Fjorgyn: A Rebel Rises

by RJ Castiglione

  Two hours passed. I cried, I vomited some more, and I cried again. When I thought I was done, I turned to the bird to seek more guidance. I was a blank slate. I needed to know what to do.

  “Ready now?”

  I nodded at him, swallowing back tears.

  “Alright. First order of business. You’re you. And that’s a problem. We can’t have you walking around in your all-together like that. Plus you look like a flesh-colored, furry pin-cushion. How about you select a race? If you need to review them, they’ll be in your journal here.” The crow pecked at the book, leaving a dent in one of the pages.

  A giant gong sounded, and my interface exploded in front of me – the character creation screen. I didn’t have an option in this matter. I tried to close it in vain. It occupied my entire field of vision.

  This was the standard creation screen: Race, gender, and customizations. When my breathing finally slowed, I looked through my options:

  Trisi: Completely human in appearance, this is the most common race in Fjorygn. Trisians tend to congregate in and around large cities and are great merchants and diplomats. They have created vast empires. They are average in height and have no special racial abilities. They can excel at magic or fighting and are as versatile as they come. Trisians seem uniquely blessed and are treated with fairness by all the gods. As such, they gain a passive 5% boost to luck and a 5% increase to mercantile and diplomatic skills.

  Mountain Dwarves: They are stout and muscular with strong backs and arms, but short legs. Mountain Dwarves are tribal and often spend time occupied by infighting between various clans. They are not concerned with the happenings of other races and have a distrust for non-dwarves.They excel at melee fighting, serve as excellent tanks, and are awarded a passive racial skill of Nightvision – capable of seeing in the dark. They are also excellent craftsmen and enchanters. While mountain dwarves can use magic, they have little affinity. Mountain Dwarves experience the following racial adjustments: +5% strength, +5% boost to leveling all crafting professions (minus herbalism), -5% to stalking, -10% to wisdom, -10% to intelligence. They also enjoy +5% boost to health and stamina regeneration.

  Hill Dwarves: Like their cousins, the mountain dwarves, they are stout and muscular. They excel in both melee fighting and hunting. While they do establish clans, Hill Dwarves have formed many small kingdoms and inter-clan governments. They are more trusting of non-dwarven races. They have abandoned underground life long ago and have lost the ability to use Nightvision. Due to their closer proximity to lunar and solar gods, they have regained partial use of magic. As such, they experience the following racial adjustments: +5% strength, +5% boost to leveling all crafting professions, -5% to wisdom, -5% to intelligence. They also enjoy +5% boost to health and stamina regeneration.

  Nisse: Similar in appearance to gnomes, Nisse are smaller and more slender than dwarves. They are often mistaken for Trisian children. Nisseans live in areas where mountains meet forest and build incredibly advanced settlements and technologies. No Nissean city becomes too large. When one approaches ten-thousand, a decision is made to create a colony at another location. This results in the formation of clustered kingdoms with a central protectorate. While they can become successful rogues, they have no love of melee combat. Instead, they prefer to be on the fringes of battle and make for avid hunters, spellcasters, and healers. Their affinity for magic also makes them excellent enchanters and herbalists. -15% to strength, +5% boost to enchanting and herbalism, +5% boost to intelligence and wisdom, +5% boost to agility, and +5% boost to mana regeneration.

  Elves: Shorter than Trisians, elves have slender bodies and ears that form a point, often said to aid in hearing beyond the physical realm. They exist in small clans and, though allied, they seldom interact. They adopt both the physical appearance and spell affinity towards the elements they are surrounded by. Due to their size, they have no affinity for melee combat and prefer ranged arts, often exchanging knowledge and skill with the Nisseans. Due to their spiritual attunement and millennia living in forests, their magical gifts are greatly amplified. They also make great enchanters, crafters, and herbalists. They experience -10% to strength, -5% to Constitution, +10% to intelligence and wisdom, and +5% to non-metal crafting, and +5% to herbalism and enchanting. Because of their connection to nature and the divine, they also enjoy +5% to healing arts and +5% to mana regeneration.

  Lizardfolk: Little is known about Lizardfolk. They are a reptilian species that have no little connection with other humanoid races. They live in swamps and bogs around Fjorygn, never in settlements larger than few dozen. They are partially covered in scales, and their pupils are diamond shaped. They can blend in with their environment due to their existing racial skill, Chameleon. They make great rogues and hunters. They also have an affinity for plant and animal life and make great herbalists. They are able to breathe underwater. +5% to agility, +5% to stalking, +5% to herbalism, +5% to constitution, -5% to intelligence and wisdom. -5% to diplomacy and mercantile skills.

  Catkin: These people exist in solitary packs all over Fjorygn. They have no government structure and have the ability to take on the different appearance of cats. They can also appear trisian, but the illusion is weak. Sometimes, they even become cats entirely and are able to pass for house pets to the untrained eye. They have a little magical affinity but are skilled thieves and hunters. They are also considered lucky and possess strength beyond their size. They experience +5% to strength, -10% to wisdom and intelligence, +5% to constitution, +5% to luck.

  Giants: Giants are a clan-based group like dwarves. They look like Trisians, but are much taller and stronger. They have a little magical affinity and find crafting to be difficult because of their large hands and fingers. They make up for this strength and diplomacy. They are naturally docile and slow to war. As a result, giants are welcome among most races, save Lizardfolk and Catkin who have a natural distrust for them. Giants experience +15% to strength and constitution, -15% to wisdom and intelligence, +20% to mercantile and diplomacy skills, and +15% to health and stamina regeneration.

  My head was spinning with the options and potential. When I first started playing, I chose Trisian because of the deluge of information. I could have always deleted and started a new character. I poured over each option for an hour and then I remembered Vindur.

  “What do you think?”

  The crow was flying circles above me in boredom. He landed on my shoulder and stretched his tiny nails into my skin. I flinched and tried to pull back but it truthfully didn’t hurt that much. “When you played, you enjoyed herbalism and healing. Is that what you want to do?”

  I shrugged enough to cause him to lose balance. He compensated by thrashing his wings, smacking one into my face. “I don’t know. You’re suggesting an elf. What’s this adoption of physical appearance and skills all about?”

  Vindur explained all about the types of elves—a new mechanic of Fjorygn that didn’t exist when I played it as a game. Despite being one race – and the oldest race in Fjorygn at that – they could adapt. Forest elves had fair and tan skin. They could move between trees with ease and could blend in with the forest. They could draw from the magic of forests for healing. The strongest among them could even control the trees themselves. In open country, they were weaker. Mountain Elves had a gray tint to their skin and were excellent climbers. They could command the elements of earth with ferocity and could see underground – but not in darkness at night. I found that peculiar. Darkness was darkness, right? Water elves, called that because of settlements near the ocean, could control water and worshiped Trisian gods of water. They commanded divine magic and could push away or freeze their enemies in their tracks. They were fantastic swimmers and could breathe underwater for extended periods of time. They could even summon storms. When elves were away from their homes for too long, they could adapt new powers, lose their original powers, or both. They could hasten their transformation by meditating in their new environment.

  When Vindur e
xplained the adjustment of skills, my mind was made up. Trisians were great and all, but too common. They were “jack of all, master of none.” Elves were adaptable, and I wanted to be too. I also did not want to be an unusual race, so big that I could only sex-up giants or so weak in magic that I couldn’t heal.

  I quickly selected the elven race and adjusted my appearance appropriately. I made myself tall for an elf – still a good foot shorter than my current height. I shortened and straightened my nose. I selected a shoulder-length, brownish-red hairstyle that could be tucked behind my ears. I made my ear points shorter as well. “Sometimes,” I thought to myself, “I will need to hide the fact that I’m an elf”. I selected what I felt to be the right balance of weight and muscle, making myself lean and muscular, but not “I piss steroids” strong. I left the rest of my face alone but made my eyes a striking gray color. I’ve always wanted gray eyes. I was tired of having brown. When I had accepted my choices, I waited with trepidation for something to happen. Nothing changed. Until it did. My arms shot out from my side while a green light washed over my body. The bulk of my body hair didn’t just vanish. It was ripped out, like receiving a full body wax all at once. My screams may have projected for miles. Notifications in the corner of my eye showed my HP pool shrinking, then growing, then shrinking, then growing—continuously replenished by the healing spell that surrounded me.

  I could feel my spine and my bones all compress. I could hear my hair growing. My ears felt like they would be ripped off my body. My nose crunched as it’s usual slant was broken, corrected, and healed again. When I thought it was all over, an inferno shot out of my eyes. If I didn’t know any better, I could have thought they would boil and drain out. When it was complete, I opened them as best I could, but they were brimming with tears. I had collapsed into a ball on the cavern floor. The pain had subsided, leaving me gasping for air while my eyes fluttered like a spastic butterfly. When I regained some sense of myself, my character screen was all I saw in front of me, shaped like a thin, translucent monitor in my field of vision. I gawked at my appearance. I was not myself anymore. And I still was.

  Congratulations! You have selected your race: Elf. Because of your selection in a forest, you have adopted the characteristics of a forest elf and now feel more at home when surrounded by trees.

  Closing the character screen, I looked down quickly and felt myself. I was still intact. “I have a penis,” I yelled for the second time that night. I lifted my shaft up and gripped underneath. “And balls! And abs! I have abs!” I shook my hands through my hair. “And feel that hair!” My standard crew cut and pronounced widow's peak were gone. I felt like the Doctor after a new regeneration – only less confused.

  When the excitement of possessing my same genitalia wore off, another rock struck me on my new nose. “Now that you have reestablished your blossoming manhood, how about you get going? You seem as though you may be a bit cold,” Vindur pointed his wing at my junk. It was retreating from the cold. “And a bit thirsty, and hungry for something more substantial than stale bread.” He settled again on the boulder in the middle of the cave.

  “Why don’t you go find yourself a shirt, some pants, some food, and a weapon while you’re at it. You should know the drill. Oh! Get some clean water, too!”

  He flew up to the entrance to the cave, landing on a tree root that circled the lip.

  “And before I forget, check out your skills page again. The powers above aren’t entirely heartless. They wanted to make your experience here a little easier.”

  DING!

  The familiar sound of a character action brought me comfort, making me briefly forget that I was level 1. And naked. And dead. I brought up my character interface again.

  Secret name: Slanaitheoir (savior)

  Character name: ???

  Race: Forest Elf

  Age: 27

  Class: Undefined

  Talent: Undefined

  Level 1 (0%, 83xp to next level)

  Health: 100

  Mana: 103

  Stamina: 100

  Fatigue: 0%

  Armor: -10 (you’re naked, jackass)

  Strength: 10

  Intelligence: 13

  Wisdom: 13

  Constitution: 10

  Agility: 12

  Luck: 5

  Alignment: Chaotic Good (+1)

  Racial Traits: +5% to herbalism, +5% to all non-metal crafting, +5% to nature-based healing and damage spells, +5% to mana regeneration

  Profession: Undefined

  Company: Undefined

  Modifiers: Forest Elf (+10% movement in the forest)

  Skills:

  Blessing of Belama (hidden skill, passive): Because of your innate understanding of multiple worlds, your true name is Slanaitheoir – a savior. You will receive more experience from killing creatures and completing quests. You have been granted +2 to all attributes (before racial modifiers). You will also receive two attribute points per level instead of one. You are exempt from all penalties from death. You will not age. You will heal and level faster than others in this world.

  Curse of Mannana (hidden skill, passive): Your age will advance at a rate of one year every five years. You will only receive two attribute points per level up to level 20 and then return to one attribute point per level. You may only resurrect at a single, predefined location. The time between death and resurrection will be one week. This position can be changed once per week. You are required to eat, drink, sleep, and void yourself like any other living thing. Failure to do so will result in an increase in your fatigue. Becoming fatigued has consequences!. You may only tell companions that you are from another world. “I am Mannana, the Supreme god of death. I am stronger than Belama, and my curse overrides her blessing. I don’t know why she is blessing a level 1 elf. I will find out.”

  By the time I finished reading and closed my character screen, my mouth was agape.

  “Stop drooling and get moving, noob!” Vindur obviously had an attitude problem that I hoped I would be able to correct. I was stuck with him for as long as he thought he was necessary. Before I had a chance to leave, another prompt appeared on its own.

  You have received a quest! “Shake that moneymaker!”

  Vindur has instructed you to find two servings of fresh food, two servings of clean water, clothing, and a weapon. This quest is non-optional.

  Reward: Unknown

  Bonus: Provide two meals consisting of more than two separate ingredients. The better the meal, the higher the potential bonus.

  I thought this was going to be easy enough, but I recalled my first time logging into Fjorgyn. I started out in a small elven village with clothing, a weapon, and multiple NPC’s already procedurally generated with quests to offer. I even had a small amount of coin to get me started. I fostered that small village with other allies I found along the way into a thriving city with my company at the seat of power.

  ------

  Climbing out of the safety of the grotto for the first time was daunting, although I was pleased to find an easy egress. Not only was I stark naked. I was also unarmed. This was a foreign experience for me. I was a gamer. I didn’t find myself slogging through the woods in real life – especially naked. Now every thorn pierced my soles. Every branch scratched my body. And every little bug seemed to want me for its afternoon snack. Walking itself wasn’t easy. It took me almost an hour to get used to my new body. My stride was shorter. My arms were shorter. I fell a few times, only to eat dirt because I failed to catch myself in time.

  Still, one must do what he must to survive. I continued further and further away from the cave, crouching and creeping through the trees like a sloth on a hot day. And it was a hot day today. Sweat was steaming off me from the heat, leaving wisps of vapor in my wake. As I began to walk further and further, I started surveying the forest floor for any sign of life. It felt like hours had passed before I finally found something to go on.: A single scrap of fabric that appeared to have snagged on a branch. The m
oment I touched the fabric, a notification appeared in front of me.

  Congratulations! You have discovered a new skill! Tracking. Your perseverance in searching the wilds for signs of life has yielded promising results. Continue to utilize this skill to advance in rank. Current rank: 1.

  When I first started playing, I was overjoyed with discovering my first skill. It wasn’t particularly useful and turned out to be my weakest skill at later levels. This time felt different, however. I didn’t have the insight and abilities of other players to leverage. I was the only player. The rest? NPC’s. In the game, they existed to further my power. I can’t say that I ever spent more than a few minutes with any NPC at a time. There was never need.

  As I pressed forward, I continued to look for new signs. I saw more broken twigs, but no footprints or other signs of life. If they were there, I wasn’t high enough in skill to be able to see them. I had a hunch, though. I continued to follow them for another ten minutes until I saw a temporary structure. I would have almost walked by it if I hadn’t turned my head.

  Congratulations! You have found ‘Abandoned Lean-to.' +10xp

  I blinked away the notification and looked around the settlement. It looked abandoned for quite some time. Moss caked the firepit. Inside the shelter, there was a single pile of moldy leaves—a temporary bed. It the makings of a small lean-to most likely used by a hunter. Behind the bedding, a discarded pouch rested on the ground. I opened the contents of the sack: