Earthoria
The World of Banyard & Mingle
The History
After a cataclysm that all but destroyed the human race, civilisation returned to a primitive state, only to redevelop through familiar ages of progression. This dystopian Earth is renamed Earthoria.
Fast forward to Eighteenth Century Earthoria and, although reminiscent of Victorian England, a few things have changed. There are top hats and pocket watches but also flintlocks and airships. Re-shaped by the cataclysm, the geography is also different. There are now only eleven months in the year, society is unjust, there’s a green glow on the horizon…
And there are gawpers.
Gawpers
An excerpt from A Sock Full of Bones
“Where do the gawpers fit in? You may ask. Gawpers are different, creatures somewhere between myth and legend. No one knows what they are. Those who have encountered them believe in their existence. Many, who have not, do not. They slink out from the moon shadows after dark. They climb from the fog in the small hours while we sleep. They come and go like the autumn mists. They are the stuff of a child’s nightmare.
You will know when you see one. A ragged shape will rise from the gloom before you and a pair of glowing white eyes will gawp, two cold points of light that bore through to your soul and steal your breath.”
Those found wanting, beware! It is said the gawpers are harbingers of doom. What are they? From where do they come? To Michael Banyard, they are the greatest unsolved case.
Our Rogues:
Michael Banyard
Banyard is a silker, one of the noble class, but he differs from most others. He sees the cruel injustice of a society polarised into rich and poor. He is the rogue tricorn in a sea of silk toppers. While solving mysteries as a private detective, he saves threaders at every opportunity. Take the condemned thief Silus Garroway, for instance, otherwise known as…
Josiah Mingle
Rescued from the noose, Mingle is now a business partner in private detective agency ‘Mysteries Solved’. He’s uneducated, built like a thug and is quite incapable of sticking to the plan. Finding his feet in his new silker position is a constant challenge. Can he prove his worth to his saviour and partner, Banyard, or will his many and varied blunders be the death of them both?
'The threaders thread the silk.
The silkers wear the silk.'
– the silkers’ creed.