"MaRo" - Working title based around its two protagonists, Mara and Rosalie. It takes place in a wholly original fantasy world of my own making, which carries the classical fantasy vibe while being completely absent of any generic, Tolkien or mythology-derived elements such as Orcs, Goblins, Elves, Dragons. Dwarves etc. while still being rich with various fantastic creatures and unique races and civilization. It takes place on a planet where there's a single gigantic pangaea-style continent on one side of the world with a prominent inland sea to the south, while the other half of the world is endless ocean with scant, scattered small islands. It is beset by "15 maladies," 15 beings, forces, concepts, and items of varied nature that were created by a mysterious Heretic 250 million years ago, which together wiped out an extremely prosperous and world-spanning civilization. These maladies were all infused or outright created from Curses, the force in Tarot that corresponds with the concept of evil, being born from negative emotions and non-negative emotions and actions that create negative emotions in others, and as such are all evil and fucked up in their immense variety. In the north-eastern regions of this world, there exists a prominent, somewhat repressive Theocracy that hates magic but uses Soul Skills (unique superpowers born in one's soul, that only some people have), and one of their priestesses, a young girl named Rosalie, is sent on a simple mission to transport a valuable artifact to the capitol with some Crusaders to guard her, only for a mysterious figure to show up and kill basically her entire team except for her. While she survives, she's soon attacked by centipede-like monsters in the surrounding wilderness and only saved by a rough girl with black hair and unusual, purple flame based powers, who claims that since she saved Rosalie's life, Rosalie is indebted to her and has to be her servant back at her home, and unfortunately, Rosalie has little option but to accept, as she's surely die otherwise. Despite this brief captivity - which is clearly derived from Mara's strange, somewhat feral worldview than anything else - they slowly become friends, and Rosalie convinces Mara to help her find out who killed her squad and avenge them, even if Mara mostly accepts due to wanting to have an adventure with danger and violence. However, as soon as she and Mara surface near civilization, she discovers that Mara's powers are not soul skills or magic, but rather a "curse mark," one of the 15 Maladies, Curse-based superpowers that only certain bloodlines have, and Mara has a notably strong one too. Branded as a heretic for helping a "demon in human flesh," Mara and Rosalie are forced to survive both the church and many other threats in the strange world of Fundament.


A high/dark fantasy story with manga/anime-esque storytelling elements created in a detailed world I tried to make classically fantastic but without relying on any outright beings from common popular fantasy content, and in a world where even most animals and plants aren't even the ones we know. This is another story with a great dynamic, akin to a rougher Vicky and more serious Sam, and features some of my favorite recurring villains in tarot in general - the Antillambrae, a race of pale-skinned, Curse-born women with slit blue eyes and black, tar-like blood - in their first ever appearance, a story which really highlights the prominent "energies" of the Tarot universe, Curses being just one example.