It's Difficult Creating an Entirely New Identity

I would imagine that almost anyone who has tried to evade their taxes or fake their own death has realised this fact. But I’m fairly sure that few of them were creating an identity from a completely different species with proficiencies that an ordinary person can only imagine.

That’s the fun part.

In fact, I suspect that’s the real reason for the addictive nature of MMORPGs.

It’s been a long time since I rolled up an entirely new character for a role-playing session, and the last time I did so it was for a different game, with entirely different rules.

But tonight, Nick and I have been creating, respectively, a human Cleric with a fierce hatred of the undead and an Elven Ranger who wields two swords.

Oh, we can’t wait to come across those kobolds who slaughtered all our characters in the last game.

(My poor dwarf. She tried her best, and yet she ended up crushed by a giant boulder, twice, while glued to the floor in a room swarming with her enemies. It’s an ignominious death, really. Plus, I was the first to die, which is just embarrassing.)

So far, I’ve learnt the following things:

1. I’m allowed two one-handed weapons, instead of being limited to an ordinary weapon and an off-hand weapon (something like a dagger, light and easily carried). These two blades—entirely imaginary and represented solely by the rattle of dice across the table—are now my most cherished possessions.

2. I only have limited money to buy my provisions. That’s fine—except I didn’t realise that that included my primary weapons, which led to the following conversation:

NICK: Of course, you’ve already spent some of that money on your long sword and your short sword.
ME: What? They should have been given to me by my parents at birth. Or at least when I entered Two-Blade Ranger Academy, or wherever I trained.

3. Elves are just cool. And so are Rangers. When we were fighting the kobolds, their native sneakiness allowed them to sneak up and then dash away without allowing us the standard retaliation.

Frankly, I find that both annoying and unsportsmanlike.

But not when my Elven Ranger can do much the same thing.

Then it’s just the natural outcome of long training, and something to be respected.

4. Unfortunately, Elves largely have rubbish names. And I’m completely stymied on creating an entirely new name, so I’ve just had to pick the least offensive of the standard options. It could be worse: one of the recommended names for a female human character is Shawna. Apparently, this fantasy universe intersects with the 1980s at some point.

5. Ultimately, it might be easier and less time intensive to simply find a way to enter a chaotic fantasy universe and slay real enemies than it is to interpret the spreadsheet we’re using to calculate our abilities.

Then again, it’s easier to use the spreadsheet than it is to do this manually, so it’s all relative.

6. I worship a god of storms, strength, and battle. Apparently. I’m sure that will come in handy.

7. My special attacks have exciting names, including “Dire Wolverine Strike” (oooh) and “Jaws of the Wolf.”

There’s no way this character’s going to end up glued to the floor while a boulder bears down on her.

8. But most exciting of all is a potential paragon path (the move towards a specialisation, which requires me to survive to level 10. Still, I’m hopeful).

Stormwarden.

We haven’t even played a single encounter with these characters, yet—and we didn’t cover ourselves with glory during the last encounter. But I’m still eying a paragon path in which I “learn the ancient ways of the stormwardens of the Feywild. These techniques turn your whirling blades into a storm of destruction that rains down punishing blows on your enemies. With each slash of your weapon, the wind howls in anticipation of the coming storm.”

See, that just sounds fun.

If I die before that comes about, I’ll be terribly disappointed in myself.