Richard Tamarack ('Jedi' Knight, Human); Patchwork Rebels (Various Races, Rebellion); 'AEtherverse'...

In life you were a 30-something gamer geek, on your way to the grocery store to get food for a barbecue, when this Black Toyota pickup doing 80 in a 40 zone blew a red-light and T-boned your car! It flipped three times and wound up in a ditch, and your last thought before you died was: 'Thank God my Son wasn't in the car!'

You only knew darkness for an interminable interval, then followed a point of light to this blank white room.

You look at your avatar and decide that you liked your old appearance fairly well: minus the fat you put on after 23 or so anyway, and sculpt your avatar to be an idealized blend of your best features from when you died and when your body was at it's peak, not so skeletal but not so fat, and with your best muscle definition, and with the full thick beard you only were able to grow 2 years before you died. You vacillate between your old dark brown and the option of flame red hair that you had always wanted, and finally decide that this is your second life damn it, and you will have some FUN this time: going with the rich orange you always dreamed you could have without expensive dyes you couldn't afford.

Now you get into the trait menus and are bewildered by the range of options, but decide to narrow it down and type 'Jedi' into the search box, coming up with a much reduced and navigable list.

You select ' Sensitive' L.4, one shy of the cap, Reasoning that you want to be a strong user. You then go for 'Saber Skill' L.2, figuring that since you are just starting out it only makes sense that you be a novice with the energy blades for which the Jedi are famed, but not a TOTAL noob, and hoping devoutly that you can improve on that during the 'game'. You decide to pick some more non combat related skills, picking 'Seductive' L.3, you weren't much good with the ladies in your previous life and want that to be different in this one. You also pick out 'Charming' L.2 for non sexual situations, and 'Pheromones: Male for Female' L.3, because you figure not having a pleasing natural scent lost you a lot of dates in your old life. You realize there are also some non-leveled options you can pick here and grab 'Knighted', 'Officer of the Law', 'Ordained', and 'Flexible Starting World', thinking those sound good and wishing like hell there were hover-able descriptions to this shit.

You undo the limited search parameters and carefully scan through page after page of options looking for something you half noticed the first time: ~Found IT!~ You think, picking 'Sovereign' L.2, which unless you miss your guess makes you a civil leader as well as military. It EATS your rapidly diminishing store of points, but you CAN'T pass up the opportunity to rule in your own right... ~Maybe I should have typed 'sith'!~ you think, but decide that you have enough selections for now, having burned about 3/4-ths of your points, and move on to the 'gear selection' screen. First obviously you pick out 'Jedi Robes' but go with dark gray on pale gray for the colors instead of the traditional dark brown and tan, you want to stand out a bit and are not planing to limit yourself to the traditional 'Jedi' arts, you are going to dip more than a bit into the 'dark side', but always making sure it is YOU who are in control. In life you were a political activist, and know that anger and hate CAN be used constructively, IF properly controlled and targeted.

You only really want to pick up a light saber to complete your starting gear but realize you don't have enough points left! Light-Sabers are HELLISHLY expensive, and you would have to dump both levels of 'Sovereign' to pay for it, so you look for other options.

You find that you CAN afford a basic light saber crystal in red, blue, green, or yellow, so you chose yellow and add that to your inventory, then look over the other weapon options. You find you are faced with a basic choice, a cheap blaster, or a quality steel rapier which can be used at 'Saber Skill -1' It's a hard decision, something you have NO experience with but which keeps you out of melee, or something which is sub par as a weapon but you actually know how to use at least sort of?

Ultimately it's the fact that you have to lead an army which decides you, you might cause some 'friendly fire' if you use the blaster and that's unacceptable, so you pick the sword. Apparently you get some style options so you go with a full bronze basket hilt, figuring if the sword were to be broken you could punch someone with it like Captain Mal from Firefly, and put a heavy pommel on it both for cracking people upside the head and giving it more of a hilt heavy balance like a light saber, though you have no idea if that will make any difference.

Next is the 'World Screen' and it lists a lot of options from the starwars franchise but you notice something off to your left out of the corner of your eye. Past a section of grayed out options including 'Alderan' and 'Degoba' you find one last option, which you don't recognize from any of the books or movies you have read/seen "AEtherverse" and curious you click it.

A daiolouge pops up:

/===========================================================================================\
Lock in your choices and reincarnate? Yes! / NO!
(You have not spent all Karma points available, unspent points will be assigned randomly.)
\===========================================================================================/

You click 'no' and go back, the points you have left are pitiful, 15 out of the thousands you began with, but you find a few options that can use them up: "Increased Starting Funds", "Minor Prestige", "Starting Building: Random" (Selecting a specific building takes a lot more points than you have left...), a few small bits of equipment like a "Jedi Tool Belt" (Sans tools), and "Demanding Girlfriend".

You cross that last one off the list as soon as you see it, you had MORE than enough of that in your last life, but debate the others. After some consideration you pick "Starting Building: Random", at least you will have somewhere to get out of the rain and sun, hopefully, there were options in the building's menus like 'Grain Silo' 'Wind Turbine' and 'Methane Digester', but most of them would have an interior you could use as crash space for you and your starting troops if nothing else. You go back to the world selection, pick "AEtherverse" again, and click 'yes'. Your avatar suddenly reappears, and comes forward, then, before you can react, kisses you on the lips and you feel yourself sucked into it, then suddenly, you ARE it, and it is you, and you black out.

You awaken next to a large barn in the middle of a lush meadow of waist high grass surrounded by dense woods, and thank your lucky stars and the grace of God that you didn't get stuck with a 'Wind Turbine' you couldn't have kept running or made use of. You cast around for your two all important pieces of equipment and find them lying on the ground at your feet, and put the saber crystal in your pocket and equip the rapier testing it's heft and balance on the nearby grass.

Another dialogue pops up now:

/===========================================================================================\
Enter Tutorial? Yes! / NO!
(Entering Tutorial is recommended for people reincarnating on this plane for the first time...)
\===========================================================================================/

You click "Yes!" and spend the next 15 minutes being guided through creating your first 10 troops and/or subjects, adjusting their equipment and stats to compliment your own, apparently having diverse race and equipment options, ending up with 5 elven archers and 5 human 'peasants' all female and costing you a total of 800 out of your starting 1000 gold. Though you set their base appearance and similar you notice that when they spawn there are minor cosmetic differences between each of them which let you tell them apart, different shades of red hair and green eyes for the elves and slightly different facial structures, skin tones, and colors of dress for the humans. The humans are equipped with pick-axes and 'Cheap Peasant Dresses' While the elves, by far the more expensive, have 'Yew Longbows', 'Leather Jerkins', a 'Cheap Leather Quiver' and 20 'Stone Arrows' each. Among other traits you have selected for your new subjects you picked 'Poly-amorous', 'Bi-sexual', 'Poligynist' and 'Submissive' as well as a decent appearance. Sure it cost you slightly more, but it will be worth it in terms of them not being jealous at sharing your attentions among them, at least at first. You will give the others you spawn husbands eventually, you are going to have a great deal of difficulty satisfying 10 women even with the elvish racial trait of 'Low Sex Drive', but for now you are going to have fun with your tiny army of fuck toys...