Lords of Dragon Keep

"Give me the incredibly short summary of what the hell is going on, please. The kind you could fit into a movie trailer." "You're trapped in a video game world based on a hack dark fantasy author's rip-off of better books." "Uh huh. Maybe you could be a bit more detailed." Aragorn "Aaron" Bartkowski was a programmer working at Epic DungeoneeringTM, the world's largest fantasy video game company. Much to his surprise, he was selected to pick up the latest manuscript from reclusive author Larry C.C. Weis. Weis had been working on his newest book for over a decade and the good folk at Aaron's company had dibs on adapting it. Unfortunately, Weis was also a wizard and sent Aaron to the world that inspired his books.

Aaron proceeded to find himself in a Slavic mythology themed world where he's believed to be Weis' main character, Garland of Nowhere. Equipped with the powers of a RPG protagonist, Aaron must accumulate experience and equipment while navigating a setting that seems worse off than Game of Thrones and Dark Souls put together.

LORDS OF DRAGON KEEP is a LitRPG progression fantasy isekai that takes the grim out of grimdark with biting humor as well as intelligent exploitation of the rules. It has excellent world-building, a great supporting cast, a bit of romance, and lots of laughs. Oh and there's a talking raven.