Drive your blade through the heart of an immortal empire! Infiltrate the tyrant emperor’s personal guard, gaining his trust and learning his supernatural secrets, and put your assassin’s skills to the test. By sword, scheme or sorcery remove imperial servants from your path, and shape the future of the realm. Choose the successor who will sit upon the throne, and leave the city in peaceful prosperity or bloody broken ruin.

A Blade for the Emperor is a 425,000-word interactive novel by Samuel Gohra. It is entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

From his seat of power in the city of Virdivil, Emperor Erid Virdeus dominates his lands with barbarous decrees and twisted curses. There is no greater danger than a tyrant with magic at their fingertips - and it falls to you to end this existential threat.

In Virdivil, you find a city in turmoil. Guards savage the streets, rebels plot in the shadows, spells steal mutinous voices, and monstrous hordes lurk below. As you unravel Erid’s magical and material protections, will you be a silent knife in the dark? Or a chameleon, changing garb and voice to hide in plain sight? Can an end be crafted with nothing but cunning words? Or must your sword carve a swathe through bloody battlefields? Push beyond earthly limits, drawing on the runes carved into your bones to perform feats of preternatural ability.

Forge alliances with royal heirs or ambitious rebels, choosing your enemies and allies at court with care. Dare to follow your heart, chancing a royal liaison amid treachery and murder. Venture into the black caves sprawling beneath the cobbled streets, to scour creatures of rotting death and verdant green from the rock - or join them in supernatural union, to unlock the power thrumming through every leaf and root in Virdivil.

Bring death to those you deem deserving - the cruel and unyielding captain of the guard, the powerful and mysterious court sorceress, the rogue royal who has turned rebel, the twisted grotesquerie that commands shambling legions, the almighty emperor himself, and more. Who will you leave in your wake, as a bloodied corpse, a mottled creature, or a spurned and broken tool? And who will you guide into the future, as a redeemed and reformed paragon, a closely protected consort, or an all-powerful ruler?

● Delve into a [wordcount]-word tale of bloodshed, politics and sorcery.

● Be a quiet dagger, a whispering puppeteer, a rune-bolstered warrior, and more.

● Drive an empire to savage war, or lasting peace.

● Forge alliances with royals, rebels and horrors - or bring them to ruin.

● Purge the city of perilous sorcery - or wield it for yourself.

● Be a merciful savior, a bloody butcher, a being of elemental transcendence.

● Become a royal consort, courting warrior, schemer or rebel.

● Play as male, female or non-binary, straight, gay or bi.

How many must die, to bring an end to the immortal empire?