#indie horror book

[carpwood]

me irl fr

[sixgills]

Its official! Putty Pygmalion is being published by @silversprocket and comes out in July!!!!

Derryl, a lonely radish, creates a boyfriend out of a defunct & illegal children's product. His creation, Peter, springs to life ready to make a child happy, & instead finds a suffocating existence catering to Derryl’s needs.

When Peter sneaks out to a party one night & meets Derryl’s friends, he discovers more to his creator’s intentions. A queer complication on the Pygmalion myth, brought to life through Lonnie Garcia’s emotional, multimedia comic art. Pre-order now!

Link to preorder book here

[shouts-into-the-void]

My interests are like:

Tea, knitting, baking, the most horrifying media concepts you've ever seen, painting, gardening

[leechjuice]

MY ANGSTY GAY CANNIBAL BOOK IS OUT NOW!

IN THE END, YOU KILL US BOTH is a novel about a lesbian arsonist rebuilding her life after a violent trauma, and the texan loner that inspires her to seek revenge on her abusers. it's also a story about relentless grief, hunger, and the unending staircase of healing.

🩸

[fake1russian]

My take on Book Simon :-}

[itsfullofstars]

It's official: I'm publishing my first work of fiction, the unhinged novella SKIN & BONES, on 10/22/24 (just in time for Halloween). Pre-order the ebook now!

A mind-bending psychological thriller told in first person by a broken man who submits to a bizarre medical experiment in an effort to redeem himself, and loses his mind in the process.

It's Fight Club meets The Parallax View meets E.R. meets Shutter Island... and utterly unique in its own right. A quick, propulsive, hallucinatory read, rich with supernatural elements and medical suspense, SKIN & BONES takes you on a journey into the labyrinth of one man's fractured psyche.

Skull art by @paul.hollingworth - and it's NOT AI!

[marsadler]

Hello! I wrote a book and I think y'all will like it. It's for fans of Good Omens, Hannibal, Angels Before Man, and all the queer people who deserve financial compensation from the catholic church.

I present to you:

FIRST CREATION, a high heat queer horror novella with a trans angel MC and a queer demon LI!

FIRST CREATION is a love letter to fallen angels, to finding your place in the world, to connecting to religion in a way that works for you. To touch and peaches, and surviving horrible things, to finding a place to be holy if God won't give it to you. (it's also nasty, and about cannibalism and shame and guilt, too)

It's a 22k word (98 page) novella that you can read in one (or two, or three) sittings.

You can find it on Amazon and itch.io here to read an actual synopsis and look at reviews. You can also find content warnings at the bottom of my website: (I definitely encourage you to read them before you buy!)

Here's also some unhinged ao3 tags for fun

[the-irreverend]

My favourite thing about the horror fandom is how we look at some of the most disturbed, vile, grotesque and flat-out evil people/creatures in all of fiction and collectively thirst over them like they're swimsuit models.

All the normal MFs are recoiling at them in fear and disgust and us yahoos are here arguing whether we should smash or pass lol.

P.S. Slenderman, Billy Lenz, and Hannibal Lecter are my favs

[pinkrosealice]

A non-exhaustive list of art, pieces of media, franchises, authors, and thinkers that I really need my fellow Cultsim/BoH/Secret Histories fans to get into and discuss with me and between themselves.

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(WARNING A LOT OF THE FOLLOWING RECOMMENDATIONS COME WITH A LIST OF CONTENT WARNINGS AND ARE SOMETIMES CONNECTED TO CONTROVERSIAL ARTISTS AND PUBLIC PERSONS. THIS LIST IS NOT A ENDORSEMENT OF ANY PROBLEMATIC IDEALS OR STATEMENTS MADE BY ANYONE MENTIONED IN THIS LIST AND IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT ANYONE WHO LOOKS INTO ANY OF THE MENTIONED WORKS OF ART DO THEIR DUE DILIGENCE AND THOROUGHLY CHECKS FOR DISTURBING / TRIGGERING CONTENT AT THEIR OWN VOLITION)

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Film Recommendations:

1. Dario Argento's Three Mothers trilogy, especially Suspiria & and especially especially the 2019 remake of Suspiria. Very Dancer DLC-coded, very Sisterhood of the Triple Knot and Thunderskin.

2. The Magic Lantern films of Kenneth Anger, who was a practicing Thelmaite* for many years. Lantern Principal is obviously what comes to mind when you hear of the name of the series and the dreams that were mystical experiences that inspired and were expressed in art, in this case films is very much akin to stuff we see in Cultist Simulator.

(* As shown in later parts of this recommendation list I argue that the games of Weather Factory become even more interesting and artistically impactful if you learn more about late 19th and 20th century occultism and movements like Theosophy and Thelma.)

3. Hereditary and Midsommar are obvious recommendations but even more so I would recommend the original 1970s The Wicker Man. Folk Horror in general is a great source of what the arts of The Bosk would look like in real life. They were definitely worshiping The Low Red Sun on Summer Isle.

4. A Dark Song, a 2016 horror film that actually revolves around the performance of a very famous and important real life occult ritual. I think a lot of the visual imagery in that film can give some inspiration for the kind of Rites our player character in Cultist Simulator is performing.

5. The Lair of The White Worm is a movie loosely based on a Bram Stoker story and is also very much a Gods of Stone overthrown by forces associated with humans raised to Divinity and the powers of the Sun and Apollonian principles type of story. Plus the whole Worm/Wyrms thing going on. I also recommend it because it's one of the more light-hearted and comedic entries on this list and I want some variation in tone. Also its psychedelic visuals compliment a lot of the surrealist elements that are tied to things like the Moth Principal.

6. Black Swan isn't explicitly supernatural but it is very Dancer Coded.

7. The Hellraiser movies, but only the first second, fourth, and the reboot. Leviathan, being associated with pain and pleasure and having the name of a mythical sea monster is probably very similar to whatever the hell The Tide was before The Red Grail vored her. The Cenobites are Long with Grail, Knock, & Forge as their Principals.

8. Pan's Labyrinth, for the Woods and the Bounds appreciators. I also think there is something to be said about the fascist subtext that underlines much of the Edge Principle, especially in The Colonel that can be explored and appreciated in this film and its reckonings with the evils of Spanish fascism.

9. To compliment the recommendation for the Magic Lantern films, also check out the short film The Wormwood Star, you can find it easily on YouTube and it's another piece of art heavily influenced by Thelma and stars Marjorie Cameron who I will talk about more later in this list.

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Game Recommendations:

1. Hollow Knight, it might as well be a story set in the era of the Carapace Cross. Sentient bugs, mighty Wyrms and dream gods with the powers of light but not necessarily moral goodness. Even the Void in Hollow Knight, and it's antagonism to The Radiance is very similar to The Nowhere and it's relationship with the established hierarchies in The Mansus.

2. The Silent Hill games, particularly the entries that revolve around The Order; like 1,3, Origins, and Homecoming. Dream worlds, Sun worship, the Dark Feminine and female psychics/mediums with deep associations with blood, birth and menstruation. Valtiel is totally a Name. Even the fog and mist of Silent Hill is giving The Bounds and it's Forge smoke meets Woods darkness type energy.

3. Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, it's basically playing a Grail Long.

4. The tabletop games Geist: The Sin Eaters and Wraith: The Oblivion line up really well with the Ghoul / Medium DLC. *

(basically most if not all of the World of Darkness and Chronicles of Darkness tabletop games contain some themes, elements, or bits of World building that should appeal to anyone interested in the games created by Weather Factory)

5. The video games created by Korean studio Project Moon. Lobotomy Corporation has a lot of timers and simulation elements that have many similarities to those found in Cultist Simulator, and as the title implies Liberty of Runia takes place literally in a paranatural library just like Book of Hours even though the game play between the two is very different.

6. Fallen London and it's related media. The reasons why should go without saying. The controversies around AK aside, Echo Bazaar and Secret Histories are blood siblings and I desire more intersection and interaction between the respective fandoms.

7. The Bayonetta games have a surprising amount of real mythological and occult influence in their world building. The Solar Lumens juxtaposed with the Lunar Umbrans definitely has some resonance with Church of The Unconquered Sun and their on again, off again antagonism and allyship with The Sisterhood of The Triple Knot. The Apollonian natured House of the Sun contrasted with the Dionysian Woods & House of the Moo, and the Nowhere being connected to all three but being distinct; is not all together that different from the division of the Bayonetta universe into Inferno, Paradiso, the human world and Purgatorio between all of them.

8. The Shadow Hearts series of JRPGs are a Gothic, urban fantasy, historical fantasy, lovecraftian adventures around late 19th / early 20th century Europe and Asia. It has a lot of comedic elements and its world building and cosmology are not all that similar to the ones in Weather Factory games (barring their shared history as being inspired by Lovecraft). But if you want Lovecraft in video game form without the racism associated with his writings and you found Cultsim/BoH to fill that niche, then I recommend you give these games a try as well.

9. Secret World Legends, a functionally dead MMO but still incredibly fun to play and I think one of the best examples of urban fantasy / soft Lovecraft or post lovecraftian media in existence. Absolutely fantastic & memorable fully voiced NPCs and characters, really intriguing and rich world building and takes on mythology and folklore. Also given that you play as a quasi immortal with a deep association with bees and an ancient techno-organic goddess you're basically a Long.

10. To compliment the Lobotomy Corporation recommendation and the later SCP mention I think it's only natural that I also recommend the urban fantasy games of remedy entertainment like Alan Wake 1 & 2 and Control. Artists channeling / being used by Eldritch Forces in other dimensions and government institutions related to keeping a control on the supernatural are the most obvious similarities to stuff in WF games.

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Visual Artists:

1. Francisco Goya, especially his Black Paintings, his insights into the witchcraft and folkloric traditions of the Basque region and elsewhere in the Iberian peninsula should be very appealing to fans of The Twins and The Thunderskin. Plus all of the Catholic imagery brings to mind The Mother of Ants.

2. Austin Osman Spare, Rosaleen Norton, and Marjorie Cameron. All three of these people were heavily influential occultists and illustrators/painters so their work is definitely a great representative example of the kind of occult art that you are making when you Paint in Cultsim.

3. Salvador Dali is also a relatively obvious, but I think very appropriate all the same recommendation. Surrealism is by and large the big big tonal influence on Secret Histories in my opinion. He also did a tarot deck so that brings in the Lucid Tarot connection

4.Erté, absolutely the kind of art and fashion you would find in Cultist Simulator's 1920's. Art Deco for days but also his works in particular show a more flowy and organic influence that we would more stereotypically associate with the Art Nouveau of decades prior.

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Comic Books:

1. Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing and Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man. DC's Red and Green (plus all the other elemental forces) are a deeply underappreciated and underexplored element of the setting, and I think they have a lot of similarities with the Principles we find in Secret Histories.

2. Related to the above, Alan Moore's Promethea and Grant Morrison's The Invisibles for an exploration of 20th and 21st century occultism. Despite the two authors general distaste for each other, their works are often very complimentary.

3. The Hellboy franchise doesn't have a lot of one-to-one parallels with Cultsim & Co. but they draw from the same artistic influences of gothic fiction, weird fiction, mythology and folklore and the occult. So I feel very strongly that fans of one would and should find the other to be enjoyable. Both fandoms need to be more active on this hell site and though there are a handful of quality hidden gems of fanfiction for both franchises I desperately need more people to be writing & reading fan fiction for both. Plus I do strongly believe that Mike Mignola' s art style would really excel at illustrating characters and settings from Secret Histories. His non Hellboy work is also recommended especially the works that fall under his Outervers setting, like Baltimore and Joe Golem.

4. Although I will admit that I am not up to date on it, and that there has been a considerable amount of discourse around the quality of its storytelling (especially within the past few years) I would recommend the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court to fellow Cultsim fans. Alchemic imagery, interesting reinterpretations of folklore and a setting and tone that is quintessential British urban fantasy / science fiction, Gunnerkrigg is in my opinion a work that has a lot of appeal for fans of WF's games and stories.

5. Lackadaisy Cats is an awesome Webcomic and animated web series. 1920s/ 30s gangsters and bootleggers in the form of anthropomorphic cats! And absolutely beautiful Art Deco illustrations! What's not to love.........

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Anime & Manga:

1. Any of the anime directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura especially Serial Experiments Lain and Ghost Hound(this one is seriously underrated in my opinion.) Surrealism is the name of the game as I've said earlier.

2. Le Chevalier D'Eon, both it's manga and anime even though the two are very totally different and have divergent takes on a similar premise. Historical fiction that reinterprets 18th century historical events through an occult lens is so very very Secret Histories. Plus both works have interesting explorations of gender and the nature thereof. It helps that as far as we know the French monarchy's Secret Histories equivalent are associated with the Hours, my personal headcanon is that Louis XIV was Lantern Principal aligned, and Louie XVI had Knock as his Principal. Also the manga version of the story has a lot of its magic system based around the Tarot.

3. You can't recommend D'Eon without recommending it's biggest inspiration (apart from Rose of Versailles of course) and that would be Revolutionary Girl Utena. Edge Dyads for days with that one. Utena and Anthy are totally The Twins. And the whole show and it's movie are full of surrealist pseudo occult imagery practically to the bursting.

4. Baccano! , a light novel / anime series that's about a bunch of immortal Mobsters in the 1920s and 30s. I mean that's basically The Exile DLC right there.

5. xxxHolic and Legal Drug / Drug & Drop, by CLAMP. A shop that grants wishes and a pharmacy that handles the paranormal are both the kind of businesses that I could see existing alongside Morland's, Oriflamme's Auction House & The Ecdysis Club. Plus both manga are hella gay and I will push my Weather Factory games are inherently Queer pieces of media agenda till the day I die.

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Theater, Operas, Music and Albums:

1. Jimmy Page's unused soundtrack for Kenneth Anger's Lucifer Raising. Definition of Occult rock and role.

2. Kiki Rockwell, especially her two most recent albums Rituals on the Bank of a Familiar River, and Eldest Daughter of an Eldest Daughter.

3. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring might just be the closest we will ever get in real life to an occult ritual in the form of an entire ballet like we see in Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours. Definitely a skill that could fall under the Wisdoms of Birdsong and The Bosk.

4. On that note, Mozart's Die Zauberflöte is also full of Hermetic Elements, Lunar / Solar antagonism, mystical initiation and ritual deity impersonation. Mozart was a Freemason so the fanfic of him as a Heart Adapt practically writes itself.

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Literally Fiction:

1. The webnovels Pact and Pale by wildbow. A magic system that revolves around incredibly hierarchical relationships between humans and mystical beings, where magic fundamentally requires discarding one's humanity and transforming into some kind of mystical being yourself is very similar to the Adapt to Long pipeline we follow in Cultist Simulator.

2. The Rivers of London series is one that I'm still familiarizing myself with but it's another example of wonderful British urban fantasy (that isn't the wizard books that shall not be named) The fact that the main characters of the series are magic police officers gives it a certain Suppression Bureau appeal.

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Nonfiction- Philosophy and Occult works and Authors:

1. Georges Bataille!!!!!!!! If you only pick one thing from this list to investigate further let it be the philosophical works of this man. His theory of religion as it relates to concepts such as economy, sacrifice, and eroticism you literally completely change how you understand The Hours and The House Without Wall.

2. Aleister Crowley, and any of his students, especially Kenneth Grant. He really is the quintessential modern English occultist, whether or not AK and Lottie intended it, the DNA of his beliefs or those of his Golden Dawn contemporaries, or his students is all over Cultsim and BoH. The Red Grail is like, so blatantly Babalon it's kind of ridiculous.

3. The Book of English Magic by Phillip Carr- Gomm & Richard Heygate, is a good introductory source of information on the history of magical practice and occultism on the British isles.

4. Occult Paris by Tobias Churton is a fascinating insight into some of the mystical practices that were en vogue in Europe just a few decades prior to when Cultist Simulator takes place.

5. Atlas of Cursed Places by Oliver Le Carrer. I could totally see some of the places documented in this book as being locations you could send your Followers to in Cultsim.

6. Please read everything you can that is academically critical about Greek magical Papyri. There are tons of resources for reading translations and analysis of these documents that are some of the most foundational examples of what real historical magical belief and practice actually looked like.

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Web Original Content, Podcasts, YouTube Channels and Tiktok Recommendations:

1. Greedy Peasant over on Instagram and tik tok does fascinating content related to Catholicism, medieval history and art, and other related topics. If you like all of the interesting reinterpretations of Christian religious iconography into sun worship that happens in Book of Hours I highly recommend his content.

2. The last few years have really seen an incredible ecosystem of academic scholarship on religion, mythology, occultism and esoteric philosophy develop on YouTube. Channels like Esoterica, Angela's Symposium, Let's Talk Religion, Religion for Breakfast, Jackson Crawford, The Modern Hermeticist, The Archaeology of Ancient Magic, and others are just overflowing gold mines of accessible and easily digestible but still academically critical and pseudoscience and conspiracy theory free information about mysticism historical occultism and esoteric religion and mythology.

3. There are also a number of great YouTube channels that aren't academically critical but are run by actual practicing witches and occultists and they offer fascinating and interesting insights into these same topics but from a lived more personal perspective which is just as important I think to learn about as the academically critical sources. Great channels include Benbell Wen, Maevius Lynn, Marco Visconti, & Nordic Animism.

4. In terms of fictional internet media, SCP is so broad that there's a lot of stuff that is completely different in appeal from what is enjoyable about Secret Histories, but there's also so much overlap. I need crossover fanfics and fan art more than air!!!!!

5. Lastly this is a fiction podcast so it's a little incongruous with the other nearby recommendations but, I cannot stress enough......... The Mangus Archives and Magnus Protocol!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are a lot of key differences between those two podcasts and Weather Factory games, but there are so many similarities that I have to write an entire three other posts about how similar the settings are and how I want to write a crossover/ fusion fic. I've seen like, one or two pieces of fan art and fanfiction that was related to both series but in my humble opinion it's not nearly enough. I really really really really really need Cultsim fans to talk more about Magnus and I need Magnus listeners to play these games soooooooo badly!!!!!!!!!!

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Well that mostly concludes this piece of propaganda for the time being, will probably make another post with further additions in the not so distant future. Feel free to reblog this with any other pieces of media that you think would also be appealing to fans of Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours.

[noahhawthorneauthor]

they're not your typical heroes

and yes I know it's may but creepy forests and haunted houses are all year round, kay?

[kelyghtbooks]

Come and See.

The House of Dentium is out now! Order a paperback via Amazon or a digital copy! Celebrating release day with us is Dentium, himself! Art by @tangledarts, as the rest of the promotional materials. Plot synopsis below:

Yurt is a walking, talking self-proclaimed priceless antique who finds himself stolen from his very store by a rascal of a boy, Jacob Wilkins, and taken into a broken home.

Eugene Lazlo is a hapless layabout with little more on his mind than getting his own car who wanders absently right into nightmare.

Samantha Hale is a high school dropout and a single mother plagued by visions of death and despair. Dr. Edwin Rutherford serves as her therapist, attempting to make sense of her morbid fantasies.

Tremors in Telafette is a "reality" show, investigating the strange happenings around the decaying city. The trio behind the show stumble into an inexpiable mystery, far more real than their usual haunts, as past meets present in a horrifying brew of superstition and suffering.

A boy and his bear. A listless fast food employee. A timid single mother. A resentful scholar. Five missing children. And a TV show on the verge of collapse. All these fates mix and intertwine in the stagnant morass of small town Telafette.

[carpwood]

man shit idk

[ninawolv3rina]

Free Ebooks on Itch.io!

Looking for something scary to read? I have 3 different flavors of horror, 3 different lengths, all available to download for free through itch.io!

Blood in the Water (horror/romance, novella)

Into the Deep and the Dark (fantasy horror, novelette)

I think, Therefore I Kill (sci fi horror, short story)

Content warnings are available on the download pages.

[foundintheforgotten]

Found in the Forgotten: Issue #1

A Sapphic/LGBT+ Grimdark Fantasy Comic Written by Queer Creators. Featuring Romance, Horror, & More!

"Waking up with zero memory of who she once was, Theory finds herself suddenly thrown into a world where monsters lurk at every corner, and she might just be one of them. The Kingdom of Hollowcourt follows one simple rule: magic is no longer allowed. After the lands were ravaged by a war between arcane practitioners, survivors rebuilt society, practicing mundane science, technology, and invention. Though their feats are by no means mundane. Unfortunately, Theory has already broken this rule by simply existing. Gifted with innate magic of unknown origins, she must now navigate determining her identity while remaining under the nose of the ever-watchful eyes of The System and learning who she can trust amongst a sea of snakes."

Disclaimer: Found in the Forgotten is an 18+ comic. It will feature nudity, NSFW scenes, and mature themes!

Meet the Main Character + Her Love Interests:

Theory is a woman lost to this new and unraveling world. Her main goal is to find out who she was before this and why she has powers that have long since been both outlawed and eradicated by the land.

Nemmet is a woman of action rather than words. Naturally intimidating, both due to her sheer size and her steely gaze, Nemmet warns away anyone who might try to get close to her, and for good reason. The weight of responsibility and power falls heavy on her shoulders. But can Theory manage to see Nemmet for who she truly is beyond the walls she's built?

Qhysheifa is a woman who knows how to play the courtly game, and she plays it very well. She has a number of people indebted to her throughout the kingdom. She always tries to look her best to keep up appearances, but she's not above getting down and dirty if the situation calls for it. Unlike Nemmet, Sheifa is all too willing to lend a helping hand, but will it be for selfish reasons?

Sound Up Your Alley? Check Out Our Links Here!

[leechjuice]

after months of planning, drafting and executing, it's about time i let the cat out of the bag. right?

i'm self-publishing my debut novel, IN THE END, YOU KILL US BOTH, on October 19th, 2024.

IN THE END is an adult literary horror and queer coming-of-age about the first three months following a nineteen-year-old arsonist's release from an out-of-state mental health facility and the dark, spiralling path she takes after falling in with a suspected cannibal.

this book is an ode to the indigestible ways we process trauma, grief and our own desires. it is my heart project, through and through, and i can't wait to share leo & elowen with all of you.

pre-orders now available ���🏚️🩸🔪

[thehorrormaven]

Charity Anthology Open Call: We Bite Back

I am excited to announce that through my indie publisher, Pride with a Bite, we are putting together an anthology of queer horror/horror-adjacent and non-fiction works, and all proceeds will go to benefit Human Rights Campaign. As a part of the queer community, this is a cause near and dear to my heart. With the amount of hatred and abuse I have experienced since the election results, as well as…