YGGDRASIL

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*"A DMMO-RPG where strength is not everything."*

- Creators describing the game, YGGDRASIL.
**YGGDRASIL** (ユグドラシル *Yugudorashiru*) was a fictional online game in the Overlord series. It was a DMMO-RPG (Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) developed in Japan.

Infamous as the game was, its degree of customization made YGGDRASIL so popular that at one point in Japan, the word "DMMO-RPG" was practically synonymous with YGGDRASIL. The DMMO-RPG's feature ignited the creative spirits of its Japanese players and sparked what would later be known as a Stylistic Revolution.

On the other hand, the game had been active since it launched in 2126 AD. In the current year, 2138, however, the game's community had lost the vibrancy it once had. As a result, the remaining players still playing YGGDRASIL met their final day online.

## Description

YGGDRASIL was a DMMO-RPG released in 2126 by a Japanese developer. According to the developers' website, YGGDRASIL was a game of exploration and so many things were mysteries left unknown for players to discover on their own or in groups. It was a game where all you were told was the controls before being thrown into the deep end. In other words, the unique thing about YGGDRASIL was the incredible amount of freedom given to the players compared to any other DMMO-RPGs out there.

YGGDRASIL required an exclusive console to play, which recorded logs for the week. Though the game was a complete virtual reality, it did not provide a sense of taste or smell and had a limited feeling of touch. Due to the lack of technology when the game was developed, facial expressions and artificial intelligence were not supported. However, there were statuses like hunger and thirst, which existed among players and the mounts they rode on in the game.

The most distinctive feature of YGGDRASIL was its flexible system to allow players the freedom to make choices. Players could select from many races, jobs, and various tools, allowing for customization in the game. If a player were to use separately sold creator tools, they could freely alter the appearances of weapons, armours, interior data, character visuals, and advanced settings of their in-game persona or home. The customization system was far-reaching and broad, even allowing basic programming.

When it came to equipment in YGGDRASIL, one could equip magic items in the following slots: head, face, body, three pieces of jewelry apart from one’s rings, underclothing, arms, hands, left and right rings, waist, legs, and feet. However, one could not equip multiple magic items to the same item slot. While one could wear many magical items around their neck, only the powers from the item that had been the last put on would be usable. Even a suit of full plate armour only counted as taking up the body slot. Players could only put one ring on for each hand.

However, by using the power of a Cash Item, players could put a ring on each finger. Though even if a player's avatar had magic rings on all ten fingers, the maximum number they could activate together was two. A player could manipulate the game's database by using the creator tools and forming original items. One could also buy appearances within the DMMO-RPG. Through doing this, a player could create an unlimited variety of original items. After a certain patch was updated into the game, players were given several ways to change their equipment’s appearance without changing their gear.

     However, there were player characters from different races who were unable to make facial expressions in the game. In the beginning, YGGDRASIL characters had no facial expressions. As a result, a player’s avatar could not change expressions to match their voice. At the same time, a character’s mouth would not move with their words. Later on, external appearances were fixed.

Because of this, facial expressions were impossible to design. However, it was somewhat possible for a player's expression to change by using their own words. For example, it would not be that difficult for humanoid players. However, it is impossible to do so, since writing macros to move the faces of demi-humans and heteromorphic beings was extremely difficult. Instead, players could use their bodily motions to compensate for the lack of facial expressions in YGGDRASIL. Not only that, but a player could also touch their console to select various faces from one of the emoticons, using it as a way to identify the feeling and mood they had at the time.

Nonetheless, the only way to tell how someone else was feeling was by their tone of voice. Producing a normal voice and minimizing the times one sounded different was not a skill unique to just a single person. When players had been depressed, someone else had also seen through how they had forced themselves to appear jovial.

The game had a system where players could pay a fee in order to participate in a lottery to win a rare item. This would include a type of cash gacha within the game where players had the opportunity to cash in money with the chance of winning a prize.

Cosmetic skins were only released and made available in limited quantities. If one missed out on them, it would be extremely difficult to acquire them afterward. As such, players tended to buy up any new cosmetic item that looked halfway decent.

Along the way, a player could make and store a manuscript in book form in YGGDRASIL. After doing so, one could begin to read it like a book in a similar manner as the real world. There were people in the game who put official legal works whose copyright had expired into books and sold them cheaply in the game's market.

On the other hand, YGGDRASIL developers did not provide any information about the game world’s map and they were also inconsiderate enough not to supply any news about the game’s dungeons and things such as ore mining, food preparation, or the raising of magical beasts. In a world like this, one had to investigate and discover things on their own. In fact, even the items that one could and could not use could only be felt out through repeated trial and error on the player’s part. There were walkthrough sites and news sites, but those sites only hosted a compilation of publicly known information or very untrustworthy rumors. YGGDRASIL was a game of exploring the unknown. Thus, any information one uncovered would be very valuable. There was no merit in publishing this valuable information for any stranger to view free of charge.

More importantly, YGGDRASIL was the type of game where information itself held value, with a great example being the World Item. The number of people who freely shared newly discovered information with others was small and they usually had to pay a price if they wish to know about it. The same could also be said with classes, such as Eclipse, that possessed a secret trump card. Although a lot of information had already been collected, most of it pertained to dungeons or other locations and it was estimated that only 30% of the nine worlds had been mapped so far. During the final years of YGGDRASIL, the chances of reliable information being made public on the web was rather high.

There are endless discoveries (special classes, items, etc.) players could find and obtain through adventures, such as focusing on certain skills like instant death spells, etc. with one example being the Caloric Stone, a World Item among one of the hidden items discovered in the game. Besides World Items and skills, there were also apoithakarah, scarletite, or other prismatic ores that were of the highest tiers in YGGDRASIL.

    When it came to players, functions existed (Forced System Access, Chat, Call GM, Log Out, and so on) that they used in the game. For example, using the shout command or a GM call would put the player in touch with a GM almost immediately, and showed how effective the functions were. Another example was the chat channel, where players could look up recent news, like the shutdown of YGGDRASIL. In addition, players could open a system console and connect to the developers’ website to inspect the official guild rankings.

## Worlds and Dungeons

As it can be guessed from the title, YGGDRASIL mainly referred to Norse mythology and had nine separate worlds based on it which were: *Asgard, Álfheim, Vanaheim, Niðavellir, Midgard, Jötunheim, Niflheim, Helheim,* and *Múspellsheim*. While each world was a leaf of YGGDRASIL with their own particular traits, they were estimated to be two to three times the size of Tokyo. The other leaves, however, were said to have been either eaten, or shed and transformed into World Items.

There were nine huge Guild Bases of level 3,000, one for each world. If a weak guild were to control it, they would immediately be embroiled in complex guild wars and holding on to the base would be very difficult.

Each of them was ridiculously huge and there were many places within them, which were difficult to explore. For instance, there were gigantic swamps, verdant expanses of rainforest, scorching deserts, and the like. Players needed special equipment to delve into the dungeons there, as well as a proper strategy and the determination to their life away for the trip. This was because these hard-to-find dungeons contained monsters that dropped valuable data crystals.

In any world, be it either Niflheim, Helheim, or Muspelheim — things became more dangerous the further one went from the center of the world. In addition to wandering monsters, the very terrain itself became a hazard.

Some dungeons could only be found under certain conditions. For example, the entrance to a dungeon amidst a field of flowers in the depths of a forest could only be seen under the light of the full moon. Additionally, there was also the Frozen City in Niflheim, which could only be entered during a blizzard.

The first time one ran a dungeon, there would be a bonus, or about 10% more treasure chests. Also, the first time a dungeon was cleared, the big treasure chest would offer equipment with item levels up to 10-20% higher than usual. Clearing the dungeon under certain conditions would reward a World Item such as the Throne of Kings.

Tabula Smaragdina stated that dungeons existed with an even higher difficulty than the Great Tomb of Nazarick. In particular, he seemed to know that one of those unnamed dungeons needed 36-man parties (a legion) and allowed two guilds to cooperate in invading them.

Dungeons ranged from different types, such as a simultaneous attack dungeon like Nazarick. Many people hated simultaneous-attack dungeons, also known as “die-by yourself dungeons." Dungeons like these required several parties working in unison along different routes to complete and were typically designed so that everyone would meet up at the boss room, where they would face the raid boss together.

In YGGDRASIL, there were all sorts of places which had unique effects and rare materials and monsters could be found in those locations, such as the Pillar of Prismatic Light.

## Music

In the Web Novel, it was stated that YGGDRASIL was filled with sound and each area with its own unique background music. However, since the background was overlaid with the soft sounds, such as the movements of monsters, there were many who disliked it since it became difficult to hear important minute sounds.

Therefore, very few players listened to the music regarding it as nothing more than a soundtrack that one listened to in isolated borderlands. It was more common to purchase items with music data and listen to
that instead.

## Level

In YGGDRASIL, the maximum level a player could reach was 100. The game had two types of levels: Racial and Class levels. Monsters were different, however, since they not only had Racial and Class levels, but Monster Levels too. This was added to Class Levels if they had any.

Additionally, when a player died, two things occurred. The first was the loss of experience points and a consequent loss of levels, enough to set you back 5 levels, though that depended on the way they were resurrected. In YGGDRASIL, this wasn't that big of a drawback, since experience points could be regained rather easily unlike in other games. Characters below level 5 would disappear immediately upon dying. However, the death of a player character with a level lower than 5 would just revert them back to level 1. Secondly, one would drop a randomly equipped item. In other words, when a player character died, they lost 5 levels and dropped a random piece of equipment they had equipped.

Players could lose one or more pieces of equipment if a dungeon expedition happened to be very difficult. Because of that, players sometimes geared themselves up with second-rate items, the kind they would not mind losing. However, players could not clear the dungeon in one go with second-rate stuff, so they had to use their best equipment. The developers designed the game so that the most valuable gear would be dropped first, which meant that the chances of an important item that was key to the player’s strategy being dropped would be greatly increased. Nevertheless, this penalty could reduce a bit of experience loss by using certain revival skills or cash items.

As monsters went up in level, they gained all sorts of special abilities. At this level, they could greatly decrease any damage done to them. As a player would level up in a party, the number of experience points gained was reduced in accordance with the level difference between both parties, to a minimum of one point. If a player's level went down, the skills they've acquired at that level would also vanish and could no longer be used.

However, players who wanted to respect their characters often favored using death as a means to lower one’s levels so they could gain other racial or job classes in place of their old ones. Though the loss of even a single level was considered to be a harsh punishment in a game where each level required a lot of experience points, losing levels was a very lax prospect in YGGDRASIL. In fact, the company behind YGGDRASIL wanted its players to explore previously undiscovered regions and find new things, rather than hunkering down in the familiar territory just because they were afraid of losing levels.

As level difference increases, the amount of experience points earned from killing monsters decreased during the course of leveling up every time.

## Resurrection

When a player used a revival skill, he or she could choose the location they desire. Afterwards, there were four optional methods of resurrection to choose from in exchange for experience points. The first type was an on-site resurrection. The second type was a resurrection at the entrance of a dungeon. The third type was resurrecting at a nearby safe town. Finally, the fourth type was a resurrection at a specified location, such as a guild base where the player was situated in and was a member of.

However, if a character or NPC were to get affected by a World Item like Longinus, it would be impossible to revive the individual without help from the resurrection power of other World Items. There were even items, such as one of Ainz's rings, that allowed him to lower the cost of resurrection. For Shalltear, she has a resurrection item that allows her to instantly revive herself upon dying.

In YGGDRASIL, using spells like [Resurrection] or [Raise Dead] would mitigate a player's level loss if they were to die. On the other hand, NPCs belonging to players or guilds could revive instantly by paying the right amount of gold fee depending on their amount of levels in particular. Their revival didn't come with the loss of levels, but gold coins instead. As long as the guild paid the requisite fees to resurrect them, they would be brought back to life without any ill effects.

## Gold Coin Currency

The gold obtained in YGGDRASIL wasn't just used to buy items, it was also used for many other things in the game. One of these things included covering the administration fees for managing a Guild’s base-defense systems. In addition, it also provided the costs for automatically summoning servants of level 30 or higher, as well as a required medium to launch certain spells. Gold was used to pay the manufacturing costs of items and even the revival of dead NPCs too, in which the price for doing so would vary depending on their level.

Through using separately sold creator-tools, players could even customize the appearance of YGGDRASIL's gold and experience points in place of its original setting. For example, say a player killed a dragon. Gold, data crystals and experience points would still continue to drop by these dragons as per normal DMMO-RPGs, but by modding the game, it only made the visuals of them being dropped by monsters different. While the dropping of gold and experience points did not change, crystals containing data were the ones that dropped instead. Gold coins were always in a stack and they had no weight to it.

Defeated monsters often tended to drop money very easily. This was because there were many crafting classes in the game. Most of them made scrolls, wands, and staves, which were frequently used by magic casters, which they could use as well. If less money dropped, magic item production would be very difficult, and magic-using classes would have to think twice about going into intense combat on adventures. This went against the design philosophy of having players explore the world. Therefore, the game was actually much more generous than its contemporaries with dropped money.

Based on this game's economy, top-class weapons in any YGGDRASIL’s player shop were estimated to cost at least around 100 million gold coins.

## Races

*Main article: List of Races*
There were more than 700 races, including racial classes that needed certain levels of low-rank racial class to learn. Races of YGGDRASIL could be roughly categorized into three taxa. In the game, demi-human and heteromorphic races unlocked racial skills when they reached certain levels. Some items could change races permanently. In the game, humans and demi-humans, who had limited lifespan, would grow and age normally. In contrast to them, heteromorphic races with unlimited lifespan would stop growing after a certain stage.

* **Humanoid Races** included humans, elves, dwarves, etc. Humanoid races were the weakest in basic status and could not have a racial level. Instead, they could learn more classes, which provided high stats or powerful skills more easily, giving them higher potential. Having familiar appearances and advantages, human races were the most popular in YGGDRASIL.

* **Demi-Human Races** included orcs, ogres, lizardmen, etc. Demi-Human races could have more basic statuses and had a racial level. Demi-Human races were similar to the average between Human races and Heteromorphic races. While the Demi-Human races weren't visually appealing, they could still perform better than Humanoid races.

* **Heteromorphic Races** included slimes, vampires, devils, etc. Heteromorphic races owned the most powerful basic statuses, which could be strengthened even more by increasing their racial level. High-ranking races also provided special abilities similar to that of a monster's. Besides providing a racial level and special abilities, the Heteromorphic races were able to also gain more ability points than the Humanoid or Demi-Human races. However, they were penalized in other ways, as the racial level came at a cost where it limited the amount of jobs levels players could learn. Thus, Heteromorphic races were very unpopular just for that reason. PKing a Heteromorphic player didn't give any penalty to the player that did it.

## Classes

*Main article: List of Job Classes*
The class system was considered to be the key elements of character customization. Counting the advanced classes, as well as the based classes, there were more than 2,000 classes in YGGDRASIL that players could choose from.

Although 15 was the highest level reachable in a single class, there were some high-rank classes that seemed to have lower level limits. Therefore, it was actually possible for a player to own at least 7 or more classes by the time they hit the overall level cap of 100. If one ignored efficiency, it was also possible to get a hundred level 1 classes. There were also some 'optimized' class builds discovered by players. In other words, it was a system where it was impossible to have completely identical characters unless you intentionally made them alike.

Additionally, experimenting with different classes was only possible by dying and losing levels. Even if it was easier to gain levels in this game, it was still a time-consuming process for most players. In fact, some powerful classes were unlocked by PKing heteromorphs, which made it beneficial among players. In normal games, most people would spread the news of a newly-discovered class on walkthrough sites to share with others. However, games like YGGDRASIL put a very high premium on information.

Depending on the skills and abilities they possessed, players could pick up different pieces of additional information upon exploring a new area. For example, a class like the alchemists and herbalists, with their herbalogical skills, would be able to learn about the various herbs that they could harvest in the area.

Whereas if there was someone who is level 90 with a rogue class job or a character over level 80 with full specialization as a rogue, it was near impossible to open a locked box. In a way, a high-level thief would be able to steal items from the box. Just because a rogue could, it did not mean said rogue could just immobilize their opponents and rob them dry. The limit would have been one or two items per player.

There were also some classes, in particular, which had the penalty of not being able to summon monsters whose karma values were far too different from their own. However, the fact that Ainz did not have such classes was why he is still somehow capable of summoning angels by using a super-tier spell. Incidentally, the monsters summoned by those classes could only become stronger the closer the monsters’ karma values were to their masters.

The warrior classes were limited by one's real-world reflexes, that restriction only came into play during duels between top-class warriors. For that reason, warriors needed to have a good body in real life to perform well in-game. It was not a deciding factor during normal play. According to Touch Me, when in battle, one could instantly sense an opponent’s intentions, thus evading his or her attacks.

Not only that, there were classes with actual stories behind them. For instance, Cursed Knights had the backstory of being corrupted Cleric-knights who had been cursed for unknown reasons that were never made clear. Particularly, very strong classes like Cursed Knights were bound to have weak points and penalties as their drawbacks to make the game more balanced.

## Skill Points

Skill Points increased with racial and class levels. The growth rate went in this order: Heteromorphs> Demi-humans> Humans. For a random skill point, a human (Human Race) would be one, a goblin (Demi-human) would be two, and a Skeleton Mage (Heteromorph) would be three. This was the case of comparing their best stats, and it would be fine to think of as the general case.

Within the first level, a human had no racial level and would go to their class. A fighter’s skill point would raise by two. For the first level of human, their skill point would be three (2+1: Class Level and Race), a goblin four (2+2: Racial Level and Race), a Skeleton Mage six (3+3: Racial Level and Race). In relation to the raising of racial skill points, a Human and Skeleton Mage would have a ratio of 1:3. At Level 100 it would be 100 to 300 (This is a rough estimate). Since it worked this way, heteromorphs were considered strong.

Unfortunately, after taking a new racial class, the rate of skill point increase would favor the most invested, and so the skill points would also increased. In addition to that, heteromorphs had penalties. They could not have certain classes, could not enter certain cities, were fine to PK, had penalties depending on race, and could not equip certain equipment. Even if they took only one level, the penalty activated. However, the final Racial Class of the heteromorphs had very high skill points. Due to their high skill points, strong skills would become immensely stronger.

Meanwhile, jobs that had difficult requirements would have a higher rate of skill point increase. For example, in some cases, humans would only be able to have that class. Rather than increasing Racial Class, characters that took various classes would be stronger. This was to consider skills as better than skill points. There was a theory that if one wanted to make a strong character, they should not raise their Racial level. That was why humans were popular in YGGDRASIL and not heteromorphs.

## Guild

A guild could conquer a dungeon and use the place as their headquarters upon being granted ownership rights. However, guilds could only own one dungeon at a time. If a guild wanted to claim another dungeon, they would need to relinquish ownership of their current one.

There were just under 800 guilds created within the game, with a guild's ranking system consisting among them all. In addition, discovering a dungeon could affect the world ranking of a guild. YGGDRASIL had a clan system, which differed from a guild system, although the latter had both. Guilds were also granted NPCs, so they could set them up to protect their base.

There were three categories to these NPCs being:

* **Spawned NPCs** poped-up automatically from the dungeons. The monsters, which automatically spawned under level 30, had maintenance costs depending on their type. It was 0 for the undead, but for living creatures, particularly large creatures, they had maintenance costs, which increased proportionally to the size of their bodies. In YGGDRASIL, players could place pop monsters within dungeons by paying the appropriate in-game or real-world currency. However, they would not come back to life after being destroyed, so they were more of a luxury to players.

* **Mercenary NPCs** could be summoned by spending guild finances. In addition, the mercenary system that summoned creatures in exchange for YGGDRASIL currency did not allow for the summoning of Death Knights. One good thing about them was that it could allow a solo player to form a group. However, their AI was not very good and their combat ability was lower than even a poorly put-together character of the same level. Upon grouping with such NPCs, people who weren't good enough were hindered when running difficult dungeons.

* **Custom NPCs** could be customized freely, with their power level depending on the level of the guild stronghold. The lowest-ranked guild headquarters provided 700 level to be shared between NPCs. This could be increased by upgrading to a higher-ranking dungeon, using cash, etc. Customization tools included not only levels, equipment, and appearance, but AI too. Thus custom NPCs could be made and used as powerful guardians. Of course, a guild was totally free to customize its NPCs just for decoration purposes.

Financially, a guild base which only popped large living creatures would rack up a ruinous maintenance bill. If a guild base’s innate income was not sufficient to cover those costs, the guild members would have to earn that money themselves. In addition, trap activation and monster summoning were expensive. Being attacked by an enemy guild could incur incalculable expenses for the defenders and might even force them into bankruptcy.

## Magic

More than 6,000 different spells existed in YGGDRASIL. While magic in YGGDRASIL had a ridiculously large number of spells, they could not be changed nor made by the creator tools and it was impossible to use all of them. A level 100 spellcaster usually knew around 300 of them (3 x caster level in the Web Novel). Even basic functions, such as messages, needed spells to use, so most of the spellcasters had trouble managing all the spells they desired to have.

There were cash items that could actually increase that number by another 100, making it a grand total of 400 spells within their control. Whereas bonus abilities like "Dark Wisdom" could be inherited from a race such as Overlord and grant the player of that kind up to 718 spells, which was large twice the amount a player could learn at a max of 300.

Firstly, in order to learn magic, you had to first fulfill the necessary prerequisites. For starters, there were selected classes a player had to choose, special events they had to go to, they had to use certain items, and so on, in order to learn magic. If successful, they were able to use the selected magic type of their choice. And for that purpose, there were players who devoted 1/3 of their total magic to the prerequisites. Some players also tended to give up learning as they could not clear the prerequisites.

For those who attempted to become specialists, there was a problem about what to choose. It was extremely common that the magic that they wanted to learn was not within their field of expertise. It was not rare among players to die repeatedly and recreate one’s classes every once in a while. Also, there was the tricky problem of handling the stats that came along with it.

If the player's magic power or level was high enough, they could potentially deal more damage with a spell, or maybe their range would increase more than other lower level players using the same kind. In this case, let's assume that there was a player who specialized in faith-type classes, and was a user of the "Fireball" spell. Based on the damage and distance capability, their spell would not be as strong as other players who used it with classes that focused on magic power.

To start off, magic was divided into eleven tiers: From Tier 1 to 10 and exceeding passed it is Super-Tier Magic. Super-Tier Magic had miraculous power that compared to a 10th tier spell but suffered from huge casting and the cooldown time, preventing the frequent use of it. Casting super-tier magic decreased the magic caster's defense while receiving a certain amount of damage canceled the casting.

As consoles were mandatory for the game, they were required to access the players' spells within their arsenal. The hotkeys on the console, ranging through a selection of the numbers 1 to 10 represented the ranking of tier spells a player could choose from and used in varying numbers. Players could arrange these spells via hotkeys. Momonga memorized them. Each spell had an icon, which players could tap on to begin casting it. The player could tap other hotkeys if one was planning to apply some sort of metamagic enhancements to their spells. It could be said that every spell had its place on the spellcasting console.

When the player started casting their spell, an arcane eye or a magic sensor would have appeared in front of the caster. Afterwards, the player could manipulate the sensor by sending their spell towards the desired area of their choosing to initiate its power or effect once they were ready to finish casting it. The player's right hand held the control stick for the sensor’s movements, whilst their left hand directed the sensor’s field of view. Other than that, there were icons representing buffs and debuffs that could appear in the player's field of vision, so one could see whether or not they were under the effect of an ability.

A player could hotkey up to about 480 spells in total. The ability to skillfully navigate these menus meant fully understanding and memorizing the effects and proper application of each spell. It was considered to be one of the biggest factors in one’s ability as a Magic Caster. Just as warriors were affected by their real-life reflexes, magic-using classes relied heavily on their memory. A magic caster’s strength was measured by the number of spells they knew.

### MP

Once a magic caster was out of MP, they were no longer able to cast spells. No MP recovery potions existed in the game. Instead, magic casters had to wait for as long as six hours during the passing of time to completely recover all their MP back from zero. Incidentally, a magic caster's base MP was their level times 10. According to the author Maruyama, MP consumption was fundamentally linked to the casting of lowest to highest tier spells. Assume that a magic caster had about 100 MP in total. He could use 1st tier magic one hundred times. Whereas he could only utilize 10th tier magic not more than ten times at most. For that reason, a 10th tier spell would consume ten mana points each or every time a magic caster used it. However, if there were either strengthening magic, chantless magic, magic strengthening, or even magic conversion involved in the spell casting, it only served to further increase the MP cost for such tier spells regardless of their rankings.

## Ability Types

There were two kinds of special abilities in YGGDRASIL. One had a cooldown period after use. The other had a limited period of uses within a time frame. There were also combinations of the two. In general, the more powerful the ability, the longer the cooldown, or the fewer times it could be used in succession. For instance, Ainz’s trump card, [The Goal Of All Life Is Death] is a spell that could only be used once every 100 hours (while YGGDRASIL was online).

## Parties

Parties were mainly made up of 6 players in total, and a dungeon raid could have a maximum of 5 parties. In other words, the maximum size of a dungeon raid consisted of 30 people in total when taking on bosses. Apart from exceptional cases like guild battles or fighting a World-class enemy, people who were over the limit would be subjected to friendly fire. If there were joke characters with a dream build among them, it would reduce the amount of fighting power they could bring.

They were categorized under Magical Attackers, Physical Attackers, Tanks, Healers, Seekers, and Other. The "Other" category was viewed as those with challenging classes who were able to adapt to many different circumstances in any situation, such as players like Momonga.

Nevertheless, the basic 6-man party configuration in YGGDRASIL was one tank, two attackers, one healer, one seeker, and a wildcard, who was capable of adapting to changing situations. Anyone taking on this task needed to be intimately familiar with everyone’s abilities and preferences. A team that was put together sloppily would not be able to succeed. Therefore, assigning party rosters was one of the greatest challenges of such an endeavor.

In addition, the sentries were formed as a party, which would be used to stand guard at the dungeon entrance. Thus, they tended to keep a close eye out for anyone approaching the entrance. Depending on the circumstances, they were willing to go so far as to eliminate any interlopers.

In many games, one could not reorganize a party outside of a safe zone or certain designated locations. In YGGDRASIL, on the other hand, one could instead freely change one’s party anywhere and anytime. This allowed for very flexible parties and, with a good team, one could overcome any difficulty. By doing so, however, the effects of party-wide magic and skills terminated once the party was disbanded. One had to take that drawback into consideration when regrouping. That trick would not work if used in a dire situation.

## PVP

Otherwise known as Player vs. Player. This was most likely also a term that shared a origin with player-killers, or player-killer-killers. Counter attack and counter defense magics lying wildly back at one another were the standard in PKing.

According to Momonga, the most crucial thing in PVP was to deceive one's enemy, such as in his battle against Shalltear Bloodfallen. For instance, pretending that one player was vulnerable to holy-elemental attacks when they were largely immune to them after swapping out their gear, while also hiding the fact that they were weak against fire-elemental attacks.

Due to the rule of victory going to the one who won two matches out of three, losing the first battle was not a problem for some like Momonga. When it came down to how things were when players PKed each other in YGGDRASIL, the victor could take at least some of the defeatist's weapons and gear for their own.

PVP was the usual tactic used by a group of human players in order to hunt down heteromorphic players. Doing so was also labelled as PKing, which was player killing. There existed the contents of "PKing for Dummies", which Momonga had spoken of before. Furthermore, there was also no penalty for PKing heteromorphic species existing in the game.

According to Punitto Moe, “Squashing” was what they named their PK method that involved attacking a player group that had just begun delving into a dungeon from behind. Once their opponents were forced deeper into the dungeon, they would have to deal with the dungeon’s monsters, as well as the PKs attacking them from behind. This was a kind of pincer movement.

Furthermore, Momonga stated during his battle with Gazef Stronoff that having a weapon which was capable of killing someone was the absolute minimum condition for a solo PVP duel. In other scenarios, there was also a type of No-Loot PVP or the latter that he knew existed in YGGDRASIL.

Some players would prepare a set of identical looking gear, equipped with completely different data crystals. In PVP matches, small tricks like that improved the players' chances of victory against their opponent. Although backup gear was typically weaker than one’s main panoply, being able to surprise a foe had effects beyond mere data values.

There was a limited cooldown period to players casting the number of spells from Super-Tier Magic. In addition, this cooldown period could not be eliminated by any skill or cash item. Thus, when PVPing, the party that casted a super-tier spell early was often considered an idiot. After all, defeat was likely the outcome any player would face when they expended their own trump card without properly understanding one’s foe. There were very few PVP battles where the victors were the first to cast super-tier spells.

Strong fighters in PVP matches had the tendency to be very popular with spectators. The voices of the supporters would slowly turn toward the challenger if they did well. In other words, if a player fought well against their opponent, more and more people would start to support that person.

## Items

*Main article: List of Items*
Items were classified accordingly to the following rank system:

* Low → Middle → High → Top → Legacy → Relic → Legendary → Divine
* **Artifacts** were not related to specific ranks, it just meant they were items with fixed data. Therefore, artifacts with a low rank could also exist.

Items dropped as a data crystal from monsters and players could produce items freely in the capacity of crystals, including options to customize their appearance and name. As a result, these data crystals could be slotted into almost any sort of item (apart from certain expendable items), in order to create just about any item a player could think of. In addition, there were certain artifacts which could not be created by players and had fixed stats. For example, Horn of the Goblin General.

Clearing a dungeon often yielded a variety of items, from rare data crystals to artifacts. In order to make, for example, a data crystal into weapons and armor, it was through inserting a data crystal into an item skin. While magic items in YGGDRASIL were made by infusing an item skin with a data crystal, it was actually quite difficult to coordinate their appearance for players. After a certain update by the game's developers, players were given several ways to change their equipment's appearance without changing their gear that had stat boosts in it.

Players could design their equipment as they liked. Additionally, this included their powers as well. Player-made items in YGGDRASIL could also have their abilities be changed up by using data crystals. Yet the same way may even be applied to the equipment used by NPCs like Narberal that had a quick-change crystal embedded in it and used for battle. That way, they would be able to directly swap out their gear for a set of predetermined equipment without having to waste time changing.

YGGDRASIL's equipment was classified by how much data each item possessed. Items with more data were ranked higher. However, abilities could not be stacked randomly; the capacity of an item for data was determined by the item's construction and the material. In contrast, special effects took up a smaller amount of data capacity, so it was not uncommon for them to be imbued in an item to use up the leftover capacity. For that reason, not all data crystals dropped by monsters were equal. If one wanted to make a divine-class item, one would need several data crystals which were classified as "high-rare drops."

When comparing a sword made of clear crystal and a sword comprised wholly of iron, the amount of data needed for the exterior was completely different. The amount of data was determined by the resources of the item, such as minerals. It was quite common to require weapons made of special materials or with the appropriate elements to bypass monsters' abilities. The Smith was also a key part of the equation. In YGGDRASIL, humanoids called Dwarves had bonuses to craftsman-type classes to craft these weapons.

In YGGDRASIL, trading in magic items was usually done in the form of data crystals. However, there were people who sold second-hand items in order to make even stronger ones. It was at this point that a problem arose — the names of magic items made by other people might include forbidden language or it might insult someone. Sometimes, the GMs would ask the players in question to rename the items. Most players named their equipment in reference to legends and mythologies, in order to make them an easier profit to sell. There were also cash items which could rename them as it wasn't expensive.

Besides that, it was possible for YGGDRASIL weapons to break apart from damage. However, they could not be broken by attacks from weapons with lower data capacity than it. Artifacts were superior in that respect since they were indestructible. Even weak artifact equipment were capable of being unbreakable.

More so, one could not equip multiple magic items to the same item slot. While one could wear many magical items around their neck, only the powers from the item that had been last put on would be usable. Even in the New World, the principle still applied and is in effect as always.

There were also World Items, whose power overrode the limit of other items. Many of them ignored or even changed the game system of YGGDRASIL.

## Monsters

*Main article: List of Monsters*
There were very few monsters in YGGDRASIL with attacks that were vastly different from what their appearance suggested. However, there were many enemies whose moves could not be predicted and were a special case. Most monsters were generated by the same rules used for generating player characters. Even the magic they used was the same. The values derived from their basic stats, such as health, were also of a similar nature.

There were spellcasting monsters in YGGDRASIL. While the numbers of spells they could use varied greatly according to their level and species, they could use about eight kinds of magic.

When monsters attacked, they would target the one they wanted to hit the most. This could be expressed as a numeric value, called "hate." Causing more damage, healing HP, buffing, debuffing, or using taunting-type skills would increase hate. When a player was hit by a monster, it would resolve the matter and that monster's "hate" of the player would decrease. Because hate values fluctuated often during a battle, tanks had to pay close attention to monster's "hate" values or the backliners would take a hit.

Dungeons had bosses with different abilities, appearances, and boss rooms. Boss battles typically took place in a separate map and there were some boss battles which allowed players to retreat from the fight. Regardless, altering the terrain was a common tactic performed by raid bosses. Normal parties would take roughly between 10 to 15 minutes to defeat a boss.

Among the most powerful monsters in YGGDRASIL were called a "World Enemy."

There were at least about 32 level-breaking bosses in YGGDRASIL and some of them are listed below:

* Eight Dragons
* Lords of the Seven Deadly Sins
* Ten Archangels of the Sephira
* Celestial Lord of the Sixth Heaven
* Five Rainbow Buddhas
* Devourer of the Nine Worlds

In YGGDRASIL, there were two major patterns of raid bosses. The main problem with designing boss encounters was that the players had the same skills and spells that monsters did, but during raid boss encounters, there would be 30 players facing a single monster. Even if with enhanced stats, one monster would still be obliterated by the sheer weight of a parties numbers, which meant that there was no challenge at all.

As such, two main types of boss encounters appeared to address the issue. The first was the boss would come with minions, or the boss arena would constantly spawn monsters. In this approach, the boss wasn't usually that strong. In some cases, it would only have several times the health of a player character.

The other method was to send out a single boss, generated with different data from the player characters. This sort of boss typically had abilities which would give parties a lot of trouble when encountering them for the first time and it could use those abilities continuously. Judging by the look of the boss, it was highly likely that it fell into the latter category.

Apart from that, it was commonplace for YGGDRASIL players to forget the need to pick up magic items from slain monsters who dropped it after being slain in combat.

In YGGDRASIL, one could determine the strength of an enemy by the color of their names. Beyond that, one could only rely on information from one’s friends and walkthrough sites.

## YGGDRASIL and the New World

*Main article: New World*
Once every 100 years, players of YGGDRASIL are teleported without reason into the New World. It seems that the first teleportation had occurred 600 years ago. With the knowledge and exceptional power of YGGDRASIL, the players usually shake the very foundations of that world, making them legendary godlike figures to some of the native inhabitants' view.

Ainz Ooal Gown is currently the only known player to have been teleported to the New World when he was expecting to be forcefully logged-out of the game during the shutdown of YGGDRASIL. From this moment forward, Ainz later decided to make an everlasting name for himself in the New World.

### Changes

After arriving in the New World, players like Ainz realize that some of the game's functions from YGGDRASIL have been removed and they cannot access them anymore. For instance, Ainz is no longer able to summon a command console. The game's functions, such as forced connections, the chat function, a GM call, and the forced logout, are no longer accessible in this world.

Other changes include the modification of various spells of the different tier in terms of area and effect magnitude. For example, a player using the [Message] spell now has the power of constantly reaching out, as though looking for something to connect to. Yet, at the same time, players and their summoned monster share a special connection similar to that of a master and servant relationship.

The actual process of casting a spell is faster than it was in YGGDRASIL. Unlike in YGGDRASIL, where the player had to tap on an icon to cast a spell, one must concentrate mentally for an icon to appear out of thin air to start the casting. The player would feel that Tier Magic was part of them. To Momonga, this is satisfaction a player like himself could never have experienced in YGGDRASIL until now.

For YGGDRASIL, friendly fire was systematically disabled in the game, but that does not seem to be the case within the context of the New World.

## Trivia

* During the final years of YGGDRASIL, the chances of reliable information being made public on the web was rather high.
* In Norse mythology, YGGDRASIL is the World Tree, a great ash tree located at the center of the universe and joining the Nine Worlds of Norse cosmology.
* In YGGDRASIL, the advantageous worlds for heteromorphic players were Niflheim, Helheim, and Muspelheim.
* Creating a second character was strictly forbidden in YGGDRASIL.
* According to Touch Me, it was possible for players to rent a guild base rather than conquer a dungeon.
* In YGGDRASIL, a blow to the neck counted as a critical hit and dealt extra damage.
* A fatigue system used to exist in the game.
* YGGDRASIL characters like players and NPCs had access to their own inventory and its space limit could even be extended through the use of Cash Items.
* (Manga/Light Novel) The game was free to play, so it didn't require a subscription fee. However, in the Web Novel, the game did, in fact, have a subscription fee, albeit, with a hefty price attached to it.
* It was hinted from Ainz's talk with Evileye that the game seemed to have way-points used to teleport players from city to city.
* Players could also interact with each other by entering a Waiting Area prior to fully diving into YGGDRASIL.
* Interestingly, the elves refer to a place called the World of the Divine Tree, which Ainz Ooal Gown thinks might be related to YGGDRASIL.

## References

1. ↑ *Overlord Volume 01 Chapter 1: The End and the Beginning*
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 *Overlord Bonus Volume Chapter 4: The Beyonders*
3. ↑ *https://twitter.com/maruyama\_kugane/status/1566985617808171009*
4. ↑ *Overlord Volume 07 Chapter 1: Invitation to Death*
5. ↑ *Overlord Volume 02 Chapter 1: The Two Adventurers*
6. ↑ *Overlord Volume 15 Chapter 2: The Travelling Scenery in Nazarick*
7. ↑ *Overlord Second Half Chapter 16: The Ball Part 4*
8. ↑ *ARCADIA 2.58: ARCADIA 3239 10-06-2011*
9. ↑ *Overlord Volume 03 Chapter 3: Confusion and Understanding*
10. ↑ *Overlord Volume 03 Chapter 4: Before the Death Match*
11. ↑ *Overlord Volume 03 Chapter 5: PvN*
12. ↑ *Overlord Volume 04 Prologue*
13. ↑ *Overlord First Half Chapter 11: Knowledge*
14. ↑ *Overlord First Half Chapter 60: Settings*
15. ↑ *Overlord Bonus Volume Prologue*
16. ↑ *Overlord Volume 01 Chapter 2: Floor Guardians*
17. ↑ *ARCADIA 2.47: ARCADIA 2336 03-26-2011*
18. ↑ *Overlord First Half Chapter 5: Magic*
19. ↑ *Overlord Blu-ray 06 Special: Prologue (2nd Half)*
20. ↑ *Overlord Volume 03 Chapter 3: Battle of Carne Village*
21. ↑ *Syosetsu: Misc Blog Info 3.51*
22. ↑ *Overlord Bonus Volume Chapter 3: Five-Year Preparations*
23. ↑ *Overlord Volume 09 Chapter 4: Massacre*
24. ↑ *Overlord Volume 10 Chapter 3: The Baharuth Empire*
25. ↑ *Overlord Volume 01 Chapter 3: Battle of Carne Village*
26. ↑ *Overlord Volume 02 Chapter 4: Twin Swords of Death*
27. ↑ *ARCADIA 2.36: ARCADIA 1088 12-28-2010*
28. ↑ *Overlord Bonus Volume Chapter 2: The Two Set Off*
29. ↑ *Overlord First Half Chapter 32: Preparations Part 1*
30. ↑ *Overlord Volume 01 Chapter 5: Ruler of Death*
31. ↑ *Overlord Volume 01 Chapter 2: Floor Guardians*
32. ↑ *Overlord Blu-ray 04 Special: Prologue (1st Half)*
33. ↑ *Overlord Volume 08 Side Story 2: A Day in Nazarick*
34. ↑ *Overlord Blu-ray 01 Special: The Emissary of the King*
35. ↑ *Overlord Volume 06 Chapter 10: The Greatest Trump Card*
36. ↑ *Overlord Volume 15 Chapter 2: The Travelling Scenery in Nazarick*