What is Oniris?
More than just a book. Oniris is a place within dreams. Beyond dreams. Perhaps you’ve even stumbled upon one of its many entrances: A room in a dream of your childhood home that you didn’t remember being there. A dark hallway in your old elementary school, haphazardly discovered while searching for the class you just remembered you were taking. An attic or basement that you rationally know isn’t haunted, but you wouldn’t dare explore it enough to confirm. The halls of Oniris connect our thoughts to one another’s and our world to places of both unimaginable horror and wondrous beauty. One of those places is the land of Khea, a world with echoes of our own.
The Kingdom
There is never a dull moment in Arilya, the most dominant kingdom in the world of Khea. War rages in Anaberia and the Northern Territories, highwaymen lurk in the dark forests, tormenting the great roads between Etherbridge and the neighboring nation of Shaleh. Disease and poverty run rampant in the slums of Lesser Arclas, a city built upon the ruins of ancient Akklan, whose massive wall separates the haves from the have-nots. It's in those slums that our protagonist, Jonah Marrow, resides.
Above: Map of the Kingdom of Arilya on the world of Khea.
The Characters
Jonah Marrow | |
Birthplace: Tarnhelm A struggling playwright who may have finally caught a big break after being hired by the high priest Jaemis Elwynn as a scribe. He aspires to finish his play Tanner in a Faraway Land, a work based on the fictional adventures of his friend Tanner who went missing as a child. After suffering from nightmarish visions, he soon finds himself thrust in the middle of strange events involving dream monsters, an overzealous archbishop, and a mysterious ancient wheel. |
Tilly Swick | |
Birthplace: Amarin A friend and (sometimes) lover of Jonah with a bubbly personality, despite a tragic past. On the church grounds, she conceals her identity and goes by the alias “Matthias.” Nightmares brought on by an interdimensional terror rekindle her anger over events from her past. Will they cause her to go down the same dark route of vigilante justice as her late father? |
Jaemis Elwynn | |
A high priest of the Ashuvatian faith and head of the scriptorium in Inner Arclas. He begins questioning the motives of his fellow clergymen after they make unsavory changes to the holy scripture and partake in forbidden rituals. Just what is his church up to, and how will it affect his own faith? After one of his own encounters within Oniris, he comes to believe that Jonah has an important role in future events. However, the details of this conversation are hazy. What could be the importance of a lowly playwright from the slums? And did someone, or something, mess with his memories? |
Ten’ahkta (The Gold-Skinned Man) | |
Race: Bara’lak Birthplace: The world of Runus A being with metallic skin and a geometric shape. He is the last known survivor of an apocalyptic event that took place on his planet hundreds of years ago. He no longer has a physical body, existing only within the sustaining, mystical light of the Aruneum Temple, a place far within the depths of Oniris. Perhaps he has answers, were anyone able to reach him. |
There are many more characters in the land of Khea and beyond. Characters whose hopes, fears and aspirations aren’t unlike our own. After all, somewhere within the labyrinthian halls of Oniris there may be a path leading their mind to yours, and vice versa.
The Book
Available soon! Oniris is a genre-mashing story featuring interdimensional frights, ample amounts of humor, fantasy action, and most of all: heart. Although primarily following the main protagonist, Jonah, Oniris shifts between the perspectives of several characters, each of which have their own purposes to discover and challenges to overcome. Oniris asks tough questions about religion, meditates on the nature of reality, and muses about the artist’s role in society.
If that last line got your eyes rolling, then rejoice in the fact that Oniris also contains drug and alcohol use, violence, Lovecraftian monsters, and last but not least: Popo birds. Of course, you’ll have to read the book to know what those are.
The Author
First off, I'm from New Mexico, which I assure you is indeed a state within the United States of America. (You'd be surprised how often I get that.) At any given time I may be painting, programming, writing, designing a game, creating a 3D model, or using one of those AI art generators (you can thank mage.space for the above art). It might seem like I have an eclectic set of skills and hobbies, but a discerning individual will note that they all share a similar function: visualizing the fictitious. I simply like learning and exploring new tools to bring my visions to life. Unlike some of the other mediums, writing has the advantage of allowing the author to engage all of the reader's senses, to render people and places within the imagination of the reader in a way that no graphics card is capable of.
If you ask any author if their protagonists are based on themselves, they'll most likely tell you that they share some degree of similarity. In Oniris, the main protagonist Jonah Marrow and I have a lot in common. Like me, he is a writer and suffers many of the hardships that any creative person might face: finding purpose and motivation, forming a unique creative vision that actually has an audience, and balancing all of that with actually getting enough monetary compensation to make a living. Also like me, he has a mixed ethnicity but grew up without any strong sense of cultural identity, having been told by those around him that the culture and customs of his people were somehow inferior to others. Some of the religious characters and depictions of religious fanaticism in Jonah's life might seem outlandish, but to me, having grown up in what would nowadays be referred to as a "cult," they don't seem far from reality. I could go on, of course. You write what you know, and although he is different in many ways, I do know Jonah Marrow quite well. There are many other characters and aspects of the book, some inspired by actual events and observations, and others completely fabricated from imagination. Some of which, I'm sure, will resonate with any reader.
I am also currently working on a series of paintings (physical, acrylic paintings) of characters and scenes from the book, and plan to one day make a game or two set in the same universe. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Oniris is a book. One that I hope engages your brain’s rendering capabilities without causing too many errors, and, more importantly, one that’s as fun to read as it was for me to write.
