“Create Custom Race”

The words on the bottom box called to me, the idea of making my character truly my own was igniting a fire in me. Full creative freedom. I felt like I was given the ability to dictate the exact dimension of a sculpture, and my sculpting material was an entire mountain.

“There are several developer races for you to choose from, the full list is on your left.”(System)

I glanced briefly to my left and saw a tall box with race names in a top-down list format, the name in the middle of the box was highlighted and read “Human”. I turned my attention back to the “Create Custom Race” box.

“If you don’t want to use a developer race you can select the [Random Race] button and you have the chance to get a player created race. If you don’t like the thought of randomizing your chances then simply scroll across the races in front of you until you find one you like. Alternatively you may create your own custom race that will be added to the list for future players to select.”(System)

I pressed the “Create Custom Race” box. Everything vanished except the figure directly in front of me, several windows popped up with various pieces of information. I took a look at the window in front of me, the largest one.

Name:

Height:

Age:

Gender:

Race:

HP: 100/100

MP: 100/100

SP: 100/100

Level: 1

Xp to next level: 100

STR: 100

DEX: 100

CON: 100

INT: 100

WIS: 100

Attribute Points: 800

Achievements: 0

Titles: 0

Racial Traits:

Traits:

Skills:

I stared at the screen for a moment, the gears in my head trying to plan out a successful race when the system spoke up.

“If you need more attribute points to spend on racial traits or attributes, you may reduce your attributes to get more attribute points.”(System)

I put the main character page on hold for now and looked at the list of racial traits. Each trait had an associated point cost to put it on your race, but something about the prices and the available points seemed… off.

“System, why are all the traits so... cheap?”(Rowan)

“Query answer, the majority of developer races possess base attributes greater than 100. Players are likely to spend 400 of the available attribute points getting the base attributes to be the same as a developer [Human].”(System)

What?

[Human]’s have stats over 100? What? Well at least that explains the absurd number of points compared to prices. They expected you to spend most of those putting you on par with everyone else. I looked closer at the list of traits observing everything as closely as I could. It wasn’t long until a few traits caught my eye.

[Immortality: Regeneration] cost: 350 AP

[Immortality: Eternal Youth] cost: 350 AP

[Immortality: Reincarnation] cost: 350 AP

They’re offering immortality as a racial trait? What do these traits do? I pressed the button to expand on the traits and explain their purpose.

[Immortality: Regeneration] Regenerate 1% of the player’s maximum HP every second. Severed limbs and other body parts will also regenerate. This effect stacks with other regeneration traits. This trait cannot be copied, stolen, or disabled.

[Immortality: Eternal Youth] Grants immunity to disease and ageing spells and effects. Grants immunity to poison and petrification. This trait cannot be copied, stolen, or disabled.

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[Immortality: Reincarnation] Removes the death penalty from the player. This trait cannot be copied, stolen, or disabled.

These were really good, especially that last one. In Champions of Asteria players are allowed to die 5 times before their character is considered “Dead”. Each time a player dies their death penalty increases in brutality until they can no longer play that character. Removing that penalty entirely, means you can essentially become a suicide fighter. You don’t have to fear the death penalty.

Altogether they cost 1,050 points. I was going to have to lose some points from my attributes for this. Then I saw another trait that caught my eye, and the gears in my head broke as an idea formed. An idea so great, so incredible, so maniacally evil that my mind was set from that point on. This is what I am going to do! Is what I thought at that moment.

[True Shapeshifting] cost: 250 AP; Allows the player absolute control over their own body. Allows the player to shapeshift into anything they can think of. Does not allow shapeshifting into non-organic materials but does allow the mimicking of said materials. Allows the player to manipulate their attributes somewhat, the player can take up to 10% of the attribute points from an attribute and distribute them to any other attribute. This trait cannot be stolen or disabled.

I put my plan into motion, getting the requisite attribute points from my attributes and purchasing the traits. I even got another trait that looked helpful and then dumped all my leftover attribute points on my HP.

Name:

Height:

Age:

Gender:

Race: Primordial Human

HP: 40/40

MP: 10/10

SP: 10/10

Level: 1

Xp to next level: 100

STR: 10

DEX: 10

CON: 10

INT: 10

WIS: 10

Attribute Points: 0

Achievements: 0

Titles: 0

Racial Traits:

[Immortality: Regeneration]

[Immortality: Eternal Youth]

[Immortality: Reincarnation]

[True Shapeshifting]

[Gluttony]

GP: 0

Traits:

Skills:

[Gluttony] cost: 150 AP; Allows the player to eat anything and store it as Gluttony Points. GP can be exchanged for AP at a 100:1 ratio. This trait cannot be stolen or disabled.

This last trait, [Gluttony], looked very useful to me. I don’t know how much GP anything is worth, but the fact that I can get attribute points for basically free was enough to get me hooked.

With everything finished here I started working on my racial appearance. I didn’t change much from the base human so my appearance didn’t really change at all. I pressed “Done” and saw my new race, “Primordial Human” get put on the list. I also noticed a rating that I didn’t pay attention to before.

“System, what is this… playability rating?”(Rowan)

“Query answer, the playability rating shows how easy or difficult it is to play that race. This rating is determined by the race’s build. Low base attributes and difficult to master racial traits result in low race playability. High base attributes and easy to master racial traits result in high race playability.”(System)

“So it’s basically a difficulty meter.”(Rowan)

“Yes”(System)

I looked at the playability rating for my new race, 1/10 lowest rating. So how hard is leveling up going to be? Probably very hard. I moved on to my character’s individual appearance.

I gave my character shoulder length hair and made it brown, unlike my black. I made my eyes red and made my character just a touch taller than me. With [True Shapeshifting] I could always just shrink myself later. I then proceeded to fill out my character information. When I was done, my character page looked like this:

Name: Roe

Height: 1.4m

Age: 18

Gender: Female

Race: Primordial Human

HP: 40/40

MP: 10/10

SP: 10/10

Level: 1

Xp to next level: 100

STR: 10

DEX: 10

CON: 10

INT: 10

WIS: 10

Attribute Points: 0

Achievements: 0

Titles: 0

Racial Traits:

[Immortality: Regeneration]

[Immortality: Eternal Youth]

[Immortality: Reincarnation]

[True Shapeshifting]

[Gluttony]

GP: 0

Traits:

Skills:

I selected the “Villager attire B” as my starting equipment and saw the simple shirt and shorts appear on my character. Instead of socks I had bandages wrapped around my legs and feet, and I had simple leather boots that didn’t look all that durable.

Now I was ready to play the game. I pressed the last “done” button.

“Congratulations on successfully creating your character. Please choose a starting town and enjoy the game.”(System)