The year was 1993 and Polish RPG fandom was nascent. A young author, Artur Szyndler, decided to create his own RPG. He ripped off Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster, added his own overtly complicated gaming mechanics, and distributed his own game, Kryształy Czasu (Crystals of Time) on floppy disks on conventions. He was approached by Wydawnictwo Mag ("Mage Publishing House"), that offered to release his RPG first in their magazine, later as a standalone book.
The game wasn't that good, but at that time Polish RPG market didn't really exist. Kryształy Czasu is a contender for first Polish RPG, and it had its own fans. However, Artur (the author) wasn't credited for his work, and he didn't retain the rights to his own creation. After 20 years, he got the rights back and decided to re-release the RPG. In his own unique brand of logic, he decided that releasing RPG isn't profitable, so to gather money for RPG, he decided to release a book... series... of 13 tomes... 2 books each... and use the profits to release the new edition of the RPG. Using crowdfunding. Surprisingly, the crowdfunding attempt failed spectacularly, but the first two books got released.
And they are gloriously insane.
The book actually was marketed as featuring over 700 races (including giant silverfish), 150 spells, the main party has 25 characters (most of them multiclassed - and yes, they use the concepts of character class In-Universe - paladins), the main protagonist is an orc demigod who does absolutely nothing most of the time, and the party is being led by two actual divine avatars.
The plot? For some reason the party enters the Labirynth of Death and proceeds to Dungeon Crawl their way until the end, fighting monsters in chambers. There's random encounters like thousands of gorgons, vampire dwarf princesses, village of gnomes killing their enemies with floor tiles...
It's quintessential So Bad, It's Good.
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This novel features examples of:
- Always Chaotic Evil: Yes and no. Being evil is enough for paladins to kill you (hell, even being Chaotic Good is), but one of the heroes is a medusa who changed to Lawful Good.
- Black-and-White Morality: Painfully done. Katan is evil even though he hasn't done any evil act yet (okay, he bit his way through his mother's uterus and preyed on anyone who entered the Labirynth, but he was just an orcish baby).
- Faux Action Girl: Hannah. Most of her contribution is having sex with Nameless lords of the labirynth.
- Half-Human Hybrid - not just half-human, the author seems to love his crossbreeds.
- Informed Attribute: pretty much everyone.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The heroes accidentaly destroy a magic tree that keeps a demon horde from invading the world, so they go to the Labirynth to get a new one. They destroy that one too.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: the party involves Human Paladin/Astrologer, orc Guard/Demigod, silver dragon Paladin/Sailor, vampire dwarf Merchant/Bard/Alchemist, elf Assassin/Priestess, undead Paladin/Sorcerer/Necromancer...
- Power Creep, Power Seep: when you have at least three gods in the party, it's hard not to be like that. One of the heroes, Can the Fat Priest is constantly showered with ancient and forbidden overpowered spells.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: played straight, surprisingly. Levels aren't mentioned, but classes, proficiencies, magic points or risk of failure. At one point Can casts Healing Wave spell and he scores an In-Universe critical success, so that the Wave renews itself every 10 seconds.
- Sdrawkcab Name: the evil god killer is called Natak. The alleged protagonist is called Katan. We'll have to wait for 24 books to see whether they're related somehow, probably!
- Smug Snake: Can. He's aware of his status as of
Mary Sue, and he intimidates gods into surrendering, all while being a complete and utter Jerkass. And yes, he's the protagonist. - Tuckerization: The appendix at the end of the first tome helpfully explains which characters have been based on author's friends and family. About two aren't.
