Setting and characters
The Wolf Among Us is set in the year 1986, nearly twenty years before the events of Fables . [21] 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. [22] To escape the Adversary's totalitarian regime, many of The Homelands inhabitants (collectively known as Fables) 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 (referred to as "mundys"), all non-human Fables have to purchase an enchantment known as a "glamour", which allows them to appear human, otherwise they will be relocated to a rural community known as "The Farm".
The 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 corrupt interim mayor Ichabod Crane (Roger L. Jackson), aided by Snow White (Erin Yvette) and the Magic Mirror (Gavin Hammon) in his investigation along with the help of Bufkin the winged monkey (Chuck Kourouklis) that manages Fabletown's records. Aristocrat Bluebeard (Dave Fennoy) also works at the Office though his motives are unclear. Bigby resides at the Woodlands apartments where Colin (Brian Sommer), one of the Three Little Pigs, occasionally crashes at his place. Beauty and the Beast (Melissa Hutchison and Gavin Hammon) are also residents of the 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 (Melissa Hutchison), who live in a run-down apartment building nearby.
In the first episode, the player is introduced to The Woodsman (Adam Harrington), who lives in the same building as Mr. Toad. Standing in Bigby's way are Dee and Dum Tweedle (Gavin Hammon), twin private investigators and criminals. Bigby also encounters Holly (Janet Lipsey), a Troll who runs the Trip Trap bar, and barfly Grendel (Kid Beyond). The second episode introduces trickster and thief Jack Horner (Colin Benoit), Georgie Porgie (Kevin Howarth), a pimp and the owner of the Pudding & Pie strip club, along with prostitute Nerissa (Molly Benson), the former Little Mermaid, Vivian (Sandy Delonga), Georgie's lover, and Clever Hans (Ben Knoll), the club's bouncer. The third episode introduces the janitor Flycatcher (Dustin Rubin), the Crooked Man (Philip Banks), a loan shark with a large influence in Fabletown, Bloody Mary (Kat Cressida), a sadistic minion of the Crooked Man, and Aunty Greenleaf (Laura Bailey), a rogue witch who illegally sells cheap black-market glamours to Fables. The fourth episode introduces the Jersey Devil (Bobby Vickers), the manager of the Lucky Pawn shop and another minion of the Crooked Man; and Johann the butcher (Terry McGovern), the former owner of the Cut Above butcher shop who has been forced out of his business 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.
Answering a call by Mr. Toad, Bigby arrives to find a prostitute being attacked by an intoxicated Woodsman, prompting him to intervene. Saving her, Bigby returns to the Woodlands to rest only to later be awakened by Snow White, whom finds the head of the same prostitute he saved on the Woodlands' doorstep. Investigating the clues left with the head, Bigby and Snow identify the prostitute as Faith, a Fable from Allerleirauh . They discover her and her husband, Prince Lawrence, had fallen in debt which made Faith turn to prostitution to make ends meet. However, they also come across Tweedledee and Tweedledum, whom are also involved and briefly escape Bigby's pursuit. Later, when returning to the Woodlands (with either Tweedledee or the Woodsman in custody), Bigby finds Snow White's head placed on the doorstep the very same way it happened with Faith.
Bigby is taken in by the NYPD for questioning, but Ichabod Crane uses a spell to erase all memories of the incident from the police and rescue Bigby. When returning to the Woodlands and attempting to question the one Bigby captured, they discover Snow White still alive - the 'Snow' head and corpse belonged to a troll named Lily, using a clandestine, yet ineffective form of glamour. Bigby follows the leads to Lily's workplace, the Pudding 'N Pie strip club, where Faith also worked. While the owner, Georgie, proves uncooperative, one of the dancers, Nerissa, subtly guides Bigby to a nearby hotel, where he comes across Lily's apparent murder scene and photographic evidence of Crane engaging in sexual acts with Lily, glamoured as Snow. Snow and Bigby return to the Woodlands to find Crane is gone, having destroyed the Magic Mirror and taking one shard to avoid being tracked down.
Investigations into Crane point he had been embezzling money from Fabletown for years to pay off outstanding debts to the loan shark known as the Crooked Man. On tracking down one of the Crooked Man's collaborators, the clandestine witch Aunty Greenleaf, Bigby and Snow corner and detain Crane at the Pudding 'N Pie, but are intercepted by the Crooked Man's henchmen - the Tweedles and Bloody Mary - whom near-fatally injure Bigby even in his wolf form, forcing Snow to forfeit Crane and save Bigby's life.
Shifting his attention to the Crooked Man, Bigby uncovers an illegal glamour manufacturing operation, that uses the Pudding 'N Pie girls for slave labor. He also comes across a pawn shop run by the Jersey Devil where he recovers the missing Magic Mirror shard. The mirror reveals the Crooked Man's lair as a mobile one, which Bigby races to and reaches it in time, meeting him and his associates. The Crooked Man exposes Georgie as Faith and Lily's murderer, and that Georgie 'misinterpreted' his orders to deal with them when they attempted plotting to leave his forced employ. Resisting arrest, Georgie is fatally stabbed, but is rescued by his lover Vivian. Pursuing them back to the Pudding 'N Pie, Bigby corners Georgie and Vivian, and Vivian takes her own life after admitting to replicating her ribbon's spell - that forced obedience, silence and decapitation when attempting to remove it - to those of the other girls. The fate to mercy kill Georgie or leave him to die is left to the player.
Bigby tracks the Crooked Man to an abandoned foundry, where he is forced to turn to his true wolf form to finally kill Bloody Mary, and corners the Crooked Man himself in his office. Bigby then either brings the Crooked Man back dead or alive to the Woodlands for trial, where (should he be alive), he almost convinces the Fables of Fabletown's failures to protect and provide until Nerissa comes in, testifying of the Crooked Man's schemes and cementing his guilty verdict, whose final sentence is left to the player.
In the aftermath, Bigby meets with Nerissa the next day, where she reveals Lily and Faith planned to use Crane's incriminating picture to try and blackmail Georgie and the Crooked Man, but Nerissa panicked and exposed the plot. She also confesses to having been the one whom put Faith's head in the Woodlands' doorstep, setting the events of the game in motion. She gives her farewell to Bigby, stating that "you're not as bad as everyone says you are". Bigby recalls he heard those words from Faith as well, and wonders if Nerissa was actually Faith all along.
