Scene 4: Epilogue

Nov 9, 2023 1:46 pm

OOC:

And that's the end of it. You defeated the Progenitor and broke the ancient pact, allying with the necromancers that police the barrier between the mortal world and the spirit world.

There's probably a lot of stuff we missed, so if you have questions, we can discuss the events openly now as we finish the other scene.

I made the game notes visible now if you want to check the timeline I was using to for the game (though some things changed). Most factions NPCs are taken directly from the source book.

Then we can have a little epilogue to decide what happens to everyone: "The default assumption for a Rookwood Chronicle is one story arc per generation (...) At the conclusion of a generation’s story arc, you need to go through an epilogue or denouement that describes what happens to the surviving family members. Each player takes a turn describing a short final scene to provide closure for their character’s story."

The Curse of the House of Rookwood is meant to play out over different generations, and this ending will leave room for future adventures ;)

crazybirdman

Nov 9, 2023 5:50 pm

Scene 4: Epilogue

OOC:

Amazing, I think the only thing I don't understand was how Nathaniel was cursed? Was he a Rookwood, adopted by another Rookwood?

CESN

Nov 10, 2023 9:28 am

Scene 4: Epilogue

crazybirdman says:

OOC:

Amazing, I think the only thing I don't understand was how Nathaniel was cursed? Was he a Rookwood, adopted by another Rookwood?

OOC:

Ah yes that one was a bit of improvising when you investigated the grave. It would probably need more scenes to get all the clues.

Since I had decided to make the Caretaker a zombie after Dr_B made a comment about his speed (and then all the staff), I put Nathaniel's name to the gravestone: "It says Nathaniel, who died, far too young, a long time ago."

Now, that ... was you.

Died as a child and then resurrected, hence The Curse of the Dying Flesh being triggered when you returned to your own grave. So you were a Rookwood to begin with. The witches suspected it, and the spirits told Elias, that's why he called you the "dead one".

[ +- ] Your death scene

Eclipse

bowlofspinach

Nov 15, 2023 10:53 am

Scene 4: Epilogue

Eclipse

It has been a long and difficult journey for Eclipse. Rising up from a nameless young teenage girl who had forsaken the only family she had ever had, joining a coven of witches who guard the veil between life and death when it was her own birth family that had torn the veil in the first place. But despite the hardships, the complete change in her style of life, Eclipse has never once regretted her decision in the years she has lived among the witches by now.
She has aged faster than she should have in this time, ten years in the span of five, something which the other witches - the vörð nafjarðar - explained is normal for someone inducted into their ranks. She would soon reach the same age as them and then stop. Forever.
In this time, she has learned their magic, learned to anchor herself in a world that had almost forgotten her - her form is more solid again now than it had become on that fateful day at Rookwood Manor - but while she has grown far more powerful than that meek little teenager she had once been could ever have imagined, she was still not much more than a child to the other witches. Her fascination with the three vörð nafjarðar had only further grown over time, especially with Dawn, with whom she spends as much time as she can and who seems to value Eclipse's joining them the highest, perhaps because she knows that she owes the younger woman her life. But despite her hopes and fantasies when she joined them, Eclipse still has not received her first true love's kiss. Perhaps in another few years. Or decades. Time passes differently as an immortal guardian of the grave-fjord.

But it is not just Eclipse who has changed since that day. The world changed. The dead rise from their graves, hungry for the flesh of the living. The living struggle but even with the assistance of the vörð nafjarðar, their fight seems a futile one as a new power rises in Rookwood Manor. Eclipse does not understand who or why, but someone is starting to shape the undead into some new, evil design.
Perhaps one day, the Curse of House Rookwood will truly be broken. And perhaps Eclipse will play some part in it. But if it happens, it will not be yet. Not until a new generation can rise to oppose the sins of its family's past...

Last edited November 15, 2023 1:41 pm

crazybirdman

Nov 16, 2023 10:56 pm

Scene 4: Epilogue

Nathaniel finally got back to his office, and unfortunately it appeared that the books he had shipped from Rookwood Manor got here before him. He would have liked to have warn his staff that so many trunks would be arriving. 'Oh well, I'll most likely get an earful from . . and his thought was interrupted as the head medical assistant came barging in. "What's all this then?!" she demanded, gesturing to the assorted cases. He hesitated, surely 'Forbidden knowledge I need to try and discover how to get out of an ancient contract with a demon' won't do for an answer", but he had to pacify her; "Uhm, . .research?"

After the fire was out, and the beast defeated, it appeared that everything that needed to be done here was completed. There was the matter of the house, and putting the families affairs' in order, but that surely wouldn't be up to him, and he wouldn't be up to the task anyway. More importantly he needed to figure out what he was. Troubling, since he had only recently decided that he was happy with who he was. Happy to be working as a doctor, and content to only be a Rookwood by name. But with the revelation of the grave . . . troubling indeed.
He wandered around the manor, with no particular destination in mind, until he found himself in the library. "Of course' he thought. Books and knowledge were always comforting to him, but the knowledge he was seeking couldn't be found here. "What am I?" he asked aloud, and was startled that someone answered. A man Nathaniel could have sworn wasn't there a second ago spoke up from the chair he was sitting in. "Oh, I assure you that you are quite dead, but . . . but you don't have to be. Let us talk, you and I, Doctor."

The medical assistant spoke up, again bringing him out of his thoughts "Research eh? Then why didn't you have it posted to your house?"
Nathaniel smiled, "Come now, you know this office is my home."

Alexander Rookwood

SavageBob

Nov 21, 2023 4:27 pm

Scene 4: Epilogue

The manor stands like a spectral sentinel against the silvery glow of the moon. Alexander stumbles through the overgrown courtyard, his breath visible in the chilly night air. The weight of the evening clings like an invisible shroud—the witches, the tree, the fire, Annabelle. Something calls to him. The laudanum bottle calls to him. In it he can find oblivion.

With trembling hands, Alexander thrusts open the ancient door to his bedchamber.The shadows within writhe and beckon like long-lost kin. Alexander clumsily lights a candlestick. The dim glow casts Alexander's shadow across the floor and up a crumbling wall. The shadow shifts, as if facing him as an equal.

Alexander turns his back on the vision and, trembling, opens his laudanum kit. He nervously takes the glass phial from its hideaway and fills it with the precious salve that will ease away the rough edges of this horrific night. His hands begin shaking, so hard that he drops the phial. It crashes against the stone floor, breaking into dozens of shards. Alexander drops to his knees and weeps.

As he regains his composure, he looks back toward the door. In the dim light, his shadow stands even bigger against the wall. Its arms spread as if inviting him for an embrace. Tears stream down his face as Alexander minces toward the wall. As he grows closer and closer to the wall, he reaches his own arms out toward the dark silhouette. When he reaches the wall, he finds not a hard, stoney barrier but a warm, inviting embrace. Then, oblivion. All is shadow.

It's a lonely existence. His consciousness not fully extinguished, Alexander learns to traverse the manor's haunted halls, keeping to the ever-present shadows within. His senses are heightened, yet distorted. He needs no food, nor drink, nor laudanum. But he watches as his cousin, Nathaniel, takes over the family business. He watches as the dead rise up and Nathaniel and others try to cope with them. He watches. And he waits, for what, he's not sure. Finally, though, he's the master of the darkness he had long sought to escape, a specter forever condemned to haunt the forsaken manor that cradled his shattered soul.

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