Hollows Outside Hollows

A lot of Hollows’ action happens inside the titular Hollows, violent psychodramas of other people’s personal hells. They’re bleak and they’re awful, but they’re not everything.

The world outside of Hollows matters most at the beginning and end of a Hunt: when Hunters find and breach a Hollow and when they have to find ways to occupy themselves until the next Hunt.

Entering Hollows

Tracking down the entrance to a Hollow – or the spot where you’ll make an entrance – is more of an art than a science, despite what the scholars of the Conclave might claim. Each one spreads sickness, rot, and delirium around itself from an origin point of great importance to the Lord (their quarters, the place where they died, the site of a personal tragedy, and so on) and it’s a matter of asking sensible questions, making the correct assumptions and kicking in the right doors to track back the infection to its root. 

Stepping inside a Hollow is no easy task; mortal bodies are not meant to enter these places intact. Entrance methods are equal parts ancient ritual, superstition, religious rites, symbolic acts, and improvisational magic – whatever it takes to catch the attention of the Hollow, communicate with the Lord within, and then break open the spiritual connection to force a point of entry. Although each Hunter has their own individual method of breaching the barrier, the majority of approaches follow four steps:

Gather. Hunters find or fashion fetishes that represent the Hollow’s Lord. To do so, they have to search the real-world site of the Hollow or negotiate with people who knew the Lord.

Resonate. The Hunters mimic the behaviours of the Lord in ways that evoke their presence. The better they understand the Lord, the better the performance. 

Commune. Through seances or other occult methods, the Hunters conjure the spirit of the Lord and speak with them. Through questions asked and answered, they learn whatever the Lord will tell them about their sins and what awaits inside the Hollow.

Rend. Finally, the Hunters use one of their Weapons to carve, burn, or tear a doorway into the Hollow, then force their way inside. 

The first two steps require the Hunters to do some work in the real world. This is where they see the impact of a now-Lord’s life on the Isles; the hurt they caused, the way the poison of their Hollow still afflicts what they left behind. 

This, for the GM, is how you show the players the story of a Hollow in a way that matters. It’s also when you see Hunters at their most human. Outside of Hollows, they’re not avenging, deathless antiheroes. They’re veterans and clerks, scientists and petty nobles. They’re vulnerable – to blades and bullets, but also to empathy. They see shadows of their own worst moments and the potential they have to cause as much suffering as any Lord of a Hollow. 

Between Hollows

Each time a party of Hunters meets to commence a Hunt, you can opt to illustrate what happened during their time away from the Hollow. Every player who wishes to can describe the most important thing their character did during their time apart; this is all they can bring to mind, when pressed. 

The more broken and ramshackle a Hunter’s soul becomes, the less attention they pay to their mundane existence. Outside of the brutal nightmare of the Hollow or the precious sanctuary of your Refuge, the world dissolves into a grey and undifferentiated smear. The Seed germinating within you steals your life away. Days fold into weeks, weeks fold into months, and you struggle to pick apart one instant from any other; your life becomes a vast, dark expanse with only pinpricks of light punched through to piece together an existence.

As burdensome as this dreary existence is, it’s necessary. Trudging through that life reduces a Hunter’s Corruption – meaning they’ll be human for longer. 

Why Go Outside?

Without the world outside of Hollows, Hunters’ victories inside them would be meaningless. There are two stories at the heart of Hollows: 

The first is the Hunters’ struggle to remain human; to wield the rot in their souls like one of their Weapons to do some good while they still can. To give that story shape and weight, the Hunters have to know what they’re losing. They need to know what life looks like, or looked like before the Hunt, to see what they’re giving up. That’s what makes Hollows a story about suffering and surviving, and not just a game about dealing a lot of damage to ugly monsters.

The second story is the change Hunters effect. When Hunters collapse a Hollow, they disperse a little of the corruption from the Isles. They loosen the Malignancies’ hold a tiny bit. Hollows shows what victory means. The world gets a little bit better. Quiet, even hopeful moments related as an epilogue or at the start of a Hunt aren’t afterthoughts or ornaments, they’re the reason victory feels good. 

Well, they’re a reason. The bloodshed’s fun too.