“Pick a race!” read the message atop the screen.

Before JohnWillStab was a big grid populated with pictures of different fantastical creatures.

There were ten pictures in total.

“Human: The sly humans used their pathetic, feeble, easily breakable bodies as a way to hide their cunning nature, stealing, lying and other acts of depravity are common for mankind.”

"+10 Intelligence"

"+10 Charisma"

"-5 Strength"

"-5 Stamina"

"Skills are learned 25% faster!"

In the centre of his screen stood a human, he was dressed in generic medieval peasant clothes.

JohnWillStab clicked into the next picture.

“Frogpeople: The small, cowardly race of frogpeople is skilled at escaping combat and dangerous situations as they are not weighed down by things like honour or dignity, this makes them great travellers, parasites in every town or village they visit.”

"-5 Strength"

"+3 Stamina"

"+5 Athletics"

"No debuffs from troublesome terrain."

The human was replaced by a frogman wearing a generic merchant outfit.

The frogmen were small and were forced to pick between red, blond or green hair with dozens of shades in between.

They had large smiles with round, rosy cheeks.

“Ogres: The big, smooth-brained ogres are masters of their crafts, namely hitting things with big sticks really hard, they shy away from difficult subjects like maths, magic and object permanence...”

"+5 Strength"

"+5 Stamina"

"-8 Intelligence"

"Great heat resistance."

The ogres looked like bigger humans, not only were they more muscular, they were literally bigger, as if you took a human and scaled them up in an image-editing program to be a head taller and a head wider.

Their skin was an ash-grey colour though could also be changed to a redder or yellower colour.

“Harpy: These glorified chicken nuggets are weak and fragile, even from the point of view of a human. They excel at clawing at things and being really loud. They have a very serious case of ADHD giving them high speed as well as a strong tolerance for Ritalin and Adderal.”

"+3 Strength"

"-5 Stamina"

"+5 Athletics"

"-4 Intelligence"

"Decreased effects from potions."

"Can temporarily fly."

The harpies were essentially the opposite of the ogre, they were smaller than humans and looked frailer.

Their skin could be any colour from white to pink and their feathers could be any hue.

“Demon: Edgy, they can't even go hang out with other demons without throwing a fit. Perfect for you neckbeards with nobody to play the game with. As a demon, you level faster and your professions also level faster!”

"-25 Charisma"

"They are always hostile with all NPC factions."

"They gain 200% XP from completing quests and killing monsters."

"They can be killed by players without any penalty."

The demons looked like red-skinned humans, however, one could change many things about them.

Anything from tusks to horns, wings, tail and even posture could be changed.

“Wolfpeople: There is definitely a specific crowd that'll be into playing these, they're pretty fast and pretty strong, like the ice-themed version of the ogre. The amount of time they spend ERPng leads them to neglect their in-game work just as much as it does the real-life work, as such they level their professions slower!”

"+3 Strength"

"+3 Stamina"

"+8 Athletics"

"+2 Dexterity"

"High cold resistance."

"Low heat tolerance."

"Professions gain levels 100% slower."

They looked like werewolves but without the hunched backs, they definitely looked bestial and more monstrous than the other races, though this could be adjusted in the character-creating screen.

“Undead: Step aside demon, there's a new edgelord in town. With every disease known to man and a conflicting argument for and against necrophilia, the undead is the diet version of the demon, they are hated by everyone because seeing the decomposing corpse of your grandmother walking around your neighbourhood is kind of a bummer, unlike the demons, this is not permanent. They also don't get hungry or tired...”

"-5 Charisma"

"Endless stamina."

"Can breath underwater."

"Can't bleed."

"Can't be poisoned."

“Fishpeople: The fishpeople are weak on land and strong in the water, wow, big shocker... They smell bad, look weird and can typically be found killing players in the rain and then crying about how unbalanced the game is the moment the rain stops and they get killed.”

"Stats double in water."

"Stats halved on land."

"Can breath underwater."

"Smells funky."

“…” JohnWillStab looked at the strangely negative race descriptions.

“This game is giving off some seriously weird vibes…”

JohnWillStab was stuck between playing a demon or an undead.

“The demon is edgier, but I was always into zombies…” he thought.

“Maybe a human would be a better racae to start with?”

JohnWillStab spent another few seconds contemplating this before finally deciding on the undead.

“I think I’ll be making a rogue character, so an undead seems more reasonable! I’d be able to stay quiet since they can’t hear my breathing and stuff!” he reasoned.

Above the list of races was also a gender selection box, “Male” was already selected so JohnWillStab didn’t tamper with it.

Several options appeared before John; the interface went from simplistic to sci-fi in an instant.

First, he had to pick from a list of all the races, did he want to be an undead human, undead frogman or some other undead race, John selected human.

Three separate sliders appeared.

Muscle, Fat and Height

John made his character be average height.

He made him skinny with a bit of muscle.

When it came to hair, John had four parts to pick, the “Base”, “Front”, “Back” and “Extra” hair parts.

He chose an over-the-top haircut with three pointy bangs and a ponytail.

As an undead human, JohnWillStab had access to almost the full spectrum of colours for his hair, he picked black with a hint of dark blue.

When it came to facial hair, JohnWillStab gave himself a thick copstache and called it a day.

He made his eyes red since it fit the edgy aesthetic.

Next, he had to select his posture, several sliders representing the angles of different parts in his character’s back and limbs appeared, he made his character stand straight, afraid of getting stuck with permanent back issues.

Next, he had to select a skin tone, a colour wheel appeared giving John several different colours to work with, he settled on a pale blue to really hammer the edge home.

He was an eighty-twenty split of milk and salt and vinegar crisps packaging.

He also saw a “decomposition” slider allowing his character to anything from a skeleton to a perfectly preserved corpse, he chose the latter.

With his basic character design done he had a large list of animations to pick for various activities.

“Walking Animation: walking_1”

“Running Animation: running_1”

“Sitting Animation: sitting_1”

“Idle Animation: idle_1”

“Punch Animation: attack_1”

“Weak Slash Animation: attack_11”

There were dozens more, JohnWillStab just hit the “randomize” button a few times and called it a day when it came to the animations.

“This game sure does give the players a lot of customizable stuff…”

He clicked next.

“Now you must pick your classes!” read the message at the top of the screen.

“You will need to pick two classes, there are three categories, Melee, Magic and Ranged! Pick wisely!”

JohnWillStab went straight to the “Melee” category.

What looked like a diagram of dozens of different weapon icons lay before him.

“Long swords, short swords, axes, polearms, scythes, rapiers, war axes, claw-weapons…” JohnWillStab kept reading through the list of weapons.

“Daggers!” he exclaimed the word out loud as soon as he spotted the icon among the sea of blunt and spiky tools.

He clicked the icon causing a yellow border to appear around it.

“I still need another one…” he thought.

“What does a rogue need? Daggers are one thing; I feel martial arts are a good combo with daggers!” he scrolled to the top of the list and selected “Fists”.

After that he clicked “Next” one last time he was prompted with the final question.

“Now pick you name!” read the message.

The name was “JohnWillStab”, he decided to just leave it as his username.

A small console opened up where a load of data appeared, it looked like debug messages and not like something you would typically leave in the released game.

“Registering username “JohnWillStab”…”

“Finding vacant user ID, please wait…”

The loading took a few seconds.

“Character “JohnWillStab” was successfully created!”

JohnWillStab breathed a sigh of relief as his character was complete and ready to be dropped into the vast world not even JohnWillStab could have expected the depth of.