INF Jeff's long-term dark-fantasy fiction project. Still in planning stages. Hopefully coming to a bookstore or (hopefully) TV screen near you within the next couple decades.
In a Low Fantasy High Fantasy Heroic Fantasy Genre Busting Fantasy World Half Empty, The White Empire launched an imperialistic war to conquer the globe. They did a pretty good job, gaining control of about half of the nearest continent's land, stomping out the locals in the process, including the Mage tribes, nomadic magic-users whose have been feared and ostracized for their mysterious arts for centuries. Fast forward 150 years later when the current White Emperor is much less evil and has stopped the war's progress for the most part. He and his wife have a baby girl, named Ana, but his wife dies in childbirth the first sign something is seriously wrong with the girl!.
Princess Ana matures into a very ambitious Lady of War and can't wait for her old man to croak so she can take over and restart the war her ancestor began ages ago. If you haven't geussed yet, Ana is an evil princess. But fate trows her a curve ball when The Emporer gets remarried and fathers a son, Emil, who becomes first in line for the throne. Cue Ana's Villainous Breakdown.
It gets worse. Ana's stepmother dies of a high fever only months later and the Emperor passes away soon after, his heart broken. Now Emil is the rightful Emperor. Ana the Green-Eyed Monster, realizes what she must do, and poisons her infant half brother in the middle of the night in order to gain the crown.
Turns out as she slinked out of the castle to buy some fast-acting poison, purposefully buying a potion attributed to Mages to create a convenient scapegoat, she forgot to close the secret underground tunnel to the palace (flirting with Chaotic Evil does that to you). Two Mage rebels, intending to cause even more chaos in light of the Emporer's death find their way inside and find Ana gloating evilly in the throne room with her back to the door. Cue Ana's Death by Irony. One slash of wind magic later and Ana is bleeding all over the floor and...dies.
No, the story does not end there... Ana awakes to find herself in the layer of Zhol, a giant Psychopomp raven. Naturally, Ana is pissed off about being murdered, especially because she never officially became Empress. Showing no fear or respect to the creepy spirit, Ana demands to be sent back, so that she may claim her throne and conquer the world. Zhol agrees and shows Ana the way to return, swallowing a tiny red pebble. Ana does so and thinks she returning to her kingdom to rule, but when she wakes up, she has a terrible Horror Hunger...she has returned to the living world, but not as a human, as an Angel of Death.
The red pebble Ana swallowed was a demon egg that hatched inside of her, giving an Evil Makeover, intangibility, immortality and eternal youth. There's one lousy symptom though, that whole periodic Demonic Possession thing that leaves hundreds slaughtered whenever it awakens. But our protagonist was a heartless monster in the first place, right? She wouldn't care if a few hundred thousand innocents died at her hands, right? Little does she know that the horrors that await her will turn her into a psychologically tortured Woobie before long.
Tropes found in this Project (still adding):
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Anyone Can DieEVERYONE WILL DIE! - All Just a Dream: Somewhat implied. The only evidence of Ana's long struggle are her cut hair, the scars on her chest and Sera knowing who she is.
- The Atoner: Ana
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: The climatic showdown between Ana and the demon.
- Big Bad: Two of them: The Demon and The Empress
- Body Horror: The Demon
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Chaotic Evil: The Demon's one and only motivation is satisfying its Horror Hunger in the evilest ways possible. - Crapsack World: And how! The idea is that Ana's time as an Angel of Death takes place in a 'Nightmare World' where Finagle's Law is about the only law around.
- Death by Irony
- Evil Me Scares Me / Future Me Scares Me: The Empress
- Fighting from the Inside: Completely subverted, Ana fights the Empress and the demon simultaneously.
- Genre-Busting: The world traits of High, Low and Heroic Fantasy.
- High- The entirety of the final arc. With The End of the World as We Know It, Legions of Hell and Cool Swords
- Low- Very, very Cynical, the main conflict is a war of Greyand Gray Morality. Besides the very human-like Mages, humans are the only race around. Finally, look at the protagonist!
- Heroic- The focus is not on the ongoing wars, but Ana's internal struggle to retain her humanity.
- Heel–Face Turn: The whole point of the story. Granted, it takes thousands and years and millions of lives, but Ana goes from the worst
Complete Monster ever to The Atoner and finally stops at The Messiah. - High Octane Nightmare Fuel
- Kuudere: Sera
- Les Yay: Ana and Sera
- Medieval Stasis: Justified by the time Ana is an Angel of Death, not being a natural timeline.
- The Messiah: Ana becomes this at the end.
- Moral Event Horizon: When Ana kills Emil
- Our Angels Are Different: They're actually...anthropomorphic stars. And they can come to the living world whenever they want, but their pretty bad navigators.
- Scenery Porn: This is why it has to be a visual format. Bright colors contrasted against dull grays will create a unique viewing experience and help to emphasize the surrealism of the world.
