Whale Eaters : Price Of Breath [Grimdark, Low Fantasy, Whalepunk, Political]

A Viking kingdom is learning to breathe smoke. Whale-oil lanterns light the drakkar ships. Black smog rises over cities that still worship berserker gods. The North is caught between the old sagas and the new machinery — and nobody has agreed yet which one wins. For thirty years, Sylvi the Great held that balance. Through force of will, and one man's mathematics. Robin Hardy has been calculating longer than any of them. As Royal Accountant, he built the system that feeds the North through winter — village by village, sack by sack, lord by lord. Every life weighed. Every life priced. A foreign wife, a half-blood son, a man who never took an axe to his hand: a worthless inheritance Robin turned into the only thing keeping the realm alive. The Nordvar lords want to burn it to the ground. They're only waiting for a reason. Then Sylvi dies — and the reason arrives. Down in the rendering-ports, another man is doing his own arithmetic. Trend Haldmar runs the weakest house in the North on whale oil, black lungs, and a brood of children he can't bring himself to fail. He has no honor, no fear, and no patience left for men who confuse the two. While Robin counts what the North can afford to lose, Trend has already worked out what it's worth to win. One man wants to keep the world exactly as it is. One wants to set it on fire and sell the light. The North is learning to burn whales to survive the dark. They're about to learn what else burns with them. WHAT TO EXPECT — Early whalepunk with a Viking aesthetic. — A multicultural world: Viking, Mongol, Persian, Greek, and more. — Game of Thrones, The First Law, and Vikings vibes. — Disco Elysium, Pathologic, and Dishonored in its bones. — Queer characters who are people first. — Sexual content and gore that tastes of black lungs and smoke. — No power systems. Magic is esoteric. This is NOT LitRPG. Note: This is a full remake of an earlier version on Royal Road — new world, new characters, new story. Same heart.