Mark of the Founder: A litRPG Saga

Beastborne, Book 1

By: James T. Callum

Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer

Length: 29 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's Summary

A new Founder marked with otherworldly power. An epic quest to build a sanctum settlement. A fabled class that wields monstrous magic.

The Founders were the first marked, and they used those powers to build kingdoms, subjugate the land, and enrich themselves. They will not suffer another to join their ranks.

Lost in a world with levels, stats, and monsters, Hal fights to survive in an unforgiving land, and to escape execution from its rulers. Ingenuity and courage won’t be enough. With marked powers he doesn’t understand, he’s easy prey for all the goblins, bandits, aberrations, and foul monsters that plague the realm. He’ll need to abandon his humanity by embracing the beast within. To fight monsters, one has to risk becoming a monster...if he can survive long enough to level up.

Freedom and safety cannot be achieved alone. Only by forging bonds with fellow adventurers and monsters alike do Hal and his would-be kingdom have any chance of surviving the hazardous realm. 

Beastborne in an isekai litRPG adventure series full of dungeon crawling, spell-slinging action, and deep magic systems.

©2020 James T. Callum (P)2021 Podium Audio

One of the better litrpgs Iv heard this year.

Not your cheap romp and stomp litrpg. MC is not an idiot running around making dumb mistakes because the author is to lazy to write him competent. Side characters have the amount of depth you would expect in a first book but you can tell they will be expanded on in the next one. A very nice balance of action and story progression.

good story

i liked the story ..a thought tho ...id venture to bet ..anyone that likes this type of story ..understands the mechanics of leveling up
id spend less time on detailing understood stats and static ones ...as one author to another...

Poorly paced, disjointed, and shallow

The main character is told very early on that is special and the savior of all. That sets the tone for the rest of the book, and that's how the other characters and universe treat him. The entire book is a running "Dumb-Luck" trope from the very start, so the MC doesn't ever actually accomplish anything, he just stumbles into whatever benefits he gets. As an example, he gets a special "forgotten" class quest for not mindlessly murdering the creature he was stuck in a cage with. The MC is such a caricature of a particular kind of person that I'm almost convinced it's supposed to be satirical.

Supporting characters are shallow and empty. The first two main supporting characters are written as shallow, stereotypical, and emotionally weak. Almost everything in the book is a reference to some other game or book. Supporting characters are either named directly as races from another game, or are heavily implied. A significant chunk of the book is dedicated to a race that are clearly the goblins from Final Fantasy XIV, they even talk the same. It could be cool referencing those, but the books over-reliance on already existing things becomes distracting and boring very quickly.

Part of it might be the narration, but the book seems poorly written and paced. The book bogs you down in extreme details in what should be a fast-paced event, while character defining moments are just glossed over with a single sentence. Other characters in the world interact with the MC in ways that they just wouldn't given the circumstances. The whole book is disjointed and inconsistent, too black and white, and ultimately too shallow.

dont bother

this is not a good buy the mc is such a bad character it hurts my brain. it is a basic lost in a new world and got lucky but I am an moron story.

I hate the MC

If you like your MC of a story being a bit slow and pathetic then on top of that a world with a profanity filter then this might be for you.
If you refer more intelligent MC with a strong will this isn't for him.

Good but poor pacing

Beastbourne is well written and adequately narrated. The books isn’t boring but it’s too long. There’s plenty of action but not enough plot development. But if you’re in it for the character development, you’ll enjoy this book.

Not worth it.

Having a main character that is pathetic can only work for so long before it gets annoying.

Not bad ...cud be better, but still enjoyable

MC is not a complete idiot, magic system is pretty vanilla, world building is good ...lots of potential, author does drag on at times tho ...needs an editor who's not afraid to cut out unnecessary scenes.
Even still ...I'll probably keep goin with the series.

Doomguy has more personality

The World building is good and interesting but the characters are bland at best and mary sues at worst. Not sure if I am too harsh on the narrator, but when a mimic monster pet is more interesting then the main character, you've got problems that no actor can fix.

Had potential, ruined by poor MC

*minor spoilers*





Enjoyable to begin with, then quickly fell flat because of the characters. Got 9 hours in and couldn't continue, MC had potential to be fairly decent and likable. Quickly got annoying, because he gets upset when he doesn't get his way, or isn't agreed with automatically, and none of the other characters seem to care, they just go with it.

The supporting characters latch onto him far too quickly with too little effort on MC's part, and don't seem to have much personality. The "resistance" is poorly planned out, despite years of work all they've done is save money and spend it on supplies to build a city for the maybe, eventually possible right person to fall out of the sky and they can build him a city all his own.

Overall the story was interesting to catch my interest, just to have it deminished by the MC,. If you can get past that, more power to you. I imagine the story rounds out better later on, I just won't be there to see it.

Not bad

This was a good book, I'm pissed the next one is ready to go but not available for 3 months!? Unfortunately the MC has two modes, the first is for story progression where he is competent and pragmatic, the second mode our MC is replaced with a moron that eventually makes the correct choice either on purpose or by accident for his development. Really doesn't help that the story was so chaotic, like scooby doo levels of chaos and I'm not a fan of the harem that's been building from the start, it's on the verge of becoming cringy af.
Ultimately this story has potential to be 10/10, but I don't think it will be. I'd recommend the book but advise to read He who fights with monsters first.

Please give this time you'll get it.

Ok full disclosure I bought this because I work alone ( well I work with K9's who are noisy and don't do audio books) I searched Long listening....and I got hooked and pre-ordered the 2nd book. My 14 yr old son is a D&D player with his pals I never got the attraction but OMG anything is up for grabs in this fantasy realm.
You may struggle with the upgrade prompts being vocalised but that aside , just let yourself go and enjoy the ride along.

A great bloody book

It’s rare that a book like this is able to tie most of the threads together but this one does 10/10

BORING

One chapter of what's happening In the story one and a half chapters describing in minute detail what abilities he got how they work what they do what colour they are what they smell like BORINGLY BORING

Love this book

I love this book! It had a perfect combination of dark monsters and joyful creatures, can’t wait to begin the next book!

Love it!

Absolutly love it! Craving for more and pre orderd the next book! 10/10 best lit-rpg so far!

Great listen

Worth every minute spent listening, I knew I'd be getting the next book long before I finished this one, highly recommend.

A good listen.

Detailed enough to give a good understanding of the world, characters and skills/magic but not to detailed that it drags on for hours. Looking forward to the second book in the series.

Good book do recommend

Started of a bit slow for me, but its starting to pick up and I really enjoyed it. do recommend and you should give it a try

It gets better

I almost dropped the book completely in the first third but I’m glad I didn’t.
Top 5 characters (for me):
1. Vorax
2. Stumpy
3. Unnamed treant
4. Unnamed slime
5. 37