TAO is a broken world held together with nothing but magic and the will of the gods who protect it and its people. Then thousand years ago THE SUNDERING struck and Tao was almost torn apart by a terrible magical cataclysm which resulted in the planet almost being halted in its journey through the cosmos. It took all the power the gods of Tao could muster to restore its orbit and set it turning again, but in their efforts it was forever changed – its axis was drastically altered, and it now spins in such a way that one face of the world is forever turned from the sun it orbits, leaving half the planet in perpetual darkness. The various humanoid races that survived and now thrive within the habitable parts of THE DAY LANDS have come to live in perpetual fear of what lives beyond THE BORDERLANDS that separate them from whatever dwells within THE NIGHT LANDS, but for ten millennia it has kept its secrets.

The land of RUNDAO languishes under the rule of their warlike Northern neighbours, the TEKTEHRAN EMPIRE, while a small, ragtag band of motley adventurers ply their mercenary trade fighting monsters and protecting the common man from the various dangers that haunt the night and prowl the hinterlands on the edges of civilization. THE CREEPING BAM have amassed a modest reputation in their years together, but they're still just a small-time party of sellswords, thieves, outcasts and mages.

They're also exactly the kind of underdogs the people of Tao doesn't yet realise are needed to save the world from the encroaching darkness they doesn't even know is coming …

This is a love letter and homage to the high-fantasy worlds of the tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder and Warhammer and the sword & sorcery cinema and literature I fell in love with as a kid growing up in the 80s, from Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian (and the awesome Schwarzenegger movie, STILL my favourite fantasy film EVER), The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and Ron Howard and George Lucas' Willow, to the more grown-up and edgy worlds of grimdark masters George RR Martin and (my all-time favourite) Joe Abercrombie, as well as a BIG DOLLOP of Terry Pratchett's immortal Discworld series.

IMPORTANT: This story contains material which some readers may consider to be mature, such as battle violence, some strong language and occasional mild sexual scenes. If this is not your kind of thing, this story is not for you.

I am also serializing this story on Tumblr, Wattpad, Quotev and Sweek.