Sample Sanctum: The Engels House

Time for another sanctum for players to discover, fight over and use. The Engels House has lain mostly empty for decades, ever since its former owner was murdered on the suspicion that he owned a potent artifact. Mostly empty because the ghosts he left behind continue his work.

The Engels House

This Victorian era house nestles in a decaying suburb on the south end of the city. Gaping holes stand where the windows were, splintered shards of glass ringing the edges as curtains waft in the open air. Inside a mix of damp and dust flavors the air, with the occasional whiff of acrid death. The occasional sound of animals or footsteps penetrate the wooden walls and floors.

The structure creaks with age but remains surprisingly stable. Under mage sight, supernal fortification shines clear. Those who can peer into Twilight reveal an ever so slightly creepier building. The resident ghosts can be felt but keep their distance. The walls themselves are reflected in Twilight, limiting passage and cloaking the home in some of a spectral glory. This impression extends to Shadow, as the spirit of the house retains a ghostly presence, ever felt but never seen. The house seems to be slumbering. Or waiting.

The Hallow sits within the home's tower. A gentle but cold breeze blows through the barren room. Occasionally a distant chime of music drifts in from somewhere else. The Hallow's resonance is one of whimsy tinge with an undercurrent of decay.

A cold air rises from the cellar which remains icy cold regardless of the season. Its simple brick walls seem to fill with shadows under even the most severe lights. The secret lies clocked in Mind magic, a flagstone rendered mentally invisible. No mere rock, it holds a fragment of the soul of the former owner, a mighty mage who pursued Ascension into the Supernal.

Nature threatens to take over the backyard, hiding a small family plot with 13 crumbling gravestones.

• James Timothy Engels (1847-1877) “A Good Man and Beloved Husband”
• Ezra Alison Midford-Engels (1854-1934) “Kind and devoted, she now is returned to her lost love”
• William Edgar Engels (1849-1906) “Every man's life is a plan of God.”
• Sarah Katherine Felner-Engels (1851-1887)
• Hannah Engels (1874) “Beloved by God”
• Unmarked (1881) “Gone from us too soon”
• Adam Engels (1887-1968) “Death is the golden key that opens the palace of Eternity.”
• Charles Nicholas Engels (1882-1946) “The heart of man is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.”
• Elizabeth Anna Frost-Engels (1887-1921) “God gives us love. Something to love He lends us.”
• Greta Julia Wright-Engels (1880-1947) “Whither thou goest, I will go.”
• Doris Sarah Engels (1914-1932) “Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.”
• Chrysopoeia (1923-1959) “She hath awakened from the dream of life.”
• Mobius (1930-1959) “Death is not a foe, but an inevitable adventure.”

History

This Queen Anne Style home was built in 1873 by a pair of well to do craftsmen. The Engels brothers and their wives moved in and attempted to build a family here. Those plans reduced when James died of syphilis in 1877. His gravestone marks the beginning of the family plot. His wife Ezra remained at the house until her death in 1934.

The other brother, William, however prospered. His wife, Sarah, gave him 5 children until she died in labor in 1887. Two of those children died in infancy: Hannah and another who died before he could be christened. The eldest surviving child Jill (born 1875) married a journalist and moved to the East never to return. The youngest son Adam suffered brain damage in his strained birth. The boy remained forever addled, a giant with a tiny mind who hid within the house until his death in 1968, becoming the bogey man of the neighborhood.

Charles Engels inherited the house after his father died in 1906. He married twice: first to Elizabeth Frost who born him a son and a daughter before dying under suspicious circumstances in 1921. Charles's fortunes fell during the 1920s. As his debts mounted, he used the vestiges of his charms to seduce a wealthy widow named Greta. They married 1930. This enraged his daughter Doris who took to spending her time in the scandalous parts of Chicago. The darkness claimed her in 1932.

His son withdrew from his father after that. Unknown to the rest of the family, he had discovered a darker and grander world. The newly Awakened Moros communed with the dead and sought to find a path to the Supernal. When his father passed in 1946, he inherited the house.

Greta died shortly afterwards in 1947.

The son kept the house and made it his sanctum. His cabal (the Ouroborians) rose to be a prominent force in the early city Consilium drawing members from each order. Two now lay buried in the family plot. The tragedy that claimed them also led him to withdraw from society.

He was murdered in the early years of a Mage War, his unknown work finished but also untouched.

Next...

Next week I describe the current residents of the house and some of the secrets the former owner hid and which he still pursues.