Initial vault setup

pages/Campaign Overview.md

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+- **Campaign Name:** Ashes of the Hollow Crown
+- **System:** D&D 5e
+- **Party Size:** 4-6 characters
+- **Starting Level:** 5
+- **Ending Level:** 20
+- **Tone:** dark, gritty heroic fantasy
+- **Setting:** homebrew
+- **Core Hook:** A dead king’s crown still commands broken oaths, and the land is collapsing under a century-old curse that feeds on war, sacrifice, and forgotten gods.
+- **Premise:** The characters begin as capable regional heroes hired to stop a spreading blight of ash, plague, and undead. Their investigations reveal a buried empire, a shattered divine covenant, and a living crown that can either remade the world or end it.
+- **Campaign Goal:** Unite rival powers, uncover the truth of the Hollow Crown, and confront the entity using it to harvest souls across the realm.
+- **Primary Themes:** survival, sacrifice, corruption, legitimacy, redemption, the cost of power
+- **Endgame Choice:** destroy the crown, seize it, or bind its power to restore the world at a terrible price

pages/Campaign Timeline.md

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+- **Arc 1:** The Ash Begins
+- **Arc 2:** The Broken Roads
+- **Arc 3:** The Fen of Whispers
+- **Arc 4:** War of the Houses
+- **Arc 5:** The Sunken Archive
+- **Arc 6:** The Ember Ascendant
+- **Arc 7:** Siege of the Capital Below
+- **Arc 8:** The Hollow Crown

pages/Encounters and Dungeons.md

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+- **Road Encounter:** ash storm plus corpse-haunted caravan wreck
+- **Social Encounter:** negotiate with a toll lord offering protection for loyalty
+- **Combat Encounter:** oathbound dead that only stop when their banner is broken
+- **Exploration Encounter:** flooded chapel with air pockets, relic clues, and restless spirits
+- **Dungeon Structure:** each major dungeon should have one environmental hazard, one faction conflict, one lore reveal, and one boss with a moral choice
+- **Recurring Enemy Types:** ash zombies, oath knights, bone hounds, cult pyromancers, crown-touched nobles

pages/Factions.md

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+- **The Ashen Synod:** priest-exorcists and relic hunters trying to contain the curse
+- **House Veyr:** noble survivalists seeking to claim the crown and legalize their rule
+- **The Black Lantern Compact:** smugglers and mercenaries moving people, relics, and forbidden goods
+- **The Ember Court:** infernal-aligned cultists who believe the world must burn before it can be remade
+- **The Broken Saints:** penitent warriors and undead-scarred survivors who oppose all crowns
+- **The Quiet Root:** druidic network preserving what remains of the land and sabotaging corrupt harvest magic

pages/Key NPCs.md

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+- **Lady Seris Veyr:** ambitious noble mediator with a private army
+- **High Inquisitor Thalen:** Ashen Synod leader, severe but genuinely protective
+- **Morrin Bale:** Black Lantern broker who knows every road and secret
+- **Sister Ova:** Broken Saint veteran with undead scars and unshakable faith
+- **Rootspeaker Neme:** druid envoy trying to keep the land alive
+- **The Pale Regent:** the campaign’s hidden sovereign-antagonist, speaking through dreams and crowns

pages/Level 5-20 Progression.md

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+- **Level 5-6: The Ash Begins**
+  - Investigate blight, undead outbreaks, and missing caravans
+  - Defend Grayhold Bastion and expose the first cult cell
+  - Boss: Ash Warden, a cursed knight who cannot die until his oath is broken
+- **Level 7-8: The Broken Roads**
+  - Travel through raided villages and contested passes
+  - Choose allies among the Synod, House Veyr, or the Compact
+  - Dungeon: Saint's Trench, where the dead repeat the last siege
+- **Level 9-10: The Fen of Whispers**
+  - Recover a relic map and learn the crown’s prison mechanism
+  - Confront plague alchemists and spirit bargains
+  - Boss: Fen-Hag Matron bound to a drowned chapel
+- **Level 11-12: War of the Houses**
+  - Navigate civil war, assassination, and siege diplomacy
+  - Prevent a crown claimant from becoming puppet ruler
+  - Dungeon: Furnace Pass fortress assault
+- **Level 13-14: The Sunken Archive**
+  - Discover the buried history of the Sun Throne and the Pale Regent
+  - Retrieve the true binding rite and decide who can know it
+- **Level 15-16: The Ember Ascendant**
+  - The cult launches open apocalypse rituals
+  - Stop a ritual that would tear open the Pale March permanently
+  - Boss: Ember Hierophant and their bound fiend
+- **Level 17-18: Siege of the Capital Below**
+  - The capital’s hidden undercity awakens beneath the ash
+  - Rally factions for a final march on Crownbreak Spire
+  - Dungeon: living catacombs, oath engines, and crown-forges
+- **Level 19-20: The Hollow Crown**
+  - Enter the sealed throne chamber and face the Pale Regent
+  - Final choice determines the realm’s future
+  - Endings: destroy, claim, or rebind the crown

pages/Major Locations.md

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+- **Grayhold Bastion:** fortress-city at the edge of the ashlands; first hub
+- **Saint's Trench:** mass grave turned battlefield shrine haunted by oathbound dead
+- **The Glass Fen:** poisoned wetlands where spirits and alchemists compete
+- **Furnace Pass:** mountain route controlled by toll-lords and raiders
+- **The Sunken Archive:** buried imperial library holding the crown’s origin
+- **Crownbreak Spire:** final ruin beneath the capital where the Hollow Crown is sealed
+- **The Pale March:** a nightmare borderland appearing where the curse spreads

pages/Session Zero.md

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+- Discuss lines, veils, and horror level
+- Decide whether the endgame allows crown destruction, redemption, or rule
+- Ask players what each character wants to protect, and what they fear losing
+- Build at least one bond to a faction and one secret between party members
+- Start characters with a reason to be in Grayhold Bastion
+- Encourage morally gray choices and consequences

pages/Treasure and Rewards.md

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+- **Common Rewards:** relic coins, oath seals, sanctuary charms, survival gear
+- **Signature Magic Items:** crown-splinter talismans, sun-forged weapons, ash-resisting cloaks, lanterns that reveal spirits
+- **Milestone Rewards:** faction renown, safehouses, armies, political leverage, ritual knowledge
+- **Legendary Artifacts:** the Hollow Crown, the Sun Throne Seal, the Lantern of Last Judgment
+- **Reward Style:** favors and consequences should matter as much as gold

pages/World of Ash and Cinders.md

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+- **Region:** The Cinderwake Dominion
+- **History:** Once a fertile kingdom unified by the Sun Throne, the realm fractured after the last monarch used a forbidden crown to end a civil war. The crown demanded a soul-tithe to maintain peace, and when the tithe was refused, the crown was buried beneath a sacred fortress. Centuries later, the seal is failing.
+- **Current State:** volcanic ash falls in distant provinces, crops fail, the dead do not stay buried, and noble houses secretly arm for succession.
+- **Religion:** the old solar faith has weakened; roadside shrines and militant penitents fill the vacuum.
+- **Magic:** respected but feared; blood rites, burial charms, and oath-binding are common.
+- **Key Truth:** the crown is a prison and a key, binding an exiled sovereign-spirit called the Pale Regent.
+- **Major Problems:** famine, border raids, plague villages, demon-pact nobility, and a hidden war over relic sites

pages/contents.md

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+- [[Campaign Overview]]
+- [[World of Ash and Cinders]]
+- [[Factions]]
+- [[Major Locations]]
+- [[Level 5-20 Progression]]
+- [[Key NPCs]]
+- [[Encounters and Dungeons]]
+- [[Treasure and Rewards]]
+- [[Session Zero]]
+- [[Campaign Timeline]]