Rotten Æther (LitRPG-lite)

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

A young elf, raised by necromancer wolves, seeks a place in the mercenary companies that hunt magical monsters to protect the people of the kingdom, while unravelling the mysteries behind the destruction of her old village.

My village was burned to the ground by raiders and I'm forced to survive the wilds alone, overcoming the cold, hungry winters and fighting off the animals that are themselves looking for a meal. I rely on my necromancy, a magic my mother had me swear to never use, and learn other magics too, just to survive. What will I find returning to my village? What sort of world exists beyond it?

I seek to refine my strength and find a new home in this strange and violent world. This time, I won't let my home burn.

(LItRPG elements showing up throughout the story with in-world skillbooks, first dozen chapters Syr has no access to said skillbook)

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2022
Author: FormlessChimera

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.4/ 5.0
Followers: 583
Views: 200,568

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(5)

Roof MonsterRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is a stand out fantasy story showing off great execution of a story about loss and recovery from it balanced with some solid kinetic action scenes.
Even early in the story there is a good variety of fights and characters, with supporting details that show motivations rather then tell them.
grapefanta111Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Both Rotten Æther and Bloody Æther are great. They are exciting and engaging. The dialogue is very well written. The characters are endearing, funny and fun. The story also has nuanced psychological layers; it's never flat. There remains a satisfying logical consistency throughout. They're great stories. The writing is excellent.
ChaosBelleRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
So for perspective, I read this story Second. At the time of writing this, both stories had 36 chapters. I'll try to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, but it should come as no secret that both stories are set in the same world, and likely going forward they're going to interact and overlap in ways that could be excellent.
In comparison to Bloody Aether, I think the worldbuilding in this story is quite a bit better. Part of that might be that our main character is very clueless. She grows up in the wilderness and when she has a question, she asks the question. She's a great fill-in for the reader for moments of exposition. There are also a lot of interesting potential future directions this story can take. I'll be curious to see what these two stories are like once they begin to interweave themselves.
Now the style scores and grammar scores are going to be the same as my review for Bloody Aether because I have the exact same thoughts here as I do there. I can't quite give it a perfect 5/5 because this story is listed as a LitRPG but it honestly might as well be just a regular fantasy story with a vague sense of power level. There's this fantasy aspect with numbers and skills and I can't really tell where it all matters or how it all matters even though I'm pretty sure it actually does matter. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I feel like it's not explained well enough for the average reader to grasp what makes certain spells and techniques powerful.
As far as grammar goes, I'm no grammar expert but I've seen no problems throughout this story. I'm sure there are some and someone with a better grasp of grammar could find a flaw here and there, but by and large, it's flawless.
Now I don't know if it's fair of me to do this, but when I compare the characters of this story to Bloody Aether, I can't help but find them lacking. Syr is simple. She grew up alone in the forest and I think the author does a pretty good job of showing what her character is like.
OroseiRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Overall: An elven girl sees her village raided by bandits and watches her mother die to save her life. From then, she needs to sharpen her claws and use everything at her disposal – even the forbidden magic – necromancy. After all, either she adapts to the inhospitable world or she dies.
Her quest, finding a place she can call home – a family.
Style: The story is written in 1st perspective. We see this world through the eyes of Syr (in most recent chapters a 30 year old elf, which translates to a teen in human years.) The descriptions are vivid, and the narration makes you feel as if you’re living the adventure with her. I quite like it, especially the way the narration shows us how her experience in the forest marked her. Some sentences made me do a double-take, but besides that nothing problematic.
Grammar: I didn’t catch anything. So, 5/5 for me.
Story: So, the story is pretty good, whether or not she will succeed to finding a home and how much of a monster she will become along the way is a pretty interesting pitch. The story stars Syr and her panel of colorful zombie-mons trying to survive in the forest, and to quell the loneliness inherent to being the last survivor of your clan (not that I would know, but I can imagine lel.) I’d say my biggest problem right now is the fact that the power system doesn’t seem to have any real weight (consequences). Don’t get me wrong, clearly there are consequences to overusing her powers – writhing in pain and fainting – but while it happens frequently, it never feels real because either it happens when she already won (and when she wakes up, she’s mostly fine) or she basically shrugs it off and keeps fighting.
Character: Syr and White are likeable, even though we part ways with White relatively early. And the evolution of Syr’s character is totally believable from a naïve, little girl to a little-less-naïve and less-little girl; she goes through a lot and its quite interesting how much her experiences taints the way she narra
luda305Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
As suggested by the author, I read this together with Bloody Æther (fun fact, you can't search for the title of either story unless you do that weird character; aether doesn't work). The stories don't seem to have anything to do with each other yet, other than perhaps being set in the same world and that both characters are "evil" outcasts who seek to better the world.
A young elf is the lone survivor when her village is destroyed by bandits. She survives 10 winters in the wild, barely scraping by with her magic, especially her necromancy. She returns to the village and slaughter the bandits (?) there, where she is discovered by a mercernary team who bring her back to civilization. She seeks to stay with them.
The story is tragic and heartbreaking. The protagonist acutely feels the loss of her family and more, including her civilized nature. When she returns, she's paranoid even to seemingly good people, and is overwhelmed at a simple hug. And, as a necromancer, she's a bit of an outcast still.
The writing style is well done and particularly compelling.
There are a few plot holes that are a little problematic, but the strength of the protagonist as a character means that we tend to follow along with her, even if it doesn't quite make sense.