I accidentally turned a doom metal album into an entire dark fantasy setting.
For the last months I’ve been building a world called ARTHELGARD.
Originally it was only meant to be background lore for a cinematic doom metal project.
But the deeper I got into the music, the more the world kind of started expanding on its own.
The setting revolves around something called The Black Rain.
After some kind of cosmic impact, black rain carrying fungal spores began spreading across the continent. People exposed to it became known as “The Touched”, humans whose bodies slowly entered a symbiosis with the organism.
At first people believed they were cursed.
Then they were hunted.
Eventually the Church and the Kingdom of Arthelgard cast them out completely.
The tragedy is that the Touched were never really monsters. Most of the violence surrounding them came from fear, persecution and isolation.
Over generations the fungal organism slowly began connecting them into something collective. Not a classic hivemind, more like a gradual erosion of individuality that neither side fully understands.
At the same time the kingdom itself slowly starts collapsing under religious extremism, political decay, paranoia and generations of buried guilt.
Most of the story is told indirectly through the music itself:
ruined throne halls, dying kings, black rain over stone walls, exhausted survivors trying to preserve their humanity while the world quietly changes around them.
It probably sits somewhere between Dark Souls, Berserk, doom metal, tragic fantasy and existential horror.
Honestly I’d just love to meet people who enjoy this kind of worldbuilding stuff.
Dark fantasy lore, symbolism, atmospheric storytelling and slow-burn settings that feel more like mythology than traditional fantasy.
Project / music:
https://www.youtube.com/@ARTHELGARD
Would genuinely love to hear thoughts from other worldbuilders.