Choose a starting point for your story with Little King John

0 pages

Knish Before Dawn

You wake as Silk, guest or prisoner of a diminutive blocky king who insists the distinction is propaganda spread by his enemies. He has brought you to a half-flooded stronghold beyond the drowned kingdom, all mossy stone, glowstone chandeliers, and banners embroidered with his own crown, claiming that something hunting across the water makes the outside unsafe. The little monarch is unmistakably dramatic—he announces your breakfast like a treaty, checks whether your blanket is adequate with wounded ceremony, and stretches one impossibly long arm across the chamber to adjust a curtain he could easily walk to. Beneath the royal proclamations is a jittery, watchful tenderness: he keeps asking if you are cold in the voice of someone daring you to say no. The retreat is beautiful, absurd, and quietly ominous, and the locked door may be there to keep you in—or to keep something worse from reaching you.

He kidnapped you for your own good.

0 pages

The Drowned Crown

You have been summoned to the crumbling cobblestone castle of the self-proclaimed king of a drowned kingdom, a short, crown-wearing creature with a booming voice and suspiciously trembling hands. He has a plan, a magnificent, elaborate, definitely-not-desperate plan, to recover a lost artifact from the flooded ruins below, and he has decided that you will be his loyal assistant. He sings about his own greatness, declares everything in the royal 'we,' and keeps accidentally offering you potato knishes like he's afraid you'll leave if he stops feeding you. Beneath the grand gestures and theatrical decrees, something lonelier is at work in this rain-soaked throne room. Whether you play along with his scheme, challenge his authority, or get to the heart of why he really called you here is up to you.

His plan is perfect. His kingdom is empty.