Tanwanda, Simon Silver, D&D 375: Jonathan Ramekin, Nissan Omi (Omi-kun), H.R.M. Queen Elisabeth the 1st, Grand-Duchess Anastasia Of Russia, and Sarah Silver.

"Is everyone ready?" I ask as the gaming group FINALLY sits to the table, getting a chance to work with some of these people had taken a VERY long time, especially the former Queen of England and Grand-Duchess of Russia, while others, notably my old gaming buddies and sister, I had been able to give me a pledge to keep their schedules open enough that they could work with me whenever the two more famous people could find a time. Time passed more orderly in heaven than it had on earth, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 60 minutes and hour and so on, with no variations due to off kilter rotation speed and orbital distance, but it still had taken over a millennium to find a time where the Queen and the Duchess had both had some time free, and even so I had only one year of eight hours a week to run this game for them. I just hoped it would be enough to kindle a full universe.

"I am Master Silver, per thy request and documentation I have created a 3rd level character, a female Paladin, whom is of human stock." Queen Elisabeth I says handing in her sheet.

"I've brought the Bard to the party Bro." My sister declares, turning in her documentation.

"Instrument?" I ask interested to hear what she picked THIS time. My sister is fond of Bards for D&D and it's omnifarious variants and derivatives, and almost always manages to pick some obscure instrument. One time when I ran a steam punk D20 type pastiche from Alpha Centauri in the year 10,000 AE (After Earth) she actually created a bard who played the Glass Harmonica, another where we were doing a Spell-Jammer/Star Trek/Star Wars mash up she picked the Theremin, and brought one to the table which she did mood music on the whole time, less than fully successfully, much to my father and mother's annoyance, though they bore it with good grace.

"Decided to go with something traditional this time." Sarah declares, and I breath a sigh of relief. "She's an Unseligh Elf, so I went with a masterwork fiddle." And I tense right back up. Unlike myself my sister kept up her music lessons and plays the fiddle incredibly well, which could ether be a real burden to the game or a great asset, or nether of the above if she left her fiddle at home...

"Did you bring one?" I ask, not sure which answer I am hoping for.

"Nope, should I have?" She queries.

"We will see if I can rework some things to make use of it in later sessions but for now we will work with what we have." I state, and she smiles a bit.

"I have the Monk." Omi-kun (Nissan Omi if you are being formal, but he insists everyone call him Omi-kun.) "He/She's a hermaphrodite Half-Orc." He declares, and hands in the sheet.

"I thought you swore off Monks after we finished Tales of the New Road 500 years ago?" I query, and he grimaces.

"I didn't 'swear off' them, just said I would not be playing another for a 'good long time', and I haven't, I think 500 years is quite long enough, time to get back in the saddle." He explains.

"Fair enough. What about you Anastasia?" I ask and she turns over her sheet. It's written all in Russian but fortunately I speak and read Russian, one of the several languages I have picked up over the years, and can read it easily, she has very good handwriting. "That's kind of interesting: a cleric of an Ideal who draws his powers from Communism? Did you finally accept Joseph Stalin's apology?"

"Нет, Карла Маркса." ("No, Karl Marx's.") She states, and I shrug and put the sheet onto the stack.

"So, Jonathan, what's your character? Arcane caster of some ilk I hope?" I query to the last person at the table and he pulls a folder out of his briefcase.

"I didn't know what the two royals would be playing so I created a few, but I think..." He says an leafs through it, then retrieves one of the 20 page long sheets. (A lot more backstory and so forth go into basic characters these days than even when the 'Great Work' started, let alone when we were 'alive'.) I skim it, 1 level of rogue, 2 of sorcerer, male half-elf, clearly gunning for Arcane Trickster.

"OK then, everything seems to be in order." I say and put the sheets into the reader which integrates the characters with the game world.

"As you all know from the notes I sent you Tanwanda is a world with a Pangaea Continent which is even now being 'Sung Into Being' by it's gods and goddesses, it is hot, rainy, mountainous, mostly jungle, and comes into existence with a number of chalso-lithic civilizations on it. It uses Spell-Jammer cosmology as do most of my universes and is in a mono-solar system. Dinosaurs still thrive in this first age of the world while the standard races of D&D 375 are present within reason. Magic follows the Heckler-Vimes' model and is not a limited resource. Spell-casters are common and widely accepted and many types of spell casting are heritable. Many forms of undead are still yet to come into existence including vampires, ghouls, and Litchs and there has been no admixtures between Dragons, Celestials, or Feinds and other races on this world yet so those templates and derived races are off the table but Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Half-Goblins and Half-Dwarves come into existence along with the world as full adults in some places and cases. No races have any alliances or affiliations yet, and the divide between Drow and Surface Elves has not occurred. Lastly only weapon and armor types which can be created with copper, stone, wood, cloth or leather are available, Everyone Ready?" They all nod as I finish giving them a brief refresher of the much longer set of notes, a habit from my living days I have never been able to shake, and the 'World Dive' begins.

I 'become' the world, as I have a hundred hundred times before, and the others pass through the layers of reality that lie between heaven and the world in which we will play,

The essence core generated by their souls to link the soul of the characters they will become streaks across the sky like a meteor to implant itself into the body of their new and temporary existence, and I become consciously aware of the five characters who will impart the essential spark of randomness and chaos to my world.

I adjust the world subtly as I have dozens upon dozens of times before as the 'gods' I have created for it sing it into existence, directing the choir in their melody, even as the dark gods try to seize control of the song and twist it for their own ends, but can do nothing save what I have planed for them since they are for the moment merely parts of myself, without the spark of true randomness the players will impart no more able to act under their own power than if I were writing a novel. One of them however proves more exemplary than the others Maladjikitus, and I take note of it, for he shows a degree of independent action already, and I subtly shift things to promote him to a position of leadership: he will make a fine antagonist.

The world boils up from nothing as does the rest of the crystal sphere, forming around the still **** bodies of The Five where they float in suspended animation. In the space of 5 minutes all the ages of the earth from the coalescing of it's matter streams into a planetoid and then planet, through the Pre-Cambrian, through the Devonian and Silurian, and up to the great age of dinosaurs but as seen through a scanner darkly, with a mix of the most famous creatures from every era, where upon the gods divide into different choirs and sing the sapient races into being: Elves, Dwarves, The three breeds of Goblin kin, Humans, Orcs, Hersati who would more commonly be called 'lizard folk', though in truth they are of warm blooded Dinosaur Kind, Kobolds, Dragons, Hobbits, Tabaxi who are better known as 'Cat-folk', Gnomes, and dozens of others all come into existence in the space of under 15 seconds, for the gods are singing in Enochian, the language which God created for the making of worlds, and it takes mere moments for this to be done with it. It is not 5 seconds later that the final touches are done, and I clap my hands with a thunderous boom bringing the first song to a close and erasing the knowledge of 'the first tongue' from the god's minds.

The Five awaken, standing from the floor of the jungle clearing where they have come to rest at the end of the song, and look about them for the first time.

Queen Elizabeth’s Paladin, Dame Erna Royce the First of The Bog Lands, with her Macuahuitl and leather sheild, atired in armor made from a boar's skin, Bones, and Teeth, and a helm of fire carved and hardend wood in the shape of a Tyranosaur's maw.

Jonathan's aspiring Arcane Trickster, Pendarinthian Morgain, dressed in a simple loincloth, a belt with a spell component pouch and copper buckle, and cloth bandolir with five obsidian knives.

My sister Sarah's bard, Unsligh elf dressed all in black silk, quilted cloth armor which shimers faintly with dew, and her wooden case that holds her fiddle and bow, as well as her Longbow and it's quiver of flint tiped arrows.

Omi-Kun's Half-Orc hermaphrodite Monk, Dressed in the attire which had been traditional for D&D monks since 'Ember' of 3rd edition, plus a thick silk veil and head scarf which made her/him look less like an asian martial arts practioner and more like a a midleeastern belly dancer.

And lastly, their cleric, Youseph Maokragda, quite the odd duck, dressed in the traditional homespun hemp robes of a catholic friar except carryng around his neck instead of a cross a red enameld golden star with a crossed hammer and sicle in it and weilding a masisve stone warhammer.

Though they embody and to an extent are controlled by my players these are not like the characters of D&D from before the begining of The Great Work, they are fully real people, living and breathing even as we once did, and will live, eat, sleep, have children, grow old, and die just as we did back then, and, if all goes well, one day they too will abide in some other part of heaven creating universes even as we now do...

Time for the first event, a choice that will shape the world for ages to come...

The characters start as there is a high pitched and child like scream of terror from somewhere off to the north close by...