Description - Exterior

St. Dymphna’s sits cloaked in ivy and cracked plaster at the end of a sunken block where streetlights never work. Its tall spire leans like a crooked finger, and the stained glass windows show saints with faces worn blank by time or peeled away entirely. The gate is chained but never locked. A broken statue of the Virgin watches the yard—eyes gouged, hands outstretched.  

Description - Interior

The inside smells of rot, rainwater, and old linen. Wooden crucifixes hang upside-down, not from blasphemy—but gravity. The dormitories are frozen in time: small beds neatly made, with toys resting on pillows like offerings. A faint lullaby hums through the halls with no clear source. Some doors are nailed shut. Others open onto places that aren’t mapped. The chapel is worst—its altar blackened, its walls inscribed with Veil marks in children's handwriting.  

History

Founded in 1883 by the Sisters of Merciful Light, Saint Dymphna’s served as both convent and orphanage for the poor and mentally ill. After a scandal involving experimental “Veil therapies” in the 1920s and a fire that killed three nuns and seven children in 1937, the Church abandoned the site. Officially, it was demolished in 1948. It wasn’t. Locals whisper of flickering lights and children's laughter in the dark. Some say it was taken back—not by the Church, but by something older.  

Owned By

No one claims ownership. Tax rolls list it as condemned. But among the Veil-touched, it's considered claimed—by the Children of the Saint, a twisted remnant of those who died within.  

Run By

Mother Miriam the Hollow, a spectral nun in habit and veil, who speaks without moving her mouth and rules over the children like a queen of ash and milk.  

Employees

• Mother Miriam – Warden of the Veil-bound dead, unliving remnant of the fire.
• Sister Lardine – Glides on bare feet, her face stitched into a smile.
• Brother Cassiel – Never was a brother; speaks in a child's voice and wears a robe too big.
• Sister Agatha – Appears in photos taken inside, never seen with the eye.
• Caretaker “Soot” – Smells like chimney ash and reads to dolls by candlelight.
• The Matron Bell – Only heard, never seen. Rings once for every soul who leaves changed.

 

Regulars

• Veil-seekers hoping for guidance—or madness.
• Runaways who end up here and forget where they came from.
• A Veil-damaged CPD detective who visits weekly, eyes ringed in sleepless shadow.
• Stregoni who whisper of the Orphan Queen—one of the children, now grown and corrupted.
• A baby left on the doorstep every year on All Saints’ Day, still warm, still unnamed.
• Something that pretends to be a child and likes to play “Mother May I.”

 

Notes

• PCs who enter without protection gain 1 Veil Corruption just for staying an hour.
• Rooms rearrange themselves based on the intruder’s sins and memories.
• The children are still there—laughing, drawing, singing. Some are flesh. Some are not.
• There’s a hidden prayer book in the chapel that describes a Veil ritual called “The Womb Reversal.”
• A local gang once tried to burn it down. Not only did it fail—three of them now serve as “choir boys.”
• Perfect place to find something lost—your name, your guilt, your shadow. But you’ll owe something for it.