Long Road Home: A Wandering Quest (IsekaixLitrpg)

[x]22-25- Years. Years of hard work and struggle and you were finally days away from achieving your dreams. What other stumbled into years ago, you had to grind for, extra hours practicing, working odd jobs that often took a turn for a worse, just to fund your practice, and just when you almost had it. Poof. Gone in a blink of the eyes. Just your luck. (You start with all the prerequisites for a Rare Class (which is powerful and can lead to truly OP Class consolidations), and you have the least internal pressure to return to home, and you are a truly a man grown. However you have the least will as you are burnt out, the range for critical rolls doubles (from a nat1 to a nat1-2) plus you are more susceptible to Red Classes and skills, which can be anything from being forced to take slave skills to becoming a Mind Thrall.

[x]Spirituality. You weren't a scholar nor did you agree with everything in modern religion, yet you had Faith, True Faith (If you know TWI you realise what this could lead to)

The night was dark and full of terrors; and you stood in the depths of the darkness with naught but your cloth robes.

Even though they were scratchy and mass produced, you were beyond thankful to the hands which made your robes, yet you were not thankful for your past self for choosing not to wear anything beyond underwear and a singlet underneath. Admittedly you were in the midst of summer, wherever you have been deposited now clearly was not.

As a child you never thought about faith, belief, or religion. In hindsight you had a fairly prosperous childhood, not once did you worry about your next meal, beyond whether it would be pizza or burgers, not once did you did you huddle in the night lacking a roof or warmth, and not once did you feel true fear beyond class presentations and petty bullies. Though some could say you were one yourself, boisterous, loud and ambitious, your parents would say that you got caught up in the wrong crowd, yet you know you were the ringleader.

By your teenage years you were pushing your friends to do more outrageous things, first from shoplifting sweets from the corner store, to vandalizing property graveyards, selling cut drugs to the younger children at your school, even darker deeds that saw you take your first steps on a journey to find redemption. If it was for survival you could understand such acts, if not excuse them. But your sins were not done for that reason, looking back as a man of the faith many would think that you hold greater self-recrimination for your younger self, however you know that is not the case, even as you lived the days of hedonistic violence you writhed in the night with a heady mix of guilt, rage, and need for approval.

Then on the night before your 17th birthday you awoke to a gun in your face and a SWAT team locking cuffs along your wrists, you were never inherently malicious, but you always had a talent with words, you used it for needling and instigating.

The night prior you and your friends picked up Leonard, an older boy from school, held back a year, an outcast through and through, but somehow you found that he joined your wider friendship group, yet you, and the rest of the nation, eventually found out that he had an incredibly troubled home life and what seemed like a genetic predisposition to acts of violence.

That mix was already dangerous enough, yet by adding towards it with a few blunts that you all shared, three younger boys all poking fun at each other, but especially Leonard about the fact that he was an 18 year old touchless virgin, even at this point there may have been a chance to avert what was to come, but to light the spark you decided to search up incel memes, and for the next hour you and your friends sat in the car crying with laughter at Leonard's lack of perceived masculinity. You lit a bomb that would rock the very foundation of your world, and the world of your home country.

You carried on mocking because he laughed with you, but 17 year old you did not have the experience the 25 year old you have, and you now knew that his laughing face was closer to a tearful one, the full tooth smile, a harsh grimace, and his eyes wide out of anger rather than joy.

You picked him up from the suburbs, he told you to drop him of in the middle of downtown.

You genuinely thought nothing of it.

Until you found yourself sitting in a cell, confused on how you were an accomplice to murder, then a video of the marcarbe shrine he created out of the bodies of his victims was accidentally shown on the live news.

Sick covered your room, and a flood of tears poured down your face.

On that night you were involved in adding a 5th person to a loving house of 4.

They charged you and your three friends as accomplices, to what many called one of the worst crimes in human history.

At first you raged, believing you didn't do it nor did you know what he was going to do, yet as the year passed, in pure solitude since if you were released upon the wing the governor knew you would be dead before night fell. Leonard's crime was so heinous that people broke into the prison looking to revenge.

Nonetheless, as the years passed you recognised your complicity in the act, your words and actions have direct influence upon the world, and that is where you first read about the butterfly effect.

Your actions that night were much greater than the flapping of butterfly wings, rather they were a full on tornado, throwing innocent and misguided lives into disarray and torture.

You felt as if you created hell on earth.

You were implicated in that atrocity, and by your 18th birthday you no longer raged at the world, but at yourself.

In solitude each day felt like a year, yet each year felt like a day.

For four years all you could do was read, workout and eat.

Some people say that faith finds them, or that they find faith. You did neither, from the most obscure religious texts, to the three core books of the Abrahamic Religions, even to the academic treatises arguing against religion. You read them all, you had little else to do, in the silence of the cell, and the flickering artificial light, you created your faith. Brick by brick, thought by thought, question by question.

Maybe you went mad in the four years of silence.

Maybe you felt the touch of your chosen god.

Maybe it was a mix of both.

No, it was a mix a both. You knew what faced you, yet you still asked for it, even begged for it.

To be released onto the prison wing, not in want for worldly pleasures, or greater freedom. You purely wished to let others hear of your belief, for if even someone as revilved as you could taste redemption for your sins, then you wished to give other the choice. You wished to speak to others, to hear their thoughts and beliefs, to even face redemption upon the mortal plane, through a sharpened toothbrush in your spine.

You wished to feel the sun.

Upon your 22nd birthday your doors opened, and for the first time in 4 years, you felt the sun. It was the sweetest thing upon earth, greater than all the drugs and vices that you partook in. Yet you only tasted it for a mere blink of the eye.

For when you opened them; you noticed the night was dark and full of terrors.

You felt your body began to shiver, either, in the shame of memories, because of the cold winds of the night, or even the cold gazes hidden in the darkness, you could not tell.

The barest hints of moonlight slithered through the canopy, illuminating nothing more than your hands and the ground beneath.

Yet that was all he needed.

The man did not know where he was, but he was thankful for even the cold winds on his body felt fresh, the slathering gaze of the night terrors were the first eyes that looked at him as a human in years, so he did the only thing he could do.

He prayed, giving thanks for the opportunity to find redemption for his sins in this place, and one day to return home so he could atone for his actions.

Quick note all religions are weighted equally in power scale, as the system gives out power through individual belief, (this goes for all classes even non faith ones, as the system doesn't only reward overcoming challenges but is built of cultural thought, in a Warhammer 40k type of way) So don't soley choose what has the most support on earth as that has no mechanical affect apart from meeting other believers from Earth, though a religion with an omnipotent God will obviously have a broader array of powers, but a god like Zeus will have a 'deeper bag' of lightning and sky related powers.

[]He knelt in the mud, hands locked together not by chains, but by faith. (Christian, can develop into classes in line with most paladin and priest characters in western RPG's, depending on which denomination exact powers change. Though all denominations will have healing and humanitarian powers within their abilities.)

[]He did not know where he was, yet he turned towards Mecca within his heart, and prostrated himself upon the ground, calling out in a melodic voice. (Muslim, once again a different array of powers depending on sect, roughly similar to Christian classes, with different flavours. The powers will be the least flashy, yet the most focused on conversion, debate, and science. Though Sufiism, which in short is a more mystical version of Islam, leads to more mystical powers.)

[]He did not have enough people for a minyan with him, yet he had never had one, still he called out. (Jewish, still relatively similar as it is also an Abrahamic religion, and some scholars do say that all three previous religions worship the same God, nonetheless there are some differences in classes, in particular with a greater focus on summoning religious beings and creatures. Such as Golem's, Nephilim, and more Old Testament Angels)

[]He believed in the Most High/Allah/God yet he did not know how to worship, nor what was the correct way, so he simply mouthed a prayer, one in which he created. [Mix of all three Abrahamic religions, can do stuff from all three previous religions, yet can have moments where the faith is weak and therefore cannot use abilities.)

[]ARES DESTROY MY ENEMIES AND MY LIFE ITS YOURS!!!!! (Greek Pantheon/Norse/Roman/Egyptian choosing a main god and a secondary god, more limited in scope yet also more power and control over that domain.) there are obviously significant theological differences between each religion but the powersets can be roughly similar depending on which god is chosen.

[]He sat cross-legged, breathing slowly allowing the breath of the earth to suffuse his body and spirit. (Buddhism, Monk Classes, depending on cultural influences changes fighting style and exact beliefs.)

[]He did not kneel, he became one with nature, feeling the spirits of the wild in this new world. He stood and smiled. ( Animism, one with nature, Native American, Traditional African, and Pre-Anglo Saxon British beliefs. Druid type of classes but more powerful and ability to communicate with spirits.)

[]He had no worldly possession to practice puja, so he thought of the eternal truths and the karmic cycles (Hinduism, aversion to violence but power over the karmic cycle.)

[]He grasped his ceremonial dagger and adjusted the turban upon his head (Sikhism Best individual warrior out of any of the options, but not particularly focused on spreading the religion.)

[]His faith was old, beyond old, dead really. Still he thought about the Ahurah's and Daevea's and prayed in what manner he could divine from the last texts. (Zoroastrianism biggest focus on summoning beings, and a scholarly focus.)

[]Flying Spaghetti monster, some would say that this is a stupid religion, rather you say that you have faith in the spirit of humankind (idk how to describe this one, what it says on the tin, could lead to like a therapist or scientist, though if you genuinely believe in the flying spaghetti monster, I'll research a good powerset.)

[] Write in- (There are a lot of religions in the world, and I have missed many that could be interesting such as Mayan esque religion, Confucianism, traditional Māori religions, so feel free to choose any of them.)

I haven't chosen any overt demon worshipping type of religion, as all the 'dead gods' are pretty overtly evil gods, though of course feel free to write them in, as I can still find ways for fit in without conflicting areas. Or we could even take a 'dark redemption' route with our MC taking a misguided yet ultimately villainous route, or even just straight insane.