Nevermore Estate

Purpose / Function

The house was originally built to be a country retreat and second home for Felicia Poise and her son, Ferdinand, after the death of Felicia’s beloved husband. The generally accepted reason for the construction was that Felicia could no longer emotionally stand to live in the house of her husband and brother-in-law.

Alterations

Originally the estate was only one story high, intended as a small country retreat. Around the 1910s, a second floor was added to accommodate the growing Poise family. In 1967, the house was sold to Alberto Prosperos, who added an extensive attic space for storing his many collections. In 2102, Montressor Prosperos refurbished the house to make it livable for him and his wife, adding modern amenities such as internet access. A few months after his wife’s death, Montressor began ordering extensive reconstruction on areas such as the attic and servants’ passageway. The purpose of these would not become clear until after the Nevermore Incident. Since the house was built before electricity became available for home use, electricity was not integrated into the estate until the 1890s. The gas valves used to provide lighting were still usable, however, and played an essential role in the resolution of the Nevermore Incident.

History

After Felicia Poise’s death, her son Ferdinand remained at Crimson Estate to raise his own family. The house passed through two more generations of Poise ownership before being bought by Alberto Prosperos, an eccentric collector of oddities, in 1967. After Alberto’s death, the house sat mostly abandoned for over 100 years, before Alberto’s great-great-grandson, Montressor Prosperos, moved into the estate with his ailing wife, Venus. After Venus’s death, Montressor fell into a depression and isolated himself within the estate, almost never responding to non-business communication. From the tone of his emails and notes found in the estate, psychiatrists theorize that tending to Venus during her illness had given him a concrete purpose, and after her death he suffered what could be considered an existential crisis.
During this time, Prosperos made contact with a being known as Dagon. Dagon had come to Earth from a far off solar system hoping to gain a foothold for her organization. To that end, she wished to obtain an influential ally who could act on her behalf while she remained in the shadows.
Dagon managed to manipulate Prosperos by convincing him that by working with her organization, he could become a hero who would lead humans into a more advanced technological age. In reality, Dagon had no intention of letting Prosperos have any of this glory, hoping to frame him for imprisoning her and wanting to keep her technology for himself.
This contact was what led to the Nevermore Incident. Twenty-two of the richest people in the country were invited to Nevermore Estate. Once they were there, Prosperos faked his death in order to dispel suspicion from himself. Soon afterwards, the guests were rendered unconscious by sleeping gas so that Dagon could set up her “game”. The guests were locked in the ballroom and were instructed to betray one another’s secrets and dirty dealings in order to be set free. This was intended to break their sense of community as well open them up to manipulation and blackmail. If the guests did not corporate or tried to escape, Dagon sent deadly guard drones to kill them as an example.
However, there were two problems that Dagon did not expect: one was John Butler, who Prosperos had hired to cover up that the party was a sham until it was too late. John was not in on the scheme, thinking the job was simply a lucrative opportunity, and was also an outsider to the rich guests’ community. More importantly, he had magical potential, something Dagon did not expect a human to have.
While Dagon was able to put a device on John that limited the use of his powers, the bracelet broke in a scuffle with one of Dagon’s guard drones. With his life on the line, John decided to try to use his powers to their full potential, instead of hiding them like before.
The other problem was the servant passageways. One led into the ballroom where the guests were held, but it was cramped and uncomfortable to use. Dagon had believed that the guests would never “lower” themselves to using such a passageway. However, even guests who believed themselves above the common masses got desperate and snuck out, allowing them to gather more information on Dagon and Prosperos’ dealings.
Around 3:00 a.m. in the morning of January 14th, the police received a call from one of the guests, who had managed to buy her way to freedom by exposing blackmail on herself and other guests. The police arrived the estate 45 minutes later, just in time to see the top of the estate explode, launching John and Dagon out of the manor. Upon later investigation, it was found that John was able to turn on the gas valves in the manor and light a spark, which he hoped would kill Dagon.
While neither Dagon, Prosperos, nor John were killed, they all suffered severe burns and had to be hospitalized for periods of time. After the hospitalization, John was released to go back to college. Dagon and Prosperos were transported to separate, secure government facilities, and Nevermore Estate was claimed by the United State government as a site of historical importance.
Out of the twenty-two “guests”, four died and ten others were injured.

Founding Date

1852 AD

Alternative Names

Crimson Estate

Type

Mansion / Villa