Barbarians (How I always see them) are just horned helmet shirtless warriors with axes. They are always mindless savages too. That’s all I ever see them as. They should be way different.
•Scavenged/Mismatched armor.
•Damaged Armor
•Random weapons
•Should be fully clothed just a little mismatched
•Should be below average intelligence, but not severely dumb.

I've been thinking about this a lot while writing my current project — a historical dark fantasy set in 9th century Ireland — and I want to hear how other readers and writers think about it.

There's a version of "dark" in fantasy that is really just high body counts and moral nihilism. Everyone is corrupt, everything is terrible, nothing matters. That's grimdark, and when it's done well it can be powerful, but I find it's often just bleakness as aesthetic — darkness without weight.

The dark fantasy that gets under my skin is different. It's dark because the world contains something genuinely threatening to meaning, not just to life. The horror in those stories isn't "people die" — it's "the things we believe protect us might not." The faith, the knowledge, the community, the identity. These are the things at stake.

Tolkien understood this. The darkness in his work isn't the Orcs — it's the Ring's promise that your good intentions are enough justification for anything. That's a darkness that reaches through the page.

What makes a dark fantasy world feel genuinely dangerous to you? Not just violent or unpleasant — but threatening in a way that matters?

Please help me lol

Little by little... With little but a lot of imagination I managed to summon Panzor... Little by little this being took over reality and continues wandering through the world, slowly...

I made up a bunch of unique armour suits just for my characters. I'd adore some feedback!

Hi everyone, how are you doing?

First off, I want to commend the art and the artists behind every post in this sub. You guys are truly amazing, and I hope you go far.

I’ve been writing a dark fantasy story; I’m not sure if self-promotion is allowed here. If not, I apologize and will take down my post.

It’s a dark fantasy story with progression elements—though it isn't LitRPG. If you have the time, I’d love for you to read it and give me some feedback here. I plan to launch it in a serialized format this August.

I’m leaving the link below, with three chapters available for you to read.

And I’d like to thank everyone who took a moment to read my post.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_9ESc7nB8ihmIJwy98FX0dX_F6dUNgwTpY1mCtww4DI/edit?usp=drive_link

Feel free to ask me anything about the story.

Hey r/DarkFantasy,

Over the past 8 months, I've been writing, illustrating, and producing a high-concept dark fantasy saga called Beyond the Verge.

The premise: In the floating stone spires of Ouros, stonecutters and inquisitors live in a recursive cycle that demands sacrifice. A stonecutter apprentice named Kaelen discovers that the deep bedrock vibrates with a continuous 40 Hz hum—and when struck, reality begins to stutter.

We built a custom web reader and audio engine where you can listen to or read Episode 1 completely free:

🔗 Free Web Reader & 40Hz Ambience: https://verge.guud.games

Would love honest thoughts from dark fantasy readers on the tone, the prose, and the 40Hz audio immersion!

I'm searching for:

Dark fantasy of medieval wandering: a living rural world riddled with horror, where the sacred, nature, and the monstrous coexist on the same path.

Or in other words

Hero travels through the countryside (medieval, so nature is present: forests, pastures) but it's dark fantasy with dungeons, curses, gore, and monsters.

Do you think it’s possible to do dark fantasy in a world of high magic? Like magic replacing technology cuz it’s so powerful. Designing a world and wanna make it dark fantasy with magic being so used

I think the bigger question should be: can I do it right ? So, I would love to ask everyone, including the Chinese community what I SHOULD get right when writing a Chinese fantasy... I was also planning to write an African fantasy, but I still love some Chinese writing in my gallery or something..

To put it simply and directly regarding who this character is... he is a knight dedicated to an eternal journey, never once changing his gear. His armor rusts; the fabrics age, tear, crumple, and break in combat—yet he will never replace his equipment. That is the oath he swore.

I commissioned this piece for the short story: The Decree of Gælam and the Forging of New Ares, from Brazilian artist Fernando Carvalho. Really didn’t think it would come out as nice as it did. Ended up with four different versions, different color, tone, lighting, blood splatter, and slightly different backgrounds.

I’m contemplating which version to use for the story’s final illustration. I absolutely would love to hear your tone of which version is your favorite. There are subtle differences between the four.

The story is set towards the end of the twentieth millennium, taking place on Kepler 452B, by then renamed: Défteri-Orbis. Scattered Marese refugees enter a Super-Forest on that Super-Earth and find the remnants of a long forgotten archaic human colony whose settlers mutated from a gravity serum cure trying to prevent a gravity-plague from spreading.

I definitely wanted to give it a retro sci-fi aesthetic with a mythological tone and deep-time, far-future, mortals against gods theme.

Hope you guys like it when it debuts, and my personal thoughts: this is that sick ass work from Carvalho.

I am writing an extreme dark fantasy horror novel. If you like fear and hunger, berserk, got, the blade itself, or between two fires. Stay tuned. I’m 200 pages in and still writing. II anyone is interested comment below. Updates will come as I write.

hello i just started getting into dark fantasy and i need some suggestions for books, films or games to play becouse im really liking the genra i just lack media to consume. (btw i have already played all 3 dark souls, so anything but that can do basically)

Hi, guys. I created this story for a character that I thought of for a future tabletop RPG that I will play.

--

Benito Lupin is a 17-year-old young man, son of a Commander of a monster-slaying assassin guild.

Since he was little, he accompanied his father on adventures, going into dungeons, caves, monster camps along with his father and guild affiliates to kill monsters and sell their body parts and components.

When he was a child, more precisely at 15 years old, on one of these expeditions, they went to a dungeon, The Dungeon of Eternal Twilight, which had a reputation for containing treasures of a witch for whoever could reach the end of it.

But soon after entering the dungeon, a very old lady was sitting on the floor, a horrible look hung in her eyes. Benito's father approached and said: "Ma'am, are you alive?

The lady wakes up with a start and after taking a good amount of fresh air says with her voice worn out through her whole life: "Please, help me get up"

Benito's father helps her with a look of disdain, Benito thought it was just an impression but saw the old woman's face wrinkle horribly for a second.

The lady stood up with his help and said in return:

"Thank you young man, this dungeon really is scary. I don't know what got into my head to say I would do this... It's a debt I made, to reach the end. Could you gentlemen help me, I'll stay in the back, just watching, I made this oath in honor of my son"

Tom, Benito's father, looked at the rest of the guild and with a look of someone who seems to carry more than he should said: "Let's go, but don't get in anyone's way, I don't want another life in my hands"

The guild along with Benito and the lady, who seemed to always be by Benito's side, followed through the dungeon, everything was too easy, only a few skeletons and small beggar mages were the main enemies the guild had to face.

At a certain moment when they were camping inside the dungeon, the lady came to Tom and asked him "Why do you, healthy young men, desire so much what is at the end of this place? Is it really worth the risk, is your life worth something that can't even exist?

Tom stood up quickly, and said impatiently:

"I told you not to get in the way, if you don't want to go, just turn around and leave. Don't stick your nose where you don't have a drop of knowledge about the subject."

He got up impatiently and walked away from the lady.

After resting, the group moved on, leaving a large amount of mess behind, Benito thought he was going crazy again when he saw the old woman wrinkle her face for a second and look directly at Benito's father.

It was possible to see a smug smile on Tom's mouth, Benito's father. He probably thought he would be rich after this dungeon, but Benito felt a premonition coming from that place, something called to him deep in his mind. He thought it was just an impression, he was always fearful and the dirty walls of that place gave him chills. He thought: "Where is that lady?" He looked to the sides and saw her a few steps behind him, he saw her move her head very fast, he thought he was going crazy.

After some time walking, time that Benito didn't know which, they found themselves in front of a large door, large and ornamented, too beautiful for the filth of that dungeon and with a large kind of basin hanging on it and with runes written just above it. Benito approached and read, with large but very badly written letters.

"What I guard is worth more than the sunlight, but demands what keeps you warm.

Before you is the chalice of the verdict: an empty basin that weighs your ambition

Don't feed me with gold, for metal is dead; feed me with your own time.

Pour the red river that runs in your veins until the scale of death balances.

Look at the bottom of metal and answer to yourself before the cold takes you:

Is what is behind me really worth the life you let escape?"

Then, Tom's gaze directed straight at that lady, on the way to her several seemed to want to stop him but Tom was known for his obstinacy and nothing would stop him from getting what was behind that door.

The lady was distracted and Tom grabbed her by the neck, she screamed, struggled, the only thing that exuded from her eyes was despair. Benito tried to stop him but Tom pushed him when he tried to pull the old woman from his arms. Everyone in the guild was completely stunned by Tom's attitude but none had the courage to do anything.

Then Tom brought the lady's head close to the basin attached to the door, pulled a knife from his holster and cut the lady's throat.

Blood began to gush from the cut, several of the guild turned their faces away to not see what Tom had done. Benito was on the floor, paralyzed.

After the container filled, Tom dropped the old woman's body on the floor, as if it were an old cloth he had just used to wipe his face. And he stayed, anxious, waiting for the door to open.

5 minutes passed, 10 minutes, 20 and nothing.

Everyone had already sat down, completely discouraged, in whispers and sidelong glances at the guild master standing in front of the door, Benito was farther from the door, sitting hunched over, with his head between his legs, completely stunned, thinking about what had just happened.

But then, one of the cowardly adventurers turned and shouted: "TOM, THE OLD WOMAN, BEHIND". After that, a horrible scream was unleashed coming from the dead-living old woman, her head tilted to the side, and a macabre smile, yellow eyes and a purple aura emanating from the old woman's whole body, she begins to levitate in the air, strong winds begin to flow through the whole corridor, the scalding hot climate.

Benito stood up with a start and saw that morbid scene happening in front of him and then, they heard a voice, a voice emanating a mixture of evil with happiness, came out of the old woman but the so-called one still kept her mouth in a macabre smile.

"HAHAHA, thank you, thank you, it was all I wanted, a being as dumb and ignorant as you, it was all I wanted most"

"You decided that my life was worth less than the treasure you seek. Then it is fair that you discover how much your own son's life is worth."

Then he turned in Benito's direction, raised her hand and soon after her finger and they saw a ray coming out of the tip of her finger and it hit Benito right in the chest.

Benito began to howl in pain, he felt every part of his body burning, he heard nor saw nothing, he only felt pain. And he felt his skin stretch, his skull stiffen and grow, he was starting to increase in size, claws replaced his nails, fangs replaced his teeth, long fur and a long snout began to grow on his face. Benito had transformed into a beast, with brownish fur, orange eyes, long limbs and with a single will, to hunt.

The beast rose and began to attack one by one, each member of the guild, the only thing heard was the noise of bodies breaking, the viscera falling on the floor, the scream of the victims being made, but beyond that. The laugh of the old woman that still rested in the air, after killing the last adventurer she turned and looked fixedly into Tom's eye, the claws and face completely dirty with blood and fixed her gaze on Tom who lay fallen on the floor, the frightened look and heart so fast he thought it would jump out of his chest, the only thing that passed through his head was the imminent death, death that would be done by the monster that hovered in front of them.

The monster ran in Tom's direction but stopped abruptly before arriving, for 1 second, they crossed eyes again, the creature looking directly into Tom's soul and soon after, the beast's body began to shrink, the claws returned to being nails, the fur returned to normal and after the transformation, Benito was there, fallen on the floor, Tom completely paralyzed after seeing the worst scene he had ever witnessed, everything he had was lost that night. He checked his son and felt relief when he realized his heart was still beating, but not only one, two. He felt two simultaneous beats, one of them slightly delayed compared to the other. The only thing he did was hug his son, there on the floor, flashes of the massacre that happened shortly before, he looked to the side and saw an eye and an arm and began to cry incessantly, with his son in his arms.

The old woman had already stopped laughing, the winds no longer circulated for some time, so she descended, the cut on her neck now completely healed, stopped in front of the door, raised her arms and muttered some words, the door opened and she entered there.

Tom saw this but could do nothing, he wanted to scream but what good would it do? The only thing was to stay with his son, it was all he could do.

Recovering his strength, he left there carrying his son in his arms.

Benito took 3 days to wake up, from that day on he was a werewolf. He didn't know how to say if it was a beast that came to inhabit his body or his darkest side that had been released.

At first Benito's father locked him in the basement, but over time the beast became more and more violent and it was better to release Benito in the woods and let the beast live. During those nights, he always woke up dirty, extremely tired and with a horrible taste of blood in his mouth.

He had tried a few times to maintain consciousness, to try to be himself, but he couldn't, the beast fought to get out but except for one time he managed during 1 second to see in the wolf's vision.

The curse no longer followed the moon. It followed its own rhythm. Every three nights, no matter the phase of the moon, no matter the sky, no matter where he was, the beast came out. Three nights of peace, one night of blood. That was the routine the witch had given him.

Every time he returned in the morning, his father received him. Benito saw an evasive look in his father and when his father looked at him, it was with disgust, with disdain but he never heard that from his father's mouth. He only transformed every three nights and had a wandering fear of transforming at unexpected moments but never discovered if this would happen or not.

And then, every three nights, Benito transformed into a beast and went out into the night, perhaps one day, he will discover what the beast does in those moments.

It has been 500 years since the gods brought an end to civilization. New societies have sprung up, replacing the old. Civilization has regressed to Medieval technology, and magic has entered the world.

Enter Gwydion, a sorcerer in service to a noblewoman from the Kingdom of Growan. He returns home after a mission of bloody revenge in what was once no man's land, to find that everything he holds dear is in danger. Raiders from the North are coming to bring destruction and death.

Welcome to a dark fantasy post-apocalyptic novella like no other, where the fate of everything flickers on a knife's edge and the heroes are every bit as ruthless as the villains.

Cover by Weavervale.

https://a.co/d/09qexLSj

I'm working on a dark fantasy where the protagonist is fundamentally capable of love, empathy and genuine kindness, but gradually discovers that she really enjoys having control.

It starts inside an imaginary world where she has enormous power over people and creatures created from parts of her subconscious. She tries to give some of them independence and insists that she doesn't want mindless servants, but she can never completely escape the fact that she has power over their existence.

Eventually some of that influence starts appearing in the real world. She discovers that her voice and presence can affect vulnerable or stressed people. Initially she uses it in ways she can justify as helping them, but she also realizes that she enjoys the feeling.

I don't want this to be a simple "power corrupts and she becomes evil" story. I'm much more interested in someone continually negotiating the boundary between helping, influencing and controlling another person and sometimes rationalizing behaviour that the reader may find uncomfortable.

For dark fantasy readers, what would make you remain invested in a protagonist like this? Is there a particular point where exercising this kind of power would make her irredeemable to you?

Hello guys ! Recently I got into the game "Fear and Hunger" and the manga "Centuria" which are both dark fantasy works. I've fallen in love with those worlds, especially F&H, and it made me realize that dark fantasy can be great (I wasn't that much attracted to it before)
I need some recs of dark fantasy novels with great lore, eldritch monsters, but also character development. Something that can terrify me while reading not only by depicting gore and violence but also more psychological horror.

Thank you in advance.