Rosebriar: Edgewood Asylum

This week I present another district in my setting for You Can't Go Home Again. To the southwest of Rosebriar sits a compound storied in horrors: the Edgewood Mental Health Facility.

Rosebriar: Edgewood Asylum

Tell me, why don't you feel like you are human?

Description

Atop a rocky hill on the outskirts of Bishopsgate sits a collection of large blocky structures. Once known as Bishopsgate Asylum, the new owners renamed this relic Edgewood in 2006.

With the catchphrase "Modern care with a humane touch", it singularly failed both as a money-making venture and as a treatment facility. Rumors of strange disappearances and unethical practices dodged the facility long before the current owners, the Pleseus Guild, took over. But since then things have gotten much much worse.

The latest audit reveals 54 patients and 8 members of the staff to be fictitious, possibly created to embezzle funds from the state and the Pleseus Guild. The director suffered a psychotic break once discovered. No one knows where the money went though some might have been spent on the new wing, still incomplete. Local construction workers claim to be unpaid however.

Job uncertainty, frozen salaries, and "the Edgewood stain" have depleted the supply of doctors willing to work there. Hollowed out, the staff struggles to manage the remaining patients. Vacant offices remain cluttered with boxes of poorly packed files as doctors and nurses leave for greener pastures or are fired as they become caught in the scandal.

The few who remain complain of echoing halls, strange noises in the night, and a feeling of being watched. But that might just be the monthly state inspections.

Local Hedge

Edgewood's Hedge twists in upon itself. Tight earthen tunnels give way to drywall lined with shards of mirror and stained padding. From there you encounter dense greenery before descending back into the earth. Throughout, Changelings encounter stretches of white halls that loop endlessly.

Efforts to navigate out of the local Hedge suffer a -2 penalty. A useful source of Glamour however can be found in the slivers of mirror that grow like icicles from the walls and overhangs of the hospital's Hedge. A six-inch dagger, ground up and ingested, restores 1 Glamour.

Damnation City Stats:

Physical: Access -3, Safety -1
Mental: Information -2, Awareness -2
Social: Prestige -4, Stability 1

Despite a rumors of escapees, Edgewood remains difficult to enter or exit. Thick doors and electronic locks however fail to stop the predation of abusive nurses or the occasional patient. With finances short, out of date magazines comprise most of the hospital's poorly sorted library. Meanwhile the patients and staff actively try to ignore anything strange, haunted by memories of "fictional" patients. With all that has happened anyone who works here does it to help others and not to improve their resume.

Vice: Denial. The staff and patients want to forget the past. Their own trauma, that of those they associate with or treat, and the hospital's own unnatural past.

Virtue: Solace. Despite appearances the staff are here to help. Even the patients are for the most part focused on trying to reclaim their lives. Edgewood could become a refuge from the darkness in the right hands.

Site: Steam Tunnels

Beneath the facility a network of tunnels thread through the stony earth. Designed to carry steam in the early days of the hospital, these passages have been virtually forgotten. Extending beyond the bounds of Edgewood, they could in theory be used to escape the hospital or gain entrance to it.

Those who enter find something darker though. Shadows crowd in on light sources and a peculiar chill fills the air. Intruders eventually encounter a large chamber with a floor stained black with an oily residue.

Something horrible happened here. Something impossible.

A True Fae died.

Changelings entering this room smell the stench of death through the Mask. Those who look hard enough (and succeed on an Intelligence + Occult roll) find another way out of the hospital: the Underworld. By spending a Glamour, the earth opens up before them and they can descend into the realm of ghosts. This is also the most likely place for them to exit the Underworld within Rosebriar. Other likely exits include Bishopsgate cemetery, a foundry in the Works abandoned since the 70s, and the basement of a rotting house in Old Town.

If you have Book of the Dead, this would be an excellent place to learn the Death clause (p. 65). Anyone entering via this gateway gains a +2 bonus to discover the clause.

Story Seeds

Locked Up: With their suspicious behavior and potentially stolen identity, Changelings can easily find themselves committed to Edgewood for psychiatric evaluation and/or treatment. Those sent here suffer a loss of freedom and control over their life and should expect to make many Breaking Point rolls (or Isolation and Helplessness tests if using Madness Meters). Can they convince the doctors they are sane or do they make a break for it? While navigating through the Hedge presents challenges but the real obstacle is what to do once you are out. People (specifically police) will be looking for you. On the other hand perhaps the doctors really can help you?

Old Secrets: The true history of Edgewood is bound up with a magical artifact, a murder, and a taint neither mortal nor fae.

In a timeline that never was five brave Changelings assembled a magic mirror with power over dreams. They used it to slay one of their Keepers. Then another fae rewrote history and that never happened. But the mirror, an artifact of Arcadia, remained and reflected a horror not of our world: the legacy of Charles Teesdale.

In the early days of the asylum, Charles Teesdale was one of its more damaged residents. A cosmic revelation blew this writer's mind open. Charles claimed he saw the world as it truly was, a realm of thorns and magic, trapped in a weave of destiny forged by usurper gods. At least he did until disease and beatings reduced him to a shuffling wreck. He spent the last half of his life wandering the halls and grounds in an endless spiral.

A couple of his incomplete manuscripts remain lost in the asylum archives. They describe a twisted mirror of this world filled with goblins and horrific beings who revere the protagonist as a monarch. Though he died in one winter day in 1898, his legacy remains. Charles was a Mage and through his madness he reached into the Abyss. The Abyss spawned a realm that reflected his nightmares, a realm accessed by tracing Charles's steps.

After his death the realm lay undiscovered for decades until an inmate named Sarah Lindell came across some of his works. After reading his rantings, she used the knowledge of the path to "escape". There she became the realms new lord until the power of the mirror intruded. The mirror expanded the realm, overlaying it with the hospital grounds. This enmeshed others in the dangerous place, one of whom deposed her and took on its mantle himself. Over the years the realm began to extend into Rosebriar itself until a second group of Changelings shattered the mirror and removed its power.

But the twisted world remains, diminished but accessible to those who know its secret.

Mechanically it is an Abyssal intrusion, a Twisting Maze from the Mage: the Awakening book Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss. As an emanation of the Abyss, escape is not as simple as opening a door, even for a Changeling. Someone trapped inside must retrace their steps to find the exit.

Those inside the realm discover a nightmarish version of the asylum, a mishmash of modern and Victorian era medical science. Scattered scrawls on the walls hint at the truth. Some are simple scratches, others are written in pen, excrement or blood. A few appear on fogged glass or street graffiti. Messages they might find include:

“The words of Teesdale set us free”

“Staff are not allowed out of their cells at night”

"Beware the gnomes. Don’t blink!”

“Crows stole my eyes, now I can see”

An extended Intelligence + Wits (at a -2 penalty, each roll taking an hour) at the asylum library will turn up Teesdale's lost manuscripts. Faded manila folders filled with even more yellow papers tell a disturbing tales in an elegant but manic script. Amid stories of a world ruled by the insane where normal people are caged and tortured, an investigator finds a number of clues:

1 to 3 successes: In the tale of The Wandering Fool one can puzzle out the realm’s entrance. The fool suffers a number of adventures and misfortunes, ending with him entering a realm of thorns via a particular door on the ground floor of the East Wing.
4 to 6 successes: In the tale of The Lost Child one learns how those who enter the realm find their dark reflection of themselves. In the story the child is killed by her reflection and it escapes into the world of light.
7+ successes: In the Reborn Doorway, one learns of the destruction of a door. It ends when the man who destroyed it dreams a new door.
Modifiers: +1 if suffering a derangement, +1 for Empathy 3 or more

NPCs

Former Director Deneen M. Puls ran Edgewood for the Pleseus Guild with an eye on the bottom line. Now a patient there while under indictment for embezzling, this determined woman lives in a strange dreamland. Believing the scandal never happened, she is continually surprised that she is no longer in charge. Though polite about the misunderstanding, her patience invariably breaks and this short woman breaks out into litany of threats and cursing.

Disliked before the scandal broke now no one wants to deal with her. The new director hopes to transfer her soon. But this raven haired woman recalls what really happened at the facility, including the descriptions of those who escaped Edgewood in the past and those who broke the curse.

The Abduction Trauma and Identity Distortion Help Group (a.k.a. the Deniers)

The group of patients gathers each Monday evening at 9 to discuss their problems and try to help each other overcome a common set of delusions. Each member believes they were abducted by some sort of monster, abused, and transformed into monsters themselves. Several also believe that someone in the region has stolen their identity. Dr. Evelyn Espejo leads this therapy help group in overcoming this endemic psychosis. They assert that to each other that they are human and that though they may have suffered a traumatic event, they can overcome their hallucinations.

However most of them are Changelings.

Other Changelings refer to the group as the Deniers and mock their detachment from 'reality'. But perhaps there is something to what these fae say. Members have been known to maintain a strengthened Mask for months, disbelieve (and ignore) Contracts, and even convince others of their beliefs so well that their audience temporarily loses the ability to see past the Mask.

New Merit: The Five Steps

Each level of this merit grants a new ability and each step must be taken in order. Additionally each step has a requirement. If a Changeling no longer meets that requirement (perhaps due to Clarity loss), they lose that Merit dots. Lost Merit dots can be reassigned. Prerequisites are given for Stress Meters or Clarity systems.

This is very much in Alpha stage.

I am Human (Dot 1): Prerequisite: Unnatural Stress Hardened 7 or less or Making obvious displays of magic in front of witnesses is now a Clarity 3 Breaking Point.

You can now maintain a strengthened Mask indefinitely at no cost.

I don't believe in Fairies (Dot 2): Prerequisite: Unnatural Stress Hardened 5 or less or interacting with Changeling society (such being a member of a Court or gaining an Entitlement) is now a Clarity 4 Breaking Point.

You gain a +2 bonus to resist Contracts. For Contracts that lack a resistance roll you instead inflict a -2 penalty to the user's roll.

I know who I am (Dot 3): Prerequisite: Unnatural Stress Hardened 4 or less or Killing a Fetch or Changeling is now a Clarity 2 Breaking Point.

If you possess a fetch they can no longer enter your dreams or recognize you as their double. You gain a +3 bonus to Social rolls to convince other fae that you are a mortal.

Magic isn't real (Dot 4): Prerequisite: Unnatural Stress Hardened 3 or less or using Tokens or other mystical items is now a Clarity 2 Breaking Point.

You gain a bonus equal to your Resolve to resist magic and subtract Resolve from any roll to used magic on you. This stacks with I don't believe in Fairies.

That was all a bad dream (Dot 5): Prerequisite: Unnatural Stress Hardened 1 or less or any use of magic, dreams or the Hedge is now a Clarity 1 Breaking Point.

By making a Manipulation + Expression roll resisted by the target's Resolve + Wyrd you remove the ability of a Changeling see past the Mask or invoke Contracts for a Scene. This includes the ability to see one's own fae form.