Deedee Yeowoo is the avatar of the main character, and the name she most commonly answers to, though she's known IRL as "Jake."

Deedee is a Cleric of the vulpine wind and travel god Sylphan, with the martial arts-wielding subclass 'Mendicant Monk' - making them a Support/DPS hybrid.  She is also of the Vulpecian species, sometimes also called Foxkin, Reynardines, Douweihu, or Kitsunejin in various areas of Mundus.

Her present character sheet is provided below:

Level: 1

VIG: 8
AGI: 5
SPI: 8
MND: 3
RES: 1

Health: 110
Pneuma: 34

Boons:
Breezy Charm (Least Boon of Sylphan): Reduced aggro gain and more forgivnig first impressions in general.

Skills:
Athletics 1
Medicine 1
Rapport 1

Perks:
Laying On Of Hands
Polearm Proficiency
Versatile Fighter
Wind-borne Leap

Techniques:
Nine Tails Lash - Melee AoE attack.  Requires a polearm. 2 PP.
Gryphon Talon Kick - Flying kick attack that slides a target along with you.  3 PP, cooldown 12 seconds.
Gale Blast - 8-meter range magical attack based on Spirit.  Wind elemental.  Deals 4 meters knockback. 2 PP.
Healing Zephyr - 8-meter range support healing based on Spirit.  1 PP.
Zephyr's Grace - Touch range support boost that grants an 8-meter dash as a support ability, for 20 seconds. 2 PP, cooldown 20 seconds.

Alesha Herezhade is a Human Oathsworn, a Paladin of Aurora, who is a friend, mentor and confidant to Deedee.  

Alesha serves as the warmaster of Dungeon Crawling And Chill, and the party tank - a combat role with high Armor and Resistance that intercepts foes and induces them to attack her, instead of her allies.  This may be why her party members affectionately call her "Leesh," as in "leashing the bad guys."

She is apparently a social worker in real life, and her IRL first name is also Alesha.  Her appearance in game also seems to be an idealized version of her real appearance.

It's likely that she's a Vigor/Mind/Resolve build, focusing on counterattacks and provoke skills.

Ace Striker is a Vulpecian.  She's a Warrior with the infamously challenging Berzerker build - with a reputation for being either the choice of the supremely skilled or those who have something to prove and nothing to back it up, with Vigor and Agility primary.

IRL, she's a Livecaster - someone who hosts a VR theater through Castr or similar programs, where she plays video games, including VR games like Another World Online, for an audience.  Apparently she's so new to AWO because she had the poor timing to be playing her first Cast when the incident that brought Deedee and the others into Mundus.

Hikaru Aoisora is the party Wizard and the loremaster and archivist of Free Company Dungeon-Crawling And Chill.  He's a member of the diminutive, winged Pixie species.

His build is focused on creating damaging or impassable terrain to funnel foes into powerful AoE effects, while also buffing his own ability to deal magical damage with both Spirit and Mind.  He is, however, very fragile as a result of this min-maxed approach to stat and skill allocation.

His job IRL is apparently some kind of design and engineering work in a nanofactory - that is, he works in a facility that specializes in 3d-printing precision machinery, designing models for print. He maintains the largest informational fansite for the game, Munduswiki.org, in his spare time.  

Sekhmet Clanclan is a Rogue, a DPS class that switches between melee, ranged, physical and spell damage as needed.  She is also a member of the felinoid Ubastim species.  She's relatively fragile, having an Agility/Spirit build.

She's played by Deedee's IRL roommate, Juliette "Jules" Cojuangco, who works retail at the same convenience store that Deedee works for - along with doing other gigs, selling a little weed, and throwing parties or cooking.  They have come out to Deedee as nonbinary, though they haven't come out to most of the rest of the guild.

Deedee once took them in when they would otherwise have become homeless, and they're determined to pay that forward, if not back - and Deedee doesn't feel comfortable at all with them paying her back.

Neurohelms™ were first developed by DARPA for use by the Army - before the entertainment industry crafted new kinds of experiences with them. They allow for full "6-sense"™ immersion into virtual spaces (the six senses being those of sight, hearing, taste, scent, touch, and proprioception). 

When life eventually went back to a new normal in America and the broader world - restaurants reopening, people meeting IRL, work on seawalls and at nanoscale manufactories and in space - no social distancing technology took off quite like the Neurohelm, which was for years considered the next best alternative to physical meetings in meatspace.  Some conventions were held entirely virtually via Neurohelms and the Castr VR streaming service during the scares about additional outbreaks well into the early 2030's, and even after it was really safe, those conventions continued to include VR and AR meetups.

(Author's Note:  I wasn't going to include the details about the pandemic until... well, the pandemic sort of forced me to.  It does make ubiquitous adoption of VR make more sense.  Unfortunately.)

The Shores of Awakening are one of five starting areas of the game, tied to the city of Viacruz.  All new players who choose Viacruz as their starter hub city do a tutorial quest on the Shores of Awakening.

It appears to be a tropical or subtropical island off the cost of the Yberian subcontinent, with coconuts, palm trees - and hostile amphibious monsters, such as Dire Crabs, Man'o'war Jellies, Spiny Urchins, and Macaque Stone-Slingers.

Mundus, as the Omphalans and the game material call it, is the world of Another World Online and where our players have found themselves.  It resembles, without perfectly mirroring, a 15th Century Earth with the addition of magic, monsters, and gods.

The game Another World Online: Mundane Phantasy Historia uses five primary statistics for it's characters, which are then used to derive many different substats.

It is presently unclear to the playerbase trapped in Mundus if the stats are descriptive or prescriptive, that is, if the stats are merely measuring or somehow determining the abilities of the avatars the players are inhabiting.

These stats are:

• Vigor, a measure of physical strength and fitness.  It's the primary component in Might Damage, used for most physical melee attacks, and contributes to maximum Health and physical Defense.
• Agility, a character's speed, reflexes and dexterity.  It determines movement speed and Precision Damage, used for physical ranged abilities and some melee attacks.
• Spirit, a character's innate magical powers and force of personality.  It determines Aura Damage, used for some magical attacks; healing with Spirit-based magic, and adds to your magic Resistance and your pool of Pneuma, what other games would call mana.
• Mind, a character's education, memory, and ability to reason.  It determines Spell Damage, used for ritual magic attacks and healing with Mind-based magic.  It also adds to your magic Resistance and your pool of Pneuma.
• Resolve, a character's endurance and determination. There is a component of physical well-being to it, as it greatly increases one's Health and physical defense, but it also interacts with the Tension meter in ways that allow Resolve characters feats of hot-blooded heroism that no one else can match.

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From a Doylist perspective, these stats and the systems of character creation in I/O are heavily inspired by the tabletop game Valor: Heroic Roleplaying, by Quinn Gordon and Liana MacKenzie.

Only Sacred classes (Clerics, Psychics and Summoners) dedicated to the mystery cult of a particular god can reap the full benefits of devotion to that god, the Major and Heirophant Boons.

Starting characters each choose one God's Least Boon, but can gain the Least Boons of up to 4 other Gods through the commission of heroic acts that please them - hidden subquests in the game.

Common reference is made to "the Dekatéssertheon" or the 14, the Gods most commonly worshipped in the county and city of Viacruz. These fourteen are: 

The Primordial Creators:

• Io, the World-Sculptor, Keeper of the Ways
• Gnomon, the Alpha and Omega, Keeper of All That Is Remembered

The Imperial Quartet:

• Aurora, the Unconquerable Dawn
• Mutan, the Dreaming Moon
• Inpyu-Euthanatos, Weigher of Hearts
• Ubasdjet-Hydria, Annointer at the First and Last Breath
  

The Pastoralist Conquered:

• Eranda, the Allmother of the Fertile Feilds
• Scherzo, the Last Laugh, Forger of Blades and Men

The Elemental Children:

• Meredar, The Living Storm at Sea
• Flamma, Black Cat of the Cauldron
• Thorne, Fae Protector of the Sylvan Glade
• Sylphan, The Trickster Fox, Wind-Swift
• Delvar, Dragon of the Vault Below

And the latest god, through marriage to Delvar: 

• Jae'Eun-Argentum, Silver-Bright Traveller of the Roads

Not all of these gods are Omphalan (from the old Empire); many are imports from the Qebulanii Mansate, Caelibyrn, the Rimefell to the north, or from people known to the Ranasthani or Zhong'guo; the trade god Jae'Eun is explicitly from the Principality of Goreyo and always depicted in that people's brocade and silks, on horseback or piloting a treasure barque.

Another World Online: Mundane Phantasy Historia is the VRMMO that all of the main cast had in common before waking up and finding themselves in it's milleu, Mundus.

It is the first and most successful VRMMO, with five years of life and active updates and a playerbase exceeding 25 million, and was published by the VR game and Neurohelm experts at the entertainment company called The Other Worlds Tourism Bureau, LTD.

Taking a broad "alternate historical fantasy" premise, it takes place in a world very similar to that of the 15th Century, save being in a world of magic and monsters and the active hand of the Gods - who taught the people how to anoint champions.  

These champions are, among other things, the excuse for Adventurers - and their greater power than most Mundanes, though it is important to note that not all Adventurers or anointed are player characters, and no PC has any advantages that a Mundane cannot earn.