7 World Masters of VRO

The first iteration designs for the seven World Masters of VRO. There's been a lot of changes to them since then. Hopefully I'll get around to showing the new designs soon. My penciling skills have deteriorated a lot from lack of use when I drew this, and it totally shows.

I've gotten a number of people expressing interest in the details of VRO, so here it is:

What are World Masters?
World Masters are players officially employed by EternitySoft to 'move the world'.   They are either hired directly for a specific purpose, or picked from players whose roles have significantly influenced the game world.  Think of them like the World of Warcraft hero NPCs, except controlled and role played by real players who have official authorization to direct the game story in interesting and exciting ways.

I'll list the the World Masters in the order they appear from left to right:

Mayu
Base Class: Mage
Advanced Class: Mahou Shoujo
Specialization: Idol
Race: Nekomimi

Miyu's twin sister. She is extremely charismatic and seems to naturally attract people to her.  Even though she joined the beta way after Miyu, she quickly overtook Miyu in friends and popularity. Using her seemingly innate mastery of social media and her natural talent at singing and performing, she emerged a few months later as an emergent VR idol. EternitySoft immediately saw the possibilities and brought her into the fold, helping her create her idol group Neko House and promoting her career. The decision was an immense success, and brought the company a new source of revenue and target audience that they had not expected. Compared to the other World Masters Mayu's role in influencing the game is relatively small. She pretty much sticks to running her VR idol career and is not actually that great at the game.

Role in the story: Mayu's serves as Miyu's antagonist, although unwittingly. Miyu's relationship with Mayu has always been strained, and Miyu has lived her life wanting to escape from under her sister's shadow. However, Mayu is incapable of understanding this, and always tries to join Miyu in whatever she does, without realizing her presence and aura alone ruins the activity for Miyu. Mayu's party occasionally becomes an opponent for Vim and Miyu's group as they navigate the trials of the Honor of Valhalla world competition.  

Heisenborg
Base Class: Mage
Advanced Class: Sorcerer
Specialization: Spiritmaster
Race: Human

A prominent beta tester that caught the attention of the EternitySoft devs after experimenting and documenting a number of interesting glitches resulting from the combination of various aspects of the advanced physics engine. Many of the interesting effects of those glitches eventually became new spells, items, or equipment properties. He was quickly hired into the team and now serves as the Master of the Infinity Tower, a virtual laboratory where he continues his work with the help of the massive resources of the company. Since then the tower has also spawned the Wizard's Guild, where players who dabble in the magic classes can join a community of experts.

Role in the story: Pretty much a background character who is occasionally brought up due to his relations with the other characters. 

Elwen
Base Class: Warrior
Advanced Class: Blademaster
Specialization: Berserker
Race: Light Elf

The first World Master. She has always been with the company and there are rumors suggesting she was the first player character created in the game. She is the most famous player due to her being known to be invincible. She runs a full STR build, which would be ludicrous when applying common sense.  She also uses the Light Elf race, which is the worst race for warrior based classes. However, by utilizing a 'feature' in a combination of the Berserker specialization's skills, she is pretty much unkillable while dealing massive damage through the stacking of many multiplier bonuses. The mechanics have stayed in place simply because nobody else has the skills to use them in the same fashion she does, meaning they actually die in one hit if they tried to do what she does. She is the Legion master of the Hunter's Legion, an organization that promotes the tracking and hunting of rare monsters (think Monster Hunter) and the master of the coliseum, where she overseas all sanctioned PvP tournaments.

Role in the story: Serves as a mentor to Vim's group after they join the Hunter's Legion.  Otherwise she's the kickass character who appears in the story to solo a world boss while everyone else tries to to storm the fortress. 

Valkyrie
Base Class: Warrior
Advanced Class: Templar
Specialization: Royal Knight
Race: Aesir

The seventh and newest World Master, appearing in the world event that started the Honor of Valhalla world challenge. She also comes directly from EternitySoft, having no known character in the game beforehand.  She appears on all the advertisements for the first expansion of the game, Valkyrie's Requiem Online: The Gates of Asgard. She has three main roles as World Master. First, she appears in all the world events involved in the expansion, driving the story and offering a face to the events unfolding. Second, she oversees and enforces the rules of the Honor of Valhalla challenge. Finally, she is a public face for dealing with griefers and exploiters, publicly appearing and smiting them in vast displays of power. She is the only World Master to use a non player accessible race. The Aesir race grants her huge stat bonuses that would be completely imbalanced in a player's hands, as well as the ability to transform into Godform, the form that GMs and the Norse Gods use to enforce the game world. She also has the Nibelungen Ring, allowing her to call upon the powers of the Gungnir and Sleipnir when necessary (usually to create a show for the playerbase).

Role in the story: She appears to save Vim and Miyu from a PKer who has trapped an entire starter town using an unknown exploit. She intermittently shows up as part of the Honor of Valhalla challenge events. 

Kaiser
Base Class: Scout
Advanced Class: Ranger
Specialization: Sentinel
Race: Human

An arrogant and haughty force of personality that likens himself as the virtual reincarnation of his infamous namesake. During the last six months of the beta the devs released the town building tools to the players, in the hopes of having a crowd sourced method of populating the massive areas of Midgard that remained empty.  He quickly caught the attention of the devs after he lead his legion to create a city so massive and well planned that players would rather live and congregate there than the capital city created by the dev team. He was crowned World Master shortly after and the official capital of Midgard was given to his city, which he named Roma. Many players found the name sticking out against the Norse lore of the game.

Role in the story: He is the powerful bureaucrat that makes life difficult for Vim and co after Vim inadvertently got on his bad side.

Deus Ex Infinita
Base Class: Mage
Advanced Class: Alchemist
Specialization:Metallurgist
Race: Usagimimi

The Guild Master of the Merchant's Union. A child prodigy at math and economics who has won a nobel prize in economics.  Recruited by EternitySoft at high price to manage the economy and cash shop of VRO. Nobody has actually seen her character appearance as she always appears publicly in a Living Orichalcum over armor. She is also an elite pvper who is said to be close to Elwen's level. For the Honor of Valhalla challenges she is a commentator for the public streams.

Role in the story: Commentator for the major challenges.

Lord Master
Base Class: Cleric
Advanced Class: Lich
Specialization: Necromancer
Race: Undead Light Elf

The ruler of the Underworld and the Master of the Assassin Brotherhood. VRO feature's an alignment system similar to those found in open world RPGs like the Elder Scrolls, but far more advanced. Breaking the law of cities and guild controlled regions will increase the player's criminality, and after a certain point the player becomes unable to enter lawful areas without using a disguise or stealth as the guards will arrest them on sight. The underworld consists of sections of the city where the criminal elements can safely congregate. There are many shops and services offered in the Underworld not found anywhere else (ie, Assassination services), but law abiding players rarely dare venture there without a full raid party. The underworld is created specifically to foster a heavy role playing environment where evil can exist without resulting in server wide chaos.  

Role in the story: Many of PKers and assassins Vim and co come across work directly under the Lord Master. He also has more nefarious plans for a major change in the direction of the game.

Note: a lot of the details will probably change as I get closer to the final draft of the story.  Some of these details have already changed since I made this piece.

Other VRO Concept Designs: