Divine Mortality doesn’t have classes. But there are still a plethora of character attributes, skills, and most importantly, abilities. So, in some way, it stays true to some core old-school RPG mechanics. While at the same time expanding their horizons, breathing new life for how a Player could build their character. It’s possible to go completely wrong with how you design your character as you progress in the game, but there are also many ways to reform to become better. And almost every Player designs a sufficient character who may be all-round ‘average’ (the majority) or specialized to particularly excel in some gameplay but lacking in other departments. Yet, Divine Mortality is designed to make sure that unique characters can exist, independent of whether the Player is exceptional themselves or not. Unique because of ‘random chance’ dropping elite loot, unique because they acquired or befriended a rare proper AI companion character, unique because the Player themselves is knowledgeable and skillful enough at the game where they gain a slight edge over others in how they construct their character, and so on.

While real class types do not exist, the game encourages (but not forces or requires) Players to operate together in their own designed ‘classes’. So, there are various ‘character builds’ listed on the internet, such as popular encyclopedias or online videos, which showcase ‘good’ designs for Players that want to be above average or those who don’t want to bother customizing their characters in every aspect. The game also provides long-term tutorials which gradually teach the Player and offer hints and advice what is better to do. If a Player has been frequently using a melee weapon, the game will advise them to boost their Strength, Endurance, and Agility, a holy trinity for most ‘warrior’ types. So, there is a blurry marriage between formal and informal RPG style ‘classes’.

The letter Remixhorizon stole from the City Guard’s headquarters in Kurejar said something about how bandits are involved with Sonder’s illegal business activities. The opponents of whatever the nobility are trying to do get either assassinated on the spot or kidnapped and sent to Makron. A random village out in the middle of nowhere.

As Sayooshi, Remixhorizon, Krafty, and (now recently joined) Niko left the forest and approached Makron, they readied their weapons and enabled their passive abilities which buffed their character’s stats temporarily. Just in case they were going to run into a fight.

Sayooshi would be described as a ‘lancer’ type. He uses a steel buckler shield in his left hand, and an amethyst power-imbued lance. A lance differs from a spear because the pointy end extends down the stick/handle of the weapon, like a sword. For Sayooshi, he has a decent amount of Endurance and Agility, but he emphasizes his Strength and Dexterity attributes so that he could precisely hit an enemy with mega power. His armor skill is specialized in Medium Armors. While he uses mostly Weapons Arts abilities, Sayooshi also has a few Spell Arts abilities. Which means his character could perform special moves that are related to his melee weapon skills or do some magical stuff like boost his own endurance/constitution.

Remixhorizon is similar to Sayooshi in that she is also a melee character, and she describes herself as a ‘ninja’ type. Her weapons are two dark-crimson daggers, which a few levels (in stats) above common steel daggers. She emphasizes on Agility the most, her second tier priority is Dexterity and Knowledge, which are all backed up by Strength. She aims to move fast, acting either as a scout of an assassin, and her armor skill is on Light Armors. Knowledge is particularly an interesting attribute for her to pick because it increases the variety and damage amount possible for when she uses Martial Arts abilities.

Krafty differs from the two melee brats because he categorizes himself as a ‘magic Archer’, but others would argue he’s just an ‘archer’ because he is basically too lazy to micromanage spells efficiently. He uses a common Elvish Bow, for now he’s content with just trying to improve his skill in the game while maximizing his damage output. And he simply focuses on Dexterity for accuracy, Strength for physical damage, and Intellect for his magical damage, for when he enables a spell-ability like ‘flaming arrow’. He also equally skills into Light and Medium armors. Similarly, he equally has Spells Arts and Weapons Arts abilities, even though he primarily uses the Weapons Arts abilities for his bow.

Finally, Niki is the most different one because she is on the other end of the character type grid. Her weapon is a Starlight Wand, which looks like a sparkling microphone, it can launch its own trajectory magical attacks (provided with enough charge) or be used as an extension of the Player’s Spell Abilities to make those abilities extend farther and be more precise. And Spell Abilities are her main type of abilities, however, she also interestingly applies non-combat General Abilities into combat as well. There are a variety of skills into the game, which operate like attributes for non-attribute things like armor type and specific weapon types, but Niki has somewhat handicapped herself by limiting the amount of skill points she puts into light armor and is instead saving the rest of them. She doesn’t necessarily need to save the skill points, but it can become very expensive to reform your character’s many statistics, when you are at a high level like she is.

Tanned skinned Elf lancer, hidden-race ninja, big chubby Sunmel ‘magic archer’, and the newly joined Lumenian bard-cleric lady… They approached the settlement of Makron.

The village was worse for wear, or maybe just impoverished. Almost all the buildings were wooden, a bit Nordic stylized. It sat near a small river which joined to the river border which separated the Sonder’s wild countryside with the true wilderness of the Hinterlands. In lore, the differences between the Hinterlands and the rest of the overworld is already dramatic, but real gameplay and atmospheric differences applied which made the lore’s claims true.

When the party of four entered the place, rough looking Lumenian men surrounded the village. It was partially barricaded by palisades. A single watchtower sat next to the main entrance. And as the Players approached, the rough men drew out their weapons, axes, and shields. They were obviously enemy mob NPCs, who gave a scary warning as the Players approached. A neutral or friendly NPCs would not immediately become hostile to you unless you were at war with another faction. So, it was obvious for the Players to start the fight themselves by landing first hits.

Krafty used his Multishot ability and tagged the mobs, they ran charging towards Krafty while a few flanked to attack the weakest looking member, Niki. She chose to not deal damage but instead support her team with party-wide buffs, her “Holy Melody” ability increased her team’s Dexterity and Agility. Remixhorizon vanished, meanwhile Sayooshi took the attention of most of the enemies and dealt blow to blow damage. Eventually Remixhorizon popped up and struck all the enemies from behind, one by one, the front guards fell. The game marked them as Veteran Bandits.

“Nice” Sayooshi casually responded to the results

“Woohoo” Krafty said, enthusiastic as ever

“Your buff was super effective Niki, thanks” Remix quietly said

“My pleasure… now shall we go in? I’m excited because Sayooshi is excited!”

“Hey how did you know Niki?” Sayooshi casually replied

“Let’s just say… I’m something of an expert in online communication...” Niki replied, adding a (emote) few pinks directly at Sayooshi

…

“Don’t you dare blush” Remixhorizon said out of caution

“I’m not! Who would be??” Sayooshi defended himself

Krafty added an “Oooo” response in the background

Seriously I’m not blushing, and why’s everyone picking on me today…?

Sayooshi placed his cold fingers (in real life) on his cheeks. They were warm.

“Come on come on! Didn’t I say I’m excited?” Niki said, running up into the village first