The Shivered Sky

Yes — it's the first book in a three-book series of the same name. The complete trilogy is also available as an omnibus edition. Start here and read in order.

Neither exactly. The realm is a third existence called Cibola — city of angels — that operates by its own rules. Angels and demons are present, but this is not a religious afterlife in the theological sense.

No. The book uses angels and demons as fantasy archetypes in a dark fantasy framework rather than adhering to any religious doctrine. The focus is survival, identity, and war rather than faith.

No. The Shivered Sky is a standalone dark fantasy series with no connection to Dinniman's LitRPG work. It was written years earlier and is a very different reading experience.

Very dark in tone. Characters die, the setting is hostile, and the protagonists spend most of the novel disoriented and outmatched. Violence is present throughout, though the book is more atmospheric than gratuitous.

The first book reaches a natural stopping point but does not resolve the trilogy's central conflict. Most readers move directly to book two.

A periscepter is a powerful ancient artifact in the world of the novel — weapons of legend that the five human newcomers accidentally uncover, immediately making them targets for every surviving faction in Cibola.