c2: Character Creation
"The auxiliary system has been successfully activated. Welcome to Ice and Fire: Escape Game. Hello, Mr. Xia Ze your personal AI assistant, Annie, is now at your service."
"Um, hello."
"First, we will proceed with character creation. You are allotted a total of three hours for this stage. Please take your time and consider your options carefully."
"Three hours?" Xia Ze raised an eyebrow. The generous time frame felt oddly serious. For a game where death meant real death, this phase seemed both urgent and woefully insufficient. How much planning could truly be done in three hours when your life was on the line?
Annie didn't respond to his silent concern, and Xia Ze could only turn his attention to the glowing interface now displayed before him.
[Choose Your Ancestry]
● Andals: Strength +1, unlocks the profession "Hedge Knight"
● First Men: Strength +1, resilience in cold climates
● Rhoynar: Agility +1, desert survival bonus
● Ironborn: Strength +2, unlocks "Reaver", gains trait "Salt-Hardened"
● Braavosi: Agility +2, Trade +1, unlocks "Faceless Trainee"
● Free Cities of Valyria (Remnants): Trade +1, latent magical sensitivity
● Dothraki: Agility +2, Riding +1, fear resistance in cavalry
● Yi Ti: Mental Power +3, increased resistance to mental corruption
● Ibbenese: Strength +3, cold resistance, combat with axes favored
Note:
1. Players may choose a primary and secondary bloodline. Visuals and spoken language derive from the primary lineage.
2. Bloodline influences nearly all facets of gameplay, from NPC interaction to survival checks.
3. Language and regional affiliation align with the primary heritage.
"Uh…" Xia Ze rubbed his temples, realizing just how layered this game was. The ancestry mechanics alone clearly reflected deep respect for George R.R. Martin's world-building. The Ironborn really did live by "We Do Not Sow," so it made sense that a farming profession was locked out for them.
"Reminder," Annie chimed in cheerfully, "all choices are non-final until the character is confirmed. You are encouraged to explore freely."
Xia Ze nodded and flipped to the next menu.
[Who is your father?]
A sellsword who served in the Golden Company
A disgraced Sept priest
A simple fisherman from Blackwater Bay
An Unsullied freedman
A former White Harbor merchant
[Who is your mother?]
A camp follower in the Riverlands
A Silent Sister who broke her vows
A Myrish apothecary
A kitchen maid from Highgarden
A Lyseni courtesan
> [Where were you born? (Place/Time)]
King's Landing, during the Targaryen Rebellion
Oldtown, during the Great Spring Sickness
A Valyrian ruin, at the moment a red comet passed
Beyond the Wall, on the longest night in a century
[What did you do in your childhood?]
Scavenged in Flea Bottom
Trained with a Braavosi swordmaster
Tended horses for a sellsword company
Assisted in a Maester's rookery
[What did you do as a teenager?]
Ran messages during the Siege of Storm's End
Was enslaved in Astapor
Worked as a scribe in the Citadel
Fought in a pit in Meereen
[Later you became…?]
A smuggler with ties to Davos' old crew
A Silent Sister in disguise
A wandering hedge knight
A Brotherhood Without Banners scout
[Finally, you arrived as...?]
A mercenary knight
A traveling merchant
A Brotherhood hunter
A "Pirate in Distress"
A wandering sellsword
After a quick scan, Xia Ze noticed a subtle interdependence between the answers. When he selected Ironborn as his main ancestry, certain options disappeared like the farmer background, which made perfect sense considering the Ironborn's disdain for agriculture, memorialized in their house words: We Do Not Sow.
When he tested "craftsman" as his final profession, the earlier stages childhood and adolescence locked him into "apprentice" roles. The system seemed to enforce realistic narrative continuity, ensuring a cohesive personal backstory for each character.
This attention to detail reminded him of how noble houses in Westeros were rigid in class expectations. A peasant child wouldn't suddenly become a knight of the Kingsguard without serious groundwork unless, of course, they were like Gendry, Robert Baratheon's bastard, whose smithing skills and parentage gave him hidden value.
After nearly an hour, Xia Ze had barely made it through a third of the available choices. The sheer volume of permutations was overwhelming. For example, the parent identities included everyone from Lyseni concubines to Free Folk raiders to castrated ex-Septs and even Night's Watch deserters.
Realizing he was wasting time, Xia Ze changed his strategy: rather than starting from the beginning, he worked backwards, prioritizing professions that influenced gameplay most: map access, initial gear, and starting funds.
Eventually, he narrowed it down to five highly competitive final professions:
Mercenary Knight
Wandering Sellsword
Pirate in Distress
Brotherhood Without Banners Hunter
Traveling Merchant
Among them, the Mercenary Knight and Traveling Merchant stood out the most.
While the Mercenary Knight lacked the strategic mobility of the pirate or Brotherhood hunter, he began the game with a warhorse and full armor priceless assets in a world like Westeros. The gear loadout even specified familiar items: a battered nasal helm, an old maile hauberk, leather gauntlets, and greaves.
Compared to small layout variations, Xia Ze believed armor was a game-changer, especially in the early stages when most players might only carry ragged tunics or daggers. In a world where even a crossbow bolt could mean death, a suit of armor could be the difference between dying in Flea Bottom or surviving long enough to reach the Twins.
After all, the reason why Syrio Forel, once hailed as the First Sword of Braavos and dubbed by Arya Stark as "the greatest swordsman who ever lived," was slain by the brute Ser Meryn Trant of the Kingsguard who was more famous for beating child prostitutes than battlefield valor was precisely because of armor. Syrio wielded only a wooden training sword, while Trant had a full suit of Lannister-forged plate and a longsword. As Sandor Clegane the Hound—once put it, "A knight in armor can beat ten who aren't."
That's why the traveling merchant profession appealed to Xia Ze. It granted an initial capital of one hundred gold dragons, along with four servants (non-combatants), two carts, seven mules, and four aging draft horses a mobile base of operations with logistical superiority.
For a player favoring a backroom strategy playstyle, it was the ideal setup. If not for the fact that the Traveling Merchant's base stats averaged only 5, Xia Ze would have locked it in without hesitation.
These two Mercenary Knight and Traveling Merchant were considered T0 professions, the highest competitive tier.
Then came the T1 professions, starting with the Wandering Mercenary. Though equipped only with leather armor and a short sword, their layout stats which influenced early-game positioning, mobility, and influence ranked highest among combat types. Their raw combat effectiveness was formidable for solo skirmishes and urban ambushes.
Next, the Distressed Pirate. Starting funds were just 10 gold dragons, but they possessed balanced stats and were adaptable across sea and land. The downside? This class was exclusive to Ironborn bloodlines. Considering the Ironborn's reputation across Westeros and Essos raiders, reavers, slavers—their presence often led to NPC hostility. Xia Ze reasoned that anyone wishing to play this class would be wise to assign Ironborn as a secondary bloodline, or risk being chased out of civilized settlements like Oldtown, White Harbor, or even Braavos.
Then there was the Brotherhood Hunter. Not exceptional on paper, but it held one distinct advantage: it was the only starting profession specializing in ranged combat. For players preferring ambushes, assassination, or stealth-based progression, the Brotherhood Hunter offered long-range lethality and the ability to deal critical damage from the shadows echoing the real Brotherhood Without Banners' guerrilla warfare tactics led by Beric Dondarrion.
These three formed the T1 tier.
T2, the mid-tier, included but wasn't limited to: Ascetic Priests, Wandering Red Priests, Rogues of the Rhoyne, and Faceless Initiates. While flavorful, they lacked clear early-game advantages in survivability, mobility, or gear.
Then there were the bottom-rung starting options: landless farmers, pickpockets, newly escaped slaves, Flea Bottom beggars, or even inn "ducks"—a crude Westerosi slang for sex workers in failing taverns. Xia Ze was convinced these existed only to insult the player's intelligence.
"This is a life-and-death isekai scenario!" Xia Ze muttered. "What kind of lunatic chooses to start as someone who'd get flayed within five minutes?"
With the profession analysis done, Xia Ze began working backward through the character tree. He quickly discovered several powerful builds by combining endgame professions with corresponding early-life backgrounds.
For instance:
Primary Bloodline: Andal
Secondary Bloodline: Dothraki
Father: Mercenary
Mother: Maid at a knight's keep
Childhood: Sparring partner to a hedge knight
Adolescence: Squire in a minor lord's hall
Adulthood: Knighted for valor in a skirmish
Final Class: Hedge Knight
This route granted immediate combat prowess, armor, and a warhorse akin to the early rise of figures like Ser Brienne of Tarth or Ser Davos Seaworth, who rose from obscurity through battlefield merit.
Another path:
Primary Bloodline: Ironborn
Secondary Bloodline: Ibbenese
Father: Pirate captain
Mother: Salt wife captured from Ibben
Childhood: Grew up on a longship
Adolescence: Joined raiding crews
Adulthood: Became a full-fledged reaver
Final Class: Distressed Pirate
This created a berserker with Strength over 30—a living battering ram. But Xia Ze was puzzled: "Isn't there reproductive isolation between Ibbenese and others? How does this even produce viable offspring?" It was a bizarre case, but apparently supported by the lore's looseness around genetics and legends.
Taking everything into account, Xia Ze chose to prioritize long-term potential over early-game domination.
He locked in:
Primary Bloodline: Andal to unlock the Hedge Knight class
Secondary Bloodline: First Men (Ancestors) for access to latent magical potential
One crucial note in the system caught his eye: "Bloodline affects all facets of gameplay, including potential access to magic." Xia Ze, a veteran game developer, immediately understood the implication.
In a fantasy world with rich lore, magic systems always mattered. So what magic existed in A Song of Ice and Fire?
The most prominent was the Lord of Light's resurrection magic, seen in Thoros of Myr reviving Beric Dondarrion multiple times. But such magic was too overpowered to be player-usable Xia Ze guessed it was tied to high-tier NPCs like Melisandre and could only be acquired via rare faction recruitment events.
Outside of R'hllor, the most viable magic was the greenseer magic of the Children of the Forest green dreams, animal warging, and weirwood clairvoyance. These powers once mastered by Bran Stark, the Three-Eyed Raven offered stealth, reconnaissance, and limited prophecy. Crucially, they had fewer drawbacks than fire magic and were tactically superior for a survival game.
However, green magic was likely restricted to First Men bloodlines, which meant only players with Ancestor lineage might unlock it.
As for dragon-riding, it was completely off the table. Only pure-blood Valyrian Dragonlords like House Targaryen could mount dragons, and even diluted Valyrian descendants (like those from the Free Cities) lacked this ability. Calling themselves "Remnants of Valyria" was more self-aggrandizement than biological truth.
So in the end, Xia Ze finalized:
Primary Bloodline: Andal
Secondary Bloodline: Ancestors (First Men)
This gave him martial capability and the potential to access greenseer magic, positioning him for both survival and narrative growth in the brutal realm of Westeros.
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