Okay… so, I'm pretty new at the whole 'giving out challenges' thing. But, well, I had an idea, and didn't feel able to do justice to it, so here we go.
The Challenge: Basically, an Overlord X ASOIAF X Dungeon Keeper crossover. Robb Stark wakes up, about a week after the Red Wedding, down in the crypts at the lowest levels of the Black Tower of Skagos, which is the equivalent of the Dark Tower. But with an addition. The tower heart, once found, does more than open portals. It is also a full-fledged Dungeon Heart.
Now a few stipulations:
No pussyfooting or redemption. Did you see your characters in the games hesitating because of morality? No? Then no 'What have I done?' for Robb. Ever. Same for forgiveness.
No 'I'm satisfied with this'. The conquest of the entirety of Westeros and Essos, every last square inch, is the minimum requirement. Of course, you should take your own sweet time, but no halfway deals.
Apart from this, well, the rest is all yours. Whether or not there are other Keepers, what mistresses he takes, how much exposition you want to do, what kind of world building, and, well, everything.
Now this is not a requirement, but I've written a prologue you might like.
Prologue
Far, far to the North, beyond the wall, beyond even the gift, there is an island. Its name, to the inhabitants of both the Western and the Eastern continents, is Skagos, the land where cannibals lie.
But what they don't know, what they dare not even try to find out, is that a few man-eating men are far from the worse thing there.
Because you see, scattered across the island, in places no one would look for them, there are strange metal things. They look like small metal plates, will strange figures carved onto them. At some places the earth bubbles with strange colours near them, at others they are alone, and at others yet the bubbling bits of the ground are alone.
These things, just by themselves, are a hint, a huge hint.
But of course, no one remembers anything, and no one comes here, so they are worthless hints.
In any case, they are all completely irrelevant, compared to what lies beneath the island. Something that has been waiting for a long, long time, hungering, ripped and scattered, full of a yearning to become whole again.
Till now it was alone, a black thing, ugly, distorted and yet mighty and proud. It was home to an organization, a group of beings capable of wonders beyond imagine, and yet they were so, so stupid and ugly.
But these creatures can do nothing by themselves, as their very being revolves around serving another. Indeed, this was what the island and the things it held had lacked.
But now… now things were different. A few days ago, something had happened on the continent to the west of the island. A thing of such evil, such twisted darkness, that it broke all believed illusions that mankind enjoyed about itself. Ancient laws had been broken, both of man and beyond. Treachery had been wrought, on a scale unmatched by any before it.
And that, as some people would put it, had opened a whole new can of worms.
Because you see, even though people forget of things, even though they begin to consider things to be myths and legends, and though they start laughing at long-held traditions, or start forgetting them for momentary gain, it doesn't mean that the legends, the myths aren't true, or that the traditions are worthless.
What had happened at the Castle called 'The Twins', at the behest of Casterly Rock, had broken old, old laws. To go in full detail would be ridiculous, but it needs to be understood that the world had been a very different place once. Things had roamed in the open that now were the stuff of nightmares, and there had been good, excellent reasons behind mankind's fear of the dark.
After all, the Old Gods of the North were not all benevolent. There had been those who were not so at all, and one among them who was the darkest of them all, the Master of the Infernal Abyss itself.
A mighty war it had been, the one in which they had fallen. Spells were crafted to keep the power of the black tower broken and suppressed, to prevent any new Lord of the Dark from rising. It had been these spells, this magic, that had been dependant on the old rites.
But now the ancient laws were so much dust in the wind, the power of the Old Gods long since broken before that of the Seven, and the realms of men at each other's throats.
Nothing, therefore lay between mankind and what was rising from the depths of Skagos, and both continents would suffer all the more for it.
Because it was time.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When he opened his eyes, all he saw was darkness.
But he didn't care, because all he could feel was pain. Oh, the pain! Everything he knew was pain! Every bone in his body was screaming out, and every nerve, every tendon was burning.
The young king didn't know just how long he lay there, screaming silently in infinite anguish, but then that was irrelevant anyway.
He even fell back unconscious at times, his being simply exhausted of the pain and the lack of food and water. And yet he awoke, suffered and fell unconscious. The cycle came to an end, only when he awoke to find that something was moving in the dark.
Now he realized that he as in some kind of crypt or coffin, lying like the dead. The movement eventually took a direction, and he realized that the roof of the stone compartment he was lying in was being moved.
A few seconds later light streamed into his eyes, causing him to shut them tight. Within seconds, he heard a voice, the ugliest he'd heard in his life, snarl "Rub some acid in his eyes, that'll freshen him up!"
And so it was, that Robb Stark, eldest son of Eddard Stark, The King of the North, died. In his place was something… different. Something old, something new. The creature that rose from the Betrayed King's corpse had his looks, and his swordsmanship. He had his mind for strategies, and his memories of his battles and his betrayal.
What it did not have, was not capable of having, were his heart, his sense of honor, and his loyalty to his principles. How could he, those had all been ripped out of him.
Far, far away, the Old Lion called Tywin Lannister utterly failed to have a shiver run down his spine, although, further yet, the boy king did spontaneously shit himself n the Iron Throne while the court was in full session.
But none of that mattered. The Overlord had risen.
Aaaand that's it from me! Ball's in your court now. PM me or review this if you're interested.
