New Story Poll: The Perfect Run or Death's Hand? (Patreon)

Alright, so here are the two novels I'm considering writing next now that Vainqueur is done. I would like your opinion on which one you prefer, with both being long serials and a major project (far longer than NDT at least). Now, cast your vote!

1) The Perfect Run: a sci-fi superhero comedy. 

"Hey, I'm Quicksave. I'm immortal, but don't tell anyone." - Quicksave to everyone he meets.

In an alternate Earth, things went off the rails with the discovery of Elixirs: potions created by a mysterious individual called the Alchemist, capable of giving people superpowers. These people, later called the Genomes, received Elixirs at random around the world as a social experiment, causing an era of chaos and instability as governments failed to contain superpowered individuals. Meanwhile, Pharmaceutical companies tried to reproduce the miraculous drugs, but could only create weaker knock-offs. 

More than a decade after the apparition of Genomes, 'Old World' governments have all but collapsed, replaced by crime families, superhero protectorates, and mega-corporations trying to manufacture their own elixirs for public consumption. Italy in particular is torn between an alliance of superhero-sponsoring companies, a crime syndicate called the Augusti, and the Meta, a group of dangerous Elixir-addicts. While society recovered,  it is a different world where weak powers can be purchased by the middle-class, and Alchemist-made Elixirs are worth a mountain of gold. 

The protagonist, Ryan Romano, alias Quicksave, is a man with strange powers over time. In particular, he has a secret quirk: he can 'save' at any point in time, and return back to the past when killed. 

A pity that returning from the dead countless time did a number on his sanity.

When he arrives in the glitzy city of New Rome, a superhero Las Vegas, to look for a lost friend, Quicksave has looped for so long that he has become an eccentric to outsiders. Treating his own death as a minor inconvenience, Quicksave fends off his boredom by trying novel things and deadly stunts, with almost no regard for his own safety. 

When he receives offers from both villains and heroes to join them, Ryan doesn't see a life choice. He sees alternative routes to a game with different endings... and he has to try them all.

But as troubles begin to pile up, can Quicksave complete his Perfect Run?

The Perfect Run would be a mix of comedy and serial storyline in tone, pretty much like Vainqueur, Rick and Morty or Amazon's The Boys. Quicksave is an eccentric mad scientist halfway divorced from reality, happy to try ridiculous stunts simply because he can live through them, and treating almost everything with casual irreverence. Still, he has a strange moral compass and finds himself working for all factions in New Rome at one point (villain, hero, in-between), investigating the city's dark secrets and hidden feuds. 

Imagine a superhero game where the same character explores various 'routes,' carrying the knowledge of each as he attempts to find the 'Golden Ending.' It would also play with groundhog day loops scenarios and explore the consequences it has on the person's mental health.

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2) Death's Hand: Wuxia / cultivation fantasy story

For millennia, the Heavenly Empire has been the center of the world and the birthplace of gods. Owing its name to a giant pillar of light linking Earth and Heaven, the country has long been protected by cultivators, people who through martial art training, careful meditation, and the use of elixirs, gain supernatural power. The strongest of them may complete their journey by trying to climb the Pillar of Heaven, ascending as godlike immortals. 

However, the training to become a cultivator is carefully regulated, since in special elixirs, pills, and fruits are needed to awaken one’s potential. As a result, sect membership has become a privilege of the elite, with only rich merchants and nobles gaining entrance. The growing power of Noble Sects resulted in the costly Tributary War, where cultivator groups supported vassal states in declaring independence from the Empire. The Empire prevailed, but still struggles with keeping clans under its control. 

Years afterward, the country is facing many problems. The Demon Lords, people who failed to ascend to Heaven for their vices and were instead cast down to earth as monsters, terrorize regions as warlords; a rogue group of criminal cultivators, the Hand, attack sects in their quest to become godlike immortals; and new martial artists from beyond the empire's borders bring new paths to power, revolutionary technology, and nefarious drugs to a stagnating society.  

Amidst this, Shen Makoto is a young man from the middle-class, the biracial son of an innkeeper and a merchant from the eastern islands. His best friend, Lee Redfang, is a member of the Noble Redfang Sect overseeing their hometown of Yuan. In spite of his intelligence and discipline, Shen is forbidden from joining the sect due to his low birth. Instead of being discouraged, he illegally created a homemade cultivation pill to begin his path as a martial artist, with Lee's reluctant assistance. The experiment is a success, and Shen becomes a secret cultivator. 

Unfortunately, his inn's latest guests turn out to be the five criminals called the Hand, and they massacre the Redfang sect to steal their treasures. The next morning, Shen finds his friend Lee has been killed during the attack, and vows revenge. 

His resourcefulness, however, attracts the attention of a mysterious imperial official called Toshiyami, who offers him a spot in the Black Lotus: a special sect of cultivators in the service of the Empire. Tasked with regulating noble sects, maintain orders, and defeat supernatural threats to the Empire, the Black Lotus offers the young man a chance to pursue the Hand and end their rampage. Shen accepts.

The young man embarks on a journey to reach the apex of the world and save the empire from the dark times ahead. In time, he will become know as Death's Hand. 

Death's Hand would be a Wuxia fantasy in the same tone as Avatar: The Last Airbender or the first half of Naruto. However, it would also examine and overturn some cliche of cultivation stories. Cultivation/ascension is possible and everyone can do it, but the elixirs/pills needed to truly progress are carefully regulated by the government and hoarded by the wealthy, much like how resources are managed in our world. This in turn creates a black market fueling criminal martial artists, and feeds social tensions. Foreigner sects of martial artists exist, some of them based on societies like the oriental Assassins or Japanese monks, and challenge the way things have always been in the Empire. 

In short, Death's Hand is a cultivation story that doesn't take place in a warring state-like era, but that of the Opium Wars. It would be a more serious fantasy story in the vein of NDT, albeit with some moments of humors. 

So, which is your choice?