The Neverkind Saga is a shared universe by lordoftheclownsnote and VineLightnote combining supernatural and cosmic horror and urban fantasy, officially the crossover between The Never Mythos and The Kindness of Devils.
In a world where All Myths Are True, horrors lurk in the void and have plagued the world since before recorded history. In an existence known as the Teraverse, creatures that cannot be fathomed, and creatures who are all-too understandable prey upon humanity until the modern day. Within the realm known as Creation, God had grown silent long ago and after a brutal war between Heaven and Hell, an uneasy peace remains.
Hardestadt Delac is a devil who, unlike the rest of his kind, has lived for thousands of years on the earth, defending the world and saving others with the help of his capable assistant Erin Hasegawa. Eliza Cortly is a Seer, a descendant of an ancient race of beings defined by their mental prowess and their connection to the mysterious plane of mind-space known as the Remeditary. With histories that go back centuries, the two have saved countless innocents, while being hunted by far darker powers. In the modern day, their stories unfold with monstrous threats to the world and all they hold dear, leading them to protect the Teraverse and Creation as many times as it takes.
The saga currently consists of the following works:
open/close all folders
The Never Mythos Full-Length stories
Never Mythos Short Stories/Side Stories
Kindness of Devils Main Stories
Kindness of Devils Short Stories/Side Stories
The Lonely Dreams Cycle
The work contains examples of the following tropes:
- Arc Words: "Never is forever" is a recurring phrase in both series, first appearing in The City of Never and making appearances afterwards in various contexts.
- Badass Normal: Some of the most important and impressive characters are ordinary people who just keep fighting through hell to do the right thing. The City of Never's cast is comprised of almost nothing but Badass Normal (and a few Empowered Badass Normal types who become Seers) survivors fighting back against eldritch horrors.
- Big Bad: Although there's no one main villain of the saga—though Nyarlathotep and the Shadows' Consultant, as the respective arch-enemies of Hardestadt and Eliza, come close—every story typically has one.
- The Kindness of Devils:
- Girls on Film has Rich Jacobs, a vampire who uses his father's money and connections to operate a snuff porn ring.
- Nights In Lonesome Arkham has Nyarlathotep, the emissary of the Outer Gods and Hardestadt's Arch-Enemy.
- None Too Holy has the Pijavica, a vampire who frequently raped her son, killed one of Hardestadt's allies, and put an entire orphanage in jeopardy.
- Under The Cold Moon has Ithaqua, the Great Old One embodiment of the cold seeking revenge for its defeat in Arkham. Siegfried Gunmarsohn, its werewolf emissary, is The Heavy and a far more personal villain to Hardestadt.
- The Dreams of Lonely Stars has Thomas Nero, the leader of the cult who's trying to summon Cthulhu.
- In the Castle of the Night has Count Nicolai Gabriel von Krolock, a vampire who's trying to revive his spirit by massacring dozens.
- And to All a Good Night has Krampus, who kidnapped several children and is trying to destroy Christmas.
- A Conspiracy of Serpents has the King of Serpents (or Apophis), an Omnicidal Maniac who is attempting to devour all worlds in his path.
- Only A Lonely Heart has Y'golonac, the Defiler, another Great Old One and the embodiment of rape.
- Give Us Forever: Koschei and Baba Yaga serve as a duumvirate for Shadow of the Dragon, and both parts are masterminded by the seemingly-dead Malachor Archayus and Hardestadt's own mother Aleviel.
- Le Chevalier: The closest thing the story has to a central villain is Nomura, who orchestrates the entire plot despite being long, long dead.
- The Never Mythos:
- The City of Never: While the Shadows' Consultant drives the plot, everything in the plot goes back to the machinations of Draynak, who sets up the destruction of Onolo to procure a host and free itself.
- The Red Monarch has Vladik Cardinous, also a rare example where a Posthumous Character fulfills the through. Ambiguously posthumous, anyways.
- The Englishman has Eliphas Coyte, the titular "Englishman."
- My Old Friend Gideon has the titular Gideon, a Bad Samaritan with an eldritch sister named "Lila."
- Valentine has the mayor of Bacio, Helen Valentine.
- Lonely Dreams Cycle
- Sangue Serenissima has the "thing in the patchwork cloak," a monstrous abomination that devours the brains of Seers. Also, as it turns out, Eliphas Coyte, back almost a century after Eliza escapes him in The Englishman.
- Empty Memories and Cold Graves has Nyarlathotep and the Shadows' Consultant in a Big Bad Duumvirate.
- The Wolves of War has a Big Bad Duumvirate of Reinhard Heydrich and Dietrich Boehmer—with Heinrich Himmler hopelessly sandwiched between them—orchestrating an ambitious Ghostapo plot. The Shadows' Consultant turns out to be The Man Behind the Man, funding the entire conspiracy out of her pocket while using her own husband as a cheap figurehead for her schemes.
- The Kindness of Devils:
- Earn Your Happy Ending: A running theme in the saga. Heroes typically get their happy endings, but they go through hell first—with the major theme of both Hardestadt Delac and Eliza Cortly's arcs being how they overcome this.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Two:
- Azathoth, the Nuclear Chaos, is the force that created Nyarlathotep, Hardestadt's greatest Arch-Enemy in the series, and is more powerful than virtually any other being in existence—but is also completely and utterly mindless, as well.
- Its counterpart, the Emperor of Ashen Rain, is hinted to be the single most evil and monstrous Eldritch Abomination in the setting, only alluded to and felt in The City of Never, yet its influence leads to the corruption of Draynak and the subsequent plots of Lucia, Eliza's Arch-Enemy.
- Lady and Knight: Hardestadt Delac and Eliza Cortly's romance fits the bill. She's a beautiful, elegant (albeit giggly and adorable) lady, he's a heroic, knight-like figure who defends the innocent.
- Love Hurts: Romance is agonizing in the Neverkind series. Hardestadt has lost everyone he's ever cared about and his relationship with Erin has brought a lot of pain. Eliza lost her beloved Aisling, Michael drove away his only girlfriend and ended up hitting her viciously during an argument....and Hardestadt and Eliza? Were separated by unknown circumstances, with him still mourning the loss of their relationship.
- Morality Kitchen Sink: Downplayed. Generally, the heroes are heroes and the villains are villains, but many of the protagonists—Hardestadt particularly, and his Devil family especially—have tons and tons of blood and moral ambiguity in their past. Similarly, while many if not most of the villains in the series veer toward pitch-black, many are simply beings with Blue-and-Orange Morality: the City's creatures are all simply misguided, frustrated abominations that can't comprehend humanity's laws, and the being behind them (Draynak) is no less so, proving able to be reasoned with in the end.
- Official Couple: Sad example. Hardestadt and Eliza went through so much to end up as lovers for well over a decade to the point they were implied to be engaged. Eliza vanished, and he never found out what happened to her.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The Never Mythos is dark as hell, usually, with full Cosmic Horror Story trappings, especially in the short stories that focus on an unforgiving cosmos and the horrors therein. The City of Never tends more to the middle of the scale, with a more optimistic end and defiance of the typical cosmic horror tropes. The Kindness of Devils as a whole is far more optimistic and about overcoming pain and tragedy.
