Synopsis
It is the final days after the end of the world and you only have one month left before the last sanctuary erupts into chaos. There's a dead body hanging from a tree and cadaverous giants watch you sleep at night. The end is already here, you just don't know it yet.
Now rated in the top 3% of all novels on Royal Road!
Palus Somni (‘Marsh of Sleep’) is a worldbuilding webnovel about what happens when your God forsakes you.
Inspired by gothic horror and mingled with British myth and folklore, join the Alucinari nuns as they struggle with day-to-day life after the world has ended.
Every night when the sun sets the monstrous Gol, colossal beings with too many teeth, awaken and roam the marshlands. Only those with a faithful heart will be spared. Young acolyte Wille has never seen the walls fail, but when a fellow nun is murdered within their sanctum the very safety of the monastery is thrown into question. Did the Gol find a way to breach their defences, or is there a human traitor amongst them? The answer lies both far in the past and deep beneath the earth, through the maze of ancient catacombs.
With a cast of over thirty different characters, watch as your friends and enemies spiral into inevitable madness at the hands of a callous and unforgiving world. Discover the secrets of Palus Somni through letters, diary entries and notes found scattered across the monastery. Uncover the mystery of the grotesque giants that stalk the night and bring your challenge to the Gods themselves.
Each character has their own handmade pixel art, and every update includes a music recommendation for a dark atmospheric dungeon synth album that you can listen to while you read.
Slice of life meets cosmic abomination: Palus Somni is a collection of intertwining stories, some chapters are stand-alone tales while others feed into the overarching narrative. It is an exploration into a community, and rather than focusing on any one character the story meanders through the convent, exposing the hopes and fears of its inhabitants.
Story updates every full moon.
Tags
Table of Contents
- 1Canto I - A Visitor in the Night2024-11-13
- 2Canto II - The Tatter Tree2024-11-13
- 3Canto III - Death Comes2024-11-13
- 4Canto IV - Letters by Lamplight2024-11-13
- 5Canto V - Into the Larder2024-11-13
- 6Interlude - Inka's Tale2024-11-13
- 7Canto VI - The Rookery2024-11-13
- 8Canto VII - A Kiss for Claudia2024-11-13
- 9Canto VIII - Echoes in the Dark2024-11-13
- 10Canto IX - No More Silence2024-11-13
- 11Canto X - Funerals and Fading Fears2024-11-13
- 12Canto XI - The Willow-Woven Basket2024-11-13
- 13Canto XII - The Quiet Space Between2024-11-13
- 14Canto XIII - The Margins2024-11-13
- 15Canto XIV - Primordial Pilgrims2024-11-13
- 16Canto XV - The Dream Eater2024-11-13
- 17Canto XVI - Hide and Seek2024-11-13
- 18Canto XVII - Saint Francesca of the Inquisition2024-11-13
- 19Canto XVIII - Here Comes the Arm2024-11-13
- 20Canto XIX - The Road2024-11-13
- 21Canto XX - Chrysalis2024-11-13
- 22Canto XXI - The Lord of Everything Under2024-11-13
- 23Canto XXII – Conventional Habits2024-11-13
- 24Canto XXIII - Fall From Grace2024-11-13
- 25Canto XXIV – This Too Will Burn2024-11-13
- 26Canto XXV - The Wille and the Wisp2024-11-13
- 27Epilogue2024-11-13