Initializing character creation. Select a method (I, II, III, IV, V, VI).
"Hang on, what's going on?" Angela asked. "And why don't I have a body anymore? This is damn strange." The only thing that she could see was a spinning black bottle, a dragon on its label.
Dragon's Milk Reserve Oatmeal Cookie Stout, the label said.
"That's right, I just took the twins to the game store," Angela said, watching a blinking tracery of green light glint off the bottle. "Where did Donna go? Linda? Julie? The twins?"
Angela looked past the bottle, seeing a row of pixelated green text floating in the air.
This is a character creation process. You do not have a body because you have not created a character yet. The others you speak of are in similar circumstances. Select a method.
"Ohmigod. I was just looking at my old rulebook a minute ago. This sounds familiar," Angela said. "Is Method I the one where it goes 3d6 down the line?"
Yes.
"Right. And the later methods are the ones that made things easier. So, Method VI," Angela said. "That one has to be the munchiest."
All ability scores are now 8. Your rolls are 6, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 2. Select scores to increase.
Angela paused, counting on her fingers for a moment. "I can have two eighteens," she said. "That could make me a brick house if I focused on being strong and tough. On the other hand…"
Strength and Constitution increased to 18. You have 3, 2 remaining to assign.
"Fuck, I was just trying to talk that out," Angela said. "I didn't mean to decide already. God, I wish I had the sense to keep my nonexistent mouth shut while I worked it out."
Remaining points assigned to Wisdom. Your Wisdom is now 15. Select a race.
"Are you fucking kidding me? You little shit, I am going to-"
As Angela began her rant, new words appeared.
Parsing match for "little shit" … dwarf selected. Constitution increased to 19. Charisma decreased to 7. Select a class.
"-kick your ass. Goddamnit, I didn't pick dwarf, for Christ's sake," Angela continued as she materialized.
Parsing match for "kick your ass goddamnit" … multiclass fighter/cleric selected. Rolling exceptional strength… Strength is increased to 18/86.
"Damnit," Angela said. "Wait, I have a body now," she added, feeling her arms as they began to bulge. "And I am fucking jacked."
Rolling hit points (1d10+1d8)/2+5… you have 6 hit points.
"What the fuck? How do I start with six hit points as a dwarf with fifteen fucking points in my Con score?" Angela blew air out of her cheeks angrily, realizing as she did so that she had a soft flowing gray beard. "And I have a beard? A beard? This is why I never played a goddamn dwarf."
Your roll was (1+1)/2+5.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Angela said, grabbing the bottle of stout. "I cannot catch a fucking break here." She took a pull from the bottle.
"Actually, that tastes really good," Angela said. "Better than I remember." She took another swallow, then belched loudly. "Whoo. Tipsy time," she said.
You are a dwarf with a Constitution score of 19. You are not yet intoxicated. Character sheet finalized.
"Fuck. I'm going to need more beer, then." Angela sighed. "Well, at least I know how clerics work though the whole 'DM picks which spells God gives to you' thing is a little annoying sometimes." She stared at the floating blue screen.
Core statistics:
STR
18/86
Class
Fighter/cleric
Saves
+5 vs poison, magic
DEX
8
Level
1/1
Death
10
CON
19
THAC0
20
Wand
14
INT
8
XP (fighter)
0/2000
Polymorph
13
WIS
15
XP (cleric)
0/1500
Breath Weapon
16
CHA
7
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Max hp:
6
Spell
15
Special abilities:
Spell slots
Turn undead
Other abilities
1st: 3
Skeleton
10
20% magical item malfunction
Zombie
13
+1 to hit orcs, goblins, & kin
Ghoul
16
-4 to hit by ogres, trolls, giants, & kin
Shadow
19
Infravision
Wight
20
Detect grade or slope
Detect new construction
Detect sliding/shifting walls
Detect stonework traps
Determine depth
Status:
Hit points:
6/6
Armor class:
10
Spells memorized:
Cure Light Wounds (x3)
"Wait a minute," Angela said, suspicion slowly dawning in her mind. "Why do I have three healing spells memorized?"
Starting wealth is (5d4)x10… 140 silver pennies. Optionally, allocate some of this to starting equipment.
"You didn't say why I have three healing spells memorized." Angela glared at the green text. "I need either answers or enough refills to get me drunk."
Calculating… barrel, two silver pennies. Five gallons master-grade aged stout, five silver pennies. 133 silver pennies remaining.
Angela eyed the barrel dubiously, empty bottle in hand. "I'll need a mug."
Mug, one copper penny. 132 silver pennies and five copper pennies remaining of your starting wealth.
"Ah. Now it's shopping time." Angela poured herself a mug of stout. After a robustly unladylike swig and a loud oatmeal-scented belch, which she privately decided to blame on her newly-granted dwarven charisma, she asked to see a detailed list of everything she could buy. A chain hauberk and a shield seemed like a good idea to start with.
Status:
Hit points:
6/6
Armor class:
4
Spells memorized:
Cure Light Wounds (x3)
Forty-three minutes later, Angela sighed, wiping foam off of her gray facial locks as she stared at the heavily-laden cart. The harnesses had been able to fit the goats after all, which she'd been worried about. The donkey was still giving her the evil eye, unhappy even with a balanced load of two five-gallon beer barrels.
"Stubborn fucker." Angela shook her head. A warm weight pressed against her leg, and she reached down to scratch the ears of one of her new war dogs. "Okay, I think I'm done now," she announced.
Are you sure? You have three brass bits left to spend.
"I'll take those as cash, of course," Angela said. "I don't have a belt pouch to carry coin, though. Do they come in a belt pouch?"
There was a long pause before new words appeared.
Yes. A belt pouch is provided for the holding of any extra currency.
"What if I spent two more brass bits?" Angela asked.
A belt pouch is provided for the holding of any extra currency.
"I get a bonus pouch for having a single brass bit? Let's do that. Can I have two candles, please?"
There was a soft sound, as of a groan. A pair of candles materialized in her cart, and a very flat-looking belt pouch containing a single small brass wedge materialized in front of her. Then there was a rumbling, and the void began to solidify around her. An unfamiliar sense told her that if she walked forward, she would be moving up toward the surface; another unfamiliar sense told her that the void-formed stone was unstable and likely to collapse shortly.
This dwarf thing is weird, she thought to herself as she climbed into the cart and herded her menagerie into motion, dogs barking with excitement as they ran ahead of the cart. "Come on, you stupid donkey," Angela growled over her shoulder at the last member of her animal party. "Tunnel's going to collapse on your stupid fucking head."
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"Are you sure this is where the goblins that killed my friends came from?" Jacob held up a torch in his right hand, his shield in his left. He wasn't sure what he would be able to do to fight if they found the goblins. Hit them with the torch, maybe?
"Positive," Aiden replied, taking one hand off the hilt of his sword to tap a pointed ear. "They may have gotten away, but with my keen elven vision, I was able to see where those little green guys went to ground. The locals call it Goblin Mountain."
Dylan nodded, a guilty look flitting across the halfling's face. "I'm sorry I couldn't save your friends, Jacob, but things escalated quickly."
"I'd feel a lot better about going this deep if we had Elijah," Jacob said. "He is – was – a healer. Only reason I survived my first fight."
"I have healing berries." Chloe, one of the other humans, was also carrying a torch. In her other hand, she had a scimitar, the crescent blade glinting in the ruddy firelight. "Seven of them. You'll be alright as long as you can chew and swallow. I tested them on Aiden yesterday after he got in a fight, they totally work. And you're a fighter. You should totally have a second wind, just don't forget to use it."
Jacob shook his head, but said nothing. Silence overtook the group.
"Hold up," Aiden whispered. "I hear water ahead. And voices. Get ready for a fight."
"Hopefully this goes better than my last fight," Jacob said, gripping his torch. He'd try using the torch as a club, he decided, and maybe switch to his sword if it went out.
----------------------------------------
Distant voices and the clash of metal on metal interrupted Angela's reverie. "Finally," she said. "I must be near a cave connecting to the surface." Then she remembered that, for reasons known only to a deity or possibly a dungeon master, she had three Cure Light Wounds spells memorized. "Shit," she said, cracking her reins like a whip. "I need to get up there. Move, move!"
The dogs, barking with excitement, ran ahead as the nervous goats stopped. Angela shook her head, grabbed her shield, jumped off the cart, and started running as fast as she could. Which was, given the length of her new legs, not all that fast, but even at a full sprint, she didn't feel like she was running out of breath. "Cardio is going to be a lot easier," she muttered to herself as she burst out of a tunnel into a larger cavern, her feet splashing.
She slowed, assessing her surroundings more carefully. In the distance, she could see at least several dozen moving bodies on the other side of an underground pond clustered around and in the narrow mouth of a tunnel. Some of the figures were upright, several others lying down on the ground. Most of the standing figures held clubs. One figure was swinging a torch, the dim light providing snatches of conventional illumination when the bright head of the torch washed out the infrared component of her vision. Holding up a hand to block the dazzling direct torchlight, she could see that her war dogs were swimming across the pond, curious about the activity.
She could see more clearly now, spotting a fallen torch – freshly extinguished, to her new dwarven vision the head glowed with a deep shade of red, smaller and brighter than the bodies. One of the standing people – a small and particularly ugly-looking humanoid with a scimitar tucked into the back of its belt – was in the process of pulling a belt pouch off of a body lying on the ground in a pool of rapidly-cooling blood even as the other figures still struggled.
After a short mental adjustment for the fact that she was seeing in a different color spectrum than she was accustomed to in her previous light, she realized she was watching a battle between a goblin tribe and an adventuring party. Uncertain of the depth of the water and her bouyancy but now certain of the moral valences of the situation, she pulled the sling off her belt, dropping a bullet into the pocket with a practiced motion that her mind found completely unfamiliar.
The bullet whistled across the water, and one of the rearmost goblins fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut. None of the others seemed to notice. The second torchbearer fell, his torch falling on the body of a fallen foe and setting it alight. The fallen goblin screamed and thrashed around as its clothing caught on fire, proving that it was still alive – if not for much longer.
Cursing under her breath at the sudden increase in lighting, Angela dropped another bullet into her sling, whirling it over her head until the passage of the sling through the air made a dull roaring noise.