There is a world hidden within your world.
A world of magic that exists only for the blessed ones.
You do not rank amongst them. You never will.
Serve, and their ways will be revealed to you.
Keep the secret of the Pact.
Obey our will in all things.
Serve, and a new life will be allotted to you.
Then you shall walk beside the chosen in their halls of learning.
Not as their equal, but as their better.
INTRODUCTION
Pactbinder is a WiP dark fantasy interactive fiction university novel set in an alt-history England, where you play as a once-ordinary person who has struck a bargain with an eldritch force in order to gain the gift of magic and walk in the hidden world of mages.
Word count is currently ~292k, which covers the game's prologue and first three chapters.
My inspirations are too numerous to do them all real justice, but Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and R.F Kuang’s Babel often find themselves on my mind as I write, as do many of the stories about students attending magical schools that I read growing up.
Outside of literature, I hope that anybody who has enjoyed DMing for or roleplaying a Warlock in a darker Dungeons & Dragons campaign will find something to enjoy in Pactbinder.
Please see below for a more detailed synopsis, a list of features planned to be in the final game and details on the main cast.
SYNOPSIS
Aspiring mages flock to the halls of Hightower to pursue the best arcane education in England, perhaps the world. For those blessed with the Gift of magic, there is no nobler dream than to study beneath the university’s elegant arches and develop skills and connections that will serve one for a lifetime.
However, the Gift is a rare privilege that is almost solely the birthright of the nobly born. This is the way things have been for as long as anybody at Hightower can remember. This year will be different, for rumours abound of a new student born Gifted but raised ignorant of the existence of magic; an oddity anywhere in this world, but particularly scandalous at elitist Hightower.
You are not that student. You’re just the person who stole their life.
As the Pactbinder, a once-ordinary person whose path to Hightower was paved by a bargain struck with an enigmatic entity of unspeakable power, you must fight and scheme to carve out a new life for yourself during your first year at Hightower whilst working to master your stolen magic, serve your patron and discover the university’s secrets without compromising your own.
Ultimately, it will fall on you to answer one question: What price would you pay for the life of your dreams?
CORE CAST
Note that with the exception of the Pactbinder (the MC) and the Entity (their eldritch patron), the core cast are the game’s primary ROs. RO genders are fixed, though all of them can be romanced by male, female and non-binary characters.
The Pactbinder (MC).
Gender: M/F/NB
Appearance: Player determined.
Description: A mysterious individual who stole the gift of magic from an unwary victim who was set to be the first mage born outside of magical society to attend Hightower in decades. Now impersonating that victim to take their place as a student, the Pactbinder must master their stolen magic whilst serving their Patron. How they feel about all this and what they plan to do about it is up to you, as is everything that they do next.
The Entity
Gender: N/A
Appearance: An empty space in misty skies, its outline barely suggestive of a humanoid form. Though its appearance is ever-shifting, it is always crowned by a halo of six red stars.
Mastery: Wields unknowable power over reality far in excess of the works of mortal mages, if indeed it can be compared to them at all.
Description: An enigmatic being who struck a bargain with the Pactbinder in their dreams, granting them power and access to the hidden world of magic in exchange for a lifetime of service. Its nature, true goals and desires are as yet wholly unknowable to the Pactbinder.
Alice Mortimer / Adelais De Mortemer: The Witch
Gender: F
Appearance: Tall, slender and very pale, with aristocratic features, silver-grey eyes and long white hair.
Description: One of the Pactbinder’s collegemates. An inscrutable first-year student with a troubled background and a fearsome reputation, Alice’s customary apathy isn’t quite enough to mask her fiercely intelligent mind, nor the quiet intensity that lurks beneath her listless demeanour. Seemingly the only first year to have already awakened her Gift before joining the university, something considered dangerous and foolhardy by most mages.
Eleanor Whitworth: The Scholar
Gender: F
Appearance: Very short, with braided dirty-blonde hair, a heart-shaped face and warm brown eyes behind round spectacles.
Description: One of the Pactbinder’s collegemates. An academic young woman from a well-respected family of mages recently struck by misfortune, Eleanor seems fixated on restarting the long-banned Hightower Expedition Society, a group dedicated to exploring the ruins beneath the university town. A hard worker and fierce friend who can nevertheless come across a little bossy at times.
Finlay Stuart: The Prince
Gender: M
Appearance: Very tall and thin, almost gangly. Freckled, with short reddish-brown hair and green eyes.
Description: One of the Pactbinder’s collegemates. The second son of the Queen of Scotland, a country which seems to be an entirely independent power in magical society. Finlay himself seems like an affable young man, if a little homesick and uncomfortable with the attention his presence inevitably attracts. However, the circumstances surrounding his arrival to Hightower, which is in England remain shrouded in mystery, particularly given the apparent longstanding enmity between the two countries.
Layla Farouk: The Traveler
Gender: F
Appearance: Average height, lean and fit. Olive skin, hazel eyes and long brown hair that’s often in a ponytail. Constantly on the move.
Description: One of the Pactbinder’s collegemates. The only international student in Hightower’s first-year class, Layla is indelibly marked as an outsider from her very first day. The enthusiastic young woman seems determined to meet this challenge with fierce pride and make her mark on Hightower all the same, whether the university likes it or not.
Marcus Elmgrove: The Rebel
Gender: M
Appearance: Tall, dark-skinned and broad-shouldered. Striking features marked by a scar on his lip. Dark hair and eyes.
Description: One of the Pactbinder’s collegemates. Brooding and cynical, Marcus is the mixed-race son of an influential noble father and a foreign-born mother. As such, he walks the uneasy line between barely-tolerated outsider and accepted member of high society. Though a fierce friend, Marcus struggles to manage the conflict between his resentment of magical society and his desire to fly under the radar.
FEATURES
Master your stolen power as you learn to call spirits, shape the elements, nurture life and / or meddle with minds.
Romance a secretive witch, a homesick prince, a timid would-be explorer, an excitable traveller, or a brooding rebel - or nobody at all - whilst navigating an increasingly complex social life burdened by a secret that you quite literally cannot share.
Embrace or rage against the university’s colonial legacy or work to turn it to your own ends.
Make a name for yourself in one of the university’s Societies, where you can demonstrate your prowess in activities including duelling, exploration and sky-sailing, or dedicate your free time to more secretive goals.
Begin your delve into the endless dungeons beneath the university in search of fortune, power and the answers to the mysteries that haunt you.
Fight, charm, scheme, steal and even kill as you strive to balance your obligations to your Patron with the demands of student life. Pray that the two never come into conflict.
Hello, everyone! Just a quick post to say that the beta build version of the demo has been updated today on my Patreon and Ko-Fi. My plan is to (hopefully) make the next update quicker so that I can update the public demo with Chapter 5 for everyone who is patiently waiting.
For more details on what this update includes, please visit my Patreon or Ko-Fi.
Folks, sorry for disappearing, three months, I know. Some things happened, and I had to sort out others, but here is the update (this update is the one that was available on Patreon, but I’m bringing it here, and no, unfortunately, it doesn’t bring the things involving the old demo and the trip to the faerie lands; that will be for the next one). I won’t go into detail now, but I am returning. For now, Patreon remains paused as I still have to finish translating and wrap up some other things. But I intend to bring news later.
And I updated some links too.
The update is small, but the next one will be bigger. (Really)
Update: 12,000 words. (With corrections on some things)
Total demo: 203,000 words, including code.
Link
And of course, thank you all for your patience, and I hope you enjoy it, even if it’s small. And again, feedback, suggestions, and constructive criticism are always welcome, okay :grin: See you soon.
Ps: I got the count wrong and forgot to update, but I’ve just corrected it now.
Thanks again to everyone for their feedback so far, I really do appreciate every comment and ask. I’ve made a small update to the demo (+2k words) which includes the following:
-More reactivity to certain life-threatening events in chapter 1, both from the player and other characters
-Some balancing tweaks making a couple of tricky checks easier.
-Some more dialogue options and a bit of worldbuilding on two of the branches when spending time with your collegemates (specifically Layla, Eleanor and Finlay).
There is a world hidden within your world.
A world of magic that exists only for the blessed ones.
You do not rank amongst them. You never will.
Serve, and their ways will be revealed to you.
Keep the secret of the Pact.
Obey our will in all things.
Serve, and a new life will be allotted to you.
Then you shall walk beside the chosen in their halls of learning.
Not as their equal, but as their better.
Pactbinder is a dark fantasy interactive fiction university novel set in an alt-history England.
At Hightower University, aspiring mages born to the Gift of magic chase glory beneath gilded arches.
Unlike your peers, however, your magic was stolen, gained through an eldritch pact with an unknowable entity. Now you must balance your secret obligations to your patron with student life as you build relationships, learn magic and uncover the secrets of a hidden world.
Notes
A slightly belated announcement, admittedly, seeing as I posted a giant masterpost with tags and character details before realizing that the blog was already public (oops).
The first demo is already out (linked at the top) and covers the game's prologue and first chapter (~70k words total), which should hopefully be enough to introduce the main cast and give a good flavour of what's to come.
Asks are open (anonymous included) and feedback will be warmly received: The game is still in its relatively early stages and I’d love to hear what people like and don’t like about it, how they feel it can be made better and what they’d love to see more of in the future.
Other Tags @interact-if (playable demo / game announcement, masterpost linked)
