It always ends the same.
A glimmer of hope (𝙩𝙤𝙤 𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙤𝙧𝙚) snuffed out before they can reach it. A promise of absolution (𝙩𝙤𝙤 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙚) broken once more.
They rage at the world around them. At the prison they can never escape, hemmed in by mist and shadow. At the shackles of fate that bind them, constricting around their throat - their eyes - their hands; coiling (𝙩𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙚𝙧) until the fight is squeezed out of them completely. Without anger to fuel them, they are forced to submit - forced to acknowledge the feelings they had buried long ago.
Disappointment. (𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣?)
Frustration. (𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙨?)
Despair. (𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬 𝙘𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙣𝙤 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙡?)
Spirit shattered, they are made a puppet of destiny once again.
And as they scour the Mists and the jails trapped within - searching for that glimmer that ever eludes them - they wonder how long a puppet can last before it 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙨 altogether.
Far beyond, in a place unknowable, the Dark Powers smile as they pull the strings they have nurtured for millennia.
(𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙮𝙘𝙡𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙬.)
A Dread Reflection is an upcoming 18+ horror interactive fiction game based in the D&D setting of Ravenloft. The game is currently in early development and is being made with Twine.
Content warnings for the game include: graphic violence, blood, injury, mental illness, body horror, psychological horror, kidnapping, death, strong language, and optional suggestive content. More warnings may be added as development progresses. Please read at your own discretion.
DEMO (TBA)
It was supposed to be the happiest day of your life. With a new ring on your hand and your childhood friend by your side, your future was supposed to be spent in comfort and married bliss.
A shame the only thing adorning your hands that day was a stain of red you weren’t sure would ever wash off.
Forced to flee into the dangerous Mists to escape a horrible fate, you stumble into Vhage Agency with nothing but the clothes on your back and a life in shambles. Whether out of pity or desperation, Vera Vhage makes you an offer: join her detective agency and become her eyes and ears within Ravenloft.
With no other choice, you agree and begin your investigative training in earnest.
You’re not sure what you expected to happen when you finally became a certified investigator months later. It certainly wasn’t the arrival of a suspicious letter at the agency's doorstep, promising answers to the burning questions you had about your past. Answers you would get only if you proved yourself to the mysterious sender.
With letter in hand, you set off determined to find out more about that fateful day. Whether you burn for revenge or wish to put your ghosts to rest, what you must do next is clear:
Seven cases. (𝙎𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙨.) Stop them before it’s too late.
Fully customizable MC - including gender, pronouns, physical appearance, personality, sexuality, and some background elements.
Choose your stats and select from several classes and skills to craft the perfect investigator. Are you dexterous and perceptive enough to find what you need while sneaking in the shadows? Perhaps your natural charisma can persuade those around you to divulge their worst secrets? Maybe the gifts (curses) you have gained can help you (crush everyone in your way)?
Make rolls to see just how well you succeed at your chosen actions - or how spectacularly you fail. Not to worry, though: failure isn’t always the end. It may lead to new outcomes and opportunities you weren’t expecting.
Meet a cast of nine companions for you to befriend or romance (or betray). Will you claw past their walls and find a place in their hearts? (Will you drag them into the darkness with you?)
Solve all seven cases detailed in the letter and find out the truth of your past. Remember, though - Ravenloft is not a gentle place. You may find more in your investigations than you bargained for.
(Repeat the cycle. Break the cycle. 𝙄𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙢𝙚.)
The Broken One
F/M/NB - Romanceable by all MCs
You watch as they run into the distance, the fog of the moors swirling around them like a loving embrace. Their own embrace still lingers on your cooling skin - the memory of it warm and comforting and painful. It conjures other memories in your mind, filling you with nostalgia and longing. Taunting you with the life you took for granted until now. Our Guardian in the Mists, you pray as the last air in your lungs passes the smile on your lips. Protect and guide them on their way now that I cannot. You know this is dangerous, to yearn and mourn so deeply while you lay upon the ground. While the red puddle underneath you spreads and your skin goes from cooling to cold. Everyone in Mordent is told from childhood what happens when you cling too desperately to a life that is no longer yours. Those unlucky enough even witness it firsthand. But despite the risk, you do not look away - even as the fog grows thicker and their figure blurs in the mist. Even as the blur grows stronger from the tears you do not allow yourself to shed.
Your tears and smile remain even after your soul departs.
introduction / playlist / tag
The Ghost
F - Romanceable by all MCs
As the last notes of your lute drift across the Crystal Club, you cannot help but tense with anticipation. The cheers of the audience bring a dazzling smile to your lips, and you take a practiced bow as their applause reverberates within the room. Straightening, you sweep your eyes across the crowd and scan the faces there. Instinctively, you search for a face you always hope you will see. Consciously, you search for a face you always pray you will not. Finding neither, you sigh both in relief and disappointment as you reluctantly leave the safety of the stage to maneuver through the venue. Praise and invitations to drink shower down upon you as you go, but you wave them away with a quip and a smile. Tonight you are restless, your skin burning and itching with something you can’t quite name - your soul howling with something you don’t quite want to. Finally reaching the chill night air, you breathe in deeply and turn your head to the night sky to watch the full moon shining past the clouds.
In the shadows of the cave behind you, a sharp smirk widens as even sharper claws glint in the moonlight.
introduction / playlist / tag
The Mists
M - Romanceable by all MCs
With a sigh, you unceremoniously drop the tome you have urgently studied throughout the night. It was supposedly a long lost relic from the hidden libraries of Scholomance - or so the traveling peddler hawking it had claimed. You knew it was a scam even before your coins entered her palms, but continuous disappointments such as this have made you grow desperate in your search. Some have called you foolish to hunt so fervently for knowledge you are unsure exists. On days where the hellish shadow of your past clings less tightly to your mind, you can even swallow your pride and acknowledge the truth in their words. But as you watch tendrils of fog pool at the windows of the caravan you travel in - the Mists surrounding you almost seeming to push against the glass - you know this cannot deter you. You would rather be a fool one thousand times over than return to what you were before. You will find the knowledge you seek and escape this wretched existence.
Even if you must destroy the world around you to do so.
introduction / playlist / tag
The Marionette
NB - Romanceable by all MCs
Walking the streets of Ludendorf at night has always been your favorite pastime. The quiet stillness of the desolate roads is a balm to your anxious mind, and the smog-covered snow drifting from the sky adds a sense of peace to the city. Here, there is no judgement or prejudice: the snow does not care whose skin it falls upon. It does not care where that skin has been - or who that skin used to belong to. A shame the same cannot be said for people. Their fearful gazes and hurled insults replay in your mind if you can even call it your own, and your hands shake from these recollections as you stare at the snow falling upon them. In a rare moment of selfishness, you decide to drink in this peace while you can. You know from prior experience that as soon as the man you carry over your shoulder awakens, this calm will be shattered immediately. He will look at you with that same gaze and scream those same insults as soon as he sees what hides underneath your hood.
The dead flesh haphazardly stitched together is a sight straight out of his worst nightmares, after all.
introduction / playlist / tag
The Executioner
F/M/NB - Romanceable by all MCs
The wooden door in front of you creaks as it eases open, and you wince slightly as every eye in the tavern swivels towards you. Straightening your posture, you steadily approach the counter across the room. The clanking of your sabatons is the only sound echoing in the silence that now permeates the air. You are used to the glares burning into your back and the contempt you can feel within them, which is why your smile does not falter when the owner informs you there are no vacancies left for the night. Though you may have defended the town from a zombie swarm mere hours ago, a Knight of the Shadows is never welcomed by those they protect. You feel your left hand twitch as it subtly inches to your blade, a pressure beginning to build in your temples. The voice that appears in your mind is both familiar and unwelcome, and it gives a shrill cackle as you ignore the hex it viciously chants. Clenching your twitching hand into a fist, you stride out into the night and resolve to continue on to the next town in need of help.
Maybe there you will finally find the one you swore your oath to all those years ago - someone you will actually be happy to defend.
introduction / playlist / tag
The Beast
F - Romanceable by f!MCs and nb!MCs
As you feel your fist connect with the jaw of the woman before you, you do not even try to stop the feral grin that splits your lips at the sound of snapping bones. Your opponent stumbles back with a hiss, clutching at her lower face as she bares her teeth in a snarl. Before she can recuperate, however, you are on her once again: your clawed hands digging into her temples as she is lifted off the ground, desperately thrashing. You had expected more of a challenge from a member of the notorious Kargatane when you found this woman sniffing around the camp during your nightly patrol, but so far she has been nothing but a disappointment. Thankfully, you can make this woman give you more than a subpar fight. Squeezing her head even tighter, you feel her anger and terror flow into you, ebbing the hunger that is ever present. You drink these feelings in until you are satiated, then crush her body to you in one sudden movement. Roughly yanking her head to the side, your smile widens as you lean in closer.
The woman cannot even scream before a flash of your fangs silences her forever.
introduction / playlist / tag
The Seer
M - Romanceable by m!MCs and nb!MCs
Just like every other night, you dream. Disjointed and often blurry scenarios flood your mind at a rapid rate, each one demanding to be seen - to be heard - to be remembered. Try as you might, you are powerless to ignore them as they play out before you. You look into probably the past and see a child running through the woods, an unknown horror doggedly pursuing them. You look into the maybe future and witness a family torn asunder as the thing that now wears their father’s face preys upon their fears. Time itself distorts to show you these visions, assaulting your senses with realities both false and true until you can barely tell what is the past future truth. Just like every other night, you wake disoriented and nauseous with a scream silenced by ancient magic choking your throat. Shaking, you cover your mouth and wonder what accursed fool would call something like this a gift: even more than the magic that silences your tongue, this power feels like a curse meant to cause perpetual suffering.
Once more, like every other night, you soundlessly weep in a present you want no part of.
introduction / playlist / tag
The Donjon
NB - Romanceable by all MCs
Obscured by mist and shadow, you lurk underneath the canopy of the dense forest and survey the city it borders. A slight wind blows at the fog that envelops you, causing it to swirl and shift into strange shapes. The absence of any sound save the wind’s soft howling only adds to the eerie atmosphere of your surroundings, but you pay it no mind. As an investigator, you are used to environments like this, allowing you to focus on your task. It was only a few days ago that a cryptic letter arrived at your door, foretelling the reappearance of a semicentennial crime spree that none had solved before. At first you dismissed it as an exaggeration, but after poring over the periodicals and papers at your disposal you scrounged up enough clues to prove it was true. Solving this when others could not would finally give you what you always desired: indisputable proof that you have surpassed your instructors and become the best in the field. Almost immediately, you set off to the location detailed in the letter - a city of lies and betrayal.
Here, the greatest case of your career is about to begin. Here, you will prove yourself once and for all.
introduction / playlist / tag
The Tempter
NB - Romanceable by all MCs
Seated on a pew in the Great Cathedral, you cannot help but smile at the beautiful sight before you. The light shining through the stained glass windows creates a dazzling array of colors that reflect on the church floor - each one painting a mosaic onto the pale stone below. Within the kaleidoscope made by the grandest window sits a young man in priestly garments and shackles, flanked by figures in dark robes with grim expressions. The man rocks and babbles as the inquisitors stare down at him, the few coherent thoughts left in his mind forced out into the open by psychic coercion. He speaks of a figure with blood-red lips and haunting eyes who appeared in his time of need. He raves about his home, a far-off hamlet at the edge of this domain - set ablaze with no survivors. A necessary tragedy to combat the evil he saw in his neighbors’ hearts - or so the figure claimed. Madness swirls in the priest’s eyes as he is dragged off to the cellars below - eyes that widen when they land on your figure sitting in the light.
With a smirk of your red lips, you saunter out of the cathedral to the sounds of his howls and cries - ready to search for the next mind to corrupt.
introduction / playlist / tag
Vera Vhage
F - Mentor and owner of Vhage Agency
As mysterious as she is intelligent, Vera remains an enigma even months after your first meeting. She says little about herself, and any questions about her past are waved away with a shrug and a smile. If you want to get closer to your puzzling mentor, you’ll have to put all your training to the test. Will your deductive skills be good enough to unveil the secrets she hides? Or will she forever be hidden behind smoke and mirrors?
introduction / tag (coming soon)
???
??? - ???
You sense it in your moments of solitude on the road: a piercing gaze that sends icy chills down your spine. It bores into you, pinning you in place. Every aspect of yourself feels like it is on display for this stranger - even your very soul. However, try as you might, you can never spot the perpetrator when the scrutiny finally ends. They seem to fade away like mist as soon as you return their attention. Who is this elusive figure that follows your every move - and are you better off not knowing?
introduction / tag (coming soon)