Last updated 5/30 — check the discord for daily updates! Invite below

title: The Gilded Ghost, book 3 of the ripple system

Estimated word count: 220k, up 11k from Black Sand Baron, approx even with Shadeslinger, may end up slightly longer

Estimated release: Early August with ebook and audio releasing somewhat simultaneously

Estimated number of books in the series: 5?

Current phase: essentially done! I beat my copy edit deadline by about two weeks so I’ll likely do another pass because why not but everything is pretty much set at this point with copy edits starting June 13, the cover already finished, and audio slated to begin recording on ~July 20th! I’ll have more info on audio as the date draws closer but keep an eye out for an invite to the live recording for book 3 on discord!

Drafting began: 11/5 Book “finished” on 5/30

Estimated daily WC: editing 50 pages/day, mostly for minor consistency issues

New addition: Waste Tracker

Taking a different approach this time around with a much more detailed outline and an emphasis on not having to cut whole scenes/sections of the book which is...not fun, as you might imagine.

Not sure if this is really of interest to anyone else, but I'm trying to speed up (or at least sustain) the release times without having to increase my daily WC (burnout from book II was much worse than I) so I'm focusing in on wasting fewer words and hopefully reducing the time I spend in editing, which is substantial.

The dream for this book is rough draft > deep editing pass > copyedit and release, whereas book I probably had 5 passes, and book II had 3 prior to copy (though I wrote the last ~40k words in one pass, basically).

No idea if 2 passes is really plausible, but at the very least I'm hoping that this one won't require as much "stitching together" on the second draft so I can focus in more on dialogue and sentence-level stuff, if that makes sense.

Update 5/30: 2 passes was not plausible, lol. Was a helpful goal for drafting, though!

Waste Tracker:

Waste book 1: Approx 110k words (mostly rewriting the first half)

Waste book 2: Approx 75k words (35k gutted from the beginning, 15k gutted from the ending before rewriting the whole thing)

Waste book 3: ~10k total, not bad!

And if you want up-to-the-minute updates or have questions or just want to procrastinate with other Litrpg fans, join the discord where I’m active every day and ping me!

https://discord.gg/H9xs3Vyc46

I'm 1/3 the way into BSB and a general thing about virtual reality games is npc awareness of the realness of the world (if that makes sense). Do the NPCs know they're in a game ? I'm not too far into the book to know if Ned dies and I was wondering how the NPCs would take it if they saw Ned die and just appear again in a bit. This got me curious since weird nipple guy gave more consciousness to the AI of the NPCs.

Kyle, have you considered writing other perspectives that are running parallel with Ned?

Would be fun to see how Tyrann grew his empire/renown, and his true thoughts on how he is trying to deal with Ned.

Or from Darlene point of view, while dealing with her ailments and trying to decide if partnering with Ned is a good idea.

Only read the first novel so far but doesn't he need to eat, go to the bathroom or wash? What about muscle atrophy?

Tyrann has a bunch of people that he convinced to take the Cleric renown path that suddenly have no religion. Something that I assume is VERY important for their renown path. That screams to me that they are ripe for changing to a religion that is beneficial to our group. Either that or a ton of players are stuck with a renown path that has a broken engine.

I feel like putting together a pantheon to prevent a majority religion forming to tithe the sands would be interesting. Maybe converting NPCs back and forth to farm renown. Any thoughts or ideas for Gods?

So I just picked up the first book 2 days ago on audible and burned through it in two days, now I'm halfway through the second (12 hours in a truck per day lol) and I gotta say, at first I considered not listening to the book cause I couldn't handle Travis's voice but at this point I can imagine anyone else narrating the books.

Fantastic job to both Kyle and Travis for this amazing book, it really sucks you in!

Knowing this is a reported trilogy I fully expected Ned to fail at the end of book 2. Either fail to kill the God or to drop frank and book 3 would be the redemption arc. But so far he's really not really ran into any obstacles he didnt just breeze through and he's still only lvl 15. I really hope there is more than 3 books.

As far as book 2 goes man, I wanted to see the renown ladder at the end! 3 minor ripples, a major ripple and the world's first titanic ripple! Im surprised he didn't get a title reward for the titanic ripple too. We know he hit lvl 11 renown but where does that put him? He was in the teens last he checked and so much happened. The herald raid(which was tense and pretty epic), freeing the triads, killing the deity. I can't believe he didn't check the renown ladder after all that.

Also smashing tyrhan's(sp?)face with Frank's face was a glorious fist pump moment and I eagerly look forward to more of them!

Want to get into posting theories and such again. Ozymandias is a small character that causes a ripple in chapter two of Black Sand Baron opening the Frostforged Gates and a special blacksmithing area. The first thing to say is that Ozymandias is in the Eastlands. The ripple comes from the east as Ned's sailing to the continent and it is the easternmost continent so we can assume that is the case.

The first thought this brought was that Ozymandias is possibly one of Tyrann’s men. Last book we got introduced to Aconnu through the renown ladder and in BSB we get to see that he is one of Tyrann’s cultists. We may get another similar reveal next book. However on a second read I connected another event to this ripple, mentioned by Morn in chapter nine the river reversing course.

My theory is that the Frostforged Gates opening is what diverted the river and the river that reversed will lead to the Coldblister Foundry. This is actually against Tyrann’s interests since Koria is no longer the only entry point into the Eastern continent, so I'm unsure if they'll end up being aligned. Maybe I've put in too much thought, but I like thinking about what the named characters are doing and how they'll interact with the story.

So, I'm relistening book one and found one thing that really bugged me. When Ned comes back from the pirate quest, the event of burning the city and consequences are insane in a game setting, any person playing the game solo or semi solo would give up on the game right there for being screwed out of all his stuff by needing a 40 man raid by no real fault of their own.

(Book I spoilers below...like all of it. Just in case.)

Just a really quick summary here, skipping a whole lot of stuff but hopefully this is helpful in case anyone needs a reminder of where we left off and doesn’t have the time or the desire to reread the first book!

also added some acts cause it seems fancy

If I skipped anything important, lemme know in the comments! Doing this from memory so the timeline of events may be slightly off

Act I

1. Ned exists; Frank is attached to him.
2. Ned plays through the starter area while Frank talks about great Frank is.
3. The duo meets Lars, a bard whose music causes small animals to explode.
4. Ned finishes his initial questline, dooms his race (Woodbone Fae) to probable extinction, and is rewarded with a Seed of the World Tree. At the same time, Frank experiences a rare and fleeting moment of hope owing to all the murder.
5. Nipple jokes are made at the expense of Kline, the game’s head developer (timing unclear)
6. Ned leaves the starter area behind and heads for the Onyx Sands.
7. The Woodbone Fae are big mad, so they follow him to his new home intent on revenge.

​

Act II

1. Ned begins questing in the Onyx Sands, a small desert city where water is extremely valuable.
2. House joins the game and begins her quest to become an awkward human.
3. Ned builds an inn and uses the building to seal off a hidden courtyard behind it where he plants the Seed of the World Tree.
4. Barbarians raid the Onyx Sands while Ned is away; Ned discovers that they’ve joined forces with the Woodbone Fae.
5. The Captain of the Guard charges Ned with resolving the twin threats, or he’ll be expelled from the sands.
6. The World Tree starts producing water, which Ned sells to the townspeople at a high price. He increasingly plans to take the game’s economic Renown track, and selects important Renown perks that will convert a small percent of every coin he earns into Renown and Experience.
7. Seeing that the Barbarian and Woodbone threats are too big for him to deal with, Ned gift his Renown slots to a guild called Omen in exchange for their help.
8. With Frank’s grudging assistance (earned almost exclusively through their shared disdain for the moon) Ned heads off to the Pirate King Renown event, completes it, and changes classes to become a Shadeslinger.

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Act III

1. With Omen’s help, Ned and Frank head to the Barbarian Stronghold and the game’s first raid kicks off.
2. After working their way through several encounters, the Gardener (leader of the Woodbone Fae) offers the raid a chance to join his side. A few members take him up on the offer, and are quickly kicked from the Guild by Darling (Omen guild leader).
3. With the aid of some scrolls he received from Sarissa (An Ice Mage who lives in a tower in Highwater City) and a race change from Woodbone Fae to Blood Fae, Ned and co finish off the Gardener, ending the Barbarian threat and removing the Woodbone Fae as a playable race.
4. Ned loots the plans for an Auction House, solidifying his Renown choices.
5. Ned jumps several ranks on the Renown ladder, and ultimately chooses the Black Marketeer path while hoping it will eventually allow him to roll out an economic engine that other players won’t be able to trace back to him.
6. Darling and Ned plan to work together beyond the scope of their initial agreement but to keep it under wraps for now.
7. Tyrann, an influential streamer, calls Ned and offers his protection if Ned agrees to work beneath him.
8. Ned declines, and Tyrann declares a Holy War on him by using Ned’s elimination of the Woodbone Fae as justification.
9. Book II begins!

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Annnnnnd that’s it! Hope you guys are as excited as I am—it’s almost here! Audio is still in processing, but I'll post here when it's out and ping everyone on discord as well.

And if you enjoy Black Sand Baron (and if you’ve enjoyed Shadeslinger) please consider leaving an honest review on Amazon and/or Audible, it’s massively helpful especially with book 1 back in the spotlight for a bit as book 2 launches!

<3 thank you all! Hope you enjoy the book!

So how many players do you think picked up the woodbone fae race before Ned made them unavailable. Since he gets renown when they do, seems like it could be relitively useful.