Trapped in a dark fantasy, his only weapon is snark.
"Give me the incredibly short summary of what the hell is going on, please. The kind you could fit into a movie trailer."
“You’re trapped in a video game world based on a hack dark fantasy author’s rip off of better books.”
“Uh huh. Maybe you could be a bit more detailed.”
Lords of Dragon Keep is the first book of the Dark Undermaster series by C.T. Phipps. It is an Affectionate Parody of Dark Fantasy Trapped in Another World LitRPG novels.
Aragorn “Aaron” Bartkowski is a Ridiculously Average Guy and Working-Class Hero who is a programmer for Epic DungeoneeringTM, the world’s largest video game developer. Given the option to deliver a contract to reclusive author Larry C.C. Weis after the latter finishes his long-awaited fourth novel, Aaron doesn’t question several weird elements of his company’s request like the fact they want him to wear a strange golden bracelet. Well, it turns out Aaron’s favorite author is actually a wizard and transports him to the mythical kingdom of Ledziania in the Southern Kingdoms.
The Southern Kingdoms are a ridiculously dark land overrun with the undead and struggling with civil war. They’re also suspiciously like certain other franchises that gets Lampshaded in-universe. Aaron has found himself occupying the roles of the Dark Undermaster novels’ protagonist and must save the world before his own one is endangered.
It was released on August 22nd, 2024, as a novel and is available on Royal Road as a web serial
.
open/close all folders
Series
- Action Girl: Ania Rose is a trained assassin with a katana, shadow magic, and a magical lightbow. She’s also someone who has gone through several game loops and managed to free herself from the spells that bind the other people of Ledziania Veles’ attacks.
- Affably Evil: Veles is always congenial, polite, and willing to offer compromises with Aaron. He still plans to kill all the world and is responsible for much of the setting’s misery.
- Affectionate Parody: Of A Song of Ice and Fire, Elden Ring, and The Witcher. Aaron is dumped into a Dark Fantasy world of complicated politics, evil gods, and moral conundrums with no clear good solution. Aaron proceeds to just bumble his way through his problems by being the Nice Guy and Only Sane Man. Usually, he ends up Taking a Third Option.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Trope named as a chapter title. There's races that worship God of Evil Veles and are considered this in-universe but Aaron takes the stand it is just Fantastic Racism. Played straight with the undead that are near-mindless cannon fodder or mind-controlled into Veles' service.
- Annoying Video Game Helper: In-universe, Aaron compares Jon the Raven to this, saying he's basically his version of Navi.
- Badass Family: Aaron's family turns out to be this when we meet them and discover his father is a former Polish action hero, his mother was a Soviet spy turned B-movie actress, and his cousin was possibly the guy who killed Osama Bin Ladin.
- Big Bad: Veles is the God of Evil in the Southern Kingdoms, working to conquer both the world of Mokosh as well as Earth before killing all their populations. He is the Evil Overlord behind the armies of the undead but also The Corruptor for both the Empire as well as Mad Queen.
- Big Fancy Castle: Dragon Keep is the headquarters of the Dark Undermasters and formerly the family home of the Rose family.
- The Berserker: Kragen Bloodstorm is a half-vampire/half-ogre Rus berserker who enters blind rages during combat.
- The Casanova: Even though he’s a Nice Guy and Humble Hero, or perhaps because of it, Aaron repeatedly attracts the attention of both Cute Monster Girl types as well as adventurers. He even attracts a goddess. He mostly only has eyes for Ania, though.
- The Chosen Many: The Champions selected by Larry C.C. Weis are all given bracelets that allow them to level up like a video game character. By the time Aaron arrives, all of them have either been killed or turned to Veles’ side.
- Composite Character:
- In-universe author Larry C.C. Weis is a cross between George R. R. Martin (wildly successful Dark Fantasy author whose TV show adaptation outran the books and wrote for From Software) and Andrzej Sapkowski (Slavic fantasy author with a wildly successful video-game adaptation and so-so Netflix show of his books)
- Is a combination of Arya Stark (an tomboy-ish orphaned noblewoman trained as an assassin and seeking revenge against the people involved) and Ciri of Cintra (a woman who ends up with a ruthless terrorist group that has Questionable Consent for her romance).
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: The faith of Mythras in the Empire is a monotheistic religion that worships the Persian Sun deity. It is also expansionist, misogynistic, and prone to atrocities against the Old God worshipers. Played with as Aaron frequently comments on how the Earthly version of Mithras worship wasn’t anything like this.
- Dark Fantasy: Parodied. The Southern Kingdoms are a bunch of monster-ridden lands that are trapped in a death spiral of the God of Evil planning to kill the entire world with his armies while the living can't stop fighting. Most of the good guys are dead and Unscrupulous Hero types to begin with with the greatest of them, Garland of Nowhere, dead before the start of the story. Our hero is a Nice Guy who just wants to go home but keeps winning through the power of RPG logic.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Ania and Bloodstorm are both “Black” alignment but remain heroically committed to destroying Veles as well as his forces. White, Grey, and Black alignment is later confirmed not to correspond directly with good or evil.
- Deadpan Snarker:
- Aaron and Jon are constantly trading barbs as well as sarcastic comments, frequently commenting about how the author (Larry C.C. Weis) is a hack.
- Ania has a dry wit that is much less obvious than Aaron or Jon's but still present.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Her relationship with Aaron starts very hostile, believing him just another imposter of Garland using her world for fun. Gradually, his sincere attempts to help others changes her mind about him.
- Dhampyr: Kragen Bloodstorm is half-vampire and half-ogre, being the son of Maelor the Black and Baba Yaga. This also makes him both half-elf (since Maelor is an elven vampire) as well as a demigod (since Baba Yaga is a goddess).
- Divine Parentage:
- Aaron and the other champions turn out to be distantly related to Perun during his various incursions to Earth. It turned out that Perun was a WW2 polish pilot who slept with Aaron’s great grandmother after the Battle of Britain.
- Due to her hair color, special abilities, and the fact she has a Divinity Score of 3 (demigod), Ania is probably Mokosh's daughter. The fact her father was known to be the goddess' lover certainly helps the in-universe theory.
- Kragen Bloodstorm is the son of Baba Yaga, who is a goddess in this universe and the daughter of Veles.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Aaron treats his Pwiffle (a collectible card game) addiction as equivalent to a serious drug problem. His friends don’t give him much support and keep trying to get him to play for them.
- Divine Incest: The gods of Ledziania are frequently used to joke about this as the gods are all lovers with one another as well as mortals who are often their distant descendants. Aaron is horrified by this after he discovers he's a descendant of Perun and has sex with Perun's daughter.
- Dump Stat: Aaron has a 7 WIS at the start of the story and it manifests as impulsive decisions and overly idealistic views of things. He actually refuses to raise it past 9 because he worries he’ll become The Cynic.
- The Empire: The Eastern Empire is an expansionist society that is pouring into Ledziania with missionaries, military forces, and merchants attempting to annex the territory. They’re also the Mad Queen’s supporters.
- Endearingly Dorky: Aaron is a neuratypical programmer with a dry sense of humor, love of geeky things, love of animals, and encyclopedic knowledge of useless trivia. He is a stark contrast to the ruthless warriors and schemers of Ledziania's "typical" heroes.
- Expy: has enough of them to form its own page.
- Expy Coexistence: George R.R. Martin and Andrzej Sapkowski both have their books referenced despite Larry C.C. Weis existing as a Composite Character with elements of both. Amusingly, this gets lampshaded by several characters calling Larry a hack who stole from both.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Southern Kingdoms are a collection of Eastern European nations and their counterparts with a few other notable ones.
- The Eastern Empire is one for the Holy Roman Empire with aspects of the Byzantium one.
- Ledziania is one for Poland and even gets called “Fantasy Poland” in universe.
- The Rus Kingdoms are, well, Horny Vikings and Russians.
- The High Grecian Empire is one for the Athenian oligarchy and Macedonian Empire.
- The Turqish Wasteland is a Post-Apocalyptic version of the Turk Empire.
- Genius Bruiser: Kragen Bloodstorm is stated to be a genius with high INT and WIS both to go with his massive physical strength. He also attended university in Medieval Fantasy Poland before being kicked out for killing someone in a bar fight.
- God: The universe claims that Triglav (Perun, Veles, and Svarog) were as close to this as existed at the beginning of time. Also, a classification with The Omnipotent being called overgods.
- God Is Dead: The God of Good, Perun, has been killed by his brother Veles. As such, the world is falling into darkness.
- God of Evil: Veles is the in-universe god of evil and the Big Bad. It’s somewhat complicated by the fact he’s Affably Evil and Everyone Hates Hades. Basically, he was always viewed as the god of evil but only really became evil recently.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Played with. Gods feed on prayers and worship but it doesn’t make them stronger. Veles is one of the most powerful gods in the multiverse and was a “creator” god before mortals were created.
- G-Rated Drug: Aaron used to suffer from an addiction to Pwiffle cards that almost bankrupted him before he gave up his habit with the help of his family.
- Guile Hero: Aaron has incredibly high intelligence that only gets more so as the story goes. As such, he’s capable of incredibly intricate plans on the fly. He’s also got low wisdom, which means they frequently go awry.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Bloodstorm uses a great ax or maul against his opponents. By contrast, Ania uses a magical bow and Agata uses sorcery. It is stated that magic is a great equalizer for women in the setting. Subverted by Aaron who uses sorcery and is not nearly strong enough to be a swordsman.
- Has a Type: Aaron is deeply enamoured with Ania Rose, who has the same red-gold hair as her mother (Mokosh).
- Incest Standards Are Relative: A lot of humor is derived from the fact that Ledziania's royalty marries cousins and the gods of Ledziania are frequent proponents of Divine Incest.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Ania wields one of these and a wakisashi despite being in Fantasy Medieval Poland. It's implied they're elvish weapons.as who taught her everything they knew.
- Kill the God: The goal of the party is to slay the avatars of the four Old Gods and weaken Veles enough to be able to slay his avatar. This won’t permanently kill the gods but will banish them from the world of Mokosh.
- LitRPG: Aaron is bestowed the powers of a tabletop RPG protagonist due to the Mark of the Champion bracelet. This means leveling up, knowing his status, a Bag of Holding, and increasing his attributes like intelligence as well as status. It also gives him Hit Points. Weirdly, this is not the case for most other people in the world and it explicitly makes him superhuman.
- Neural Implanting: The Mark of the Champion downloads spells and skills into Aaron’s mind each time he levels up. Aaron directly compares it to Neo learning kung fu like in The Matrix.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Veles wishes to kill the entire population of Earth and Mokosh. Interesting, this is because he’s the God of the Dead and all their populations will be under his control as souls.
- Only Sane Man: Aaron frequently comes off as this due to the fact that he’s a lot more rational, kind, and modern in his morality as well as thinking than the people around him.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons are the creation of either mystical curses or magical experiments designed to create them as magical WMDs. Veles is notably a dragon in his true form.
- Slavic Mythology: The series takes place in a fantasy version of Poland where Veles is the Big Bad, Perun is dead, and Svarog is sitting on the sidelines. Baba Yaga, rusalka, strigoi, zemi, and vukodlaks are all things that show up.
- Raised by Orcs: After Ania escaped the Mad Queen, she ended up being adopted by a band of elvish guerillas who taught her everything they knew. These elves are notably a bunch of terrorist freedom fighters worshiping a God of Evil versus the hippie tree hugging kind.
- Redheads Are Ravishing: Ania fiery red-gold hair that points to her Divine Parentage. Her likely mother, Mokosh, has the same shade.
- Standard Fantasy Setting: A Downplayed Trope example. The Southern Kingdoms have elves, dwarves, goblins, humans, and The Empire. However, it is heavily influenced by Slavic Mythology and takes place in a world that includes large amounts of Eastern European historical references.
- The Stoic: Ania keeps her emotions bottled up tightly and is focused on the mission of defeating Veles above all other things.
- Talking Animal: Jon the Raven and Stompy the Demon Steed are both capable of speech. As is Sparky when he's in corgi form. Justified Trope in that Jon is a reincarnated human, Stompy is a demon, and Sparky is a shape-changed dragon.
- Took a Level in Badass: As a progression fantasy, Aaron proceeds to go from a Level-0 computer programmer to a divinely empowered demigod who is the smartest man in the world.
- Trapped in Another World: Aaron Bartkowski is transported to the world of Mokosh where his favorite book series takes place. This means he has a lot of information about the locals but very little in the way of survival skills.
- Tsundere: Aaron calls Ania one of these, highlighting how she seems to go from being verbally abusive and cold to him to being very jealous and affectionate.
- Web Serial Novel: The books were released on Royal Road before Amazon. They are updated five times a week with each chapter running about 2,500 words.
- World Tree: The Eldritch Tree is a mile tall tree that is the home of the Earth Grand Temple. It is an oak that inspired the world tree legends.
Lords of Dragon Keep
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Veles and Aaron have a Pwiffle game with the winner receiving a Wish.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The three kinds of people Aaron hates? Nazis, people who claim everyone they hate is a Nazi, and cottagecore enthusiasts.
- Boss Battle: Chernabog is set up as the one for the Earth Grand Temple. He is a Balrog-shaped Kaiju that is summoned by the doom bell.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Everyone in the Southern Kingdoms forgets what has happened to the previous Mark of the Champion wielders when they die.
- Burn the Witch!: Aaron and Bloodstorm are almost burned at the stake by the Knight Templar Father Adolf.
- Disney Villain Death: Valentin suffers one of these in the first couple of chapters when he's pushed off a cliff by Aaron rather than engaged in combat.
- Divine Punishment: The Blackwood Bogs and House Poppy were cursed by Mokosh because they murdered her lover then tossed his body in one of her sacred pools.
- The Dragon: Valentin serves as Veles' chief lieutenant, being a Fallen Hero who handles the hunting down of other champions. He's also able to give orders to Veles' generals despite the fact many of them are thousands of years older.
- Dragon Rider: After losing his demon steed, Valentin switches to riding a pair of red dragons in the cursed member of the Poppy family.
- Fallen Hero: Valentin and Alek are Mark of the Champion wielders who turned to Veles side after they received better offs.
- Fantastic Racism: The ratkin are treated as vemin by the people of the Southern Kingdoms with one of the "contracts" that Aaron picks up as a Dark Undermaster being to eliminate a colony of them. Aaron refuses.
- High-Class Call Girl: Angelica is an elvish vampire who is the "50gp service" at the Black Cat brothel.
- Last of His Kind: There are only three Dark Undermasters left in the world by the start of the book with one of them unaware that they've been wiped out and another being an imposter.
- Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Valentin dresses in armor decorated in humans with a skull mask. Aaron directly compares his look to General Kael from Willow.
- Tin Tyrant: Valentin invokes this by adopting a attire with a skull mask, a glowing magic sword, and serving as the Black Knight The Dragon of the Big Bad. He even gets compared to Darth Vader and the Kurgan.
- Ventriloquism: Aaron uses a minor spell that imitates this in order to cause Chernabog to turn against Valentin.
- Villainous Respect: Veles is genuinely impressed with the fact that Aaron chooses death before surrender despite growing up in our world.
- What You Are in the Dark: Aaron is offered a chance to leave Ledziania and even receive a promotion at work by Veles with no one the wiser. Furthermore, Veles makes it clear the alternative is death. Aaron, reluctantly, chooses death as he likens the choice to siding with the Nazis. He survives, thankfully.
Guardians of Dragon Keep
- A Child Shall Lead Them: The head of the Mythras religion turns out to be a fourteen year old girl, Pope Joan.
- Action Prologue: The novel opens with a big vampire hunt involving magic whips, feral vampires and a rescue mission.
- Amazon Brigade: The Dark Moon elves are an all-female order of elves dedicated to driving humanity from elvish territory.
- Artifact of Doom: The Blades of Chernabog are the weapons containing a fragment of the evil god's soul. Aaron stupidly thinks they're great ideas to wield.
- Badass Adorable: Joan is the Chosen of Mythras and wields more power than most sorcerers by far.
- Big Bad: Zorya Nightbringer turns out to be possessing the Dragon Queen's body and severed the darkness of the Old Gods into Prince Cezary to create the Wind Demon. It's all part of her plan to take over the Southern Kingdoms.
- Bittersweet Ending: Aaron has killed two more of the Old Gods and is off to have a short honeymoon with Ania. However, he's lost the resurrection coin and large numbers of good people have been killed in the process. This includes Francine.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Thistle may have been this under Zorya Nightbringer but she definitely becomes this under Aaron when drinking the latter's blood makes her fantastically loyal.
- Cycle of Revenge: Humans and elves have been feuding in Ledziania for hundreds of years with the last huge clash between them being the Old King's father, Alfred the Elfslayer, destroying the city of La Tene.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Aaron's attempts at forgiveness aside, all of his party react to Thistle drinking Aaron's blood like it was sexual assault.
- Good Is Not Soft: Aaron kills Ivan and then brings him back from the dead as a power move to let the Prince know he's not fucking around. It works.
- Feral Vampires: Most of the vampires under the command of Radu the Magnificent are these. They are savage, near mindless, and constantly hungry for blood or flesh. It is a sharp contrast to noble vampires like Angelica and Maelor. Probably because he's not a real vampire.
- Flat "What": Aaron has this reaction when he sees his parents have settled in at Dragon Keep.
- Flashback: After the Action Prologue, the next ten chapters are about getting back to that event.
- Grand Theft Me:
- Aaron is worried this will happen if he absorbs too much divine energy. He's right and he's almost replaced by Perun's ghost.
- Prince Cezary attempted to steal his uncle Ivan's body. He succeeded, unbeknownst to the heroes.
- In Medias Res: The novel begins with the group having somehow gotten to an Überwald Haunted Castle on a mission to rescue the pope...who is a little girl.
- The Plague: Deathrot is a Twisted Gods' created disease that turns individuals into intelligent but malicious zombies.
- Lawful Stupid: Francine is revealed to be this as Nightchilde says this is why she's easily manipulated and prone to making tragic mistakes.
- Love Confession: Ania gives Aaron one of these when she says he's her 'ke'tar' or soul mate. It's so shocking that Jon assumes she's a doppelganger.
- Questionable Consent: Her relationship with Thistle was when she was seventeen and Thistle was in her sixties (as an elf). Furthermore, Thistle had just adopted her into the Dark Moon Elves.
- Reincarnation Romance: Parodied all to hell with Rachel Morning as she's a reincarnation of the goddess of love that Aaron romanced and living in the body of their adult daughter. Aaron shuts that down hard.
- Spotting the Thread: Aaron notices that Radu gets a tiny cut on his face when he throws a glass at a portrait. Combined with a number of other things, he figures out Radu isn't a vampire at all but a lich and destroys his Soul Jar, killing him instantly.
- Token Mini-Moe: Pope Joan is post-pubescent but short and adorable with Jon frequently saying she looks like someone's lolicon anime art.
- Überwald: Bloodmoon is a village around Devil Pass that has a huge castle nearby it that is full of horrifying monsters as well as a Vampire Monarch. It is right next to the Death Mountains so this makes sense.
- Vampire Monarch: Radu the Magnificent AKA Radu the Impaler is a Classical Movie Vampire who is the lord of Castle Bloodmoon as well as Agata's ex-husband. He's also the most powerful vampire in the world. Except, he's actually a lich.
- Vampire Vannabe: Bloodstorm accuses Radu the Impaler of being one of these, highlighting the fact that he made a dark pact with Veles to become a vampire and he wasn't one of the original elven bloodlines of the undead. It Makes Sense in Context. In truth, it is a clue that helps reveal Radu is a lich rather than a vampire.
- Wild Card: Alek has no allegiance to Veles or the Wise Man but is on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the latter because he killed his lover, the Dragon Queen.
