(Book One Complete!) Friendly Neighbourhood Goblin (Mercenary Company LitRPG)

659 pages, 181,403 words, and 70 chapters + 1 interlude later and we've finished book one. By RR standards that's small potatoes, but for me that's a huge accomplishment. This is the first full novel length work I've written from start to finish. I've tried my hand at a lot of other projects, but nothing that I've stuck with for this long—for me that's character growth. I have a ton more planned for this series, and if there is a burnout or famine of ideas somewhere in my future, we're not even close to reaching it.

I'll talk a bit about that in a second, but first I'll cover the stuff all of you will care about more than the ramblings about my own story:

I am taking a two week break from posting FNG. Specifically, we won't be jumping into book two until Monday, August 25th. This is to give myself time to ensure the first arc is as good as I can make it. The feedback I've gotten from book one has been amazing. You guys seemed to have loved it, and in my humble authorial opinion, I believe book two can blow it out of the water, but only if I take the time to make it as good as it is in my brain.

So, no more chapters until Monday August 25th... except one. There's one chapter that needs to drop, but I'm going to leave the when up to you guys, and I'll get into the details of that at the end of this non-chapter chapter.

So, what can you expect from the story going forward? Partly, more of the same. Stump is still Stump, and he'll still be helping people and lifting up his community and growing his company and struggling a lot on the way. But there are a few things I'd personally like to address for book two and beyond to fulfill the promises laid out in the blurb:

Minor quests. The Peaktree Manor questline went on quite a bit longer than I originally intended. I don't regret that, I think it needed the breathing room and I'm happy with how it turned out, but I do think it's important to balance the meatier "main" quests, with smaller "side" quests that still feel relevant, like the Stagfolk party at the Rookery, or the Cantankerous Tankard espionage and Jailburn scheme early on. So, you can expect more of these side quests weaved into the main narrative going forward.

Company Management. Again, due to being out in vampire farmland for a solid chunk of the book, we didn't get a whole lot in the way of Stump's mercenary start-up shenanigans. We will be getting more in book two. The magical tome of fame with the mercenary registry is still there, I promise, and it will become more relevant. It was always intended that the system mechanics for the company would start out quite light, with layers added as new ranks are achieved. Now that Stump's got a posse of goblins at his back, we'll start seeing more of that, and I'm very excited for some of the upcoming mechanics.

Beyond book two, I've got an overall endgame in mind. I can't tell you exactly when that will be achieved, or how many book it'll take to get there. My early outline for book one included more from the Midnight Ocelots after Thrung was taken care of, but with the expansion of the Peaktree Manor plot, that's all been moved to book two. So things change, and I expect that to keep happening.

All I can say for now, in broad strokes, is that even as the company grows and Stump becomes more powerful and we slowly see more of the wider world (there are other dead gods lying around, and they all have unique effects on the world around them, and I can't just not explore that), I want to keep the core feel of the story being one of a Friendly Neighbourhood Goblin. Even if that neighbourhood sprawls, or is far from home, my goal will always be to keep the stakes big enough to matter, but small enough to care about.

I'd also like to hear from you in the comments below what sorts of things you'd like to see more or less of. In the end, the story is going to be what I want to write, but if there are things I can emphasize or move away from that fit within my vision, I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

We're LitRPG fans, and we like when numbers go up, so I thought I'd try something I haven't seen other authors do. At the end of each book I want to take a snapshot of where my story is in its growth, and give you guys a bit of a peek behind the screen at some stats you can't normally see.

Think of it as my book's character sheet. Let's see if we can't one day make it OP.

To be honest, FNG did better than I thought it would. It's not a power fantasy, Stump isn't OP, some chapters and storylines can be slow and full of introspection, and I focus a lot on my prose. I know those things aren't necessarily winning ingredients on Royal Road, so I'm very happy with how it's doing so far. Despite what I just said above about LitRPG, stats aren't everything, and I'm extremely grateful to have reached where I am now (over 1200 followers? What? That's insane!).

I do have the lofty goal of one day becoming a full time writer. Whether that happens is anyone's guess, but I never thought I'd even make it to this point, and I can't thank you all enough for getting me here.

So, as mentioned there is one chapter that I still need to post, but I'm going to leave it up to you to decide in a poll which day it drops.

It's an interlude chapter, and does not feature any characters we're familiar with. There may be a very minor cameo from a face we've seen, but plot-wise and geographically speaking, the interlude is apart from the main narrative.

It can work as an epilogue to book one, in which case I'll post it on Monday, August 11th, but it can also work as a prologue to book two. If you decide that it is, I'll post it on Friday, August 22nd, shortly before we jump into the second book. If the poll is tied by 11:59PM EST this Sunday, the chapter will end up in book-limbo, and I'll drop it on Saturday August 16th, more or less in the middle.

Thank you all so much for reading the first book in FNG. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you stick around for the rest of the story. I'd also love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comments, including the sorts of things you'd like to see going forward.

EDIT: The People have spoken. The Interlude chapter will be uploaded on Friday August 22nd.