Cradle of Ash

Burn the dead or they come back. ((((In Development! All video and screenshots subject to change.)))) You wake in a wrecked coach at the edge of Ashbrook, a company town sealed off behind a chemical-spill quarantine that nobody believes. Every resident carries something that should never have had a body. It walks. It prays. It gets back up from anything you do to it — stronger, faster, angrier — unless what is left of it burns. Down in the hospital, in the dark under the maternity ward, something is assembling itself out of every body it has ever owned. It knows your name. It has known your name since before you were born.Guns put them down. Only fire ends them. The fire economy. Anything you down gets back up in a minute or two, worse than before — unless the body is burned. Lighter, molotovs, a flamethrower late in the game. Bottles are common. Rags are not. A half-burned body comes back as something that no longer fears fire. They do not kill you. They take you. Get caught and you are not shot in the dark — you are grabbed, and dragged, toward wherever the noise is coming from. Fight the hold. Every second you lose is a step closer to the nests, and nobody in Ashbrook is coming to help. Fire does not know you. A molotov pool burns whatever stands in it, and the flamethrower does not check whose coat it is. Fire spreads along what you spilled, what you dropped, what you were standing on. The most dangerous thing in Ashbrook is usually the one you lit. Heard before seen. Every enemy in Ashbrook is heard before it is seen — direction and distance are the read of every room. Whatever is calling from the dark calls slower, and shorter, the nearer it gets. Nobody who has seen what makes the sound has come back to describe it. The Director. No scripted jump-scare loops. A director reads your noise, your light, your fuel, and how long since you last saw something — and spends its budget where you are going, not where you were. You stop fearing the monsters and start fearing your own decisions. Six acts. Three endings. An 8–10 hour story campaign through the suburbs, the hospital, the flooded lower town, the old village, and the abbey on the ridge. The documents and tapes you find tell a truth that goes back much further than the company. The ending is yours to choose.The residents of Ashbrook - Carriers — Infected residents. Slow, many, murmuring prayers. They cannot climb. They drag the fallen home. - The Vessel — Nine feet tall and still carrying. She does not hunt. She keeps her distance along the route you need. What she is carrying is the question nobody in Ashbrook will answer. - The Midwife — Cannot be hurt, cannot be caught. Trails the mother with a bassinet she never sets down. Do not look inside it. Ashbrook's water is safe. Ashbrook's air is safe.