Touch O' Luck (The Old Realms)

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

A young provincial thief of no particular renown has his life of crime changed in a day. He ‘stumbles’ upon a huge pile of gold for starters and soon after a dead man carrying a letter of 'royal' interest. Literally. While at it he ‘earns’ a title of sorts, along the promise of a life out of the gutter. Before he can properly appreciate the dramatic turn of his fortunes, he’s drawn into a dangerous conspiracy that threatens to embroil two continents in a devastating war.

The whole affair seems to cry out for a gallant hero of old, or failing that a cunning diplomat, but he’s neither. Perhaps a lying scoundrel, which our lad definitely is, would have to suffice. He does ‘acquire’ a dagger that knows a dead language after all and that must count for something.

Touch O' Luck is the prologue (or opening act) to the Old Realms series of novels

The Old Realms series:

Touch O' Luck(Finished)

Hint O' Magic(Finished)

Lure O' War(Finished)

Wings O' Fate (Ongoing)

First chapters will be uploaded immediately.

After that there will be updates every 3-5 days.

Cover artwork by@IntheBlackveil

Maps of the Old Realms are available here

Greater Map of the Realmsthis is a very large image (thrice reduced in size from original, but still it might not load immediately)

The Old Realms - Chapter specific maps

The Old Realms

All tags are relevant but most chapters are not too extreme. Fair warning dear reader, this is an 'unfiltered' story, sometimes sweet, others bitter, touching some heavy subjects or problems, like crime, war, betrayal, pride, politics, revenge etc set in a Epic Fantasy backdrop with shades of Grimdark. In its heart of hearts though, it is an adventure.

The Old Realms saga is only published on RR for free. It is in the author's plans to publish it on Amazon and other platforms at some point. If you see it offered anywhere else, or someone tries to charge you for it, please report him. It is illegal to sell, or take advantage of intellectual work without the author's permission.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2021
Author: GrimDux

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.6/ 5.0
Followers: 382
Views: 128,515

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(9)

PanPan AliRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I don't usually write reviews but this story deserves to be known by more people.
I know I'm late to the "party", but it was clear that the author spent a lot of time creating unique characters, a unique world with detailed maps that captivate the reader's mind well. ( filler for the minimum 200 required) a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a f d b g. Dv DN. Dv și. Și zg. Dv vsh. Sfh xx. Yd. Hcs. HDD j. Și. Ah. Și. Sh rh s h a j a j f j x j s sh. H. De x j s. Ydv. Gh db GB xfh x. De xugd du. Fh dv de Dv de fgb dh. Deh dhb dhvxeg fj gd
Try showingRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Interesting set-up with flesh out characters. Schemes and doesn't shy away from the darker shade of society, making the final product much more realistic.
A really good find and worth reading.
Don't mind this, can't find the strength to write a 50 words review
Royal Road® is the home of web novels and fan fictions! In our amazing community, you can find various talented individuals who write as a hobby or even professionally, artists who create art for them, and many, many readers who provide valuable feedback and encouragement."
JessdewRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Let me preface this review by saying i am not usually a fan of mutiple POVs that each have their own plot. But this story is well written, minus a few typos. It draws you in with well defined characters and an intricate plot that is slowly revealing. Unlike other stories with multiple viewpoints, i have not gotten bored with anyone's story yet. Better than most I have read on RR and a nice change of pace from all the litrpg. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
Major VexRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
1st of series, just finished this one and starting next. Writing style takes a bit to get into as there are alot of interwinding subplots and characters. Despite this it's a quality story by an author who knows what the word 'grammar' means either knows how to spell or isn't too lazy to use a spell checker. If your looking for magik and monsters.... well they are here, a bit in this one but mostly hinted at to come.
NOTE: i don't usually write reviews here because i have a problem with the whole scale and how it's done here. i really don't like that a 4 star review is considered bad and you're forced to say something is way better then it is or doom the author, . well such is the millennial culture of likes, swipes, thumbs (stolen from Ebert in a time when there were only 4 stars in the world and a 3 was good and a GPA of 3.3 would get you a magna cum laude and you couldn't even get a 4 because that was the top and things were graded on bell curves and there was no such things as extra credit or bonuses for taking advanced placement which really were just called classes at that time), and whatever other hollow praises people need from strangers these days to feel good about themselves. I digress, keep up the good work.
MaliciousChaosRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story is a reason why a new section called Hidden Gems or something like that should exist on this website. So many good stories fade into obscurity like this one 😕.
The world building is freaking fantastic. Just look at the map of this story and you will understand what I am talking about. Although there are lots of Pov switches going on, that it might annoy some people. But I think the frequent pov switches are what makes this story so fun to read. Also, the story absolutely does not revolve around the main lead Glen but it moves on its own. The characters feel like they are actual people. The plot is pretty interesting.
This is such a good story that I feel it's wasted on royal road and cannot shine here due to the abundance of stories on this website. If you are reading this review, I request you to give this book and its sequel book a try.
MarcieTheVillainRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Why am I so angry, you ask? Why should I be upset about reading a lovely tale of adventure and action, one that I genuinely enjoy?
Because I am the only reviewer as of my time of writing this.
Criminal, much like our protagonist. This story has the hallmarks of a professional-in-the-making, and truly left me satisfied when reading - but not so satisfied that I wasn't coming back for more.
STYLE
First and foremost, this story has style in leaps and bounds. Halfway through the first Luthos-blasted chapter I was struck by how intimate the author seemed with their own fiction, in the best of ways. Descriptions are placed well and give enough to be informative without overbearing, word choice is just as thought-out and interesting, and the fictional world and worldbuilding are all great without being too intense. It's a delightful read that reminds me of a printed fiction, something I would read in my free-time after work or school.
The world itself has some flavor and influence (intentionally or otherwise) inspired by popular works of fantasy, such as Warhammer Fantasy, Game of Thrones, and The Witcher. However, that's where it stops: inspiration. Touch o' Luck's world is very much it's own and so is it's writing style.
GRAMMAR
Honestly, this was the weakest part of the whole dang fiction so far, which isn't saying much since it's still pretty good. My only issue is that there is definitely missing punctuation, especially commas. Commas are your friend! Use natural pauses! Please, please, please, throw some more in! That aside, spelling is almost completely without issue, and sentences are constructed well.
STORY
The story is the best part of this whole Luthos-darned tale. The world itself is built up and there's enough detail to allow the reader to infer what they need to and then some from the reading; we are told what we need to to allow us to have fun, while still retaining an intriguing fistful of mystique and excitement to read further. My one issue with the story
Chevalier_9292Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This book and its sequel are excellent reads. While this one can be rough around the edges its serves as a very good appetizer and to some degree I find it better as it establishes the origin of the character and this is the most entertaining part in all stories.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47919/lure-o-war-the-old-realms?sorting=newest
EugenioRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
The protagonist is a young poor man from a village in medieval time. This is a problem because it means that he has no education,no cleverness, no experience, pathetic lying skills that make him survive only thanks to plot armor. I mean, he is extremly suspicious, and there are some passages that make no sense: his companion is basically told that he is not the real one and juat gloss over it, why? No reason. Is he at least smart? So that he is at least interesting to follow because he learns fast and develop? NO. Absolutely unappealing. The continuous changes of PoVs are not done masterfully, and in this novel it should have been a must , since there are a LOT of different PoVs. Thanks to all those PoV the story is very slow,and a couple of time doesn't even follow a chronogical line.
Another writing technique that the author uses are prophetic lines such as :
It would only be true for one of them.
It was not meant to be.
They are those typical lines that foretold a sane amount of what is going to happen but in a thrilling way. To my opinion, here they do not accomplish much . Maybe is because I found them misplaced, maybe is because we've seen so little of the characters, since there are so many, with so little action time that I don't really care what happens to them.
The grammar is okay but the morphology, in this case lack of commas, take you out a little in some places. At least it happens rarely.
I've only read to this point beacuse I am a big fan of this type of settings, but I'm going to stop since a slow-burn story with so many PoVs is not burning at all.
naralianRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Generally solid in concept and implementation, though the earlier chapters push the "game of thrones pastiche" a bit harder than I'd like. The general concept of everyone being an unsympathetic bastard so that it's entertaining when they inflict misery on each other is fine in theory, thought in practice it can be a bit much.
Style: hyper-multiperspective structure is an interesting idea but hard to pull off smoothly, and some of the decisions on which characters to give a perspective chapter as well as how many to do in a row are inconsistent and a bit dodgy, which a dedicated editor could really help tighten up.
Story: fairly generic low fantasy plot, pretty entertaining overall except that it's pulling a little too much from one specific influence (ASoIaF) and struggles to find its own voice. This likely got better after the point I dropped, simply by writing more.
Grammar: the fact that I normally don't even elaborate on grammar but have to for this story sums it up. Possibly this is a second-language English work or just written extremely fast with no second draft, but dropped words, catastrophic spelling errors turned into the wrong word by autocorrect, and simply constructing clauses in invalid ways fill this work to the point that when the errors cluster it's literally unreadable, as in there are entire passages where I quite literally spent minutes trying to decipher what action a character was taking or what he was saying and couldn't manage it. To the point that this more than anything is why I dropped.
Characters: pretty entertaining; they all suck and have few redeeming (or in some cases not even any humanizing) qualities but this is deliberate and serves what the author is trying to do well. I hate literally everyone in this story and it's great, most of why I waded through the sometimes borderline encrypted grammar and spelling errors as long as I did. With an editor making things more readable it'd be why I'd probably stick around.