The Setting

[Birdybot]

Right, then. Time to do some plotting! Currently, the setting is a pretty varied region in a world like the Pokémon world, except everyone has a daemon, their soul taking on a solid form of a Pokémon.

Personally, I'd quite like to take it a bit further. I'd like to give Pokémon battles and training in general more of a purpose. My first thought was that maybe Pokémon turned on humans and trainers are people capable of making Pokémon listen to them, who train Pokémon to protect people and places from wild Pokémon, but that doesn't explain why Pokémon need a trainer in order to fight, and why trainers need Pokémon and can't just fight off Pokémon themselves. Any suggestions would be welcome!

Any suggestion. Seriously. Anything at all to do with the general setting. Doesn't have to be to do with the Pokémon at all. Magic, spirits, governments, trainers, anything.

[Angel]

Just an idea and only explains one half of the story. But because the Pokémon are on a disastrous rampage, the humans have decided to kill off all wild Pokémon and the people who have made this decision are the 8 Gym Leaders and the Elite 4? Therefore the Trainers on Enera are a group of people either Team ___ ('good guys') who want to save all wild Pokémon and try to win over the gym leaders whilst proving that the wild Pokémon can be tamed and good. Whilst the other group Team ___ agree with the Gym Leaders and are becoming trainers to stop the other team, and to do that they need the approval of the 8 Gym leaders which is why they're challenging them?

To be honest... the idea sounded much better in my head. XD

[Birdybot]

Getting the gym leaders and elite involved would be good, since they need more purpose! Don't think people would bother killing all wild Pokémon, seems like too much effort... they might try and come up with some other way of protection? They could be important in protecting people from wild Pokémon by taming them and using Pokémon to fight off other Pokémon. They'd still be there as a form of testing/approval thing, too. They could raise one 'frozen team' to test people with, while they train their main team to protect the town they're in. Not sure...

[Red]

Well, my thinking would would make it a cultural thing as to why humans don't attack pokemon. Back in the yea old days of lore, I'd think humans used to fight pokemon on their own. Then people learned to tame pokemon and fight along side them. As the world became more and more technological and the ways of catching and taming pokemon became better and easier, fighting pokemon yourself kind of fell to the wayside in favour of letting the pokemon do all the battling themselves. A person could attack a pokemon if they wanted to, most just don't think of it because it's been ingrained into them that only pokemon fight pokemon. That and, even with all the travelling, most folks I would think wouldn't have the first clue about how to fight in any kind of real manner.

People would travel to make themselves stronger, see the world, ect, and the league was set up to help encourage people to travel, because having trainers roaming from place to place fighting and catching pokemon, would keep down the wild populations and thus keep dangers of wild pokemon ending up in cities and such down to a minimum and keep the need for people to learn to fight for themselves again as something unlikely to happen.

[Birdybot]

Cultural thing solidly ingrained in history solves it well, I think. Thanks! Perhaps we could get trainers doing something else too, sometimes. A little fighting of their own against non-Pokémon.

I think far fewer people would become trainers with all the new dangers, so it's more filtered to include tougher people who are more willing to protect others. The more badges, the better qualified they are to take on tougher jobs. They could earn money by sort of like a police force against Pokémon, dealing with issues with wild Pokémon. Trainers with more badges get the more exciting/dangerous jobs.

How about Pokémorphs? People are bound to be less happy about them if wild Pokémon are a problem. Could they be some sort of project to create peace between people and Pokémon, by creating a cross between the two? Or perhaps people aren't that heartless and it was some other unknown force that began unpredictably changing very few children before birth? Spirits/magic/etc may somehow be discovered and wind up in the plot which could be fun, but depends on how realistic you guys are wanting this place to be.

[Red]

I know Valen and Shira would both definitely be able to hold their own in a fight and I think setting up that kind of thing for the trainers as well could be interesting.

As for the pokemorphs. I can see a variety of reasons that could all be In Game acceptable. It really depends on how far you want to go with things. Since we're portraying pokemon as intelligent senient beings, I could see some being offspring of human/pokemon realtionships, though ICly I can see that being frowned upon. Genetic experiments are another good one, either by good hearted scientists looking to bridge the gap between human and pokemon, or by less scrupulous groups looking to create the ultimate warrior in terms of sheer destructive potential.

If we go with spirits and the magical side of things, then shifters might also be a possibility, characters who can change between a human form and a pokemon form, which might or might not be the same as their daemon.

Personally, given this is based off an anime/game world, I'd want to say that there's only so much realism you can really get in a roleplay where giant firebreathing monsters exist and little yellow mouse like creatures can electrocute you like a lightingbolt. As long as things make a fairly logical sense, I'm good with most stuff.

[Birdybot]

That sort of ties in with Connor! Mysterious thing makes some rare people Pokémorphs, secretly some people manage to harness it somehow and makes 'morph army? Meanwhile, Pokémorphs people are aware of are prejudiced against, but are also encouraged to help keep the peace with Pokémon. Maybe no human-Pokémon relationships because bestiality.

I see what you mean, the Pokémon world isn't exactly a stranger to the supernatural xD What if people were becoming closer to Pokémon? That could be why some find themselves with Pokémon features, why shifters could exist (which I really really like, especially them turning into their dæmon's form - they could form some sort of secret assassin-spies-good-guys thing. It would be cool) and maybe some trainers closer to Pokémon will eventually at some part of the plot develop minor powers? 'Morphs wouldn't have powers originally, just Pokémon-like physical abilities or senses (depending on which parts are Pokémon and which aren't) but it could be more likely for a 'morph to develop powers later on due to them being closer to Pokémon.

[Red]

Well, as I said, from all I've seen treat the pokemon here as intelligent sentient beings, which to my mind rules out bestiality because their fully aware of what is happening, understand it and are capable both of giving consent and witholding it. But each to their own.

I think it could be equally interesting to see shifters who change into something other than their daemons shape as well and watch how they deal with the differing limitations. As an example, I could see Valen becomign say, an umbreon, but I couldn't see him becoming a haunter like Abby is. My personal headcanon for shifters would be that their magic/spirit based, something that's been around since the darkest of dark times, but who tend to either stay hidden amongst humanity or form their own little villiages without ever letting other know what they can do.

Maybe the first lots of pokemorphs could come from their bloodlines, be shifter children born permanently stuck between one form and the other. they pop up randomly in the population due to hidden shifters breeding with humans, so their parents has shifter blood even if their unable to shift themselves and don't know about the shfiter in their linage.

[Birdybot]

Sounds good for the shifters. They could be a complete secret to everyone, and act sort of like guardian angels (with perhaps a few rogues) to the general population. They could know other shifters, too, and all work together to be cool. They won't necessarily transform into the same Pokémon as their dæmon, but a fair few would because their dæmon would be similar in personality to them. They could also have some limited powers to help them, too? Mild telekinesis, easily unnoticed, that sort of thing. Like the witches in the His Dark Materials books, their dæmons could be able to travel far from them after testing their bond by spending a while apart, but they wouldn't do that often in human form since it would get noticed.

That sounds like a better idea for Pokémorph origins. Normally, there could be, say a quarter chance of the child being a shifter, three-quarter chance they end up a normal human, and the shifter keeps their true identity secret unless it's a shifter child. With Pokémorphs being born, the shifters still maintain their secrecy but struggle to find answers as to why the children have somehow been stuck between shifter and human.

[Red]

An ability to sense other shifters would definitely be a useful talent I'd think. I'd give each type of shifter some kind of minor ability based on what pokemon they are. So say, someone who turns into a psychic type might be capable of minor telekinesis or slight empathy/telepathy. While a dark type might be able to blend into the shadows or see perfectly at night, or an electric type being able to naturally produce static.

[Birdybot]

Sounds good! Shifters would know who each other were, and when/if regular people begin developing powers, they would be able to tell who they are and subtly help them. They'd also train a Pokémon team, but wouldn't be so worried about badges, they'd instead work with the Pokémon. Some might not bother. Shifters would be pretty rare and important, so I guess I'd have to limit the number in play, too, and make sure whoever is playing a shifter is experienced and active. Really important ones will just be NPCs, probably.

The shifters are good guys, protecting humans against evil. What sort of evil? I got no ideas here...

[Red]

Maybe there are two factions amongst the shifters? One group who manipulate behind the scenes to try and wipe out the human race for all the damage they've done (They'd be responsible for the weaponising of pokemorphs) and the others fighting against their corrupted brethren to try and save humanity, being convinced that humans and pokemon can coexist peacefully.

[Birdybot]

Sure, but what about some underlying purpose? The shifters weren't always fighting, so what's their primary goal/thing they protect against?

[Red]

Do they really need to have an overreaching purpose like that? I saw them as being a natural thing, just like how humans and Pokemon are natural thing with no overreaching reason for existing.

I saw it as being that there have always been stories of pokmorphs here and there, always been a few natrual ones running about, shifters kids/grand kids/ect, but they've become more common lately, in large part due to the 'bad guys' factions who are making forced pokemorphs.

Sorry for any mistakes in this, in writing on my iPhone.

[Rin]

The idea of the shifters is cool, but yeah might want to limit them if they are going to be special? Hm. I’m pretty confused at exactly where the plot seems to be going with the whole “trainers are experiencing lives of extreme danger” and the whole Pokemon vs Humans vs Shifters, though. So if I have misconceived any of the finer details in your ideas, please correct me. >_<

Perhaps in terms of wars/factions we could bring things back to the plot of His Dark Materials? So for example, we’ve determined that Pokemons are sentient beings, why don’t they have daemons? Especially the legendaries. Does that make Pokemon “soulless”?

IDK maybe some of the shifters believe that daemons show that humans need Pokemon but Pokemon don't need humans so humans should be eradicated. Or maybe there's a team (shifters or otherwise) who wants to figure out how daemon are "bound" to people and thinks that all pokemon should be bound to a human somehow in the"serving" daemon nature - I guess these people might not have daemons. IDK, I don't think these are particularly good ideas I'm just trying to get my own creative juices flowing XD;; Maybe we could even tie it to the "Dust" idea from the books.