Warlords* and the Companion-tier road beyond it: CM2 Death’s Ride, CM3 Sabre River, CM4 Earthshaker!, and the M-series war for the crown of the north [CM1] [CM2] [CM3] [CM4] [M2]. The Warlord’s Road ends; the warlord’s reign begins.

Scaling note

This tier is written as a skeleton of set-pieces, not a keyed campaign. A DM running it should expect to build the dominion’s map and neighbors in detail (using Realms and Maps) and to decide, before Tier III ends, which of the three powers was the true prime mover, so the final assault has a concrete address.