Hey!! I haven't been able to find the lord of the hammer series anywhere in bookstores or at my local library but I really wanna get into the series! Do you think it'd be possible to post a summary while I look for somewhere to find this thing online? We don't have a lot of monster literature in my town unfortunately :(((((
of course!!!! i will still highly recommend reading them for yourself as there's a lot of little subplots and nuances in the narration that you can't really get from a plot synopsis, but i'll still put one here for anyone who can't access it or wants to know what they'd be getting into!
book 1, the march of the dark king: cage has been wandering the forest for about a year after waking up there with no memories. eventually they run into a mysterious figure out there, they observe the mystery person for a bit before walking straight up to them and asking if they're a hallucination. he is, in fact, not a hallucination and is the prince of the shadow kingdom. cage is content to stay living in the woods but shadowprince is clearly on the run from something (and also refuses to sleep on dirt) so he ushers them into the closest kingdom to take shelter. this happens to be the dark kingdom. they hear from the locals that there's been a dragon stealing from local vendors but it also very much seems like the king has been using this as an excuse to majorly power trip on the kingdom's citizens instead of actually addressing the issue. they do a bit of investigating and find out the king's not only been plotting to go to war with nearby kingdoms for more land, but is also planning to sell out his citizens to do so. they go to battle him themselves and end up defeating him (its not really said if they kill him or not) before seeking out the dragon. they find her in a nearby cave and find out that she's been in exile for about 200 years and was stealing food from the kingdom to get by (and also there's some internalized depersonization (dedragonization??) but that's explored more later). they offer to take her with them and also get her a good proper meal and she is quickly swayed. this leads them setting off to find their next safe haven.
book 2, the city of the shining: the gang ends up staying just off the edge of the city of the shining after being saved by two powerful mages, whitecloak and blackcloak, from getting jumped by fountainsprites. they are warned by the mages of the incoming floods (something that seems to get a reaction out of shadowprince) and decide that since the mountains are far too high for anyone in the kingdom to evacuate before the floods, they're going to stay and help save the queen and as many people as they possibly can. while they're getting ready for the battle they'll have to endure, blackcloak ends up falling ill from exposure to the fissures in the earth leaking darkness. the team splits up, with dragon staying to take care of blackcloak with whitecloak and cage going to protect the queen with shadowprince. eventually things are looking bleak and all seems lost until blackcloak appears with the other two to attempt to fight. they're all nearly able to defeat the fountainsprites until blackcloak is slain by one of them. whitecloak cries out in anguish but the battle goes on. eventually they're able to beat back the floods of darkness and the city can start to rebuild. whitecloak devotes her life to the queen and the rest of the party ventures onward to find the source of the floods
book 3, the isles of northernlight: the gang has started sailing the ink sea, searching for the isles of northernlight. that was the place where the fissures were rumored to begin so it would be the best place to start looking. they travel from island to island (including that of the lord of screens, a lonely man made up of his own illusions) before finally stumbling upon the ruins of the isles of northernlight. the buildings have been broken down with time and the fissures litter the earth, leaking darkness into the nearby ocean. here, they run into the one responsible for all the floods, the knight of northernlight. it seems cold and completely uninterested in fighting them. they challenge it anyway and after a while of it dodging their attacks it opens up a fissure wide enough to cause them to have to retreat. they'll clearly need a weapon more powerful book 4, the trials of the holy hammer: in their sailing retreat, the gang comes across another ship in the water. the ship ends up belonging to a band of 'non-stealing' pirates. whether they're actually pirates is up to debate but that's what they're sticking with. either way they seem to be a general band of misfits lead by their captain, who is very notably a skeleton (based off of one of gerson boom's friends from college as once stated in an interview with the hometown gazette in 200X). on this crew is a blacksmith that offers to make them a hammer that'll restore the balance of the world, but it'll take a massive toll on the wielder. therefore, they'll have to go through trials to prove that they can even handle it. each of them get their own trial, a trial of strength, a trial of wits, and a trial of magic. shadowprince has to find the strength to stay in the face of danger, cage has to use their wits and accept that they can make decisions for themself, and dragon has to channel her magic even if she's lost her wings. after passing the trials, they are granted the hammer alongside the warning to only use it if absolutely necessary.
book 5, the field of pink and gold: the ship ends up docking in the flower kingdom for trade, leading the gang to stay there while they train for the next time they take the knight on. the flowerprince seems to have quite a bit of history with shadowprince but it never seems to be anything more than snide remarks and subtle glances. this goes on for a few months (this book is very very character focused rather than plot focused, a lot of it is just cage ruminating and watching shadowprince and flowerprince argue) until the comments get to ahead and flowerprince accuses shadowprince of abandoning his kingdom when they needed him. shadowprince, as a totally normal reaction, burns the entire village down. all of the flowers assumedly burn and cage and dragon have to drag shadowprince out of the inferno so that they don't all burn with them. dragon has a very valid "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT" moment given he'd just burned down the only safe place they've had to stay for almost a year now. shadowprince can't give her a straight answer and instead decides he can't "hide things from [them] anymore" and tells them he'll take them to the place he'll explain everything. book 6, the darkness above and below: when they dock at the shore again, shadowprince leads them on and on without answers (seriously, this trek takes like six pages real time and a week book time) before they eventually arrive at a long forgotten kingdom. the flooded remains of the shadow kingdom. he, finally, tells them the story of his people. how the floods swept in one day, how everything—everyone fell to the wave, and how he ran. how he was the sole survivor because he ran when his people needed him. and how maybe more would've survived if he had just stayed in the first place. dragon comforts him while cage has some weird maybe metaphorical hallucinations of the flower kingdom overtop of the ruins of the shadow kingdom but they don't really make a comment. they stay in the ruins overnight, planning to finally take on the knight in the morning.
of course this doesn't cover the smaller subplots, the in depth worldbuilding (like how cages are made, human shadow experiments, certain weirdness surrounding the fountainsprites), and the weird dream sequence segments with mephisto, but i think it's a generally good covering of the main plot! if anyone wants me to go more into detail about any of the bits i'd be happy to because i love this series to death <3
also if you're having trouble finding copies irl, there should be some digital scans on the hometown lit archive as well as physical copies on MEbay! there's also the option of asking your local librarby to order them, i know a lot of human-centric areas are wary to stock monster literature which majorly sucks, but hopefully the more people ask, the more we can get that changed! hope you're able to get your mitts the series eventually!! it truly is my favorite series of all time and i hope it can be as dear to your heart as it is mine.
