Swords, Spells, Stats and Slaughter
Mark’s life of forklifts, forms, debts and divorce is gone. Now he’s a Warlock in an RPG called Reign of Blood.
Through dark forests, rugged mountains and ancient ruins, Mark will fight against slavers, savage creatures and the forces of insidious corruption. He will master magical tomes, cast spells of fire and fear, imbue his weapons with arcane might and seep through walls like mist. Quest by quest, level by level, Mark will find purpose, power, people to live and laugh with, and perhaps even a little love.
Mark has been given a second chance at life and he’s going to die as many times as it takes to keep it.
My Opinion: 234 pages, $5.34, Not available on Kindle Unlimited
The novel description doesn’t really do a good job of explaining the plot or the story. The main character (MC), Mark, is a transported to a fantasy RPG world where he alone seems to have the power to respawn after dying. He uses this unique ability along with the magic and sword fighting skills of his Warlock class to help a peace loving town against an invading group of slavers.
Game mechanic-wise there is nothing revolutionary here. It has fairly standard XP and leveling mechanics. Though the MC gets to choose between some interesting spells when he levels. The most unique thing is probably the classes people have, like the mage-fighter build of the Warlock or the flesh bender-healer class of the Figurist.
Storywise, it’s a decent combination of slice of life and chosen one. The combat is good. A few of the characters are two-dimensional but the world building is done well enough that the conflict between the two nations in the story has some depth. I think the best part of the storytelling is that it's done mainly through 3 points of view, 1 actually eventually being one of the bad guys.
Overall, it is a pretty decent action adventure story with some good storytelling. It’s priced a little high for me but was entertaining.
Score: 7.4 out of 10