Dornyven Sho-Hixar (Drakes)

You choose the "Drake" race. In the centre of the screen, the generic "?" for a random character changes to a humanoid with dragon features, wearing a full set of samurai armour. In the background is a wooden wall, from which hang a series of scrolls, along with a pair of banners depicting a dragon rising from the flames.

You set the Game Length to 9999 turns, and click play.

Everything turns black.

You feel yourself floating in a warm liquid, one that's closer in consistency to stew than water. You uncurl yourself, stretching your newly-made limbs, and you realize that your eyes are open as the fog fades from your vision to reveal a world of red in front of you, kept away by a clear second eyelid. You blink once, and then, as a small chunk of stone drifts down, dissolving as it goes, you realise that the liquid you're floating in is molten rock.

You're swimming in lava. And you're only pleasantly warm.

What, exactly, are you? You guess, from the start-up screen, that you're now in the body of the game character, the red-scaled and imposing dragon-man who heads the reformed Shogunate, and from that you can guess you're probably now inside Civ III, but beyond that you've got no idea what you are, where you are, or what you're supposed to be doing.

You briefly wonder if you should have thought this through a little more, before deciding that train of thought is pointless, because you're here now, and stuck this way, because there's almost certainly no conveniently computerised portal in a society that doesn't even know how to work iron. You're stuck here, maybe until you find a portal, more likely until the game finishes... and maybe beyond.

You kick your legs, starting towards the surface. Your lungs start to complain about lack of air as you move, the kind of nagging feeling you get just before you come up from a stroke while swimming, which makes you realise that you had rested without air, quite comfortably, for several minutes before your body gave even the slightest complaint about lacking oxygen.

Just what powers does this body have?

You burst through the surface of the lava, molten rock sloughing from your scaled body, a few less-melted chunks bobbing on the surface, and you draw a deep breath. Turning around, you realise that you're swimming inside a volcano. More specifically, the main crater of a volcano.

You swim over to the lip of the pool of lava, and haul yourself out. It feels... surprisingly easy, the rock crumbling slightly under your hands as you haul yourself out, almost toppling over from the ease of movement as you get out and stand up.

You look down at your body, and blink in surprise, the membrane sliding down over your eyes. This... this is like someone looked at a statue of Adonis, and decided "You know what that needs? Red scales." You're ripped. Not steroid-abuser style, but you're definitely well-built. Better yet, it's not focused on one area - you've got well-muscled abs, arms, legs, back, chest and probably everything else too.

Your eyes focus on a specific part of your new anatomy, and you grin. You're totally naked, so you can see that your cock has been upgraded to match your new body. It's, oh, you'd guess about thirty centimetres long, and you hope for the sake of your partners that it doesn't get any bigger when it's erect. Size isn't all that's been changed, though: your new rod's got ridges, a pointed tip, and some barbs around the tip. The ballsack beneath has undergone an expansion as well, they're about apple sized and scaled.

You stretch, and realise that it's likely that the Adonis comparison doesn’t quite encompass everything about your new form. You've got a pair of wings sticking out of your shoulderblades, and a tail running from just above your ass down to about... you swish it around a little and feel it slap against your ankles and the ground.

Looking around again, you see that the rocky ledge you're standing on stretches for quite some way around the crater, disappearing off into the smoke on both sides. There doesn't seem to be any way out though, except for flying up. You flap your wings experimentally, and you float up a few inches, before landing back on the ground.

You start to ascend, slowly at first but gathering speed as you build up enough height to be able to move over the volcano's crater and ride the massive thermals, letting them carry you up. You soar up, and up, until eventually you grab onto the edge of the volcano, folding your wings tight against yourself so the thermals don't keep carrying you up. You haul yourself over the edge, and drop down onto the start of a winding trail, barely wide enough for a man (or drake) to walk up, which leads down to a small village nestled in amongst the hills. It’s made of a series of huts, sprawling out around a central hall that appears to have been constructed in the ruins of an old fortress.

Looking away from the village, you can see a forest, with a river running through it, to the east of where you’re standing, a stretch of plains that gradually dries out into savannah to the west, and a marsh that soon sinks down into the sea to the north.

You sit down, barely feeling the rough volcanic rocks through your scales, and think. You’re apparently supposed to become the leader of that village. The prospect scares you a little, you’ve had experience playing Civ III before but this is a whole different ballgame... but it's not, is it? That’s the whole point. Civ III is a gamified version of life, so you’re now in a lifeified version of a game.

You stand up, and start down the track towards the village...