The Unhallowed | Mini-Meta

“May the light of Aewalin guide your path, ye children of the great creator. For dark is the night, and coming is the time of blood and fire.”

—Father Rubiel, Priest of Aewalin, Sect of Vannis 1,647 CE

Scope of Work

The Unhallowed is the first novel in my dark fantasy series based around the Ebilar Campaign Setting that I have been designing for several years. The novel itself is based upon one of the unfinished campaigns that I DM'ed during gradutate school. This campaign was the first test of my world of Ebilar, and it went off with marked success. Due to COVID, clinical practice, comprehensive exams, and more, my group and I were never able to complete the entire arc, and it sort of died off. Thus, the idea for the novel was born out of my desire to see the natural conclusion of the fairly expansive story arc that I had designed. I took significant inspiration from the player characters, and is meant to be the spiritual "play-playthrough" of the campaign.
I have compelted several smaller works in the past, writing about fantasy and horror adventures, however, this will be my first fully realized novel. My goal is to not only complete draft one within the next six months to a year, with sufficient detail about the world to make it feel expansive, untamed, and realistic. Thus, my goal this world ember is to more fully realize and construct the regions and cultures that the characters travel through in the story. The Unhallowed takes place largely in the Western-most region of the continent of Emmeron (the primary focus of Ebilar's setting), along the Maelstrom Coast. The story itself spans from Hammerhenge Island, the site of the Brotherhood of Seven's power, and takes the characters on a journey to the western mountain ranges, and South again to the large human cities of Venzor. Much like other fantasy novels, there is a significant distance that the chracters travel as part of the story. I have written about several of these locations in the past, but much of the focus has been on simply listing the available resources and general structure of the region--ideal when playing through the region in an RPG session. Now, I'd like to do more to flesh out some of the relationships, politics, and cultural endeavors which bring these regions to life, and will impact the next section of the Unhallowed storyline.

Themes

As I stated previously, the primary genres that the Unhallowed would fall into are:

1. Dark Fantasy
2. Horror
3. Grimdark

When I say dark fantasy and horror, I do really want to emphasize that these are intended to be dark. The fantasy setting is really being used as a mechanism to explore what happens when the monsters that we fear in the dark are real, and how people and cultures naturally develop in a world where the reality of waking nightmares is something that they have to contend with frequently. Thus, much of the world is built around this theme of loss, fear, power, struggle, and suffering. There are certainly light spots within this, which emphasize hope, and striving for the future. However, the world is harsh in this setting, and many people must contend with this reality. Therefore, I don't want this to be a generically fantasy-esque novel series. I want this to be more focused on the characters, the relationships, and the attempt to overcome darkness, even when we are threated with becomeing the thing that we are fighting. The feel of this series is intended to be the epitome of Neitzsche's quote "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."
I stated in my WorldEmber 2023 Homework that I wanted to incorporate more of a grimdark element to the writing this year. I think this is fitting for the setting, and certainly fitting for the next arc of the story (which I will address a bit more about below). However, I don't intend on leaning into the grimdark elements in a manner that is too explicit--certainly not for WorldEmber. However, I'll be honest that much of the book is not written in a child-friendly format, including elements of violence, trauma, gore, etc. It's just not gratuitous, as in many grimdark settings or pieces of writing. More so, the grimdark elements of The Unhallowed show up as a general bleakness and fear of what's behind the next door. Several of the chracters are deeply traumatized and this trauma directly influences their behavior, including the more cringy or morally ambiguous actions that several of them take--such as using blood magic to hunt monsters.
In short, this is a swords and magic setting, but the magical and fantasy elements of the genre are meant to feel more like they are in the background, rather than the central focus. The horror is not meant to be jump-scares, but more of an ever-present itch in the background mixed with moments of demonic and monstrous elements. The grimdark elements are supposed to address the harshness of the world and the pushing of characters to adopt elements of the creatures they are fearful of and fighting against, in order to overcome the darkness they face.
Some recurring themes in the story are:

• Good versus evil
• Integrity versus ideology
• Morally right versus expediance
• Grief/loss
• Freedom and responsibility
• Sacrifice
• Sense of Agency

Focus:

Here are the articles I'd like to focus on for the WorldEmber event, in order to felsh out the next stage of the novel:
Whitebridge: This is the site of the first major battle in the Second Hallowing War, and is the point in which the party splits up and seperate story arcs are established. Ironically, this is also the first city in which the party meets one another formally, and establishes an agreement to work together.
Venzor: I've alluded to this site in several articles, but this will become one of the major players in the warfare to come in the story. Venzor is the most advanced of the human settlements, as well as the most populated. This is the kingdom with the largest military that can be brought to bear. However, there is a struggle getting them involved in the conflict, being that they are quite literally the furthest away from the initiating conflicts of the Second Hallowing War.
Aibel's past with the Hunters Guild and Brotherhood of Seven: Aibel is one of the principal characters in the Unhallowed novel, and much of his contribution to the second half of the book is based around the loss of his wife at the hands of cultists, his use of forbidden practices in his quest to avenge her, and his exile from the Brotherhood of Seven years prior. This will be touched upon quite heavily as a pivot point in the character's story arc. I'd like to flesh out exactly what his history is with the Brotherhood and the conditions of his exilation.
Cultural Divides Between Kingdoms: This is a complicated one to explain succinctly. Each of the kingdoms are largely seperate of one another, working together as needed, but largely avoiding anything that would spark large scale warfare due to the past. I'd like to felsh out the history of the War of One-Hundred Kingdoms and the resultant consequences, as this will impact the progression of the story as the Second Hallowing War begins.

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