Denise looked around the big black space until he could finally see his hands again. Well, sort of. The truth was that his body appeared as a white and red colored wire-frame image and glowed softly in the pure-black space. He kicked down with his digital legs and felt floor beneath him even though he could not see anything.
"Creation assistance turned on by default. State "assist off" if otherwise," a voice came from the air. "Do you require a theme for your Creation?" a female computer voice asked kindly.
Denise looked around as if he might be able to local the origin of the voice, but saw nothing… just a huge empty blackness all around him. "A Theme? Like a color, or a location, or what?" he asked.
"Yes," came the voice's simple answer. "Example: The knowledge of what type of character you wish to have may be able to influence such a theme if you find yourself uncertain what to have."
"Ah, well. I want to play a dog. A golden retriever. Um... suggest a theme?" Denise asked, thinking he badly wanted out of this black space.
"A farm house, A suburb family home, an old-folks home, a—"
"Alright voice, I get the idea. Go with the sub-urban home to start with," Denise said, and was about to continue speaking when the sun came up slowly over an invisible hill in the black space. Just ahead of him a white house built itself into view block by block and brick by brick. A deep green lawn grew in from the edge of the house off towards him into the blackness. The driveway extended out the same way, the smell of fresh tar coming to Denise's nose. Bushes grew up in front of the home, just under the windows.
It was the only place in all of the blackness out before him. It was an odd sight with a light-source that looked like the sun hovering in the otherwise complete black beyond. It was good light, though, and Denise could now see. "Nice," he commented, taking it all in.
"Do you have a preferred job class or overarching goal for this character?" the voice asked. "Knowledge of this may refine the theme."
"I want to be a super-villain," Denise offered. "Perhaps being able to eat peoples' souls or something," he smirked. "Secret Identity a must," he offered. "I want to be able to do much evil with a minimum chance of getting caught, baring my own stupidity," he shrugged.
"Superpowers manifest during Origin Levels of One through Ten. Soul eating is initially recommended for PvE but later requires PvP interaction for most skill gain. Do you have a preference on how these powers manifest, or would you prefer an air of surprise?"
"Player versus environment… so NPC's… unsuspecting NPC's… Then player versus player. Dangerous, but sounds fun…" Denise thought it over and walked up to the front door of the house. "Well, voice… surprise me. I think I would like to not see it coming… be shocked. I don't mind if it hurts or is scary," he offered.
"Your secret identity could be very different from your super-powered self. Do you have any preferences for how your powers would manifest?" the voice asked.
"I think I'd like Thumbs," Denise commented offhandedly. "Classic human-like super-hero appearance... maybe something that looks like a good guy to fool people for a short while," Denise said. "Voice, can you do a completely random generated golden retriever? I mean, this is where I'm supposed to create my character, so let's do that," he ran a wire-framed hand over the front door of the house.
At the end of the side-walk appeared a young golden retriever of dark brown fur. Denise himself didn't know too much about dogs, but he knew enough to think the animal wasn't golden enough. "Could you lighten the fur? More, you know… gold," he wondered. The fur lightened up to a golden hue that was about the same as his hair color in real life. He smiled a bit then said, "Blue eyes instead of green," and the eyes changed color to follow suit.
It's almost like a dog version of me, Denis smirked somewhere back behind his wire-framed head. "Can I get more muscle or speed or anything like that at creation? Or am I just a normal dog?" he asked as he stepped over and pet the dog as it stood there frozen in time.
"If you play up the background of your character, you are allowed additional starting points in addition to special Perks and Merits. Additional Flaws or Negative Traits may be attached to your character in order to attain further freebie points, though doing so often increases the difficulty of the Game. Some prefer such a challenge. Others do not," the voice explained.
Denise rubbed his right hand against his chin, "How do you play up your background? I thought that happened anyway within the first ten levels?" he wondered, kneeling down and petting the dog's head with his left hand. He reached over and pulled back its lips to look at its teeth. They weren't all that sharp, and he wondered if he could edit that.
"You are confusing Background with Origin Levels," the female voice explained. "A background is often the 'fluff text' of a character's life. The ideas and stories that happen before a character begins gaining experience. You can play these up in an Instance location apart from The Kingdom where you fast-travel forward through your character's early years before choosing to begin play in real time in the actual Kingdom."
Denise kind of frowned a bit. He wanted to play his character and Sam said that he'd be on all night regardless of how long it too him. He stood up and thought about it, looking around. Finally, he asked "Voice, how long does it take to make a background… and what age am I when it is over?" he wondered.
"The process will continue in its given moments until you ask to 'Skip Ahead'. You will continue playing up your character's background until you ask to 'Enter the Kingdom'. At that point, you will immediately appear in a nearly identical location within The Kingdom and begin play at Level One. Therefore," the voice explained, "the amount of time it takes to create a background is variable from character to character depending on how much depth you want in their background. If you wish to play a seventy-year-old who gains magical powers or a four-year-old who flies a space-ship… each is possible passed on how much time you Skip Ahead before Entering the Kingdom."
Denise thought it over a bit. Normally he wasn't a big Role-Player, but if the game was going to give him bonuses of some kind for actually playing up aspects of his character, then he was at least going to try it to see what it was like. If it was fun or—more importantly—if it gave him awesome Perks… he'd go ahead and do it.
He looked down at the somewhat curly-haired golden retriever with blue eyes and smirked his wireframe face. "Well, Voice… I don't think there's much else that's needed to create a dog. I'll like sharper teeth and bigger paws, but otherwise, I think I am ready to play."
The voice beeped an affirmative, "Interface note: Even though you'll have no hands as a dog, the motions to interact with the In-Game Menu remain the same and will activate if you try to use them. Additionally, as a dog you do not start with the ability to speak or understand English, though your Out of Character channels of speech will still work. Remember to 'Skip Ahead' and 'Enter the Kingdom' when ready… and have a fun in The Kingdom," the voice spoke as the world slowly faded out to blackness once again.
Let's see where this goes, Denise thought to himself as he felt the world become a little bit numb. Things felt a little bit constricted and he found it was hard to breath for a moment before the feeling passed. It was as if the world was slowly squeezing him, his arms and legs pushed up together. It was wet and warm and he had no idea what was going on. There was a pressure hard along his back, then sides, then up his front and focusing it his face…Denise tried to move forward and ended up crawling very slowly forward. It was strange both because his arms were now legs and because all his legs were a strange shape. He felt week, and more than a little confused… and something wet and furry was pushing him forward until there was something fleshy at his mouth. Whatever it was, it aggravated his situation of black and confusion and he reached out and tried to bite whatever it was, only discovering that he both had no teeth and that something warm and liquid was now going down his throat.
It was only then that he realized he was a puppy and had just been given birth to. He'd seen a neighbors dog in such a situation a year before, so he had some vague idea what was going on. He was blind and probably sucking on a nipple right now. Too early, and not what he wanted… and it was if he couldn't let go of the nipple quickly enough to call out: "Skip Ahead!"
At the sound of the small puppy's tiny yelp, he felt as if giant wind was constantly rushing passed him. Time had sped passed and now he was looking up at the edges of a giant brown room that took him a second to realize he was inside of a cardboard box. There were towels along the base and a pillow to one side, and out up and above a giant room all in gray.
His mother was laying there, asleep, her milk-filled nipples exposed, a few of his brothers and sisters huddled around her. He couldn't make out her fur color, but it looked to be about as light as the color he'd chosen for himself. Other puppies were just laying around her asleep. He stood up onto all fours after a little work and tried to go to the edge of the box and peer up and out.
It wasn't long before he was noticed. A woman who looked somewhat like his mom with silver blonde hair and blue eyes leaned over the box. She was huge! He'd played a Gnome before in World of Warcraft, but she looked as if she was three hundred foot tall! She was Godzilla to his tiny size, and his initial reaction was to back away from the edge of the box try to get away, but it was too late. Soon enough, he was in the woman's large hands being petted. It felt good for a moment, until she asked, "You're a curious girl aren't you?"
Denise's little eyes went wide for a moment. The world was all colored gray, but his sight took in that thought for a moment. I'd asked for a random golden retriever… did that mean random gender too? he wondered and tried to look himself over to get an answer.