Barking Alien's RPG CAMPAIGN TOUR CHALLENGE! Day 2

Elowen Hale

Day 2 - About Your Tour Guide

Introduce us to a character who can serve as our guide through your campaign and its setting.

Elowen’s Journal

"People always expect me to start with the part where I died. I understand why. It feels like the important part. But it is not the part that stayed with me.

I was gone for only a little while. Long enough to come back different. Long enough that the other world did not quite close behind me again. When I returned, I could see the dead everywhere. Not just sometimes. Not just when I was tired or frightened. Always. Every. Single. Moment. Do you know how many dead people still walk around in this world? The answer is "no you don't want to know."

At first, I thought that meant I was broken. My parents thought so too, even if they never said it out loud. But they did their best, and they brought me here. 

West Haven would not fix me. That is something Larina told me early on, and she was right. This place does not cure things like that. What it does is teach you how to live with them. The ghosts here do not rush me. They do not demand. Most of them barely notice me at all, which was a relief I did not know I needed.

I have been here almost three years now. I write to my parents often. It is easier than talking. Words behave better on paper. Larina suggested I keep journals as well, saying witches learn as much from writing as from spells. I think she meant that if I am going to carry all these voices with me, I need somewhere safe to put my own. I am still learning how to do that."

Designer’s Notes

Elowen began, only last week, as a design challenge in her own right.

I mentioned that Tales of the Valiant, Player’s Guide 2 had come in the mail just a week ago, and it had a “native” witch class. I opened it and the Pathfinder 2R RPG and began to look back and forth, thinking about what sort of witch I could create that would fit both sets of rules. One thing I also considered, but knew it would not be a problem (as you will see later today), was what sort of witch would fit my “Occult D&D” meets my “High Witchcraft Tradition” Advanced Witches & Warlocks.

Mirepoix

What came out of that was Elowen Hale. A quiet girl who had a terrible past. No, she was not an orphan. No, her parents were not cruel; in fact, it is a big part of her background that they loved her and have always wanted the best for her. No, the trouble is Elowen died. It was only for a few moments, and she came back, but it left her marked and changed. Her long black hair became stark white. She was quieter. She deliberated before she spoke because “once words are said, you can’t ever unsay them.”  And she sees ghosts. Everywhere. All the time.

Her parents, worried their daughter was cursed, tried everything. Doctors said she needs more red meat and sunlight. Priests said she needed more prayers and fasting. But none of that changed what had happened to her. So after two years of searching, her parents brought her to West Haven, where she could get the best magical help. Soon, it was revealed that Elowen Hale was neither cursed nor, worse, undead. She was a new witch (what is often called a “Baby Witch” in pagan circles, but she hates that and prefers “Liminal Witch”) and needed help in guiding her new powers. 

We join Elowen, and her cat "Mirepoix," as she discovers West Haven and its surroundings: the Goblin Wood, the “big city” of East Haven, the secrets of Haven Lake and the Haven Valley, and even, if she dares, the Broken Mountains and the standing stone circle known as the Cailleach's Bones.

Her death doesn’t give her “kewl powerz”; it explains the powers she already has at level 1.

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Join Adam Dickstein of Barking Alien, and his RPG CAMPAIGN TOUR CHALLENGE 2026!