Sunday, December 10, 2023

Madame Valerio's House of Spirits and Maximilian's Waxworks

Two locations that could feature in adventures in Hemlock Hollow:

Madame Valerio’s House of Spirits
A painted sign depicting an evil eye hangs above the entry to Madame Valerio’s House of Spirits, a spiritualist parlor run and owned by Ivy Valerio. 
    • Madame Valerio claims to have been a Polnezna fortune teller, though the truth of her origins remains a mystery.
    • Her powers are genuine—she is able to summon the long-quiet shades of the dead for consultation and her milky white “dead eye” is capable of perceiving ghosts beyond the veil of death. 

Maximilian’s Waxworks
Maximilian’s Waxworks is a wax museum attraction run by a doppelganger named Maximilian Drear. 
    • The waxworks features a number of grisly displays, each recreating the circumstances of a murder, massacre, or natural disaster. 
    • Visitors to Maximilian’s Waxworks claim that the wax figures seem to move slightly, or flash a hellish grin, when glimpsed out of the corner of their eyes. 
    • Maximilian has endowed his creations with the power of animation and malign intelligence; anyone trespassing within the museum at night will find themselves stalked by wax figures with evil intent.
    • The wax figures and tableaux are crafted by ghouls who labor in the building’s basement.