The Wolf Among Us
=== Setting ===
The Wolf Among Us is set in the year 1986, nearly twenty years before the events of Fables. For years, many of the magical lands described in myth, legend, and folklore (known as The Homelands) have been occupied by an enigmatic tyrant known as the Adversary. To escape the Adversary's totalitarian regime, many of The Homelands inhabitants fled to colonial America, and created an enclave known as Fabletown, now located in modern-day Manhattan. To mask their presence from the native humans, all non-human fables have to purchase an enchantment known as a "glamour" which allows them to appear human, or be relocated to a rural community known as "The Farm".
=== Characters ===
The player-protagonist of The Wolf Among Us is Bigby Wolf (Adam Harrington), formerly the Big Bad Wolf. He is the sheriff of Fabletown, currently working at the "Business Office" under interim mayor Ichabod Crane (Roger L. Jackson), aided by Snow White (Erin Yvette) and her Magic Mirror (Gavin Hammon) in his investigation along with the help of Bufkin the winged monkey (Chuck Kourouklis) that manages Fabletown's records. Bluebeard (Dave Fennoy) also works at the Office though his motives are unclear. Bigby resides at the Woodlands apartments, where he is currently allowing Colin (Brian Sommer), one of the Three Little Pigs, to stay with him after blowing down the pig's home. Beauty and the Beast (Melissa Hutchison and Gavin Hammon) are also residents of Woodlands, though currently struggling with a troubled marriage. One of the Fables that Bigby frequently contacts is Mr. Toad (Chuck Kourouklis) and his son TJ (Toad Jr.) (Melissa Hutchison), who live in a run-down apartment building nearby.
As the game opens, the player is introduced to the The Woodsman (Adam Harrington) who lives in the same building as Mr. Toad, and Faith (Cia Court) and Prince Lawrence (Anthony Lam), characters from the Allerleirauh/Donkeyskin fables. Standing in Bigby's way are Dee and Dum Tweedle (Gavin Hammon), twin thugs working for an unknown agent. Bigby also encounters Holly (Janet Lipsey), a Troll that runs the Trip Trap bar, and Grendel (Kid Beyond), a barfly there. The second episode introduces Georgie Porgie (Kevin Howarth), the owner of the Pudding and Pie strip club and Faith's pimp, along with two of his dancers, Nerissa (Molly Benson) the former Little Mermaid and Vivian (Sandy Delonga), and Clever Hans (Ben Knoll), the club's bouncer. The third episode introduces Bloody Mary (Kathryn Cressida) as an agent of the Crooked Man (Philip Banks) and Aunty Greenleaf (Laura Bailey), a rogue witch who illegally sells cheap black-market glamours to Fables who cannot afford the glamours in the 13th Floor. The fourth episode introduces the Jersey Devil (Bobby Vickers), the manager of the Lucky Pawn shop and Johann the butcher (Terry McGovern), the former owner of the Cut Above butcher shop and has since been forced out by the Crooked Man's henchmen.
=== Plot ===
This is a broad overview of the plot. Certain decisions made by the player will alter details of specific events.
Bigby Wolf, formerly the Big Bad Wolf, is the Sheriff of Fabletown, a hidden community of fairytale characters located in 1980s New York City. Receiving a call from Mr. Toad, Bigby manages to save a prostitute from an intoxicated Woodsman. He escorts her to safety and before she departs, she tells him he is not as bad as everyone says he is.
Later that night, Bigby is shocked to find the woman's head left on the Woodlands doorstep. Clues left with the head identify her as Faith, a Fable from Allerleirauh. Deputy Mayor Ichabod Crane orders him and Snow White to investigate her death. They head to the apartment she shared with her husband Prince Lawrence and find the Tweedles, Dee and Dum, snooping through it. They learn from Lawrence that they struggled to make ends meet and Faith took up prostitution to help pay the bills. Bigby leaves Snow at the Woodlands while he continues to trace leads. When he returns, he finds the Woodlands surrounded by police, Snow's head sitting on the building's steps.
Bigby is taken in for questioning, but Crane uses a spell to wipe the incident from the police's minds. When they return, they are surprised to find Snow still alive; the head is shown to be disguised by a black-market glamour, a spell that Fables use to look human, and belongs to a troll named Lily. Bigby tracks Lily's connections to a strip club run by Georgie Porgie, but Georgie claims innocence. One of his other prostitutes, Nerissa, cryptically directs Bigby to a nearby hotel room. There he finds Lily's blood on the bed, and photographic evidence of Crane engaging in sexual acts with Lily glamoured to look like Snow. He informs Snow of this, and they race back to the Woodlands to find Crane gone, and the Magic Mirror, which could have revealed his location, shattered with one shard missing.
Bigby follows a trail of clues to Crane's whereabouts to the apartment of Aunty Greenleaf, one of the witches that makes the black-market glamours. Along the way, Bigby discovers that Crane has been embezzling money from Fabletown over the years to pay off a loan shark known as the Crooked Man. When Bigby and Snow threaten to destroy the tree she needs to make them, Greenleaf begs forgiveness and points the two back to Georgie's club. Storming the club, they find Crane trying to hide in the back. Snow realizes Crane's actions are not that of a murderer, and the two convince Crane to return for questioning. En route, they are stopped by the Crooked Man and his agents, the Tweedles and Bloody Mary. Mary and the Tweedles goad Bigby into his werewolf form, and a fight breaks out. When Mary wounds Bigby with a silver bullet, Snow steps in to stop the fight and willingly gives up Crane.
Back at Woodlands, Bigby is healed, and is struggling to find clues when Nerissa appears. He realizes the ribbon she wears prevents her from speaking the truth, that Faith wore an identical ribbon, and that Faith died when the ribbon was removed. He follows another trail of clues, and finds evidence of the black-market glamour ring in the Cut Above butcher shop, a pawn shop called the Lucky Pawn where the Crooked Man distributes his loans to Fables owned by Jersey Devil, another henchman of the Crooked Man, and Crane's presence, as well as the missing Mirror shard. The Mirror reveals Mary putting Crane onto an overseas flight to keep him from talking, as well as the next location of the door to the Crooked Man's realm, which moves around the city.
Bigby enters the Crooked Man's realm alone, meeting him and his agents. The Crooked Man explains that the situation is all a misunderstanding by Georgie, who had only been asked to deal with an internal problem, but Georgie asserts the Crooked Man told him to kill the women. A fight ensues, and ends with the Crooked Man escaping, and a fatally slashed Georgie fleeing with Vivian. When Bigby tracks Vivian to the Club, she explains that the Crooked Man and Georgie were acting to stop a plot spearheaded by Faith with the other prostitutes. Vivian is revealed to be the girl with the ribbon around her neck and, having made copies of her ribbon, trapped women like Faith, Lily, and Nerissa for Georgie whilst guaranteeing their silence. Regretting her actions, Vivian undoes her ribbon, breaking the spell but severing her head.
Bigby then finds the Crooked Man's hideout and corners him in an office, where he demands a fair trial at the Woodlands. Bigby returns to the Witching Well at the Business Office to recount events to the assembled Fables of Woodlands, where he and Snow are forced to defend their actions against claims from the Fables. Bigby recounts Vivian's and Georgie's confessions regarding the Crooked Man's involvement, but his word is deemed untrustworthy. Nerissa appears and testifies that she and five other women heard the Crooked Man order the murders. Their testimonies are considered sufficient to believe what Bigby did was right.
In the epilogue, Snow and Bluebeard deal with the fallout of the Crooked Man's actions, while Bigby sees off those Fables being taken back to the Farm. Afterward, he encounters Nerissa, who is moving on with her life. She admits that Faith concocted a plan with Lily, Nerissa, and the other prostitutes to blackmail Georgie and the Crooked Man for their freedom, using a picture of Lily and Crane together, but Georgie killed Faith when he discovered their plot. Nerissa left Faith's head at the Woodlands to get Bigby involved, and gave false testimony to have the Crooked Man punished, knowing that he was the one who ordered their deaths. Leaving, she comments Bigby is not as bad everyone says he is, causing Bigby to recall Faith said the same before her death. Several past conversations with Faith and Nerissa, regarding the use of glamours play out in Bigby's head, leading him to question the true identity of Nerissa.
fantasy