NOVEMBER 2025 EVENT
PROMPT ONE — THE AURORA: CROSSROADS ELEGY PT. 1: Enola speaks to the Interlopers again, and offers the Interlopers another change to gain a new ability.
THE AURORA: CROSSROADS ELEGY PT. 1 — CONTENT WARNINGS: mention of eye injury; potentially disturbing dreams; dreams of animal attacks; mentions of blood; dreams of the death of loved ones.
PROMPT TWO — THE AURORA: CROSSROADS ELEGY PT. 2 The weather takes a turn for the worst when a deadly ice storm hits the Northern Territories.
THE AURORA: CROSSROADS ELEGY PT. 2 — CONTENT WARNINGS: extreme weather; potential property damage; potential character injury; potential character death; potential NPC death/injury.
PROMPT THREE — WINTER’S CURSE : The legend of an ancient curse becomes real, when Interlopers find themselves undergoing a monstrous transformation.
WINTER’S CURSE — CONTENT WARNINGS: folk/supernatural horror; curses; body horror; mood/behaviour changes; emetophobia; potential NPC death.
PROMPT FOUR — BONES IN THE OCEAN: A ship trapped in the ice that appears to be a lucrative scavenger location is actually not as deserted as Interlopers might think.
BONES IN THE OCEAN — CONTENT WARNINGS: themes of survival/exploration; potentially dangerous situations; shipwrecks; ghost-related horror; hauntings; possible character injuries; themes of peril/terror.
THE AURORA: CROSSROADS ELEGY PT. 1
WHEN: November 11th-13th.
WHERE: Everywhere
You don’t know if this is real or not. You don’t know if you’re awake or dreaming. But you find yourself standing in a burnt-out woods. For some Interlopers, this is a familiar place: you have been here before. As you look ahead, you notice the flickers of firelight through the blackened trunks of trees. Your feet move towards it and you find a small clearing; someone is sat by a campfire.
A woman. Dressed in furs, one side of her face blackened and withered, the eye missing. Her remaining blue eye is bloodshot and exhausted. Her hands are caked in blood, old and new. She is dishevelled, battered and bruised. But she smiles, looking up from the fire.
Enola.
“There you are.”
If you have spoken to, or seen Enola before — she greets you warmly like an old friend. If this is your first time seeing or speaking with Enola, she introduces herself: My name is Enola, I’m one of you. I’m here to help. She knows your name, even if you have never told her it.
“Come sit with me for a while, hm?” she gestures. “We have a little time, it’s safe for now.”
Interlopers may question her about her fight with the Darkwalker back in September, and she’ll smile grimly and explain that she’s held it at bay for the time being — but she advises it’s not a permanent solution. She explains that when the Darkwalker first awoke just before Interlopers started arriving in the Northern Territories, it was weak and hungry. Over two years on, it is a starving beast — and gathering its strength.
“It will come for you again.” she warns. “I’m trying to keep it from you the best I can, but we are running out of time.”
She falls quiet for a while, watching the flames. Her hand reaches for them: they do not burn her.
“I was like you, once.” she says softly. “I came here when I was a child. Lost, scared, angry— I had no idea where I was, or how to get home. A strange little girl with powers, an Interloper. I wanted to go home so badly. I don’t anymore.”
She pulls her hand from the fire, and turns it over: watching flames dance in the palm of her hand. She looks at you expectantly.
“Do you miss it? Home? The people you left behind?”
She will listen intently, whatever your answer may be, giving you space to speak of it. While she is sorrowful for those who will speak of missing home, she seems to empathise more with Interlopers who do not wish to go home. Her reasons eventually come:
“I don’t remember my parents, or if I had siblings. I don’t remember the house I lived in, the neighbours on my street. It’s hard to miss something you don’t remember. Twenty six years is a long time. This world is the only place I can call home.”
She closes her hand, the flames extinguish.
“You amaze me, everyday.” she says, and there is pride in her one blue eye. “What you’ve built, together. At the end of the world.”
The sky rumbles overhead, Enola’s head lifts to it. She frowns deeply.
“A storm is coming. Take care.” she warns you. “I can help you again, if you choose it. If you have already chosen three, then I gift with you rest and peace. Sleep, and a dream will come.”
In a heartbeat, you’re back to where you once were. You’re unsure if you were really there, with Enola in the wood. Or if it was some kind of vision. Or maybe a dream. But whatever happened, it’s over.
And true to her word, when you next sleep, the Aurora is bright in the sky. A dream may come, if you choose it.
FREE RUNNER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are a magnificent stag, galloping through the snowy woods with ease. You seem to go on and on, never tiring, never slowing. You feel like the wind, or perhaps the very wind itself carries you. Not once do you stumble or fall, even when the snow is thick and deep, or the ground is shaky and uneven beneath you. You feel free.
When you awaken, you feel the most refreshed you’ve ever felt since you first came here. For the final day of the Aurora, you are bursting with energy and even when the lights in the sky fade — that revitalised feeling within you remains. There’s something within you that understands: you are the Free Runner. The ground will yield beneath you, your energy will not desert you, the wind will carry you.
INTERLOPER’S SACRIFICE: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape and then fade into nothing. You dream of kneeling in a darkened, charred wood. You are not alone. In this dreamscape, you dream of a loss, or a time you have never felt more helpless in your life. Perhaps it is when someone you knew died before you, or you stood as someone was sick and injured and you were unable to do a thing. As you kneel, they are there with you: sick or dying or even dead in your arms. You cannot do anything but hold them, and the helplessness is overwhelming.
You look up and Enola stands before you, her expression solemn. There are tears in her eyes, as if she shares the very pain you do: the loss, the grief, the hopelessness, the powerlessness. She approaches you and lowers herself to kneel in front of you and your companion, bracing your shoulders for a long, lingering moment. There are no words, none from neither of you.
Enola shifts slightly, leans forwards. She kisses your forehead, much like when a parent kisses their child: sweet and tender.
Enola pulls away and you gasp, slumping in exhaustion, but still alive, somehow. You stare at her, sweating and clamouring for breath, and she offers you a sad smile. Never again. you feel the words inside of you. This time, it will be different. Better.
When you awaken, you can still feel the kiss upon your forehead — enough to make your fingers reach up to touch it, your entire body tingling a little. A small voice in the back of your mind whispers, reminding you as you find yourself looking down at your hands: never again. Never again, you tell yourself and the comprehension comes to you: you have chosen. This is what it means to be: this is your sacrifice. The Interloper’s Sacrifice.
OLD BEAR’S BLESSING: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream of kneeling in thick woods, one you recognise to be Lakeside. You hold a weapon close to you: your gun, your knife, your bow, whatever it is you use to arm yourself in waking life. The air is alive with breathing, your heart thunders in your chest.
You feel… warm, with blood. You are injured. Sharp claws have torn your flesh, fangs have punctured you, mangled your bones. The pain is overwhelming, and you look up to a shadow of a great and terrible beast. Some Interlopers may recognise this creature. Others may not.
This is the Old Bear. Now gone from this place, but it has returned once more to offer a boon.
Impossibly big in this dream, more so than the phantom that haunted Interlopers earlier this year. It towers over you. You cannot win this fight. You are tired, weak and injured.
But you will not be afraid. And you keep your weapon ready.
The bear approaches you, weighted and purposeful steps to your kneeling form.
Its giant muzzle is level with your face. The moment is fraught. Its jaws open wide into a ferocious roar, and you don’t flinch away — even as you feel its hot breath against your face. In reply, you scream back. You will not be afraid.
Old Bear falls silent, salivating jaws dripping onto you. You gaze at the Old Bear’s huge, black eyes: intelligent and fearsome. The darkness in those black pools feels endless. And yet you feel… seen. The Old Bear sees something in you.
You will not be afraid.
When you awaken, you feel…. strong. Hale. Perhaps the best you’ve felt since you came here, perhaps for the first time in your life. But there’s something else, too. Something that rolls in slow waves in the pit of your stomach. Rage, some old kind of fury that warms your bones. The Old Bear has granted you a boon, a blessing. May you use it well.
NOTHING: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape, but only for a moment. The edges of your vision begin the blur with black, slowly closing in until everything goes dark and you fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. You awaken, and although you feel rested, as if the dreamless darkness has helped you feel a little more ready to take on the day — nothing else about you has changed.
THE AURORA: CROSSROADS ELEGY PT. 2
WHEN: Mid-November.
WHERE: Everywhere
Enola had warned of a coming storm, and she isn’t the only one. Methuselah returns to Milton unexpectedly in mid-November to warn of a storm coming. He’s done this before, warning Interlopers of particularly dangerous weather — able to sense the signs around him. He’ll take up refuge in the Community Hall, like he’s done previously, and both warns and helps Interlopers to prepare. You do not have long, the storm is almost upon the Northern Territories.
Both Enola and Methuselah’s words ring true. The clouds that gather are thick and heavy, the air shifts and you hear the rumblings of thunder in the skies above you. The faint daylight grows darker still. Of course, November is well known for its terrible weather — with an increase in blizzards and snowfall and a huge drop in temperatures. And maybe, you guess, that’s what they refer to. A monster blizzard, or some super storm where the temperature plummets low enough to freeze a man solid.
It isn’t snow that begins to fall, but ice.
The hailstones are small, at first. But they grow larger: irritating, stinging when they make contact with soft, fleshy bodies. The sky swirls and darkens more, the thunder grows louder and crackles like the thrum of electricity.
Even in the clouded skies, lightning strikes: the dark is punctured with bright flashes of white light, illuminating the world below.
What starts off as hailstones the size of peas, then growing to the size of small marbles grows even bigger still: hailstorms the size of golfballs, and some even the size of tennis balls start to rain down from the heavens. They fall thick and fast, hard enough to put dents in the decaying, rusting cars and trucks that have lain in Milton’s snowbanks for well over two years now. Hard enough to break the glass of windscreens. Hard enough to start damaging roofs, or smaller, weaker structures within the world.
Hard enough to split skin, or even knock a man unconscious. Or maybe even cause the end of them.
Sometimes, when the lightning strikes, it does not remain within the clouds. Bolts can strike downwards — towards the earth, posing danger to anyone in the vicinity.
It would be wise to hole up and buckle down. Venturing outside would be dangerous to both man and beast alike. While the ferociousness of the storm can ebb and flow, it will not ease up for three days — after which the skies will finally calm and the weather returns to its usual miserable November fare.
WINTER’S CURSE
WHEN: The Month of November, into December.
WHERE: Everywhere
It starts with a dream. This dream is not like one of the ones associated with Enola. It feels like an ordinary dream: a cloudless, calm night. The moon is full, the air is cold. You stand outside, breathing in that crisp air. You enjoy the peace, walking through the snow.
Two glowing eyes are watching you from the dark.
You do not notice them, not at first. Your head turns, and you see them: unblinking in the inky black. The eyes of some kind of animal. You stare for a long moment, uncertain, slowing to a stop on your walk.
You look away.
As you look back, a huge shape leaps out at you: long limbs and claws and the glowing eyes.
You awake with a sharp snap, startled. You feel cold, shaken. You don’t quite realise what’s happened to you, not just yet.
You carry on as normal. You go about your day to day, whatever chores you hurry through in the daylight hours and whatever you do to wile away the hours during the lengthening nights. But little things begin to crop up, things you or others notice about you.
You find yourself hungering for raw meat, no matter your preferences beforehand. The idea of cooked meat makes your stomach churn. You find yourself averse to hot fires, or warm environments — shirking away from the heat. You’re more withdrawn than usual, prone to snapping with others, losing yourself a little — forgetting who you are.
But it’s not just these behaviours that change about you. As the days go on, there’s physical changes that become harder and harder to hide:
You notice lumps protruding at your temples. Over time, the skin breaks painfully and horns begin to grow from your head. Your nails lengthen, become claw-like. Your teeth sharpen and your smile widens unnaturally. You become taller, more gaunt. You feel a coldness in your chest, something slow — like something is quietly beginning to freeze within you. You may even begin to grow white fur, or your hair turns white.
And the eyes. Your eyes take on a pale, reflective sheen — glowing in the darkness like an animal. The same eyes that you once saw in a dream.
Methuselah is the one to note the changes to these afflicted Interlopers, whilst he is in Milton during and shortly after the storm. He will try to tend to any Interlopers who come to him, or have been brought to him by others for medical assistance.
“You remember the tale of Old Bear, of the White Stag? Stories of this world that have been made real by the strange machinations of late. I fear this is one more.” he says gravely.
“There is a story in the Northern Territories of a beast that lives within the mountains. Solitary, hateful. It is said that it would capture its victims and transform them into angry creatures of hate and snow — cursing them to be just like it. If victims were not saved in time, they would be lost forever — doomed to carry on the beast’s curse.
Some stories tell of ways to end the curse on the beast’s victims: the afflicted soul must find a way to purge the curse that lies inside their body — a heart of ice. Some are released of the curse by being shown kindness and compassion from others. Other stories involve the victim being submerged in heat as a way of thawing the ice heart’s grip on them enough to allow them to sick it up.
For those lost forever, when the curse has finally taken hold, there is only one way to end it and grant them mercy: to fire a flaming arrow into the victim’s heart.”
It is not much to go off, but perhaps it is enough. Interlopers must work out a way to end the beast’s curse and save their fellow Interlopers — before it is too late for them to come back.
BONES IN THE OCEAN
WHEN: Mid-late November.
WHERE: Silverpoint, the Coast.
The Docks have largely been empty of ships, with the exception of a few ruined fishing boats that had been sheltered within the safety of the harbour until the ice trapped them and started to break them apart. They have long since been picked off by the townsfolk of Silverpoint, and there isn’t much for Interlopers to scavenge from. Beachcombing is typically the way to go in terms of finding things, but… something else has appeared in the month of November.
It’s Marra that raises the alarm first. She sends out messages to Interlopers via the radios she’d helped fix up for them — passing the message on that a new ship has been sighted, either run aground or trapped within the ice. A huge freighter.
Interlopers who decide to make the journey down to Silverpoint will be met with Jace, who’s been awaiting them at the Frozen Angler.
“It turned up out of nowhere.” Jace explains. “We didn’t hear anything, either. Fog had been pretty heavy the past week or so, and then we got that storm with the lightning and monster hail. Marra spotted it early in the morning when the fog finally cleared and told my mom. Figured it might be a better idea to hit it up with a group since the thing’s massive. It’s probably been floating around for ages.”
If Interlopers look to the south east, they will see something stuck out on the ice: a ship. Some sort of cargo ship, but there’s no knowing what kind of cargo may be on it. Perhaps it’s one that was on its way to the island with a shipment before things all went terribly wrong. Or maybe, as Jace suggests, it’s been floating around on the seas for some time before it’s run adrift towards the island.
As midwinter approaches, the ice has stretched even further out than it has previously, and certainly grown far sturdier. As long as care is taken, it is possible for Interlopers to move out onto the sea ice and reach the ship.
The ship sits at an odd angle, listing to one side as it rests in the frozen ice. Climbing aboard, Interlopers will find the deserted wreck of a cargo ship: rusted and aged by sea air and salt water. While difficult to maneuver through the ship due to the list, it’s possible to explore.
(You don’t realise there are eyes watching you as you stagger over the ship’s deck.)
Exploring the main body of the ship will unveil that a crew had been present at some point: belongings remain, living quarters have been used, the place is lived in. But Interlopers will find everything covered in a layer of dust — no one’s been aboard in a while.
(You don’t see the ghostly figure watching you from behind you as you rifle through a backpack, but you feel like someone’s there.)
There are no corpses to be found, though. Which begs the question: where are the crew?
The kitchens do have food within them. Mostly portables, canned goods, things that don’t need refrigeration, or simple ‘ready to eat’ meals. They’re still in good shape, no damage to them. They’ll be a welcome addition to food stores, considering the winter.
(There’s a clatter behind you, a cupboard of metal plates spill out and scatter across the floor. The sound echoes.)
Traversing down into the hold will reveal the ship’s cargo: the ship appears to have been a dry bulk vessel. Inspecting the crates will reveal grains, cereals, coal and ores. A few of the crates have been damaged, but most of the them are in good condition and the contents are unspoiled.
(You hear whispering carry the full length of the hold, angry chittering and low rumbles. You think it might just be rats.)
The longer you spend on the ship, the more you feel something is… off. A low-churning dread in the pit of your stomach. The hairs on the back of your neck prickle. You know it’s cold, considering you’re within a steel ship lodged within the ice but… it feels colder, in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s referring to the temperature. Even Jace’s curiosity and cheer is subdued as he shudders: ”Man, this place is giving me the heebie-jeebies.”
You begin to load up, taking your share to head back to land with. The ship seems to groan around you, the strain of the steel against the ice. You’re stopped dead in your tracks.
Before you stands the spectral form of a sailor. His clothing half-soaked, half-frozen, his skin frostbitten and sunken. His mouth opens, and an inhuman sound comes out and with a jerk, he lunges for you. You stumble back, trying to avoid him, you fall. The spectre disappears by the time you next look — but you are no longer alone.
Further instances transpire: more ghosts of sailors appearing wherever you are on the ship, trying to lunge for you — causing you to trip or fall, trying to cause harm to you on the dangerously listing ship. Objects will go flying at you: plates, cutlery with deadly precision, sometimes even the broken crates of goods will come hurtling your way. Or even ship ropes or chains, trying to ensnare you in them and throttling you.
If they manage to catch you, they grip at you tightly, sucking the warmth and strength right out of you — your breath forced from your lungs and you can barely breathe.
The obvious decision would be to leave. It appears the ghosts are protective over their cargo and ship, and do not wish to be disturbed — but there are perhaps ways of dispersing the ghost temporarily in order to get out (and hopefully with some cargo in tow).
Given the power in stories in this place, the ways which are believed to tackle ghosts might just work on these ones. It’s worth trying, for the sake of valuable items being brought back to shore.
FAQs
THE AURORA: CROSSROADS ELEGY PT. 11. Aurora Feats are unlocked! For this round, RNG picked Free Runner, Interloper’s Sacrifice and Old Bear’s Blessing.
2. Please see
the following page for more information. Aurora Feats are completely optional.
3. Interlopers will only receive
ONE Aurora Event. The only time this is available is this month. After November, players will have to wait for the next Feat round for another chance at an Aurora Feat.
THE AURORA: CROSSROADS ELEGY PT. 2(tba)
WINTER’S CURSE1. This creature is based on the Chenoo legend, in which ways of helping the creature transform back into a human revolve around themes of kindness being transformative.
2. With that, ways of healing affected Interlopers by breaking the curse are showing them genuine compassion/kindness/love — which can be open to interpretation.
3. Additional ways of helping could be Lightbringers using their bodily warmth to help the afflicted Interloper melt down the heart enough to throw it up (ie. hugging it out). Or even shoving them in a hot bath, or taking them to the hotsprings could help!
4. Players are fine to have an NPC Interloper fully transform to the curse and choose the violence option if they wished to play out a more action-packed thread. Interlopers lost to the curse completely are violent, fierce creatures that will attack others and try to inflict the curse open them, thus carrying on the cycle.
BONES IN THE OCEAN1. Further attempts to scavenge from the ship will have much of the same effect.
2. Ways of defeating ghosts in fiction would work on temporarily dispersing the ghosts in this case: salt, holy water, fire/light, perhaps even some kind of exorcism may ease the spirits for a short while.
PLOTTING FORM
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