PMD Crossroads - World-Building and Story so Far

[The Nonexistent Tazz]

First off, love this idea. Can't stress it enough. Funnily enough, I had this idea for this before for a story, but never got around to writing it; using the PMD world as ideas for basically a parody of PxR peeps and wanky zany hijinx.

Second off, there's a lot of PMD comics out there. A lot. There are a lot of comics, in general, that star Pokemon and only Pokemon, too, humans known or not. I'm not sure if we really really want a super-different world, but I feel like while our own ideas may persist, I want something, just something, even just one thing, that puts this world as vastly different from other worlds like it. Which raises the question of if we really want to start worldbuilding early.

I do have a few ideas... And a few questions. I'll just state the ideas first.

-Make several Legendary Pokemon wholly fictitious but not all of them. By 'fictitious,' I mean 'In-game they are real, but in the canon we have established they are nonexistent.' This assumes we'll have Pokemon Religion play a big role or such, but it can still hole up some big surprises; this way, we could have several pantheons and local deities, some of which are filled with fake Legendaries, while others have Legends that actually exist (and some have both, too). This allows us to play the game of 'is this a real god-like being or just a poser,' and if we do say a lot of legendaries are just regular Pokemon posing as local deities, actually encountering a genuine Legendary (even one like Keldeo or Uxie) may be a huge boss-level deal, especially if they're not friendly. As an alternative, we could have a reasonably singular pantheon that works differently from standard Pokemon fare, and keep our focus squarely on a manageable group of Legends.

-Make the Pokemon square off against very unfamiliar forces. And I don't just mean other Pokemon or altered Pokemon either, or even Ultra Beasts-I mean things that very well aren't established in the canon of Pokemon. The most influential example I can give for this kind of thing is the Trials of Juno, specifically the local variant on the Legions of Hell, though we could probably do something else.

-Make anomalous Pokemon. By which I mean Pokemon of a kin to the Regional Variants of Alola, only on a much wider scale of potential. Like, a ridiculously giant Pokemon, or a Pokemon that is basically the merger of two Pokemon at once (including a Legend) or ones with implausible attacks (like Judgement on a lowly Bidoof.) Have the protagonist be anomalous somehow. Shiny, halfbreed legend, stupid-strong attack, or something else; something weird and very different, beyond maybe once being human.

As for questions, I really only have three:

-How are we going to potray the Mystery Dungeon enemies? Bandits? Hopelessly brainwashed victims of the Mystery Dungeon phenomena? Constructs of the Mystery Dungeon itself? Will we even include legitimate Mystery Dungeons?

-Are we going to focus on a core cast of characters, or a wide cast of characters? Like, how many secondary characters, protagonists and factions will we factor in? I believe that, with the way the Character Design Contest is worded, that we'll only have one major hero and thus a Primary Protagonist; but what about the Protagonists around THE Protagionist? What about his antagonists, for that matter?

-What's our Genre? This sounds simple, but it's not. Are we going to be like a Shonen Anime? Or are we (for whatever reason) going full Magical Girl? Sticking to the core rulebook? Full Lovecraftian dive or other horror? Romcom? Parody wherein the main character wields the almighty power of the stick of Rule 63, and wields Genderbending amongst his/her/their/tem/yes combat maneuvers?

My artistic talent is literally beneath the level of XKCD. It's not going to improve to a manageable level in any quick time period with all that's already on my plate. This is all I can help you with, but hey. It's something, right? I can help storyboard and characterize, if nothing else.

[Nekomata]

First off, love this idea. Can't stress it enough. Funnily enough, I had this idea for this before for a story, but never got around to writing it; using the PMD world as ideas for basically a parody of PxR peeps and wanky zany hijinx.

Second off, there's a lot of PMD comics out there. A lot. There are a lot of comics, in general, that star Pokemon and only Pokemon, too, humans known or not. I'm not sure if we really really want a super-different world, but I feel like while our own ideas may persist, I want something, just something, even just one thing, that puts this world as vastly different from other worlds like it. Which raises the question of if we really want to start worldbuilding early.


Please remember that this world-building session is more to set RULES on things like reviver seeds, badge teleportations, how we'll treat death, etc. than it is to generate story ideas. The whole point of this project is to make a comic without any story plotting. We're not going to be making a masterpiece story- but we do want to make a logical story with a naturally progressing plot. I'd love to find ways to make the story unique, but we can't plot. Some of your below world-building things are VERY much on the line between setting rules and story/plot ideas.

I do have a few ideas... And a few questions. I'll just state the ideas first.

-Make several Legendary Pokemon wholly fictitious but not all of them. By 'fictitious,' I mean 'In-game they are real, but in the canon we have established they are nonexistent.' This assumes we'll have Pokemon Religion play a big role or such, but it can still hole up some big surprises; this way, we could have several pantheons and local deities, some of which are filled with fake Legendaries, while others have Legends that actually exist (and some have both, too). This allows us to play the game of 'is this a real god-like being or just a poser,' and if we do say a lot of legendaries are just regular Pokemon posing as local deities, actually encountering a genuine Legendary (even one like Keldeo or Uxie) may be a huge boss-level deal, especially if they're not friendly. As an alternative, we could have a reasonably singular pantheon that works differently from standard Pokemon fare, and keep our focus squarely on a manageable group of Legends.

This is very much on the edge of plotting ideas/story stuff. If the writers/artists want to add a religious/mythical element to the legendaries, they'll have to do it on page before it can officially be added to the world-lore.

-Make the Pokemon square off against very unfamiliar forces. And I don't just mean other Pokemon or altered Pokemon either, or even Ultra Beasts-I mean things that very well aren't established in the canon of Pokemon. The most influential example I can give for this kind of thing is the Trials of Juno, specifically the local variant on the Legions of Hell, though we could probably do something else.

Again, we're not plotting stuff here. We're setting rules, not ideas.

-Make anomalous Pokemon. By which I mean Pokemon of a kin to the Regional Variants of Alola, only on a much wider scale of potential. Like, a ridiculously giant Pokemon, or a Pokemon that is basically the merger of two Pokemon at once (including a Legend) or ones with implausible attacks (like Judgement on a lowly Bidoof.) Have the protagonist be anomalous somehow. Shiny, halfbreed legend, stupid-strong attack, or something else; something weird and very different, beyond maybe once being human.

Personally, I'd prefer to avoid using any sort of fakemon. Otherwise we'll end up with nothing BUT because people will want to add them in like crazy. Having some slight feature variations is fine, but it still needs to fit within the official designs.

As for questions, I really only have three:

-How are we going to potray the Mystery Dungeon enemies? Bandits? Hopelessly brainwashed victims of the Mystery Dungeon phenomena? Constructs of the Mystery Dungeon itself? Will we even include legitimate Mystery Dungeons?

Once again, that's up to those who make the comic pages. Once this is established in comic, then it will be added here.

-Are we going to focus on a core cast of characters, or a wide cast of characters? Like, how many secondary characters, protagonists and factions will we factor in? I believe that, with the way the Character Design Contest is worded, that we'll only have one major hero and thus a Primary Protagonist; but what about the Protagonists around THE Protagionist? What about his antagonists, for that matter?

Ideally, we'll focus on a core cast of characters. We've got a contest going for the creation of the main character. I'll discuss the contest further (I did that post half dead/tired) regarding runner-ups and what not. We need to establish the guidelines for how we'll introduce any contest entries that aren't the main character itself. Again, we don't want to PLAN anything or tell the artists 'YOU HAVE TO ADD THIS CHARACTER IN' - we want to give as much creative freedom to the artists without giving them full control to do whatever the hell they want. The addition of new characters will be one of those things that are regulated by the people running this comic (just me right now.) There will be more room to add in characters in the early stages of the comics, but once we feel that a core cast has been established, rules on that will get tighter.

-What's our Genre? This sounds simple, but it's not. Are we going to be like a Shonen Anime? Or are we (for whatever reason) going full Magical Girl? Sticking to the core rulebook? Full Lovecraftian dive or other horror? Romcom? Parody wherein the main character wields the almighty power of the stick of Rule 63, and wields Genderbending amongst his/her/their/tem/yes combat maneuvers?

Again, we're trying to leave things as open as possible for the artists. I can say that intense gore/horror won't be allowed- or excessive shipping and NSFW content. I'd say we're going for a fun adventure with a sense of urgency, but again- that's not for me to decide.

My artistic talent is literally beneath the level of XKCD. It's not going to improve to a manageable level in any quick time period with all that's already on my plate. This is all I can help you with, but hey. It's something, right? I can help storyboard and characterize, if nothing else.

We're not allowed to storyboard! Just log in world-rules as they are created. Of course, if you want to help you can request to write the script for a page and have someone else draw it, but you'd have to contact artists about that. Remember- plotting is now allowed. World building stuff will be logged as the comic goes. If one artist establishes that Legendaries are myth, then we can add it into the lore. If another artist later has it be so that legendaries actually exist- or confirms their nonexistence, then we edit the lore. Things like that will be flexible, other thing like... say, if one artist has it so chestnuts explode if roasted, then that isn't flexible. They will always explode when roasted (random example).

First of all, I'm all for allowing fire types to swim. I think it's silly when people have them be harmed just by touching a puddle of water. xD

Thank you! I always found the idea that fire types could be harmed by still/non-attack water. I've always imaged it as they don't particularly like getting wet since it weakens their natural fire abilities and leaves them vulnerable, but unless you're a Charmander or something, it's not

One thing I'd like to request, however, is that reviver seeds don't work as a 'literally bring someone back to life' thing. I feel like they should work more like revives in the main games do, and having an instant cure for death would remove any danger or suspense the story would have. Same with a character getting a major injury or something - there shouldn't be a ton of instant healing. Gotta have some sense of real danger.

I'm with you on the 'dead is dead' boat. I don't want to see reviver seeds being some undo button. They can act as some sort of wake-up/energizing health item though. Helps wake up unconscious Pokemon.

For pokemon moves, I'm fine with both limiting them to four and with having them know whatever moves their species can. Whatever most people prefer on that one.

I think 4 or 6 would be good!

I feel like if we decide explorer badges can teleport, there should be some limitations on it (even if it's just as simple as one time it stops working for whatever reason) so there can be dangerous situations the characters can't easily get out of.

Yeah, I'd like to see limitations on back teleports if we have it. Maybe it requires being charged and can only warp x number of Pokemon before running out of juice.

Humans, I'm not sure right now. I'd be fine with no mention of humans at all, but it would also be kinda cool to have them be myths that are talked about in this PMD world.

I don't want to draw humans. xD So personally, i don't care as long as they don't have to appear.

I'll come back with more stuff when I think of it.

My responses are bolded/red

Current topics:

- Fire Pokemon and Water
- Reviver Seeds
- How many moves?