The Tachanigh-Kelkaith

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

The merchants who work near Denxalue don't believe that the muddy theome is worth anything in culture, but Denziu the Clayseller has been collecting pots for a few years now. The finest pots in Denxalue shall serve as the proof that Denxalue's artists are talented! The only wrinkle is that Denziu is unwilling to travel that far alone, so zie joins up with a caravan of merchants heading north along the famed trade route: the Tachanigh-Kelkaith!

Zie/zir is a hermaphrodite pronoun, and this story has a hermaphrodite lead.

Updates every Saturday!

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2023
Author: Rakeela

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 3.8/ 5.0
Followers: 38
Views: 20,134

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(4)

Cats_MagicRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So far a really fun read!
A fantasy mercantile slice of life story about dragon people, with cool world building.
Style:
Good! Strikes a decent balance describing what's important while not lingering overly long on every little thing.
Flows well overall and makes the whole thing nice and readable.
(Also, it's interesting to see a protagonist with unconventional pronouns.
It did make it a bit more difficult to read at first, but doesn't detract from the story at all once you get used to it.)
Story:
It starts somewhat slowly, but in a good way.
The very early chapters are mostly getting to know the protagonist/their life, as well as introducing you to the lore and concepts of the setting.
Imo author did well on this, since it's a fairly unique setting, and everything so far that isn't explained in the actual story was explained in the little glossary at the beginning.
I did need to look back at the glossary a few times though to double check the dragon types.
Grammar:
No trouble reading, and I didn't spot any issues.
Characters:
All of the characters so far are pretty compelling!
I'm excited to learn more about them, which is a good sign.
Normally I'd have an issue with how many characters there are in this story (as you're introduced to quite a few), BUT the author has thankfully been good about reiterating who they are when they're being focused on, and making them memorable/easy to distinguish.
Overall:
The neopronouns are different, but not obstructive once you get used to them.
Some people might find the world building/setting up chapters a little slow, but I liked them.
The world building is very compelling, the story is pretty cute, and I'm excited to keep reading.
Definitely recommend giving it a shot if it sounds interesting to you!
lankhmarRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
If you get past the pronouns, rough start and manage to read to reach chapter 3-4 where they hit the road you'll probably enjoy the rest of the story. It explores some wonderfully creative lands where each local god defines what *they* want it to be - whether waystation without permanent residents, a mega city in the making, or empty except for personalised intervention against bad fates.
Its a strange read, the characters gender is irrelevant as are the strange pronouns, there's no great drama or action, and even the selling is somewhat glossed over in a story about a merchant. With a major editing pass to focus on questions like Fates it could be an amazing read...but hey I enjoyed as is and it's a successful project.
ThistlemanRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I usually will rate stories much later in their process, as I like enough to properly judge them on their merits unless they are short stories.
However, from the three chapters I have seen here (and the addition of the reference document with a lot of very cool artwork and necessary terminiology!) this story is worth a lot more than just 2.5 stars. The grammar is generally quite well done, and there is a lot of depth to the world. I am not trying to "balance" the scales, as this is my overall evaluation with the material I have covered.
P.S. Zie/zir are gender-neutral pronouns, not fantasy pronouns. Google it if you don't know or don't believe me. TIL, and maybe you learned too. :)
Saint YinRoyal Road
★★ 1.5
The Good:
Relatively consistent weekly updates. Good grammar and spelling. A good deal of thought was put into worldbuilding.
The Bad:
Too much of the worldbuilding is necessary to make sense of what's being said. Story progress feels distracted/crippled by infodumps. Exotic pronoun results in most readers struggling to understand sentence structure, which pairs very poorly with dense settings such as this.
The Ugly:
The first chapter begins with an author's note to an external site that is a worldbuilding infodump, then the chapter itself takes ~1800 words to say "Denziu resolves to travel north." The rest is expanding on the worldbuilding or making references that only those who read the worldbuilding could understand.
Overall:
I think most readers will get pushed out on chapter 1, and I think the few that manage to reach chapter 2 will realize it's not going to get better. It's going to take a very specific kind of person to find this kind of storytelling appealing. It wasn't for me, and it won't be for most other people.
On a more positive note, the author has fleshed out a world that looks like it can be used to house multiple stories.