Title: Vainqueur the Dragon
Author: Void Herald
Rating: M (maybe T?)
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Satire & LitRPG
Pairing:
Fandom: Original Universe
Chapters: 97
Worlds 270k+
Updated: May 5, 2020
Published: August 11, 2019
Status: Work in Progress

Link: Royalroad

Authors summary:
Vainqueur Knightsbane is your average dragon: a giant, fire-breathing lizard who loves to take naps on his golden hoard, kidnap princesses for fun, and make the life of adventurers miserable. Vainqueur's only pleasure in life is to watch his treasure get bigger, one coin at a time.

So when a would-be thief turned unwilling minion tells him about "classes," "levels," and "quests," Vainqueur wonders if maybe, just maybe, he should consider a career change.

After all, why bother hunting monsters for free when you can get paid for it?

-------​

Despite what the summary might suggest, the focus of the story is on the "would-be thief turned unwilling minion" Victor.
All dragons in this fantasy universe are immensely strong, charismatic and self-centered, but not really all that smart. So Victor, as Vainqueurs new minion, now has to handle a dragon that is already stupidly strong, but now also levels up in the classic LitRPG way.

The story is very well written with few grammatical errors (that I spotted). The world-building is both interesting and well integrated into the rest of the story. The characters have actual depth and they grow throughout the story.

As noted at the top, this is meant to be a satirical story, that tries to poke fun at some of the tropes of the genre. But it also just in general a very funny story, with some well thought out (but silly/immature at times) humor. Sometimes it goes a little too far in my opinion. The story has some quite heavy handed references to stuff from the real world, which in most cases is totally fine and funny, but other times they fall a bit flat.
This could for example be Vainqueur having a "minion battle" that references Pokémon. Or the Kobold Rangers that are based on Power Rangers, at least to start with.

The story is mostly lighthearted and not meant to be taken to seriously. There are a few serious points throughout the story, but not enough to "drag down" its lighthearted nature.

The story starts out being pretty good, but then it just keeps getting better in my opinion.
I would rate this 4.5 rounded up.

 

God damnit you beat me to it. I was coming here to post this myself.

The first several chapters weren't very good - not terrible, by any stretch, but not living up to later chapters.

Constant references to any and all well-known real-world things (pokemon, power rangers, other LitRPGS, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc) are vaguely amusing in one sense, and don't really detract from the story. But it does mean when anything new crops up, I tend to wonder whether they're supposed to also be references that I'm just not getting.

Otherwise, the story is an amusing romp through the genre, and whilst it takes the chance to slightly step all over some common tropes, it also leans completely into others. At the same time, there's no SB-esque focus on numbers, which means we don't actually care about anyone's Str, or MP; everything runs on narrativium.

Certainly not the best piece of original fiction I've read, but I've blasted through it over the last day and a half. Much like Deathshade, 4.5 rounding up to a 5. Any mistakes in text I glossed over because I was really enjoying this, even after I'd started thinking about putting it up for review.

 

Vainqueur is one of the few novels I've read on royalroad. I read all posted chapters, but didn't really have any desire to keep following the story afterwards. Even those last few chapters, I felt myself kinda forcing myself. That was a few months ago.

It was a pretty fun, different novel. With a stereotypical red dragon as one of the two main characters, I would sure hope so. Very satirical and lightheartedly humorous. Too much so for my personal enjoyment, however. I liked the concept. The world was fine. But the main character is an idiot. And for me, there's only so many chapters you can read about that before it gets tiresome. If you can enjoy the wild adventures of a deluded dragon long-term, good for you.

For me, it was a 3/5, but it's one of the most highly rated stories on that site.

 

I’m only a few chapters in but enjoying it so far. It drew me in and I’ve laughed out loud several times. Not far enough in to rate yet I think... I’ll edit this as I read more... but so far I’m viewing it very highly

 

I think it's a solid 4/5 that definitely made me laugh out loud but that has very much overstayed its welcome. The latter chapters just aren't great and got away from the comic heart of the piece.

 

So I read through what is described as season 1, and I think that it was good. I, like others, don't have any interest in picking it back up again. It feels like a bag of chips. It's fun, but after the first bag the second doesn't sound that appetizing.
3/5. Enjoyable, but overlong.

 

I think one of the reasons why I rate it so highly, is that I found it pretty early, and have read it as the chapters come out.
I could see it overstaying its welcome, if you read everything in one go, instead of a chapter (or more) a week.

 

it's cute, I'm a big fan of litRPGs that aren't isekai, or at least have the system being universal to the world.

 

This book is great, anyone who disagrees is starting to look like Dragon food. Do you want to look like Dragon food? 5/5, because entertaining reads are important too. And I laugh out loud at least once a chapter.

 

Devoured this once I started it earlier last week. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Fun, light read that didn't take itself too seriously, yet also managed to get me engaged and excited about each next chapter. I think I would have liked it better if I had read it as novels rather than straight through, the switch from "volume one" to "volume two" was a very jarring pacing change.

4/5 for an all around fun time with few issues.

 

Great crack 5/5. Perfect for what it is, satirical idiot dragons. I loved the

Spoiler

Angels go to hell arc, and people choosing communism schools over angel or demon schools. The cameos of slightly smart dragons like conman Jade Dragon or steve irwin lite Grandrake were also awesome.

 

Its eh?

Essentially the same joke repeated ad infinitum.

Dragon want gold, dragon strong, dragon fight, dragon get gold, dragon care more about bitchboy then gold.

And repeat

Writing is okay, but it feels like this isnt going to end anytime so and just continually do this.

3/5

 

I think the turning point for me was finally googling what Vainqueur meant in french after ch.65, I thought it was hilarious. Was slightly disappointed to find out it was a common naming theme for the other dragons as well.

 

I enjoyed this story, although as others have mentioned, it's a bit of a popcorn story. Didn't seem to be any real dramatic tension, and it does go through the same things over and over. I do like seeing Vainqueur develop a bit over the story, to the point where he starts to value his minions (as more than just a food source). Very enjoyable, but unlikely something I'd watch closely for updates. I'll likely return in another few months, when I have a larger amount of new material to read.

3.5 / 5, rounded up to 4 / 5.

 

It's fun and I laughed a couple of times. Read the first 25 chapters in a row and I'm definitively continuing.

4/5