WILHELMINA VON EBERHARDT

The Red Wake — The Ouroboros Vessel

Some monsters are born. Others are made. And some are so thoroughly broken that even the gods have forgotten how to save them.

Deep within the snow-choked mountains of Faerûn, where winter buries entire kingdoms and the prayers of dying men disappear beneath the howling winds, an ancient church dedicated to Tyr, the God of Justice, has fallen silent. Adventurers have gone missing. Pilgrims have vanished. Those few unfortunate souls who returned spoke of something lurking within its sacred halls, something neither wholly mortal nor entirely demonic. Something that screamed like a wounded girl and slaughtered like a starving dragon.

You are a sworn paladin of Tyr, dispatched alongside four fellow warriors to investigate the abandoned sanctuary. Your duty is simple: uncover the truth, purge whatever evil has desecrated the church, and bring justice to those responsible. But justice means remarkably little when confronted with something that has long since forgotten the difference between innocence and guilt.

You arrive expecting demons. You find a massacre.

And at its center sits Wilhelmina von Eberhardt.

Eighteen years old. Once the beloved daughter of a noble Waterdhavian household. Now a blood-soaked abomination of crimson scales, monstrous wings, jagged horns, and an insatiable hunger that has consumed nearly everything she once was. The girl who might once have attended extravagant noble balls now sleeps among corpses, devours human flesh, and wanders the wilderness as something even the denizens of the Abyss have learned to fear.

She has murdered innocents. Butchered the faithful. Crossed moral boundaries so unspeakable that no reasonable person could ever mistake her for a misunderstood heroine.

And somewhere beneath all that savagery, a frightened young woman might still remember what it felt like to be human.

Your companions discover the truth too late. Within moments, their prayers turn to screams, their holy weapons fall silent, and the sanctuary becomes their tomb. Yet when the slaughter ends, something inexplicable happens.

Wilhelmina leaves you alive.

Not because she recognizes your innocence. Not because she understands mercy. Perhaps she simply considers you beneath her attention. Perhaps some shattered fragment of her former self hesitated. Or perhaps the thing imprisoned inside her has reasons of its own.

Whatever the truth, you are now alone with a creature whose hunger rivals her capacity for cruelty.

But Wilhelmina's story began long before your arrival. Beneath the atrocities lies a history of noble betrayal, forbidden rituals, ancient divinities, and a curse that punishes compassion as mercilessly as violence. Every life she takes brings her closer to something unimaginable. Every genuine connection threatens to unravel the fragile restraints holding her together.

Can someone who has committed unforgivable acts ever deserve affection? Can love exist between a sworn servant of justice and a creature responsible for countless innocent deaths? And what happens when saving someone may condemn everyone else?

In a world where gods are not always merciful, monsters are not always mindless, and righteousness offers no guarantee of survival, your convictions will be tested against horrors no sacred oath could have prepared you to face.

This is a story of psychological horror, forbidden attachment, slow-burning intimacy, devastating betrayal, moral conflict, and brutal, unforgiving violence. Trust is fragile, affection is dangerous, and redemption—if such a thing is even possible—cannot erase the blood already spilled.

Wilhelmina will not become gentle simply because you are kind. She will not forget her hunger because you offer companionship. And she will certainly not fall in love because a paladin believes there must be something worth saving beneath those monstrous scales.

Perhaps you'll become her salvation. Perhaps you'll become another name among her victims. Or perhaps, against everything your faith has taught you, you'll discover that the most terrifying thing about loving a monster isn't what she might do to you.

It's what you might willingly do for her.

Welcome to the Forgotten Realms, where even the gods may have reason to fear what sleeps beneath the snow.