iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 2h

I would argue that looking displaced in time has a greater aesthetic advantage☝️

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Liz (haunted) @spooky-ghst.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Denver has a Red Wizard that plays guitar and I feel like more people should know about this

Reddit screenshot of a Red Wizard Guitarist spotting

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 2h

Why buy anything off Amazon when you can read 800+ human-made dark, high, weird, and gothic fantasy flash fiction tales and 40+ serial adventure chapter over at Shadows & Sorcery for free? shadowsandsorcery.substack.com

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 3h

You say predictable, I say a simple story told well! Genre conformity is just an easy, satisfying latching on point to make the subversions tastier, whether you think the cliches are tired or not. Win-win situation.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 3h

Carloman's big ol' belly is a tangible symbol of all the laughs, hospitality, and comfort times he's ever experienced. In his secret war against a spiritual cosmic force of unrelenting tyranny bent folding the rebellious material world back into itself, it's a potent symbol. Very hopepunk of him😂

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 3h

I promised myself not to lore dump so here goes: Carloman describes his world as being made of clay, every action shapes it a little, including thoughts, feelings, memories (since these affect our actions). Everything in the world is made of those things. Magic is doing lots of that with intent.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 15h

Call that a Bloblin🫵 These guys live in the deepest, creepiest lake in the world around thermal vents absolutely infested with weird life, and emerge in voracious hordes under full moons. Utterly merciless, brutal, unrelenting creatures. #art #myart #fantasy #goblins

Black ballpoint pen drawing of a creepy goblin that looks like a blobfish, deep sea fish that deform extremely under surface pressures. This guy has a wide, sagging head with little curled ears with bulbs on the earlobes. He's got wide lips with thin teeth and droopy, wide-set eyes. He has a thin, heavily wrinkled neck with some extra little tendrils on the sides.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 14h

Carloman is everyone's kind mentor, he's everyone's miraculous supernatural aid and last minute Problem Solver, he is the power of the gods made manifest in a scruffy old man with boundless rage and even more boundless compassion. He's mysterious, reserved, cryptic, yet generous in his wisdom.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 14h

It may not be immediately obvious, sometimes he I think he comes off like a superhero when he just shows up. He *is* an extraordinary individual with incredible powers, but he's also like 65-70 years old, bald, and has a noticeable belly (which literally aids in his magic).

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 14h

#LitHodgepodge Carloman is the wise old mentor: he's Merlin, he's Obi-wan, he's Mr. Miyagi, only in these stories, he's the main character. These characters always interested far more than the cool hot youngster heroes (apologies to everyone on here btw). I want that pathos!!! I want dodgy knees!!!

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 15h

#OctoberWorldbuilders Okay so here's the thing: they don't, cuz they're dead, and this land was not always desert. Neither heat, cold, sandstorms, or even the monstrous fauna of the outer reaches bother them. But such an existence is burdensome, and they are compelled, rather than need, to slumber.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 15h

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 18h

Sure! It's a supreme existential horror! Until you learn the kind of stuff they do to show their loyalty😬 Carloman, who also knows The Truth, always describes it as begging for scraps from the master's table, because it's all you can ever really hope to get despite the price you pay...

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 22h

"frustrated with people. He has no faith they will not ruin the world, left to their own devices." Ultimate relatable villain motive, always love it!

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 22h

And hell, as for the dragons! Imagine you are a being possessed of boundless powers of domination, and you are compelled each and every second of your life to express it, or you feel like it'll tear you apart. And there are *a lot of your kind*. After a point, do you even have a choice?

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 22h

For the serpent-men cultists and defectors of the Dragonmagick world, is it wrong to want certainty? Strong, strict order? Mankind is so fractious, they'll be dependent upon the greyfolk forever, as helpless as they were under the dragons. So why not choose the stronger side? Prove our worth?

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 22h

For vampirists, imagine you live in a world that's irrevocably broken. There's one power that will let you do more than just survive, like everyone else. But it's the power that broke the world, and requires hurting people to work. Is it wrong to take advantage of it in such dire circumstances?

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 22h

The antagonists of the short stories of my different settings all tend to be inhuman forces, so...problem there. But people are often connected to them! For gnostics, imagine you learned, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how the universe works, and it's Bad. Is it a choice to give in, or just nature?

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Titania @titaniasrealm.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The eternally moonlit world of Victorian painter John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893)

Four paintings depicting nocturnal scenes in Victorian England on full moon nights.

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Laken Honeycutt 💫 Book 3 Kickstarter is live! 💫 @mycelialwriter.bsky.social · 23h

The Kickstarter for The Mycellium Forest, the final book in The Chrysillium Saga is 40% funded. I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who has already backed this project. ❤️ Three days to bring this story home. 🌿✨ I hope you’ll take a look at the campaign. #BookSky #FantasyBooks #IndieAuthor

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Spider-Man 2018 kinda has some leaps on narrative logic here. I feel like I missed a whole chapter. All of a sudden Peter is at Jeff's funeral--who did not know he was Spider-Man--and knows the culprit even though he was unconscious the whole time.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

He dreams the biggest Carlodreams, no sense dreaming smaller, says he☝️

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I bought (by my standards) fancy pens and markers and even dug out a box of crayons, I do layers with pencils and shit, but my destiny really does lie in improvising monsters with a black ballpoint pen

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Nat Brehmer @natbrehmer.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

To celebrate his birthday, here's a thread of movies Clive Barker didn't do: 1. ALIEN 3: "I was busy and secondly it was someone else's aesthetic. The parameters on originality were fairly strict."

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

IT'S OUT! Free for all read! In between helping the paladin Casimir unearth the secret of Farhaven's plague of thievery, Sepp starts working for a local apothecary, but now struggles to recover from a frightful incident in the boarding house... shadowsandsorcery.substack.com/p/the-path-o...

shadowsandsorcery.substack.com

The Path of Poison: Chapter 42

Sepp has started working for a local apothecary, but now struggles to recover from a frightful incident…

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

You ever hear the theory that shadow people are time travellers essentially looking at us past people like zoo exhibits? Keep writing and change the future🫵 Let this future fucko know him and his entire industry are unfathomable cringe and weird🫵

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The half-mythic Corpse Capital of Narakhis, with its chain-laden wraith king, is supposedly a 24/7 evil sorcery orgy enacted by the obviously divinely cursed inhabitants as some kind of test against which the righteous and mighty Regic legions must struggle and one day crush for Ultimate Glory.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

#OctoberWorldbuilders Anur-Anakh was the first civilization. The name has filtered down the years from those who had the walking corpses rattle it at them. As far as the barbarian empire of Regnum Regis is concerned, it's the unhallowed source of every horror, blasphemy, and dark magic in the world.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Slander the Hat Man ceaselessly and without mercy

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Goblinok Groglinshitz, Master Muckmancer of the Murkmunks, self-styled cult of the slimegod, able to call all manner of forgotten horrors from the mire to which all things eventually flow. #art #myart #fantasy #goblins

Photo of a ballpoint pen drawing of an extremely stylized and slightly cartoonish goblin facing the viewer, with large toothy maw, long chin with a huge ring though it, extremely long, thin, drooping ears with lots of piercings of rings and spikes, with long earrings in frayed cords of which one is a little disc with a symbol and the other looks like an arrowhead with some scratched symbols.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"Remembering the past without wanting it to replace the present" Now this is intriguing👀

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

(Vampiric Arts world) Veney: In the moment? Silence. A dreamless sleep. Please leave me alone for one day. Ideally? The mountains blasted to ash, every single vampirist impaled on a stake, and every horrid grimoire pulped.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

(Dragonmagick world) Alzared: In the moment? A DEAD DRAGON. Ideally? Man, Greyfolk, and Orcs united, dragonspawn slain, serpent-men driven to the underworld, the dragons defeated. Kastaine: In the moment? A DEAD DRAGON. Ideally? Mankind finally risen above our petty, fractious nature.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Sepp: In the moment? A moment's peace. A modicum of safety. Not on the road. A roof over my head. Ideally? Back home in the apothecary with my dad. Ideally but realistically? A place to call home.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

#LitHodgepodge (Demiurge world) Carloman: In the moment? A quiet corner of a tavern. A starlit hillside. A hushed library. A good meal. Laughter. Ideally? A material world severed from the Outer Dark, of its design, intent, and goals, and filled with every soul freed of its dominion.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This is why we love Ray She just wants to do her thing

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I realized I didn't mention my returning settings😭 I do lots of one shots designed to look into a world for five minutes, but for returning settings, it's about expanding an existing idea or baking in a brand new element then and there based on the title. So there's always some kind of guide!

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I'm after realizing this touches solely upon the one shots. I have explained NOTHING. For returning settings, it's always about expanding something existing or adding a new element entirely. Most worldbuilding in S&S is done right there. Demiurge stuff is half and half in writing and outside.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I hope to impart the feeling that it's actually everything *around* the story you get that matters, the stuff that makes your imagination run and try to connect things and come up with answers. Or sometimes it's just me gushing about a cool idea I like😂

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I think some people might find it frustrating or shallow, and I understand, but to me there's something so tantalizing about super short glimpses that might imply so much. For me it's the same as reading a snippet of folklore or theology that makes my brain buzz with the implications.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I do! Every one of my Shadows & Sorcery flash or short stories originate with their title, which is in the X of the Y/X of Y/X Y format, they act as writing prompts and must spark some image or idea in my head I want to flesh out and communicate. But they're strictly limited to that idea/image.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Also, in media res helps a lot. We started elsewhere, might finish long after this piece, but both can be implied--all that exists is this room we're in, conversation we're having, this critical juncture or quiet moment, etc. Ironically, I am now rambling😂

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

If it's one of this chronicle-style S&S lore dumps, I do those as a series of increasing revelations which I hope are fun to be drawn through and choose lots of weird words to impart a vibe. If it's a 5-minutes-with-someone-style mini-adventure, there's a lot less words but the choices matter more.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Sometimes a world has kings and queens. Sometimes they've got triarchs and grand councils or academies. Each of these impart a different vibe and imply some potential hint. But I am also 100% guilty of sometimes flipping a coin to choose and working from that.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The trick with short fiction is implying stories and worlds. S&S stories are about whatever the title says, all other details exist to prop that idea/image up by some spare phrasing that lets you know a world exists around it. It's the feel of a world, a vibe dictated by a few choice words.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I too am also winging with one braincell in overdrive😭 Mostly it's because I've always been a very "short" writer, like I just can't ramble most of the time. Kind of a cop out answer but that succinctness is more me being concerned with communicating one image, idea, or feeling and very little else.

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Seán @wizardhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

He loved life at Castle Zagrest, but that was around the time learned all the Deep Lore, so he wouldn't have remained happy there. Chap really is every Mysterious Stranger who comes into town, and he knows it🤣

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Justin Decloux @declouxj.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

HORROR THING A DAY #7: This is one of the funniest videos on the internet. SPOILER FOR THE ENDING OF THE MIST:

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