Burnt Lotus (LoK fanfic)
A spinoff from Focused Fire, imagining what might happen if Xing was transplanted into Korra’s time instead of Aang’s.
A spinoff from Focused Fire, imagining what might happen if Xing was transplanted into Korra’s time instead of Aang’s.
Summary – Level 1:
Delve is an isekai litrpg that follows an average guy who just happened to wake up in a forest one day. He wasn’t summoned to defeat the demon lord or to save the world or anything like that, at least as far as he can tell. The only creature there to greet him was a regular old squirrel.
Soon enough, he meets other people, only to discover that he can’t speak the language, and that not everybody immediately trusts random pajama-wearing strangers they met in the middle of the wilderness. Things generally go downhill from there, at least until the blue boxes start appearing.
Delve is a story about finding your way in a new, strange, and dangerous world. It’s about avoiding death, figuring out what the heck is going on, and trying to make some friends along the way. It’s not about getting home, so much as finding a new one.
Did I mention that there will be math?
Summary – Level 2:
Okay, but what are you in for, really?
Well, this story is supposed to be realistic, or at least, as realistic as a fantasy litrpg can be. The main character doesn’t instantly become an all-powerful god and murder-hobo his way across the universe. Delve is, at its heart, a progression fantasy, but that progression is meant to feel earned. The numbers in this story actually mean something. Everything is calculated, and if you find a rounding error, I expect you to tell me about it. That said, if math isn’t your cup of tea, there is plenty more that the story has to offer. Characters are meant to feel real, and progression isn’t only about personal power; it’s also about allies, connections, and above all, knowledge. Figuring out how the system works is a significant theme.
...
What, you want more details? Okay, fine, but this is going to get a bit spoiler-y. Are you sure?
Really sure? I mean, this summary is practically half as long as the first chap–
Okay, okay!
The main character becomes a magic user, but he takes a route that is not very popular in adventurer culture, namely that of a support. There is a full magic system with various spells, skills, and abilities, but our MC decides that aura magic is the way to go, and that the only stat worth investing in is mana regeneration. Most people at the Adventurer’s Guild think that this makes him a bit of a dumbass, but he’s playing the long game. We’ll see how that works out for him, won’t we?
Because of his build, the MC levels up fast, at least compared to normal people. There are no cheats, though, and he is limited in other ways. There are some clear and pretty obvious downsides to his build. That’s what makes it fun, no?
Morals? Our MC has them. Again, we’ll see how that works out for him. Realism, remember? Would you be okay with killing someone and looting their body? I sure hope not.
POV? The focus is on the main character, but there will be occasional varying perspectives from people around him, or involved in the events related to the main plot. It isn’t going to jump all over the place.
Tech is standard medieval stasis. No smartphones, but the MC does have a technical background. Computers and their programming might be involved. There might even be a bit of uplifting down the road, who knows? Anyway, it isn’t the focus. He isn’t going to invent the gun in chapter 1 and change the face of warfare.
Romance is not a major focus. Friendships are more the name of the game, though there will be some characters in romantic relationships.
There is exploration, though not as much of the geographical nature as you might expect. It is more about exploration of the system and the culture.
The pace is slow and detailed, sometimes verging on slice-of-life. The action is meant to be realistic and grounded in the numbers, and it is intended to have meaning beyond simply punching things until they stop moving.
The general tone of the story is grey, and some parts can get quite dark. People die. Sometimes, people with names, but not anywhere near GoT level. There is plenty of light, too, though, to balance the darkness. The world is dangerous, but overcoming that danger is why we’re all here, isn’t it?
Anyway, if you’ve made it this far through the summary, you clearly like words. I hope you enjoy the story!
Cover by Miha Brumec
Summary Updated: 2020-06-14
In the wake of the Battle of Katze Plains, the banner of Ainz Ooal Gown flies proudly over the city of E-Rantel. The Sorcerous Kingdom has entered the world’s stage to the clamour of death and devastation; the surrounding nations fearfully prepare even as they reel from its calamitous debut. Within the borders of the newly annexed realm, its Human subjects cower in their homes as the Undead openly walk the streets and stalk the lands. Yet, when a destitute noble finds herself under the auspices of an unlikely benefactor, events are set into motion that will resound over the world for ages to come.
A kingdom builder based on the events and setting of Kugane Maruyama’s Overlord. In a fantasy world where beings of matchless power are transmigrated from the arbitrary existence of a game, Valkyrie’s Shadow chronicles the lives of the natives whose reality has been turned upside down by their advent. It is the tale of a nation created by the whims of a supreme sovereign, and his unstoppable servants who each have their own, often twisted, interpretations of their Master’s Will.
There is no victory in strength; no miracles wrought from magic that will save them: only the inexorable advance of a new world order where those who secure a place of service within will find themselves turned against the world that they once knew.
[Slow buildup. Methodical storytelling with a focus on well-rounded kingdom building and character development.]
A cozy slice of life / adventure.
Trevor has been training since he was a child for a life of combat and adventure, 10 years of gruelling training.
On the year of his 15th birthday, the day of choosing arrives only to have his entire world crushed as he is assigned the class ‘Arcane Chef’, an unknown rare class with no known history or levelling path.
However, being a cooking class, he’s relegated to the Servant class of society. Our journey travels through his struggles to come to terms with this class and trying to keep his friendships intact, and make new ones if at all possible.
Unbeknownst to all, Arcane Chef will have a drastic impact on the world as a whole and Trevor will get to experience all those adventures he has dreamed of. Well, he would.. If only he could work out how to level the class.
Join Trevor as he discovers his class, travels the world, and seeks the glory, adventure, and friendship he thought he had lost.
All while cooking amazing food.
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New chapters every Monday, Wednesday, Friday! (This is increased while I am participating in the Royal Road Writathon challenge)
What to expect:
Weak to Strong(ish) man's a cooking support!
Support role, 1st person view point
Exploration and a heavy food influence.
Adventure
Cats!
Feel good story
No AI!
Lianthorn Belladonna could have been so many things. An artist, a mage, a gardener. Instead, his family sealed his future, trapping him in a life of scheming, poison, and murder.
He’s through with it.
On the cusp of completing his poisonous masterpiece, Lianthorn makes a choice that will change everything. He flees the gilded cage of their family manor and seeks refuge in a quiet town on the outskirts of civilization, where the name Belladonna means nothing.
With his family’s infamous scarlet-bound recipe book hidden away, he attempts to forget the toxins and discover the simple joy of helping people. But out on the frontier, ‘helping people’ will require all his skills.
Including the alchemy he worked so hard to escape.
Lianthorn abandoned everything he’d ever known to gain his freedom. Now, to flourish in his new life, he’ll have to learn a whole new way of living and maybe, just maybe, discover the recipe for happiness along the way.
Miles has one obsession in life: magic. He lives it, breathes it, and dedicates every waking hour to it. But the same obsession wears down his body. He needs to recover.
At the peak of his power, he finally chooses to take his rest in the form of artifact-enhanced sleep. He plans his rest to last months, no longer. It extends to centuries.
Miles wakes to an entirely new world: one where magic has become structured and rigid, where mages have given up future potential for something called an interface—an easier, safer path for novices. Mages who once leveled swathes of land and served as the keystones of empires no longer exist. The magic Miles knows has slid into legend.
Someone wants to weaken the world, and they have succeeded.
Miles, however, still lives. He can do everything this new era calls a myth—and much, much more.
Eight years ago, for the first time in human memory, a god was felled. Yet though its flesh rots, its mad essence beats still, smuggled in the veins of children and monsters.
Since time immemorial, gods have represented both calamity and opportunity. Their blood allows humanity to grasp beyond mortality and achieve greatness. Yet for every drop of blood gained, thousands die, slain by the gods' supernatural prowess. Human civilisation shelters in the spaces between these inhuman disasters. But, spurred by the death of the most lethal of all gods, everything is beginning to change.
Part-time chef and full-time nuisance Orvi wants nothing to do with gods. Living in a derelict city, his only concerns are ensuring his adopted family's restaurant is prosperous and how to best beat the neighbourhood boys in a fight. If he's lucky, he might even snag a date with the farmer's daughter at the market.
When the desperate grasping of humans and inscrutable machinations of gods threaten to tear the city from its inhabitants, Orvi's attempts to keep his friends and family whole beckon catastrophe to their door. They're left to leverage everything they have to keep the people they love safe.
But though Orvi cares nothing for the gods or their blood, the world won't leave him alone forever.
Because in order to reach godhood, one must first leave their humanity behind.
Nature Writ Red is a dark fantasy bildungsroman that follows a boy alongside an assorted cast of characters as they try and fail and try again to make the best of what they have, even as powers beyond their ken drag them deeper, into increasingly perilous orbits.
Book one, Blood & Noodles, the tonally bleaker (and much longer) second book, Memory & Madness, and the final book, Preservation & Progress, are all complete and can be read in-full.
Keiran of the Night Vale has staved off death for two thousand years, but even he’s reached his limits. His body is old, worn out, and failing. While the flesh fails, however, his mind and his magic remain as sharp as ever. What he needs is to reincarnate into a fresh, new, young body, and he bends his prodigious talents towards doing exactly that.
He awakens to find that he’s been reborn in a wasteland where mana has become a scarce resource, one to be hoarded and guarded jealously. Even the internal mana generated by people is stolen away by those who rule them. And without mana, he’s no longer a mage.
It will take more than that to stop Keiran. With each passing week, he regains more of his old strength, but can he keep his secrets safely hidden? Standing in his way is his new home’s cult-like nightly mana tithing, a governor with secrets of his own, and an unforgiving desert with hidden monsters who’d love nothing more than to swallow him whole.
It's a deadly scramble to claim the mana he so desperately needs to survive, but Keiran didn’t become an archmage by accident, and he’s willing to use every dirty trick and tactic he knows to get there again.
With souls and issues from a world very unlike his own, Rakta Velbrun must raise his children right, train their strange abilities, and keep the world from swallowing them whole.
A fantasy tale of a ex-adventurer father taking care of his beloved children in the wake of his wife's death. He must tend with noble politics, new enemies, old allies, and the realization that his children come from a world very unlike his own.
Go find all three (Dawn, Noon, Dusk) on Kindle Unlimited and Audible!
Cover by KittraMcBriar