Critiques for this horror,drama,adventure story?

[Viniciuskk]

Hi Lemma guys :>. Aside from my project Spring Breeze, I'm writing this one called Rituali Tenebris (From the Latin, The Ritual of Darkness)

This is a short summary of the story. Does it sound too cliché? Is there anything that needs to be fixed? Is it overall good?

I did not post the entire story because it's in Portuguese :<

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A fictional horror story I created a year ago. It takes place in the United States, where a huge vampire ritual creates permanent clouds on the sky, partially blocking the sun, enabling them to walk during day time. Together with it, a huge wave of energy was released, and every human caught in it's radius, was either squished by it, or absorved it's power. However, they are unaware that they are as strong as the vampires, and when they come out, the humans try to flee, are bitten, and upon turning vampires themselves, become even more powerful. The main character of this story is the only survivor of this ritual. A woman who absorved it's powers and managed to escape the slaughter. She is quickly trained by the Hunters, and also joins the final clash of humans and vampires.

With an entire "super vampire" army at his disposal, Einzbern, a corrupt leader of the Church Executioners, commands his soldiers (Vampire hunters) to charge into a certain death. While she fights, she hears the sound of a voice echoing in her mind, but she cannot understand what it says. After a long time battling against the tireless undead, the few survivors retreat to their base camp, where Einzbern awaits.

When the survivors report to Einzbern, he decides to reveal his plan to them. He was secretly working with a demon, but since his body was still pure, no one could detect any evil powers coming from him. After revealing his true nature to the remaining soldiers (and the main character), he sells his soul to the demon he was conspiring with, and acquires it's powers. He kills everyone but the main character (Whose body has increased regeneration, like that of a vampire).

Seeing her friends being mercilessly killed, she goes insane, trying to avenge them, but she is defeated. At her last moments of life, she finally understands what the voice in her head was. It was a demon, speaking in demonic language, trying to convince her to sell her soul to it. Without anything to lose, she accepted it, and effortlessly killed Einzbern. But she had made a bad choice. In exchange for her vengeance, the demon possessed her body, and would use it to unleash it's wrath upon the world. She fights his control with all she's got, and the demon tortures not only her body, but her mind. A burning agony melts her councioussness, and in a desperate attempt, she tries to kill herself, but the demon had already taken most of the control of her body.

When she was about to give up, she is engulfed in holy light. One of her friends, who carried a gem he had been amassing power in, was revived by it (In the story, there are many mentionings of this amulet he has.) He purges the demon from her body, and due to the extreme tiredness, she enters a deep slumber.

When she finally wakes up, she finds herself running at nonhuman speed in middle of a forest. She thinks that it must be a dream, and does not fight against it. It is night, and the moon shines above her head. After a few minutes, she finds a river, and runs alongside it until she finds a fisherman returning home. She feels her heart start to thump in her chest, and attacks the poor man, sucking every last drop of blood, feeling extreme excitation, close to that of sex. When the poor man dries up, she realizes it is not a dream. Her clothing is drenched in blood, as she had teared him apart while engulfed by the excitation. She runs away, as fast as she can, when she sees some lights. It's the human's base camp, and when they spot her, they yell "VAMPIRE!" and ready themselves. She blankly stares at them, still not understanding what was happening. Moments beforet hey shoot her down, a voice tells them to hold their fire. It was her priest friend who had purged the demon from her body. She desperately asks him what is going on, and with a saddened look, he tells her that she has become a vampire.

She refuses to accept it, as she was not bitten at all, but her friend mentions a quote he had said before. Vampires are souless beings, damned to suck people's blood to satisfy their cursed hunger. When she sold her soul to the demon, she damned herself. Desperate, she loses it and begs him to kill her. She does not want to suck anyone's blood. She confesses her murder of the fisherman, and starts to feel a terrible pain both in her heart and in mind. An agony deep within her. Her friend strikes her heart, and while her body was turning to dust, she asked his first name (She always called him by his family name). The man cries, and her existance vanishes, as if she had never been born.

(There is Hell and Heaven in this story, but vampires can't go to neither.)

[Aines445]

Holy sh*t that was intense XD. Damn the drama. I don't really think it's clichè, but I wouldn't mind anyway, as long as the story is good. I seriously think that could make a great story, and the final moment, oh dear god, I was like "Damn...." XD. These things are mostly not really my type (Comedy person right here XD), but for someone else, they'd be crying tears (In a good way! ^-^) XD. Maybe you could post it all in portuguese, because I happen to know portuguese ^-^, so I could understand it. And you really resumed it, I'd love to know more about the characters, the vampires, the demons, and the world itself, because it seemed really good.

[elhlyn]

why is it in America? not to be rude, but why is it America? does this place have a significant role? I would honestly like to know, I might have skipped it by accident.

and.. well I don't really think its considered a horror story despite it being dark and what not. rather its more of a tragedy I suppose, I mean it doesn't have that much suspense that most horror stories have. I mean we have a corrupt church leader who's the main antagonist in the whole story. I guess in a sense where she descends to madness and savagery makes it a horror story, but it seems a bit of a long stretch.

It's no where near as cliche' really, its actually pretty good... though, I'm unfortunately not in to that kind of genre ehe heh,


there's plenty of room for in-depth discussion and theories of religion and how Heaven and hell works and, if you're up to the challenge of researching a bit of Christian theology, it could turn out to be pretty good.

[Viniciuskk]

Thanks for the positive comments! I'm glad you two liked it! :3

In a few days, I'll post a deeper summary of it, with more things included, because this one was one I made in... 25 minutes? xD

I'll have to rewrite a LOT of stuff before I can think of turning this into a game, but I have a ton of things planned for it already.
For example, I want it to be made in one of those RPG maker programs, include starvation, mental health, and overall health, with some combat here and there, but mostly focused in dialogue, choosing the best options, or facing the consequences (eg: loss of mental health due to a friend's death)

As for the "horror", I really didn't know what type of story this is... XD It doesn't quite have much horror, but I do include descriptions of people being slaughtered, human pieces here and there, blood, and other stuff, so other than drama, I think it's a bit of horror too

[Sapphi]

I like it.
Would you describe it as a tragedy?

I have some questions though...

You say that Einzbern is a corrupt leader even before he sells his soul, and that nobody detects any evil from him during the time he is merely conspiring with the demon. During that time, did nobody question his commands to charge into a certain death? Did they not know it was a certain death, or was he just that charismatic and persuasive? This isn't necessarily a hole in your story, I'm just curious about how he came to have this kind of commanding power.

When she was about to give up, she is engulfed in holy light. One of her friends, who carried a gem he had been amassing power in, was revived by it (In the story, there are many mentionings of this amulet he has.)

How does the friend "amass power" in this gem? This part seems a little out-of-sync with the rest of your world as far as I can tell... holy, sacramental objects are usually things like relics of saints or items that were blessed/touched to a relic.

why is it in America? not to be rude, but why is it America? does this place have a significant role? I would honestly like to know, I might have skipped it by accident.

I also would like to know. America is not Christian in the traditional sense of the word, being a mostly Protestant country. It looks like your story's church has a definite hierarchy, is sacramental, and has priests and orders. That's something more prevalent in the Old World, so why America?

Her friend strikes her heart, and while her body was turning to dust, she asked his first name (She always called him by his family name).

(This is also not something commonly done by Americans. I can't even think of any European cultures that do this... do they do this in your country?)

[Viniciuskk]

Thanks for the reply! I'll explain a few things now:

America may be a protestant country, but vampires certainly aren't :3
Vampires rarely act in groups, as it is not of their nature, so the church has it's agents scattered all over the world, but due to this ritual of the vampires, the Church gathered in the US to stop it.
(I also picked North America because it's a country that I'm well aware of the culture, and since culture also deeply influences people's thoughts, there are lesser chances of me messing up with their character (Although only Kathleen, the main character, is north american).)

She adresses that friend of hers (Richard Howell Reeves) using Reeves because, when she was rescued, Einzbern and Reeves greeted her, and Einzbern tends to call people by their surnames. It's simply Einzbern's nature, and not any rule. Reeves and Kathleen never introduced themselves to each other, as he is the kind of cold guy. (The family names are in fact, a random given surname because they are taken by their parents as soon as they are born. Some of the Hunters receive a "Call of God" that points children born with special abilities. For example, one of the friends (Joseph Malchiorre) of the main character, Kathleen, is gifted with the possibility to increase his abilities beyond any human limits (That includes swordmanship skill, awareness, hearing, etc...)


The human's power comes from Mana (Yes, mana from games), and it can be used to do anything your imagination permits you, as long as your body has enough supply to sustain the desired spell. In some old researches of the church, they discovered that it is possible to store Mana in objects, most especifically, gems (Eg: Diamonds) , due to their high resistance to pressure.
One man then, decided to store all the mana he could in one diamond. Day after day, he'd supply it with as much mana he could, until, 35 years later, he was killed, and was ressurected by the diamond. However, no one knows the exact same quantity of mana that is required for such spell, so they just keep pooling mana over the 35 year base, because that man was a very known magus, who had one of the highest mana capacities in the Church history.


As for the "charge into certain death", that was obviously not what Einzbern told his soldiers XD
After many battles to protect and retake cities, the humans finally thought the vampires were losing, and the superiors, together with Einzbern, decided a final strike at where the Ritual took place, and claim victory. Unfortunately, the vampire numbers was larger than they thought. (Einzbern knew that it would be certain defeat. He had been conspiring with a demon since before the Ritual began.)

The voice inside Kathleen's head was a demon, and once the person understands what the voice is speaking, it is possible to chat with it. Most of the people purged the voice from their heads as soon as they understood the meaning of it, but those that accepted it, turned into the very first vampires in Human history. That means that even if the vampires go into extinction, they can still reappear at any time, if someone sells their soul.


P.S: The agents of the Church are people from all over the world. In the story, there are also a few characters that do not speak English, but they are of minor importance to the plot.

P.S.S: The story takes place in 1995.

P.S.S.S: Being called a "Priest" is simply to imply that one's weapon is the Crucifix (A large staff with a cross). Each person chooses their weapon to specialize, and each weapon has it's affinity towards certain spells. (For example, it takes larger quantities of mana to heal with a sword.)

The weapons are:
Cross
Staff
Firearms
Sword and shield
Two handed sword
Lance / Polearm
Claws (No one wields those in the story. They are only mentioned.)

P.S.S.S.S: Mana is a holy "element" created by God, and only responds to commands given in the mother language, Latin.
(This is just made up stuff for my story :> )