“This is not for you.”
The Navidson House
Although the novel is rife with unrelated narration, the Navidson house is the central location and possible threat that faces the Navidson family during
The Navidson Record. After a short trip the Navidson family find their new home to have new dimensions, rooms, and passages and something…else.
Although
House of Leaves focuses on the cross-narratives that make up the complete story, the Navidson house represents the central theme and danger that ultimately has dire consequences to the family.
The house that remains mutable
The Navidson House seems to house its own subdimension, changing its structure and areas as necessary. The house has many rooms and corridors upon each encounter, and seems boundless in its scope. A group of explorers attempted to map the area and disappeared for several weeks, only to be beset by an unknown creature. The Navidson House gains some notoriety but is not widely known outside of some circles and there is no reason why or how the house has gained such connection. The house has the following abilities:
- Unreliable architecture: The Navidson house changes some of its interior upon each encounter – except the main rooms and living quarters. The Navidson House’s changes make it impossible to track, although certain rooms and passages seem to stabilize when individuals are inside of them. The Navidson house’s passages can lead for miles – sometimes taking days or weeks to navigate. The architecture ‘s disorientation causes any who explore to suffer -2cs to Intuition FEATs, making it difficult to navigate or keep direction. Powers such as Telelocation simply will not function as the nature of the internal location makes it impossible to get total bearings.
- An unnerving experience: Those within the Navidson House suffer unnerving experiences – increased paranoia and obsession as well as possible hallucinations and similar effects. Those who stay within the Navidson house suffer a -1cs to their Psyche for the duration that they remain, and should they remain they will need to make a Psyche FEAT for each 24-hour period spent within the house. For each week period spent, the individual suffers an additional -1cs to Psyche (Maximum of reduction to Pr (04)). Once the individual has left the area for over 72 hours the effect reduces and the individual will recover at the point of +1 ranks per day. While in the house the individual also will experience sounds and/or images that may or may not be real, including growling and a general feeling of unrest rest.
- The Beast: Although not directly encountered in the narrative, a sound of a great beast can be heard and does attack some of the explorers (at least is related through recovered narrative). The beast is feral and cannot easily be tracked or found as if it is indeed real, it remains in the sub-corridor and areas. The Beast reflects the nature of those who are present – as such it may or may not have substance or actual presence. The Beast cannot be slain in the traditional means as it may not exist.
Note: The novel is an awesome read - and it plays on the unreliable narrator greatly. My write-up is generalized to that purpose. The novel is being turned into a series, I'm curious how they'll handle it.