The skeleton had its ribs painted in alternating red and green, and it wore a festive hat. “Merry Christmas!” it shouted at anyone who passed by. The only person who stayed to chat was a dog that really was just in it for a femur. Mondays, right? The knotwood trees of the Wodwǎ Forest were

These are self-contained worldbuilding excerpts from my Nanowrimo project, Reaper. The Order of Propriety denoted duty with hands shaped into their ornate helms: the Seekers had covered mouths but opened minds, the Watchers were deaf but felt fate itself, and of course the Fury—blind to the world and their own death—were the most feared warriors

Another jack lit, another soul captured, this time its quiet eternal scream ringing G minor. The conductor smiled. Only a few more to complete the symphony, and the conductor had them all picked out. Judging by Jules’ bedsheet-white face and glasses eyes, I was right about at least three vampires among the survivors. Small comfort

Many of these drew their seed from swordtember art prompts because I am running out of ideas. Compared to even polluted Earth, the air on Cheq’Nai is a haze, though here it is saturated with parasitic fungal spores that bond with the local insectoid life, including the dominant sapients. Cheq’Nai born off world, however, die

The Prince—for all that was what they allowed us to call them—entered the circle of aspens that made up the Mountain Court as a resplendent vision of ethereal brown and white: their wood bark skin and twisting bough limbs draped in fur and crowned in bone. Gemini was not happy with this new planet. Every

The hardest part was ignoring the pleas to return the bodies, having to stoically tell someone “no” while loved ones were thrown into the pyre without the dignity of the sky to release their souls—but with the Blight so close, the spirit roamed faster than the avians could eat. Trilla held her sword quiet and

When the rifts first opened, some chucklenuts decided to wear masks carved in uncanny expression like the Others. The Syndicate in particular used those masks for intimidation and terror. That stopped when every member was found with their face seared off as if by their masks. It was expected that as Sol warmed, Titan would

Vigridr flexed his sword hand and grimaced. It had been 10 years of peace since he won the throne as the Undefeated Prince—not only having never lost a battle, but having never even being struck despite fighting with the foot—yet the gods crippled his strong arm simply with time. Synethetic brainwaves and pirated identities were

I decided to tweet out microfiction every day of 2021. Here’s the April haul. Even from leagues away, Vimala could see the dead god’s shattered beak and blind eyes as a silhouette on the horizon, taller than the mountains it formed when trying to break out from the world, and she could feel the quintessence

I decided to tweet out microfiction every day of 2021. Here’s the March haul. The first sign is the unseasonably beautiful weather, the second a haunting melody so pristine it feels like a dream. The sound rings clearer at the approach: the repeated glory of HALLELUJAH HALLELUJAH ad infinatum as angels descend, mouths wide in

I decided to tweet out microfiction every day of 2021. Here’s the February haul. You pull the chain and hold your breath, the coal dust thrown in the air a choking cloud that irritates your eyes and nose. The timing must be right. You mutter a spell and feel dead trees sing from beyond, infusing

I heard them before I saw them. A group of seven wizards strode up to my village, one in the back hefting a carved wooden box that amplified the thumps and beats of intersecting leylines. The one in front called a challenge for Ukias. The last I saw of them before Mother hid me away

I decided to tweet out microfiction every day of 2021. Here’s the January haul. Clouds rumbled across the sky, chasing the third sun down the horizon and threatening a dark, wet evening. Tel hated nights like these. She’d need to find shelter deeper in the forests where neither rain nor moonslight pierced the canopy, but

We laugh and sing a song as we shut down electronics to enter the wormhole. They say keeping spirits high wards off Those Beyond, and like our ancestors on ancient highways, we convince ourselves that ritual—prayer, sobriety, seatbelt—can tilt a 1 in 100000 fate in our favor.

[WP] You’re homeless, sleeping on the street in NYC. You have no family, no friends, and no where to go. After 5 years living like this, a man in a fancy black suit walks by where you’re begging and hands you a blank check. Then he says “Knock yourself out, kid.” You blink, astonished. The

“Why do I feel like… I’m in Arizona?” Martin loudly slurped from the water on his back as we continued walking down a deserted street. It wasn’t just a comment about the dry heat–not to say that Duchess Azamach didn’t do the usual thing other Princes did of turning their little slice of the 86th

[WP] You are a drug dealer who deals in drugs nobody else can get. But instead of money, you want books. Rare books. The rarer, the better. “Martin Alexander Smith, what in all the Endless Hells did you do with my book?” I glared at my nephew. He was hitting that awkward phase of adolescence

The sky over Dagat faded from fiery orange to roiling grey with the setting sun as it did for as long as history could remember. Not long after thick clouds enveloped the western horizon did pitch black night fall over the land. This did not come as a surprise to Dagat’s oceanlife; the smallest of

Captain Lina Maringal barked an order to tack hard into the swordwinds, loud enough to be heard over the thunder of cannons barely five hundred yards behind. The twin masts of the Queen Marie leaned larboard in time for a pair of spinning chains to whip past the outer edge of her mainsail. Lina’s eyes

[WP] Something unusual is raining from the skies. Cypress Gallant spread another layer of oil on her disassembled rifle’s bolt carrier to stop her hands from shaking. She adjusted a dirty rag in her dirtier hands and started working the bolt carrier’s other side. Twenty five days in this hellhole. Twenty five days listening to

Irinios-Ma is a major trade hub situated on the confluence of the Calmor and Genavais rivers in the central Gyrwolen region of Tal-Hydor. Ore, quarried stone, and akaram stone come down the Calmor from the Cawol mountains (not to scale), and crops come down the Genavais River from the fertile lands around it. From here, goods

The two suns of Aleta hung close together in a cloudless summer sky as a band of thirty marched down a broken cobblestone road. The regular crunch of boots on loose stone and scraping of rings on plates mixed with the pattering hoof beats of the ten riders traveling alongside the party. Spears pointed from

Originally known as Gyrwelich City, Pelantesque-Ma has been a major trade hub situated on the outlet of the Great Gyrwelich Lake for the past few hundred years due to being at the halfway point of the largest river connecting the Gyrwol Mountains to the Alengyr Sea. After the discovery of major akaram veins in the

The featureless grey sky began tinting blue as dawn approached. A chill breeze blew across the mountain’s bare rock. Besides the wind and a young man’s footsteps, nothing stirred. The evening insects had gone silent, and the morning birds didn’t dare fly in the territory of an iron dragon. Marcus, on the other hand, paced

[WP] All superpowers come from capes. The bigger the cape, the stronger the superpower Heron stat with her eyes closed and legs crossed, meditating in silence in the stone chambers. Sunlight poured through the open windows, illuminating her brilliant white cape which fluttered and flowed around her despite the lack of wind. Her cape was

This is a map of the entire known world of Aleta. The world fell apart in a time before history remembered, yet this chunk is held together by the natural veins of akaram ore, the permanent storms the only indication that you may be nearing the Edge.