Dominion of Blades

LitRPG is a genre where characters navigate a world with video game mechanics: levels, stats, and skill trees. No gaming background is required — the mechanics are explained naturally through the story and serve the adventure rather than the other way around.

They share a genre (LitRPG) and the same author but are otherwise unrelated. Dominion of Blades is set in a traditional sword-and-sorcery VR game rather than an alien-built dungeon, and the tone is darker and more grounded.

Yes. The series consists of two books: Dominion of Blades and The Hobgoblin Riot. Both are published and the story is complete.

Yes — one of the horror elements is that the immersion technology makes pain completely authentic. This raises the stakes considerably beyond a typical trapped-in-a-game premise.

Alice is a hippocorn — a game-generated creature that is half horse, half unicorn — who becomes an unlikely companion to Jonah and his allies. She represents the strangely living quality of a world everyone assumed was just code.

Dominion of Blades is darker and more earnest. Dungeon Crawler Carl is funnier and more satirical. Both are fast-paced and action-heavy, but DoB has less comedy and more survival tension.

It resolves the book's central conflict but leaves larger mysteries open for The Hobgoblin Riot. Most readers proceed directly to book two.