Daily meals
Food is provided from the garden. Dr. deMontagne has hired a swamp dweller, Adam Farrier, to provide daily meals. The man will not stay overnight. He will arrive in the morning an hour after sunrise to clear out the previous night’s mess and make breakfast. He will immediately leave, and arrive again two hours before sunset to lay out a dinner.
Destroying the house
In the monk Spiritual Art, either spirit host or spirit summons can summon assistance from the ghosts that the house has devoured in the past. In Spiritual Art or Dimensional Science, sensitive can provide information from objects within the house.
1. Steffan Delarosa’s corpse lamp can be temporarily defeated.
2. If the child is given a funeral by a priest or Christian prophet, the demon’s power source is gone. It now takes three extra points per day to keep the house woke. The proper funeral is a funeral for the unbaptized with the ceremony of naming and signing the child pulled from the baptismal rite. A conditional baptism will also work, since the child is only semi-dead. As will carving a name into the tombstone, especially “Daniel”.
3. The players may well come up with other options. Evaluate them generously.
If the characters somehow destroy the sleeping house, this does not destroy the woke house. The woke house will be weakened, but still exist, and appear on special nights to lure travelers, when they draw near. The woke house has a bonus on reaction rolls equal to twice the lamina, and a bonus to survival of ten times the lamina.
The woke house shadow will appear to them the first dawn or dusk after it is destroyed (or immediately, if it is destroyed during dawn or dusk).
If there is no real house, anyone in the woke house will be trapped if they remain in the house when it disappears after dawn or dusk, until such time as the house reappears.
Breaking the walls will lead to increasing the lamina, and so to stranger effects in the room beyond. Breaking down walls, floors, windows, ceilings is a prime opportunity for the house to cause an accident.
Contacting the spirits
If there is a monk in the group, the monk may use psychic skills such as sensitive within the house. Possible clues from such attempts can be:
1. The house knows we’re here.
2. It’s the house! The house is feeding from our resentment! It feeds from envy!
3. The answer is in the basement!
4. The house is awake!
5. And of course, the presence of a ghost.
If a monk with Spiritual Art tries to play spirit host, the ghosts of the house can take over.
The house: Rebuilding
Both the sleeping and woke house continually rejuvenate. If the characters destroy anything on lamina one or higher (which is difficult), that night they’ll hear hammering and sawing from the area they destroyed. If they try to reach that area, the house won’t let them. It will send them somewhere else until the room is restored. The woke house can restore one full room per night, or several merely damaged rooms, depending on the level of damage.
Rebuilding the sleeping house takes more time: one injury per night.
The house: Ghosts
Any captive soul can appear anywhere in the house, and will do so at the command of Steffan Delarosa. The common ghosts of Delarosa Manor include, in order of death:
| 01-07 | Anthony Delarosa | a man in a suit, or a burnt corpse | footsteps on the ground floor | 7% |
| 08-16 | Parnassa Grace Delarosa | in her bedroom or in the washroom | wailing, sobbing, rapping, ranting | 9% |
| 17-21 | unnamed stillborn son | silent, wrapped in white sheets | wet footsteps | 5% |
| 22-30 | Violet | Laurel’s puppy | splashing in marsh, barking, running | 9% |
| 31-39 | Ruby Delarosa | eight-year-old girl | giggling, turns to sobbing, running | 9% |
| 40-47 | Laurel Mountjoy-Delarosa | a pale woman, sickly | walking slowly, quietly muttering | 8% |
| 48-49 | Steffan Delarosa | a white, gauzy light or distant pounding | maniacal laugh coming from the den | 2% |
| 50-58 | Mary Delarosa | an old woman tending to an ancient man | footsteps, singing sad rhymes | 9% |
| 59-64 | Tall man with lantern | wanders cemetery looking at names | 6% | |
| 65-70 | Tall man’s daughter | 6% | ||
| 71-76 | Sacrificial children | a line of children walking past a window | singing nursery rhymes | 6% |
| 77-82 | Unknown 4 | 6% | ||
| 83-88 | Unknown 5 | 6% | ||
| 89-94 | Unknown 6 | 6% | ||
| 95-00 | Unknown 7 | 6% |
Ghosts will be physical in lamina 1, and may be interacted with as if alive; in lamina 2, they are physical but will act under the control of Steffan Delarosa, that is, evilly.
Anthony Delarosa is buried under the hearth; Anthony is the first victim. Only the dog and the second daughter, Mary, are independent of Steffan Delarosa, because they were not killed as part of the ritual. Their ghosts will be friendlier and more easily talked with. They are still frightened of Steffan, however. Some ghosts can provide clues. Laurel Mountjoy-Delarosa kept a diary in room 33, and can tell the characters to look for it. All ghosts are frightened of Steffan except the tall man; it will be difficult but not impossible to turn them against him, either as spies or as aides.
A great place to get Steffan Delarosa’s maniacal laugh is Vincent Price’s laugh at the end of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
House powers
The house begins the game session with zero points, so it can’t do much except randomly (random encounter rolls do not require power points).
| Power | Cost | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Darkness | 1 | 1 minute |
| Silence | 1 | 1 minute |
| Shadow simulacrum | 1 | 10 minutes |
Whenever the house uses its power, the woke count drops by the cost.
Let’s split up, we can take more damage that way
If the characters split up, a woke House will try to take advantage of it by creating two or more shadow simulacra. It will send a harrier to each group, attempting to steal a shadow, and then use whatever shadows it steals on the other groups.
The house: Windows
The windows in any woke room look out normally on the mist and marsh and ocean, but characters might see carriages and people from the house’s heyday, or the people who have disappeared since then happily entering the house.
If someone attempts to leave through the windows they will find themselves on a great wall with tiny windows far apart, a mist obscuring the ground and strange low rumblings emanating from the distance. Successfully scaling to another window is very difficult.
If they do get to another window, you’ll need to choose where it leads; looking through the window they’ll see scenes from the past of that room. Only remnants will remain when they enter. The scenes from the past should provide clues to the house and to the riddle.
If they fall, they will fall two to five floors into the garden, taking damage as normal for falling.
The house: Cemetery
| Gravestone | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony Delarosa | April 23 786 | August 11 849 | no body in grave |
| Anthony “Tony” Delarosa | November 14 816 | August 11 849 | |
| Parnassa Grace Delarosa | June 26 794 | November 1 868 | sacrifice |
| Violet | June 14 877 | dog, wooden cross, amateurish | |
| Ruby Delarosa | February 28 869 | June 18 877 | sacrifice |
| Laurel Mountjoy Delarosa | October 29 835 | September 27 881 | sacrifice |
| Steffan Delarosa | March 10 829 | January 28 911 | no body in grave, sacrifice |
| Mary Delarosa | October 30 871 | September 13 952 | |
| (no name, just underline) | February 12 861 | no body in grave, sacrifice |
Encounters in the sleeping house
Encounters are rolled for at 40% every thirty minutes on lamina zero.
| 01-19 | Non-visual ghostly presence | 19 |
| 20-29 | Ghost flicker | 10 |
| 30-37 | Blood: an accident that causes 1 injury | 8 |
| 38-43 | Sound of distant chanting (Steffan and Louis) | 6 |
| 44-49 | Harrier flaps | 6 |
| 50-54 | Feeling of sea air in autumn, salty, damp, chilling | 5 |
| 55-59 | Smell of acrid smoke, burnt ginseng, or parsnip | 5 |
| 60-64 | Harrier brushes | 5 |
| 65-69 | A coldness (+5 next woke roll) | 5 |
| 70-74 | A quietude (+5 next woke roll) | 5 |
| 75-79 | Rust-like stench of blood, faint waft of warmth | 5 |
| 80-84 | A dimness in the light (+5 next woke roll) | 5 |
| 85-88 | Sound of a crane trilling | 4 |
| 89-92 | Harrier nips, attempts to steal shadow | 4 |
| 93-96 | Next room is woke | 4 |
| 97-99 | Roll on woke house table | 3 |
| 00 | Steffan’s corpse lamp | 1 |
Blood: The house activates itself with blood. It will cause small accidents that cause one to two injury points; an evasion roll is allowed to avoid the accident. A harpsichord string snaps, for example, or splinters in anything made of wood.
Coldness: It feels about forty to fifty degrees. The barrier between the houses is weak. Trying to breach that barrier, such as by listening carefully or searching, will automatically get another encounter roll or action roll. If a woke roll occurs within the next ten minutes, it is at +5.
Dimness: All lights are dimmed by fifty percent. Otherwise, like coldness.
Ghost Flickers: Ghosts appear in the corner of your eye, as flickers. They cannot be heard, except when not listening, and then only faintly. Roll ghost.
Ghostly Presence: Roll the ghost as for the woke house, but the presence is auditory, not visual.
Harriers: Choose d4 characters, and there is a flapping of wings going past them. If the harrier “brushes”, then something brushes them, something like a bat, smooth, hairless, winged, a rodent feeling. If the harrier “nips”, it also feels like teeth on their neck, then it’s gone. Along with their shadow! An evasion roll or willpower roll is allowed to avoid loss of shadow.
Encounters in the woke house
Encounters are rolled at 50% plus twice lamina plus woke count every thirty minutes. Effects, such as floods, remain only on that lamina, and disappear once the characters shift up or down; if the characters return to that lamina, the effects are gone.
| 01-11 | Stolen Shadow | 11 |
| 12-21 | Ghost | 10 |
| 22-30 | Woke House room, out of order | 9 |
| 31-39 | Goldwing Harrier | 9 |
| 40-47 | Strange animal statue | 8 |
| 48-55 | Giant crane | 8 |
| 56-63 | Doll’s House | 8 |
| 64-68 | The Hell of Insects | 5 |
| 69-73 | Mist | 5 |
| 74-78 | Gaunt | 5 |
| 79-81 | Player Character Gaunt (ignore if none) | 3 |
| 82-85 | Blood, from ewer, window, mirror, etc. | 4 |
| 86-89 | Ghost loop | 4 |
| 90-92 | Elongated hall | 3 |
| 93-95 | Flood appropriate to room | 3 |
| 96-98 | Upside down—enter next room, woke, on ceiling | 3 |
| 99-00 | Steffan | 2 |
Woke house room, out of order: Roll the room randomly on d60+1; the next entrance they pass through leads to that room.
Doll’s house: Loud steps reverberate around you, as if giants were walking in the walls. It resembles, but doesn’t look quite like, Delarosa Manor. There are small versions of the characters going from room to room, fleeing something. A shadow chases them. If the player characters reach inside, a great hand reaches for them—and attacks for d6 damage. Then, everything disappears and they are one lamina lower.
Elongated hall: Hallways can elongate, as in a dream. This is most likely to happen precisely when the characters are in a hurry, such as when rushing to a room to save a friend.
Floods: Floods can be backed up sewage in the bathroom, pulpy and grub-filled food in the kitchen or dining room, or just general marsh water filling up the room. Snow, feathers, and insect swarms, and fast-growing plants are also possibilities.
Ghost loops: Roll d6+1 for the number of rooms in the loop. Then roll that many rooms. No matter which doors the players use—or even if they separate—they will enter those rooms in that order. Woke rolls are not made for rooms. Ghost loops last 2d6 times ten minutes.
Hell of insects: Hetae’s gears and mirrors and water behind reality. A palimpsest of bugs and plants. There are sounds of things crawling in the walls.
Steffan: Steffan is accompanied by shadow simulacrums, gaunts, goldwing harriers, cranes, or fetal spiders. He is preceded by a mist on lamina 0 and 1, or a swampy flood on lamina 2+.
Stolen shadows: In lamina 1+, the house can create simulacrums of anyone whose shadow its harriers have stolen—as well as immediate family members and close friends of that person.
Strange animal statues: Strange animal statues at entrance, at base of stairs, etc. Birds. Dogs. Cherubs. Cranes. On higher lamina, they are replaced by insects, strange creatures, and strange hybrids. The higher the lamina, the more statues are replaced and the stranger the replacements become. Spider-babies. Gaunt animals. Gaunt versions of the characters.
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