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Figures, terrain objects and vehicle shown for scale only -
The Old Ruined Church
Winding through the heart of a dark, tangled forest is a disused, overgrown and forgotten road. Should you be so bold as to cut your way through the underbrush to the end of that road there is a natural clearing wherein you will find a ruined church and a small walled graveyard. Oddly enough there is no record of this place; who built it, or why it lies in ruin today. The County Land Office shows no registered owner of the parcel where it sits.
The nearest inhabited community is twelve miles down the old road. The town of Tanglewood came into being as a water stop when the railroad came through in 1901. Although the Old Ruined Church obviously predates the town, there are as many different stories about it as there are tellers; each having his or her own tale of mystery, lost loves, sorrow and unfulfilled dreams. Some believe one thing; some another. Was it an adventurous English Lord who struck out with his retainers from one of the old colonies? Perhaps it was built by Vikings who had been cast ashore after a great storm. Some go so far as to suggest that it was not a Christian Church at all, but a place for witches to celebrate the black mass.
Whatever you may believe, the Old Ruined Church does not give up its secrets. The clearing in the wood is itself a mystery. The trees at the edge of the clearing have a stunted and diseased look to them. The tuff prairie grass which grows so verdantly elsewhere struggles to survive. Only the ivy that grows up the crumbling stone walls seems to belong.
There is an eerie silence which fills the little clearing. No birds or small animals can be heard or seen in this place. Only the occasional fox or wolf may be observed at the edge of the trees. But even they do not enter the clearing.
The church itself is a source of mystery. There is the strange brownish, red stain that covers the top of the altar stone and adjacent floor. It takes little imagination to see that stain as blood flowing down the face of the altar and running in rivulets across the stone floor. Some there are who say that the altar stone itself can be pushed aside (if you can speak the correct incantation) to reveal a stone stairway leading down into the darkness -
There are six marked graves in the graveyard, but their tombstones are so weathered by scores of winters that they cannot be read. Who is buried here? How did they die? None now know, but the story tellers will be happy to fill in the blanks. Are the tales of strange disappearances, ghostly visitations and cursed treasures all just stories or is there some dark and mysterious truth behind them? Who can say?
In the 1930’s a traveling photographer came here to take “evocative art photos” as he called them. He took a few pictures but left abruptly when he and his local guide discovered that someone had opened one of the graves in the little cemetery. In the shadowy gloom of the open grave the body that occupied the broken casket seemed way too fresh to have been there hundreds of years.
Reviresco’s 1/64th scale kit of the Old Ruined Church is full of ideas for scenarios of mystery, magic and adventure. The Old Ruined Church can provide a strong point for war games from the Middle Ages right up through contemporary times.
This kit consists of three pages of illustrated assembly instructions and six pages of parts for the building, graveyard walls, tombstones and ground sheet. Exclusive of the ground sheet the completed kit measures 7.2 inches wide by 7.4 inches deep by 4 inches high and is designed to be constructed over .2 inch wide foam core backing.