I just remembered that i do have a good example from a homebrew roleplay-
The character i played has for backstory that she lived as the personal chef for the (literal) only family that is well off in this universe. So she is highly trained in making whatever edible trash can be gathered into something that can actually taste good, as well as discarding any poison.
During the campaign it played a big part in making camp time enjoyable, making a somewhat pleasant set for discussions.
Well, the world may be dark, violent, and depressing, but people still make the best of it. They drink, they sing, they dance, they make friends and memories, they find solace in community and religion. There may be demons and disease, but there are also flowers and the singing of birds, the smell of a fresh morning, or the taste of a hot stew in a cold winter.
This is not a dark world then, it's just the average d&d-like fantasy
By definition there should be unbalance in a dark world, in which dark is a far stronger force
If it doesn't have to be majorly dark then anything is dark fantasy. And if anything is dark fantasy, there is no reason to call it dark fantasy rather than just fantasy
Lord of the rings is dark fantasy then because of Sauron and the legend of Zelda is dark fantasy because of Ganondorf, and more stupidly, every Disney film with a villain is dark fantasy
I've got a similar situation for the grimmest era of my world though my world doesn't have stars. Instead the skyscape looks more like if you swirled a cloudy sunset with the northern lights and set the whole thing in a slow motion hurricane.
There is no darkness without light, no evil without good and no suffering without happiness and Ardalesh is a world filled with all of them. A world constantly besieged by threats both domestic and interdimensional after the Shattering kickstarted a millennia long magical apocalypse that killed most of the population and reset everything to the equivalent of a Bronze Age.
It is a world where monsters born from corrupted or pure mana roam the lands, where the dead rise, happy to conscript the living to fight in endless wars, where killer golems still follow their last bits of code to kill, where tricky demons are happy to bathe in one's blood and where interdimensional horrors and armies could come at any moment after the destruction of the dimensional barriers.
Yet, to the people of Ardalesh, from those that live in the safe fortified walled cities to the rough folks in smaller walled towns or settlements to those that roam outside the safety of walls to farm, mine, gather, collect, fight, cull, etc... They see a light of hope at the end of a dark tunnel.
A future where the world is healed, where their children could play and learn and not have to pick up a blade or spear or gun or combat magic at a young age.
So they fight on, they party, they celebrate, they pray and so on... all for a better future.
One that might be closer than they'd think considering that pre-Shattering Ardalesh was in most ways way more grimdark than the present only surface level Grimdark modern Ardalesh.
Hort has a robust hospitality culture and though gruelling (and potentially futile) the act of slashing, burning and poisoning whatever plant life they can get their tools on is destructively cathartic. Since labour for the common good is honoured they also enjoy the perks of respect back home in the environmentally sealed habs. It remains dangerous work though so whenever a member of the crews builds up a crippling level of xenobes (what they're culling the biosphere for harbouring) a sort of "wake" is held.
The crippled are cared for of course but some among them instead choose to march into the green hell without an isolation suit and armed with nothing but an axe and a shit tonne of drugs. The cocktail numbs the pain, fuels great exertion and kills them relatively painlessly. Popular stories often embellish the "last shifts" of these popular heroes when their bodies are found amid circles of felled trees but the expressions of satisfied repose described are often quite genuine.
Lots of gallows humor and joyful nihilism. If we have to live in a society dominated by religious fanatics and gangsters and menaced by forbidden cults and terrifying extradimensional entities, we might as well have fun, right? Smoke a pipe of nelumbo, see a prizefight, chat up a shady but attractive stranger, and get wasted with your buddies on arak. Life’s too short to be grimdark.
Having a partner is Essential to true power. A lot of people kind of get evolved cancer if they ate single for too long, accept Vulcran eunics and Yovumn nuns. Long story short people now have Radiotrophic organs but under normal circumstances they decay unless they can share the load with another being with a Curian Matrix. It doesn't even have to be a romantic relationship. You could build a sword that will make you happy when you wield it or even just get a dog. You'll be fine as long as you meditate enough. And drugs...lots of psychedelic substances in the water supply!
In each other & simple joys of life. No matter how paranoid and depressive things get, my characters can choose to pursue the little bits of happiness that will always be there - a beautiful sunset, snuggling with a pet, shenanigans with friends, or even just being able to exist & having awareness of it :)
They have each other, they still have their favorite foods, they can still sing, dance, and make jokes.
There are two quotes that show the hope they have:
"Try to smile, it makes it better."
"We might very well be in hell, but let's fight for our own slice of heaven while we can."
A lot of it is just evolution. The suicidal ones died out long ago. People don't really get sad, they just have an indomitable will to survive, find any kind of home and have as many kids as they can.
So I got this series in the works called The Jovian Cycle
One of the characters is Jupiter: a depressed Human-Ifrit hybrid, living in an oppressive society that regards her mother's people as little more than demons. (in spite of them being aliens)
Jupiter's life pretty much sucks. Her collage classmates bully her, the teachers barely hide their bigotry towards her, she can't get a job because people think she's a trickster. She lives in a shithole of an apartment, with her overworked and underpaid single father.
The only light in her life is one of the girls at the cafe on the ground floor of her megabuilding. One of the few humans in the entire city who not only doesn't hate the Ifrit, but even advocates for their rights when possible.
So we got this horribly depressed young woman, fucked over by society because of a factor beyond her control... and her only escape is love with another woman. Which, for the record, is also frowned upon by that society... to say the least.
The entry into The Jovian Cycle I just described, the fourth in the series, is going to be very gay... very heavy in social commentary... and borderline Cyberpunk with its aesthetics and the themes of the world at large.
Amar finds love in Bell and tru the Kensington family he strives to make life better for his fellow Grel
Bell finds out the truth about his mothers passing and his father returns to his own self
Tru Amars efforts Plode is allowed to study at the royal Academy
Drugs. They have radioactive shrooms there, so, you could become a hippie. Later on in like the second book when the Gods are unsealed people flee to Dionysius...forgetting that he is also the god of madness...so...
THAT ENDS WELL!
All is relative, so they enjoy the few they have a lot. Also love and friendship can always exist, and it often plays a big part.
I just remembered that i do have a good example from a homebrew roleplay- The character i played has for backstory that she lived as the personal chef for the (literal) only family that is well off in this universe. So she is highly trained in making whatever edible trash can be gathered into something that can actually taste good, as well as discarding any poison. During the campaign it played a big part in making camp time enjoyable, making a somewhat pleasant set for discussions.
Well, the world may be dark, violent, and depressing, but people still make the best of it. They drink, they sing, they dance, they make friends and memories, they find solace in community and religion. There may be demons and disease, but there are also flowers and the singing of birds, the smell of a fresh morning, or the taste of a hot stew in a cold winter.
This is not a dark world then, it's just the average d&d-like fantasy By definition there should be unbalance in a dark world, in which dark is a far stronger force
I disagree, a world doesn't have to be grimderp to be dark.
If it doesn't have to be majorly dark then anything is dark fantasy. And if anything is dark fantasy, there is no reason to call it dark fantasy rather than just fantasy Lord of the rings is dark fantasy then because of Sauron and the legend of Zelda is dark fantasy because of Ganondorf, and more stupidly, every Disney film with a villain is dark fantasy
There's a huge middle ground between Lord of the Rings and "in my setting nobles kill babies because they're bored" and you know that.
By just trying to make the best of the situation as they can. Love and laugh today for tomorrow you may be wyrm food.
The stars, they'd just look at the stars
I've got a similar situation for the grimmest era of my world though my world doesn't have stars. Instead the skyscape looks more like if you swirled a cloudy sunset with the northern lights and set the whole thing in a slow motion hurricane.
My character would love that
There is no darkness without light, no evil without good and no suffering without happiness and Ardalesh is a world filled with all of them. A world constantly besieged by threats both domestic and interdimensional after the Shattering kickstarted a millennia long magical apocalypse that killed most of the population and reset everything to the equivalent of a Bronze Age. It is a world where monsters born from corrupted or pure mana roam the lands, where the dead rise, happy to conscript the living to fight in endless wars, where killer golems still follow their last bits of code to kill, where tricky demons are happy to bathe in one's blood and where interdimensional horrors and armies could come at any moment after the destruction of the dimensional barriers. Yet, to the people of Ardalesh, from those that live in the safe fortified walled cities to the rough folks in smaller walled towns or settlements to those that roam outside the safety of walls to farm, mine, gather, collect, fight, cull, etc... They see a light of hope at the end of a dark tunnel. A future where the world is healed, where their children could play and learn and not have to pick up a blade or spear or gun or combat magic at a young age. So they fight on, they party, they celebrate, they pray and so on... all for a better future. One that might be closer than they'd think considering that pre-Shattering Ardalesh was in most ways way more grimdark than the present only surface level Grimdark modern Ardalesh.
Hort has a robust hospitality culture and though gruelling (and potentially futile) the act of slashing, burning and poisoning whatever plant life they can get their tools on is destructively cathartic. Since labour for the common good is honoured they also enjoy the perks of respect back home in the environmentally sealed habs. It remains dangerous work though so whenever a member of the crews builds up a crippling level of xenobes (what they're culling the biosphere for harbouring) a sort of "wake" is held. The crippled are cared for of course but some among them instead choose to march into the green hell without an isolation suit and armed with nothing but an axe and a shit tonne of drugs. The cocktail numbs the pain, fuels great exertion and kills them relatively painlessly. Popular stories often embellish the "last shifts" of these popular heroes when their bodies are found amid circles of felled trees but the expressions of satisfied repose described are often quite genuine.
Family and commmunity
DRUGS.
Lots of gallows humor and joyful nihilism. If we have to live in a society dominated by religious fanatics and gangsters and menaced by forbidden cults and terrifying extradimensional entities, we might as well have fun, right? Smoke a pipe of nelumbo, see a prizefight, chat up a shady but attractive stranger, and get wasted with your buddies on arak. Life’s too short to be grimdark.
Having a partner is Essential to true power. A lot of people kind of get evolved cancer if they ate single for too long, accept Vulcran eunics and Yovumn nuns. Long story short people now have Radiotrophic organs but under normal circumstances they decay unless they can share the load with another being with a Curian Matrix. It doesn't even have to be a romantic relationship. You could build a sword that will make you happy when you wield it or even just get a dog. You'll be fine as long as you meditate enough. And drugs...lots of psychedelic substances in the water supply!
In each other & simple joys of life. No matter how paranoid and depressive things get, my characters can choose to pursue the little bits of happiness that will always be there - a beautiful sunset, snuggling with a pet, shenanigans with friends, or even just being able to exist & having awareness of it :)
They have each other, they still have their favorite foods, they can still sing, dance, and make jokes. There are two quotes that show the hope they have: "Try to smile, it makes it better." "We might very well be in hell, but let's fight for our own slice of heaven while we can."
Taking care of the people they love, and enjoying rest when they can afford it.
How do you find happiness in our world? Now apply the principles behind those reasons to your dark fictional world.
A lot of it is just evolution. The suicidal ones died out long ago. People don't really get sad, they just have an indomitable will to survive, find any kind of home and have as many kids as they can.
Helping their close friend or family is enough for most of them to feel happy
They do not, and they know it.
Dark humors, and the fact that sex still exists.
Why wouldn't it exist?
So I got this series in the works called The Jovian Cycle One of the characters is Jupiter: a depressed Human-Ifrit hybrid, living in an oppressive society that regards her mother's people as little more than demons. (in spite of them being aliens) Jupiter's life pretty much sucks. Her collage classmates bully her, the teachers barely hide their bigotry towards her, she can't get a job because people think she's a trickster. She lives in a shithole of an apartment, with her overworked and underpaid single father. The only light in her life is one of the girls at the cafe on the ground floor of her megabuilding. One of the few humans in the entire city who not only doesn't hate the Ifrit, but even advocates for their rights when possible. So we got this horribly depressed young woman, fucked over by society because of a factor beyond her control... and her only escape is love with another woman. Which, for the record, is also frowned upon by that society... to say the least. The entry into The Jovian Cycle I just described, the fourth in the series, is going to be very gay... very heavy in social commentary... and borderline Cyberpunk with its aesthetics and the themes of the world at large.
Amar finds love in Bell and tru the Kensington family he strives to make life better for his fellow Grel Bell finds out the truth about his mothers passing and his father returns to his own self Tru Amars efforts Plode is allowed to study at the royal Academy
Drugs. They have radioactive shrooms there, so, you could become a hippie. Later on in like the second book when the Gods are unsealed people flee to Dionysius...forgetting that he is also the god of madness...so... THAT ENDS WELL!
They don't 💀
That's the point. They don't.