Andrew Lowen, the head designer, wanted a fully fleshed out story that showed the saints interacting with the world - much more so than in the “base game”. Here, I built upon themes established in the revised base game campaign as well as creating branching paths for players to follow different story threads.

Portions dealing with the saints were written in 3rd Person Past Limited, and operate as interludes that fit between the main action of the angels.

Example 1

This is a portion of one of the interludes exploring Rachel - the troubled daughter of Karen from the previous campaign.

Rachel turned and walked to the western edge of the parking lot, to the dilapidated fence, and into the thin woods behind. A narrow path wound through the verdure into the hills beyond. She brushed a swarm of flies from in front of her face and started down a dry-creek bed, past a withered redbud tree amid an evaporated bog.

After a few more moments, she was at the place she’d often come to: a clearing of yellow grass and sun-bleached stones at the top of a slope.

A score of the smooth stones jutted from the earth like broken teeth. The kids called it Old Graves, though no one knew if anyone had actually been buried there or the stones had just rolled there on their own. She stepped into the clearing and sat cross-legged. The breeze still blew and carried the scent of clay and dry leaves.

What a Saturday it had already been, and the afternoon hung in the air like thick smoke.

Her mother was still overbearing—this nonsense with the church grant was becoming insufferable. It was her mom’s way of trying to gain some type of prominence in the eyes of Fallbrook, a town that cared little for her. This had become ever more apparent since the accident. If her Dad was only here for a moment, if she could only talk to him one more time.
She thought back to the mine. All of the places she would run. Old Graves too. She’d always looked into the dark for something, and over time expected nothing, a cold refutation, and that a strength against whatever she faced—but something was there that time. Something real. Like a hand brushing hers in the dark. A spark.
She always ran away—she had since she was a child—to wallow, to draw some bitter comfort from the solitude. There she would listen for a resentful whisper, a voice, a kind of spirit from somewhere inside of her reassuring her that she was in control. She could almost hear it again now. Rising through the yellow ground and white stones. Telling her to ratchet everything back into the darkness again and lose herself in it.

But that spark. It had made the world lighter, for a brief moment. And it couldn’t be found in self-indulgent places like this. Because for the first time in a long time, Rachel felt like she could move toward something. Not just away from something.

There would be more fires. More fights with her mother. More pain. But for now, there was the spark, silently telling her it was time to leave the Old Graves and look for something new.

Example 2 - Before and After Mission Text

This portion is the before and after text to a mission. Here the angels encounter the ancient cursed tree Redbud and must defeat him.

Before Mission 5

The bog has dissipated into only a memory of Melukalak, though the woods are no less foul. You press through the smooth remnant of mire to the central isle-mound, home to the gnarled tree.

Wind weeps through its branches. Redbud’s ocher bark pulses with the stolen vitality of the glen. Its knotted, leafless limbs drip with ichor, stretched in defiance toward Heaven. Around its base, the earth is soft and black, as though the forest itself rots from the root up. Embedded in its trunk is a dull-red stone.

A dreadful hum begins to pulse—the breath of something old and wicked preparing to speak.

“Come to me, servants of Light. The day grows long, and I grow tired of waiting. My roots wish to drink in the nectar of your pain.”

After Mission 5

Redbud shudders, a final groan echoes through the glen as its limbs crack and splinter. The corrupted tree collapses inward, and evaporates into acrid smoke. Silence falls as though the forest holds its breath, and then, suddenly, breeze and birdsong. Sun breaks through the canopy.

You see the dull-red stone—no longer embedded, but fallen to the ground amid the pit where Redbud stood.

“This is from Lucifer’s Breastplate,” you say.

“Why here? What could it mean?” Juan asks

Before you can grab it, it sinks deep into the earth.