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Narration
What the hell was that? Honestly, when I saw the name of Jeff Hays, I did a point, click, and buy without further scrutiny. The narrator is Will Watt, not Jeff Hays as it clearly states. That’s my bad. The narration was fine, I really don’t have any complaints there, but then there’s the music and some of the sound effects. WTF? Why is there circus music during combat? Why is there fart sounds during item descriptions? Yeah, would have been better without sound effects.
Basic Summary
Ryan is unjustly executed by corrupt clergy of the Goddess of Justice. Said goddess reincarnates him as a dungeon core as some sort of apology for his unjust punishment. Soon his celestial dungeon fairy comes to offer up guidance and Ryan’s options for the type of dungeon he can become. He inexplicably chooses darkness, something to do with the church not liking it. Carving out rooms, collecting bones, creating bone squirrels and zombie rats later, Ryan is open for business.
Ryan has survived scrutiny by the church and now the Adventures Guild is building a town just outside. Skeletal fight club is up and running, Ryan is steadily growing stronger, and so is his favorite advenuring team. What could go wrong? Well there is that overpowered necromancer.
The Good
The undead dungeons have been mentioned in almost every dungeon core book thus far, but this marks the first one actually about one. There are some unique world building bits in here, mostly to do with the symbiotic relationship between mortals and the dungeons, that just don’t really exist in other books. Also, some of the references are awesome.
The Bad
The writing is ok mechanically, there is some word repetition on occasion, but it’s not bad. The puns really aren’t that great and after the first few chapters, the fairy is basically useless as a character. The relationship between Ryan and his fairy is kind of weird and completely forced. One last thing, Jack is basically Hans from Divine Dungeon.
Final Thoughts
I did enjoy this book, the best dungeon core story out there it is not. The narration was kind of a disappointment considering it was by soundbooth theater, though that might be solely the fault of the music and sound effects.
Review by rcdaviswrites, 01/10/2020