The world ended as many thought it might — with fire and spectacle.
Eldritch horrors descended from the sky to consume the world. Only a last-minute intervention by a mysterious Hegemony of Worlds saves Earth, albeit temporarily. Skills, levels, and battles with twisted monsters are part of the new reality the survivors will have to face.
Augustus Finn wakes up after surviving countless terrors. He is thrown directly into danger as a twist of fate places him in an area designed to contain and dispose of eldritch lifeforms — areas also known as dungeons. He will have to compete with monsters, alien Peacekeepers, and his own inner demons if he is to survive.
My Opinion: 563 pages, $2.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
The story has a pretty good beginning with the main character caught up in an Eldritch RPG Apocalypse. He has a neat power, Reactive Learning that lets him learn or adapt from the monsters he’s attacked by but it’s balanced well with a long cool down timer. From there there is an introduction of some aliens that are trying to contain the madness and eldritch monsters unleashed on earth and possibly offers aid. There’s a good explanation of the RPG system with good progression based on a point skill system. But after the 33% mark, the story loses a lot of the emphasis on the RPG aspects and instead focuses on the Eldritch ones as the main character starts making pacts with this demon entity in his mind. The Eldritch/Old One stuff isn’t bad but you can tell from the amount of time spent on it, that it’s the real focus of the story. From that point on it feels more like less of an RPG system and more like a magic system with spell descriptions. Mid to late story combat increases tremendously but actually loses all RPG aspects that were featured in the earlier parts of the story and while that doesn’t ruin the story, it definitely lessened my enjoyment as it went on.
Overall, it had a strong start but lost me mid way through since the RPG stuff I’d liked so much just getting minimized or even disappearing. Though if you don’t mind light RPG aspects and like Eldritch horror themes you might end up liking this more than me.
Score: 6 out of 10
Eldritch Night: A Post-Apocalyptic Gamelit Adventure (The Dark Hierophant Saga Book 1)