
by erathke
The Name of the Wind meets Berserk in an evocative epic fantasy about growing up and fighting gods. When I was a child, I watched my mother kill a dragon only to have her own body burnt and mutilated beyond recognition. Mourning the loss of my fathers, my brothers, we survived on the flesh of that dead dragon while my mother clung to life, deaf and dumb and blind to the world. I defied the gods who tried to take her. I’ve since devoted my life to murdering your gods and their servants, watching them scream for mercy. I have butchered their priests and now wage war against an empire. You know me. You traveled a lifetime to find me. My name is Luna. Come, hear the story of my mother. Dragonslayer, savior, and, finally, goddess to my people. Hear how I watched them flay the humanity from her, how they twisted her every action into prophecy, into ritual. Hear my howling loss, and I will tell you how nations and gods descended upon my mother to claim her, rip her away from me, make her avatar of their own desires, talisman of their own power. Make her anything but my mother. What to expect: Character-driven fantasy - Complex and complicated characters. Relationship driven - Strong focus on characters, their relationships, and interactions. Immersive worldbuilding - A rich and layer world that is gradually revealed. No infodumps. Evocative prose - If you like the lyrical over the utilitarian, my style might be for you. Strange magic - The magic is dangerous and wild.
Current
8/11/2026
Peak #18
2d
#2
7/25/2026
Peak #23
16d
#1
4/5/2026
Peak #34
3d
Rank updated 14 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Entry forecast updated 14 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Overall Rising Stars shadow rank
deep field · ~#6223 of 6,880 · 6173 below #50
By genre
beats 99% of similar stories
beats 53% of similar stories
beats 17% of similar stories
Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
At this conversion, the Psychological Rising Stars bar (≈2 new followers/day) costs about 457 views/day — the story currently gets ~155.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 150+ chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.