A dark take on The Pied Piper of Hamelin

The Dirge of Hamelin

You wake penniless and alone.

You’ve betrayed your own kind. In a world where status is dictated by the number and power of magical familiars a person has, you were born with none and were unable to manifest any as you came of age. You’re vermin, you and others like you live in the edge of society. Doing the disgusting work no Hamelinian would do.

When a powerful mage and Lord of Hamelin offered you a chance at a familiar of your own, you jumped at the prospect. The cost? You had to rid the overpopulated town of its lowest members, your people, the vermin. Armed with a magical flute you went from slum to slum playing your song and embedding commands in the subconscious that couldn’t be ignored. “Run, leave, never come back, separate from everyone and disperse!” They hated you for breaking up their families and robbing them of what little life they’d made for themselves.

You wake penniless and alone.

The Lord was a fraud of course…the only magic he had was the ability to convince you to betray your people. But you have magic…you have your flute and a desire for revenge.

You must travel to the home of the mystical elves that made your instrument, your mission is to have its magic improved so that it works on familiars.

Your endgame is to rob the Lords and Ladies of Hamelin of their precious familiars and take away the thing that gives them power over you and your kind. They’ll be forced to live life as vermin and face persecution and eventual death at their own hands to escape their fate.

You go from estate to estate playing a new song for the familiars of the elite. It’s a funeral dirge for the society that took everything from you. It’s the Dirge of Hamelin.