A scholar returns home after the passing of his last family member. For him, the story begins normal-- an elderly dies, the town mourns, the day moves on. However, as he spends his autumn home and away from university for the first time in a handful of years, things begin to spark suspicion. Too many elderly have died. Too many wailing maidens. Too many wounded hearts... And no one has spoken up. Everyone has moved on as if nothing ever ached in the night.

The story takes place in the early 1900's in a fictional Midwestern village of Saint Manon Hills, Illinois in the middle of farmland and forest. The village is rather small where everyone knows everyone, and new comers are watched with a cautious eye. Christianity and Catholisim are extremely present within the village of less than 700 people. The elders are extremely traditional in their behavior where all the young folk should be either logging or tending to the fields, having children, and getting married, where the lot of the younger ones have lost all care.

Riley Vanderbuilt, one of the few whom have left home for higher education, has returned home in the midst of what he has assumed to be a pandemic. His lasting family has passed and now more have begun to follow suit. However, now home and looking upon those whom he once called friends and family, they see him as an outcast rather than a local. And even the new church holds no true trust for the stranger that was baptized in their rivers. What on earth could truly be happening here?

The Cast.

Casual information.

Though a journal style adventure, some parts will be written in first person, like any other fpov story, others will be in an omnificent third as a way to convey an out of body experience and often nightmares. Our main character will do his best to break it down in his journals, but there will and can be moments for otherwise. Rolls and prompt will also be included in each journal update.

The Journey.

The game rules tell you that you need a d10, a candle (for ambiance), and a deck of cards. Specific cards mean specific things, but it's only a low, low few. So, to state now: Midwest Gothic is inspired heavily by English Eerie. I don't know very much of European folklore, so I rolled over to my roots. Good ol' American Folklore and Crytpids. Specifically Midwestern.

These are the cards used for this game [here]. I'm using a virtual deck due to the fact that I don't have a physical deck. Following this is how I used the deck and the prompts. But as a side note: the prompts will remain clandestine through the entire adventure. Each one was compiled from my friends and each one of them was given a role and a number for their intended prompt. It also alerted me of which one does which thing and how dangerous was the event given. Below will be the details.

Here's what I did to assist in making sure my prompts (given by friends) could work:

Two d10's of different colors. One for Spirit and the other for Resolve.
One (or two) d6's for tense situations and/or obstacles.
Each color of the cards represent an event. 1-5 is a low event. 6-10 is a high event. Jokers are safe nights to kind of recap on the situation at hand. Kings are intense nightmare situations that leave brusing or wounds, but must associate with the color given. Aces force an event (ex: a sighting of a creature, the harassment of a cult, etc).
One (or two) d12's for characters and their character actions.
A coin can also be used for character situations and their actions by using the tails/heads method on seeing if their reaction to you is positive or negative.

This is my story deck. Every Queen pulled starts the event caused by a creature or person. The situation worsens depending on how many cards have been pulled. If two queens have been pulled, your character may act on trying to get themselves to safety. If all four Queens have been pulled, it now depends on your spirit/resolve to save you. Character situations, if needed, can be used here to push on using resolve and/or spirit. Once spirit/resolve is reduced to 0, you may die, you might not. It is a bad ending. If still above 1, you may end with a neutral or good ending.

For this story, the question of how the main character could or would die was left up to my friends.