Session 1: Welcome to Yawn

The characters are new graduates of Camp Halfblood — demi-gods who have trained together since childhood. Each character is the child of a deity and has a divine messenger animal through which their god communicates. Work with your players to establish each character’s divine parentage, alignment, and messenger before Session 1 begins.

Character Element	Notes for Players
Divine Parent	Choose from any pantheon — Greek, Norse, Mayan, Japanese, or other. The deity’s alignment and domain should inform the character’s personality.
Messenger Animal	Each deity sends a specific animal as a divine messenger: doves, ravens, owls, foxes, snakes, macaws, herons, crows, and others. The messenger delivers visions and guidance at key moments.
Alignment	Characters can be any alignment. The tension between different alignments in the group is a feature, not a bug.
Shared History	All characters have trained together since childhood. Before play begins, establish: one thing your character respects about someone else in the party, and one thing that creates friction.

Setting the Stage

This is the first session — let players establish their bonds at the table before play begins. Ask a quick round of questions: ‘What’s something your character would only trust one other person in this group with?’ The party knows each other well: the history, the jokes, the friction. The world of Once is built on fairy tales and divine inheritance, and the characters sit at the intersection of both.

They arrive in Yawn on foot during the Moonmask Festival — an annual celebration in which the whole town wears animal masks and participates in a ritual chase through the streets by moonlight. The town is warm and festive. Stalls sell roasted things on sticks. Children run shrieking with delight. Nobody explains what they’re celebrating or why it involves masks.

The town of Yawn smells of woodsmoke and roasted apples. Lanterns hang between the buildings in strings of amber and red, and everyone — absolutely everyone — is wearing an animal mask. A woman in a fox mask presses a warm pasty into your hand without being asked. Music drifts from three directions at once. Above it all, the full moon hangs enormous and silver, as if it moved closer just for tonight.

Festival Events (Use 2–3 Before the Inn)

• The Chase: Town crier announces the ritual hunt begins at moonrise — those without masks must run. The party may or may not have masks (their choice). Being caught means buying a round of drinks for the catcher.
• The Bone Stall: A merchant sells small carved bone charms — “for luck against the old teeth.” He won’t explain what that means. DC 12 Insight: he’s frightened, not festive.
• The Children’s Game: Local children are playing a clapping game with a rhyme: “Mary had a little scream / her teeth were sharp as glass / and everyone who saw her eyes / never saw the moon at last.” They find this hilarious.

The Inn: First Encounter — Werewolves

The party takes rooms at the Yawn & Stretch Inn. The innkeeper, Hollis, is cheerful and overly generous with the mead. Around midnight, a commotion is heard outside, followed by a scratching at the door of the inn.