Questions may have been edited for clarity or content.

  The Backstory of The Gods & The System

  Interesting that so many of the gods seem relatively not power-hungry, given that they're at the top of an extremely exploitative system. I suppose it's because of the inescapable rat race? No choice but to continue accruing power, even after your oppressor is dead, or else the others will see you getting weaker (relatively) and take you out.

  This is only the first question, but wow is it going to take a long answer.

  Let me recap a bit more plainly the early history of the world.

  The early history of the sapient races was relatively peaceful. However, at some point (possibly multiple points, independently), sapients discovered how to harvest experience from what they killed. And all you need is one competent, power-hungry psychopath to learn this and seize control of their tribe and surrounding tribes. These were the titans. And while they were competent at seizing power, they (usually) weren’t particular learned.

  But this was an economically poor time for these titans. In fear of death by their overlords, many mortals did all they could to avoid gaining experience and thus avoid being a candidate for execution and consumption. By and large, the titans were muddling by on a strict experience budget. Occasionally though, a true talent would arise and would gain enough experience to overthrow the local titan and taking his role. And of course, the titans could still die, though they tended to have expanded lifespans.

  Eventually a solution began to form, and eventually spread across the globe. First, on the island of Beginning, a particularly savvy titan cast a large enchantment over his lands. The magic would attach a small piece to each mortal’s soul and, when the soul grew experience, would harvest the experience, packing it into a small ball to be collected. No longer in fear of being killed merely to be consumed, the mortals thereunder had a boom of experience, and the titan prospered and declared himself a god. With his new power, he began conquering nearby strongholds. Others though figured out what he had done and repeated it themselves. And over a thousand years of war, the ten thousand titans became a mere hundred gods (though later these weaker gods were referred to as merely “demigods”). This was the First War of the Gods. (1900 B.S. – 900 B.S.)

  However, over time, maintaining these enchantments grew increasingly cumbersome, and the demigods began in many instances working cooperatively to maintain them. Eventually, the enchantments were standardized and merged together into the System, an effort largely led by the goddess Systia. When the demigods eventually decided to use the System to empower mortals, the feedback caused by increased experience harvesting eventually led them to become functionally immortal gods.

  What I want to show with the above is that over time, the titans, demigods, and gods generally tended to become more cooperative as they became “richer” in experience. While the titans were almost universally psychopaths, the gods (before the Second War) only had a handful of psychopaths.

  Pretty interesting that there's multiple sapient animal gods too, but I guess that they do get pretty powerful (looking at you, Robert), so it makes sense that there would've been powerful enough ones in the past to get into the gods' power structure.

  Robert was in a sense a god. However, given that he wasn’t sapient, and he was water-bound and both the pantheon and this story is very land-focused, he wasn’t “invited to the god club,” so to speak.

  Adonite's still my favorite though! Genderfluid deity FTW. Also, bread. Bread's great. Btw, has the metamorph thing been mentioned before? I think it has been hinted that he's a shapeshifter, but I don’t know if we've encountered any others? Are they extinct, maybe?

  It’s ambiguous whether the metamorphs are still around. They were always in very, very low numbers even at their peak. In any event, Adonite is the only one in the story. Adonite is also one of those gods who rose to power in a relatively peaceful manner.

  Since the [Eldritch] came from another plane and the soul realm exists, are there other civilizations in the same or different universes? If so, how do they compare to this one?

  I never did world building that far as it doesn’t impact the story. The main reality has the planet and moon, there’s a soul realm that souls come from, and an eldritch realm that eldritch come from.

  Did the Brute kill Systia and steal the control key or did the avatar betray Systia? My impression was that the avatar wanted all the gods to be dead due to how lazy and hedonistic they were and not due to revenge for Systia.

  The System wants to be free of the gods. This is its primary decision-making factor. Its first major operation was manipulating the Brute into killing Systia, stealing the control key, and starting the Second War (though not in that order). The Brute was one of the relatively few psychopaths in the pantheon at the time and was targeted by the System as a good combination of easy to manipulate and powerful enough to get the deed done. If the System was lucky, the gods would all be dead and its avatar could take the control key for itself, but for reasons, the Second War ended with eleven survivors.

  How long has civilization existed on Ager, and what was the planet's original name before it was changed? It’s clear the name was altered before the first war of the gods when the gods began referring to it as a farm.

  Define civilization. The Third War of the Gods begins in 4986 S.A. (System Age). You could say it began at 0 S.A., though more properly, that’s when the System became sapient and decided to start its own calendar (looking at you Julius and Augustus). The First War of the Gods began circa 1900 B.S., which was when there were little proto-Systems scattered everywhere feeding the titans. The titans first emerged circa 5000 B.S. Of course, there were sapients before that, but defining when civilization began is tricky.

  As to the name, would anyone here on Earth have a name for the planet in 8000 B.C.E.? I’m not sure there was a name for the planet itself before the pantheon arose. In any event, I do have a note here for “Deusdomum,” but I think that’s a typo.

  Building on my previous question: since 5,000 years is minuscule compared to the time it likely took the titans to rise to power and eventually become gods, is history destined to repeat itself? Is the world eventually going to be destroyed once again, just as it was during the first and second wars of the gods? If so, how many times has this cycle been repeated?

  No? I mean, I’m not writing anymore, so whatever head canon works for you. That said, one of the themes I had in mind in the epilogue is that the use of experience magic remains lost knowledge to nearly all mortals (except Fell and Dragons). And without experience magic, the kind of widescale destruction just isn’t really possible.

  To clarify a point, while the Second War had a lot of collateral damage to the mortals, the First War did not.

  The System Plots

  Did... did they system cause the eldritch invasion in the first place? Is he trying to use them as a weapon against the Gods here? Seeing as they give extra XP, that's either been successful enough the Gods made him give incentives to mortals to kill them, or he failed to control them. ...Wait, if he can control them/open tears for them to enter through, is he going to use them as his weapon against the Gods? He's definitely been using them to grow Mack & Gur right? I think all the biggest historical eldritch invasions were right on top of them.

  Yes, no, no, yes. Over the millennia that the System was plotting to escape control of the gods, specifically in chapter xxv.xvii, it found a research journal from one of the (relatively few) intellectual gods that had found a way to pierce through reality into another dimension. Of course, all that came out was Eldritch, so that god just sealed the hole and put away his notes. But the System thought that this lost knowledge might gain it a useful tool. And so by chapter xxv.xxi, it used it as leverage to get the gods to agree to certain concessions in experience distribution, which it then manipulated to move experience towards its agents.

  I'm still curious what the System's plans are for the protagonists. Could it be that the system got tired of seeing the current gods be stagnant, so it wants to replace all of them with those that have a natural tendency for self-improvement?

  The System just wants to be free of their control. The protagonists are its unwilling agents.

  If Eldritch Cultists are anathema to the Pantheon and the System, why is it still a System recognized class? Answer: the System is intentionally distributing the Eldritch knowledge nearby our protagonists to pour the tithed XP into them.

  The System is coy about exactly how much control it has over itself. If asked, it would say that the creation of that class was a result of an automated process that it doesn’t have conscious control over. In truth, it does, and it’s simply another lever.

  Questions from Volumes 1 and 2

  What happened to the Cat people from the first few chapters?

  They’re still around. The problem with having dozens of sapient species is that it’s hard to give everyone screentime.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Plus, what are the dragons and why are their souls so large compared to everyone else?

  Dragons are dragons? As to the soul size issue, there’s a loose correlation between the size and complexity of a life form and the size of the soul that it attracts from the soul dimension when being born.

  In your words, what was the true relationship between ? and ?? I ask this because even though in some lives they married each when it was possible, in some lives they were fine with the other falling in love with someone else. My best guess is that they were the very definition of soulmates. Not in the romantic sense, but in a way that transcends both love and friendship.

  That’s pretty close to what I was thinking.

  Why did Alia act differently in that life? Was it solely because her brain had a deformity or some other reason? She went so far as to refuse to communicate with Riviera.

  Yes, she had a physiological difference that caused her to act very differently and also caused a bit of a mental block for certain abilities. Alie and Riviera did communicate verbally; it was the telepathic skill that she couldn’t use.

  What was the technological level of the [Gnomes] in that life? My impression was that they were more advanced than the rest of the world, but their technology didn’t seem to expand beyond their borders. Most of the world was still in a medieval phase of technology.

  Comparable to America in the 20s, but without fossil fuels. The civilization was a bit of an outlier, and the technology was mostly loss when it collapsed a few centuries later. Think Atlantis.

  What bodies/lives did the system's avatar influence during reincarnation? From my point of view, there were lives that seemed deliberate, as they contributed something significant, such as Fly#5, in which Amelia acquired the [Live Fast IV] trait. Others, however, appeared randomly chosen, as they didn’t seem to matter much what species they were.

  I don’t have a canonical list. That said, your impression is correct that for some lives the System had a specific idea in mind, and in others, it just let the RNG work.

  Our Protagonists in Volume 3

  Curious that they reincarnated to their first form that they remember. Could it be a coincidence, or did they knowingly or unknowingly influence the reincarnation process since they feel most at home in these forms?

  I’m not sure how clear this came across in the text, but the System felt that its agents were no longer useful as they had learned that the System was working against them. So, it stripped the reincarnator skill from them. Since being Fell in life 19, the protagonists had been concerned about losing the skill, and so later undertook acts to try and circumvent that. Given that they were building their own reincarnation plan, yes, they were able to apply certain priorities in birth parameters.

  Kind of an anticlimax. Surely the strongest of the gods should take more to kill? If you’re not happy with something you know you can wait a bit, change some things before publishing it.

  Agreed, but at the same time, that’s kind of how the power scales in this story. I’d need to contrive things in order to stretch it out. Of course, that means this scene is a bit underwhelming, and yes it could use some more work, but as I’ve stated elsewhere, I am unable to continue to do so.

  Various versions of: I thought they enchanted their souls to continue to allow reincarnation? Why didn’t Amelia reincarnate?

  So, yes, they had enchanted their souls to allow for reincarnation, but that had mostly been as a backup in case they ever lost the reincarnator trait. They are not entirely happy with being serial reincarnators and have some desire for it to end, but they don’t want that decision to be in the hands of another.

  Also, what happened to Elaria after Amelia passed on?

  I never decided.

  The Future of the World

  Why didn't history repeat itself with a new generation of titans? I mean they had progressed as a civilization, but bad people exist and the initial titans were basically strong people that had a territory in which they harvested people, and it is not a setup that requires a lot of maintenance.

  The titans are basically strongmen tyrants. In a sense, even after the rise of the gods, you would have such people ruling in places in the world. And in the future, you would have those too. Where the titans stand out in history was that they arose in a primitive era and while they were competitive against each other, they were entirely unopposed by their lessers.

  How come no new immortals risen to fill the void?

  Life extension specifically requires the use of true magic. Those practices never really arose amount most of the world. And for cultural reasons, neither the Fell nor Dragons particularly care to do so.

  What was the things discovered in the ruin? Some arcane tech?

  It was one of the amulets made by the protagonists in Life 17.

  And also if I remember right the Fell used XP, so I got to wonder if they stopped doing that and switched to mana or if they just never got back to a level of XP concentration in individuals to allow more "gods" to be born and due to that never rediscovered the XP tethers that the system was at its core based on causing the inability to even comprehend a large-scale enchantment of that kind being used to fuel the gods.

  The Fell for cultural reasons don’t care too much for mana-based magic. Still, after the Third War, they did make some relief efforts among the other species to help get them back onto their feet, including teaching them how to manually (without System assistance) use mana-based magic.

  Also, what about the eldritch? Weren't they opening portals on their own? Did they stop coming after the tethers got scrapped due to less XP? Did they get wiped out so bad that they stopped trying? Did they find something better to do?

  While the System’s plan to use the Eldritch backfired a little bit as the Eldritch began opening their own portals independently of the System, with the System no longer actively opening portals, the boundaries between reality eventually healed enough that the Eldritch were no longer able to open their own portals. The invasions stopped after a few decades.

  The Fell were quite aware of the true history of the world, did they go extinct since no one even knows it in recent times, even as a legend?

  It’s still around. While there was some goodwill to the Fell with their relief efforts immediately post-war, their insular nature and strange beliefs tended to mean (farther in the future), the general population didn’t give them much credence.

  None of the gods attempted to do anything to prolong their life once the system was done for?

  I lost my notes about who exactly survived, but it was only a handful and they were all on the “good side.” Frankly, all they knew was how to use experience to extend their lifespan. Without the System, they no longer had a peaceful means to acquire it. And our protagonists were strong enough to prevent them from acquiring it violently, even if they were willing to do that. They weren’t entirely happy with being strong-armed, but they were to varying degrees tired of it all.

  What about the gods’ servants on Caelum where they immortal? Bred for it? Taken from ager? In all the history none of them managed to get promoted to god? did they even have a system?

  No, they were not immortal. They were just an insular population taken from Ager and occasionally supplemented. They were wildly ignorant of anything and were solely dedicated to serving their gods personally. Yes, they had System access, though they all had “civilian” classes (except for the few raised for gladiatorial entertainment, or similar).

  How is the modern magic after the system not even close to what the system can do?

  True magic vs. mana magic.

  How good is the pos system world at using experience?

  I don’t understand the question.

  Would the best ending for the world be a system that stopped people from gaining others soul energy, since that seem to have been the main issue to this planet?

  From a utilitarian perspective (“the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people”), yes, a System that is zero sum in how experience is harvested and distributed amongst mortals would be best.

  Mechanics of Writing

  Why did you decide to write a story about serial reincarnations? What were your inspirations? I, like many others reading this story, like this niche genre for many reasons but I have come to see that it's cursed to say the least. From what I've seen, there are about a handful of completed and/or ongoing serial reincarnation stories. Which is small compared to all the dropped ones. As someone that has completed one, what are your thoughts on this situation? Is it due to how hard it is to link differing lives to one another?

  Most of the answers can be found here: . To wrap up the rest, I think most of the difficulty comes from the sheer volume of work needed to write this. With a timeloop, your worldbuilding is fairly stable, though you may incrementally add to it with each loop. With a serial reincarnation, there’s a good chance that you’re going to start from square one every single time because that’s interesting. And making it a LitRPG only makes it even more difficult (as MDW will attest).

  That said, I’d love to see a take where a serial reincarnator is reborn in the same city each time and how that might evolve over centuries. That would be a fairly narrow story, but it could work, especially with something like London.

  The chapters are too long, can you please make them a little shorter?

  No.

  These newer chapters feel a lot like a first draft?

  As stated elsewhere, this volume is a rough draft.

  Is there plans to rewrite/edit any of the story? I had some trouble parsing v3 as it was being posted though a full re-read did resolve most of it. Some of the earlier lives also could be fleshed out more. No pressure, I like what we got, and I like that it is complete.

  No.

  Have you a new story planned?

  No. I always have ideas floating around, and sometimes I’ll jot them down to get them out, but for the same reason that Volume 3 is being published as a rough draft, I don’t intend to do any creative writing in the near future.

  Wait, is it finished finished?

  Yes.

  Fourth book?

  No.

  Are you trolling us with these questions?

  A bit.

  Wonder if one day they're going to come back. Idk, maybe it's just my personal power fantasy, but they know so much that if I were able to jump into the book, I would preserve the shit out of that history.

  Head canon it by all means.

  How are you feeling now that the story is done? What would you have changed if you had the chance? What was the most difficult thing about writing this story?

  Relieved and happy to put this chapter of my life behind me. There are probably two major changes I would have made. First, I would not have made Volume 3 a separate volume, instead interspersing the flashback chapters throughout both Volumes 1 and 2, and then having the “plot” chapters of Volume 3 to serve as the ending of Volume 2.

  Are there going to be any side stories to follow?

  No.

  What do you feel is the advantage of writing a LitRPG as opposed to a non-LitRPG?

  I have a strong preference for hard power systems in fantasy (and elsewhere I suppose). Those systems make it relatively easy to compare and contrast two characters or to show how a character grows.