The Story Behind the Storm, Part III: The Cult Duology Short Stories
an in-depth look at the creation of the "Barbarians of the Storm" saga
What am I referring to with “the cult duology short stories”?
I’m talking about two related short stories that appeared in the first Barbarians of the Storm anthology Eyes in All Shadows & Other Stories. These two tales are The Cult of the Nine Sons and The Cult of the Tenth.
So, why are these the first stories I want to talk about in The Story Behind the Storm article series?
Well, quite simply, I get to kill two birds with one stone, and because I think that the tales are pretty unique in that one sets up the latter in an interesting way. Also, there’s a big life lesson for the main character, Fenrik. Additionally, they are full of brutal action and the series’ main hero at his most determined and ferocious because he must save a very young girl from a very dangerous, powerful cult.
There’s also a certain duality in these tales for two very apparent reasons.
The first is that Fenrik’s abilities are different in each story.
In the first tale, he’s basically a really strong, very skilled human. He has some minor enhancements that he doesn’t fully understand, but ultimately, he’s just a few notches better than a normal human. He’s much weaker than he would become and even if he has an enhanced healing ability, he is still very much mortal and can be killed in fairly normal ways.
At the time of the second story, he’s survived the events of The Fall of the Black Cathedral and if you’ve read the story, you know how he comes into contact with a Stone of Sentience given to him by his father’s spirit while he laid impaled on a spire. That stone unlocked his full potential and the reality of who he was became known to him. This powered up Fenrik was able to defeat his greatest opponent: his parent’s murderer and betrayer.
By the second tale of these two, Fenrik is a different animal and that needed to be on full display here.
The second reason why these tales have duality is because of the evolution of the threat.
In the first story, the cult wants a young girl for what is believed to be a sacrifice. Fenrik succeeds in saving her. However, by the second story, we learn that the young girl, now an adult, has been revealed to be the resurrected leader of the cult. Fenrik blames himself because he saved the child, but never kept tabs on her. In the years between visiting this region, darkness took hold.
I guess it’s also worth pointing out that the first tale is mostly a solo adventure for Fenrik, but in the second story he has two friends with him. Most notably, Frank Murdock, which allowed me to show their friendship at an earlier stage than the events of Dan the Destructor. It also allowed me to show how Frank was there for Fenrik in one of his worst moments and how he had to reference his own terrible experiences to help his friend cope with his immense guilt over his feeling of failing the child he fought to protect from darkness.
Beyond that, I enjoyed creating interesting villains and tapping into some old Nordic myths for the monsters. Granted, I also introduced a massive vampire boar that speaks, but that was just a neat idea that came from a dream a few weeks before I penned the first of these tales.
On the flipside of that, I introduced a Nephilim character with a mysterious past. More will be revealed about him and the Nephilim in the future, but I’m always planting seeds for the grander ideas I have with the Barbarians of the Storm mythos.
The idea for these stories, as well as the setting, came from playing a lot of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I was replaying the game for the first time in nearly a decade, as I wanted to play with mods for the first time. In my mind, the region the story takes place in looked like a place from Skyrim. Additionally, the cult’s stronghold has a similar appearance to the dark forts in the game.
The kernel that birthed these tales in my mind, however, was the side quest in the game where you have to rescue a young girl from a cult in one of these strongholds. For some random ass reason, I wondered about the girl and if it were possible that Stockholm syndrome could take effect and inspire her to return to the cult, after being delivered safely home. My story evolved beyond that once I sat down to map out the details and connect some dots, but my bourbon-fueled replaying of that side quest is where the idea first hit me.
Since I have received pretty good feedback on these stories, I’m glad that I had that kernel and developed it into something much meatier. It also allowed me to show a very emotionally vulnerable Fenrik, and with that, his strengthening bond with Frank.