[RP] Pokémon: Topaz
Aug 7, 2018 8:25:01 GMT -6
Post by Grom on Aug 7, 2018 8:25:01 GMT -6
Chapter One: Humble Beginnings
Calara, Urobos Region
The sun shone down on Calara - there weren't many days where it didn't, after all. A seaside town nestled in the foothills of the south-eastern mountains, Calara was popular among locals and tourists alike eager to escape the busy buzz of the larger cities and the crowds of the tourist precincts. A cool breeze blew from across the water, bringing the smell of salt and sea with it. A few lonely trawlers sat in the bay, and half a dozen surfers rode the few waves that the gentle wind stirred up. A lot of people found Calara idyllic - maybe you were one of them. Then again, maybe you found the tranquility tedious at best, and plain boring at worst.
Maybe that was why you'd leaped at the first chance for excitement you were likely to see in a long while. Professor Aspen's posters had been plastered all over town, no doubt thanks to the hard work of his assistant - you couldn't picture the professor with a handful of posters and a bucket of glue no matter how hard you tried. The professor rarely visited town, at any rate, something your aching legs reminded you of. If there was one downside to life in Calara, it was the hills.
Professor Aspen's Lab
Maybe that was why you'd leaped at the first chance for excitement you were likely to see in a long while. Professor Aspen's posters had been plastered all over town, no doubt thanks to the hard work of his assistant - you couldn't picture the professor with a handful of posters and a bucket of glue no matter how hard you tried. The professor rarely visited town, at any rate, something your aching legs reminded you of. If there was one downside to life in Calara, it was the hills.
Professor Aspen's Lab
Professor Aspen lived in his laboratory on the top of a hill overlooking the bay. A surprisingly modern building, the lab was all glass and slick white walls, with an immaculately maintained lawn out front surrounding a shallow rectangular pool. A few Magikarp swam listlessly back and forth in the crystal-clear water, staring up at you wide-eyed as you stood in front of the house. Like the professor himself, the house was more than a little unorthodox, and seemed more villa than workplace. As you watched the fish swim lazy laps of the pool, the bright yellow front door swung open. "More of you? How many of you are there?!"
Professor Aspen's Scottish brogue did a bit to soften his tone - but just a bit. Dressed in a mustard-yellow vest over a white dress shirt, tucked into sensible khaki slacks, the professor looked almost as out of place in Calara as his house did. The professor strode across the lawn and stopped in front of you all. To your surprise, more people had joined you in the last few minutes. Eight of you had answered the call. The professor looked more than a little surprised.
"Did you all oversleep? Get stuck in traffic?" he said, looking up and down the line. "At least you've all got your own Pokémon - that's one thing sorted." He turned and marched back across the lawn, stopping only when he reached the door. "Are you all coming?" he barked. It was enough to get you all moving and in through the door.
The inside of the lab was somehow both more and less of what you'd expect from a Pokémon professor's laboratory. If the house outside was sleek and clean, the inside was anything but. Various devices, cables, screens, and control panels sat against the walls or dangled from overhead. A few you recognised - incubators, x-ray machines, and even a private Pokémon storage system access terminal. Most you didn't. Displays showed wireframes of various Pokémon you didn't recognise, machines spewed out reams of paper covered in charts and graphs, and in the center of the room, a tall, cylindrical shape sat covered by a bright blue tarpaulin.
What you were more surprised by was the decidedly ancient objects scattered around the room. Clay tablets sat on desks, covered in strange pictoglyphs. Skulls and bones - some Pokémon, some human - were encased in glass boxes, magnifying glasses and microscopes leveled at them. In one corner, an enormous stone coffin sat, covered in strange carvings of Pokémon and humans.
"Don't touch anything," Professor Aspen said from the middle of the room as he rummaged through a pile of papers on an ornate oak desk. "Where did I- blast." He turned around, scratching his head, then cupped a hand to his mouth and raised his voice. "Lucky! Where are you?"
From a pile of paper nearly half a meter tall, slowly feeding out of a machine one bar graph at a time, a squat bipedal Pokémon burst. The Pokémon clopped along the floor on hooves, shaking off coils of paper as it did. "Where did you put the last few starter packs?" the professor asked. "We're not done yet." The Pokémon let out a grumble and wandered off towards the back of the lab, trailing what looked like a chart of seasonal weather patterns from the last four years. "And make some tea for our guests while you're at it!" Professor Aspen shouted.
Professor Aspen's Scottish brogue did a bit to soften his tone - but just a bit. Dressed in a mustard-yellow vest over a white dress shirt, tucked into sensible khaki slacks, the professor looked almost as out of place in Calara as his house did. The professor strode across the lawn and stopped in front of you all. To your surprise, more people had joined you in the last few minutes. Eight of you had answered the call. The professor looked more than a little surprised.
"Did you all oversleep? Get stuck in traffic?" he said, looking up and down the line. "At least you've all got your own Pokémon - that's one thing sorted." He turned and marched back across the lawn, stopping only when he reached the door. "Are you all coming?" he barked. It was enough to get you all moving and in through the door.
The inside of the lab was somehow both more and less of what you'd expect from a Pokémon professor's laboratory. If the house outside was sleek and clean, the inside was anything but. Various devices, cables, screens, and control panels sat against the walls or dangled from overhead. A few you recognised - incubators, x-ray machines, and even a private Pokémon storage system access terminal. Most you didn't. Displays showed wireframes of various Pokémon you didn't recognise, machines spewed out reams of paper covered in charts and graphs, and in the center of the room, a tall, cylindrical shape sat covered by a bright blue tarpaulin.
What you were more surprised by was the decidedly ancient objects scattered around the room. Clay tablets sat on desks, covered in strange pictoglyphs. Skulls and bones - some Pokémon, some human - were encased in glass boxes, magnifying glasses and microscopes leveled at them. In one corner, an enormous stone coffin sat, covered in strange carvings of Pokémon and humans.
"Don't touch anything," Professor Aspen said from the middle of the room as he rummaged through a pile of papers on an ornate oak desk. "Where did I- blast." He turned around, scratching his head, then cupped a hand to his mouth and raised his voice. "Lucky! Where are you?"
From a pile of paper nearly half a meter tall, slowly feeding out of a machine one bar graph at a time, a squat bipedal Pokémon burst. The Pokémon clopped along the floor on hooves, shaking off coils of paper as it did. "Where did you put the last few starter packs?" the professor asked. "We're not done yet." The Pokémon let out a grumble and wandered off towards the back of the lab, trailing what looked like a chart of seasonal weather patterns from the last four years. "And make some tea for our guests while you're at it!" Professor Aspen shouted.
"He'll take a while," Professor Aspen said, turning back to face you all. "His name is my little joke - he's always losing things. If he didn't make such good tea, I don't know if I'd keep him around." You got the feeling the professor was only half joking. As if to prove his point, there was a crash from the back of the lab and a cloud of paper floated skywards. Professor Aspen pinched his nose. "I apologise. I'm Professor Aspen, the League's foremost Pokémon expert and arguably the leading authority on the ancient Urobon people." He waved a hand towards the back. "That's one of my assistants, Lucky. My other assistant is out - she thought we'd seen the last batch for today - but I've no doubt she'll be by in short order."
"While we wait for Lucky, feel free to look around. Ask questions, if you'd like, or get to know each other," he said. "But keep your Pokémon under control. The last thing I need in here is more mess."
"While we wait for Lucky, feel free to look around. Ask questions, if you'd like, or get to know each other," he said. "But keep your Pokémon under control. The last thing I need in here is more mess."
Welcome to Pokémon: Topaz! Your first steps on the Climb and a world of adventure are in Calara, a small seaside town. We're starting fairly slow to give a chance to introduce each other, but I'll be moving you along pretty quickly once the introductions are done.
I'm working on the assumption that all of your starters have been with you for at least a little while, as everyone seems to have written that way - nonetheless, none of you are particularly experienced trainers (although some have more natural talent than other) and have never been on a real adventure before. This will all be pretty new for our heroes, and the Climb is a very different challenge than those in regular Pokémon games.
I'm playing fairly loose with the rules, but I've laid out a few below.
I'm working on the assumption that all of your starters have been with you for at least a little while, as everyone seems to have written that way - nonetheless, none of you are particularly experienced trainers (although some have more natural talent than other) and have never been on a real adventure before. This will all be pretty new for our heroes, and the Climb is a very different challenge than those in regular Pokémon games.
I'm playing fairly loose with the rules, but I've laid out a few below.
- Each character is limited to three Pokémon in a party at one time. The Climb is unique in that it's a team format, but we've also got a team of eight players (!) so I'm going to have to lay some restrictions out for my own sanity.
- Because there'll be restrictions on party size, you may not be encountering (and subsequently capturing) scores of Pokémon. I'd rather have you find a few that you like a lot and can develop into characters in their own right than twenty plus A-tier Pokémon picked for stats. Tying in with this, if there are particular Pokémon you'd really like to get your hands on, let me know in the signup topic, by PM, or on Discord so I can work them in.
- There's going to be a mix of 'traditional' Pokémon from other games/media combined with a lot of original Pokémon. I'll be throwing a lot of them at you, so feel free to capture one if they stand out!
- Unlike other Pokémon RPs that have been run on SSLF, I'll be restricting when and where Pokémon can be captured. Generally it'll be fair game when I set up an encounter, but large swathes of Urobos are designated national parks, and the local Rangers take a very dim view of Poképoachers...
- Keep the tone relatively light. I'm going for a tone that'll shift between some of the sillier episodes of the anime and Pokémon: The First Movie, with shades of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Romancing the Stone. Expect chases through the jungle, ancient tombs, dastardly villains, and a few moral decisions, but ultimately the tone will be light-hearted enough to get a PG (or maybe an M) rating.
- Sometimes, I'll work your Strengths/Weaknesses into posts and drop you some extra information (maybe by PM, maybe not) or have you start off on the back foot if a weakness comes into play. Other times, I'll let lay out some possibilities and let you do the work yourself. I've included them as a tool for roleplaying, so please use them as that - they're a framework to build on, not one to be trapped by. Play around with them and get creative - at worst, I'll ask you to edit bits out if it's way out of line.
- Some fights will be fairly free-for-all, especially against 'nameless' enemies (assorted wild Pokémon, nameless goons etc). Some fights will be more heavily GMed (e.g. gym battles, boss fights). I'll try to make it clear with a note which is which, but even in the free-for-all fights, don't go too overboard. If there's 6 Oddish and you beat 5 of them in one post, it leaves very little for your fellows to do.
- Try to keep active. I don't expect a wall of text every day, but try to check in frequently, especially if other players are waiting on you.
- Don't go too overboard with posts. I'd rather have a nice, to-the-point 250-word post once or twice a day than a 2,000 word novella once a week.
- Have fun!