Avoid Immortalis if you dislike absurd and extreme scenarios, for this is no gentle descent into the gothic or the merely macabre. It plunges headlong into a realm where the grotesque is not mere backdrop but the very architecture of existence, where every ritual of power, every intimate exchange, every moment of supposed tenderness curdles into something far more vicious. Morrigan Deep is a world engineered for excess, its every system a deliberate mockery of restraint, its inhabitants locked in cycles of creation and consumption that defy sanity.
Consider Corax Asylum, that festering edifice in Togaduine, where Nicolas DeSilva reigns not as physician but as puppeteer of suffering. Here, cells double as beds for nocturnal depravities, equipped with straps and handcuffs to render the inmates pliant. Corridors brim with mirrors and clanging clocks, disorienting the mind before the body even registers the peril. The ground floor hoards a banqueting suite and library for Nicolas alone, while the east wing crams cells with one or five souls, discomfort calibrated to his whim. Gurneys and oversized wheelchairs litter the halls, bearing strapped figures twisted into perpetual agony. Surgical racks gleam with rusty scalpels, bonesaws, and trephines, their edges dulled not for mercy but to prolong the cut.
Upstairs, the torture chambers await: bespoke iron maidens, brazen bulls, halls of mirrors that warp reality into nightmare. The washrooms spew sewage for the inmates’ ablutions, their flesh pre-sliced to ensure infection takes root. Nicolas, licensed by Irkalla’s dubious grace and the thesapiens’ medical board, declares sanity a fiction, locking up the sane to prove them mad. Cure? He scorns it; cure is bad for business. This is no hospital but a theatre of the damned, where the air reeks of blood and rust, and every scream harmonises with the asylum’s discordant clocks.
Absurdity reigns supreme. Nicolas, tall and stoic in his black suit and burgundy scarf, topped by a towering hat no rival dares exceed, tinkers with pocket watches while his chair levitates and spins. He crawls on all fours between cells, complaining of levitating furniture, his auburn hair a mess beneath the hat. Ghouls like Chives, skin sloughing off in immortal decay, hobble through the mire, their tuxedos a mocking nod to propriety. Ravens carry messages to Irkalla, where Behmor, king of hell, tosses them into the fire.
Extreme scenarios abound. Hats laced with plague fleas devastate Khepriarth, women buried alive before they expire. Pirates materialise from rumour, magnetic anchors crush Sapari’s fleet. Aardvarks gifted vampirism devour Neferaten’s sands, locusts strip Tiye bare. In Corax, thesapiens rain from weakened floors into vampire pits, their screams drowned by screeching violins. Lovers like Emilia and Edward earn exile to Kane’s forest, where bear traps and barbed wire await. The Electi drown in their own poisoned wine, their shipwreck headquarters a tomb.
Intimacy twists into horror. Nicolas feeds from Allyra, his fangs elongating as his face stretches into the Long-Faced Demon, lust and hunger merging. He chains her, whips her, yet whispers of protection. Theaten dines with Anne and Tepes on basted tribute, their silverware piercing living flesh. Calista, wed in chains, endures lashes and bites, her suffering mistaken for love. Valkyrie and Dyerbolique carve lovers into cubist art, their passion a prelude to mutual devouring.
Creation begets monstrosity. Tanis, sewn from soldiers, roams Sioca’s glacier. Arachron, spider of mismatched limbs, stirs in Webster’s tanks. Rachnoc, spider-octopus horror, consumes children in Clachdhu Beacon. Weebles roll with extra hips, flies gain fangs, cats sprout legs for urban hunts. Nicolas’s zoo teems with such abominations, Chives their weary curator.
Power is contractual cruelty. Irkalla’s mirrors watch relentlessly, debts sealed in blood. The Ledger, Nicolas’s own voice, inscribes fates. Immolesses challenge Immortalis, only to be torn asunder. Tributes breed for slaughter, villages pay in flesh. Even love binds: Theaten weds Calista in vows of torment, her tongue severed as consummation.
Humour sardonically skewers the savagery. Nicolas, in orange silk, mounts dinner at Theaten’s table. Chairs levitate, inmates gossip. Chives, ear stapled, hobbles through sewage. Primus, god turned grumbler, blocks bridges with pigeons. Yet beneath the farce lies unrelenting extremity: flayed scalps salted, feet blistered on heated floors, mirrors trapping souls in infinite screams.
Immortalis demands immersion in this carnival of cruelty. If absurdity repels you, if extremes of depravity, grotesque invention, and unyielding control offend, turn away. Morrigan Deep offers no respite, no redemption, only the relentless machinery of appetite and dominion, where every jest ends in blood, and every mercy in chains.
Immortalis Book One August 2026