[CHAR] Suddenly, My Favorite MMORPG has Become Real?! — A Log Horizon-inspired RP

Characters:

[FujiwaraPhoenix]

• Name (Former): Takefumi Jun
• Name (Character): Deneb
• Age: 21
• Appearance: "Why my alt? Why not my main?!"
  When not disguised, Deneb stands at about 5'5" tall.
• Character Level: 52
• Character Class: Ninja
• Personality: Deneb isn't particularly outgoing in any sense of the word, and prefers to remain quiet if not disguised as someone else. To strangers, she remains polite and cordial, and to allies and friends, she is more talkative, but as a whole the whole 'stuck in a girl's body with a girl's voice' thing is still uncomfortable.
  Bring it up, though, and she'll put you on a hitlist of people to make miserable for the near future.
  That doesn't mean that she's the type to go off brooding in some corner, though; her current situation is one that spurs her on to actively seek a solution, even if that means pushing her to go and find people to possibly help in her personal quest.
  In combat and strategically focused scenarios, though, Deneb tends to be the shotcaller and leader, which is both odd given her class and understandable given what her situation used to be. She's stubborn and headstrong in that regard, but when it comes up to trying to find strategies and diffuse tensions she's actually quite flexible.
  As a (former) long-time player, though, Deneb knows a lot more about the content waiting for her at the higher levels, which promptly makes her more cautious in some cases and more confident in others. Her experience as a leader also makes her more likely to chew people out if they act out of line or put people (not just others, but also themselves) in needless danger. She isn't a know it all, though, and only speaks extensively with regard to what she knows best; if someone comes to her asking for advice on class builds, for example, she'd direct them to a wiki or another high level player instead.
• Abilities: As she is a human, Deneb has no inherent abilities to speak of aside from the superhuman speed and dexterity bestowed upon her by her class. That being said, though, Deneb has one ace up her sleeve that isn't explicitly a part of her class.
  As a reward from a gachapon, she has a small charm that can be used to summon another character on her account (in other words, Laoli) for a short period of time, have them unleash a single high-level skill, and disappear. It has infinite uses, but must cool down for a day after being used.
• Skills: Deneb has a variety of skills focused around the debuffing of and manipulation of enemies, ranging from things like magically disguising oneself and short distance teleportation to more classic things such as manipulation of poison, proficiency with daggers and ranged weapons, and instant traps such as caltrops and oil slicks. Aside from these, though, one skill that Deneb has, often ignored by the playerbase at large for its lack of use in most scenarios, is [Mimic]. With this skill, it is possible for Deneb to copy the skills of another character (that do not use items) with a lower proficiency than the original (but not their statlines) so long as she is disguised as them. Any injury past a certain threshold, of course, renders the disguise null and void, and thus returns her back to 'normal'. The [Disguise] skill itself, though, has a long internal cooldown and a relatively short duration at its current level (1, which is what most players with the class invest into it, if at all), which makes utilizing [Mimic] even more difficult than it might otherwise possibly be.
  Aside from that, the judo that she remembers, while not registered as a skill of any sort within the game, is still perfectly usable... Just not as any meaningful skill.
• Backstory: Jun is (or, rather, was) a college student at Tokyo University, and often spent his free time at arcades or playing Emerald Odyssey rather than attending any major afterschool clubs. Even so, his penchant towards academics (read, multitasking and studying while playing) and occasional attendance to the judo club led to his admission... Somehow.
  When he entered college, however, a few of the new friends he had made admitted that they wanted to try the MMO he had spent so much time on, and he was happy to oblige their request and teach them the ropes; after all, who better than an old veteran of the game to do something like that?
  That being said, Jun didn't want to use his main character, a Martial Artist by the name of Laoli, for that task; it wasn't fun to either simply stand by or crush all the enemies in front of him without a thought. The next best option was, of course, to make a new character entirely to help those people out.
  The next few years came and went, and as the others began to get more sporadic in playtime due to the pressures of higher-level education, his progress on Deneb began to falter as he had to spend more time on Laoli. News of the new expansion, however, reinvigorated those friends to start playing once more, and so the last day before its release was spent raising the ninja. Again.
  What the young man didn't expect, of course, was to be trapped... On the wrong goddamn character.
• Other: Is rightfully mad at the world for dropping her in as a ninja instead of the martial artist she spend the last few years working on. In essence, her current goal is to either get home or, at the very least, switch to that character.
  Additionally, Jun's main also owned a small training hall located off to the wayside, and used it as a hybrid base/warehouse. Both characters have made use of it actively, and Jun has written a few sentences in his spare time while waiting for... Well, everyone else to get online.

[DocRock]

Name (Former): Christian Light
Name (Character): Indiana Jones(an inside joke on his part, due to his love of adventuring, and now he's stuck with it)
Age: 22
Appearance: Standing at an imposing seven feet due to his race of Dragonkin, Indiana was presumably a fire dragonkin, due to his red scale color, with a toothed snout and small, yet free moving eyes in his skull. He often wore traveling clothes, and while having horns, often tried to perch a fedora atop his head, one of the few times he bought an item that had almost no direct benefits in gameplay for personal appeal. He almost always has a crossbow handy, and various assorted items ready for usage, but thanks to the storage system, isn't usually visible.
Character Level: 40
Character Class: Artificer
Personality: A kind hearted player who despite his fearsome appearance, had a love for helping others. Whereas some who went his route did so for the power that came with being able to craft valuable magical items, he did it out of a love for adventure, to aid others. Why charismatic and confident in the game, this hides a nervous fellow, who was always nervous about fitting in, and in part took a path to stand out to inspire others. Studious and observant, his tendency to binge read information makes him both a valuable source of data, and a dangerous foe due to his extensive knowledge. While most players will just run in and slash, Chris will carefully investigate his surroundings, looking for hidden monsters, doors, or treasures. Or traps. He makes mental notes, and will, if able, leave markers for other players to know where to not step, or where hidden enemies are. Always check the ceiling, never know what's up there.
Abilities:
Dragon's Breath - A racial skill that allowed the player to breath an element tied to their race's heritage. In Indy's case, it was traditional flames, in a spread like pattern. However, it could only be used once a day.
Dragonscale - Takes reduced damage due to his dragonic nature. Unless its a weak spot, then its normal damage.
Identify - A basic spell that allows one to identify an item of a magical nature, its akin to appraisal.
Detect Magic - An omnidirectional spell that tells a user if any magic is present in an area, can be used to detect magical items, or opponents with magic, or hidden spells.
Other abilities will be implemented as needed or thought up(Not limiting myself here now, so much as I am just moving carefully, no need to be super crazy all at once).

Skills:
As a more hybrid-esque class, Artificers have a skill tree that revolves around the production of items, magical or not, but primarily magical. Combining features commonly found in crafting and artisan related classes, a good Artificer benefits from careful resource management, and careful time management. Not recommended as a class for beginners, or casual players, or for the more aggressive playing style of some. The Artificer takes their time, and as such, are seen as a valuable commodity in the game's economy, due to the ability of high level artificers to make incredibly rare and powerful items. Artificers are most commonly found in hub areas, but some can be found in the wilderness, seeking out dungeons or areas overlooked for rare items to add to their collection. While incredibly valuable, they aren't good for direct combat, instead relying on ranged combat or simple weapons, and are best when supporting a tank type class, or as the loot carrier in a party. While unclear what would happen with them in the new expansion, the adventurous nature of Artificers, and their overall usefulness as crafters, would likely benefit.

Backstory:
An American player, who moved to Japan as part of his studies, and was part of Heaven's Door, a crafting guild dedicated attaining status as one of the top guilds in the game via various trades. An aspiring archeologist in the outside world, and a college student in his final year, Chris was a lore fanatic, digging into the game's secrets whenever new information came out, using his love for exploration to roam the world, whether by himself or with others. While Dragonkin weren't as common as other players, due to being in part, seen as "ugly" by most, Chris's own love for dragons, especially the western types drew him to the often overlooked type. Mix in his love of adventure, and it explains his pick of the more recently added artificer. In part why he named himself Indiana Jones. He was frugal with his ingame resources, only buying accessories he felt were really needed, though it wasn't unheard of him to spend a lot of game currency on rare magical items or components, partly making him a lower ranked member of the guild, despite being the valuable Artificer class. He tended to keep to himself even with the guild, often spending long times away, with only one or two other members tagging along. But those were his friends, who he cherished, and took care of. He often gave them the magical items he made, preferring the support role, due to a slight aversion to extreme violence. For him, it wasn't about being the best, but about enjoying the journey along the way, and a small blog he ran when not playing, chronicled his experiences from just going out and enjoying the world the developers had crafted, seeking out the lesser visited areas, even if it meant hours of work just to get the perfect picture.

As the hours ticked down towards the servers going down to add in the new update, Chris had returned his character to his workshop at the Guild Headquarters, for safety reasons, adding finishing touches to an NPC he'd been working on incase he ever had to go out by himself again, as admittedly, the long hours aloe did in fact, bother him, having no one else to share them with in real time, even if a creature he had made, as opposed to a friend, was that person. It didn't bother him, perhaps a clue to his own aloofness, or his desire for well, a sibling. That was the curse of an only child, let alone a stranger in a foreign land. So he had created a hunter NPC elf named Meg, after another game character, or at least their nickname, and as the time slipped away that night, he had turned from working on her skill tree, racial traits, and equipment, to personality. It was easy enough to code in the character's personality to be a bit of a big sister type figure, but not in the aggressive "I'm going to beat the crap out of you if you don't behave," but more the "We're in this together, so let's get going." A fellow explorer in other words. He had no idea just what was waiting around the corner for him, for while he was aware of the strange bug, due to commentary in the chat rooms, he had paid it no mind, chalking it up to a random bug that would be fixed come the new expansion. And such things always happen to other people, right?

Other:
Chris, despite not being one to spend resources where they were not "needed", decided to invest time, patience, and resources into making his NPC Meg, perhaps a hint to his own occasional sense of loneliness. Meg, being an elf he programmed to be like well, a friend and a sister. So imagine his surprise when she came to life, and started playing the part of a sister. His extensive knowledge of the game's lore and inner workings, and exporative nature means he's been almost everywhere a level forty player can go, and well, he's gathered information from others. While unaware of what's to come, that knowledge is going to come in handy later.

[Bone Father]

Shinon

Name (Former): Nanami Kusou

Name (Character): Shinon

Age: 26

Appearance:

Character Level: 48

Character Class: Archer (Hunter Variant)

Personality: Shinon named her character after one of her favorite archers in video games. Shinon enjoys hunting monsters in game and enjoys collecting their heads and body parts as trophies. In a house she bought, she has a room where she has some of her most impressive kills displayed. When denied of a hunting trophy, she get extraordinarily upset, feeling as though she’s been cheated out of a reward she deserves.

Abilities: As a human, Shinon does not have any inherent abilities, however due to her class she has superhuman eyesight and excellent hand eye coordination, allowing her to shoot from almost a kilometer away.

Skills: Shinon’s skills primarily focus on her hunter build for the archer class, having skills and some spells that allow her to track, trap, or take down her prey.

「Marking」: A skill that allows Shinon to magically mark a creature she can see, this allows Shinon to sense where that creature is up to 3 kilometers away. Furthermore, this skill also allows Shinon to deal extra damage to a marked creature.

「Whittle Down」: This is a passive skill that kicks in when Shinon attacks a damaged enemy. If Shinon hits an enemy with an attack, and that enemy is below it’s hit point maximum, Neia deals additional damage.

「Hail of Thorns」: The user expends some of their MP, the next ranged attack they make with a bow is enchanted with magic. When the arrow is fired, it divides into several smaller arrows that deal the same amount of damage as the parent arrow. These arrows can hit multiple enemies that are tightly packed together, useful for crowd control.

「Ensnare」: The user expends some MP, the next time they hit a creature with a ranged attack, a magical rope binds around them, immobilizing them for a short moment, useful to get off some damage or to make an escape. Has a long cooldown.

Backstory: Shinon adored archery, and participated in the Archery Club in highschool, her team managed to make it pretty far in the national competition, but they fell short. Nonetheless, her passion for archery didn’t diminish, she even began taking up bow hunting, this is where her passion for hunting animals and collect their trophies originates from. Just like in the game, she would throw a fit when and if she felt like she had been robbed of a trophy she deserved.

Other: After being transported to this world, Her ultimate goal is to hunt all monsters and get trophies of at least one of each species.

[Anza]

Name (Former): Kai Yoriko
Name (Character): Viridian Daeva
Age: 27
Appearance: "Hmm? Is there a problem?"
Her character model (including horns) is about 6'2''
Character Level: 60
Character Class: Cleric
Personality: Viridian (or ‘Viri’ for short) is a casual in every sense of the word. Before getting stuck in the game she was the kind of person who’d only log in once or twice a week for an hour or so at a time, and did whatever she felt was fun rather than seriously grinding at all. Rather than affiliating with any particular clique or guild, she’s fine partying with whoever needs a healer, though it can be hard to get her to stick around for more than a couple of dungeon runs at a time.
In spite of her class, or perhaps because of it, Viri is a woman of almost infinite patience. She’s very forgiving of people who make mistakes, and doesn’t seem to mind getting chewed out herself, though no amount of angry berating is likely to make her change her ways. She’ll sometimes gently scold people for being childish or petty, but in general is very mellow and relaxed. It’s hard to get her excited about anything, and hard to make her really angry or frustrated.
As a player she’s a fairly passive support, staying out of the fight and topping up health bars where needed. She’s effective enough at her role, but never really changes or adapts her tactics much, preferring to stick with the strategy that normally works rather than pushing herself to excel.
Abilities/skills: Even for a Cleric, Viri is heavily specced into healing and support, with virtually no damaging spells at all. She can throw ranged projectiles and area affects that restore health, create temporary magical barriers to eat enemy attacks, and command up to three small spirits to attach themselves to specific players or enemies to provide buffs and debuffs respectively. She also has a mobility spell that lets her teleport to an allied player after a short channel, a powerful regeneration buff that remains active so long as she’s in physical contact with the target, and a debuff cleanse applied through a kiss. Last but not least, she can revive a downed player with up to half of their maximum health, though doing this eats up all her mana and leaves her pretty much useless until it regenerates.
Backstory: Yoriko was never the kind of person who played video games much. She only got into Emerald Odyssey because one of her boyfriends was excited about its release and wanted to play it together. She ended up dumping him a couple months later, but by then she’d already made an account, and over the next few years she kept logging on from time to time whenever she felt like it, leveling up her character step by tiny step.
It was sheer coincidence that she logged on right before the release of the new expansion— she didn’t even know the expansion was coming that soon. All she wanted to do was relax for an hour with a silly game after a stressful day of work… but instead she got trapped in a fantasy world?! Ah, she wasn’t expecting something like this…
Other: She keeps quiet about her identity and occupation in the outside world, though it’s known that she at least has a degree of some sort. Her inventory is full of old items that she never uses or sells, including some quite rare ones that she doesn’t know the value of.

[Rabidporcupine]

Orc Battle Chef

Name (Former):
Igarashi Kaito

Name (Character):
Danongorf

Age:
Twenty Four

Appearance:

Not obvious in the picture, but his character model is quite big, at like 7'5.

Character Level:
50

Character Class:
Summoner

Personality:
Kai is a relatively friendly person, easygoing and friendly to just about everyone he comes across. It takes a hell of a lot to stress the guy out, and he is quite capable of relaxing and goofing around even under high pressure situations, which has served him well in his real life job as a chef. When he does get serious or upset, he has a tendency to go very quiet, usually shutting himself off from other people unless he is particularly devastated. Essentially, he's just your average lovable goofball!

Of course, he has so far portrayed himself quite differently during his time in Odyssey, due to entering the game with the intention to play a Dark Lord character. True, this was also essentially done with the idea of making more fun for other players by making an unofficial dungeon, but with the exception of the small inner circle of the guild he created for that very purpose, he forces himself to play the part of a ruthless, cruel king. He still loves to ham his performance right up of course, but other than that, he acts quite cold.

Abilities:
Summon Phantom Soldier
The general minion spell available to non-necromancer summoners, summoning a weak suit of phantom armour to serve as a basic soldier. Available to summoners as early as level one, but can still follow simple orders, and have a reputation as a good 'worker ant' unit even at high levels.

Summon Fire Wyvern
Allows Kaito to summon a fire breathing wyvern, which can function both as a mount or as a follower. A good mid-level flying mount, capable of melee combat and fire breath attacks.

Summon Giant Toad
Summons an intelligent, horse-sized toad, which has a variety of water based magic attacks as well as a few melee attacks. One interesting feature of this spell is that the toad levels up alongside the summoner, gaining new, stronger spells in the process.

Summon Carbuncle
A targeting spell which summons a floating crystalline entity. The carbuncle attaches itself to the target, all magic, both positive and negative, as long as the level of the caster is equal to or lower than the level of the carbuncle target. Higher level spells are reduced by a percentage equal to the reverse of the number of levels the attacker has over the summoner up to 50%. For example, if Kai is level 50 and the attacker is level 51, the attack power will be reduced by 49%. If the attacker is level 99 though, the attack will only be reduced by 1%.

Summon Golem
Summons a large, permanent golem created for a large chunk of magic. These constructs fight and defend the summoner from threats, as well as performing a variety of other tasks depending on the summoners commands. In order to summon a golem, the summoner must sacrifice ten units of the material they wish to create it from. For example, to summon a stone golem, all you need to do is give up ten stones. However, for the higher level golems, like adamantine or mithril, the summoner has to be willing to give up ten of some of the rarest, most useful materials in the game. However, the more powerful the materials sacrificed, the greater the reward, and adamantine golems can be some of the most dangerous non-boss enemies in the game to any who would pick a fight with them. Sadly, in order to keep them from being too overpowered, golems are only summoned with the ability to move in a seventy meter radius from the spot they awaken in. In order to make sure a ridiculously rare golem can be recovered without being lost forever, they can be 'put to sleep', at which point players can begin the long, difficult task of moving the golem to a new location for them to 'reawaken' in.

Lesser Mirror Soldier
A target spell that, when fired at a creature, creates a silvery, transparent copy of them. However, in the case of Lesser Mirror Soldier, all stats are halved from the original entity, making it far less difficult to deal with one on one than True Mirror Soldier, which copies the entity exactly. It can also be fired at humanoid monsters, in which case a generic reflection will be summoned, with skills that have been (usually crudely) translated into PC skills.

Skills:
Cooking
Being a chef in the real world, Kai naturally has a deep interest in cooking systems in any game he plays. Naturally, the extremely versatile cooking system in Emerald Odyssey dragged him in immediately. He has put even more time into burning through that skill tree than he has with his villain plans, coming dangerously close on more than one occasion to just giving up the demon lord thing and opening an in game restaurant for fun. At this point, considering how high he has raised this skill, one could almost consider his class a 'battle chef' rather than just a summoner.

Carpentry
Along with Masonry, Carpentry is one of the main skills used to build player made structures. Due to his plans of creating his own player-made questline with him as the villain, he took this skill to begin making a big bad citadel for his big bad guild. However, he hasn't put as much into carpentry as he has masonry, as the citadel he is building would mostly be stone.

Masonry
As mentioned above, Masonry is one of the other main skills that let players build their own structures. Kai has put more into this skill, as he plans to build a lot more with stone than with wood.

Logistics
A rather boring skill tree, Logistics allows a player to organize and command npcs in non-combat situations, such as building and trade. It is largely seen as a flavor skill, but it is handy when creating and maintaining player structures, so Kai has invested into it despite not being really into, or even all that good at it in the real world.

Tactics
The tactics skill tree allows Kai to give commands to small groups of npcs in a combat situation, largely using premade formations, rally points and certain specific action commands. The number of options grow as he progresses through the tree. He can also use these commands on PCs, in which case the players in question will see what he wants them to do, but it is up to them if they want to follow his plans.

Backstory:
Igarashi Kaito is an avid gamer and chef, currently living in Osaka. Even before getting into Emerald Odyssey, he'd grown up with an interest in games, despite being kinda limited due to growing up in a relatively small town in the mountains. Therefore, to even convince his parents to let him get games during the early days, he had to make them think they had something they could 'teach' him... Considering how much he liked food, he decided he'd pick go for a few with cooking.

Sadly, his clever plan to fool his parents ended up backfiring, and the poor soul ended up actually getting interested in cooking, sealing his new, dark path...

Over the years, his interests in both gaming and cooking only grew, until he decided to leave home and move to the big city of Osaka at the age of twenty, getting a job working at a pretty decent ramen restaurant. It was also around this time that he got into Emerald Odyssey, and after seeing a few interesting anime with particularly good villains, along with having recently consumed almost every Legend of Zelda game over the course of a few months, he decided it might be fun to come into this and be the bad guy. Not just some small scale PK bandit though! No, he was gonna go in full force! He was going to become the big bad guy, and if he managed to pull this off, he might even be able to make it some kind of cool unofficial questline for other players! And so, after reading up a little on building in the game, he got to work. He started a guild, which consisted of literally just him for a full year, until he managed to scout a few other players who liked the idea and put a nice little fortress together. This eventually grew, and along with the creation of a few mindless npc minions, he had a decent villainous castle on his hands!

Of course, despite his goal, Kaicouldn't quite manage to avoid the extensive cooking system the game offered, and by the time of the shift, he had put even more effort into maxing out the skill tree than he had into building his castle.

Other:
Did I mention he likes cooking?

[OliveYou]

Atlantis's Songbird

Name (Former): Akimoto Yae

Name (Character): KitKat Winters

Age: 19

Appearance:

Character Level: 56

Character Class: Dancer

Personality: Akimoto, or "Kitkat" as she is more often called, is a go-getter kind of girl--a girl who knows what she wants and goes for it. More often than not, this turns out to be a sparkly outfit, or a pretty (and expensive) item, but it's the thought that counts--and the effort KitKat puts into pursuing her "rewards" is a sight to behold. She's easily attracted to shiny things and before the expansion spent most of her in-game time mining rare items and ignoring "real" combat. But KitKat isn't just a shallow girl--she's a confident and sneaky one. She excels at getting what she wants, no matter the cost, and it is with ease that she manipulates the outcome to her favor. Her favorite game? Playing the part of an "in-game" girlfriend to collect money and gifts for her collection. But, now that she's no longer hiding behind a screen, how will her bargains play out?

Abilities: As a Naiad (water-based spirit), Kitkat has a few tricks up her sleeve:

Aquatic Affinity -- Encompasses a Naiad's ease of sensing water, conversing with water-based creatures, and the occasional calling forth of a sudden blast of water.

The Four Strokes -- KitKat's enhanced swimming ability comes in handy when adventuring underwater, as does her heightened sight. In addition, she doesn't need to come up to the surface as often due to her "oxygen storage."

Skills: KitKat's class, Dancer, gives her high speed, low defense, and a variety of tools to aid her teammates. Most of her usefulness comes from her book of buff, debuff, and AoE spells, giving her the title of support.

These spells take the forms of various dances and songs, from the peppy and re-energizing Cheer Up! to a mournful melody the freezes enemies in their tracks. Couple this with KitKat's theatrical nature, and her performances are a sight to behold. Being a natural performer pays off, in more way than one, and KitKat has mastered those ways; out of battle, she can use skills like Flirt and Barter to turn the tide in her favor.

And while KitKat will usually stay off of the battlefield and aid from the sidelines, she holds onto a slender lightweight dagger and can quickly dart in between enemies to deal a little damage. One of her most prized skills, Pickpocket, gives KitKat the ability to approach an enemy and try to steal something off their person. It doesn't always work, though, and it leaves her open to future attacks.

Backstory: Alone. Young. Broke.

Those words fit Akimoto rather well--at the tender age of nineteen, she was kicked out of the house and left to fend for her herself. Not in the cruel, orphan way, but more in the "couch potato who needs to move out" sort of way. And at first, that's exactly what Akimoto did. She lazed around. She ate ramen for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She surfed the web. Despite being quite a bubbly girl as a child, it seemed to Akimoto that those days were over--that her fate was to die alone. Relationships with her family turned sour as her bad habits continued, and as far as she was concerned, it was for the better. A loser like her was worth nothing.

And then, she discovered Emerald Odyssey. For the first time in her life, she felt something--that is, she felt like she was worth something. In reality, she shopped at 24/7 convenience stores and lived on the bare minimum of wages, but online, she was special. She was loved! People liked her, liked her character's liveliness and liked her! This, above all, was what changed Akimoto's perception of life for the better. The further she got in the game, the more confident she felt with herself. She started taking risks--making bargains, a little bit of flirting here and there--and soon, this moved beyond just her online self.

Six months after purchasing Emerald Odyssey, she called her parents for the first time in three years.

Tears were shed as relationships mended and Akimoto leveled up higher and higher. Her online self was no longer just a personification of what she wishes she was--now, it's what she is, online and offline. However, as her confidence grew, so did her attachment to the game--at one point, she logged on every morning and every night, feverishly clicking away in the dead of night. Things were reaching a critical point. Akimoto lived each day wondering when the choice would come up--real life or Emerald Odyssey--and when it did, what would she choose?

And then the choice was made for her. Stuck in the body of her avatar (not a horrible tragedy, considering her, shall we say, assets) and without a way to contact her family, KitKat, formerly Akimoto Yae, is ready to begin anew. This is her life now; she's determined to never make those mistakes again.

Other: Possesses several impressive, if useless, achievements such as "Most Wedding Proposals Rejected" and "Most Pet Jaguars Owned."

[Vulkan]

Katsuro Takuma/Elyan Sarel

Name (Former): Katsuro Takuma

Name (Character): Elyan Sarel

Age: 22

Appearance:

A really emo looking picture.

(Hes actually a natural blond, but dyes it to avoid the awkward looks)

Character Level: 53

Character Class: War Dancer

Personality: Elyan tends to keep to himself, speaking rarely unless spoken to, and preferring to keep a professional attitude at all times. Despite this, he is still capable of fairly low key snark now and again, often confusing people if he is being serious or not. This is due to a mixture of shyness in the real world and secretly just not liking people very much. He prefers to do his job, get paid, and leave. He always looks out for number one, believing others are idiots for thinking otherwise...

Abilities: Elyan is a Sidhe, making him slightly smaller and weaker than the average human. However, this is offset by an incredible boost to his speed and reflexes, which is only amplified by his class and simple training. This can result in some extremely amusing feats of athleticism.

Skills: His skills are fairly simple, revolving around eliminating people one at at a time as quickly and simply as possible, all the while avoiding any attacks sent his way with his speed.

War Dancing: Elyan's graceful, athletic fighting style can give off a sense of inspiration to those on his side, helping them fight harder. Due to being alone most of the time, this is never, ever made use of.

Combat Meditation: This skill allows him to go into a sort of trance, in which he cannot concentrate on attacking very well. However, it gives him much greater sense of what is going on around him, allowing him to see attacks coming around him the absolute instant they happen, making him able to dodge things he might not have been able to do so otherwise, even with his natural speed. Attacking will break this trance, however.

Feather Dance: Temporarily, he is able to drastically lower his own weight for a few moments, aiding in various acrobatic maneuvers. This makes him even more stupidly fragile than he usually is, though.

Vortex Impale: Concentrating as hard as he can, Elyan can thrust his spear forward. Should it connect, it will release a shock wave capable of blowing down heavy doors or even walls. Using this, however, will exhaust him for a good minute, making him unable to use any other skills.

Backstory: Coming from a incredibly wealthy family with Japanese and British roots, Katsuro was groomed from a young age to go into business, like his parents, who ran a incredibly successful real estate firm that stretched across Japan. They separated when he was four, leaving Katsuro with his mother, who made sure he had the absolute best education possible, leaving him with very little to do to try and make sure he turned out exactly how she wanted.

All of this came to an end when Katsuro was nineteen, when his parents and multiple other board members were arrested for multiple counts of fraud. Following a media circus of a trial, it was revealed that the company had hit some hard times, and they had burned down one of their buildings for the insurance money. Many people also came forward, claiming that they had been threatened with violence into leaving their homes by the company.

His mother got eight years, and his father six. Left alone, and a social pariah, Katsuro rarely even went outside, speaking only to his tutors and anyone else when he needed to. Though a trust fund had prevented any money troubles, the social pariah that his name brought prevented him from having any sort of normal life, and eventually, he gave up on trying to get one. It was at this point, he turned to gaming, which he had not been allowed to do when growing up. He quickly got addicted to it, and one day noticed an interesting looking MMO...

Other: Katsuro cant take a hit. At all. Even lower level attacks can cause a problem if they are able to connect. He never learned the value of money in real life, and the game is no exception. He will usually blow all the money he makes from his work in a matter of days, despite the astronomical charges he asks for. Still, they usually pay up. One of the few decent investments he makes with his money is making sure his name is known.

[VitaVitaAR]

• Name (Former): Hanabusa Megumi
• Name (Character): DokanMeguMegu-san
• Age: 16
• Appearance: "I don't tolerate those 'boring but practical' types!" Amusingly, Megumi's in-game appearance was modeled on her real life looks, except slightly more fanciful.
• Character Level: 50
• Character Class: Combat Mage(A subclass focused on offensive magic)
• Personality: Megumi is many things. Surly, intolerant of things she doesn't like, quick to complain, fond of colorful magical explosions... She's got a fiery personality and prefers to have the firepower to back it up. Indeed, when she began Emerald Odyssey, one of Megumi's chief pursuits was to be as offense-heavy as possible. She has a distaste for anyone who leans towards boring, practical skills and techniques that are effective because of their low cost and short, uninteresting animations. Instead, Megumi favors the flashiest and most explosive spells, ones that look cool and do extremely high damage, even if the animations are slow. After the game world becomes real, well... Megumi certainly won't shake this belief. Magic is magic, it should be flashy! That's how she feels, at least. Aside from this, Megumi dislikes foolish behavior and has words just as fiery as some of her most explosive magic. She unhesitatingly and scathingly insults anyone who annoys her, and will admonish others for behaviors she perceives as stupid, or dangerous. Megumi is also an extremely proud person, perhaps to the point of mild arrogance in some circumstances. However, she's easily embarrassed. Finally, in spite of her... testy personality(and hatred of being mistaken for one), Megumi is actually quite nice to children and has a protective streak towards them.
• Abilities: Megumi has rapid casting abilities, and the highest level of mana she could get for her level.
• Skills: Megumi possesses little in the way of physical skills, even less so now that she's become her Emerald Odyssey character. However, given that she was at the top of her class in school, she is excellent at problem-solving and providing information. Megumi's specialization is in offensive magic. She knows a single barrier spell(one of the best for her level, but it's still only one) and that is it. Everything else has been poured exclusively into offense and nothing else, aimed at getting everything she can out of every single explosive spell she knows. These spells include Grand Combustion(albeit at its lowest level as she learned it as early as possible), Scattering Lights(a bombardment spell featuring dozens of laser beams), Divine Spark(a bigger, stronger, single laser), and many other, similar spells. She also has a mana recharge buff item, but it's not one of the strongest in Emerald Odyssey as she has not been able to clear the content containing such strong items. Compared to her MP, her HP is low for her level, making her easily incapacitated if successfully attacked.
• Backstory: Hanabusa Megumi, the doll-like straight-A student of Mihama High School, was not one of the people most would peg as an avid gamer. And perhaps it would be inaccurate to call her one, except when it came to Emerald Odyssey. Megumi is, somewhat secretly(at least to the people she doesn't count as friends), something of a massive Emerald Odyssey nerd. She lost her parents at a young age, and was taken in by her aunt. This experience inspired a few different desires in her, to ensure that children didn't need to suffer the same loss as she did, and to do as best as she possibly could in memory of her parents. This manifested as her excellency in class... however, the pressure she placed on herself required her to find some way of venting. Eventually, she discovered Emerald Odyssey. Quickly taking to the lore, setting, and gameplay, Megumi frequently spent time playing the game... and buying merchandise related to the game. In order to burn off stress, she decided to make a high-firepower mage who was focused entirely on being as destructive as possible. Soon, she shared her love of Emerald Odyssey with a few friends(the only friends she has), and they all played together, covering for Megumi so she could unleash her most powerful spells. Indeed, she was quite excited to take her mage through the new content...
  She never expected she'd end up being that mage.
• Other: N/A

[Saarebas]

Yjarldor Stormcaller

"In times like this we need to stand together more than ever."

Name
(Former)

Damian Queen

Name
(Character)

Yjarldor "Yjarl" Stormcaller
_{(Pronounced Yarl-Dor)}

Age

22

Appearance

Yjarl's avatar is a hulking individual, standing at a staggering eleven feet tall and weighting over eight-hundred pounds. His large frame is covered in slab upon slab of muscle, though he has quite the amount of muscle mass it isn't incredibly toned. He has sky blue skin that is covered in a series of jagged dark blue markings that cover his entire body. Yjarl keeps his head clean shaven, the only hair on his face being a pair of thick black eyebrows. His eyes are a striking icy blue color and give off a faint glow.

Character Level

51

Character Class

Guardian

Personality

Yjarl is a gentle of a giant, having a kind heart and a nearly hindering need to help others. A warm smile is always at home on the young man's face and he is no stranger to a laugh, but unlike many others Yjarl is by no means boisterous and is rather reserved when it comes to his fun. He has a soft spot for those in need and will usually go out of his way to help others, even if it means putting himself at risk. His kind heart should by no means be mistaken for weakness, Yjarl would not hesitate to pounce on someone he felt deserved it. At the end of the day Yjarl lives by the old saying speak softly and carry a big stick, always willing to stay his hand, but never afraid to let loose if need be.

Abilities

As a Storm Giant Yjarl has a number of abilities allotted to him, most prominent of which being the boost to both his strength and constitution which comes at the cost of his dexterity and speed. A prime example of this strength is Yjarl being able to wield what would be classified as two-handed weapons in only one hand. He also has a natural resistance to lightning damage. Yjarl's Storm Giant blood also gives him the ability known as Thunder Shout which is an AoE ability that allows Yjarl to let out a roar with such force and volume that it stuns and physically knocks back those around him. He is also has the Storm Within ability which causes his body to be coated in electrical energy for a short time.

Skills

Yjarl's training as a Guardian mainly focused around trying to defend his other party members by drawing enemy attention onto himself. Many of Yjarl's moves involve him charging into a group of enemies, which often leads to many of the smaller foes being trampled, and sweeping with his massive weaponry to attack multiple targets. He has rather limited ranged attacks however, his only one being a harpoon attack that is meant to impale an enemy from afar and drag it closer to Yjarl's melee range. His large size also allows him grapple smaller foes, either being able to restrain them, throw them, or bash them into the ground.

Backstory

Damian grew up as a military brat, his mother being in the service. His mother's job meant that he was moved around a lot, meaning from a young age Damian got to see a whole lot of the world. These moves also meant that Damian never had too much time to actually make many real face to face friendships, it was this problem that turned the young man on to online gaming. Through these online worlds it didn't matter how many times he moved Damian would always be a mere internet connection away from friends.

Once he was old enough to move out Damian headed to Japan for collage, namely do to him feeling that it was the promise land of online gaming, and this is where he found Emerald Odyssey, falling head over heels for the gamed almost instantly. The world was massive and it was filled to the brim with people that he could interact with. The more Damian played the more he realized that as much as he liked getting to meet new people what he loved was helping others. This was when Yjarldor Stormcaller really came into being, Damian created him as someone anyone could come to for help. A boss giving you trouble? Yjarldor would join your party in a heart beat. Can't find that last piece to complete that armor set? Yjarldor would grind with you for hours. Got a bunch of players griefing lower level characters? Yjarldor would set them straight. It didn't take too long until people actually started searching Yjarldor out for help.

Damian had planned to try and get through the content in the new expansion as fast as possible so he could then turn around and start helping other people through it, little did he know he was going to end up being the one that would need help in the end.

Other

A Better Look At His Armor And Hammer

[TheFake]

Name (Former): Sato Kaede
Name (Character): Kallahar
Age: 31
Appearance:

In her armour the character tops 7 feet tall as the cosmetic set provides a character size increase. Under the helmet is a plain, pale face with cold eyes framed by rather stringy hair.
Character Level: 58
Character Class: Death Knight
Personality:
Outside of the game Kaede is a laid back small town police officer, easygoing and friendly. She is a bit of an idealist, seeing the best in everybody. She is, however, easily bored.

Inside the world of Emerald Odyssey Kallahar is a ruthless killer with enthusiasm and creativity bordering on the artistic. The contrast with her real world self is what keeps her coming back to the game. When she plays there is a total disconnect between herself and the character. There is no discussion of real life, for Kallahar there is no outside world. The only bleedthrough is Kaede's quick to laugh sense of humor.
Abilities:

Lifeleech: Kallahar's abilites focus around maximizing the amount of life that she can leech from enemies though her attacks. Most of her lifeleech is granted by her sword or other equipment.
Hellbound Fervor: Even in death there is no rest. Kallahar continues to fight after reaching 0 health for a period of time based on her health value before the blow landed. being killed from full health allows her to fight for two minutes.

Skills:

Intercept: Kallahar throws herself in front of an attack intended for an ally, losing part of her armors effectiveness against the attack.
Retaliating Strike: After taking damage Kallahars next attack is amplified in relation to the damage taken.
Relentless Retribution: while under 15% health Kallahar becomes immune to debuffs that affect movement or attack speed.

Backstory:
Kaede always wanted to be a police officer. Unfortunately she ended up in a small village where nothing seems to happen. At the advice from a friend from back home she took up MMO gaming in her free time. Rather than reflect real life in the game, she decided to create a persona that was a total contrast with herself.

The Death knight Kallahar was born, a vicious killer that believes in letting the strongest prevail.
Other:
Kallahar has a single NPC 'companion', though if he could speak, he would strongly object to the use of that term to describe their relationship.
NPC Name: Michael Riordan
NPC Level: 50
NPC Class: Paladin
Persobnality: A righteous paragon of Justice, Paladin Riordan is honorbound to seek out and do away with evil in all of its myriad forms. Michael is a strong counterpoint to Kallahar's wilful and bloodthirsty nature.
Abilities:

Holy Aura: weakens and slows undead and unnatural beings that approach the paladin.
Blessed Touch: A simple caress from him can heal wounds and purge ailments.

Skills:

Divine Smite: A glorious attack that deals bonus damage to unholy and undead. Anything evil or undead killed by this attack or shortly after burn to ash, leaving no corpse behind.
Vigilant Strike: A swift counterattack in response to taking damage. Ordinarilly it has a four second cooldown, when the paladin is at low health this cooldown is ignored.

History:
Paladin Michael Riordan is the relentless pursuer of Blood knight Kaallahar. A close as he ever get's to apprehending her, she always manages to escape through taking a hostage, catching him in a trap or beating him in combat. She is his sworn enemy and his main motivating force.

[TheMushroomLord]

Name (Former): Ito Hina
Name (Character): Chisuikoumori
Age: 16
Appearance:

When Hina created Chisuikoumori she wanted to play a character that was small and cute, which wasn't so much a problem back when Emerald Odyssey was still a game, but has since proven to be rather annoying and disorienting.

Character Level: 56
Character Class: Hemomancer (Blood Knight subclass)

Personality: Hina seems to alternate between acting like herself and acting out the personality she created for Chisuikoumori. For the most part she tries to be herself but is quick to switch over when that gets to awkward or when interacting with people she's uncomfortable with.
While acting as herself she's incredibly shy and socially awkward, but when she adopts the act of Chisuikoumori however her personality takes a full 180, while she still lacks any clue as to social norms, she acts far more confident and outgoing, with seemingly limitless energy. For those that witness her sudden change in character it can be somewhat disconcerting, but given that Chisuikoumori is still just a act she usually struggles to keep it up for long and generally begins looking for an opportunity to retreat pretty quickly.

In combat Hina would most like to be a frontline fighter, as it's what Chisuikoumori was built for, but due to the detriments of blood frenzy she pretty much always instead sticks to casting blood bolt and thinking up less conventional tactics that allow her to stay as far away as possible from the melee.

Abilities: Being a vampire Hina has a number of abilities:

• Vampiric: Hina has a number of abilities commonly associated with vampires, including increased speed, night vision, immunity to poison, a bite attack, and the ability to turn into a bat at the cost of blood.
• Sanguine Starvation: Hina has no need for food, sleep and water instead requiring blood, a common drop harvestable from most creatures, failure to fulfil this need results in a starved condition in which she looses most of her vampiric abilities, suffers from severe pain and may enter a frenzy in the presence of humanoids or warm blooded creatures.
• Creature of the Night: When exposed to sunlight Hina gains a debuff in which she will not naturally recover from damage, becomes severely lethargic and constantly looses blood in a red mist.

Skills: While Hemomancers are a spell casting class that use their hit points in place of mana and Blood Knights focus on using their enemies health to augment their physical abilities, Hina's skills seem to be a bit all over the place, with a number of low levelled skills chosen from pretty much every skill tree, seemingly entirely based of if they sounded cool with no concern for any kind of meta. The only consistency in Chisuikoumori being the excessive number of high levelled gathering skills she boasts. Some of her more notable skills include:

• Basic Spellcraft: Due to the HP cost imposed upon spellcasting for Hemomancers, most take very few non-combative skills, making basic spellcraft a skill seldom seen in hemomancers but extremely common in a number of other classes. What this skill allows Hina to do is create simple magical effects like sparks or lights, the most dangerous this skill can get is to produce a candle sized flame.
• Blood Bolt: The most basic skill in the Hemomancers arsenal. By expending some HP Hina can launch a mid ranged projectile comprised of her blood at a target. This skill has relatively high damage for its level, however as low as Hina has levelled it that's still realativly little.
• Thaumaturgy: Another basic spellcaster ability, this one next to entirely useless, but popular with some newer players. What thaumaturgy does is create arcane effects around a player that essentially function to make them look cool. They might make their eyes glow red, their cloak billow or their voice boom.
• Thicker than Water: A Blood Knight unique skill usually not taken in favour of armour, what this skill does is make Hina more durable and resistant to injury while she is outside of armour and reduces bleeding damage she takes by half.
• Haemophilia: A rather common Blood Knight skill that causes Hina's weapon attacks inflict a DoT bleeding effect on top of whatever damage they would normally deal.
• Blood Frenzy: One of the few non-gathering skills Hina heavily invested into and the only choice in creating Chisuikoumori she regrets more than being short. Blood Frenzy is a rather potent passive skill that triggers whenever Hina deals damage with a melee weapon or someone damages any creature within a close proximity to Hena. Whenever this skill triggers Hina gains a temporary cumulative boost to her stats, speed and damage up to a maximum level.
  Unfortunately along with the rest of the Emerald Odyssey becoming real, the frenzy part of this skill also seems to have taken on a more literal interpretation which can quickly result in some borderline suicidal rampages should Hina ever engage in melee combat.

Backstory: Hina for the most part was never really more than your average student, with the most noteworthy thing about her having to be her overwhelming social awkwardness. It wasn't like people disliked her but it wouldn't have been an understatement to say she had no friends, which is why a few years back when she decided to give Emerald Odyssey a go she immediately fell in love with the games world as a place where she could act as she pleased and talk to people without feeling embarrassed. Hina always intended to at some point follow Emerald Odyssey's main storyline at some point, but for the most part always ended up getting distracted with exploring the games expansive world, grinding and completing side quests, particularly enjoying the gathering mini games of which she never seemed to get bored.

Other: Due to Hina's playing habits and being a long time player of the game she is incredibly high level for her progress in the Emerald Odyssey's storyline and subsequently lacks a lot of the knowledge generally expected of someone if her level. On the flip side her tendency to exploration and gathering has left her a significantly wealthy player with a fair portion of knowledge on much of the games wilds.

[Ozerath]

Name (Former):Jared McQuarrie

Name (Character): Cenadin

Age:27

Appearance:


Character Level: 59

Character Class: Paladin

Personality:
Straightforward. Friendly. Naive. Stubborn. Loyal.

Five words that come to mind when describing Jared. He tends to call it like he sees it, a quality that endears him to some and irritates others. He is easygoing, social, and generally likeable from the minute you meet him. However, getting to know him better might make one revise their initial assessment. Likely due to his upbringing, Jared has very little appreciation for the difficulties other people may have faced in life. If pushed to the edge, he rarely backs down; argue him into a corner, and he’ll never listen to your logic. Make him lose his temper, and you’re cruising for a bruising. Together, these traits are an absolute dealbreaker for some people, but endear him to others. The upside of Jared’s conviction is that he’s extremely dedicated to his friends and anyone who has earned his trust.

Abilities: As a human, Cenadin has no special attributes, other than the increased strength and endurance from his class. Cenadin is fully specced out as a Paladin tank, using the powers of the Light to defend himself and allies, command the attention of enemies, and dish a little damage along the way. His most commonly used abilities are below.

Consecration: Everyone’s favourite Paladin ability. Creates a medium sized area of sacred ground. Friendlies in the area are healed for a small percentage of their health each second, while enemies take light damage at the same time. Short cooldown, to the point where high level paladins with the proper specs can maintain a Consecration almost continuously.

Endure: Temporarily boosts the Paladin’s maximum HP by 30%.

Unbowed: For a short time, causes the Paladin to heal for a percentage of their health when damaged.

Righteous Leap: Wings of light help the Paladin leap great distances. At the end of the jump, the wings burst into holy energy. Can be used on friendly or enemy targets. Friendly targets are healed, enemy targets are damaged.

Ward of Light: A shield of light blossoms in front of the Paladin, reducing incoming damage to him and all targets in a cone behind him. (Cenadin’s sole concession to mitigation tanking, because of the AOE protection it offers)

Sacred Armaments: Swords of light descend from the heavens, dealing damage to all enemy targets in an area.

Warcry: Incites an enemy target to attack the Paladin.

Skills:

Blacksmithing: It often pays to be able to make your own armor. Cenadin has invested a lot of time and effort becoming a proficient blacksmith in the Emerald Odyssey, though it remains to be seen how that will translate to the game’s….new state.

Mining: Might as well find your own raw materials. Cenadin can recognize and extract precious metals and ores when he comes across them in the game world.

Dance: Before the change, the Dance skill let a character use increasingly elaborate Dance emotes. Again, it remains to be seen how that will manifest now.

Additionally, Jared is a highly capable financier in the real world, meaning he has an eye for how economies change. This previously helped him turn tidy profits in the game.

Backstory:

Jared is an import to Japan. Born in faroff Toronto, Canada, he lived a comfortable upper class life, wealthy, but not obscenely so. He excelled in school, and attended an Ivy League university down in the US. Family connections, the university’s reputation, and an impressive GPA landed him a job at a global bank at the tender age of 22. Jared excelled in the finance-bro culture of New York, bringing in tremendous profits, partying hard, and living the good life. Following a few promotions, he was offered a very senior and very well paying position in the bank’s Tokyo offices.

Accepting that position was, in retrospect, a mistake. Jared has been in Japan for about a year, and is pretty miserable. He continues to be successful in his professional career, and he’s picked up the language quite well, but the cultural barriers have proven...problematic. He’s friendly with his co-workers, but not friends with them, and outside of that, he has no network, no way of meeting new people, leaving him desperately lonely. Jared misses his old life and his old friends, and his only sanctuary is Emerald Odyssey.

Jared originally picked up the game because his tutor had recommended immersing himself in Japanese media to help him learn the language, and he’d always enjoyed gaming, though never taken it very seriously. As he grew increasingly lonely, he became increasingly enthralled by the game, and now spends every hour he’s not at work playing it.

Cenadin started off as a bit of a joke; a paladin modeled to look like WWE superstar JOHN CENA! But he’s grown into a serious player since then. His ultimate objective is to have the highest HP total of any player in the game. Some internet digging told him what he’d need: a human-specific helmet called Crown of the Lion, and a two-handed greatsword called Balance of Judgement. The Crown is a high level raid drop, while Balance of Judgement is the reward for a high level Paladin quest. The path forward is therefore clear: level up, finish the quest for Balance of Judgement, GIT GUD at raiding, get the Crown, and stand back in admiration of his really big numbers.

Despite being a newer character, Cenadin is an excellent tank. However, without access to forums and videos and wikis, he will have to learn the new content through trial and error.

Other: His hat is a very non-lore friendly anniversary item, given out to be purely cosmetic. Cenadin has instead had it enchanted to give bonus health and strength, making it better more useful than it might appear.

Despite being a tank, Cenadin uses 2 handed swords. Emerald Odyssey does not restrict most moves to certain weapon types, so this does not compromise his moveset. Additionally, the endgame greatsword Balance of Judgement gives more bonuses to health than any known sword and shield combo, despite the reduced block chance.

[ERode]

A little black, a little white

Name (Former): Minoru Tachibana
Name (Character): Ewan Berrybranch
Age: Late 20s

Appearance: Diminutive and androgynous, Ewan perfectly fits the phrase ‘fair youth’, his snowy complexion and silky hair bringing him to that fantastical boundary of physical attractiveness that only a complex character creation system could create. A Halfling by race, his feet are bigger and tougher than what one would expect out of a 4’3 humanoid, and his muscles far more developed as well, but overall, one could still call Ewan a child. That’s fine though. With oversized clothing and princely features, it’s clear that Ewan was designed with one goal in mind: MAXIMUM CUTE.

Personality: Minoru was tired, beaten down, and lost, an individual that oozed through life who latched onto anything that sparked her interest for an intense period of time, only to burnout way too soon and fall apart once more. She’s riddled with self-doubt and anxieties, depression and nihilism, but the circumstances of her family and her social life has taught her how to fake carefree ambivalence all too easily. If nothing else, she’s a hardworking individual capable of chugging on through life even on fumes. But she’s short-sighted as well, someone with no clear goals and no real hope for the future, a person that would suffer long-term consequences in order to avoid short-term embarrassment. Reflexively, she lies, and most of the time, she doesn’t even know why.

As Ewan, nothing really changed, but at least she can go around playing or whatever. It’s not like the world would miss her, and it’s not like she’d miss the world either. It’ll be good enough if the status quo of ‘do quests, get paid, eat food, sleep’ could be maintained.

Ah, if only shapeshifting really did turn her into another person.

Character Level: 43
Character Class: Shapeshifter

Abilities: Someone out there said that Halflings were supposed to be intelligent, dexterous, and lucky, but outside of being able to walk anywhere on bare feet, Ewan’s just lucky, with lower than average physical stats and the only standout being his relatively high MP regen. Shapeshifters, after all, rarely apply only their ‘normal’ form in combat, and are largely enabled by the variety of monstrous forms they can shift into.

The core of the class is the <<Thousandfur>> passive, which enables them to transform into monsters that they have slain in the past, with the caveat being that the higher the ‘rarity’ of the monster, the more of those monsters they have to kill in order to gain access to such monstrous metamorphosis. While common creatures like goblins or wolves can be obtained with relative ease, higher rarity mobs like greater demons or pure dragons require more kills, and to transform into a boss monster would require a hilarious amount of grinding, especially the higher-level boss monsters.

Once the Shapeshifter has transformed, their MP is drained at a consistent rate regardless of what actions they perform, while their stats are scaled based off their level and the monster they’ve transformed into. Wolves would be AGI-focused, for example, while Golems would be END-focused, and the rarity of the monster affects stat-scaling and MP consumption as well, with the general rule being that the higher one’s rarity, the high the stats and MP consumption. Alongside the <<Thousandfur>> passive, however, Shapeshifters do have a few other transformation-related abilities.

<<All Tongue>> - Enables communication with monsters that you can transform into.

<<Half-Form>> - Partially shift into a monster, gaining extra stats and monstrous passives, but with no monstrous abilities.

<<Extra Shift>> - Instantly manifest a part of a monster from your body to perform a monstrous ability.

<<Scapegoat>> - Cloak yourself in the skin of a monster, increasing resistances and gaining a temporary HP shield. After the HP shield is destroyed, monster cannot be shifted into for a long period of time.

<<Superior Amalgamation>> - Transform into a fusion of [Level/20] monsters, gaining both their stat bonuses, passives, and abilities, while also doubling mana consumption.

Current Common Transformations

Goblin Shaman – INT-focused mage with a variety of non-elemental single target spells. Also has the ability to summon a maximum of three Goblin Warriors.

Orc Axewielder – STR-focused berserker, with a variety of passives that grant buffs when damage is taken. Has a combination of armor-shredding and defense-piercing abilities.

Ironjaw Wolf – AGI-focused grappler with heightened senses and acrobatic skill. Special abilities enable DoTs and debuffs when bite attacks land.

Frenzied Bear – END-focused disrupter. Very big body with a variety of crowd control abilities, most of them being knockback effects. Physical damage taken is reduced by a percentage.

Blackflame Knight – END-focused tank. Immune to non-magical debuffs and instant-kill magic. When receiving or dealing damage, can choose to affect either MP or HP. Can inflict Silence effects on successful attacks.

Windchant Harpy – INT-focused debuffer, specializing in AOE debuffs, especially charm effects against male enemies. Capable of flight, scaling off of AGI.

Achromatic Wyvern – AGI-focused ambusher, with armor-shredding claws and a venomous, barbed tail. Capable of flight, and large enough to carry three passengers. Can change the color of their scales at will.

Velnir Fallenheart, the Dark Queen’s Blade – INT-focused magic duelist specializing in shadow magic and dual daggers. A High Elf mini-boss with superior stats and abilities to the rest of Ewan’s transformations.

Backstory: Back when Minoru was still in university, she got into a game called Emerald Odyssey, playing the game when it was just released. It provided her an opportunity to have fun and play out some fantasies, and when they released a super hot, super tragic quest line, perhaps that opportunity to have fun turned into a bit of an obsession that ended up with her nabbing the super sexy, super dark mini-boss as a viable transformation for her over-leveled Shapeshifter.

Then everything about the game became tedious, and she stopped playing.

Five years later, and life became tedious as well. Minoru didn’t manage to get the job she really wanted right out of university, got swatted by a glass ceiling, had to deal with perverted managers and shitty customers, realized that the world would be fine even if she wasn’t part of it, and repressed her anger every day when her parents innocuously asked if she found herself a boyfriend yet. She did her unpaid overtime, her afterwork drinking parties, her 6AM commutes, her daily diet of fast food, and it was all weighing down on her too much. Escape was needed. A lot of escaping. Maybe she could even just give up on full-time work altogether.
Minoru didn’t expect to want to live past her 50s, after all, not when she already had headaches and back pain and a crippling sense of isolation.

Maybe it was enough if she could just buy ready-to-eat dinners from the local Lawsons and pay for her basic utilities with wages earned in a part-time job.

Maybe being a shut-in wasn’t so bad.

But before those steps could be taken, before she could fall fully, Minoru disappeared.

And found herself in the world she left five years ago.

Other:
Minoru likes little boys, but it’s definitely really weird, being one.
Most of Ewan's gear is outdated, relics of a younger game. Thankfully, Shapeshifters don't really have to worry about equipment.

[Experiment 249]

Parks, the (wannabe) fairy king

Name (Former): Jou Kurata
Name (Character): Parks
Age: 23
Appearance:

Parks!

Parks went in hard on the fairy theme of his main, selecting the Feyborn race and softening the features as much as possible to give an androgynous look to their character as well as adjusting the colors to make it appear as though they were almost wearing makeup. They stand at about 1 meter (3’3, about half the size of the average character), with a lithe build and longer, black hair. Their armor is a cloth type that has various shades of green to represent the spring court of fey that he summons from.
Source

Character Level: 51
Character Class: Summoner
Personality: In game, Parks is very flighty. They tend to treat everything like it’s all a play, dramatically moving their entire body when they speak, standing up when they need to make a point and using their summons to aid in lighting their backdrops. They long for spotlights, but in battle prefers to let others be seen, not one to soak up damage but to deal it from the back while their summons (or servants as they refer to them) do all the work. They treat some people as if they were somehow peasants beneath them as well and flatters all who they can tell don’t appreciate it.
They tend to crack under pressure and drop the facade and shift back to their real self, less witty and quiet, letting others figure things out for them, because let's be honest if they were good at strategy they would make their Parks persona good at it too. Once they’re back in character, they will 100% try to take credit for some part of the plan.

Abilities:Most of Parks’ skills are summons, being a summoner and all.

Dryad: Summons a nature spirit that can hold down 2 enemies at once, covering them in thorny wooden vines that break in 3 hits

Dancing Fog- A cloud of fog is summoned with lights flitting about within it, and giggling can be heard. This fog heals a total of 100% of the caster’s max HP distributed evenly among non-hostile creatures within its reach.

Fairy Swarm: Summons 10 small pixies that move in a cloud to distract foes for a short time. They raise critical hit chance for the attackers and lower accuracy for the targets.

Minor Summons: Summon elemental fairies to do a number of simple things based on nature. Be it setting things on fire, growing plants to hinder movement, create gusts of wind, freeze things, or mimic certain minor spells from other classes. These all come with a slightly longer cast time, due to the summon appearing and then casting the spell.

Mirror Image: Parks makes 2 more of themself that deal next to no damage but lose health at the normal rate. They follow them and cannot act on their own, but perfectly mimic all of their actions to confuse opponents and redirect aggro.

Basic magic attacks, no other effects than elemental damage.

Skills: Parks made their way in the game without experiencing much combat, only ever taking trade and political themed quests. Therefore, their weapon abilities are lacking.

Speech: Being the noble subclass coupled with their failed acting career, Parks has used this to get some good in game boons through just talking.

Tailor: Parks sews a mean set of light/cloth armor. Their skills is fairy high, though not maxed so it’s nothing too sought after.

Cooking: Only used a few times to beat quests, it’s... okay food.

Overall though, Parks plays the game as a support. Whenever anyone would need a healer or other guild mate to support them while they went off to a dungeon or raid, they would sit in the back and use their summons to do whatever they could to not attract any attention. They have very little offensive capability, but a lot in the way of buffing their friends and applying conditions to their enemies. Their strongest attacks are summons that last for 10 seconds at most and have a high cooldown.

Equipment: Spring Court’s Attire, a mid level armor set for summoners in the support branch. It adds a bit of green into things and boosts the mana pool of the wearer by 10% and increasing condition duration (poisons, stuns, burning, etc) by 5%, and allows for minor aggro redirection through an added skill, Mirror Image.

Backstory: A college drop out with a half completed theater degree and a history of being active only online and not in the gym, Jou was slowly losing steam for real life. Between Dungeons and Dragons games 4 nights a week and running with a roleplay guild on Emerald Odyssey, it was amazing that he managed to stay afloat with his apartment but he always came through with rent that he shared with his 3 roommates. He didn’t even know them, and they just knew him as the guy who doesn’t talk.

He would work jobs online, tutoring high schoolers in math he just googled the answers to, writing essays for lazy college students, and even setting up a patreon for his guild that honestly just went to his own pocket. He wasn’t really doing much in the upward movement category of living.

His family supported him but he was more worried about himself to really worry about them. He would go to family events and holidays but overall he wasn't too close with anyone in particular.

Other: Parks has the hours of a high level player, but due to avoiding combat at all costs and never picking up a craft, they suffer from a low amount of EXP due to a lack of grinding or level progression in any of his skills other than speech. That and a long history of RP that does nothing for them in the way of levels..

He made his character for an aesthetic and is fairly uncomfortable with the current height of his avatar. The avatar’s androgynous nature seems to be affecting him as well, given the voice being higher pitched and the body slightly more feminine.

[Rin]

Knight of the Shield

• Name (Former): Sachiko Shimizu
• Name (Character): Hasselback
• Age: 16
• Appearance: The best defence is a good offence.
• Character Level: 45
• Character Class: Defender
• Personality: Somewhat shy and retiring in real life, which carries into her character in Emerald Odyssey. She's rather apologetic and polite to a fault, and just seems like such a nice girl even when she's pummeling a monster's face in with her giant shield. In real life she finds it difficult to interact with others due to her circumstances, but in-game she was always somewhat sociable and cheerful towards others. She's a bit of a nerd, too, having a deep love of manga, anime, novels and games, especially ones revolving around heroic battles.
• Abilities: As a Defender, Hasselback is naturally tank-y and possesses strong defensive stats and a large HP pool. In addition, she has taken a few innate abilities to help her deal damage despite playing a class that's supposed to be support-based, mostly just a bunch of generic ones to help boost her offensive stats.
• Skills: As the class name implies, Defender is supposed to be a primarily support-based class focused on defending your allies. Hasselback, however, is a particularly bad example of one as she has instead opted to build her character for DPS rather than defence, taking such skills as Shieldbash, Shieldrush and Shieldmerang. Whilst the design of the class means it was impossible for her to not take any of the defensive skills, due to how she built her character she only has the most basic of them.
• Backstory: As a child, Sachiko regularly suffered from illness, and even when she moved into highschool she often had to take absences from class because of this. Her friend Megumi introduced her to Emerald Odyssey to give her something to do when she was unable to leave her room, although despite wanting to play as a DPS class Sachiko accidentally made her first character a member of the support-based Defender class. Instead of just spending time making a new character, Sachiko decided to roll with it and just play her Defender as DPS anyway, leading to the creation of Hasselback, Knight of the Shield. In-game, she's mostly known as that one weirdo who plays Defender offensively, and is a bit infamous because of it.
• Other:

[Sync]

Therion

Name (Former): Shuichi Gendou
Name (Character): Therion Blackhart
Character Level: 40
Character Class: Arcane Trickster (Mage thief)
Age: 23

---

Appearance: Character model is fairly standard in height, roughly around 177 cm (5'8) tall with not much to show in terms of muscular girth. Most prominent feature are the crimson eyes, and sharp ears that land in a point at their edge marking the elven lineage. Therion clothing consists prominently of hoods and shawls that have been enchanted for the purposes of boosting stealth and crit bonuses... And over all fashion. Of course, there isn't an element of his character that isn't fit or suited for anything else. He started a thief and, quite literally, has ended in one. So all aspects must resemble his class. Perhaps that is what it means to him to be in this world. Features are rather soft, perhaps due to being an elf, which makes him seem younger than what his age would suggest.

Backstory: Therion, once known as Gendou, was about as laid back as you can expect from someone who could afford it. Most of his free time he spent it playing video games with friends and catching up on shows and comics he forgotten about. He graduated collage and has been in a rut ever since, unable to find employment nearby and opting to neglect ever doing so. Passion's in life were limited to simply "living everyday in peace." Not being bothered by the customary troubles of each day, paying bills, eating good food, going to the gym twice of thrice a week and laying back and escaping reality to play games. So to some extent, if you were to seriously think about a word that could depict his reality in its entirety... You could go right by saying that Gendou was complacent.

His passion's were all centered on the fictional, on building worlds and stories that would ultimately land him a few moments of comfort. Fish out of water, you might say. He lived life so absently that maybe this too was a form of escapism. Always doing the minimum to survive and extend himself so that he could derive purpose on the fictional. That's not to say he was completely useless at everything. He merely didn't expect much from life, success was he made it, and he didn't have many awards to prove nor did he care much for it. So, perhaps something sparked withing him when he finally decided to buy Emerald Odyssey. He was reluctant, at first. MMO's weren't his forte and he didn't have many friends that could really join him to play. But the massiveness of the worlds and trailers were something of a calling card for someone who enjoys planes and lore.

But, you know. Still undecided, when picking up the game someone began to chat him up, talk him out and soon a friendship formed. This person too, wanted to play this game and had been anticipating it for awhile. They exchanged numbers and not before long he bought Emerald Odyssey through the weaving of fate allowing him a friend to join him up. What Gendou didn't expect, was to be trapped and locked with a world he had no knowledge of. Foreign and magical, yet crawling with myriads of danger. But... a grin broke, and a sense of excitement brew upon him. Truly, he was home.

Personality: Perhaps confidence brews from the trickle of his brow and the curvature of the lip. Maybe he simply plays a caricature of what he think tricksters are, but truly he is neither. Therion is a thief and therefore he not quite the most moral of all people. However, he certainly leans for the better good rather than just doing things for the sake of evil. Therion is a playful sort, and a bit of a joker. Not a good one to say the least, but he tries. He has a soft spot for the innocent, and a big heart for animals which is why he has opted countless of times to choose the tamer class at the start but decided against it. Still, this doesn't stop him from occasionally attempting to steal or even bribe his away of someone's merchandiser. After extending his theif class to the next tree, he has found it simpler to do what he desires with the class he has chosen.

However you may see it, though. Therion is a human being. A living person who was met with what some might see it as an unfortunate circumstance. He is in a home, away from home. So to him, the world around him might at first seemed like a playground, but now it's reality. So he reacts to situations like any normal person would, Therion is brave in the face of danger when his foot shivers from the sight of death. He cries when times of sadness and closeness strike upon him, perhaps he has created a bit of an attachment to everything around him. He gets angry and shouts at misconduct of extreme proportions, and similarly begets happiness from the small things in life. Or perhaps, in this virtual life. His pet is a small bird that he can channel his sights on, he lost his previous one, which is why he keeps a feather dangling from his pouch to remember him by.

---

Arcane Trickster

Therion has adapted his original class into a variant sub-class of both mage and thief. Arcane tricksters in particular are proficient with daggers, cross-bows and staffs, but Therion opts to move throughout the shadows, utilizing the school of illusions to his advantage. This class if not extremely potent when it comes to developing high level spells like it a would a pure mage, however it combines both aspect to make a devastating class to be dealt with.

Abilities:

Far-sight: Therion has the ability to see far distances due to his thief proficiency. He has adapted his character well enough to fight out of sight to proc crit bonuses.

Dark-vision: He can see fairly well during night time. It is not by any means clear, he can see farther than your normal human and on top what would be unseen by he humans in the dark, he sees more so like a moving shadow.

True Invisibility: His most prominent skill yet. He can not only turn invisible, but also disguise his entire presence around him. Leaving no trace of his existence behind. However, it is not like blink or a shift between planes. This ability can be countered by a spell or removed with a debuff.

Elemental Bomber: It comes with the class. He can create spheres of flames which can be lunged towards the target and it explodes on impact. It can AoE any creature withing 5 foot of the blast zone.

Sensory Exchange: He can transfer his conscious to his pet bird. He will see and hear all that the bird does, however his body is in a state of concentration which means all active spells will drop, and he will be exposed to attacks.

Skills:

Sleight of hand: He has fast hands. He can steal and hide things with daring proficiency.

Keen of Mind: He has to always be vigilant as he is a glass cannon. He is extraordinarily good at tactical positioning and movement.

Run-away: This is a perk for his speed. He is agile and quick on his feet, dexterous like a thief and sharp like a mage.

Other: The feather of his past bird is actually an equipment It's pretty bad, but he keeps it close. It gives him 5% more luck.

[DELETED7282737]

Name (Former):
Joy

Name (Character):
Sho

Age:
24

Character Level:
58

Character Class:
Samurai

Personality:
Joy is a shut in girl who has left the real world aside 4 years ago. She hasn't gone out of her room since that day and does everything online even so much as working. Her social skills are pared to zero after she had shut herself in, it even goes as far that she is scared of being spoken to or having to talk. However when she finds out that not all humans hurt her she does open up to the ones she thrusts. Online she is on a whole different level however she has made a lot of friends and can be very type-active talking about the most basic things.

Her real world self is a scarcely cat that is afraid to do anything on her own while her internet self is a superhero that can do anything and helps everyone. It is like she has a completely opposite personality that she wants to have. In the big picture she is very kind though and tries her best in everything she does, she likes to help others even if you can't call it helping.

Abilities:
Sho is still a normal human and therefor has no special abilities. Her agility is faster and her strength is better then most humans but furthermore there is nothing special about her that any other samurai wouldn't have.

Skills:
Sho her skills consist of light damage sword skills and heavy damage dealing sword skills that have a very long cool-down. They can be used to finish fights quickly. Furthermore she has a few defense skills but she relies more on counterattack skills instead of defense when she is on her own. She doesn't have skills that heal herself or any magic based skills.

basic samurai skills

[Big Whirlwind Slash]
This is a powerful technique that allows a player to execute a series of slashes on multiple enemies. It has a long cool-down time.

[Lanius Capture]
This skill allows a player to disable a target's abilities to talk and cast any spell for 15 seconds.

[Samurai Challenge]
Samurai Challenge is a taunt skill exclusive to the Samurai class. With a range of about three meters, the skill does no damage but, like other taunt skills, it gives the enemies the impression of being hit hard. It is a useful skill for the Samurai class as it allows the player to focus the enemies' attention on himself, allowing his allies to attack from the sidelines.

[Vacuum Slash]
This skill is one of a few range attacks of samurais. It has a low damage compared to assassins' arrows and mages' magics, but it can be used to attract enemies without getting close to them.

[Whirlwind Vacuum Slash]
This skill is one of a few range attack for a Samurai. It can paralyze a group of enemies.

Backstory:
Joy was always the shy kid around others, she wouldn't talk much or voice her opinion even when she wanted to. She strolled through life without much of a problem though, aced school got into her preferred art university. She still had to pay most of the cost on her own yet, she managed somehow by taking on multiple weird part time jobs that would keep her alive.

Joy got to a point in her life when she wouldn't even see her own home anymore and decided it was time to end her dire situation by quiting her favorite art university. All in order to cool off for a while. Her head was only focused on work and school that it took its toll. Joy still kept some of her part time jobs to make some more money but fell into social decline a few weeks later after she couldn't take it anymore. The door went completely shut, only letting in package orders and groceries. She comtinued to play her favorite game to take the attention away from her stress and became somewhat addicted to it. The so called Emerald Odyssey had clearly become an obsession to her.

It took her a few weeks of constant playing to realise to herself that her money was starting to deplete slowly from her daily costs. She had to get a job but going outside wouldn't be an option for her. Her obvious answer was doing something with her art. She did keep drawing everyday so might as well give it a try right. It might not earn much but it was something. And so her journey began. To the lowest point of humanity. Doujins.

It all started sweetly with some fanart of her favorite characters in Emerald Odyssey. That quickly began to turn however as people kept asking her to draw some... More... 'Good' fanart. They paid well and it only tugged lightly at Joy her sanity, but over the time she began to get more used to it. She actually... Liked this kind of art. Her obsession grew worse and eventually it all went down the rabbit hole of her drawing whole Doujinshi's and selling them on comiket by her friend under her actual username. She had become quite famous in the Emerald Odyssey community for doing this. Her character name and artist name were the same so it wouldn't be strange for her to be recognised.

It might not earn as much as she liked to have but at least it would cover all her costs plus some extra for fun things. At least she enjoyed doing it.

The new expansion was comming and so she had to prepare with a freshly made character on her favorite class. Samurai.

She wanted to get to level 90 once more before the new expansion and go onward with this new character to the next level cap. Then it happened. She was just casually playing with her newest character very excited about the release. She was doing some solo grinding minutes before the maintenance began to add the new expansion. The seconds counted down as she looked at her clock to see how much more time she had till the server would shut down. She wasn't gonna finish this enemy, she stopped fighting and waited at a quite area as she leaned back into her chair seeing the clock tick down. She counted the last three seconds before she began to yawn and?

Other:
Sho doesn't grasp this whole situation just yet, she can't get used to her new body or the world. She has only seen the outside world from her window the past few years so being out there right now is quite frightening to her.
The fact the she used to solo do partly everything doesn't apply in the new situation right now as she is utterly useless in real life with a sword as well.