The History of
The Iron Fellowship

From 1996-2011 Chris Marsh ran a pair of campaigns; Spirit of Kings and New Blood. These two campaigns combined to span 2e, 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder. They spanned Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, and Greyhawk (with a flash forward and side quest in Golarion.) More than a dozen players came and went in the game, pulling from groups formed in middle school, high school, college, and beyond.

During the heyday of the campaign, the party fought a harrowing battle against an iron golem. Mike Susalka’s character (and slack namesake) Rossetto Casseretto, dubbed the battered yet victorious party the “Iron Fellowship.” This name has stuck and became the name of the Slack Group that brought together the players from this family tree.

A core group of these players in these campaigns have continued through many others, now part of the larger lodge; Rise of the Runelords, Serpent’s Skull, Iron Gods, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Giantslayer, Kingmaker, Dead Suns, Skull & Shackles, Reign of Winter, and countless PFS and SFS tables.

The story of the Windy City lodge starts in the spring of 2009, after Wizards of the Coast had launched a 4th edition of their Dungeons and Dragons game and tiny publisher Paizo took up the abandoned 3rd edition by transforming it into their own Pathfinder game. Chris Rathunde sampled the playtest version in spring of 2009 at a local convention. When the game officially launched that August, Chris was busy getting married and so didn't get a chance to play the game regularly until the following summer, but once he did, he was a full-fledged convert; June 2011 saw him attend his first of several PaizoCons, and July GM his first Pathfinder Society game. It would take longer — summer of 2013, in fact — to convince his home game group to join him on the Dark Side.

In May 2012, at Chicago gaming hub Chicagoland Games: Dice Dojo, Chris was introduced to Rene Duquesnoy, a fellow gaming enthusiast and newly minted Venture-Captain in the Paizo Organized Play campaign. Before retiring his role in the spring of 2013, Rene built quite the platoon of gamers in and about Chicago, and Rene's work had led him to international fame: in Montreal, Canada, he met and conscripted Quebecois Jeffrey Chapman, who willingly joined the Chicago contingent more than once at one of its sinister winter rituals, Winter War convention in Champaign, Illinois. By late 2013, Chris had failed his Will save and joined the organized play volunteer leadership, which led him to numerous conventions all over Illinois as well as in Wisconsin. It was in the latter state where he met Aaron Malone in August of 2014, corrupting him to his nefarious plans almost immediately.

In 2012 through fate and coincidence, Chris Marsh (playing Bishop) and Chris Rathunde (playing Rosham Bowe) found themselves in the same part of a PbP game on paizo.com. The similar play styles meshed well, and when the game completed, Chris R. invited Chris M. to a game with another group, the Windy City Lodge.

For the first few years, Chris M. played games with that group, but as friendships grew, the gaming lodges began to overlap at an increasing rate. Both groups began to use Slack as a means of keeping up to date, and there were many members in both groups. Face to Face games began to pop up as "Team Canada" and Iron Fellowship members played in overlapping convention areas. This lead to a massive group going to Gen Con 50.

While there, discussions began about hosting our own convention, which in turn lead to The Gathering.

As of The Gathering I, there are fifty-one members of WIFC Slack and nearly a dozen more not on Slack but part of the Lodge itself.