There's a TL:DR at the bottom. Spoilers for Hollow Knight lore. Some of this will make more sense if you've played Silksong, but I won't spoil anything.

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Very quickly before I get to the details, quick recap of lore relevant to this fangame:

"This ashen place is grave of Wyrm. Once told, it came to die. But what is death for that ancient being? More transformation methinks." -Bardoon

"The Champion's Call, the Knotted Grove, the Battle of the Blackwyrm... I remember it all. I will carry those glories with me always... until we meet again." -Ogrim (Dung Defender)

In Hollow Knight lore, Wyrms (at least the Pale one that created Hallownest) choose to die and then reincarnate in another form. I believe the Pale King rebirthed as one of his organs, or some kind of thing inside of Wyrms that they choose to reincarnate into.

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I really want to see the Surface of the Hollow Knight world. We get glimpses of it in both games, a tiny taste, but we never actually get to explore it. Conveniently there's always a physical or moral barrier preventing it. So what if there was a game that takes place on the surface, or near it, at all times?

Wyrm corpses. I'll get to that.

At first, I wanted the player character to be a Snail Shaman. It sounded like a fun idea, playing as a character that's lore-relevant, physically capable, has room to improve, and has been seen in both games, but, at the same time it would feel kind of random. The Knight is two-halves Higher Being (Wyrm, Root) and piloted by Higher-Being-like substance (Void). Hornet is half Higher Being (Wyrm) and half race enhanced by a Higher Being (Weaver). Snail Shaman? Seems to be a common bug. No big relations to Wyrms or Hallownest. Of course I could make up my own connections in a fangame entertaining a Snail Shaman, but then I had a better idea:

What if you played as an actual, 100% Wyrm?

Okay, so the game. It takes place in a kingdom almost completely within dead Wyrms. These Wyrms fought the Blackwyrm in the battle Ogrim mentions. You play as a Wyrm... in the form they rebirth as. You remember how the Pale King used to be the massive creature all throughout the Kingdom's Edge, then walked out as the little fork-head we see? You would play as a fork-head Wyrm that \*just\* spawned from itself a few minutes ago.

The following lore was never implied in HK or SS, so this will be the game's unique spin on the lore (without contradicting anything stated). The game's lore will say that, when a Wyrm rebirths, it remembers nothing from its past life. It has little knowledge of its own powers, its surroundings, or anything of the sort. It feels like it was just born for the first time. Over time, it can start reaching the full strength of its new form which it chose to rebirth to, and regaining its memories, and its foresight powers, and all that cool stuff that Wyrms do. But not at first.

The Knight just never grew up, didn't collect anything, didn't learn anything. Despite 'living' through all the time Hallownest was dead, it only started gaining power after returning to Hallownest.

Hornet \*was\* very skilled, but after her long time spent in a cage covered in runes, she lost her strength, and had to regain everything through Pharloom's resources and the Weavers that stayed for her.

This Wyrm of the third game would be more like Hornet in that it had much strength, as Wyrms do, but having just rebirthed, it is weak. This would be the lore explanation for why a Wyrm can't immediately destroy everything in its sight, like Hornet would've without the runes on her cage.

I think it fits. All three player-characters would be Wyrms, you'd play as something important to the games (mostly HK but still), and you'd get lore over arguably the most important race thus far.

Okay, so what about the kingdom?

As I mentioned, the whole kingdom, or most of it, would take place inside Wyrm corpses, much like the Kingdom's Edge in HK. These corpses would be the result of the Battle of the Blackwyrm, which this game's lore reveals was a battle between many Wyrms and one, black, Wyrm.

Each area would be inside a different Wyrm. Maybe one was brown, maybe one was yellow, maybe one was sick with Lifeblood and got caught in the battle. Maybe some of them have tribes and camps of normal bugs who found these massive, shelled tunnels-inside-of-Wyrms to be safe.

The bosses? Other reincarnated Wyrms. (And random beasts like Brooding Mawlek I guess, and the leaders of the afforementioned tribes. But imagine fighting Wyrms on the daily!). Those would be the main source of the player-character's abilities. The Knight gets skilled with the nail and learns magic, Hornet physically regains her strength and binds Silk Skills, and this Wyrm absorbs the powers of other Wyrms. Perhaps foresight was a trait specific to the Pale Wyrm from Hallownest (or Paleness entirely?) and every Wyrm has its own abilities!

That's the main point of the game. Play as a Wyrm, fight other Wyrms racing to 'grow up', remember the battle and your past. Become a Wyrm of many strengths.

But how was one black Wyrm a worthy foe of many other Wyrms plus the five great knights, you ask?

IT WAS INFECTED BY VOID!

THE MANDATORY ABYSS AREA OF THIS GAME?

\*\*INSIDE THE INFECTED WYRM!\*\*

Thanks for reading!

TL:DR: Wyrm corpses. If you want more detail read the post :D

My idea for a Hollow Knight fangame: Kingdom in the ruins of the Battle of the Blackwyrm