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Spooky Little Town is on indefinite hiatus. Watch this space to be up to date on when we return. Thank you to all who came and played with us on our first round -- we loved writing with you!

#spookylittletown;announcement #thank you all!

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Coming out of the Council’s announcement, each eligible citizen of the Valley has been asked to draw their family tree. (Spoiler: all played characters are eligible citizens!).

For this task, we ask that you take a look at your character’s history and draw up 4-6 ancestors that take your character back to one of the founding families. Below are descriptions of each family -- and in your inbox, you’ll find a designation of which family you belong to.

This task may be written in bullet points, paragraphs, designed as images, or anything you like. Ancestors can include parents, cousins, aunties, siblings, great-grandfathers, and so on -- as long as it goes back in time enough to connect your character to their respective family.

Note: Your ancestral connection to your founding family can be through adoption, marriage, or any number of lines on a family tree. Magic inside this game follows its own path inside a family tree -- which means that being more closely tied to a family (e.g. Ms. Laurel Flory) does not necessarily make a character the best fit for the family heir. 

As you look at the family descriptions below, please consider how the traits of each might come forward in your character, influence how they might make decisions, or resonate with them.

Enjoy!

Wolgemuth Element: Air | Location: Wolgemuth Hall ALOOF WEALTHY INTELLIGENT  Spotted often by their raven hair, the Wolgemuths are the earliest settlers in the valley. While they had a reputation for being aloof for some time, they have (of late) begun to soften and mingle. A daughter, twice removed, even runs the tea-room on Abbott Street. 

Howell Element: Earth | Location: Ramsey Orchards AFFABLE RATIONAL WELCOMING  While the name on each farm changes, Kolp to Ramsey to Haines, each can trace their lineage back to one family: the Howells. Arriving in the second spring of the valley, the Howells are natural herbalists, sowing and reaping the benefits of the earth. They are known to be a friendly, affable sort. They always win the garden show in Poet's Corner. 

Andersson Element: Water | Location: Andersson Boathouse DEDICATED DETERMINED KIND It is unclear who really arrived to the valley first, for the Anderssons came by river and stream. Masters of water, they charted the rapids and turns, harnessing the power into the mill along Front Street, and blessing the valley with springtime rain. Their descendants are tall and lithe, and they walk with purpose.

Flory Element: Fire | Location: Flory’s Bakery DARING INSPIRED WARM The Florys thrive in extremes, which explains, quite possibly, how they arrived to the valley in the height of summer. A trail of bonfires marked their path through the north wood, slowly trickling down across the ridge-line. They are green-eyed and sharp, lighting up every room. You'll find a cluster of them behind the counter at the bakery, and can even take one of their famous pies home to enjoy.

P.S. Questions? Head to #contact-us in Discord to send a support ticket!

#spookylittletown;task

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Activity checks are triggered when we haven’t heard from you in-character in 5 days. You’ll have 24 hours to make an in-character post (or two! or three!) before we unfollow. Please note that memes, tasks, and inspo posts will not count toward activity. If you need a hiatus, please send us an ask!

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@maxwellbymoonlight​

#spookylittletown;unfollow #we'll miss you emzy!!

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[ In the early days of the new year, a bulletin appears on the corners of Front & Green, Gate & Abbott, and South & Linden Streets ]

THE ESTEEMED COUNCIL OF ALBION AND THE SURROUNDING GREEN VALLEY HOLDS AN ANNOUNCEMENT

With regret, we, the Council, inform the Albion and the Green Valley that our current plan to stymy the loss of magic inside the Valley seems to have failed. Precautions put in place earlier this year to siphon magic from those outside the Valley to better support our reserves has not led to a strengthening of magic inside -- nor has increased participation in Coven business. 

As our usual means of restoring balance have failed, we turn to our least-favorite option: the heirs.

While many families reside inside our borders, there were only four families to meet at the crossroads and found the Valley. Over time, these lineages have sprawled, expanded, and ultimately faded, leaving the four families of the Valley without clear heirs. It is necessary for the survival of our magic that the heirs to the founders be discovered and restored to their rightful place -- inside their families, and upon the Council.

We ask that all residents supply their family tree spanning back four generations to the Council by the end of the month for consideration. Those with legitimate connections to the families Howell, Andersson, Flory, and Wolgemuth will be entered into a contest for heirship and the keys to the Valley.

#spookylittletown;plot drop

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@dottyhampton

#spookylittletown;follow #welcome!

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DOROTHEA “DOTTY” OR “THEA” HAMPTON has arrived in Albion. While they may seem STRANGE, they are connected to the LOWER VALLEY HAMPTONS. Their passport was stamped at Falls Inn and shows that they are 28, 5’8”, with BLONDE HAIR and HAZEL EYES. Mrs. Kuiper at the Inn said that they seemed CURIOUS and SELF-REFLECTIVE, though they were seen MUTTERING TO HERSELF IN AN EVER MORE AGITATED TONE as they departed St. Catharine’s Depot. Be wary, and report any sightings to Madame Lange’s Tea Room.

January, 1915.

Mother says I should keep a journal, one that maintains a record of who I am and what I have been going through. She often seems to view my gifts as a trial. My siblings… they have all managed to grow up. They have left the home. It is just me and them now. Though to even say them is inaccurate. Father is so ill, he has been for so long, that he never even leaves the bedroom. I am forbidden from entering the room unless I am asked. Do not think I am complaining, to be in that room is to be communing with death itself. I can sense the water that fills his lungs. Once, when I was naive, I asked my mother if I could possibly try to use my gift to see if I could ease his pain. I can still feel her palm on my cheek. The waters nursed the sting though. I dream of living within those waters, as free as they are, as certain of who I am and should be as the fish that populate them. The waters are my only escape from this torment. The constant cries, the screams, the anger, and the prayers they grow louder every second when I trapped in this home. I must find a way to freedom. The river is calling for me. I will return to write in this.

December, 1915.

Father has passed from this world into the next. Mother claims that he has found himself in the embrace of their lord and savior. I could only nod and agree, though my heart was not in it. She needed the peace I could give her then, I suppose. The truth is that in these months I have realized some things. They may claim that their deity, their hero, their almighty is giving them all of these blessings but I can only see the suffering he has caused them. The farm was difficult to maintain when father was healthy. Next year, mother and I will have to attempt to keep it alive ourselves. She refuses to allow me to use my blessing to try to aid us. She demands that I keep myself separated from that aspect of myself. How dare she? Truly how dare she? I am offering her a gift and she spits in my face over her outdated belief of righteousness? If her deity is as great as she says how am I not a vessel he must be acting through? The old deities speak to me. They whisper to me in my dreams. Telling me to swim deeper, to reveal the secrets, to grow my power… to join them. I must do it. I need to grow more powerful to have a chance at working closer with them, to be more in tune with the water, the very force that gave me my true life. They buried father in a box. Left him in the ground. I wish they had sent him to the river.

September, 1919.

Mother and I have done all we can to keep this farm sustainable enough for us to survive. We have succeeded, barely, in just enough of a way that we have managed to find ourselves able to keep surviving and subsisting on the fruits of our labour. The question remains as to how much longer we will keep this up for. She and I rarely speak anymore unless it is of the work. Though I can still hear her prayers at night. The wretched cries that intermingle with it. None of my siblings have visited. Nor have they written. We are alone now, my mother and I. She goes to where they buried father’s corpse every weekend. I take the time to see the river. It is such a spiritual refreshing. I feel so strong afterwards, I could trick myself into thinking I could direct it through the valleys of this land. I met a very beautiful woman along the hill the other day actually. She is the new schoolteacher, the previous had been married. The way she smiled at me… it was like the river washing over me again. Yet, it is certainly just a flight of fancy. Nothing will ever be able to come of it. No matter how badly I may wish for a future with the wonderful Ms. McAleer.

November, 1921.

A week after the harvest it happened. Mother collapsed in the kitchen as she was preparing a meal for the three of us. Even with Victoria’s help the last two years, my mother’s aging body could only have held out so long. She is dying. Myself and Victoria will have to go it alone this next year. Though with her remaining as a schoolteacher, this will mean I will bear the brunt of this work. I am not made for this. I am not a woman of strength, I am a woman of the mind. How could I have forgotten that through this last few years. Yes, I had helped where I could before father passed but I had never been the driving force behind the plow, I had never been the one who had to determine where we could harvest and for how long. Tonight is a night of utter suffering. Mother is dying. I doubt she will recover. And I do not know how I will be able to maintain this place on my own. Even with Victoria’s help.

February, 1922.

Today was my birthday. It was the worst day of my life. I am hidden, stuck in a forest grove near the river. I had tried in the last few days to till and to prepare as much of the soil as I could, but it was futile. Mother died two days ago. I… I had hated her, yes. Yet now I feel this intense guilt for this longing and this desire I have for her, I need her here with me again. When I got home, and I heard the silence I knew. The fields had taken so much out of me… and when I entered her room she was there. A corpse on a bed. I had begun to cry. I had silently wished the water would take away this anchor of a farm that choked me every day until I would wither and die like this woman who laid in my mother’s clothes… I don’t recall trying to bring the water up. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was a deepest purpose within me. The river burst from its banks. It came like a monster, ravaging the town, the homes, the farm, the people. I survived, of course. But when I walked out of my home, the people were there. There must have been rumors for years of my true nature. The girl born of water, the water spirit incarnate. They came at me with torches. They threw rocks. They wanted me gone. The most terrifying sight of it all? Victoria McAleer... she wasn’t fighting them, she wasn’t defending me, she was at their head. She had organized them. Called them to come and punish the “evil water witch”. To drive me from my home. I wonder if my heart will ever recover. Tonight, I am 28. I will wander this path. I will see where it may lead me. And hopefully, one day, I will be able to rebuild a life for myself. Tonight I toss this book in the river. To rest with what I have forgotten, with my home, and my family. The waters will lead me. The river will be my guide. Farewell forever, beloved home. You were my prison. And yet you were where I belonged. Farewell, and may I live enough days to see this town swept away by the river’s fury.

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Welcome welcome to the valley! Please send in your account within 24 hours – and follow the checklist to get set up. 💚

#spookylittletown;accepted #period rp #magical rp #coven rp #lsrp #literate rp

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+1 application for The Blessing, written by Tali!

#spookylittletown;application #the blessing

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@bert--finch​

#spookylittletown;follow #the explorer #!!! yay!

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Activity checks are triggered when we haven’t heard from you in-character in 5 days. You’ll have 24 hours to make an in-character post (or two! or three!) before we unfollow. Please note that memes, tasks, and inspo posts will not count toward activity. If you need a hiatus, please send us an ask!

@quiltmakereffie​ @smilton

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The Path of the Stars sincerely apologizes for postponed snowfall meeting ("as the stars foretold!"), but heartily invites one and all to the coven's annual Winter Solstice Festival! Same place (cedar grove north of Albion) and same time (midnight), but now with fun celestial-themed booths and activities, and cauldrons of round-shaped savories and sweets.

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Interested in a sweet? Interested in joining the celestial magic coven? Be on the lookout for starters later today! 💫

#spookylittletown;path of the stars

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JOHN ALBRECHT “BERT” FINCH has arrived in Albion. While they may seem FAMILIAR, they are connected to the NORTHWOOD FINCHES. Their passport was stamped at Falls Inn and shows that they are 27, 5’10”, with BLACK HAIR and BROWN EYES. Mrs. Kuiper at the Inn said that they seemed WINSOME and COURTEOUS, though they were seen BELTING OUT A DRINKING SONG as they departed St. Catharine’s Depot. Be wary, and report any sightings to Madame Lange’s Tea Room.

Empty the bag. Interpret the signs.

Bert Finch never truly enjoyed sitting through his classes, but he could not deny that what he was taught had stuck to him, like climbing ivy weaving through an iron gate.

A cowrie shell, atop a snake vertebrae. Birth and death.

For such a sunny fella, there was nothing joyful about his arrival to this world. Bert was born on one snowy night in 1896, to the reclusive Finch family, a renowned clan of historians and collectors, owners of the only antique store in Albion. His mother, Adelaide, perished soon after a tortuous delivery (downsides of living away from the town proper, where a doctor couldn’t reach without putting themselves at the mercy of the winter storm), leaving the Finches as a household made up of three generations of lonesome men. As with so many other young people raised in Albion, Bert was saddled with the branches of a hefty family tree: traditions, rituals, expectations... And, most of all, warnings; after all, hedge witchcraft could be particularly unpredictable.

A sparrow feather and a chipped milk tooth, atop a mirror shard. Freedom, instability, lacking clarity.

A bohemian at heart, Bert often escaped his obligations, if not by daydreaming, by climbing out the window to go play with the other children in the village fields, regaling them with bone casting exercises, feats of divination, and detailed descriptions of all the places he would travel to, both in this plane and beyond the veil. He had always liked to tell tall tales –never with malice, though invariably with a little bit of fantasy peppered in for flavor. Outwardly confident, for all his apparent bravura Bert has not known a time when he was not terrified of the horror stories his father had told him, of careless adventurers meeting untimely ends. Still, the fear of rejection and familial disappointment was never enough to dissuade him from testing his limits, venturing further on the other side of the veil. His father, also born with a natural knack at fortune telling, never had much patience for  his youngest son’s flights of fancy. Anselm Finch, faithful student of the eldest Finch patriarch, had lived through the hunts, and was intimately familiar with the dangers of abusing his luck. But no morality tale could deter young Bert from wanting to see everything that lay beyond Albion.

A wishbone curved up, a leg bone looking down, crossed. Happiness at a cost, familial tensions.

Alfie, his older brother, was never quite as gifted as he was at magic. Nor as the rest of the Finches, actually. Grandfather Al died before he could teach the eldest child what he knew; it never came easy to him, as it came to his younger brother. While Bert wanted to leave Albion in search of adventure, Alfie’s goals were more mundane. Nevertheless, neither would reject a traveling companion.

The last memories, each on an edge of the circle, forming a triangle, pointing back at him. An upside-down key, a cat’s eye, an oyster shell. Secrets, betrayal, misunderstandings.

A plan was made, supplies were gathered, and Bert and Alfie Finch finally left Albion on a breezy spring night in 1916. They wandered for a long time, going out west in search of better luck. Previous underlying tensions arose on the road, and more often than not the two brothers found themselves bickering just about everything, especially as Alfie fell in love and began setting roots, and Bert kept living his life as a rolling stone. In the early fall of 1917, after a particularly nasty quarrel, Bert locked himself in his room, shed his body, and traveled far away from the inn where they were staying, far away from his brother, his responsibilities, and their dull concerns.

He could not find his way back.

In 1921, Bert woke up, thin and sickly, in a different place. Dark, damp, dusty, and worst of all, silent. He was in the basement of a townhouse, and after screaming his head off for help, his brother, now five years older, opened the hatch. And Bert was shown the way upstairs to a dining room, and to a wife, and to a child. Alfie had moved on with his life; and now, with Bert back on this plane, new plans were made, so he could go back to Albion. But Bert was not done exploring the world beyond his hometown. If there was something that his out-of-body experience taught him, it was that life was too short to spend it eating blackberry pie by the window and watching the trees shed their leaves. There was excitement to be found, and technology abound, and carnivals and music halls and movie theaters and fast cars. He had one last big argument with Alfie, and then he was gone. Bert wasn’t getting any younger, after all.

There was no fixed destination, and so, his only goal was to quench his all-encompassing need to see, feel, hear everything the world had to offer him. It took Bert two years to make his way back to Albion. He didn’t plan for it; but the idea was still there, sprouting from the first seed, gnawing at the back of his mind. The youngest Finch traveled without a map, since, according to him, one cannot be lost if one has no predetermined path in the first place. And yet... Yet he kept going east, across rivers and fields, away from the big cities and into the forests and the villages. And, before he could realize where he was standing among the mist, Bert felt a familiar chill –a déja vu, as he had learned to call it, an overlapping of time... And, to his dismay, the overwhelming yearning that had been haunting him became a little less severe, as he felt himself back at home.

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Welcome welcome to the valley! Please send in your account within 24 hours – and follow the checklist to get set up. 💚

#spookylittletown;accepted #the explorer #your writing is beautiful!!

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The Explorer is reserved with a faceclaim of Chance Perdomo for Casi!

#period rp #magical rp #coven rp #ls rp #literate rp #app rp

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Happy holidays, everyone! Knowing the next ten days will be a little busy away from the valley, we are going to postpone our next release of the Albion Gazette until just after the new year. In the meantime, here are several ways to get involved:

The first snow has whipped through the valley, coating the foothills and lanes in snow. Whether your character was caught out in it, or cozy at home, they wake to drifts against doorways and street lamps wrapped in frost. Reblog our starter meme and send a few starters to get in the spirit!

A little closer to home is our first task! Take the element quiz and make a moodboard of how your character’s elements influence their home (and, er, where they’re living might be good, too!).

Seeking to mingle a bit? Our latest issue of The Albion Gazette has several events, including the Lord of the Northwood contest, kittens at Spaden and Speck’s, and a sewing circle at the grand Wolgemuth Hall. Take a look and start a thread.

If you’re still getting set up, be sure to write up your wanted connections/plots you want to have, and get them posted on your blog (along with your biography!). You can find more detail in #read-first.

Cheers! Safe travels, glad tidings -- wherever you might be this season. 💚

#spookylittletown;news

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@quiltmakereffie​

#spookylittletown;follow #yay!!

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Welcome to Meme Friday at Spooky Little Town! Each Friday (usually), we’ll post one or two memes for characters to reblog on their accounts. Reblogging the meme indicates that you are accepting asks from it, and that you’re also sending asks out to others. Enjoy! 💚

Send a symbol and I’ll start a thread for us after the first snow in the valley. As a note -- my character refers to the sender of the meme. So, if Annie were to send Clara the first one, it would be Sallie finding Ruthie slipping on the ice. 

🧊 to find my character slipping on the ice. 🚪 to help my character shovel open their front door. ☕️ to meet my character as the only one on the street at Albey’s Traveling Café. ☃️ to catch my character (delightedly?) making a snow angel. 🤕 to discover my character was injured (sprained their ankle, broke their arm, etc -- please specify!) getting home in the storm. 🥓 to open the door and find my character just about to knock -- whatever you’re cooking smells so tempting. 💥 to catch my character about to confront Mrs. Quince for her gossip... and distract them. 🍁 to bring an extra pair of snow-shoes and bring my muse to check the maple syrup taps (and escape their family/neighbors/persistent cat).

#spookylittletown;memes

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@oftenderhands @hattie-dreamt-of-apples

#spookylittletown;unfollow #the outsider #the lighthearted