I’m working some lore for a series of novels I’d love to write. Thoughts?

[Hale Stromm]

The Naught. That’s what we named it. What we know it by. But it’s true nature is unnameable. It was birthed from the great burst, which ended nothing and began everything.


The crashing of atoms, the bolstering fanfare of creation, of new and volatile and unpredictable building blocks all cascading against each other. It was harsh, it was uncomfortable, and it woke something as it pushed away all that (wasn’t) before.


It was cold, it was confused, it was angry, it wanted to go back. In its most primal form, it was benign. It held a small wedge of the universe as its territory, not that it had any thoughts of such things -let alone thoughts at all-.


It grew in space and time. And eventually developed a taste, of sorts. It began to like something.


Suffering. Downfall. Ignorance. Strife. The more, the better, a step closer to Nothing. A being of Nothing, which yearns for Nothing, and uses anything that will ultimately help it realize its goal. Utilizing the entropic darker corners of the psyche. It waited.


It would allow the rise of great civilizations, just to pull the rug and feed off of the collective dismay. Over thousands of millennia it would replace its need for its familiar Nothing, with a taste for ruin. We assume it was the closest it could get to Nothing. It was content with this existence. To allow a vibration to raise, bide its time, and snuff it out. Sometimes slowly, sometimes instantly. Sometimes it only took one. Sometimes there were many. It refined its palate at the expense of generations and civilizations.


To call it evil would insinuate it knew the difference. Technically a creation of the universe, but unknown, unnamed, unseen, and only felt. It is Naught.


That emptiness you feel when you know something has gone wrong. The drop of a sudden step. The quiet of a freshly ended love… the hush of knowing there’s no hope. It was Naught.


And then there was this one little blue dot. Many like it across the vast sea of stars, but this one… it had a resonance unlike anything the Naught had taken. And it craved it.


Humans, they hadn’t called themselves that yet, a sight to behold. They praised us, we became from and for them. for a time, we were like guides, they would look to the night sky, with such deep questions of the mind that they would be forced to ask through salt stained cheeks.


They dreamed, they cared, they laughed, and loved. They were many, but they were also few. Their tribes never grew too large, yet they dotted many corners of the world. When the Naught found us, things changed.


My brother, Capricorn, was first to be immortalized by a monolith. A leader of the people had ordered for twelve, each made of respective elements, rare, looming and magnificent monoliths to be erected in the name of each of us. This was our conduit. Our way of being close enough to touch. We loved our resonants. The ones born under us, to us. We watched as they grew. It was amazing. But there began to be unrest among the people. Their leader, they asked us to guide him. He was acting strange, rash, uncaring, and harsh.


We collectively deliberated and would investigate to look in upon the good king, but we could not read him. His mind was abuzz in a vibration we could not understand, it drove Scorpio to lash out. Causing a minor ruckus among us all.


The unrest that the Naught had caused was spreading to us. It only stood to reason. We were brought into being by humans, we could be tainted just as easily, we could be TRAPPED just as easily -and we were- when the king made his next order.


A thirteenth. Obsidian. he had it built for our estranged sibling, ophiucus. Ophiucus had been long forgotten by many, and was now only a warble of minor disharmony in the resonance of the people. We think this is how the Naught got in.


It got in the mind of the good king. Seeded doubt, fear, insecurity. It guided him to make the monoliths. Then it guided him to make the thirteenth. Once completed, it locked our presence inside of our respective monolithic chambers. All of our intentions, and all of the people’s prayers were siphoned, brought before the Naught King. He knew through ethereal reflections in the obsidian monolith exactly what to do at any given time, which would have been a blessing under any of us. Even Taurus… but the Naught had its appetite. And it feasted. For three hundred years it dragged our society to less than a shadow of what it once was.


Then, as though fate could no longer hold it’s tongue, a great quiet came over the continent. The midday sky darkened, and all eyes turned upward as the sky began to fall.


One after another, mountains from the sky decimated the landscape. The fire was instant, and inescapable. Lower lands were first to be engulfed and destroyed. The people were dead before anybody had a clue. Then one by one the monoliths fell. Some were smashed and pieces scattered across the globe from the impact. Others fell into the cracks of the earth to be slowly churned and crushed and reintegrated to the stone. Ultimately, we all fell and our essence remained in the stones.


The land that would one day be called Pangea was thus destroyed and separated. Scattering bits of us wide across the earth with tectonic movements. We eventually made our way to humanity again. The naturally attuned, over time, would find us. they called us birth stones, and over the generations of rebuild, the name stuck.


Back then, the Naught was no longer a threat. It had taken its king and hid with its monolith until it too was struck. So when people began to resonate once again, and we were no longer held captive, we could share our power with those who were born to our sign, and with stone in hand, may taste our power they gave us so long ago.


———————-
I’m no professional, im taking kind of a risk here, be kind please?

 

[Rexenm]

I liked it. I had a prepared post but I read it some more over the course of the afternoon. But I think it is missing something - needs more work - like I was confused at the resurrection part. There are details that are hidden, and details that are syncopated. It was very well thought out, and macabre in areas. I sensed a hidden meaning too.

just to pull the rug

It seems like a creature based on lies, hidden in books. I sensed some of the despair I felt in a fever dream, but aren’t all dreams as such? It floats in the array of freakish and scary, yet manages to hide in tide and boon. It is very by the book, and has a lyrical twist of the tortured soul - like it has places to be - and people to meet.

This was our conduit.

This is where I got confused in this paragraph, because the nature of the monoliths. It is like a breakdown of some similar notions I sensed in a condensed way in the mystery of the entire text. It had me turning to the clock on my wall, checking the time. If anything, I managed to find myself hungover in a ditch, you might say. I have used monoliths in my tales, and I find them strange and covered in runes.

We think this is how the Naught got in.

It seems like you could take a hammer to this one and end up in dreamland. There is nothing overly special about the naught, but it appears in all places, like it has places to be, yet everything it sees has already been accomplished, anything it envisions, impossible, every gay thoughts peal like a bell. It has the right to failure.

 

[Incanus]

As lore, I neither love nor hate it. There are some neat ideas, but some of the writing may be a bit overwrought. It looks to be a creation myth, a cosmology, utilizing astrology. It's a bit difficult to know what part of all this is important to the main story.

My question is--how is this to be used in a novel, or series? I hope it isn't a prologue, because I think that would be problematic.

How much of this background would the characters of the story this would be used in know of it?

A background like this is a good thing to develop, but I'm far more interested in the story it would be a background for. Do you have a plot in mind? Main characters?

I'm not a pro either, but I always welcome criticism--that's how I learn.

 

[Hale Stromm]

As lore, I neither love nor hate it. There are some neat ideas, but some of the writing may be a bit overwrought. It looks to be a creation myth, a cosmology, utilizing astrology. It's a bit difficult to know what part of all this is important to the main story.

My question is--how is this to be used in a novel, or series? I hope it isn't a prologue, because I think that would be problematic.

How much of this background would the characters of the story this would be used in know of it?

A background like this is a good thing to develop, but I'm far more interested in the story it would be a background for. Do you have a plot in mind? Main characters?

I'm not a pro either, but I always welcome criticism--that's how I learn.

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback—I really appreciate it. You’re absolutely right: this is background lore, not a prologue. It’s intended more like optional reading for those curious about the deeper structure of the world. The actual story reveals these ideas in fragments, often through character experiences and emotional turning points, so readers can follow without needing to absorb it all upfront.

Most characters begin with little or no awareness of the larger cosmology. Part of the story’s arc is about slowly discovering these connections—especially as they relate to inner growth, choice, and healing. The plot follows a single father raising three sons, each with their own challenges, while he’s slowly drawn into a much older conflict tied to Zodiac forces and a corrupting presence known as the Naught.

I’m not aiming for publication—this is more of a passion project—but I still want it to be accessible and emotionally resonant. And yes, I know astrology can be polarizing. I’m trying to ground it in emotional realism and mythic symbolism rather than using it as a power system or gimmick.
If anyone’s interested, I’d love to share more about the characters or story arc.

 

[Hale Stromm]

I liked it. I had a prepared post but I read it some more over the course of the afternoon. But I think it is missing something - needs more work - like I was confused at the resurrection part. There are details that are hidden, and details that are syncopated. It was very well thought out, and macabre in areas. I sensed a hidden meaning too.

It seems like a creature based on lies, hidden in books. I sensed some of the despair I felt in a fever dream, but aren’t all dreams as such? It floats in the array of freakish and scary, yet manages to hide in tide and boon. It is very by the book, and has a lyrical twist of the tortured soul - like it has places to be - and people to meet.

This is where I got confused in this paragraph, because the nature of the monoliths. It is like a breakdown of some similar notions I sensed in a condensed way in the mystery of the entire text. It had me turning to the clock on my wall, checking the time. If anything, I managed to find myself hungover in a ditch, you might say. I have used monoliths in my tales, and I find them strange and covered in runes.

It seems like you could take a hammer to this one and end up in dreamland. There is nothing overly special about the naught, but it appears in all places, like it has places to be, yet everything it sees has already been accomplished, anything it envisions, impossible, every gay thoughts peal like a bell. It has the right to failure.

Thanks for taking the time to really sit with it—your response is poetic and fascinating in its own right. I get what you’re saying: parts of it are intentionally veiled, maybe too much so. The resurrection moment and the monoliths are central, but I may have left too much implied. I’m still refining the balance between mystery and clarity.
The Naught is meant to feel unsettling and ever-present—like despair that pretends to be purpose. It doesn’t create, only corrupts what already exists, which makes its presence hard to define but impossible to ignore. I love your line: “like it has places to be—yet everything it sees has already been accomplished.” That’s hauntingly close to the feeling I wanted to evoke.
I’ll keep working to make the symbolic structure feel more anchored without over-explaining. And again, really grateful you spent time with it.

 

[Hale Stromm]

Author’s Note:


This lore isn’t a prologue—it’s a buried truth in the world of Gale of the Aquarian (WIP title), where most characters have no idea it exists. Think of it like a creation myth half-forgotten, half-hidden, influencing events from the shadows. The story itself follows a father trying to raise his three sons in a world that seems normal—until signs of something older and stranger start to break through.

This is the deep cut. Optional reading. The kind of thing you only understand by the end—or maybe not even then. If you like symbolic cosmologies, myth-as-metaphor, or stories where the monsters aren’t just external… you might find something here

 

[Incanus]

Author’s Note:


This lore isn’t a prologue—it’s a buried truth in the world of Gale of the Aquarian (WIP title), where most characters have no idea it exists. Think of it like a creation myth half-forgotten, half-hidden, influencing events from the shadows. The story itself follows a father trying to raise his three sons in a world that seems normal—until signs of something older and stranger start to break through.

This is the deep cut. Optional reading. The kind of thing you only understand by the end—or maybe not even then. If you like symbolic cosmologies, myth-as-metaphor, or stories where the monsters aren’t just external… you might find something here

Excellent. For what it's worth, I would call this the ideal way to use this lore (or any similar lore). That's good to know.

The way it was written as a creative exercise kind of threw me off at first, I think. But then I realized I had done something similar myself a while back. I had been doing little else but world-building for a long time and really wanted to write some prose, but didn't have any stories to work on. So, I wrote out a large portion of the world history in a sort of pseudo-scholarly style. It's not very great, but it helped me scratch that itch.

Good luck with this project. It sounds neat.

If you are a tad worried about the direct connection with real-world astrology, perhaps you could change all the names out. Like using original names instead of Gemini, Taurus, Virgo, etc. That may make some readers come to figure out the connection gradually instead of right out of the gate, if you follow me.