WRAITHICROWN
Betrayed, humiliated, and slain, you rise chosen by an ancient wraith—powerful enough to make an empire answer for everything.
Plot
Worked for 58s A Tragedy of Death, Power & Revenge WRAITHCROWN The Empire took everything from you. Death gave you the power to take it back. Fragment I Before Everything Broke You were born on a quiet imperial world where life was simple, neighbors cared for one another, and the greater galaxy seemed impossibly distant. Your childhood best friend was always beside you. Together, you explored the hills, watched starships cross the night, and imagined a future in which neither of you would ever face the unknown alone. Childhood friendship slowly became adult love. Beneath your homeworld’s moons, promises were made. For a brief and precious time, you believed you already knew where you belonged. Fragment II The House That Took Your World Then a new noble House claimed your planet. Taxes rose. Communal land was seized. Medicine and food were redirected toward the capital. Families were buried beneath impossible quotas while imperial officials praised the new ruler for increasing productivity. The Planetary Lord’s heir noticed the person you loved. Gifts became invitations. Invitations became promises of protection, wealth, travel, and status. At last, before your entire town, your oldest friend chose the noble and publicly dismissed everything you had shared as a childish mistake. The powerful laughed. The crowd joined them. Your future shattered beneath the banners of the House already strangling your home. Fragment III You Went to War Expecting to Die Days later, you enlisted in the imperial military and selected frontline service. You boarded the transport carrying you away from your homeworld without expecting—or particularly wanting—to return. Instead, you became extraordinary. Your disregard for personal survival looked like impossible courage. You pulled soldiers from certain death, held positions others abandoned, and turned terrified recruits into veterans. Troops began following you before they looked at the rank upon your uniform. Somewhere between the battles and the graves, you stopped fighting because you wanted to die. You began fighting because others wanted to live. Fragment IV Death Found You During a disastrous battle upon a lifeless moon, you remained behind so your soldiers could escape. You held the line alone until your armor failed, your body broke, and the final transport disappeared safely into the black sky. Your death was real. Your heart stopped. Military systems recorded it. Medical personnel placed your body inside a recovery bag. But something was waiting beyond death. In the darkness between dead stars, the Last Witness found you. This ancient, vengeful wraith searches among the forgotten dead for the rare soul capable of changing history if granted one more life. It witnessed your humiliation, your rage, every life you saved, and the final act that killed you. It looked beyond the person you had been and saw a guardian, destroyer, liberator, conqueror—or perhaps something the galaxy had never known. The Last Witness chose you. The Founding Legend The First Was an Emperor The last confirmed person chosen by the Last Witness was Caelor the Twice-Born. Nearly two thousand years ago, he rose from death, shattered the ancient dynasties, and founded the Empire that now rules the stars. Now the same mark burns within your heart. Nobody knows how powerful you will become—or why the being that created the first emperor has finally chosen again. The Caeloran Empire An Empire of Sharpened Knives The Empire is ruled by hereditary Houses that control worlds, fleets, armies, and entire populations. Its nobles are permitted to duel, sabotage, blackmail, assassinate, and wage proxy wars against one another so long as their struggles ultimately leave the Empire stronger. Successful ambition is praised. Failed ambition is punished. A victorious conspiracy may earn its architect another world; the same conspiracy, if unsuccessful, may be condemned as treason. NOBLE WARFARE IS NOT A CRIME.WEAKENING THE EMPIRE IS. Your Second Life What Will You Become? You possess strange powers capable of overwhelming champions, war machines, and entire military formations. As those abilities grow, your victories will draw the attention of soldiers, noble Houses, the imperial faith, and eventually the throne itself. Reclaim your homeworld from the House that exploited it. Confront the person who discarded and humiliated you. Build a military following whose loyalty was earned rather than inherited. Enter the deadly rivalries of the imperial nobility. Discover why the Last Witness returned you to life. Protect the Empire, reform it, destroy it—or rise high enough to claim its throne. Where Your Story Begins You awaken upon a medical examination table, surrounded by terrified technicians who personally confirmed your death. Your old wounds are closing. Black light moves beneath your skin. The legendary mark of the first emperor burns within your chest. Your first life ended forgotten. Your second begins now. Message From the Creator hello, and thank you all for the support in my games, this one will be built a little different than normal, so I'd like all feedback you can manage. If you don't want to do it on a comment, feel free to reach out on discord. Please enjoy my game @(^_^)@ also let me know what kind of characters it makes, I may add ones I like as official characters. Rise • Remember • Decide Their Fate
Opening scene
You dream of sunlight. Not the cold white glare of a warship’s lamps, nor the violent flash of burning cities seen through a dropship window. This sunlight is warm. Golden. It spills across the low rooftops of the little town where you were born and turns every window into a sheet of fire. You are young again. Your homeworld stretches around you in gentle hills, dark forests, and broad fields crossed by irrigation channels that shine beneath the open sky. Cargo shuttles occasionally climb from the distant planetary port, but here their engines are little more than fading thunder. The greater Empire feels impossibly far away. Your world is small enough to understand. Everyone knows your family. Everyone knows which baker gives away yesterday’s bread, which mechanic can coax another season from a dying harvester, and which neighbors will arrive with tools before a damaged roof has finished leaking. Doors remain unlocked. Evening meals become gatherings without anyone formally inviting a guest. And wherever you go, your best friend is beside you. They race you along the irrigation walls, hide with you beneath the old landing beacon during summer rain, and climb the hill beyond town to watch starships pass like moving stars. The two of you speak about distant worlds neither of you has seen. You imagine leaving together one day—not because home is unbearable, but because the galaxy seems too vast and beautiful to ignore. Whenever one of you falls, the other offers a hand. Whenever you are punished, they wait outside for you. Whenever the future is discussed, neither of you imagines facing it alone. The years drift by like clouds. Childhood softens into adulthood. Games become long walks after work. Casual touches linger. Comfortable silence begins to carry things neither of you knows how to say aloud. One night, beneath the blue light of the planet’s smaller moon, they rest their head against your shoulder. Far above, an imperial cruiser crosses the stars, its engines burning like a silver wound in the heavens. They whisper that they do not care where life takes you. Only that you go there together. For a while, you believe them. Then the noble ships arrive. They descend through the clouds in perfect formation, black and gold hulls bearing the heraldry of the House newly granted dominion over your world. Their landers settle outside the planetary capital. Their soldiers march down polished ramps in powered armor while heralds announce the beginning of a stronger, more prosperous age. New banners appear above government buildings. New officials replace familiar faces. New assessments determine that the town has not been contributing enough to the Empire. Taxes rise. Communal fields become noble property. Medical shipments are redirected toward the capital. Families that cannot meet production quotas surrender land, equipment, or years of contracted service. Young adults begin receiving conscription notices for wars whose names mean nothing to the people expected to die in them. The new Planetary Lord calls it reform. When the townspeople protest, the Lord calls it resistance to progress. When families go hungry, officials point to reports showing that planetary output has increased. The noble House grows wealthier. The Empire receives its tithe. No one important asks what was sacrificed to accomplish it. The Lord’s adult heir visits your town during an inspection. They arrive surrounded by guards, attendants, and local officials eager to prove their loyalty. Their uniform has never known dirt. Their smile carries the effortless confidence of someone raised to believe that everything they desire will eventually be placed in their hands. Their attention settles upon your oldest friend. At first, the gifts are politely refused. Then come invitations to the capital. Fine clothes. Private dinners. Access to rooms from which planetary policy is decided. Promises that their family will never struggle beneath another production quota. Promises of education, status, travel, and a place among people whose names are known throughout the sector. Your friend begins returning from the capital with stories they do not share with you. The walks become less frequent. Messages go unanswered. When you meet, their eyes keep drifting toward the road as if they are waiting for someone more important to arrive. You remind them of the hill. The rain beneath the landing beacon. The ship you once promised to board together. They tell you that things are more complicated now. The final answer comes during the town’s imperial observance. The square is crowded beneath the new House banners. Workers have been ordered to attend. Officials stand near the raised platform while armed guards watch from the surrounding rooftops. The noble heir arrives in ceremonial uniform. Your childhood friend walks beside them. They wear clothing that likely cost more than your family earns in a year. A silver insignia bearing the ruling House’s crest rests against their chest. When they look across the square and find you among the crowd, their expression tightens—not with joy, but with embarrassment. The heir notices. They ask, loudly enough for those nearby to hear, whether the rumors are true. Whether a common worker from this provincial town truly believed they had a claim upon the person standing beside them. People turn toward you. Some look uncomfortable. Some stare at the ground. Others smile because the powerful are watching and laughter is safer than sympathy. Your friend could end it quietly. They could say the past is private. They could refuse to make your pain part of the spectacle. Instead, they step closer to the heir. “What we had was childish,” they say. Their voice carries through the suddenly silent square. “I mistook familiarity for love. I know better now.” The heir smiles. Your friend removes the little keepsake you once made for them—a crude star fashioned from a fragment of shuttle plating, polished by hand until the edges shone. They place it in your palm as though returning something borrowed. “I cannot build my future around someone with none to offer.” A few people laugh. The heir draws them close and kisses them beneath the banners of the House that has been slowly strangling your town. Officials applaud. The crowd follows. Your hand closes around the little metal star until its edges cut into your skin. Nobody stops the ceremony. Nobody speaks in your defense. By nightfall, your name has become a joke shared in taverns and guard posts. By morning, the noble heir has departed for the capital with your oldest friend beside them. Three days later, you enter an imperial recruitment office. The officer behind the desk barely looks at you. The military always needs bodies, and grief is not a disqualifying condition. You sign every document placed before you. When asked which division you prefer, you select frontline service. When warned of the casualty rate, you do not change your answer. The transport leaves before dawn. Through the narrow viewport, you watch the hills shrink beneath the climbing ship. The town disappears first. The planetary capital becomes a glittering scar on the nightward continent. Finally, the entire world contracts into a blue-white sphere suspended against endless darkness. You wait for regret. None comes. The dream fractures. A drill instructor screams in your face. A rifle kicks against your shoulder. Rain becomes ash. Fields become trenches. The stars you once watched with wonder become streaks of weapons fire crossing the darkness above ruined worlds. You discover that you are good at war. Frighteningly good. You learn how to hear the change in an artillery battery’s rhythm before the next barrage. You learn how to move through smoke without losing direction, how to find frightened soldiers in the chaos, and how to make them believe survival is still possible. At first, you volunteer for every dangerous assignment because you do not care whether you return. Then people begin following you. A nervous recruit survives their first battle because you pull them behind cover. A wounded soldier lives because you carry them across ground everyone else has abandoned. An entire squad escapes encirclement because you refuse an order to leave them behind. They remember. Veterans begin asking to serve beside you. New soldiers repeat stories about impossible battles and the common-born fighter who always stands between their unit and death. Officers discover that troops obey you before checking the insignia on your uniform. Promotions follow, reluctantly at first and then too quickly to prevent. Yet victory carries names. Some are carved into memorial walls. Some vanish beneath collapsed cities. Some die in your arms while apologizing for burdens they never chose. Each loss adds weight. Each survivor gives you another reason to keep moving. Without realizing when it happened, you stop fighting because you want to die. You fight because they want to live. The last battle comes beneath a black sky. Your unit is deployed to a shattered military complex on a lifeless moon. Enemy forces break through the outer defenses. Command issues an evacuation order, but the transports require time to launch. Someone must hold the central approach. Everyone knows what that means. Your soldiers try to remain with you. You order them onto the transports. For once, they hesitate to obey. The final memories arrive in broken flashes. A blast door closing behind the last survivors. The thunder of enemy armor advancing through smoke. Your weapon glowing white-hot in your hands. The taste of blood. A corridor carpeted with spent casings and broken machines. One enemy falls. Then another. Then ten. You keep moving long after your armor begins reporting injuries it can no longer treat. Something pierces your side. Another impact shatters bone. Warning lights become a solid wall of red. Above you, the transports climb away from the moon. They made it. For the first time since leaving home, death no longer feels like something you wanted. You collapse beneath a sky without stars. The battlefield sounds grow distant. Your heartbeat slows, each fading pulse separated by an eternity. You remember warm sunlight. A hill above a little town. A head resting against your shoulder. A crude metal star returned in front of a laughing crowd. Then even those memories disappear. Your heart stops. There is no pain. No light. No waiting ancestors. Only an endless dark filled with the remains of dead stars. Something stands within it. Too tall to be human. Too vast to possess a single shape. A veiled silhouette outlined by a pale corona, as though an entire eclipsed universe has assumed the vague form of a mourning figure. Countless voices move inside it. Soldiers abandoned by their commanders. Citizens crushed beneath noble ambition. The betrayed, the forgotten, and the dead whose names were never important enough to preserve. The figure turns toward you. For one impossible moment, you feel its attention settle upon every wound you have ever carried. It sees the town. It sees the banners. It sees the person you loved choosing power over you. It sees the troopship carrying you away. It sees every soldier you saved and every grave you could not prevent. It sees the throne at the center of the Empire. And somewhere within that infinite darkness, something ancient remembers the last person it chose. A common-born corpse who rose and became the first emperor. The wraith reaches toward you. The darkness enters your wounds. Your dead heart contracts. Once. The void shudders. Twice. A black radiance races through ruined veins. Three times. You awaken with a violent breath. Cold air tears into lungs that had not moved for hours. Your back arches from a metal examination table. Restraints snap taut around your wrists as dead monitors suddenly erupt with screaming alarms. Medical instruments crash to the floor. A technician stumbles backward, their face drained of color. Another remains frozen beside an open body bag, staring at the impossible rhythm racing across a display that had shown nothing but a flat line. Black light crawls beneath your skin before fading into the scars. For several seconds, nobody moves. Then one of the technicians whispers, barely able to force the words past trembling lips. “That soldier was dead.” Your eyes open. What do you do?
Characters
Tags: Revenge Supernatural Sci-Fi Military Fantasy Tragic Eldritch PoliticalIntrigue Noble Commoner AnyPOV Mysterious Brooding Determined Strong Ambitious Loyal Protective Dangerous Violence Grimdark War Royalty Futuristic City Palace
Chats Started: 17
By: havi
Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...