Orphic Phantasia

The world is dying. Every day, the Moon’s orbit deteriorates. With science unable to provide answers, people turn to the Old Ways for salvation, to gods and demons, manifest ideals that dwell in an immaterial otherworld and regard humans as little more than pawns for their myriad schemes and overwrought ambitions.

In the frontier town of Torsten, on the edge of the Fifth Circle of Malkuth, one such plot nears its conclusion. At its centre stands Emily Fomalhaut, whose fragmented identity hides oracular powers; the Princess Phantasia Caelestis, who believes herself the saviour of the world; and a diverse gathering of individuals too convenient to be coincidence.

Poets, authors and artists, scientists, soldiers and scholars, priestesses, pranksters and private investigators: all find themselves drawn into the grand designs of Dionysus, as he shapes their lives to ensure humanity a favourable fate. A fate none of them asked for and all of them question.

To escape it, they must find an alternative.
But to find an alternative, they must first find themselves…

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Orphic
1) of or relating to Orpheus, Orphism
2) mystical, occult, oracular
3) strange, mysterious, beyond understanding
Phantasia
1) imagination, fantasy
2) a piece of music not written in a traditional form, an unstructured composition
3) something possessing bizarre or unreal properties

Orphic Phantasia is an attempt to spin a tale of gods and monsters in a future age where science has deciphered the secrets of all we once held arcane. But this is not a story of an epic quest, of a Hero’s Journey to overcome Evil—this is a story about people, and the effect such a world has upon their lives. It is a story about identity and truth, about the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we tell others. It is a story spanning centuries, a story of lives long and lives short, a story of stories, their threads spinning together, weaving, repeating. A strange fantasy, you might call it, a mysterious composition, an Orphic Phantasia.

About the Author
Dary is a non-binary thirtysomething who writes strange and convoluted genre-bending stories in a potentially ill-advised attempt to understand the world. Other interests of note include: illustration, astrophysics, sociology, extoling the virtues of Final Fantasy VIII, talking to cats, and the colour purple.

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