Hi, I’m Damian White. I’m a 37 year old single man who ran control of a nuclear power plant reactor. Unfortunately, I screwed up. Big time. The reactor was tended to have a hiccup from time to time after all these things were old. Instead of inserting a cooling rod, I inserted additional fuel. You might think things somehow ended up okay, seeing as I’m here telling you my story. But let me assure you, the whole thing went tits up. Blammo. Welcome to the afterlife, population Damian White.
Apparently, as the cause of the explosion I was given ‘credit’ for it. Which normally wouldn’t have mattered, but apparently, I chose to blow up Toronto on the very same day that god was visiting. And he didn’t survive the explosion. That ended all of earth as we know it. So I thought I was having a pretty bad day. To be honest, never seeing any of my family or friends again did certainly suck. Knowing that I caused the end of life as we know it was a lot to deal with.
But that’s where the awesome began. Apparently by killing a god you become one. So that’s how I ended up right here, floating in the Aether without a corporeal form. Fortunately, I had a system to help and the first thing the system gave me was an assistant designer.
Please chose one of the following. Custom Assistant: Allows you to control every last detail of your assistant. Requires some understanding of the system and what points are worth to avoid too much trouble. System Assistant: A rather unattractive assistant that can help you with all things system related and get you started on building your world. Sex Kitten: A rather beautiful cat girl that only provides a little help. Aphrodite: A version of the idealized female form. Good in matters of love, but not much help with the system. Hercules: Big and strong, but not very bright. Mostly for those of you who prefer the male form.
I checked my points. I had 1000 points to start. I have to admit, getting a sex kitten or Aphrodite was tempting. I don’t even have a body yet and some of my thoughts come from the wrong head. I knew I needed an assistant with good system knowledge though. I wouldn’t want to learn things the hard way. System Assistant lacked appeal to a min-maxer like me so I figured I’d muddle through as best as I can. I selected custom assistant and a table appeared in front of me.
Assistant Designer Appearance 1 Personality 1 System Knowledge 1 Worldbuilding Knowledge 1 Tactical Knowledge 1 Point Cost 300 GenderFemale Confirm Back
I tinkered with the sliders and found out all stats were created equal, they ranged between 1 and 10 and each stat point cost 5 points. Confirm was greyed out and I presumed I couldn’t get points from making an assistant. I focused on each of the stats and additional information came up. Appearance just affected looks. Personality affected general charisma but also how likely an assistant was to volunteer useful information. System Knowledge would cover all knowledge of the System and Universe Games (no clarification on what those were). World building knowledge would provide advice during world creation on all the options for spending points. Tactical Knowledge would provide tactical advice during Universe Games. I decided to maximize personality and system knowledge. That left me with 110 points. I decided to gamble a bit with these points and maximized world building knowledge leaving only 15 points left for tactical knowledge. I considered myself a capable tactician from years of military strategy games and I thought I might have some time before these Universe games occurred. After all, have you ever heard of the Universe Games on Earth?
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Assistant Designer Appearance 1 Personality 10 System Knowledge 10 Worldbuilding Knowledge 10 Tactical Knowledge 4 Point Cost 0 GenderFemale Confirm Back
Satisfied with my values I hit confirm. My assistant started with an incorporeal form as well. I thought my first question at her: “Why don’t we have bodies?” “Hello Master, we don’t have bodies because we will get bodies of a specific race once you create the races for your planet.” Her voice was rather pleasant and it was almost a shame I’d have to put her in an ugly body soon enough. I wasn’t about to regret saving points though, they had to be valuable in world creation. After all, I only had 1000 of these points to get started.
My next question was a rather pressing one: “What are the Universe Games?” “Master, the universe games are challenges between planets that occur between advanced universes. Each side selects 1,000 heroes to form a small army. The god then leads that army as a general against a similar army from another world. The winning god takes control of the universe at stake. The losing god ceases to be a god if they ever have zero planets.” “Are there other ways to gain universes?” “No.” This was a troubling concern, my divinity would be at stake in a wager I might not be able to avoid. I had to look for loopholes. “What is an advanced Universe?” “One containing a planet where civilization has existed for at least 200,000 years. Civilization is defined as the first permanent settlement. Your world will be started from the first permanent settlement with the rest of its prior existence backfilled.” Lovely, no way to avoid that there, just a ticking time bomb. Still 200,000 years would be a good run even if this went wrong. I’d prefer to win though. “Is there anything else I should know about the Universe Games before we design my homeworld?” “Until you have 5 or more universes, you will be matched against Universes of roughly the same age only, which gives you a fair chance of survival. Once you drop below 5 universes the age restriction is reinstated.”
“Are there ways to gain points?” “Yes, once your world is created you will gain 1 point whenever a citizen reaches level 10 in anything. You get 2 points whenever they reach level 100. You get 3 points whenever they reach level 1000. The max level in anything is 9999.”
“Can I modify a world after its created?” “No”
“Can I add races to a world after its created? “Yes”
“Can I modify an existing race after its created?” “You can only improve, not regress”
“What are all the things I can currently spend points on?” “Worlds, Races, Fauna, Flora, Dungeons”
“What other things are there that I can spend points on?” “That is classified, I won’t know until you unlock those new things. But I know they exist.”
“Is there a point minimum for a race?” “0 point races exist. You can’t have negative points.”
“Is there a point minimum for fauna?” “The cheapest fauna you can create is 25 points.”
“Is there a point minimum for flora?” “The cheapest flora you can create is 25 points.”
“How many flora and fauna are needed for a functioning world?” “You can get away with 1 of each, although you’d generally want more. With zero, your races will starve and die and you’ll no longer be a god.”
“Can members zero point races reach level 10 easily? “It would be rather difficult, perhaps if they were optimized very good at one thing they could reach level 10 in it.”
At this point I was seriously considering a really cool 950 point world with 25 point flora and 25 point fauna.
“Is there a cap I can spend on building a world?” “You can spend at most 500 points on a world.”
“Is it a good idea to spend the full 500 points on a world?” “Generally, yes.”
“I’d like to work on designing my world now”