The Riyria Revelations

""There's no prophesy, no innocent boy destined to save the world, no ultimate evil to be slain. Just two guys in the wrong place at the wrong time trying to survive.""

The Riyria Revelations is a six-book High Fantasy series by Michael J. Sullivan.

Five e-books were been published:
 * The Crown Conspiracy
 * Avempartha
 * Nyphron Rising
 * The Emerald Storm
 * Wintertide

The final book—Percepliquis—was originally scheduled for an April 2011 release. However, publishing rights were acquired by Orbit Books in early 2011. The entire series was re-edited and re-published as three two-book volumes; a standalone version of Percepliquis wasreleased simultaneously with the final volume. The Orbit editions' titles are:


 * Theft of Swords (November 2011)
 * Rise of Empire (December 2011)
 * Heir of Novron (January 2011)

This series provides examples of:

 * Affably Evil: Saldur is polite, cultured, and fatherly- as long as you do what he wants. Interfere with his plans, though, and he will show his temper.
 * Always Chaotic Evil: Goblins are considered to be this; their showing in the novels largely bears it out (though admittedly, we only see them at war or raiding, never at home).
 * Ancestral Weapon
 * The Atoner: Per legend, the god Erebus/Kile.
 * Berserk Button: Don't ever hurt or insult Gwen when Royce is around..
 * Big Bad: The Patriarch
 * BFS: Hadrian's longsword. It's by no means the largest of BFSes, but when it gets drawn, things are gonna get messy.
 * Church Militant: The seret knights are the Nyphron Church's enforcers-cum-inquisition, beholden only to the Patriarch and Sentinels.
 * Corrupt Church: The Church of Nyphron..
 * Disc One Final Boss: Percy Braga.
 * Dragon With an Agenda: Saldur and Ethelred, Co Dragons to the Patriarch, are primarily concerned with reduilding the Nyphron Empire..
 * Dropped a Bridge On Him: Luis Guy, Knight Templar, major villain, and all-around evil Badass, gets offed unceremoniously in the first chapter of the last book.
 * Dual Wielding: When Hadrian's not using his longsword.
 * Enslaved Elves: Elves (or at least, those with Elf-blood) are at the bottom of the ladder in most human kingdoms. Dwarves have it a bit better, but not by much. About the only nonhuman race that humans haven't tried to enslave are goblins, who are honestly just too mean for that to work in the first place.
 * Evil Counterpart: Luis Guy to Hadrian, Merrick to Royce,.
 * Evil Sorcerer:, as well as any of the oberdaza, the goblins' mystical/shamanic caste.
 * Fantasy World Map: Fairly bog standard
 * God of Evil: Uberlin is considered one of these, though he never actually shows up to do anything particularly evil.
 * God Was My Co Pilot:  is incredibly heavily implied at the end to be.
 * Half Human Hybrid: Practically all "elves" living in human lands are actually hybrids, The Tenkin are thought by some to be Human-Ba Ran Ghazel hybrids, but
 * Heroic BSOD:  falls into one after  . Amilia helps pull her out of it.
 * Hired Sword: Hadrian.
 * I'm a Humanitarian: The Ghazel will eat just about anyone and anything, but have a special fondness for sentient beings.
 * Implausible Fencing Powers: Teshlor. The Pickering and Killdare families each uncovered a Teshlor discipline, which made them the foremost swordsmen in Elan.
 * YMMV but Hadrian is shown to be really good in single fair combat. He has been captured and tricked plenty of times. I don't think that he qualifies for Implausible Fencing Powers.
 * Jeanne D Archetype: Deliberately invoked with - the church capitalizes on the idea of the beautiful peasant girl who killed a terrible monster and saved the land in order to get a biddable Empress.
 * Knight of Cerebus: In-universe; the stories involving goblins are explicitly said to always be very dark and never end happily.
 * Knight Templar: Sentinels, as well as most seret knights.
 * Meaningful Rename: Thrace Wood to.
 * Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Yep; though only one dwarf, Magnus, is a main character, he and his people fit the standard pretty well.
 * Our Elves Are Better: Full-blooded elves are nigh-immortal, masters of magic, and incredibly Badass- but they're also xenophobic and want little to do with humans . When most people in this world think of elves, they think of mir, mixes of human and elf blood who are at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
 * Our Goblins Are Different: The Ba Ran Ghazel.
 * Puppet King: Modina is a Puppet Empress; this works fine when she's essentially catatonic after her battle with the Gilarabrywn, but
 * Rebellious Princess: Arista.
 * Rags to Riches: Amilia goes directly from scullery maid to personal tutor, secretary, and confidant.
 * Also,  herself, who started out as being   until she killed an invincible monster and got hailed as the Heir of Novron..
 * Rags to Royalty: Thanks to, the Church didn't have much choice but to recognize her as.
 * Regent for Life: from Nyphron Rising through
 * Royal Brat: Around the beginning of The Crown Conspiracy, nineteen-year old Alric is... not exactly the picture of maturity.
 * Smart People Play Chess: Merrick is rather fond of the game and uses it at various points to explain his actions and/or make veiled threats.
 * Standard Fantasy Setting: There's no  Dark Lord or other evil threat, but otherwise a pretty straightforward one.
 * The Reason You Suck Speech: Of all people, Myron gives one to Mawyndule in the last book, basically telling him that his grand plan 900 years in the making
 * Utopia Justifies the Means: How rationalizes his actions.
 * Wacky Wayside Tribe