Assignment #708:

If It Bleeds, It Leads
 If It Bleeds, It Leads

An Assignment for Candela Obscura

Content warning: Serial Killers, Body Horror, Medical

Experimentation, Allusions to Suicide
Legal notice: This product was created using the Darrington Press Community Gaming License. The Illuminated Worlds
Standard Resource Document is owned and copyrighted by Darrington Press, LLC. All rights reserved. This product is
Adaptive from or based on content created and owned by Darrington Press. Candela Obscura, Darrington Press, LLC, 2023,
available at https://darringtonpress.com/. The Public Game Content identified above is licensed via the Darrington Press
Community Gaming License, available at https://darringtonpress.com/. The Public Game Content has been modified by the
author. There were no previous modifications by others. Darrington Press™ and the Darrington Press authorized work logo
are trademarks of Darrington Press, LLC and used with permission.

1
Premise
Threats

Dramatis Personae

Exploration
Exploration I: The City Morgue

Exploration II: The Apartment

Escalation
Escalation I: The Navarre House
Climax: The Mortenebran

2

A Note from the
Reliquary
This tome is a work of Nostromo's Reliquary, where the
arcane meets the terrifying in tabletop role-playing
adventures. We craft immersive and spine-tingling tales that
span the realms of horror, mystery, and steampunk for a
diverse array of TTRPG systems.
Our creations are not just stories; they are immersive
experiences designed to captivate your emotions and
leave you on the edge of your seat. Whether you're
navigating the dark secrets of a haunted mansion, solving
enigmatic mysteries in a steam-powered metropolis, or
facing ancient evils in eldritch landscapes, our games
promise inclusive narratives and unforgettable horrors. Join
us on a journey where your choices matter, and the
shadows hold more than mere secrets.
Nostromo's Reliquary invites you to explore the unknown,
confront your deepest fears, and embark on tabletop
adventures that will linger in your thoughts long after the
game ends. Get ready for a rollercoaster of emotions and a
thrilling ride into the realms of the unknown!
Most cryptically yours,
Nostromo
A window into our editorial process - please forgive the
typos!
Where to Find Our Work:
Itch.io
Access our full archive of games and resources, no log-in
required!
https://nostromosreliquary.itch.io/
Drive Thru RPG
Keep your tomes organized if you prefer Drive Thru RPG by
using the link below.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/24803/Nostromos
-Reliquary
Reddit
Stay up-to-date with the latest grimoires by joining the
subreddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CandelaObscura/
A note on payments: While we are greatly flattered if you
decide to pay-what-you-want or donate, we hardly expect it!
To support us for free, leave a review, let us know how your
game went in the comment section, or best of all, share this
game with a friend.
Great Communities to Join
Candela Obscura Discord
Join the conversation here, particularly in the Lightkeeper’s
Lounge channel:
https://discord.com/channels/1120015793845981316/
Darrington Press Discord
Support the creators here, particularly in the Candela
Homebrew channel:
https://discord.com/channels/1071224283319246869/
Get the Rule Set
Candela Obscura Quickstart Guide
For dabbling investigators and their fledgling Lightkeepers,
the Quickstart Guide offers a free introduction into the world
of Candela Obscura.:
https://shop.critrole.com/products/candela-obscura-quicksta
rt-guide
Candela Obscura Core Rulebook
When you’re ready to dive into the arcane mysteries in
depth, get the Candela Obscura Core Rulebook for the
complete setting and rules:
https://shop.critrole.com/products/candela-obscura-core-rul
ebook
Note: We are in no way endorsed by Darrington Press or
Critical Role, but we think they are great!
3
Premise
A murderer stalks the streets of Newfaire. Noted surgeon
Dr. Samuel Haversham was killed in his elegant residence
in the Sidle, and a dark message scrawled in his blood: I
KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
As the investigators unravel the mystery, they see eerily
similar signs cropping up all around them that the killer
intends to strike again. Can the investigators stop them in
time?
Threats
The Mortenebran (body/Bleed):
The Mortenebran is a vaguely humanoid creature from
beyond the Flare, possessed of a peculiar sense of justice.
It stalks those who have grievously harmed others, and kills
anyone who gets in its way - investigators included!
The Paparazzi (brain):
The journalists’ saying goes “If it bleeds, it leads” - and this
investigation is certainly bloody! The press are closely
following this case with ghoulish interest, raising the tension
for your investigators and shining an unwelcome light on the
activities of Candela Obscura.
dramatis personae
The Surgeon:
Dr. Samuel Haversham (he/him)
The Detective:
Inspector Vivian Navarre (she/her)
The Paparazzi:
Lydia Devereux (she/her)
Dr. Samuel Haversham, the Surgeon
Hooks
Read this section to the players as the hook for this
adventure:
An older man with a revolver careens into the study. He
fumbles for a key in the elegant mahogany desk, locking
the door with an unsteady hand. In a rush, he flips over
the framed photograph on the desk, knocks framed
artwork off of the walls with a crash of breaking glass,
and tilts a standing mirror so that it faces the wall.
Breathing hard, he wheels wildly, pointing his revolver at
the encroaching shadows.
“Come out, you bastard!” he shouts, backing up towards
an elegantly curtained window.
A shadow of a clawed hand emerges from just behind
him. It is about to touch his robed shoulder, when the
scene cuts to black. There is a scream in the darkness,
followed by gunshots.
Feel free to use one of these hooks to further customize the
assignment to your Circle of investigators.
Scientific Community:
You know Dr. Samuel Haversham - as a colleague at
Grayslate Sanitorium, a fellow scientist, or a macabre
observer of his lectures in the public morgue. When you
receive word of his death, you feel obliged to answer the
call for investigators.
A Stringer for the Halen Star:
Freelance work is hard to break into as a journalist in
Newfaire. You may have found your big break - Editor Zyair
Adisa (they/them) from The Halen Star needs a stringer on
a breaking murder case, someone close to the action and
unknown to the Periphery. You leap at the career-making
opportunity.
Ghoulish Revenge:
Someone known to you was dissected by the noted
surgeon and put on display in front of an operating theater
of murmuring strangers in the City Morgue. This never sat
right with you, and you’ve been looking for your chance to
discredit the surgeon ever since. As you hear of his death,
you see an opportunity to give the man a taste of his own
medicine.
As always, customize these assignment hooks to make a
compelling investigation that suits your Circle!
A Note on Clues:
Clues are provided with suggested context, but feel free to
rework the clues to be discovered by your investigators
based on their line of inquiry and dice rolls. If the clue is a
page of a journal, for instance, you might find the same
information by asking a journalist about the subject.
The “Three Clue Rule” describes how to use this technique
in detail, and is generally a great resource!
4
Arrival
Read this section to the players:
You’ve been called in by Candela Obscura at the request
of your local contact in the Periphery. There was a grisly
murder in an affluent section of The Sidle, and the
responding detectives are at a loss to explain the crime.
Arriving on Mulberry Street, you are greeted by solemn
and venerable Brownstones illuminated by recently
installed electric lamps. A crowd of journalists and
onlookers swells with anticipation and morbid curiosity
around the address you seek.
The journalists, feverishly scribbling notes and snapping
the occasional flashbulb photograph, jostle for prime
positions to capture any sensational detail of the crime.
The onlookers, a mix of concerned neighbors and
thrill-seekers, whisper amongst themselves, their faces a
tapestry of shock and fascination.
Reveal: A classic locked-room mystery, Dr. Samuel
Haversham was killed in his study with all doors and
windows locked. A grisly scene awaits the investigators.
Your Circle of investigators are provided with an address on
Mulberry Street in The Sidle, the wealthiest part of an
up-and-coming middle class neighborhood. Homes are
respectable brick Brownstones with comparatively spacious
lawns.
The address your investigators are seeking has a small
crowd of reporters and onlookers outside, perhaps 20
people in all. Several uniformed Periphery officers have
cordoned off the steps leading up
To enter the home, the investigators will need to be creative.
The home has the following characteristics:
● The front door is blocked by a police cordon.
Periphery officers will let you through, as you are
expected, but you will need to produce identity
cards. The journalists will not miss this.
● The back door is accessible through a back alley. It
is locked but unguarded.
● If accosted by the journalists, be sure to introduce
the smiling face of Lydia Devereux of the Newfaire
Inquirer. She may even follow the investigators if
they could have reasonably been tailed. She would
love to snap a photograph and get a few details
like the names of assisting detectives, but she is
perfectly comfortable inventing the rest.
● Several of the journalists tuck cards into the
investigators pockets or palms, in case the
investigators want to contact them later.
Lydia Devereux, the Journalist
If your investigators enter the Haversham residence, read
this section to the players:
Making your way into the Haversham home, you see a
neatly ordered display of middling affluence being
actively trodden on. Periphery officers and inspectors are
cataloging the house, looking for clues. Some are milling
around in small groups, eying you suspiciously. They
seem to be making little progress.
The first floor contains a well-kept library and sitting
room, filled with the latest medical journals and scientific
texts. A fastidiously cleaned kitchen and dining room are
also located here.
The second floor contains a master bedroom, a guest
bedroom, and a cordoned-off door to the study.
Your investigators will be rapidly introduced to the senior
detective on the case, Inspector Vivian Navarre. She is a
tough former beat cop who has recently been promoted to
detective. On her recommendation, your outside group of
investigators was brought in when the evidence did not add
up into a feasible crime. Vivian is a recurring character in
this Assignment, so be sure to volunteer her to provide
information from the Periphery to the investigators as a
liaison. She makes emphatically clear that your
investigators are to avoid the press outside, as she will
tolerate no leaks.
Inspector Navarre will rapidly catch the investigators up on
the victim’s background: Dr. Haversham is a respected
surgeon who performs well-attended autopsies at the City
Morgue. He is a leading mind in the emergent science of
neurosurgery. His attending work in neurosurgery has saved
countless lives at Grayslate Sanitorium. He has no known
enemies.
5

Vivian Navarre, the Periphery Inspector
If the players opt to investigate the home, they may find:
● The ash trays in the home are filled to overflowing.
The housekeeper, a nervous individual named
Alex Sinclair (they/them), notes that Dr.
Haversham smoked when anxious.
● An old photo of Dr. Haversham and his family sits
on a table in the sitting room, flipped over so that it
is obscured. He is a widower, and the two children
in the photo would be young adults by now.
● Dr. Haversham’s doctor's bag contains the tools of
his trade as well as patient notes. A surprising
number of his patients at Grayslate Sanatorium
died under his care, perhaps a 60% mortality rate.
● As noted in his research notes or diary, the
doctor’s methods are experimental, and he is
looking to perfect new techniques in brain surgery.
His reach may exceed his grasp, however, as he
believes in popular but inaccurate medical theories
like phrenology.
● Dr. Haversham’s housekeeper or colleagues at
Grayslate can confirm that he was unmoved by the
deaths of his patients. A few lives were a small
price to pay for the advancement of medical
science, he would say.
If your investigators enter the second floor study, read this
section to the players:
Once the cordon is removed, you are able to enter the
second floor study. The room is wrecked and stinks of
fresh blood mixed with gunpowder. Paintings have been
knocked off the walls, their glass shattered on the lush
carpet. The long mahogany desk, cracked by a stray
bullet, has a face-down photograph of the doctor’s family.
The door of the room still has a key in its lock on the
inside.
The body of Dr. Haversham lays face down, surrounded
by a dark congealed pool. He has been brutally attacked,
his robe hanging off in ribbons, slashed as though by
razor-sharp blades. A revolver is curled limply under one
cold hand.
Scrawled on the wall in the dark brown of dried blood, in
madly weaving handwriting, is the phrase: “I KNOW
WHAT YOU DID”
If the players opt to investigate the room, they may find:
● The door was locked prior to being kicked in by the
Periphery’s responding officers.
● Footprints have thoroughly spoiled the crime
scene, as the responding officers trampled
everything before Inspector Navarre arrived and
took control of the scene. On a remarkably
successful roll, your investigators might glean a
single bloody bare footprint, unnaturally elongated
and leaving marks like claws.
● The blood on the scene, particularly scrawled
across the wall, is contaminated by bleed. Some of
the responding officers may show signs of bleed
sickness.
● The blood was smeared on the wall by hand and
lacks fingerprints. A particularly astute investigator
will notice a pattern, denoting that the hand had
long fingernails or claws.
● Two bullet holes are in evidence, one through the
desk, and the other through the book shelf on the
opposite side of the room. Whoever Dr.
Haversham was firing at was moving quickly, or the
Doctor was firing wildly. In reality, it was the latter
option, as the Doctor was grabbed from the
window behind.
● The Doctor left a cryptic note in his desk: “Voices
emanate from mirror. Symbolic? Psychosomatic?
Stress?”
A note on Journalism in Newfaire
As this Assignment heavily features the press, it helps to
know who is who in the world of Newfaire journalism. Feel
free to use the following lore for your background
information or supply it to an in-the-know investigator.
The Civil Tribune
Like many turn-of-the-century new outlets, The Civil
Tribune works hand-in-glove with the Primacy. Coverage
is fawning for friends of the government, and scathing
towards those who stand in the way or expose
inconvenient truths.
The Halen Star
A reputable paper with a roster of internationally-known
journalists, the Halen Star is progressive periodical often
at odds with the Periphery. One of few publications to
contain rare but accurate accounts of the supernatural.
The Newfaire Inquirer
This tabloid will print anything scandalous and salacious
for the sheer entertainment value of it. Little attention is
paid to the factual accuracy of the coverage. Some
stories are made up from whole cloth, while others
contain tidbits of truth provided by sources with an ax to
grind.
McLeod’s Magazine
Originally a literary journal, McLeod’s publishes both
fiction as well as well-researched investigative
journalism. McLeod’s reporters are called “muckrakers”
by their enemies in the elite, due to their propensity for
uncovering official corruption and scandalous conditions
for the city’s poor.
6
Exploration I: The
City Morgue

Reveal: Dr. Haversham was unethical, even by the

standards of the day, taking little care to keep his patients
alive.
Read the following section as players approach The
Newfaire Morgue:

The Newfaire Morgue is an imposing brick edifice, a

peculiar nexus of curiosity and the ceaseless march of
medical progress.
Within, gas-lit operating theaters draw a mix of medical Dr. Hiroki Tanaka, the Medical Examiner
students, curious intellectuals, and those with a morbid
fascination for the macabre. The echoing footsteps of the
attending anatomists mingled with the occasional gasp or Exploration II:
The Apartment
murmur from the gallery. The entire building, from the
lobby to the operating theaters, reeks of formaldehyde.
An attendant smiles at you politely from the central lobby
desk, ready to offer directions.

The Newfaire Morgue serves two constituencies with its
public autopsies of the city’s unclaimed dead: scientific
types and those with a gruesome taste in entertainment. In
a bustling, turn-of-the-century city like Newfaire, there is no
shortage of both.
The attendant on duty will assume that you are members of
the public here to observe autopsies. If you ask to speak
with Dr. Haversham’s colleagues, you will be directed to Dr.
Hiroki Tanaka (he/him).
If the players opt to question Dr. Tanaka, they may learn:
● Dr. Haversham’s public autopsies were well
attended, and he had a flair for both bleeding-edge
research and showmanship.
● His techniques on skull trepanation, drilling into the
skull to reduce pressure after a traumatic injury,
are the state-of-the-art and actively saving lives.
● Once, a friend or associate of the deceased
attempted to interrupt an autopsy. This happens
from time to time, and staff quickly intervene
against any interruptions.
● He believed in phrenology, the pseudoscience that
criminality and other behavior could be determined
by the shape of the skull. Hardly controversial at
this time, Dr. Tanaka believes it also.
● With an appropriate test, Dr. Tanaka will reveal that
Dr. Haversham was unconcerned whether the
patients of his experimental treatments survive.
The excess fatalities were “a small price to pay” for
medical advancements.
● With significant convincing, Dr. Tanaka will reveal
that he thinks an unreasonable number of Dr.
Haversham’s patients arrived for autopsies after
failed operations. More than any other surgeon he
can think of, certainly.
Reveal: The killer has struck again - this time, the victim is
someone the investigators know, the journalist Lydia
Devereux.
Depending on how the investigators bonded with the
characters in the first act, the introduction to this next phase
may differ. Here are a few suggestions, choose the option
which will resonate best with your table:
● Lydia sends the investigators a telegram or courier
note asking for assistance. She is being stalked
and hearing whispered voices, and has made no
friends in the Periphery to help her with her loose
reporting.
● If the investigators actively dislike Lydia, make the
approach through Inspector Navarre, who would
have been called in to investigate the crime scene
after Lydia’s death. Inspector Navarre sends a
runner to collect the investigators at once.
Lydia’s apartment is located down a crowded alley in The
Sidle, newly built but definitely not an affluent block. The
apartment backs up to the still ruined Westwreck district,
with its landmines and shell-pocked landscape.
When the players enter the building, read the following:
The apartment block is located down a dead-end alley,
just beside the still-scarred ruins of Westwreck.
Entering past a bored-looking doorman, you head up the
stairs beyond a broken brass elevator. Lydia’s address is
on the fourth floor, wedged in between tightly packed
apartments.
Luckily, you seem to have beaten the press here. There
is no crowd waiting outside the door.

7
When the players enter the unit, read the following:
The unit is cramped, with two small desks and a sofa
crowded into the main room, which doubles as the
kitchen.
One of the desks has a typewriter with a half-finished
page inserted and yellowed newsprint pinned to the wall
behind it, with the byline underlined in pencil.
A man who looks to have been crying sits on the sofa,
with Inspector Navarre standing beside him taking notes.
She gives the investigators an inscrutable look as she
snaps the notepad closed.
Four rooms branch off of the main room - two bedrooms, a
bathroom, and a darkroom filled with photography
equipment.
Inspector Navarre will hold off on speaking to the
investigators until they complete their sweep of the
apartment. She doesn’t want to prejudice their opinions, but
she is convinced that there is a serial killer at work. She will
point out the footprints in the bathroom and the typewriter
text only if the investigators miss them.
If the players opt to question the roommate, Gilbert
Steineman (he/him), they may learn:
● Gilbert has been crying. He and Lydia were
friends, and he discovered her drowned in the
bathtub.
● Gilbert works as a fashion photographer, and he
and Lydia share a darkroom.
● He will scoff at any suggestion that they were
romantically involved - Gilbert favors men.
● Gilbert will confide in the investigators that he was
worried his roommate was losing her mind. She
said she was hearing voices threatening her, but
when she turned, the speaker was gone.
● With significant convincing, he will also reveal that
Lydia had a cold streak. She seemed genuinely
pleased when a man she published a dubious
expose about was murdered by other prisoners in
Brinkley Penitentiary. “Any byline is a good byline,”
she used to say, and murders were the best of all.
Gilbert Steineman, the Roommate
If the players opt to investigate the apartment, they may
find:
● The newsprint on the walls have highlighted stories
written by Lydia Deveroux.
● On a successful test, the investigators hone in on
one series of news stories featuring a rather
outlandish conspiracy around a local businessman
accused of selling scarlet moonshine. It’s unclear if
the businessman was guilty of bootlegging, but he
was almost certainly not the center of a conspiracy
involving agents of Otherwhere. Your investigators
may have followed the story, either as Inquirer
readers or as interested parties who knew the
businessman.
● The contraband trial was short and conclusive like
most trials in Newfaire, but the man was later
murdered in prison by a believer in the conspiracy
- “a faithful reader,” the newsprint describes.
● On a successful test, the investigators glean that
these articles are hung up like trophies and were
taken as a point of pride by Lydia.
● The typewriter has a half-finished news article on
the Haversham murder. It is written in Lydia’s
typical style. The last line stops mid-sentence, and
reads “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID I KNOW WHAT
YOU DID.” The keys of the mechanical typewriter
have been pressed hard enough to indent the
paper where the typebars struck.
● The darkroom has a blurry photograph of a large
shadowy figure outside of the bathroom window, 4
stories up.
If the players enter the bathroom, read the following:
The tiny bathroom is silent except for the sound of
dripping water and the echoes of voices coming through
the thin walls.
A body, smaller in death than life, lies slumped over the
edge of the bathtub, half submerged. Fully dressed in
working attire, you recognize Lydia Deveroux.
The floor is wet enough that you need to be careful to
step inside.
If the players opt to investigate the bathroom, they may
learn:
● The door was locked from the inside, but jimmied
open by Gilbert when no one answered his knocks.
● The mirror has been struck with a perfume bottle,
the broken shards of both lying in the wash basin.
● The tiny square window has paint over the latch - it
has not been opened in a long time.
● An astute investigator may notice: There are two
sets of bare footprints in the water on the floor.
One sized small, and one unnaturally elongated
and ending with claw marks. The unnatural
footprints appear to originate at the sealed window.
These will soon evaporate as evidence.
● An astute investigator may notice: there are fresh
scratches on the back of Lydia’s neck, under
where her wet hair would fall. She was held under
the water by someone with sharp nails.
As the investigators wrap up here and go to leave, they are
likely to be surprised in the hallway by journalists. Gilbert
informed both the Periphery and Lydia’s employer, where
the information was promptly leaked to several newspapers.
8
Escalation I: The
Navarre House
Reveal: The serial killer is a creature that hunts the guilty.
Optional: Rather than Inspector Navarre, if any of your
investigators have a terrible deed in their past, you can use
them as the Mortenebran’s final target in this assignment!
Inspector Navarre begins to hear voices after the discovery
of Lydia’s body. Years ago, the Inspector shot an unarmed
man by mistake during a Periphery raid on a speakeasy,
and planted a knife on the victim’s body at her Sergeant’s
suggestion. This murder has attracted the Mortenebran’s
vengeful gaze.
While Inspector Navarre has not pieced together all of the
clues, she knows she needs help as she begins to hear
vengeful voices and see fleeting figures in mirrors and
window glass. For physical protection, she asks several
trusted Periphery beat cops to defend her home. She then
sends word via courier or telegram for the Circle of
investigators to assist with the magickal side of things.
When the players approach the Navarre household, read
the following:
In the predawn hours, the streets of old South Soffit are
nearly vacant, with a few shadowed figures flitting from
alley to alley. A matted black tomcat crosses your path,
its back arched and teeth bared. Tightly clustered homes
are teetering in claustrophobic lots, the windows
watching you in silence. Trellises of overhead walkways
and electrical lines blot out the lightening night sky.
Before long, you arrive at the specified address, an
unassuming ranch house nestled incongruously against a
hulking warehouse. The mailbox at the end of the short
drive displays “The Navarre’s.”
An imposing uniformed Periphery officer stands on the
front stoop, a cudgel at the ready. Another paces the
perimeter with a pistol, watching the back entrance.
The Periphery officer is expecting your investigators, and let
you through without objection. If questioned, they will admit
that they don’t know what they are on the lookout for, but
“Navarre says we’ll know it when we see it.”
When the players enter the Navarre household, read the
following:
Inside the house, several gas lamps are burning.
Inspector Navarre is seated at a low stool next to a
kitchen passthrough window. She has a sawed off
shotgun draped over her knee, and a labelless whiskey
bottle with no cap within easy reach. Her eyes look like
she has not slept and she sways in her seat.
“It’s about time you got here. The voices are getting
louder.”
Having been haunted by the creature for several hours,
Inspector Navarre is a wreck. She has called for trusted
reinforcements from the Periphery station house, two
toughs who will ask no questions and dole out violence
unflinchingly. She then settled into her cups and waited for
your investigators to arrive.
Inspector Navarre will honestly relate the night she
committed murder to the investigators, ashamed but feeling
she has nothing to lose. The whiskey doesn’t hurt, either.
She didn’t intend to kill the man, but he surprised her and
she acted too quickly.
She then asks the investigators to protect her from what is
coming. Your investigators have plenty of time to make
preparations, perhaps a full hour, before The Mortenbran
attempts its assault.
If the players opt to investigate the Navarre house, they will
find:
● The Inspector lives here alone with her cat, having
inherited the place from her parents, two deceased
factory workers.
● Sizeable furniture, like the kitchen table and a
thoroughly scratched up armoire, can be used to
block the front door and the windows to the back
bedroom.
● Nails and boards can be found in a small shed in
the miniscule backyard.
● Mirrors are present in the small bathroom and
bedroom, one above the washbasin and one
beside the bed.
If your players are engaging with the journalism aspect of
the story thus far, feel free to have a crowd of press show
up at the house, having been tipped by someone in the
Periphery station house. The journalists can distract the
Periphery guards and generally lend a human dimension to
the horror in the final act.
9

Climax: The
Mortenebran
Reveal: Your investigators are trapped between an
interdimensional killer and its quarry - can the investigators
outwit the creature to save Inspector Navarre and
themselves?
The final confrontation with the Mortenebran is a siege
situation. Depending on how well your investigators have
prepared, based on what they have gleaned about the
Mortenebran’s behavior, they will have an easier or more
difficult time of the grand finale.
As this was a fairly low-risk Assignment up to this point, we
can set a high initial value on the countdown dice that
represents the Mortenbran’s health in the climax scene. We
can begin at 10. For each reasonable precaution the
investigators take, reduce the countdown dice by 1 - for
instance, if they barricade the windows, break the mirrors,
or sober up the Inspector, the Mortenebran has a more
difficult time assailing the group.
The Mortenebran can be dispatched with pure violence, but
it is a tough creature and this is a difficult approach. It can
also be unsummoned by exonerating its victims. If the
investigators roll well and can explain why either Dr.
Haversham, Ms. Deveroux, or Inspector Navarre are not
guilty of heinous wrongdoing, they can weaken the creature
or unsummon it altogether. If the investigators opt for this
approach, set the countdown dice at 6 instead of 10.
For each critical success the investigators roll during the
climax scene, reduce the countdown dice by 3. For each full
success, reduce the countdown dice by 2. And for each
mixed success, reduce the countdown dice by 1.
As a note, the Periphery officers that were brought in by
Inspector Navarre are unused to threats from beyond the
Flare. Without significant convincing, they will break and run
upon seeing the Mortenebran.
If the final confrontation looks to be going completely
sideways for the investigators, a guilty party might offer
themselves to the Mortenebran as a sacrifice. Inspector
Navarre is an ideal candidate. This would of course inflict
weighty Brain marks on the survivors.
A vision of a Mortenebran.
Background on the Mortenebran
The Mortenebran is humanoid in appearance, but heavily
muscled and taller than average at roughly 7 to 8 feet tall.
Its jaw is overdeveloped and its eyes have a frog-like
quality, bulging out from the sides of its head. It hunts as an
ambush predator, emerging from reflective surfaces, and is
more than a match for most of its solitary prey.
The creature itself is an alchemical chimera, one of the last
horrific simulacra created in the laboratories of Oldfaire.
Created by a loyal alchemist to hunt down traitors of the
Empress Iomene, the creature is imbued with a brutal sense
of vindictiveness. It will hunt down and destroy anyone it
knows to have committed a heinous act according to its own
draconian logic. A creature marked for death by the
Mortenebran will first be stalked, with the monster
whispering from mirrors and windows, detailing the crimes
that the victim committed.
After the fall of Oldfaire, the Mortenebran were left to their
own devices, reappearing only periodically to slay those
they deemed unworthy of life. The creatures propagate
themselves beyond the Flare, and enter the material world
through thinnings like many phenomena. Once inside the
material world, the Mortenebran can travel freely through
mirrors and other reflective surfaces, like glass, spilled
blood, and still water.
Epilogue
Now is your chance to wrap up the assignment and
describe what happens in the world once the player
characters are gone. Remember that you have full narrative
agency during the hook and the epilogue, so you can
explore the story in ways that you cannot just by following
the player characters.
The press coverage of events influenced by your Circle of
investigators can play a significant role in the epilogue. The
dogged researchers at McLeod’s might release an expose
uncovering Dr. Haversham’s crimes at Grayslate
Sanitorium, particularly if the investigators leaked them
evidence. The coverage could lead to reforms. The
Newfaire Inquirer might even evolve into a recurring foe!
Epilogue Questions:
1. Did the investigators successfully destroy or
unsummon the Mortenebran?
2. Did they help anyone during the course of their
investigation?
3. Did they bond with any NPCs, and if they did,
what became of them?
4. Did they form any alliances or enmities with the
NPCs or supernatural forces chasing them?
5. Did the investigators successfully rescue
Inspector Navarre?
Credits
All artwork was generated using AI, like ArtFlow.
Thank you to u/YaAlex for creating the basis for our
Assignment design template, available here!
10
Thank you for playing this game - I do this for fun, and it
brings me joy to be a part of your storytelling world!

11