What kind of god would you be?
Deep beneath the earth, Corey finds himself reborn as a God Core - a sentient crystal with unusual powers. His new worshipers? A colony of incompetent gnomes, scratching out an existence in their underground grotto.
If that wasn't bad enough, Corey soon realizes that his gnome denizens are about to become extinct. They are threatened by groups of blundering adventurers, and abducted by raiding kobolds to be sacrificed to their own dark god: an ancient, mysterious foe who does not take kindly to Corey's arrival.
With the aid of his helper sprite and a menagerie of newly evolved creatures, Corey must protect and guide his gnomes until they can stand on their own two feet. But the kobold army is on the march, led by his new rival's powerful avatar.
It's a hard rock life, being a God Core.
Inspired by the god sims such as Black & White, dungeon managers like Dungeon Keeper and civ builders like Age of Empires, God of Gnomes is the first in a new generation of LitRPG and Dungeon Core stories -- God Core.
My Opinion: 485 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
This is a LitRPG story that combines dungeon core mechanics with the town and community building from a god game like Black and White. It’s essentially about a renincarnated core that is not a dungeon but rather a god core who has the power to build up and advance a species of gnomes. Only it’s not as easy as just assigning everyone jobs and making buildings. There is another god core near, an evil one that looks to sacrifice the gnomes for his own power.
The game mechanics in the story are pretty detailed with lots of descriptions of the god core powers: farseeing, the ability to create minions and evolve them, build buildings to create new job options or just to advance the culture, tech and magic trees, and more.
Overall, this is a pretty good story that will appeal to town building and dungeon core fans. It cycles building, expansion, evolving creations, and then combat as humans or the other god core tries to invade the gnome territory. It is an entertaining cycle of action and community development.
Score: 7.5 out of 10