The Rune that Binds

Evil has triumphed and the dead walk among men, their flesh imbued by the Beckoning with a seductive and irresistible beauty.

Ruling through the Beckoning, which seduces men with promises of bliss and vanity and hedonism. For evil is not ugly. It is beautiful, seductive and alluring, which is why we're drawn to it!

But it is all a lie. The Beckoning does not grant men their desires. It subtly twists the mind and soul until a person will do whatever it takes to get what they want. Nor does it grant immortality, only an illusion of it. Raising the dead from their graves, the Beckoning clothes them in flesh that is imbued with an erotic allure. These are the nohetka and feral, who retain the memories of the flesh, but nothing of the person they once were. They are drawn to the living, and through the Beckoning, the living are drawn to them, and their deaths.

But not everyone worships the fallen god. In the far east, beyond the Dohminar Mountains, there are men who follow the old ways, using runes to ward their homes and villages from the Beckoning.

When Jan Ulwin, a boy on the cusp of manhood, loses everyone he loves to the nohetka and feral, he swears an oath of vengeance, and the Beckoning responds, shaping him into a vessel filled with rage and hate, death and destruction. And Jan must decide what matters more to him, vengeance, or his humanity.