If you’ve read Divine Dungeon, you’ll recognize these characters and the general plot arc. Not to say it’s plagiarized, but the broader plot, the Dungeon development, the main characters…they each feel nearly identical to Krout’s work. I enjoyed the book, though it made some of the Dungeon core tropes more apparent and tiresome to me (Dungeon pixies, awkward pixie/core romance, the core, puns, the sassy rogue in the team, etc.). The world felt less developed, but I still had fun, and among the large array of qualities of core books, this was quite well written.
If you love Dungeon core, you’ll enjoy this book. If you haven’t tried Dungeon core, I’d still recommend Divine Dungeon first.
The narration was well done, though at times felt a bit over-acted, with screams and such that could be ear-piercing (in a bad way). I’m honestly a huge fan of SBT, but not of their increasingly frequent use of distractingly loud and frenetic music during combat sequences.