I recently posted a proof-of-concept fantasy narrative called “The Blight Campaign” after the conclusion of The Small Speculative Fiction Writing Jam (2026). I thought I’d share a bit about how The Blight Campaign came to be.

EmberLight

On New Year’s Day of 2026, I joined a discord server called EmberLight. I was trying to get into the indie game development scene at the time, but I had basically no programming experience. I was slowly learning what I could about Unity, but I wouldn’t be able to contribute to the coding scene for quite a while. Then I saw a listing on the Funsmith Club server, asking for help designing the narrative of a fantasy game (EmberLight).

EmberLight was in a very early phase at the time. All anyone really knew is that the founder wanted something open-world, 3D, fantasy, and reminiscent of games like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Plenty of people were excited to contribute ideas, and after some hiccups, a chunk of us members scheduled a voice call meeting.

The meeting started rocky, as not everyone we expected was present. But those of us who were in the call started passing around ideas for the game. We talked about whether we wanted to have a diverse set of protagonist options, how much customization would be feasible, and what the greater lore would be.

One member suggested having the main antagonist be a completely magic-absent race, using steampunk/steampunk-like technology. The idea was to have all the playable races be original fantasy species, some of which would avoid human characteristics in order to set it apart from other fantasy content.

I was reminded of the character selection screen in Path of Exile 2.

It was such a dark but unique way to decide who you would play as in the campaign, and added a lot of character by default. By selecting any of these people as your avatar, you were dooming the others.

After much discussion, we decided on the following concept:

EmberLight opens in a smoldering metal fortress. Caged fantasy races line the inside of the prison, waiting to be harvested by the faceless threat known as “The Embers”, who recently began invading the continent.

You as the player would pick from 3-5 prisoners, each with an established backstory and reason for being imprisoned.

• A noble who was captured while traveling on a diplomatic mission.
• A military commander who launched a failed attack on one of the Ember strongholds.
• A traveling merchant captured in a raid by the Embers.
• A spy who failed to infiltrate the Embers’ territory.
• A slave who was born in Ember captivity.

The opening would see the player character escape their cell and go through a semi-linear path to escape the Ember stronghold. They would have the option to try and save one of the other prisoners or focus on their own survival. Alone, or with a companion, the protagonist would escape into one of the Ember machines, which would send them flying across the main setting.

The rest of the game would see the protagonist traveling the landscape, interacting with different civilizations to unite against the Embers.

Those of us in the voice call left excited. And over the next month, we came up with far more ideas. I started drafting concept art for the different fantasy races.

Most of these were throwaway designs I came up with on the spot. And some of the EmberLight members thought a number of them looked more like they belonged in a SciFi setting. I can definitely see what they mean with a few in particular.

Overall, it was a fairly exciting process. But unfortunately, the EmberLight era didn’t last long.

TPGCC and the Writing Jam

EmberLight had a lot of members, but only a half-dozen or so of us were active. And because of scheduling issues–among other things–the project stalled rather quickly. But those who were active still had plenty of creative juices flowing. And with all the ideas we already had written down, it was suggested that we reincorporate some into game jams.

So I created a new discord server as to keep things from getting confused with direct EmberLight content. I named it The Pending Game Creative Collective. It was a bit of an ironic title, and meant to be temporary until a more interesting group name could be decided upon. But so far, it’s stuck.

With the TPGCC, members would be able to share game jams and more independent projects they were invested in. They would post their content concepts, pool for participants, and get to work.

I started going through the official itch.io website for any game jams that might appeal to the members. I was surprised to find that not just game jams were being posted. That’s when I found the speculative fiction writing jam.

The premise of the jam was to write a story in less than 19,000 words about traveling. With my passion for writing, this was easy to say yes to, and I could use it to bring some attention to TPGCC. I only had to think of what to write for a few minutes before I realized that I could reintegrate the ideas I would have used for EmberLight into this jam.

I remember writing the first 9,000 or so words shortly after discovering the jam. Then I drove over to San Marcos for lunch at O’s American Kitchen. I spent a few hours in the restaurant, writing a couple thousand words more.

Once I had around 12,000 words, I sent the first segments out for some feedback in the team. And only a week later, I had the final version completed and submitted.

I took the premise of the EmberLight opening and decided to go with the military commander protagonist, with the companion character being the captured noble. But instead of the POV being the military commander, I thought it would be interesting to follow his journey through the eyes of the less capable noble.

This is what led to the creation of General Jorjun and Syrol run’Pror. I took two of the species concept designs–the insect and the crab–and drew up some colored reference art, including Syrol before and after being “Blighted”.

Since I had some more time, I included some art of Syrol’s older brother, Yunsit, the Priest.

And while I never drew fully-colored references for them, I decided to include a rabbit-like species I drafted for EmberLight called Jorl.

The story concept was well-received durin the jam. Of course, some changes had to be made: most blatant being the name. As much as “EmberLight” is an incredibly cool name, it wasn’t mine to use. So I retitled the antagonists “The Blight” and thus, “The Blight Campaign” was born.

I also came up with a very rough draft for what a theme would sound like for the series. I apologize for the audio quality.

When discussing the EmberLight project, the idea of segmented, layered themes for each culture went around. And during the climax of the game, all those individual themes would come together as one piece. So I took five motifs I had been developing and made those into the Blight Campaign theme.

Future of the Project?

I have quite a few ideas for what to do with this story. There’s a lot me and other TPGCC members discussed, including the motives and origins of the Blight and lore for the different civilizations. If I’m being honest, I could easily see myself writing a series of shorter fantasy novels about the narrative as a whole. And I would have loved to still use it in a game format.

However, for now, I have other priorities to deal with. My main fantasy series–The Christelan Chronicles–is progressing steadily with “Ritual” now halfway through its novel-formatting. But if there were enough demand for Blight Campaign content, I could see myself giving more attention to this side project.

And just to clarify for legal purposes, while the original concept was going to be used in EmberLight, this is all my original creative work. As the owner and founder of TPGCC, Blight Campaign isn’t beholden to anyone but myself. That said, I do give credit to the members of TPGCC who were pivitol in the early creative stages of this idea.