Queen Zyliss of the North Wind Scorpions strode through featureless desert, scales the color of polished jet carved a defiant path through the light sand. Her tribe, one of the northernmost, bordering the Lawless Lands and the fringes of the Dreaming Forest, had, after much deliberation and many omens, chosen her as their leader after the death of her uncle. And now, as was custom, she faced her rite of anointment: a day and a night alone within the Dreaming Forest.

  The forest was a place of legend and terror, an anomaly in the arid landscape, an ever-shifting ecosystem of colossal, phosphorescent fungi, crystalline flora pulsing with internal light, and trees whose bark flowed like molten metal. The very air within it hummed, and the terrain itself was said to writhe and change, paths appeared and disappeared, landscapes dissolved like heat haze.

  Zyliss entered the forest as the twin suns of the Ashen Desert began their descent, and its cool shade felt soothing at first. On her belt, she bore only a water skin and her dagger, its crystal pommel warm to her touch.

  The moment she stepped beneath the canopy of glowing fungi, the air grew thick, sweet, and heavy with the scent of unknown blossoms and ancient decay. Colors shifted and swirled, sounds warped and echoed. The forest floor breathed beneath her clawed feet.

  Visions assailed her, unbidden, overwhelming.

  A column of men, their faces hard, their armor black as night, marching under a cruel sun. They bore the sigil of the Zha Khor Empire, the Sorcerer-Tyrant Vorlag’s screaming eagle. They were veering south, into the sun-baked expanse of the Lawless Lands.

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  The vision dissolved. Cloaked figures, moving like wraiths through the shadowed alleys of a great stone city she did not recognize. Their faces were hidden, their movements silent. She felt the cold touch of their shadow-magic, the chill of their murderous intent. One of them, she sensed, was failing, caught in a web of silver light, then bound in shadow.

  The world warped again. A vast, shapeless will, cold as the void between stars, encroaching from far, far north. Its tendrils, like grasping, icy shadows, reached out, testing, corrupting.

  And with that came the chains. Ethereal bonds of dark energy snaking out from that northern void, wrapping around the wills of goblins, of orcs, even of her own scattered kin. One such chain, fine as a spider’s thread yet strong as star-metal, extended towards the heart of the Ashen Desert itself, towards her own people, seeking a purchase, a weakness.

  Beasts of nightmare, born of shifting shadow and delirium, lunged at her from the phosphorescent undergrowth. Her sunstone dagger blazed with a fierce light. She dodged illusions that shimmered and dissolved, navigated paths that twisted and turned back upon themselves.

  Through it all, the visions continued. A tall girl wreathed in an earthy power, standing before silent stone giants. A hidden valley where monstrous, scaled creatures were being bred and armed. A sleeping mind, dreaming of conquest

  When the twin suns finally rose again, casting their harsh light through the swirling mists at the forest’s edge, Queen Zyliss stumbled out, scratched and bleeding, her eyes burning with exhaustion and the terrible clarity of her visions. She had survived. She had faced the dreaming god in its lair and returned.

  What to expect:

  - Real-world stakes

  - Big man with a big hammer

  - Brutal fight scenes

  - Weak to strong MC

  - Animal companion

  - Antagonists of multiple kinds: monsters, world mechanics, and humans