SPECTRE and SHADOW Conference (storyline)/2025 Conference (summary)

The SPECTRE (Sorcerers, Practitioners, Enchanters, Conjurers, Thaumaturges, Researchers, and Evokers) and SHADOW (Seers, Hypnotists, Astrologers, Diviners, Occultists, Witches) Conference returned in 2025 for October 10-12.

Invitations received by attendees varied, with some referencing the Conference while others identified the event as instead being called PAWS, the Pets and Animal Wellbeing Symposium. As attendees arrived at the Evermore Hotel, it became apparent that the staff had accidentally double booked two different conferences for the weekend, with Hotel Manager Blodeuyn Mourningveil coordinating on behalf of SPECTRE and SHADOW while PAWS was coordinated by Hotel Maid Elaarah Thistledown, the unfortunate victim of events occurring in the Hotel the year prior.

Lectures throughout the weekend consisted of both PAWS-led pet-oriented presentations and those of a more esoteric nature led by SPECTRE and SHADOW members. There was recurring friction between the two organizations, as well as among some attendees who indicated a clear preference of one subject type over the other.

Throughout the weekend, growing concern mounted regarding an insect infestation inside the hotel and the expansive webs spun by countless spiders in its garden. Conference attendees were eventually drawn in to address the spider concern in particular, after Jehckle and Hehckle identified it as an issue that had happened before. Ultimately, they were successful in banishing the spiders from the gardens, however with their departure from the hotel, the arachnids moved in force throughout the rest of Evermore Hollow, ultimately leading to the start of the Weavers of Arachne storyline began to officially unfold.

2025 Conference Schedule

Date	Time	Event	Location	Description
Fri 10/10	9:00pm ET	Hotel Check In	Front Desk	Ebon Gate officially begins and the festival grounds open, including the Hotel.
Fri 10/10	10:30pm ET	Welcome Reception	Library	A light affair and social hour where you can mingle with fellow attendees before retiring to your rooms.
Sat 10/11	9:00am ET	Breakfast	Dining Room	Start your day with a delightful breakfast while meeting other guests.
Sat 10/11	11:00am - 1:00pm ET	Morning Workshops	Library	Morning lectures and workshops. Tea Mages lecture by Ceibhfhionn Malficum Hotel Tour by Blodeuyn Mourningveil Dead Places and Memory lecture by Ermias Dunholme
Sat 10/11	2:00pm - 3:00pm ET	Lunch	Dining Room	Enjoy a leisurely lunch with fellow practitioners and pet enthusiasts. A workshop was double booked alongside lunch. Pet Skin Care workshop by Orralith
Sat 10/11	4:00pm ET	Afternoon Inquiries	Garden	The planned presentation for the afternoon was cut short on account of spider activity in the gardens. It quickly shifted into research in the library and practical alchemy in the greenhouse. Corvids lecture by Jehckle and Hehckle
Sat 10/11	7:00pm ET	Afternoon Workshops	Library	Afternoon lectures and workshops. Eggs workshop by Orralith Souls lecture by Giedrius Ravencroft Pet Grooming and Reincarnation dual workshop and lecture, by Orralith and Zethes Wraith, who had been double booked Abominations lecture by Thalita Trevil
Sat 10/11	10:00pm ET	Garden Party	Ballroom	The highlight of the event, featuring a sumptuous dinner served small-plates style and an evening of dance and engagement. This was relocated from the garden on account of spdier activity.
Sun 10/12	10:00am ET (approximate)	Farewell Brunch	Dining Hall	Conclude the convention with a delightful brunch and final opportunities to connect with new friends.
Sun 10/12	11:00am ET (approximate)	Pet Parade	Library	Display your companions at their best in this unique parade through the Hotel's Gardens. This was relocated from the gardens on account of spider activity, much to the hotel staff's chagrin.
Sun 10/12	12:00pm ET (approximate)	Inquiries Revisited	Garden	Attendees attempt to address the growing spider concern in the gardens.

Invitation Schedules

There was initial confusion as to whether the weekend event was to be the SPECTRE and SHADOW Conference's second year or instead PAWS, the Pets and Animal Wellbeing Symposium. Attendees randomly received one of two different invitations, which had conflicting schedules. Below are the originally schedules for the conflicting events.

Date	Time	Event	Organization	Description
Fri 10/10	9:00pm ET	Hotel Check In	Both	Ebon Gate officially begins and the festival grounds open, including the Hotel.
Fri 10/10	10:30pm ET (or 11:00pm ET)	Welcome Reception	Both	A light affair and social hour where you can mingle with fellow attendees before retiring to your rooms.
Sat 10/11	9:00am ET	Breakfast	SPECTRE & SHADOW	Start your day with a delightful breakfast while meeting other guests.
			PAWS	Start your day with a delightful breakfast while meeting other guests in the Garden.
Sat 10/11	11:00am - 1:00pm ET	Morning Workshops	SPECTRE & SHADOW	Engage in workshops led by our esteemed speakers.
			PAWS	Engage in a workshop on pet care.
Sat 10/11	2:00pm - 3:00pm ET	Lunch	SPECTRE & SHADOW	Enjoy a leisurely lunch with fellow practitioners.
			PAWS	Enjoy a leisurely lunch with fellow pet enthusiasts.
Sat 10/11	4:00pm ET	Event	Schedule note: An event is scheduled to happen. The advance event description varies depending on which invitation is received. An update on Discord simply calls this timeslot an "event".
		Afternoon Inquiries	SPECTRE & SHADOW	Join our guests in the Hotel Library for a bit of investigative work.
			PAWS	Attend presentations on various animal lore.
Sat 10/11	7:00pm ET	Workshops	Schedule note: A workshop is scheduled to happen. This information was relayed in an update on Discord and is not outlined in either organization's invitations.
Sat 10/11	10:00pm ET	Garden Party	Both	The highlight of the event, featuring a sumptuous dinner served small-plates style and an evening of dance and engagement.
Sun 10/12	10:00am ET	Event	Schedule note: An event is scheduled to happen. An update on Discord simply calls this timeslot an "event". It is possible that it may coincide with, conflict with, or be the PAWS invitation's "Pet Parade" or both invitations' "Farewell Brunch".
Sun 10/12	TBD	Pet Parade	PAWS	Display your companions at their best in this unique parade through the Hotel's Gardens.
Sun 10/12	TBD	Farewell Brunch	Both	Conclude the convention with a delightful brunch and final opportunities to connect with new friends.
Sun 10/12	12:00pm ET	Conclusion	Schedule note: The Hotel storyline ends. An update on Discord notes this as the official conclusion. Hotel Suite guests retain access to their Hotel room for the entirety of Ebon Gate.

2025 Conference Summary

Day of the Huntress, Jastatos the 10th

The SPECTRE (Sorcerers, Practitioners, Enchanters, Conjurers, Thaumaturges, Researchers, and Evokers) and SHADOW (Seers, Hypnotists, Astrologers, Diviners, Occultists, Witches) Conference returned in 2025 for October 10-12.

Invitations received by attendees varied, with some referencing the Conference while others identified the event as instead being called PAWS, the Pets and Animal Wellbeing Symposium. As attendees arrived at the Evermore Hotel, it became apparent that the staff had accidentally double booked two different conferences for the weekend, with Hotel Manager Blodeuyn Mourningveil coordinating on behalf of SPECTRE and SHADOW while PAWS was coordinated by Hotel Maid Elaarah Thistledown, the unfortunate victim of events occurring in the Hotel the year prior.

Upon checking in, attendees and staff alike became aware of the double booking, with some expressing interest in both events while others were clearly dismayed by the overlap. The hotel staff assured everyone that it would all work out, with both organizations sharing the hotel for the weekend - including its spaces and the allotted time for various presentations, workshops, and other events.

Amid all of this, and the increasing chaos of dozens of pets being led around the hotel at all hours, scores of insects started appearing in its public areas, including upstairs halls outside of hotel rooms. In addition, several hotel staff remarked about an increase in spider activity in the gardens, which may or may not be linked to the insects' arrival.

Feastday, Jastatos the 11th

Both SPECTRE and SHADOW Conference as well as PAWS attendees met jointly for breakfast in the morning, which had been relocated from the gardens to the dining hall on account of the growing spider activity. There was still some confusion as to which presenters were holding their lectures and workshop where, and when, until announcements from hotel staff identified the first presentation as being associated with SPECTRE and SHADOW in the library. After a lecture on tea mages, Hotel Manager Blodeuyn Mourningveil provided a tour of the buiding and its grounds, where the drastic increase in spiderweb presence was already noticeable. Another S&S lecture followed in the library, which then led into lunch in the dining hall, where a pet skincare workshop was held, apparently double-booked for the time. After a brief break, attendees reconvened in the garden.

The host of spiders making their homes in the hotel's gardens had apparently redoubled their efforts, quickly spinning webs that threatened to engulf it entirely. The afternoon lecture in the garden, which had intended to be on corvids and led by Borderlight Covenant representatives Jehckle and Hehckle, was cut abruptly short before it could even begin as the two identified that the growing spider presence had happened before in Naidem. They encouraged attendees to peruse the hotel's library for any useful scraps of knowledge. A number of clues were unearthed in the library, among them a reference to an alchemical formula that had proven useful at some point in the past to burning the webs. The conference attendees were given access to the garden's greenhouse by way of a hidden passage from the hotel's basement, where an old set of alchemical equipment was still useable, and after some effort locating the listed reagents, flasks of webscourge oil were brewed and tested, yielding questionable results on the garden spiderwebs.

Several hours later, the lectures and workshops resumed inside, initially with a focus on pets. It was eventually revealed that one of the newest PAWS members and one of its speakers, Giedrius Ravencroft, had been the impetus for the weekend pet event, and that he had taken it upon himself to recommend the Evermore Hotel and coordinate directly with the hotel's maid instead of the Hotel Manager. This was because he had been denounced at the previous year's Conference for his unethical actions and stripped of the right to present on behalf of SPECTRE and SHADOW again. Giedrius orchestrated the "accidental" double booking purely so that he could give a continuation of his prior year's lecture, and he had used PAWS and its members as a cover. When it came time for Giedrius' lecture on hamsters, he quickly revealed his diabolical plan to show up at the SPECTRE and SHADOW event to continue his prior year's lecture.

Following Giedrius' not-entirely-unexpected reveal, lectures continued in the library with a double-booked duo from both organizations somehow managing to jointly put on a presentation with two wildly different topics. The final lecture of the evening delved into some of the horrifying possibilities of both animal and sentient life twisted by exposure across valences.

A formal dinner with music and dancing followed in the ballroom, where many attendees continued conversations from earlier in the day as well as theorized as to what needed to be done next about the spiders in the garden.

Restday, Jastatos the 12th

The next morning, one of the attendees found a copy of the Weavers of Arachne tale, which was quickly shared with the others as evidence that what was occurring with the spiders definitely had some basis in the realm's history.

A morning brunch was held in the dining room, and the eagerly awaited PAWS-led pet parade was finally held within the hotel's library, to the increasing horror of the hotel staff.

Jehckle and Hehckle returned amid the chaos the pet parade, and a key aspect of the found alchemical recipe was learned: that the webscourge oil had to be used at midday, when even Naidem's curious daylight was at its greatest. It was employed again at noon, and this time the webs in the garden all were eradicated, the attendees initially triumphant with their work. As it turned out, the spiders had simply relocated.. and were preparing to act in much greater numbers across all of Evermore Hollow, as the Weavers of Arachne storyline began to officially unfold.

As for the dead insects appearing all over inside the hotel itself, those ended up being the work of one of the conference attendees - and not actually linked to the spiders' presence.

Presentation Logs

• Lecture #1 - Tea Mages by Ceibhfhionn Malficum
• Lecture #2 - Dead Places and Memory by Ermias Dunholme, with special guest Little Ermias
• Lecture #3 - Pet Skin Care by Orralith on behalf of PAWS, double booked with lunch
• Lecture #4 - Corvids by Jehckle and Hehckle of the Borderlight Covenant, on behalf of PAWS
• Lecture #5 - Eggs by Orralith, on behalf of PAWS
• Lecture #6 - Souls by Giedrius Ravencroft, with hopes of it being on behalf of SPECTRE and SHADOW, instead of his previously announced lecture on hamsters for PAWS
• Lecture #7 - Pet Grooming and Reincarnation, competing double-booked presentations by Orralith on behalf of PAWS and Zethes Wraith on behalf of SPECTRE and SHADOW
• Lecture #8 - Abominations by Thalita Trevil