Soft moonlight gently bathed Jarrod as he knelt meditating in the ancient grove. He knelt in front of the statues of the four primary gods of the pantheon for humans. First, stood tall, proud and central was The Father. His visage was stern, his gaze piercing and his hands placed on the pommel of a very large two-handed sword at rest. To his left stood The Mother, her arms open and welcoming, her hair falling softly around her shoulders. To his right stood The Scholar, his thirst for knowledge unquenchable. Finally off to one side, almost segregated from the others looking like a distorted cloud the divine being known as The Other. Ofttimes they were regarded as either male or female, an everchanging form, patron of chaos, waifs, strays and everything that goes bump in the night.

The reason for his kneeling in silent meditation, whilst wind softly whistled through the tree’s was a simple one. It was the final night of his 17 years on this shard, and he was on the cusp of full adulthood and being recognized by “The Great System”. He would be able to select a god, select a class, gain levels and leave behind the boring, sedate life of Woodend village. There was nothing particularly wrong with Woodend village, a simple hamlet as it was of around 800 souls but simply put nothing happened here. It existed for one reason only – there was a wood level dungeon around a half days travel into the forest and the village existed to ensure there was no overflow from this dungeon. A task that was handled easily by the three retired iron ranks who called this village their retirement.

Its primary outputs were lumber, and other associated forestry items such as mushrooms and furs. Whilst Jarrod loved his family, his friends and even the woods within which he made his living, he yearned for more. He yearned to explore the shard, find new dungeons, explore depths that had never been plumbed before and visit other shards, potentially even steel or bronze level shards!

First things first though, he had to be recognized by the system, select a class that was offered and of course choose a patron God. This isn’t to say one had to select a patron God, but it was commonly given knowledge that it was the only way to obtain a class above [Common] rarity at level 1.

Whilst he knelt there waiting for midnight and the “ding” he was told would sound in his head he slowly tried to remember everything he had been told by his family about this event as well as about the gods as told from old Father Sweeny.

First off was the system itself, it was available to all sentient creatures after they reached what for them would be full maturity (humans as default were 18 years old, but goblins could be as young as 3 for example). Prior to having access to this system, it was entirely impossible to gain experience, levels, stats, or even skills. You could learn skills without the system of course, and apply them for example you could spend 10 years learning how to use a sword, and you would be able to use a sword without the skill from the system. However you would only be equal to someone who had level 5 in a skill, which you could obtain with a total of 5 weeks experience in the system. Many people instead used their time to gain what would be the equivalent of level 1 in a lot of different skills on purpose so that years and years of their life would not be invalidated by the time they reached maturity and unlocked the system.

The system protected those who had not yet had their Awakening from being exploited by those who had, but it would not protect you from stupid acts, dumb luck or plain old accidents. It was not a fool proof way of surviving childhood by any means, and the clergy themselves postulated that the system was a way of the God’s “playing” with their mortal’s lives. It was after all designed in a way that after reaching the peak of platinum tier, any living being could attempt their ascension challenge, set by the entire pantheon. It had been over 15,000 years since the last successful ascension but that didn’t mean it was impossible. After all upon reaching platinum rank a human could easily expect to live for over 50,000 years, and many chose to simply live out this enormous time frame rather than risk failing the God’s contest.

Jarrod would as was natural when he Awoke, unlock access to all wood and stone tier system elements. This would mean all skills would be locked at level 10, and he would be able to challenge dungeons in this tier. In fact if he wished to proceed beyond this tier and challenge for tin, he would need to beat 4 dungeons – and he knew only of one! Upon beating the 4 dungeons and gaining all 10 levels of a tier, it was possible to enter any dedicated Shrine to either his own chosen patron God or one dedicated to the Father. It was the only means to progress beyond the tier one was in, as well as evolving your class and choosing where to place any free level up stat points!

Finally he remembered the words of old Father Sweeny, there were hundreds of Gods within the pantheon. Some like the Father looked over all of the different discovered shards so far, and others would content themselves to looking over only a single shard, and choosing their champions and chosen from within that singular grain of existence. There were Gods and Goddesses beyond the ken of men, and others that you would recognise the name and image of but would ignore you from the beginning of your existence until your death and oblivion. These often would be the patron deities of certain races – which obviously were not humankind!

The Father was the head of the pantheon, and was often seen by humans as being a little stern, very much a “tough-love” kind of God. He was the patron of warriors and all of their subtypes, as well as those who were dedicated to justice, protection or leadership.

The Mother was an “all-welcoming” Goddess. She was often the patron of those who chose to craft as a way of life, or those who were there to help others in any capacity. She would also welcome all those who found no home elsewhere, whether these were orphans, or just people who felt a bit different and never really fit in anywhere, she judged no one and would welcome them all.

The Scholar was eternal in his quest for knowledge. Where The Father was judgemental, and The Mother was all-loving, The Scholar in contrast had no use for either of these. His was the purview of mages, priests, scholars, and those who would plumb the depths of various shards for knowledge forgotten.

Finally was The Other. Father Sweeny was unable to really encapsulate what The Other stood for, or even what they looked like when they appeared to humanity. All Jarrod was really able to gather is that most calamities were attributed to The Other, and from what he understood only people who had nefarious classes had The Other as their patron. Yet for some reason, this was the God, or Goddess that Jarrod kept thinking about. The fact that they were seen sometimes as the agent of change, something different, something that would mean Jarrod could get away from Woodend. But he was worried about what his family would say. They weren’t bad people, they were just very set in their ways.

His own father was a tin rank who had moved to this shard when it was discovered to settle down, and live out his years in a quiet little village with his wife and avoiding adventure. He had he claimed had his fill of that. He had declared The Father as his patron, was sat at level 39 as a Rank 3 Guardsman (meaning that he had never even qualified for a rank upgrade from Common to Uncommon!) and was now quite content to be on rotation to check over the Wood tier dungeon as needed and farm his little plot of land after that. His mother was actually an iron rank and had chosen to craft and support as her path in life. There was nothing wrong with this in Jarrod's mind, but it was simply not something he was even vaguely interested in. She had declared The Mother as her patron and was sat as a level 47 chef. They both fully expected Jarrod to follow in his fathers footsteps, and he simply had no desire to do so.

Just then the wind started to pick up, whistling more strongly through the tree’s, going from a still night with nary the sound of any animals, to one that picked an almost ominous undertone. There was still no sound of any creatures this close to the village, the moonlight now flickering as tree’s danced to the wind. Shadows that were once steady and static now constantly in flux, and there in the middle of it unmoving, eyes closed, kneeling was a gangly dark youth.

As Jarrod noticed the change in the night's weather, he felt sweat as it began to drip from his hairline, running down inside his clothes and pooling in the small of his back. His clothes had become itchy against his skin, the urge to move, to satisfy this with a good scratch was rising. He needed to move, he couldn’t stay still a moment longer. He opened his eyes, moonlight shining down into the clearing and the moment he thought about turning slightly he felt red-hot all over, like standing far too close to the fire, his skin starting to sear. He was unable to move a single muscle, then as quickly as it hard begun it was over. Sighing and sagging, feeling utterly drained for having done nothing more strenuous than kneeling he rose to his feet, one hand on his knee then the other and as he turned to look over the statues again….

DING.