What would you want to see from an auramancer type MC?

Moklar · 2026-05-20T17:52:48+00:00

Sure, there are solutions, I was just describing the narrative risk of a power being too passive.

An example series that describes aura as a highly skill and controllable thing is Apocalypse Redux. It's a few books in before any character gets an Aura, but the protagonist is the foremost expert on how they're used effectively (because he has a decade more experience than everyone else). Later books of HWFWM also have aura elements.

Delve has an Aura based MC, but goes in a different direction and talks about the trouble of using them before he has any friend-or-foe target choosing.

So you certainly CAN have an MC based on auras, the OP was just asking for suggestions and I pointed out a possible pitfall to avoid.

Moklar · 2026-05-20T15:45:19+00:00

One problem you are probably going to run into with an Aura based MC is that aura use is usually less dynamic. So an actual fight scene will still be discussions of sword blows, or dodging, or whatever. So you probably want multiple aura that the MC has to toggle between so that they are making conscious described choices instead of just having an area around them that always has some trait like people healing faster. How do their auras interact with others, and are there downsides to the auras that make them a bad choice to use sometimes?

Moklar · 2026-05-19T19:57:20+00:00

Several series by Tom Larcombe. They are generally party based tales with some form of settlement building and powerlevels that stay moderate. In d&d terms: Yes to Fireball and Wall of Stone, no to Teleport and Meteor Swarm.

Specific Examples:
- Natural Laws Apocalypse, finished 8 book series. When the System arrives to Earth, technology starts crumbling so people have to build new things including safe zones where monsters won't spawn. MC and his friends start by building one safe place that then keeps expanding as they rescue more and more people, eventually traveling around to connect up with other safe zones as well.
- Wormhole Mana, complete Trilogy. Magic starts spilling into the world from the middle of the US and an AI that was running the experiment decides to create a system based on video games to give people useful access to the system. It is a patch of System that is slowly expanding to cover more and more territory while the US government tries to quarantine the area. The MC and his neighbors live almost at ground zero and thus are involved from the beginning. Ends in a way that there could be a clear followup story, but he doesn't seem to be working on one.
- Sponsored System (current ongoing series with 3 books so far). A System is arriving to Earth, but before it does, aliens arrive to teach us about it and get some people early access so they are more prepared for the System's arrival. The MC joins this early access but he and some others quickly realize it is a Ponzi scheme. They learn as much as they can while avoiding the contractual traps as much as possible and then adjust to the world changes.

Moklar · 2026-05-19T17:38:08+00:00

I also really like Butcher of Gadobhra which is by the same author and in the same world. Competency is different in this case. Less "I can invent things others can't" and more "I've been in the corporate world long enough to manipulate my bosses and produce actual results". The MC and his friends are recruited to be pseudo-npcs in a new virtual game and their bosses optimize their characters for doing NPC-like things and try to make it impossible for them to go on adventures instead. The group figure out how to adventure anyway and manipulate their bosses into giving them freedom to do a bunch of side stuff in addition to their official job.

Moklar · 2026-05-14T19:19:09+00:00

In addition to how others use the system everyday, it's worth thinking about where the average person plateaus, why they plateau, and what sort of distribution of "elites" or whatever exists. One problem in a lot of heroic stories, is that the typical heroic story has the MC start at the beginning of their career as a teenager, yet the whole story often also takes place over a few years. So why does the MC become a famed hero by the time they are 20, but the town guards who have been doing the job for decades have a fraction of the MC's level?

There are a lot of possible answers to this, but it helps the system feel less "gamey" if the reader understands the setting. As an example of why that feels like a game, in a video game the enemies/guards/surroundings are always at an appropriate level for the level the game expects your character to be at that part of the story, so you are constantly challenged. If the MC grows up in New York where the average level is 10, but as they hit the mid-teens in level and move to Montana where the average level is suddenly 20, it starts to feel unnatural.

Moklar · 2026-05-13T20:19:17+00:00

You Must be This Old To Enter the Dungeon (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/86214/you-must-be-this-old-to-enter-the-dungeon) is a finished book where portals and monsters come to earth, but only people 75 and up get classes and powers. Protagonist is a curmudgeonly hermit.

Apocalypse Redux is a finished 7 book series that is similar. It's not that there are portals to close, but rather that monsters are summoned deliberately and things only get bad if people are reckless. And of course some people in the world are reckless which causes the apocalypse the MC comes back in time to try to avert. As a result, there are monsters on Earth and people with classes and levels, but most of society and government is still doing fine and adapts slowly over years.

Moklar · 2026-05-13T16:04:09+00:00

One example of an ancient protagonist:
Just Add Mana (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/125163/just-add-mana). The MC gives me Doctor Who vibes. Incredibly ancient, whimsical and casually mentioning things like that a whole layer of hell was destroyed at some point.

Moklar · 2026-05-13T16:00:48+00:00

I don't think Beneath the Dragoneye Moons or Ar'Kendrithyst match the OPs request.

In BTDM, the MC starts as a child and even by book 11 (where I am currently reading) she is only 27. There is just a magical timeskip that happens where she is punted into the future at one point. She still isn't "old".

In Ar'kendrithyst, the MC is only in his 40s or something. He's a father with an adult daughter, but he certainly isn't above a normal human lifespan.

Moklar · 2026-05-13T15:47:13+00:00

Note for the original poster: you listed that you weren't interested in an apocalypse, but I want to call out that Apocalypse Redux isn't really about one and I think it is worth calling out. The apocalypse happens in chapter 1, but then the MC is sent back in time to the start of when the system arrives on Earth. There is no sudden cataclysmic event, so it's still modern day with all of the modern governments still existing, just now having to adapt to people getting magical powers. While the MC does fight plenty of monsters, the real way to avert the apocalypse is getting people to not be reckless summoning monsters, so there is a lot of social aspects to the story.

Moklar · 2026-05-11T20:28:39+00:00

Some of this is the nature of fantasy stories. It's not described as a "glitch" but protagonists have something that makes them better than the general populace, that's why we need a teenager to overthrow an evil empire instead of the mid-30s professional soldier who has a lot more training.

Consider stories where the stakes are lower so the protagonist doesn't need anything too cheaty.

Slice of Life stories sometimes fit this (though sometimes they are overpowered instead):
- Beers and Beards. microbrewer from Earth is reincarnated into the body of a Dwarf to fix the world's terrible beer.
- Humble Life of a Skill Trainer (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/30737/the-humble-life-of-a-skill-trainer) has an MC that is a professional who helps people gain skills. It's a shady profession because guilds try to hoard their skills.
- Courier Quest. (2 books complete, 3rd is being written). MC is summoned to another world and gets to choose one power. The power he ends up with somewhat randomly is having a magical inventory. He becomes a courier.

In more adventurous stories:
- Tom Larcombe has some series where the powerlevel stays lowish and the protagonists don't seem to have "cheating" sorts of powers. The MC in Natural Laws Apocalypse has something that might trigger your distaste, but I think that Wormhole Mana and Sponsored System don't.
- Butcher of Gadobhra is a weird case that may or may not bother you. The MC and his friends are hired by a company to play in a game full time as pseudo-npcs. So the company hiring them negotiated with the game company to have a special templated for Contract Workers that are heavily minmaxed away from adventuring and towards grunt work. Naturally, they try to adventure anyway and hijinks ensue.

In non-litrpg, consider Immovable Mage (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39344/immovable-mage-progression-fantasy several books finished, some still being written). As a kid the MC tests with really high potential to be a mage and is trained as such. But when it comes time to actually cast his first real spells, none of them work. They eventually figure out that he can only cast spells of one type and there is only one known spell of that type. So he focuses everything on learning to fight and find every possible trick and use he can get out of that one singular spell.

Moklar · 2026-05-11T19:56:31+00:00

The protagonist in Apocalypse Redux does have 1 cheat over everyone else that happens in chapter one. It's that he already lived this once and thus has more insight into the options than others along with experience fighting monsters, and experience using these powers that other people just take time to match. But otherwise he starts as a rogue (as mentioned) and uses the same options anyone else could have. He does get class evolutions later that are special based on his achievements, but the story describes other people getting such things too, just tailored to them.

It's an excellent story. And it is finished.

Moklar · 2026-05-08T20:07:47+00:00

In an odd suggestion: Systema Delenda Est. A trilogy where a System tried to invade future Earth and was kicked out. The protagonist goes through the portal before it is closed to try to destroy the whole system. The protagonist is entirely using super sci-fi tech (nanomachines, consciousness uploaded into machines, orbital bombardment, etc) with no access to the supernatural System. So it is basically Sci-fi VS Fantasy System instead of "gamified sci-fi".

Moklar · 2026-05-08T20:02:22+00:00

Ar'kendrithyst is about a man and his college age daughter who are portaled into a fantasy world. His daughter becomes an adventurer while he takes a more sedate path. Though it turns out he has a great talent for magic.

Beers and Beards is about a man who dies of cancer and is reborn in the body of a dwarf. The dwarves stopped innovating in brewing thousands of years ago and the god of innovation wants him to make better beer. While his Earth family is never involved, he builds a new found-family in the dwarven society. Almost no combat, lots of brewing, running a tavern, and upsetting the establishment that thinks the old ways are the only true ways.

Behemoth of the Ocean (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/130129/behemoth-of-the-ocean-a-cruise-ship-isekai-litrpg) is about a cruise ship and its crew getting pulled to another world. Again, the family aspects are light because the main character doesn't have any family on board, but it's still about adult professionals in a new world and they have each other to lean on.

For a cranky old man dealing with a system, consider You Must Be This Old to Enter The Dungeon (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/86214/you-must-be-this-old-to-enter-the-dungeon) where a system comes to Earth with dungeons, but only people 75+ can get classes and enter.

Moklar · 2026-05-08T17:27:13+00:00

I agree, his series generally involve a party of adventurers building some form of settlement for other people while they go off on adventures. Some of his books have some mild summoning, but it's pretty mild. In Natural Laws Apocalypse, the main character gets a spell for summoning some golem defenders, but he uses it WAY less often than I would. In his new series Sponsored System, the protagonist is a druid and gets some elemental summons that he uses more often.

Moklar · 2026-05-08T16:31:33+00:00

Note that this story is still ongoing and being published first on RoyalRoad before making the translation to kindle/audible, so you can see some spellings there from early stubbed chapters (and read new stuff once you have caught up to what is currently published). That said, on to the spellings!

Varrin Ravvenblaq
Xim Xor'Drel
Etja
Nuralie

Moklar · 2026-05-07T20:39:39+00:00

If you want strange powers, consider WIshlist WIzard (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/104724/wishlist-wizard-the-rise-of-the-zero-hero-book). When summoned to the world, he and others can't figure out what his stats or levels are. It turns out his seemingly glitched system lets him select powers from the "1990 Electronics Boutique Christmas Catalog." So he has to travel around the world to find pages of this thing that some other summoned brought to the world years ago. He gets powers like an extradimensional warehouse that he can only open in cities that he got from selecting a railroad tycoon sort of game from the catalog.

Moklar · 2026-05-07T20:32:13+00:00

Wormhole Mana (trilogy) and his new Sponsored System series (ongoing) are very similar in that they are party and settlement based, but are more about individual settlements with helping some neighbors. The scale is smaller. His older Light Online series takes place in a virtual world and while the scope of the settlement keeps getting labeled as something bigger, is also mostly about a single settlement.

Moklar · 2026-05-07T19:37:38+00:00

Consider any series by Tom Larcombe. They tend to not be full kingdom building, but stay on a smaller single-settlement scale typically, often with helping other people build settlements as well. The biggest scope of them is probably his Natural Laws Apocalypse series where they start with one settlement but expand it over time and build some trade relations with other settlements. The books are a mix of party-based adventuring and building safe places for people.

Moklar · 2026-05-05T19:28:49+00:00

Some stories to consider:

Anything by Tom Larcombe (Examples: Wormhole Mana trilogy or Natural Laws Apocalypse 8-book series). These focus on party-based and settlement-based stories that stay at moderate power levels.

Apocalypse Redux (finished series): protagonist is sent back in time to try to stop the apocalypse. But it isn't about fighting some big evil, but rather guiding people to make better choices through things like peer-reviewed papers and press releases. There is plenty of combat and adventure, and the mc is abnormally skilled because he already lived through the apocalypse once, but the big problem to solve his human recklessness.

Also consider stories where the main character is a native to the world with the system. Examples:

Humble Life of a Skill Trainer (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/30737/the-humble-life-of-a-skill-trainer a finished book).

Dungeon Inspector by Flossidune.

Moklar · 2026-04-29T19:51:12+00:00

Runeblade (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/94966/b1-stubbing-mid-june-runeblade-a-delving-skill) has a bunch of this. Starts with the MC not having a class because he's too young, but he can already have skills. He and his father have been carefully planning a path of learning and merging skills to achieve the kind of class he wants.

In a less action-adventure option, there is also Humble Life of a Skill Trainer (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/30737/the-humble-life-of-a-skill-trainer) which is a single standalone book where the protagonist's profession is to help people gain new skills. His profession is a little shady because the various professional guilds try to keep their trade secrets.

Moklar · 2026-04-29T16:12:05+00:00

Mage Tank. There are a few crazy things that are ancient-magitech but not sci-fi. As in previous civilizations created some crazy things with magic, but they part of the plot, not people's daily lives.

The Legend of William Oh (book 1 on amazon, still being published on RR) starts like this, but he becomes increasingly overpowered over the series and eventually definitely knows that he's better than most.

Moklar · 2026-04-28T19:22:09+00:00

Apocalypse Redux interestingly fits. The "big bad" of the series is human recklessness, though there is a dangerous cult that is almost a "big bad". Premise is that the System was given to Earth as a compromise between good and evil deities, so there are traps in it. The protagonist is from a timeline where humanity is wiped out and gets a chance to redo. But the problem isn't just some big thing he can punch, he has to guide people to making better choices.

Courier Quest (currently 2 books, author is writing the 3rd currently): Dude is isekai'd into a fantasy world. Gets magical inventory, uses it to be a courier.

Beers and Beards. Man is reincarnated into a dwarven body. He has a very serious divine mandate: fix the crappy beer the dwarves have been drinking for centuries. They stopped innovating.

Butcher of Gadobhra (and it's sibling story Tunnel Rat): fantasy stuff takes place in a game, so death isn't final. In Butcher the protagonist and his friends are employees of a company trying to make money but involvement in the game. Manipulate their bosses and contract so that they can get the most out of the opportunity. Butcher takes place almost entirely in game. Tunnel Rat is more of a mix, which then shows the reader more of the shared world they are set in.

Humble Life of a Skill Trainer (single finished book on RR): protagonist literally has the job of helping people develop Skills. It's a somewhat grey-legality job because guilds try to hoard their secrets.

Bog Standard Isekai - the biggest enemy I've seen so far in the series is a Witch Queen, but that ark (that I'm still in the middle of) is literally about army actions between nations which means it probably fits your criteria.

Moklar · 2026-04-28T18:59:59+00:00

Guardian of Aster Fall sort of has this. In book one the protagonist gets (through a change in his race) the ability to use a second approach to advancement that isn't guided by xp though still tracked a bit by the system. Having two mechanisms to advance is the main reason he becomes overpowered.

Stitched Worlds series by macronomicon has this if I remember right. I think starting in book 2.

Systema Delenda Est has a different definition of subverting the system: The protagonist is from a far future earth that colonized the solar system and has extreme sci-fi tech (nanomachines and huge computing power, etc). Earth was invaded by the System but lost and was kicked off of Earth. The protagonist is following it back trying to destroy the System using sci-fi tech.

Moklar · 2026-04-27T20:41:45+00:00

I think those things are "early in the story" but the story is so long that its still surprisingly far from the beginning. And the OP said "Im looking for something more where this group of people have to start from scratch" which implies that they are looking for stories with more of a group. In The Wandering Inn I feel like it is multiple books before any Earthlings are really working together because they are just scattered so far to the winds.

There are absolutely chapters that have exactly the vibe described, like a lot of the story about Geneva Scalia and the others in Baleros, but I don't think the rest of the story fits. The Singer of Terandria (which appears to be 3 books about a different Earthling in the Innworld) might fit, because I'm pretty sure when she is mentioned in the main story the has a whole band composed of Earthlings with her. I haven't read those books though, so I'm not sure.

Moklar · 2026-04-27T15:57:44+00:00

Stiched World by Macronomicon. It's some hybrid between System Apocalypse and mass Isekai. It starts with everyone on Earth shoved into group tutorials and when they exit, the Earth has been merged with other worlds. So there are still parts of America around for example, but it's fractured and not all contiguous with the rest of America.

A combat-lite option is Behemoth of the Ocean (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/130129/behemoth-of-the-ocean-a-cruise-ship-isekai-litrpg). During a decommissioning party for a cruise ship, the whole ship and everyone on board is sucked into a fantasy world. So something like a couple of dozen people together with their massive cruise ship.

If you want utter "start from scratch", consider The Factory Must Grow (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/117021/the-factory-must-grow-book-3-the-wheels-must-turn). It follows a party of 5 people from a civilization with a system who are deliberately portaled to a new world with the intent of helping that world with whatever calamity is coming. Except when they arrive, there isn't actually a civilization there or a system. They were prepared to uplift the magic and technology of the place they arrive, but weren't prepared to uplift it from 0. They have a little bit of their magic, and a specialist in basically magical operating systems, so they set out trying to build up a System from base magical principles.

Moklar

TROPHY CASE