Welcome to the unending, neon-soaked, dark at the core of the planet. To humanity’s last City, in all its fallen glory. Where the sun is a myth, but the monsters are real. Where good is evil, truth is a lie; and lost laboratories crawl with things you’d rather not think about…
….that are definitely thinking about you….
Haunted, hunted, and not quite human; Spook’s crew steal to survive amidst the ruined glory of centuries past. Cracking corporate vaults. Hacking quantum AIs. Murdering unknowable abominations in the dark. But claws, and horns, and rocket-rail rifles, can’t save a genetically-modified kid from their past. Or the twisted pact they made to escape their very, very, Evil Stepmother….
And now the Nightmares are catching up.
With plastic assassins and digitised psychopaths on their literal tails, the crew must make a terrible choice. Dare they trust their new and traitorous ‘ally’? The very monster that trained them, and all its terrifying gifts?
Or do they slip into The Dark, forever….?
>> Short Pitch
Amid the dark, decaying, splendour of a City that should not exist; in a distant future, where our time is nothing but mythology: a misfit gang of half-human teens try to double-cross an ancient evil. Think Dante’s Inferno as a heist movie, set in the Bladerunner universe, and written by HP Lovecraft.
>> What to Expect
- A dystopian, grimdark, world rich with history and terrible secrets.
- Technology as a magic system.
- Half-human and non-human teens who don’t understand what they are, never mind who.
- The manipulative, malevolent, forces of evil that seek to control them.
- Mission based structure with subterfuge, daring heists, and brutally acrobatic setpiece fight-scenes.
- A diverse Found Family lighting candles of hope against a world of utter darkness.
- Cybernetic upgrades, gadgets, and unique weapons with deep lore.
- Eerie, Lovecraftian, AIs that appear like fallen-angels.
- Monsters that will give you actual nightmares, and twist your sense of reality.
- But also tiny, cute, pet monsters with plushie potential.
- Realistic disabled and LGBT characters grappling with tough subjects. Written by someone with first-hand experience.
- Goofball character humour & fun to balance the horror.
- Bittersweet endings with real emotion behind them.
- Enemies who reek of actual evil, and who will harm/kill/maim/damage members of the main cast. Permanently.
- Apocalypse weapons that eat reality. With permanent and terrifying consequences.
- A game of double-cross against forces they can’t hope to understand, or fight.
>> In More Detail
Nightlanders is a story about abused & traumatised teenagers pulling heists to survive the ruins of an unknowably ancient and malevolent Utopia. A place of eerie mythology, and stranger secrets, so distant to our bright surface-world that nothing about us seems real to them. Where the enemies they face are symbols of their own inner demons, and our own.
Together they must fight to unpick not only their own mysteries, but those of The City itself. While attempting to fix their broken minds, and lives. In this; Nightlanders grapples very carefully with topics of realistic abuse, trauma, and the subjects that spring from these.
>> About The Characters
Spook
“Get me my ‘shopping crowbar’. We’re gonna go get…. ‘takeout’…..”
Our leader. Our protagonist. A mysterious, half brainwashed, teenage combat-pilot who is strangely terrified of heights…. except when flying. Cares very deeply for the crew; but is desperately afraid that, if they reach out to any of the others, they will be snatched away. Especially the younger members, like Tufty and Badger. Spook’s past, their species, and everything else about them, is an enigma that will shake The City to its core. And, perhaps, destroy it. Spooks darkest secrets will drive the entire plot of the series. Spook is asexual and agender.
Zipper
“Hey mate, like what’s up?”
Easy-going, blue-haired, cyberPunk who commands a tiny fleet of ion-jet fighter drones. Zipper talks so fast he trips over his own words, and tends to cope with stress by bashing out high scores and being the clown. His goofball nature hides a tragic, brutal past that he’d really rather forget. Zipper is extremely fast and agile, and has strange ability to split his focus between hundreds of different tasks. He also has a pet robot called Mrs Hops (Art tbc) a cute little metallic jumping spider with huge eyes and a nuclear battery worth of hyperactive energy. Zipper is bisexual.
Gremlin
“Mess gonna yummy-yumsss!! Raw!!!”
Gremlin is a little monster girl/thing that keeps eating their furniture. Their fingers. Their food. The wrappers containing the food. The door-frame. High explosives. The list goes on, unfortunately. Safe to say, Gremlin’s fascination with eyeballs is incredibly unhealthy (for other people). Training her up with actual social skills is going to be a mission in-of itself. A Gremlin plush is currently in the design phase.
Tabitha
“Hey guys!! I’ll try not to- Oh, whoops! I guess I did!”
Tabby is a formerly human quantum AI with unfathomable abilities…. that she is currently wasting by watching tens of thousands of Korean soap-operas at once. Currently trapped in a Corporate mainframe; she has an aura of extreme uselessness, and a loveable attitude to life.
Any time no things are going to get interesting. Joining up with the team will force this Virtual to finally confront reality & stop wasting her life. We hope.
Badger
“WOO!! YEAH!! I’m gonna explode EVERYTHING!!”
Badger is a daft little bomb-obsessed ‘boy-genius’, and creator of many inadvisable & unstable inventions that only sort-of work (If you don’t mind being on fire while they do). With his missing hand, big mouth, and working toy flamethrower (which he kinda made himself), Badger’s entire existence is a whirlwind of chaos. His crazy humour and poor fashion choices are the light and life of the gang (as much as they’d never admit it), and his innocent (ish) antics are all that hold Spook together. However; all is not as it seems with Badger, and this little oddball is the core of a mystery that could rip The City in half, and upend its entire existence…. provided Badger doesn’t blow it up first.
Tufty – is Badger’s best friend. A shy, cute, and complicated little half-cat creature who hides a very dark secret under his neon-green fringe. His core weakness is bravery,
brave & how to deal with his past. Tufty is deeply ashamed of his role in Badger losing his hand & just wishes he could make up for what he did….. Tufty has a huge secret crush on:
Demon – a kind, yet very conflicted, monster filled with hidden traumas and contradictions. Demon wants to be strong and to look stronger because of his crippling muscle dysmorphia and secret fears. Demon’s past is absolutely gut-wrenching, & the reader will soon find out why they have such massive rage issues.
Kami – a dysfunctional albino sniper girl with too many arms and not enough manners. Kami cares a lot more than she lets on, but she’s vicious if you cross her. Her deepest wish is to be beautiful, and kind, and to have a family of her own. But she has horrible trouble expressing it, and knows she probably never will. Kami is trapped in a cycle of addiction & anorexia mirroring Demon’s.
>> About The City
The City of Nightlanders is everything that exists, a last refuge of the apocalypse, or
, and held back, by the light of found family .
Found Family team of mutants, cat-eared teens, eldritch AIs, and oddities as they run heists & delve into places nobody should go. Expect slow burn reveals, tragic & horrific backstories, permanent main character deaths, and toothy little monster-things that eat your underwear.
I hope you’re ready for this.
We’ll See you all at The Opening Of The Eye…..