Character Creation
almostinsane
Well-known member
Prologue: Character Creation
"So... I'm dead," I stated. Somehow, that thought did not terrify me as much as it should have. For the afterlife, this place did not seem all too bad. Sure, it was not particularly bright, but it wasn't pitch dark or filled with fire and tortured screams like the hells certain religions believed in... Did I believe in those hells? I couldn't quite remember. Weird... Anyway, the place seemed to be nothing but grey mist that seemed to go on forever, what light there was conveying that it was either shortly after dawn or shortly before dusk. It was...
"A limbo of sorts, isn't it?" someone announced candidly, causing me to blink in surprise as I turned to face an elderly man, half-moon spectacles gleaming in the twilight. I groaned.
"Albus Dumbledore? Really?" I asked in slightly exasperation. The Being-Who-Appeared-To-Be-A-Merlin-Expy laughed.
"I just recently started appearing in this form. It makes the sort of things I have to say a tad easier to accept... At least, until Book 5 came out. Then, souls such as yourself began to suspect my motives!"
He looked mildly offended. I snorted.
"Maybe you should start going with a new form. Or an old one," I pointed out. The being shook his head.
"I just got this one. I'm not changing so soon. Do you know how hard it is to fit an infinite amount of cosmic power into a form small enough for you mortals to comprehend? I'd have to go months without working on my projects like yourself. Months!"
"Projects like myself... What is that? Just who am I? I know I was human and I was on earth then I died and then..."
"Well, that is quite natural, my boy. It's all a part of the reincarnation process. As you perceptively pointed out, you are dead. What you are just now starting to realize is that this is, as I said, a sort of limbo. A place between what you and your kind refer to as the Otherworld, Afterlife, Heaven, Hell, Yomi, Hel, Valhalla, Hades, Mictlan, etcetra, etcetra, and you are now undergoing what has invariably been called reincarnation, Samsara, reincarnantion, or rebirth, but what I like to call "Character Creation" or "Character Reroll." Any questions?"
"Yeah.... You make it sound like a sort of roleplaying game," I pointed out.
"It is more like the next phase of your spiritual journey, but I find tabletop roleplaying terms to be more useful. If you like, think of me as the Gamemaster, yourself as the player, and this phase as your Character Creation or Character Reroll since you just finished playing your previous character in a less than stellar manner, I might add. You see, you died from:
A. An unfortunate incident where you ate a tainted meal from Taco Bell. It collapsed your insides in a most amazing fashion. They named the new disease after you! (Poison Resistance Trait Gained)
B. You fought most valiantly in an altercation at your local Walmart. You were shopping for groceries, but, unbeknownst to you, it was Black Friday. You stood against the hordes of desperate shoppers until one shoved you to the ground from behind and bludgeoned you to death with a Rollback sign. Unfortunately, Bob, the Maintenance Associate, forgot to repair the cameras that day so your assailant got off Scott Free. (Bonus to Combat)
C. You embarrassed a rather short-tempered man quite thoroughly in a bar one night when drunk. Unfortunately, he murdered you on the way to your car. (Bonus to Charisma)
D. Your dog ran into a busy street and you raced after him. You saved your most important friend in the world, but the car splattered your brains everywhere. (Bonus to Smallfolk Interaction)
"I died in a Walmart... Yeah. I remember that. That... Is a sad statement about my life."
"Oh, don't feel too bad," the Gamemaster comforted, "There's really no such thing as a dignified way to die and, besides, your life wasn't meaningless, you were..."
A. Quite the athlete. True, you died before you managed to even get a shot at going pro, but you were in the top 10% of athletes in your high school. Not everyone can say that (Bonus to Fitness)
B. You were the weatherman on a local news station. True, you never made it into the top 1% of journalists that appeared on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc., but you were a local celebrity in your small town. It helped with the local female population, I'll give you that. (Bonus to Charisma)
C. You were a lifelong academic. College had never ceased to be your home. Sure, it was just at a community college and you never got full hours as a professor, but that was a small price to pay to cling onto your late teens/early twenties. (Bonus to Intelligence)
D. You were a mechanic. You spent your days fixing cars that people were too stupid to take care of in the first place, but you comforted yourself with the knowledge that it was a well-paying job for someone who could not afford to goto school as an engineer (Bonus to Technological Knowledge)
"A weatherman... I wish I had predicted what would happen at Walmart," I sighed. The Gamemaster nodded in understanding, "It happpens. We all have our weaknesses. Speaking of weaknesses, you were..."
A. Never an athlete. The sun burned you and you preferred to exercise as little possible. (Penalty to General Fitness)
B. You were a paranoid loon. Everyone was out to get you. It wreaked havoc on your social life (Paranoid Trait Gained)
C. You were not the most perceptive person around you. A great deal of things took you by surprise both in sports and in life (Penalty to Perception)
D. You had difficulty reading. You got over it, but not without a lot of effort from private tutors and screeching from your mother (Dyslexic Trait Gained)
"Don't remind me. It took me forever to get over that... Wait. Will I have that again?!" I asked. The Gamemaster grinned slightly.
"We are re-rolling your character. Usually, that means you can make such tweaks, but given the abysmal amount of experience you accumulated since your last respawn, there is little you can do to change your stats and traits?"
"What?" I asked, dumbfounded. The Entity-That-Definitely-Wasn't-Albus-Dumbledore waved a hand.
"...Fuck you dude," I said after a while. Again, the Gamemaster looked mildly offended.
"Now, see here, I am being imminently fair to you. Seeing as you had just fallen in love with Lord of the Rings again, I was going to give you the chance to incarnate into Arda, but now, well... You will have to be happy playing through Westeros. I hope you are happy."
"You said this was part of my spiritual evolution. Now you seem like a Gamemaster whose ego was just bruised."
"Peaceful eras eliminated," he said smugly. I resisted the urge to groan. Shit... My life was in the hands of an egomaniac of a Gamemaster. Maybe it was best I shut up for now (+1 Wisdom Gained).
"Now, you have five eras to choose from: Aegon's Conquest, the Reign of Maegor the Usurper, the Dance of Dragons, the First Blackfyre Rebellion, or Robert's Rebellion. You will have to choose a life born within Westeros. Unfortunately, Essos and Yi Ti are not playable regions from the start of your new life. Now, what will it be?"
Shit... I had to choose which era of Westeros I had to live in. Maegor's era was instantly out. His reign sounded like an era of random cruelty and bloodshed, even by George R.R. Martin's standards. I did not feel like I was a big enough fan to know how to ward off the tranwreck that was canon if I chose to be born during Robert's Rebellion and the same could be said of the First Blackfyre Rebellion. I thought for a moment. I was familiar with the Dance of Dragons. Enough that I felt confident that I could minimize it (if I was in the right House) or avoid losing my head. Aegon's Conquest sounded like I could survive unless I was unlucky enough to be on the wrong end of Aegon's dragons and even if that was the case, when did Maegor become king?
"I'll take my chances with the Dance."
"Interesting choice. Truthfully, I was hoping for another Blackfyre player, but, there's always the next death. Now, on to business. Which House would you like be incarnated in?"
"I could choose any House... Any at all?" I asked tentatively. The Gamemaster nodded.
"Any house you know of... except Targaryen. There are too many Targaryen playthroughs in that era.
Well, shit. I didn't know too many houses off the top of my head beside the Lords Paramount and House Hightower. If I remembered correctly, only the Starks and Martells got out of it unscathed, but I did not really want to spend my day in the freezing north considering that the Stark during the Dance took people down to fight in the war specifically so they could die. As for Dorne....
Fuck the Dornish.
"I choose House Lannister."
"Then you have two options:
Jason Lannister
The Heir (+1 Fitness, +1 Charisma,)
Tyland Lannister
The Spare (+1 Perception, +1 Intelligence/Cunning)"
I thought for a moment. Being Tyland would give me more freedom and would allow me overcome my dyslexic handicap faster, but being the heir of Casterly Rock seemed appealing... Plus, in these games, it was best to play to your stat strengths, right?
"Call me Jason, then."
"Alright Jason, call me Al... And don't expect me to let you exploit the Gamer system too much and, remember, if you trip during a dance, be sure not to break your neck."
A/N. I generally feel uncomfortable playing SIs, so I decided to try out a unique way of crafting an OC without it becoming me accidentally. For all multiple choice options selected from above, I used a dice app to make the selection: Roll a Die . There will be some Gamer features here, but not to the extent that it becomes a huge exploit like in certain fics. We'll see things like stat increases/checks, and Al checking in now and then and that will mostly be it. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
"So... I'm dead," I stated. Somehow, that thought did not terrify me as much as it should have. For the afterlife, this place did not seem all too bad. Sure, it was not particularly bright, but it wasn't pitch dark or filled with fire and tortured screams like the hells certain religions believed in... Did I believe in those hells? I couldn't quite remember. Weird... Anyway, the place seemed to be nothing but grey mist that seemed to go on forever, what light there was conveying that it was either shortly after dawn or shortly before dusk. It was...
"A limbo of sorts, isn't it?" someone announced candidly, causing me to blink in surprise as I turned to face an elderly man, half-moon spectacles gleaming in the twilight. I groaned.
"Albus Dumbledore? Really?" I asked in slightly exasperation. The Being-Who-Appeared-To-Be-A-Merlin-Expy laughed.
"I just recently started appearing in this form. It makes the sort of things I have to say a tad easier to accept... At least, until Book 5 came out. Then, souls such as yourself began to suspect my motives!"
He looked mildly offended. I snorted.
"Maybe you should start going with a new form. Or an old one," I pointed out. The being shook his head.
"I just got this one. I'm not changing so soon. Do you know how hard it is to fit an infinite amount of cosmic power into a form small enough for you mortals to comprehend? I'd have to go months without working on my projects like yourself. Months!"
"Projects like myself... What is that? Just who am I? I know I was human and I was on earth then I died and then..."
"Well, that is quite natural, my boy. It's all a part of the reincarnation process. As you perceptively pointed out, you are dead. What you are just now starting to realize is that this is, as I said, a sort of limbo. A place between what you and your kind refer to as the Otherworld, Afterlife, Heaven, Hell, Yomi, Hel, Valhalla, Hades, Mictlan, etcetra, etcetra, and you are now undergoing what has invariably been called reincarnation, Samsara, reincarnantion, or rebirth, but what I like to call "Character Creation" or "Character Reroll." Any questions?"
"Yeah.... You make it sound like a sort of roleplaying game," I pointed out.
"It is more like the next phase of your spiritual journey, but I find tabletop roleplaying terms to be more useful. If you like, think of me as the Gamemaster, yourself as the player, and this phase as your Character Creation or Character Reroll since you just finished playing your previous character in a less than stellar manner, I might add. You see, you died from:
A. An unfortunate incident where you ate a tainted meal from Taco Bell. It collapsed your insides in a most amazing fashion. They named the new disease after you! (Poison Resistance Trait Gained)
B. You fought most valiantly in an altercation at your local Walmart. You were shopping for groceries, but, unbeknownst to you, it was Black Friday. You stood against the hordes of desperate shoppers until one shoved you to the ground from behind and bludgeoned you to death with a Rollback sign. Unfortunately, Bob, the Maintenance Associate, forgot to repair the cameras that day so your assailant got off Scott Free. (Bonus to Combat)
C. You embarrassed a rather short-tempered man quite thoroughly in a bar one night when drunk. Unfortunately, he murdered you on the way to your car. (Bonus to Charisma)
D. Your dog ran into a busy street and you raced after him. You saved your most important friend in the world, but the car splattered your brains everywhere. (Bonus to Smallfolk Interaction)
"I died in a Walmart... Yeah. I remember that. That... Is a sad statement about my life."
"Oh, don't feel too bad," the Gamemaster comforted, "There's really no such thing as a dignified way to die and, besides, your life wasn't meaningless, you were..."
A. Quite the athlete. True, you died before you managed to even get a shot at going pro, but you were in the top 10% of athletes in your high school. Not everyone can say that (Bonus to Fitness)
B. You were the weatherman on a local news station. True, you never made it into the top 1% of journalists that appeared on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc., but you were a local celebrity in your small town. It helped with the local female population, I'll give you that. (Bonus to Charisma)
C. You were a lifelong academic. College had never ceased to be your home. Sure, it was just at a community college and you never got full hours as a professor, but that was a small price to pay to cling onto your late teens/early twenties. (Bonus to Intelligence)
D. You were a mechanic. You spent your days fixing cars that people were too stupid to take care of in the first place, but you comforted yourself with the knowledge that it was a well-paying job for someone who could not afford to goto school as an engineer (Bonus to Technological Knowledge)
"A weatherman... I wish I had predicted what would happen at Walmart," I sighed. The Gamemaster nodded in understanding, "It happpens. We all have our weaknesses. Speaking of weaknesses, you were..."
A. Never an athlete. The sun burned you and you preferred to exercise as little possible. (Penalty to General Fitness)
B. You were a paranoid loon. Everyone was out to get you. It wreaked havoc on your social life (Paranoid Trait Gained)
C. You were not the most perceptive person around you. A great deal of things took you by surprise both in sports and in life (Penalty to Perception)
D. You had difficulty reading. You got over it, but not without a lot of effort from private tutors and screeching from your mother (Dyslexic Trait Gained)
"Don't remind me. It took me forever to get over that... Wait. Will I have that again?!" I asked. The Gamemaster grinned slightly.
"We are re-rolling your character. Usually, that means you can make such tweaks, but given the abysmal amount of experience you accumulated since your last respawn, there is little you can do to change your stats and traits?"
"What?" I asked, dumbfounded. The Entity-That-Definitely-Wasn't-Albus-Dumbledore waved a hand.
Character Profile
Stats
Name: ?
Age: ?
Stats
Fitness: 2
Vitality: 2
Charisma: 2
Perception: 2
Intelligence/Cunning: 2
Wisdom: 2
Authority: 2
Traits:
A Noble Death: +2 to Fitness when in combat; rate of experience gained in combat increased by .5% until level 10 in Fitness.
A Silver Tongue: +1 to Charisma
Dyslexic: -1 to Intelligence/Cunning when reading. Experience gained by reading decreased by .5% until base level 10 in Intelligence/Cunning.
"...Fuck you dude," I said after a while. Again, the Gamemaster looked mildly offended.
"Now, see here, I am being imminently fair to you. Seeing as you had just fallen in love with Lord of the Rings again, I was going to give you the chance to incarnate into Arda, but now, well... You will have to be happy playing through Westeros. I hope you are happy."
"You said this was part of my spiritual evolution. Now you seem like a Gamemaster whose ego was just bruised."
"Peaceful eras eliminated," he said smugly. I resisted the urge to groan. Shit... My life was in the hands of an egomaniac of a Gamemaster. Maybe it was best I shut up for now (+1 Wisdom Gained).
"Now, you have five eras to choose from: Aegon's Conquest, the Reign of Maegor the Usurper, the Dance of Dragons, the First Blackfyre Rebellion, or Robert's Rebellion. You will have to choose a life born within Westeros. Unfortunately, Essos and Yi Ti are not playable regions from the start of your new life. Now, what will it be?"
Shit... I had to choose which era of Westeros I had to live in. Maegor's era was instantly out. His reign sounded like an era of random cruelty and bloodshed, even by George R.R. Martin's standards. I did not feel like I was a big enough fan to know how to ward off the tranwreck that was canon if I chose to be born during Robert's Rebellion and the same could be said of the First Blackfyre Rebellion. I thought for a moment. I was familiar with the Dance of Dragons. Enough that I felt confident that I could minimize it (if I was in the right House) or avoid losing my head. Aegon's Conquest sounded like I could survive unless I was unlucky enough to be on the wrong end of Aegon's dragons and even if that was the case, when did Maegor become king?
"I'll take my chances with the Dance."
"Interesting choice. Truthfully, I was hoping for another Blackfyre player, but, there's always the next death. Now, on to business. Which House would you like be incarnated in?"
"I could choose any House... Any at all?" I asked tentatively. The Gamemaster nodded.
"Any house you know of... except Targaryen. There are too many Targaryen playthroughs in that era.
Well, shit. I didn't know too many houses off the top of my head beside the Lords Paramount and House Hightower. If I remembered correctly, only the Starks and Martells got out of it unscathed, but I did not really want to spend my day in the freezing north considering that the Stark during the Dance took people down to fight in the war specifically so they could die. As for Dorne....
Fuck the Dornish.
"I choose House Lannister."
"Then you have two options:
Jason Lannister
The Heir (+1 Fitness, +1 Charisma,)
Tyland Lannister
The Spare (+1 Perception, +1 Intelligence/Cunning)"
I thought for a moment. Being Tyland would give me more freedom and would allow me overcome my dyslexic handicap faster, but being the heir of Casterly Rock seemed appealing... Plus, in these games, it was best to play to your stat strengths, right?
"Call me Jason, then."
"Alright Jason, call me Al... And don't expect me to let you exploit the Gamer system too much and, remember, if you trip during a dance, be sure not to break your neck."
A/N. I generally feel uncomfortable playing SIs, so I decided to try out a unique way of crafting an OC without it becoming me accidentally. For all multiple choice options selected from above, I used a dice app to make the selection: Roll a Die . There will be some Gamer features here, but not to the extent that it becomes a huge exploit like in certain fics. We'll see things like stat increases/checks, and Al checking in now and then and that will mostly be it. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
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