Curselock: A Cursed LITRPG Adventure

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Get book 1 on Amazon!

The Dream Ceremonyis the moment every young person accepts a Lord’s patronage in the form of a Legacy. For some, this simply means they become better farmers or axe-wielders. For others, it marks the beginning of a long journey.

On his nineteenth birthday, Leland Silver was offered a portion of a Lord’s power. The only issue… it was from a Lord no one had ever heard of – the Lord of Curses.

Teamed with his two best friends – a Legacy of the Berserker and a Legacy of the Chameleon – Leland must learn quickly if he wishes to get anywhere in this newly opened world. Together, the trio will lead a relatively normal young adult life: protecting caravans, killing mana-lions, learning to play the harmonica, and forging contracts with gods.You know, the usual things nineteen-year-olds get up to.

Curselock is a LitRPG focused around a curse magic user and his two friends, a berserker and rogue. The story starts with the trio first unlocking their new found livelihoods and their adventures that inevitably follow. Monsters, dungeons, cults, nothing will stand in their path to achieving their lifelong goals.

After the initial chapter dump, releases will be daily M-F at 20:00 CST

Chapter length ~1600 words

Be careful of spoilers in the reviews! You have been warned!

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2023
Author: Leftright (Joseph McCoy)

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.4/ 5.0
Followers: 1,823
Views: 349,868

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

PunpopeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Curselock follows Leland Silver and his friends as they navigate a world of magic. With unusual Legacies, they embark on thrilling adventures, from protecting caravans to forging contracts with gods. Join them on a journey filled with challenges and discoveries in this captivating tale of friendship and destiny.
More Words
Yuri_01Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Anticipation for the next chapter is always high.
I love the characters and I love the way the story progresses. It feels very thought through and so far there are no characters that I am annoyed about. Every character has his or her place in the story and I love that so much
FlamingFalconRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Not much to say in too much specificity. But it’s a good enjoyable novel. Sure it’s missing a few bits and pieces that would make it the best there is. But it’s enjoyable and fairly well done despite a few contradictions about.
It has an interesting power system surrounding power given by “lords” (essentially gods). That come with fairly unique magic powers for different people based on the lords domains of magic. Some of which are rather esoteric.
I personally like that the world is getting drip fed to us through the experiences of the characters. No massive info dumps and the way the story flows and is paced is done rather well and that’s where a large portion of the entertainment comes. Since the good flow continues through combat and world discovery.
I will say a bit more description towards locales and important characters or perhaps some art as other stories have been doing recently would be a nice addition.
The characters themselves as other reviews show, may seem slightly shallow at first: but as I’m reading more it’s because the author is showing their personality, and why they are what they are like, as well as what they are like through the story rather than one description. As they reveal certain events of the characters past be it through how current ones link with past trauma, or just how their powers progress in relation to their family.
Maybe more could be done. But it’s certainly one of my favourite novels to read of those being released right now. And was surprised by how good it was to me.
Definitely give it a try.
3TimRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Honestly loved book 1 & 2. I felt book 3 was a little weaker. 4 so far is great. I really wish I discovered it on a weekend because I lost sleep reading this. Worth reading.
Honestly my only gripe is the party has been split for too long. I hope that's over sometime soon.
BadKarmaN46Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
The strength of the story is on it's characters. the three boys feel very realistic the lords system is fun. All three have some cool powers and I can't wait to see what they get in the future. The world itself is a little underexplained, but in my opinion thats not important for a good story. a great read compared to other stories on this site and I hope to read more
DinzuRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
TL;DR: Three guys who have recently gained their classes go about adventuring and punching above their weight class. Shows promise but lacks worldbuilding.
I've rather enjoyed the story so far and it's been easy to read, but it's far from perfect. Let's go over a few things:
The story says, right there in the title, that this is a LitRPG. It's true, but the elements are quite light. Everyone has a class which provides them skills/spells/abilities as they grow stronger, but everyones class is tied to their "Lord". The berserker for example chose the Lord of Berserking. The class skills level up with use, but there are no character stats or hitpoints.
The choice to bind every single person to a Lord through their class is pretty unique and makes the pantheon of this world absolutely massive. There is a lot of promise here with forgotten Lords, new Lords and there's even been some mention of an artificial Lord.
The characters themselves, have for the most part, been 'ok'. The side characters have been pretty good, but our main party of three don't feel properly fleshed out yet. Kind of like a new adventuring party in DnD, they are all unique individuals with backstories, but they haven't had any character building moments yet. We're still early in the story so there's plenty of time to give them those moments.
As for the worldbuilding, it's somewhat lacking in scale. We know of maybe 10 Lords so far, have heard the names of maybe 5 cities, know that there were some woods and tall grass somewhere and yet we're already in the third city. The travel between cities was one chapter with a combat encounter each.
There have been hints of greatness spread throughout here with promises of whats to come, but the background scenery on the way has been quite lacking.
Last thing I want to go over is GOLD. Leland paid 10 "dull and dented gold coins" to an entertainer (only time a coins condition has been mentioned so far), Jude paid 35 gold for a magical harmonica, a gold coin or fe
LitchiRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
This is a fantasy story about three young new adventurers starting their journey.
After 81 chapters I stopped reading and wanted to give the author what I appreciated and didn't.
On the nice side, there is the magic system. It's original. Also, the LitRPG elements are justified and well incorporated into the story. There is no status but a magical book, and the spell doesn't come from anywhere but from the patron.
The things that made me stop were the copied characters and the forced plot.
The tree adventurers don't have any flaws or any edge, they are just "perfect" adventurers wanting to be heroes. In itself, it's not a problem, but having the three MCs with almost the same personality is bad. Except for their powers, they are identical. And because they are similar, there is little dynamic inside the group. All their actions are also all too predictable.
the plot is very forced. The characters have absolutely no goals and are just wandering, stumbling into problems. In itself, it's bland but ok. The problem is that every event they encounter feels convoluted and overmanipulated to put the MCs in various positions.
thanks for the read, I will read your next work.
karoyRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Style Score: 4.0
I have no major problem with the writing style. The exposition is well balanced and the pacing is generally well done. I like a good mixture of fighting/adventure/slice-of-life and I feel that this approach is effective.
The fights are fun but don’t feel creative or like there is a lot of problem solving, instead it feels like the mc spams skills while the others fight, which makes parts of the fights boring. It’s more interesting to read about what the others are doing, which is not how I would prefer an mc to be. Because this is largely an action series, this detracts a lot from the reading experience for me.
Story Score: 4.0
There is not a particular “goal” of the story which does not bother me at all. I prefer adventure stories that don’t require saving the world, at least until far along in the story. Because there is not a huge overarching plot, I instead get to be fully invested in lengthy but still somewhat limited-in-length storylines, in interesting new environments with new side characters.
The world building (and particularly the “litrpg”-ness of the world) is unique and well done. I do wish we got to know more about the others’ powers than just Leland’s (such as their descriptions and flavor text). I also wish Leland would explore the bounds of his curses more, or ask more questions or try to reach out to the Lord of Curses, or even go to a library or put a library in a large city on the list of things he wants to do. He seems to be resigned to not knowing much and slowly letting information fall upon him, and I wish he would just… generally exhibit more curiosity and show that he is willing to actively search for answers. We are repeatedly told Leland is smart so I would expect this kind of behavior from him, but maybe that is the type of smart where he has a lot of knowledge, but not the type of smart where he is curious and wants to uncover mysteries. Because of that I am 90 chapters in and still know almost nothing about his Legacy,
gavinjaxRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Love this. Can wait to see how he moves forward. I think this system is a great and new way to do progression. I listened to the first 3 on audible and had to see what was next. Love the fights and internal conflict of the main character. I am looking forward to more information on the lord of curses.
SimpleMindedRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
This story has a lot of potential but, at the end of the day, it really lacks... substance? I assume this is the authors' first attempt at writing a story and, if it is, this story is not bad. But it lacks the qualities a story needs for immersion. The world in which the characters live in is not described at all. There is absolutely no real world building. Descriptions are heavily lacking in this story, with most sentences describing either actions characters are taking or very superficial thought processes. The system is really cool/interesting but, honestly, the MC was made a bit too overpowered (will explain below, spoilers!)
MC is given a skill with a set chance to break a bone in the targets body (starts out at 40%). If this was something that could be casted just once with a huge cooldown, then fine; the fact that it can literally be spammed is absurd. Considering this, the % should have started around 2.5-5% and it should take a lot longer to level up the skill. After 20 chapters, the MC literally has like an 80% chance to break the bones of his opponents and can do this around five times in a row rapid-fire, no matter what defenses his opponents have. Lmao? He's pretty much invincible, it feels so unbalanced. You really need to put more thought into this.
Leaving the review at 3 stars as I don't want you to give up but really consider taking a step back and planning this out much more.