Deals With Deities: A Beginner's Guide

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

What if you could earn magic one spell at a time?

My name is Rowena McAlister. I drink too much, I hunt people for money, and my only goal is to die someday. I am not a hero, I'm just trying to pay my debt.

Welcome to Luradia, a world in the aftermath of war.

Humans, Elemancers, Ashlings, Incubi, and all the world's races at odds.

Meddling gods with their own agendas.

A deal with a goddess gone wrong.

Oh, and not to mention all the people dropping like flies.

And somehow, I find myself at the center of it all.

Fuck. I need a drink.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2022
Author: InkEscape

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 155
Views: 59,400

Chapters(62 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(6)

DrimRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The story starts out with a bang in the first chapter through great action and you really get a feel for the main character's personality. What follows is some strong world building and an steadily expanding cast of interesting characters.
The protagonist is an unapologetic rough-neck who sticks to her guns, pun only mildly intended, while the supporting cast shows off the authors ability to write many different personalities.
The setting so far is typical of what you'd expected in a western, but I'm imagining we'll see some creativeness come forward as the story touches more on The Etheral. Marks seem fascinating, and I'm excited to learn more about them.
As someone who hasn't read or watched a lot of westerns, the dialogue and writing style did take some getting used to, and I had to reread a few sentences, but by the end I found it flowing well.
I do have to take a few points off for grammar. It's nothing that makes it unreadable, but it could certainly do with some polish. It can take you out of it a bit, but hopefully by the time you've read this review the author has tightened things up and this point is no longer valid.
I look forward to see where this adventure takes Rowena as I'm sure she's thrown into more situations against her will.
DomoviyeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
You don't often find a fantasy western story, which is a shame, because this story shows how interesting the mix can be.
The best part about this story so far is the main character, Rowena. She's a talented bounty hunter who has a history, and a fair number of flaws. At first she could come off as a stereotypical, 'edgy', anti-hero, but she does fight against her flaws, and seems to aim for doing the right thing without too much pressure.
The other characters haven't had the same amount of screen time to show who they really are, but they still manage to be interesting and largely avoid coming off as stereotypical. Sheriff Stone in particular drew my attention, and I hope we see more of him in the future.
The setting is still pretty barebones, with the focus being almost entirely on the characters. But the 'Deified' are an intriguing mystery. What exactly can they do? Why are they so scary? And why does Rowena seem to hate them, and thus herself?
This is definitely one story I'm going to come back and read regularly.
IllharkRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
The first chapter of this story was super interesting. But for a while, I wasn't too sure how I felt about everything else. Then chapter four came out and I was swayed in the direction of a thumbs-up.
This story has a cool genre mix of western fantasy going on, and the first chapter does a nice job of bringing us right into the setting. It's both fun and engaging, and the characters all have very distinct personalities from the get-go. But I think the main reason I felt a little confused was because the following two chapters take a swift turn in a different, more mundane direction compared to the excitement of the introduction. Right when I'd started wondering "hey, wait, where did the cool scenes and action and magical worldbuilding go?", chapter 4 comes in just in time to perk my interest back up.
So, if you're feeling on the fence after the first few chapters, I encourage you to keep going and see how the story starts developing around that point.
[I was originally going to give the grammar 3/5, but I saw that the author has gone and made several corrections to typos, and the grammar has improved quite a lot in the latest chapter I read. I'm going to keep the following grammar section of the review intact to preserve my initial thoughts upon reading, since some of the points still stand true, but bear in mind there aren't nearly as many typos anymore.]
The grammar is all right. However, I noticed several typos and misspelled words that tripped me up while reading, including inconsistent capitalization of the title Deified (not the chapter titles, but the title some people in the story have). There's an occasional lack of commas when the writing could benefit from one (I mostly noticed this during dialogue, often before names are uttered), and there's a lack of consistency between paragraph spacing during dialogue, which made it a little tricky to read sometimes. To explain what I mean by that last point, I put a few of those paragraph situations under the spoile
TienSwitchRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Deals With Deities: A Beginner's Guide is a story I can't feel myself getting into. I don't feel myself getting engaged with its setting, its characters, or anything else to any meaningful degree.
This might sound like a scathing condemnation of the story, but the issue is that I can't figure out why.
On paper, everything seems to check out. Good characters, political and familial intrigue, a wide ranging fantasy world, well written prose, etc. There's nothing I can point to that DwD is doing that's wrong.
So why was I checked out during all three chapters I've read? Why did I only continue past the prologue out of obligation for a review swap?
It's certainly a mystery. Maybe we can get to the bottom of it?
STYLE
There's nothing wrong with the style, unless you hate the first person narrative.
And the author makes the first person narrative work here. There aren't too many long asides, no knowledge that the protagonist possesses gets in the way of the narrative or dialogue, nothing at all to complain about.
In fact, it's incredibly well written. The prose is quickly moving without rushing through the story, yet knows when to linger on the moment. Things that the characters know that we don't are referenced without giving anything away. The author knows how to build up the tension of coming physical danger, or unspoken conflct between old friends.
There's the occasional bit of weird wording here and there, but far from a story-ruining issue.
Heck, even the prologue is short and is one of the better examples of what I think Royal Roadsters would want a prologue to be. The first line is a very engaging "Some say the land was settled at the end of the barrel of a pistol". And all written from the MC's perspective. Short, snappy, and sweet.
So the author's writing style is looking pretty good.
GRAMMAR
Some grammatical errors, but nothing major. Heck, it's so unnoticeable that I probably missed some things.
STORY
DwD takes place in the world of Luradia, a world of high fa
WhiteRose-BlueSpaceRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
So far this story is excellent and quite a unexpected mix of western and fantasy.
The first chapter is very engaging, delivering plenty of information on the setting and magic system. It also gives a strong introduction to our very distinct protagonist who, while being rather traditional fare when it comes to MCs in westerns is non the less fun to follow.
Furthermore the next few chapters continue the trend with more engaging personalities and a nice hook, with the end of the third chapter making me consider if I should follow along for more, as I only origonally came for a small taste.
But anyway, 4.5/5, would love to read more.
Nick DeVoreRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
If you were looking for a story about a strong female character—look no more. Muscles, sharpshooting, quick draw, hand-to-hand combat skills, magic—Rowena McAlister is armed and capable. She is strong to the point that local folks could consider herself a superhero. Defeating a gang of kidnappers? Alone? Without resorting to bloodshed? Without actually shooting? Easily!
Story
Some call it a Magical Western, but I rather respectfully disagree. The story has classical elements of Western, starting with MC drinking in a bar with her bestie and then getting into trouble. However, it represents a different viewpoint. Deals With Deities won't be a story about a hardworking guy conveying his last bag of weed to earn some money for his poor old mommy. It does not feel like it will be a one-against-all story. No. There is a complex magical setup: deities, different races, one-time spells. There are plenty of characters around Rowena, all with not-so-trivial backgrounds. And we see accents on their emotions and relations instead of scenes dedicated to pure action. These promise the novel to have a lot of depth.
So far, it reminds me of Victorian classics more than of Western. If you enjoy such and want to see your character in a fantasy setting forced to fight for her goals literally, then you should definitely check this out. But be prepared: hunting handsome men for Rowena means shooting them to death. And you will need to take her as is with all her bits and tits, and if you don't like something, she won't give an f-word for it. Cause that's how Rowena is. Or, better say, that is how she likes others to think she is.
There is a caveat, though. As the story promises to include many different things, I just hope the author will cook them all together in a nice tasty medley, and it won't be a mishmash.
Characters
The story is focused on Rowena and her inner world. The MC is well described and consistent. She may look too classical, but she definitely has depth to develop. Not