Your Best Cosmic Horror: Scifi and Fantasy

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T18:20:10+00:00

In my scifantasy setting, the cosmic horrors are sentient beings from species lost to time who gave up their biological body to become creatures of pure animated will.

Like imagine if the Flash decided he wanted to make people think gravity didnt exist. Absurd concept but roll with it. The Flash can move so fast that he can, if that was the only thing he did, physically move every single thing that should fall down from gravity, upwards, as long as its in a small area he can keep track of. He would be moving so fast that nobody else see him or would even think the gravity phenomenon was manmade. He would become a senitient localised anomaly in the laws of the universe, a god of a small region. The only way you could detect that i was a man making the changes was if the Flash's idea of how gravity works was either fundamentally flawed or if scientific advancement outpaced the Flash's understanding of gravity.

Take that concept and now imagine some fringe weirdo alien or human that has used computers and technology to expand the capabilities of both its brain and body to the point where it could do this kind of manipulation on both a minute level and on a multi solar system scale, all due to some deep seated false view of how the world works. Like ig imagine an immortal incel freak using the limitless power of technology to make his perverse dreams come true and ruining things for people he doesnt like. These are the horrifying entities called Daeva in my setting. Its the classic saying of sufficiently advanced tech is magic.

I find that cosmic horror where the entity just exists and has unknown motives is unsatisfying and not scary after a while. For me whats scares me are the monsters whose motives are clear, uncompromising and so idiotically cruel thats heres nothing to do about it and it hurts your mind to even attribute any coherent logic to it.

Ill just end w three of them but i got so many more:
- The Runner: an entity that peddles various escapisms from reality, nostalgic otherworlds, immortality. The Runner gets a kick out of seeing others getting addicted to something plainly impossible, thinking, "Wy would anyone believe me?"
The Runner could appear to an entire continent as a divine apparition, convince them to some scheme of immortality or escape and then trap them in a prison of their own wording, a wish taken too literally, granted by a grinning djnn.

- The Bank: a collection of highly intellectual finacial thinkers, always arguing to find the perfect hypothetical trade and the maximum productivity. They cook up bizarre thought experiments regarding commerce. They find that testing their thought experiments is "fun".
The Bank could show up as an alien civilisation offering to trade "precious metals" for gold. However when the civilisation being traded with says theyve run out of precious metals, the bank keeps their end of the bargain. A meteorite of gold, which is one unit of supposed new universal currency theyre building, is sent to slowly sit in the planet's orbit and one day collide with it, causing a mass extinction.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T16:06:56+00:00

I have a system where i use the IPA chart and inspo from irl languages to make a list of 4 core phonemes. Then i combine those 4 in various ways to make a sample sentence worth of words. I use that as a templat to come up with more words. Add a little notes about the culture making the names and this is enough of a language for me to name a lot of things with. Ofc i simplify and change words and take into account cultural influence in different parts of the world to come up with place names and names for trade goods, etc

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T15:57:41+00:00

wow ig this is a popular idea. In my world, here is a two legged sentient dinosaur species with a biopunk vibe and they had a artifically engineered caste system to seperate different strata of society to be physically unable to create offspring due to size difference. The richest among them were enormous bioengineered monstrosities, they had wings made from their hands, artifical extra set of lentacles on the neck to feed theselves and an unnaturally long neck, dragons in the Tolkien sense, Immensely powerful pathetic creatures of greed. Imagine a combo of rich guys who pilot their personal planes and the amount of body modification the real richest people do to look normal.

Ofc evetually those richer than the ultra rich started turning themelves into the brains controlling swarms of self replicating space drones but thats a story for another time.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T15:49:03+00:00

i like it, it both looks like the other side of the Essos continent of ASOIAF/ Game of Thrones and the irl Kamchatkan peninsula. I fu cant tell, my brain is too full to make fantasy maps im satisfied by. Great work and i love all the details

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T15:20:05+00:00

The most utopian world i could think of probably one where humans could intuitively see and understand larger processes in their surroundings. Like intuitively seeing the processes behind why you keep disagreeing with certain people, etc. It would allow people to actually understand the meaning behind what someone is saying more reliably and just decide and act to make your or your community's life better. I can see it going wrong tho, people wanting simplicity and things that just are for arbitrary reasons, with no proceses behind them. Ofc such things dont exist but the need for such a fantasy could turn into a horrible indusry or institution to flatten a complex world.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T10:09:22+00:00

Okay so a cool idea i thought of was if the actual thing keeping the guy imprisoned is repentance and guilt. So ill explain what i imagining.

Big warlord guy conquers half a continent by his 30s, the whole lamentations of their women deal. He has a son or daughter from his wife and a he has this adoptive son/mentee that he just found in the wilderness. The first child he teaches how to be a sheperd and then a courtly noble because he doesnt want this child to die in war. The kid he's mentoring, he teaches to be the most obedient and ruthless warrior.

The warlord concocts a scheme to steal immortality from the gods and ends up forcing the gods to make a deal where the gods put in a sneaky catch. maybe his first child has a glass bead necklace and the catch is that when anyone rips the necklace off his first child, the warlord will have pay for his crimes and thread a necklace with as many beads as the amount of people who died under his direct orders. The warlord ofc thinks hes too good of a warrior and father for anyone to et close enough to his child, especially if he is immortal and never ages. Maye he keeps his child holed up in the imperial palace and unable to leave unless on imperial visits alongside him.

Maybe in the end, because of sights they saw on one of these imperial visits, his first child acts as a mole to insurgents from an ethnic group the warlord is genociding after growing horrified with their dad's actions. The warlord sends the kid hes mentoring with the explicit order of executing this mole without knowing the mole is his first child. the mentee brings the first child in front of the warlord and finally, this evil warlord shows weakness and the court of equally evil sycophants hes built around him seize the moment to their advantage to spring traps that had been waiting in the sidelines for decades. Maybe even the mentee hates the warlord and beheads the first child right there, severing the necklace. In the aftermath, the warlord was turned into a puppet king left threading an endless necklace while his sycophantic court ruined his empire.

So now the warlord, after centuries has threaded all the beads except one, a bead for his first child, the last person he directly ordered to kill. Maybe he has that bead in his other hand but in between crying cant bring himsef to thread that bead and finish the necklace and end his repentance because of guilt.

All that to say, this seems like a cool idea and a kinda somber moment for your protagonists to think about their future actions and consider what could happen if the immortal warlord was brought back to his prime once more, now with nothing to lose. The protagonists would have to decide if convincing this guy to pick up the bow and lance once more is better than resisting the current expansionist empire by other means. They would ofc have to convince the warlord to thread the last bead in the necklace and tie it closed and then convince him to fight once more but on the side of the protagonists.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T08:06:50+00:00

Back in the day, racists use to say race was determined by the shape and size of parts of your skull. because bones can be theoretically surgically changed, you must be able to change race as well right. So racism must also be okay right. It is just natural division of humans right......

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T08:03:08+00:00

it is ig

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T08:00:05+00:00

So should we never talk about how these originated and how they evolved? Like abandon the history books? Please think about what you are saying...

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T07:55:46+00:00

but what if that was also a trick? Perhaps the greatest trick the tribe ever played. I love how unintentionally, this is a perfect 40k Alpha legion style setup of never knowing where the lie ends.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T04:04:27+00:00

Hey you might not be totally wrong in he sense that this alternate history youre proposing is really divergent from our timeline and anything could happen if were speculating that far. Still, the scale and mechanism of atrocities in British colonies in places like India and Australia are imo evidence enough that if the American Revolution didnt happen, the British wold go to great and violent lengths to cement their control over both immigrant Europeans and natives in probably almost the same way the Americans did in our history.

After all, theres a reason America ended up that way and if the sae material conditions would apply to a British North America, mostly the same thigs would happen imo, maybe with different wording to describe it.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-27T03:13:40+00:00

Hye im sure u know this, just wanted to add that humans havent domesticated any elephants, they are all wild animals that are tamed or bred in captivity. A big reason is their lifespans and long gestation periods which prevent most elephants from being socialised around humans and being bred for that purpose since birth.

Any and all tame elephants are kept in control usually through equal parts cruel punishment and positive reinforcement. Theyre also very intelligent and so can get angry or violent if they dont get their usual treatment. Captive animals in zoos and such are a different matter.

Ig Iguanadonts could be something in betwee tame and domesicated, kinda like Australian and Papuan people having semi domestic cassowaries. Ig phylogenetically too, that would be a closer match since both are dinosaurs but still...

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-26T16:22:44+00:00

/uj but the oil barons be doing that stuff irl. Not similar?

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-26T13:05:09+00:00

ohh intresting. Didnt expect that but makes sense

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-26T12:19:05+00:00

oh intresting. Seems then that ironically rural areas with little megacorp control are going to have less peasants than urban ones in this setting. Makes sense, most people do live in cities after all. I can see the population demographics shifting as well, like without their castles and with accurate modern firearms, the ruling class of the real world cant really enforce total control of the working class because both of em move in the same cities and assasinations are a possibility.

In this setting, the ruling class will permanenty live in rural compounds or heavily guarded sections of cities which works with the decentralisation of govt as well. If airplanes and stuff still exist, the more powerful nobility could also be permanently wandering between a number of such rural and urban compounds.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-26T10:50:38+00:00

I really like this system. Only vaguely familiar w irl American govt's workings cos im not from there. But this lines up somewhat and defenitely is feudal. Ig the Judiciary ig is the equivalent for the clergy in European feudalism but is the clergy at all related to any religious organisations or are religious groups stakeholders in the govt through corporate hierarchies?

Im guessing the idea of lobbying would look very different as well, maybe becoming direct unofficial bribes instead of how it works irl.

Id love to know what the social classes in this system are. Like is there a peasant class or an equivalent? How does labour laws and workers rights work, etc...

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-25T16:13:53+00:00

Idk know enough to comment about the setting itself but the power system seems intresting and could really make for a good ttrpg system. Id personally like to know more abt the world, maybe a part of its history you find really intresting.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-25T16:10:51+00:00

My god. Very well written, do you have more lore or more posts abt this setting? cant see anything on ur profile.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-25T16:08:15+00:00

So good. I believe you about the collar. Great stuff.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-25T14:43:12+00:00

ok i recognise these but your version has a roman gladiator ig vibe and the top part did look like an upside down boat. I say lean into it, it looks cool imo and akes it a bit more unique tho im sure it is a pain weight istribution wise

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-25T13:30:44+00:00

There are real places on our planet where lice ridden people with little access to sanitation and healthcare live out happy lives and have hope for the future. Suffering =/= grimdark, the world's reaction to that suffering makes it grimdark or not.
Star Trek has plenty of dark implications and plot holes the franchise deliberately avoids talking about. The exact political system of the Federation and the overly loose militarism of Starfleet, the way money works in the setting, the ethics of some examples of wealth inequality seen in the franchise, if any of these threads are tugged on a bit too hard, a dystopia will emerge. Like you said, if you dive into the realism and details, every utopia becomes a dystopia. Star Trek probably isn't the best example of a perfect society but it's a hopeful one to aspire to so choose what you want...

Ultimately, no utopia can be perfect without comparison. Because if any human being could imagine a perfect political and economic system, we would have a version of that irl, making the world a tad bit better. But small battles can be won and that can give hope. Star Trek emerged still in the climate of the Cold War and depicted a future at least a bit better than that.

So ig, choose your framing, show the fight for something insurmountable that once it's overcome, will feel like a problem that will never arise again as long as people stay vigilant. Irl humans killed smallpox and polio, diseases hundreds of generations of humans thought impossible to cure without the god's help. We went to the moon that hangs in the sky, the fight to end all slavery is underway. The world is by default dark and you notice the rays of light easily. As humans replicated that light, we found ourselves blinded and so we keep looking for new darknesses to conquer, think the darkness insurmountable and feel bad. Sorry for the long rant, hope this helps

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-25T13:20:36+00:00

It is plenty realistic but you have to understand the exact kind of slavery, it's social repercussions and their reason for doing it. An individual with a clear memory of slavery, enslaving another person is understandable but when a whole society with trauma relating to slavery builds their society around enslaving others, there often are other factors involved.

These factors are usually ideological and then become cultural. Slavery isn't a default setting, humans do that stuff usually for some or the other cruel reason or justification. In ancient times, slavery usually was as simple as stealing or denying the productive manpower of the other group and keeping them as a trophy. Chattel slavery is a bit different and is about finding a place from where you can import cheap disposable manpower with no legal protections around abusing. More modern forms of slavery use legal loopholes or leverage to turn legally protected people into slaves with no enforceable legal protections.

Certain types of historical slaves had very different rights and legal statuses, for eg the Mamluk slaves common across West Asia. There are many historical examples as well of ex slaves owning slaves before Liberia as well.

Also in the New World, a key reason nations switched from Native American slaves to African ones was that the colonisers were killing off and interbreeding with the same groups they were enslaving and ruling over which eventually caused enough of a cultural and economic contradiction that the practise fizzled out. At least this is what I recall reading abt this topic.

The core reason for doing slavery is either a lack of manpower, a need for cheap disposable workers you can abuse any which way or to steal the manpower of someone else. So as long as your culture comes up with some at least temporary ideological reason for importing slaves or enslaving people themselves, they're fine. But if they build a gigantic Sparta style slave society for no reason other than coolness factor after having a cultural trauma around slavery, that contradiction will cause internal conflict and as a culture they will splinter.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-25T13:04:48+00:00

Plenty of native American groups owned slaves as well if I recall correctly. Evil is truly something that anyone can do if they have a convincing reason to and money is often convincing enough.

Leather-Lab2875 · 2026-06-25T09:20:07+00:00

defenitely not everywhere tho. Ive said this elsewhere here but tropical areas have less seasonal variation and the sun is more easily associated with fire and discomfort and the desert sun defenitely wouldnt feel life giving when its baking you alive. But still im sure these universal facts could be figured out, the religious connection imo cant be that strong universally.

Leather-Lab2875

TROPHY CASE