New race? You mean like in fantasy stories? Things like elves and dwarves and such?
“Yes, indeed. Now, different races come with different benefits in Tarona. Humans, for instance, are the ‘basic’ type. They’re not really bad at anything, but not the best at anything, either. Very versatile. Other races, on the other hand, will have pluses and minuses based on their abilities.”
So, what races do I get to pick from?
“Well, you got a few standard ones, and then you have ‘templates’ that you can toss on top of them, to further customize things. Now, before you go wild, just remember that everything has a price. You end up looking like a monster, and people will treat you like one. And more powerful templates tend to have drawbacks. Either it takes you longer to level up since you got to work off the power difference, or you have some kind of weakness that can get you killed.”
I think I understand. Things have to balance out somehow, right? Can’t just give me superpowers without a flaw like Superman’s kryptonite, or it would be bad for everyone else.
“Exactly. The goal of Transfers is to enrich the worlds they go to, shake them up somehow, not burn them to the ground because they are unstoppable. That doesn’t help anyone.”
All right. Can I see the races and templates?
Immediately, a list of races appeared before me. I noticed that some were definitely more powerful than others. They not only had racial hit dice, but something called a ‘level adjustment’. The old man had mentioned levels, so that had to be related. Those races had another stat that was Effective Character Level (ECL), which looked to be a combination of the racial hit dice and level adjustment. Keeping in mind the old man’s warning about me taking longer to gain power with one of those, and that people who looked like monsters would be treated as such, I filtered out the ones that were more than ECL 1. I was going to be starting from the bottom, and I still didn’t know just how hard starting at even an ECL 2 would make things.
That was a lot to take in, of course. I didn’t want to rush this decision, as, from what I gathered, it would be rather permanent. I immediately threw out the Halfling and Gnome options. I had been short in my old life, and I shuddered at the idea of being shorter than everyone again. Who would want something like that? Asking everyone to get stuff off a table for them, much less the top shelf? No, I’ll go with someone normal sized, thanks.
Half-Orc and Half-Elf were the next to get the axe. Half-breeds tended to get the shaft in fantasy books, because they didn’t really fit in each race’s culture. I didn’t know if that was going to be true for this one, but I really didn’t want to find out the hard way. Especially since most stories of half-breeds came from bad situations to begin with. The best stories usually involved some human and elf falling in love and living isolated from both groups. The majority, though, seemed to be because a human man got too handsy with an elf woman, or an orc warband took a human woman as a breeding slave. I didn’t want to touch that kind of ‘origin story’ with a ten-foot pole, not after my last life. So, both of those were gone.
That left the ‘big three’ of fantasy stories: Humans, Dwarves, and Elves. Frankly, any of them would have been a perfectly acceptable choice. All three probably had nice, robust cultures that I could lose myself in, and none of them were really all that bad at anything. That wasn’t a small consideration, of course. Still, dwarves were on the stumpy side of things, and elves had that whole elven arrogance thing, at least in stories. And I wanted to see these ‘templates’ the old man had mentioned, so if this was the foundation, I didn’t want it slanted one way from the start, right?
So, I picked Human. All well and good. Then I brought up the templates. There were tons of them! Seriously, if you could think of it, there were templates for it. I noticed that some of these templates were actually monsters, too! Most kinds of undead seemed to be modifications of the ‘base creature’. I stayed way the hell away from those, since I wanted no part of a zombie apocalypse, and these vampires looked like the monstrous type, not the emo sparkly type. However, there was one template that caught my eye, and it was a +0 ECL!
Special Attacks: Retains all special attacks of the base creature, and gains a special attack based on the season they were born.
Special Qualities: An unseelie fey has several special qualities.
Damage Reduction (Ex) – Gain DR based on HD
Iron Vulnerability (Ex) – Damaged by the touch of iron (including steel). Touching iron deals 1 point of damage. Take +1d6 additional damage from iron or steel weapons. Damage Reduction applies to this damage.
Vision (Ex) – Unseelie Fey have enhanced senses
Abilities: -2 STR, +2 DEX, -2 CON, +2 CHA
Skills: +4 racial bonus on Intimidate
Level Adjustment: +0
ECL: +0
I was a little worried about the iron vulnerability thing, but that was a normal weakness of fey creatures in stories, right? I’m sure I could find some way to deal with it, at least until I gained a couple levels, and would be able to shrug off some of it. But I would get to be a fairy! And maybe, if I got lucky, I could become a fairy princess, and live in a castle like in the stories that mommy read me as a child! That would be awesome!
I took a breath to center myself. Did I really want to go through my new life as a fairy? Maybe they wouldn’t be respected in this world. No, I definitely wanted to be a fairy! I would get to fly around, and it would be awesome! I made my choice.
The old man smiled at me as I finalized my choice. “Oh, hoh. That is unusual. Most people from this world tend to choose something more… boring, I guess you could say. Not that it is a bad thing, but people typically pick safer options. Picking a fey template will make your life more interesting, to be sure. Just make sure you try and keep alive long enough to make a difference.”
I nodded, even though my body wasn’t really a thing at the moment. I had no intention of dying too quickly. I wanted to live a nice, long life. Or at least one that was better than the one I’d just lived.
“Now, are you ready to look at classes?”
Yes!
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