The following series is intended for mature audiences only.
Within these pages you will find scenes of war and violence. There is no such thing as death with dignity on the battlefield. While one may find bravery, heroism, and honor, the end of a life is never a pretty sight. The author’s goal is not to glorify warfare, but to show you what it does to the men and women who go out to lay their lives down for their country.
To that end, this story will also contain scenes and discussions about mental illness related to combat service. Different characters will discuss the issues from different points of view. Experiences are subjective and there are no subject matter experts in these pages, so the author would like to advise against taking anything described as hard fact. Rather, take it for what it is: imperfect people with imperfect knowledge trying to contextualize their experiences as best as they can.
The characters will make extensive use of profane and vulgar speech. While the author has no plans to include graphic depictions of sex at this time, at least one of the characters has a preference for telling people to fornicate with inanimate objects in biologically improbable ways.
On a less dire note, you will also find extended sequences of worldbuilding. Even if none of the above bothers you, if you’re easily bored by politics, history, economics, philosophy, religion, logistics, infrastructure development, or military training, this series may not be for you.
Oh, and there will be puns. Consider yourself warned.
All of the gods humanity have ever worshipped can be traced back to the original 7: the Old Gods. The Eldest, the Soldier, the Healer, the Enchanter, the Conjurer, the Alchemist, and the Child form the archetypes for nearly every religion ever devised by humanity, and have manipulated the course of human history since before the dawn of the earliest civilizations. But fifteen thousand years, give or take a few centuries, is a long time, and even petty grudges and grievances can blossom into wars.
Fortunately for life on Earth, the Old Gods quickly realized that their powers were too great to wage open war, not if they wanted to have a planet to call home. And so, they made a pact. Rather than fighting openly, they would nurture human tribes, give them a spark of their powers, and manipulate them into doing the fighting for them. For millennia, the Old Gods and their human tools, the mages, built and destroyed and built again, creating cities, kingdoms, countries, empires until, at last, humanity grew wary of magic.
The Age of Reason brought with it Inquisitions, witch hunters, and worse. Across the globe, mages found themselves on the brink of extinction. And so, the Old Gods had a choice: declare war on all of humanity and conquer the world for their children, or create a new world, where they could live in peace. They chose the latter and built this new world, called the Vale, and founded its first city, Haven.
For 400 years, peace reigned, protected by the laws of the Eldest and his fierce Hunters. But now, the sins of the Old Gods have come back to haunt them, and once more, the hounds of war sniff the air. Can the Hunters protect the peace, or will the world once more plunge into madness?
Comments (0)
See all