NO EXITS

On the seventh day at precisely 1:32 AM, the campus once more resets. Everyone trapped in the experiment falls unconscious (if not sleeping already) only to wake up sometime afterward in their assigned bed, in their assigned room, in their assigned dorm in the exact condition they arrived, wearing the precise clothing they arrived in.

Gone is the chaos or excitement of the previous week. What remains of Derleth University has returned to its gentle void so all its guests may recuperate peacefully. The dining hall kitchens have been restocked, and despite being sunk at the bottom of the ocean last week, all is mostly well again at Derleth.

It was almost a quiet week.

Sometime between the night of day one and the morning of day two, someone released the ghosts of Derleth. (Spoiler Alert: it was Quentin.) Now it’s up to the residents of Derleth to deal with them.

HUNGRY SPIRITS
(As seen in The Shining.)

Some ghosts are hungry, feeding on psychic power, magical energies. These are some of the most dangerous ghosts characters will encounter. They’re the ghosts most aware of the living at Derleth and the most likely to actively try to harm them.

HORRIFIC WARNINGS
(As seen in Crimson Peak, The Haunting of Hill House.)

Not all ghosts will try to harm your characters, however. Some will try to provide a warning, perhaps scare characters away from the more dangerous ghosts. Too bad these ghosts generally look terrifying in their own right.

RELIVING THEIR WORST MOMENT
(As seen in The Magicians, The Haunting of Bly Manor.)

Some ghosts simply relive their trauma on a loop, over and over again. They might not mean to be cruel, but get caught in their loop and you might be in a situation where you meet the exact same grizzly end as the ghost. Try not to get sucked in.

JUST FUCKING WEIRD.
(As seen in Ghostbusters or Beetlejuice.)

Okay, but some ghosts might look like a random green slime ball and leave you covered in ectoplasm. Others might just want to sing and get you to lip sync to their favorite song. They’ve been dead a while and while not actively harmful, they’re probably not totally sane, either.

YOUR AU SELF.
(??????)

There have been other Derleths in other realities. For some reason ghosts from those AUs may have been trapped on this Derleth. Now that they’re free, you might run into the ghosts of people you recognize around campus. What type of ghost these AUs are can vary by the circumstances of their AU death. AU ghosts will disappear after this plot and 100% optional.

THEY CAN HURT YOU
(As seen in The Frighteners.)

But you can’t hurt them. Try to throw a punch, and you’ll swing right through their incorporeal bodies. Too bad the same thing can’t be said for ghosts. And if the ghosts are holding a ghostly weapon? You may be fucked. You’re gunna have to figure out a way around that.

YOU CAN’T SEE THEM
(As seen in Th13teen Ghosts.)

Ghosts don’t always visually manifest, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. If they get hostile or emotional, then you’ll typically be able to see them unless they’re especially nasty and clever. But at any given moment? There may be a ghost nearby.

REALITY WARPING
(As seen in The Magicians, The Haunted Mansion.)

Ghosts can warp your perception of reality in one of two ways. Ghosts stuck in a time loop will take you back to the time they were alive, giving you snippets of their life before death. Dangerous ghosts, however, can warp your perceptions to make you feel trapped some place unrecognizable.

IT’S SO COLD
(As seen in House on Haunted Hill, Supernatural.)

The temperature will drop several degrees before a ghost becomes active, regardless of if you can see them or not. If things get cold, look out!

ALSO JUST REALLY SCARY?
(As seen in The Haunting on Hill House.)

Whether the ghost means you harm or not, most ghosts have an unnatural presence which can make them terrifying to observers whether they mean to be or not, whether the ghost has a corpse-like appearance or not. Manifesting without activating that sense of terror is a skill most ghosts don’t possess.

POSSESSION
(As seen in The Frighteners, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

Yes, sometimes ghosts can possess one of the living. It might be because they’re stuck in a time loop, are trying to resolve unfinished business, or they’re just an asshole that want to use someone living to attack their own friends and loved ones.

It’s going to be up to your characters to deal with the more dangerous, violent spirits. Unfortunately, and perhaps to everyone’s surprise, once the ghosts are released, they don’t reset back to their locked rooms the following week.

So use this week to contain/destroy the scarier spirits*, but from now on Derleth is just going to be a little bit more haunted. Oops.

*For best results, work together as a team. Find ways your characters can use their abilities together. Perhaps even have your characters come dangerously close to failure or have a setback at some point. Easy doesn’t equal interesting or fun.

Can my ultra powerful character fix everything in a day because they’re so rad?

Do you even understand how RP and cooperative storytelling works?

Can something from my character’s canon affect the ghosts?

An example might be cold iron as seen in Supernatural. You’re free to use solutions from your character’s canon, but feel free to have it work on some ghosts but not others. Add some complications! Make things challenging! Do what is dramatically appropriate.

Can my character get possessed by a ghost?

Yes! Just be careful with any non-con issues? Like if your AU ghost is in love with an AU version of a character in game? That could be interesting to write and make for a cool line, but have excellent communication with fellow players and don’t veer into non-con.

Can my character make an object to store a ghost in? Does it reset?

Yes, your character can enchant (or science up) a device to trap ghosts. No, it will not reset. However the item could break? Yikes. Where you gunna store those ghosties?

So the AU ghosts go away after the week?

Yes, those are the only ones to disappear on their own. Something about your being there, and them being there at the same time sort of cancels them out after the week.

Do the AU ghosts have to be from the same AU as Marty’s Thomas/Crimson Peak AU?

Nope. They just have to be from an AU of some version of Derleth. If you haven’t noticed, we’ve seen a few AU Derleths already; 1950s Derleth, pirate Derleth, academic Derleth… You can continue one of those or make up something new! This is 100% optional. If I like your AU and your story idea behind it, maybe we’ll see it in the future. Dun dun dun!

How scary/violent are the ghosts?

That’s up to you and your writing. Just please use content warnings and remember the restricted content found in the rules still applies.

Wait, what about the monolith? Weren’t the ghosts scared of it?

Yes, and they still are. Not that you will want to get too close to the monolith, but you won’t see any hauntings there. However, now that the ghosts are free, they have some energy to release and you’ll find them haunting everywhere else on campus.

There’s a ghost trope/type/ability you didn’t use!

The list was more or less to give you ideas. If you have another idea for a ghost trope to throw into the game, let me know! As long as it isn’t game breaking, I’ll probably give it the thumbs up.

How many ghosts were released?

We have nine-hundred and ninety-nine happy (and not so happy) haunts here, but there’s room for a thousand. Any volunteers?

• Remember the new room assignments go into effect for this plot. Your character will wake up somewhere new with new roommate(s).
• Check out the last void week for notes about the changes Derleth has gone through over the course of the game. (There might be some alcohol back from pirate world, but who knows if those folks are sharing.)
• Remember you’re in a Void. There is no sun or moon, which means vampires can be out all times of the day and werewolves won’t be forced to change (or however the moon might affect them).
• One of my writing mentors wrote this essay on ghost stories, just in case that inspires you.