Fantasy Grimdark Horror Magic Steampunk Tragedy

Twilight Kingdom Night Nation (stubbed)

Name: Twilight Kingdom Night Nation (stubbed)
Rating: 4.53 (774 reviews)
Author: Hesketh

Hesketh

4.53 774 Ratings

Ongoing Status

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Synopsis

[Twilight Kingdom, Book 1 is available on Amazon and Audible]

[Night Nation, Book 2]

Candle Enys is no longer human. But her soul belongs to a demon and she wants it back.

To become whole she must travel to the land of the dead, and destroy the demon before it can destroy her.

Along the way she will make new friends, new enemies and explore the roots of her draconic heritage. This new dragon will leave behind her, a trail of destruction, cake crumbs and broken hearts (just kidding there’s no romance only death).

A dark fantasy with progression elements.

One chapter a day until its done. I will stop at the end of book 2 to contemplate my life choices and collect my braincells.

Books similar to Twilight Kingdom Night Nation (stubbed)

Axiom of Infinity: Souleater

★ 4.64

TSeris

"They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. What then are we to think of it when the gods themselves steal our ideas on how the universe should work? Can we complain when they turn reality into a game? Can we get a refund on life itself? The gods claim they answered our prayers. That they built this world with us in mind. That they brought us here for our own sake. Maybe they did. Personally I think they have their own reasons. We're not the players in this game, we're the pieces on the board.

Still... What if it's fun?"

Axiom of Infinity follows the story of several travelers from Earth as they attempt to make new lives for themselves in a world with monsters and dungeons, where RPG mechanics are as innate as the laws of physics, and where the gods themselves seem to be playing a very different game–one with unknown stakes and strange alliances. Blessed by two gods and cursed by another, one man finds himself at the center of their machinations, a pawn destined to become a queen.

This is a LitRPG Novel built on a hard system with a lot of depth and customization, but which tries not to beat you over the head with numbers constantly. In this world finding and reporting bugs and exploits is both encouraged and rewarded, and the gods have found the most qualified testers in the multiverse: Us. Now the unsuspecting natives of Astra are going to have to learn to live with a bunch of min-maxing, power-gaming, spreadsheet slinging nerds and gamers of all shapes and sizes as we do what we do best... break things.

Note: See author's note in the prologue for content warnings, publication schedule, and a more in-depth description of the story's content and direction. Book 1 is currently complete and will be stubbed when the story is published on Amazon. We're on hiatus until book 2 is ready to begin being published. Updates will be posted here, Discord, and Patreon.

Discord: https://discord.gg/jF2XacAAQk

This story is not authorized for publication anywhere other than Royal Road & my Patreon at this time.

The Phoenix [Cultivation, Reincarnation, Tower Climber]

★ 4.58

The Phoenix

She entered the Tower seeking death. Instead, she keeps finding reasons to live.

In this life, she's Bella, a jaded med student trying to catch up on centuries of medical innovation. Or at least, she was before the Tower appeared. With the promise that she would find whatever she sought if she reached the top, she entered, hoping to find a way to end her curse.

However, even with hundreds of lives of experience to fall back on, reaching the top is no easy task. The Tower is filled with wonders she could only dream of, and what she once believed was the peak of power was only the first rung of a much larger climb. Her foundations are unshakable, but the Tower is deeper, deadlier, and more exhilarating than anything she’s ever faced.

And when she finally reaches the top? She’ll decide whether to end it all… or maybe not.

Inspired by:

- Tower of God
- Hunter X Hunter
- Hell Difficulty Tutorial
- Various Murim and Xianxia stories

What to expect

- Strong to Stronger
- Magic system is Hunter X Hunter + cultivation
- A Tower of massive scale with many different places and races
- No romance
- Long-term character development
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Mirabelle’s Boots – The Cruel Fairy’s Wish [A Shoe-Making litRPG!]

★ 4.77

Razzmatazz

[I was reborn after being murdered because of the true wish that I made for revenge against all human-peoples, but now I’m alive again and I actually just kind of don’t want to do that anymore; so I opened a shoe-store instead!]

After being violently torn from her old life in the natural world after being grotesquely murdered by miners belonging to members of the common races of humans and elves, Mirabelle the fairy makes a true wish to anything that can hear her dying screams, beckoning the old powers of the forgotten reaches to allow her to take her revenge against those who stole all things that were precious from her in life.

Her wish is granted. However, upon being reborn in an age far after when she had originally died, and all traces of her old life having been erased by the unforgiving passing of time, she finds herself alone with a spirit that is now as crushed as her old body had been, as while she has indeed been granted her wish for power, all of the people who wronged her have long since died already.

Finding a new way, the cruel fairy forsakes her true wish to make the world worse than she left it and instead finds a new life in a very unlikely place — the large, nearby human city that hadn’t existed when she last knew the area generations upon generations ago.

Needing a method to survive as the only fairy within the human capital, if not the only one at all in the world, Mirabelle lives in secret within the vibrant city full of magic and adventurers, adapting to the ways of the human-people, as the fairy ways do not suffice to survive within this new, industrious society that is the total opposite of her old one, until she finds her path forward as a shoemaker's apprentice!

Living in seclusion and in fear, unable to reveal herself because of her own anxieties, the fairy practices the art of shoemaking in secret, the old contract of her rebirth not forgotten by her or by the dark stars that granted it, as she spends her days making boots as she tries to figure out what life exactly is for a cruel fairy or a cruel human, both of whom exist under the curious glow of starlight that seems to wait ever so patiently for the old bargain to be fulfilled.

Will Mirabelle succumb to her dark desires to make the humans pay for what they did to her and her people, or will she find a new way forward, breaking free from the spiritual shackles of revenge?

Find out in this new litRPG story from trending fantasy author D.M. Rhodes - ‘Razzmatazz’!

[Slow Paced] [Internal Conflict] [Casual Crafting] [Sad and Suffering =(] [But Then Happy and No Suffering! =)] [Not a Power Fantasy Story] [No Really, It's Slow Paced] [If You Didn't Like Dungeon Item Shop, You Won't Like This One] [BOOTS!]

Candlelit Lives: Serial Reincarnation LitRPG

★ 4.49

luda305

{Volume 1 Synopsis}:

It is an exciting time for the people of the Eurial continent. The new [Mage] Class has allowed the powerful to begin uniting the fractured tribes and villages into kingdoms and civilization. A century on, and the continent is quickly consolidating into competing states.

Amelia, student and daughter of a humble [Hunter], just wants to learn [Fireball] and become a [Mage] in service to her [King]. She succeeds. All is well as the months fly by, eagerly awaiting her Classing. One day though, she receives a (unique) Trait: [Reincarnator]. And then, she dies.

And so begin her many lives.

{Volume 2 Synopsis}

Other tags: Serial Reincarnator, Experimental Storytelling*

*The "Experimental Storytelling" is that each life is approximately a chapter-length (even if a very long chapter). That means things move very, very quickly (my Excel spreadsheet hates me) and, regretfully, we often spend very little time with the people, places and things in each life. Some might call it an anthology. In Volume 1, each life is literally only a chapter. In Volume 2, the word count is in the same range, but some lives are split into multiple chapters.

Comments suggesting fixes for grammar, misspellings, etc. appreciated.

Volume 1 (Lives 1-16), Volume 2 (Lives 17-25), and Volume 3 (the rest) have been completed and released, concluding the story. Volume 3 is regretfully not up to par, but I don't intend to return to the story to fix it.

Cover art for all three Volumes courtesy of gej302. Fiction cover art is my bad photography of a dark corner with candles.

Re:Cursed

★ 4.75

Joroboros

As the perfect sacrifice, it is only natural that Nix be sacrificed to the ancient gods lurking in the depths of the black hole.

But she didn’t die.

Finding herself seven years in the past — to the day of her first cursed mutation — Nix is determined to correct her regrets, enact vengeance on her murderers, and simply live the life that she never got to. But even with this second chance, freedom from the cults remains a pipe dream. To achieve everything she never could in her previous life, there is only one path before her.

Nix will twist the curses that once bound her into the very source of her strength.

The cults will regret sacrificing her… without ever knowing they already succeeded.

What to expect:
- A regressor revenge story with a heavy focus on character.
- Eldritch monsters, gods, and cults.
- Body horror. Mutations. Mouths in tongues, mould instead of hair, bonus limbs; that sort of thing
- Progression.
- LitRPG-lite system focused on the power of names.

[Cover art by Misty/@lil_mistake]

When The Cute Godkiller Opens A Tavern [OP Mentor, SoL, LitRPG]

★ 4.63

shallren

She killed all the malevolent gods, and now she deserves a break.

At least, that’s what Godkiller Shallies planned when she started running a tavern to fulfill a promise to an old friend. Call it fate or destiny, but what was supposed to be a humble establishment for common people to enjoy food and drinks quickly morphs into a gathering hub for the new generation of heroes waiting to be trained.

But Shallies knows that peace will never last, and that the gods will never truly stay dead.

So she trains these new heroes to prepare them in time for the next Divine War. One meal at a time.

What to expect:

- LitRPG with class progression, multi-class options, stats, and skills

- OP MC pretending to be normal

- Training montages and quests

- Cooking Recipes!

This is book 1 of an intended series named Shallies Can't SoL.

Ideworld Chronicles: The Art Mage

★ 4.7

OneDropRain

"Does the art ever dream of you?"

I never had a destiny.

Orphaned young and raised by a crime lord to be a daredevil thief in his image, I spent years trying to live a normal life, clinging to the rare moments of connection I could find. I was always searching for the truth of the world, and of myself.

But when my passion for art pulled me into a twisted reflection of Earth and awakened my power over Artistic Creation, I had to face a question I could no longer avoid:

Would I finally be able to paint my own fate?

My name is Alexandra May. I am the Archmage of the Domain of Artistic Creation. Eyes in the Sky. The Memory Weaver. The Angel Slayer. The Color Bender. Friend to Shadows. The Thief who stole the World.

And this is my story.

What to expect:

A sharp, flawed, and funny protagonist. A dangerous world split between modern Earth and a myth-twisted sister realm. Magic that’s inventive, unique, and deadly.

Alexa isn’t perfect. Far from it. She’s clever but burdened with trust issues, hubris, and greed. And she doesn’t start strong. She doesn’t gain her powers until a quarter into Act I, and even then, she fumbles more than she flourishes: building tools, not dominance. Her real magical growth doesn’t begin until midway through Act II, when the story’s pace and stakes surge.

The magic system is anything but ordinary. Forget fireballs. Think salt-armored warriors, flesh-twisting tentacles, or symphonies turned into weapons. Battles are fast, brutal, and surprising, with real consequences. Characters die. Sometimes even those you thought untouchable.

The world unfolds in layers: Earth as we know it, and Ideworld, where myths, dreams, and nightmares rule. The deeper introduction to Ideworld’s ruling powers and factions doesn’t fully arrive until Act II, but once it does, the scope widens dramatically.

What ties it all together is Alexa’s voice: humor laced with cynicism, keeping the story sharp even when the stakes turn deadly. The cast around her is just as layered: flawed, human, and compelling. No caricatures.

UPDATES:

New chapters on: Monday/Wednesday/Friday

Side stories: unscheduled

Read Ahead on Patreon!

Want to stay at least five chapters ahead in Ideworld Chronicles? Support the story and get exclusive early access over on Patreon:
patreon.com/IdeworldChronicles

Every bit of support helps keep the story alive and lets you dive deeper into Alexa May’s chaotic, magical world before anyone else.

*Ideworld Chronicles are posted exclusively on RoyalRoad and on Patreon. If you are reading it elsewhere, it is an unauthorized and stolen copy.

We also have our own Discord!

THEOS

★ 4.58

Arthur Wordsmith

BOOK 1 and 2 STUBBED

You can read it here or listen to it here.

Luke died, and he didn't like it.

Cannibal gods and evil monologuing not-angels would do that to anyone. So, when a chance presented itself to stave off death for good and gain powers he could only have dreamed of, he took it and didn't look back.

Nothing comes free, however, and wielding an artifact that's desired by forces far beyond his imagination, he must use wits, luck, and maybe some pluck to survive a manhunt orchestrated by the rulers of his new world– a pantheon of deities drawn straight from myth—the Olympians.

All he needs to do is make sure the person who witnessed his resurrection doesn't spill the beans, figure out how this cultivation business works, and... do some quests?

It could be worse.

What to expect:

A LitRPG with mythological gods walking about and making stuff hard for Luke in a cultivation-esque setting.

An easy to understand system with a reasonable number of blue screens.

Characters that aren't all remorseless killers, and at times are even friendly.

Updates will be a chapter a day, Tuesday through Saturday.

Discord - If you want to chat about the novel or hang out

Patreon - If you want to support this novel or read up to two weeks ahead of the public release