Deathless Dungeoneers

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

An underrated dungeon. A determined dungeoneer. One chance for a new start.

Since the moment Rhen delved his first dungeon, he’s wanted nothing more than to own one himself. When a tiny plot pops up in the Dungeon Owner’s Guild, Rhen decides to take a leap of faith and realize his dream.

Rhen soon discovers the little dungeon has a lot more to offer than the Guild previously assessed. Now, rival dungeon owners are breathing down Rhen’s neck for snatching up all the delvers in town, envious his wild luck and the success he’s built from it.

To keep his dungeon safe, and profitable, Rhen must acquire enough dungeoneers for a raid group and unlock the ultimate wealth: the nexus node. If he can’t power the nexus node with the dungeon’s limited energy, his venture could be over before it’s even begun, and his dreams of founding a new realm a faded memory.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2022
Author: Jess D. Astra

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 765
Views: 78,009

Chapters(18 total)

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(10)

xam54321Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Style Score & Grammar Score
No problems of note on either front. Tho rarely a sentence is written a little off, requiring a second reading of it to grasp it and that breaks my speed reading flow.
Story Score
Simple, yet very well done. I am calling the story simple because except for the "Main Character" and "The Person Interfering With His Goals", no one else is actively striving towards their goal enough to interfere with the story and the MCs goals, unless they align with the MCs goals, resulting in a clear story with clear conflicts.
Character Score
I am taking away half a star due to the charaters not really striving towards their goals unless they wont cause conflict, but other then that they are all very well written! The core charaters are from diffrent walks of life, making any interaction between them intresting, and all the supporting recurring characters are fleshed out enough to be intresting!
I will even go as far as to say that I am invested into the characters, in one of the recent chapters a character suffered a major setback towards their goal and I was angry at the person responsible for that set back!
Cpt ObviousRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The story starts out in a grey world that oozes of the same dystopia feelings you from watching the movie Metropolis or reading the book 1984. But it quickly gains colors and hope as the MC refuse to let the industrial complex that is large scale dungeon delving grind him down.
What jumps out at me is how the author manages to make the story feel three-dimensional. Without long-winded descriptions the woods, people and the dungeon gains a 3D feeling. There's no flat backdrops here, nor any 2D paper flat characters. It's almost as if I can feel the textures when reading.
Be aware that this is a story about hope, friendship and redemption. Yes there is some angst, but it's fighting a loosing battle.
InscrutiableRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
What I enjoyed about this series is that the story takes a very well trod path and takes it in a slightly different direction. This is a world where Dungeons exist, similar to the dungeoncore stories that exist on Royal Road, but rather than being run by an overarcing core or intelligence, they exist as normal points where energy seems to flow and manipulate reality.
Much like any capitalist society, people (there's more species than humans by the way) across a multiverse (the dungeons allow for crossing between worlds or realities), create an institution to manage the ownership and delving of these dungeons, to mine them for resources.
And those resources could be anything from Resurrection - yeah, there's a node for that. In fact, there's a node for that could be the name of this review... Hm.
To various nodes that allow creation of structures or bases within the dungeon. Much like other stories, there are various types of monsters that spawn, and they tend to have materials that are valuable to various crafters and whatnot, but the general theme is that the dungeon is a resource, and people hire delvers to get these resources extracted and make money off them.
The story sets up a great premise that most delvers are basically wage slaves, living from moment to moment at the mercy of the rich Dungeon Owners that abuse them constantly. Think Company towns or gilded age concerns about corporate power.
Our protagonist earns enough to become part of this group, and becomes his very own Dungeon Owner. Which means he's now subject to a new set of rules, and a bunch of competing dungeon owners who want to see him fail. So our story continues with various opportunities of failure and growth of our main character in navigating the capitalist / monetary system he is in, while also trying to make things better.
Overall 5/5
I think this story succeeds at making our main character's arc feel earned, and the monster ideas, dungeon concepts, and the idea of nexus nodes lead to a
SomethingNewRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Deathless Dungeons is really, really well done.
The world building is nuanced and layered. The logics of dungeon delving as an industry, politics between dungeon owners, and the bureaucracy of dungeons...it is clear to see the author thought things out very well.
The magic system is fascinating and not a regurgitated LitRPG system. Skills are gained from dungeons, in the form of syntials, (an ability tattoo) and powered by "anima." The dungeons that grant the abilities are somewhat sentient, and offer the most ideal abilities.
Among this multidimensional setting, we have a plot that is fairly straightforward, but leaves you wanting more. Our main character, Rhen, with a shadowed past, just wants to free himself from hiding his true identity while finding acceptance amongst his friends and gaining stability and freedom via becoming a dungeon owner.
It's simple, but so compelling.
The style of writing is well done. Action is portrayed well, and dialogue is well written and meaningful, progressing the plot.
The cast of characters really shines through, even beyond the great world building.
I mentioned out main character, Rhen already, and would like to add that the author slipped on some great scenes showing his flaws. His past is rough and effects his current in sorry actions. He has totally messed up and hurt people's feelings, perhaps riled up people better left alone. These flaws make him a three dimensional character, as well as the fact that the others call him out/and he has to make up for what he did
There is the brilliant inventor, a tavern girl who aspires to make her own successful inn (did feel she could use some fleshing out, especially more on why she likes innkeeping and her past, and why she left to join MC so quickly) and my favorite: a aquatic creature who is sweet and funny and basically having his coming of age story alongside the events happening to the main character.
The ill treated townspeople who are rallying behind Rhen as dungeon politics and
06rockstarRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
First I want to start off by saying that I'm not the best at reviews, but I'll give it a go.
This story is honestly surprising in how good it was. I have read every chapter available at the moment, and I'm wondering why there isn't more people following it? I started out kind of bored one afternoon with none of my usual books updated so I went to the trending tab and binged this one. Let's just say I didn't do much else but eat until early the next day. So far, the characters seem great. From what I can see, they have good chemistry. The grammar has no noticeable mess up from what I can tell. The story is really good! It doesn't follow the regular dungeon core story structure, which is neither good nor bad just different, and that gives it its own spin on things. I really enjoy how skills are employed in this story as well. They seem to be magic tattoos that you get from monster cores, and based on which core you use you could have different powers. The first book hasn't dove too deep into that as the main character is focusing on the nexus node first and foremost, but it's a cool system non the less. All and all, a messy review, but an incredibly good story!
BrittbrittRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm about five chapters in and I can honestly say I'm hooked. The development of the characters for me not only makes them interesting to read about but relatable in a sense that makes you want to root for them and see them succeed. The main character Rhen is a rough around the edges everyday dungeon delver but he has this light hearted-ness that makes his interactions very amusing. I love the magic system as well. It seems well thought out and balanced, and the syntial are a very cool visual representation of the dungeon delvers different abilities. I'm looking forward to reading more and seeing how everything develops!
Builder BobRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
TLDR; If you are looking for a traditional LitRPG or Dungeon story with elves/fairies/dwarves/classic magic/blue boxes/etc this isn’t for you. If you’re interested in something new and, if not unique then at least rare, then give this story a shot and hopefully you’ll be pleasantly surprised as well.
I’ve read so many slight variations on LitRPG and Dungeon Core novels that I was completely taken off guard when I started this and it was so, refreshingly, different. Deathless Dungeoneers reads as a much more traditional story than most LitRPG novels, in that it feels more like a real world than some kind of fuax game one. I’d actually say that it seems closer to a Space Western than normal LitRPG or Dungeon stories, at least for the initial world building, and I’m absolutely loving it.
Grammar and syntax are decent, occasional typos but certainly feels as if some level of editing is happening before being posted and author is using and responding to the “suggestion” feature so I imagine it will only get better as more people read the story.
I don’t think I’m qualified to speak on character depth in general, but they seem different enough to me and I’ve been enjoying getting to know the main ones.
Story wise, we’ve gotten some interesting foreshadowing of at least two different possible contention points in the future, both of which seem like they could get pretty meaty. Each is also big enough to suggest that the author is following some kind of plan and has a goal in mind. I binged the whole thing, so I think pacing is decent, we’ll see how I feel once I’m limited to a chapter at a time but for a ‘slice of life’ story there seems to always be something moving the plot forward per chapter.
Long review short, if you’re at all interested in progression fantasy then give this story a shot. It is fairly well written and feels like it has some long term goals and a plan on how to get there. Plus, I’m really enjoying how it reads like a story I could have found in a bookst
BladeGripRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This is a world where "dungeons", as in, mysterious space with their own perks and dangers (and also monsters), are treated like mining properties by the riches who have disposable workers exploiting them. Our protagonist is one of these workers, and he has been saving up for a long time in hopes of buying a plot of dungeon of his own someday. The story starts when he is close to that goal and the plot continues from there.
Style: Written in Third Person Limited, which is my favorite and also the style I use in my work so I may be biased. It's easy to tell that the author has a definite worldbuilding planned with all the fancy names and words, but it also has the drawback of new readers possibly having a difficulty getting familar with the jargons. I myself had to reread some parts a couple times to fully understand a few of the foreign terms.
Grammar: Nothing jarring. Full score by default.
Story & Character: Story flow is clear. The main character has a goal, then he achieves it, and thus he has a new goal which he's eager to strive for. He has been through a lot of crap, and all the experience has shaped him up into a pretty renowned figure among fellow delvers. His personality feels natural albeit a little rough, but with things he had been through before the story begins it would be a wonder otherwise. The partner he befriended a bit later is, to put it simply, unique. Though sadly with all the provided descriptions I still couldn't picture how he looks in my head so I only pictured him as a water elemental with a fish core. ^^'
Ultimately, I say that this is a well-made work and worthwhile for anyone looking for this type of story.
Buddah222Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
A true gem a little slow to start very definitely worth hanging on for the build, true pleasure to read as character plot and world building all are phenomenally written out. The intrigue and emotion put into this piece of work is well worth the effort to read it . It's my pleasure to write this review and hope the more people get the chance to pick up and read it it is truly a great piece of literature Royal Road has once again found yet another amazing author , and given them a chance to express their creativity and art in this medium . Just finished book one and looking forward to book 2+ more , The story has a lot more to offer and the occasional twist and bit of humour are greatly appreciated, I think anybody that gets the chance to have a look at this work will be pleasantly surprised and thoroughly engrossed as the world expands and it's so does the characters they are brought to life with true believability and emotion that you can get your teeth into , thank you very much for your effort this reader greatly appreciate your time and skill
SubvertingTheWorldRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
It's not often that I stumble across a very new as of yet unrated story on the new updates page that I don't cringe at a little, much less one that immediately sucks me in like this one did. The setting scratches my whimdark itch, and it's take on litrpg and dungeon mechanics is unique and unobtrusive. I don't mind blue boxes, but that this story forgoes them is only one more point in its favor. The system and its magic feels like part of a world, one that could naturally arise given a weird enough set of natural laws without requiring some god or system admin to create and explain it. It doesn't feel like a video game slapped on top of the setting's world, it feels like a part of the world. In addition, that world feels complete and complex rather than like some vanilla mmo setting. The grammar is so far very good, only the occasional spelling mistake or missed "a" or "the". It never takes me out of it. The character also manages to avoid the surprisingly common pitfall of being absolutely irredeemably evil like so many protagonists on this website somehow manage to get tripped up by. He's not a wanton random murdered, he's not a rape-y misogynist, and he's not a pedophile. He's also not a naive, dense goody goody, which I wouldn't have minded but I know a lot of people who read web serials vehemently dislike. He's smart, and rogue-ish, and is willing to bend the rules a bit to get an edge. He's not some cartoonishly edgy lone wolf "pragmatist" willing to sell an orphan's organs though, more like a shoplifter who targets big corporations and has a soft spot for mom and pop shops and has his heart in the right place. He is always number one, but he'll remember who helped him when he was going through a rough time and try and return the favor. He'll help himself, and then the people he cares about. Speaking of, the protagonist is friendly with a few characters that manage to be generally pleasant despite living in what seems to be a capitaltic dystopian fantasy world