Dragon's Mist: A 4X Strategy LitRPG Series

Warlords of the Circle Sea, Book 1

By: Ember Lane

Narrated by: Pavi Proczko

Standing butt-naked in long grass and reincarnated in a game land packed full of monsters, what would you do first?

A voice fills the sky and announces you as a Lord of that land—how would you feel about that?

The same voice tells you ninety-nine other Lords are out for your blood. Would that get your naked ass in gear?

Dragon’s Mist is a town building LitRPG adventure fantasy ebook, paperback and audio. The story follows Connor O’Grady as he is thrown in at the deep end to become a Warlord of the Circle Sea, and he'll need a good dose of luck to survive. In this five-book LitRPG series, you’ll have monster battles, full scale war, quests for hidden artifacts, magic, crafting, cultivation progression, humor, and so much more.

Connor must form a team with other souls reincarnated from Earth, make alliances with the native elves, mountain men, pixies, and tame dragons and wyverns. You’ll meet Ellen, Sam, Edward, Gilbane, and Dave—whose English leaves a lot to be desired—and they’ll make up his knight’s table.

When 100 Lords battle, there can be only one winner!

Dragon’s Mist is the first book in the Warlords of the Circle Sea Litrpg fantasy series. Dragon’s Born, Dragon’s Realm, and Dragon’s Knight are all on sale, and the final book, Dragon’s End, will be out this year. Weighing in at over 1.1 million words when complete, WOTCS will remind you of MMORPGs along the lines of Evony, Lords Of Ultima, King of Avalon, where base building is everything and paper castles don’t last long.

Dragon’s Mist is a LitRPG Gamelit progression fantasy. It contains curse words, so if they offend you, it’s a pass. The book has in-depth stats, but they are only noted when progression has occurred. There is leveling up, cultivation, magic, rapid build, and a hugely hot war goddess named Xandaphrey.

Will Connor O’Grady rise to the top to become the Warlord of the Circle Sea?

©2020 Ember Lane (P)2024 Ember Lane

Worthy LitRPG Entrant. Power Fantasy, Some Issues.

There's a lot to like about this book, if you're attracted to the LitRPG cultivation genre. The story path here is that the author's decided to cross a LitRPG system with mobile game tropes - specifically, the type of kingdom building / battling MMOs that are so common (and that I avoid like the plague).

There are things that I liked:
1. The story's based in part on explorations and reveals, with action. There are reasons for curiosity.
2. The litRPG system that's built is understandable, reasonable, and interesting.
3. It's not badly written - we get pretty good descriptions, reasonable banter, and such.
4. Character personalities do become distinct, and have some potential for growth.
5. It's light-hearted and pleasant enough.

This made me cringe:
That which some persons called the pseudo-harem: this protagonist has a tendency to run up and kiss women full on the lips when trying to express thanks to them, for some females (all attractive) to kiss the protagonist within 1 minute of meeting him, and for no one to express or feel any issue with this whatsoever.

Note: I wrote the above prior to listening to book 2. I'm happy to report that within that book the pseudo-harem appears to have been dissolved.

These things irked me:
1, We have another book that treats binge-drinking as the celebration of choice (rather than social drinking)
2. We do have a story with the chosen-one trope. The protagonist gains most of the power among his companions, with a massive boost by the end of the book.
3. There's no real sign that we're going to get anything deeper than a reckless good vs demonic, mutated evil story.

Let me revisit character development, to clarify. What I do get, I like. But while this book does signal that there's a growth paths for each character (which could turn into story arcs), there' s no real reason to think that the focus will ever leave the protagonist, and no reason to think that these paths will lead towards depth. But... hope springs eternal. Book 2 could improve?

I've liked the story enough to finish it over a couple of days, but to my eye things turned a bit munchkin-like at the end.

I liked it enough that I'll give Book 2 a try.

Amazing Story, But a few things to improve.

Perfection
The Story starts off a bit slow, with the MC Looking for his teammates. Once he finds a few, we really get into it, With an Evony/Tribalwars/Trivian City building game mode with slight alterations. This instantly brought back 2006 Era RTS games, making the story a lot better for me. The MC Travels around killing monsters, bandits, and other enemies to gather a large number of resources. He's always comparing his kingdom to the live ranking, which shows progression for the story.

I think by far the Number 1 best thing this story has compared to its counterparts is the way they go about informing us of stats. It's not a stupid long super repetitive stat chapter like other stories. They inform us as if we are a part of the crowd reading a synopsis of what the MC did in that chapter, to allow us to place bets with different odds. This is an ingenious way to separate and improve this story above and beyond its counterparts.

Improvements
I'm a pretty big stickler on having Male VA on Male roles, and Female VA on Female roles, simply to give the story a more real-sounding experience. This story would have benefited from a Female VA in some roles.
A few negative remarks. A Female God is a Goddess (Mentioned so many times it's become irritating). Americans speak American English, Not American.

Fantastic!

No over the top romance or harem in it. fantastic combat and action scenes and top notch Narrator. Cant go wrong with this audiobook.

all that you would want in a litrpg

i enjoyed this book it has building in it what most the book is about an has leveling monsters to be taken down cultivating gathering up a army make a stronghold ect an seems like the book will lead into pvp in book 2 when it comes out yes it has rankings for the players as they build up cities strongholds gather armies ect an the MC seems to bee OP at the end of the book but not sure yet tell pvp starts up after the 30 day safe period also has a surprise to why the players are in this new game world but that would be a spoiler but easy to figure out. if you watch the anime Gantz somewhat like that.

Simply Amazing

I have devoured an exceptionally high number of LitRPG genre books in the last few years and this book is in a different category. There are authors who, like Ember Lane, are skilled with their plot and character development. There are authors who, like Ember Lane, excel at maintaining low to non-existent plot/character inconsistencies. There are authors who, like Ember Lane, have high writing speeds (for others though it is probably due to dictation writing with no editing). There are even a small number authors who have two of the above 3 attributes. Ember is the first I have discovered that clearly has all three! Add to this the wonderful fact that Ember utilizes proper editing making for a truly lovely reading experience. Thanks.

Simply Amazing

I struggle to put into words how much I loved this book. The pacing was spot on with the characters and dialogue perfect. Some authors struggle with dialogue but Ember has a gift for it. The world starts off small and grows bigger and bigger, while retaining some mystery throughout the story.

The narration was excellent and easy to listen to. I truly have no complaints about this audiobook. I normally listen to audiobooks during my commute but this one had me listening to it even after I was home.

I cannot wait to see how to world expands and what Connor does in the next book. If you are interested in LITRPG and city building, this is the book for you.

A grand adventure

truly enjoyed listening to this. the characters are genuine and enjoyable. the setting sounds awesome. I look forward to many more adventures in Devlin with Connor and gang.

Good Base Building/Management Book

I cannot recommend this book enough. Very good book with good base building mechanics. I like that the main character seemed to grow faster with the use of different strategies, and while certainly a compitent combatant, it was clear that he was strong because of his stats and willingness to get the job done, not because he, a random guy from earth, suddenly became a swordmaster. I can't wait for book 2 in audio form.... Plus, who doesn't like the thought of a sky cavalry of wyverns and dragons?!!!

Dam good book

Took a min to get into, but ended up being a very dam good book

Great world created

This is the third book I have read/listened to by this author and I am attempting to be patient until I can listen to another. I enjoyed the world build in this story. The stat updates are well placed and not overwhelming. The quests are uncomplicated and generally completed fairly easily without a lot of unnecessary dragging on. There is a lot going on between Connor trying to figure out how things work in this game, his finding the others destined to join him, the building of his settlement/stronghold, to conquering or converting others. Through all that, things never got bogged down, there was a lot of action and I like how things were delegated and the burden of building their settlement was shared amongst many. There is the mystery of why Conner and the others have been brought into this world, and why these beings are watching them.

This is the fourth book I have listened to by this narrator ( Pavi Proczko ) and I would definitely listen to another. He does a wonderful job differentiating the characters. He brings out their personalities and uses accents as needed.

There are no explicit sex scenes; there is violence, but not excessively described. There is some swearing, but it is mild.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review.
Please feel free to comment on whether you found my review helpful.