"She's queen of rumors, whispers, and nasty secrets shared everywhere..."
They are terrifying eldritch creatures born from nightmares and also they're girlfriends [sic]
Eldritchrune is a fanmade AU of Deltarune by lynxgriffin
, with a chronological setting change and a simple premise; the Dark World is just that, and nearly every one of the monster characters is an Eldritch Abomination.
Following the absorption of Hometown by The Empire, a closely-knit group of parents dissatisfied and hoping to rebel turned to black magic and Lovecraftian rituals in order to fight them off. To do so, they need a human sacrifice- Kris, the recently adopted teenage child of the reluctant Dreemur family. Kris doesn't care much for the politics or the greater good; but they know that they've been betrayed by a family they thought loved them, and will do anything to make it back from the world they've found themselves in and enact revenge. Up to and including a Deal with the Devil to befriend these monsters.
The AU is largely plotless, constructed from art, comics, and various writings under the 'Eldritchrune' tag of lynxgriffin's blog, and was initially primarily focused on redesigning characters. Over time a story was decided, and the author began constructing comics to tell non-chronological vignettes from Kris' journey.
The following tropes are in this AU:
- Adaptational Abomination: The AU. Other than the protagonist, their family, and the townsfolk, several monsters and all of the darkness are now a race of EldritchAbominations.
- Adaptational Species Change: Aside from the abominations, all the monsters in the original are now humans. Even the Annoying Dog is now just a normal dog, albeit with some suspicious and ambiguously-intelligent traits.
- Affably Evil: Ralsei is a friendly, chipper entity who wants to help Kris return home. Unfortunately, he wants this so he can access the Light World, and his care for Kris' actual body is dubious.
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Noelle gives Susie a loving kiss to the forehead in this one.
- Animalistic Abomination: Nearly all of the eldritch monsters, with special mention to the main cast (sans Kris) for being based on actual Funny Animal characters.
- Animate Inanimate Object: A few, notably Cap'N Cakes (instruments) and the Addisons (wooden mannequins).
- The Beastmaster: The power Ralsei gives Kris allows them to speak eldritch tongues with the monsters, and bring them to their aid in battle. Slightly different, however, in that the monsters are intelligent rather than simple animals.
- Belly Mouth: King's lower body is one giant mouth, filled with More Teeth than the Osmond Family and an Overly-Long Tongue.
- Black Speech: Whatever language the eldritch beasts speak is unknowable to humans, and can only be spoken via way of a Deal with the Devil.
- Body of Bodies: Spamton NEO has a body made of his own faces, which evoke the many smaller versions of himself he calls upon in the original game.
- Breath Weapon: Noelle's of ice, inducing flash freezing in the human victims it hits.
- Classical Chimera: Catti, with her snake tail and quadrupedal appearance, appears to evoke one and is described with the word.
- Cult: Of the Town with a Dark Secret variety. Hometown's is described as having been a tight-knit group, that quickly spiraled into darker matters as its adult members grew restless of the Empire's influence on their town.
- Cyclops: Noelle has one glowing, red, vertical eye. Queen has a green visor similar to her original appearance, with gushing liquid in place of pupils.
- Deal with the Devil: Ralsei is a more benevolent one than most, but still very much requires a human soul to work his power. Kris is happy enough to lend their own.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist / Justified Extra Lives: Kris' deal, which allows them to respawn eternally so long as Ralsei has their soul and can rebuild their body. This also counts 'psychological destruction'.
- Death of a Child: Thankfully averted with Kris, but played straight with the original sacrifice, December. Nobody knows what happened to them, but the ritual failed, and December either died or vanished.
- Draconic Abomination: Susie, despite being wingless and largely based on the appearances of lizard, is described as having a draconic heat. She's also a proud people eater.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Brief, but Ralsei appears genuinely shocked at Kris' offer to Susie, which would involve potentially the extinction of the entire human race at her teeth.
- Eldritch Location: All of the Dark World, obviously, but notably Susie's stomach is far Bigger on the Inside and leaves her riddled with a Horror Hunger she can never fulfill.
- The Empire: A nameless empire absorbing Hometown is the inciting incident for this AU. Little is known about them so far, but are implied to use military power to keep their people in line and have riddled Hometown with poverty. On the other side, of course, is La Résistance.
- Enemy Mine: Downplayed in that Susie seems to genuinely become friends with Kris, but the initial encounter is far from graceful, and the only thing that stops her the second go around is a deal to join forces for mutual benefit.
- Energy Absorption: Temmie's power is described as a sort of toxic romantic affection, which leaves the object of her desire drained of all demonic energy.
- Extreme Omnivore: Kris still eats moss, as in the original game. This is described as a 'universal constant'. Due to food being hard to come by, its noted that Kris develops a taste for pretty much anything that won't poison them while on their journey. Susie counts too, munching on entire mineral deposits.
- Facehugger: Temmie, designed with an almost mask-like appearance and tentacles to secure itself to the faces of anyone it desires.
- "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: 'Parasite Problem' features Kris journeying inside Susie's body to fight a parasite ailing her from the inside.
- Flashback Nightmare: Kris has one in 'Parasite Problem', falling asleep and imagining their mother telling them that she doesn't care about them as anything other than a means to an end.
- Gashadokuro: Queen's appearance, as a giant skeletal form, evokes this design.
- Harmless Villain: Lancer seems to be a monster like his father, but looks identical to his canon appearance. The others sometimes use him as a toy.
- Hell Is That Noise: Sweet Cap'n Cake, now a fused set of instruments, has their music described as this.
- The Homeward Journey: Kris' goal, crossed with Roaring Rampage of Revenge- befriend monsters first, then return home with them to enact retribution for their attempted killing of Kris.
- Horrifying the Horror: For unknown reasons, The Starwalker is feared enough to make even Susie visibly nervous. The fact that we only ever see his legs may have something to do with it. The same goes for ICE-E, leading her to instantly destroy it.
- When Noelle is first encountered, she's positively terrified of the prospect of encountering the Queen (or perhaps just her messengers, chasing her down).
- When Noelle is first encountered,
- Horror Hunger: Ralsei explains that Susie is afflicted with one of these, demanding she continue to sate her hunger with any fresh meat that comes around. This potentially recontextualizes and lampshades her Extreme Omnivore traits in canon.
- Human Sacrifice: Played straight on the end of the humans, averted on the end of The Monsters. A successful ritual doesn't kill the human, only transports them to the Dark World.
- Imperfect Ritual: The first one with December very much was. The second one, with Kris, is only thought to be by the humans.
- Interspecies Romance: While their exact species are unclear, Noelle is a deer monster and Susie is a lizard monster. In this AU, the two are canonically girlfriends.
- I Want My Mommy!: Upon waking up and realizing their situation during the sacrifice, Kris can only barely speak due to their paralysis. They talk to the nearby Toriel, first asking why she would do this, before devolving to just begging her to help them.
- Killer Rabbit: Temmie, who takes the appearance of an odd blobfish-esque creature before rising to show the tentacles underneath it.
- La Résistance: The other half to The Empire of the Hometown rivalry. However, of a more amoral note than usual: while their intents may be good, their practices, including the attempted sacrifice of a teenager, show them to be ruthless in their desperation.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Kris' first attempt at befriending a monster with Susie. They assume it will be identical to making friends normally, and take a courageous approach without listening to the tutorial. They are swallowed in an instant for this.
- Magic Cauldron: In part 2 of one comic, Ralsei briefly tinkers with a cauldron prior to Kris' revival.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The Annoying Dog may just be a Canine Companion, but he seems to have a special interest in Asriel, and continuously leads him to certain clues.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Despite their species and appearance, Seam seems to have no interest in breaking through to the Light World, and runs his own shop instead. Similarly, Temmie cares mostly for preying on its own kind.
- Mythology Gag: During the ritual, the Dreemurs and Mayor Holiday wear animal masks that match to their species in the original game, goats and a reindeer.
- In the same panel, the altar is decorated with flowers, although their color is unclear.
- A series of panels show the canon characters interacting with their Eldritchrune selves. Ralsei and Noelle are unnerved, Berdly gets along great, and Susie is mostly jealous.
- Never Be Hurt Again: Kris is stated to have become bitter after their sacrifice, and slightly more vengeful. Their ultimate goal is to return home, carrying demons and monsters along with them.
- Not So Above It All: Susie isn't amused at Kris' attempts to ride her, but allows it with restrained enjoyment for head scratches.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Susie's Parasite compares itself to Kris, claiming both of them gain strength from having the monsters at their disposal, but will be killed when they demand too much.
- Offing the Offspring: Done by Major Holiday to her daughter December, as well as by Toriel and Asgore to Kris in the form of a Human Sacrifice.
- Ouroboros: A species in this universe, containing Monster Kid among their ranks. Its unknown how they move, but they're depicted much like subterranean SandWorms.
- Parasitic Horror: Susie's parasite saps her strength and takes the form of a talking, many-eyed beast of the Evil Is Visceral variety.
- Rain, Rain, Go Away: According to this comic, Kris first began to feel like friends with the beasts they've tamed while caught in a cave by an acid rainstorm and bonding.
- Religious Horror: Aside from the Eldritch gods, Toriel is stated to be intensely religious, which made it easier to fall into her cult's ideals.
- Siren Song: The Addisons are wooden, immobile dummies who speak to their prey and entice them closer. Similarly, Nubert offers advice to travelers towards his riches, which are implied to not always be accurate.
- Stationary Boss: All of the boss enemies from the original game are this, forcibly rooted in place with their own methods of attacking at long range, from tongues to hooks.
- Street Urchin: Kris, for some time before the Dreemurs picked them up. Due to this, they picked up a few disgusting habits that carried over into adoption.
- Sudden Game Interface: Potentially diegetic. To communicate with Susie, Kris speaks an Eldritch symbol that heavily resembles a fight option from the game, and when she joins them, a classic Joined Your Party box appears.
- Super-Scream: One of Berdly's powers, described as 'a sonic voice attack'. May actually be his videogame opnions.
- Swallowed Whole:
- In their first meeting, Susie eats Kris immediately upon seeing them. Luckily, they don't chew. Unluckily, her stomach is an immense Eldritch Location, which they remain trapped in for days. She later elaborates that she swallows her victims so she doesn't have to chew through their armour.
- Then again in 'Parasite Problem', where Kris willingly ventures inside their infinite stomach to try and fight a parasite deep inside.
- Technicolor Fire: Under his hat, Ralsei is a being made entirely of green flame, forming a sort of goat-like mane.
- Tummy Cushion: Kris frequently with Susie, which may involve scratches lest Susie get annoyed.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: The book Ralsei gives Kris to explain communication with Eldritch monsters.
- To Serve Man: Susie offhandedly mentions eating up to forty-five 'mortals' in an hour. Upon seeing Kris, her immediate first move is to gulp them down, and she shares several frozen humans in a romantic gesture with Noelle.
- Visions of Another Self: Berdly is very opinionated on video games, which do not exist in the Dark World. It's implied he may be seeing into other realities, such as the Light World or even the original game, and speaking his mind on them.
- Wreathed in Flames: Ralsei under the hat, which may be why he prefers to keep it on.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The Dreemurs grow fond of their adopted child, Kris, and begin to dread the idea of sacrificing them.
- Year X: As opposed to the original, this AU is set in 1X5X, implying a Historical AU.
How could that not be a happy ending?
