Valorous

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Jubel is a young man desperate for freedom after a lifetime of abuse and neglect. After daring to defend himself, he’s forced to flee his abusive family – only to stumble from one disaster to the next. It’s not all bad though – he’s gathered some unorthodox friends along the way.

A mercenary haunted by his past, looking for a purpose.

A young woman who wants nothing more to travel the world and prove herself.

An elf with a peculiar obsession with tales of adventure and romance.

The world is not a peaceful place, but maybe, just maybe, he and his new friends can clear out a corner of it for themselves.

Assuming the awakening tide of horrific shapeshifting abominations doesn’t kill everyone first, that is.

(Graphic violence is marked to be safe, but relatively minor, and Profanity because I swear just enough to not be sure if it qualifies or not.)

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2023
Author: phoenixofeclipse

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 7
Views: 8,567

Chapters(38 total)

Reviews

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Community Reviews(1)

Triangle TollRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
What Valorous lacks the most is any tangible reason for me to care. Many things contribute to its absence, and honestly it’s the one thing separating Valorous from the rank of a solid, if somewhat generic, adventure series.
The style has two distinct shortcomings. One is a desperate attempt to switch the word “said” for something else after every single dialogue bit. The trick is to avoid using the structure [“phrase” character said] and not just shove in every replacement for “said” the world knows.
Another one is a contributing factor for story’s absence of stakes and tension. The fight scenes. Each one reads as a one-sided beatdown by the party, even when they are story-wise horribly outmatched. All the throwing around and near-death experience they endure is rendered pointless as it does not affect them at all. Spoilers, i guess.
A good example is the dungeon core fight. The party has one member downed by an unexplained and seemingly unavoidable force at the beginning. During the fight itself no one gets believably hurt. No one cares about the downed member during the fight. No lasting damage from this memory-devouring thing either. The “hard” fight does not affect their ability to win another one moments after. Perceived danger level is nonexistent.
Following Beast Knight encounter is even worse. The party stands no chance against him, yet walks away unscathed. One member downed by their own wrong move, no consequences. Perceived danger level is none.
Story is the weakest link in the tension chain by far. 50k words is a length of a small novel, yet no meaningful conflict was ever established by chapter 22. Neither overarching one, nor local one. Everything that resembles brewing conflict material gets resolved in a chapter or two in party’s favour no problem. And no conflict means no story. The rare POV switching attempt at mystique is too vague and detached to mean anything.
Characters keep the story afloat, but they are quickly running out of the tragic past