I remember how I got into streaming like it was yesterday. It was November 13th, 20XX—etched into my memory like a turning point in a novel. I got a text from a buddy of mine that school was called off for the next two weeks. Something about a flu spreading fast.
At the time, it felt like winning the lottery. Two whole weeks off? Right in the middle of the school year? I was over the goddamn moon. A spontaneous vacation handed to us by fate—what high schooler wouldn't be thrilled?
But man... I had no idea how wrong I was.
The first week was everything I dreamed of—beer runs, meeting up with friends at the flooded caves to hang out and goof off, gaming deep into the night, and pretending homework didn't exist. It was bliss. Pure teenage rebellion, wrapped in the illusion of freedom.
Then the second week hit. And with it, the lockdown.
Suddenly, the state pulled the emergency brake. Full restrictions. No leaving the house, no meeting up with anyone. My world shrank to four walls and a screen. My friends and I still gamed together online, but as the months crawled by—eight of them, to be exact—I realized just how serious this thing really was. It wasn't just some flu. This was the beginning of a global pandemic that would go down in the history books.
One by one, people drifted away. My friends became distant—buried under their own personal messes. And me? I was stuck alone. My dad had gotten stranded abroad during the travel bans, and my sister had all but moved in with her friends, leaving me with a quiet, echoing house and far too much time on my hands.
The isolation began to gnaw at me. I started seeing things out of the corner of my eye. Shadows that lingered too long. Whispers in the next room when no one was there. I needed something—some kind of outlet. So I started streaming. Not for an audience. Not for fame. I just needed an excuse to talk. To speak—so I wouldn't go completely mad.
For months, no one watched. I was talking to the void. But then everything changed.
Around the tenth month of lockdown, something incredible happened—AI and modular coding technology made a massive leap forward. The kind of leap that shakes industries to their core. Medicine, programming, entertainment—it all started shifting.
And among the first wave of games born from this technological renaissance was, in my absolutely humble and unbiased opinion, a masterpiece: {The Ark of Azathoth}.
This game didn't just use the new tech—it embodied it. It was a rogue-lite dungeon crawler at first glance, but beneath the surface lay a vast, reactive world. RPG mechanics, open-world exploration systems, NPCs that responded intelligently to nearly anything you did. The magic system was deep, the meta progress system was deeper, and the emergent gameplay? Nearly limitless.
It was thanks to that game—and its glorious, chaotic freedom—that I created my first viral clip. Just an edited VOD from a random stream where I used an infinite orphan generator to fight a Chimera. Don't ask me why. It was stupid. It was fun . And it blew up.
That one clip changed everything. Suddenly, people .watched. They came back. They subscribed. They chatted. I wasn't alone anymore.
I leaned into it hard. I streamed for hours a day, every day, until I spent more time with my chat than with real life. Meals? Skipped. Sleep? Optional. Exercise? Who had time when there were monsters to slay and hype-train records to break?
I got known for doing completely unhinged challenge runs without reading a single wiki page—I hated spoilers. And here I was again, about to start another run. The last one had ended in glorious failure: I'd tried to reach the tenth dungeon floor with only a squad of one-armed veterans. It ended, predictably, with me getting roasted by a wyvern. But before I died, I found something: an item called [Fragment of the Platinum Moon].
One chatter—who got banned shortly after—spilled the beans. Apparently, it was a rare item that unlocked and could upgrade the Lycanthrope Trait.
So here I was again, back at the character creation screen. And Chat was already frothing at the mouth.
> "Jujustan donated five dollars: Come on, Teracot! Just give him the giraffe neck. Please please please…"
I shook my head with a sigh and smirked at the screen.
"I would" I said into the mic, "but y'all know how that messes with gameplay. I actually wanna get a feel for the Werewolf trait first."
That didn't stop the flood of pleading. I could practically feel the tantrums radiating through the monitor.
"Next time," I promised with all the solemnity of a politician making empty campaign vows. "Next time, we'll make something so grotesque it'd get exiled from Chernobyl for environmental damage."
The chat loved that.
You see, the reason appearances mattered in {The Ark of Azathoth} was because of its unique stat system. There were three types:
Primary stats you could control directly, like Strength or Arcana.
Secondary stats that were shaped by your actions, like Fame or Karma.
And then there were the Wild stats —completely out of your hands. Like Luck.
But your appearance affected your Charisma, which was a secondary stat. So, yeah. Making your character look like the love child of a Habsburg and a Meatcanyon skit? Funny. But not great for social interactions.
I was still fiddling with sliders when I realized I wasn't even halfway through character creation yet. For this run, I wanted something that fit. Something that felt right for a werewolf.
Eventually, I settled on him:
*Arthur Landis*.
A pale, six-foot-four figure with shoulder-length dark hair. Muscular, but in a hungry, dangerous way. He looked like a starving predator—pure sinew wrapped in thin skin, emaciated but strong. His face was hollowed, with sharp cheekbones, a hard jawline, sunken blue eyes shadowed by deep bags. A three-day beard gave him a rough edge, like someone on the run or on the hunt.
Later, once I selected the Lycanthrope Trait, he'd grow thicker sharper nails , sharp canines, and a shaggy coat of body hair. But even now, in human form, he looked like something that didn't belong in polite society.
For his backstory, I kept it simple: son of a blacksmith. It granted starting metalworking skills and a handy 5% discount at every blacksmith under the Tradesman's Guild.
Next came the fun part—allocating skill points, picking Traits, Perks, Drawbacks, Characteristics. The works. I wasn't even going to touch the Job selection until I had a better grasp on how the Lycanthrope mechanics worked.
With a single click—and the immediate, mounting chorus of complaints from chat—I moved on to the next section of character creation.
{The Ark of Azathoth} didn't just bend the rules of traditional game design—it chewed them up, spit them out, and buried the remains under an altar made of pure cold hard cash. There was no stat window, no clean inventory grid, none of that sanitized, gamer-friendly stuff that breaks immersion. Instead, every interface was steeped in the world's lore. If you wanted to carry gear, you had to actually find a backpack, and later maybe earn or craft something better. No magical Mary Poppins prison pocket here.
And stats? Gone was the tidy pop-up panel. In its place: the [Tome of Ego], a warped, flickering book that every character carried like a extra limb —or a mirror. It served as the in-game equivalent of a stat sheet, but in true Ark fashion, it could be damaged, stolen, or simply too dark to read in the wrong lighting. If you wanted numbers, you'd better plan ahead to see them.
As I advanced from the PC design menu, the screen faded to sepia and a rustle of old parchment echoed like dead leaves. A weathered book opened with a flutter, its pages bearing intricate illustrations of my newly created character. These little touches—the immersive interface, the unsettling atmosphere, the way the game refused to separate its mechanics from its world—were what made {The Ark of Azathoth} stand out in a sea of hollow imitators.
And then I heard it.
A breathy string of syllables, like wind dragging broken glass across a stone floor—" nuf teg laer ydaer emos ot evah ."
I froze and turned toward the source of the noise. Just my room. Still dim. Still empty. Shadows pooled in the corners like oil.
I glanced back at the stream. "Sorry for being a bit jumpy," I muttered into the mic. "I'm just waiting on a package from my old man and I really don't wanna miss it."
Chat, ever compassionate, responded with their usual barrage of taunts,unironic support , and deranged gifs. I ignored them and leaned in closer to my screen. There, displayed with reverent detail in the [Tome of Ego], was the visual manifestation of Arthur Landis—my latest player character.
{The Ark of Azathoth}'s Character Creation process wasn't just cosmetic fluff—it was a crucible of lore and mechanical choices that could dramatically affect the game's future. Unlike other streamers, I wasn't interested in meta builds or min-maxing. I preferred chaos, weirdness, and experimentation. As a result, my progression through the game's true meta was pretty abysmal, and my character creation options were... limited.
First: Traits!
Traits were foundational. They warped gameplay mechanics, added buffs and debuffs, unlocked hidden interactions, and occasionally cursed you with effects the developers still refused to explain. I only had two Trait slots unlocked—one for making it to Floor 5, and the other for reaching Floor 10. That was it.
The first slot went to an obvious choice: Lycanthropy.
It granted the usual suite of werewolf-themed mechanics—(Regeneration: One), (Animalistic World: One), (Curse of Desire), and of course the titular (Lycan Transformation) A few other traits were simply labeled (???), which was always a great sign. Could be a hidden bonus. Could be that I'd were barred from game mechanics or had extra weaknesses . Fun times either way.
People in chat were begging for me to read what (Regeneration: One), (Animalistic World: One), (Curse of Desire), and (Lycan Transformation) did, but that would take the fun out of discovering it mid combat.
As for the second trait... I had no idea.
"Alright, you goons," I announced, leaning back in my chair with a smirk, "what trait should I take? And remember,no metagaming. If you do, I'm having the mods add an extra electron to every atom in your body."
Chat erupted. Suggestions flew by like bullets in a warzone, but we all knew the unspoken rule: whoever donated the most got to choose.
> Samsnug donated ten dollars : You have to take Whisper of the Other! Makes meta progression a breeze!
> goththotsimper900 donated twenty dollars : Take Casanova's Charade! Best seduction trait, trust me.
*goththotsimper900 was immediately banned for violating Rule 3: no perversions. This is a Christian Minec**ft server.*
I watched the escalating donation war with mild amusement. It took maybe ten minutes before a victor emerged—predictably, inevitably.
> Nyhala donated eight hundred eighty eight dollars : I really want to see [Gift of the Black Pharaoh]. Can you please choose it for me, my love?
Ah yes. Nyhala. My biggest donor, most dedicated fan, and probable future reason for a restraining order. Their financial support was matched only by their unsettlingly encyclopedic knowledge of my life—including, somehow, the precise dates and symptoms of my past hallucinations.
I'd asked other streamers for advice. "Milk them dry and ghost them," they said. Real helpful.
Instead, I was trying—possibly in vain—to steer things toward friendship territory.
Boundaries. You know, healthy stuff.
"Sure," I replied casually, even though I had already selected the trait. "It's the one that lets you choose one of three random item for every boss slain, right?"
I sent a quick private message to Nyhala, kindly reminding them that they didn't need to donate that much money. Then I quietly refunded it.
'Better not to give them the idea that I owe them something,' I thought, cracking my knuckles out of habit. A little stress tic.
Time to move on to the next section: Perks and Drawbacks.
These were a balancing act. For every perk you took—small, mostly quality-of-life improvements—you had to take a matching number of drawbacks. Nothing game-breaking, but they added flavor, unpredictability, and pain.
I picked two of my usual favorites:
* (Read the Fine Print): Any pact made with a familiar couldn't be broken from *their* end.
* (Mom Didn't Say Anything): Immunity to mind-control or forced command effects.
In exchange, chat helped me pick two glorious punishments:
* (Miss.Fortune), which did exactly what it sounded like.
* (Fear the IRS), which forced me to pay in-game taxes or risk punitive raids.
And not just any raids— but combat wizard raids , sanctioned by none other than the the king of the Ark, Azrha the Goldfiend. Refusing to pay meant hits to once karma score and being forced into hours long exposition to the ruined world that lay outside the Ark. Refusing with this drawback enabled? That leads to what was essentially trial by combat,if one wins no taxes were to be paid and if one lost?
I would have to create a new character.
Moving on to the one final category I still had control over—Characteristics.
In {The Ark of Azathoth}, Characteristics weren't strictly about combat. They were more… ambient. Atmospheric. They shaped how the world responded to you, how you processed it, without tipping the scales too hard in one direction. Take (Pyromaniac) , for instance. That one doubled your progress in fire-related skills and lore, but halved everything else—and locked you into accepting any fire-related quests, payments, or rewards whether you wanted them or not. Or (Highborne), which unlocked a whole web of noble interactions, secret courtly sidequests, and titles… while slamming the door on the lower districts and gutterfolk, cutting you off from half the grime and half the black market .
They were like weaker Traits that didn't evolve throughout the run. And with the key difference that one could develop new Characteristics during a run if the games AI thought that it would fit.
Personally, I didn't want something that'd steer me too hard off-course from exploring the (Lycanthrope) Trait. Some of those Characteristics—cool as they were—could warp the entire experience. So after some back-and-forth with chat, full of heated debates, shitty memes, and a poll war that ended in a tie, we agreed on a rare option: none at all.
Sometimes the best flavor is no seasoning, just to see how the dish cooks.
And with that, we reached the final phase in forging Arthur Landis: Stats.
Or more specifically, *Primary Stats*. These were the backbone of any character, and in {Ark of Azathoth}, there were five:
* Strength measured raw physical power—lifting, swinging, breaking bones.
* Agility was your speed and precision—how fast you could dodge, shoot, move, react.
* Endurance determined how long you could keep going—your stamina, your pain threshold, your HP pool.
* Mental reflected intellect, willpower, problem-solving, and resistance to insanity or spiritual stress. Y'know, „brain stuff".
* And Arcana? That was your connection to the mystical. Your mana reserves, your spellcasting aptitude, your grip on your summons.
Of course, behind every primary stat were secondary stats,and the way your numbers interacted could result in weird synergies. I once built a tank who had *so* much Strength and Endurance that the game gave him a hidden 2x multiplier on the secondary stat natural armor. The man was m1 abrams tank in all but name.
For context, a normal civilian NPC sat around a 3 average. A trained mercenary hovered closer to a total of 4, maybe 5 in their area of expertise. I had twenty pointsto spend. And no clue how the hell the werewolf archetype even scaled.
"Ugh, how should we do this?" I groaned to chat, practically digging furrows into my scalp as I scratched my head. "I have zero idea how Lycanthropy plays. Nada,null, non. Uhh Do I go even spread? But what if I accidentally dump points into something useless? Randomized? Nah, we'll save that for the charity stream in two weeks, the one for children's cancer research."
Then it hit me. "Oh wait—what if we went full roleplay build?"
The idea immediately lit up chat like a firecracker.
"I mean, werewolves are usually portrayed as barely restrained savage beasts, right? So… two points in Mental. Just enough to sound out what we are reading and not fully stable. I'll just grind out the deficit in the library or something. Next, we bump up Strength and Endurance—classic close-quarters, full on blood thirsty monster ya know . Maybe six in Strength? Seven?"
The next thirty minutes were a fever dream of brainstorming, polling, jokes, counter-jokes, donation bribes, and theories. In the end, here's what we settled on for Arthur:
* Strength: 6 — Because it felt just right for a werewolf to hit like a drunk driver that saw a loving and happy family of five.
* Agility: 5 — Just in case we needed to book it.
* Endurance: 3 — Lycanthrope's regen should cover the gaps, not to motion all the other stuff it gave I did not want to read. Really Arthur should be a beast in the physical aspect of life.
* Mental: 2 — For the moon stricken madness thing I had planned, and it was probably the easiest thing to grind up.
* Arcana: 4 — I still wanted to test if the Trait unlocked any spellcasting options or had other stuff that relied on mana .
With everything locked in, I pushed back from my desk and stood up. Nature was calling before the real descent began.
As I stepped out of my room, that old fear slithered back into my chest. Being alone for so long during the endless lockdown had left scars in places most people never noticed. A dull, irrational paranoia gripped me—like any dark corridor might hide a home invader, or worse, something… unnatural. The only reason CPS never got involved was because I was technically homeschooled, and on paper, my older sister still "lived" with me.
Didn't matter much. My eighteenth birthday was a month away. After that, no one could legally give a damn.
I crept through the dim hallway like I was in a stealth section, heart pounding for no reason. I half-expected to see some ghost at the corner of my eye, or a distorted face pressed against a windowpane—but no. Nothing. Just me and my creaky house. I finished my business and shuffled back toward my room, letting out a nervous breath.
Just as I reached for my door handle, I called out to chat over my shoulder:
"You ready?"
No answer from the tts.
Of course there wasn't. They never heard me.
Because by the time I stepped inside, my computer was off.
I blinked.
It was still warm.
And floating in the center of my room… was a sphere. A black, featureless sphere, pulsing with something wrong. Something that didn't belong in any real world or fantasy one. It hovered without a sound, drinking in the light around it like a singularity made of static.
I froze. Every hair on my body stood on end. Something ancient in my bones screamed run—but it was too late.
The sphere lurched toward me, and the last thing I saw before darkness swallowed me whole was my own reflection—warped and wide-eyed in that unknowable black sheen.