[PXFIRE] Roleplay Discussion

[Neo Emolga]

I have a decent sized chunk of the RP's storyline written, but I'm come across a few things along the way I think might be good to change. Certain things were causing me to hit hard into roadblocks, such as the Shadow Pokémon and just how Schism even got a XD Shadow Lugia as a dictator in the first place. Because I wasn't able to explain the origin story of those in a PMD-setting, I found myself really needing to go another route.

Changing Schism and Dropping the XD Shadow Lugia Dictator - Besides having difficultly explaining the XD Shadow Lugia's origins, background story, and while he would be running the show at Schism, it just seems too painfully cliché (and I'll admit I've used Lugia a gazillion times before in RPs). I definitely think something more unique is needed for this to keep things interesting and I think we'd be better off without a legendary at the top, but instead a really hard-as-balls common Pokémon. Instead of the... "eh, I think we've done this before" setting with an evil *yawn* dictator, let's go for something a little more... unique.

On that note, what was "Schism" is now "Black Lotus" and it's commanded by Queen Taiya the Lilligant. She's charismatic, alluring, extremely difficult to kill, and she's as cruel as she is beautiful. She hates the weak and loves to exploit fools and send the stupid and brazen into combat. Sadistic, cynical, and sassy, she's the villain you'd LOVE to HATE. You'd be lucky to have an audience with her directly, but you'd regret it and it's more like coming down with a rare disease than winning the lottery in terms of chance and happenstance. She sings songs about her dead and humiliated adversaries and hosts festivals to celebrate the fall of her enemies. She has the media loving her and a seemingly endless horde of pawns at her disposal. While the rest of the world becomes a filthy pile of crap and her royal quarters continues to grow and gather influence, she's living the high life in a very well-protected compound, though she's quite capable of chopping any attacking assassin into tiny little bits with her extreme mastery of swordplay. Six have already attempted and while two were beaten into goo by her bodyguards, she finished off the remaining four herself and quite frankly enjoyed the experience all four times. She's hoping you'll be number five.

She has a whole hierarchical military throughout the world and absolutely loves overkill and NEVER fights with a trace of compassion or honor. You fall, you lose your weapon, you come unprepared, you're dead. Period. She'll fight with all sorts of nasty tricks and things below the belt just because she knows they'll ruin you and that's all she wants. Meanwhile, Queen Taiya has a inner circle of elite warlords and commandos that is called Teien. Like her, coming across Teien warriors means a brutal fight to the death. And usually Teien warriors are commanding officers of Black Lotus and they're on the field leading platoons as centurions. No one knows exactly how many members Teinen has and there are some Teinen that are well known and infamous while others lurk in the shadows and remain hidden to the masses.

And on that note...

Dropping Shadow Pokémon - It was a great suggestion, but there's something I want to try instead that's sort of like it, but different and opens new possibilities in terms of uncovering plot points along the way. It bends more toward being on the mysterious side as to why Black Lotus Pokémon and followers seem to have that extra vigor and endurance. Only the highest on the Black Lotus food chain know the real nature of it, but the wind has carried the whispers and at least, most Pokémon know it is called "Ante".

It's up to you to figure out what this mysterious and deceptive force of Ante really is and where it's coming from. Even Arceus doesn't know and it's deeply concerning him, but it's very enigmatic in nature and trying to get to the root of it is like trying to navigate an ever-changing labyrinth in your dreams. Arceus fears that there may be a link between Ante and the Master Plate and if Taiya gets her hands on both (she's already got one, that's for sure), something beyond anyone's control may happen... much to her delight.

Setting changed to continent - Rather than using an entire world, which would result in a ton of people getting separated, the RP will be focused on a small continent of a Pokémon-only world. And this entire continent is ruled by the Black Lotus Kingdom. While the rest of the world is, for the most part, muddled with violence, greed, and so forth, the RP will focus on this one Australia-sized continent. There's one major capital city, another metropolis-sized city, and a few smaller ones. It's definitely plenty to work with for the RP's setting. If we need to expand, I'm ready to answer the call, but I think it's best to at least start with this and the storyline of the Black Lotus Kingdom and the Tempest Festival.

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So that's what I've been up to. I hope people like the new changes because I think they're bound to be more fun and interesting. As you can see, I'm definitely still using your ideas, but please don't mind if I tweak and transform them around a bit here and there. Usually I do this a lot with my RPs, just not so out in the open and under scrutiny as you're seeing before you.