Introduction

Welcome to Book Three.

I’ve been planning this one for a while. It is a bit more complex as multiple things are happening simultaneously. I’ll let the first three chapters spell out the plot, so I won’t go into it here. The writathon in November is my new motivation to write this as quickly as possible. As with my previous stories, this novel is broken into chunks, usually delineated by modules, and I will probably want to completely finish writing one before posting it, so there may be gaps in posting, but the Writathon deadlines will also motivate me. Follow the story to be notified when I post.

In the last short story I wrote, I mentioned how I would redesign the characters to make them more different. Below, I will outline some of the changes. None of this is critical to the story, so if you want to skip this and jump to Chapter 1, feel free. But if you are curious about how the game works and like to track the numbers, I will explain some of it below.

First Jace:

[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ADCreHcnLtCk8qZSZZY5NR8pRULWSh2whlx9xZT96ipyXBl2OHt3IUq_LZR52Y56agdu9DwwK5xHdp98-Q8bslA6LlR-D1Hp5N3kOmVZqcTP_HyNcruLH8r3-pzI7IZgrhxSMQ7IgYp1sM2-7L4AUWpQwGQc=w325-h913-s-no-gm?authuser=2]

I’ve changed the format of the character sheet to make it skinnier so that it reads better on a mobile device, I hope. Most of the changes for Jace are in the last section. I wanted each class to have bonuses only they got at levels 0, 5, 10, etc. So, for a Shaman, I made these Totems. Before, these were bonus spells Jace got; now, they are specifically tied to his Shaman class. There is a new one called the Elemental Totem, which lets him have a Stone Elemental familiar who is tethered to the totem by his totem range, which is currently 20 feet per level. Next, he is a Stone Shaman, so he gets bonus Stone-related spells. He already had two of these spells, Summon Stone and Stone Tunnel, but he also has Stone Shield and Stone Skin.

Stone Shield summons a shield on his arm of any size except Tower. Since Jace almost always uses a 2-handed weapon, he won’t use this often, but I think there are a few times he held a normal shield, and at some point, I will go back and rewrite those sections to show that he summons a stone shield instead.

Stone Skin sounds like a spell most RPG players would know, but that would be too powerful for Jace and force me to rewrite virtually every battle scene. So, instead of blocking all damage from hits, the stone skin increases his Damage Reduction by his level. At level 17, if he casts Stone Skin, his Damage Reduction goes up by 17, and each time he is hit, a thin layer is removed, and his DR reduces by one. So, after 17 hits, the stone skin would be gone and it would have prevented 17+16+15…+2+1 damage, which is 153. Also, because it makes your skin stone, you take half damage from slashing weapons.

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I will eventually go back and rewrite the first book and have him use this spell frequently, but he will learn quickly that his mana is better spent on his Armor and Damage Sink totems and then his Athletic Boon.

At character creation, Gracie said that Shamans weren’t allowed to be divine. I didn’t do a good job of explaining why, but now I have a better reason. Characters who follow a god or demon get bonus spells or feats at levels 0, 5, etc. Shamans already get bonuses for their class and for their spirit type (Stone for Jace), so to also get bonuses from their god would be too much.

Esther

[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ADCreHfn4hlpx71i3IsGj8wMe25ZBOss9b5LkUjyYNJmhtl_mQQlx57po86wu5RdALK19kdICi3oZoEqDG47JoMgwVnrCqbFVdaaBxJQ9c4RrK6eY5QphO7AbcxzSLptKwrMCxfVkRu-1fo5mOX9YJHsDZ7R=w313-h913-s-no-gm?authuser=2]

Esther is a Rogue that specializes in combat. So, her Rogue-specific feats are Light Blade mastery. On the old character sheet, she used three level feats to get this proficiency up to Expert, and then she used a Bounty Hunter feat to get Mastery. By giving these feats to her for free, I’ve freed up three level feats, and I chose Damage Training, Proficiency, and Expert. This raises her damage per strike by 10. She had a Vampire bonus that gave her +5 damage before, and I removed that, so the net result is her damage per strike went up by 5. Not a big change. It also freed up Bounty Hunter feats, and I gave her two levels of Disarm Trap. Each gives her +5 to disarm traps. That skill works with your Intelligence and Dexterity bonus. She is now decent at disarming things.

Draya

[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ADCreHfLNEHjH0kEz8WeWa3zqoUKwu4vTD55TizeqVAc3mIOyIZdknQYcPlvX_gBfvZjbmQSej_I4ORLUtYO86oM-j8guvHo7AW83LdMrMzsd5n8GgjyUCLeZW8AZwFqTzXPRtaJq3gDZo354lmcqOWzVFcs=w308-h913-s-no-gm?authuser=2]

Magic and Mages are easily the most complex things in RPGs, and I am not going to spend the time to make complete spell books for my made-up game or go into all the different kinds of mages you can have. Draya is simple. She throws fire. Her bonus feats for being a Mage is Fire Mastery, which doubles the damage she can do with fire. So for every five mana she spends, she does two damage instead of one. This freed up four level feat slots, and I used them for Perception. She has a detect magic spell, which she hasn’t used much, but since she is also an illusionist, I thought it would be good if she could see other illusionists, including people hiding in the shadows or traps, so her perception score is really high.

I haven’t redone Psycho and Gromphy’s character sheets, and since they are locked at 20, they don’t do much leveling up. Psycho will get his Bow mastery for free because of his class, and Gromphy will get his Crafting Mastery for free. Psycho will use his freed-up level feat spots to gain more resistance to elemental attacks, while Gromphy will gain crafting-specific feats to make weapons, armor, and items better.

Now, on to the story.