NPCs by Drew Hayes
Drew Hayes’ novel, NPCs, is the first installment of the Spells, Swords, and Stealth series and was published in 2014. Since then, his catalog of work has grown to nearly 100, with many volumes garnering hundreds and even thousands of reviews with average ratings above 4 stars. You can follow Drew on Amazon to keep up with his published work.
CONCEPT
In a nutshell, NPCs is about a group of friends who are playing a tabletop RPG like normal. What they don’t realize is that the decisions they are making in our world are having serious consequences in the world of the game. We experience this strife through four central characters who live in the imagined game world, starting in the town of Maplebark.
CORE PLOT LINE
A group of human friends—Glen, Mitch, Tim, Terry, and Russel—in the real world are playing a tabletop RPG. The DM for the game, Russel, has carefully devised setups that make the players have to pay attention to details in order to maintain their health and wealth throughout the game. Unfortunately, they aren’t very good at doing this, so they encounter various mishaps along their fictional journey. This includes the mishandled consumption of foraged goods and poor beverage choices leading to their untimely deaths, all at once, while sitting at a table in a tavern.
For these friends who are merely playing a game, those characters are now deceased. Game over.
Except, it isn’t. At least not for the NPCs who are in the tavern where this party-wide demise takes place.
The owner of the tavern and inn, Grumpf, is a half-orc who knows it wasn’t his food or his ale that killed the travelers. A few of his regulars are in attendance, and they are also curious as to what happened to these four adventurers all at once.
Gabrielle is the daughter of the local mayor. In Princess Peach fashion, she regularly gets kidnapped by goblins. She is friends with Eric, a town guard, who isn’t all that good at it since the kidnappings continue under his watch (though there is an explanation for this that takes some of the blame off of him!).
Finally, Thistle, a long-time friend of Grumph and a former freelance minion, is a gnome. The smartest and most experienced of the bunch, he is able to help the others think through what to do about their situation with the fresh cadavers.
But that solution involves them going on an adventure themselves and striving not to be killed along the way.
If you’ve enjoyed fantasy with isekai and adventure elements, such as Amber the Cursed Berserker, add NPCs to your TBR!
About the Author
Drew Hayes is an author from Texas who has written several books and found the gumption to publish a few (so far). He graduated from Texas Tech with a B.A. in English, because evidently he’s not familiar with what the term “employable” means. Drew has been called one of the most profound, prolific, and talented authors of his generation, but a table full of drunks will say almost anything when offered a round of free shots. Drew feels kind of like a D-bag writing about himself in the third person like this. He does appreciate that you’re still reading, though.
Drew would like to sit down and have a beer with you. Or a cocktail. He’s not here to judge your preferences. Drew is terrible at being serious, and has no real idea what a snippet biography is meant to convey anyway. Drew thinks you are awesome just the way you are. That part, he meant. Drew is off to go high-five random people, because who doesn’t love a good high-five? No one, that’s who.