A Void. That's the only way I could describe where I found myself. I could look down and see my body, floating about in empty space. Really, the only thing I could compare it to. I wasn't warm or cold; it wasn't humid or dry, just... Nothing. No wind or air to feel against my skin, even though I could still breathe. Bck in all directions. Disorientating, if I knew where up or down was. How did I get here? Was this a dream? Where was I? Not college, not back home. I'd never dreamt anything like this. The st thing I could remember was sleeping after a te night at fencing practice. I'd gotten back to my car, driven home listening to Metric, and other than that, nothing particurly special. Showered and went to sleep in my dorm. When I woke up, I found myself here.

  Blip

  Then, a panel popped up in front of my face, maybe three feet away. Or, more like a screen. White, rectangur, and shed light, given how I instinctually squinted my eyes. I peered at it, brows furrowing and sharpening my gaze a little. Where the light went I had no clue- fully absorbed by the dark.

  Greetings, and good tidings.

  It's all it reads. Greetings and good tidings?

  "What?"

  I mumbled out loud.

  Please create a character.

  The text on the screen changed after I spoke, then broadened and expanded, three pages set out before me, one of which had a lock symbol over it, partially greyed out. The other two had me pause for a second. They were familiar. The pages had multiple bnk spaces, as well as categories, stats, and skills. A spot for a name, a race, a css, an alignment, an experience total, attacks, weapons, inventory, level, features and traits, bonds, ideals, personality traits...wait.

  This was one odd dream.

  I was making a Dungeons and Dragons character. This was the exact sheet. I'd filled these out dozens, no, hundreds of times in the different campaigns, one-shots, and Adventure's League games I'd pyed over the years. Whatever was... talking? Typing? Texting? Whatever was texting me through these screens had asked me to make a character.

  There was a small 'finished' button at the bottom right of the page, furthest to the right, partially grayed out. A second gnce showed me this was a spell sheet. Looking over the rest of the sheet in finer detail, I'd be stuck at level 1. Figured. I looked over them to find other values or things that had already been chosen for me, but I couldn't find anything. I had a lot of freedom, if that was the case, given the nature of D&D. What would I make, though?

  I was under the impression this was still a dream. It felt insanely lucid for a dream, which I could only recall having once, but I suppose they appear every blue moon for people.

  Would I be pying this character? Would I become them? Would I be watching their story?

  "Um... hm."

  I pnted my hands on my sides in The Void to focus myself. I couldn't assume anything. The best I could do was make them as strong as possible. D&D had a multitude of character and race combos, with feats and backgrounds, proficiencies and tools, scrolls, magic items, and all manner of boons and blessings to make use of. If I wanted to live, assuming I'd be this character, I'd need to be strong and durable to handle danger while I got my bearings.

  Barbarian was my first thought. High hitpoints, rage for damage resistance, and at some ter levels, things like danger sense and feral senses. Valuable, and paired with Druid, it could be incredibly tough to take down.

  But, really, casters were the epitomes of strength in D&D. In my experience, the most durable casters were clerics. I couldn't truly know where I'd begin, but I knew as a cleric, regardless of my domain, I'd be able to keep myself afloat with flexible spell lists and divine magic. I'd at the bare minimum have someone on my side.

  Css selected: Cleric

  Clerics were considered full casters like wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, bards, and druids, but in some cases could wear armor and even wield martial weapons, which could drastically boost their combat prowess. Combine that with getting their subcss, essentially a specialty for their css, as early as level 1, and they were strong to start with. They still had access to extremely high-level spells and were able to gain access to the most potent of healing magic. Clerics were versatile because of this, but could just as easily specialize in damaging miracles or healing ones, different curses and punishments for evil, and more. Some were very literal biblical feats, such as creating food from nothing, or diverting oceans and conjuring great wrathful storms. A great start.

  Race. Race in D&D wasn't about skin color; it was more accurately a species. Centaurs, Minotaurs, dwarves, elves, gnomes, dragonborn, the variety of races was insane, and scrolling through the options avaible on the drop-down menu, I wasn't limited to cssic pnes. Vedalken, Simic Hybrids, Leonin, and other races from crossovers to different pnes within the Wizards of the Coast ownership were avaible.

  "Heh. Imagine me as a loxodon. Having a big ol' trunk."

  I chuckled as I looked over some of the goofier races. Oozes, tabaxi (cat people), and grung (frog people). I made interesting characters with those, but the pinnacle of what I knew was a simple choice.

  Race chosen: Winged Tiefling

  Tieflings were a humanoid race born of really any other race, with a mix of demonic or devilish blood. Be it a direct parent or someone in their lineage, or even a child cursed by one. That was another thing- demons and devils were different creatures, and I could tell given the options in the sub-race categories. Sub-races were differences within individual species. Gnomes could be categorized into rock gnomes or wood gnomes, or hill dwarves and mountain dwarves, for example. They came with all sorts of different bonuses and possible downsides, and some could even get access to racial feats. Tieflings had the greatest diversity among these subraces, since they could descend from any demon or devil, with thousands of possible outcomes. Winged Tiefling was straightforward. Would give this character wings, and therefore, flight. I wouldn't be able to wear heavy armor and still fly, but I could wear medium armor and even wield a shield, theoretically, with it. Pair that with native resistance to fire, the ability to see in the dark for 60ft in what was essentially night vision goggles, and getting to have a pretty interesting appearance, they were near complete upgrades over a human. They came with a few downsides, though. Namely, an extremely poor reputation. A spawn of a demon or devil in any way is rarely a good omen, if ever. That, and their appearance is generally considered ugly or outright revolting by people, even if on the internet they probably have the most... concerning art depictions. Tieflings can have spikes on their bodies, smell like sulfur, have odd-looking eyes, or glow in certain parts of their body; it could vary, and no two Tieflings ever look the same. This made it difficult to disguise oneself, as such features were easily distinguishable. I hoped the tter negative trait wouldn't ever need to come up.

  Next was nguages. Straightforward, common, and uncommon, the two most common.

  "Heh. Common."

  Shitty puns aside, common was the 'common' nguage. Nearly all creatures could speak it, or at least understand it. Under-common was the next most common, as, aside from civilizations on the material pne using common, everything in the Underdark, the next closest pne to the material pne, used under-common. How fitting.

  The panel beeped whenever I'd make selections; it felt straight out of a video game. I'd seen the D&D and watched dozens of anime and cartoons with simir plots or concepts, but being in one was surreal. It made me smile.

  Next came skills from the css. I'd get some from my background, too, but the pick was clear. D&D organized them into categories associated with each core stat. The core stats themselves were strength, dexterity, constitution, wisdom, intelligence, and charisma. Races would give natural bonuses to these core stats, and sometimes proficiencies in nguages or skills as well. Tiefling included, and I already knew where I'd put the stat bonuses from that race. But the cleric gave me a selection of skills to be better, or 'proficient' at. Some csses, like rogues and bards, could gain 'expertise' in certain skills and tools, making them exceptional at those things. Valuable, sure, but I didn't see it as necessary. Magic was strong enough to overcome most of those gaps. Still. Skill-wise, I chose History and Religion. I'd need to know where I was and gather information about everything around me, and being better at history would help with that. Religion was for a simir reason- knowing about gods, deities, pantheons, and otherworldly forces, some of the deadliest things imaginable in D&D, could save my life. I knew I had my own game knowledge from years of reading the source books, but I had no way of knowing exactly what kind of world I was going into.

  The circles next to the skills turned bck when I selected them before I looked at the sheet again. The spell sheet on the third page was unlocked and no longer grayed out. Some csses, like barbarians or monks, had almost no access to any magic, save for a few subcsses, so it made sense to block access to that off until I'd chosen a css.

  But the subcss was next. Clerics had a plethora of 'divine domains' to choose from, which were really just the gods they could choose to devote themselves to. Some people in the community compared it to warlocks, who make a pact with a certain magical being in exchange for power. Clerics weren't toooo different, but instead of pacts and contracts, they offered worship, offerings, sometimes sacrifices, or certain behaviors and patterns, like fasting or abstaining from sex. These gods would then grant special abilities to clerics based on their domain, ranging from increased healing potency to the radiance of certain miracles. Very diverse.

  I chose the peace domain. This was strong for a variety of reasons at ter levels, but at level 1, it had a niche ability. Emboldening bond would let me subtly increase the chance that I and my allies succeed at an ability check, a saving throw, or an attack roll once per their turn for 10 minutes. I could target people equal to my proficiency bonus, and I could use it the same number of times as I could target, per day. Offered a lot of utility and a great boost in combat, given it required no concentration. The domain also gave me proficiency in another small pool of skills, of which I would choose insight- lying would become pointless ter with spells like zone of truth, but even that had workarounds. Being able to simply be better at detecting lies and true intentions was essentially the same as boosting a 'gut feeling' stat, so to speak. Lastly, the domain would let me have some helpful spells like Heroism and Sanctuary prepared at all times, which was nice.

  Speaking of spells, I may as well make my list now. Clerics again were versatile for the fact they could choose spells from the cleric spell list at the end of their long rests every day. This meant I could change my abilities and access to resources daily, but I was limited to how many I could prepare.

  There were various tiers to spells. Cantrips, which were generally weak and scaled only with level, and then the 1st through 9th level spells. Supposedly, there were spells up to 12th level and higher, but these were rarely ever obtained unless the dungeon master knew what he was doing with world-building and scale. For reference, level in D&D is usually exponential. A 2nd-level character is arguably twice or even three times as strong as a level 1 character. Spells were usually the same way. Ninth-level spells included things like Wish or Power Word Kill, which were self-expnatory.

  I got a few cantrips to choose from as a level 1 cleric and a few spells I could prepare.

  Cantrips: guidance, mending, toll the dead

  1st level spells: bless, healing word, heroism, sanctuary

  I'd be able to prepare more spells ter, but that was my selection for now. I went back to the front page and looked it over again. Stats were a huge deal, and more often than not were just as important in defining a character as the personality traits and backstory. I didn't have the point-buy system, where you could manually change your stats in exchange for lowering others: I had the rolling stats system.

  When I clocked up to open the options, it faded away the sheets for a moment into the nothingness of The Void, and pulled up a bck metallic dice tray and a set of four six-sided dice, colored as though they came out of an old Monopoly set.

  I gnced around to see where they'd even come from, but sighed as again, it was just a Void.

  Stats were a huge deal. Increasing them only happened rarely without extensive training during downtime, or with magical booklets, feats, or every few levels. Even then, the limit of a stat for a mortal was 20, and these were harder to scale for purposes of actually accomplishing things. A person with 20 strength, for example, could contend with a hill giant, huge people who could eat horses like mbchops and throw carriage-sized boulders hundreds of feet. Of course, no regur person would be as big, but someone with 20 strength would match them in an arm wrestling contest. A person with 20 intelligence, for example, could memorize entire times after reading them maybe once, and solve a Rubik's Cube in seconds.

  The mental stats scared me. I'd be able to buff any of my stats given enough time, but having my mental stats possibly lower than what they were with my real self scared me. I didn't know how it would work. Would I just not be able to read something? Would I get a headache from spending too long pondering if I had a low enough intelligence? Would I suck at talking to people and making deals if I had a low enough charisma?

  I gripped the dice in my hand. Like everything else, they had no temperature. Stat rolling in D&D by this method was a little odd, but I hadn't pyed other tabletop games much to know if other systems did it differently. I'd roll the four dice, drop the lowest roll, and add up the remainder to get a stat. I'd do this until I had a pool of the six totals, and I could assign each total to a stat of my choosing. The question was, could I fudge these dice?

  It felt like a dream, after all. Was this real? Would this matter when I woke up? I'd spent easily 20 minutes already just pondering what to make, but I felt like I was present the whole time, not like my other dreams where I'd blip back and forth between different scenes and various plots with no sense to them.

  I rolled and didn't fudge the dice. They came and went as follows:

  1, 5, 3, 5

  1, 2, 3, 1

  6, 6, 3, 6

  1, 6, 3, 6

  2, 5, 3, 5

  3, 1, 3, 6

  Overall: 85, not including the dropped numbers. If you took the average of a six-sided die, roughly four, and did the same addition, you'd get 96. After removing those dropped numbers, I had a different pool and different stats. Arranging them in the order of each stat, and assigning them for the build I was going for, it looked like this:

  Strength: 6

  Dexterity: 13

  Constitution: 15

  Intelligence: 18

  Wisdom: 13

  Charisma: 12

  Total stats: 77

  Compared to the average of 72 or the regur person's 60, this wasn't bad, but it wasn't spectacur. That 6 in strength meant I'd have an absolutely terrible carry capacity and be nearly useless with strength-based weapons. The intelligence and constitution would be my saving grace, as I'd have the brains and toughness to st until I'd level up.

  Hopefully.

  As a cleric, the wisdom stat determined a LOT of spellcasting prowess, as well as skills like insight and perception. These were all important, but I didn't pn on staying a cleric for very long. The arguably strongest spellcasters were wizards, given that they could gather spells from spell scrolls and spell books and had access to some of the strongest magical features, subcsses, and spells in the entire game. The only issue was that at low levels, they could get very easily one-shot by a lucky goblin. Simply put, it wasn't safe to start as one.

  But that high intelligence would be great for when my spellcasting as a wizard would really begin to matter.

  My racial stats boosted my dexterity by one and intelligence by two, as per my selection, which meant I'd be able to get the full benefit from medium armor and thankfully have maxed intelligence for a mortal from the get-go. How this would change me and my behavior was beyond me, but I was a bit excited.

  Some sections had already been filled out. My speed, for example. 30ft flight and 30ft walk/run. It was a bit ambiguous in D&D, but it was how far you could move within 6 seconds in D&D while fighting, casting spells, and so on. Focusing on movement doubled it. Extended 'dashing' or this doubling of movement speed meant risking exhaustion, and enough of that would kill me. That rarely happened, but not really important to worry about during character creation. All the skills I didn't have proficiency in were based solely on my stats and the corresponding modifiers, and were adjusted accordingly. The saving throws were the same way, which determined how good I'd be at resisting certain effects, like control magic or curses, or dodging traps and the like. As a cleric, I got wisdom and charisma, which were common enough. The sheet also filled out my hit dice, which was how much health I could restore per short rest, as well as my health, which was how much damage I could take. This could also be interpreted as how far I could push my luck in combat before I took a seriously debilitating wound, and I wasn't sure how this game I was in would run it. I had 10 hp, which was standard. If I'd pyed a wizard, I'd have 8. Those two extras could very well save my life.

  Onto the background. Backgrounds are what your character did before they started adventuring, which is what D&D was all about. Some characters were acolytes, some were soldiers, some were sages, and so on. There were dozens and dozens of backgrounds, but I wanted to go with something that would give me the most benefit.

  Custom backgrounds were delicious for this. I could carve multiple things from multiple sources to boost my survival chances. I could take the skill proficiencies from any background, tool proficiencies from any background, features from any background, and, thanks to other sourcebooks, even an extended spell list.

  Skill-wise, I took Arcana and Stealth. Stealth was straightforward; Arcana would give me knowledge of various things magical. Tool's wise, I took cobbler's and smith's tools. I could take the Izzet Engineer's extended spell list for some additional flexibility when I got access to rger spell slots, and I took the Ruined background's feature for a free feature selected from a certain pool. The Alert feat gave me a natural bonus to my initiative, or how quickly I responded to danger, and also made me immune to ambush if I was conscious. Most importantly, if I couldn't see a creature, it still wouldn't have any better odds of attacking me than if it were visible, which would be extremely helpful in avoiding nastier monsters. This combo would be a bit odd for my character's traits, though.

  Equipment nearly filled itself out as well. I took a mace, scale Mail armor, a light crossbow with 20 bolts, an explorer's pack, and an emblem for my spells. My background gave me a cracked hourgss, rusty manacles, a half-empty bottle of water, a hunting trap, a set of smith's tools, a set of traveler's clothes, and a pouch containing... 13 gold pieces.

  The Ruined background feature, paired with the Izzet Scientist bit, would determine the character's defining traits and backstory. Some of this was influenced by the character, but the backstory was commonly worked into the Dungeon Master's sessions to better flesh out the world. The Ruined background usually meant something absolutely terrible had happened to the character, forcing them to adapt and change to better survive their suffering before they became an adventurer. Hence, they got a feat at the start of the game, which usually dramatically boosted viability.

  My personality traits, bonds, fws, ideals, and backstory began to take shape before my very eyes. The way was a bit funny- typed out and sometimes edited partway through, as if I was watching this system write it out in real-time.

  Personality traits: I must make up for so much time I've already lost. Great ideas are fine, but great results are what count.

  Bonds: I'm convinced it was sabotage that destroyed my first boratory and killed many of my friends, and I seek out whoever did it.

  Ideals: Someday I'll find or create the magic that will make me the most powerful being in the nd, if not the pnes. Every experiment, test, and question can reveal more about our world.

  Fws: I tend to ignore sleep for days when conducting research or building things, at the expense of my own safety and health.

  I looked over these and ughed. Was this Tiefling some sort of power-hungry munchkin? They were hardworking, it seemed, but possibly prideful and vengeful. That, and likely a bit of an ass. A scrawny one too, given that pathetic strength...

  The backstory began to fill in on the second page of the character sheet as well. Skimming over the lengthy beast of a history that had been made for me, it looked like he was born out of wedlock when an important noblewoman slept with an incubus who seduced her. Stinks I didn't get any special demons as my lineage, but it may have been a good thing in disguise. The noblewoman raised me with her husband, saying the child was cursed by evil forces. I was shunned in high society and heavily abused by my father, who despised me, and my mother, who was disgusted by her own mistake. The caretakers in the manor I was raised in looked down upon me, 'forgetting' my meals or being particurly torturous in lessons. I'd still learned plenty regardless of this and my struggles, before eventually fleeing at age 12 via a trade cart to a town far away. I found a fellow Tiefling, a strong smith who taught me his trade, and in exchange, I worked for him for a few years. I'd managed to get a decent pce for myself eventually, getting a small b and a spot to live on the edge of town, where I could study away as I liked. I'd joined the church to try to get closer to the townspeople, regardless of my species, hoping they might be different from my parents. They, of course, were not. While the priests and those in the temple made me a cleric with enough years of devotion, the townsfolk themselves saw it as bsphemous that a Tiefling could 'seek redemption'. My home, my research, and nearly everything I owned were burned. I don't know which townsfolk had done it, or if it was something from my noble life coming to haunt me- I'd only made it so far away from the manor as a kid, after all.

  ".....I didn't expect them to work out those background features like that, but no, that works."

  I mumbled.

  Everything seemed about done. Css, subcss, race, background, skills, proficiencies, nguages, weapons and armor, spells, the feat, and extended spellcasting list. It was all set. I looked at my work and realized I'd forgotten to give him a name. That, and the height, weight, colors, and other physical descriptions hadn't been id out.

  "Right... there's a reason why they look so funky."

  Feral tieflings, or the variation that winged tieflings fell under, had special extra attributes that made them stand out more than the standard red skin, horns, glowing eyes, and tail(s). Of course, I would need to roll for all of these.

  The dice tray appeared yet again, and the pool offered to me this time was a few four-sided dice, six-sided dice, and even eight-sided dice. How fun. I grabbed a fistful and tossed them around, unsure of exactly how these tables were back in the books. From what I could recall, the base height for tieflings was 4'9", ranging from that to a smidge over 6'. Weight would range about the same as height to equate.

  When my results came through, I was a bit surprised. It felt like a more devilish-looking version of me.

  A mirror had formed out of the abyss beside me, and when I looked over, I was at eye level with an alright-looking face. The man was a bit shorter than me, he looked 5'10", and based on what the sheet said, he was 188lbs. I would argue he was a bit overweight, given that he had no visible muscle. He was 25 years old and looked like the peace domain had completely forgotten weapons training as a cleric. He had some love handles and was just a skinny fat man. If you looked at his face, you could see why he descended from a noblewoman and an incubus- he wasn't hard on the eyes, but the fact that he wasn't super tall and had a good deal of pudge to his face didn't help. His hair was bck, almost obsidian, with heavy curls that made it look good even if unkept or styled in any way. His sludge-yellow skin was not the worst color to get as a tiefling, but it was not the most attractive, either. Blue was kinda somber, red was usually more sexual or intense, and purples or indigos were somewhere in between all that. Yellow? Usually, a cssification of a weaker source of evil blood. It was that sort of muddled yellow-ish cy you might see after digging around on a beach or underneath some dirt roads. Sediment would be another good way to describe it. His horns were hiriously unusual, though. Sprouting from either side of his head, they looked like moose horns, albeit a bit twisted. Heavy-looking, his posture was worse because of it. The bone's color steadily reddened to crimson, until it seemed blood was already on each tip. Extravagant colors for sure, and a ring of what looked like another 16 smaller, dull, nubby horns resided around his head. In his mouth, visible when I got him to mimic me some, he had stupendously sharp teeth, like those of a shark.

  "For someone I imagined was living in poverty and skipping meals as a kid, you must've really made up for lost time."

  I said with a bit of a ugh, before continuing the physical examination.

  He had other things, such as a forked tongue, almost like he had tongue-splitting surgery from the real world. That, and it was oddly long, and a bioluminescent blue color as well. Surprisingly didn't make his mouth glow, but pushing his tongue to his cheek could make it look like he had an alien zit. Cat's eyes, colored a simir crimson to his horns, looked puffy and almost exhausted. Six fingers on each hand for this particur tiefling meant he had an extra pointer finger, unlike what is normally seen with double pinkies. He had moose legs-they cked any visible muscle and were stupidly hairy. Same color as his hair, but just thin-looking. It only further accentuated his skinny-fat body. Cloven hooves, that checked out-

  "HOLY SHIT! IS THAT A SNAKE?!"

  I shouted as I looked between his legs. Dangling there was a fucking tool. Way too big- kinda like a moose? No sheathe- guh, ew, ok, no. I didn't want to look it longer than I had to. I focused my attention away from it. All I needed to know was that I'd need much rger pants than I expected, and avoid any lewd interractions with anyone out of tearing said pants. I hoped to never get hard with this thing, out of fear of losing blood to my brain. A very stark reminder my biological father was an Incubus...

  Moving on. His tail was forked at the end, almost garden-spade-shaped. It was a thicker tail than others I'd seen on tieflings, like something Freiza from DBZ would have. Just yellow and oddly scaled. That was the other thing. Along his forearms, his cheekbones (or whatever fb was there on his face), as well as his elbows, his tail, his shoulders and shoulder bdes, the back of his neck, and parts of his torso, were scaled. They looked like ones you'd see on a lizard more than that of a snake or the grand scales of something draconic. They were small, little scales, like hundreds of rge freckles bundled together in round patches or blobs along his body. Again, it just added to his oddly pudgy yet nky build, giving him more roundness.

  "It is going to take years to develop you into something that will actually be able to make use of that wanker down there, huh..."

  I said, looking at his face. It wasn't bad again, but it didn't stand out. His eyebrows were nice and were probably his strongest feature. He had some chin fb, so his jaw wasn't very defined, his cheekbones were puffed, and the eye bags were very apparent. His pointed ears were rather big. I changed his race momentarily to elvish to compare, and the tieflings were, in fact, bigger. Yet another odd piece to him that would make him stand out more than the huge moose horns that made him look tiny in comparison. His nose was alright, not particurly pointed or fttened, nor too big. Standard. Lips were fine too, although a bit droopy given the face fat. His charisma score was above average despite his terrible strength, and as such, his physique checked out. The two weren't directly correted, such as buffing your strength stat or buffing your charisma stat, but in character creation, this could influence it. This was likely better than buffing strength over charisma, as not only was charisma arguably harder to improve, but it was also difficult to change facial features without constant magical assistance.

  Aside from that, he had some droopy, thin-looking shoulders, a bit of a potbelly, some love handles, thin arms, mangy moose legs, and hooves that could be the equivalent of shoes three sizes too big for him.

  "What would your parents have named you, upon seeing you? I doubt they'd name you after some sort of virtue or adjective, although they were probably educated enough to know about it. Your stepfather hated you, and your mother was ashamed of you. Damn. Karma for getting the jealousy of every other guy you come across, huh?"

  I said, speaking into The Void. I finished over the character's appearance and looked at the sheet again. Nothing else to fill in but the name. I wanted something that would fit him, for thematic purposes. I would still be pying in a story, given it was D&D. I was aware of that much. This dream had been beyond weird. Was it a dream, though? I couldn't tell. How did people normally tell if they were in a dream? If I got hurt, I normally woke up. Would I need to test death to try? Maybe puncture myself or something? I didn't know for sure. Maybe use the restroom. Yeah. If I started life as this tiefling cleric, and used the restroom, then I'd know if I was in a dream. Back to naming him.

  "Mom made me read a thesaurus when I was younger. Dictionaries and all sorts of spelling bee competitions. You're lucky you won't be called 'victory' or 'kindness'. That would be horribly ironic. You'll be Chagrin, yeah. I know I'd need my phone to look that one up if I hadn't been raised like that."

  With his name punched into the sheet, the three pages seemed to glow a little before they faded, and I saw a simir glow engulf my body. In an instant, I had grown nearly 7 inches shorter, and the days I'd put into the gym had vanished. My vision was blurry too. Wait. Did this son of an incubus need gsses? Oh, you couldn't be serious. He was near-sighted, too. I had to bring my face within 8 inches of the character sheet to read the text. This was a bigger nerf than having a low strength score, crappy vision? Really?

  I let out an audible sigh, and when I took a breath in, I nearly threw up.

  Coughing and gagging for a moment as my nose adjusted, I realized that my body smelled like brimstone. My memory jogged, and I realized feral tieflings had a chance to get that 'feature' when rolling the four-sided dice for their special characteristics. I think the dice I'd rolled got the max, so I ended up getting all the possible features. That would expin the absolutely horrible fucking smell of rotted eggs I exuded. I had a girlfriend in college thanks to the gym, decent looks, height, and knowing what deodorant was. As for this weird, possible dream of living and adventuring as Chagrin? I could say goodbye to any hope of getting within 5 feet of one.

  On the bright side, at least I was smart.

  I extended my hand and clicked the 'finish' button, and the sheet faded into nothing.

  There were a few moments of nothing.

  Then some more.

  ...

  And some more.

  ...

  Alright, this was stupid. Was it possible for a dream to crash? Like a computer? I thought I had more imagination than this given I had pyed D&D for so long and took that marketing and design internship.

  ...

  After what could've been anywhere from one to ten minutes, the bck abyss that surrounded me in Chagrin's body gradually became brighter and brighter, until I was completely engulfed in the light. When I was forced to close my eyes out of fear of going even more blind, I lost consciousness.