The Feud
The family clans in rural Georgia in the 1800s were wild and free, very rarely having traffic with city folk or the local law enforcement officers of the area. When a man was wronged it often fell to the family of that man to back him up as he sought vengeance, often resulting in bloody family feuds that could span generations. How the feud between the mountain clans, the Bostwicks and the Gumptons, started has been lost to the mists of time, but it grew to the point that open murder of family members from both sides was a common occurance. In 1803, the Bostwicks raided the primary encampment of the Gumptons during a family gathering and slaughtered a large percentage of the clan leaving them weak and scattered. From the survivors arose a new leader, the young and fierce Betty Mae Gumpton, who remembered the family lore on how to seek the ultimate revenge against one’s enemies.
The Old Man Down The Road
In the shadows of the mountain dwelled a mysterious stranger that everyone avoided. Rumored to have unnatural powers, he was occasionally sought by the hillfolk in times of extreme need, but only by those willing to pay the horrific price that he would demand. Completely wrapped in tattered robes and dwelling in a cave dug deep into a hillside, he became an almost mythical figure of horror to the locals and where he roamed was stricken from all maps. On a dark moonless night three days after the Gumpton Massacre, Betty Mae strode boldly into his cave to confront the boogeyman of her childhood and demanded vengeance against the Bostwicks. The Old Man, or whatever he was, spoke in riddles and was difficult to understand, but very soon it was clear that she and her entire remaining clan would face unimaginable horrors as a price for their revenge. The Old Man had her drink an acrid potion to enhance her persuasive abilities, and sent Betty Mae to collect all of the remaining members of the Gumpton family.
The Pit Of Sacrifice
At the bottom of the Old Man’s cave was a dark pit, and he bade in raspy whispers for all of the remaining Gumptons to descend, save for Betty Mae whom he held back. Down in this pit of sacrifice they encountered a force that cannot be explained, a force of foul transformation that would grant the Gumpton Clan the revenge that they so desperately sought, as dark energy was drained from the undying Bat God Camazotz, sealed deep below the mountain and siphoned into them. Each and every one of them became Chthons, pale, muscular, blind and batlike. They became subhuman creatures, dark dwellers in the chthonic spaces under the earth. A few weeks later on the night of Halloween, Betty Mae lead them disguised in crude and makeshift costumes (to hide their bizarre disfigurements) into the small town where the Bostwicks lived and by the light of the jack-o’-lanterns they exacted the bloody and savage revenge that had cost them their humanity!
Zombie Queen
The Old Man was no longer a man, but rather a mummified European alchemist from the 15th century known as Gerhard Dorn. He had achieved immortality by gazing upon the face of the Great Old One Ghatanothoa and becoming a shrivelled living corpse, but not before recovering a powerful amulet that would allow him mobility in this new accursed form. Dorn had made his way to the mountain to discover the secrets of the Undying and the lost city buried deep below it. But over the hundreds of years he spent there Dorn had become lonely, and thus transformed Betty Mae into another immortal living corpse like himself that the locals would soon call the Zombie Queen. She became his companion and over time, driven by her fierce will a powerful and dangerous creature in her own right. As Dorn focused on more esoteric studies, she became an expert on Necromancy and the summoning and control of spirits.
Whyshburg and Beyond
Together they influenced and guided the events behind the founding of Whyshburg. It was the Zombie Queen who pulled Eliza Wyshman into Spiritualism and revealed the powers of the Gorgon to her. When the Collector began to stalk the graveyards of Whyshburg, Dorn and his Queen fled for a time before the power of the Dark Circle, but it was the undead couple’s influence that powered the Brotherhood of Rhomb to better oppose them. In recent years Dorn began whispering to their leader Anton Varla, and had him bring the children of Whyshburg to the Pit of Sacrifice to make them more than human.
The Children Of Autumn
Many children of the Brotherhood of Rhomb that entered Dorn’s pit of sacrifice never returned, some were driven mad, and some were granted amazing talents and were now called the Children of Autumn. For those who went to that place were confronted by the spiritual forms of the Undying monsters trapped deep below the mountain, and were changed by the powers of these ancient creatures. Three children in particular, strangely of happy and curious demeanor despite the violent world that they lived in, encountered The Trine Hallows in the pit, three Undying with particular powers and aspects uniquely tied to the Halloween season.
The Schism
In the face of modern technology and the ever expanding growth of the NETHERWORLD’s power, Dorn and his Queen took different paths in their support of the Brotherhood. The Queen led Margaret Wythe to the Mirror, Mask and Amulet of the Gorgon and had her overthrow Anton Varlas’ leadership. Dorn angered that his chosen pawn had been cast out, bade him journey into the depths of the mountain, to Xibalba the caverns and tunnels of the Chthons now many generations into their bizarre evolution. Led by Varla, enhanced by Dorn’s potions, they began the ascent back to the surface world donning makeshift costumes to once more wreak havoc on Halloween and wrest control from Margaret and her army of living statues!
All Hallow’s Eve
On the night of All Hallow’s Eve, the bat like horrors led by Varla and Dorn burst into the surface world once more, clad in Halloween costumes from a bygone age, their blindness making them immune to Margaret’s Gorgon Mirror, and their strength and rock breaking skills matching well against her reanimated statue army. Unbeknownst to Dorn, they had been tainted by the evil of the Dark Circle and set out to destroy the entire Brotherhood of Rhomb and everyone in the town! The Children of Autumn, the three transformed trick or treaters, stood fast protecting the people of Whysburg against the Chthons with the power of the Swarms, The Ghosts, and The Darkness! Who would survive on this night of dark magic and savage battle? Who would reclaim leadership of the Brotherhood of Rhomb? And most importantly who would stand as guardians from the neverending threat posed to the surface world by these Halloween Nightmares from below!
