SPOOKTOBER DAY 27 – APOCALYPSE / POST-APOC
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES:  RULES, BAD LUCK, TRYPOPHOBIA
TAROT INFLUENCE:  TEN OF PENTACLES, UPRIGHT

TITLE:  THE LIGHT

Premise:  Via my interest in paleo biz, I found out about another time of life-threatening global warming, the Eocene Thermal Maximum.  We’re going to hit that a lot more abruptly than the previous go, but if creatures the size of pigs survived that one, things won’t be as bad as I used to worry they would be.  Still, we’ll be living bitterly (BAD LUCK), for a very long, very ugly age.

Much of human knowledge was lost in the (APOCALYPSE/POST-APOC), but the most learned kept the scraps alive, slowly watered them, until they blossomed anew.  Several thousand years into the Desert Age, electricity is a thing again.  But humans are humans, so it’s hoarded by the descendants of warlords: the Blinsapory of Nuranoka, the Uraisi of Afoka, the Zuzigo of Yazo, the Rejeny of Yos Yazo, and the Gendaron of Anoka.  Trade and communication have become the new excitement. Everyone is marveling at the interesting weirdos from far away, their music and storytelling and style.

The Villain:  In the long dark summer of Supolar Anoka, a gendaro is consolidating power, connecting the grids of captured lands and attacking the electricity of the unbowed. His weapon is mobilization of the faithful, the cult of Undead Jesok.  Most of the converts are just trying to keep their heads low and ride this out; some see the ascendance of the cult as evidence of its power and are trying to feel the faith in their hearts.  Meanwhile, Gendaro Milar Milar dan Joceros is doing his best to stamp out the observance of Sandorona.  Idolaters get the iron maiden (TRYPOPHOBIA)!

Horror Element:  An alien world -future Antarctica- seasonal breadbasket (TEN OF PENTACLES) of the newly global economy.  Revolutionaries live by firelight and herd swine to war, while the bright cities ruthlessly expand their dogma (RULES).
–

–
This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers.  Surprisingly good peccaries, if a lil mushy in anatomical particulars.  When you know the request for her was “dressed like a cross between a showy virgin mary candle, an aztec warrior, and a dune fremen” the outfit doesn’t look amazingly creative.  Nice to just get something that fits the ask with minimal effort tho.

–

SPOOKTOBER DAY 28 – SCARY SYMBOL
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES:  NEIGHBORS, SUPERSTITION, PINS & NEEDLES
TAROT INFLUENCE:  THE MOON, INVERTED

TITLE:  AND WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE THIS MEANS?

Premise:  A mature gay couple are hiking in the countryside, and seem pathologically incapable of fear – one more than the other.  Turns out it’s from hard-won practice.  One husband is prone to heart attacks and keeps it under control by maintaining control of his emotions, and the other just does his best to help by also controlling his own expressions of upset.  So when horror things begin to happen, they just brush it off – as best they can.

As they walk, they encounter increasingly scary tokens of violence.  At first it’s some moles and voles crucified on a fence.  Farmer superstition, doncha know?  Then it’s other animals twisted around thorns (PINS & NEEDLES) and vegetation.  Shrikes?  Can they take prey that large?  They keep making excuses like cultural anthropologists.  It’s all so many (SCARY SYMBOL)s, a kind of folk magic (SUPERSTITION), yes?

The locals (NEIGHBORS) are mum and shy away, like they fear the strangers will bring some kind of ruin into their homes, which makes theorizing about the grisliness hard to confirm.  At last they meet an undefinedly queer young person who sees a gay couple as their long lost people, and invites them into the cottage.  And then hesitates to let them leave…

The Villain:  Out with it, kiddo!  The reveal (MOON, INVERTED): the grisliness is not the work of local wizards, but of some unknowable presence in the wilds.  The foxshrike, which could be a cryptid or a person or a people, but are definitely dangerous, whichever it is.

Horror Element:  Who or what is the foxshrike?
–

–
This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers.  I damn near went with the gemini one.  Openai was not much better.

–