The World of Lightburn

Divinity is a poison.

For untold ages, gods waged merciless war against one another across the tapestry of creation, leaving mortal civilizations to suffer in the shadows of their wrath. Kingdoms crumbled beneath divine conflict. Prayers became screams. And the faithful were left to die beneath a sky set ablaze.

From the ashes rose the Sovereign, the first and only mortal to seize godhood for himself. He did not ascend to rule—but to end it all. In one final act of defiance, the Sovereign shattered the divine host, casting down the gods with the help of the very mortals they once tormented.

When the gods died, they did not go quietly. Their unraveling tore through reality, unleashing a searing metaphysical blight known as Lightburn—a corruption of the world itself, birthed from the gods' final screams. It warps all it touches, reshaping flesh, twisting minds, and birthing monstrous things that should not be.

Now, centuries later, worship is forbidden, and divine power is reviled. Those who cling to faith are hunted as heretics, for belief itself may awaken the broken remnants of dying gods. Survivors cling to life within fortified bastions while the wilds beyond churn with nascent gods, Lightburnt horrors, and the ever-heaving madness of a world sick with the corpse-light of divinity.

You are among the few willing to walk beyond the walls—a Penitent, innately able to withstand the lightburn and twist it to your own desire, fueling magnificent feats of heroism and unspeakable acts of horror. Marked by ruin and scarred by purpose, you stride through the death throes of divinity not to redeem the world—but to survive it, shape it, or see it burn anew.

Player Characters

Sessions

File Summary
001_2025.07.18 Arriving in Drath's End, a group of Penitents find themselves drawn to a mysterious phenomenon that has been the talk of the town - a Mysterious blind man that wandered in to the tavern, speaking a language none have ever heard before. Under whispers of growing concern, the group seeks out the Ember-Fane, an abandoned ruin from before the Godfall that may be slowly awakening, posing a threat to the surrounding lands.
002_2025.07.27 After a tense and frantic battle against Sahradûn the Ash-Tongued, the penitents explore the rest of the Ember-Fane, uncovering an incomplete ritual attempting to summon what is presumed to be a nascent god. After ensuring the Fane would claim no more lives, the group heads back across the chasm to The Bleeding Horizon Tavern, preparing for their next adventure.

Factions

File Summary
The Gilded Ledger A Clandestine consortium of masked traders, relic brokers, and Divine Counterfeiters.

Apostates

File Summary
Jorra A soft spoken, third generation owner of The Bleeding Horizon Tavern. Jorra is a well known and respected figure in Drath's End, and her tavern is rarely empty.
Salahair A blind minstrel, wracked by Lightburn and slowly withering away.
Vareth Norr An enigmatic and wealthy Merchant with a divine relic acting as a prosthesis for his missing arm.

Locations

File Summary
Ember-Fane A small Temple of striking Black Marble, surrounded by ominous pillars of semi translucent black glass. A single word lays melted into the massive marble doors that have remained sealed since the Godfall - "Forgive"
The Bleeding Horizon Tavern A ramshackle Tavern nestled between two broken cathedrals. The oldest drinking hole in Drath's End, known for it's frequenting by Penitents

Bestiary

File Summary
Scarab Construct An ancient vessel of the time before the Godfall, now fit only to guard ancient ruins
Sahradûn the Ash-Tongued A charred, lightburnt abomination, clad in swirling ash and flickering embers
Vek'sura Spawn Shadows of a once-divine Vek'sura, now touched irreparably by the lightburn

Environments

File Summary
Scorch Vein Chasm A sun-cracked ravine steeped in residual Lightburn, where a divine storm once burned itself hollow.

Classes

File Summary
Gravetender The keeper of lost souls. A bastion of death and ruin, devoted to the line between the living and the dead.
Hollow The forgotten, the lost. Echoes of the pattern stretched across the fabric of reality, unseen by all.
Scourge The bane of reality, a fount of Radiance and Ruin. The world is already shattered, we will help it turn to dust.
Warden A divine bulwark against the lightburn. Wrath and Bastion, balanced on the point of a blade.
Blightshaper A keeper of root and ruin, twisting tainted divinity into verdancy and restoring the world to balance.

Domains

File Summary
Lightburn The last echoes of poisoned divinity, a plague upon all those it touches.
Bastion Defense and protection. Let all those with need shelter behind a Bastion.
Ruin Scrapings of the scum atop the endless well of Divinity. A poison to reality itself.
Radiance Divine Radiance, turned to searing flames. With all things, a cost.
Verdancy A domain of spore and root, weaving poisoned divinity through the catalyst of a dying world.
Wrath An eye for an eye, and blood for blood. Let your Wrath pour unto the world and do not go gently into the night.

Communities

File Summary
Bastionborn Kinship in unity, survival by Bastion.
Echo-wrought A community of memory keepers, their skin a tapestry in memory of all that was lost
Gloamwise Keeper of Secrets, cloistered deep within the lightless folds of the world.
Masquerade Raised in the masked courts hidden beneath society. Beneath your face lies another, and another still.
Pale Sanctum Rite keepers and devoted, vestiges of the last scraps of holy scripture and ritual.
Treadborn A wandering kinship, at home only on the open roads. To still is to die, in motion we survive.
Cinderbound Raised among the charred remnants of a holy city. Find warmth in ruin, and survive.
Overgrown Kin rooted in rotting temples and wild cathedrals where nature claims all.

Ancestries

File Summary
Graven The dead always rise, but sometimes they remember their life before. Their Unquiet Flesh still strives for purpose.
Remnant We once were called Human. Now we are but remnants in a dying world.
Scion Blood of the Sovereign. The remnants of apotheosis flicker through your veins.
Vessel Ancient constructs of worship and war, awakened by the last breath of dying gods.
Mireborn Verdancy given form. Children of spores, keepers of the Deathroot Memory.

Custom rules