The Gleaning: Folk-Horror One-Shot

You came down the road for the festival. No one mentioned you were the festival.

The Premise

Your players are outsiders who come down into the valley village of Barrowmere on the night of its harvest rite, the Gleaning. The welcome is warm beyond reason, the village the loveliest place they have ever been. And over a single evening they discover, too late and all at once, that Barrowmere never knows grief or loss because long ago it gave both away to the thing in the land, and that the beautiful festival they walked into needs an offering, and that they are it. No monster to fight. Just a bargain to understand, a road that will not let them leave, and a terrible choice at the dark water before dawn.

A complete, self-contained folk-horror scenario for one session of about three to four hours, ready to run with almost no prep.

What You Get

• A complete one-shot: the read-aloud opening, the GM-only truth, a four-or-five-NPC cast, the village, a beat-by-beat timeline of the escalating night, the rite, and three true endings.
• Print-ready player handouts (the Gleaning song, the corn dolly).
• A GM toolkit for pacing the single session, plus tone anchors and the one rule that makes it frightening.

Why It Runs Well at the Table

• Dread, not gore: the horror is the kindness that is appetite, the neighbours who cannot grieve, the road that bends you back. Violence stays offstage.
• A real choice, not a boss fight: the players survive by understanding the bargain, then breaking it, running, or becoming the offering.
• A perfect one-night table: a self-contained beginning, middle, and gut-punch end, with a visible clock (a corn dolly that comes back wearing their faces).

System-Agnostic

No stat blocks, no rules, no math. Run it in whatever system you already own, or rules-light by tension alone. The supernatural is kept offstage and folkloric, with an optional ruleset-neutral GM hook.

Content Note

Mature folk horror: grief, sacrifice, and a community trapped in a terrible bargain. Dread rather than gore, violence offstage. Includes a safety-tool recommendation up front. Best for tables who like their horror slow and unsettling.

What’s Inside

• The Gleaning one-shot scenario (PDF, print-ready 8.5 x 11)

This Is Also a Doorway

Loved the night and want the whole descent? This one-shot is the opening of a full season. The Gleaning: Campaign Codex + GM Kit turns this single evening into Act One of a campaign-long unravelling of Barrowmere, with the complete codex plus a 5-session Session Planner and a 2-page Campaign Tracker. Find it in the Narrative Hall shop.

License

For personal use at your table. Run it, print it, adapt it for your own games. Please do not resell or redistribute the file itself. Non-exclusive: available to every GM who wants it.

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