The Green Folk (RPG Horror)

 From Tweet by Folk Horror Consortium

I keep a folder called Useful Twitter. Every so often someone posts an image or a graphic that I know I'm going to find useful in the future, and I save it there against the day when I need inspiration. For much the same reason I buy books like London Cameos and Fabian's London After Dark - not because I think the history is 110% reliable but because the stories can be useful inspiration.

The image looks a little too perfect, when all is said and done. But as an inspiration ...

The Green Folk

Horror, Urban, Any Modern Setting

This neighborhood is on the edge of redevelopment. Developers have been eyeing it up for years but, for one reason or another, the money was never there. Times change and opportunities arise. It looks as though the wrecker's ball is ready and the architects' plans are fully developed.

You are:

•  Impoverished renters or squatters who've recently moved in because there was nowhere else to go, or at least nowhere that was close enough to where you work/study.
• Urban explorers determined to map out the area before the wreckers move in.
• House strippers determined to steal everything that isn't nailed down before the wreckers move in.
• Social workers or equivalent do-gooders trying to reach out to the inhabitants before the wreckers move them on.
• Government workers or the equivalent tasked with mapping out and rezoning the area to make it easier for developers to move in.
• Party people who got completely blitzed at the last pub/bar and are wandering in a haze looking for somewhere else to go.

This row of houses and shops was once a bustling area but about sixty years back it started to slip into decline. Then came recessions, changes in government, urban blight, and before anyone realized what was going on there was almost nobody left. The people who do live here don't talk much to outsiders. They're not unfriendly, exactly. They just don't talk.

You'd have to look close to realize that they don't talk because they don't have mouths any more.

Characteristics of the neighborhood:

• Almost no lights after dark. The street lights are mostly bust, there are few businesses, and the houses/apartments keep their windows covered.
• Old-fashioned business signage, or businesses. Who calls themselves an Automat these days? Who operates a news stand? Is that a horse and cart down the street?
• Peculiar mold smell, like rotten straw.
• No children. At all. The school is vacant, as is the only playground.
• No vagrants. At all. Nobody spare-changing, nobody sleeping in alleyways.
• No buses or public transport. At all. There are still bus stops and one subway station, but no buses, no trains - no commuters. In or out.

The Awful Truth

1. Seed of Corruption. At the heart of it all is an old-fashioned botanical garden, in the grounds of a Victorian era house. It's the oldest home on the street, covered in ivy, and the garden at its center is a cultivated garden in perfect order. There are people living in the house who say they're the children/grandchildren/great grandchildren of Sebastian Montogomery, who built the garden. They all appear to be 30 years of age exactly, and they all look very alike. They maintain the garden. The garden is all that matters. The garden is the life ...
2. Disease But No Death. About [x] decades ago there was a pandemic that sickened millions and killed tens of thousands. In order to bring peace and some kind of solace to the people the priest of the local church obtained a relic (potentially a Mythos relic if this is a CoC style narrative) which they believed would cure those who kissed it. It prevented them from dying but it also prevented everything else; no children, no desire, no energy, no will to do anything but sleep during the day and wander aimlessly at night, except for certain nights of the year when they all gather in the church for ceremonies. The people who live here are basically harmless so long as they're not disturbed, but if they're disturbed ...
3. Joined In One Dream. The neighborhood everyone sees isn't the one that actually exists. There is something else under the skin, but that skin is the dreamworld of one of the people living here - or who used to live here, at least. Horror novelist Peonie Dark (aka Tom Ward) spent their entire life working on this reality, painted the walls of their apartment with images of the kind of story they wanted to express, went out at night with a spray can and a dream to create images of the world they wanted to tell stories about. As they became more active, and sicker, and sicker, the 'real world' began fading away; Peonie's fading life force couldn't keep the body alive but it could suppress the lives of everyone else. Now Peonie's basically a husk, empty of everything except a desire to create, and the world around them is their canvas.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!