In the dawn of mankind, many creatures strived for survival. Among these creatures, there were some more powerful than others; intelligent and magic creatures, which knew men were intelligent beings as they were, and which feared that mankind would someday rule the world. Those creatures haunted mankind, and often kidnapped their children. Some of those children managed to grow up, learning the creatures magical secrets, becoming known as mages. As time passed the mages ended up gathering themselves, and started to search for a way to free mankind from the creatures’ constant assaults. They eventually found out a way: they would open a portal to banish the creatures in an other world. But to do so, they would give up their lives so one of them would absorb all their powers. Hur was chosen to perform the task, which he did… but the spell was stronger than planned, and some human groups were dragged to the other side with the creatures. Knowing what happened, Hur decided to cross the portal and lock the passage from the inside, gathering the human groups under his guidance. This new world was called Erinia. The rest, as they say, is history…
Erinia is a MMORPG with some elements of Brazilian folklore and religions. All monsters in Erinia are based on Brazilian myths, such as the Sací, and the spell system is based on Afro-Brazilian religious rituals (known as macumba). However, the world of Erinia is a basic medieval/fantasy world. The game takes place in the Tuorhence continent, in which are placed three cities: Aquilonius, Erynian and Hesperius, which are in constant war. New players start at Aquilonius, but can enlist themselves as citizens of any of the three cities.
The character creation lets the player chose gender, skin color, hair color, and hairstyle. Each character has 6 basic attributes: Strength, Constitution, Agility, Dexterity, Mind and Spirit. There are no fixed classes in Erinia, but the player can basically emphasize the characters attributes in order to produce a Warrior (with more Strength and Constitution) or a Mage (with more Mind and Spirit). Besides the attributes, the characters also start with two abilities: Battle Concentration and Avoidance. Through the game, new abilities can be learnt, giving focus to the character’s class.
In regards to the gameplay, Erinia isn’t different from other hack’n'slash RPGs in the vein of Diablo: all actions are point-and-click oriented. The character has an inventory and quick item menu (accessed through the F keys). The equipments have attribute requirements, and some of them have magic effects. At any time the player can check his position on a city or world map, where the NPCs are shown by blue dots. Some of them can teach you new abilities, and some can give you quests to fulfill. Besides the pre-defined in game quests, there are cities wars that happen every once in a while, organized by the game masters. In these wars, the two cities with less inhabitants assigned fight against the larger one.
If a character dies, he/she is re-spawned at the closest re-spawn point. All the characters belongings return with him/her, unless the character did chose to be a Renegade. In this case, the character is allowed to duel with other player’s characters, but if he/she dies, looses all his belongings.
