Darkdawn

So, Nevernight set up an assassin girl out for revenge with unusual shadow powers. Godsgrave upended things somewhat with a few reveals and threads of destiny. Darkdawn... I'm not sure exactly what to say about it...

It continues the story, of course. The divine destiny is expanded upon. The source and natural of those shadow abilities is fully revealed. Relationships are complicated and carry on through. Vengeful battles are had. Good times!

There are bits, however, that are kind of "out there" in ways I almost expect out of some anime series these days. We go full-on meta by having the novels themselves showing up in a mystical library of books destroyed and unwritten. And this isn't a throw-away event, either. Several characters are literally brought up to date on things they never were around to see by reading them and make plans based on what they've read. That is simultaneously a fascinating mind bender and a disappointing deus ex machina.

Also, there's a recap at the beginning of this novel that seems to go beyond book two (unless I've forgotten some things thoroughly) to reveal a couple things in that hadn't been brought up yet from this book three.

But for all my mixed feelings, I do still think it came out ahead and I enjoyed it sufficiently for it to be a worthwhile read.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adventures in Rokugan (ongoing)

 So, yeah, I'm terrible at keeping up with between-session conversations and all the piles of possible channels/servers in Discord - especially when work gives me some time to think, but not Discord access. I believe a question was posed about thoughts on the state and future of the Adventures in Rokugan game, though, so here goes... In general, I'm enjoying the time and look forward to it more than feel burdened by it. The start time is a little earlier than ideal, but I don't mind making it work on Saturdays. So, net positive overall. I'm a touch "meh" on the mechanics of AiR. I like the familiarity of D&D, but the Rokugan-specific stuff doesn't feel very rewarding. Granted, this may just be my pick of a shadow acolyte, but I feel like I'm getting more functional mileage out of the sharpshooter feat than all of the special class abilities and level-ups haven't been particularly exciting. I've been tempted to multi-class into something els
Read more

Harbinger of Chaos (Godbound)

 Last night seemed to be the climactic finale of the ongoing Godbound game. I have some thoughts. The previous session ended with a couple PCs and a shadowy person in the special chamber with access to divine realms and their vacated thrones (in the campaign, the gods were sorta kicked out of their positions, making things up for grabs). Once PC had already claimed a throne. All the others were waiting outside. At the moment the session ended, no one seemed aware that the shadowy figure was Beryn, big-bad threat of the campaign. This is where I feel weird about things, because that little detail came up OOC and it changed everything. If the PCs had been aware at the time, they probably would have started a fight outside the chamber when they saw him. That didn't happen. But suddenly because the players were aware, they wanted to be able to plan before the conflict (with downtime glossed over previous) so they could go into the next session guns-blazing and as prepared as possible.
Read more

RPG Desires?

 So I was asked last night what I actually want in an RPG game/campaign. I came up with a few points, but that's a question I find hard to answer on the spot. It's easy to point at things in an ongoing game that I don't like, and a little harder to point at things I do (darn negative-focused psychology), but making generalizations is more difficult still. It does, however, give me something to focus a little on and ramble about for a time... Story I like a narrative through line - not usually to the point of "railroading," but I want more connective tissue than just returning to a job board after each mission. Sometimes that develops as things go, with character goals shaping things. Setting an end goal at the outset ("defeat the demon lord!") can have ups and downs. However it comes about, I really like to feel there is some forward momentum toward something, though. Consistency This one gets sub-points!  As far as setting, I sort of stopped using the t
Read more