The Green Lady, Catherine Northmoor, was part of the underlying ghost story of the game. We used audio, smell, stick figures and a weird projection gag to create her.
Manifestations
The Green Lady mostly manifested as a smell of flowers and chiming bells. She was the only conscious ghost, the only one who could (sometimes) interact with the players in a poltergeist-like manner. She would occasionally leave stick figure drawings for the players, as clues as to what was going on; or would use candles and other lights.
On one occasion, the players saw the front of her gravestone push out and form into a face, talking to them, urging them to dig.
In the final end scene, they saw Catherine in her green robes.
Audio
The Drawings
We’d decided that Catherine was a poltergeist, and so could write messages – but we couldn’t work out how to therefore avoid her just writing the answer to the plot somewhere and ‘spoiling’ the event.
Then we realised the obvious answer – Catherine was illiterate! So she’d have to try and get her story through to the players using a series of drawings…
If the players achieved goals during the event that strengthened Catherine, allowed her to expend a bit of energy to manifest, she’d leave a new drawing as part of a clue. Burned into wood, scrawled in chalk, written in frost on the lawn, scribbled in ectoplasm…
Here’s the full set of drawings that explain Catherine, Nicholas & Edmund’s story.
Behind the Scenes
The Green Lady was relatively straightforward; we used scent, audio, and then sometimes left symbols drawn in UV inks or burned into wood (Catherine was illiterate).
For the gravestone gag, the players had previously investigated her grave – her gravestone was a painted solid prop. For this gag we replaced the front panel with a lycra panel painted to look the same. Kiera knelt inside/behind the gravestone, and when the effect started, pushed her face into the lycra to make the stone appear to warp outwards into the shape of a face. At the same time we projected Catherine’s face, speaking, on to the same panel.
Here’s a video of a test of the projection we used.