World Lore

Tales from Gloom Hollow takes place in a world similar to our own. Countries, continents, etc are no different. 

 

Where the history began to diverge in the public eye was in the early 1990s, with the advent and widespread use of the internet secrets became harder to keep. Within a couple years videos began to circulate one after another that could only lead to one conclusion, supernatural creatures walked our planet. Around the same time children were born with strange abilities that could alter the world around them, magic had become reality. 

 

These two revelations shocked humanity and panic began to set in. It was during that time an organization backed by governments all over the world revealed itself.

 

Section 4, the protectors of humankind, devoted to uncovering the origin and capabilities of these new entities and magic itself.

 

In time magic came to be regarded as a unique skill by some, and a curse to be regulated by others. The common people to this day don’t know what the supernatural entities are or where they came from, and sightings of new creatures seem to happen from week to week. Attacks are rare enough to not be a common concern. And life continues mostly as normal, with only cursory second glances into the shadows at night. 

 

In the following decades other organizations have come into prominent view; 

The iconoclast Brimstone Assembly with their fiery critiques of Section 4s way of doing things. 

The Traditions, an ancient sect of mystics and guardians of the occult who had spent thousands of years accumulating knowledge decided that now was the time to come into the light. 

The Chevalier, an American home grown coalition of monster hunters that has existed since the early 1800s. 

The Meridian Corporation who used technological breakthroughs achieved from studies of the supernatural to aid the lives of the common man, for a price of course.

And The Hollow Society, a small investigative group that has begun poking into major organizations' business in an attempt to expose their secrets to the everyday person. 

 

 

Town Lore

In 1850 a wealthy family by the name of the, ----------, started a small mining town after surveyors discovered gold in the hills of southern California, specifically the Pauma Valley. The town of Gloom Hollow was established and the large workforce got to work bringing the vast quantities of gold to the surface. As the workers dug deeper into the hills, miners went missing, soon after the other men reported strange noises coming from deep within the man-made caverns.  The missing men had mutated into strange beasts and had lost their minds.

 

After this discovery, -------- closed the mine and had the organization called,------,  —- all of the town inhabitants. The surviving mutated creatures were captured for study. The source of the mutations was discovered to be --------a newly discovered element, ------- eventually erased all records of their existence and just 50 years later started a ----------- called -----------------.

A small group of people reinvigorated the town in the early 1950s, but more recently it has been far more active. Small groups of people seemingly from all over the globe have appeared and then vanished. The missing person list is so high in the area that law enforcement is beginning to take notice. As are the 6 factions involved in the supernatural, as on top of the missing people paranormal sightings in the area have also increased. And here’s where you come in, you may have witnessed strange phenomena before, you may even already be a member of one of the Six, but most likely you’ve got no clue what you’re heading into. 

 

In the years that passed several organizations popped up, all interested in the knowledge to be gained in this town but divided in their goals, currently there is a truce but distrust is ever present and the possibility of hostilities still hangs in the air when certain groups interact. 

 

You’re walking down an alleyway, waiting for a subway, or maybe you’ve made a turn down a road on your way back home from work excited to start your weekend, either way you are traveling in some capacity. You start to notice things are different, the surroundings begin to blur, you lose vision, and for just a second you see blackness but not pitch black it seems to have a slight reflective shine to it. When your sight restores you find yourself on the outskirts of a small town, you drive or walk to the nearest light, it could be the diner, maybe the gas station, or even the entrance to the town. Either way the same man with a prosthetic leg greets you, you ask where you are. He points his cane to the town square then politely welcomes you to Gloom Hollow California