It was finally time. Time to say goodbye to this broken body. The outcome was never in doubt. These last weeks of doctors trying to soften the grim truth, of well-meaning nurses, and tearful acquaintances had been enough. He had his affairs in order. He had said his goodbyes. He would not miss the smell of the disinfectants or the endless beeping of the monitors. He would not miss the food, which was far better than the stereotypes depicted hospital food to be. He would not miss this defective shell he had been trapped in either. The headaches and tremors that made every day so much harder than it needed to be. As the world began to slip away, he only had one regret, he wished his dogs were here. Just one last hug, soft fur against his skin, a last sloppy kiss would have been nice.
As he took his final breath on Earth, the very last thing Joe expected on the edge of expiration was a popup box.
Do you wish to travel to your preconceived afterlife or journey to Illuminaria?
Surprised, and more than a bit flummoxed, Joe, replied to the floating field of text. "Ummm. Well, I don't have much of a preconceived notion of what comes next ... actually, I always thought that it was just lights out, nothing more. That makes the choice pretty easy then. What is Illuminaria?"
The text box hovering in the emptiness that surrounded him changed to read.
Further clarification is not warranted at this time. Instruction and optimization are available if you choose to enter Illuminaria. Do you wish to proceed to Illuminaria or to continue to fade from existence?
“That might be the ultimate guiding question of all time,” Joe quipped. “Yes, I choose Illuminaria over non-existence. What now?”
The area around him changed subtly. A darkening below him suggested a floor. A circle of lighter gray appeared on the surface of the floor and the pop-up box now read.
Choose a race. This is a fundamental aspect of your character creation. It cannot be changed except by extraordinary magical means. You can exert your will to move the list forward or back to see your options.
“Choose a race? What the heck is this? Am I joining an RPG for ghosts?”
It appears clarification is required in order for you to proceed. The world of Illuminaria has been opened to spirits of the departed. The world has existed for many relative centuries prior to the inclusion of the departed. Your experience in Illuminaria will be very similar to a role-playing game but from a first-person perspective. Do you wish to continue?
Joe indicated yes and the Race menu returned. The first race was human and in the circle on the ground stood a Joe that Joe had never seen before. This Joe had his features but instead of the thin, stooped form he had worn these last several years, there stood a well-built man. He was no Olympic athlete but had a decent array of muscles, he was standing up straight, looking hale and hardy. For all intents and purposes, here was the Joe he could have been without his cancer. In the window, he read,
Race: [Human], +1 to three attributes of your choice. Racial Abilities: [Enterprising] Enhanced Skill Advancement. [Talent Diversification] +20% chance to meld classes.
There was a lot to unpackage there so Joe flipped to the next race and was not surprised to see elves were next. Having played Dungeons and Dragons since he was a kid, as well as too many MMORPGs to count, if a game had any fantasy aspect to it at all, you could pretty much count on elves and dwarves. Sure enough, dwarves followed elves.
Race: [Elf], +2 to Dexterity, +1 to Perception. Racial Abilities: [Harmonious] Strong affinity with Nature Magics. [Voice of the Wilds] Can communicate with beasts and plants to the degree that either is able.
Race: [Dwarf], +2 to Vigor, +1 to Strength. Racial Abilities: [Resilient] Resistant to magical effects. [Deep Dweller] Can see clearly in dark conditions.
While it was fun to see the elven and dwarfed versions of himself, he was not sold on either of them. Actually, having been a gamer for years and years, Joe was pretty skeptical of finding a choice he would want from the standard list. He had played plenty of elves and dwarves, gnomes and giants, even humans when he had to. The problem Joe always found with these races is that none of them ever felt like a fit. Even in his real life, Joe never felt comfortable anywhere or with anyone. In school, he had no enemies, but no close friends either. He got along well enough with whatever crowd he happened to be with but the moment he was away from people he would not choose to rejoin them unless he had a strong reason to. He was happier on his own. He loved role-playing games because they allowed him to be all different people and he was good at it. It was like putting on a costume. The players he gamed with, even many years earlier, often remembered Joe and the characters he would immerse himself into. Once the games were over though, Joe would slip away until the next game.
Joe could play any race but the interface had just stated that races were pretty much permanent. There was not one race Joe thought he would want forever. He flipped through the two dozen or so options a couple of times. There was extra text about each race such as with the Jotun race which read:
Jotun are the primary Giantkin race. Towering over the other races of Illuminaria, most Jotun stand between 7 and 8 feet tall and weigh between 280 and 520 pounds. Originally hailing from the cold north, members of this race are inured to freezing temperatures and cold-based attacks.
That race, and some others, were interesting for the novelty of never having been played by Joe before, but he could not help but wince at the idea of being locked into one of these forms. Having spent the last few years being locked indoors, trapped in hospital beds, and even imprisoned in his own failing body, Joe’s discorporated self began to panic at the idea of being bound to one of these racial choices. Out of nowhere, Joe felt like he could not catch his breath, even though he was pretty sure he had not been breathing. His mind conjured the idea of sweat and tremors, even though Joe did not currently seem to have a body.
An unexpected level of distress is occurring within your unprocessed pattern. No existing protocol has been established for this scenario. Commencing a customized solution. Do you accept the customized solution?
Joe had never had a panic attack before and so had no idea what to do about this sudden overwhelming anxiety. At that moment he was happy to take whatever lifeline that was being offered to him. He projected his consent and instantly found himself standing beside a large pond in a beautiful sylvan setting. The sound of a brook gurgling nearby soothed the edges of his frayed nerves. Joe took a deep breath, a real breath this time, and looked down. His body looked like the one from the human choice. He was dressed in plain brown linen pants, simple leather shoes, and an off-white shirt. He felt his face and head. Clean shaven. No long-pointed ears or curling horns. All in all, pretty normal. After taking a step forward and looking down into the smooth water, his reflection looked back at him with his very average familiar features.
“So, we went with human?”
A pop-up screen appeared on the edge of his vision. As he gave the screen his awareness, it swung forward to be more easily viewed. It was possible to look through the floating box and, as a matter of fact, the act of wanting to see through it made the screen more transparent. Inversely, wanting to read the message made it more opaque.
“Neat.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
PLAYER PROFILE: Joseph (Joe) Morris
Race: Changeling
Level 0
Experience: 0 / 100
RESOURCES
· Health: 100%
· Stamina: 78%
· Mana: 100%
ATTRIBUTES
· Strength: 0
· Vigor: 0
· Dexterity: 0
· Perception: 1
· Spirit: 0
Available Attributes Points Unspent: 2
CLASSES
· Primary Class: None
· Secondary Class: None
· Tertiary Class: None
SKILLS
Strength: None
Vigor: None
Dexterity: None
Perception: None
Spirit: None
TRAITS
· [Anybody] (Racial)
· [No one] (Racial)
“Changeling, huh? So I’m some kind of doppelganger. That seems like a pretty powerful race.” Another popup appeared and this one was titled Racial Specifics.
RACIAL SPECIFICS
Changeling: +1 to Perception (Changelings thrive due to their awareness of their surroundings and other beings). +1 to two attributes of your choice (No two Changelings are ever exactly alike).
RACIAL TRAITS
[Anyone] (Racial) Can gain racial or ancestral traits from any race or lineage.
[No one] (Racial): Immune to Assessment skills and highly resistant to divination magic.
DESCRIPTION
Changelings are beings gifted with Faerie heritage who have been placed among the people of Illuminaria but are not entirely part of any one race. They are not shapechangers so much as they are adaptive. Your racial abilities will allow you to become the unique you that you wish to be and no one will know the difference.
“Now that is something I can get behind. Thanks … um, what do I call you.”
Designations are irrelevant where this system is concerned. You may simply think of me as your help.
“Ok, we can cycle back to that later. I feel a bit weird interacting with an obviously intelligent entity while calling you Mr. Help Screen. The next section, Resources. They seem pretty self-explanatory but what happens if I run out of them? Health being the primary concern of course.”
Resources are broken into three categories.
Health is the maximum amount of damage you can take before dying. Diminished health decreases your body's ability to function at peak performance. When your Health reaches 0, you die and your pattern is placed into a state of stasis. Your pattern can be resurrected as long as it remains intact. Corruptions, such as necromancy, will render your pattern unable to be revived, though it will allow for an altered form of you to be raised. Under normal circumstances, your body will recover health over time.
Stamina is your physical or mental capacity to sustain prolonged stressful efforts or activities. Many special abilities will draw on stamina as a means to power the ability. Diminished stamina manifests as exhaustion. If your stamina reaches 0, you fall unconscious. Under normal circumstances, your body will recover stamina over time.
Mana is the pool from which your magical abilities are powered. Abilities like spells consume mana in order to manifest the spell’s effect. Diminished mana will leave you vulnerable to magic and supernatural effects. If your mana drops to 0, you will be unable to resist any magical effect. Under normal circumstances, your body will recover mana over time.
“Necromancy sounds bad. So does being out of mana. In most games I’ve played, running out of mana just means no more spellcasting. Having it lower your magic resistance could be rough. Question for you. Even though these resources are presented as percentages, the level of resistance is based on the amount of mana remaining, not the percent remaining, right?”
Correct. A fighter with a very small mana pool is more susceptible to magic even with 100% mana than an arch-wizard would be with 50% mana as the arch-wizard’s total mana points would still be much higher. You can toggle these meters from percentages to point values or display both whenever you wish.
“Show both, please. Most of the attributes look pretty straightforward but let’s look them over anyway and see if there are any surprises there too.”
Attributes are broken into five stats. These numbers show your enhancement over a typical person’s attributes for these stats. Having a 0 Strength does not mean you have no physical might, merely that you have no enhancement to a typical humanoid's base strength.
Strength dictates your physical prowess and your carrying capacity. This attribute is what determines your ability to use heavy armor and heavy weapons as well as the amount of damage these weapons inflict.
Vigor is the attribute that determines the amount of health and stamina you possess. It also determines your resistance to physically debilitating effects such as poison, disease, and pain.
Dexterity is a measure of your general coordination. It will determine your effectiveness with evasive maneuvers, as well as your accuracy and critical strike chance with light weapons.
Perception determines your general sense of awareness as well as your skill and damage with ranged weapons. It’s used to notice sensory clues and anticipate actions and perils from the area around you.
Spirit determines the force and skill of your magical abilities as well as the amount of mana you possess. It will assist you in performing mental tasks such as memorization, recall, and focus.
“That is pretty much what I expected. Having ranged attacks be based on Perception instead of Dexterity is interesting, but I like it. I also like that Spirit can help with strengthening the mind’s heavy lifting. By the end there I could barely remember my name. Back in the day, I could keep dozens of rulebooks in my head. So, if my pattern is based on my recent brain strength, I’ll be happy to have a way to get that memory back.”
Your illness was taken into consideration in the creation of your pattern. It has been established by your last corporal state as well as your personal self-image. It is as close to your sense of self as could be surmised given the available data at hand.
“Then why don’t I have any skills? I can think of dozens of things I was good at. I used to be able to juggle one-handed. I was a certified AKC dog trainer. I was really good at Geometry.”
Skills in this regard refer to enhanced abilities as part of your pattern. For example, while your ability to understand the motivations of certain types of animals will help you in general with interactions with such creatures, [Animal Training] is how your pattern would display that skill if you were to obtain it. Aptitudes carried over from your prior existence are not quantified by your pattern.
Each skill is linked to a specific attribute. The linked attributes determine the number of skills you can have linked to that attribute. For example, if you had a Strength score of 4 you could have up to four Strength-based skills.
“So, attributes are huge. How often will I get new attribute points?”
In the early levels, you will receive at least one attribute each time you acquire a new level. This rate of growth will diminish as you reach higher levels.
“I am assuming that the classes I take will determine what skills I gain and therefore what attributes I will need.”
Correct. You will be awarded your first class when you make a significant choice. This primary initial class, as well as any further class changes, will award you additional attribute points. Rarer classes and classes with higher mastery requirements will have higher attribute rewards than basic classes.
“So should I hold out for the best first class I can find?”
This will not apply to your primary class. Only basic classes are available as a primary class.
“Bleh. I guess that makes sense though. I can see players getting themselves in trouble with a complex class right out of the gate. Still, it makes sense then to leave my two attribute points unspent until I find out what my first class will be.
“Ok Mister Help … nope. I just can’t. You need a name. So, what do you name the guy who knows everything? Leonardo? Nah. I love Da Vinci but I’m going to be thinking Turtles the whole time. Newton. Einstein. Hawking. Ooh yeah. Hawking. There was a guy who had it far tougher than I did and was absolutely amazing regardless. I’m going to call you Hawking.”
You may do so if you chose to and I will reply to said designation.
“Ok Hawking, what do I do now?”
Go forth and enjoy yourself, Joe. This world is open for you to experience as you wish.