Villaoscura
A place almost nobody visits, and yet we know it well.
Before crossing it helps to know where you are going: what the village is, what the veil is and who vouches for what lives on the other side.
What is Villaoscura?
Villaoscura was not invented from nothing. It is a real place seen through a layer that almost nobody gets to cross: same ground, same river, same woods, same stone — but with the hidden made visible. The real village and Villaoscura are one place in two layers.
The veil
The veil is, above all, fog: the fog that rises from the gorge at dawn and at dusk. When it thickens, the veil slackens and the other side is one step away. But slack fog is not enough on its own — you only cross it carrying the right object or performing the right act: a mask worn, an offering left, one particular night of the year.
Without fog, the object is worth nothing. Without the object, the fog is only weather.
Desquiciados
We do not invent the creatures you will find here. They were in Villaoscura, they crossed the veil or they were seen through it, and as they faded they left something of themselves behind: a trace, an object, an image. We gather those traces and give them shape — a mask or a figure — as an act of witness. Every piece certifies that something was seen. It does not merely illustrate it.
The bond is older than the name: a trade inherited, passed on through hands rather than words. 2011, the year we claim as our roots, is not where that bond began — it is when we had our own brush with the veil. Exactly what happened, we are still telling, in fragments.
The Census of Villaoscura
It is the register of those who want to see the pieces before anyone else. Joining the Census is the same as becoming a villager: access to what we keep, word of when the veil is at its thinnest, early entry to new pieces. The more villagers on the roll, the thinner the veil stays — and the more the other side lets itself be seen.
What you will find
Not everything that crosses the veil belongs here. Some pieces are native testimony: creatures that passed through Villaoscura and left their trace. Others are fears that arrived from elsewhere and got caught in the threshold, carrying the shape everyone already knows them by: the vampire, the dead who come back, the creature stitched together from parts.
Native or foreign, they all take shape in the workshop as handmade figures and masks.
Has your creature not crossed the veil yet?
Tell us what it looks like and we'll bring it to this side, as a mask or as a figure.