Buzzin’ Games has continued its character reveal series for Rock, Paper, Severed with the introduction of Eleanor “Nellie” Ashford (aka Nervous Nellie), the fourth and final playable character available to those daring enough to step up to The Old Sire’s table.
Nellie Ashford once lived under the control of an abusive father who believed pain was discipline. An unlicensed electrician, he fitted crude electrical nodes to Nellie’s temples as a child and used them to punish her whenever she displeased him. Things changed when she met David.
When David proposed, Nellie’s father forbade the relationship. The argument that followed ended with him dragging Nellie into the cellar, strapping her into his chair and preparing the equipment he had used on her countless times before. But this time, Nellie fought back.
Six months later, she married David. Within a year, he had become just like her father. The insults came first, followed by violence, until Nellie eventually killed him too. As David died, Nellie saw a towering figure standing silently in the corner of the room. Something inside her broke.
The killings that followed quickly spread across Liverpool. Men began disappearing from pubs, bus stops, train stations and alleyways, with bodies later discovered covered in electrical burns and surrounded by strange ritualistic symbols. The press gave the unknown killer a name: The Black Widow of Liverpool.
Nellie believed each murder was a sacrifice to her new God. The timid woman who had once hidden from the world had become a manic zealot, laughing through her killings and chasing visions only she could see.
By the time police identified Eleanor Ashford as the Black Widow, she had already vanished. The Old Sire was calling her elsewhere. And Nellie answered.
Inspired by British folklore and the forgotten tradition of Sin-Eating, players in Rock, Paper, Severed are summoned before The Old Sire, an ancient entity that offers sinners one final opportunity for absolution through a series of horrifying trials. Every throw carries consequences. Every defeat comes at a terrible cost. Lose a round, lose a finger.
Throughout the single-player experience, players face The Old Sire directly as the stories of four damaged souls gradually unfold through dialogue and their encounters around the table, revealing the choices, tragedies and sins that brought each of them to this moment.
Look for Rock, Paper, Severed later this year on Steam.