Talk:Heavy Masher/@comment-173.34.153.42-20180306180526/@comment-45.56.46.26-20180817205647

While technically you could call everyone that isn't a Player an NPC, there is an important distinction between NPC's and New World natives.

New World natives are born and raised in the New World, and their entire backstory is a result of their real circumstances and choices. NPC's do remember some real events from Yggdrasil, but the bulk of their experience and backstories are fictions interpolated from their settings, which are simply whatever their creators wrote. This is true for both the Custom and the predefined NPC's, the difference being that the predefs have backstories written by Yggdrasil employees rather than Guild members.

Aura isn't really 70+ years old, she's less than 12, and probably less than 3, given that AOG was composed entirely of working stiffs who mostly logged on at the same time of day (and didn't clear Nazarick until several years after Yggdrasil started). The same is true for all the rest of the NPC's. It's kinda astonishing they're not even more immature.

In other words, it is not Albedo's fault that she is in love with Momonga, that's something he wrote in her settings. His understanding of that is why he has trouble accepting her love. The same for Shalltear, it's not like she ever chose to be a rutting necrophilac loli courtesan. Demiurge is the big example...he's not like that because he ever chose to be that way. Ainz is on about that constantly, especially in the case of the Custom NPC's, whatever they do is because they were made that way, thus the fault isn't theirs and he can only love them because they reflect the feelings and impulses of his friends.

Of course, now that they are real people, Ainz wants them all to grow and develop. He knows that they are, in reality, children who only think they remember being adults for a long time.

The workers of Heavy Masher and the other groups are different. They are adults who've made choices in life...or so the story goes. After all, they are just fictional characters too. But not within the story, in the story they are not NPC's.