The Congregation
The faithful throng of the Crimson Grove, wretched pilgrims and zealous acolytes, bound in devotion to the fruit that twists their flesh and souls.
The Crimson Clergy
Voices of devotion and corruption, leading their flock in fevered worship, bloated forms adorned with bells and dripping with the fruit’s unholy bounty.
Sentinels of the Grove
Towering idols of devotion and dread, they stride the liminal realm, enforcing the Grove’s will with unyielding might.
Crimson Grove Terrain
Twisted orchards and profane altars, where the land itself bows to the fruit’s terrible blessing.
The Knight of the Bell
A lone apostate clad in relics of a lost faith, seeking the vanished Abbey to silence the fruit’s corruption forever.
Far away it lies, nestled in a distant and clement valley, protected from the harshest rigours of season and storm. Close it lies, a precious vision of paradisiacal perfection vouchsafed in the hearts of the desperate. The Crimson Grove has long captivated the hopes and dreams of the Empire's people, its legend becoming synonymous with a life free of want.
A vast Orchard of fruit trees, laden with a rich and sweet bounty sufficient to sustain its many monastic inhabitants and still provide for the surrounding villages. Sat proudly atop a gentle hill stands the Abbey, a great architectural marvel, its grandeur even more impressive given its remote location. Within its cloisters reside a benevolent order of priests, who express their devotion through the peaceful and diligent tending of the Crimson Grove.
It is no wonder that in times as dark as these, that people cleave so desperately to tales of a land of plenty, where they can cast aside their suffering and live in blissful comfort; and, it is no wonder that in times as dark as these, the truth of a beautiful myth should perverted and twisted to a terrible extreme of excess and horror.
The Abbey was once a grand bastion of the Azerai Faith, raised in the Empire’s golden age as a monument to order and devotion. Its halls rang with the tolling of sacred bells, its archives held wisdom drawn from the ruins of the Cataclysm. But within its secluded orchards, the first whispers of corruption took root. A strange fruit, rich and crimson, promised enlightenment beyond mortal grasp. The faithful partook, their minds and bodies swelling with revelation, until worship twisted into something profane.
Then, one day, the Abbey was gone. Not ruined or abandoned, erased. The land where it once stood lay barren, as if the great monastery had never been. Its name was stricken from the Church’s records, its memory buried beneath silence and fear. But the Abbey endures, hidden beyond reality, where the faithful still sing and the fruit still grows, waiting for those who stray too far into the wilds.
The Crimson Grove is not bound by roads or borders, nor does it obey the fixed laws of time and space. It exists alongside the world, yet outside of it, a place both nearby and nowhere. No map can correctly chart its location, no traveler stumbles upon it by accident. To find the Grove is an act of will, a submission to something beyond mortal understanding. Those who seek it with true devotion will always arrive, no matter where they begin.
Yet the Grove is not merely a destination, it is an entity of its own, aware in ways no place should be. It emerges where fate demands, surfacing at the edges of desperation and zeal alike. A beggar wandering the wastes may find shelter beneath its boughs, basking in the crimson light, while a hunter of heretics may find their quarry vanished, swallowed by a world that does not wish to be found.
Its disciples slip into reality with the same ease. They step from its glades into city slums, into palace courtyards, into the depths of forgotten dungeons, carrying its gifts to those ready to receive them. Where they go, the Grove follows, its roots winding through the cracks in reality, reaching ever outward.
