The premise
Ravenscar Hall is a vast crumbling manor on a storm-battered clifftop above the drowned village of Mournhollow, in the autumn of 1898. The Hall has stood three hundred years and the Ravenscar family has been dying inside it almost as long, until the line guttered out and the great house was shuttered and left to the rooks and the rot. You have just arrived to claim it: a distant heir summoned by a solicitor's letter, a paranormal investigator hired to explain the disappearances, a debt-ridden newcomer who bought the cursed estate cheap, or a servant returning to a house they swore never to enter again. The doors have been locked for years, and something inside has been waiting, patient as the cold, for someone exactly like you.
Mrs. Elara Wexford, the ancient and evasive Chief Caretaker, has served the Hall far longer than any mortal should and knows exactly which doors must stay shut. The Parish of St. Giles, under the unyielding and grieving Reverend Silas Thorne, keeps the old protective rites and would see the manor burned before the binding breaks. The Mournhollow Wreckers, fisherfolk like the traumatized Silas 'Salt-Eye' Croft, have feared and fed the Hall for generations. And the London Society for Psychical Inquiry, led by the obsessive Dr. Alistair Finch and channeling the catatonic medium Miss Evadne Croft, has come to contact what lives in the Hall - and does not understand what that will cost.
The binding that has kept a malevolent presence beneath Ravenscar Hall for three hundred years is failing, worn thin by the death of the last true Ravenscar and the arrival of fresh blood the house has hungered for. The sorrowful Lady in Grey wants her betrayal uncovered; the thing bound below wants a new face to wear out into the world. The house remembers every room you enter.
What this world plays like
Your first ten turns are the quiet wrongness of the Hall: the cold spots, the door that was locked and now is not, the portrait whose eyes have moved. Mrs. Wexford answers a different question than the one you asked. The house is already noting which rooms you dare.
By turn fifty your standing with the Wardens of the Hall, the Parish of St. Giles, the Mournhollow Wreckers, and the London Society is tracked as real attitude, and the bricked-up history you pried into on turn twelve has marked you as a problem to the living and a curiosity to the dead. A truth you uncovered costs you a night's sleep you do not get back. The binding grows thinner every night you stay.
By turn one hundred the binding is near to breaking and you hold knowledge that cannot be unlearned. Whoever you trusted, whatever you woke in the East Wing, the Hall keeps the account - and some doors, once opened, look back.
Ravenscar Hall does not reset between sessions. Close the tab. The rain keeps on the tall windows, and the house keeps waiting.
Factions in motion
The Wardens of the Hall
The last loyal retainers of the Ravenscar estate, bound by generations of service and dark secrets. Their primary duty is not to serve a living lord, but to maintain the Binding on the Hollow Master and manage the Hall's malevolent consciousness, preserving the fragile peace at any cost.
The Parish of St. Giles
The moral and spiritual authority in Mournhollow, led by the unyielding Reverend Thorne. He preaches a gospel of fire, brimstone, and constant vigilance, viewing the evil of the Hall as a test of faith to be fought with prayer and piety, not appeased with pagan charms.
The Mournhollow Wreckers
The informal network of Mournhollow's fisherfolk, united by necessity and ancient traditions. They manage the smuggling that keeps the village afloat and practice the old ways of warding and appeasement to survive the Hall's proximity, viewing both activities as essential for survival.
The London Society for Psychical Inquiry
A small, well-funded group of spiritualists from London, convinced Ravenscar Hall is a unique nexus of psychic energy. They seek to make contact with the 'other side' using scientific methods, utterly oblivious to the true nature and scale of the danger they are courting.
People you'll meet
Mrs. Elara Wexford
Reverend Silas Thorne
Dr. Alistair Finch
Silas 'Salt-Eye' Croft
Miss Evadne Croft
Old Man Jonah Hemlock
Places that matter
Ravenscar Headland
A high, windswept promontory of granite and gnarled oak, perpetually battered by the sea. The land is dominated by the silhouette of Ravenscar Hall, its crumbling towers like broken teeth against a bruised sky. The air is cold and heavy with the scent of salt, wet earth, and decay.
The Salt-Sinks
The village of Mournhollow lies in a low, marshy basin where the river meets the sea, a dreary collection of stone cottages huddled around a stark church. At high tide and during storms, the sea invades the lower streets, leaving trails of black weed and brine. It is a place that feels like it is slowly being reclaimed by the water.
The Grey Moors
A vast, rolling expanse of bleak moorland separating the coast from the inland farms. Heather and tough grasses cover a landscape of sucking bogs, hidden streams, and ancient standing stones that lean against the wind. The only sounds are the cry of gulls and the ceaseless wind.
The Weald-Farms
Inland from the moors, the landscape softens into rolling plains and patches of managed woodland. Small, hardscrabble farms are scattered across this region, connected by muddy tracks. This is the most 'civilized' part of the local area, though still deeply rural and isolated by modern standards.
The Northern Fells
High, barren hills and tundra-like plateaus that rise to the north of the moors, exposed to the full force of the Atlantic gales. The air is thin and cold, and little grows here but lichen and hardy moss. It is a place of profound solitude and stark, desolate beauty.
A real turn from this world
Mrs. Wexford sets the lamp down so its light does not reach the top of the stairs. "You've been in the East Wing," she says, not a question. "I can always tell. The house is warmer to those it has decided to keep." She folds her hands, and they do not tremble, which is somehow worse. "Lady Evangeline will speak to you now, whether you wish it or not. She has been so very lonely, and you are the first new face in this house in forty years. Be careful what you promise her. The dead in this place keep their bargains."
She is the kindest voice in Ravenscar Hall and the one that has lied to you the longest, and they are the same thing.
Standing with the Wardens of the Hall: watched. The house logs which doors you open. The thing beneath it, in its patient way, logs them too.
Why Ravenscar Hall holds up over a long campaign
Most AI roleplay tools are built around a single session. They start to fall apart at hour ten and are barely playable at hour fifty. Ravenscar Hall doesn't, because the world isn't living in a chat history - it's living in a database.
Mechanical truth in Postgres. Coins, inventory, NPCs, factions, locations, properties - all in real database rows. The narrator describes around the database; the database is what's true. By turn 500, your business ledger still balances and your apprentices still have the names you gave them.
Hierarchical chapter compression. Every chapter compresses into a tight summary; summaries compress into act-level summaries. The hundredth turn can pull a relevant detail from chapter two without flooding the context window.
Semantic memory. Important moments are embedded as vectors. When the current scene references an old promise, the engine retrieves the exact exchange where that promise was made - even 800 turns ago.
You'll be asked to choose Quick Start or build a character of your own.