An urchin from the poor streets of Karthene, Daphlan Valore had a unique connection to the divine. He grew up to become a radical firebrand Cleric, who rose during the Still Rebellion as a splinter from the Church of Thestus. He preached that the Karthene Council had corrupted the god’s light, and that purification by flame was the only path left for the city. His sermons drew common laborers, outcast soldiers, and the desperate, and Daphlan became the most feared demagogue of the uprising. While his early movement began as a fringe purification sect, the chaos of the rebellion allowed his faction to grow into a violent force that burned shrines and executed officials, frightening moderates and pushing the conflict toward true religious war.
An assassination attempt against the Arch-Magistrate, Cecily Crosse, hardened the council's resolve and gave her absolute command of the city’s defense. Daphlan's fanatics attempted to kill Cecily, and the rest of the noble Crosse house, in the upper terraces during the height of the Still Rebellion. They struck at dusk, when the council hall was preparing emergency deliberations, and tried to breach her inner chambers by setting the outer colonnades alight with consecrated oil. The blaze drew guards out of position, and two assassins forced their way to the magistrate’s antechamber before being cut down. The Archi-Magistrate survived without injury, but the attempt shattered the Council’s last doubts and gave her the justification she needed to argue that the rebellion was not reform, but heresy.
Daphlan's extremism helped the Council paint the entire rebellion as heresy, justifying escalating repression and creating the conditions in which they could unleash the Stonebinding Scepter without remorse. His legend marked one of the darkest pivots of the revolt; after the insurgent army collapsed and the Council reclaimed the city quarter by quarter, Rethan vanished, last seen during the burning of the Temple of Thestus. Whether he died in the flames or fled into obscurity was never confirmed, but in the memory of Commona, he became a symbol of transformative fanaticism.