The Grey House Archive
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Explore the Bone forest
Beyond the Grey House lies a landscape shaped as much by memory as by geography. The lonely mound, the silent river, the road to Summertown and the endless ranks of the Bone Forest have all found their place within local folklore, where every landmark carries a story and every journey demands caution.
The records collected here explore the places that surround the Grey House—not to explain them, but to preserve what little is known. Some locations are remembered with remarkable consistency. Others exist only through fragmented testimony and uneasy tradition. Together, they form a landscape where the ordinary and the unsettling have long existed side by side, and where the threat of violence is rarely very far away.
Map not to scale.
Around the grey house
The House That Refused to Fall
Classification: Recorded Location
Status: Standing
Region: Easteria
Known Associations: Louise, The King, The Pack
The Grey House occupies a lonely mound beyond the settled lands, surrounded by forest and approached by a single road. Contemporary descriptions consistently remark upon its weathered appearance, despite repeated attempts to determine its true age.
Its foundations have never been properly examined.
Local accounts disagree over whether the house was built upon the mound or whether the mound itself was raised around an older structure.
Throughout its recorded history the house appears less remarkable for what occurred inside it than for what repeatedly arrived outside its walls.
Despite decades of neglect, the building continues to appear in regional accounts.
No official survey has confirmed its present condition.
Archivist's Note
Every village has an abandoned house.
Few have one the villagers still refuse to visit.
Where the House Watches
Classification: Recorded Landscape
Status: Undisturbed
Region: Easteria
Known Associations: The Grey House
The Grey House stands upon an isolated earthen mound overlooking the surrounding forest.
Its origin remains uncertain.
Some believe it to be entirely natural.
Others maintain the earth was deliberately raised long before the first house stood there.
The elevation provides an uninterrupted view of the road leading towards Summertown, a detail often noted in surviving journals and local testimony.
Older traditions discourage lingering upon the mound after sunset, although no explanation accompanies the custom.
Archivist's Note
A hill allows you to see farther.
Sometimes it allows something else to see you.
The Last Place Before the Wilderness
Classification: Recorded Settlement
Status: Inhabited
Region: Easteria
Known Associations: The Grey House
Summertown represents the final settled community before the wilderness surrounding the Grey House.
Most surviving accounts describe it as practical, heavily armed and deeply suspicious of the forests beyond its borders. Travellers departing for the old roads were frequently advised to return before nightfall, though few explanations accompanied the warning.
Despite its proximity to the Grey House, remarkably few residents claim direct knowledge of the events associated with it.
Whether this reflects disbelief, deliberate silence or simple caution has never been satisfactorily established.
Archivist's Note
Every frontier town knows where civilisation ends.
Few agree on what begins beyond it.
If the road grows quiet, walk faster.
— Country Saying
Archive of characters
These are world characters, some feature in The Grey House and some do not.
The Last Light in the Grey House
Classification: Recorded Individual
Status: Confirmed
Residence: The Grey House
Known Associations: Louise, Louise's Father
Little survives concerning Louise's mother before the events surrounding the Grey House.
Accounts consistently describe her as deeply devoted to her daughter and increasingly affected by the influence surrounding the property. Several recovered testimonies mention vivid dreams, failing memory and periods of unusual calm immediately preceding moments of great danger.
Despite declining health, she remained within the house until the final days of the siege, where multiple records credit her with defending her daughter against overwhelming odds.
Among local traditions she is remembered less for how she died than for how fiercely she refused to surrender her child.
Archivist's Note
Some mothers leave their children an inheritance.
Others leave them enough time to survive.
The Girl Who Refused the Night
Classification: Recorded Individual
Status: Confirmed
Residence: The Grey House
Known Associations: The King, Louise's Mother, Louise's Father, Aunt Jemma
Louise is remembered as the last known resident of the Grey House before its final recorded occupation.
Contemporary descriptions portray her as practical, resilient and unusually determined despite prolonged isolation. Numerous surviving accounts describe her making the daily journey into the surrounding forest to collect fresh water after the household well became unusable. Local tradition considers this routine one of the greatest acts of courage associated with the house.
Witnesses consistently remark that Louise resisted the influence exerted by the surrounding woods longer than anyone before her.
Whether this resistance arose from strength of character or simple circumstance remains disputed.
Archivist's Note
Some stories begin with a hero entering the forest.
This one begins with a girl trying to get home before sunset.
The Gentleman of the Bone Forest
Classification: Recorded Sovereign
Status: Confirmed
Known As: The King
Domain: The Bone Forest
Known Associations: The Pack, Louise
The individual known only as The King is described throughout surviving accounts as leader of the creatures inhabiting the forests surrounding the Grey House.
Unlike the other members of the Pack, he consistently appears well dressed, courteous and articulate. Contemporary descriptions repeatedly remark upon his immaculate appearance, polished manners and unsettling charm.
Archive records suggest he preferred negotiation before violence, although surviving evidence indicates the distinction may have been largely theatrical.
His habit of treating terror as courtship appears throughout every known account.
Archivist's Note
The oldest records insist that monsters rarely believe themselves to be monsters.
The King is no exception.
The Man Who Tried to Leave the Forest Behind
Classification: Recorded Individual
Status: Deceased
Residence: The Grey House
Known Associations: Louise, Louise's Mother, The King
Little is known of the man who built the Grey House beyond scattered family accounts and the physical evidence he left behind. The cleared mound, reinforced shutters and unusually heavy door locks are all traditionally attributed to his hand.
According to surviving testimony, he arrived from the Old Country seeking distance rather than opportunity. Those who knew him remembered a quiet man of practical habits who rarely spoke of his childhood or the family he had left behind. Questions concerning his past were politely discouraged.
His final years appear to have been devoted to preparing the house for a danger few others believed would ever return. The significance of these preparations was only recognised long afterwards.
Several objects recovered from within the house suggest he anticipated a confrontation that extended beyond his own lifetime.
Archivist's Note
Some people build houses.
Others build refuges.
The difference is usually discovered too late.
The First to Answer the Voices
Classification: Recorded Individual
Status: Deceased
Residence: The Grey House
Known Associations: Louise, Louise's Mother
Aunt Jemma appears in every surviving account concerning the final occupation of the Grey House despite surviving only briefly within the recorded events.
Descriptions portray her as practical, affectionate and deeply protective of her family. Early references contain no suggestion that she was unusually susceptible to the influence surrounding the house, making her disappearance all the more unsettling to later chroniclers.
Tradition holds that she was the first member of the household to respond to the voices beyond the walls. Whether she left willingly or under compulsion remains disputed, although every surviving account agrees that the event profoundly altered those who remained inside.
Later folklore frequently uses her story as a warning against listening too closely to familiar voices after sunset.
Archivist's Note
The forest rarely calls with a stranger's voice.
It already knows the ones you miss.
Those Who Wait Beyond the Treeline
Classification: Recorded Collective
Status: Active
Territory: The Bone Forest
Known Associations: The King
The collective known simply as The Pack occupies a unique position within regional folklore. Unlike many traditional woodland creatures, they display hierarchy, ritual, etiquette and an unexpectedly sophisticated social order beneath their outward savagery.
Witness descriptions vary considerably regarding their appearance. Most agree they resemble people only at a distance. Closer observation invariably reveals features that resist comfortable description. Golden eyes, elongated limbs and unnaturally expressive smiles are among the most consistently reported characteristics.
Accounts repeatedly describe the Pack laughing, singing and celebrating throughout the night. Whether these sounds serve as communication, ritual or simple amusement has never been satisfactorily established.
The Archive has identified numerous attempts to classify the Pack as either entirely human or entirely animal.
None have proven convincing.
Archivist's Note
Predators rarely announce themselves.
The Pack prefers laughter.