Dungeon Crawler Carl changed the conversation

Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl is difficult to ignore when looking at LitRPG's changing position.

The series began independently before Ace acquired print rights to its early installments, marking the Penguin Random House imprint's first LitRPG acquisition.

Its premise is unapologetically strange. Earth is transformed into a deadly intergalactic dungeon, and Carl enters it alongside his ex-girlfriend's prize-winning cat, Princess Donut. Survival means fighting monsters, gaining abilities and navigating increasingly elaborate game mechanics, all while an enormous alien audience watches the carnage as entertainment.

It sounds like something designed for a niche audience.

Instead, it became a New York Times bestselling series.

By 2026, Dungeon Crawler Carl had grown well beyond its self-published origins, with major print editions, a graphic novel adaptation and a television adaptation in development. The success demonstrated that readers unfamiliar with LitRPG terminology could embrace a story filled with the genre's mechanics when the characters and storytelling worked beyond the system surrounding them.

More importantly for publishers, it showed that an audience developed through independent and digital publishing could successfully cross into traditional bookstores.

And Dungeon Crawler Carl is no longer an isolated example.

Major publishers are picking up established LitRPG series

Penguin Michael Joseph acquired the first three books of Travis Deverell's He Who Fights with Monsters, written under the name Shirtaloon. Like many of the genre's biggest successes, the series developed an enormous following before attracting a major traditional publisher.

HarperVoyager followed with a deal for four books from pirateaba's sprawling The Wandering Inn.

That series is another example of why LitRPG developed so effectively outside conventional publishing. Beginning as a web serial, The Wandering Inn grew into an extraordinarily large fantasy narrative on a scale that would have been unusual for a new traditionally published series.

Now that unconventional history is an asset rather than an obstacle. Publishers are acquiring stories with established communities, proven reader engagement and years of material behind them.

The pattern resembles what has happened elsewhere in publishing with successful self-published romance and romantasy. Instead of assuming that online success belongs to a separate market, publishers are increasingly treating those audiences as evidence of commercial potential.

That movement is also visible in the way readers discover books. At Risingshadow, we are seeing readers follow LitRPG from one series to another rather than treating a breakout title as an isolated curiosity. The interest is increasingly in the genre itself: what else is available, which series are continuing, and what is coming next.

Will Wight's Overworld could bring another audience to LitRPG

Will Wight is a particularly interesting example.

Wight's Cradle series helped make progression fantasy considerably more visible, building a huge readership through independent publishing. His next project, Overworld, moves explicitly into LitRPG territory.

Scheduled for 2027 from Tor Books, Overworld follows a professional butler thrown into a fantasy world governed by game-like rules. It combines an author already strongly associated with progression fantasy with one of traditional fantasy publishing's most recognizable imprints.

That crossover matters.

LitRPG no longer needs to rely entirely on readers discovering obscure web serials or independently published ebooks and then learning what the genre is. Books marketed and distributed by major fantasy publishers can introduce its conventions to readers who may never have searched for the term "LitRPG" at all.

LitRPG is starting to move beyond adult fantasy

Perhaps the most revealing development is happening outside the genre's traditional audience.

In September 2026, Farshore acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Ryan Rimmel's Plus One Hatchet of Awesomeness, the beginning of a two-book middle-grade LitRPG fantasy series.

The first book is scheduled for May 2027, with a sequel planned for February 2028.

A children's publisher investing in LitRPG is notable because it suggests publishers are beginning to see the format as something broader than an adult digital-fiction phenomenon.

That possibility had already been circulating within the publishing industry. At the 2026 Bologna Children's Book Fair, literary agents and rights professionals identified LitRPG as an emerging category worth watching, particularly after the success of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and suggested its mechanics could translate naturally to younger audiences.

For a generation that has grown up with Minecraft, Roblox, RPGs and persistent online game worlds, the basic language of LitRPG hardly needs explaining. Levels, quests, inventories, abilities and upgrades are already familiar storytelling concepts.

The interesting question is what happens when publishers begin treating that familiarity as an advantage.

Why LitRPG works

Game mechanics alone do not explain the genre's growth.

At its best, LitRPG turns one of fantasy's oldest pleasures into something unusually visible: progression.

Traditional fantasy has always been filled with characters learning magic, finding powerful weapons and gradually becoming capable of confronting larger threats. LitRPG simply makes that development explicit.

A character does not merely become stronger. The reader can see how much stronger.

New skills unlock. Numbers increase. Equipment improves. Previously impossible enemies become manageable, only for the story to introduce something worse.

That creates a particularly effective narrative loop: challenge, progress, reward, greater challenge.

But the LitRPG stories escaping their original niche tend to offer something more than numbers. Dungeon Crawler Carl works because Carl and Donut are memorable characters and because its absurd humor sits beside surprisingly dark ideas about exploitation and entertainment. The Wandering Inn uses game-like mechanics inside an enormous character-driven fantasy world. He Who Fights with Monsters combines progression with adventure, comedy and a long-running central character arc.

The mechanics provide structure. The characters give readers a reason to keep watching the numbers go up.

The growing readership we see at Risingshadow suggests that this appeal is not confined to readers who arrived through gaming or web fiction either. LitRPG is increasingly sitting alongside epic fantasy, progression fantasy and other established branches of speculative fiction as something readers actively seek out rather than simply stumble across.

What happens next?

The next few years should reveal how deeply LitRPG establishes itself within mainstream fantasy publishing and how much its influence spreads into the broader progression fantasy market.

There are already reasons to watch beyond individual book deals.

More major publishers are experimenting with established LitRPG properties. Authors with large existing fantasy audiences are entering the space. Children's publishers are beginning to test the format with younger readers. Meanwhile, successful series are expanding into graphic novels and screen adaptations.

The genre's independent ecosystem is unlikely to disappear. In fact, that may remain one of its greatest strengths. Web fiction and self-publishing allow LitRPG authors to experiment with length, structure and publishing frequency in ways traditional publishing often cannot easily replicate.

But the boundary between those two worlds is becoming much less distinct.

From what publishers are acquiring to what readers are increasingly looking for, the direction is becoming difficult to miss. A few years ago, a fantasy reader could spend a lifetime in traditional bookstores without encountering the term LitRPG.

That is becoming increasingly difficult.

The numbers, quite literally, are going up.

Heartless Hunter could be particularly well suited to television

The first novel, Heartless Hunter, introduced Rune Winters, a witch living in a society where witches have gone from rulers to hunted outcasts following a revolution.

Publicly, Rune hides behind the persona of a frivolous young socialite. Secretly, she operates as the Crimson Moth, helping other witches escape persecution.

Her efforts eventually bring her into conflict with Gideon Sharpe, a committed witch hunter trying to discover the Crimson Moth’s identity. Rune attempts to manipulate Gideon by courting him for information, while Gideon has reasons of his own for getting close to her.

The resulting witch-and-witch-hunter relationship gave the series an immediately recognizable enemies-to-lovers premise, but the books also have the kind of political conflict, secret identities and escalating magical stakes that could give a television adaptation considerably more to work with than the central romance alone.

The series has also already demonstrated a substantial international audience. Both Heartless Hunter and its sequel Rebel Witch became major bestsellers, with Rebel Witch reaching number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

And that readership has now changed the future of the books themselves.

The Crimson Moth is no longer a duology

When Ciccarelli finished writing Rebel Witch, she believed she was saying goodbye to Rune and Gideon.

The author has explained that The Crimson Moth was genuinely planned as a two-book story. She had completed Rebel Witch before Heartless Hunter was published and before she knew how strongly readers would respond to the series.

That makes the next development considerably more interesting than a conventional sequel announcement.

Two additional Crimson Moth novels are now planned, extending the series to four books.

Wednesday Books will publish the new novels in North America, while HarperMagpie has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada. Rights to the continuation have also sold in numerous international territories.

The third novel is titled The Dark Descent.

The Dark Descent continues Rune and Gideon’s story in 2027

Rather than introducing a new generation of characters or telling a separate story in the same world, the third book continues directly with Rune and Gideon.

The official description reveals that Rune’s death and resurrection have changed her. Something dark is growing within her, while political pressure on witches intensifies and witches begin disappearing across the country.

Rune is also now married to Gideon, the former witch hunter whose relationship with her has driven much of the series.

At the same time, a foreign empire arrives offering protection to witches, forcing Rune into increasingly dangerous choices about the power she possesses and the person she wants to remain.

Wednesday Books lists the North American hardcover at approximately 400 pages. The publisher has also assigned ISBN 9781250456199 to the edition.

A cover reveal has not yet taken place, although Ciccarelli has confirmed that one is coming.

Book four already has a title

The continuation does not stop with The Dark Descent.

The fourth novel is titled The Deadly Duet.

HarperMagpie has confirmed that it acquired books three and four under those titles, meaning readers already know the name of the next installment even before The Dark Descent reaches bookstores.

Far less is known about The Deadly Duet. A publication date and full synopsis have not yet been announced, so any details about where Rune and Gideon’s story goes after book three remain firmly under wraps.

For a series that was considered complete after two books, however, its trajectory now looks very different.

There are two more novels ahead, and a television adaptation is actively being developed at the same time.

What to watch next

The biggest question surrounding the TV adaptation is who, if anyone, buys it.

A studio or streaming deal would move The Crimson Moth into a much more concrete stage of development. After that, the major milestones would be a series order, casting for Rune and Gideon, a director, production dates and eventually a release window.

On the book side, the next major reveal should be the cover for The Dark Descent. More information about The Deadly Duet, particularly its publication date and synopsis, should follow as the expanded series moves forward.

What began as a completed two-book romantasy has suddenly become a much larger franchise.

For The Crimson Moth, it appears that Rebel Witch was not the ending after all.

Was there always another Redwall novel?

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the story is that evidence of another Brian Jacques manuscript has existed for years.

In 2010, Penguin ran a competition that allowed a reader to name a character who was expected to appear in an upcoming Redwall novel. The winning character was Reisa Kartwell, described as a haremaiden and cartographer associated with Salamandastron.

But when The Rogue Crew appeared, Reisa was nowhere to be found.

That left Redwall readers with an unresolved question. Had Jacques been planning another novel?

The appearance of Orphans of Mossflower more than fifteen years later provides a possible answer.

Exactly what condition the manuscript was in when Jacques died remains unclear. There has not yet been a detailed publisher announcement explaining whether Jacques completed the novel, whether it has subsequently been edited or completed by others, or how much work remained on the manuscript.

Those details could become one of the most interesting parts of the story once the publisher formally introduces the book.

What is Orphans of Mossflower about?

For now, very little has been revealed about the story itself.

There is no full official synopsis available, and even the significance of the title remains open to interpretation. Mossflower Woods is at the heart of the Redwall world, with Redwall Abbey itself located there, so the title immediately places the novel close to the series' most familiar setting.

There is also the long-standing mystery surrounding Reisa Kartwell.

Information associated with the old character competition suggested that Reisa's skills as a cartographer would become important when Redwall came under attack and its inhabitants needed to reach Salamandastron quickly.

Whether that storyline belongs to Orphans of Mossflower has not been officially established, but its existence makes the discovery of another Jacques novel particularly intriguing.

It would also explain why a character announced before Jacques' death never appeared in The Rogue Crew.

A remarkably late final chapter for Redwall

Posthumous books are hardly unknown in fantasy, but Orphans of Mossflower is unusual simply because of how much time has passed.

A generation of readers has spent more than fifteen years believing that The Rogue Crew was the final journey into Jacques' world. Now, just as Redwall approaches another major anniversary, a book whose existence may have been hinted at before the author's death appears ready to emerge.

The biggest unanswered question is therefore not simply what happens in Orphans of Mossflower. It is the story of the manuscript itself.

How much did Jacques complete? Where has it been since 2011? Was it always intended to follow The Rogue Crew? And does Reisa Kartwell finally make the appearance that readers were promised more than a decade ago?

Those answers may tell us almost as much about Orphans of Mossflower as its eventual synopsis.

What to watch for next

The next major step should be a detailed announcement from Penguin, particularly confirmation of the manuscript's history and how the final text was prepared for publication.

A synopsis, cover, ISBN and preorder listings should also provide a much clearer picture of the novel as its September 2027 publication approaches.

For now, though, the most important news is also the simplest: after more than fifteen years without a new Redwall novel, Mossflower may have one final story waiting for readers.