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Echoes under Ashwood

Echoes under Ashwood

Written by: James Altwies
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Echoes Under Ashwood is a cinematic cosmic horror podcast about memory, friendship, and the quiet dread of returning home.


When a group of Gen-X friends reunite to settle a will, they discover their childhood in Ashwood, Ohio wasn’t what they remember. Disappearances. Missing years. A town that seems to shift when no one is looking.


Blending an ensemble cast, investigation, and slow-burn psychological horror, Echoes Under Ashwood explores nostalgia, trauma, and the things small towns bury.


Episodes begin April 27.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Altwies Drama & Plays
Episodes
  • Echoes under Ashwood - A Primer to Collaborative Audio Drama || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    Echoes under Ashwood - A Primer to Collaborative Audio Drama || Gen X Cosmic Horror
    Apr 6 2026
    The Latchkey Lair : Home for all the cool kids, clues, and supressed memories. It's FREE to join, but we're happy to accept your money too. Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use Facebook



    Echoes Under Ashwood is a cinematic cosmic horror podcast about memory, friendship, and the things small towns refuse to forget.


    Role for Sanity is a collaborative storytelling group exploring slow-burn horror through a distinctly Gen-X lens. Childhood independence. Unsupervised nights. The quiet understanding that something always felt… off. Our stories live in that space between nostalgia and unease, where memory shifts and the past refuses to stay buried.


    Our first series, Echoes Under Ashwood, follows a group of Gen-X friends returning to their hometown to settle a will, and discovering they were part of something older than nostalgia, older than Ashwood itself.


    This is slow-burn, character-driven horror built on shared adolescence, unreliable memory, and the uncomfortable realization that the things you remember may have happened… differently.


    Episodes begin April 27. Follow now so you don’t miss the return to Ashwood.


    From the Creator:

    Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath.


    About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green.


    In This Episode:


    • 1990s analog technology and cassette tapes
    • Unresolved Gen X childhood trauma
    • Small-town Midwestern decay
    • Atmospheric sound design and scoring



    Opening Song "Home-grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel

    Show is written, edited, and produced by James Altwies


    Cast:

    Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris

    Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards

    Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner

    Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel

    Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards

    Keeper / James Altwies

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Show More Show Less
    5 mins
  • START HERE! S01 E01 - Welcome to Ashwood || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    START HERE! S01 E01 - Welcome to Ashwood || Gen X Cosmic Horror
    Apr 27 2026
    Find us where we live!The Latchkey Lair : Home for all the cool kids, clues, and supressed memories. It's FREE to join, but we're happy to accept your money too. Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use Facebook


    Episode - 1


    On this premiere episode of Echoes under Ashwood, five former best friends return separately to Ashwood, Ohio, drawn back by the will of their long-lost friend, Amy Caldwell. What should be a simple obligation, a reading, a signature, a quick departure, begins to feel unsettled the moment they arrive. The terms are clear. All five must be present. Together. No explanation is given. Gaathered after 30 years of little contact, things will be interesting.


    Ashwood does not feel like a place they have returned to. It feels like something they have stepped back inside of. The town has been rotting from teh inside out for decades. The streets are quiet. The town looks...intact. But something in it resists being familiar. Distances feel slightly off. Buildings seem to linger in ways they should not. People look at them just a moment too long, as if trying to place something they cannot quite name. Every interaction carries the sense that their presence is not unexpected. It seems no one can run from Ashwood forever.


    Each of them experiences this alone. They do not reunite, and there is no shared moment to validate what they are feeling. Left to themselves, they explain it away as nostalgia, stress, or the discomfort of returning to a place tied to a past they thought they had outgrown. Still, the feeling remains that Ashwood has not simply endured. It has been waiting.


    Amy’s death is the reason they give themselves for coming back. The will is the structure that holds it together. Beneath that, something less certain begins to surface. A sense that their return was not chance, and not entirely their choice. That whatever connects them to Ashwood was never fully broken. As each of them settles into the town again, uneasy and alone, one realization begins to take hold.


    They did not just come back to Ashwood.

    They submitted to it.


    From the Creator:

    Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath.


    About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green.


    In This Episode:


    • 1990s analog technology and nostalgia
    • Unresolved Gen X childhood trauma
    • Small-town Midwestern decay
    • Atmospheric sound design and scoring



    Opening Song "Home-grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel

    Show is written, edited, and produced by James Altwies


    Cast:

    Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris

    Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards

    Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner

    Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel

    Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards

    Keeper / James Altwies

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 11 mins
  • S01 E02 - Ghosts of the Past, Echoes of the Future || Gen X Cosmic Horror

    S01 E02 - Ghosts of the Past, Echoes of the Future || Gen X Cosmic Horror
    Apr 27 2026
    Find us where we live!The Latchkey Lair : Home for all the cool kids, clues, and supressed memories. It's FREE to join, but we're happy to accept your money too. Help support the show and get access to exclusive dropsRole For Sanity: The OG homepage for Echoes and anything else we feel like makingEchoes under Ashwood Facebook: We're Gen-X, we still use FacebookEpisode 2 begins with the five arriving separately at the Tri-County Bank for the reading of Amy Caldwell’s last will and testament, each expecting a routine obligation and none aware that the others have been called as well. The reunion is unplanned and deeply uncomfortable. Thirty years of distance sit between them, and whatever they once were to each other does not easily return. Conversation is strained, polite at best, with long pauses filled by recognition that feels more like intrusion than familiarity.Amy has arranged everything with precision.Each of them is given a sealed envelope addressed in her hand, along with a set of unfamiliar keys and a single personal item. The objects are distinct, clearly chosen for each individual, and carry a weight that makes them feel less like keepsakes and more like instruments. There is no explanation provided for any of it, only the quiet expectation that they will understand in time.When they begin to handle the items, the tone shifts. Each of them experiences a brief but undeniable waking disturbance. A visual inconsistency. A sound that should not exist in the room. A memory that feels imposed rather than recalled. The moments are fleeting, disorienting, and impossible to verify with one another in any meaningful way. Each is left to question whether it happened at all, or whether the strain of returning has begun to affect them. The pattern is clear even if they do not say it out loud.The items are doing something. The will itself offers direction without clarity. The keys suggest locations yet to be discovered. The items suggest purpose without revealing intent. And the fact that all five were brought together without their knowledge begins to feel deliberate in a way that is difficult to ignore.Outside, Ashwood remains unchanged in appearance, but the feeling from their arrival has intensified. The town no longer feels distant or passive. It feels closer, as if their presence has shifted something. As the meeting concludes and they linger in the shared discomfort of being together again, there is a growing sense that this was never about closure.Amy did not gather them to settle her affairs.She gathered them because something is beginning.From the Creator:Echoes under Ashwood is more than a horror story...it is a deeply personal piece of autofiction. The slow-burn dread, the isolation of the rural Midwestern setting, and the unresolved history of the Gen X cast are directly informed by my own childhood trauma, processed and reframed through the lens of cosmic horror. This is an exploration of what it takes to look into the dark, face old ghosts, and survive the aftermath.About Echoes under Ashwood: This is an audio-only cosmic horror podcast set in rural southeastern Ohio. Our story is a slow-burn analog mystery rooted in psychological dread, following a Gen X cast through an investigative narrative. While the story is completely improvised, the framework is heavily inspired by investigative tabletop RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green.In This Episode:1990s analog technology nostalgiaUnresolved Gen X childhood traumaSmall-town Midwestern decayAtmospheric sound design and scoringOpening Song "Home-grown" written and performed by Sadie Baimel Show is written, edited, and produced by James AltwiesCast: Bex Lexington / Carrie Harris Dawn McBride / Angela Edwards Harry Glassman / Grant Gleisner Lance McClane / Gregg Baimel Oz Hannigan / Art Pratt and Davis Edwards Keeper / James Altwies Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Show More Show Less
    56 mins
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