Changed World 101

This is a short tale of the Becoming Monsters Universe by AiLovesToGrow.

Perhaps my most-requested short, from both readers and co-writers. There is no consolidated guide to the universe, and this is intentional, but a little primer of what "everybody knows" is apparently much desired. Thankfully, I happen to have a university and a friendly professor who happens to look an awful lot like me located there. This chapter is a bit denser than usual, but it seemed necessary.

Amy is the creation of QM-Vox, a good friend and mentor of mine from way before I started this whole story writing thing. She hails from a completed project called Dungeon Life Quest.

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Story 4: Changed World 101

Claws ticking on the tile floor, tail held back, whiskers and glasses straight, lab coat crisp and white. This particular lecture was going to be recorded, broadcast, and referenced for quite some time, and it came as a result of research that started almost from the minute the Change occurred. In his arms were several binders, along with a thumb drive with an extensive set of presentation slides already loaded. Though he was scheduled to teach a one-time 101-level lecture on something every single person present had lived through, and had been told to keep it simple, he knew that there was no way it would stay that way.

Professor Otterly Ruddertail was not the name he had been born with, but it was the one he'd chosen and it certainly helped set him apart. So did the lab coat, despite its lack of real function outside of a lab.

The building was one he taught at regularly. Say whatever else you wanted to about Yellowstone University, and there was a lot to say, but it really was home. Along with being one of the primary centers of the research he specialized in, of course. Surprising what a statistician could get into with the Status. Such a pity his best student was off investigating things in Seattle. He opened the door with his shoulder, arms full, and walked on into the auditorium ground floor like he belonged there. To be fair, he did. It was about ten minutes before he was scheduled to start speaking, but by the crowd you'd think he was late. This classroom had a capacity of over two hundred students, and this might be the first time every seat in it was filled. There were people standing in the aisles, too, along with every place they could find a couple of square feet to fit. The noise, too, was a living thing, the people here excited to be present for it.

Nice change of pace, that. Beat freshman algebra any day of the week.

He got to the podium and started organizing himself. The binders were arranged more for ease of carrying than for order and needed a bit of a shuffle, the thumb drive needed to be connected to the computer linked up to the display to do anything useful, and he needed to get his mind set for what was to come. Otterly made it through perhaps three quarters of the process before students started to get much quieter all of a sudden. He sniffed the air subtly, invoking his Teacher abilities to try to get a sense of why. Yep, good sign. Several of his students, which is to say most of the room, had realized he was almost ready to begin. He glanced at his watch. Five minutes to go, and everything was about ready. Nobody else would be able to fit in the room, and this was going to be recorded anyway, so he might as well kick things off. A glance behind him showed that the presentation folder was open, a couple of clicks brought up the title screen. Showtime.

He stood, straightening out, and grabbed the microphone. Good, it was wireless, he wouldn't be confined to the podium. "Good afternoon, everyone. I am Professor Otterly Ruddertail, and today I will be presenting for you a brief history of our Changed World."

The murmur which had been persisting dropped off to nothing. He took the moment it was doing so to take a glance at a few key points. The screens were all on and showing the right thing (and please don't ask about the event that made him pay attention to that, thank you VERY much), the cameras were pointed in the right direction with recording lights on, and a substantial fraction of the student population was taking out materials to take notes. This was as good as he was going to get.

"Thank you all for coming to my class. I know that everyone here lived through the events I'm about to speak about, so a lot of this won't be a shock. Perhaps some of it will, though, and for those who watch the recordings or read the transcripts some years in the future I want to make sure you know how we saw things at ground zero. Yes, even if that person is me. Thank you, as well, to those watching through your screens. Please send any questions you have to the chat room moderators, I will not be able to see general commentary unless one of them forwards it. I would also like to thank the giants whose shoulders I was obligated to stand on to write this presentation, notably Doctors Kong and Honda, as well as the governments of the United States, Spain, and Germany for making data available. I'll start with the obvious."

He hit the button. The first slide was a date and time. The digital number face showed 11:00 PM, August 6th, Eastern Standard Time.

"This is a day that will be remembered, and why we are all here. It struck simultaneously worldwide, so while most in Washington DC were asleep for the initial shock others were not so lucky. Across the world, everyone acquired Status Screens detailing our inner attributes, all in the language and measurement style we feel most comfortable with. The Ten Attributes told us raw measures of our Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Agility, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Luck, Perception, and Health, scaled such that 10 was human average before the Change and 20 was a world-class contender. Percentage-based displays of Health, Stamina, Mana, and other esoteric resources are there as well, though notably only percentages display and not absolute values. We were all assigned our Classes, and approximately a third of us became Changed Races."

The next slide showed scenes ranging from beauty to terror. "It interrupted the work day in Valencia, it struck in the middle of midday prayers in the Middle East and India, and one particular ballet performance in Russia got much more dramatic than it was likely intended. Regardless, we count time from that day, now. From August 6th through December 31st of that year are known as Year Zero, and thereafter we call them AC, or After the Change. Today is Monday, September 15th, 5AC."

A student in the front row raised her hand. "Yes, Jennifer?"

"What day is it by the old calendar?" The large woman wore a witch's robes, though thankfully she'd left the hat in her dorm room. Given that she was eight feet tall, she was enough of an obstacle to those behind her already.

"Thank you for asking, but I will not clarify. We have a decent idea of what day it is by prior reckoning, but looking into many of those indicators shows that things are no longer quite exactly the way they once were. Weather patterns we recorded and ones we remember don't quite sync up, same with lunar phases, and a few others. For this reason, the world has adopted the new standard. Mostly, anyway, there are always holdouts. Any other questions from the introduction? Alright, now into the hard part."

The next screen was a simple line graph. One with an incredibly sharp drop near its end, with the line now rising once more.

"The world did not take the Change well. By the end of Year Zero, the total population was cut approximately in half. Some of this was due to new demands some of our bodies put on us. Many who Changed into Demonic Races in their sleep died from their Hungers before they woke. A Squid Beastkin in the desert would likely not make it to water before dehydrating. Others died in violence. The Dungeons appeared and monsters with them. This led to deaths, both from monster attacks and from people attacking people who looked monstrous before the differences were understood. Many from oppressed underclasses... or those who wished to be on top of the new heap... took their Race and Class abilities as a sign to rise up. Many areas of the world are still, five years later, locked in a state of war. India, China, Russia, and some areas of Africa most notably. No news is making it out of Bangkok, either. All of this pales in relation to the number one cause of death over those months."

Another click brought up a pie chart, labeled "Confirmed Causes of Death, 0-1 AC". The largest slice occupied 49% of the display: suicide.

The professor looked grim. This statistic wasn't a secret, and it wasn't really a taboo to discuss, but nobody here really enjoyed the topic. "Half of the world died, ladies and gentlemen. Half of those were by suicide. Fully a quarter of all people alive five and a half years ago either couldn't take living in their new bodies, couldn't take living in their new world, or else accidentally killed themselves before they got a handle on their abilities. It is one thing to be able to see a numeric representation of your overall health and life force labeled HP on your Status screen. It is quite another to miscalculate how many times you can tap into it for power before it's one time too many, and there are no take-backs in the System. Another chunk of these occurred after the initial waves of people hit Level 3 and made their first choices, only to figure out that they had made irreversible decisions which permanently harmed their lives. Karmics, for example, could find an ability that cursed themselves to bad luck effectively permanently. So, continuing this rather depressing theme, let's talk about the economy." The next slide was an ENORMOUS spreadsheet of numbers that had been reported after the fact by the US Department of the Treasury, with a truly stunning number of asterisks, double-asterisks, daggers, superscripts, and other annotations littered throughout. "It's complicated."

There were some chuckles from the crowd at the unexpected joke. Especially from the ones who didn't know him well enough to expect these things. Another click brought up a bar graph that was much easier to digest, a line graph showing the GDP of the US over the last seven years, along with another line showing the world's GDP for comparison on a different scale. "Understandably, everything kind of tanked for a bit. I'm sure the Economics majors have more precise terms for it, but I'm not one so 'kind of tanked' will have to do." More laughs as he clicked again, this one showing per-capita production. "As you can see here, we are only just getting back to estimated per-adult production levels. For those of you who don't have me for Math, even numbers per-capita at a hair over half population means we are still a ways off of regaining previous total levels, even with a baby boom going on as people are becoming more secure in the fact that they survived and the world did with them."

Otterly paused to take a breath, but a motion from above drew his eye. Ah, right, forgot about the perches they installed recently. "Yes, ma'am?"

A Harpy was perched a couple dozen feet above the seats, on a hanging bar that looked a lot like a trapeze bar to someone who didn't know what to look for. She wore daggers on her belt, presumably with permission but the professor wasn't about to inquire. "Amy, sir. While you're on the economy, what I never quite got was how everything adjusted. It's not like they could go back to what they were doing!"

"Excellent question! I hope you all don't mind me leaving this slide up, this will have to be improvised a bit." More chuckles. "Alright, on the topic of that question, a lot of people just... did. They went back to what they were doing. Readily-available livestock mane and tail shampoo got popular for taking care of fur. Mine included. Banks still needed running, architecture firms still had to plan and build things, schools needed to be taught and administered, and Congress still needed to do their jobs." His nose twitched. "Okay, maybe not so much on that last one, but you get the point." The crowd laughed again. "Two thirds of the world were still in bodies that were wholly unremarkable, the same ones they had before all of this. Most people do not actually engage with their Status at all, other than bare survival. The most common Level in the US is... any guesses?"

There were a lot of shouted numbers, but he smiled as he heard a lot of them were correct.

"Those of you who guessed the number two, you are correct. Most people do not possess a Class that is applicable to their daily lives and do not wish to change the habit, so their Status screen is just a way to check if their workout program is working or to tell doctors that yes, they really do objectively need the Emergency Room right now. Same with their Races, most non-Humans just got used to having scales, fur, feathers, or whatever other distinguishing features might be applicable, shrugged, and got back to whatever they had been doing with minimal changes. Some people with Classes like Architect, Mariner, Teacher, or other such sometimes changed their jobs to take advantage, but this is a small population in the grand scheme of things. And that actually brings me to my next point."

The next screen was another enormous list of names. "There are a lot of Classes." There was more laughter. "This list isn't even complete. We find out about more every week, often rarer ones in isolated populations, not to mention more cropping up among those born after the Change. In general, we like to simplify this extreme variety. They can be generally split into noncombatant classes like I just spoke of and combatant ones that tend to get into Dungeons and onto all the commercials. I'm good at what I do, but it doesn't quite have the same spectacle as a fireball. Dungeon Delvers like to divide their own up into general roles. You might have heard the terms Tank, Striker, Healer, Support, Crafter and the like. I won't pretend to be a hundred percent up on current terminology, I'm a Teacher, not a Magus."

The next screen was taken from a commercial put out by the Seattle Guild Hall, depicting an adventuring party fighting a shadowy enemy.

"In general, the rarer the class, the more focused and difficult it is to properly utilize, but the stronger it gets in relative terms. A Knight is generally accepted to be much more dangerous than a Warrior when both are able to apply their abilities, while a Mage Knight is over both. Again, this is in general terms. Most Delvers will tell you that the person matters much more than the Class or Level. Similarly, Races."

Another bewildering variety of names.

"By far the most common of the Changed Races is Beastkin, like myself, making up half of all people who didn't stay Human. This means one out of every six people alive at the time of the Change. Races also come in Common, Uncommon, and Rare frequencies, generally none represented by less than a thousand known members. Races also have the extra layer classification we call Legendary which can be represented by far fewer members, distinguished by possessing five Racial Traits at base instead of four. Races can also be broken up into various groupings sharing common traits. The greenskin Gormor, Angelics, Demonics, and Beastkin are some you all are likely familiar with. I should also note that we as people like to talk about Subclasses and Subraces. These are human inventions to help discussion, not Status ones as far as we can tell. Now the fun part."

The next slide was a giant title splash: "Why Who Got What"

The murmur got extremely excited, only to be replaced by groans and some laughs when the next slide showed a picture of Professor Otterly shrugging.

"Please pardon the levity. This is a topic that is remarkably hard to get hard data on, but the leading hypothesis at this time has narrowed it down to four factors." The next slide had a pie chart with four even divisions. Over one appeared a composite image of several national flags. "First and foremost is one's cultural background. In general, everyone got something they had the tools to understand in some way. Rajput and Naga generally come from India or families descended from there. Samurai and Kitsune generally come from Japan. If you meet a Dybbuk, they are very likely to have some Jewish background. You get the idea."

The second sector picked up a simple stick picture of a person. "Thank my youngest daughter for that illustration. The second factor seems to be personality. Much less absolute, especially considering how few people truly know themselves, but self-image and self-expression seem to affect the outcomes. Among those born after the Change, this particular slice of the pie seems to be more... symbiotic, as it were."

The third was then covered by an image of the world. "At least some of what people got was... well, what to call it has been a rather fierce debate among academics. Call it fate, call it destiny, call it need. In general, everyone became something that, if engaged with properly and with sufficient luck, could drive them to much higher heights. Which of course leads to the last category."

The last quarter had some dice appear on it. Question marks were on all faces. "Unfortunately, as far as we can tell, the last bit is completely random. It's how we end up with Warriors whose Ten and entire life emphasized academia. Maybe it's useful, but the two examples I spoke to felt it was not worth the effort. Either way, we know it is not fully random due to certain statistical anomalies that crop up."

The next slide had two pictures on it. On the left was a family of five Beastkin, Professor Otterly recognizably there along with another Otter, a Penguin, a Whale Shark, and a Flamingo. On the right was a large grouping of Holstaur. "To use a personal example, my own family on the left. Myself, my wife, and our three children all came through the Change as Beastkin. Since they represent approximately one sixth of humanity, that would put the pure chance of our grouping occurring at roughly one in 7,776. Much steeper if you try to account for the fact that we are all able to eat similar diets. And yet, not only do we exist, but such families appear at least a thousand times worldwide in the data that we have access to, which is by no means complete. The real kicker is the picture to the right. The Leni Lenape Dairy in Massachusetts, for example, existed as a Native American tribal group before the Change hit. They became a dairy when they came out to approximately 65% Holstaur and 30% Minotaur. These make up less than a third of a percent of the world, making the chances of that occurring roughly equal to picking a particular atom in the universe at random, and birth rates there since the Change have continued to display this statistical oddity. Thus, we deduced the other factors must exist. We know that being of a particular Changed Race has minimal but statistically significant effect on children born since the Change, but it is by no means total. A Goblin could end up giving birth to a Slime, a Human, or a Beastkin. In addition, the ratio of sexes born since the change have shifted a bit, now coming to roughly 65% female and 34% male, with the remaining one percent possessing both or neither characteristic, or some other kind." He cleared his throat. "Apologies, I'll get off my math soapbox for now."

A random voice from the crowd shouted "no you won't!" to significant laughter.

The professor chucked. "Okay, fair, but in my defense I made sure to say 'for now.' So, we have spoken about what happened and the immediate fallout, along with some hypotheses presently favored. What did we do about it?" Otterly clicked again, and the slide showed the US Capitol Building. "Ah, right. Them again." The crowd kept laughing as he hit the button one more time, this one showing a famous picture. "The seven individuals in black robes you see were the surviving members of the Supreme Court in July of 2AC: four Human, one Gecko Beastkin, one Aelf, and one Spined Devil. They banded back together after missing exactly one judicial season to the Change, then hashed out a set of informal policies that would become the basis for when Congress fully reconvened later that year. Under the auspices of Judicial Review, they found that many laws in force could not be enforceable in good conscience. Some notable ones struck down nationwide were those banning polygamy and prostitution, due to both practices being critical for many citizens to survive. Another was a reinterpretation of the Second Amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms: so long as competence, discipline, and good character could be demonstrated by the individual, no large area could be ever designated long-term to deny firearm possession with extremely few exceptions. Too many people needed them too badly for safety. Different states are administering that differently, of course, alongside their Delver certifications, but you get the idea. Other countries handled it... or not... in their own ways. Word from the European Union is that most of their prior laws and systems adapted well enough once they settled down, for example."

He paused for a moment, looking at something on his screen. "Ah, I see the moderators are on top of things, a very good question came from the messages. So thank you, BlueSkiesAbove, for seeding a question I know you know the answer to. For those here who do not know, he is a fairly prominent Delver from Oregon, and one I consulted with in making this presentation. He asks: if guns are that good, why are so many Delvers negative on them? Let me pull up another picture set and I'll explain, since it also lets me give a good example of what I've been talking about."

He clicked rapidly around some folders on his thumb drive, eventually pulling up a US map shaded in several colors. The legend on the side was labeled "firearms per capita." He stretched a bit as the audience took in the not-at-all surprising information. "Alright, this map was created almost exactly six months before the Change. Unsurprising where the highs and lows of this were. Now for a fascinating bit of data." The next one was labeled with the same schema, but the year was 4AC. Firearm ownership more or less evened out across the country (although the scale indicated the per-capita numbers were about twice as high), the peaks and valleys significantly shallower and a couple of seemingly-random spots much higher than before. "Weapons spread out fast, but the total number of them actually held about level from pre-Change. The spikes mostly represent areas where monster escapes are common, such as Seattle. As for their relationship to Delvers, that takes context. This bit, I do know. Firearms have long been called the Great Equalizer. A moderately trained person with no support from Class or Race can be dangerous enough to matter while in possession of one. There is, however, a major problem once you get past the basics."

The next screen showed several weapons, each pictured with the distinctively off light reflection caused by active enchantments. Below each was a price in gold. The ones under the sword, lance, hammer, and bow were roughly equal. The one under the gun was about fifteen times higher. "Thanks to the fact that firearms need to be enhanced component by component, from the inside out, they are almost impossible to empower to the standards that Delvers require if they're getting into more difficult and dangerous areas of their local Dungeons. I know of four Enchanters in the United States actively working on firearms due to this difficulty, and given our cultural affinity for them that is saying something. Bullets also usually deform too much to carry an enchantment, unlike arrows or stones. Nearly no Class or Race directly supports them, either. Gunslingers and Gun Saint Warriors are quite rare, and most others only offer incidental bonuses like reaction speed, vision, and the like. As a result, once someone gets serious with a combatant Class, more than 75% sell off their firearms. They're more dangerous than the gun, and can't be easily disarmed of their Status abilities. Any questions?"

Otterly looked around the room, frankly expecting at least one or two, but none were forthcoming in person. His moderators reported none that he hadn't already actually answered.

"Excellent. In that case, where were we..." he clicked back to the main presentation. "Ah yes, the fallout of the gifts the Status gave us. So, I mentioned that what one became could often be judged as more or less inherently powerful than others. Thaum, what we call free-flowing magical force when it isn't mana in someone's tank, underpins much of what the Status does to and for us. The problem is that the further one gets from what we once knew as physics, the more dependent one becomes on thaumic energies." Otterly flipped a page in his notes, clicking the button for yet another slide. "If one is cut off from that energy, the consequences vary wildly. A Human or Beastkin might not notice it, a Slime or Troll might be uncomfortable, but a Dragon or Phoenix cannot live without it. They will perish in moments. This is also reflected in pregnancies since the Change." The next image had a pregnant Human on the left. On the right were pictures of a baby Human, Naga, and Thunderbird. Under them were time frames.

"A Human having a Human child takes the expected 40 weeks, still. The time frame gets much longer the more powerful the child is due to needing to gather that same thaumic power, until a woman could spend three or more years pregnant to fully gestate a Legendary baby." There was a subtle oof from the crowd. "There are some ways to mitigate this being studied, but it is a factor."

He turned the slide again, showing a metal statue. "A similar effect occurs if one has become dependent on Class abilities for bodily function, a Berserker who has replaced their skin with living iron will find that they are not particularly mobile without magic." A hand shot up. A rather scaly one, attached to a Draconic-looking humanoid Professor Otterly was not familiar with. "Yes, mister..."

"Emmett, sir. Backing up just a hair, what you just said is concerning to me. I'm sure you can see why." He gestured at his reptilian body. "How common are those thaum-banishing effects you are speaking of? I've never heard of them."

Otterly smiled in what he hoped was a comforting way. "Mostly extremely rare. Abilities that fully negate the thaumic flow in an area are mighty and dangerous indeed. There is one that is quite a bit more common, however, known as Magical Resonance Shock." A murmur in the crowd indicated that several of them knew the term offhand. "Combining like effects in magic is dangerous, as is stacking up many powerful individual abilities. A Lust Demon drinking a sex potion, for example, could suffer this. So could a Fire Elemental swinging a flaming sword. As far as we can tell, it burns out one's connection to the underlying thaum. This has unpleasant effects for Humans, potentially stunting their ability to use magic. For someone dependent on it? This can be a death sentence unless dealt with immediately. This goes double for those so strong they might feel otherwise invincible. That height of power just means they have that much further to fall when their bodies stop functioning." Otterly's whiskers twitched. "This is primarily a hazard faced by magical crafting classes such as Enchanters, Alchemists, and Imbuers. After all, when one develops a specialty, it is often tempting to go further and further with it until one crosses the line. As I said before, there are no take-backs in the Status."

He clicked forward a few slides. "We got slightly astray, but thankfully covered the points I intended. I can at least pretend it was what I planned. Dean Hightower, if you're watching, please ignore that last sentence." His grin matched the laughter that came from the audience, drawing them back from the briefly-somber mood. He stopped on another title splash. "What Comes Next?"

"As the Dean likes to quote, we have 327 different Races enrolled at this school, 326 of which did not exist five and a half years ago. We have 233 different Classes without starting to count the kind that we teach, and no two people here, even with the same Race and Class, are built quite the same way. Thousands of people across the world have figured out that they survived, we all need to make the best of it, and to do that we need to pool all of the knowledge we're getting. But here's the thing, humanity had millenia to learn about themselves, and that was with only one Race to deal with and no Classes. After only five years of existence, there is much we do not yet know about ourselves. Don't let what you think you know about what you got dealt limit you, either."

The next picture was a striking one, a Dwarf in chainmail and a wide-brimmed hat, firing a monstrous-looking rifle. On the same screen was a much calmer one, a woman in Cleric robes working at a hospital.

"Crafters can fight. Delvers can heal. Even more than before, we have the ability to pursue our dreams and the future in a multitude of ways, with more coming to light almost every day. Between when I wrote this presentation and when I presented it, at least three records were broken that I know of and five new major technological advancements have been released that were the result of new techniques and discoveries, each of these potentially opening up new lines of thought and ways to live. Aquatic people are exploring where once we could not dream of diving, magic is supporting crops, and just because you couldn't imagine it yesterday doesn't mean something isn't an option today. My own imagination is not exempt, and to this end all of the data I have gathered for this will be publicly available for download within the week so that you can take a look for yourself. As I close this presentation, I invite you to imagine that future with me. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?"