In my Dark Fantasy story "The Living Light" I used words like:
Slithering
Brooding
Looming
Flesh
Inexplicable
Dusky
Benighted
Jerkily
stiffly
tentative
Or, as Monte said, "Indescribable," when setting the mood.
Examples in this scene:
"A sudden, indescribable sound came from one of the Royal Guards. Brand snapped his head around to see a guard stagger, then go deathly still, as his soul was torn screaming from his still-living flesh.
The light instantly faded from the man's eyes, but his body yet remained upright. The soulless corpse then began making tentative, jerking movements, walking stiffly and without purpose--alive in form, but not in essence."
The words are important. I went to ‘Burden the Tree of Worlds’ 😇 But I’ve always liked that metaphor. Thinking of -mancy made me think of the term Manse as a physical place of one’s power… that made me think of houses in Invisible Sun. If the house of a Visle is their place of power then I think I will start calling them their Manse. From there I wonder if their house is the place that the threads of magic that make them Visle enter the world. The mechanical reason that would be problematic is that players want to go to other suns and then are too far from their house and thus their connection to Visla… But there are versions of Visle under each Sun. What if that was true for their house/manse too? I love the idea of traveling to different suns and seeking out your Manse there… then… then… what if walking the Labyrinth was the final journey to seek your Manse under the Invisible Sun? This is what your posts do to me… hope you are happy 🤯🤣😇
Also if characters were weaker under another Sun until they connected to their Manse it would give a nice way to do a power reset to keep the scope of things a bit under control…
I'm just between campaigns at the moment so this was the perfect time for me to read this.
Would you say there's any words or language that helps shift the genre towards horror or dark fantasy?
You could do worse than starting off with "Lovecraft" words like "ineffable," "indescribable," or "blasphemous."
In my Dark Fantasy story "The Living Light" I used words like:
Slithering
Brooding
Looming
Flesh
Inexplicable
Dusky
Benighted
Jerkily
stiffly
tentative
Or, as Monte said, "Indescribable," when setting the mood.
Examples in this scene:
"A sudden, indescribable sound came from one of the Royal Guards. Brand snapped his head around to see a guard stagger, then go deathly still, as his soul was torn screaming from his still-living flesh.
The light instantly faded from the man's eyes, but his body yet remained upright. The soulless corpse then began making tentative, jerking movements, walking stiffly and without purpose--alive in form, but not in essence."
Good luck with your campaign!
The words are important. I went to ‘Burden the Tree of Worlds’ 😇 But I’ve always liked that metaphor. Thinking of -mancy made me think of the term Manse as a physical place of one’s power… that made me think of houses in Invisible Sun. If the house of a Visle is their place of power then I think I will start calling them their Manse. From there I wonder if their house is the place that the threads of magic that make them Visle enter the world. The mechanical reason that would be problematic is that players want to go to other suns and then are too far from their house and thus their connection to Visla… But there are versions of Visle under each Sun. What if that was true for their house/manse too? I love the idea of traveling to different suns and seeking out your Manse there… then… then… what if walking the Labyrinth was the final journey to seek your Manse under the Invisible Sun? This is what your posts do to me… hope you are happy 🤯🤣😇
Also if characters were weaker under another Sun until they connected to their Manse it would give a nice way to do a power reset to keep the scope of things a bit under control…
These thoughts have been going back and forth through my head while finishing up my Fantasy novel: "The Living Light."
I really wasn't sure if it was Sci-Fi or fantasy. It's written in the Jack Vance Dying Earth style, which definitely blends the two.
I ended up choosing Dark Fantasy / Comedy.
But hey, based on what you are saying, it's kinda Sci-Fi too.
Good points on the overall word styles one can use to define it for the reader.