 Hello there! Today we're here to talk about Orca-nomics, or actually the series is called The Dark Prophet Saga, that's Prophet with an F, but Orca-nomics is a little snappier, rolls off the tongue a little better. And plus this isn't the whole series because only the first two books are out, but you know, we're here to talk about it. Also this will probably be my last video that I ever filmed in this room because I'm moving in a few days, so after the review we're going to do a quick room tour, so let's do that. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. It is so easy to look at Orca-nomics and think that you know everything about it and everything about what it'll be like from the start, you know, from very early on. You know, you think there will be jokes, particularly jokes at the expense of the fantasy genre as a whole and tabletop RPGs. You think there'll be crazy zamy antics from the characters, you think there'll be RPG references, and yeah, all of that is true. All of that is there in spades, but there is so, so much more here, like so much more than I was expecting. I went into this expecting a quick laugh, but there's so much stuff here. Like it is a very, very rich story. I mean, it is rich in humor. It's genuinely hilarious, a couple of books. It is rich in character. All of them are pretty amazing. It has stellar, stellar prose. Like there's so much personality in almost every line, especially the dialogue, and there's a perfect mix of dialogue and narration and everything. It's great. It has a very detailed world. It is, you know, kitchen sink fantasy, so basically everything that you can throw in there is thrown in there, you know, elves, humans, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, orcs, magic, undead, necromancers, like anything you can think of that plays a role in high fantasy, it's in there somewhere. It has a very, very heartfelt story. Like, you know, it's not just an excuse for cheap jokes and laughs. Like it really gets to you at a few points. And it has some surprisingly biting social commentary. Like I really mean that. You know, based on the title and the premise, you might think, okay, it's like poking fun at business and economics. And yeah, that's there. But it's surprisingly deep when you stop to think about it. And like, yeah, it really does point out a lot of serious flaws with some of these things, but it also points out flaws in like governance. And it has, like I said, some meta humor about RPGs as a whole, but also like the sort of people who look just for pure escapism and this sort of thing. Like, it is surprisingly biting. It really is. And overall, I just have very, very little to complain about here. The basic setup here is that it takes place in this realm called the Freedlands, which like I said has all sorts of magical stuff there, a bunch of different races live inside by side. And the Freedlands in the past used to be kind of a tumultuous place. Like there was a lot of war, there were forces of evil going around, there were Dark Lords, all that sort of thing. But that's all in the past, they've all pretty much been defeated. And so things are much more peaceful now. And one of the largest organizations in the Freedlands is the Heroes Guild, or its official name is actually Adventure Capital Incorporated, which I'm ashamed of how hard I laughed at that. Like several of the company names in these books are great. Like there's a bank called JP Gorgon, and there's a weapons company called Plus Five, which I don't know, I'm a child, but those made me laugh a lot. But the Heroes Guild exists and it's run like an actual company. You know, it's a joke that I've seen before, but I haven't seen it done nearly this well. Like what if adventuring companies were run like actual companies? But in this case, it has like actual stockholders and investors and stuff, which like you wouldn't expect to see in a fantasy world, but it's there. See, the basic idea behind it is like let's say there's a monster that's terrorizing people and hoarding a bunch of treasure that it steals from them. You want a band of heroes to go and fight them. But those heroes, before they can go fight them, they need to buy like equipment and stuff in order to do it, and they also need to get paid. So what do they do? They find investors and people will pay the money, which they use to buy equipment and everything in exchange for a share of the loot. And so there's a lot of money in this. Like they kill the monster, they take the loot, they divide it up amongst themselves, and then there's like entire industries built up around this. You know, like there's inns and companies that sell stuff to heroes and people that guide them and give them advice on their travels and all sorts of stuff that they need is built up around them. And you might be thinking to yourself, this sounds kind of unsustainable because it's not actually creating wealth, it's just moving it around. You know, you slay a dragon, take his horde, all that's doing is changing who has control of that treasure and of that horde. So that's not really helping anything, and you'd be correct. And it's actually even worse than that because with so many, with the heroes guild being so big and with so many bands of heroes roaming around and killing all these monsters, the monsters don't really have time to, I don't know, they don't have time to attack as many towns and gather up as much loot as they used to. So their hordes of loot are getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And on top of that, the Freedlands have this system where there's Shadowkin and Lightkin basically. And Shadowkin are people that are just considered evil by default, like orcs and goblins and such, which is obviously horribly racist. And we learn pretty quick in the books, like, okay, that's not true, orcs and them are, they're fine, they're generally fine people. But they're considered foes, forces of evil, like by default. However, if they don't want to be targeted by the heroes guild or anything, because it like heroes can just kill them and take their stuff without consequence, then they can arrange to become noncombatants. And so they just go to a government office, fill out some paperwork. They declare that they don't have a criminal history, you know, that sort of thing. And then they get their noncombatant papers and they become noncombatant paper carriers or NPCs. There's so many little jokes like that spread in these books, it just, it gets me. But you know, more and more Shadowkin are becoming NPCs and just entering society and getting regular jobs and stuff. And so they can't attack them and take their stuff either. So like, loot yields are going down, down, down. And from pretty early in the first book, it's mentioned that this is not sustainable and something's got to change. And the way that the people in power go about it and try changing it, I'm not going to get away here, but it makes sense. And it's pretty dark. And it, I mean, it's one of those things where, like I said, it's biting social satire. Like, when industries and companies can no longer grow organically, they tend to cannibalize themselves. But that's just the setup for the world, though. The actual story here follows a guy named Gorm Ingersen. Now Gorm is a dwarf who was a really famous hero, like 20 years before the story begins. But he got in trouble for cowardice during the quest. And he was banished from the guild, he was banished from the dwarven kingdoms, banished from his clan, all that stuff. And so now he's basically just abandoned. Like, he lives rough on the road, he occasionally robs people. And pretty early in the story, he winds up getting roped into a quest with a whole bunch of other misfits. Like, there's a whole party of like seven or eight people that none of whom want to be there. And none of whom really fit into society because of one reason or another. And they all kind of get strong armed into going on a quest together. The quest is that there are these marble statues that were created by orcs like thousands and thousands of years ago. And at some point they were stolen by elves. And then at some point the elves lost these and they're just gone somewhere. And in order to try and prevent any sort of war or civil strife from breaking out, Gorm and his party are sent to go find these statues. And they're called the Elven Marbles, by the way. And it's a point of contention as to whether they belong to the elves or the orcs. But if there's any Greeks in the audience, I'm sure you have very strong opinions on who they belong to all of a sudden. This feels like the setup to a D&D campaign. And I think that's deliberate. And to go along with that, pretty much every character feels like an archetype at first. You know, you have the weapons master who never talks and is just super stoic all the time, but he's actually really tortured inside. You have the dark and brooding evil wizard. You have the horny bard. You have the dumb goblin. But not only are these characters all likable, you know, they all have some funny lines to them, even the ones that seem more serious or the ones that don't talk have funny moments to them. They all have surprising depth too, especially in the second book. Like, in the first one, none of them really get their arcs explored that much other than Gorm and the goblin Glebeck. But in the second book, they do all get their own storylines. Like, I think that's one of the few problems with this series so far is that the middle section of the second book, the story really stops and it just switches over to going over all the party members' individual stories and like going into their past and their tortured histories and why they are the way they are and blah blah blah. And none of this is bad, but it does go on longer than it needs to. But what I mean by they all have surprising depth and they all do break out of their archetypes is that, for example, Harald in the horny bard, you know, he is horny, he has sex with everything that moves, but it's made clear after a while that, like, okay, he does that because he doesn't really have friends or family outside of this party and now that he's adventuring with these guys and getting connected to them, he finally has that and the life he leads where he's just wandering by himself and having sex with strangers all the time that is empty after a while. You know, that's the only one I'm going to go into now. And I mean, like I said, they're all likable, especially Glebeck the Goblin, who I just love, isn't it? His name isn't actually Glebeck, but that's what he's called for most of the books. So that's what I'm referring to him as here. My only real complaint about the characters is that the villains are kind of weak. You know, none of them stand out as particularly interesting in terms of motivation or personality. Most of them don't even seem that threatening. Like the only one that seems like a genuine threat to the heroes is Ditar, who is the Lich mentioned in the second book because the second book is called Son of a Lich. You know, not really a spoiler to say there's one there. But yeah, he actually does feel powerful and feel like a threat to the heroes, but it never feels overwhelming. You know, we're never really wondering how are they going to beat him. And in terms of like his personality and everything, he's pretty bland compared to all these other characters. You know, he doesn't really get funny lines or anything. He's just, you know, he's there and he mostly talks about how evil he is and how he wants to be evil. And then there's other villains like Johan the Mighty, who just like, yeah, they serve their purpose, I guess, but, you know, they don't feel intimidating. They don't have interesting motivations. Their personalities aren't that great. They're just, they're fine, I guess, you know. And the one defense I can offer of some of these is that maybe they're meant more to represent the system. You know, like they individually aren't evil. They're just a focal point for the way everyone lives, like this business system and this economic system and the way the government works and all that. Like maybe that's how it's supposed to be. But whatever the case is, they're just, they're not that interesting. Now, the story here is just great. Like it just is. It's basically a series of misadventures to characters trying to reach a goal. And that's both books. Like in both books from pretty early on, the characters have a clear goal they're working towards, and everything else is just a series of stuff trying to get to there. Like they get into fights with bandits and lizard men and stuff like that, but they also go on heists where they try to break into vaults and banks and stuff and steal things. They have long periods of travel. They have conversations where they just try to convince bad guys to help them out or to give them something. But no matter what, shenanigans will always ensue. And it's always really fun and the characters have to not only fight their way out but think their way out. They almost never go through things just using brute force. It's like a really good D&D campaign, like I said. And it does get dark later, I'll say that. Like near the end of the first book, it gets surprisingly dark. Not because it gets really graphic out of nowhere, like in terms of violence or just throwing in a bunch of sexual assaults or anything like that. It just, it's so unfair what happens and it makes you feel a crushing despair of this world and what it's like to live there for at least for some people, some of the time. And I don't know how to describe it without going into a lot of detail, but it is just an awful thing when it happens. And normally I don't like it when books get really dark out of nowhere, but in this case, it's not out of nowhere. It is hinted at and built up towards pretty much from the beginning. And so once it gets really dark, it actually makes perfect sense why it would turn out that way. And so even though it feels like the floor drops out from under you, you can't, it makes perfect sense in hindsight. The humor here is also great, which is kind of important when we're talking about series where humor is this important to it. But I mean, in all sorts of different ways, like the absurdities of the world it takes place in are mentioned, characters have like banter going back and forth. There's a couple of side characters who have like weird gimmicks to them, but they're never overused. So it's still really funny. And there's, I don't know, there's stuff that you just wouldn't expect that makes sense and does work and move the story forward and all that. But it's just really funny to hear about it in a fantasy world. Like, for example, in the second book, a major plot point is that there's a liquidity crisis and a bunch of banks go out of business. Like, that that is an actual thing that happens. There's an economic crisis, which is caused in part by all of the shenanigans of the villains and everything. And like, again, it works really well as something to happen in the story and it does move things forward. But it's weird that it's in a fantasy world and you know, that sort of thing just makes you laugh. And speaking of the world, like I said, it's a kitchen sink world, you know, everything high fantasy is thrown in there in a big blender so that it's just, you know, you can enjoy it all. But it is still unique, partially because of like the way it all comes together and the way that all these different cultures and races and everything interact off of one another. Like, for example, there's a bunch of different types of gnomes, including wood gnomes and some of them like really hate each other, just as an example. But on top of that, there's like this huge focus on economics and finance and business, like I said. And for the most part, it is explained in such a way where even if you aren't super knowledgeable about this sort of thing, you should probably be able to understand it. But and it doesn't go into like extreme, extreme detail, trust me, don't worry about that. But by just having this focus on a part of the world, which is usually neglected in world building, especially fantasy world building, it makes it feel really unique and really different and lived in, even though I've seen pretty much all of these tropes before. It's like, I don't know, it's weird. I of course cannot forget about the prose here. Like the way that these books are written is just, it's just phenomenal. You know, like it has the perfect blend of narration and dialogue, which I think I said earlier. All the characters just from the way they speak, you can usually tell who it is. They're just, there's so much great stuff there. It's full of so many like little jokes, great descriptors, things that really just pull you in. And I love it. And one thing I do have to mention, which I think is great is the transitions between different scenes. Like they always, even though it goes from like characters who are hundreds of miles apart and doing totally different things or talking about totally different things, it manages to keep the same theme going from place to place. Like, for example, there's one scene where our character is talking to the king and he thinks he's gone insane. And there's a line that says something like, the only reason the king could be planning to do the thing was very simple. And it was hiding behind his eyes as he looked into them. And then it cuts to the next scene where a character just goes, this is madness. What are you talking about blah, blah, blah. And so you realize, okay, it's the same thing, even though they're totally separate scenes. It's like, and that's done a lot of times throughout these books, I don't know how long it would take the author to write that and come up with it and be able to arrange all the scenes in such a way. But he did a great job of it. What else is there to say? I freaking love these books. I'm eagerly awaiting the finale. Like, it's been over four years now. So hopefully, the last book will come out sometime soon. It's supposed to be called Dragon Fired, which I don't know that that that excites me, you know, I'm eagerly awaiting the finale. And I really have nothing else to complain about. So yeah, if you like fantasy of any sort, I would check out Orcanomics and Son of a Lich. Like, even if you only like Grimdark, there's some stuff here that might appeal to you. I don't know. But yeah, that's about all for the review. I freaking love these books. You should check them out, especially if you're any sort of fantasy fan. We're gonna go into the room tour real quick. If you don't want to watch that, then just be sure to rate the video, comment and subscribe, and say goodbye to this lovely background and these walls around me because we're, you're not gonna be seeing them anymore. All right, so the tour. It's not going to be as impressive as maybe you hoped because a lot of my stuff is already packed up and it's, you know, gonna be on its way out in a couple of days. But I may as well go over some of it. So you can see wall behind me, like I had these dampeners, like I'm sitting on my bed right now. And over there we got the YouTube plaque over here. We have my Berserk poster with guts and griffith crossing swords. I bought that at an anime convention a few years ago. Like I think 2019 is when I bought it. I don't remember. And then this Japan samurai banner that was a gift from my brother back when he was stationed in Japan. And if you're wondering about the walls, like I did mention on stream a little while ago that the walls were painted by the people who lived here before I did and I've just never bothered getting rid of it. But I mean, I don't particularly care about it, which is why I feel fine covering it up with posters and stuff. But yeah, the wall behind me, I don't think you can really see it with everything covering up, covering it up. But like it's actually Pac-Man. And then over on this side is the Red Ghost, which I don't even think you can see on camera right now because it's just so covered up. But you might be able to see a little bit of him here. So it's Pac-Man getting chased and then he's eating some of the little yellow dots and there's a message from FM of Death, which I don't know, I can't really read it, their handwriting is shit. And then over here, we just have my headboard on top of my bed. There's not much here to talk about, like lamp. I do have this little statue, which was a gift from my friend when he visited Peru, like it's kind of cool because it has a knife inside. It's like the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life and I loved it. And then I just got some stuff that I should probably get framed, but I just never have. I have like a little small ornament katana, some signed posters from like cons and stuff over the years, like you can see the stack of them here. Man, I just, I have a bad habit of like collecting stuff that's meant to be displayed and then not displaying it properly. Now if you've been watching my channel for more than a couple of years, you remember that before I started just sitting on my bed all the time because I was doing really long videos where I didn't want to stand. I would just stand in front of my display of books on top of my dresser, which are not here because they're already packed up in boxes and shit now. But yeah, just my dresser with all my books and everything. And then it's a closet, you know, it's got clothes and shit, nothing impressive. I do have Terraforming Mars, the board game, which is a very fun game, you should check that out. And then over here, we have my smaller bookshelf, which you can kind of see at the corner of it at least in some of my videos where I'm sitting on my bed. But again, those are all packed up here. I have a folded flag and some stuff from my dad's time in the Air Force. That's, he didn't have an estate when he died. So that's like pretty much everything he had to his name was sitting right here on top of this dresser. And then I think, and then some of you might be wondering what this is. It's not a guitar case. It's a sword actually. Ta-da! Look at that. They are trying to get it all in camera at the same time. Can't really do it. But you see, it's a long sword. And I got it from Purple Heart Armory. If you're curious, like it's, it's blunted. It's not going to cut you or anything. You can even see the tip is rounded there. So it's not going to stab anything. But I could have gotten the leather grip, but those wear out pretty quick. So I just figured they'd get the corded one. And I figured get it green because like, why not? Stands out a bit more, you know? And nothing that's special about it. It is still in pretty good condition because I haven't gotten to use it in practice as much as I wish. Like, you know, I banged it against other ones. But over time, you get like a lot of nicks and stuff in there. And you got to sharpen them out. So the blade just doesn't look as shiny and nice. But it still looks really shiny and nice right now. All right. I gotta be really careful maneuvering because there's like a stack of boxes here. It's like just off camera, but it's like up to my waist. Just boxes blocking the door. So these are some more of my posters. Lights kind of reflecting off of Zuko here. I don't even know what's showing up. But there, how about that? There you go. You can see it now. It's honor. Those other two down there are actually maps. And those are, those were kind of a pain to put. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to take them off. But they're maps which I bought, I think, from lordofmaps.com. But basically, this one's Colorado and this one's the United States of America. But they're done in the style of Ward of the Rings maps. So they look like fantasy maps. They're really cool. These are belts from when I did Taekwondo, but that was a long time ago. So I don't really do it anymore. This scarf, I don't even know where it came from, but I have it. And then it's like just out of frame. But up here that's just a pencil drawing one of my friends made of Borderlands years and years ago. And actually, yeah, I've had that for a long time now that I'm thinking about it. So this is the view directly across from my bed. Like this is basically what I'm looking at when I film all my videos. Like here, like this is just my TV. There's the thing that's sitting on top of what shelf, whatever it's called. And then I got like my PS5 and games and stuff. But like I said, a lot of them are all packed up by now. You can see it actually says loading on the wall behind me. Again, I didn't paint it. People who lived here before I did painted it. So that's why I have like the blankets and stuff for sound dampening because this area is just really echoey and my sound quality was shit for a while. And let's just scooch over a little. You can see like again, there's a weapons rack with like staff and a screamer stick and stuff. And then another blanket there to dampen sound. I couldn't think of the word dampen for a second. All right. And this should be the last part of the tour. This is my desk. You know, this is where I sit and type up scripts and edit videos and shit. And I really just have a laptop. I don't have like an actual rig setup, which is if you're wondering why I don't scream very often. That's the main reason why. I have a little cardboard cut out of Danny DeVito here, just chilling. And again, like normally this is much messier, but I just have so much stuff already packed up and good to go that it's, you know, I look like less of a, like I live in less of a pigsty than I really do. And then, yes, there is a painting here. It's like a cityscape. And there's a couple of dudes standing in the middle and they're surrounded by what's supposed to be zombie hordes. And there's a message on top. I don't even think it's, yeah, you can't see it on camera, but it says, if you are reading this, you are being lazy. Go outside and do something. Signed counter strike puppy dog. All right. That's cool. And actually I should mention that over on the other wall over there behind the rack where I put my belts, there's a bunch of hand prints, presumably from the people that painted this. So yeah, that was about it. People have just been asking for that for a while. I've just never felt the need to do it. But this room is really as much of a part of the channel as I am now that I'm thinking about it, you know, because I've been on YouTube almost six years now, or rather I've been here regularly almost six years now, because I did have a couple of videos from before I started as a booktuber, but those are like 2014, 2015 maybe. And they're deleted. They're gone forever. I don't have them anymore. Nothing that special really was just me talking about manga a little bit. But yeah, like this pretty much the whole channel has been just in this small little space. And other than a couple of shots I was able to get in other rooms or where I went outside or something. But I don't do that very often. So pretty much everything here has been in this very, very small room. I find myself getting weirdly nostalgic and kind of weirdly attached to this area all of a sudden. But I mean, at the same time I'm going to have more space soon. And if there's anything I know about people on the internet, they love change. And no one will ever throw a fit about me having a wall background that's a different color or something. But you know, whatever the case is, I don't think I'd be able to afford this if it weren't for the support of all you guys. So thank you really from the bottom of my heart. And just say a quick goodbye to my room. Goodbye. Bye. I mean, yeah, I don't really have a strong thing to close on here. Just thanks again. Rate the video, comment, subscribe, all that stuff. And I'll see you later. Goodbye. Oh my goodness, people are still watching this. I'm not sure why I thought most people clicked away before the credits started. But yeah, these are all my Patreon people. And my $10 up patrons are Appo Savilane and Olivia Rayan, Brother Santotis, Buffy Valentine, Carolina Clay, Dan Anceliovich, Dark King, Don, Dio, Echo, Flax, Carcat Kitsune, Lexi DeLorm, Liza Rudikova, Lord Tiebreaker, Microphone, Mistboy, Peep the Toad, Robi Reviews, Ruby Ishmael, Sad Martigan, Celia the Vixen, Stone Stairs, Tesla Shark, Vaivictus and Wesley. All of you are great. And if you want your name on here, then consider becoming a patron. You get early access to my videos as well. It's a great deal, I promise. And if you don't want to do that, you know, you can always subscribe to the channel, like this video, comment on it so it goes around. Or, you know, becoming a YouTube channel member. That's cool too. Follow all my socials and stuff, which are linked below. I'll see you. Goodbye.