You round a bend in the road and the house is there, on a low hill in the festering marsh. It is covered in gables and windows jutting up from the mass in a variety of styles, brooding over the bog.
The sky is grey toward the sea. The water beats steadily against the high grass, and a low mist rolls across the waves toward you.
Entering the woke house
There are two houses: the sleeping house, and the woke house. Every room in the sleeping house has an alternate in the woke house that is creepy. Each room has three states: sleeping (lamina zero); woke room, (lamina one), and woke room in the woke house ( lamina 2+).
Characters can enter rooms in the woke house through a random encounter in the real house, by sleeping, and by several other actions. Every time the opportunity for entering the woke house occurs, roll d20. If it is less than or equal to the house’s woke count, the characters enter the woke room rather than the sleeping room. The house’s woke count begins at zero.
When characters enter the woke house, characters who are together enter together and stay together. But if characters enter a woke room separately, they will never meet—they will enter at a different lamina. They cannot see each other, though they can, if they listen carefully, hear each other faintly. The person or persons entering the room second (or third, etc.) enter a different, more eerie room which becomes the default for that room from then on. The house’s woke count also increases by 1.
There is a bonus of 1 to the woke roll at night, and a bonus of 4 at twilight (sunset to ten minutes after sunset; and ten minutes before sunrise to sunrise).
The exits of any room on lamina 1 lead back to the base lamina, which is zero at the start, that is, the sleeping house. If the characters drag anything out of a higher lamina room the house’s woke count increases by 1. Very large items, or items integral to a room’s function (such as mirrors, or furniture) increase the woke count by 2.
Characters who are injured may enter the woke house earlier than the group: if the woke roll fails, but a character is within their injury total of it succeeding, that character enters the woke room even though the rest of the characters enter the sleeping room.
Here is a summary of actions that can trigger entry into or out of the woke house. On a trigger, the woke count increases regardless of the roll; if the roll is successful, those affected enter the next lamina up.
| Action | Roll against to enter lamina +1 | woke count | characters affected |
|---|---|---|---|
| Animal dies | woke count | +1 | all characters involved |
| Breaking wall or floor | woke count + damage done | +1 | |
| Cast spell | woke count + spell level | +1 | caster and target |
| Death of a character | automatic | +1 | |
| Injury | woke count + injury | +1 | |
| Making out | woke count | +1 | |
| Open door and enter room | woke count | no change | all characters entering |
| Psychic power | woke count + skill pool | +1 | psychic and target |
| Sex | automatic | +1 | |
| Sleeping | woke count | +1 | sleepers who fail willpower roll |
| House uses points | not applicable | -1 |
Leaving the woke house
1. If they are in lamina 1, going into the next room brings them to lamina zero. At this point, they can leave the house.
2. Entering Louis’s mirror can reduce the lamina by one.
3. Healing from the chapel or divine guidance in the chapel drops them to lamina zero. Lighting the candles in the chapel anchors the chapel to lamina zero.
4. Prophets can use the first-level hearth spirit homeward bound to drop toward lamina zero.
5. Monks with Dimensional Science can have a skill to change lamina.
6. Second-level or higher sorcerors can use the second-level spell delamination.
7. A ritual could also allow them to delaminate, but it will require a sacrifice of something important related to delaminating or home (see the Adventure Guide’s Handbook).
Breathing
Any time the woke count changes and someone is in a woke room, the house can breathe to draw power. The walls breathe, cabinets breathe, and mirrors breathe. Characters looking into a breathing mirror, or between breathing walls, must make a willpower roll or faint; the house gains another woke point if at least one person faints. This does not trigger a lamina shift.
Maximum lamina
Keep track of the maximum lamina, as some methods of traversing lamina will not increase a room’s lamina beyond the current maximum. The maximum lamina starts at 2.
- Delarosa Manor: The house
- The house in Delarosa Manor
- Delarosa Manor: Rooms
- Rooms in Delarosa Manor
