Martin wasn't thrown directly into the game, and he hadn't expected to be, instead the former farmer turned programmer, found himself in a white room. All around him, endless white seemed to stretch. This was the interception room that Jasper had hacked together. It was literally a default environment, with nothing around to distract, just endless blankness. This place didn't even let you run around, simply move in proportion to other people.
Before loading in, Martin had added his own Domain to the long list that sprawled before him, the Plant Domain, though he already knew the trio he was going to pick. He wanted Beasts, Plant and Wealth. Beast and Plant would represent the creatures in the dungeons that he would create, while Wealth would represent the loot from the dungeon. That would also put him in line with being a symbol of harvesting and general farming, which wasn't that bad.
The game was bugging him to set his stats before picking his Domains, but he managed to scoot the pop-up menu with the stats to the side. Instead, he focused on his divine options. Picking the Domains was rather easy, the list was a bit cumbersome, but he still managed to figure things out. Instantly he got a couple of pop-ups informing him of the passive effects of his Domains.
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Divine Domain Unlocked: Beasts
You can speak to animals. Unintelligent beasts will always comply with requests that aren't unnatural to them.
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Divine Domain Unlocked: Plants
As long as you stand on soil, you need not eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. Wherever you step, you can let all seeds in the ground sprout at greatly accelerated speed. A tree will grow to full size in a day, a flower will take a few seconds.
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Divine Domain Unlocked: Wealth
You are never short of money and can always afford anything that costs 1 Wealth or less. You always have sufficient food, drink, and clothing for yourself and your companions, drawing it from nothingness if necessary.
When he realized that he didn't get any attributes bonuses, he sighed and started assigning his stats.
He picked Charisma as his best stat, having heard that both Celeste and Jasper were struggling in that department, and dexterity as his second-highest stat. Martin wanted to go for some range damage when he got the points for it, he saw it fitting nicely into the Beast, Plant and Wealth Domains as the hunting aspect of being God of the Harvest, and any dungeon that didn't have some cheap ranged minions lurking around was hardly a dungeon at all.
Martin picked Strength as his lowest stat, reasoning that he wouldn't be doing much up close fighting if he went ranged and then picked Intelligence as his second-lowest stat, knowing that Jasper probably had that covered. That left him with Wisdom and Constitution, which would be the middle of the pack. Not something he was good at, but not something he was bad at either.
Happy with his choices, Martin went to pick his powers, only to get a new pop-up.
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You are severely underleveled
To ensure that you are not left behind by your companions you have been boosted to their Rank.
Your current Rank is 6.
You have 21 points to spend on Powers and Domains.
That was a lot of points. If a new Domain costs Martin 3 points, he could essentially buy out most of the Domains. Even so, he knew that it would be a bad idea. He decided to buy the Range Domain before he got overwhelmed by other inputs.
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Divine Domain Unlocked: Range
You never run out of normal ammunition. You may instantly call ranged or throwing weapons you've used to your hands over any distance, and your ranged weapon attacks never harm any target you did not intend to hurt.
Your ranged attacks always count as magical for purposes of overcoming defenses.
The effect was quite powerful, especially for a passive ability, and Martin couldn't wait to see what else was in store for him. He instinctively pulled up his potential powers for the Beast Domain. Yesterday he had implemented the option to show the top 5 suggested abilities for each domain properly after Jasper's hacked-together version had been a bit unsteady, and he instantly used it to skip the long and dense list of Powers and get a summary of what he could pick.
With 18 points left, he could easily afford all of those, however, some of those options weren't as good as he would like.
Red in Tooth and Claw was good, if he had no other options. But he would be doing a ranged build, and as such the power to create claws and fangs wasn't really that useful.
However, picking Lord of the Wild was almost a necessity if he wanted to create dungeons with creatures. That would cost him 2 points.
He wanted Link of Unity, though taking it wasn't going to help him with the goal of creating dungeons. However, it did look really amazing. He saved it as a backup if he couldn't spend all his points.
The greater power, Conquer the Beast Within was a must as well, subduing powerful magical beasts out in the wild and commanding them to become dungeon bosses would be ideal. That was another two points gone.
Finally, there was Distant Howl. It seemed incredible as well, allowing Martin to potentially communicate with his friends, though that one week time limit meant that he would have to be around the animal for the entire week of his game time, and there was a chance the animal would have passed away in the hundred years passing afterwards... unless he found some turtles to give to his friends. Martin decided against it, it was powerful and amazing, but wouldn't be suitable to the time dilation they were experiencing. Maybe it was something to consider for the main game when this world shipped to the main branch. He would have to make a note of it.
He decided to look over the two abilities that he wanted, realizing that it was effectively only the Greater powers. He didn't mind, they would do nicely.
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Lord of the Wild
Type: Constant
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: Animals instinctively serve and obey you even to the death, carrying out commands as if they had a human intellect. Magical or intelligent beasts get a saving throw and cannot be commanded to act in a way that seems suicidal to them or completely against their nature.
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Conquer the Beast within
Type: Constant
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: When you defeat a foe in combat, reducing them to zero hit dice, you may choose to subdue them if using a non-lethal attack. Such a subdued victim revives with 1 hit die and forever afterwards is subjects to your Beast powers as if they were an animal of lower Rank than you.
Martin picked both of them having read the text fully.
Then he turned his attention to the Plant Domain. With 14 points left, he knew that he could pick pretty much anything there as well. Even so, he tried to restrain himself as he looked over the top five AI picks.
That was some incredible powers. Grow the Garden would allow him to grow plants rapidly, ensuring that he didn't have to scour the world for rare seeds. It was definitely a must.
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Spring of the Blood Forest would be incredible as well, especially if combined with the Range Domain. Ensuring that hordes of enemies turned into forests that would pummel their allies seemed incredible.
The Cornucopian Blessing could feed nations on its own, allowing Martin to simply ensure that there was always enough to eat, however, it didn't help his current build, and as such he skipped it.
Healing Fruits was nice, but it wasn't what he was looking for, since Jasper already had his auto-healing, and Celeste seemed to be able to dodge most attacks. He skipped that as well.
Lastly Ancient Bark Skin. It was probably the plant version of Celeste's dodge ability. Martin assumed that he would need something along those lines, just to make sure that he didn't need the healing fruit. He looked over his powers.
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Grow the Garden
Type: activated ability
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: From a point in sight a sphere with radius of 20 meters becomes a brilliant garden filled with whichever plants, rare or otherwise, you desire. You can choose to have thorny or poisonous plants inflict damage on your enemies. more exotic plants may not be supported by the soil and wither away after a while.
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Spring of the Blood Forest
Type: Activated ability
Energy usage: Variable
Full effect: Commit Energy. Each enemy you personally slay instantly grows into a tree offering fat, round fruit. These trees are animated by your will. While the Energy remains committed, the trees attack anyone as if by your hand within 20 meters of them.
The animated trees can not move away from their position. Once you stop committing Energy for this power the trees remain but are no longer animated.
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Skin like Ancient Bark
Type: Constant
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: Your skin is like living steel rivalling the strongest of armours, allowing you to ignore most blows, and you have an invincible defence against harm by plants.
In natural terrain you can simply stand still to appear as a natural part of the surrounding flora.
Armour and shields do not improve your base armour class.
That was powers for 4 points, leaving Martin at 10 remaining points.
Next up was the Wealth Domain. He went through the usual spiel, knowing that he wouldn't want to look over every possible power, but only the ones that could be relevant.
Martin was honestly a bit disappointed with the options for wealth. They were nice for punishing large factions or building up communities, but most of them would suck up his Energy almost indefinitely.
Flawless Reproduction was good, the ability to duplicate objects, even if they had to be non-magical, was great and something that he could absolutely use.
Prosperity's Abundance was good too, though it was reliant on Martin getting a buttload of money before it would be worth anything.
The Golden God's Hand was overwhelmingly powerful. He could tear away entire faction benefits, such as the Mithril deposit underneath the Empire's capital. Or he could create that benefit for another faction. It was basically a world edit. But he could already see the trap in that power. He would bet his bottom dollar that the blessing or curse would only last for as long as the Energy was committed. He would in general have less to work with, but given the fact that he would be gone for hundreds of years, it would crush factions or skyrocket them depending on his mood.
Thieves' Bane was powerful as well, allowing nobody to steal from them or trick them during deals. However, Celeste could already create most mundane items out of thin air, so it wasn't really worth the two points in Martin's opinion.
Lastly, Wither the Purse was good but not amazing. It would probably help Martin with revenge on people, but it was the kind of petty revenge that he hated.
Finally, he made a decision, looking over Flawless Reproduction, Prosperity's Abundance and The Golden God's Hand before picking them.
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Flawless Reproduction
Type: Activated Ability
Energy usage: Variable
Full effect: Commit Energy and touch a non-magical object or domestic animal no larger than a large wagon. Every minute, a perfect duplicate of the thing appears somewhere near the original until the Energy is reclaimed. The duplicate persists even after the Energy is reclaimed.
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Prosperity's Abundance
Type: Activated ability
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: Spend the Wealth necessary to purchase a generally-available object or service, and have it appear instantly.
Services are performed by unseen hands to a good quality of work, taking as long as it would take to execute the work normally.
Only 'real' Wealth can be used for this power, not Wealth created by magic or powers.
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The Golden God's Hand
Type: Activated ability
Energy usage: Variable
Full effect: Commit Energy and curse or bless a faction or community.
You may either grant them a beneficial feature having to do with prosperity or wealth, or you may suppress an existing feature they have that relies on money or large amounts of resources. The curse or blessing manifests very rapidly in the course of a day, and lasts for as long as the Energy remains Committed.
With that out of the way, and having spent 4 more points it left him with 6 points for his last Domain: Range. He hoped that he would find something so he could compete in combat with the other divines.
Martin wanted all of those powers, but he couldn't afford them, even if he wanted them so badly.
He more or less had to take Omnipresent Reach, simply for the fact that it was his primary damage output.
Lord of that which Falls would be amazing, allowing him to redirect ranged attacks from entire armies, while Rain of Sorrow allowed him to essentially obliterate entire armies.
None Beyond Reach was probably a sniping ability, and he realized that if he had picked the sense-sharing ability from Beast Domain, Link of Unity, he could essentially target anything in the world. With that combo, he would be unstoppable.
The Seeking flight was nice, but probably not something that he wanted to use right away.
Martin looked back through his powers, wondering if there was any he could drop so that he could pick None Beyond Reach and Link of Unity, along with the other powers from Range. He couldn't find any that he could justify dropping.
He sighed, picking Omnipresent Reach, Lord of That Which Falls, and The Seeking Flight. He had 2 points left. He could either take Rain of Sorrow or the combo.
He chose the combo, not only picking None Beyond Reach, but also going back and taking Link of Unity.
As always, he read through the powers before dedicating himself to them.
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Omnipresent Reach
Type: Constant
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: Your ranged weapons have a maximum range as far as your natural line of sight. Your missile weapons always do at least 1d20 damage and are treated as magical weapons. Even without a ranged weapon, you may cast bolts of force or conjured weapons for 1d20 damage.
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Lord of That Which Falls
Type: Activated ability
Energy usage: Variable
Full effect: Commit Energy. Redirect any ranged attacks in your presence, with their attack roll applied against the new target. Projectiles may be redirected at any target, though a single victim can be targeted by no more than one attack per round this way. Subjects who have also bound to the Range Domain are immune to this power, as are other divinities affiliated with Range.
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The Seeking Flight
Type: activated ability
Energy usage: Until next loading screen
Full effect: Choose a visible target and Commit Energy until the next loading screen. Your ranged attacks seek them out regardless of range, treat them as having no armour, and completely ignore cover provided there is at least some path for your projectile to reach them.
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None Beyond Reach
Type: Constant
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: Your ranged attacks have no maximum range provided you can see what you're shooting at with your natural sight or know its location to within ten feet. This ability extends only to the same plane as the one you are currently inhabiting.
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Link of Unity
Type: Constant
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: You can bond with an animal, linking it as an extension of your spirit and allowing sense-sharing and communication. Its attacks are treated as magical weapons and its health is equal to your own. If it dies, it vanishes, but it can be summoned back by Committing Energy for the day. It can be teleported to your side for the same cost. Only one animal can be bound at a time, and humans bound with 'Conquer the Beast Within' must be normal mortals.
With his powers done and out of the way, he leaned back and smiled. Martin was honestly pretty satisfied with his build, and while he knew that he was going to forget something, he was also pretty sure that there would be plenty of opportunities for having a lot of fun.
Before continuing into the game, he decided to customize his character a little. It was purely visual, but he still wanted to go with something other than the standard Human race.
He looked through the options, seeing a lot of interesting aspects, and slowly an idea came to him.
He picked ork. The visual aspects of his body transformed into a hulking green beast, and thick tusks sprouted from his bottom teeth. It was uncomfortable for a moment until the system helped him adjust.
With that done, he laid a couple of plans, knowing that the Range word would technically apply to siege weapons. He was sure that Kalish was going to enjoy the God of Dungeons, Harvest and Siege weapons, especially as an ork. Nobody expected the orkish engineer.
