Thrones of the Fallen

As of writing this review, I’ve read the first fifty chapters.

Blurb

Harald Darrowdelve’s journey begins at rock bottom.

Born into privilege, his life of indolence has left him with a weak will and a frail body. But everything changes when a demon’s mysterious blessing deep within the angelic corpse dungeon beneath Flutic bestows upon him dark, formidable powers.

But power is a double-edged sword. As Harald trains his body and sharpens his mind, his growing accomplishments thrust him deep into the machinations of Flutic’s noble houses and a relentless celestial conflict raging over the dungeon’s arcane secrets.

As Harald grows in might and cunning, will his morality survive the ascent, or will the dark allure of power consume him?

Details

This story frustrated the hell out of me. I got it early, before it was publicly posted, and I read everything available in effectively the same day. Then I pestered Phil for more chapters, and I got a pathetic seven more! Only seven! Grrr.

So, what’s the story about. Harald had a bit of an overachiever for a father. Like many overachieving fathers in our genre, he was good at killing things, and bad at being a parent. So Harald might have some issues from his childhood to work through. Poor Harald. Worse, this is a Phil Tucker story, and that means you should be prepared for some insanely motivated characters after some classic backstabbing. Scorio might have had it worse, sure, but backstabbing is never something to shrug off.

So, no plot spoilers, but Harald is now motivated and it’s time to go delving the dungeon and harvesting scales of the Fallen Angel. The worldbuilding associated with the dungeon is fascinating, and ties directly into the larger plot, so I won’t say more about it other than I really enjoyed it.

In terms of the LitRPG elements, scales are used as both currency and power you can absorb. Characters have stats, classes, levels, and unlocked Thrones. I’m still not too sure on the exact mechanics of Thrones (though I understand they tie into the global plot), except mechanically as effectively ones magical energy. So for now, I treat it like mana and mana regeneration. The levelling is definitely a slow burn, but there’s a lot of power progression outside of levelling one’s class. Post class-endowed Harald could slap around a dozen initial-Haralds, despite still being level one in his class.

Characterisation is the strongest part of this series. Harald, Sam, Nessa, and Vic are all incredibly deep characters, with their own issues, mannerisms, and outlooks in life. Vic in particular is amazing, and his upper class but often vulgar phrasing was so delightful to read. You could literally remove every attribution tag in the book, and I’m pretty certain I’d be able to tell you who says every single sentence, the character voices are so well-defined.

I’m super keen to see where this one ends up going.