Day 16-Are there any direct threats?
Who or what in your campaign actively means the people in it - including the PCs - harm?
Elowen’s Journal
"When people ask about threats, they usually mean something with teeth. An army. A monster. A name you can point to and say, 'that one.' I don’t think it works that way here.
There are names that change a room's temperature when spoken. You can feel it in your skin, like a window just opened somewhere you didn’t see. Even the ghosts react to some of them. They fall quiet. Or they leave. That scares me the most.
Kelek is one of those names. I don’t know much about him. Only that he hates witches, and that hatred feels old and practiced, like a blade sharpened over generations. The ghosts that remember him do not scream. They whisper. That somehow feels worse.
I also always hear awful things about Skylla, but the few times I have met her, she didn't seem that terrible to me.
There is someone called the Bone Man. I don’t know if that is his real name or just the one that survived him. He wants the magic of West Haven. Not the people. Not the land. Just the power that leaks out of everything here, whether we want it to or not. Ghosts do not like him. They do not like to say why. They do not like to be around when he is talked about.
East Haven scares me in a different way. Not because of monsters, but because of certainty. There are men there who believe witches should not exist at all. Not regulated. Not controlled. Erased. The ghosts from East Haven carry a lot of unfinished anger, and none of it is aimed at the right people.
Then there is Katrina.
She is on our side. I know that. She has saved my life. She has saved Aisling's life more than once. But she wants a world that belongs to witches alone, and when she talks about it, I understand why. I also understand why Larina listens carefully and says very little in response. Those two are going to have a fight one day, and I am not sure who is going to come out on top.
The most frightening threat does not have a name I am supposed to write down.
There is something the ghosts sometimes circle around without touching. Something they remember only in pieces. A presence that does not rage or conquer or declare itself king. It waits. It remains. Even Larina does not speak its name. At all.
If there is a single truth I have learned, it is this: West Haven is not threatened by invasion. It is threatened by people who want to define it. Control it. Simplify it. Turn it into something smaller and easier to rule.
The monsters are real. So are the ideologues. But the most dangerous things are the ones that believe they are right forever."
Designer’s Notes
Direct threats in West Haven are intentionally asymmetrical. Some are personal. Some are ideological. Some are cosmic. None should be what the characters or even the players expect.
Kelek represents institutionalized hatred of witchcraft through arcane authority. Skylla is a cautionary tale for witches. Normally I have been avoiding "other IP" in my West Haven, but these two have been such a staple in my games for so long it is hard to part with them.
The Bone Man embodies predatory magic seeking to extract power from place and people alike. He used to be a citizen of West Haven. He had been in charge of the gravesites, and for a while, he ruled as Lord Autumn in the Autumn sector. But his desire for power, both necromantic and political, drove him out of West Haven. Some say he left to find better ways to seize power; others say he was forced out by the Witch Queen at the time. He shows up occasionally, attempting to sow discord, but has not been seen in years now.
East Haven’s Patriarchy reflects systemic, conservative opposition to witches as a social and spiritual force. Thankfully, they do not represent all the people of East Haven, but they are rather vocal. They are followers of Providence Stoughton, one of the founders of the original Haven settlement and village. Stoughton was a devout member of the Lords of Light and the spiritual founder of the Church of Light in Old Haven. The Temple of Light in East Haven was dedicated to his memory. While Stoughton was a moderately conservative priest, he was not a fanatic. The Patriarch of East Haven though feels that since he founded the Haven Settlement all these lands, including West Haven, belong to him and therefore belong to his legacy, which they claim.
Katrina exists as a morally complex internal threat, an ally whose vision could become tyranny if unchecked. Sadly, if the Patriarchy were ever to become a true threat again, Katrina's position would grow more attractive, especially to younger witches. One thing I hope to convey through Elowen is that Katrina has some good points. It is through older witches like Larina and Esmé that we see what threat Katrina really brings.
The greatest long-term threat is The One Who Remains, a force that does not attack directly but erodes reality, memory, and identity over time. It is not always visible. It does not always act. But it is always present. The One Who Remains is also the threat that could cause all the participants above to put aside their differences and fit this greater foe.
West Haven survives not because it is strong, but because it refuses to be defined by outsiders.
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