July 2026
Spoilers ahead.
I don’t have a name for this universe yet. I just kinda think of it as... A World Faraway.
Episode Timeline and Character Glossary.
Brent Banewood, aka The Butcher, aka The Bodach, was part of the hero group until he died in the coliseum. He was a legendary gladiator and adventurer who traveled with Kaber. Although he deserved the terrifying reputation for extreme violence and cruelty, he went on solo quests to protect the border territories of Adros and sheltered slaves and other vulnerable people in his estate.
Isa is a fertility goddess and the primary deity of Adros.
Kaber is a paladin of Isa. In DnD terms, he is a multiclass paladin and sorcerer. Creatures who use magic have long life spans. He is 75 years old but appears to be late 30s. His career started in the Adros militia; after 4 years, he felt the divine call. Since then, he has outlived his family and friends.
Fire Child- Zaya the pyromancer, 14 years old when the story begins. Currently, she is 65. A story of surviving the brainwashing process of Isura in a school called the Creche and becoming a wizard. Nutrichem is the headmaster of the Creche; her age is unknown. The name is also a title.
Daughter of Darkness- Venna’s origin: about 21 years ago, she lived on a remote family farm. She is taken by the Spawn Father and converted into a pawn. The Spawn is a collective mind-controlling demigod.
Dead Doves- about 20 years ago. Introduces Isura. Elara was born and brainwashed in Isura; she meets Brent while working in a brothel and becomes his first slave. Serena was Brent’s master when he was 14-20 years old. This story includes history in several timelines and the origin of Tattertown. They speak Skava.
The Bodach- Origin of Bethany linking her to the Nraz Mountains.
Crimson Buys Azure Eyes- Colin is a mercenary who left Isura and fought in the Battle of Briars Bend 22 years ago, where he met Kaber and joined the hero group. Sinza is a blue catkin raised as a slave in Veloria. 15 years ago, she was taken by Colin. They currently have two children and live in Tattertown.
Dandelion- Luminara, at 19, fails the Creche training and joins the Collegio. This story happens 10 years before she met Brent and became a paladin. This leads into the Tears of Gold main story. Maecenas is Luminara’s Collegio instructor. Gurriano is her handler.
Daddy & Kitten- Cedric is the high wizard of Adros. While in the town of Mounthart, he acquires a pink catkin named Riley. The story starts with Riley at 10, advances to 18, when they begin their intimate relationship. Cedric is 210-218.
Thanial- He is a cleric of Isa and adopts a homeless orphan, Kay, age 15. This story overlaps with the previous story but ends after Cedric and Riley.
Grim Harvest- Akris 16 origin story. Mawdy is a 300-year-old necromancer who performs the initiation ritual on Akris and teaches her a small number of spells.
The Poet’s Quill- Riley is 19, gets tattoos from Cedric.
Banewood- Brent is 50, meets Mina, an elf slave. Introduces Tattertown. Randal appears as a Footman.
Scarred Strength- Kaber is 74, meets Mei. Introduces the Skava language. Arc continues to slave rescue. Billard is Mei’s previous owner; Inkara is his wife. Includes a brief appearance from Gurriano.
Luminara- Age 28, is a slave purchased by Brent. Overlaps with previous story.
Stitches of Sin- Sonia is a seamstress who was hired to make a wardrobe for Mei; instead, she outs Kaber to Adros as a slave owner. Overlap begins in Scarred Strength.
Mina- Acquires the harp.
Flesh Weaver- Lana is a master alchemist and elf slave purchased by Dr Weaver. Fenn is a wolfkin captured by the Vandals and transported to Adros with Lana. Origin of the Craboars.
Murder Doll- Lana escapes Dr Weaver’s house.
The Sun Wept- Fenn kills Brent in the coliseum.
Cedric and Riley- They investigate Dr Weaver’s laboratory.
Grief- Death fallout with Luminara.
Family- Kaber proposes to Mei.
Rzzakala- Lana and Mina leave with a dragon.
Inkara- Finishes Mei’s slave arc. Occurs while Kaber is escorting Lana away from Adros.
Isa- Finishes Inkara arc.
Broken toys- Luminara grieves for Brent. Randal becomes a main character and intimate partner to Luminara. Isura arc deepens.
Silver Abyss- Kaber and Mei get married. Reveals Colin and Sinza’s children.
Journey to Isura- Luminara becomes a paladin. Details the bell ritual.
Horror of Isura- Details the artistic public executions of Isura.
Pyromancer- Zaya 65 joins the main cast.
A Tomb’s Heir- Elara is 45 and inherits the Banewood estate. Introduces Marcus, a bureaucratic agent from Adros.
Blackmarsh Hunt- Luminara’s first quest as a paladin.
Double Werewolf- starts during Fleshweaver. Includes Fenn’s backstory.
Stitches of Sin- Concludes Sonia arc. Begins Eastern Sanctuary arc.
Twisted Fate- A long story focusing on Gurriano, the slave merchant. Ostara is his top girl. Ownership ceremony with Anya and Truett. Huen-ni is a runaway slave taken in by Aric at the tavern.
Spawn Queen- Venna takes over a town. Davi and Javer are caravan guards.
Oblivion’s Duty- Luminara begins the quest to defeat the Spawn.
Hollow Hero- Luminara returns home after the Spawn quest and begins her origin story told to Randal.
Sugar and Spice- Riley is 22 and introduces Ick the ratkin and Rosa, a dryad. Mentions Huen-ni as Wendy.
(The timeline is fuzzy and overlapping until the Skeleton King.)
Transcendent Love - Day of Saints. Puppet show. Includes Fenn, Thanial, and Kay. Riley befriends Huen-ni.
CATtrastrphe- Cedric and Riley investigate rumors of a necromancer. The story transitions to Stonehart. Introduces Ken, an artificer wizard who graduated from the Adros wizard school.
Hearts of Brass and Bone- Ken 25, Akris 22 romance and villain arc. Introduces several characters: Liora is a young wizard from Adros. Jory, the town blacksmith. Clover sells flowers.
The Battle of Stonehart- Aftermath of the town turning on their wizards.
Astrodus and Liora- Astrodus, a 44-year-old paladin, and Liora, 28, escape the undead invasion.
Emancipation- Anya is a slave who inspires Truett to begin the emancipation movement.
Druthers of Devotion- Gurriano learns Luminara is still alive and visits her.
Comfort and Corruption- Starts after Oblivion’s Duty, filling in details for Venna leaving Rydenhart and traveling to Adros. Includes Thanial, Kay, Riley, Cedric, Fenn, Ick, Quintus the butler, and Thea, his wife. Shows some aftermath of slavery’s end.
The Skeleton King- the midpoint battle with the undead. Fenn dies.
Book 6 stories are unfinished.
***Your first question probably is, what’s up with all the slavery?!
Initially, this story began with a paladin and a slave. I had to invent a culture where the supposedly chivalrous knight would tolerate such a thing. It’s actually not a big thing in Adros. Slavery is not institutionally enforced. There are very few laws; their society is close to pure anarchy. In most instances, a slave is claimed by another, or they ask to be one. At any time, the enslaved person could simply quit.
Why don’t they just quit?! Your modern sensibilities scream. The same reason you don’t quit your shitty, low-paying job. You’re afraid of being alone, homeless, vulnerable. We all tolerate loads of crap at our jobs. In the modern world, we have police, a legal system, social safety nets, friends, and family to help in hard times. Adros is anarchy, and these slave characters have nothing to fall back on. Over time, slavery became a cultural tradition.
Then again, sometimes it unexpectedly becomes involuntary. The kind master gently takes her hand and leads her to the basement. Confusion as the chains snap shut. Now it’s too late, and no one will ever search for her.
There’s a middle ground of abusive relationships. Yes, I mean this to mirror real life. People stay despite all contrary logic and concern for their own safety. Hoping things get better. They endure horrible trauma while having every modern advantage. For a slave in Adros, a culture telling you this is right, it seems reasonable they would accept every hurt and degradation.
Running away is a gamble when the next master could be your last.
In Adros, only citizens have legal standing. Authority and power are delegated directly from the king. The citizens are loyal to the ranks above them, as each is in turn loyal to the Sovereign. Anyone outside of the system is ignored.
Using the role of a slave, these people are making a statement, declaring they will not try to claim anything from another, while offering obedience and loyalty to their master. Thus placing themselves within the social hierarchy. There is no physical enforcement of this arrangement. In most instances, the relationship is mutually beneficial: labor for food and shelter. It is voluntary, at-will employment that can end at any time.
I use the term slave because it’s more titillating, and I focus on the smut stories because I’m a pervert, alright.
Over time, the culture of Adros became increasingly fascinated with the power dynamics of master and slave. Much of what drives the slave characters is social expectations. If everyone acts like it’s normal, it is normal. Combining trauma and peer pressure drags them deep into a mental abyss.
Becoming a citizen is not complicated. The Sovereign recognizes the person. Like, you exist to me now. Humans only, because it’s a human nation.
In the example of Brent, he won a gladiator tournament. His name is known; recognition is bestowed. With Jasper and Tattertown, they turned wild frontier land into civilization. They declare this is for the benefit of Adros. Recognition is earned, and he becomes a citizen. Luminara becomes a paladin and vows to serve Adros. Upon completion of a quest for Adros, she is recognized.
Guilds and family members have citizen rights. Guilds are like unions; as long as the members are loyal to guild authority, and the guilds are, in turn, loyal to Adros, they are recognized as a collective. Should anyone quit a guild or family, that status vanishes.
A lot of people exist in between; for the most part, no one cares. No one goes around checking citizens’ papers. Citizens don’t have documentation either. When someone claims ownership of Adros territory, magic verifies that the name on the property deed is a citizen. If not, they are asked to take an oath of loyalty. Should they decline the oath, they can relinquish the claim, or Adros will see it as a hostile invasion.
If legal disputes arise, the law always sides with the citizen. If both are citizens, they go to arbitration. If arbitration fails, the law sides with whoever is more important to Adros. Can citizens take property from non-citizens? Yes, but Adros military forces will not help. In the same way, soldiers will not clear land and build a house for you. If a citizen tries to take something and they are killed in the process, it’s no more of a crime than being killed in the wild by a bear.
If a non-citizen tries to take from a citizen, that’s seen as a hostile invasion.
Citizenship ends if the Sovereign no longer desires your service. If a citizen does something offensive, this could be the punishment. If arbitration fails and the law needs to decide a winner, this is usually the outcome. Blood feuds are not tolerated. One family is chosen; the other is anathema. This is why Colin kills an entire family. Murder is legal to avoid a feud.
What would have happened if Colin were the aggressor in his story with Sinza? The other family could take it to arbitration. They could settle the matter in a way that satisfies the family. Money, service, etc. If no agreement is reached, let’s say the Sovereign sides with the aggrieved family. Colin’s citizenship would end. Any property he owns would have to be surrendered. If he doesn’t, the military will step in. Cutting him down in the street would have no consequences.
During arbitration, Colin’s friends, assuming they weren’t offended by his crimes, Kaber and Cedric would be present. With the most powerful people in Adros on Colin’s side, the court would side with him. As the story goes, the noble boy was the aggressor; they could still take it to arbitration with the same outcome.
I imagine this area like the Pacific Northwest of America. Ocean on the left, mountains on the right. Isura on top, Adros in the middle, Kiver on the bottom. East, over the mountains, is Veloria. They are city-states like Athens or Babylon. A grand city surrounded by farms and lesser towns known as Harts. Also, aristocratic estates. They are self-sustaining communities that use the land and produce craft goods. Esceline estate raises horses and hunting hounds. They also host parties, while utilizing slave workers as servants and entertainers.
What the heck is Isura? (Iss-sur-ah. Like hiss. I don’t know why I made all these ‘Is’ words. They were the first things that popped into my head.)
According to the random history, like all of this, I barely gave any thought to... 4,000 years ago, Aethoria was a city-state north of Isura, populated mostly by catkin, but also other demi-kin. Their influence spread with their advanced magic and technology. Catkin, being cats, were either lazy or rowdy and licentious. To tame their population, they developed hypnosis to counter their ADHD. Those methods evolved into using altered states to enhance and speed learning.
Isura is the closest city-state, and so, were heavily influenced. Humans being humans, they naturally wanted to... see what else it could do. Isuran conditioning is a combination of hypnosis, pavlovian response, and autonomic nervous system manipulation.
Fight-or-Flight is a well-known ANS response in which higher cognitive functions shut down to deal with stress. Lesser known is another response termed Fawn. BDSM submissives know this as Subspace. The brain’s higher reasoning shuts down and enters a suggestible state.
The discipulus is put in a situation where fight or flight isn’t an option; traumatize the victim and reward the Fawn response. Like stage hypnosis, where volunteers are told to bark like a dog when they hear the trigger word. The discipulus is trained to imagine a calm, safe place when they are distressed and in pain.
Being a fantasy world, I added the Dream Veil to the trance. With an entire culture making this horrific Skinner Box seem normal, there’s an actual carrot for them to chase. When you’re at your shitty job, don’t you wish you could zone out to somewhere fun? The Dream Veil needs to perpetuate itself and recruit new members.
Weird things about this world and the gods.
Isa (Eye-sah) is a fertility and life goddess. What is Isa’s Curse? Two things: I didn’t want to write about children being born into slavery. With all the... non-consensual relations, there would likely be an excess of unwanted children. Basically, women only get pregnant when both parents want a child.
From this, I got to avoid the adolescent smut problem. This also leads to other weird situations to write about. With an abundance of adult sex slaves and children being a rare blessing from Isa, they view children as untouchable, especially orphans. This is why Kay is not a slave but is still living on the street.
Since this is a pantheon of gods, their influence can be limited in certain regions.
Isushay (Isu sounds like issue. Issoo-shay.) is a god of balance and justice. Luminara’s runes grant her the power to form a psychic connection and see the past as others experienced it. In a similar way, he created the Dream Veil for the Isurans. If those people were going to live in a trance, they should have something to make them happy.
Wouldn’t it be easier to stop them? The gods prefer not to interfere in grand ways. In the long story, the Isuran conditioning was necessary to create a soldier who can withstand the psychic assault of Eldritch demigods.
Thralluria is a goddess of mercy. She doesn’t do much herself, paralyzed with grief or something. All her work is delegated to an Angel.
The afterlife. The universe is a creation of the dreaming god. When the dreamer awakens, everything ends. A new universe begins when he returns to sleep. The Silver Castle is the nexus that connects to the next reality. When the dreamer awakens, they travel through the nexus to become something else, either reincarnated or existing as astral beings.
The Silver Castle doesn’t exist yet; it is separated by eons in the future. In the final millennium, every sentient creature appears one at a time on the rim of a crater surrounding the castle. Any one of the thousands of gods in the Silver Castle can choose to let them enter. If the arriving soul isn’t welcomed, they are pulled into the pit and transformed into demons, thus becoming part of the Eternal War.
It’s not hard to gain entry into the Silver Castle, even if you lived an unremarkable life. The soul merely has to ask, and one of the gods will likely notice and accept them. It’s a good idea to pray for lost loved ones on their behalf. In some cases, the person is filled with self-loathing, and they can’t bring themselves to ask for mercy. The Angel of Thralluria might notice and carry them over the Eternal War. This is a rescue for broken people.
Carnella is a goddess of death. She likes it when her followers kill and rewards them with longer lives.
Devotion earns a longer life. For example, an artisan who likes crafting pottery might live 200 years. Indefinitely perhaps. Among the thousands of gods, there’s one who likes pottery and keeps them alive to do more of it. Elves and dwarves don’t naturally live much longer than humans, but they are more likely to devote themselves to a passionate career that results in more years.
The human mind is different. Ever curious, they get bored easily and want new things. Usually, their sanity degrades after 100 years. If they cease the devotion that earned extra life, they age faster, but almost normally. Often, that is too long to wait, and they choose suicide.
What happened to Aethoria? After Isura started brainwashing folks, the catkin were grossed out. Hoping to stop the spread of the Ipnos, they did a lost continent of Atlantis and opened a permanent portal to the elemental plane of ice to hide the city. It took a while, but fast for glaciers. About 3000 years ago, the glaciers started to overrun Isura. Aethoria hoped the population would disperse peacefully and annihilate the city.
Isuran conditioning appears indistinguishable from genuine, earned devotion and love to the gods. It has all the same psychological and physiological markers. Much like our modern sensibilities demand, the gods resist the urge to judge another culture for perceived immorality. Many of the population have long lives and frequent births, compared to other places.
Gods are natives to the astral plane. They have an intuitive understanding of how to manipulate the fabric of reality. They are fascinated by mortals in the same way we are drawn to watch celebrities on Instagram popping pimples and posting pictures of their dinner.
They live in the upper layer of the astral plane called the celestial realm, which responds to thought. Using the power of their minds, they craft kingdoms as their playgrounds.
There are layers of reality. The material plane is the nexus. Celestial, astral, material, shadow, ethereal. A lot of scenes happen on the ethereal plane, so it’s worth a few notes of description. The sky is black; the Limite is beige. Sentient beings appear as mountains that slide around on the Limite. They taper upward infinitely to a thread. It appears mostly empty, but locating objects is difficult because size is a trick of perspective. A mountain may appear tiny in the distance, but as you approach it grows infinitely larger, but you will never touch it. Physical objects become vanishingly small only a short distance away.
Magic is multidimensional chemistry.
The Limite and the Void. The void can easily be thought of as energy. More precisely, it is unlimited potential to be something. Spell matrices are conversion machines that program void energy on what to be and where. The Limite is a membrane between the Void and the Ethereal plane. Spells pierce the Limite like a syringe and draw the energy into it. The caster manually operates the spell like a control valve. If the caster is clumsy, it can spill and react randomly. Void energy is eager to become something; it starts forming primordial particles like quarks. As it does, the conversion process emits heat. This is very destructive. Anything that crosses the Limite into the void is unmade.
Titles. Mr and Mrs are used for people who do not own land, unlikely to be citizens. Sir is for landowners. Lord is used to address people from a higher jurisdiction. It implies… I will submit to your authority. Master is used in many different ways. As respect for wisdom, skill, and authority. The slave uses it to signal obedience and place themselves in another’s care and protection.
I am lost and want to be found. This means they are offering servitude.
Your fate is your own. The master is dismissing their slave.
Yield. Euphemism for offering sex.
The question of consent. The stories purposely make this ambiguous. There are two competing definitions. Consent is a choice free from coercion. Consent can only exist when both parties can withdraw safely and with no existential consequences. Both views are very similar, but there are key differences.
Coercion can derive from multiple sources. Implied violence. Arranged marriage. Social pressure. Our modern society also eschews situations where one party will not receive a benefit if the relations are declined. In the slaves’ circumstances, they are rarely coerced, but if they decline, the food, shelter, and protection will vanish.
When I said before, I didn’t give this much thought; these are just my logical conclusions drawn out from a few simple starting points. If this, then that. I try to avoid worldbuilding, and all this only exists as a backdrop to tell smutty love stories.
