Dark Kingdoms

Classic World of Darkness Fiction

by Richard Lee Byers

The World of Darkness is the setting for all of the games in the Storyteller series, and for several fiction books. Game books listed with this icon belong to specific game lines, but together contain information that applies to the entire World of Darkness.Dark Kingdoms is a true epic of the World of Darkness. The story of a nightmare quest that leads from the haunted alleys and mansions of New Orleans to the dungeons and palaces of Stygia itself. A saga of wraiths, werewolves, mages, vampires, demons, gods, and the occult scholars of the Arcanum that will forever alter the face of the World of Darkness.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, World Of Darkness

607 pages, Paperback

First published October 29, 1998

About the author

A resident of the Tampa Bay area, Richard spends much of his leisure time fencing, playing poker, shooting pool and is a frequent guest at Florida science-fiction conventions. His current projects include new novels set in the Forgotten Realms universe and the eBook post-apocalyptic superhero series The Impostor.

Reviews

[Francisco Becerra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Upfront, the bad thing about this book was that it took too long to solve the initial mystery, and it should have been very easy from the start. That aside, the exploration of the Wraith setting, the great use of material from other games and the action scenes were spectacular. The description of creatures and the imagination behind that was superb. This is a prime, yet very long, example of what made the old World of Darkness such a compelling setting.

[Poppy Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a rollercoaster of a novel for me. I love the gritty nature and the author's willingness to walk dark paths that make the reader uncomfortable. All in all, I absolutely loved this tale, though I was left the tiniest bit empty by the ending. 3

[E J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not gonna lie, I've given this 4 stars and I'm around halfway into book 3 and kind of over following the whole story. I ripped through book 1 and slowed down a bit through book 2, but now the feel of the story strikes me as a bit "everything but the kitchen sink." I was enjoying it more when there was character development and dialogue going on, but now at the point of where I am in the story it's mostly action and travelling, and the details of fight scenes are so chaotic and weird that I've given up visualising what's going on and stopped keeping track of who's crossed over which part of the Shroud and which character's doing what. I think the big reveal of the baddies' plot was too late. Montrose and Louise and Bellamy and Astarte STILL haven't encountered each other (yet?). I forget who Valentine is and what his motivations are; something about wanting to get revenge against Gayoso for killing some hooker he was attached to. But, in the scheme of things, who cares?

In the meantime, I'm reading other books on my to-do list. May come back later to finish off the admittedly awesome story at the start, but now feels like it's dragging and carrying too many elements for my feeble brain to handle.

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Finished the trilogy. 4 stars for book 1, 3 for book 2, and 2 for book 3. This ebook version I read has crazy typo errors. Also, the last paragraph or two of a chapter will be inserted into the first page of the following chapter - I dunno, some weird transposition error. Overall, I think only book 1 is worth reading.

[Seumas Macdonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent Wraith trilogy. Not excellent books, but a great read nonetheless