Origin (Brass Hearts)

Origin (Brass Hearts)

Monsters are made, not born. In Verdalia, humans rule and elves are little more than property—owned, traded, and discarded. Darunia was born into this brutal system, his life destined for servitude. But a single night of blood and slaughter shattered his chains, setting him on a path toward freedom. Too bad freedom is no salvation. Reaped from a rusted cell by the Commander of the Reaper’s Syndicate, Darunia is thrust into a place where the dead walk and the undying hold power. Here, control is taken, not given, and monsters are created by those who break them. Darunia knows how to survive, how to claw his way to the top with bloodied hands and a savage heart. But survival comes at a cost: to stay alive, he must risk becoming the very thing that made him. In a world where kindness is weakness and mercy gets you killed, Darunia struggles against the darkness that threatens to swallow him whole. But the past is never truly gone. And when it resurfaces, Darunia must face the one enemy he’s never been able to escape: himself. Harm does not end. It only passes hands. A character-focused dark fantasy that explores power, pain, and the trauma of history, Origin is a story of cycles, of monsters, of hunger, of grief that festers through generations, and of whether the first to rise from ruin will be the one to break the cycle or be consumed by it.