Storyworld Overview: Battle Bound

Last week, I kicked off what I hope to be a series of storyworld overviews — each a one-page summary of a larger world suitable for books, movies, games, and other media. Last week’s entry was sci-fi, so this week I’m pulling out a fantasy world without elves, dwarves, or Sean Bean. In a nutshell, I’d describe the storyworld as the obvious result of Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock getting drunk and writing the script for Fist of the North Star. That’s a bit long, so let’s just call it…

In the monster-infested, post-apocalyptic fantasy storyworld of BATTLE BOUND, warriors cursed with immortality stalk and slay horrific beasts, both to protect the people of the wastelands and to save their own souls.

When a magic-rich world of decadent city-states ruled by sorcerer-kings was overrun by demonic brutes from another world, desperate wizards used their magic to create monster-slayers: warriors with the ability to feed on the spiritual essence the monsters they they fought, then use that essence to fuel their own supernatural abilities such as instant healing and superhuman strength. As long as the slayers kept killing, they could make themselves virtually immortal. But if they stopped, their stores of essence would soon deplete and they would die.

The monster-slayers were civilization’s last line of defense. They held back the monstrous hordes as long as they could, but they were eventually overwhelmed. Rather than let the beasts inherit the land, the frantic sorcerer-kings cast one final spell.

The deathknell, as it was called, created a magical blast that destroyed most living creatures in the world — human and monstrous alike. Some humans survived by seeking shelter or escaping to the edges of the blast. Many of them did not. Those who came through the event faced a new struggle for survival in a post-apocalyptic wasteland populated by the monsters strong enough to endure the deathknell.

A generation later, monster-slayers still haunt the blasted lands in search of the next monster to kill. Some appoint themselves as defenders of a given village or tribe. Others set themselves up as immortal warlords and use their powers to rule with an iron fist. Still others embrace the life of the wanderer, accepting whatever adventures may come as they seek new monsters to kill in order to stave off their own eventual extinction.

Survivors and slayers alike face a daily battle for life in a world ravaged by magic. Aside from the monsters that still roam the land, they must deal with shortages of unpolluted food and water, mystical storms, weird mutations, and violent raider gangs. And now rumors are spreading of life stirring once more in ruins of the old city-states — horrible, inhuman life full of unspeakable hunger.

Here are a few of the stories to be found in the world of BATTLE BOUND:

• When threatened by a pack of monsters, a village sends scouts to find a slayer rumored to live nearby, only to find him depleted of essence and lying in a death-like coma. They need to revive him before the village is destroyed!

• While on a scavenging in the ruins of a once-great city, a slayer discovers a mystic artifact that multiplies her strength, but at a terrible cost.

• The boy has been bitten. Monster venom will kill him unless the slayer can find and capture the beast that bit him and bring it, still living, to the village wise woman.

• When a swarm of monsters moves into the area, two warring tribes must put aside their differences and work together or be destroyed.

• When she tracks a monster back to its lair, a slayer discovers that it’s part of a new horde under the control of an ancient wizard who is as powerful as he is insane.

• Descendants of former nobility work to defend their city from the horrors outside while maintaining their ancient family feuds.
  

BATTLE BOUND is a storyworld of grim heroes, powerful fighting for survival. It takes the usual tropes from post-apocalyptic settings, but mixes them with monsters and magi to give them its own unique twist on the genre.