pareidolia

"the hunter's den" refers to the headquarters of alfred "freddie" cederblom's hunting business - "jägarlyan". located in the town of vätterunda, inside a modified residential building, on the outside it's a simple hunting business, selling furs, leathers, hunting equipment and even taxidermy - however, underneath this facade the business prioritizes the poaching of vättar, as any spoils from those hunts can be sold for lucrative amounts.

the business had first been established a few decades ago, by a completely different set of people - and was in the beginning not actually involved in poaching. however, once cederblom had set his sights on it, he used the wealth he possessed to buy the company after discovering that the area under their influence was positively teeming with vättar in comparison to other places in the country... especially since the company had actually managed to capture one alive for themselves.

located at around a 30 minute walk from vätterunda, hjortkulla sees only one human inhabitant nowadays - folke. rather small in scale, he is seemingly the only one who runs it according to the people of vätterunda, which has led to a lot of rumours surrounding both the homestead and folke himself. some believe him to be a spirit, taking care of the farm as the rest of the family was killed by vättar, while others believe him to perhaps be a vätte himself.

vätterunda is a growing town located in gästrikland. for many years, it was a rather rural town, having sprung up from a farmer village in the 1300s, access to the lake trollsjö and fields of rich soil making it a desireable place for agriculture. relatively recently, during the 1800s, a railroad begun to be built nearby and vätterunda became a sort of "stop" for the rail workers during its construction. when the construction was finalized, many of these workers became residents of the town. with the construction of the railroad as well as these new residents, newer modern attitudes which had remained relatively obscured from the residents finally begun to intermingle with them at last... despite that, however, a lot of superstitions remain in the population.

characters who live around or near the general vätterunda area, but not in/near the actual town

a crakam settlement north of vätterunda, situated on an isolated islet. shrouded by tomte magic, the humans remain unaware of the nature of the settlement. instead, they think it is cursed - anyone who dares approach the seemingly uninhabited islet finds it impossible to navigate to once one gets too near - the waters and surrounding area seeming ever-changing until one is safely out of range. the other thing humans note of is that during the night, flocks of nightjars appear to fly around the islet, the skies filling with their cries.

bestiary containing information about the vättar of this world. a vätte (plural: vättar) is a loose unnatural category of different creatures. theyre not categorized together due to evolutionary relation but rather due to the belief that they have certain peculiar abilities or behaviour uncommon in the natural world, and thus are often spoken of in folklore. whatever is documented about them is limited knowledge due to the fact that these creatures are incredibly elusive (sometimes due to said peculiar abilities).

(wip, will add entries gradually)

anyone in here exists in the same universe, but either is just not relevant to the story, or is mostly only relevant in character backgrounds (and also alive)

characters which are deceased, but relevant in character backgrounds