To Rhial

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

To Rhial 2 first draft progress: 14/~50

Where a youthful dream in a world of opportunity begins, so too does a harrowing tragedy.

Adam, Brenden, Desmond, Tells, and Rowan are five well-to-do dudes in the fantasy world of Rhial. Adam is big, green, not to mention the hero. Brenden isn't sure if he's more of an alien or an elf. Desmond is a regular human and happy about it. Tells is terrified of not being a guy. And Rowan is a vampire with an insatiable thirst for blood. They have an interesting mix, but discovering all those things about themselves is really terrifying, especially since they aren't in their bodies, or in their world. These five college-aged guys got dropped into their new bodies in the middle of the woods with no warning after a tragic highway accident. They don't even know what they look like until they tell each other. Then they get woken up by none other than Vetia the Vampire Hunter.

It's a slow burn that ramps up as the acts progress, a fun story of venturing into the unknown. Let the fun pull you in. It makes the tragedy all the better.

Two of the reviews are a bit outdated, as the final draft was published in late 2023. The grammar and style issues they mention have been fixed.

This is a grimdark tragedy. The content will be sensitive and disturbing to certain readers. If something is too much for you, don't force yourself to keep reading. It only gets darker as it goes. Make sure you've checked the tags to see if this is the kind of story for you.

🔥What to expect:🩸

- Uncertainty as you explore this new world through the characters' eyes.

- Fast-paced action sequences with heavy focus on realistic combat.

- Contemplative, introspective, emotional moments.

- A character-driven story that matures with its characters.

- Stronger focus on internal conflict and dialogue.

- Literary elements.

- 5 first-person POVs that switch each chapter.

- Shorter early chapters and longer later chapters (ranges from 900 words to 20k words).

Act I: The First Steps | 1-19

Act II: Grappling with Reality | 20-29

Act III: Vehfirn's Finest | 30-43

Act IV: Burnout | 44-50

Act V: Fire, Blood, and Ashes | 51-55

Cover art by Steven Shan

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2024
Author: Ren Cory

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.2/ 5.0
Followers: 347
Views: 71,945

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(7)

Krzychu0304Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Five friends die in a car accident with a truck and are reincarnated in a world of sword and sorcery.
It sounds more like a standard isekai part 2137, but it is not, I will try to describe why "To Rhial" stands out from the crowd;
-we are dealing here with the Middle Ages, not with the pseudo-medieval style, but with the real Middle Ages with the behavior/mentality of people consistent with the era, which is an integral part of an extensive and complex world
-all the characters are well-thought-out and complex, especially our heroes who stand out because not only do they have to make morally questionable decisions, which provides juicy internal conflicts, but they also changed their race and gender, which provides us with even more juicy internal conflicts. The antagonist also shines, who goes far beyond "I'm bad so I like to do evil", who is a complex and multi-faceted character who experiences her own moral conflicts and from time to time reacts to them by being a bitch, although in principle she is generally a good character.
-we are dealing here with a narrative from the perspective of different characters, often describing the same scene from the perspectives of different characters, but each perspective has its own unique character, each time significantly different from the previous one, describing things in a unique and unrepeatable way. And honestly, it's probably the best implementation of this type of narrative I've ever read and I fell in love with it.
-the plot is essentially a road story, intended to give the characters room to develop, is well-paced, coherent, and gains depth over time.
As a rule, I do not judge grammar, I will limit myself to saying that I did not find anything that would hinder immersion on my part.
Wandersail_Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm not good at writing reviews, I'm much better at just enjoying a story. But I can say that it was amazing. I was invested in. . . Well, most everyone's stories. Alex didn't feel like he got much time to be more than a goofy guy who got stuck in a harsh world, but everyone else had very good moments to them.
jostikasRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Most of all, I admire how well the different plots weave together in the worst way possible, with no-one getting what they want, and everyone being unhappy. Especially as no-one had to act out of character, or catch the stupid ball, for the author to pull it off.
The characters don't feel like they were designed for "that one critical flaw which enables the story" either.
It depicts so well the shit dumbass friends pull, and all the shit they pull you out of. But nobles don't have shit on them...
ItkovanRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The story starts off with the unbridled joy of finding oneself in another world and quickly turns dark, bringing about realities of the middle ages that most seem to have forgotten about.
One of the forgotten parts, would be how just about anyone with power over anyone, seem to abuse it at some point.
We come across "nobles" that start off nice, but turns out to be among the worst of humanity when they have to deal with someone who hold no value to them.
To be fair, that seem like just about every depiction of a noble from earth, ever...
Learning that dungeons are not a nice, warm and sanitary place but rather damp, cold, dark, sewage-bypasses and teeming with rodents?
Not giving that place any good reviews, if there ever were a website to rate the location...
How people perceived slightly above you in the hierarchy will literally spit in your food, dump it in your lap and make you give thanks for the chance to eat?
Or how a noble would callously kill off someone who's been serving them to the best of their ability but not granted the results desired due to circumstances outside of their control?
Regardless of the negative experiences the protagonists have, we get to know them quite well, to the degree that sympathy for their plight is real enough that you might even be asking yourself "why haven't they burned the world down yet?".
Yeah, if anything, i'm glad that I am not a character in the story, because i certainly would be bringing the fire, by torch or magic.
The chapters are LONG, especially compared to most other stories i've read on RR, but that is a good thing.
Each chapter shows one characters side of a story, especially when they come in at different times or angles to a part of the story.
Oh, I do enjoy the function to give edit-suggestions, so finding it disabled here was a bit of a let-down.
But in the 55 massive chapters so far, I have only found about 4 words that were misspelled, and only bothered manually reporting the very last one.
The biggest ne
1HP_and_a_dreamRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I am impressed with what I've read so far.
The characters' are written excellently, each with their little complexities. You will discover more of each character by viewing them from the perspectives of the other characters.
Read this at least until the party leaves their first town/village, it will be worth your time.
Evelyn AdelbergRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This story follows the adventures of 5 friends who all died in a car accident and got reincarnated into a fantasy world.
The twist is that most of them are no longer human, but represent different fantasy races, and that the change seems to have impacted their personalities a fair bit.
This story has comedy, fast-paced action scenes, intrigue, and a group of best friends that actually feels like one.
POV's shift in between the five characters, with each of them having their own unique voice and outlook on the whole situation. Even without the note at the beginning of each chapter, it would be easy to tell who the focus is on.
However, I had a bit of trouble with the format of this story. Namely, the length of some paragraphs, which really should be chopped up into smaller ones imo. Dialogue is also "sandwiched between" paragraphs of prose, without a break either before or after the dialogue (which slows down the flow a lot).
The grammar is also on the weaker side, due to the occasional shit into present tense.
TLDR: this is a fun, DnD inspired isekai adventure with a lot of promised charachter growth and intrigue. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then what are you waiting for ? Start with the prologue !
The CrucibleRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This little novel has me on my toes the whole time. It starts out like the beginning of a DnD campaign and most of the theme is such; fantasy like creatures with magic and the works. The description doesn't do this story justice. After the first 15 or so chapters the plot really develops and these friends are really tested in both their bonds and who they are as a whole. I obviously don't want to say much of what happens simply because it's that compelling to read. On top of that it's a nice change of pace from other novels to be in third person most of the time to one like this where everything is just the friends' viewpoints. It leaves things in the dark and keeps me wondering what other events are happening that we don't know. It doesn't make much sense when I write it out but it shows as you progress in the story.
Mechanically it was difficult to follow and read in the first few chapters. Some grammar slips but it's expected and I found it hard to differ from character dialog and character thought sometimes. I wouldn't realize there was a difference until the end of a scene.
Overall absolute banger of a story with great suspense and delivery and even some light romance near the later chapters. I can't wait to keep reading and hope it gets spicy as it goes.