Veil A Bardic Progression LitRPG [Revised!!]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Chanter turns copper coins into grenades. He's a Bombastic Busker, here to blow your mind. Thousands were selected to alpha test a revolutionary new game, Veil. They signed up thinking they'd be testing out the newest VRMMO. They were lied to. This is no VRMMO. Unbeknownst to them, they were killed and sent through a forced transmigration — their bodies recreated in another world. Their new home is a land ripe with magic, intrigue, and danger. They all think they're in a game. They're dead wrong. Chanter’s fresh start is immediately derailed when a system glitch drops him into the world with a randomized race and starting area. No chosen class. No starter equipment. Reborn as a changeling — a universally reviled and hunted race — Chanter is forced to hide his true identity. He struggles to overcome the odds, weaving explosive magic with his lute. He will need to obtain a class, gain admittance to the Adventure’s Guild, and overcome a quest labelled ‘extremely dangerous’—all while kindling his friendship with other players and a mysterious fox-like creature he first encounters early in his adventure. Teaming up with new allies, Chanter investigates whispers of undead in the catacombs below Verdantbrook, the first piece of a nefarious puzzle that threatens to bathe the streets in blood. He must unravel the mystery before catastrophe strikes. Explosive adventure awaits! Books 1 & 2 complete! Currently working on a rewrite, releasing new chapters as they are revised and rewritten from book 1 Mon, Wed, and Thur! Copyright © Brandon Highbaugh, 2025. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner. Veil: A Bardic Progression LitRPG is only posted on Royal Road, Amazon, SpaceBattles, and my Patreon. Any publication elsewhere is stolen and violates my copyright.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2026
Author: Brandon Highbaugh

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.6/ 5.0
Followers: 520
Views: 111,084

Chapters(129 total)

What readers say about Veil A Bardic Progression LitRPG [Revised!!]

“Overall score: The author does a lovely job of painting a charming fantasy world, which feels not only lived in, but teeming with mystery, and history. Veil positions itself as a standout transmigration story where the main cast are blissfully unaware of th…”
ShadycrazymanRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“Fun, engaging and full of likeable characters. Bards! Explosions! Monsters? Cute pets! Magic items! Crafting! Plot twists! Fantasy racism?! Inadvertent colonialism? Slavers?? Mass death and destruction??? A bit darker and more serious than I expected. Descr…”
Alice CecileRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(9)

ShadycrazymanRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall score:
The author does a lovely job of painting a charming fantasy world, which feels not only lived in, but teeming with mystery, and history. Veil positions itself as a standout transmigration story where the main cast are blissfully unaware of their situation. It's a thoughtful take on the attitude, and tone an MC views their world in, which is immediately lighter in VRMMOs vs. the normal "new world, real consequences" of a transmigration.
But us readers known better, and man aren't there moments were I am going "Please don't go down into the basement!!! The killer is down there!!!"
Style score:
This author does not skimp on the details. The story is told in the first person POV and through the eyes of Chanter. He has a refreshingly positive world view. Trusting (to a fault), eager to explore, even to help, and this personality melds beautifully into the prose.
Grammar score:
There are few to no grammatical mistakes which might take the reader out of the experience.
Story score:
Chanter starts this story at a disadvantage, but quickly regains his footing establishing himself as a Bombastic Buskar, a bard class variant. It's a fun, inspired class. The MC plays music to enchant things which explode. He can do much more than that, but what else do you need to know. It's a compelling way to handle the business of fighting.
The consequences in Veil are REAL. Chanter's actions not only find him showered in rewards, but the target of hostile retaliation. Fights are challenging, but often reasonable. The overarching story up to the current chapter is engaging with plenty of promises for intriguing developments in the future.
Character score:
Chanter is Chanter. If you read you will understand. He is a flawed character, which I consider a good thing. Good to a fault, not a savant, but clever when he needs to be. He makes friends readily, which leads to a large cast of colorful characters.
The most recent chapter as of the time of this review, "The Waking Nightmare
Alice CecileRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Fun, engaging and full of likeable characters. Bards! Explosions! Monsters? Cute pets! Magic items! Crafting! Plot twists! Fantasy racism?! Inadvertent colonialism? Slavers?? Mass death and destruction???
A bit darker and more serious than I expected. Description felt very "light-hearted adventure with a bard fucking around", less "terrible disasters and high stakes villainy". It's been handled well so far, but many a fun story has been ruined by careless inclusion of elements like this.
Setup is tropey, but maybe it'll take those elements in a new or satisfying direction. I can personally live with those complaints, although it is a bit frustrating.
Writing is consistently pleasant to read, and never gets in the way of the story. The editing is noticeably solid: very few to no distracting errors.
I'm excited to see where the plot goes, and how the characters grow and change. It feels like we're setting up for character growth for several distinct characters.
It's been a relief to see the cast of ongoing characters kept relatively small, allowing for this development with sacrificing plot pacing. I'm somewhat nervous about rapidly escalating stakes, power and scope, but the engaging crafting, downtime and music scenes give me hope that the author will maintain a sense of whimsy throughout the plot.
Overall, a lovely read by a clearly talented author. Let's hope they can stick the landing!
167fiveRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
To get straight to the point, this is a very solid VRMMO story. It has a solid plot, a relatable character, and interesting world to be explored.
Though VRMMOs often lack the emotional grasp on readers-as if the MC dies, they can just come back-but this story does a good job of making the stakes actually high, which is good for emotional appeal.
The only conplaints I have are the lack of an explanantion on the first couple of chapters.
Who is the MC? What significance does his brother have to him? Why are his other family members dead? What kind of world is he in? Has he been transmigrated or just in-game?
If the author can edit the stody to answer these questions faster, it'll definately become a more solid story.
KennyTheAwkwardDonutRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Just started the story, but I'm enjoying where it's heading. The story behind the name Chanter was enough to tug at the heartstrings, and the surprising reason for the MC's race was enough to hint at other potential things that might be going on with the game still being in closed alpha.
I'm excited to read more and see where this goes.
jotsyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I want to preface this by saying that I've never been the biggest fan of VRMMO stories. I often find they lack the same stakes as isekai or transmigrations, and yet, Isildar has managed to not only create an intriguing VRMMO world, but the author has also managed to create one that feels like it has very real stakes for the characters.
Veil is an ambitious story that tackles all of the ambition that it brings to the table with a flourish and a song -- something that feels very fitting considering the main character's class and style.
The world feels truly alive, and every interaction that the MC shares feels well-thought-out and true to the character. I'm really excited to see where the author takes this one, and how they expand upon the world they're already crafting for us here.
SakonerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I really love this story; it has plenty of action that feels exciting and challenging, which makes the MC's progress feel deserved.
It may or may not have made me cry once or twice, but you can't prove that. That said, the story overall comes across with a heartwarming and wholesome tone, with a dash of comedy.
the whole thing is cohesive and well written, and this is before the author has finished the revision.
lar.larRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I've read very little of this book but I have read the opening and I'm of the opinion that it must be longer and more detailed.
Whiles reading Veil there was a nagging feeling at the back of my mind that something felt wrong. It has a colourful world I would usually kick my feet back and enjoy. The main character is put in a tight corner right off the bat and is given an interesting set of powers and goals.
I was about to write my review stating that it simply was not for me. I'm recent to the isekai, video game genre of books after all. But the real reason why I felt so weird about the book was because I felt too distant from the events occuring.
A grounded character the reader gets to know and alowly ease us into the craziness of the fantasy world is usually how it goes. The degrees of success varies as well as the method of execution. Veil already follows this pattern when our hero enters the game world but encounters a glitch of sorts. I like the premise, its fantastic BUT we don't know enough about the main character before the inciting incident happens which puts a wall between me and him. I'm not familiar with him enough to care about his problems.
This has been an atypical review for me but I think this is what would be most useful for the author.
I think he or she handles all the other parts quite well and thats why I did not bring it up.
PuttnnamehereRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
I think, there is a story here.
I have three issues and they are all symptoms of one issue. The author loves questions. There is a mystery here, and I use mystery in a loose way. Things happen without buildup and then are effectively ignored in favor of a potential future payoff. The issue becomes when the author will arbitrarily dole out a brief snippets of explanation. The thing is that we never get enough of this. A vast majority of characterization comes from brief instances of monologing by characters which are inadvertently prevented from saying more once the author has deemed it necessary to move on. The following issues are then necessary tropes in order to maintain the status quo.
The MC is...dumb. Well, that might not be completely true. What is is that he is naive. But it's more of a arbitrary naivety. It becomes clear after the first arc that much of the story will be railroaded. The story effectively forces the MC to get involved, whether he likes it or not. He is forced to kill someone, forced to choose his class, forced to save a girl, forced to kill the slavers, repeat ad nosium. This means that there really isn't a foundation here. This hurts things like....progression in a progression fantasy where the MC forgets to use his attribute points and progress, or later on how he effectively fails multiple quests back to back to back to back, and ultimately doesn't get experience (?) I guess. The system itself is odd and also suffers from this 'mystery'. Does he get experience from killing people/monsters or is it just quest completion? Does he get experience from using skills? Who knows.
The second symptom is the system. The poorly laid out foundation means that the system....is basically just what the author says it is. This might just be a me thing, but if you're going to be doing a litrpg, not using the litrpg and effectively(forgetting?) About it leads to questions about how it works. (Like the above mentioned experience issue) as a result of the rai
CrowTalksRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
I've read a few chapters and realized my review will be about preferences. So prepare to compare our tastes, not this story with others like it.
A bland, passive MC, uninterested in the world, discourages me from reading this even before the numerous questions about the strangeness of what's happening become another, no less serious, problem. The structure of the initial plot is based on MC's total refusal of responsibility for his life.
This was a summary for those who are wary of minor spoilers for the first chapters.
The protagonist is sent to the game's alpha test, but did he choose it himself? No! His brother wanted to be a tester, but he died, and the MC got someone else's slot. You could say the MC agreed to it, but this agreement doesn't feel like a positive decision about his future—on the contrary, the MC is simply going with the flow, thinking something like, "Why not? There's nothing holding me back in this world anymore."
The only pseudo-choice is pressing a strange button during character selection, hoping to get a hint from the game about what it is. However, this is a choice without real choice, an unintentional action out of ignorance: the game forces a random race on the MC.
And right after that, in the alley where MC appeared, some beggar attacks him with the intent to kill, and MC has no choice but to defend himself and kill in return. But don't worry! The author will simultaneously judge the MC and make him feel sorry for what happened, because killing is bad, kids!
Notice a trend? Again, it seemed like he had no choice! The situation didn't allow him to run away (because the location was unknown) or negotiate (because the beggar made it clear he wouldn't talk).
After the self-defense episode, the MC receives a quest from the System that he must follow if he wants to survive. And while pursuing this quest, he doesn't even pay proper attention to the game world, doesn't feel curious or positively motivated by his situation. Despite it being just