The scroll continued. Steve could only watch, in the absence of having a body to even truly look around. FIRST, WE MUST DETERMINE YOUR ATTRIBUTES AND RACE. DUE TO THE TERMS OF YOUR VACATION CONTRACT, SOME LIMITED FEATURES WILL BE DETERMINED BY ALGORITHM RATHER THAN BY YOUR CHOICE.
Steve felt a little confused. He'd taken that to mean as some choices would be proverbially 'greyed out' rather than made for him. What if ended up having to do stuff he didn't enjoy? Surely it defeated the point of a vacation. But even as he thought this, the text wiped clear and the scroll hung blank for a moment before Steve was aware of several things flying past where he felt his vague sense of awareness hung. Dice appeared from behind his field of vision, clattering along an unseen surface to land in front of the scroll, as an explanation hung for a few seconds. ATTRIBUTES DETERMINED BY DICE ROLL.
As the dice landed and clattered and bounced, and finally came to rest. The scroll again wiped to reform and show the results. Physique 4. Grace 8. Charisma 6. Appearance 12. Intelligence 4. Perception 5. Essence 7.
Steve would have blinked if he could. Well, while it was nice to be so good-looking and graceful, it seemed a little worrying that physically he was gonna be... kind of weak and stupid? Then again, he didn't even know what the numbers meant. Was 4 just average? And what on Earth was Essence? Just as before, before he could really think through the full implications, the scroll wiped again. RACE CHOSEN BY ALGORTHM.
Oh come on! When was he going to get to decide anything here? The scroll flickered, but unusually this time, the surface of it flickering like an old CRT monitor before a picture of a beautiful red haired woman, with blue eyes, and pointed ears appeared. She looked like she could have been in her twenties, her cheekbones high and face cute. Her lips were a healthy pink and her skin pale. FEMALE ELF. The fuck? He was gonna be a woman now?
The scroll didn't care, continuing onwards. He couldn't even speak up to protest at any of this!
- RACIAL ATTRIBUTES: +2 Appearance, +2 Perception, +1 Essence, -1 Physique
- ACCESS TO ELF TRAITS AND BACKGROUNDS
As Steve read it, he realised that he wasn't in an empty void now. The scroll still hung, and he couldn't move, but he was standing in a leafy glade, the air warm and the breeze cool, a pleasant combination. Sunlight beamed in, dappled by the canopy of trees hanging overhead. And while he couldn't move yet, while it wasn't solid yet, a vague... shape hung where he was. The outline of a slender female body, the impression of elven features, what seemed to the mind to be a crop of red hair. Well... seemed he hadn't decided on his 'avatar' yet, hopefully he'd get to choose some stuff and minimise it a bit. Maybe find a female body he wouldn't be mortified to be spending his vacation in.
And sure enough, the next section of the creation process came up on the scroll.