General: If an action does not fit the description of any specific characteristic, then the GENERAL score is used for purposes of calculation. GENERAL score is calculated as the average of all characteristics of the given category.
Strength: Your bodies general physical strength.
Dexterity: Your bodies ability to respond quickly, accomplish acrobatic feats, and do delicate tasks.
Constitution: How much damage or hardship your body can take before being either damaged or exhausted.
Physical Attraction: A measure of your personal physical attributes when measured against the beauty standards of your race and culture.
Curious about the modifiers I focused on that column heading and a short description came up beside it as well.
“MODIFIERS: A modifier is added to the final score when attempting to do an action that fits under the definition of the given characteristic.
I continued reading the Immaterial Characteristics descriptions.
General: If an action does not fit the description of any specific characteristic, then the GENERAL score is used for purposes of calculation. GENERAL score is calculated as the average of all characteristics of the given category.
Intelligence: Your capacity to understand how the universe works, both physically, and interpersonally.
Emotional Stability: Your ability to withstand hardship and maintain a stable, healthy emotional state.
Sensitivity: Your ability to understand, and sense the emotional state of others. Also, if a person has the "psychic" trait, then this is the characteristic that affects all psychic skills.
Perception: Your ability to be aware of your general surroundings by using the senses you have. Gains a base of +1 / every sense your race has.
Luck: Your overall positive luck. Added proportionally to situations that have at least a small element of randomness.
“Okay,” I said out loud to both Ailsa and myself “I have it up and I just finished reading all of the descriptions. Now what?” I asked as I looked at my stats. My stat lines seemed like a strange amalgamation of both my Kingdom of Ashe character and my real-world self. My game characters physical characteristics seemed represented in my material statistics. The immaterial characteristics reflected more of who I was back on Earth. Though I didn’t think I was that smart. I guess Ethria likes me, I thought to myself as I reveled in the fact that I had a 17 intelligence. “I'm guessing that the average person's characteristic score on any of these is around 10?” I asked.
“No, it's actually around 12,” Ailsa said as she continued to buzz around me. “At least for humans. The average of 10 is a calculation that morons use when they measure your typical mud hovel living, going nowhere in life, barely better than a slave, type person. When looking at a person who has even a basic level of education or opportunity though, the average gets to around 12.” She said still darting around me. Ailsa didn’t seem the least bit out of breath from any of her excursions.
“For someone with any kind of proper education near your level, I think that the average score is about 14 or 15. But remember that's an average, just because you’re slightly above that average doesn’t mean you're super special or anything. There is a good chunk of people that are way better than you. You're not very far off the center in the bell curve.”
“Fair enough, and ouch.” I said faining stabbing myself in the heart. “Twist the blade why don't yah” The purple fairy zipped in front of me and mimed twisting the imaginary dagger straining her whole body. She was really getting into it when she burst into giggles sounding like a fresh spring, when I joined in the laughter. “Alright, that's enough ribbing from you little fairy, how about you show me how to access the rest of my character sheet?”
She zipped back to eye level with me and said “Okay then, here try opening your inventory. Technically it's just a representation of the things that currently exist on your person and not some magical place you can store things you don’t want to carry like you described exist in your people's games.”
“It's basically a fancy list then.” I said somewhat disappointed. Looks like I’ll have to carry around a backpack, after all, I thought grudgingly.
“Essentially yeah,” she said. “I’ve unlocked it, just open it up by thinking about it.” I did, and a picture of my body appeared on one side of my vision, the other had a grid of several squares that probably represented the volume of things I could carry. In real life, weight isn’t the only thing a person needs to consider when going on a long-distance trek. Volume, how things stacked on top of each other, and the durability of items all needed to be carefully considered. As I thought about this, I recognized a small counter on the bottom left-hand corner under the squares that read “weight 1 / 150 lb”, and next to it another counter that read “item degradation 0%”.
“My inventory is completely empty other than my PJ’s here. I don’t suppose you have gear I could use to get me started do you?” I asked hopefully.
“As a matter of fact…” The purple fairy said bobbing up and down faster than usual. “I do.” As she spoke the last word a massive crashing noise echoed off the quiet plains around me and over the swift-moving river. I gasped slightly as I recognized my gear from Kingdoms. I grabbed the first thing I recognized, Sparks my trusty sword!
“Congratulations! You have found, “Sparks”, Short Sword of Lightning. Damage: 1d8 physical, 1d8 electric. Attack/Damage bonus: 01. Quality: Good-Magical (Eldritch Lightning). Durability: 100/100. Rarity: Unique. Sparks was named by its original owner.”
After about twenty minutes of me carefully packing my goods into the various bags I had, then putting on my clothes, gambeson, leather jerkin armor, sword belt, all followed by the massive travelers pack that my horse would normally have carried, I must have looked ridiculous. I know this because the tiny purple goth of a fairy that was supposed to be my guide couldn’t stop laughing at the sight of me. When I squinted at the otherwise purple ball, I realized that she was flying upside down parallel to the ground, holding her side as if she were wounded, laughing almost uncontrollably. After a while, her voice grew so that she sounded like one of the chipmunks at a comedy sketch after inhaling helium for two hours straight.
After a few more seconds, and a few impatient eye rolls from me, she was able to control herself enough to say “You look like a pack mule!” This statement elicited another round of light airy gaffas from the tiny sprite. “I mean, what kind of savior warrior builder walks around carrying something as ridiculous as that! Particularly when he doesn’t need to!” After another minute or two of constant ribbing broken only by her nearly hysterical bits of laughter, I realized she was right. I didn’t need to carry any of it.
“You know, you could have just offered to put it back into whatever kind of dimensional hole thing you have access too.” I said. She sobered up quickly as if I had slapped her in the face.
“Wow, that took waaaaay longer than it should have for you to realize what I was trying to get at. And if I was just nice to you and gave you the answer and not mocked you mercilessly, how are you supposed to learn to not be such a meathead, meathead?” I only shook my head at her, mouth slightly agape at her antics and tortured logic. “We really need to work on our communication.” She said matter of factly, as she zipped above me and tapped on the backpack. The weight disappeared off my shoulders as it entered whatever kind of magical extra-dimensional space she had.
“Okay agent A, let's get on with it okay? We don’t have all day.”
“Agent A?” She asked as she came back to my eye level.
“Yeah, it's from a really old movie called Men in Black. The two agents keep miscommunicating and agent J always says “We need to work on our communication skills” but actually agent K his partner is just being a piece of work.”
“This agent K is a piece of worked metal? I am very confused by this idiom. It makes no sense in any of the languages I know, and I know virtually all of them, including your English. The closest on
e I know of that has anything even remotely similar is deep dwarvish, but it's a compliment.” She said as she zipped over to my shoulder.
“No, it doesn’t mean he is a piece of metal. He’s a piece of work, it's like saying he is hard to work with, or he makes things more difficult than they need to be.” I said as I double-checked that my sword belt was on right. I never could get the thing to rig itself correctly on my own, it was one of the few auto features of Kingdoms I regularly used. “Kinda like you right now. And before, and basically any time we try to do anything.” I said, smiling and chuckling slightly to take the bite out of my words.
“Eh, whatever” Ailsa said as she floated slowly around me. “Before we get you somewhere else, I need to show you one more aspect of your character sheet, and then we need to do some tests. Up until now, you’ve just seen the core aspects of your sheet, a quantitative representation of everything that makes up who you are. This is called the core of your character sheet and everyone on all of Ethria has access to this part of themselves.” Ailsa flew out in front of me and began twirling and allowing herself to lightly and slowly float to the ground.
“But everyone has parts of themselves that can’t be so easily quantified, special abilities, weaknesses, strengths, skills, magical abilities, and the like that they gathered over their lifetime. This is called the secondary sheet, and while most people have access to this information about themselves, not everyone does. Pull it up by simply pulling your normal character sheet back up, the new information will appear there with everything else we’ve talked about.”
I did as she asked,
Name: Daniel Tear
Race: Human
Class: Pre-10th Level
Level: 1
Height: 6'1
Skin Color: White
Hair: Brown
Heritage: Unknown (Earth, Western, Pioneer)
Affiliation: Unknown (United States of America)
Religion: Unknown (LDS/Mormon)
Alignment: Unknown (Lawful, Moral)
Material Characteristics
TOTALS
MODIFIERS
GENERAL
10.25
0.125
Strength
12
1
Dexterity
10
0
Constitution
10
0
Physical Attraction
9
-0.5
Immaterial Characteristics
TOTALS
MODIFIERS
GENERAL
14.8
2.4
Intelligence
17
3.5
Emotional Stability
18
4
Sensitivity
15
2.5
Perception
13
1.5
Luck
11
0.5
Traits
Human Adaptability: Humans are by far one of the most adaptable species on all of Ethria. As such, every level they gain 3 characteristic points until 10th lvl. Upon taking a class they gain 1 free characteristic point, and 2 characteristic points in the primary class characteristic of their chosen class, and 1 point distributed randomly.
Unlucky/Lucky (Agent of Change): Your life is filled with moments of extremes. You are both very unlucky, and very lucky in that bad things tend to happen to you, but they usually work out in the end. Random events generated at +1.5x. Other effects to be discovered.
Eldritch Knowledge (1 of 3 Gifts): Having come from another plane of existence, and having been considered to be educated among your people, you have been blessed by the celestial being (s) of that foreign realm with the ability to perfectly recall any information you had learned on your old world. Be careful, however, as those who have any trait or affiliation that ties them strongly to this plane of existence will not take kindly to outsiders such as yourself. Your knowledge is power, hide it well. Other effects, to be discovered.
Gift Of Tongues (2 of 3 Gifts): You have been blessed by the cosmic being (s) of your home plane to be able to speak or read any language that you might encounter as if you were a native speaker, though you might be seen as having a random accent. In order for this ability to activate, you must first encounter the language twice. Other effects and potential limitations to be discovered.
Mysterious Stranger (3 of 3 Gifts): As you have been blessed by the cosmic being (s) of your home plane, and as you are from another place, certain aspects of yourself are permanently hidden from denizens of this new realm unless you personally reveal it to them. These aspects are listed as Unknown on your character sheet and will be seen by others as such until you learn more about yourself and claim a new place in Ethria. You will always have the hidden labels from your past home, but new public labels can be earned. Find a new home, forge a new heritage for yourself, and claim Ethria as your own. In addition, this means that you have a natural resistance to mental manipulation, as your experiences and thought patterns are alien. 15%+current character level chance of mental manipulation failure, magical or mundane. Other effects to be discovered.
I focused on the word Traits at the start of the list and a small pop up window appeared with a useful description next to the word.
Traits: Traits are innate, non-magical aspects of yourself that you do not earn, but are rather granted to you at birth, or by a being of great power.
Current Skill Cap
13.5
Skills
Skill Points
Skill Scores
Read/Write (English)
13.5
27
Research
6
6
Statistical Analysis
5
5
Deceive (any format)
8
12
Basic House Cleaning / Maintenance
2
2
Basic Cooking
0
0
Singing
5
5
Use Weapon: Sword
2
2
Armor: Light
1
1
Sheild: Light
1
1
Survey
1
1
Analyze
1
1
I concentrated on the Skills title, and again a description appeared in a small pop up window next to the word.
Skills: Skills are the practical, magical, mundane and any other type of skill that you gain throughout your life. A skill level can not reach above a person's current character level + number of years of life they have lived, divided by 2. This is also known as a person's Skill Cap. Because you are a Mysterious Stranger however, Skills and other aspects of your character might be uncovered as the magic of Ethria quantifies your alien experiences. These skills will be considered effectively at their highest possible score, until such time as your skill cap catches up. Skills can also be modified by the rank of skill that you have obtained.
Skills Key
Skill Rank Bonus Modifiers
- any # = Confused
0.9
0 = Proficient
1
1-5 = Novice
1
6-10 = Journeyman
1.5
11-25 = Master
2
26+ = Grand Master
3
Confused by the first description in the Skills Key, I said out loud “What does minus sign, ‘any’ pound sign equals sign ‘confused’ mean? I get the other ranks and the modifiers here, but that seems to be the only one that provides a modifier less than one. Also, how do these modifiers work mathematically? Are they simple addition or are they force multipliers?” I would have continued spouting questions, but Ailsa buzzed her wings at me again and I shut up.
“To answer your questions in order. First, I d
on’t know what that means, the menus and character sheets of each person are tailored for that person individually, the magic works through your mind’s mental faculties to quantify the information you have listed, and presenting that information so as to be the most accessible to you. What it sounds like is that you are talking about the Confused skill rank.
“Everyone, any time they try something for the first time, are confused about how to do it. And sometimes a few times after the first attempt, but that's only for complex skills. If you know the language of math from your home you should be able to concentrate on the numbers and the appropriate formula will appear. From what I understand your number system is a ten base system?” I nodded. “Well, mine is twelve, on account of having ten digits on my hands and two wings. All of that being said, no matter what base mathematical system you use, the outcome will be the same, math is math after all. Just because someone calls a 2 a quinton, or a flerb, doesn’t change the fact that it's still representing two individual units of, whatever its representing.”
I nodded my understanding again and concentrated on the formula for my reading and writing skill, and found that the modifiers were in fact multipliers. That meant that the numbers in front of the equal signs were ranges for the base rank. As my skill in reading and writing was 8 that meant it was a journeyman rank, which multiplied my base rank of 8 by 1.5, the journeyman bonus modifier, giving me the Skill Score of 12. “What is the Skill Cap?” I asked.
Ethria- the Pioneer Page 8