Schema are a strange concept to the mortal mind I have found. They are a framework and a category, yet different. They are in a way an area of expertise, a collection of things you know intimately and broadly without necessarily containing every entity that might fall within its purview. My own first choice contained two I felt overlapped, yet on future reflection I realised they did not.

You may now select a Free Schema.

This does not use a Schema Slot and the first created creature from this Schema will gain a special trait or blessing.

Creations made from a Schema have their costs greatly reduced. You may gain further Schemas from your own creations or by absorbing the bodies of vanquished invaders.

Kobold [Common]

Simple creatures of low cunning and intelligence, they occupy the lowest rungs of sapience. They can learn basic skills and will naturally create their own hierarchy of basic specialists as their population grows. Additionally, they bear a weak draconic bloodline that allows great variety in their evolutions.

Minor Golem [Common]

Constructs of base materials, golems are indefatigable and relentless minions. Once given a task, a golem will not stop until the task is completed, countermanded or the golem is destroyed. Minor golems are not sentient or sapient however but may gain evolutions with some autonomy.

Ratfolk [Common]

Crude, cowardly and mean all fail to describe these lowest of sapients. Above all is their relentless hunger, never being truly sated. This hunger is not merely for food but also for power, wealth, control and every other desire. This drives their creativity and evolved ratfolk can adapt to any environment or crisis.

Lizardfolk [Uncommon]

Coldblooded and singleminded, these sapients are tough and resilient bipedal reptilians that form close knit communities. Their evolutions yield little variety of choice, with each evolution forming a set tier of their caste societies.

Goblin [Uncommon]

Small, grotesque creatures of deceptive cunning and intelligence. Though short lived and weak compared to many other sapients, goblins use their numbers and creativity to their advantage. Born with an affinity for tools, within a few generations a goblin tribe will develop basic industry and assault their foes with rudimentary weapons and traps. Goblin evolutions are simple but provide excellent utility to their tribe.

Rock worm [Rare]

Environmental Modifier: [Uncommon]

Burrowing limbless monsters, rock worms consume rock and dirt for precious elements. Unintelligent and blind, they are nevertheless fearsome as their scales grow harder the more they eat and their excretions contain rare gems and metals compacted to useable size. Their evolutions are powerful and dangerous entities shaped by their consumption that make excellent Bosses.

Secret Conditions met! Unique opportunity granted:

Revenant [Extremely Rare]

Revenants are a rare form of spectre, ethereal apparitions that retain the sapience and knowledge they had in life. Most importantly, imbued with the magic of a Dungeon Core they can still interact with physical objects and retain the ability to learn and create. Creating a Revenant requires the remains of a sapient of great will. Their evolutions are rare and shaped by the individual Revenant, some of the most powerful and versatile in a Dungeon’s arsenal.

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The decision seemed obvious at first but I forced myself to hesitate. Revenants were a powerful and versatile minion, an excellent choice with their ability to create and communicate coupled with their ethereal nature giving them excellent defence against most attacks. However, while I had found the remains of several dwarfs in my new domain there was no guaranteeing if they met the prerequisites. ‘A Sapient of Great Will’ was an indefinable property with the information I had at hand. I could no doubt be assured of raising some small handful but even if I could raise all eighty three, my supply was then exhausted.

I also didn’t know how raising the Revenants would interact with my consuming of their fossils and I dearly wanted that banquet of experience. No, Revenants I must set aside. Besides, I had already decided against becoming a dedicated realm of undeath so choosing undead as my first Schema felt imprudent. Still, refusing a unique opportunity...the pain of giving up an option I may never have again was almost physical.

Kobolds and Lizardfolk at first seemed very similar, coldblooded bipedal reptiles that started weak, growing their societies naturally and evolving along specialised lines. It was the draconic bloodline of the Kobolds that I realised was the difference, signifying their origin. One was draconic, adaptable and weak at early stages but capable of growing into powerful and unique entities. The other were simply intelligent reptiles, mundane in origin rather than containing the potential and magic of dragons within them. Both I set aside, the Lizardfolk for their lack of variety and the Kobolds for the uncertainty of their ability to learn. It felt odd to specify they could learn basic skills, as though they could not learn more complex subjects even at later levels.

The Rock Worm I pondered on for some time but ultimately declined. Perhaps a future schema to pick up but an unintelligent Schema for a Bastion of Artifice was definitely ill advised. With an environmental modifier, it was likely I would once again encounter them and have the opportunity to acquire their Schema. Likewise the Golems, for I lacked the ability to directly control my creations. How then could I set anything but the most vague and basic of tasks?

The decision then was between Ratfolk and Goblins. Neither appealed, in truth. Crude, low creatures, weak and frail. Both had great adaptability and inventiveness, questioning my innate knowledge gave me visions of strange contraptions but there was no beauty to them. The dwarfs who had first crafted the chamber I was birthed in I felt were enemies of both, their own dwellings crude and ramshackle. I did not wish to be surrounded by squalor, to house nests within my walls of fickle, squabbling near beasts that sullied the great labour that had raised them. It was this that decided me, the Ratfolk were hungry and guided only by a lust for more. Goblins had an affinity for tools and tools I had aplenty. Perhaps goblins could learn to imitate their betters, if guided and allowed to do so.

You have selected Goblin [Uncommon] for your first Schema.

Having chosen your Core Archetype and first Schema, you are granted a Dungeon Guide and Name.

You are now Sedurzefon, the Emerald Fountain, a level 1 Bastion of Artifice.

You may now shape your first Dungeon Chamber and access your stats at any time.

The name rang in my mind, giving me a truly defined sense of self for the first time. The rings around my core turned and changed once more and I knew my name was now an intrinsic part of me, indelible and inseparable. I no longer simply was, I was me, Sedurzefon. The Emerald Fountain in mortal tongues, my true name I knew better than to share. If the Warlord above attempted to claim my domain now, he would receive a warning similar to that I received, that he sought to contest The Emerald Fountain. Admittedly not the most intimidating name but it was mine, I liked it, I would embody it and I would earn the fear and trepidation it would one day instil in others. So I promised myself, in my naivety.

My memory bloomed anew, my Dungeon Guide manifesting itself. The flood of knowledge was overwhelming, familiar somehow that highlighted how alien the dwarf’s had been. It encompassed and surpassed me, I felt my mana surging in response, my light blazing in my Core Room. It built to a splitting pressure in a heartbeat and released in an exhausting expenditure of mana to become -

A single thick slab of polished serpentine, carved with runes so tightly packed even my light could not define them. The writing seemed to twist and writhe, as though it overlapped, each rune carved over the next like a fractal, like an infinite number of pages all carved into the same face. My Dungeon Guide appeared, elegant in it’s form and simplicity, infinite in it’s contents. I knew as I observed it that here lay everything I needed to become a truly terrible edifice. Not some wayward spirit was my Guide, residing in my mind to answer questions, no. Mine was a tome, knowledge to be read and comprehended, to be interpreted by my own great intellect and turned to my goals and ambitions. It would serve to guide me as I learned the histories and secrets of other Dungeons, this was truly the key to my inevitable victory over this place.

That beautiful stone appeared, a literal gift from the gods, exactly two metres, sixteen centimetres and four millimetres in the air where it hung for a moment before gravity, clearly my most relentless and eternal of foes, ordained her singular law upon it. At which point it fell cleanly to the ground and shattered into four unequal pieces and a small cloud of dust.

My horror was epitomised by a word I had just learned and now vocalised with the last of my mana to an empty room.

“FUCK”