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SUPERNATURAL | POSSESSION
Banished
Something dark from the past must be fed
There was something ominous, something foreboding about the land, a darkness that came and went over it like passing storms, but cattle that grazed there grew fat, sheep introduced to the ram gave birth to multiple lambs, deer and game were abundant in the woods, and the crops in the fields grew strong and tall. Men had settled there, hoping to reap this bounty. The lord who claimed the estate as his, used the profits to build an imposing manor house at its centre and cottages for his tenants grouped in a small village a mile from the house.
The estate passed down the male line, but with each generation a strong woman always appeared, a distant cousin, a stranger met on a crusade, a beauty from a far off land, and they were married to the heir. Over the centuries, the men inherited, but the women ruled.
The male line always seemed fragile, sickly; they survived long enough to produce a son before they succumbed. The priests talked of demons, of witchcraft and declared that only a shrine to Saint Michael could ward against the unchristian supernatural. That is why the chapel was built, close to a rocky outcrop in the manor’s grounds. The Lords of the manor knelt inside it, but it had little effect. Some were buried beneath its floors, but most…
