The Ripple System is a LitRPG series by Kyle Kirrin.
Ned Altimer is a rich heir with no prospects, no life, and no friends besides the emotionless AI in charge of his house. When word of Earth Blood Online, a new VRMMO that is advertised as "better than real life" becomes available, he jumps at the opportunity. Furthermore, he buys a three-day headstart pass... and all the others too, so he'll have the entire world to himself for three days.
The designer of EBO doesn't appreciate Ned gaming his system, so makes him a deal: He'll let the purchase go through as requested, on the condition that Ned takes the Ax of Unbridled Knowledge, a powerful guide AI. The information given is limited by Ned's own level, but it will still be an absolutely invaluable resource.
The catch? The ax will drop if Ned dies, and they're going to tell everyone else in the world about it. Also, the ax is an asshole.
Ned will have to survive in a new world with few allies and far too many enemies. There is no situation where he is ever free from pursuit, no end goal where he will finally be safe. He will be looking over his shoulder for every second he is in the game.
That's fine. It's better than what he had before.
The first four books are complete as of June 2023:
- Shadeslinger (January 2021)
- Black Sand Baron (September 2021)
- Gilded Ghost (August 2022)
- Shattersoul (June 2023)
This series provides examples of:
- Ax-Crazy: Frank, the Ax of Unbridled Knowledge, turns out to be a bloodthirsty maniac. He constantly tells Ned to kill things in the bloodiest way possible, uncaring that Ned likely wouldn't survive the attempt. The fact that Frank himself is a statless item who does literally no damage beyond Ned's (low) strength does not dissuade him in the slightest.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Ned's dad was one of the most classic examples; he ran a venture capitalist firm, where he bought up companies, slashed their expenses by firing people to make their books look good, then sold the company again at a profit. Ned became infamous for running the firm into the ground, which is one of the reasons that he's known worldwide as a failure. Ned gave up on the company when he realized it was impossible to run it morally, and the company fell apart without him.
- Crippling Overspecialization:
- Tyrann's Cult of Information worships a god. No god, no cult. Furthermore, his entire Renown path is built around his religion, so without it he's severely weakened. Ned and Omen successfully kill the god before it becomes permanent, leaving Tyrann cut off at the knees.
- Ned's build only does magic damage. Defensively, he has a few more options (the fact that he's specced into Dexterity works surprisingly well for him), but he tends to struggle with people who have a lot of magic resistance. Ersatz prepares his entire kit as a hard counter to Ned's build, anti-magic and elemental resistances included. In their duel, Ned only wins because he had recently picked up a bleed ability, which is a physical effect. It's still close.
- The guild Corruptia is the top PvE guild in the game, led by the genius strategist Ersatz... but since Ersatz is a giant asshole, it is predicated entirely on the idea that Ersatz always wins. When he starts losing, his guild immediately loses faith in him. Compare to Omen, where no one even mentions leaving when they have a few bad runs.
- Cult: Tyrann, a popular streamer, creates a religion called the Cult of Information, dedicated to sharing all information in the game without exception, even outside their religion. Tyrann wants the ax to unlock every secret in the game. Ned disagrees with this on principle, since it will turn the game into yet another "solved" experience, where there are only a few "right" builds to get to endgame. Also, Tyrann is secretly hoarding the best information for himself.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Ned convinces Omen to ambush Corruptia in a PvE zone that also has PvP elements. Ersatz, leader of Corruptia, freaks out, declares war on Omen, and declares his intent to wipe them out completely. While certainly an overreaction, Sleep points out that this is one of the dangers of PvP; not everyone is a good sport. However, corpse-camping House until she cries is widely agreed to be completely over the line. And then Ersatz kidnaps Lars and Sarah, two NPCs, and threatens to murder them to prove a point. Even his own guild is uncomfortable with that.
- Does Not Like Magic: Kline asks Ned what kind of build he's planning; he says magic. Kline then makes sure to program the Ax of Unbridled Knowledge to hate magic, because Kline is a dick.
- Dual Wielding:
- When Ned gains a second pistol, he finds he can dual-wield them. This cuts his damage in half, but it's still a pretty good trade.
- Darling gains the special ability to dual-wield two-handed weapons.
- Exact Words: Some PvP world events have the wager system, letting players wager basically anything in-game and have the system enforce it. These range from the basic "give me all the money you have access to if you lose" to "never speak the details of what happened here in-game." When Ersatz is about to lose their duel, Ned has House buy up all the auctions he had posted for his guild. Ersatz suddenly gets all the money... but before he can distribute it, it all goes straight to Ned. Meaning Ned got their items and their money.
- Faux Affably Evil: Well, calling him "evil" might be a stretch, but Tyrann is a selfish prick who is conquering the entire game world using his army of zealous followers, and making Ned look the like the one with an unfair advantage. He manages to keep up a smile most of the time, but Ned can see under it that he is very annoyed whenever Ned survives and ruins Tyrann's most recent plans.
- Foreshadowing:
- Kline calls Ned a failure who ran his father's company into the ground and has done nothing worthwhile in his entire life... and Ned doesn't so much as blink, much less defend himself. Kline clearly expected him to rant; Ned has obviously been called worse before, and it doesn't bother him. Because he intentionally gave up on his father's company after realizing it was too immoral for him to participate.
- Despite supposedly ruining his father's company, Ned proves great at economics in the game, even milking a trader NPC for everything she has... before feeling guilty and giving her a giant tip for a minor piece of information. He brought his father's company unparalleled profits before he broke under the moral strain of having to screw over innocent people.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Nina, Darling's sister, loves karaoke. Everyone else in the guild hates that she loves karaoke.
- Hostage for MacGuffin: Ersatz kidnaps Lars and Sarah, and threatens to murder them both so that Ned will continuously respawn so that they can kill him over and over again, eventually getting all his gear and most importantly Frank. Then he almost kills them both first, and Ned has to point out that this would defeat the entire purpose of taking hostages to enforce compliance.
- Hypocrite: Tyrann claims to be all about spreading free information. He's actually keeping the best secrets for himself. When it becomes clear that the ripples are causing the world to change faster than is safe, he asks everyone to stop making changes, and apologizes that it's too late for him to stop his god summoning. Frank immediately points out that he could absolutely pause his god summoning; it's as easy as waiting to turn in a quest.
- Kill the God: Newly-summoned gods are relatively vulnerable, and Ned tries to figure out if they can kill Tyrann's god before it becomes permanent. Turns out they can. By using the Portal Network, they jump behind the defensive lines, kill the god, and render the entire cult severely weakened.
- Love Triangle: Frank thinks he's in one with Darling (the love of his life) and Ned (his greatest enemy). In reality, Darling just thinks he's funny, and Ned finds it hilarious to antagonize him. Darling suggests playing it up a little bit. It's implied that Darling might have real feelings for Ned, but Ned doesn't notice.
- Mage Marksman: Frank leads Ned to the Enchanted Firearms skill, which allows him to advance his class into the Shadeslinger, which casts spells through guns and uses Ned's two primary attributes. Partly because Frank felt bad for giving Ned a deliberately Glass Cannon class without telling him, and also because Frank just likes guns better than normal spells.
- Manchild: Ersatz, guild leader of Corruptia, is a screaming, whiny baby who calls cheater whenever anything doesn't go his way, while pulling all sorts of underhanded tricks himself. He also yells at his own guild members when they follow his orders to sabotage Ned in a way that sabotages themselves. Despite, again, it being his idea. On the other hand, he is genuinely a brilliant strategist and tactician; he has to be, because otherwise no one would stay in his guild.
- One-Handed Zweihänder: Darling gets an ax that gives her the ability to dual-wield two-handed weapons, and later breaks down that ability and puts it into an item.
- Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense:
- Downplayed; Ned is mostly pretty grounded, but his friends give him a look when he doesn't understand why poor people would stay in a city under siege. It has to be explicitly pointed out to him that most of them don't have the money to leave.
- Kline walks around with no shoes and no shirt, and thinks it's fine because he has no body odor. Ned and Frank point out that this is obviously false, but no one has told him otherwise because he's rich.
- The Scapegoat: Kline encourages the world to hate Ned because he's annoyed that Ned bought up his entire head start package. Tyrann in particular takes advantage of this, painting Ned as a rich asshole turning EBO into his own personal fiefdom to distract from the fact that he's got thousands of followers who are willing to do anything for him, a much bigger advantage than Ned's little boost.
- Weird Moon: The moon of EBO is green. Both Frank and Ned hate it because it's just so lazy.Ned: I can't put my finger on what exactly it is that's making it bother me so much, but it just feels kinda lazy somehow, you know? It's like, I get it, we're somewhere else, and everything's weird and vaguely spooky. But you don't need to go changing the moon.
Frank: We are of one mind when it comes to the moon. - The World Tree: Ned's first major quest chain involves the high elf world tree. Ned's race wants to destroy it, pretty much for no other reason than because they're vengeful assholes. Ned turns on them at the last minute, saving the world tree and killing his own race. Ned is given a world tree seed in return, which he plants in the Black Sands.
