Soulbound: A Ghost Story (WIP) [Updated April 15, 2025]

[Black_Rose]

First of all: Kudos to you for creating such a fascinating story and just as fascinating characters!

The characters you created are really multifaceted and interesting. Every person has something unique about themselves and no one is stereotypical. I like to discover the unique dynamics of everyone and enjoy learning more about everyone as the story progresses.

First of all regarding Valerie: I think you managed it really great to make her annoying yet still endearing. She’s a handful and absolutely suffers from ADHS - but she has her heart in the right place.

About Rawlin: I didn’t really like him at first, especial when it came to his behavior regarding Valerie, but he is starting to grow on me as I learn more about him. I’m curious to get to know him better.

Can’t say much about Kira so far, but she’s certainly interesting.

I like your idea of involving a mundie in the science of magic - although Andrei seems disturbingly obsessed with his studies. But I’m sure that there’s a lot more to him and I’m curious to learn more about him. His approach during the confrontation was certainly great!

Then there’s Callum, of course, and I absolutely love him! I picked the lovers background, hoping for some angst and tragedy, but now I’m just wishing for a surprising plot twist that redees him! Really didn’t expect to succumb to his charms, but here I am. lol
And I’m desperately asking myself: Why did he betray us?! But I’m sure the answer will be awesome!

Charlotte is great as well. She’s so bratty and snobby, but you avoid nasty clichés and show that there is more depth to her. And now she’s starting to question her worldview a little - wonderful.

The trio’s entire dynamic is just great! I never expected that the group would work so well and I didn’t think the love triangle would feel so authentic, but I’m absolutely blown away! And soooo excited to read more about the past.

Truly, past and present read like two separate books! It’s wonderful how immersive both of them are.

You wrote a truly compelling story and I’m curious to see how everything is going to develop, how the questios will be answered. We haven’t even been introduced to all the characters and it seems as if so much has already happened!

So all in all: I’m thrilled and just want to say, how much I love your story - from the plot to the characters to your style of writing. It’s wonderful and I’m excited to read more!

[LilyN]

What a great read! Every character is so interesting and fleshed out.

[Zurab_Siradze]

Will we be able to talk/meet people from our past like callum,dyer,quartermaster ect.?

[Xepheris]

This!! The entire time I was getting the feeling that he was needing us as some kind of key to the magic he was trying to do- the desperation of him trying to convince us and himself that we should just give up. That we’re messing things up by fighting back so hard, and the way he seemed almost regretful at parts. I was of the mind that it could’ve been a thing where he needed our soul for some reason, the delusional part of me hoping it was so we could be together forever, but he’s clearly back in the future so the time travel idea hits hard

[LastLau]

Don’t remember the last time I read this (must have been years) but now I found it again, with additional chapters! Pleasantly surprised Didn’t expect for the story to start incorporating high fantasy with other worlds. I guess author is a fan of DnD (gooood).

Are people still trying to figure out who the secret romantic character is? I’m not reading tbrough 800+ comments to find out but I hope it is still a mystery.

I also hope it’s the talisman.

[Cryzhentia]

I don’t appreciate traitors regardless of reason especially when it causing the death of untold many and responsible bringing calamity to god know how many kingdom citizen, Callum whatever his intention is cannot be justified.

I can forgive many crime including treason or betrayal it’s one thing I find hard to forgive is the death of many in the wake of such treason, I may forgive him personally if I am the only victim depend on the reason but those died as collateral damage and those that suffer because of this foolish plan definitely not so forgiving and they will want justice, he is singlehandedly bringing down the Kingdom and with it spread misery to countless victim.

About the story

I feel confused because it’s going back and forth between the past and present and I think it messed up the tension as well, I often find myself bewildered because of sudden change of story.

The story itself is good, it’s detailed and descriptive, I also have a good feeling about the character in the story, each is colorful in their own way, I definitely liking the grumpy witch, sunny partners and coldness of the dude, I also enjoy that as MC I could be funny and mess around being a ghost like jump scare and surprise people.

What I find conflicted is in the past recollection due to traitorous nature of Callum I find it hard to like him (even though at that time MC not aware of this traitorous nature) it also make me unable to take him seriously as I actively choose to avoid him during past recollection for example I choose to stay at villa instead go to theatre because Callum going there, I choose to stay instead going to investigate with Callum and so forth, while my MC still tolerate him I find myself unable or unwilling to go with it, even though I force myself being affable with him (because my MC is affable) I find the option I choose not necessarily reflect what I feel because roleplaying the past.

With that said I feel Author is successful in storytelling.

[Whooohooo]

i remember reading this one from sometimes ago… the flashback part feel like the main story here
wondering if it still being work on ?

[Gloomcat]

it was updated not long ago

[bric]

6 months is awhile, I’d say, but fingers crossed that life just got busy for the author and they’re still working on this.

[Raptorofwar]

Author’s still alive, if that’s what you’re asking.

[CorvusWitchcraft]

Hi.

I can confirm that I am both alive^{[citation needed]} and busy weathering a variety of real life tribulations (plus a few virtual ones). A lot of particularly harrowing events happened in the latter half of this year. Some of you may even be keen enough to identify what one of those events was—but we don’t have to get into that.

I won’t go into details about the rest either, but suffice to say that “working on” (progressive tense) is perhaps a strong way of putting things—in all honesty, I haven’t even touched the story in a good while. Or a middling to bad while, as the case may be.

I don’t plan on abandoning it again either, to be clear. The next part will come, it just might take a while.

Now, with that all said, I’d like to be able to get another update out before the end of the year, but I don’t know how realistic that is at this point. We’ll see.

Thanks for sticking around, either way.

[CorvusWitchcraft]

Update: it was not, in fact, realistic.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get out more updates in 2025!

(But no promises)

[HarrisPS]

Just to make you aware, Dashingdon hosting will be closing soon so I would recommend moving this to cogdemos or uploading a compiled html file:

Dashingdon: Free ChoiceScript Game Hosting

Hello all, I am no longer able to maintain the dashingdon.com system and server. It is terribly outdated and there are creeping security concerns. So, unfortunately, I will be shutting down the service at the end of this month. The URL will be redirected to cogdemos.ink and all users and games will be permanently deleted (mostly to prevent any user/pass/email leaks). This community is a small light in the vast darkness and it was a great honor to provide this service to my fellow writers for a…

[CorvusWitchcraft]

The demo link has updated to the COG Demos version. I’m pretty sure it should be more or less identical to the latest build from Dashingdon, but let me know if there are any issues with the transfer.

This does mean that everyone will have to replay the game from the beginning, but since the newer site has built-in save functionality and lets you save to the server, saves should be at lower risk of being wiped, meaning you hopefully won’t have to play through the whole demo again after this.

Coincidentally, today is also the 5-year anniversary of the demo originally being posted—unless, of course, you live somewhere east of central Europe, in which case you missed it, and don’t get to celebrate with the rest of us, sorry. Maybe you’ll have better luck next year.

No ETA on when the next update will be, but I am working on it after several months of not doing that, which I like to think is at least a step in the right direction. It’s at least a step in a direction, which one could say is itself a step in the right direction, even if it’s actually the wrong direction.

Time, as they say, will tell—unless it doesn’t, in which case there was probably nothing we could’ve done to begin with. Somehow, I find that thought comforting, personally.

Happy anniversary.

[CorvusWitchcraft]

Quick progress update, but also a little bonus thing.

Writing has been progressing slowly but steadily, and i expect to have an update ready sometime around the end of the month, or possibly early-mid April.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on something on the side that I think some people might be interested in seeing. For context, as a D&D DM, I’ve made modeled a lot of NPCs with Hero Forge, and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it—so, I figured I’d take a crack at making some visual depictions of the main cast, starting with Valerie!

Hidden for the people who don't like illustrations

And here’s a direct link if you want a 360 view.

To clarify, because Hero Forge does have some limitations, this is not absolutely100% canon (I imagine her jacket sleeves covering her forearms, for example), and I encourage people not to take it as gospel, but it is a pretty close approximation of how I iamgine her.

If people are interested in seeing more of these, I’m interested in seeing if I can make them for the rest of the main cast when I have time, and possibly some of the more prominent supporting characters, like Rowan and Camilla.

[JBento]

@CorvusWitchcraft

I imagine her jacket sleeves covering her forearms, for example

But are they so long that they also cover like half her hands?

[AdmiralLynx89]

True, hero forge has occasional stylistic limits, but I really like how you captured Val’s energy in the pose, and “movement” of the figure. Of course, once you’ve gotten past the limits such as they are, it is a pretty good modeling tool for the creation of all kinds of characters. Getting good at the sliders makes it fun, too.

I’d be up for seeing more of the characters from Spellbound as HF figures.

[Ink_Guardian]

I feel that if both the Ghost and Charlotte had died in the encounter with Garon, it would be Callum’s story instead. He is already easy to sympathize with, especially his cynical nature.

[CorvusWitchcraft]

@JBento

But are they so long that they also cover like half her hands?

Wow, I somehow completely missed this when you first posted it, sorry.

To answer the question, I have no strong opinion on the matter, so you are entirely free to imagine her with or without excessively long sleeves. I do think the jacket in general might be a little big for her, if that helps.

Speaking of things that are too long, I’m nearly complete with the next update and I expect it to be released sometime in the next few weeks, unless something really catastrophic happens to me.

---

In the meantime, though, it’s come to my attention this exists:

Which, uh, might be a problem. Even though Heart’s Choice and Hosted Games are technically distinct entities (to my understanding), I strongly suspect that two games with the same supertitle under the overall Choice of Games umbrella will be vetoed on the grounds of causing possible confusion (similar to how they don’t let you use the word “Choice” in HG titles, since it’ll make it look like a mainline Choice game), and since the HC game is already in beta and set to be published well before this one, that obviously means I’m the one who’ll have to give.

Honestly, I guess it’s fair enough that the title will likely end up going to a more romance-focused game, since that’s a context the actual word is often used for. I support wordplay even if it’s not me who gets to do it.

That all said, I’m considering making the title Soulbound, which is assonantly similar and still basically accurate to the game’s premise, and more importantly, it’s not a real word, so the chances of it getting “claimed” in the meantime becomes much lower.

I guess I have time to make up my mind since this game isn’t going to be published anytime soon, but it seems like a good idea to make the change earlier than later for branding purposes—so don’t be surprised if the title suddenly changes one day in the near future, and you have to start referring to this game by another name.

[cup_half_empty]

@CorvusWitchcraft

In the meantime, though, it’s come to my attention this exists:

I saw the notification for the beta testing and for a second my heart skipped a beat. Then, when I opened the post, I was sorely disappointed. Well, it is what it is.

Soulbound has a nice ring to it too.