“By the Blind-God’s light! I am become death; kinslayer, man-eater, and bedfellow to the moonless, misbegotten Night-God Azazel. Sacra—so it be.” —Narancan’s Folly: the God-King’s Downfall; Act Three, Line Ten Rebirth Monologue by playwright Gregorio D’Arcene. In every house of chance, there are its sordid patrons: the conmen, the down-on-their-lucks, the outlaws, the “sailors” which are just pirates-in-disguise, the whore-and-low-born-warmongers and then the whores themselves. I am the very last kind of scum: the gambler. I come here to lose, not to win, because the fool’s gold of hope is the most addictive draught in all of Naranca. The promise of turning all of your debts into great fortune, of the stars being fixed in your favor, that Lucifer’s unseeing eyes may look down upon His prodigal son and have mercy. D’yabel knew that you’d only be shanked in a back alley if you won, but still you play the game—rigged though it may be—because you’re not here to win but to lose. If only I’d known that I’d lose my life. My name is Raphaël and this is how I snatched victory from the vampyre-fanged jaws of defeat. How a vagrant Éder, the lowest of all bloodlines, came to be the most feared man in Naranca. I wear no crown yet kings heed my word. I tread moonless paths that men dare not speak of in midday under the parish’s roof with a Mother as witness and ten oathsworn paladinos guarding their backs. I have felled the matrilineal tree of Sublimé and rubbed its tyrant face in the dust of the masses. You may have heard of me. This is an epic fantasy story set in a high fantasy world where wild magic has been harnessed by steampunk technology. It has a romance subplot between two male characters. The worldbuilding is loosely based on medieval France with anachronistic elements such as matchlock and wheellock guns thrown in with sword and sorcery. Progression is manifold so let me list a few, spoiler-free paths to power in case they strike your fancy: Imbibing concoctions of monster blood among other alchemicals to induce controlled—and uncontrolled—mutations. Steampunk prosthesis and inventions and gadgets and what-have-you; powered by the coalesced blood of a fallen god. Magical tattoos that grant appropiately-magical abilities; also powered by divine ichor. Soul-pacts with elder gods that forsake a slice of your immortal soul in exchange for an esoteric power that is half-bane and half-boon. Tit for tat, metaphysically-speaking. Enchanted arms and armor—be they cursed with bloodlust or holy artifacts made to slay the profane. All these subsystems are fruiting bodies of the same mycelium so they’ll interact and interface with one another readily.