WELCOME TO THE RETROFUTURE!

The Future That Never Was is an extended universe where Mars was terraformed before the Beatles sang Penny Lane, the Soviets colonized the asteroid belt and pirates plundered the rings of Saturn. In this alternate space age, humankind couldn't dream of a brighter future. Alas, the minute Earth turned into a nuclear wasteland, shadows already conspired from the heart of the Moon to the mysterious Planet Nine—and maybe beyond...

The book series includes numerous R-rated titles. All of them will be uploaded on Royal Road. Check the Index or the list below for the main stories.

🐈  KITTY KITTY - START READING

Join sassy space cat Lee and his Desert Eagle-toting, soda-swigging human partner, Ali, in a future stuck in the late 80s/early 90s. Board the dynamic duo’s ship, the mythical Kitty, as they bounty-hunt their way through a dystopian solar system—so lock and load, and shout Cowabunga! because it’s crime-fightin’ time! 

🪐  PACHINKO BLUES - Fall 2022 - LEARN MORE

Amid the chaos of the Rings Civil War, a disgraced pilot called Miles finds itself tangled in a vast vendetta involving a Lunar corporation, android mercenaries and data-cartels. From Saturn’s Plastic Fields to the fringes of Kuiper, Miles’s violent redemption is an 80s-esthetic space western filled with tears, blood and... ducks?

Other stories related to the first arc of The Future That Never Was:

• RADIO FREAK - Standalone biopunk short story featuring Ali Koviràn, the Data Maiden and Bill Murray

• STELLAR PATRIOTS - Special episodes with Braun Kamirov, linking KITTY KITTY to the upcoming DATA dilogy and CYBER MACHO

• DATA ONE & DATA ZERO - 2023

• CYBER MACHO - TBA

Do you want to support our work or simply read in better condition? Visit our amazon shop and Patreon!

This is a 100% reader-interactive, game-like book, based on my novel Technomagica. It is written in collaboration with the readers - every comment drives it forward. Once there are enough interesting or fun comments on each chapter, various paths forward begin to manifest that you can [choose] to follow. 

Summary: Soviet bio-weapons designer Vladislav Kerenski died in 1992. Upon meeting "god" he rejects a continuation of his narrative. It's up to you to help him survive the darkness of the Astral Ocean.

This is the only book on Royal Road where your choice can make the MC become a villain or a hero, to die horribly and quickly, or slowly and painfully, to live out an interesting life, to become god, or to be trapped in a nightmarish loop without an end!

General Summary:

Sometimes, the multiverse needs expanding. That's where I come in. But, unfortunately, being a deity isn't all fun and games (and is incredibly complicated), as there are always things working against you. Not even the God of the Multiverses can change that. 

Another Summary:

Twelve souls were chosen to expand into the void surrounding the known universe(s), and were given a grace period in which they would experience a relatively safe expansion of their domains. Once that period is up, however, they are free to interact with each other...and what lurks in the depths of the Abyss, the Void, and the Primordial Chaos. I am one of those souls. And let me tell you, this shit ain't easy. Between trying to raise mortals into an immortal army, with which I can defend my domain, dealing with my children, and trying to maintain the balance between all realms of existance, I have my work cut out for me. Sigh. Now I know why, back on Earth, gods worked in mysterious, invisible ways. There's just too much to be done. 

Formerly called RE: Deity

To Enter Five Peaks Magical Academy you must have a familiar. Abigail hoped for a bird, maybe an owl like her best friend's, or a cuddly cat or loyal hound. She would have been happy with a particularly smart toad, even.

Instead she got you.

Cover art by: Zoufii

To take a dragon's hoard is to challenge death.

The greatest of the sea-drakes wakes, curled on his silver throne; but there is no silver. His hoard is stolen. He rises, screaming, and chases the thief to the ends of the world—only to be shot from the sky.

But dragons do not die easy, and never one with such festering hatred. A dungeon core rises from his corpse.

If he intends to survive so near the cove of pirates that slew his past self, he'll need to master his powers—and quickly. For these pirates are dragonslayers; they won't be felled by mere mushrooms or spiders.

Beneath the lawless Calarata, the young dungeon core will have to fight to survive; and one day, he will return death to the man who killed him.

Updates twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday at 1 pm EST!

The world of Vol, a huge, bountiful plane where the only constant is life, in its many, many forms. One such form is a dungeon core, a peculiar little gemstone, and the focus of our attention. Watch as this otherwise unremarkable gem awakens in one of the most resplendant places in Vol, an aptly named Mana Reef, and how it turns its simple hole in the ocean floor into something truly unique, all while the rest of the world is forced to deal with its growth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is my first venture into writing for fun, and I'm hoping to keep this running until I run out of juice. With that said, I very much enjoy dungeon core novels, and wanted to do one a bit outside the norm. Hope you enjoy!

If you want to come stop by the discord, I know we'd all be more than happy to welcome you! https://discord.gg/pcR5g5XX8h

This is a slower-paced "experiment and dungeon building" web novel that tries to use the idea of peer-to-peer communication with Dungeon Cores instead of Dungeon to slave monster communication to break up the detailed dungeon building.

Rank 1 description: (minimum met for system initialization...detailed description as follows)

Each race was given a system by the gods to make up for their shortcomings and balance their place in this world.

Humans: Abysmally bad at understanding and using magic unable to use more than the lowest of magic were given the "Skill System" magic in the form of premade skills with use, study, and mastery tied to experience.

Elves: Intuitively understand magic and have long lives leading to vast knowledge and skill in their chosen fields. However, as a species, they have nearly zero sex drive and less than low fertility, so they were gifted the "World Tree System" with experience gained through the care of natural areas – gifting the chance of children to increase their numbers without dirty copulation.

All “natural” or “wild” monsters are given an "Evolution system" designed around killing and consuming as many creatures as possible, slowly increasing strength and, at thresholds, allowing mutations to alter them multiple times.

Dungeon cores are different. Unlike humans, they can see, manipulate and live off mana. Unlike Elves, they naturally crystallize after extended periods of time in high mana level areas. However, they cannot easily move or communicate and typically go insane without companionship. As a species other than the odd eccentric they are unimaginative. Brute forcing solutions without the drive to truly innovate. Thus they have been gifted with the "Dungeon Connection System" a magical version of the internet accessible by their peers that allows them to barter and sell: bait, traps, monsters, and knowledge, as well as entertain each other with “adventure streams” using exciting recorded battles and humorous reels of arrogant chumps biting off more than they can chew to often fatal effects.

This is the casual story of a dungeon unluckily spawned far from potential adventurers forced to innovate beyond its peers to find its place in this world.

Rank 2 Description: Justification.

I've been on a dungeon core kick for months and while I love the genre – it's sparse with entries.

Often the forced conflict gets repetitive and frantic solving of threats "power levels" the protagonist to god levels to progress the plot – taking away the nice steady progression fantasy I'm looking for. (Progression in this story is linked to how strong of monsters/traps/whatever he can create not his "level"...this is demonstrated by some of his newer monsters beating his older monsters not with discrete "this monster has 10 attack this one has 40")

Additionally, the focus on 3rd parties with their drama takes away from the reason I’m reading dungeon core novels in the first place – I'm looking for magical crafting, experimentation and kingdom building – not defence from higher and higher levelled enemies looking to steal/destroy/control the MC. 

This novel is kind of just me writing the story I wish I could read. I like thinking about the experimentation that can be done in fantasy settings using 'mana' as an excuse to make up rules and try to keep them internally consistent. IE once I define how a rule works, I'm going to commit to keeping it – no breaking hard truths I've given when it's convenient, even if it backs me into a corner. Hopefully, that should make the story interesting to read even if it's SOL and less action-oriented.

There will be problems to solve and a clear progression in strength (of created monsters and knowledge) however due to not wanting to force conflict for the sake of conflict the general theme will be closer to slice of life with few action sequences and no overarching goal so please keep that in mind when picking this up as the genre is not for everyone.

Finally, I have a clear goal of what I want from this story (not an endless romp but a series of arcs and then a conclusion that's a couple of dozen medium-sized chapters long) I want to commit to finishing it or at least bringing it to a point of rest. I hate all the engaging stories that stop with a “hiatus” indefinitely so in the event I lose motivation I'll work to end this even if the ending becomes rushed/unsatisfying just to give a sense of closure.

I’m planning on including several polls in terms of direction and taking feedback heavily into account if I get enough readers (but may choose to ignore it if it deviates too far from the direction I want to take this as in feedback like: “The MC needs a cartoonishly evil arch-enemy that wants to enslave him and force the mc to pump out magic items” or “the MC needs to make a body and learn teleportation then live with humans” will get shot down without consideration.)

Please leave reviews and votes so that i know how good or bad i am doing and what i can change ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a story about a normal high schooler who was framed and sent to jail on fake charges. Becoming depressed he was further thrown into dispair when the culprit caused his family harm and took his sisters ability to walk. Finally reaching the end he experienced a mental breakdown and lost his speaking ability to everyone and only reacts to his family. Follow him as he remakes his life with his little sister in the world of Etheria as a form of rehabilitation. Will he talk again or never again. Will he trust others or will he lived a closed life. Only time will tell P.S. Mature tag is mostly for language and gore that might happen in the future. I WILL NOT MAKE EROTIC STUFF IN THIS ON LIKE DEMON AND ANGEL OR ROMANCE AT ALL

~~ On Hiatus ~~

After Flora Fluss burns down the kitchen, her son insists she is too old to live alone. She's got two choices. Either move into a retirement home or spend the rest of her life within a virtual reality game governed by society's most advanced artificial intelligence. When you've worked a lifetime as an engineer for home appliances, naturally, you go with the option that has more toasters. 

Soon, Flora finds out that the virtual world is more familiar than she thought. Though, it takes her a while to get used to the idea that tanks don't hold water or oil but the aggro of mobs.  

Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG contains cute crafting, complicated game-mechanics plus how to exploit them, unconventional training methods, and a lot of toasters.

New chapters: Mondays and Thursdays.

For additional information, companion vids and pictures, please check out my Patreon posts with the tag #attv.

Companion videos on YouTube are in the playlist Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

You want to get notified on Twitter or Facebook when I upload a new chapter? No problemo!

Discord: https://discord.gg/hX8gWPE

James hates his real life. He spends his days being bullied in school, and at home he simply reads and plays games. The only thing he has to look forward to is immersion. When he is immersed in the virtual world he can be whatever, whoever, he wants: He can escape the world that has thrown him away.

As such, when a new game, Dungeon Core Online, comes out, James is excited to play. He immerses himself as soon as he can, but when he is set to create his character he is instead offered a different choice. Now, James is the Dungeon Core and he suddenly finds himself wielding more power, with more options, than he's ever had before. The only downside... there are people in the real world who do anything, even kill, to gain the power of a Dungeon Core in the virtual world.

*Currently Updates Every Friday Starting August 16, 2019*

Our story begins 20 odd years after the events of the animes, manga, and games. Now don't worry, we'll explore all the regions.

However, not everything translates so cleanly into a more realistic setting, while other things just get better. No convenient inventory systems. That Pidgy ain't flying anyone anywhere, and your Bagon can't call meteors from the sky. The realities of the food chain trumps any children's media restrictions. Nearly all the mythics and legendries, can't feasibly be one of a kind.  Shinys come in all varieties. 

Research has advanced in some areas, for good or ill. All the evil organizations that were yesterdays news have splintered apart, remnants lurk in shadow. 

Your favorite characters have all grown older, some have had children, others may have even died. Towns prosper or fall, new gyms start up while others might close down. New Champions have been crowned, new Leagues have formed!  

The Next Generation is starting their journey.

Now, Dimensional portal shenanigans are nothing new to the pokemon world, But... Kurt, is.

Sure, some folks might raise a brow at a 30ish year old man that should probably be in an action movie rather than the Hoenn Rookie League, but Kurt's ready for adventure. He might also wish he played more than the first two games... or remembered anything about himself.

The year is 2245, and the world has undergone explosive growth in multiple industries. The age of Virtual Reality came long ago, opening up new fields for people to enjoy and seek employment. There were even those that chose to sacrifice their physical bodies, becoming digital existences that lived within internet communities.

But with the age of VR, everyone still dreamed of that next step, the next level of adventure. And after a hundred years, it has finally arrived. The first consoles, known as Seeds, mass distributed among the people, with such realism that they no longer qualified as a Virtual Reality, but as an Artificial Reality. But what happens when things become too real?

Cover art by Madelyn Black, who is taking commissions both free and paid!

Plenty of people have stopped and asked what it'd be like to simply have everything, and Sylvain Henry Camille Johansson was no different. He was a man who had a lot of things going on, with a name that'd make a supervillain blush and a family who'd make even the useless of their rank into someone important. It was a shame, then, that he was slapped with a dreadfully unfortunate condition that kept him from living up to any of those already low expectations.

Stuck living a life where magic is everywhere while he's left working with nothing more than a moderate intellect, a little bit of whatever influence he could get from his family, and a lifetime's practice at making himself the ideal subordinate for his bosses' boss, Vane was still beating the odds and slowly working his way up in the world. When the cunning yes-man finally got a chance to really make a name for himself, he leapt at the offer, taking his first real step onto a road he knew he was always meant to walk. His goal? Nothing less than finding out why he and too many other unfortunate souls are barred from the wonderful world of the higher energies, and with any luck, fixing it.

System Edit: This timeline has been shelved, but the adventures of the Omegas and her kids will continue in the next System Update Timeline with additional foes and challenges early on to guide the Omegas into a less destructive path of protection.

The Omnipocalypse was every apocalypse humans ever imagined all happening at once, zombies, plagues, nukes, EMPs, Robot uprisings. Not just the earth either, It happened to every World ever dreamed up by men too: heaven, hell, and every other afterlife or spirit world ended, plus the worlds of books and stories bled into reality. It all broke apart and either; became new places on the chaotic Earth or part of the even messier spirit world. Magic beasts mutated by radiation, Robots mastering Magic, the mixture of everything made the horrors... well, more horrible.

Omega; A young Woman with few memories wakes to find she has spent 2500 years in stasis, in a basement of scientific horrors. Creatures and Things that could supposedly destroy the world if ever let free. Horrors of which she was the last to get free. Rather then Quest for world domination or destruction; Omega keeps getting drawn into a protective role over other orphans, lost monsters, and broken AIs. So she decides to build something to help all her little monster family be safe.

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This story is meant to be a behind the scenes look at stories about kids solving problems that should be beyond them. I always wanted to see a story about Professor Oak, Dumbledore, or any other mentor who trains the main characters. I like the idea of someone looking at the apocalyptic world and deciding to make it safe enough that a small child can wander off and make some monster their pet. The pokemon games have fun systems to consider the behind the scenes workings of, like what training a team rocket member goes through to become a villain cut out for children to defeat. how they prevent a deific pokemon from accidentally murdering some little rat with its immense psionic power.

However, the story itself is not really meant to be a pokemon parody, I draw inspiration from every genre of fiction, any type of game, this story is the only one I plan of ever writing without a clear cut ending planned, I love the infinite storytelling capacity of things like Doctor who's TARDIS, the Stargate or Rick's portal gun. In this case, I wanted the setting itself to be one where any and every story might happen.

Cover Image by kalli gruen from Pixabay

Discord Image by Digital Photo and Design DigiPD.com from Pixabay

Everyone is summoned to another world sometime between the ages of 13 and 17, where they learn martial arts, magic, and eventually fight hoards of evil creatures on their way to destroy the Demon King. Everyone, that is, except Samuel Carter.
Sam was somehow overlooked. All of his friends, his family, everyone in the whole world had been summoned to another world, fought the Demon King, and returned with incredible stories of magic and heroism.
Now Sam is on the wrong side of 40, raising a teenage daughter as a single father, and dealing with bureaucracy as a member of the Other World Research Division -- until a summoning circle opens and transports them to another world.

* * * * *
Author's Note: You should expect In Another World with my Daughter to read as a first draft, unpolished, with some typos and occasional grammatical errors. I write rather methodically, so my first drafts are pretty solid. Time permitting, you may receive second draft quality.

This is an Isekai style epic fantasy adventure, where the MC is summoned into another world full of swords, magic, and things with sharp teeth. Lip service will be paid to appropriate tropes. 
A personal goal of at least 1,000,000 words has been set.

Readers should expect a total of 20-40k words per month.
Input for story direction will be considered as appropriate.
Royalty free image credit: Stefan Keller @ Pixabay

Following the unfortunate, or fortunate birth of a Dungeon, in the world Ilyeus where Dragons claim the skies. Titans wander the world. Drakes boast their majestic pride. Wyrms sleep beneath the earth. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Beast-kin, and many other sapient races mingle amongst each other, for good or bad. Gods descend among mortals with their Divine Vessels. 

The Dungeon treads unrestricted by the links other Dungeons have. Down a path never walked by any other Dungeon in the world of Ilyeus.

Down,

A Path of Freedom!

A Path of Dominance!

A Path of a Savior!

A Path that would make Spirits shudder in fear!

But first, it must survive, expand, evolve, and create an army that would do its bidding.

This is my first time writing something like this, so if you see any grammar or spelling errors, pointing them out would be appreciated.

Any constructive criticism is also appreciated!

My update schedule is currently as I write them. So that means every time I finish writing a chapter, I will post it after it gets edited.

I also release a chapter of A Lone Automaton's Journey To Find Its Operator infrequently as a side thing.

Matthew is a productive member of society, always showing up to work on time, always paying his bills, he is the picture perfect working man in this modern 22nd century workforce. Everyone who knows him thinks of him fondly as a kind, respectful young man, when the work day is over however something changes…

Something snaps…

After spending the entire day lying to himself and everyone else he finds himself in the desiccated streets of New Earth Online, a Niche virtual reality reality mass multiplayer game, where he is known simply as the Raider…

The question now is can he reliably juggle his two identities?  There is also the matter of that A.I. that let herself into his head and seems to have confused the word love with obsession…

This should prove interesting...

Author's note: Ok, so here we are, this is my first attempt at writing a Vrmmo novel, we shall see what it holds, updates are on Saturdays and Sundays, you can expect this one to have a lot of the same elements of my other novels, including a harem and sex, very descriptive sex...

You read the title right, YOU are a God within this story. In fact, every single reader of the story is a God. Many stories like to take the path that there are Gods that watch over the characters of the story, helping them or hurting them as the characters progress. What if, the readers of this story are the Gods that are watching the Main Characters? What if the readers could accrue points by reading that they could spend to help the main character, hurt the main character, or to even create new characters, dungeons, and scenarios? That is what I aim to create! I am trying to get the community involved in creating a reality that the readers themselves can directly influence! If you have any interest in this at all, I implore you to read the intro chapter called 'The Tutorial' and join everyone else on many interesting stories on Planet Earth and what it is to become!

Volume 1 is where you can find how the system works, and the various things within the system! Volume 2 is the actual story and invasions itself. Volume 3 is where you can find previous polls and the such. Volume 3 is so we can all look back at the decisions made.

Quick note. I am not the best writer, and will try my best to create the best quality story. There might be some grammar errors, or I might write in a simpler way compared to other authors because I do not have much time, nor can I write ahead either! If you wish to give me advice on the system as the story goes on, then I will gladly accept it. Lastly, just have fun with the story as I try to do something completely new!

Cover Art made by one of the Deities, The Hive!

A young man is walking on his usual route from school back home while playing Pokemon Go when the driver of a truck loses control and run into the young man ending his life. But the young man awakens and finds he has been reincarnated, and as his favorite games protagonist Red. With the help of his vast knowledge of pokemon and a reincarnation system will he become a pokemon master or will he aim higher?

The story will follow close to the games stories (as best as i remember some of them) however there will be some slight to severe alterations as the pokemon world lacks a bit of common sence that would apply to anyworld. As the story goes on regions will change and new pokemon exclusive to those regions will appear like the game.

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Hey everyone this is my first novel and a random idea that came to me while i was reading a reincarnation novel here on RR and i was playing a pokemon game on the side and it kinda came to me. l will have polls occasionally to see how people want things to go down or what possible direction to go.

Now a couple warnings the first being grammer. I'm not the best at gramer so if bad grammer triggers you in some way its best to just not bother. Second warning and most important is that this is a more mature take on pokemon. Seriously if you grew up with pokemon like me you probably would like some mature pokemon story. So there will be profanity here in there. Not going to see people cursing up a storm except maybe one of the teams. Especialy team skull they got the whole sterotype going. Gore.... honostly not sure if im going to have detailed pokemon death or just have the normal fainting and any death will be in the background or be hinted at. There will be sexual content but im going to have those in side chapters so people who don't care for them can just skip them.

[Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

This is a story about the newly-adult Calliope Smith having a terrible day that ends in her getting mysteriously teleported from Phoenix, Arizona to a fantasy world where her life is in constant danger.  She considers this an upgrade.  Someone evil is looking for her, and she doesn't know why.  Someone who seems to know a lot about her has promised they'll help her, but she doesn't know who they are.  All that matters to Callie is that magic is real and one way or another she's going to learn it.

The end of the world is coming up, sure, but Callie won't need to worry about that.  In fact, by the time she even finds out about it one of the doomsday devices will already be destroyed, and the authorities will be well on the way to dealing with the other one.  It's fine.  Everything will be smooth sailing.  Almost certainly.  Probably.  

Chapters are usually about 2500-3500 words, and the goal is to post 2-3 per week but I sometimes get busy or have some writers block.

It's your standard portal fantasy / Isekai premise, but unlike some the main character's time on Earth and how she got pulled into another world will (eventually) be explored.  Some slight GameLit-feeling stuff later, no menus or level-ups but there's something suspiciously like a skill tree when the magic system gets going.  No number crunching, and while the main character will get to do some silly stuff she won't be a god like in some fics (and will in fact spend a lot of time being badly outclassed by her enemies).  Some reader interaction, ranging from adding to the worldbuilding to occasionally making big important decisions about skill progression.  Please note that the main character is flawed and impulsive, and will make some stupid decisions.  That's part of the story, but I get that it's not for everyone.

Trigger Warnings: Foster care system references, crappy parenting.  Some mental health adjacent stuff, specifically the main character has some issues where she experiences varying levels of empathy and emotional vulnerability depending on the day (it's complicated and not meant to portray any real-world conditions).  Occasional violence including mention of death and grievous bodily harm, but no detailed descriptions of gore.