Ambroys approached Hyden for shady political favors. Hyden asked for some of his magical blood in return, but the deal quickly began to sour for Ambroys.
The Amaranthine setting is a collaborative character-driven story I am working on with Kwillow. It primarily follows the story of the dark wizard Hyden, who unleashed an eldritch power known as The Shadow and then put himself in magical stasis to avoid being executed for his crimes, as well as Ambroys, a shallow, selfish fellow nobleman and former business partner/victim of Hyden’s.

Very disoriented Hyden found on a remote patch of tundra by Rising Dawn researchers. Freshly awoken from stasis, it took some time for him to realize how much time had passed.
300 years later, the world has fallen into apocalyptic disarray as an atmospheric magical imbalance causes bitter cold to cover much of the world. Magic and its users are largely a thing of legend, barring a few rare surviving witches and wizards scattered across the world. Hyden is accidentally awoken by a group of researchers known as The Rising Dawn who are seeking to seal away The Shadow and fix the world.

Theo hard at work on magical experimentation while Hyden sips wine. Alex keeps a watchful eye over both wizards to ensure they’re not plotting anything.
Though historical records remember him as a villain, Hyden insists that the truth is far more nuanced. Alex, the Dawn’s leader, greatly dislikes Hyden and is none too keen to work with “the bad guy”. Others they meet along their way, such as Theo, a wizard who idolizes Hyden, have more varied opinions.

Alex and Ridge after a disagreement with Theo. They may have to work with him temporarily, but his blood magic is pretty creepy…
This story is told through Ask responses, short comic vignettes, and text updates on Chocodile and Kwillow’s art blogs. There is no big novel we are working on behind the scenes simply because we have other projects (cough, Wishbone, cough) we are already working on… Amaranthine is our just-for-fun side thing. Perhaps someday we will make it into a visual novel or something… but for now, it’s all a bit disorganized. This page is my attempt to make sense of it.

Arcturus Hyden

Hyden relaxes with one of his favorite vices after draining Ambroys’ blood.
Hyden is an egotistical, charismatic, and morally bankrupt Old Kingdom wizard, once rumored to be the most powerful in the land. Over the years, his health declined, and with it, some say, his sanity. When the Western King attempted to execute him for his crimes, he put himself in stasis to weasel out of punishment. 300 years later, he is awoken and taken prisoner by The Rising Dawn. With his magic seemingly sealed, the now-frail wizard is being forced by the Dawn to help them seal The Shadow and perhaps save the world (not that he particularly cares about that).

Ambroys De Luxe

A youthful Ambroys counts love letters from his admirers. He enjoys the attention, but rarely stops to consider the feelings of those he engages with.
Ambroys is a vain and selfish rich boy looking to social climb. He is a half-Celestial, born from a rare union between a mortal and a demi-god. Seeking political power, he taps Hyden for a partnership, only to end up exploited for his magical blood. Later on, Ambroys somehow survives the apocalyptic fall of the Old Kingdoms. As the centuries pass, an older, craftier, and more jaded Ambroys positions himself as a religious figure/cult leader in the new world.

Theopolis North

Theo lurking behind his mother, the former witch of Northcrest, Jocosa North. She held the family’s catalyst stone before passing it onto him.
Theo is a reclusive mage who dwells alone in a decrepit old manor. Unpleasant, paranoid, neurotic and prone to violent fits, his self-isolation is arguably a net gain for the people of his barony. When he was a strange, bullied boy fascinated with history, he idolized the legendary figure of Duke Hyden. When Hyden showed up on his doorstep one day, he was all too eager to assist his boyhood hero – damn the consequences for anyone else. Theo is a prodigy with healing magic, but his use of it violates the Hippocratic oath as well as several laws against bodily harm. He is obsessed with a years-long project of using magic to cure his beloved mother of a grim affliction – death.

Alex Sokolov

Alex has lived a difficult life. She intends to make the world a better place… even (or especially) if it kills her.
Alex is a stoic, mission-driven orphan-turned-soldier-turned-outlaw. Alex’s hometown was destroyed by The Shadow when she was very young. With no other choice, she headed to Ironfrost, accepting conscription into the enemy state’s militia in exchange for citizenship… at least until a certain event resulted in her being labeled a traitor and outlaw. Alex is one of the last surviving founders of the Rising Dawn, a secret group operating on the fringes of the “Present day” society and looking to put a stop to the Shadow.

Western Kingdom (City of Whitefell, Year 1527)

Western Kingdom (Unnamed rural town, Year 1539)
In the far past, 300 years ago, there were two rival kingdoms: The Western Kingdom and the Eastern Kingdom. The major characters of this era, Ambroys and Hyden, were both from the West. Magic was fairly common and magically gifted children are trained at academies such as Whitefell before going on to serve as Royal Mages–essentially freelance wizards/public servants. Additionally, demi god-like entities known as Celestials and Infernals occasionally touch the mortal plane, though only one such visit has happened in the last couple centuries–that which produced Ambroys.

Eastern Kingdom (Unnamed trading port city, Year 1535)
Border disputes and other minor conflicts between the two kingdoms have been a constant source of strife for decades. At one point, things became bad enough that even some nobles were conscripted and sent off to fight, but Hyden ended the war (for better or worse) by vaporizing an Eastern Kingdom town full of civilians.

Western Kingdom (Westhaven Capitol, Year 1570)
Many years later, both Old Kingdoms fell during some sort of cataclysm that instantly killed nearly all magic users and reduced the world to a post-apocalyptic state, though the specifics of this incident are largely lost in the modern era.

Post-Fall Northern Tundra (Secret Rising Dawn Research Outpost, Year 1920)
Three centuries after the fall of the two Old Kingdoms, people are still clinging to survival… barely. The “present” era takes place during a slow, cold apocalypse. Magic mostly left the world after the Old Kingdom’s war and every year the climate has grown colder and colder.

Post-Fall Southern Rim (Village of Northcrest, 1921)
Though some fringe areas along the southern edge of the continent cling to a somewhat normal life, the tundra grows by the year, leaving fewer and fewer places where life is sustainable.

Post-Fall Northern Tundra (City-State of Ironfrost, Year 1912)
As towns fall, survivors tend to head north to Ironfrost, a massive dieselpunk hellscape powered by coal and geothermal vents. Though living conditions for Ironfrost’s poorest are grimy and the city-state itself is ruled by a militaristic despot queen, life there is generally preferable to freezing to death.

Post-Fall Northern Tundra (Unknown Rural Location, Year 1913)
Ironfrost and the cold aren’t the only threats people have to deal with. Some whisper that The Shadow, the dark power of the Old Kingdoms, is real and still lurks somewhere beneath the snow, ready to consume unlucky travelers in remote wildernesses and mountain passes. Some say it, not the encroaching winter, was responsible for some of those towns that disappeared. Others say this is a lot of nonsense spread by superstitious rural folk. Ironfrost’s official stance is that it’s nothing more than a conspiracy theory.

Milana: Hyden’s ex-fiancee. Her biting wit and the contrarian amusement she took in violating social norms made her a good match for him on the surface, her growing unease with his uncanny hollowness caused their relationship to deteriorate. A bitter fight after he returned home a freshly-minted war criminal ended their relationship for good, leaving Milana deeply resentful. Some comics about their relationship can be found here and here.

Ridge: Alex’s oldest and closest friend and another disgraced former Ironfrost soldier who joined the Rising Dawn rebellion. Ridge is laid-back and cynical with a “Life’s short, have fun wherever you can find it” attitude. He and Alex have always had each other’s backs both inside combat and out, but Hyden’s appearance is testing their relationship.

Jocosa: The former baroness and witch of Northcrest. She passed after a long and terrible illness, with her son at her side. Though she was stern and aloof, not terribly popular among her peers, Theo speaks of her with a reverence usually reserved for saints.

Charles: Ambroys’ mortal half-brother, in many ways his opposite. Kind-hearted, patient and trusting, he adored Ambroys and excused his many faults, which only made it easier for Ambroys to resent and torment him.

Lou: A childhood friend of Ambroys. He found her unfeminine wiles intriguing and her snarky personality amusing. Despite flare-ups of bickering between the two, she was his confidante and intimate companion for years – until she began to realize even she didn’t know what the real Ambroys was like.

Penny: The Rising Dawn’s cafeteria worker. An uneducated rural farmer, she was found wandering the tundra by Alex after The Shadow consumed her family. Like many who lived rural in the post-fall world, she’s seen enough loss and hardship to become almost numb to it. Despite this, she is practical and kind-hearted (if slightly gullible), trying to do good in the world in small ways.

Renée: The Rising Dawn’s eccentric benefactor. Renée comes from a wealthy Ironfrost tobacco family. Though she knows how to play the games of the upperclass, Renée finds adhering to Ironfrost’s concepts of respectability terribly boring. Funding the Rising Dawn’s mission was one of her ways of rebelling under her family’s nose… though she may or may not grasp the stakes of the game she’s playing. Alex has not heard from her in a great while.

The Old Kingdoms: The Western Kingdom and Eastern Kingdom. These existed during the era of history when magic was common and the world was a more temperate, livable place. Hyden and Ambroys are both from the Western Kingdom.

Ironfrost: Industrial and militaristic city perched over geothermal vents. It stubbornly resists the encroaching ice, but its immensely stratified social classes make life hard for the many miners, boiler-tenders, and maintenance workers. Alex and Ridge served as soldiers here for most of lives, though only Ridge was born there.

The Shadow: A dark power that seems to take the form of an all-consuming black sludge. Very little is known about its origin or nature, as any who come in contact with it tend to perish. Hyden supposedly unleashed it 300 years ago, and it is believed to have some tie to both the fall of the Old Kingdoms and the “nuclear winter” slowly consuming the land. Alex’s hometown and family were killed by the Shadow. Penny also lost her family to it.

The Rising Dawn: An underground organization seeking to stop The Shadow. Branded dangerous conspiracy theorists by Ironfrost, they operate covertly, trying to understand the nature of what they fear is an existential magical threat. Alex and Ridge are senior members of it and were branded outlaws by Ironfrost for their association with it.

Catalyst stone: Gemstone that amplifies and augments magical powers. Often physically implanted in the user’s flesh. Used frequently in the Old Kingdoms, practically nonexistent in modern day. Hyden is currently seeking a new one, in hopes of using it to repair the shattered catalyst stone implanted in his forehead and regain access to his magical powers. Theo also has a catalyst stone implanted in his hand.