Hall's village of Skara Brae is finally becoming a true home. But the growing community isn't without dangers...
Between raiding Red Caps and dives into the local dungeon, danger seems to lurk around every corner. Adventure. It makes Hall wonder if he should remain as Lord of Skara Brae. The excitement of life in the wild calls to him, but so do his responsibilities.
Both duty and adventure collide when members of the Greencloak Rangers, Hall's favorite faction from the original game, arrive in Skara Brae seeking Leigh's help in her role as Druid Custodian. The Northern Territories of Edin are being overrun by corruption and demons. The Greencloak Rangers' traditional enemies have seemingly aligned with demons. Hall fears this means the Desmarik Republic has started their invasion plans. But why Edin?
With Leigh and the Breakridge Irregulars, Hall journeys north to confront the growing Desmarik menace. Some of his questions will be answered, but more will be asked. Why is Hall encountering signs of Bastion The Sage everywhere? What role does the Sage play in the events around Hall?
Born and raised in the granite state of New Hampshire, Troy is a lifelong and avid reader of comic books and novels (mostly in the fantasy, sci-fi and adventure/thriller genres). The ongoing serial storytelling methods of comic books and television has always fascinated him and provided inspiration for his writing. He’s always had a love of creating and world building and dreams of someday seeing his creations expressed across all media: books, comic books, movies, TV and even toys.
When not writing, Troy can be found outside hiking, kayaking or out back at the bonfire with beer in hand. Don’t expect to bother him during football season, especially when the Patriots are playing.
While I enjoy the main character and many of his villagers, including the druid partner of Hal's, the emphasis on combat details has grown to be too much. The story is more hand to hand combat than anything else. The epilogue meant to entice the reader just bored me. I thought I had committed to the series, but after five installments, not sure. I would have preferred a great deal more "growing the village".
I have been reading this series from book one and my one problem with his writing is that every fight regardless if it's animal or humanoids his overwhelming body part to hit is the shoulders from book one,it is almost like he does not know any other body parts. As a result I am constantly looking for this quirk, but I will say the story is okay otherwise. I like the setting (world) the floating island the airships and the world population. This is is not a bad story that's why I continue to read the series.
The story is enjoyable enough, but the MC and thereby, the author writing him, repeats himself frequently in his inner monologue and it gets annoying. I swear, if MC is grateful he remembered to add enemy X to his fucking enemy faction tab one more time i'm going to burn all these books. Not to mention constantly reiterating about the important difference between health and vitality. Yeah, i got it, you can heal all you want but you still need your sleep. Stfu about it already.
More combat and better decisions being made by hall. It is nice seeing the MC grow in this series. It always sucks when characters continuously do the same wrong thing over and over again, not so here. The development hopefully will continue in the next book
Its all heating up and with Hal amongst others facing increasing foes with ulterior motives putting the island at risk more action and drama ensues keeping attention on each page.
Hall finds himself fighting Redcaps in order to save Skara Brae, dungeon diving for the sheer pleasure of it. And then he ends up helping Lee follow a quest chain, stopping the corruption of a forest in Warfang Hill, in order to stop the demons and the Desmarik Republic invasion.
If a story with lots of action can be boring then this is It wow the who plot and the bad guys are All still a mystery who they are and what they want other than power????
Warfang starts as most of the Sky Realms books have, with a look at Bastion and how he has seems to have a part to play in what is going on with some of the ‘Players’ – Hall at least and his group. The story for Warfang is incredibly busy in this book, with several minor story arcs taking place before the characters move to the main part of the story. For the first part of the story, we get to see a lot more of the workings of the day to day aspects of Skara Brae, not just the ‘Civil’ side of it, as far as town building, but other things as well, relating to the various characters (including the multitude of NPCs that have now gathered within the village), and some events that take place. Several things happen within the opening chapters of the book, with a raid by Duntin Red Caps looking for payback over a looted chest from an earlier book. The Irregulars also enter into a minor Dungeon that has been found by the Skara Brae ‘Defence Force’ (the Trainers and Adventurers from Lands Edge that now stay at Skara Brae), which provides an interesting experience for the group. I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, there is a lot of fun adventure stuff for a good third of the start of this book, that really gets into that Fantasy Roleplaying, and takes us through several quite captivating adventures as Hall and the group fight one set of threats after another, some that are directly threatening the Village, others just for pure exploration. All of it though is just pure DnD fun, with outstanding combat, a good bit of LitRPG that doesn’t get overbearing, and some interesting character development, not to mention some intriguing story lines also. After a while though, the ‘main’ story starts, when a group of ‘Greencloak Rangers’ arrives at Skara Brae, seeking not Hall’s help, but Leigh’s, as the Custodian of the Grove – for there is another corrupted branch of the World Tree, similar to like what she cured, and no one has been able to cure it, and they need all the help they can get. What follows is a new set of quest chains that not only takes Hall and the crew, and this time, not just Roxhard, Jackoby, Caryn, Sharra (with Tulla of course), but Leigh and Angus join the group. Taking the Ridgerunner for a faster trip (and so we can have the fun of reading about Gerdi and the Brothers Battleforge), the Breakridge Irregulars head to Timberhearth Keep, the home of the Greencloak Rangers to start their journey. It is not long before they work out that this is the work of the Desmarik Republic, and Demons. I don’t want to give any spoilers, because the rest of the book is a series of Epic quests that show how this series is growing. With every book, the series has evolved, providing a new aspect to the story (Silver Peak the development of Skara Brae, Axestorm was Roxhard, but also the entire Player, NPC concept, as well as the party split, and Caryn and Sabine. Greenfire introduced the new enemy and Demons, and now Warfang expands on this, but really grows the story. All along, Osgood has continued to develop the individual characters (both Player and NPC alike), as well as Skara Brae, using his main character Hall. Now, we move into an almost campaign type storyline with the series that is going to be something truly epic. As with all these books, the combat sequences are just stunning, with the right combination of detail, but not too much so you get to read about every twitch of the blade, or breath someone takes. This holds true for the LitRPG element as well, with comprehensive detail so you know what Hall’s stats are as the main character, but you are not too overwhelmed with updates every few pages. This is one facet of these books I have loved from the start, and was something that immediately drew me to a genre I was initially not overly keen on. The other really extraordinary part of this series is the world building, which has been just breath-taking. Hankarth is a world that leaves you in awe of the descriptions of a world, torn apart, and now a series of floating islands, held together by magic. Each island is a different part of the world, and has retained those qualities, with the climate, and its people, making each island unique, and utterly fascinating. This is one of those stories where you would just love to go and visit as the descriptive work brings to life these remarkable places and leave you in wonder. Osgood continues to deliver a stunning series with just exceptional characters, and a world that is enchanting. This is a must read for any Fantasy reader, and especially if you like your LitRPG. This book is a real growth to, showing what is to come, which is going to just get better.