This is the home of the Spring 2026 AUR Transmedia Storytelling class at The American University of Rome. This page has elements of our world that may be useful as our mystery unfolds.
More About Our World
We are in an alternate universe. See what is and isn’t allowed in our shared story world
Our World Constitution
Our Music Playlist
Listen on Spotify
Some songs are personal favorites of the characters, while others go with different parts of the story.
Recipes & Food Culture
——
At RAFI, vampires are forbidden from feeding directly on humans. Instead, they consume
Sanctified Blood Tonic, a dark, wine-like drink stored in sealed glass.
Ingredients (in-world):
● Preserved animal blood
● Nightshade berries
● Rosemary
● Iron-rich mineral drops
Cultural Significance:
The tonic represents restraint, discipline, and coexistence. For older vampires, it symbolizes
control over their instincts and a rejection of being seen as monsters. While some younger
vampires view it as restrictive, others see it as protection, for both themselves and the
community
Legends, Folklore & Artifacts
The Unfinished Feast
A recurring story among RAFI students describes a hidden dining table that
appears only at certain times, usually during emotional or narrative turning
points.
The table is always set but never complete: it could be one plate missing,
one chair pulled out, a torn tablecloth, or even one dish untouched. If
someone sits and eats, the food tastes perfect and delicious, but they
reportedly feel like they’re waiting for someone who never arrives. As proper
etiquette says, it is important to remain at the table until everyone has
finished, but… what if you endlessly wait for the other person to arrive?
Some believe the table belongs to a forgotten gathering, so an event
interrupted before it could resolve, while others think it’s still waiting to be
completed and fixed.
Students make jokes about it, but if it appeared then no one would be
willing to sit down and wait for eternity.
—-
There is an alleged hidden room in RAFI that can only be accessed by performing a
ritual. The ritual involves splashing a drop of your blood onto the mirror of an unlit bathroom at
midnight. Then, you light a candle and use the flame to light some incense. If you stare at the
splash of blood on your reflection, then it will come alive and drag you into the mirror. Once
you’re in the mirror world, you can exit the bathroom and be in a backwards room of RAFI. It is
said that people who perform this ritual remain in the mirror world and are replaced by their
reflections in the real world. This is often used as a rite of passage for clubs and cliques
—–
There are rumors among students at AUR about a hidden dungeon beneath the campus, not
marked on any map and impossible to find twice the same way. Some say if you wander far
enough, you might come across a passage that leads down into old stone corridors that feel
older than the university itself. Those who claim to have found it describe an unsettling silence
and the feeling that they are not alone. After leaving, they often struggle to remember how they
got there and sometimes feel like something, or someone, has been left behind. Recently, some
students have started to wonder if this has something to do with the classmate who went
missing, especially since no one can clearly remember the last time they saw them.
—
Characters: Diaries & Found Objects
