I said that I was saving the best for last... and I'm finally ready to reveal the heart of Acheron's Awakening: the spell and skill system. It is this system that will set this game apart from not only other BYOND games, but other MORPGs. The description is kind of lengthy, but I really want to emphasize just how simple the system actually is in practice. I'm trying to answer as many questions as possible with this drawn out description of the system, but feel free to ask about anything that is still unclear.

Without further ado:

There are two types of moves that you can learn: Elemental Spells and Weapon Skills. Both types of moves use mana; the difference is that Weapon Skills require that you have a certain type of weapon equipped in order to use them. For example, the One-Handed Weapon Skill "Downthrust" requires that you have a one-handed weapon equipped to execute the move.

The player has 2/5 of a mastery point, thus 2/5 of the pentagon are filled.

There are several requirements for learning a new spell or skill. Most importantly, you must have a full "Mastery Point", represented by the pentagon on the Status HUD. For every level you gain, you also gain 1/5 of a Mastery Point. You can also earn Mastery Points from certain quests, so on average every 4 levels or so you should be able to spend another Mastery Point.

Once you have a Mastery Point, you must find the Tome (spells) or Manual (skills) that will teach you the specific new spell/skill that you wish to learn. The Tomes and Manuals require that you learn the prerequisite spells/skills before you use them. For example, you would need to learn the spells Fireball (Tome of Fire I) and Flamethrower (Tome of Fire II) before you learn Flame Wall (Tome of Fire III).

Once you learn spell or skill, you can drag it down to any of the move select boxes on your main hud to assign it a hotkey number.

As you learn more spells of the same element or more weapon skills of the same type, your previous moves in those categories increase in strength. Additionally, the overall power of your spells is based upon your intelligence, and the overall power of your skills is based on either your strength or agility depending upon the skill type. This ensures that whether you're level 5 or level 50, your lower level spells/skills are still useful and increase in power along with the rest of your stats.

There is one final thing to consider with spells: elemental combinations. When you have put at least 3 mastery points into an elemental spell type, you can then mix that elemental type with any other elements that you also have at least 3 mastery points in. This requires another full mastery point and a Tome specific to that particular combination.

So for example: I have decided to make my character a magic user focused on the elements of Fire and Water. As soon as I have the first three levels of both Fire and Water spells, I'll want to find a "Tome of Fire and Water". Using this Tome will grant me the combination spell "Steam Trail".

There are six different element types (Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Void, Spirit) that each have very different qualities. Fire, Earth and Air spells are primarily focused on different styles of combat. Water spells are all about healing, Void spells are for necromancer types, and Spirit spells are all about special moves such as invisibility and teleporting.

Based upon what elements you choose to master, there are a total of 15 different combinations. With 5 base spells for each element, this makes for 45 different spells. Aside from spells, there are 31 different weapon skills. This makes for a grand total of 76 moves in the game's initial release.

How does this balance out? The max level for characters is level 50. Based upon the mastery points that you earn from levelling and quests, your character can amass 13 total mastery points. Put into perspective:

• You can master 2 full elements, combine them, and then spend the additional two mastery points on a couple of other spells that you'd like.
• You can put 3 mastery points into 3 different elemental types, and combine those elements for 3 different combinations spells and have one mastery point to spare.
• You can fully master a weapon skill and an elemental spell type.

You basically get to choose how you want to play your character, and then develop the "class" that your character will be. For example, if you'd like to create the equivalent of a Paladin:

• Fully master the 5 One-Handed Weapon skils.
• Fully master the 5 Shield auras.
• Put 3 mastery points into the element of Water for healing spells.

I've designed this simple to be extremely simple to understand and use while at the same time being very deep and full of options for customization. There is also a lot of potential to expand this system in the future with new element types or new weapon skill types ("unarmed" would be a good one).