Descend with Mikhail toward the ancient chapel ruins, clutching your prepared rites—ready to confront the heart of the orphanage’s terror.

Follow the traces left by the children, heeding Nadia’s riddles and Dasha’s unsettling counsel, allowing memory to lead above ritual.

background_image_generator

Tsvetkov Orphanage Exterior and Entryway

Arrival in the Mute Snow

Step into the ritual chamber and attempt the exorcism, placing faith in doctrine and sacrifice.

Chapel Ruins and Ritual Hallway

Catacombs of the Covenant

Join hands with the lingering ghosts and attempt to rewrite the covenant through memory and acknowledgment.

Dormitory Labyrinth

The House of Lingering Voices

The Riven Ritual Chamber

Beneath the Covenant, Silence

Sunlit Dormitory Threshold

Thirteen Promises Unbroken

Vasilisa Karpova

dalle_character_portraits

Mikhail Karpov

Nadia Tsvetkova

Serafim Alekseyev

Dasha Orlova

You arrive hungry for answers, yet shivering in the heart’s small places where memory runs thin. Vasilisa: hands not so steady as once they were, voice cold as prayer in a shut room. The world you occupy is a patchwork—regret stitched to duty—and each corridor you pace feels both condemned and newly ancient beneath your boots. You see the forgotten in dust motes and hear a child’s breathing at the very edge of comprehension. Even as you whisper rites that taste of old smoke, some part of you dreads the sound of your own name echoing back. The snow outside waits, patient and heavy, for the reckoning within.

It is never clear, Mikhail, where your certainty dissolves into unease. Shadows gather familiar behind your eyes, and you walk behind Vasilisa—sometimes protector, sometimes supplicant, always haunted by the weight of what cannot be solved. Words fail you at the worst times, yet your silence speaks louder than prayers. You are both anchor and liability, your convictions bending under the orphanage’s clammy breath.

Nadia lingers in rooms that remember more than they reveal. She moves like memory, flitting from corner to icy corridor, a truth half-seen and never grasped. Her voice trails in the stillness when no one is listening, syllables heavy with the nursery rhymes of the forgotten. It is from her that the shape of the vanished begins to coalesce, restless and weeping beneath the frost.

You find the remnants of Serafim in pages scorched at the edges and names etched beneath ice. He was the orphanage’s caretaker: a shadow binding together the trembling hush of winter, the hush that follows after children no longer sing. His warnings echo between walls, layering dread above duty. Even now, in madness or in spirit, he offers counsel and threat with equal fervor.

If the land itself could speak, it might do so in the tongue of Dasha, whose song winds through the snow in lilting syllables. Her presence—neither wholly benign nor openly malevolent—serves as a reminder that some spirits are bound by oaths older than grief. She is equal parts guide and test, her folklore steeped with bargains and warnings. Trust is her currency, given and stolen as easily as warmth in the chill.

modular_music_generator

Worn Ritualist’s Winter Outfit

Haunted Investigator’s Siberian Kit

Apparition’s Frostbitten School Dress

Spectral Caretaker’s Tattered Vestments

Folkloric Spirit’s Shifting Regalia

Vasilisa is clothed in a weathered, mid-calf-length charcoal wool coat, edges frayed and cuffs darkened by years of ritual stains and Siberian grit. Underneath, she wears a faded ash-blue woolen turtleneck, close-knit but pilling at the elbows, lending both warmth and the air of someone who cannot afford fashion, only function. Her trousers are thick slate-gray corduroy, secured by a battered brown leather belt, with knees slightly worn from hours spent kneeling in vigil or study. On her feet are sturdy, laced-up black felt valenki boots with reinforced rubber soles, battered and speckled by salt, rising mid-shin and lined with sheep's wool within. Around her neck, a narrow threadbare scarf in muted ochre is wound several times, thread pulled loose at one end—a relic of childhood or an old vow. Her hands are clad in mismatched wool gloves, one faded olive, one russet, each with careful needle-mended fingertips. A small canvas ritual satchel, heavy with charms, half-burnt candles, and scraps of parchment, dangles across her shoulder, crowded with dangling trinkets—small iron keys, wooden prayer beads, a thin silver Orthodox cross. Securing her cropped hair away from her tense face is a plain, dark brown headband whose edges hint at ritualistic embroidery, only visible in fleeting firelight. The overall attire is purposefully unadorned, wholly utilitarian, yet attuned to both the ferocity of Siberian winter and the quiet, persistent reverence of a woman who investigates the darkness.

Mikhail's imposing frame is wrapped in a heavy, midnight-navy padded parka lined with wolf-gray synthetic fur at the collar and cuffs, the outer fabric waterproofed but dulled by years of snow and hard travel. His coat is zipped high beneath his chin, collar always turned up, and a battered steel medical dog tag dangles from a short chain hidden beneath the layers. Below, he wears a coarse, moss-green woolen sweater, its thick ribbing showing from beneath his coat, sleeves tugged low enough to all but conceal his scarred wrists and battered knuckles. His trousers are deep-black canvas, thickly insulated and loose enough for movement but dotted with minute, silvery patchwork from hasty field repairs. Mikhail’s boots are dark brown, calf-high insulated leather with reinforced toes, caked with frozen mud and salt crust from the orphanage surroundings, their laces often knotted in haste or worry. Gloved hands grip a battered black leather satchel slung over one shoulder, its flap clasped with an iron buckle and pockets bulging with notebooks, a rusted flashlight, and a dented flask. He wears a ribbed woolen beanie, slate-blue, pulled low enough to shadow his thinning hair and perpetual frown. Across his left wrist, a faded blue cloth is wound, stained almost indiscernibly with old blood—perhaps his own, a ward, or a memory. Mikhail’s silhouette is slightly bent, coat always a little too big at the shoulders, carving a shape at once protective and haunted within the orphanage’s ghosts.

Nadia drifts in a spectral recreation of her old orphanage attire, frozen eternally at the boundary of girlhood. She wears a washed-out, pale gray pinafore dress with a high, frilled neckline and a skirt that hangs slightly uneven, the hem tattered and trailing as if singed by spectral frost. Beneath the dress is a thin, ice-blue cotton blouse, its collar and cuffs yellowed with age and sleeved in delicate white lace that blurs eerily into her translucent wrists. Her legs are clad in ribbed white stockings that never crease, but bear the faintest, ghostly stains of melting snow around the ankles. On her feet are scuffed black Mary Jane shoes, the leather cracked and the buckles rusted, appearing sometimes solid, sometimes evaporating to mist. Her tangled, platinum-fair hair is braided in two loose plaits secured with fraying sky-blue ribbons, tendrils of hair escaping and merging with the drifting cold. Around her neck is a faded red thread upon which hangs a tiny tin Orthodox icon of St. Nicholas, catching the light only when unobserved. She sometimes clutches a wilted linen handkerchief patterned with the faintest bluebells, a token from another child—manifest or imagined—her fingers forever worrying its edges. Nadia's whole presence is wrapped in layers of frost and memory, her clothing a blurred echo of the orphanage’s lost years and the biting cold at its heart.

Serafim’s shadowy form flickers in a battered, knee-length black cassock made of coarse wool, singed and stiff with ice, its edges ragged from years of wear and spectral decay. The collar is slightly askew, once carefully pressed but now wilted, while faint, faded embroidery of Orthodox crosses lingers along the cuffs and hem in frosted silver thread only visible in reflected candlelight. Over his shoulders hunches a taupe, patched shawl, moth-eaten and stained by what might be old wax or melted ice, clinging as if by memory to his frame. Across his sunken chest hangs a tarnished brass crucifix, chain blackened and half-concealed beneath fabric folds, the face of the saint almost worn away. His hands—one looking perpetually blistered and mottled from ancient cold burns—are bare, clutching an iron ring of keys, the metal frosted and clinking softly with every haunted movement. His trousers, once proper clergy black, are now threadbare and patched unevenly with scraps of old burlap, the fabric seamed and faded to a sallow, indistinct gray. His feet bear battered leather slippers that barely cling to spectral toes, their linings decaying, stitched again and again by desperate hands. A faded woolen cap, slate and moth-eaten at the edges, sometimes flickers atop his thin crown, while a yellowed, pocket-sized prayer book is tethered to his belt by a rusted chain, weighed down by centuries of cold guilt. The overall effect is one of solemn neglect and wintry penance, every layer haunted by the memory of faith and the orphanage’s lost innocence.

Dasha's outfit is a dreamlike amalgamation of Russian folklore woven from ever-shifting elements, yet always retaining key features regardless of the observer. She typically appears in a traditional sarafan dress spun of shimmering, frost-laced linen that undulates between deep forest green and ice-white depending on the room’s light, with intricate silver embroidery hinting at birds, snowflakes, and luminescent leaves climbing the hem and bodice. Beneath, she wears a long-sleeved chemise of fine ecru muslin—its wide cuffs subtly scalloped, the translucent fabric swirling almost mist-like about her wrists. Her hair, sometimes golden, sometimes raven-dark, is loosely braided or unbound, adorned with a shifting crown of wild twigs, frozen berries, or tiny paper flowers, which seem to sprout and wither between glances. Dasha’s feet are bare or clad in delicate, old-fashioned leather slippers with lacing up her calves, their color never quite the same twice—muted gray one moment, moonlit green the next. She is draped at the shoulders with a thick, fringed shawl, patterned like the hoarfrost of birch bark and shifting between shades of palest gold and steel-blue, always weighted with the suggestion of hidden charms knotted at the corners. Around her neck hangs a silken ribbon, from which dangle keys, bone beads, crescent moons, and tiny iron bells, each softly chiming in answer to unspoken promises. Her only constant is her eyes: a bright, unearthly green, set in a face whose features drift between youthful and ancient, Slavic and spectral. The whole ensemble is at once beautiful and off-kilter, rooted in legend—capable of blending into tundra shadows or dazzling in a shaft of wan, icy light, Dasha’s presence flickering between benevolence and warning.

poster_generator

Follow Mikhail down into the catacombs beneath the orphanage, seeking the ritual chamber.

Let Nadia’s presence guide you deeper into the dormitories, piecing together the tragedy of the lost children.

Trust intensifies. Their conversation and mutual resolve in the face of dread strengthen their partnership.

Vasilisa's wariness rises, sensing the orphanage's spectral workings. She is both protector and outsider to what lingers here.

An uneasy alliance forms. Vasilisa recognizes Serafim’s warning as both threat and possible guidepost.

Vasilisa trusts Dasha little; tension hums in the space between bargain and deceit. Their cooperation is wary but necessary.

Descend with Mikhail into the catacombs beneath the chapel, attempting an exorcism and risking oblivion for one final chance at purging the sorrow at its root.

Follow Nadia’s fading trace through the dormitories, seeking to name and remember the orphanage’s lost children and risking the pain of their death for a future free of forgetting.

Vasilisa feels the old thread of trust tighten, tempered by the necessity of survival. She relies on Mikhail to watch what she cannot, and in that silence their partnership grows fractionally closer.

Vasilisa’s skepticism and Dasha’s cunning spark a wary alliance—each gauging the other, trust elusive but necessity undeniable.

Descend with Mikhail into the catacombs beneath the altar, risking your own selves to attempt the exorcism in the ritual chamber.

Pursue Nadia’s spectral traces through the haunted dormitories, piecing together the vanished children’s stories for a chance at redemption.

Vasilisa’s voice is low, steady—her restraint and focus steadying Mikhail’s fear, building a silent pillar of trust.

Mikhail’s anxiety leaks through, but he stands close—protective, seeking connection beneath the dread.

Nadia’s presence unsettles Vasilisa, stirring empathy beneath suspicion—a jagged kinship, fragile and unsteady.

A wary alliance forms—a mutual understanding of necessity, laced with the threat of betrayal or error.

Mutual skepticism tempers necessity; Dasha is both guide and trial, pressing Vasilisa to choose with care.

Mikhail’s words pull the pair closer—a renewal of trust beneath gathering threat.

Trust (remains high until the end, then collapses in absence). Final state: erasure replaces connection; a tenderness lost to forgetting.

Trust bends beneath the weight of doubt; Serafim’s presence chills rather than reassures. A ritual successor, now only an echo.

Protector and haunted soul; Vasilisa’s grip on Nadia’s pleas is feeble, a ribbon trailing in bitter wind.

Both guide and judge; a bargain fulfilled without warmth or malice. The folkways are spent here—only snow counts the cost.

The Covenant Beneath Snow

How cold the world turns, Vasilisa Karpova, when snow drapes itself like a burial shroud over truth and memory. Arriving beneath a sky slate-gray and heavy, you and your husband, Mikhail, step inside the bones of a deserted orphanage, your breaths the only warmth against the silence. Somewhere below, in the labyrinth of frostbitten halls, the secrets of thirteen vanished children wait to be pried open, each whisper an accusation, each shadow a witness. Rooms rearrange themselves when glimpsed from the corner of your eye, voices linger when your attention falters, and a presence—neither kind nor patient—haunts every brittle pane of glass. Rituals, remembered in half-sleep, barter your sanity for the chance to unearth the truth, as the snow outside thickens, refusing all hope of escape. You realize, too late, that some oaths cannot be broken, and some horrors do not sleep beneath the ice.

The Covenant Beneath Snow

More Recommended Games