Not All Chains Bind

Date: Unknown Location: Unknown The child’s name was Tessa. She couldn’t have been older than seven—mud-streaked, barefoot, and trembling with fever beneath a collapsed cart on the side of the old road. Her cries were weak, barely audible over t...

Date: Unknown Location: Road outside Solrest They never change. His name was Inquisitor Vellan, though I only learned that after the shouting stopped. His presence gave him away long before his words did—robes too clean, blade too polished, eyes ...

Date: Unknown Location: Solrest Tonight, I met one of them. Not in battle. Not in chains. Just… on the road. Like any other traveler. He wore the white vestments of the Church of the Radiant Flame—simple, unadorned, yet unmistakable. His blindf...

Date: Unknown Location: Edge of Drelvar Hold I crossed paths with a paladin today. I don’t know why I expected them to be different. Clean. Shining. A knight of virtue, sworn to justice. But instead, I found a broken man in rusted armor, whose sw...

Date: Unknown Location: A collapsed windmill outside Delvar They call it a "camp." It’s more of a grave that refused to close. There are maybe fifteen of them—horned and hollow-eyed, hiding beneath rotted canvas and illusion spells that flicke...

Date: Unknown Location: Campsight The fire was low tonight. Not dead—just simmering, like me. Ka’rozzel sat across from me, back straight, chains slack around his limbs like they were resting too. He doesn’t need the fire. He doesn’t feel c...

Since the night she turned the Church’s dungeon into a crypt, Valmaia has wandered through Cathlidia and beyond like a smoldering storm—never fully still, never fully welcome. She doesn’t seek peace. She seeks purpose. Every step she takes is a less...

When Valmaia first laid eyes on Ka’rozzel, he was not a devil in chains—he was the chains. A monument to suffering, a creature more torment than flesh. Yet unlike the priests who dragged her screaming into the bowels of the dungeon, Ka’rozzel did no...

In the months that followed the fall of the Radiant Flame's bastion, whispers of Valmaia’s wrath spread like smoke through the borderlands. Villages once loyal to the church fell silent in her wake. Sanctuaries stood abandoned, their walls scorched with...

Valmaia was born on the edge of a quiet village south of Zalthera, a place steeped in old-world traditions and devout human faith. Her mother, a frail and desperate tiefling, had snuck into the outskirts of the village, driven by starvation and fear. She ...

Since the night she turned the Church’s dungeon into a crypt, Valmaia has wandered through Cathlidia and beyond like a smoldering storm—never fully still, never fully welcome. She doesn’t seek peace. She seeks purpose. Every step she takes is a less...

When Valmaia first laid eyes on Ka’rozzel, he was not a devil in chains—he was the chains. A monument to suffering, a creature more torment than flesh. Yet unlike the priests who dragged her screaming into the bowels of the dungeon, Ka’rozzel did no...

Valmaia was born on the edge of a quiet village south of Zalthera, a place steeped in old-world traditions and devout human faith. Her mother, a frail and desperate tiefling, had snuck into the outskirts of the village, driven by starvation and fear. She ...

In the months that followed the fall of the Radiant Flame's bastion, whispers of Valmaia’s wrath spread like smoke through the borderlands. Villages once loyal to the church fell silent in her wake. Sanctuaries stood abandoned, their walls scorched with...

Date: Unknown Location: Edge of Drelvar Hold I crossed paths with a paladin today. I don’t know why I expected them to be different. Clean. Shining. A knight of virtue, sworn to justice. But instead, I found a broken man in rusted armor, whose sw...

Date: Unknown Location: Campsight The fire was low tonight. Not dead—just simmering, like me. Ka’rozzel sat across from me, back straight, chains slack around his limbs like they were resting too. He doesn’t need the fire. He doesn’t feel c...

Date: Unknown Location: A collapsed windmill outside Delvar They call it a "camp." It’s more of a grave that refused to close. There are maybe fifteen of them—horned and hollow-eyed, hiding beneath rotted canvas and illusion spells that flicke...