Fantasy: Grimdark - Catastrophic Dawn

Catastrophic Dawn: Regimes Born from the Ashes of Misjudged Horrors

Story Dossier + Outline

Premise:

A mercenary shackled by a long-forgotten oath infiltrates a decaying city's power struggles in a fantasy war of espionage, where misjudged atrocities crush the enemy but doom civilians, birthing a "peace" that empowers hidden tyrants.

✨ Genre: Grimdark Fantasy

✨ Tropes/Themes: Atrocity mistaken for strategic necessity, “Peace” entrenches a worse regime, Cynical mercenary bound by broken oath, Enemy defeated at catastrophic civilian cost, Shadowy cabals, Urban decay, Paranoia and espionage, Inescapable legacies

✨ POV & Structure: Third-person past tense from multiple unreliable narrators, structured as a Hero's Journey with an ominous call to intrigue, labyrinthine ordeals, and an open-ended transformation that sets up lingering shadows.

✨ Vibe: Immersed in paranoia and urban rot, the narrative delivers chilling cynicism with graphic betrayals and moral voids. The vibe is suffused with inescapable dread, where strategic errors birth greater evils. Focused entirely on plot twists and darkness, sans romance.

✨ Book Size: Novel (60,000-100,000 words)

✨ Chapter Count: 48 Chapters

✨ Word Count: target 2000-2500 per chapter

✨ Heat Level: No Romance (plot-focused, no romantic elements)

What you get:

✅ Complete Premise with core concepts and Narrative Physics Architecture

✅ Complete Story Dossier — including detailed characters, relationship arcs, locations and objects, world rules and histories, multiple subplots, and market researched genre and style guides.

✅ A detailed 48 chapter outline.