The Delapore Family
From Changeling Venue
Contents |
History & Origins
The Appalachian's northernmost foothills hide many hidden things, which cling to the mountainsides like lichen and rot. Distinguished, old money families call this hill country home, escaping from modernity within the vast, antediluvian forests of New England. Herein they house their children, their elderly, their fortunes, and their most heinous secrets. The Delapores are one such clan, tucked away in some darkened valley where both distance and guard dogs discourage casual visitation. Originally of Scot-Irish blood, the Delapore fortune was carried to American shores during the earliest days of colonization. With that fortune, however, came its originating curse. The Delapores did not simply relocate to the New World from their highland castles and manorhouses on the moors; they were driven out. For, in exchange for enough wealth to feed their most gluttonous desires, the Delapores sold their own souls as fodder to Hell, through a Devil in the form of The Rats In The Walls. Every generation, the Delapores fed one of their own children to that Other... children who returned to the family, but changed. In return, they received good harvests, land, and treasure enough to placate even the most opulent appetite. When they somehow acquired more victims to send beyond the Walls, their riches always grew proportionally. And neither the Others nor their mortal servants were ever satisfied.
Return of the Delapore Curse
Sometime ago, perhaps in the 1700s or 1800s, someone discovered this terrible trade and sealed off the crypt where the transactions took place... with all the Delapores who knew of it trapped inside. For a century or more, the Delapore curse laid dormant and The Rats In The Walls went without their supper. However, in this generation, Alexander Delapore stumbled across the forgetten tomb when he inherited the family fortune. Excavating the dark caverns beneath his ancestral home, he broke the wards protecting the place from the Others and awoke his family's long dormant curse. The Rats In The Walls came for him deep below the earth and carried him away to their dark abyss. When Alexander finally escaped, he returned to the Delapore estate only to find his fetch waiting. "Alexander Delapore" had led the family into new prominence throughout the region, diversifying its holdings and reenergizing the bloodline. Investments drew a healthy profit, as if Fortune itself shown upon the Delapore family. Certainly, their every appetite went well fed. Just like in the days of old...
Present-day
The true Alexander knew what was happening: his fetch was feeding the family's young, or perhaps the young of wherever the family's influence spread, to The Rats In The Walls. Yet, against the financial and societal juggernaut that was the Delapore name, the broken Lost could do nothing. To this night, the Ashen Pilgrim of New-New Amsterdam knows his fetch schemes within the impregnable Delapore ancestral home, using the vast influence and wealth of the Delapores to feed the festering hunger gnawing beyond the Walls.
OOC Information
The Delapore Family is imagined to be a powerful antagonist force within the Lost venue. Please contact persevering1@gmail.com with ideas for incorporating the Delapores into your PC history or game; almost any concepts can work. Likewise, if you would like to play an escapee from the Delapores (either one of their own or someone captured by them), please contact persevering1@gmail.com with your suggestions. There are countless possibilities here, so please email!
