Chapter 1- Character Creation

Chapter 1- Character Creation

I've saved up and placed my pre-order for the latest VRMMORPG release, World Calamity. The game overview is as follows- an expansive 1 to 1 recreation of our world set in medieval times where The Dark Lich has conquered the majority of the world and it's up to the players to free the world from his rule. I hear if you complete certain requirements you as a player can even join the Lich's army.

I of course spent nearly all my savings on the Ultimate Edition which by itself comes with tons of extra content, but buying as a pre-order comes with even more content.

On the day the game finally arrived I immediately loaded it into my VR headset. I sit back in my gaming chair and place the headset on.

The game loads up to its character selection page after getting past some credits and legal information. The first thing I'm asked to do is select a name. I'll go with 'Elsa' and leave no last name.

The body scan shows me a double of myself. I suppose I can change any features to my character. This is hard so I'll just turn the hair purple and randomize the face until I find something appealing.

I have my base character picked out and now I'm asked to select my species. Because I bought the ultimate edition pre-order I have every species option available. I shouldn't waste this opportunity, I'll select one of the premium options. Dragonoid sounds just about right. The other options include a skeleton, angel, demon, spirit, and chimera.

The dragonoid selection adds wings, a tail, and small horns to my current character design. I'm glad it didn't give me scales or anything and that I still have an overall human appearance.

The next step is to select my outfit. I changed out of the basic starter outfit into something more extravagant, again thanks premium content. I've selected a brown sorcerer's robe that has runic etchings on it. Those etchings glow faintly. It grants me a 12% buff in magic skills and a 7% buff in magic defense. This outfit is called "Ancient Robes of the Sorcerer''.

The next gear I get to equip is my weapon. I've got a large inventory already. I can select from some simple weapons or more advanced ones. This may seem like overkill cheats, but some weapons can only be used a certain amount of times while others may be glass canons.

The same goes for my equipped clothes, if heavily damaged by something like a burn effect they'll lose their buffs.

The weapon I selected ended up being a crown called "The Crown of Devastation". It's a silver crown with 3 purple gems, my favorite color. The crown itself is one of those glass canons I mentioned. It has low durability, if it gets directly hit it'll shatter and I won't be able to repair it like I would the clothes. The crown grants me a magic attack buff of 23% while also having a Danger buff of 8% meaning Monster or evil aligned NPCs are 8% more likely to attack me.

Usually you'd have to level up to equip more than one weapon at a time, but another benefit of my bonus content is that I get to equip one extra weapon. I selected a kunai. This particular type is hidden up my sleeve tied to a chain.

Now that my character design is complete I can select skills. There are hundreds, maybe thousands to pick from. This is the part that could take me a while. I'm already aware of some skills I want so I'll select those first. The first on my list is Teleportation.

With a 1 to 1 recreation of Earth teleportation will be very useful. According to its description it allows you to teleport anywhere you've been, anywhere you can see, anywhere a Friend has been, or to any officially set up and open teleportation zones.

The next skill I select is a magic skill called Purple Lightning. The name is self explanatory. It deals high damage.

The next two skills I select are Flight and Hover. I don't want to have to focus on my wings to fly and if I want to concentrate on doing other things I need to be able to hover mid-air.

I select Humanification next. This'll allow me to hide my dragonoid side if I ever need to.

Maybe I should select a tail attack next? Let's see, I'm scrolling through the dragonid skills and I don't see anything just for the tail. Oh wait, here's one. It's called Dragon Tail Whack. I suppose not every skill has a cool name. This skill increases damage from hits by my tail for an attack.

I also selected Impenetrable Scales from the dragonoid skill list. This skill temporarily coats me in scales where I won't take any damage for thirty seconds, of course I can't use any other skills during this time and the cool down is 24 hours.

I picked Draconic Breath next, set the color to purple. My next selection was Recovery, a magic skill that heals a fixed amount of 30% of damage from an attack. I wished my species came with an auto-recovery skill that would heal my HP over time, but the best I can get is Regeneration which does the same thing, only needing to be manually activated and also taking longer than a passive.

Safe to say I picked up Regeneration as my tenth skill. If I was a normal player I'd stop here, never even having access to such advanced skills. Deluxe edition players get access to advanced skills while Ultimate Edition players get that and 5 more bonus skills.

Up next I selected Ice Magic, a basic skill that'll probably only let me create ice cubes at a low level, but as I level up I hope I will be able to freeze an opponent solid.

I'm betting most players will pick all magic skills or try to cover the base elements of fire, water, wind, and earth. By having the base element you make it easier to gain more skills in that element rather than picking a high level skill in a category while ignoring its base component.

Of course not all magic skills have base elements like lightning. Although there are several different lightning attacks there is no base lightning magic.

My 12th skill goes to flame magic. To counteract my crowd's Danger buff I select Intimidation next. This skill will make an NPC that's a lower level than me less likely to attack, and if they do attack it'll make them more likely to attack confused. On the flip side it makes higher level NPCs more likely to attack me. It's a double edged sword.

My next skill is Illusion. With this I'll be able to momentarily trick an NPC or a player into seeing something not there.

My last skill is Invisibility. With this I'll be able to hide my presence.

Now as a pre-order customer I am awarded 1 random Hidden Skill. This is basically a species specific skill or a skill that requires prerequisites to unlock like how I needed Recovery before I could select Regeneration.

My random skill turned out to be Necromancy. Nice, it's usually a skill only unlockable through quests or reaching a certain level. There is no skill chain and it's not a species specific skill. I'm glad I read all those guides otherwise I'd probably assume this was a garbage skill.

With the skill I'm awarded a skull ring called "Ring of the Dead". I slip it on my right pointer finger. I guess this is proof of owning Necromancer? It doesn't contain a buff so I assume it's purely decorative and something you receive after completing a quest.

More perks of being a pre-order player, my level automatically starts at twenty-five and not only do I get to pick my starting location, but I also get to select a Base.

A Base is basically an in-game lair, or home. You can buy one, conquer one, or build one. I'm choosing one of the pre-sets as I don't have time to design one from scratch. The one I'm planning to select would normally cost millions of gold, but thanks to buying the best version of the game I get it as a freebie. I selected "The Sky Fortress- Gardonia".

Basically it's a giant sky fortress with a lovely garden. It comes fully equipped with NPC maids and a butler. I picked it because I'm part dragon so my home should be in the sky. I'll set my spawn point to the fortress throne.

100000 gold is deposited into my inventory. It might seem like a lot for in-game currency, but it's actually not that much. It's a higher value than what deluxe edition or standard edition players start out with.

It's time now to start my adventure. First off I think I'll go pay that Lich a visit.

Author's Note

My first chapter. I hope you liked it. Tell me what you thought.