Palus Somni
Community Rating
Description
It is the final days after the end of the world and you only have one month left before the last sanctuary erupts into chaos.There's a dead body hanging from a tree and cadaverous giants watch you sleep at night.The end is already here, you just don't know it yet.
Now rated in the top 3% of all novels on Royal Road!
Palus Somni (‘Marsh of Sleep’) is a worldbuilding webnovel about what happens when your God forsakes you.
Inspired by gothic horror and mingled with British myth and folklore, join the Alucinari nuns as they struggle with day-to-day life after the world has ended.
Every night when the sun sets the monstrous Gol, colossal beings with too many teeth, awaken and roam the marshlands. Only those with a faithful heart will be spared. Young acolyte Wille has never seen the walls fail, but when a fellow nun is murdered within their sanctum the very safety of the monastery is thrown into question. Did the Gol find a way to breach their defences, or is there a human traitor amongst them? The answer lies both far in the past and deep beneath the earth, through the maze of ancient catacombs.
With a cast ofover thirty different characters, watch as your friends and enemies spiral into inevitable madness at the hands of a callous and unforgiving world. Discover the secrets of Palus Somni throughletters, diary entries and notesfound scattered across the monastery. Uncover the mystery of the grotesque giants that stalk the night and bring your challenge to the Gods themselves.
Each character has their own handmade pixel art, and every update includes a music recommendation for a dark atmospheric dungeon synth album that you can listen to while you read.
Slice of life meets cosmic abomination: Palus Somni is a collection of intertwining stories, some chapters are stand-alone tales while others feed into the overarching narrative. It is an exploration into a community, and rather than focusing on any one character the story meanders through the convent, exposing the hopes and fears of its inhabitants.
Story updates every full moon.
Information
- Status
- Completed
- Year
- 2019
- Author
- Ohmwu
Tags
Royal Road Stats
- Rating
- 4.8/ 5.0
- Followers
- 223
- Views
- 59,988
Chapters(27 total)
Reviews
No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!
Community Reviews(10)
- Bobidi BopRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0I've just read about half of the current chapters and now I can't sleep. This story is too good for comfort and understands the nuances of horror. Nowadays, what people look for are silly jump scares with little character or plot. This is in contrast to what they should look for; a story where the horror lies in both what is happening and the futility of the character's actions no matter how they change. Within this novel we get just that, people who are trying and failing(though they don't know it) to survive the end of days. Everything seems thought out and as with any good story, once complete I believe this will need quite a few read throughs to fully understand the extent of the foreshadowing and plot.
My Understanding of what is happening so far
Spoiler : This story is a mix of Annihlation(film) in that the environment is changing( though in a more sinister anti human fashion, the walking dead in that everyone is already f**ked, a mix of alien here and there, and the darkest dungeon in the mad excavation of an old lord reveal evils best left buried in the ground. This is my current educated guess however, so take it with a grain of salt. - C.R. McmahonRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0"Along with a greasy and more viscous ichor"
This work is delightfully terrifying, and very descriptive. I could not wait to review it after reading only one chapter. I am currently still reading, and will continue to do so. Please try listening to the music. The scenes along with the tone set by the songs have an amazing combination.
Thrown into this scary world I found my self enjoying every line. There were no grammar errors that distracted me from the story either.
I found it hard to review this only because I was very sucked into the story. Well worth a read. If you are into horror, and suspense please check this out!! - DecieverRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0If you want something simple, elegant and intriguing in it's world building, and good twists near the end, read it. It's a beautiful story in it's own right, and while it's not trying to be something grand, it feels complete and whole. Action is happening in a remote temple/wilderness kind of environment, where humans are struggling against horrifying eldritch horrors threatening to wipe out anything that is not them. I love how this story presenting itself. It's ambiguous, yet not too polluted with words. It's scary, but only when it's needed. It's a tale of human nature, love and hate, bigotry and ignorance. It's Palus Somni.
- JimjamRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0For whatever reason, my review is showiy several stats less than what I put. It should be:
Style - 5 Story - 5 Grammar - 5 Character - 4.5
Overall - 5
The story starts in the nuns' convent, and through their research and exploration we gradually are exposed to the world outside.
It very much feels like the calm before the storm. Something terrible happened, that hasn't really reached them yet, through its only ba matter of time. How they will meet this, his they will survive (if they even do survive) it's being built up.
The characters are interesting, the grammar and the writing style are very nearly faultless, and the story is intriguing. I'd very much recommend this story to anyone who likes character-driven psychological thrillers. - SkyTroupeRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0While HP Lovecraft made Cosmic horror a staple genre, Ohmwu has perfected it in Palus Somni. If I had to give you one line to entice you into reading this story it would be: Imagine a novelization of Bloodborne, but rather than set in the city of Yharnam it takes place in a convent of nuns after the Old Blood begins to corrupt the world around it but before the player steps foot into the world.
There is no amount of praise I could heap onto this work that would truly encapsulate how much I love it. I reread this story multiple times a year and consider it to be in among the top 3 best stories I've ever read in my life, not just among horror stories. I consider it the best horror story to be told so far in human history.
Each chapter follows the tale of a different character in this last bastion of sanity in a world gone to madness and eldritch monstrosities. Each character has a different stylization through which they tell the story of them succumbing to the madness that has destroyed the world they live in. The author manages to have a vast array of styles in these 26 chapters while maintaining the same creeping horror theme and motif.
Each character is vividly distinct and fully realized. With each new vingette we gain insight into the state of the world, how it came to be, and the cold harsh reality our POV characters are living in. Each story is deeply interconnected and gradually reveals the truth to the eyes of the reader. - TwoChaptersAndADreamRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0This story earns is horror tag with a capital "H". I read the first couple of chapters in quick succession only to have to take a break since i worried about being able to sleep. The horror is intense, the characters have a lot of personality without coming across as insane (right away...), and above all the plot is unique and intriguing. Some of the more visceral scenes will have you squirming in your seat.
It's uh, great daytime reading. - UlbertRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0Like my title says: Colour me impressed.
I honestly didn't expect to find something like this on Royalroad.
It is a competent work of weird fiction crossed with some weird slice of life that honestly works better than I ever expected it to be.
Normally I sub to literary journals to find stories qualitywise on the same level especially in this genre.
I chowed down on it and devoured it in one sitting, the story being 270 pages long.
I don't want to ramble on and on like I normally do, so let me just say this:
Great story. Cool, whacky and sweet characters. A good if somewhat obvious mystery that still keeps you on edge.
All atound very solid.
My recommendation: Read it at night. If you're the type for it, read it in one sitting. I'm pretty numb to casual and weird horror, so anyone with less experience in the field should get a good spook.
Have a nice day. - VMJaskierniaRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0This story is beautiful and dark. We are invited into a world like our own, but different, with dark things and yet with God. Many of our main characters are nuns and the fictionalized fantasy version of their nunnery is well researched.
The writing is superb. It explains everything, it introduces the world, it pulls you in, and it does so well.
In addition to all of this Raye goes out of the way to add even more to the tale- music that should be listened to while reading each chapter is posted, and we have great pixel art at the bottom of the chapters to show off characters or scenes.
I saw no issues with grammar, I love the characters and the story, the style is great. - VVerityRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0Just as the title says, if you know the classic Night Land then this will feel somewhat familiar. In a good and uh... much more readable fashion than Mr. William Hope Hodgson's work. However while Night Land had the hope of a god's infinite mercy reuniting lovers no matter what, Palus Somni contains none of that and is all the better for it. They pray but nobody's at the phone to answer anymore and the house is dark. Make no mistake, this is no copy or retread, but it stands firmly as it's own story while at the same time saluting those who came before.
If you're interested in a very well written melancholic slow march to the inevitable entropy that awaits, this is definitely something to check out! - kleptomaticRoyal Road★★★★★ 4.5Eldritch horror may not be the best way to describe this book, as it seems to focus more on body horror.
The story opens after the fall of civilization as the inhabitants of the nunnery try to survive, something that seems to be going perfectly fine. Somehow. And then the death happens and the plot is thrust straight into a mystery.
I love the little pixel art of the characters!