The Chain

Even monsters must have rules and The Chain is the covert agency tasked to ensuring those rules are obeyed. Agents of The Chain maintain the balance between the various supernatural forces that prey on humanity. No one group or individual is allowed to grow in power to the point where they might truly threaten humanity’s status quo.

Formed out self-interest rather than altruism, The Chain was originally founded by a group of monsters that took a look at mankind and knew how to spot a good scam when they saw one. Why seek to wipe-out humanity or bring about Ragnarok when you’ve got a few billion little meals and playthings just wandering around obliviously?

All agents of The Chain wear a shackle – an enchanted iron manacle that forms part of a mystical network, allowing communication between agents in the field. The shackle also serves a more sinister purpose, permanently binding each monster to the service of the agency and preventing the more unhinged members from acting out during missions.

Gravehouse

Jonathon Gravehouse looked too long and too hard into the dark places of the world. Until something looked back that left him forever changed. Human frailty consumed by terrible secrets, an inhuman presence now resides within the shell of Jonathon Gravehouse. A presence able to drive a normal man to madness and death with just a whisper of the forbidden knowledge it contains.

A longstanding agent of The Chain, Gravehouse declared himself retired seven years ago and has spent the time since in seclusion at his lake-side manor in New England. Events are about to conspire to cut his retirement much shorter than he intended.

Charlotte Hatred

Once the daughter of the governor of Hong Kong, Charlotte died an unnatural death at the age of seventeen. She’s haunted the mirrors and shadows of Hong Kong ever since, a pale young English rose with long black hair that hangs across her face and hides her eyes from view. To see Charlotte’s grinning reflection in your mirror is to know fear; to see into her eyes is to know instant, horrific death.

As an agent of The Chain, Charlotte’s ability to travel through mirrors makes her a valuable espionage asset. Seven years ago she was part of a team of agents operating under Gravehouse’s command, alongside Cowboy 13 and Creeping Henry.

Cowboy 13

An unstoppable psychopath in a zipped-shut gimp mask and cowboy hat. And we do mean unstoppable – the residents of Granbury, Texas have tried just about everything on Cowboy 13 over the years. They’ve decapitated him, burned him, drowned him, electrocuted him (twice) and he just keeps coming back.

The Cowboy never speaks, but he will communicate when pressed through simple hand gestures. It thus remains unclear whether he works for The Chain of his own free will or purely under the coercion of his shackle. At any rate, Cowboy 13 gets to kill new people in interesting places and for now this seems to be enough to keep him happy.

Creeping Tuesday

The daughter of Creeping Henry, a famous dream-stalker who long terrorised the town of Oakwood, Massachusetts before finally being dispatched to Hell by a group of meddling teenagers. Tuesday has inherited her father’s ability to enter the dreams of her victims and kill them as they sleep. A young black woman with piercing eyes, in dreams Tuesday becomes a twisted, dark reflection of her waking form.

Creeping Tuesday is the newest and most reluctant member of The Chain, shackled into service by Gravehouse to replace her missing father.

Black Hat Jack

A timeless English gent with a fondness for the straight razor and women’s necks. Jack is Gravehouse’s handler and superior within The Chain. Even monsters need someone to deliver their exposition.

The Broken Links

During The Chain’s long operational history, few agents have ever managed to successfully slip their shackle and act against the agency’s interest. Those that do are branded as Broken Links and are hunted down ruthlessly by their former comrades.

Harp’s Bane

Lieutenant Thomas Harp was an officer in the Union Army before he fell under an ancient Indian curse during the last days of the American Civil War. Whenever Harp falls asleep his body is taken over by his Bane – an inhuman and barely intelligent creature that resembles a giant mal-proportioned gorilla with a pit full of teeth where its head should be.

Thomas wandered for many years, wracked by terrible guilt for his nocturnal actions, before finally discovering a mystical solution of sorts – a spell that prevented him from ever falling asleep. In time a side effect of this cure became apparent – Thomas hasn’t aged a day since his Bane was caged within him. Always a reluctant monster, Harp joined The Chain willingly, seeing his service as a way to atone for past crimes. How and why he has now cast off his shackle are pressing mysteries that the higher powers within The Chain wish to see urgently solved.

Chicken Neck

A hulking Texas good old boy with the transplanted neck and head of a chicken. Never long parted from his trusted chainsaw, Betsy-Lee, Chicken Neck is an old rival of Texas’ other famous local psychopath, Cowboy 13. The two have clashed several times in competition for the same group of victims, to the general detriment of all those involved.

While currently in the service of Thomas Harp, Chicken Neck is himself not technically a Broken Link, having never been an agent of The Chain to begin with. Whatever force Harp has used to compel Chicken-Neck into his service remains for now a mystery

Knife Mother & The Knife-kind

The young Japanese woman who would one day become known as Knife Mother began life as naught but a lowly prostitute in the service of the Tokyo Yakuza. Possessed of a terrible beauty, the woman was a favourite among the worse gangsters of the Japanese underworld. Legend has it that she had slept with a thousand killers before she finally met her grisly end at the jealous hands of her last lover.

Eyes sewn shut for daring to look fondly at a rival Yakuza boss, the woman was stabbed in the back thirteen times and left for dead in a Tokyo alleyway. The supernatural force for revenge born in that alley became known as Knife Mother, a name that strikes fear amongst all Yakuza to this very day. Transfigured by death, small pods now grow from each wound on Knife Mother’s back and in each of these pods grows a child of a thousand killers; a Knife-kind.

Fully grown the Knife-kind are all identical, appearing as pale, shaven-headed Japanese men with their eyes sewn shut. Each dresses in a simple black suit (or appears to - the suit is actually part of their skin) and each carries a flick knife – a weapon every Knife-kind is capable of using with deadly force and accuracy. Knife Mother and her army of killer children have served The Chain for many years. But when Thomas Harp broke her free of her shackle, Knife Mother was quick to change allegiance. And wherever their mother leads them, the Knife-kind are sure to follow.