H.P Lovecraft is outright horror. Therefore, it does not classify under the definition proposed, and does not fit the question.
He does verge onto the dark fantasy genre, I know his writings are counted as horror but they can be used as inspiration for people looking to write dark fantasy can they not?
I suppose. Supernatural horror is dark fantasy with more horror. I think the Dark Tower series is a better example because it's literal dark fantasy, and a very influential one.
@Oscar Leigh : personal message I don't believe in talking about specific storylines here, this is just a thread to gather together and find fellows.. give me a bit of time I am stuck in skype at the moment..
Yes, I am writing a series called Demonlogy. About the three realms. The mortal plane, the demon plane and the angelic plane. There is a three part codex that binds them all together, and a war being fought over the parts of the codex. Thread tl;dr the whole thing yet.
I would read this sort of story, particularly if your protagonists keep dying off just as we're getting to like (or despise) them due to the banalities of life without sanitation.
Cheers! And yes, some characters do die, some receive injuries that kill them slowly through e.g. infections, some lose body parts in battle or through gangrene when a limb or digit has to be amputated, they get sick and either suffer or die from the ailment itself or the medieval, mostly harmful treatments (as knowledgeable doctors are rarely available and even when they are, well, medieval medicine was hardly advanced) etc. We aren't quite as murderous as G. R. R. Martin, but we don't really enjoy writing stories where there are no real repercussions from violence: the scars remain. The same applies to pretty much all our stories because realism is one of the most important elements of writing to us.
One of my influences at the moment. I'm not sure if its dark fantasy or not, but what I'm writing is pretty low. My main problem with defining dark fantasy is that I'm not sure if it's fantasy examining dark themes, or Warhammer levels of "Why are the protagonists even trying?"
I think the generally accepted form of dark fantasy is based on a fantasy that does indeed examine dark themes and sometimes breaches into frightening aspects, one description of dark fantasy I have found talks about how dark fantasy incorporates themes of horror into the story without being horror outright as @Oscar Leigh said about Lovecraft. Warhammer is an example of dark fantasy, although generally more described as being grim-dark, other good examples of dark fantasy I can think of is the 2004 vampire hunter film Van Helsing, (I am unsure of this one but it fits I believe) The Witcher book series as well as the game series and the game series Dark Souls. However being examples these aren't of course strict guidelines of what dark fantasy is for as with all genres it can be a very wide and varied topic.
Dark Souls is definitely dark fantasy! The story in those games is very vague, in fact it is so vague that I've finished them both and still only a have a slight grasp of what the story actually is. But the setting is simply superb. I've never, ever, experienced a world and setting that so thoroughly resonates despair and decay. It makes you feel frustrated and awed at the same time, and makes you feel like anything you do is futile from the start. The whole "drenched in sadness" aspect of it has one great advantage though; it really makes you appreciate any of the scarce wonderful and nice things that you come across. A friendly character or some rays of sunlight are a breath of fresh energy in there. However dark and miserable the whole game is, I've never, ever played a game that made me so appreciative of the little things, one that made me realize that every inch of hope, no matter how small, should be cherished. An excellent message for any dark-fantasy out there
I have not read this tale, but I recognise the sentiment and I tread the same fine line with my work. Hope in whatever form should be cherished and I do mean to let the reader take this message home!
Dark Souls is pretty amazing. As Fail Forward observed, every time you find an enemy or an artifact, there's the implication of a reason why that enemy or that artifact is there. If a great hero died and reanimated in a particular cave, there was (apparently) some reason why he was in that cave when he died, some thing he was trying to do or someone he was trying to save. In many cases, the player doesn't have enough information to put everything together, and it's anyone's guess whether the devs have all the answers either, but there's just enough to spark theorizing and create the sense of a connected world. Ironically, this was a bit of a tough act to follow for the sequel, which was a bit more "gamey" and placed enemies and items with more concern for a balanced difficulty curve than consistent worldbuilding. Games like Neverwinter Nights do that all the time without much criticism, but DS2 got complaints for not being like 1.
I don't play games myself but a friend discussed just this topic recently with me. It all depends on what you want a game to be. Apparently there is a quite large amount of gamers who prefer to have a story too, not only amazing graphics. And also apparently, there are too few companies/games that deliver. So if the gamers were satisfied with DS1, and then DS2 did not manage to have the same level of consistency - of course you would get complaints
Dark Souls graphics are the opposite of amazing, it was the atmosphere and gameplay that made people carry on, and some of the best level design I've ever seen. It was the lack, or at least reduction, of all three that caused the lower review. Though I always classed it as Gothic fantasy myself. The crumbling ruins, an ancient curse, the fact that the sun is a lie.
A gothic fantasy is dark fantasy. Because it has horror elements. Dark fantasy is halfway to a supernatural horror as I understand it, less horror, more other stuff.
I did not mean that DS had amazing graphics. Never played it myself and I can't remember the examples my friend used to illustrate his point. But I do remember that he said he would love even ONE game where the storyline/worldbuilding was as amazing as the graphics of most games (without complex storylines) nowadays.
I only just started writing what I hope ends up being a long story (even novel), but the current plans are to make it dark through grotesque and detailed images of violence, though not too common and sex though not in an erotic fashion. I won't reveal much, I posted elsewhere more information. It will take place in the real world, albeit medieval, and will feature certain fantasy items. But for now, there is little to say, as so little was done.
Supernatural horror, right? He defined his own genre, cosmic horror, where the focus was often on the insignificance of humanity and the danger of the unknown. A great deal of his work was set in fantastical settings, such as Sarnath, and Cthulhu is hardly to be defined as "outright" horror - it goes much deeper than that. He redefined horror! Yes, I often write and incorporate these elements into my writings. Similar to the undertones in Robert E. Howard's world, where things are not always as they seem. Incidentally, Robert E Howard and Lovecraft were very close friends. Or, at least, their correspondence hints that to be the case.
Cosmic horror is a sci-fi/supernatural horror. It's still clearly horror in the actual horror examples. And yes, Howard was Lovecraft friend, he was one of Lovecraft's chosen successor who wrote about the Cthulhu Mythos after Lovecraft's death. It's a fascinating story actually. You might want to read about the Mythos successors.
Thus, I feel that it is a closer relative to dark fantasy than you suggested. Science fiction and fantasy are similar in nature, after all.
But it's too horror to be dark fantasy. Dark fantasy is not outright horror. It's dark fantasy; it's in the name. And the definition. It is pretty close though, as I said earlier to @Misterkilljoy.
