DREDGE

A fisherman accepts the angler post in Greater Marrow. After dark he meets mist, sudden rocks, ghost ships, hostile wildlife, and a watched feeling. Bottle notes by newlywed Julie describe arriving with her husband, who raised a casket from the seafloor and opened it, freeing the supernatural fog. The Leviathan, a gigantic guardian, destroyed their boat. Julie died; her husband and the old mayor were stranded on a small island. That creature now stalks the fisherman so he cannot leave. On a lonely island mansion lives the Collector, who sends the fisherman to other isles and hidden ruins for several relics. Through the Book of the Deep he also grants supernatural powers. Once the relics are delivered, the Collector admits he is Julie's husband. The objects were hers, and a ritual needs them to resurrect her. At the stretch of ocean where she drowned, the fisherman throws them overboard. She returns, yet a huge Cthulhu-like beast awakens and wrecks Greater Marrow, presumably the rest of the world as well. If the old mayor is found in one of five camps, another ending unlocks. Speaking with the lighthouse keeper shows the Collector is the fisherman's imagination, an avatar of repressed guilt over Julie's death. He sails out and throws the book into the ocean. The Leviathan swallows him, the book, and his boat; afterward the fog is gone. The ritual ending can still be taken; only the pronouns become second person.