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The Haven Hauntings
Overview
The Haven Hauntings is intended to be a story event similar in style to The Nausicaa Incident on Opealon and The Siege of Markov on Cevanti. Like both of these events, this storyline will be mostly player-run, meaning that I will start off by posting a prompt and some parameters and you’ll basically take it from there. I’ll interject with new plot points and when certain player actions occur, as described further down in the rules.
So, what is the plot?
”Powerful psychic Sister Josephine has been contracted to investigate strange occurrences in the small settlement of Haven Abbey. Built like a fortress due to its long history of bandit attacks, Haven is renowned as a sanctuary for orphaned children and those stricken with illness alike. It is home to a peaceful community of brothers and sisters dedicated to the healing of the sick, with the gentle Abbess Oriole welcoming any visitors into the fold. Haven Abbey doesn't really have a religion per se, but they're driven by virtuous living and service.
Unfortunately, the abbey’s inhabitants have been plagued with terrible dreams as of late; nightmares so vivid and terrible and undeniably distressing… and yet, none can seem to recall the exact contents of said dreams upon waking! The children live in terror of laying their heads upon their pillows at night, while the sick are unable to properly rest. What could be the cause? A curse? A demon? Some fever of the mind?
Whatever the case, one thing remains the same. Your character has seen an ad or been contacted in some way about investigating the happenings at Haven Abbey. Your “registration post” for the event should cover your arrival at the front gates and any interactions with the gatekeeper and Abbess Oriole.”
Setting
The Grounds - Haven Abbey is bordered on all sides by massive brick walls made of burnt clay. It can be entered via the main gate on the west side of the Abbey, though a gatekeeper will have to let you in. The main abbey building is located directly opposite from the main gate, with a well-trodden cobblestone trail leading to the entrance.
The grounds boast a lush orchard, large gardens lined with beehives and bristling with fresh growth, and a small pond for fishing. The rest is mostly empty lawns, though you might spot children and their minders playing during the daytime or other residents going about their day-to-day tasks. Such chores include the retrieval of water from the abbey’s freshly-dug well and doing laundry out on the lawn.
The Gatehouse - Where the gatekeeper resides, located at the main gate on the western side of the abbey. It’s a small building built into Haven Abbey’s brick outer wall. Contains shelves full of dusty old abbey records in the form of scrolls and other forms of yellow-with-age parchment.
Ground Floor - The main doors of the abbey open into the Great Hall, decorated with vibrant stained-glass windows and a high ceiling lined with massive cross-beams. A massive tapestry hangs from one wall, detailing the long history of Haven Abbey and the many violent attacks the humble structure has been subjected to. Immediately upon entering, you will notice two small stairwells on either side of the hall-- one leading up, and one leading down.
Upper Level - The upper levels contain the dormitories, where your characters will be staying while investigating Haven. Rather than private rooms, you will all share a room full of bunk beds. Off to the side is an infirmary, nurseries for the younger children, and several private rooms for the other residents of the abbey.
Lower Level - Taking the stairs down from the Ground Floor, you will arrive in the kitchens area. A steaming chimney and full larders occupy this space, with an attached pantry stocked with various cheeses, jams, jellies, and nuts. The kitchen is connected by dumb-waiters to every floor, save for the cellars. While it is mostly underground, there are high-slit windows that allow some light to bleed into the room.
Cellars - A series of stairs lead down from the kitchens into a cold, dank cellar that seems to extend forever. It has an attached root cellar and meat larder for the storage of fruits, vegetables, and fish harvested from the orchard, gardens, and pond. There is a small forge linked to the kitchen chimney above, though it seems dusty from disuse.
NPC Quick Profiles
Abbess Oriole — The abbess of Haven. A bespectacled middle-aged woman commonly seen wearing a traditional habit, though her hip-length salt and pepper hair spills out from beneath her veil in a veritable sea of curls. She has smooth golden-brown skin and visible laugh-lines around her brown eyes, seeming uncommonly youthful for someone in her position. She is exceptionally kind and will welcome your character with open arms, though her concern for her abbey’s inhabitants has made her a tad anxious. She, too, has been plagued with indistinct nightmares.
The Gatekeeper — The gatekeeper, Mr. Krotgrim. He’s an old man who walks with a permanent hunch to his spine due to advanced age, the long, scraggly length of his white beard dragging along the ground wherever he goes, gathering twigs and leaves and other unsavory detritus. His skin is so pale that he appears almost like a specter, his misty grey eyes peering out from the craggy terrain of his face. Mr. Krotgrim is immensely cantankerous and will not like your character or respond well to interrogation attempts. A character with a particularly high social Master Skill might be able to bring him around. He collects all the abbey records and scrolls in his gatehouse.
Daniel — A teenaged orphan boy living in the abbey as a monk’s apprentice, Daniel often tends to the animals of the abbey. After suffering a violent troll attack several months ago, he is missing one arm. Moody and unpredictable after the incident, he doesn’t like to talk about it— save for with Falk, a frequent visitor of the abbey.
Falk — A fae inhabitant of the nearby wood. He is about the size of a domestic feline with silky smooth russet brown fur, walking in both quadrupedal and bipedal form. Being a variety of hobgoblin, Falk enjoys visiting the abbey to steal vittles from the kitchens and harass young Daniel.
Sister Josephine — A psychic and devoted scholar of the strange. Sister Josephine Peacekeeper (or simply “Jo”) is often enlisted by monster hunters to help them find out information on their hunts, though she dabbles in investigating paranormal activity on her own, as well. Jo is skilled in melee combat, spell-work, mediumship, hypnosis, and in general is able to perceive supernatural energies quite easily—on top of that, Jo’s weapon of choice is a sawblade/shotgun combo. She is here to take part in the investigation, though her special set of skills have made her a sort of de facto leader.
Father Gascoigne — Father Gascoigne is an exceptionally tall, middle-aged hunter. He has pale skin, silvery grey hair, and commonly covers his eyes with a cloth blindfold. He has numerous scars across his body from the hunt and a decent amount of shaggy facial hair— despite his priestly clothing, he appears rather unkempt, especially after a long night of killing beasts. His weapons of choice are an axe and pistol combo. He has been resurrected by Syntech specifically to take part in this “hunt,” or so he says.
Lieutenant Columbo— A ruffled, cigar-chomping police detective who asks all the right questions. Columbo is a homicide detective from the grand city of Arcadia with an impeccable record of solving every case to cross his desk. While he might appear unassuming in his disheveled coat and with his fumbling, overly polite demeanor, he is truly a brilliant detective with a keen eye for detail. Despite his occupation, he doesn’t wield any sort of firearm, claiming that he hates guns and that he’s an atrocious shot, besides.
Miscellaneous Abbey Residents — When you want to interrogate someone mentioned in a scene (like “the gardener,” “the cook,” “one of the children playing on the lawn.” etc.), I’ll write a brief profile for them for you to use in your writing.
Archetypes
When you register, you will be selecting an “archetype” for your character. Each archetype offers a perk for the event. These archetypes are also embodied by 3 of the NPCs. You may find your character approached by these NPCs for assistance based on your chosen archetype.
You have 3 options to choose from! PICK CAREFULLY BECAUSE I WILL NOT LET YOU CHANGE THIS ONCE SELECTED:
Detective — +4 to all Investigate/Interrogate rolls.
Hunter — +1 Focus, for the purpose of this event, and +4 to Investigate rolls vs inhuman creatures.
Psychic — Sanity loss is halved, +4 to Interrogate rolls.
Character Abilities/Master Skills
This event will heavily favor the quality of your storytelling and your character’s Master Skills over anything else. Social master skills focused on teamwork and persuasion will be especially helpful. As will Survival or Knowledge-based Master Skills and those related to Research/Investigation.
While combat may not be involved all the time, don’t think you’re safe from harm just because you could level the entire settlement in one fell swoop. That isn’t the aim of this adventure, and if your character is violent or threatening where they don’t need to be (such situations will be made ABUNDANTLY CLEAR)… there will be consequences. First in the form of a narrative “warning shot,” and then, in all likelihood, an untimely death as your character is alienated from the rest of the party and/or slain by the party’s NPC “leaders.” I will let you know if this is going to happen.
Focus
Focus won’t be all that important until we near the finale of the event, so save it for then. When you use a Focus, just mark that you’ve used one at the end of your post inside Quote Tags.
For example:
Days/Phases
1 week OOC = 1 day IC.
There are no phases, but you can assume that the beginning of the OOC week is “morning” while the middle of the OOC week is “afternoon” and so on.
- Monday: Morning phase begins, breakfast is served in the great hall.
- Tuesday: Mid-morning.
- Wednesday: Noon, lunchtime. Stop by the kitchens to grab a bite.
- Thursday: Afternoon.
- Friday: Evening, dinner is served in the great hall.
- Saturday & Sunday: Everyone retires to the dormitories for the night. Report time!
Every Saturday at 9AM CST, I will attempt to post an update and will lock the thread while I’m drafting it. This update post will basically be an IC event that covers everyone meeting up at night in the dormitory to discuss the events of the day. During this meeting, Sister Josephine will request a report from each of your characters, all at once.
Starting right after I post on Saturday around 9AM CST, YOU will be required to write a brief report from YOUR character detailing what they have learned so far. This can literally just be dialogue, nothing else required.
POST THIS REPORT IN A REPLY TO THE IC RP THREAD. You will have from whenever I post on Saturday until when I post on Monday to get this done. I will make an announcement via Discord to make this clear.
On Monday, I will post a “Morning Phase” post. Your characters can leave the dormitories and resume the investigation at that point.
Actions
Your character may take three (3) actions per OOC week. Send the Arbiter account a PM on the forum/or me a Discord DM explaining the action(s) you want to take. I will then post a “F2F” or “Encounter” with your character name(s) in the thread. It may take me a while, ideally no longer than a few hours, but I will eventually edit the post/reply to the thread to tell you what your character has learned or discovered; I’ll tag you on Discord when I do this, too.
The results of your actions are determined by a dice roll. I’ll be rolling dice on Discord (if the tool works) to determine the outcome of every action. Sometimes I might decide to go with a different result, if I think it’s necessary to progress the story.
RELEVANT MASTER SKILLS WILL GRANT +1 TO YOUR ROLL PER RANK OF SAID MASTER SKILL! Just explain to me how you think your Master Skill would help!
The actions are covered below:
- Observe - Kick back and passively observe an area for a time. Good for giving you an idea of where to investigate or who to interrogate next.
- For example: “I want to sit out in front of the main building and observe The Grounds.”
- Investigate - Actively explore the area. You may indicate a specific part of your surroundings that you want to take a closer look at.
- For example: “I want to visit the Great Hall and investigate the tapestry.” or “I want to investigate the cellars.”
- Interrogate - Ask the locals questions. You may indicate a specific person you want to speak to.
- For example: “I want to speak to Abbess Oriole about what she thinks is going on!” or “I want to ask the gatekeeper if he’s seen anything strange during the night.”
- Rest - Give your body and mind a break from stress. Crucial as things get more terrifying, helps to replenish or simply balance out your Sanity.
- For example: “I want to nap in the Orchards.” or “I’d like to return to the dormitories and rest.”
- You can only take a Rest action once per week OOC. Keep in mind that your rest might be interrupted if you get a particularly bad roll.
Sanity
Sanity - A finite resource. Your character has 10 Sanity by default. When you run out of Sanity, something horrible will befall your character. Be sure to keep track of this, because I certainly will be.
Rather than taking physical damage in the more traditional sense, your character will sustain injuries to their Sanity. Shocking, unnatural, or gruesome events will result in loss of Sanity. In the event of such a thing, I will write up a brief post where this injury is sustained.
Examples of Sanity Injury Posts:
In addition, Sanity functions to affect how your character interacts with the world/perceives objects or other people. If your character has less than 5 Sanity, you can be almost certain that what they are perceiving might not be real or accurate.
Certain “Status Effect” descriptors will also be applied to your character’s mental state with every loss of a Sanity point. These might include: cowering, dazed, frightened, nauseated, panicked, shaken, sickened, or stunned.
You are free to interpret these however you like. These status effects generally fade between one post and the next, but you can have them stick around longer for story reasons.
Examples of Status Effects:
How to Join
Who can I join as?
You may join as any of your account-bound characters or an NPC you have the “rights” to use. You can even join as a custom-made NPC. Please note that your NPC will receive all in-character prizes and not your account-bound character. You can review the NPC rules here to gain a better idea of how transferring prizes from an NPC to an account-bound character might work.
Keep in mind that there are certain characters who will NOT be permitted to join right off the bat:
- Any characters who might knowingly and gleefully harm, disrespect, or harass the residents of the Abbey will not be permitted.
- Any characters who have a bounty where they have murdered someone will not be permitted.
- Characters that are, like, 9 ft+ tall all the time simply can’t participate. Trust me, this is relevant.
These three restrictions are not just for IC reasons (!!!law enforcement is present!!!), but also for maintaining the fun of the adventure itself. I want characters who will work together and (mostly) get along, not bully the NPCs. Sure, tension or disagreement is fine as stress builds, but if your character is extremely off-putting, ridiculously rude, or is likely to have irreconcilable differences with the residents of a humble abbey dedicated to caring for the sick… Well, they aren’t permitted.
Your character has, in character, voluntarily shown up to assist with the mysterious problem. I must emphasize that cooperation is key for this event, and also some semblance of IC decency. The investigation will fail otherwise! Basically, just write characters who at least somewhat want to be here and participate in the adventure.
How do I Join?
- Write a roleplay response to [this thread] where your character arrives at the front gates to Haven Abbey. It is daytime when your character arrives, morning. Just picture an immense double-doored oak gate with a massive crank hidden inside to open or close them. You can have a short conversation with the Gatekeeper where he’s hesitant to let you in, but have your character introduce themselves and say they’re here to investigate the weirdness going on. If the Gatekeeper gives your character any additional trouble, feel free to have Sister Josephine interject on their behalf and insist that the gatekeeper let you in.
- Once you are let inside the gates, Sister Josephine will direct your character to the main building, but she herself will remain at the front gates. See the description of “The Grounds” and “Ground Floor” up above for more information. Abbess Oriole will welcome you inside the Great Hall, and you may spot Father Gascoigne lurking in the background, sniffing around. Interact with him if you like; I may or may not write a response for any interactions with him.
- Post a reply to THIS THREAD saying what Archetype you want. YOU CANNOT CHANGE THIS ONCE YOU HAVE PICKED ONE.
- Your character will wait around in the Great Hall for a while as more characters begin to arrive, so feel free to mingle.
