Shadows and Light: The Penitent Order

An AD&D 2nd Edition Campaign set in the world of Eorth You are already dead. Not literally, but you are condemned to die. Murderers. Heretics. Smugglers. Rebels. Grave robbers. Failed knights. Perhaps even the innocent condemned by false witness and corrupt men. It no longer matters. You have stood before the court. You have heard sentence passed. You have walked to the execution block. And there, at the edge of death, Bishop Gareth offers another path. Serve. In the north of Albion, within the great city of Effricham, Gareth — the ageing but formidable Bishop of the North — wages a secret war against cults, corruption, sorcery, monsters, and the hidden servants of the Dark One. To fight that war, he has created something both feared and whispered of: The Penitent Order. A band of condemned souls granted temporary reprieve in exchange for absolute service. Bound by sacred oath and a Quest-like enchantment that punishes betrayal, disobedience, or flight with gradual spiritual and physical ruin, the Penitents are sent where others cannot go: • plague villages • haunted ruins • cult strongholds • wilderness frontiers • forgotten crypts • places where good men fear to tread They are expendable. Dispensable. Deniable. Unwanted and unloved. But perhaps, through blood, suffering, and impossible choices, they may yet earn redemption. Or die trying.