With the disruption in magic during the Pleasent Hills Incident, the forces of the supernatural are in turmoil. While the situation was resolved and the 11th Age of Magic was avoided, the forces in the universe have been shaken and are now in a process of realignment. On the most supernatural night of the year, Halloween, a group known as The League of Villains are making a play for power.
The League of Villains is kept in line by their impossibly slender leader. His friends are permitted to call him Jack. Everyone else has a different name for him - The Pumpkin King. The Skeleton. The Thin Man. The Rogue Reaper. After abandoning his post as a servant of the afterlife, he came to the mortal plane where he proclaimed himself Lord of Halloween. Not content to rule one holiday, he has on at least once occasion attempted to wrest Christmas from the grasp of the Allfather. Taking a tithe of every soul he claimed has granted him power unseen by mere mortal ghosts. Besides his potent spacial altering magics, he possesses the living shadow weapon Soul Robber, which can grapple objects and turn into a scythe and other weapons.
Seeing The Black Widow Bride, you would make the mistake of dismissing her as a simple ghost. Constance Hatchaway is more than a conventional spirit - she is a powerful poltergeist whose spectral ax can cut through steel and bone. In life, she had many wealthy husbands, all of them who perished in terrible... accidents which left their heads detached from their bodies. She was never arrested or convicted for her crimes but after her death, she found she was trapped in the very house she had murdered in. Only on Halloween may she leave her haunted house but must return before sun-up lest the psychopomps come and drag her to her due punishment.
It would be wise for no one to underestimate the man who goes by the name The Shadow Man. Wile Doctor Samuel Facilier appears to be a bokor who practices the left-handed path of Petro Voodoo, he, in fact, was one of Jack's first disciples and is empowered by the same necrotic energies that fuel the Pumpkin King. Capable of making pacts and casting spells, his main ability is to draw dark spirits into the material world to do his bidding.
Maleficent is one of the last surviving dragons that have survived to the modern-day. For millennia she held a domain in England until she was betrayed by future King Edward II. Seeking revenge, she cast a spell on his firstborn daughter to cause her eternal slumber. Eventually, the spell was broken by a brave warrior Philip. The Knight would end up gravely injuring Maleficent, causing her to fake her death so she could escape and heal. Using her great magics and shapeshifting to skulk around the fringes of civilization for centuries she eventually agreed to join the League of Villains to carve out a new domain.
The meteor which uplifted the primates of Gorilla City, also altered other animals in the savannahs of Africa. One of these creatures was the lion Scar, a power-hungry lion who craved the leadership of the pride held by his brother. Arranging for the death of King Mustafa, Scar was eventually overthrown by his nephew Simba and was attacked and killed by hyenas. Resurrected to life in the service of the League, Scar seeks an opportunity to share the pain and anguish he was forced to endure while biding his time to take over leadership.
League members operate out of a place they call the Haunted Mansion. Hatachaway's prison is one house, many houses or no houses depending on the time and circumstances. In truth, any sufficiently ghost-infested location can merge into the collective framework that is the Haunted Mansion. When someone enters such a location, they are greeted to shifting floor-plans possessed by nine-hundred and ninety-nine ghosts drawn from around the world.
Normal instances of the Haunted Mansion are manors in New Orleans, Philidelphia, and Thunder Mesa, Utah. However, on Halloween, all haunted locations are potential portals for the Mansion. Using the Black Widow Bride as a guide, the League can effectively teleport across the country or the world using the Mansion.
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