The Twins of De La Poer – Steal these Enemies

Gilbert and Godfrey De La Poer were twins. Were, because at the age of eight Godfrey passed away whilst held in a sound proof cell by his parents in the Neo-Victorian world of Unhallowed Metropolis. They had very good reasons for doing this, and for keeping the other twin in his own cell. Both the boys had been born with powerful, and often uncontrollable, psychic powers. They would usually manifest as pranks, as the two boys were known to be mischievous. No one knew if the tragedy that would lead them to be locked away was intended to be a prank, or if there was a more malicious intent to the actions of the boys. When one of the scullery maids was found dead, her internal organs crushed from the inside, the De La Poers did what they thought would be best to avoid scandal befalling the family.

The two boys refused to speak from then on, communing with each other in a way that was unknowable to any who lacked their gift. The Children were reported dead in a carriage accident, and the family name (plus generous donations to the right place) meant no questions were raised. Within a month of the cells being occupied one boy was dead, and the other sent to London for a prolonged stay at St. Bethlams, where he spent his days strapped to a hard steel bed.  With drugs continually being pumped into his system, the staff quickly realized there could be no saving of his broken mind. Many methods were tried to allow him peace, but they were barbaric by any decent standards and, if anything, fractured his consciousness even more.

Years passed before Gilbert finally freed himself from the cruelty and deprivations of the asylum system.  The time spent there on anti-psychic and anti-psychotic drugs beat his hatred into a diamond-hard core, but left him almost unable to control his powers. A miasma of psychic hate surrounded him as he walked the streets, causing people near him to lash out without thought for themselves or their victims. Mothers would stamp their babies to death in their perambulators, lovers would chew each others’ throats out, best friends could not stop hitting their companions no matter that they were little more bone fragments and a wet stain on the floor.

At the same time, the de La Poer estate on the outskirts of Hull was uninhabitable. The violent poltergeist (which was all that remained of the dead twin) thrashed around the house, tearing the fixtures and fittings into even smaller fragments. Throwing itself and anything else in the manor against the walls and through the windows, angrier than he had ever been in life, and missing a brother he could barely remember. The noise has attracted hordes of animates – walking dead who flocked to the noise, too brainless to understand there is nothing to eat. Some have been there for decades, rotting in the wind and rain, but still trying to gain entrance, making it almost impossible for any exorcists to put this violent spirit to rest.

Neither knows the other still walks the world, but both keenly feel a gaping emptiness in their existence, lashing out with the anger that seems to be all that remains. This is where the players come in. Hired by the last remaining De La Poer, to free his family home from the curse, the curse that has been held over it since he was a boy too young to remember his older siblings. As Gilbert stalks London, spreading haters wherever he goes, he interferes with anything the players do to prepare, dragging them towards him while they try to figure out who this potent psychic is. If they do survive the first twin, they then have to fight through an undead horde to try to lay the second to rest. A difficult task at the best of times, made harder by the solitude of the location and the slavering animates at the door.