Mortishire

Overview

Once, the settlement of Mortishire was known as Bluebell, named for the swaths of bluebells that grew in the hills around the small village. The inhabitants, while lacking much in education and the finer things of life, were content with their lot in life.

Then came the wizard, looking for an isolated place to pursue his studies; taking over the decrepit windmill on the town’s edge, abandoned since the miller had died and his son had moved away, his experiments seemed harmless enoug - the occasional billow of oddly-hued smoke or odd light in the small hours were hardly enough to concern the placid folk.

Then, unexpectedly, the wizard’s research bore results; he had been delving into the nature of the boundary between the worlds, a subject that even the mighty god of knowledge was loathe to examine, and in the end found a way to breach the barrier - after a fashion. Rather than piercing a hole to the other aspect of the world, the wizard’s magic weakened the barrier between the living world and the afterlife to such a degree that the entire town ‘sank’, on a spiritual level, becoming a thing halfway between the two. The windmill was destroyed in the event, and the wizard vanished without a trace.

At first, the effects were almost unnoticed; who pays much attention to a chicken head after lopping it off? Indeed, it almost seemed a boon, whatever had happened - the livestock seemed more resilient to the effects of the weather and seemed to shrug off illnesses that were known to be fatal. It was until the first human death that the true effects became apparent - despite his heart ceasing to beat in the middle of the night and the coolness of his skin, the elderly farm Donnel rose with the sun as was his wont, and didn’t even realize he was no longer alive until accidentally cutting himself on a large piece of splintering wood, only to find his blood turned dark and oozing sluggishly, rather than a vibrant red fluid.

Now, those who know of the town call it Mortishire; populated by extended families stretching back several generation, with a few living of the newest generations and many more unliving ancestors in varying states from leathery but intact to horribly mangled but still animate. The Donnel family in particular is noteworthy of the horrors of this small village, with the elderly patriarch reduced to little more than a single arm, shoulders, and a head - resting in a niche built for him by his great-grandson decades ago, he continues to supervise the operations of the farm.

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