Ironjaw bellows a threat. Each creature of his choice within 30 feet that can hear him makes a DC 14 Wisdom save or has the Frightened condition for 1 minute (repeat save at end of its turns).
Ironjaw's teeth were replaced with iron studs after his first prison brawl. He can bite as an unarmed strike for 1d6 piercing damage (counts as a simple weapon he is proficient with).
Reroll 1s and 2s on damage dice for two-handed melee weapon attacks (mace is one-handed; he uses a two-handed grip on his mace for flavor—treat as normal one-handed attacks).
Ironjaw has access to guard patrol routes and commands a squad of Collaborator thugs (use Thug stat blocks). In the mess hall or cell blocks, Collaborators obey his orders.
Wears a heavy iron key on a chain around his neck. Unlocks the Archive of Sins. If he is slain or captured, the key can be looted.
See in Dim Light within 60 feet as if it were Bright Light, and in Darkness as if it were Dim Light (colors appear gray).
Add Proficiency Bonus (+3) to Initiative rolls (total +6). Can swap Initiative with a willing ally after rolling.
When Ironjaw fails an ability check, he can expend Second Wind (if unused) to add 1d10 to the roll.
Take the Dash action as a Bonus Action and gain 3 Temporary Hit Points.
When reduced to 0 HP but not killed outright, drop to 1 HP instead.
Take one additional action on your turn (not a Magic action).
Attack rolls with weapons score a critical hit on a 19 or 20.
Attack twice when taking the Attack action.
Regain 1d10 + 6 HP.
Behind the character
Ironjaw is a mountain of green-grey muscle barely contained by dented half plate painted with the Bastion's sickly-green broken chain sigil. A black Collaborator sash crosses his chest, and a heavy iron key hangs from a chain around his thick neck—the symbol of his authority over the prison's Collaborator faction. His most striking feature is his jaw: studded with rivets of iron where his original teeth were shattered and replaced, the scar tissue pulling at one heavy brow gives him a permanently snarling expression that serves him well in his line of work.
He moves with the deliberate, rolling gait of a brawler who has never once backed down, and his small, dark eyes constantly measure everyone around him for threat or utility. He carries a mace whose head glows faintly with enhancement magic, gripping it in one massive fist while behind him stand his shadowy squad of Collaborators in matching black sashes.
Ironjaw is a thug in the purest sense: violent, short-tempered, and cruel. He respects only strength, holds grudges with religious devotion, and has no qualms about killing anyone who disrespects him. He is easily provoked—a deliberate flaw that clever opponents can exploit—and he enjoys the power and privileges his position grants him far more than he admits. His loyalty to Warden Malakar is built entirely on fear and greed: the promise of a commuted sentence and revenge on the fence who framed him. He is not redeemable, but he is exploitable, and when cornered he will beg, bargain, and betray without hesitation.
Before the adventure
Ironjaw was born Grashnak Jawbreaker in the orc war camps of the Broken Steppes, where weakness was beaten out of children before they could walk. He earned his name young, biting through the shield rim of a rival clan champion in a duel for grazing rights. But the Steppes were dying, squeezed between expanding human kingdoms, and Grashnak did what desperate orcs do: he took work as muscle for whoever paid. He ran protection for a smuggling ring out of the port city of Vail's Landing, breaking knees and collecting debts. He was good at it because he understood the only law that mattered: the strong take, the weak give.
His downfall came not from a blade but from ambition. His employer, a halfling fence named Corvin Tup, grew rich skimming from the very syndicate that employed him. When the syndicate's enforcers came asking, Corvin framed Grashnak for the theft—forged ledgers, a planted strongbox, three bribed witnesses. Grashnak was arrested in a tavern ambush, his jaw shattered by a weighted net and a dozen clubs. A magistrate with syndicate money in his purse sentenced him to the Phantom Zone without trial records. His last sight of the material plane was Corvin's smug face in the crowd.
In the Bastion, Grashnak survived the old way. He killed the first inmate who tried to claim his rations, biting through the man's throat with what teeth remained. When guards dragged him to solitary, he came out three weeks later unbroken, and the other inmates began calling him Ironjaw after the Warden's smiths riveted iron studs into his reconstructed jaw—a punishment meant as humiliation that he wore like a crown.
Malakar noticed. The Warden does not rule through golems alone; he needs collaborators, inmates willing to sell their fellow prisoners for privileges. Ironjaw was recruited by the previous Collaborator lieutenant, a scheming tiefling named Havish, whom Ironjaw killed in the mess hall eight months into his sentence when Havish tried to take credit for putting down a Breaker uprising. The Warden, watching from his balcony, did not punish the killing. Instead he named Ironjaw the new lieutenant and gave him the black sash, the +1 mace forged in the Bastion's own shops, and the iron key to the Archive of Sins.
The key is both reward and leash. Malakar promised Ironjaw a commuted sentence—freedom, a return to the material plane, revenge on Corvin Tup—in exchange for service. But Ironjaw has read enough crystal records in the Archive's outer stacks (he cannot open the inner vaults, but he can read what guards bring him) to suspect that the Warden's promises are chains of their own. He has seen records of previous lieutenants, all of whom 'earned their freedom' and none of whom left. He tells himself his case will be different. He tells himself that often.
Ironjaw rules the Collaborators through fear and favor, exactly as he was taught on the Steppes. He distributes extra rations, better cells, and guard-shift bribes to those who inform on Breaker plots, and he administers beatings to those who cross him. He killed Rusk's brother Gor personally, in the yard, over an insult about Collaborators being the Warden's dogs. He does not regret it. But he keeps the man's broken tooth on a leather cord, because grudges deserve trophies.
He is not clever, and he knows it, which makes him more dangerous in some ways and more controllable in others. He suspects Shadowtongue, the Archive's spymaster, is collecting material against him. He suspects the Warden's fifteen-day ritual will change everything. He suspects that when the end comes, the strong will take and the weak will give—and he intends to be the one still standing.
Threads to follow
Beneath the surface
What haunts them
What drives them
Personal quest · 1
Ironjaw discovers in the Archive's outer stacks the crystal record of Havish, the tiefling lieutenant he killed—the record shows Havish 'earned freedom' two weeks before death, and three lieutenants before Havish show the same pattern. Ironjaw secretly tasks the players (or his own agents) with finding where the freed lieutenants actually went. The trail leads to a sealed cell block where their bodies, drained of guilt, float in stasis tanks. Ironjaw must decide whether to confront Malakar with this or bury the knowledge.
Ironjaw discovers Havish's crystal record and realizes freed lieutenants die. He begins a covert investigation using Collaborator informants and, if the players are captured or coerced, their skills.
Personal quest · 2
Ironjaw's grudge ledger names Corvin Tup, the halfling fence who framed him. When a new inmate arrives in the Bastion claiming to have known Corvin—and claiming Corvin died wealthy and safe two years ago—Ironjaw's rage threatens to tear the yard apart. He demands the players interrogate the new arrival, but the inmate is actually an agent of the syndicate, planted to find out what Ironjaw remembers about the syndicate's ledgers, which Corvin hid before his death. The ledgers implicate half the material plane's underworld, and someone wants them found.
The syndicate agent arrives in intake. Ironjaw, tipped off by a Collaborator, intercepts the processing and demands answers about Corvin Tup.
Personal quest · 3
Ironjaw's authority is challenged when Vex, the Collaborator scribe who controls what Ironjaw reads, is caught selling patrol routes to the Breakers. Rather than execute Vex publicly as tradition demands, Ironjaw suspects a deeper game: Vex claims Shadowtongue ordered the leak to make Ironjaw look weak. Ironjaw must run his own counter-intelligence operation within his own faction, using the players as deniable assets, to find the real traitor before the Warden notices the leak and punishes them all.
Vex is caught selling patrol routes. Ironjaw, suspicious of the convenient timing, must choose between the easy execution and a dangerous investigation.
During Act 2, the players can obtain Malakar's crystal records or Shadowtongue's blackmail files showing that every previous Collaborator lieutenant died in the Archive's service. Ironjaw confronts this truth at his lowest moment, after a Breaker ambush costs him two of his squad.
Loyalty: Ironjaw gains Malakar's Favor—permanent +2 AC (Warden-forged plate upgrade) and his Enforcer's Presence save DC rises to 16, but he becomes an uncompromising Act 3 boss with two Shadow Sentry bodyguards. Betrayal: Ironjaw loses Warden's Privilege (Malakar strips his command), his squad abandons him, but he gains the Archive's Inner Key and becomes a treacherous, information-rich reluctant ally who can open the Archive vaults—and who will betray the players the first time it profits him.
Late in Act 2, Rusk corners Ironjaw in the mess hall with the players as witnesses. The entire prison watches. Whatever Ironjaw does here defines how every faction treats the Collaborators in Act 3.
Duel: If Ironjaw wins, he gains Champion's Standing—his Improved Critical expands to 18-20 and he gains one additional use of Action Surge per rest, but the Breakers now have a legitimate blood grudge settled and may fight alongside him later. Execution: He gains Iron Tyrant—once per day he can issue a Command spell effect as a bonus action (Warden's authority flowing through him), but every inmate in the Bastion becomes hostile to the Collaborators, guaranteeing they join the riot in Act 3.
The final confrontation. The crystal pulses, the portal flickers, and Ironjaw's fifteen-year promise of freedom stands within reach—possibly for the first time honestly available.
Hold the bridge: He gains Last Stand of the Lieutenant—temporary hit points equal to twice his level each round while within 10 feet of the Core, but he dies with the Zone if Malakar falls. Flee: He escapes with the Archive key; if the players let him go, he resurfaces on the material plane in a future campaign as a crime lord with Archive secrets. Join the winners: He forfeits his key (lootable) but gains survival and a permanent +2 Strength if the players accept his service, representing a final brutal surge of self-preservation.
Reading the crystal records of dead lieutenants in the Archive's outer stacks.
Ironjaw begins the campaign as a confident enforcer certain of his eventual freedom. Each revelation—that previous lieutenants died, that the Warden lies, that his sentence will never be commuted—strips away that certainty. By Act 3 he is a cornered animal: more dangerous, more desperate, and finally willing to consider betraying the only master he has ever had. He never becomes good; he becomes pragmatic.
Save DC increases to 16 and targets have disadvantage on the first save; or feature is lost if Malakar strips his command.
Crit range expands to 18-20 if he wins the blood-debt duel with Rusk.
Becomes the Inner Vault Key (opens Malakar's record directly) if he betrays the Warden; becomes lootable regardless if he dies.
Ally
Vex was a forger and records-keeper in a material-plane chancery before being imprisoned for selling state secrets. When Ironjaw took command of the Collaborators, he needed someone literate, and Vex volunteered within the hour. For three years Vex has been Ironjaw's eyes on paper: reading crystal records aloud, drafting duty rosters, forging the Warden's authorization slips that keep the squad supplied. But their relationship is not what Ironjaw believes it is.
Vex discovered early that Ironjaw can barely read, and he has quietly edited summaries to steer the lieutenant's decisions—burying mentions of previous lieutenants' deaths, inflating threats from the Breakers, and omitting the true terms of Malakar's commutation promises. Vex tells himself he does this for survival, but he has grown to enjoy being the power behind the brute. Ironjaw, for his part, genuinely trusts Vex—perhaps the only creature in the Bastion he trusts—because Vex once took a beating from a Breaker mob without giving Ironjaw up. That loyalty is real, tangled as it is with manipulation, and it makes their eventual reckoning over the edited records all the more volatile.
Enemy
Rusk's brother Gor insulted the Collaborators in the yard, calling them the Warden's dogs, and Ironjaw beat him to death with his bare hands while the factions watched. He kept a tooth from Gor's broken jaw on a leather cord as a trophy—a habit from the Steppes. Rusk swore a blood oath that day, and the two orcs have circled each other ever since: Rusk's ambush attempts have cost Ironjaw two squad members, and Ironjaw has broken Rusk's hand and left him alive twice, each act a message.
What Rusk does not know is that Vex swapped the trophy tooth years ago; the one on Ironjaw's cord belongs to a stranger, and the real tooth was passed to Rusk by a sympathetic guard. The grudge is therefore built on a false relic, a truth that will detonate the moment either orc learns of it. Ironjaw respects Rusk's strength—genuinely, in the way of the Steppes—and part of him wants the confrontation to be a fair duel rather than an ambush, which is why he keeps declining his squad's offers to simply poison the Breaker's food. Honor, for Ironjaw, is the one luxury he allows himself, and it may kill him.
Faction
Ironjaw is the Collaborators' lieutenant, appointed personally by Warden Malakar after killing his predecessor Havish in the mess hall—a promotion the Warden granted with visible amusement, as if the brutality itself were the qualification. Under Ironjaw, the Collaborators have become the most feared faction in the Bastion: his squad controls the mess hall, the cell block gates, and the flow of bribes between inmates and guards. He rules them the way he was raised on the Broken Steppes, through fear, favor, and absolute consistency; a Collaborator who betrays the squad dies, but one who serves loyally eats well.
The faction's rank and file are loyal in the way of men bound by shared blood-guilt: every one of them has informed on fellow inmates, and Ironjaw holds all their records. His authority is genuinely his own within the faction—Malakar rarely intervenes—but the Warden's shadow hangs over every order Ironjaw gives, and both Ironjaw and his squad know that a single word from the balcony could replace him. This tension defines the faction: strong enough to crush inmates, existentially fragile before the throne.
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