We Troubled Souls (12k Words, August 2024)

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Being a descendent to an angelic race sounds great on paper, but in reality, it is anything but.

Born with all the tell-tale signs of the eneryn, but with none of their powers, you’ve been hunted and sought after from all sorts of cultists and monsters for the magic residing in your blood, a magic you’re not even able to access, yourself. And after a close-call with a djen – a follower of a devil-turned-god – who meant to use your body as a vessel and feed your soul to his god, you’ve been hell-bent on remaining in hiding when things, once more, decide to make your life difficult.

You didn’t leave that djen unscathed. Rather, you were infected with an uncurable parasite that’s been slowly overtaking your body. The Paladins of Orn, a group of warriors sworn to rid the world of the cursed god Rastrei’s . . . curses . . . will strike you down in an instant, and they’re becoming a hell of a lot more common.

Then there’s the djen, of course, seeking out your kind to raise their own exiled god from the deepest pits of hell.

Oh, and let’s not forget the impending civil war coming from the east, which will surely affect the capital city you’re currently stuck in.

Who knew living as a descendent of the angels could have so many drawbacks.

  • Play anywhere from a good, righteous white-knight to an evil, broken individual lost in a world of hidden monsters.
  • Learn the truths about the legends of your people, and decide whether or not to call upon their gods for help
  • Find someone to care about in the most unlikeliness of places . . . or just something to stave away the horror for a night
  • Discover what it means to have ancestors who were once champions of the gods and carve out your own place in history, whether it be for peace of mind, glory, or remembrance, the choice is yours. How will you handle a world forged between a steampunk reality and the arcane?

Note: There are ROs you can meet throughout the story. There’s just some I haven’t decided on whether or not it’ll be more of a one-night-stand sort of thing or not, so until I get that figured out, I don’t want to list them all down just yet.

Warning: This story contains its fair share of violence. You start off in a dungeon after having been tortured for a certain length of time. Expect themes of mental health struggles, gore, and abandonment to occur throughout the story. Also, this is in the adult-fiction category. Expect adult themes.

Link: We Troubled Souls

Update Log:

08.09.2024 – Added Prologue, 12k words without code. Includes Liam/Lyra introduction and beginning stats, such as morality, PC’s stance with the gods of their ancestors, and whether or not PC decides to start the story by getting involved into some shady things. Currently Planned: Working on Chapter 1, which is a time skip (I’m currently undecided about whether it should be six years or eight). About 10k words in, so hopefully will update over the next month or so (minus any bugfix updates/tweeking on prologue)

Author's Note

So I know I had started a WiP on here about a year ago, The Monsters Around Us. I just want to start off by saying that it is not cancelled, I am still working on it. I had to deal with some unfavorable personal issues last year not long after I started working on it, and I ended up losing a crap-ton of notes in the midst of all the chaos, so it’s been difficult (not to mention painful) motivating myself to work on it constantly.

Like I said, I do still write it here and there, it’s just not something I can foresee finishing any time soon, and I do apologize for that. I’ve also learned that I do not have the proper skillset to flesh it out like the way I wanted, and so until I learn a good process, I’ve decided to try my hand at something that does not branch in the same way.

We Troubled Souls is a lot simpler in complexity, and I’m hoping that this will teach me the necessary skills to work on something as massive as The Monsters Around Us. This is more of a hobby/learning project for me to figure out what does and does not work, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take the storyline and things seriously. I might also change the title at some point, but I haven’t decided. I’ll keep y’all posted.

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I liked the premise, I liked the writing, it has great potential. I will follow and eagerly wait for the next updates.

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I like the writing and idea, I can see there is a lot of potential for this to go in, it seems like the plot could easily become very twisted, fun and different than what one usually reads. I’m interested in figuring out more about the world and will definitely be looking forward to updates! You’re off to a very good start with this one, I think!

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More first person narrative recently :ok_hand:

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This is surprisingly good, plenty choice, detailed and doesn’t feel rushed.

While it’s still small in word count it’s promising.

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I like what i read so far. Can’t wait to see what you come up with the next update. Though I am hoping for some kind of flashback of how our MC got captured, and just what happened in general. There was alot of questuons.

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Quick question about that actually, what exactly do you like about first person narratives?

Whenever I read them I just feel like I’m reading about someone else’s story rather than my own. I get an immediate dissociation with the character that’s being portrayed.

Like, “I walk to the door,” versus, “you walk to the door,” gives me two very different levels of immersion.

Not to say that they’re bad, just that they are not for me personally, that’s why I want to get your perceptive on it so I can understand the appeal better. Because like you said, they are popping up more often as of late.

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Love this concept of the story people are literally hunting down a mystical being pretty much rare to the human eye pretty much viewed as extinct and trying to find this type of species of individuals for their own ideals and needs it’s kind of scary when you think about it far will people go get that person

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I’ve been reading novels since I was a teenager, a kid actually, and most often there was a first person narrative. It was immersive, I liked to forget about my world while reading. But I never imagined myself in the place of these characters. More like… an observer… listener, someone the main character tells the story to.

So when I found CoG/HG games the second person narrative seemed somehow unnatural and strange. I wanted to treat MC as another character, a person other than me, while there was: "you said this, you did that…you, you, you… "

I’ve gotten used to the second person since it’s much more popular, but I’m happy to go back to the first person. It reminds me of the good old days.

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Thank-you guys for the feedback!

I actually do have a flashback scene that I’ve been playing around with, so hopefully that’ll help :slight_smile:

Honestly, I’m along the same line of thought, there. I can’t speak for other people, but writing 2nd person makes me feel I’m about to start leading a D&D session, which there is definitely nothing wrong with, but it’s not normally the kind of sense I’m trying to bring into the writing, haha. Although, I do understand it’s not for everyone in IF!

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When I read “descendent to an angelic race” I immediately thought of nice feathered wings (I’m a sucker for winged characters) :sob: But probably Mc’s life would be even worse if they had such extraordinary feature.

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I see where you’re coming from, and now that I think about it, I never really read that many first-person perspectives books growing up, or in general for that matter.

But, when I finally got into reading, it was through HG and COG, which introduced me to second-person perspectives, whereas your introduction introduced you to first-person. That might explain our difference in preferences.

But honestly, I wasn’t big on books as a kid. But sometimes school made us read stuff like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, which are in the third-person as you know, and I always felt like they put me in that “observer” role you mentioned, moreso than other perspectives.

For example, in something like The Witcher, I don’t think of myself as Geralt, but as someone controlling his actions. The character’s distinct, with his own backstory, so it’s not really about me. Whereas with a game like Skyrim they give you a blank slate to fill in.

In choose-your-own-adventure games, I think second person fits better. Instead of “What do I do?” it feels more natural to say, “What do you do?”

But hey, it’s all just personal preference, and I was curious to learn about yours, so thanks for sharing👍

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So that isn’t the defining factor, huh. (I’ve read a lot of 1st-person books too, and to me, it’s less immersive, because it’s someone else telling what happened to them, not “me” as my character.)

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In essence, you are essentially writing a D&D session with this “choose your own adventure” form of writing, it’s the same format.

Still, write the way you want, I’m just pointing that out.

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It was immersive and familiar to me. Doesn’t matter if it was someone telling the story :person_shrugging:

In interactive games I never feel that MC is “me”, they are always very different and I never identify with them, so the first person narrative is fine.

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I don’t mean in self-inserting sense; I just tend to get into my character’s head, so the caracter is “me” in the sense that I share their experience, although they’re different from me as a person (and physical entity). I don’t know if that makes any sense.

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I get it. I suppose everyone has a different approach…

So I can say I keep my distance. I feel like observer, even though I make decisions about what they say, what they do etc.

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So you’re saying that you don’t feel any personal connection or identify with the person that “you” are playing as, and the person that “you” make choices for in the slightest?

That’s kinda an uncommon way to go about engaging in interactive fiction. I can understand being in an observers viewpoint with any other form of media, but in a choose your own adventure format, it’s kinda a strange way of thinking.

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I don’t think it’s strange. It’s consequence of reading traditional novels. I found “choose your own adventure” games and I started enjoy making choices, but observer viewpoint remained.

Nowadays IFs basically replaced novels for me. So there are only non-fiction books on my Kindle xd

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I can understand that, it’s something that you’re used too, so it’s something that you got into a habit of doing, which makes sense.

But I do think that you should try and experience it from a more personal viewpoint and not one of an obsever looking down at it from above.

You might enjoy it more that way, or you might not. Either way, it doesn’t hurt to switch things up.

Hell, I might even try out this “distant watcher viewpoint” you’ve introduced me too, lmao.