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 If this has been covered before, apologies. Is there a Discord server that exists for GMs to throw around ideas on lore and mechanics for the Wrath of the Righteous AP? I am part of a great one for Rise of the Runelords, so I figured I would check here for an equivalent. I have started one, and with another user we have a grand total of TWO (2) users in there... so I can post an invite if one doesn't already exist.  
 The Betrayal of Staunton Vhane (shown to the players at the beginning of Book 2 - an intro to Staunton Vhane and the story of Drezen and the Sword of Valour) Drezen, The Worldwound
 Staunton had survived. Bleeding from a dozen wounds, his mind barely clinging to sanity. He survived. His breaths came in ragged gulps, each exhale punctuated by yet more blood leaving his body. The air tasted metallic. Around him, beyond the broken bodies, demons moved in the mists, slaughtering the wounded. It was only a matter of time before they found him. Drezen had been under siege for weeks, hunkering down under countless skirmishes as demons threw themselves at the defences. Waves of them, as unending as the sea. And the defenders of the city cowered. Staunton despaired at his leader’s choices, bemoaned their conservative actions that had seen them hide behind the walls while the demons regrouped time and time again. The Sword of Valour, Iomedae’s own banner, a legendary beacon of power, lay wasted in a Citadel vault. Staunton had often advocated for it to be used to take the fight to the demons, to break the siege. But every time he had been denied, with even his own brother Joran siding against him. And now their cowardice had led to this. He looked down at his hands, crimson and sticky from his own blood. His glaive lay broken in two by his knees. There was no hope… not any more. But then… a call in the mist. Not a demon drawl or a monstrous shriek. A clear voice. Staunton looked up, cocked his head to better hear it. The sound of it alone was like a tonic to him. It was elven. Soon followed the thunder of hooves, and then the shriek of demon thralls as they fell before whatever force approached. Soon, parting the mists, a host of white horses bearing armoured knights rode across the bluff, bending away past him to hunt down more demons. Staunton couldn’t help but grin. He would survive another day, it seemed. In the wake of the knights, a lone rider approached. This one’s horse was dark as midnight, and the knight wore no helmet but let her forest green hair fall freely about her. Dismounting, she reached down to help Staunton to his feet, and when their hands touched, a glorious light filled him and all at once his wounds were healed. Tears filled his eyes as he looked upon her, distorting the features of her face. The words she spoke, though he could not recall their exactness, were a mirror to his own thoughts, a voice that he had been aching to hear for so long. One of hope. One of power. One of action. “The Sword of Valour is wasted behind the walls of Drezen. The banner should be out here. If only there were a way to retrieve it, to get it out into the face of these demons. I would fly it above my company, and ride them down like weeds before the scythe.” Without a moment’s consideration, Staunton responded. “I will do it, m’lady. I have access to the citadel. I can bring it to you. The banner must be used, long have I said it! If we do not try, we will surely perish before long, and Drezen will be overrun.” He stared back towards the city walls, the mist clearing in the wake of the elven host. “I will do it.” The knight smiled. “Good…it will all be over soon, then.” Staunton did indeed have access to the citadel, and had no trouble talking his way into the secure vault in which it was held. Getting out unseen was more of a problem, and he may have been caught were it not for a stroke of fortune. For it was his brother Joran that blocked his way. Staunton had always had his brother’s ear, despite their differences. After a tense standoff, Joran relented, and enabled Staunton to flee Drezen with the Sword of Valour. Returning to the bluff that overlooked the city, Staunton found the elf and her knights waiting for him, and handed over the banner, the crusade effort’s most valued artefact. It was a still night, unusual for the environs around Drezen. A mist clung to the graveyard and shrouded the Ahari River, but otherwise it was a cloudless sky that watched proceedings. The torches along the city walls were everburning, but Staunton knew that they existed to support the illusion of a fully defended wall. He watched the lights silently as the knights pored over the Sword of Valour behind him. He heard the elf speak. “Call to rally. We attack, now.” The elf’s footprints sounded behind him as she approached. Staunton raised an eyebrow. “So soon? I thought-” Staunton felt her hand on his shoulder as she stood over him. But it was not the fair hand of an elf that rested there. It was grey and elongated, clawed and scarred. He gasped, tried to jerk away but could not. He turned to see the final remnants of the illusion flaking away. The elf, now revealed as a towering glabrezu, stared intently at the city. “No…” Staunton turned back to look towards the city. Dark shapes were moving across the space below him, closing on the walls. “No…” The lights on the battlements started to wink out. He went to struggle again, but the demon held him in place, forcing him to face the scene below. Staunton hesitated. There was a long moment where he watched the city grow dark, began to hear the alarm bells, the panicked call to arms, and the screams. So pitiful they sounded, so desperate. “This is what they deserve…” And he realised that in his heart, he believed it. They would not heed his advice, would not listen to reason. “So why should they survive?” Later, when only smoke and silence rose from Drezen, Staunton was brought forward through the ruined streets, and pushed to kneel before the marilith, Aponavicius, the new ruler of the city. There, even as his fellow crusaders were being hung by their ankles from the citadel walls, Staunton Vhane did not hesitate to pledge his allegiance to the victors.  
 The Inception of the Fourth Crusade (shown to players when they first reach the surface in Book 1 Part 3, to introduce Defender's Heart and the idea that the Wardstone has been destroyed, with a bit of backstory on their previous attempt to destroy it) Defender's Heart Inn, Old Kenabres
 “How did anyone know he was called the Storm King if nobody had heard of him?” The innkeeper’s face was serious, but there was mirth in his eyes. “If your goin’ to keep interruptin', we ain't never gonna know are we? Obviously they had ‘eard of him, but just not by that name. If you would listen, oi’ll tell the story. Unless you want to take over, hmm?” He glared at the innkeep with an eyebrow raised. The innkeep held up his hands, palms out, before going back to polishing a bottle. He smiled as the old man turned away towards what he hoped would be a more appreciative audience - a pair of tired looking young crusaders further down the bar. They seemed thoroughly disinterested. “The city was sleepin', not a peep to be 'eard. The demons, they came through the sewers, you see, that’s why nobody knew they was coming. They got spies down there, see? Creatures that look like you and me ‘cept with gills and webbed toes and the like. Now, the Storm King-” “Sorry… sorry to interrupt again…” Kimroth cut in. “...but if everyone was sleeping, how did Irabeth get her vision? Are you sure this is right?” “You never ‘eard of dreams? Hob snapped. “As I was sayin’, the Storm King flew right in on his lonesome. ‘E’s bold like that, y’know. ‘E comes to the Kite, and there’s guards there but ‘e pays them no heed. Drops ‘em like a scythe through a field.” He made a cutting motion with his hand and blew out air between his missing teeth to emphasise the point. Kimroth did not interrupt again, the amusement of the game wearing thin. He had been there, of course. It was how he had lost his arm. There had been issues with the guards that evening. The main one being that they hadn't been there when they should have been. “Whack!” Old Hob’s theatrics brought Kimroth out of his memory. “With a swing of his axe that would chop your house in two…” He pointed at the nearest crusader, who looked too young to even own a house. “... he went to smash the Wardstone to pieces.” Hob sat back on his stool then, a knowing smirk on his face. He tapped his nose. “But ‘e couldn’t. Even as powerful as ‘e was, ‘e couldn't do it. Smashed his forpal blade to filings ‘e did. But!” And he leaned in once more, waiting to draw in the attention of anyone that might be listening. “The Wardstone was cracked. For the first time in its history, the demons had damaged it. Terendelev… oh sweet Terendelev… she weren't too pleased about that, I tell you! She fought him off that day, But, well… I 'eard 'em say that it was that first attack, and that tiny crack, that let the demons creep in real close during Armasse. It was weak ye see? Like the Victory Pond in winter - would you go walking on the ice if a stones gone and been dropped on it?” He went quiet for a bit, as if by some miracle he had run out of things to say. Without his voice, the inn seemed subdued. Old Hob took a long drink, and when he spoke his voice was hoarse. “She couldn't stop him this time… He walked right in there and smashed it to pieces.”  
 These are so great! I will post a few of mine that I have used so far: Yaniel and her Radiance (shown to players when they set out from Neathholme, Book 1 Part 2, to foreshadow the discovery of Radiance) An excerpt from ‘Yaniel: The Radiant Dawn’ by Hatrille Evenseam Not long after the start of the Fourth Crusade, Yaniel, now a prominent paladin of Iomedae, took an official stance in opposition to the Mendavian Crusades. It ruffled a few feathers, to say the least. In her mind, the fault for Khorramzadeh's success in invading Kenabres and cracking the wardstone lay at the door of the crusade effort. Her accusations of negligence and sloth cut too close to the truth, some say. Regardless, in their anger, her superiors threatened to excommunicate her. Instead, in a moment equaling the madness of those she had accused, Yaniel declared that she would take her sword Radiance and enter the Worldwound, and she would fight the Fourth Crusade on her own. With a golden glow about her, she walked alone into that awful place. Her superiors, in their vanity, were pleased to see her leave, and after two years with no word from her, she was thought to have been slain. But Yaniel returned. Not only had she survived for two years in the Worldwound, but she had also rescued a small group of crusaders from demonic claws. And Yaniel had changed. She had shed her pride and insubordination, and had gained a new appreciation for the difficult decisions that were expected of leaders. And the leaders in the church had calmed somewhat too, realising that the truth is the truth no matter the implications. As it turned out, Yaniel’s days were numbered. During her very next venture into the Worldwound, mere months after returning against all the odds, she was assassinated by the lilitu demon Minagho. Yaniel’s followers, those she had saved just months before, were unable to even retrieve her body. But Radiance was returned to Kenabres, carried like some holy relic by her companions who told of her demise. The blade had become inert, its golden glow faded. And with its diminishment, the hopes of the crusade effort reached a new low. The Fourth Crusade faltered, and though some refuse to accept its end, it is generally accepted that it ended with Yaniel’s death. Radiance can be seen to this day, on display in the Gray Garrison in Old Kenabres. | 
 
	
 
     
    