← Browse novels

The Cost of Greatness

by GLM Ongoing
4.48 / 5 on Royal Road (30 ratings) · rate it here

Synopsis

In a world turned upside down, Alicia burns brighter than most. A scholar chasing the perfect spell, the beauty of purpose, a song of magic only she can hear.

The Magistrate is the Wall, holding back madness from consuming the continent, Heroes, Wardens, Monsters; but they can't stop madness of humanity's own making from consuming the ones they're supposed to protect.

The world is broken, and fixing it always has a cost, and sometimes a Hero Party filled with Villains is the best tool for the job. 

For in a world made by monsters, maybe being the biggest monsters of them all is what will save it.

* Being a dread-overlord sucks, Alicia will come to learn that.

* Shots will be fired at anything and everything, Alicia is incredibly sure she is the smart and reasonable one.

* The world is quite grim, but the foil is that Alicia is the most capable monster in it. I'm going for wholesome world conquering murder-gremlin. She is precious.

* She is not quite the "Hero" of this story, but being a world conquering villain is hard work, she will have to earn it.

* You should take all the bullshit she is saying completely and utterly fucking seriously, she means every word.

* Progression Fantasy. I don't plan to let things run too slow. 

* Interesting magic world. I'm putting all the ideas shaking around in my head for years to paper. I hope they came out well.

* Character Driven. I think it's where I'm best at–again I hope. It's fun to write.

* Magic System inspired by D&D, there is no actual Litrpg (Alicia would hate it) but there are hard numbers and levels baked in, they will come up.

* The romance kinda sneaked up on me, wasn't my first intention. The explicit scenes kinda wrote themselves afterwards... I hope they came out tasteful. They're in separate interludes. You can skip them if you want; but there is characterization in them.

* This is a 'monster girl' story.

* The world is heavily inspired by Elden Ring, Warhammer (both of them), Dark Souls, D&D, and all that jazz.

* Yes, the French have won for once.

* Yes, I get to have all the cool shit, buckle up fucko.

This is my first time actually writing a long form story, please give me some feedback on how it came out.

The setting is heavily inspired by [Metaworld Chronicles] by Wutosama.

I just love that kind of high magical-industrial fantasy urbanism– I think it's great. I can't do his neat historical parallels or financial jargon tho. I took the parts I liked most about it.

I also came to realise much of Alicia's voice and interactions were shaped by Ravensdagger and Mecanimus works. Check them out, they're great.

Statistics

Overall Score: 4.48 / 5

Status: Ongoing

Chapters: 137

Updates: About 2 chapters a week

On Royal Road: 118 followers · 4.72 / 5

More like this

Similar themes and genres See all →

Chapters (137 Total)

RSS

Discussion (0)

No comments yet. Start the discussion!

Reviews

No reviews yet for this book.