A cinematic dark fantasy series

Malthoren

Being remembered is a form of existence.

Watch Episode 1 → Enter the archive

The first law

The law of Malthoren is memory.

To be remembered is to exist; to be forgotten is to die a second time.

So the world keeps records: of its beasts, its kingdoms, its bloodlines, its spells and its dead.

Malthoren is a dark medieval world, and the series on YouTube that tells its story.

An old scribe writes at a folding table on a hilltop above a harbour city at sunset, a young man standing beside him, kites in the sky.

Now showing

Episode 1

A new episode every Sunday on YouTube.
Forty-eight hours earlier in the archive.

Malthoren — Episode 1
Malthoren · Episode 1Watch on YouTube →

The archive

YouTube shows what survived. The archive keeps what was buried.

On Patreon

Every act forty-eight hours early, and the world beneath the story.

The archive behind Malthoren: its beasts, kingdoms, bloodlines, surviving texts and maps, and the papers its people leave behind.

TravellerFree

For anyone who wants to walk in before deciding. Everything published in the open: Behind the Chapter, and some of the papers the world leaves behind.

Walk in free →

I

Scribe's Apprentice

$5 / month

For those who want it first.

  • The Chapters — every act, forty-eight hours before it goes public, uploaded here
  • The Bestiary — beasts in full: where they live, how they behave, what to do if you meet one
  • The Kingdoms — kingdoms, cities, roads and ports seen from the ground, and the inns along them
  • The Figures — the people the histories left out, and the letters ordinary people send
Join →
The whole archive

II

Archivist of Ledrindor

$10 / month

For readers who want the whole archive.

  • Everything in Scribe's Apprentice
  • The Cases — events, recovered objects, and the rulings of the courts
  • The Ruins — the fourteen ruins of Malthoren, told by whoever deals with them
  • The Lines — dynasties, houses and guilds, told generation by generation
  • The Fragments — surviving texts read aloud in the original tongue
  • The Compendium — every spell, all seven degrees
  • The Entry — a film on a single idea of the world
  • The Maps — the world as it is currently drawn
  • The Monolith — your name cut into the stone the month you join, and never erased
Join →

III

The Tallest Document

$15 / month

For those who want all of it, and a name inside it.

  • Everything in Archivist of Ledrindor
  • The Archive — the long film: what we know about something, and how we know it
  • The Epitaph — your name at the end of every act, with the archive's thanks

Once it is there, it stays.

Join →

Join here, in the browser. Through the Patreon app on iPhone or iPad, Apple's fee is added on top: the same archive, the same access, at a higher price to you.

What the archive keeps

Nothing here is written to be mysterious. The archive is meant to be used.

Documented

when the record holds.

Partial

when it doesn't.

Sealed

when what's left won't answer.

Every entry carries a mark. Roughly six entries in ten are documented. One in ten is sealed, and will stay that way.

The written archive

Eight collections
  1. I

    The Bestiary

    The beasts of Malthoren, and the peoples the fissures changed. Full records — where it lives, how it hunts, what to do if you meet it — and the notices posted on the roads they haunt.

    Opens atScribe's Apprentice
  2. II

    The Cases

    What happened, and what was left. Events, recovered objects, the illnesses that marked the world, and the rulings of its courts: who sued whom, over what, and who won.

    Opens atArchivist of Ledrindor
  3. III

    The Kingdoms

    Kingdoms, cities, roads and ports, told from the day of someone who doesn't rule them. And the life along the road: the names an innkeeper sings at closing, what is on the table, the notices on the harbour steps.

    Opens atScribe's Apprentice
  4. IV

    The Ruins

    Fourteen ruins stand in Malthoren, and none of them are empty. Each is told by whoever guards it, avoids it, or makes a living from it.

    Opens atArchivist of Ledrindor
  5. V

    The Lines

    Dynasties, houses, guilds and orders, told generation by generation, with a portrait for each. And the rolls of homage — who holds what, from whom, and the strange clause each fief still keeps.

    Opens atArchivist of Ledrindor
  6. VI

    The Figures

    The people the great histories left out: the clerk who ended a war with a sum, the executioner who resigned. And the letters ordinary people send, found in bottles on the south coast.

    Opens atScribe's Apprentice
  7. VII

    The Fragments

    Surviving texts, read aloud in the original tongue: scripture, doctrine, the long disputes of the schools. And what the world says by the fire — its sayings, its jokes, the tales every child learns first.

    Opens atArchivist of Ledrindor
  8. VIII

    The Compendium

    The spells of the old compendium, copied one at a time: from the humble arts of the first degree to the seventh, whose very mention made copyists tremble.

    Opens atArchivist of Ledrindor
An elven archer stands in a vast storehouse of stacked sacks and crates, workers resting in the light behind her.

Two kinds of piece

Full records

The long entries: everything the archive knows about a beast, a kingdom, a bloodline, a person or a text, with the testimony of someone who was there, read aloud, and a short film.

Papers

What the world leaves behind on its own: a notice nailed to a door, the names an innkeeper sings at closing, a roll of homage, a letter found in a bottle, a court ruling, a recipe, a saying told by the fire, a set of plates.

Every piece carries its kind as a tag, so you can follow the one you like across the whole archive.

Four collections are film

The films

The Maps — the world as it is currently drawn, updated as the Kingdoms grow. Opens at Archivist of Ledrindor.

Enter the archive on Patreon →
An elven archer stands on a hilltop beside an empty folding chair, a harbour city and kites below the setting sun.

The Monolith · The Epitaph

Parchment burns. Stone does not.

Members of Archivist of Ledrindor and The Tallest Document are cut into The Monolith the month they join, together with the two higher levels of the YouTube membership. The stone is published once a month, open to everyone, and no name on it is ever erased unless its owner asks.

Members of The Tallest Document, and of the highest level on YouTube, are also named at the end of every act, with the archive's thanks. That is The Epitaph.

You choose how your name appears, or whether it appears at all.

Close portrait of an elven archer on a harbour at sunset, a quiver over her shoulder.

YouTube channel membership

If you'd rather watch than read.

The films and the stone are also on YouTube, as a channel membership, for less: the same films and the same names, without the written archive or the early acts.

Each level includes everything in the levels below it.

Join on YouTube →

Watching on a TV? Join from your phone or computer: the membership follows you to every screen.

The register

Enter your name into the record.

Be told when a new episode opens. No noise — only word from the archive.

You'll confirm once from your inbox. After that, only word when a new episode opens.

Your name is entered. Check your inbox and confirm — then the archive will write to you when a new episode opens.