Magic, mayhem, and moonshine.
Gage came home to the Ozarks to mend fences with the friends he’d left behind. But when a solar storm reconnects Earth to the Fae Nexus, the world is engulfed in magical energy, altering the laws of nature… violently. Fuel, ammunition, and electronics explode, leaving the world in a dark apocalypse.
As the flames die down, demons emerge through the Fae Nexus, swarming Gage’s hometown and enslaving the survivors.
To fight back, Gage and his reunited friends harness Fae powers, becoming the Wizard, Ranger, and Fighter they’ve always played in their favorite roleplaying game.
With the help of a pair of moonshiners turned Alchemists and the ghost of a long-dead gunslinger, Gage and his friends have to level up fast to free their families and defend their home against the demonic horde.
He may have walked away once, but this time the only thing Gage is leaving behind are his regrets and a pile of dead demons.
My Opinion: 353 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
An entertaining RPG Apocalypse story with three sibling main characters (MC). Their backstory issues didn’t work for me but they also didn’t detract from the good things in the story: action, adventure, and interesting magic theory.
The RPG mechanics come in nice and crunchy early in the story with a clear level system with stats, classes, and notifications. For me, the best part of the story was the creative spell crafting which doesn't show up till mid story. One of the MCs goes with the wizard class but has to create his own spells by studying fae symbols to put together spell parts. Rolls were made to determine learning and spell crafting success. It was a flexible mechanic that allowed for creative problem solving and combat without losing the RPG aspects and becoming wand wavy.
On the story side, things were good overall. The setup for the RPG apocalypse wasn’t original, but the action of the invaders and kind of backcountry response from the characters made it feel different. There were a few places the pacing slowed down too much for too long, but on the whole the pacing had tension and there was plenty of motivation for the characters to progress in the story. There were also plenty of good fights with later fights using surprising defensive tactics.
Overall, a good read.
Score: 7.5 out of 10
Black Dawn: An Apocalyptic LitRPG Adventure (Fae Nexus Book 1)