The Ferryman Returns Them Changed

In the perpetually fog-choked Vesswater valley, Cadoc Ryne is the grim Ferryman, burdened with an unholy task. He pulls the recently drowned from the treacherous Vess, a river that flows upstream on nights best forgotten, and returns them to their grieving families. His unique ability to call souls back comes at a terrifying cost: the Vess always claims a piece, substituting something alien and grotesque. Families, desperate in their grief, pay his escalating price, willfully ignoring the unsettling changes in their 'returned' loved ones. Cadoc, a man haunted by silent duty, keeps a locked shed housing the river's true abominations - the things too monstrous even for the desperate. Now, whispers of a growing blight, a malevolent mimicry, threaten to drown the entire valley in the very horrors he's unleashed, forcing Cadoc to confront the compounding debt he's exacted.