The archaeology rabbit holes that turned into a LitRPG
I've been writing a LitRPG called Ether Atlas. The System hits Earth and it turns out the infrastructure and the custodians were already here. We just didn't know about it.
The book started as a feeling and conjecture. The feeling is that our historical record has more holes than substance, and the holes are getting bigger as more digs come in. The conjecture was built around "What ifs". And D&D, but that's a different story.
Why did unrelated cultures across three continents describe the same energy channels in the human body, using different names but the same maps?
Why do megalithic sites built thousands of years apart, on opposite sides of the world, share identical mathematical ratios?
Why was Göbekli Tepe deliberately buried by the people who built it, ten thousand years ago?
Why do the Inca insist they didn't build the precision-fit walls of Saksaywaman, that the stones were already there?
Mainstream archaeology has answers for some of these. Well, answers might be stretching it. More like categories. "Ritual." "Trade contact." "Convergent evolution." If everyone is being honest, the real answer probably is "we don't know." Human civilisation is older, weirder, and more lost than the textbook would like you to believe.
I didn't realise how many of us, especially in the LitRPG and progression fantasy crowd, found these mysteries fascinating. I launched the book two weeks ago thinking it was a niche interest slapped onto a niche genre.
It hit Rising Stars and keeps climbing. I'm genuinely overwhelmed by the support. Turns out there are a lot more of us than I thought.
If the ancient mysteries rabbit hole hits you the way it hit me, you might find a few chapters worth your time.
Posted May 2, 2026, 1:59 PM UTC