The Northfell Curse

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

One year, when winter came to Northfell, it stayed. This wouldn't matter much to anyone who didn’t live there, except that its season became contagious. Every day, the snow and ice stretched out from the center of the city to freeze plants, creatures, almost the air, even, as Northfell's chill flashed across the countryside in glacial outbursts until it encompassed more and more land, and began to freeze the ocean.

For Tine, a Mutkin of cat ancestry, traveling on a ship that became trapped in the Northfell ice was a worst-case scenario. Or, at least it was, until she found herself trekking across the cursed glacier with a band of strangers in the (irrational) hope that they could halt the phenomenon. Or, maybe it was until they were attacked at different points of their journey by wolves, vampires, goblins, and even politicians they battled along the way…

——

This novel is loosely based on a world I created as a GM, playing with D&D guidelines. A big thank you goes out to the players who took part in the original version, and who gave me carte blanche to do anything necessary to their characters in order to create a compelling storyline. Names and characters have been changed to “protect the fictional.”

I hope to capture some of the adventure, fun, silliness, and occasional trope that I associate with the best RPG campaign sessions I’ve enjoyed with friends. If you enjoy (or miss) hanging out with your DnD party, this is for you!

That being said, I also hope to make this a readable book, so I am approaching this a novel first, and foremost. I hope and pray on my little writer's knees that you find it as entertaining to read as it was to write.

What to expect:

- A curse with world-changing consequences!- Heroes, adventures, and fights!- RPG slice-of-life antics, slow burn- Moral dilemmas, conflict, and, yes, a bit of romance!- A nod to genre tropes & some plot twists!- One really, really awesome pig!- Goblins and, of course, a dungeon!- Gambling & giant spiders! (Surprisingly, these are related.)- A distinct lack of exclamation points!! (They have all been used up here.)- And more…so much more!

* Consistently ranked in the Top 10 for GameLit on Wattpad!

* This is a rough draft!

* The content of this novel is comparable to PG-13.

* Schedule: Chaotic Good. New chapters are uploaded weekly, more or less. (Except when they're not.)

* Contributing to Patreon or Paypal helps me create content faster!

* Cover artwork by Kat Isacson (human made, not AI, I actually draw this nonsense.)

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2023
Author: KatIsacson

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 79
Views: 13,139

Chapters(31 total)

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(5)

Conrad StokesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is for a review swap. I thought I stopped doing them, but the author seems nice, so it is what it is!
I think the first thing you need to know is that this story is a DnD campaign in webnovel form. It’s not crunchy with numbers and dice rolls, but if you’re a fellow player then you’ll see the usual tropes of the party meeting, encountering NPCs, and fighting mobs. All of this takes place while they investigate the mysterious Northfell Curse!
I think that this set up is both a boon and a detriment to the fiction overall. The characters flow from scene to scene in the way that players would play a game with one another, that is to say that it can feel like “go to x and do y”, but that was part of the charm for me. Don’t think that they are cardboard cutouts, because each character gets development, but you can see that each one represents an archetype/ utility to the narrative as devices for the story. My biggest thorn I found was that there are a lot of names thrown at you all at once during the story, so you may get overwhelmed.
The author’s grammar is very good and she even messaged me about my own story’s typos, so good on her!
Overall, this story has a lot of spirit with good author interaction in the comments, fantastic hand drawn art at the end of each chapter, and a cozy story that I will add to my favorite and follow list! I recommend this story :)
LleayaaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Finally a story that has some dnd elements. For a time I was heavily into it and FINALLY a book has dived into it. I’ve only read up to chapter 5 so far but I’m definitely enjoying it. So far its a solid read and quite enjoyable so I’d recommend it to any dnd enjoyer.
The authors style is clean but the formatting is slightly off, not enough to deter my immersion but enough for me to notice. The books pacing is nice and smooth and I didn’t find it too jumpy or anything like that.
The story itself is magnificent. Honestly I love every aspect of it in its entirety. The dnd-esque feel is refreshing and the overall narrative is smooth and portrayed very well.
My only issue is with the grammar. I’ve seen an abundance of grammatical errors. Mainly period and comma miss-placements. They aren’t a huge dealbreaker but they did become noticable. I feel like some slight editing can easily fix it. Other than that I found some words that felt off and didn’t make a lot of sense in some sentences.
The characters are nice and relatable. They provide a really well captured adventure-fantasy vibe and I think they’re well written. If anything I’d want some more backstory.
All in all this is a great dnd-esque tale. Highly recommend.
FeyCosmoRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Kat can really write. She’s got a band of interesting DnD-style characters in an interesting, wintery world with a spreading ice-curse. Kat has a happy, but intriguing style and I definitely see the potential for some scary stuff to come. But if you’ll forgive the pun, that’s just the tip of the iceberg! (You'll see why its a good pun when you read it, so hurry up and read it!)
Tine, the cat person and main narrator, is trapped in a wet, cold world, which exactly what cats hate, but there’s more to this story than her sole perspective. Tine is joined by an interesting band of characters in an even MORE interesting setting with a very readable writing style.
Chapter Three is where it gets infectiously good- when you meet Kilgore, you will be “hooked”, at least I was. From the perspective of a fellow D&D player I’d say this is a really fun squad to play with, but if I can’t play with friends for whatever reason, reading about it is the next best thing.
The only thing that knocks you slightly out of the immersive world is that every now and then, something really D&D-esque will happen or be said, and you’ll want to be playing the game with friends. Except that the story is really good, and there’s more than meets the eye to this band-o-travelers.
Despite this web novel only being brief so far, the characters are super likable in their own way. It would be wrong to give too much away but their dialogue and actions are consistent and really add to the overall quality of this fiction.
Overall, I highly recommend this for D&D fans. And, just because there’s room to add this- there are diagrams at the end of the chapters, which I love. Can’t spoil it, you just need to see them for yourself.
The Reality Next DoorRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I will leave an advanced review once more of this book has been published, as of now I do not have enough information and I will base my review upon the first two chapters that have already been released.
The characters are funny, and I wonder who will be the main character in the group, or what the group will entail of exactly. As of now, it seems like the beginning of a grand adventure. Ice, I really hate the cold, I also hate the heat. Why don't we just lift this curse and stay in the spring, neatly in the middle?
The author seems to grasp how to properly write in a poem like style, I enjoyed that. I like poems and quotes a lot, that might help.
VioletMoonRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
This is a pretty straightforward 4 stars right now, but I think it could easily get moved up to five stars with some simple changes.
There were no glaring stylistic or grammatical issues, so I gave them a 4.5/5. There were some tiny things, but nothing that detracted from the story itself. I really enjoyed that the author posted cute little images on the bottom of each chapter. That can sometimes be annoying, but I felt that this was very tastefully done and added to the story.
The reason I docked this on story and character score is because everything moves WAY too fast in my opinion. The characters far too quickly become buddy-buddy and agree to travel with each other, which to me didn't make sense. They're fleeing from a dangerous curse and their ship gets stuck, and then suddenly they're a fully functional party. The MC gets very close to other characters in a short time without hardly any interaction displayed. If the author were to go through and add significantly more dialogue to justify and strengthen the character interactions, this could easily move up to a five-star story.
The author is funny, witty, and does a good job of revealing Tine's thought process in a really cute way. I just want more from the other characters so that I can make sense of their relationships.
So, in summary, 4/5 overall due to good grammar and style, but was brought down by the rapid pacing and lack of development/dialogue between characters, which could be easily fixable on a second draft through. In my own writing, I'll often go through three or four times each looking to add one specific component, like sensory, or wildlife, or architecture etc. I think this could benefit from that!
In any case, it was still an enjoyable and fun read with lots of potential!