The Dungeon Lord is the first in the Wraiths Haunt series written by Hugo Huesca.
Edward Wright is going nowhere in life. All he has is Ivalis Online, unfortunately his Jerkass boss Ryan is there in his raiding group, who are friends from work, ruining what fun he could actually have. After usurping Ryan's authority to kill a major boss, Dungeon Lord Kael Arpael, Ryan in a showing of supreme pettiness berates Edward and then demands that he delete his character or be fired.
A fuming Edward relents, because while it isn't fair, the crappy job he has pays the bills. After this, Ryan then tells him to tell one of his coworkers that was playing that night that she's fired, because she listened to Edward instead of him. This pushes Edward over the Rage Breaking Point and he assaults Ryan and gets arrested, but the officer driving the patrol car isn't what he seems.
He introduces himself as Kharon and offers to let Edward become a dungeon lord in Ivalis. Explaining the world came before the game, and that hero's Edward and his friends had played had and every other player for that matter, had been slaughtering intelligent creatures. And although they were aligned with the Dark, no one likes getting killed for their boots.
Edward, after much deliberation and realizing that Kharon has his philosophically trapped and that Ryan would likely get him on a trumped up attempted murder charge could very well face over 25 years in prison if he refuses, agrees to take on the mantle.
Dungeon Lord contains examples of:
- Angels, Devils and Squid: The Light does bad things out of terrible necessity. The Dark does bad things For the Evulz. The mindbrood do bad things for implausibly justified reasons, but mostly because brains are yummy.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Edward Wright goes out of his way to use his dark powers for the forces of good, unfortunately the forces of good don't care for the overture.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The whole thesis of the series. Edward strives to prove that you can have power without being an asshole and using his powers for the betterment of all.
- Dented Iron: At the end of the fourth book when Doctor Hill is listing Edward's injuries to date it takes the better part of two pages.
- God of Evil: The Dark God Murmur is unambiguously evil, the only reason that Murmur gives out power to mortals is because he genuinely believes that by simply having power that alone will be enough to corrupt anyone into furthering his own goals.
- Light Is Not Good: The church utilizes rather extreme measures when dealing with those who have formed a pact with a Dungeon Lord, as it turns out this is for a good reason.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Ed, from the Dark's point of view.
