Exalted Text is my independent creative studio and the living book that binds all my work. Every game I design, every chapter I write, every Codex entry I carve becomes another page in this evolving tome of dark fantasy with consequence.
It is a studio with the soul of a scripture —
a dangerous book of worlds, obsessions, and visions that refuse to stay quiet.
Orphan, Reign MUX, and the Cradle Codex are all chapters in this larger work.
As a studio, it is a solitary forge where I turn imagination into games, prose, and living worlds.
As a tome, it is a growing archive of violet-lit fantasy shaped by struggle, consequence, and will.
Everything I create under this name adds another page to the same myth.
“What is your mission?”
My mission is simple, but vast:
To create worlds where every choice carries weight, every failure matters, scars become stories, and every fall is mythic. I am drawn to tales that hurt and carve themselves into memory. My work aims to bring literary gravity into interactive fiction and collaborative roleplay; to offer players and readers experiences shaped by:
- real stakes, consequence, relentless danger
- obsession, insanity, questioning moral norms
- striving, yearning, and the pursuit of legacy
- demonstrations of the true depth of human will
Exalted Text is where dark fantasy becomes sacred ritual.
Where prose becomes gameplay, and characters become legends or lore.
“Who are you?”
I am Truth Serum — writer, worldbuilder, designer of dark systems, and the founding architect of the Exalted Text. My work is shaped by obsession: primal worlds, ancient histories, mythic dynasties, and the dangerous beauty of human ambition.
My life has been spent studying how we tell stories; how myths form, how consequence turns into narrative, how characters rise and fracture beneath the weight of their choices. Books, games, MUDs, MUSHes, legends, psychology, and philosophy have all shaped the way I build worlds. Throughout this process, I never stopped imagining worlds that felt truer, harsher, and more honest than the ones around me.
Beneath that hunger is a fascination with the ancient patterns driving human behavior — the instincts, rituals, hierarchies, desires, and archetypes that repeat across eras. My work studies the old machinery of the human mind: dominance, submission, tribe, bloodline, ambition, sacrifice, and the stories we build to justify them.
I write worlds that expose these patterns instead of hiding them, binding them into beautiful prose and bold mechanics that fundamentally define how they’re experienced. Our refusal to confront human nature is the deadliest sin of all. Exalted Text is my answer to that denial, a manifesto worshipped in text.
“What do you create?”
Exalted Text is the umbrella for a growing constellation of dark, interconnected works.
🩸Orphan
Orphan is a dark fantasy CYOA — a pulp-erotica, cosmic-horror interactive novel about suffering, identity, ascension, and unmaking. Orphan currently spans over 294,000 words across two major branching routes, with a plethora of flavorful choices, and dynamic character customization.
Play it for free in your browser or support on Patreon for the full, Uncut edition.
It has reached:
- 664,000 views
- 204,000+ browser plays
- 22,500 downloads
- 4,250 collections
- 115 player ratings on itch.io
- Multiple spikes of 20–30k views in a single day
For a niche, atmospheric, mature fantasy project, these numbers speak for themselves. Orphan is the first major chapter of the Exalted Text, the spark that ignited the studio and continues to fuel the Grand Campaign.
👑Reign MUX
Reign MUX is a Literary Roguelike — a text-born multiplayer world of castes, dynasties, gladiators, permadeath, and brutal consequence. A MUX you can enter at any time, where a growing community of players shape a living city-state with their choices, victories, failures, and bloodlines.
Set in the same universe as Orphan, Reign continues the mythology of Cradle just moments after the Sorcerer-King’s fall. It is a persistent, dangerous, violet-lit world built for adult writers who crave:
- high stakes, real danger and risk
- meaningful loss and deaths that matter
- complex politics driven by players
- gritty combat; limbs loss, blood splattered
- character-driven storytelling that changes the world
You do not grind in Reign; you fight to survive.
You do not respawn; you leave a dynasty behind.
Every characters’ life and death writes a page in the Exalted Text.
🕯️The Cradle Universe
Cradle is the monolithic, crater-built city-state at the heart of the Exalted Text mythos. A world shaped by:
- castes carved in blood and hierarchy
- war, famine, and the struggle to endure
- divine memory and bone-deep superstition
- ruins glowing with violet, haunted light
- old gods dethroned and new conquerors rising
The Cradle Codex expands weekly: documenting races, quarter districts, noble houses, gods, daemons, castes, factions, and the forgotten ages buried beneath the stone. The Codex is scripture. And scripture is power.
“Why are you making Reign MUX?”
Because no one else was making the world I wanted to play in.
Modern games are afraid of their players. Everything is balanced, safe, convenient, reversible.
Death is trivial. Choices don’t echo. Nothing breaks because nothing matters.
Years in MUDs and MUSHes (Armageddon, Atonement, Arx and more) showed me worlds so terrified of risk that they slowly calcified; conflict was softened, stakes were blurred, and narrative potential collapsed under containment. I saw what long-term text-based worlds could become and what they repeatedly failed to be.
Reign is my answer to that.
It is a world built for mature players who understand that tension, conflict, risk, and even violence are storytelling instruments, not indulgences. Here, castes rise and fall, dynasties expand or shatter, alliances form or fracture; not for empty spectacle, but for narrative evolution. Nothing is protected simply because it is familiar; nothing is taboo to explore if approached with intention and respect.
Reign rewards boldness, risk, and meaningful choice; not grinding, power fantasies, or simple, cheap thrills. It is a world where consequences exist because they give stories truth, and where characters face danger because danger reveals who they are and what they can become.
A Literary Roguelike treats every character as a stanza in a larger poem – a brief but burning mark on the world’s history. You are here to shape myth, to carve legacy, to leave something behind. Death is not failure; it is punctuation. Legacy is the only victory condition. Reign MUX is not nostalgia. It is evolution.
The return of danger. The rebirth of permanence.
The forging of a world built to endure, not collapse.
“Where is Exalted Text going?”
Onward! Into more worlds, deeper systems, and darker myths.
Reign MUX will move from closed circles to a living, evolving city-state.
Orphan will grow in breadth, depth and consequence.
The Cradle Codex will continue to carve the world into scripture.
And new works – stories, games, chapters, mechanics – will join the canon.
Exalted Text is not a single project.
It is an unfolding myth.
“How can I join the Inner Circle?”
Enter the Exalted Text Discord
Walk into the violet-lit world of Cradle.
Discuss lore. Participate in design. Read dev scrolls. Share ideas.
Meet the others who feel drawn to this myth.
Support the Exalted Text on Patreon
Patrons fund the studio directly; writing time, worldbuilding, codex entries and Reign MUX development. Supporters gain early access, exclusive lore, behind-the-scenes notes, privileged content, and a place at the foundation of this world. Every patron becomes part of the scripture.
Exalted Text is a long road — a conqueror’s path through blood, memory, ruin, and rebirth.
A world built on consequence. A scripture carved slowly, violently, honestly.
If you feel called toward this kind of world;
I’d be honored to have you walk it with me.
🩸 Onward.
– Truth @ Exalted Text
Reign MUX: A Literary Roguelike 