That is the setting, it started yesterday. To relax me I decided to listen to some Hogwarts ambiance music and I stumbled upon the 4 common rooms under Christmas and as I was relaxing, I suddenly noticed a few things. The shadows, some other details and my mind went racing and as such I created a ‘new’ IP, or better I reengineered one. Ih this story I was arriving at Hogwarts as a replacement student, I was replacing Abraham Ronen for a year as he was attending family business. It was quite the rush seeing Hogwarts after so long and I was giddy as a first year student. As I was attending late, I tried the old ways from my youth and would you believe it, that method still worked. I set the frog in a tree and cast the spell making it a one time only and only for me setting and I arrived in a dusty old room, where the brother of my frog was left untouched for years. There was another frog there and it would place me at the bottom of the curved stairs. I quickly charmed the room and cleaned it up. I saw the dust all over from the years of neglect and I summoned a house elf, which weirdly enough wasn’t answering, so I called my personal house elf and asked him to clean up this room. He nodded in acceptance and a minute later he was busy cleaning and scrubbing the room. I thought for a moment and summoned a second house elf from my house in Irondale, the house elf apparated and soon they were both cleaning the room. I asked the second elf to focus on the cozy chair and the walls. I then walked into the frog and appeared at the bottom of the curved stairs. I was hit with two settings, the first one was that it looked still like I remembered it nearly 15 years ago. The second thought that it was massively empty, there wasn’t a sound other then some hoofs in the distance. I walked to towards the great hall and as I got closer, there was still no sound. Over a hundred students tend to make noise, so it felt wrong, also the rooms were absent of candles and lights making it an eerie setting. I walked through the large doors to see…. Nothing. This was odd, I looked at my watch, I then looked at the room and there wasn’t a sound. I called for a house elf. It didn’t appear. I was slightly confused, no professors, no students and there was the sound of hoofs outside. Not even the ghosts were here. I took my wand a voiced the disillusionment spell. I vanished into a shimmer I then whispered the lighting spell for the lights and it obeyed, but there was nothing. I then saw a portrait looking at me and I made myself visible again. I introduced myself to the portrait of Minerva McGonagall. “Good evening, I am the replacement charms professor. My name is Severus Seafarer, I am standing in for Abraham Ronen. What is going on here?” The response was not what I thought “There was a panic and all the professors and student disappeared. I do not know where, but there was something dangerous in the air and now you have been exposed too” I understood the setting and she continued “There are the ghosts in the castle who have been given tasks to keep Hogwarts safe, sook them out. Also the animals around Hogwarts have been exposed and they are now rabid and dangerous. The most dangerous creatures are I think the Centaurs, but they are not alone and they stick together” I thought for a second and I took my leave of her. I rushed to the potions lab and got all the ingredients I could find and made several potions for health, like Wiggenweld as well as some anti toxin potions. I went through the professors cupboard and took what I thought was useful as well as some sleeping draughts, I thought that might be the way to go. I then took a different route, I was originally a Hufflepuff student and as my entry word was a professors code, it would let me in. If the ghosts were the answer, the house ghost of Hufflepuff would be a first. I entered the Hufflepuff common room and ignited the fire as well as the lights. In less then a minute the Hufflepuff was as warm and cozy as I remembered it to be. I called the Fat Friar, as he was my first port of call. He appeared but he was shaken, I don’t remember him ever to be nervous. I bowed and he recognised me. “Severus?” he said. I bowed and said “Yes, I am here as a professor now, what is going on? Minerva explained some of it, but not all. What is going on?” The fat friar explained that it was something to do with the muggle world. We were hit in more profound ways, especially the magical creatures. The students and the professors weren’t hit, but they took no chances as the magical creatures were more and more rabid” The professors decided on the painting portals. Each house has an emergency painting and they went there with house elf. We patrolled the corridors but the Centaurs got too aggressive, so we went into hiding. And that is how it has been for roughly a week.
This is the setting my mind conceived. The setting behind this is Covid-19 and the effect it had on magical creatures, because Covid was made by the asians to counter an invasion of Jiangshi and Oni oil their land, but it had an effect on muggles as well and that is the setting the professor Severus Seafarer faces. The game has 4 distinct environments til settings. Ravenclaw is struck with aerial traps and has invading birds. It is also a stage where you are confronted with Helena Ravenclaw (the Grey lady) and there you get to seek the herbal cures for most of the species. In addition that house will cure the air of Hogwarts, as such no one will get sick after that in Hogwarts and the air will start curing those effected including you. This will be seen that the two house elf will suddenly feel a lot better and will be a controlling force for setting up the Hogwarts defenses against the centaurs where you will have a lethal and a non-lethal setting, the non-lethal setting takes a lot longer, but the reward is a lot stronger. Slytherin is under water, the windows are broken and you need to get to repair the house and drain the water (in stages) as the window defenses are restored. The bloody baron has more on the water defenses and the old spell to set up the widow barriers are the first stage in restoring parts of Hogwarts and the Greenhouses (they are in the lower parts of Hogwarts and also under water) then we get to Gryffindor and nearly headless nick who has the final part of the painting spell and as all the parts are now above water, you can now access the paintings, they are linked and you get the other parts of the lore of the disease setting. Gryffindor has the stage where access to the headmaster tower becomes available and there we learn the last parts of the lore.
So as we get to clear the common rooms, we also get the settings to clear the disease from Hogwarts. There is more, but for now that is ll there is. As I see it, this IP is readily available for Avalanche Software (as they own the IP of Hogwarts legacy) and as it stands as Hogwarts was completely designed in the first game (by them), it could become a larger DLC for the time being as HL2 is still in design. I have no idea how it fares with Warner Brothers and Netflix, but giving this idea to Avalanche Software might be the better option. So John Blackburn, you have an idea and feel free to use it and keep the scores (read: millions) of Harry Potter fans happy. It (the IP) is yours now.
Have a great day and consider the I wrote this on a Sunday morning, so you owe me a coffee (Jumbo cappuccino with two sugar and full cream milk) as I see it 😛
Have a great day you all, it was great thinking up another game, because that shows how some ore waiting all their settings on a non existing Ai whilst I (coffee deprived) think of new IP with my feeble little brain.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 