My setting has two separate worlds functioning independently with each other, The Fantasy World and The Meta World. The Fantasy World was created in the mind of an 11-year-old girl living in Kyoto, Chako Azai back when she was 7 years old. Unbeknownst to its native residents, it’s a lovely low-magic world where all life lives peacefully with each other after they walked out of Loran the sanctuary, at least, it was all sunshine and rainbow at the start. Over the course of almost 4000 years, people became progressively shittier and countless atrocities have been committed toward each other. Orcs and Snakemens (Yuan-ti) has been driven into the jungles and wastelands by Human, Elves, and Dwarves, and then Human enslaved a huge portion of Elves and Dwarves enslaved the Gnomes. They fight for resources, foods, money, honor or whatever reason they could find to bash each other's head in, so much bloodshed between races that peace is almost completely impossible. 11 years ago, three individual that call themselves The Three Overlords appeared out of thin air, raising an army that amounts in millions, and began to invade the entire world. No one knows from which gods-forsaken corner the Three Overlords emerged. Some say that they are malevolence of the world itself, and others say that they are the incarnation of ancient evil god. But since they call their own legions as “Halloween Legion”, it is only suitable that the world residents call the incident as “The Halloween apocalypse”. In 10 years they swarmed the whole world before they were stopped at Loran the Sanctuary, forcing them to withdraw and left 1/3 of the world for survivors to rebuild. Meta world, on the other hand, is our world. Where Chako lives with her 21 years old brother Shizaki. A year in Meta World equals to 1000 years in Fantasy World. Since December 2018, they faced financial hardship due to their parents died in a car accident, Shizaki has to drop most of his university courses and work at multiple places to earn a living for his little sister. Although under such pressure, he never-less has a bunch of friends from uni and his fiance, Kinoshita Yuuko, a medical student, to support him. A newly came out anime called “Eyes of The Overlords” is a massive hit in Japan, with Three Overlords as the protagonist and Chako as one of its fans. Trying to make her happy, Shizaki talked with his friends, and start to prepare a cosplay of Three Overlords for 2019 Halloween, with himself, Yuuko and Yuuko’s older brother Yoshiro as the Overlords.9 Almost all aspect of Chako’s life is reflected in the Fantasy world. Back when she was 7 years old, she had loving parents, brother, and a childish innocent view of the world. But as of 2019, the death of her parents, financial hardship that Shizaki tried but failed to hide from her, and an extremely unpleasant experience back in July 2018 had taken a toll on her worldview. Such was reflected in the Fantasy world, where the world and it’s inhabitant become progressively shit and dark. It doesn’t have to become this way, but three crucial events drove the Fantasy World to such sorry state. Firstly, the July 2018 incident. Back then, Shizaki and his friends, a total of 7 people decide to take Chako to Okinawa for a holiday. Enters Marcus Gilles, AKA “The Mad King”. He was a US soldier stationed in Okinawa and a veteran of Iraq War, he committed multiple war crime while in Iraq and raped multiple Iraqi children to death in front of their parents, but was acquitted by the US government, only received a slap on the wrist and reassigned to Okinawa at early 2018. As such, he developed a fanatical loyalty towards the US government, which protected him from any and all consequences of his crimes. 16th July 2018, after a particularly late beach party. Chako was lost on the streets while going back to the Hotel. Marcus saw the girl wandering by herself in the night, and proceed to try force himself on her, but was stopped in time by Shizaki and his friends. Yoshiro, who is the heir of a rich Japanese conglomerate has been trying to get him prosecuted but Marcus was sent back to the US with no legal consequence and been sending death threats to any lawyer and prosecutor that dared to raise a case against him. The case goes nowhere as of October 2019. The trauma from Marcus’ attempted rape manifest itself as The Mad King in the Fantasy World, he led a modern army that appeared out of thin air, conquering, burning and looting the whole world for years before he was defeated. Although Chako has almost forgotten about this incident, it left a huge toll on her mentality, represented by an entire continent desolated in nuclear winter in the Fantasy world ever since. Secondly, the death of her parents. The fact that they died in a car accident sent Chako straight into a depression that lasts for almost a month, which represented in Fantasy World as decades of harsh famine, caused multiple wars for foods and further make the world shittier for everyone involved. Thirdly, the Halloween incident. 27th November 2019, 4 days before the Halloween, Shizaki showed the beautiful completed cosplay costume of one of the Overlords to Chako and promised her that he and his friends will wear it to the Halloween party. Overrun by happiness and excitement, such emotion manifested itself as The Three Overlords in the Fantasy World, an amalgamation of the Anime!Overlords and Cosplay!Overlords. They start conquering the world and in their own ways, make it better. Although the native resident of Fantasy world would like to disagree. 8:22:52 PM, 31st November 2019, the fateful moment. The Halloween Party has been going on for hours at Yoshiro’s mansion, and even Chako herself wore a little witch costume to the party. Yoshiro, who was exhausted, just returned from late work and is unconsciously driving recklessly in order to get back sooner. During a sharp turn into his mansion, his cosplay armor’s helmet, that he put on the passenger's seat, fell forward onto the car floor. Yoshiro bent down trying to grab it, only to failed looking at the front and smash the car straight into Chako who came out and tried to welcome him back. At that moment, a massive earthquake happened in the fantasy world, greatly helped The Overlord’s siege to Sanctuary Loran, but after months when they finally broke into the heart of Loran. They witnessed Chako, in Meta World, bloody and lying on the surgery table while doctors trying to save her life. The Overlords, amalgamation of the Anime and it’s Meta World counterpart, are utterly shocked. They sealed off the heart of Loran and retreated, trying to recollect the minds on what to do now. After hard struggles, the native residents of the Fantasy world finally manage to defeat the Overlords. But, they are the manifestation of Chako's most beloved peoples, they cannot truly die. The story starts 200 years after The Overlords' defeat, with the now reborn Overlords trying to find a purpose in this bleak world which even it's creator are stuck in a coma for more than a month Meta World time. This was originally a discarded idea of mine and turned into my dungeon & dragon world setting. But after a while of running the game, I feel like I should write this as a book, not just a tabletop campaign setting.
That's quite a complex description. Is this the content of the novel, or just the background information exposition for the fact of the world's construction?
I'm not sure what sort of feedback you're looking for, but my first thought was that the villain was too overblown. Attempting rape is more than enough for the audience to get that he's evil, the child-killing just makes it cartoonish.
You didn't say what you were looking for or if you just wanted to share. It's definitely a complex world and a little hard for me to follow so too be honest I had to give up half way through. I'm sure people whose brains are wired for Fantasy would probably like, though.
I really like the idea of a world's destiny hanging on the emotional state of a person. It's very dark.
Thank you, after reading a few replies, I realized after blabbering out so many words, I don't even know what I am saying. It's really hard for me to translate the stuff in my brain into actual words.
