Delver vol. 1

Oddgoat was originally home to just the Aster family and their goats.  Living was hard on the plains, but they got by.  Until the day that an entrance to the Dungeon spawned into the bottom of their storehouse.  Now Delvers, people who explore the Dungeon to find fame and fortune, have come from far and wide to take advantage of this development.  This benefits the Aster family a bit at first, but as Oddgoat turns into a proper dungeon-diving town the family’s fortunes start to sour.  Temerity “Merit” Aster is disgusted by this as her family is threatening to split up over the complications that the Dungeon and the Delvers have brought to their life.  Which is why she’s set to delve into the Dungeon to get a piece of the action for herself.  With only a few days of swordsmanship training and a down-on-his-luck elven mage named Clem supporting her, what can go wrong?

Squint and you’ll be able to see some of the outside-the-box thinking about fantasy storytelling that drives “Delicious in Dungeon” in “Delver” as well.  Its initial focus on the socio-economic hardships that impact the Aster family after a dungeon portal manifests in their basement is unique and eventually provides a proper motivation for its protagonist to venture inside.  The actual dungeon exploring is satisfyingly intense as well once it becomes clear that Merit and Clem are in way over their heads here.  Co-writers MK Reed and C. Spike Trotman do a good job of ramping up the action here and providing interesting complications for Merit’s journey as well.  It all leads to a fittingly dramatic climax that has me interested in seeing where the story goes from here.

I’d be genuinely excited about seeing where things go if “Delver” had better art to support it, however.  Clive Hawken provides art that’s capable but unexciting as it showcases small-town fantasy life early on.  Things get better once we get into the Dungeon and we see that he has a design sense that effectively realizes the setting’s weirdness on the page.  Yet there’s precious little invention or style to really draw the reader in and make me want to recommend this to everyone.  It’s a case where the people who are going to get the most out of this volume are ones who will be most willing to look past its visual shortcomings.