The Sorrow Hunter Database — Documented Sorrows No. 001 to 099

by Pick-n-Mix Comix (PicknMixComix), TheAestheticMerchant (Teacat)

Summary:

The Sorrow Hunter Database is an in-universe collection of documents relating to the cataloguing and study of entities and events known as Sorrows, which appear increasingly often throughout the Other Realms once a creature known as the Sorrowfather is created, carrying with him various entities and cruel fates from one world to the next. In this storyline, it's up to the Sorrow Hunters — those entrusted with their research from the shadows and hidden corners between realities where time has been forgotten — to research, pen down, and document evidence of each Sorrow's existence so that future generations can always keep a watch out for them going forward.

This collection is Documented Sorrows No. 001 to 099, listing the first 99 Sorrows known to have been researched by the Sorrow Hunters on duty.

Notes:

This is sort of a side-project I've been mulling over the right format for for quite some time. The original version of Sorrows Of Blackwood was based around this concept at its core — Grace and Gallo would become Sorrow hunters, and instead of fighting supernatural beasties in general, they'd fight Sorrows exclusively — but it became hard to figure out what I wanted from the Sorrows then, so things drifted and I never quite incorporated it the right way.

Now, they can be the basis for this little epistolary experimentation, inspired by everything from A Series Of Unfortunate Events to Supernatural, and most notably, Spiderwick Chronicles, Home Safety Hotline, and the SCP Foundation. Updated in bits, as always, with the completion of each article, this is The Sorrow Hunter Database.

Chapter 1: Documented Sorrow No. 001 — The Sorrowfather

Classification

Ethereal, harmful

Description

Documented Sorrow No. 001 is the Sorrowfather, an entity who was once known as the Galatéan man Ethan Dumont before his encounter with Tristan Grimshaw and the Matrona Dolorosa led him to take his own life as a sacrifice during his attempted Baptism of Tears.

In witness encounters involving him, the Sorrowfather is reported to have a pattern of appearing to young men in need of comfort and attempting to play on their insecurities and anxieties in order to sow depression and sorrow within them and, he hopes, drive them to take their own lives the way he did.

Ethan Dumont was once Grace Morgan's lover, and it is thought this was one factor leading to his demise, due to her involvement with the Tristan Grimshaw case and Matrona Dolorosa during the late 1970s.

Analysis

The Sorrowfather is a known dangerous entity of an ethereal, otherworldly nature. He does not have a physical form other than those he possesses and whispers to, and often acts through proxies or the anomalous events known as the Whispering Winds for surveillance purposes. It is thought that the Baptism of Tears was intended by Hearthkeepers to counteract such incidents as the Sorrowfather's creation, but Sorrow Hunters are still researching the entity for potential methods of care and defense against his effects.

Notes:

As you can tell by some of these references, this is technically canonical with the current Pick-n-Mix Comix continuity within the Other Realms and the Chasm of Stars, but functions like an unrelated, tangentially-connected companion piece to it. References to these things listed as Sorrows might happen in Pick-n-Mix Comix, or vice versa, but not always and they should be able to exist separately, in theory.

When I post these up on the Pick-n-Mix Comix Wikidot page, references like these should be able to be easily linked up to the wiki pages which explain them, but I'm trying to maintain the "real world illusion" here, so it's not specifically prudent unless necessary.