Codex of the Chapel of Dawn
Ex Libris
The Order of the
Radiant Dawn
Reliquary shelf of the Chapel of Dawn
Should this book be found beyond hallowed ground, commit it to the flame.
The Codex of
Being a true account of Ser Vael, the Lantern-Knight, who was burned by his own Order for a curse he could not control, and who came back wrong.
Set down by Hallowwisp Games
MMXXVI
Turn the leaves by scrolling, swiping or dragging a page corner, or with the arrow keys. The tabs on the fore-edge open each chapter.
Chapter I
Ser Vael, the Lantern-Knight, was the brightest blade of the Order of the Radiant Dawn, until a relic hunt in the crypts beneath the Chapel of Dawn ended with something old biting back.
The Order's law is absolute. The tainted burn. So Vael's own comrades lit the pyre, and Vael ran.
You play the Order's own nightmare, the hero who came back wrong. Every enemy in this game is one of the good ones: peasants with torches, zealous templars, war-clerics and old friends.
The tragedy is the engine. The more you level, the less of Vael is left.
Burned by his own order for a curse he could not control.
HALLOWBANE is a dark-fantasy action game in which you are the monster the heroes are hunting. A run opens with a cursed knight, a sword and deliberate, weighty strikes. By the tenth minute it is a screen-filling storm of curses.
Chapter II
The curse is the progression. Every kill feeds a single meter, Bloodlust, and when it cracks past the Breaking Point the curse makes you an offer.
Take the monster's shape and its gifts. The change goes one way only.
Drive the hunger back and keep a boon of humanity for the rest of the run.
Hold out too long and the meter fills. Then the curse takes you anyway, and you fight the next stage weakened.
While he is still a man, Vael fights with steel and a shield bash, and hallowed ground cannot slow him. The monster's gifts wait in his hand, dormant.
Three tiers, one body. Each turning is a ceremony. The world slows around him while the flesh breaks and remakes itself, and the ground is marked where he stood.
Plate III Three faces of the Crimson Thirst.
Chapter III · The Four Curses
Vampire
A dying noblewoman begged sanctuary. The Order said burn her. You gave her your arm instead, and she left her thirst in your veins. The Dawn burned you for mercy.
Crimson Lash
Bat Swarm
Blood NovaLifesteal on all damage dealt · Signature: Mist Dash
Chapter III · The Four Curses
Werewolf
Something took the village children into the pines. You went in after them, and only one shape walked out: yours, mostly. The Order saw the wound and lit the pyre.
Moon Fang
Shadow Claws
Blood HowlBlood Rage: damage rises as health falls · Signature: Feral Lunge
Chapter III · The Four Curses
Necromancer
You buried your brothers-in-arms and read the rites over them, night after night, until one night a grave answered back. The Order does not forgive an open door.
Bone Spear
Raise Skeleton
Soul StormDeath Pact: kills restore health · Signature: Grave Burst
Chapter III · The Four Curses
Demon-Possessed
The relic blade was meant to stay sealed. The breach was meant to be lost. You drew it anyway, and something drew you back. The Order burned the man; the passenger survived.
Hellfire Ball
Immolation
Meteor CallHellbrand: attackers catch fire · Signature: Flame Wave
Chapter IV
They are the good guys, and by their own lights they are right. The Order sends everything it has, and it sends more at every stage.
Plate IV The rank and file of the Radiant Dawn, from the studio's concept sheets.
Swarm · melee
They are not soldiers. They are farmers, fishermen, tanners and widows' sons. The Order gave them fire and prayer and sent them against a monster.
Ranged · kiter
Trained to strike from afar, they believe distance is faith. They hold their range, stop to aim, and fall back when you close.
Fast · flanker
War hounds bred beneath the chapel to break lines. Low and quick, it runs for your flank and lunges.
Armoured · bruiser
The Order's footsoldiers in plate, with sword and shield. They advance as one, slow and heavy, and every blow lands hard.
Support · caster
Shepherd and executioner at once. It hurls homing orbs of holy light, heals the faithful near it and unmakes the dead you raise. It kneels to relight a desecrated shrine and to bury the fallen. Kill it first.
Every third stage the fifth wave brings a champion, named as it enters: Kessler the Swift, Roswyn the Warded. Beside it stands a Beacon, a font of holy light.
Two for a champion, three for a boss.
Every fifth stage the fifth wave brings a boss: one of the seven, grown huge, crowned and wreathed in light, and named for its office. High Templar Roswyn. Grand Justicar Aldric.
It fights beside its Beacon like any champion, with three marks of favour and one power that no champion has.
Its offices Witch-Hunter · Inquisitor · High Templar · Saint-Blade · Grand Justicar · Lord-Confessor
A boss's Beacon never yields a Tarnished relic.
Shield high. It punishes impatience.
Shield Strike · Shield Rush · Sunwall Stance. The shield is its weapon and its wall. Bait the rush, punish the miss, take it from behind.
“The Dawn does not pardon. It descends.”
Sweeping Verdict · Overhead Sentence · Backswing. Slow and lethal, with an armour-breaking axe or a longer greatsword. Leave the arc; step aside once the lane locks.
“Precision is my oath.”
Quick Cut · Threefold Assault · Oathbound Riposte · Crescent Step. The Order's mirror held up to Ser Vael. Strike into its riposte and it answers.
“We are the scripture made steel.”
Scripture Bolt · Reliquary Ray · Seal of Denial. It fights from afar and seals holy ground where you are about to step.
Plate V Three of the Seven, from the studio's concept sheets.
“The light hunts. We track. We judge.”
Barbed Arrow · Marked Quarry · Pack Pounce. Never alone: his tracker hounds are half his strength. He marks you as their quarry and sends the pack in, one after another.
“No healing. No prayer. No mercy.”
Marshal's Presence · Standard Sweep · Command the Line. His threat is everyone else. Soldiers near his standard fight harder and faster. Cut him down and watch the line break.
“Where the censer burns, the unworthy wither.”
Censer Sweep · Cast the Censer · Recall. A flail in one hand, a burning censer in the other. He hurls the censer to fill the ground with sanctified smoke; while it is out, he has only the flail.
Each champion's own arm may fall with it, sun-bright and Hallowed. The Arms of the Fallen
Every champion plants a Beacon beside it: a stone font of holy light that claims the ground around it.
The relic lies in the Beacon. Both must fall to clear the stage.
Chapter V
Where Vael fights, the ground corrupts in the image of his curse and feeds his power. It thickens as it settles and never fades on its own: only the Order's Beacons and Shrines turn it back to holy gold.
One ground, four curses All four grow on the same dark stone, and each adds a pair of colours of its own.
Chapter V · The Land Remembers
The Vampire's ground
Dark veins spread through the stone, and pressure travels along them like a pulse. A low red mist lies over it, barely moving: blood does not blow away.
Plate VII The Crimson Blight, held in the game, and what grows there.
Chapter V · The Land Remembers
The Werewolf's ground
Moon-silver rootlets thread the soil, and silver grass grows in clumps through briar and thorn. A cold silver breath drifts low over it, the heaviest mist of the four.
Plate VIII The Feral Wilds, held in the game, and what grows there.
Chapter V · The Land Remembers
The Necromancer's ground
The earth greys to ash, and bleached roots lie through it. Only the soul-wisps move; the Withering's whole character is that it settles.
Plate IX The Withering, held in the game, and what grows there.
Chapter V · The Land Remembers
The Demon's ground
Dark basalt plates split along hot seams that kindle and cool on their own. Ash smoke rises off the crust, the only mist of the four that truly climbs.
Plate X Hellscorch, held in the game, and what grows there.
Chapter VI
Thirty stages of five waves each, and the Order sends more every time. Survive the thirtieth and the Endless Night begins.
A relic is a base weapon, a rarity, a few rolled virtues and sometimes a skill, and its name says which. The Reviled Reaper's Scythe of the Red Harvest is a two-handed scythe of the third rarity. The Red Harvest is only where it was lost.
Whatever you pick up wins. What it displaces waits on the ground until the stage ends.
Hallowed arms are the champions' own: the Oathblade, the Bow of Dawn, the Sunwall Aegis and five more. They fall very rarely, and each carries a burden, for a holy weapon resents its cursed bearer.
Some relics come Baneful: stronger, with one more virtue, and a Bane for as long as you hold them.
A weapon rolls its virtues from all eleven, and they grow with the hunt. A shield rolls one fewer, and only the five of defence, marked here with a diamond.
From Reviled upward a relic may carry one skill. In a pair of blades, both skills strike.
Chapter VII
Every run is written down: who fell, where, and what they had become. The killing blow is recorded by name.
| Curse | Fell at | Slain by |
|---|---|---|
| Vampire Lord | Stage 23 | Maren the Unbowed |
| Half-Beast | Stage 11 | a War-Cleric's orb |
| Plague Scholar | Stage 7 | Kessler the Swift |
Seeds can be shared, and a weekly seed puts every hunter on the same night.
Your legend is written. The hunt continues.
Chapter VIII
Every hunter who takes up the chase is written into the Roll of the Chapel. Set your name down and the codex will know you when you return.
Welcome back, .
Your name stands in the Roll.
Demo Roll: accounts are kept only in this browser, and Google sign-in waits for the live Roll.
Google Firebase keeps the Roll for us. How the Roll keeps your name
Written in the Roll
Open the link sent to this email to confirm it.
Hallowwisp Games publishes this codex and decides what the Roll keeps. Write to blaise90@gmail.com about anything on these two pages.
If you write your name with an email: that name, your email address, and your password, stored scrambled so that no one can read it. If you sign in with Google: the name, email address and picture link of your Google account, and the account number Google gives it. For every account: when it was made and when it last signed in.
Only so that the codex knows you when you return. The Roll sends no newsletters, and it is never sold, shared or used for advertising. It is kept because you asked for an account (GDPR, Article 6(1)(b)).
Google Firebase keeps the accounts on our behalf, and may keep them in the United States under Google's data-processing terms. When a new account is made, Google emails us its name and email address. Netlify hosts this site and keeps ordinary server logs.
Nothing, until you open the Roll's pages or have signed in on this device before. The rest of the codex comes from this site alone: no advertising or tracking cookies, no analytics. Your browser keeps only your sound setting and, once you sign in, your session.
Until you strike your name, which erases your account at once. Google clears its own copies on its usual schedule.
You may ask to see, correct or erase what the Roll keeps, object to its use, and complain to your data protection authority.
Written on 25 September 2026.
Chapter IX
HALLOWBANE is in development at Hallowwisp Games. It is coming to Windows and Android.
This codex is set in Cinzel and Crimson Pro, the typefaces of the game itself. Its plates are taken from the game's key art and concept work.
Here ends the codex
© 2026 Hallowwisp Games. All rights reserved.