After packing up my stuff, I put on my in-ear phone and headed towards the bus stop.
(How to save Irina) - fast forward x2
''By the end of act 4(...)''
* PIIIIIIIING
'What the… My ears are acting funny now. Is it a difference in pressure or something?'
'I think I had to do something... what was it again? Oh, yeah, the milk.'
'There is a store near here, right? A few blocks away, maybe.'
As I walked down the block in the direction of the store to buy milk, I heard a faint noise nearby.
-meowwww -
'A cute cat!'
After looking around for a couple of seconds, I saw the small orange cat at the corner of the street.
*deep breath
'Alright, stay calm; you can do this.'
''pspspspspspsps, here kitty kitty''
- meww -
''Oh, look at how cute you are! Are you friendly too?''
- meow -
'I think he wants me to get closer; alright, let's do this.'
- vroom -
''Nooooooo! Don't run…''
'Damn it, I blew it.'
- SSSSSRRKKKKK -
'WHAT THE—A TRUCK!!'
'THE CAT WASN'T FLEEING FROM ME! BUT FROM THE TRUCK!'
'WHY DIDN'T I SEE IT COMING?! WHEN DID IT COME THIS CLOSE?! I NEED TO GET OUT OF TH-'
-CRASH-
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Character name:
Birthday:
Origin:
Specie:
Appearance:
Estimated initial level:
Initial Location:
Estimated difficulty:
Estimated initial equipment:
Estimated background:
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
… What the… Where am I?
Didn't I die? This makes no fucking sense whatsoever. What the hell is happening?
Wait… If I'm dead, I shouldn't be able to think!
Am I dreaming? Did I get hit by the truck and survive, and now I'm in a coma or something? That would make more sense…
Alright, I should go with that for now. I feel like if I ponder about this any longer, I might go insane.
That is... if I'm not insane already...
But more importantly… Isn't that the Tardia character creator screen in front of me?
NO, it isn't! Tardia's initial character creation doesn't have a birthday, and also when you start a fresh playthrough, you cannot select the origin since you play the campaign as the main character.
''Estimated'' and species also appear only on the hired mercenary character creation screen, which is only possible to access from Act 5 onward.
Well, it is a cool dream, but I should be waking up already since I'm this conscious about dreaming…
…
…
(…)
WHY? Why can't I wake up?!
MOVE! STUPID BODY! MOVE!
I can't feel my body!
Alright, new approach. Is there something that I can do here?
NOP, only sheer darkness, and the bizarre character creation screen.
(...)
…
How much time has passed? Why is nothing happening? Why am I not waking up?
This is weird. If this was a dream, I would probably be awoken by now … What is even more weird is that the creation screen is still here, unmovable… Should I just try to interact with it? There's no way it works, right?
Character name: DamnOne
w-w-wha-what …
Character name: Ethan
...
It works… Alright, I'll play with it until I wake up!
Character name:
How should I name the character… Maybe I should go with something funny? Nah … my own name would also be weird … Aha … Yeah... that would do... it sounds cool and holy.
Character name: Astrael
Yep! That's a cool name, now origin maybe?
Origin: [mercenary/locked] [noble] [slave] [farmer] [miner] [priest/locked] [bishop/locked] …
Huuuum, I see… That's why the birthday comes first; if I don't have enough age, it's impossible to have some of the backgrounds here.
Birthday: Year of the Wolf 1/1 (MM/DD) – Year of the Bird 12/30 (MM/DD)
YEAR OF THE WOLF!!!!! that's like 4 years before the beginning of the campaign!
Birthday: Year of the Wolf 4/10 (MM/DD)
Let's go with this then; now let's go back to origins...
Origin: [mercenary/locked] [noble] [slave] [farmer] [miner] [priest/locked] [bishop/locked] …
For mercenary, I need to be at least 17 years of age, meaning that my starting character will probably be very young, maybe a child… Miner will probably lock my species at dwarf and Noble will lock my initial location; farmer and slave will not be very different from each other depending on my estimated background... so my best bet here will probably be slave since at least I'll start with +1 rigor point.
Origin: Slave
Species: Human, Goblin, Orc, Kobold, Spirit, Half-Elf (locked), Half-Dragon (locked)...
As expected, most of the species who have a strong god protecting them or are just strong in general cannot be slaves.
Species: Human
Now the difficult part is appearance… This will influence the minimum amount of charisma status I can have, since from the 100 points of charisma, someone can have 40 points is purely based on appearance alone.
Since I'm a human and not a threatening-looking species like a goblin, orc, or any type of undead, the minimum amount I should have is 0 or very close to it… I can't fuck this up and risk getting negative charisma.
Wait … If my minimum charisma status is too high, I might have problems with spirits flocking around me and messing up everything I try to do… There is also the increased risk of getting taken as a hostage or ending up as merchandise in the black market to appease some sick-minded noble…
That's rough… Depending on my initial location choices, I might actually have to go back and redo the character…
Alright, let's do this.
Appearance: Gender (male)
Oh! WOW! It's really a kid, not a teenager, probably 10 or 12?… Let's see … pretty, but not too much that will be a problem… In that case, the hair should probably be dark since it's very common for peasants to have dark hair… He shouldn't be muscular either since he's a kid and a slave; besides, I don't want to have the attention of slave traders and merchants either.
Height should be a little above average at best since it's a kid, and being too tall can pass the wrong impression, so about 5 feet? Yeah I think 5'1 it's the sweet spot
The eyes…Brown is the most common one, soooooo... I should go with green since blue is the color of human royalty, gray, although pretty, is not that rare and is mostly appreciated by spirits, but green is uncommon and considered pretty by most species.
Purple, red, and pink are a no-go since they're not only ultra-rare but also highly valued among elves, dragons, mermaids …
So green it is.
For the skin color… this probably will affect my initial location since dark skin is most common in the south near the sea all the way to the western desert in the Eldrathar continent where most humans live; light skin color is common in the north and east, and in the central parts of Eldrathar it's all mixed… Starting at the sea or desert is a big NO.
The sea has the most hostile faction in all Tardia: mermaids, megalodons, sentient giant octopuses; however, nightmare-inducing bullshit I can think of, they have it… Honestly, I would avoid that place unless I reeeeeally need to get something from there.
The north is the house of some spirit factions, as well as some elves… All in all, not that bad; depending on luck, it can be great or just an okay start…
The desert is rough as a starting point but can give an obscene amount of exp early on.
The sweet spot should be light skin, but not too light since I can get targeted by spirits… This should give me the option to start at Central Plains, or near the elves …
Appearance: Gender (male)
Hair is dark and slightly messy, cut at an uneven length. It's mostly straight, but it has a bit of a tousled look, giving him a soft, unkempt appearance. His lively green eyes gave him a cute and innocent look, 5'1 height a bit above average but still average, light skin, slim …
Now let's see what else I can do here, change proportions … OH! WOW BUDDY! WOW! BUDDY! WOW!…
I CAN CUSTOMIZE MY JOHNSON!!!!!!!
What do I do? What do I do...?
Let's just skip it, right? It's not like it's going to affect me… Besides, this is also weird; I've never seen this type of customization on Tardia before… Let's just make the body proportional and well-balanced… BUT!… I mean, there's a saying: 2 fists would have a hard time against 4 arms, so I suppose that having a third leg would suuurely be of help, right? RIGHT??????
HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE slong!
Yep, that should be fine.