Hold the Line
(2025)(The first book in the RPG Oathrunner series)
A novel by Bogdan Chugunov and Craig Zerf
A world breaks. A man doesn’t.
When the System drops and a HUD snaps into place—HP / STA / MP / EX—ex-Ranger Miles Kade doesn’t crown himself hero. He thinks about his mom’s last voicemail, his brother’s laugh, the way the road runs east. He’s got one rule for strangers and himself: keep people breathing.
Engines are dead. Fear isn’t. Miles discovers his busted Hummer runs on his MP and that every mile forces a choice: drive past or stop and pull someone out. He keeps stopping. Not because he wants followers—he doesn’t—but because a kid’s hand won’t let go, a fever won’t wait, a bridge won’t hold unless someone does. He chalks simple laws on doors—SINGLE FILE / NO LIGHTS—and turns chaos into a line that moves.
There’s progression—clean HUD, hard-earned skills, short ‘dungeon’ gates—but the heart is human: a clinic warmed for ten minutes that feels like hope; two cots carried in the dark; a town held through a blizzard because he refuses to quit; a dog named Ghost who chooses Miles before Miles chooses anyone.
He saves who he can. He leaves before anyone calls him captain. And he keeps driving east—for family, for sanity, for one more day people wake up warm.
Start Oathrunner RPG: Hold the Line today—gritty LitRPG with stakes you can feel, a hero who won’t wear a crown, and a story about keeping each other alive when it counts.
Genre: Science Fiction
When the System drops and a HUD snaps into place—HP / STA / MP / EX—ex-Ranger Miles Kade doesn’t crown himself hero. He thinks about his mom’s last voicemail, his brother’s laugh, the way the road runs east. He’s got one rule for strangers and himself: keep people breathing.
Engines are dead. Fear isn’t. Miles discovers his busted Hummer runs on his MP and that every mile forces a choice: drive past or stop and pull someone out. He keeps stopping. Not because he wants followers—he doesn’t—but because a kid’s hand won’t let go, a fever won’t wait, a bridge won’t hold unless someone does. He chalks simple laws on doors—SINGLE FILE / NO LIGHTS—and turns chaos into a line that moves.
There’s progression—clean HUD, hard-earned skills, short ‘dungeon’ gates—but the heart is human: a clinic warmed for ten minutes that feels like hope; two cots carried in the dark; a town held through a blizzard because he refuses to quit; a dog named Ghost who chooses Miles before Miles chooses anyone.
He saves who he can. He leaves before anyone calls him captain. And he keeps driving east—for family, for sanity, for one more day people wake up warm.
Start Oathrunner RPG: Hold the Line today—gritty LitRPG with stakes you can feel, a hero who won’t wear a crown, and a story about keeping each other alive when it counts.
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for Craig Zerf's Hold the Line