In the dead of night, Abernathy Hall begins to change.
Fog floods the halls, white as specters, haunting every crevice. The passageways stretch and stretch and stretch, the walls shifting and grating the ears. Every turn leads to a dead end. Meanwhile, the clock tower sings its melancholic tune, and as if on cue, the lights overhead crackle and fade.
Ahead, a single door yawns open. The orange glow of candlelight flickers and dances from within. Up close, one can discern the long tongue of a narrow staircase, leading to the dark underbelly of the tunnels.
Through it, one will find a vast wasteland. It is barren but for a tree, which thrusts out of the scabbed earth, its sprawling roots sucking the ground dry like a parasite.
The moon is frightfully alive that night, and so are the monsters.
They lurk in every corner, sharp-toothed, eyes aglow. Their features shift with the fog. All at once, they are there and not there, as if their grip on reality is tenuous. Among them, one stands out—a boy, not a monster. His arm is outstretched, scarlet palm upturned. He is built like a simple breeze could whisk him away, but he remains stone-still. Only his hair, auburn and curled behind his ears, flirts with the wind. He beckons the outsiders forward with his bloodied hand.
“Do not be afraid.” His voice is deep; a man and not a boy, after all. “They can’t harm a single hair on your head. Nor can I.”
An odd thing for a man so badly wounded to say. And yet, even as his blood flows freely to the ground, the man shows no pain. He shows nothing at all.
“The truth is, you are here in Grimsworth—not because of your grades or your talents—but because you possess a gift like no other."
He gestures toward the creatures all around them. “The forest’s gift. The ability to bring every thought, every fear, every
dream into existence. Indeed, these creatures are proof of your power, and that is only a fraction of it.
I’m here to help you harness the forest’s magic. In return, you must save the forest when the time comes… and that time may come very soon.”
GM’S NOTE:
You can choose how your characters end up in this location. Maybe they hear a friend’s voice in the tunnel. Maybe they see an illusion in the tunnel that convinces them to enter. You can write the first part into your post, or you can skip it. What matters is that the outsiders end up in the same location.
I elected to only introduce the NPC so as to give your characters a chance to ask questions or react however else you want them to. Explanation will come afterwards. But if you want to know everything
now, you can read some of the lore ahead of time (check #additional-reading on discord; or alternatively,
here).
Note that you
do not have to use all your outsider characters, just the ones that you want to involve in the main storyline. If you do decide to bring a good chunk of your outsider characters into the main storyline, make sure you can keep up with the work. GM posts like this will usually require responses from those involved.