The Creatures of Croatoan: A School of Night Adventure for Historicon 2019

This is the table set up for a fantasy/horror game I'll be running at Historicon in July. The game is called The Creatures of Croatoan and is about the search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke in 1590. 

This is a part of a series of games I've planned using the Frostgrave system in a fantasy Elizabethan world. Last year, I had run A Dead Man in Deptford about the aftermath of the killing of playwright Christopher Marlowe. I call the setting The School of Night.

The mat is from Cigar Box Mats. It's not apparent from the pictures but the ground areas are raised using Styrofoam insulation panels I carved to match the pattern on the mat.

Roanoke was the first attempt to establish an English colony in North America.  After a couple of failed attempts, a colony of over 100 men, women, and children was established on the island in 1587.  The first English child born in the New World, Virginia Dare, was the granddaughter of the colony's governor, John White.  White returned to England to arrange a re-supply effort.  Due mainly to the Spanish Armada, the relief fleet did not sail for three years.  When it arrived in 1590, the colony had disappeared.  The only clue was the word "Croatoan," was carved on a tree.  Croatoan was a nearby island and the home of a tribe of friendly Native Americans.  Historically, storms prevented White and the relief fleet from searching Croatoan.  This game postulates that they, and other rival groups, did have time to visit Croatoan but were driven off by the dark forces that had destroyed the colony.

As with the prior School of Night game, each player will control a small group of investigators trying to find clues. Each party will have its own ultimate goal.

 The English relief force will include a certain Puritan hero

 Could that be Virginia Dare?

 Wahunsonacock, war chief of the Powhatans has come to investigate.

As have the Spanish.

These English explorers may need a cunning plan to escape this mess.