Detroit Dungeons

[Tutorial Invitation Declined.][Survival Mode Activated.][Good luck, Human #7,876,543,313.]

Say no to the safe zone.

One Tuesday morning the sky cracks open over Detroit and every human on Earth gets a countdown. Take the safe tutorial, or stay behind with the monsters. Bobby Steele stays. Foster kid, fencing mentor, broke engineering student. And now, something older than the city is waking up in his blood.

A Detroit cultivation story. Fight for legacy. Bleed for power.

Prologue, 7 chapters, 2 interludes, 25 illustrations. Rather listen? The first 4 episodes are free.

The world

The System came to Detroit. Detroit didn't blink.

[Induction Protocol: Earth]

24 hours to integration

A cosmic administrator named Aelira opens rifts over every city. Monsters, loot chests, levels, ranks from F to S. Gods are just cultivators who never stopped climbing, and they're watching.

[Tutorial Zone / Survival Mode]

Safe road or real road

Say yes and you're teleported to a cozy tutorial valley for seven days. Say no and you stay on a mutated Earth with +10% XP, better loot, and things with too many teeth. Bobby's family said yes. He didn't.

[Bloodline Detected: Uncatalogued]

Power from real history

Bloodlines here aren't made up. They wake up from real ancestral resistance. Bobby's comes from Queen Nanny and the Jamaican Maroons. Across the globe, others rise from Kush, Shu Han, the Varangian Guard, the Wari, the Zapotec and Vijayanagara.

[Survival Ladder: Earth]

The ladder is a hit list

A million-plus survivors ranked by Power Score. Bobby hits #84. When the tutorial ends, dungeons break open, and the top 25 on every ladder get pulled into a tournament for the wars to come.

Character select

Pick your bloodline

Tap a card. Stats, powers and lore are straight from Act 1, kept spoiler-light.

    Listen

    Hear it before you read it

    [Free episodes: start at the start]

    1. Prologue: The HarbingerSpotify
    2. Chapter 1: Detroit 24Spotify
    3. Chapter 2: Calculated RisksSpotify
    4. Chapter 3: Where My Dogs AtSpotify

    Prologue through Chapter 3, free. Follow the show on Spotify for the author intro and new drops.

    [Loot: Act 1 Audiobook]

    The full Act 1 audiobook

    Every chapter and both interludes, narrated. Queen Nanny in full Patois. The System in its fancy voice. Bobby sounding like the east side.

    Real talk

    Should I keep writing?

    This is my first book. I wrote Act 1 between day jobs, too much coffee, and a personal library of 400+ LitRPG books I'm a little embarrassed about.

    Before I spend the next year on Act 2, I want to know if it's worth your time. So be honest. One tap.

    If 313 of you hit Keep Writing (313, because Detroit), I write Act 2. Everybody who voted and dropped their email gets it for $5. Regular price will be $25. Early supporters ride for five, forever.

    Hit the red one? Fair. Tell me why in the box below. I fence. I've been hit with worse.

    0 of 313 Keep Writing votes

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    Kurogami, author of Bloodlines

    About the author

    Kurogami

    Before I wrote a single chapter, I was a traveler with a backpack, a busted laptop and a passport full of stamps. I lived in big cities and island jungles, studied languages under streetlights, and read LitRPG under mosquito nets.

    Story after story, something was missing. Where were we? Where were the cultures that shaped the world, the fighters and kingdoms outside the usual fantasy tropes?

    So I built one. I went to college in Detroit and started a youth fencing program here when the city was broke and everybody said leave. Detroit taught me how to fight with nothing and build with everything. Bloodlines is for anyone fighting to become more.