Halloween event · 13–31 October
The Reaper’s Share
On the anniversary of the Reaping, Ebstone locks its doors and keeps its hearth fires burning through the night. Beyond those shuttered homes, five scattered heirlooms carry the fear and violence of a crime the village has spent fifty years trying to forget.
A dark night in Ebstone
The Ebworth family governed Ebstone when its mines still brought wealth upriver to Sarnath. They grew rich, paid their taxes to Erron Quince and left little for the people working beneath them. Their crest showed a scythe crossed over a skull. Lord Ebworth had intimidating black-and-bone armour forged in its image; in peacetime, it stood on a plinth in Stonegrave Manor’s grand entrance.
The Storm brought poverty and terror, and Ebworth answered with martial law. Desperate villagers gathered against him. As the Storm’s malice fed their fury, protest became a mindless frenzy. The village elders dragged the governor from his home, and the violence inside Stonegrave ended with the slaughter of his entire bloodline. A young Gneiss Elbridge watched men he had respected all his life become the killers of the Ebworth household.
Afterwards, the villagers scattered the pieces of his regalia and buried them to hide their shame. Stonegrave has stood abandoned ever since. Even pilgrims desperate for shelter refuse its threshold, where the governor’s wife is said to linger as the Ebstone Wraith. Gneiss keeps his witness secret. His determination to protect the village and preserve its peace owes something to the night he cannot undo.
The Reaper must have his share
The Reaper’s share is an old name for the loss and suffering that seem to follow even the best of fortunes. Long before the Storm, people across the continent used the saying when a harvest failed, taxes took the last of their earnings, plague spread or a death came without warning. On Tidefall, it still means the same thing: nothing can be wholly good; sooner or later, something must be taken.
To say “The Reaper must have his share” is to meet misfortune with weary resignation. A farmer might mutter it over a ruined crop, or a family after a bitter winter. It gives familiar words to losses they cannot prevent, and to the fear that good times always carry a cost.
The Cursed Regalia
Ebworth once served as an officer of the Blackstone Fort garrison. His regalia became a reminder of the authority he carried into Stonegrave, then of the violence that ended it. Each scattered piece bears a different curse, preserving something of the Reaping in the hands of another wearer.
Cursed headwear
Reaper’s Deathmask
A hood was forced over Lord Ebworth’s head on the night of the Reaping. The note left with the Deathmask breaks off before describing what its bearers saw beneath the cloth.
CurseHorrifying Visage
Effect Yet to be discovered.
“We pulled the cloth away. The iron came with it. And what we all saw...”
A note left fifty years ago
Cursed armour
Reaper’s Carapace
Others took Ebworth’s armour back towards the fort where he had served. No confession accompanies it, only a mark and an inscription.
CurseWalk Among Us
Effect Yet to be discovered.
“The Reaper must have his share.”
An inscription in the armour
Cursed bow
Reaper’s Recurve
Steward Lowseve Middlestone carried the bow to the Ebworth family’s dead. He hoped an act of loyalty might quiet his lord’s spirit and his own conscience. His plea begs for the household’s forgiveness.
CurseFrenzy
Effect Yet to be discovered.
“We are contrite, lord. Contrite! It was madness. Osif said so. We know it well.”
The plea of Steward Lowseve Middlestone
Cursed dagger
Reaper’s Shard
Osif took the family knife from Stonegrave and carried it away in search of forgiveness. He left a confession for anyone who might follow, already fearing he would not survive the journey.
CurseParalysed by Fear
Effect Yet to be discovered.
“I brought the blade seeking peace.”
Osif’s confession
Cursed weapon
Reaper’s Greatscythe
A scythe crossed over a skull marked the Ebworth line. After the Reaping, the villagers tried to destroy the great weapon. Their notes say they could not. Decades later, Debarye left a warning of her own.
CurseReaper’s Share
Effect Yet to be discovered.
“Do not touch the pale edges.”
Debarye’s warning