The Path of Death

Its quite time I reviewed the first CYS Game I ever played. This game holds a special place in my heart, and it frankly should have been my first review.

<<<Spoilers below. Please don't just take my word and play this masterpiece for yourself. You won't regret it; I can guarantee that.>>>

This review will be all over the place due to my sheer joy and affection towards this game. Where do I even start?

This is Steve's best game. He will probably never top this. This is one of the stories with everything inside: hilarious moments, relatable characters, realistic dialogue, badass scenes, and a lovingly-crafted fantasy world to absolutely lose yourself into.

Taking cues from the best campaigns of Wizards of The Coast's Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Steve tells a heartwarming, surprisingly wholesome yet brutal, unforgiving story set against the backdrop of awesome creatures, fiery, treasure-hoarding dragons and loads and loads of categorical, powerful magic. Blaise is endlessly endearing, innocuous, and sweet, with just the right amount of teenage girl instability and awkwardness sprinkled in. She is a perfectly executed romantic partner for the barbaric, ruthless, warrior-raised Dagden Dragontooth, who has severe troubles understanding social cues, rules, or socializing whatsoever. They meld together so well and enhance each other's strengths while covering their weaknesses. As Dagden, I felt as if I would not have a chance at a proper life were it not for the girl, whereas for Blaise, I felt as if I definitely played a part in helping her embrace her destiny as the sole heir to an unbelievable, expansive empire of immense and frightening longevity and staying power.

The other characters left just as big marks, though. The sarcastic, overly-aggressive magic instructor made me chuckle with every uttered line, and Sir Trent was a frightening, welcome companion. Hell, even talking to the dragon or the mages before I beheaded them was never boring or shallow. Not once. The downright skill and outstanding effort all on display here is absolutely amazing.

However, it was Blaise's father who was actually my favorite. Steve writes an all-powerful villain who cheats death and slaughters innocents by the tens of hundreds who also is indirectly responsible for the murder of your family and tribe, but, even after roleplaying contempt at first, I was eventually sucked right in to his story and characterization. The man is vastly intelligent and wise, and really does care for his daughter greatly, a trait exceedingly rare among tyrants and figures of power of any kind. He seeks to rule the world, yet with all his essence is merely such a respectable and surprisingly honest man. He seeks what no mortal should have, endless power to rival a god and a way to exist beyond death itself, yet is remarkably and undeniably still so human. I was nothing short of touched by this character and how well you wrote him. A masterful and classy execution of writ and prose that I dare say exceeds even some of EndMaster's best works. Not a surprise, as he himself commended this story.

Well, now I see why.

There isn't a single critique I have. I noticed not a single error in my most recent playthrough (not saying there isn't any), the romantic interactions never felt awkward or drawn out, the action scenes made me feel badass and satisfied while not letting me be flat out OP, I absolutely loved and adored each and every character, every joke landed for me, the world is a fantasy lover's paradise, and you told a challenging premise with as close to perfect execution as I believe anyone can honestly get. The literal only possible thing, for me, is the slight linearity. But is that so bad if the story being told is this downright good? A question to consider.

Is the story flawless? No, there will never be a single one like that. Not truly. But this one is a blast and is purely and simply fun to just sit down and read, over and over again, making the same choices every time. And that in itself is such an accomplishment. If I could commend it a second time myself, I would. I dare say this is in the top three stories on this site, and it deserves to be regarded as a CYS classic. No, an IF classic.

Thank you, Steve. For then and now.

Amazing Story. First off, I gave it a 7 because of the huge amount of typos, improper Grammar, and continuity errors. (i.e. Lich at beginning of story, Lynch at the end) A great storytelling style, with a good use of foreshadowing (some a little too predictable, but that might just be me). The author is a very cultured man, with many pop culture references. Crab and Goyle was the most obvious one. I love that you made a bunch of Endings, even early on, that aren't death. The endings may provide the player the end they want, but may not be as satisfying. Also, towards the end, there was more repetition of words like "and" for example.

Now, for the praise...

My favorite character was Kai, as he had that Deadpool vibe going for him. All the nerdy references in the story, very subtle, but amazing!!!! I saw some Skyrim, Harry Potter, and others that I can't remember/name. The Soren/Malign character was also fun, to see the struggle for power (I personally let Soren win. If you can't find out why, take another look at my username) was truly amazing. The element of romance was also great, one criticism (I know I'm praising, but this is a smaller one, that is forgivable) is that you never state (in the storyline I played) when the relationship becomes sexual, and it just sort of is told to the reader explicitly a lot further into a story. Also, terrific character development for The Grand Necromancer, he had good motivations, and you made him a lovable character. You also included some pacifist endings, and that was amazing. Blaise is also a great character, and it was great to see her develop both physically (not like that, jeez you got a dirty mind) and emotionally. A bit disappointed in the choice of what magic you can use, i wish you didn't limit the character to only Blood Magic, HOWEVER, i do realize this is based not only on your willpower, but is also genetics. So, limiting makes sense, it just is a little frustrating if the reader's personality wants stealth or lightning, etc. Furthermore, i don't know if you did this by mistake, or on purpose, i appreciate it either way, is the labeling you left in the story. For example: Garden (Romance) or Battlefield (R) or even Castle (Romance). I thought this was a great touch, but reading other comments, it seems like that might have been more of a mistake.

And now, SPOILER ALERT

SPOILERS!!!!

That should be adequate warning...


I personally achieved 4 Endings.

The first was escaping the castle when told to wash up, and those choices I made to achieve that would be the most realistic choices that I would make.

The second ending was the farmer epilogue, after saying no to Blaise to rebuilding the Empire. My second favorite ending.

The third Ending was an Epilogue, with Mr Ch... Yeah you know who I'm talking about. A great ending, but I wasn't satisfied with that ending, so I then went for the ending I really want.

The fourth ending I achieved was the one where Dante summons the elementals and absolutely DESTROYS the Alliance. The Kai Tax was an amazing comedic detail ;) you made me laugh. This is definitely my favorite ending.

I wish there was a way to be a "Good Guy" like Soren, and still have a good story, but I do realize this is supposed to be the evil side. The romance was an amazing, and predictable touch. The love for cranberries is hilarious. But grammar and typos nightmare lowered the overall score from 8 to 7. A bit surprised with typos and grammar when you said Mizal helped, but that's okay. Maybe read up on grammar, expand your vocabulary, and proofread everything next time. I'm definitely going to play this again later, and see what other endings are in store.


P.S. commenting on mobile sucks, as you can't post long comments, or the post button disappears. I don't know why. Please fix if possible!

Steve, this was both fantastic and inspiring.

The writing was great, and the narrative had an amazing voice that was very much you. The story was thrilling, adventurous, sweet and romantic in different aspects. I loved how you played with tropes, twisting them around in interesting ways. The Path of Death is filled with memorable moments, characters and personalities. This story is a must read and just goes on and on and on. I also highly enjoyed the lore in the story and how some early decisions came back to relevance later in the story.

This story is absolutely feature worthy, though we have so many excellent stories in the fantasy section. Perhaps it is time to break the fantasy section into two of its sub-genres so more top stories can sport the main StoryGame page. Or if the site moved to drawing six stories from a select pool of feature worthy stories randomly when the page is loaded, I would strongly support this story being among that group.

As great as any story is, there is always room for improvement. There were some grammar errors, but I would expect that in a story this size, without having a publisher and editing team to help support you. A tad more jarring were the rare instances where you typed the name of one character, when you were referring to another. I believe there was one instance where Blaise was called something else entirely (as in a name that wasn't even a another character in the story.) The occasional paragraph would read odd, where you would use the same noun repeatedly in close proximity, often at the end of one sentence and the very beginning of the next.

Other than that, only two things really jumped out at me. You had Checkers IIX in the story. Unless I missed a joke somewhere that this was intentional, the roman numeral for "8" is VIII. The other was Dagden suffering multiple broken ribs early in the story and immediately jumping around and going axe crazy on his enemy. I understand he's an orc, and they're 'special' but that really stretches my suspension of disbelief. Severe trauma to the core makes even the slightest movement incredibly painful. A character suffering multiple broken ribs would have severe difficulty breathing, possible internal injuries (fluid in the lungs, for example) and would be incapable of swift, sudden movements. Dagden tended to heal awfully quickly in general from what seemed to be rather significant wounds (with or without potions).

Oh, and I had 100 gold coins at one point in the dwarf town, but I was able to buy everything in the store, despite the combined price being more than that.

All that aside, I felt the story had so much effort poured into it - and was so well thought out and done - that I gave it a perfect 8/8 because taken as a whole, it was marvelous and cross blended multiple genres quite well. And I give very few perfect ratings. You should be quite proud of this story.

Amazing story, some typos but who cares? Its all about the story and its amazing one of my favorites on this site

I can honestly say I loved this game. I am sad I wasn't a necromancer, but I think its possible so I'll do it eventually. The character's personalities are very fleshed out, at one point I sat and thought for about 5 minutes before deciding on who to bring along to see more interactions. The demon Malign is hilarious, and the dark elf and demon friendship between him and well, the dark elf I don't remember the spelling of the name of, is amazing. This entire thing made me feel like I was playing dnd, so thank you so much for this!

There are a few typos from time to time but a nice story overall. I felt the characters were pretty developed as well. I think a little more grandeur with an epilogue would have helped but that is minor.

this took me over 4 hours to finish but it was worth it

best story ever good job

Good, real good

Easily one of my favorite storys, making me feel strong as a charactor but not too overpowered and blaise just made me fell very nice inside.