Note on 3.5e d20 system.
No knowledge of 3.5e is necessary to read this book. If you are interested in learning more the System Reference Document (SRD) is given free in full on many great websites, as it is all covered by the Open Gaming License. Simply search 3.5e SRD, and any questions you have on the system or mechanics will be answered.
The End of the Fourth Age uses a modified d20 3.5 OGL system like Pathfinder does. I took great pains ensuring no copyrighted materials were used. The system and setting is called Black Raven. While the Black Raven system itself does not make many dramatic changes to the core OGL rules (just many additions), there are some notable exceptions. Black Raven is supposed to be a more dangerous, lower magic, and grittier system to fit the setting it was made for. The main differences between OGL content, Black Raven, and End of the Fourth Age are described in various parts of the book.
Lastly, thank you for giving this title a shot. I enjoyed coming up with pretty uniquely flawed, but hopefully interesting and entertaining, characters. I really hope you enjoy it!
PART 1 "Observe"
“Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”
Rudyard Kipling
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Kim Gum, Year 2043
I found out the next morning about the lights. Big green explosions in the sky all over the world. Mia said it was nanites. She was right, but she’s always right about everything. The nanites even affected her somehow. I guess they are a bunch of little machines. They got inside everyone and showed us words right in our eyes. And we had a bunch more information in our cd links.
There wasn’t a ton of info, but I hate reading. And since this was all that everyone was talking about, I didn’t really have to read anything. The nanites told us we’re all being sent to a contest. Every person on earth. Everyone is freaking out big time. Especially my mom. I’m kind of excited though. It sounds pretty fun.
The contest is taking the systems and rules of a real game called end of the fourth age mmcirpg. It isn’t even a super popular game. It’s included with the podpass – a subscription service to, like, a million games. That’s not the real name of the subscription service though, just what people call it. I forget the real name. Even without the podpass the game is still free2play.
Everyone says fourth age is real pay2win without the podpass. Maybe even with the podpass too. I don’t know about that – they say the games my mom lets me play, like candy razzle and hearts over tunnels, are super pay2win. I think both are called gacha games. I still have a ton of fun playing them and I never spent any money ever. Not even once. I’m not nearly as far in those games as other people who pay money though. I don’t care. I just like looking at my cards and getting new cards. And I can just play both of my games through my cd link instead of entering the tangle.
Mia said fourth age only has about 14 million unique logins a month, and that isn’t a lot. The biggest games have almost a billion unique logins per month. Candy razzle has, like, half-a-billion unique logins a month.
Fourth age uses the black raven setting, based on the 3.5 edition of d20. I’m not sure what any of that means. It’s marketed as a hardcore, low-magic, old-school, group-focused mmcirpg with live action combat. What people call twitch combat. Lots of people are interested in hardcore and heavy rpgs – but these people usually don’t like live action combat. Lots of people are interested in twitch, live action combat – but these people usually aren’t interested in really heavy rpg stuff. I’m guessing that’s why it isn’t super popular.
I wonder why they picked that game? The nanites didn’t tell us much. But they did tell us a date, time, and how to be sent as a group.