The Raven's Requiem

Whimsy and Fantastical, with a dash of Spooky. Collection of Short Stories about Monsters, Magic, and Adventurers. Masterlist | About | Tags -- Main Blog: @manitamuerte --

[the-ravens-requiem]

An Introduction

MEET THE AUTHOR

I'm Alex -- aka "ManitaMuerte." I'm 30, my pronouns are they/them, and I'm half Mexican and half Irish. I'm also digital artist, writer, and occasional Twitch streamer. I usually make fanworks, so this blog is a little different than what I'm used to! You can find my main blog here. If you like what I write, you might like what kind of nonsense I post over there!

WHAT IS THIS?

I created this blog to make original content, and to practice writing and worldbuilding. It's like a public notebook, I guess. I also like to post images that inspire me. Really, this is a hobby project. I just want to have fun and create whimsical stories about monsters, magic, and ladies with swords!

THE PROJECT

The Raven's Requiem is my first attempt at creating an original setting, heavily inspired by a few of my own eclectic likes. This includes:

Terry Pratchett's "Death" series set in Discworld

Games like: Dwarf Fortress, D&D, The Elder Scrolls, and Dragon Age

Other creators like Edgar Allan Poe, Guillermo del Toro, HP Lovecraft

The horror and fantasy genre in general

Plague doctors and cool monster designs

--- So What is it Actually About? ---

I have a lot of ideas for my project. Functionally, it's a collection of short stories that take place in the setting. Narratively, it's primarily about a mysterious and magical plague doctor who owns an alchemy shop called The Raven's Requiem. Through their interactions with other characters, other plots will open up -- I hope!

Overall, the setting is a backdrop so I can write about slice-of-life fantasy with a hint of cosmic horror and whimsy. I like to write about monsters and tales of adventure, and throw in some magic and mystery for good measure.

Other stuff I do here includes: Answering some asks in-character as my main OC -- "Dear Doctor," -- Weekly Writeblr Events -- and Tag Games!

LINKS

Interested in my work? I already have a few things posted. Here are some places to start reading!

masterlist | important tags

I'm incredibly excited to be part of the writeblr community, so feel free to tag me in stuff! If you want to say hello, ask me questions, send in prompts, or whatever -- feel free to send in a message!

UPDATED: 5/1/23

[aaaaaarchive]

[the-ravens-requiem]

Update!

I didn't participate in any writing stuff this year, which is a huge bummer -- but it's because I spawned a creature with my partner so I was busy recovering from that... All my major life milestones have happened consecutively in the autumn the past 5 years haha whoops BUT the good news is I don't think I have any more to do??? so 2026 is my year lmfao

Anyways, I've done a lot of writing and setting design offline during my long hiatus, (I was incredibly ill, so I had a lot of free time...When I wasn't sick.) and I'm eager to start this project again soon!

So! I know I've said it before, but I really want to be creative and maybe try my hand at a simple interactive story. I'm also thinking about learning Blender or Blockbench or getting back into gbstudio game dev and pixel art because I have always fantasized about the ability of others being able to interact and visualize the world I'm building in some way!

Ok bye

[the-ravens-requiem]

Update Part 2

So I've been working in the ink programming language instead of the twine engine and have the bones of something starting to come together! It's super simple so far, but I'm learning something new and it makes me really happy.

Twine has always been a weird one. I love the customization built into it in terms of stylesheets... but sometimes it was too much of a hassle. The syntax didn't always flow right. Not to mention that there is different environments to choose from that each have different strengths (ie sugarcube vs harlow, etc) that always made me second guess if I was using the right one for my projects. I played with Twine on and off thru the years, and while I still prefer the customization it makes readily available... I think ink is more intuitive as someone who is a writer and artist first and a 'game dev' second.

Also I've been messing around in gbstudio again but I'm still brainstorming what exactly I want to text out mechanically. I'm interested in the tile swapping and other new features 4.0 has to offer. The last time I had a prototype going, what I was setting out to do was not easy without some of the features gbstudio now has, so I'm excited to dig into it and learn new stuff!

[the-ravens-requiem]

Update!

I didn't participate in any writing stuff this year, which is a huge bummer -- but it's because I spawned a creature with my partner so I was busy recovering from that... All my major life milestones have happened consecutively in the autumn the past 5 years haha whoops BUT the good news is I don't think I have any more to do??? so 2026 is my year lmfao

Anyways, I've done a lot of writing and setting design offline during my long hiatus, (I was incredibly ill, so I had a lot of free time...When I wasn't sick.) and I'm eager to start this project again soon!

So! I know I've said it before, but I really want to be creative and maybe try my hand at a simple interactive story. I'm also thinking about learning Blender or Blockbench or getting back into gbstudio game dev and pixel art because I have always fantasized about the ability of others being able to interact and visualize the world I'm building in some way!

Ok bye

[leseptiemecoeur]

bliss

[weepingwidar]

Markus Matthias Krüger (German, 1981) - Großer Wald Unter Schnee (Large Forest in the Snow) (2009)

[traveling-spartan]

If you ever tagged me to do one of those tag game thingies and I never did it:

1) Thank you, seriously. Those are fun and being included shows that my followers care enough to want to learn more about me.

2) Very sorry about that, it’s extremely likely that I said to myself “Cool! But I’m busy at the moment, I’ll have to do this later today or tomorrow” before proceeding to just straight-up forget, now it’s too far back in my notifications and/or your blog to find again.

[maureen2musings]

Magical Madeira, Portugal

michaelkagerer

[daily-spooky]

[fairytaleprincessart]

[alteredstatesstuff]

orange trees

[fairytaleprincessart]

[daily-spooky]

[spookyasmr]

[fairytaleprincessart]

[the-ravens-requiem]

It is with great sadness that I must announce that I may...Have to wave the flag of surrender in completing plaguetober prompts...For valid reasons! One is a nerdy and fun reason and the other is just good life stuff.

Basically, I am very busy this year with my upcoming wedding to my partner next month...And ALSO because we just started a W40k RP-based tabletop game with their friends in a completely homebrewed system we are play-testing that is requiring a bit of attention in my free time as we collaborate on balancing the ruleset.

I had a lot of fun participating in the first two weeks, though!

I will still try to do a few prompts here and there and support other creators as much as I can! ❤️

[the-ravens-requiem]

11- Practice

Sometimes, Rook let their flowers die on purpose. They had often ran their course, budding to bloom and then fading away on the windowsill of their room. The natural cycle of things, of course. Beginnings and endings and all that. The wheel of the year ever turning.

When they were a child, they had a thought. What if they could undo the fabric of the seasons? What if they could will what was finished to begin again, unwind the wheel of time and bring back the blooms even when ice formed on the glass of the window?

It was like reading a book over again, Rook reasoned. There was no harm in that. Opening the pages to the first chapter to start once more, even with the knowledge that the words would inevitably come to an end.

And so the flower bloomed, again and again.