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Post by Dusk Raven on Mar 24, 2016 23:02:28 GMT
So, the reason for my recent surge of interest in Pokemon is that I was thinking about the setting with a friend, and I spontaneously came up with something which I'm sure has been thought of before, but which still made me quite interested.
You see, I noticed that Pokemon come in all sorts of varieties, from animal types to embodiment of the forces of nature. And as I thought of their variety of forms - I made a connection with creatures in folklore across the world, creatures that also tend to be a part of nature, in a variety of forms: Fey, Youkai, spirits, and other supernatural creatures associated with the natural world. I've been drawn to such creatures for some time, and looking at Pokemon, with their variety of forms and seemingly-supernatural abilities, the potential for a connection - and a headcanon - seemed clear.
I confess I don't have much detail on this interpretation at the moment - for now it's simply that I consider them, for the purposes of this idea, to be supernatural creatures, more created by nature than anything else, and as such not always subject to the same principles that govern true living creatures. They can come into being from whatever phenomenon they embody, or can be hatched from the ever-mysterious Poke-eggs. They don't die except through specific circumstances, such as old age, losing the will to live, catastrophic damage, the wholesale destruction of whatever created them (clear-cutting a Grass-type Pokemon's home forest, for instance, or damming a river for a lake-dwelling Water Pokemon), and possibly some other things related to the Pokemon species.
Of course, that's why I'm posting this here. I seek to expand this idea, see who's interested, what detail needs to be added, and so forth. I'm interested to see what sort of ideas people can come up with.
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Post by TenabreTrevellian on Mar 25, 2016 17:05:11 GMT
It sounds like an interesting idea, it mixes the Pokemon world with a kind of World of Darkness Ghost setting. I think it could work, but I'm intrigued at how you might be able to make a campaign out of it.
You've got some similarities already, Ninetails, Mawile and Jynx already have some kind of parallels in their theme that link back to the same kind of Folklore.
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644 posts
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The dice holds no love for me...
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Post by Rhewlif_Dewdrop on Apr 9, 2016 18:12:32 GMT
A concept like this could lead into great a greate story line.
Since Pokémon would basically be nature spirits, ghost, demons, and gods, and what have you, not everyone in that setting would have Pokémons, particularly as pets. It makes me think that only very spiritual people would have Pokémons or people with a stronge force of spirits.
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90 posts
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Apr 16, 2016 16:46:23 GMT
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Post by Ursus on Apr 10, 2016 4:44:59 GMT
This is meant as a suggestion/brainstorm post. But because of the way my train of thought functions, it might look like I'm trying to hijack the idea. I'm not telling you how to run it if you do it, but this is how I would. . . though its gonna be a bit more tongue in cheek than usual.
Since before man could write, they have not been alone on this world. Birds fly the open sky, beasts roar in the woods, and fish . . . well, fish do whatever it is they do. But man's relationship with birds and beasts will never be as close as man's relationship with yokaimon. Countless varieties of yokaimon have been encountered - each as wildly unpredictable and unearthly as the last - shapes ever changing, abilities defying natural law. They do not need to eat, they do not need to drink, and when slain they simply. . . disappear.
And, like man, they have an insatiable love of conflict. Yokaimon enjoy testing their strength against one another and fear stagnation. The victor of a test between yokaimon steals the very real potential for actual, observable growth and metamorphosis from their defeated foe. In this way, a yokaimon can grow ever stronger, change ever further, for as long as they can manage. A yokaimon that does not battle does not grow. And growth is the goal of all living things.
The beauty of this, is that it doesn't reaalllly need to change much. It just provides a path to explain what pokemon are and why they defy physics, can be converted from living matter to 'pure' energy, can take fireballs to the face, etc etc. You can go to the roots and run something like a Mushishi campaign or bring it to the point where man's science can harness the supernatural for their own ends.
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Post by Dusk Raven on Apr 26, 2016 20:21:20 GMT
All right, sorry for seemingly abandoning this project for a month, there's just been a lot on my mind lately. But I have not forgotten about this venture (mostly thanks to Pokemon Picross), and I've had time to think and plan. I've come up with a sort of blurb/recent history of the setting that I'm envisioning. It starts off identical to our own world but sort of... branches off... in the near future.
Also, I apologize for my prose, it's just now I write naturally. I blame reading too much old literature... anyway, I'll respond to some of the other posts here, as well as post some of the details like "How Pokemon work according to this premise" in the near future, I just wanted to get this down and posted.
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
-Albert Einstein
The technical details of the weapons with which the Final War were fought were, shortly after their use, irrelevant. What mattered was the destruction they brought. Countless cities were reduced to rubble and ash. No shelter was completely safe from the explosions such weapons produced. Even those who survived felt no relief at the Final War’s end, for the blasts launched countless clouds of dirt, smoke, and cinder into the sky. The sun was obscured, shrouding the planet in chilling darkness. Countless more died in the months that followed, from cold, starvation, or pollution. On an ecological scale, the destruction caused by the Final War was nothing compared to the death that followed as the life-sustaining sun was hidden away. It seemed that the twilight the Earth was under was a metaphor for the twilight of life itself, soon to give way to eternal night.
Yet, somehow, miraculously, the sheer destruction and loss of life did not go unnoticed in the great expanse of the universe. From places or realms unknown, a visitor arrived, a strange and mystical being known only as Mew.
For its actions that would follow, Mew would be considered by all cultures to be a divine hero, a savior, or a god. But what exactly it did was unclear. Some say that upon arriving on Earth and witnessing the destruction and death, it wept countless tears of sorrow, which mixed with the ash of the fallen world to create new beings, legendary creatures that combined Mew’s essence with that of the materials and forces of Earth. But somehow, Mew’s arrival, presence, or actions gave rise to new creatures soon to be known as Pokémon.
Pokémon were creatures that, in the World Before, would have defied scientific explanation for many years, perhaps even considered supernatural by many. Indeed, the physical nature of Pokémon was totally alien to the known laws of the universe. Though they had physical bodies, they were not composed of true matter as was then known, but of a sort of spiritual essence. Each Pokémon bore the aspects of one or two parts of the natural world, such as water, fire, or plant life. This not only gave them their shape, but also provided them with fantastic powers and determined their role in the world.
The Pokémon, as it turned out, were to be regulators of the many natural processes of the world, many of which had been torn asunder by the Last War. Whether it was protecting and nurturing forests, regulating the waters of the world, or causing or curtailing weather, Pokémon were imbued with the power to fix what was once broken. From the lowliest Caterpie to the godlike Kyogre, Pokémon became an integral part of the New World.
Mew and the first Pokémon, known forever after as Legendary Pokémon, attempted to clean the skies, cleanse the oceans, stabilize the earth, and replant the forests, but their power alone was not enough. As they struggled, their desire to heal the world – and some say, the hope of all life for a better future – brought forth more Pokémon, great and small, and these new Pokémon joined the complex, monumental effort. After a year of toil, the Earth had been mended. The sun shone once more upon blue oceans and green land. Though countless lives had been lost during the Time of Twilight, their bodies nothing but dust, the ground upon which they had fallen was now fertile and would give rise to new life, as it was meant to be.
Its work finished, Mew vanished from human witness. Some say that it simply returned home, other held that it needed rest and was slumbering in a hidden sanctum, and still others said that it still watched unseen to see what would become of the world it worked to fix as though it were its own. But regardless, the Pokémon it created remained. Humanity would not face the coming years alone – and though the time it would take to rebuild society would be great, it would be even longer before they stopped learning about their new companions on Earth.
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Post by ThRevanchist on Apr 26, 2016 21:46:17 GMT
Mmm, it's nice to see you're still developing this concept. And that this month was well-spent!
Nothing is jumping out as alarming/confusing quite yet... It seems like a nice background/divergence.
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