Requiem for the Nameless

Information

Following the betrayal of a trusted ally, Elio believed he was dead, until he woke up alive and uninjured. Thrust several years back into the past, the general of a once prosperous yet now fallen kingdom finds himself struggling to change a bleak future while seeking answers to the burning questions in his head.

As the world becomes clearer to him, he starts to doubt the things he's always assumed about the people around him and even himself. In a race against time and the empire once more, can he really change anything or is he doomed to live the same tragedy twice?

Formats

Though it was originally meant to exculsively available as an eBook, I later decided to create a paperback version, just so I could have a physical copy. It was the first time I had to format something as a formal manuscript so it was honestly a very difficult and frustrating experience. But that said, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. The paperback's cover design is relatively simple, consisting of an additional blurb.

Art and Design

Cover Art

The cover of the book features the main character holding a sword that divides his attire into two. The left side represents his past (before the story took place), while the right represents his present. Rather than have the distinction be between timelines, it felt more suitable to contrast a glorious period of his life with the one afterwards in which he struggles to believe that he deserved it. The background alludes to the element of time travel while the chains imply that he's trapped in some way, as his mind continues to remain stuck on the past.

Concept Art

Though this project wasn't supposed to involve any art, I ended up drawing the main character and another major character just for fun. The drawings are displayed above. The design of the main character (left) has changed slightly so it differs a little from the cover.

Background

I first started writing this in the summer of 2024, with no intention to publish it (just like my first novel). It was initially meant to be a short story but it became far longer as I continued to develop the world and the plot. What was originally set in a linear timeline with a huge flashback in the middle later turned into a non-linear story switching between two timelines. It was a huge change — I had to scrap the 21k words in my first draft — but if you ask me, it was for the better. My goal while writing this story was to have the reader discover things at the same time that the main character does, all the while maintaining a sort of unreliable narrator element due to the character's own ignorance. It was after I published my first novel that I decided it was worth publishing this one as well, mostly for the rights, but also to share it.

The setting of this story was heavily inspired by a trip I had, in which the scenery along the car rides made me wonder how it would be to live in that kind of environment unlike the small city-state I grew up in. Writing something in a historical setting was quite a challenge as I had to keep the language and metaphors relevant to the setting. I chose to set it in a fictional world so I would have greater freedom with the history and such elements, and also because I wanted to add some fantasy too. The cast of characters is far more diverse than what I was used to and so I had to put extra care into developing each of them so they wouldn't be there just for show. Some of the character dynamics I created on a whim and the scenes I wrote for them even became some of my favourites I've written. Still, the story is focused on the main character as I wanted to leave room for the reader to imagine the others' stories for themselves. I think of it as how different people and their paths intertwine — sometimes you only discover the surface of their backstories before they're gone.

In addition to the characters, I've always liked experimenting with new ways of telling stories and a having a non-linear timeline was the perfect way to do that. Compared to my first story, the plot plays a bigger role in this one, but even then, I've cut out filler scenes so everything is there with a purpose. The splitting between chapters is a bit uneven, because my original plan was just a very long one-shot story. Only halfway through did I decide to break it into chapters, and alternating the chapters clearly between the present timeline and the past one felt like the most appropriate way to do so. This novel took way longer to write than my first, especially because I started college. It was a bit of a pain to write sometimes and there was a day I had to sit down and spend over an hour writing down the full timeline because I was starting to confuse myself, but it was worth it and I really liked how this novel turned out. I've also written a short prequel that can be found here, though I'd suggest only reading it after the main story. On the right is a small illustration I did for the side story because I couldn't bear to part with these characters so soon... Anyway, if you decide to read my novel, I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!