[PXFIRE] [SU/DS] PXFIRE II Roleplay: Convergence

[Shruikan]

The Setting:

Terranis, A world not unlike our own. On the continent of Rakthor, civilization thrived, forming into five distinct countries; Anise, Rutgard, Ernitka, Aluna, and Drusk. Apart from the occasional small skirmish, peace reigned for many centuries.

9 years ago a revolutionary breakthrough was made by Professor Trey Sunding. Prof. Sunding discovered a way to bend space, creating a wormhole that could allow instantaneous travel from one location to another. With the advent of wormhole, the world was brought closer than it had ever been. Each country set up major wormhole depots, linking all around the continent. Everyday life was revolutionized: Motor vehicles became a rarity, as time spent traveling was cut down to however far the nearest wormhole depot was. The borders of countries became more blurred as in a single step you could travel hundreds of miles, going from the capital of Aluna to a Drusk metalwork as quickly and easily as walking out you own front door.

Everything seemed perfect. But alas, no calm comes without a storm.

6 years ago disaster stuck, as Rustol, the capitol city of Ernitka, was hit by a massive earthquake. The shockwaves tore through the largest wormhole depot, the destruction of so many wormhole gates at once causing a chain reaction resulting in an explosion that rendered the entire city a desolate wasteland in moments.
Upon seeing this destruction, many began to mistrust the wormholes. Rutgard decommissioned ever wormhole in the country, outlawing wormhole travel inside it’s borders, and essentially cutting itself off from the rest of the continent. Meanwhile Drusk believed that it was not the earthquake, but sabotage that caused the devastating explosion, and the culprits were merely using the natural disaster as a cover up. Tensions began to run high between countries, as with Rutgard‘s withdrawal, Drusk’s suspicion fell onto them. Many feared that this could escalate into a full on war.

And that was when the rifts began to appear.

It began with sightings of strange creatures, unlike any that had been seen before. The had tremendous physical strength, and almost magical abilities, such as altering dreams, psycokinetically moving objects, and even controlling the elements themselves. Eyewitness reports claimed that these beings had emerged from what could best be described as tears in reality. These rifts in space lasted only a few hours before disappearing, but the creatures that came though and the destruction they caused remained.
At first, Drusk believed these creatures were another attack sent by Rutgard, but when Rutgard’s capitol, Redinas, was attacked by one of the monsters, burning half the city to the ground before it could be stopped, Drusk reluctantly agreed that was not the case. Agreeing that these beasts could not be allowed free reign, a unified strike force was created to deal with these newly dubbed “Pokemon.” The forces quickly learned that not all of these creatures were hostile, and eventually the governments began assigning their agents with Pokemon partners to help in their missions.

With more and more pokemon appearing, and tensions still near breaking point, the USF work to quell the fear of these pokemon, and to uncover the truth behind the appearance of the rifts.


The Teams:
Note: this is just a guideline, your character’s motivation and backstory don’t have to match up to these 100% if you don’t want them to.

Agents of Shadow: A group created by the Drusk government. Previously a black ops division, their current job is to get to the rifts first, and capture anything that may come through before the strike force gets there.

Avalon Apostles: The unified emergency services of Aluna, they previously handled policing, rescue, medical, and many other services. With the appearance of the Rifts, a new division has been created, to handle pokemon related issues, and many members are part of the unified strike force.

Sabotage Squadron: A group of rebels, spread throughout the continent, though their main base of operations is in Drusk. They believe that the pokemon shouldn’t be controlled by the government, and everyone should have access to the powers they wield.

The Order of the Sun: Based in Anise, the Order of the Sun is focused on freedom over everything else, working on pokemon conservation areas, and trying to keep the creatures for out of the governments hands.


Locations:

Anise: Known for it’s picturesque beaches, Anise is a top vacation spot, and is often littered with tourists. It’s capitol, Merius, is known for it’s high-end movie productions, and every actor across the land dreams of making it big there.

Rutgard: Mountainous terrain makes up much of this land. The climate is colder that others, and the ground more rocky and barren. It’s capitol, Redinas, is nestled high in the mountains, and is known for it’s frequent snow and haunting music.

Ernitka: Much of the landscape is taken up with deserts. There are relatively few habitable spots compared to the other lands. The new capitol, Sendrel, is build around an oasis, and contains many of the continents largest markets, while Rustol, the former capitol is nothing more than charred remains and a monument to the tragedy.

Aluna: A country more rooted in the past, the stone and wood buildings looking old fashioned, unlike the sleek steel buildings of Drusk. Much of the land is commonly covered in mist, and the Capitol, Erana, is no different, giving it’s high castle-like walls an extra ominous feeling.

Drusk: A bustling metropolis, almost every inch of Drusk in covered in buildings. Factories, shopping centers, residential housing, and even amusement parks cram together so much that it’s sometime hard to tell where one city ends and another begins. It’s capitol is Trinox, a city of towering black metal skyscrapers and smoke belching metalworks.

And here's a badly drawn map:




Sign up:

Name:
Gender:
Age:
Team:
Description:
Personality:
Backstory:
Starting Pokemon: (Anything except legendaries.)
Other:


Rules:
Follow PXR Rules: It’s happening on this site, so it’s a no-brainer that you need to follow the rules.
No Godmodding/Bunnying: Don’t make your character invincible, unstoppable, or pretty much god-like. Using knowledge gained out of character also count for this. And no controlling other people’s characters either. Pretty standard rules.
Try to keep it PG-13. Think more Saturday morning cartoon superheroes and less deadpool.


Accepted Characters:

Nathan "Neo" Winterfield - Neo Emolga - Avalon Apostles
Daniel El Raye - LKWayvern - Sabotage Squadron
Brent/Angel Hughes - Noblejanobii - Avalon Apostles
Emmett “Gawain” Marshall - Velojello - Avalon Apostles
Camellia Estrada - K'sariya - Avalon Apostles
Eddie Shadolurk - Bulbasaur - Agents of the Shadows
Leo Star - Morzone - Order of the Sun
Ezekiel "Zeke" Star - Morzone - Order of the Sun



Judging Guideline:

Each player will be graded by the following categories, with 100 points divided appropriately between all participants of that week based on their scores.

Spelling & Grammar: Self evident; if you post entirely in 1337 text speak then you won’t get many point here. As long as it’s readable, you should do fine.

Driving Force: How vital is your character to the events of the story? A background character simply watching events unfold won’t score as much as one in the heat of the action.

Posting Frequency: While quality is more important, you can only move so far in a single post. A person who post regularly will get more points than the guy who just shows up once a week.

Player Interaction: How much of an impact on the other characters are you making? Whether working with your teammates or against enemy teams (Or even against your teammates or with enemy teams,) the more interaction with other players the better.

Continuity: Did you pull a death ray from out of thin air, with no indication that they even exist? But wait, now the metal tower you’re fighting on is made of glass, and you’ve just fallen through the plot hole you created to your doom! Good use of foreshadowing will score you points here, whereas big continuity errors will lose them.ì

[Morzone]

Question: are we limited to one character per person, or can we have multiple?

Edit: (this is after LK's post, I just didn't want to add another post for a single question) If Mega evolution is allowed, are Z-moves as well? Would mega stones/Z-crystals appear randomly through the rifts, or would they be carried by pokemon as they came through?

[LKWayvern]

Four questions:
One, do we begin with only the starter, or can there be other Pokémon on the team? If the former, can new partners be added as the RP progresses?
Two, is there a hard four-move limit, a larger limit, or is any move the Pokémon can learn fair play?
Three, do Pokeballs exist yet in this setting? Do healing berries and technology like those found in Pokémon Centers exist? Can Evolution Itens be bought or found, or stat boosting items?
And four, in the previous question’s vein, are we doing Mega Evolution here, and if so, what limits would it have, and how would it be triggered?

[VeloJello]

Another question! How "sapient" are Pokemon? Does intelligence vary between species, or are they all sapient? If so, can they communicate with humans; if yes, how?

[Bulbasaur]

I might give this a shot, since no one from Agents plans to RP. :D

[Shruikan]

Question: are we limited to one character per person, or can we have multiple?

Edit: (this is after LK's post, I just didn't want to add another post for a single question) If Mega evolution is allowed, are Z-moves as well? Would mega stones/Z-crystals appear randomly through the rifts, or would they be carried by pokemon as they came through?

Nope, you can have as many characters as you want :)

As for your second question, I'd say that Z crystals & Mega stone would be carried through the rifts by the pokemon themselves. Z-moves would work the same as Mega evolution, with the same restrictions I mention below, ie. a close bond and a man-made mega bracelet/z-ring gauntlet, and once it's been used both parties are physically exhausted.

Four questions:
One, do we begin with only the starter, or can there be other Pokémon on the team? If the former, can new partners be added as the RP progresses?
Two, is there a hard four-move limit, a larger limit, or is any move the Pokémon can learn fair play?
Three, do Pokeballs exist yet in this setting? Do healing berries and technology like those found in Pokémon Centers exist? Can Evolution Itens be bought or found, or stat boosting items?
And four, in the previous question’s vein, are we doing Mega Evolution here, and if so, what limits would it have, and how would it be triggered?

1: I'd say you start with just the one "main" pokemon, maybe two at most. New ones can definitely be added to your team as the story goes along though.

2: No limit on the number of moves, anything that can be learned is fair game.

3: I'd say no to the pokeballs & pokemon center healing so far. The man-made healing like Potions & stat boosters would exist in this world, probably as standard issue form the government. For Berries a few plants would have come through the rift, so while not exactly common, the plants would exist here, though mainly for study.
Most evolution items would have come through the rifts too, so they'd be hard to find, but not out of the question.

4: Mega evolution would work like the games, where you need a close bond and the mega/key stones. In this case the stones would have been held by the pokemon when it came through the rift, and the keystone & bracelet would be man-made, probably standard issue. It would also be immensely tiring for both parties, so they could only keep it up for a few minutes at most, and would be exhausted afterward, so it would be a more last resort thing. And you'd need an extremely close bond for it to work, so you'd need to have been on a great many missions together beforehand.

Another question! How "sapient" are Pokemon? Does intelligence vary between species, or are they all sapient? If so, can they communicate with humans; if yes, how?

I'd say they're all equally sapient, at about the same level as Pikachu in the anime. They can kind of communicate with humans, but only with actions; Psychic pokemon and ones with auras like Lucario would be able to send thoughts with telepathy, but it would be more feelings than actual words, and otherwise it's more a game of charades to get across the point.

I might give this a shot, since no one from Agents plans to RP. :D

Awesome! Hope you do. :3

[K'sariya]

Only just realized this, but @Neo Emolga and @Morzone :

Another question! How "sapient" are Pokemon? Does intelligence vary between species, or are they all sapient? If so, can they communicate with humans; if yes, how?

I'd say they're all equally sapient, at about the same level as Pikachu in the anime. They can kind of communicate with humans, but only with actions; Psychic pokemon and ones with auras like Lucario would be able to send thoughts with telepathy, but it would be more feelings than actual words, and otherwise it's more a game of charades to get across the point.

I think this causes a few issues with some of the scenarios you guys have set up--might be worth re-thinking your plotlines, or at least how much information your characters would know that they've previously learned from dialogue with Pokemon, as this dialogue wouldn't have happened, or at least would have happened much less clearly and with much more difficulty. Was from the first page, so was easy to miss (I missed the question about Pokeballs), but hopefully having caught it sooner than later will help!

[Morzone]

Only just realized this, but @Neo Emolga and @Morzone :



I think this causes a few issues with some of the scenarios you guys have set up--might be worth re-thinking your plotlines, or at least how much information your characters would know that they've previously learned from dialogue with Pokemon, as this dialogue wouldn't have happened, or at least would have happened much less clearly and with much more difficulty. Was from the first page, so was easy to miss (I missed the question about Pokeballs), but hopefully having caught it sooner than later will help!

Hmm... well that does make my last post kind of awkward, even if it is a conversation between pokemon and not pokemon and human. Gardevoir is a psychic type so they'd already be able to converse with humans -mainly just Leo- at a higher ability than other pokemon. And while Neo's character is a pokemon now, they still have the mind of a human so communication with other humans is understandable, especially as he did have to go through charades-like messaging until he got a chance to write.

Still I can't deny I've implied in my posts that Gardevoir and Leo have conversed more directly than just sharing feeling-thoughts. And Ninetales isn't actually a psychic type. Though what the ninetales did was based off of legends the surround the pokemon, mainly stemming from the PMD games. Whether or not the humans could actually understand the ninetales' threats in the PMD games is never really questioned though.

Well, I'll wait for Shruikan's input. hopefully they'll address it when the scores come out.

[Neo Emolga]

Only just realized this, but @Neo Emolga and @Morzone :

I think this causes a few issues with some of the scenarios you guys have set up--might be worth re-thinking your plotlines, or at least how much information your characters would know that they've previously learned from dialogue with Pokemon, as this dialogue wouldn't have happened, or at least would have happened much less clearly and with much more difficulty. Was from the first page, so was easy to miss (I missed the question about Pokeballs), but hopefully having caught it sooner than later will help!

Yeah, to Morzone's point, I think both of us entered a kind of inner-level when it comes to Pokémon communication based on special circumstances. In this case it's Gardevoir communicating to other Pokémon, which would make sense. And on the other side, Nathan becoming a Pokémon himself as part of the Ninetales curse, thus learning how to communicate with other Pokémon now. Prior to this Nathan didn't understand anything Pokémon were saying because he was human and it was as Shruikan declared that cross-communication between humans and Pokémon could only be accomplished through body language.

And sure, Ninetales isn't formally a psychic type, though there's enough lore behind Ninetales that implies it wouldn't be too out of the ordinary for the one Nathan encountered to telepathically communicate with him, especially just after inadvertently triggering the 1,000 year Ninetales curse (as a kind of servitude bond).

So yeah, I don't think we're that far out in left field, but yeah, I think Shruikan's input on this would be good to rationalize out what to do and where we go from here.

[K'sariya]

Hmm... well that does make my last post kind of awkward, even if it is a conversation between pokemon and not pokemon and human. Gardevoir is a psychic type so they'd already be able to converse with humans -mainly just Leo- at a higher ability than other pokemon. And while Neo's character is a pokemon now, they still have the mind of a human so communication with other humans is understandable, especially as he did have to go through charades-like messaging until he got a chance to write.

Still I can't deny I've implied in my posts that Gardevoir and Leo have conversed more directly than just sharing feeling-thoughts. And Ninetales isn't actually a psychic type. Though what the ninetales did was based off of legends the surround the pokemon, mainly stemming from the PMD games. Whether or not the humans could actually understand the ninetales' threats in the PMD games is never really questioned though.

Well, I'll wait for Shruikan's input. hopefully they'll address it when the scores come out.

Yeah, to Morzone's point, I think both of us entered a kind of inner-level when it comes to Pokémon communication based on special circumstances. In this case it's Gardevoir communicating to other Pokémon, which would make sense. And on the other side, Nathan becoming a Pokémon himself as part of the Ninetales curse, thus learning how to communicate with other Pokémon now. Prior to this Nathan didn't understand anything Pokémon were saying because he was human and it was as Shruikan declared that cross-communication between humans and Pokémon could only be accomplished through body language.

And sure, Ninetales isn't formally a psychic type, though there's enough lore behind Ninetales that implies it wouldn't be too out of the ordinary for the one Nathan encountered to telepathically communicate with him, especially just after inadvertently triggering the 1,000 year Ninetales curse (as a kind of servitude bond).

So yeah, I don't think we're that far out in left field, but yeah, I think Shruikan's input on this would be good to rationalize out what to do and where we go from here.

Completely and totally aware of the Ninetales lore--not a part of the point at all, it wouldn't matter what Pokemon it was if it were a Psychic type or a pseudo lore one. I didn't even mention Ninetales in my post. I was pointing out that Shruikan has already expressly said that that in this canon, even Psychic types would still only be able to send feelings instead of actual words, and that level of sapience is the maximum communication ability from Pokemon to human. From what I understood of this post and the use of first-person responding to the presumably red words of a Ninetales, you (Neo) were having your character directly communicate even before turning into a Ninetales. Yes, now you have entered that "inner level," and yes, you are now a sapient human being inside of a Psychic Pokemon's body and likely capable of that, but just pointing out that mistakes were made prior to that so that those mistakes don't happen again, because it's easy to do on accident, no big deal.

Like I said, missing the knowledge that they wouldn't be able to do this is fine, we're human, it happens and it's an easy thing to do. It's okay to make a mistake, let's just acknowledge mistakes were made and move on knowing better. Or, maybe we'll get lucky and Shruikan might shift the canon to accommodate. Totally up to them as the DM on what they want to do. Either way, it's all good and we're all up to speed.