The Mad Rat’s Lab

The next thing after selecting the faction is creating the player’s avatar. It is called Champion. As I’m thinking about it, a screen pops in front of me.

“That’s nice information to know. Especially the part about the creation points. Then… let’s see what options I have.”

I remove the screen from view and find myself in another black empty space. Only that, this time, in front of me there is a human-shaped… slime? Don’t judge me! It does look like one! It has the same body proportions as humans but is made of a strange transparent substance. Also, it doesn’t have any defined features: no face, no hair… not even hands or feet. But if I move, it mirrors whatever I do. So I play with it. Only a little, I promise.

*Khm, Khm* “Ok, that’s enough fooling around” I interrupt myself an undetermined amount of time later. I don’t know how much time has passed, but it surely isn’t ‘only a little’. “Let’s actually see what options I have. This time for sure." I say as I open the menu.

I kind of expected it. The Flesh Monstrosities only have two options: Stitched and Hybrid. Though there is a note at one side.

Well, there is nothing I can do about the blocked units. But if I can later upgrade the Champion, doesn’t it mean I can keep using this Champion forever?

“No surprises about the units I can use. Also, there’s no way I’m making my Champion a damned Stitched. Still, I’m going to look at them first anyway, to compare them to the other units.

“Well, I can’t say how weak or strong they are, but at least they sure are cheap. That is, compared to the 100 to 200 recommended cost.” I select the Hybrid next and open its info screen.

“Everything’s a question mark? … Oh, yeah! It’s because I haven’t selected any unit to use. The stats must be updated after selecting the units.”

I press the ‘Unit 1’ slot and a list of all available units to select appears, sorted by cost. It seems I can choose between all the units from the other factions. With the exception of non-living units like the undead, of course. The Flesh Monstrosities can only use living units. I press on the human’s basic unit and immediately a screen shows its stats.

It was already explained in the faction selection, but the Stitched really are weak. The Farmer unit has better or equal stats in almost everything and costs the same. Also, it seems the default value for the stats is 5 (50 for the HP, EP and MP). Nice to know. I mean, it is the human basic unit, of course it is going to have the most basic and average stats! I return to the unit list.

The range of selectable creatures is incredible. The weakest are the 20 cp units, but it continues to grow until past the 1000 cp I have for creating the dungeon. Wow, hello!? Demigod!? What the hell!? And it costs 10,000 cp!! …what the fuck… its stats are insane! What faction has this unit? ... I can’t see their factions in this list…

“Focus, focus!” I say to myself, again. “Let’s be reasonable and don’t waste time looking at useless units or units I can’t use.”

I am setting a cp range for the units I’m going to pick. Between 50 and 200 cp is reasonable. This way I won’t spend too much time, but also not miss on any reasonably-priced good units.

“I like playing spellcasters, so first I’m going to find a suitable unit to make a spellcasting Champion.”

After a few minutes of looking at the units, I pick the High Elf unit (I swear, I wasn’t distracted by fooling around, not this time!). It is going to be the central point around which I am going to build my Champion. High Elf has decent stats for a spellcaster and an amazing innate skill called Manna Attuned.

The High Elf costs 100 cp. I assume that the units with 100 cp costs are the ones most players are going to use as their first Champion. I can see a lot of decent units with 100 cp cost: the human’s Soldier, the dwarf’s Blacksmith, the orc’s Hunter… I select the High Elf as the first unit and return to the Hybrid creation screen. It now shows the stats of the High Elf.

“Quite a decent pick for a caster, if I say so myself. It lacks a little on the physical stats… but that’s not really needed to cast spells.”

“Now for the second one! What should I choose…? Some unit with a hiding skill? With a hiding skill, I can work around the lack of physical stats. And make a mage-assassin that surprises enemies by blasting them with magic!”

“Or maybe take a physical focused unit to compensate? Hmm… no, definitively no. If I do so, I won’t have a spellcaster, I will have a hybrid unit and I don’t want that.”

“And a werebeast? The game does warn about their transformation skill, though… Well, let’s take a look at them anyway!”

I look through the werebeast units and find only two within the point range I set for myself: the Wererat and the Wererabbit. The skill to turn into beasts must be quite good because werebeasts are expensive. The Wererabbit is focussed on speed while the Wererat is quite balanced, with a slight focus on magic stats. 

“The Wererat’s stats are in the same range as the High Elf. But it is more expensive at 120 cp.”

“With the Rat Transformation skill, I should be able to scurry away in case of need, or to make unexpected ambushes.” For now I select the Wererat and see how the stats of my Champion look like.

“It was true that the Hybrids have the stats of the two units added! Except for the Speed… which makes kind of sense because otherwise I would be moving absurdly fast.” I imagine myself moving so fast, that I splatter myself in a wall. “Still, the final Speed takes the highest value between the two units.”

“Hmm… Other units in the 200 cp range have similar stats to my current configuration.” I say while taking a peek at those units. “This means that Hybrids are actually balanced, contrary to what I thought at the beginning.”

“So, do I want to play as a High Elf and Wererat hybrid? It has decent stats for casting magic, a spellcaster innate skill and the possibility to turn into a rat for utility. It is, though, a little over the recommended cp range… But I don’t think 20 cp will make that much of a difference.”

I imagine a scene where a humanoid rat-headed monstrosity is leading a bunch of flesh abominations while casting spells from the back. “Yes! Yes! That's good! And it also fits the faction’s theme!” Not wasting more time, I press the done button. Now is the turn for the Champion’s looks.

“So I have extra customization options since I’m creating a Hybrid… It makes sense.”

“It’s already settled that the head must be from the wererat. And for the rest of the body, I don’t want to be confused with normal wererats, so I don’t have any other choice than to use the elve’s extremities.”

Why do I have to use elf parts for the extremities to not be confused with a normal wererat? Because wererats are furred and have claws in all extremities. If all the visible parts are from a wererat, there won't be any visual difference between my champion and a normal wererat.

“Now, for the torso… Elf too? Hmm… Yes. This way the difference between the head and the body will be more noticeable.”

As I make the changes, the figure in front of me, the one that previously looked like a humanoid slime, changes. It now looks like a skinny human with a giant rat’s head. ‘Why does it look like a human?’ you may ask. Well… the principal difference between humans and elfs is in the head (you know, the pointy ears and good looks). Soooo … yes! You guessed it right! With a rat head there is no visual difference between the two. I wonder if other players will know it is actually based on an elf without inspecting my Champion.

I continue with tweaking the details while the Champion in front of me changes.

“I think this looks good. It has this nasty and crazy look that I wanted.”

The figure in front of me is slightly hunched. The rat head is big and all its teeth are twisted. From its slightly open mouth saliva slowly drips to the ground.

“It’s funny that there is an option to set how much saliva drips from the mouth.”

The eyes look in different directions and there is a huge scar in its left eye. It covers almost half of the head. Part of the right ear is gone, which, together with small patches of fur that are missing and its dirtiness, makes one feel the rat must have been tormented for a long time. The head is grotesquely stitched to a skinny human-looking body. Its arms, though, are too wide to belong to the same creature. They, too, are stitched to the skinny body in a disgusting way.

“It’s done! Took a little long but I really like its final look!”

I confirm the Champion’s aspect. Now, it asks for the starting equipment the Champion is going to wear. I obviously chose the ‘Mage’ equipment. And the last step is, as anyone could guess, the Champion’s name.

“It has a rat’s head and it looks like it’s crazy…” I don’t think too much about it and immediately introduce the Champion’s name.

"How to reach the top rankings with your dungeon, you ask? Well, of course the dungeon has to be good, and a little bit of luck is helpful. But the most important thing is that it has something that attracts the players.

For example, some of the top ranking dungeons are simply there because by conquering them you obtain a lot of resources. There are also ones that are incredibly beautiful and detailed, which make you feel like you are in a real fantasy world.

But in my opinion, the most important thing is originality: to have something that the players haven’t seen before.”

- Excerpt of an interview to a high ranking DMA player.