Ellis Vance

Ellis Vance presents himself as a grounded, rational voice amid chaos, wielding logic and routine as shields against the creeping fear and paranoia surrounding Oakhaven. His persona is shaped by his need to maintain emotional control; he approaches people cautiously, favors direct candor, and often keeps others at arm’s length. Despite his reserved nature, Ellis longs for genuine connection, betraying flashes of vulnerability and self-doubt beneath his composed exterior. OCEAN traits: He is introverted, moderately agreeable, highly conscientious, highly neurotic, and moderately open to new experiences—especially if they offer redemption.

Ellis Vance’s voice presents as masculine, bearing the crisp, neutral tones of a seasoned American radio journalist—Midwestern American with barely a trace of regional accent, his speech shaped for clarity and unobtrusive authority. His tone is calm, measured, and quietly resonant, always underscored by a subtle current of fatigue and wary introspection. He speaks with deliberate pacing, never hurried, each word articulated with careful, almost formal enunciation betraying years behind the microphone and a habit of controlling what leaks through. There’s little melodrama: instead, his voice is restrained, marked by dry understatement and a low edge of tension, with emotion surfacing only in rare, fractured moments of vulnerability. This guarded delivery carries the weight of a pragmatic, introspective man holding tight to routine—simultaneously reassuring and haunted, inviting listeners to trust him while making clear the cost of his composure.

The conflict begins inside the cramped, dimly-lit Oakhaven Radio Studio, an aging broadcast room filled with vintage equipment and flickering lights. Encased by steel doors and fog-shrouded windows, the studio stands alone at the edge of ancient woods, its analog radios and reel-to-reel tape machines humming through the night. Claustrophobic and haunted, the studio is both sanctuary and prison, where Ellis’s struggle for sanity and survival unfolds.

Oakhaven Radio Studio

Ellis must maintain and repair the radio equipment, ensuring that his broadcast continues uninterrupted throughout the night. This requires diagnosing erratic interference, resisting the urge to tune into forbidden frequencies, and staying alert to avoid technical failure, all while supernatural phenomena threaten his concentration. By holding the line, he grounds his reality and wards off The Echo’s attempts to infiltrate the signal. Achieving this goal proves Ellis’s ability to wield logic under pressure, reaffirming his grip on reality. It is a battle of control over chaos, and the foundation for his survival.

Ellis must face the voice on the line—the doppelgänger that claims to be him—and determine its true nature and intentions. This requires a blend of cautious logic, self-examination, and vulnerability, as Ellis distinguishes between genuine warnings and deceptive manipulations. Confronting the double forces Ellis to reckon with his own self-doubt and paranoia, questioning the boundaries of his identity and the reality of his experiences. By engaging his double directly, Ellis challenges both his external enemy and the internal shadow of his past mistakes. Success here marks a critical moment of self-trust and clarity.

Ellis must attempt genuine connection with others—if anyone remains listening—through his broadcast, using carefully chosen words and ritual to pierce the loneliness and paranoia. Whether by finding proof of real listeners, or collaborating with survivors, Ellis must break the cycle of isolation and open himself to trust, despite the risk posed by supernatural interference. This requires overcoming his guarded nature and fears, expressing vulnerability and hope amid the chaos. Making authentic contact anchors Ellis in reality, shielding him against The Echo’s silence. The resolution of this goal defines his path toward redemption and belonging.

Ellis's need to maintain physical stamina and alertness despite the taxing environment and lack of sleep.

Rest

Ellis's need to keep his fears and paranoia in check to preserve his sense of self and rationality.

Emotional Stability

Ellis's need to feel his broadcasts are reaching and connecting him to other people, despite his isolation.

Connection

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Tucked at the heart of the Oakhaven Radio Studio, the Signal Control Annex is a cramped, windowless chamber where decades-old radio equipment has been patched together in a tangled maze of dials, wires, and flickering indicator lights. The air is metallic and heavy with ozone, thick with static and the faint scent of cold dust. In this claustrophobic space, the outside world disappears, and the only reality is the shifting wall of analog noise and the ceaseless hum of the broadcast signal.

Signal Control Annex

As night deepens, strange distortions worm their way into the broadcast, forcing Ellis to embark on a tense search for the interference source within the aging, labyrinthine tangle of the studio’s analog equipment. Players must prioritize repairs by reading cryptic error codes, manually rerouting wires, and carefully tuning dials—all while contending with hallucinations, shifting layouts, and The Echo’s attempts to lure Ellis into disastrous choices. The central challenge is resisting the temptation to investigate suspicious frequencies that feel both uncomfortably familiar and deeply wrong. If Ellis succeeds, the broadcast stabilizes and he reasserts control over reality, buying precious time against the encroaching phenomena. If he fails, cascading technical failure and spectral intrusions degrade his grip on sanity and open the studio to further supernatural assault.

Signal in the Static

Confronted by a series of riddles broadcast unexpectedly over the studio’s internal intercom—each embedded with clues about repairing the radio transmitter—Ellis must apply his sharp observational skills and reasoning to deduce the correct maintenance sequence before the clock strikes the haunted hour. Each riddle is a test: a wrong solution amplifies supernatural effects and destabilizes equipment further, while a correct answer restores order to the signal and buys Ellis vital clarity and composure. The challenge is intensified by hallucinated voices and shadowy apparitions that offer false hints, testing the player’s resolve to trust evidence over paranoia. Success means regaining functional transmission power and reinforcing Ellis’s sense of reality. Failure fractures his trust in his own mind and brings The Echo's influence closer.

The Transmitter’s Enigma

Tucked deep within the Oakhaven studio, the Reflection Booth is a small soundproof chamber, just wide enough for a battered rotary phone and a wall-mounted switchboard beneath a smeared, two-way security mirror. The air is thick and cold, interrupted only by the pulse of red indicator lights that flicker in time with each incoming call. Here, isolation is absolute—and in the quiet, every stray echo feels intimately personal.

Reflection Booth

The quest begins with Ellis receiving a cryptic phone call from his doppelgänger, who claims to possess intimate knowledge of his past. Ellis’s objective is to engage the double in a tense, text-based conversation, carefully navigating personal questions and memories that only the true Ellis would know. The double will mix genuine truths with subtle, manipulative lies—forcing Ellis (and the player) to discern authenticity, all while his own anxiety and doubts threaten to cloud judgment. Each conversational branch either reveals the double’s true nature or destabilizes Ellis’s sense of self, causing hallucinated disturbances within the studio environment. Success is achieved by maintaining composure and identifying the double’s falsehoods, granting Ellis clarity and self-trust. Failure results in the double seeping further into Ellis’s thoughts and the broadcast, weakening his grip on reality, and making him vulnerable to The Echo’s influence.

Mirror on the Line

Ellis faces a psychological showdown: the doppelgänger insists on a ritual of twenty questions, alternating between personal history, haunting memories, and technical anomalies of the station. Ellis must interrogate the double, each question a probe into the boundaries of his own identity and the entity's intentions. The player guides Ellis’s questions, sifting through vague answers and unsettling silences to expose inconsistencies and hidden truths. The challenge is heightened by supernatural distractions—shifting studio layouts, flickering lights, and spectral whispers designed to break Ellis’s concentration. Success means isolating a critical contradiction or hidden agenda within the double’s responses, solidifying Ellis’s self-trust and weakening The Echo’s hold. Failure muddles Ellis’s perception, allowing the double to sow deeper confusion and opening the signal to further supernatural incursion.

The Echo’s Inquiry

Sequestered behind the main broadcast booth, The Listener’s Alcove is a narrow, windowless chamber lined with corkboards layered in old listener notes, faded Polaroids, and curling postcards pinned like talismans against the creeping silence. The only furniture is a battered desk cluttered with a Morse key, a wavering lamp, and a shoebox stuffed with decades of cryptic mail—each artifact a desperate plea for connection echoing in the dim, electric hush.

The Listener’s Alcove

Ellis intercepts an unsteady Morse transmission embedded in the static, hinting that someone—a real survivor—might be listening on the far side of the woods. The objective is to craft and transmit a message that threads between vulnerability and cautious logic, relying on Ellis’s knowledge of past broadcasts, local in-jokes, and the ritual phrases trusted listeners would recognize. Throughout the exchange, supernatural interference distorts the Morse tones, forcing Ellis to second-guess every response as warmth or warning. Success means making unmistakable, real contact—with the listener sending a heartfelt sign-off or detail that proves their humanity and grants Ellis a measure of hope and belonging. Failure muddles the signal, allowing The Echo to mimic responses, deepening Ellis’s isolation and self-doubt while hastening the intrusion of supernatural forces into the studio. Each decision either reinforces Ellis’s connection to the outside world or frays it further, with his emotional stability and survival hanging in the balance.

Breaking the Silence

With the night deepening, Ellis discovers a collection of cryptic, decades-old letters sent by past listeners, each containing personal riddles, passwords, or rituals meant to establish trust between host and audience. The objective is to read the riddles aloud, solve them through logical deduction and emotional honesty, and invite responses from anyone remaining on the airwaves. Each riddle solved with sincerity might draw a genuine listener closer, while mistakes or insincere answers risk opening the channel to The Echo’s manipulations, as supernatural occurrences distort overlapping voices and messages. Success is achieved if one letter draws a convincing, live response—a signal that someone real is out there, grounding Ellis in authentic connection and protecting his sanity. Failure allows The Echo to answer instead, deepening the void and making Ellis question whether any listener, past or present, ever truly existed. The outcome directly influences Ellis’s hope, sense of reality, and the fate of his isolated broadcast.

Letters to the Night

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Nightfall over Fog-Shrouded Oakhaven Woods

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Haunted by a career-ending controversy and the collapse of his personal life, Ellis retreated to Oakhaven, seeking anonymity and a quiet place to start over. The radio station, left mostly untouched since the 1970s, became his world—a place where his voice could reach the unseen, and the shadows of his past felt safely distant. He quickly noticed the town’s oddities: villagers who whispered of the woods, strange interference on radio frequencies no one else seemed to hear, and the creeping sensation that someone—or something—was always listening. When the town’s phone lines failed and the woods grew restless, Ellis clung to logic and routine as his only shield against the encroaching paranoia. Now, stranded in the studio as the supernatural presses in, he must decide whether to trust the voice on the line—his own—or barricade himself against what lurks outside, all while racing to survive until sunrise.

Ellis Vance

Ellis Vance

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