In a forgotten mountain town once called Lakewood, the Black Brotherhood has returned to reclaim what the Gloom seeks to consume. Gloria Nocturna: Outpost Ravenholm introduces readers to Daniel Bissel, a young recruit sent to a decaying village on the frontier of civilization, where pagan rites and old fears still whisper beneath the mist.
As the Brotherhood establishes its outpost-temple, they uncover twisted signs of something festering beneath the surface—a force more ancient than the town itself. With discipline, loyalty, and courage, they must hold the line against supernatural horrors while struggling to resist the temptations and corruption that hunger for their souls.
Presented as part of the Gloria Nocturna TTRPG universe created by John Alan Martinson, this series alternates between dark fantasy romance and intense, mature erotic storytelling. Every three-chapter episode draws readers deeper into the haunting world where light battles darkness—and desire battles duty; with odd numbered episodes written as standard dark fantasy romance, and even numbered episodes written as uncensored dark fantasy erotica.
Prepare to step into the mist, where every choice matters and every pleasure carries a price.
Contents
Disclaimer
Introduction to Gloria Nocturna Fiction
Prologue: Into the Mist
Chapter 1: Rebuilding the Temple
Chapter 2: She Loves to Read
Chapter 3: Whispers from the Lake
About the Author
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events, or actual locations is purely coincidental.
Gloria Nocturna is a dark fantasy series intended for mature audiences. It explores complex themes including loyalty, discipline, love, corruption, temptation, and redemption, often set within a supernatural and morally challenging world. Some episodes may contain sensual, romantic, or erotic content appropriate for responsible adult readers. All characters engaging in sexual activity are portrayed as adults who are at least 18 years of age.
The Brotherhood, religious practices, and spiritual references depicted within are fictional constructs created for narrative purposes and are not direct representations of any real-world religious, military, or philosophical system.
Readers are advised that Gloria Nocturna presents both light and darkness, triumph and temptation, in a manner consistent with its immersive storytelling and the grim beauty of its world.
Introduction to Gloria Nocturna Fiction
Gloria Nocturna is more than a novel—it is the living story of a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) brought to life. Each episode of the novel presents three-chapters that explore the same grim, mystical world players encounter when they sit down to play the Gloria Nocturna TTRPG created by John Alan Martinson. The stories not only entertain but serve as inspiration, revealing the lore, atmosphere, and dark moral complexity of the setting.
Every episode alternates in style to serve a diverse audience. Odd-numbered episodes are focused on standard dark fantasy romance and adventure, while even-numbered episodes explore dark fantasy erotica—sensual, raw, and passionate but always aligned with the mature storytelling of the world. This pattern allows readers to skip or enjoy the erotic episodes according to their tastes, ensuring that Gloria Nocturna remains accessible to those who prefer their stories pure, as well as those who crave the full, sensual depths of the human (and inhuman) experience.
Gloria Nocturna is a world where light and darkness battle for the souls of men. It is a setting of duty, loyalty, discipline, temptation, and redemption, where the influence of the Gloom—the slow creeping corruption of the physical and spiritual world—shapes the landscape and the people alike. In this world, Brotherhood heroes stand against cults, monsters, and the corruption of human weakness, all while struggling with their own forbidden desires and the burden of their sacred oaths.
Through these stories, you will witness how sacred sex, love, battle, and discipline are all weapons against the rising darkness—and how sometimes, even love itself must be fought for.
Welcome to Gloria Nocturna.
Prologue: Into the Mist
The road to Ravenholm twisted like a serpent’s spine through the gray-boned mountains, slick with mud and the stench of rain-washed decay. Hooves sank with a wet squelch into the mire as Daniel Bissel rode near the rear of the Brotherhood’s caravan, his musket strapped across his back and a copy of The Book of the Heavens tucked beneath his coat. Fog clung low to the earth, weaving itself into the roots of twisted trees and rising like smoke around the wheels of the supply wagons.
They had been on the road for three days since crossing the Eldorian border. Thirty-eight men made the journey with him—soldiers, scribes, and temple-workers, all sworn to the Black Brotherhood.
At the head of the formation rode Sergeant-General Mordechai Veil, silent and erect in his saddle, his gloved hand never far from the hilt of his sabre. Daniel had never seen him speak more than two words at a time it seemed, and none of those were ever friendly.
Beside Veil rode Captain Elazar Broom, lean and sharp-eyed, muttering constantly to his second in command. Scribe Azariah sat in one of the wagons beneath an oilskin tarp, lips moving in constant recitation of sacred verses as though his breath alone could shield them from what lay ahead.
Ravenholm had once been called Lakewood, until something changed the name—until something made the townsfolk forget who they were, or remember too much.
The wooden sign that marked the outskirts of the town loomed up out of the mist, half-swallowed by undergrowth. RAVENHOLM, it declared in crude black paint, nailed atop an older plank whose letters had been scorched and crossed out. Beneath it, just visible through layers of weathering and rot, were the ghost-letters of the name Lakewood, slashed through as if by claw.
A chill prickled Daniel’s neck. He had known fear before—on patrol in the northern borderlands, among corpses that moved in the night—but this was different. This fear didn’t rattle the bones. It whispered to the soul.
The town itself slouched in the valley like a carcass. Moss-eaten stone cottages sagged under broken shingles. Unlit lanterns swayed from iron poles, creaking with every whisper of the wind. Pagan shrines stood at crossroads, carved idols of unknown gods slathered in grease and feathers. Some had human teeth embedded in the wood. None had been defaced. Not yet.
A column halt was called.
The Brotherhood dismounted outside what had once been a garrison—a squat stone hall with its roof half caved in and ivy crawling up every wall. “This will be our hall,” Mordechai Veil said simply. “Restore it. Fortify it. Cleanse it.”
No ceremony. No benediction. Just orders.
Daniel joined the others in offloading crates—tools, lanterns, water barrels, sacred items wrapped in black velvet. They hung the Covenant Eye above the threshold, an iron sigil in the shape of a blazing circle with three downward-pointing spears—representing the tri-fold virtues:
Discipline, Loyalty, Courage.
Some of the men paused to touch it as they entered, whispering from The Book of the Heavens. Daniel did too, though he barely remembered the words.
Inside, the air smelled of mildew and ash. Rats skittered beneath broken pews. Moss clung to the walls like scabs.
“This is a cursed place,” one of the men muttered.
“No,” said Brother Tomas Ansel, an older veteran with a white streak through his beard. “This is a place that’s been abandoned. A cursed place fights back.”
They worked until dusk. Daniel drove iron nails into crossbeams while others swept out filth and removed a pair of skeletal remains—one child, one adult—from the old vestry. They didn’t speak of it, but all knew what it meant: the town had not turned to them willingly.
– – – – – – – <(o)> – – – – – – –
That night, the fog returned, heavier and colder. The men lit lanterns in the outpost and ate silently. Someone had found a goat’s head nailed to the cellar door, the eyes replaced with pebbles.
“Local hospitality,” Tomas grunted.
– – – – – – – <(o)> – – – – – – –
Later, Daniel sat outside on a broken bench near the outpost gate. The night sang with strange sounds: frogs, crickets, something that might have been a baby crying far off near the lake. He fingered the edge of his musket’s stock and whispered the cleansing psalm under his breath.
Brotherhood duty demanded composure. But he felt the Gloom here. The air was heavier. Thought came slower. Even the firelight seemed weaker than it should be.
He didn’t sleep.
And neither did the sentry. Not for long.
– – – – – – – <(o)> – – – – – – –
At dawn, they found his boots neatly placed at the edge of the town square, facing the lake.
They were filled with water.
They sat side by side, upright, laces tied, soles clean, and yet for just a moment too long, the water spilled over their tops as if someone was still pouring more water into the boots.
Captain Broom knelt beside them, touched the leather, sniffed it, then stood without a word. The sentry’s name—Brother Hiram—was spoken only once that day, then never again.
The lake gave no answer.
– – – – – – – < (o) > – – – – – – –
By midday, the Brotherhood began patrol assignments. Daniel was placed under the guidance of Tomas Ansel. “You’ll walk with me,” Tomas said with a nod. “If you speak, speak soft. If you see something, don’t point—just nod. If you run, make sure I’m already dead.”
Ravenholm’s streets felt narrower in daylight, though the sun barely touched them. The mist remained, a living veil that slid between alleys and clung to the eaves. Locals watched from shuttered windows. A few ventured out—pale-faced women with baskets, bent old men pretending not to stare. No one greeted them. No one smiled.
The first shrine they passed was a wooden post crowned with feathers, bones, and what looked like a doll’s head.
“Do we destroy it?” Daniel asked.
Tomas shook his head. “Not yet. We’re not here to declare war on these pagans. We’re here to observe… and wait for their masters to show their teeth.”
– – – – – – – < (o) > – – – – – – –
In the early evening, Tomas led Daniel to the edge of town where a stone well sat beside a neglected path. “This here’s the outer marker,” Tomas said. “Fishermen say they don’t go past it anymore. Not since the drowning.”
“What drowning?”
Tomas looked at him. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
– – – – – – – < (o) > – – – – – – –
They returned to the outpost by twilight. A guard claimed he had seen lights dancing on the lake. Another brother reported a woman speaking to a tree. The building groaned under the weight of whispered unease.
During the evening meal, a girl approached.
She couldn’t have been older than twelve, barefoot and holding a bundle of herbs in her arms. She didn’t speak, just handed the bundle to a Brother near the gate and walked away. Inside the sacks of herbs were scraps of meat—human by the look of it—and a fish’s eyeball, wrapped in linen with a crude rune drawn in dried blood.
Azariah declared it some sinister curse. Veil ordered the remains burned. Daniel stayed behind to watch the fire.
From the edge of the square, he saw her for the first time. A woman standing in the mist. She was dressed distinctly from the strange girl that had delivered the bags of human remains to their fortress sanctuary.
The mysterious woman stood about 200 yards from temple property, while the brothers stood watching the burning sacks of herbs and human flesh.
The woman wore dark green robes. Her hair hung in braids like ropes. Her hands were clasped in front of her, and she stood perfectly still, watching the flames just as the others were. He, however, was watching her.
She made no move, no sound—only stared.
Daniel blinked.
She was gone.
He would later see her again in the town library. She would become his first wife.
But that night, she was only a shadow.
And the fire, for just a moment, turned blue.
Chapter 1: Rebuilding the Temple
The year was 1776. It was autumn at that time and the Black Brotherhood had sent men to the edges of the Kingdom of Eldoria. Ravenholm was located in the state of Silvermaine, far in the north, bordering with the Dominion of Caerwyn.
Their religious military order was tasked with investigating the terrible rumors of murderers and kidnappings, which had caught the attention of the king regent himself.
The Brotherhood began its work at dawn. The mist still clung to the bones of the town, reluctant to lift, as if trying to veil Ravenholm from the judgment to come.
Please purchase a copy of Gloria Nocturna: Outpost Ravenholm (Episode 1) by John Alan Martinson to continue reading this dark fantasy romance.
About The Author
