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Kita-Ysabell

Distinct Conversationalist

PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 3:01 pm


Yeah, so, uh... Kita and Feragel jumped ship off the last plot they were in, and now they have a new one. Isn't that just great? So you, if you continue to read, get to hear about it. What does it have to offer? Well, mildly historically accurate elves and fairies, an ironic Heroic Hero that looks and acts like a severely deranged Cloud cosplayer, bitchy royals and their gosh-darned interfering politics,gay cowboys, and... Feragel, who, despite being a creep, nonetheless has his share of devoted fangirls. Yes, he already has them.

Setting: If the enlightenment and industrial revolution had happened in New Mexico, (but with magic) this is... a fair approximation of what it would be like. So. Geography. Well, you got your hilly aspen-y areas, (see left) your interestingly-accented sagebrush plains, and your mountainous piney bits, and the whole thing is sprinkled with canyons. There will be a map, once I get around to it. The sky is blue, the earth is red, and there aren't a lot of people around, because there isn't a whole lot of water. Some major rivers, a few springs, and that's about it.

Races: Well, you've got your humans. They're... standard and human-shaped. Not much needs to be said about them at the moment. Then you've got your elves. They like to hang out in the bumpy forested bits, because... they get easily sunburned? Oh, and it better suits their method of hunting. They are tall and skinny, not in the attractive-and-mildly-waify way, but in the starving-children-in-Africa way. Like cheetahs. They subsist by scavenging, hunting when they really, really feel like it, using magic, and, if they're really bored, doing a bit of pillaging. They dislike humans, but rather than provoking an all-out war and getting their sorry asses kicked, they charm them, use them as slaves, and only really attack isolated individuals. An exception to this is the Hunt, who other elves claim to be rogues, who spend their entire lives pillaging in odd and magical ways. They are quite magical, but their magic centers around illusions and transformations, and is generally otherwise weak. And that's it.

Ooh, and there's monsters! They appeared recently, of course. They have no real shape, but can take on the appearance of humans or form a shadowy tentacle monster thing which absorbs heat energy to "survive." (I'm not sure how alive they are) This means that, to the touch, they are really, really cold, and being around them too long will cause you to die of hypothermia. Yeah. Don't even wanna see the porn that comes out of that.

Super-Condensed Plot Summary!: Basically, you've got these three people who... just kinda happen to be really common villain types; Feragel, the sarcastic, amoral, misogynistic, murdering, literal b*****d; Kita, the lovely-but-dangerous fanatic devotee to a political cause; and Indio, who is more FABULOUS, cruel, and self absorbed than you or anyone you know. They go looking for a way to not be the villains of this series without realizing that "Redemption" isn't just a town on the Sycarax.

Not-So-Condensed Plot Summary!: So, things are obviously going wrong- towns, chateaus, and cities are disappearing, and suddenly there are monsters everywhere. The most recent victim of the attacks is... a mystical Marxist assassination service. Yes, you heard me right. Everyone's constantly fighting over water, and what better blow to your enemy than to off their leaders? As for the mystical bit, well, they are aware that there is magic, they use it to a fair degree, and they have extensive literature on the subject, but though their operations are, for the most part, non-magical. Think a slightly more grounded Alamut.

Kita and Indio, among the few survivors of the attack, team up with Feragel, a former member of the organization, to find out what the heck is going on, and why on earth members and former members of the organization are having weird dreams about some kid from a complete podunk town with crazy hair. (like picture on right, but worse)

Meanwhile, aforementioned Hero (was that a spoiler? No. Not really) has decided to go beat the monsters before his town is wiped clean off the map, too. Along his journey, he runs into an ex-concubine who escaped when his castle got invaded and a little girl whose town got pretty much destroyed by the Hunt. These are Adele and Elia, respectively. They compromise the Heroic Hero party, or if I'm not feeling particularly snarky that day, the Emotional Trauma party.

Both groups then run about trying to figure out what on earth is going wrong and how to stop it. They journey between the five kingdoms, (there were six, but Adele's kingdom got destroyed) often (intentionally or not) leaving destruction in their wake. Adele and Elia gain the powers of fire and ice magic, respectively, from some old guy in the woods. The Hero finds some craptastic sword of light and dark, and if all this were played straight, would become the hero of light and dark.

But it isn't played straight, see. So while the Hero is told that he's the hero of light and dark, and that all the stuff he's getting is ancient artifacts, it's really all a lie. And to top it off, the 'hero of light and dark' is acting a bit strangely, and waving it off as "destiny calling". You know, sometimes when destiny calls, it's best if you don't pick up the phone. And just because his party mates are too out of their minds to notice doesn't mean that everyone else is. Which is really just a convoluted way of saying that Kita, Indio, and Feragel start hearing rumors and putting the pieces together, (er... we hope they do. I mean, this game is pretty open ended, so they don't have to. Ever.) even if they don't get a whole lot more right.

Eventually, the Emotional Trauma party find themselves led to a portal which, once the player completes the necessary quests, (they look like random location filler... er... more random location filler, but they really make up the plot, more or less) leads them to a palace/temple/thing build on the top of a mountain near the Ice Kingdom. The Snarky part follows them there, albeit with fewer not-so-Deus ex Machinas dropped across their path. (they don't use the portal)

It is there that they discover the Ultimate Villain to be... that princess from the Ice Kingdom? ... What? Yes, not only is she female, not to mention not actually using any arcane or ancient powers or anything, she has no motive. She's just that f'ing psycho. She explains that the magic that the elves are using to turn people into creepy sub-zero tentacle monsters of shadow and blargh is somehow connected to the magic that Adele and Elia were given, and which now permeates their bodies, and that the Hero's sword is also a part of it all. She manages to avoid telling them that she's behind it all, somehow. Anyways, now Adele has to choose which one of them to kill to... finish the magic.

The Snarky Party is responsible for convincing everyone (except Ophelia, aka Crazy Princess Lady) to take option C instead, and kill Ophelia. If the players realize that this is what needs to be done, and succeed, she dies telling them that it isn't over yet; they still have to kill either Adele or Elia with the hero's sword. If they try to kill either while she's alive, she will force them to kill Adele, thus finishing the spell in a bad way, i.e. everyone, ever, is turned into an ice statue, and the snow just falls over them all softly.

Of course, once you defeat her, you have to kill Elia, but the Heroic Hero has already caught on. And goes about it a little... too... something. Resolutely? Enthusiastically? In a way. Either way, she's dead, and everything is fixed, or as fixed as it gets.
PostPosted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:36 am


Er, how exactly can fairies and elves be historically accurate? Do you mean historically textually accurate? confused

Also, I wonder if the Elouai people are aware that anyone who would wear loose suspenders over chain-y black pants would never, ever wear shorts. It's an abomination, I tell you.

jestingly.yours


Kita-Ysabell

Distinct Conversationalist

PostPosted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:32 pm


Mythically accurate, then. They ain't Tolkien elves, that's for sure. And yes, I will research. I have not yet, but I will.

The Hero would. Lacking Kita's profound sense of irony, he is coming to be known by me as the Idiot, although as I've mentioned elsewhere, he isn't the nicest person, so... I only call him that behind his back, or when I am armed with many a painful plot device.
PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:17 am


An announcement: this summary will not continue until after the first draft is finished, as writing it will make writing the first draft boring.

Edit: Screw drafts, it's gonna be a video game design. So... up next, a flowchart! Soon-ish. Possibly.

Kita-Ysabell

Distinct Conversationalist


Kita-Ysabell

Distinct Conversationalist

PostPosted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 12:38 pm


And we're back! Flowchart's still on the cooling racks, and it might very well stay there, as the "plot" is now as follows: 2 parties (nicknamed the Brain Damage party and the Snarky Party) wander around the lack of an overworld map, getting lost incessantly, and trigger mini-plotlines when the enter certain locations. Or don't. Anyways, all they really have to do is level up enough to beat the final boss and trigger the events that put the final boss in the location where you're supposed to find her. (yes, a female actually got it together enough to be the main villain)

I have about 60 pages of planning crap, including bios of fifty ******** characters, and we havn't even gotten to the really, really pointless ones yet. How exciting. Revisions to the information above will be made shortly, as will additions of things like: new characters! plot outlines! and tons and tons of politics.
PostPosted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:17 am


The Ice Kingdom
Location and sub-plot

Government: Totalitarian Monarchy

Theme: Midsummer Night's Dream, Russian fairy-tales and similar

Colors: Blue, yellow, silver

Symbol: Eye

Inheritance Laws: Whoever the person who is being inherited from names. In the case of royalty, it is always the king.

Technology vs. Magic: Ironically, technology, although not for any... momentous purpose, and it's probably aided by magic. Probably.

Logic vs. Emotion: It would have to be emotion. Or insanity, but that's not really an option.

Tradition vs. Progress: In general, tradition. Politically, certainly. Progress in technology and some social spheres, such as a highly modern (for their time, and... ours, a bit) concept of crime and punishment.

Class System: There are the nobles, the clergy, and the masses of peasants. And that's it. The first two work to keep the masses in line, and the nobility tries to keep a death grip on the church. Knights are either nobles or clergy, (paladins) spies are considered nobles, (although they are frequently recruited from the ranks of common criminals) and all other "military" types are mostly peon cannon fodder only called in (and given weapons) in times of war.

Yearbook Title: Best Hair

History and Stuff: Hmmmm.... So a while back, there was this king, and he was powerful enough that he pretty much turned your average monarchy into a totalitarian monarchy. People let him do it because... well, they said it made you proud to be from this kingdom, what with the whole bunch of civic works and stuff. He was also the one who introduced the modern ideas of crime and punishment, with the whole Foucaulian hierarchy of gazes and the like. The kingdom's crest contains an eye because of all this, and everyone gets followed around by spy bots. As to why it's the "Ice" kingdom, it's up in the mountains, so they do get more snow in the winter, but there's also a lot of cottonwoods, so when they go to seed, it's like another winter. Except, you know, not cold.

Plot: It all started six years ago. Or at least, pretty much everything we care about did. The basics are: Forelock was training to be a knight, when he got mixed up in a plot orchestrated by a bunch of clockmakers to test their new prosthetics line. He ran around with a bunch of poison and paralyzed various bits of random people's anatomy, especially arms. Someone found out about it, challenged him to a duel, and managed to wound him with his own (still poisoned) weapon. In the arm. So then he got to have a partially mechanical arm, (he can't move it without the help of this clockwork thingy) not to mention that he had been publicly exposed, so on and so forth. Instead of kill him or something of that ilk, the queen decided that she needed a loyal hound, and gave him an extremely conditional pardon, which lead to him becoming the captain of spies.

Fast forward six years. Someone's been killing the other people with the prosthetics and leaving them where Forelock (and the royal family) will find them by tearing said prosthetics out through various major veins and arteries, and leaving a card which reads:
Quote:
The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be
what the eye fears, when it is done, to see
(Yes folks, it's Shakespeare) and also contains the image of a fist, for labor. What it all means is that someone is calling Forelock out as captain of spies, and threatening him with his past in the process. Oh, and it might just be the entire kingdom's population.

Enter the snarky assassins. Without being let in on the whole peasant revolt bit, they are asked to stop the murders. (The rest is... speculative. The player can pretty much do what they want from here, so long as it doesn't violate the characters' beliefs) They begin to do so, only to discover the whole peasant revolt aspect of it all. The snarky assassins, being 2/3 Marxist snarky assassins, don't really feel like backing the reigning monarchs in a proletariat revolt. They make their position clear and (in between cross-dressing, high-tailing and literally blind sewer crawls) do their best to bring the rulers down.

They are eventually sent by some faction of the revolution or another to capture the queen, who is hiding with her captain of spies, Forelock. They are joined by a mysterious stranger who turns out to be no other than Forlock's old pal, Expy. When they finally find Forelock and the queen, Expy offers to duel Forlock for some complicated reason having to do with honor, their swords get swapped in the middle of fighting, and Forelock's sword is revealed to have been poisoned by the queen when he lets Expy wound him and consequently dies. And there is much angst. And possibly a mildly disturbing make-out scene.

After much drama, martyr-dom, flag-waving and general chaos, the peasants win, and kill off most of the government, especially the royal family. All of them. Definitely dead. Yep. Because shooting at people in a darkened room is an absolutely fail-safe way to get rid of them. Totally.

Anyways, more chaos ensues (as is generally the case) and the people end up at the mercy of a very unmerciful church. If only they had their despotic rulers back...

There is a rumor (of course) that one of them survived, possibly even the heir to the kingdom! (Don't hold your breath. She did.) So the people, eager to get their constitutional monarchy on, start looking for said heir. Or sending other people to look. You know how it is. Unfortunately, Anastasia happens to be crazy, and is rather busy trying to destroy the world. For no reason whatsoever. Oops.

Kita-Ysabell

Distinct Conversationalist


Charlie_The_Bad

PostPosted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 12:00 am


A video game with a Communist uprising? That has to be one of the most original ideas I've heard of.
PostPosted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 3:31 pm


Uh... two of the characters are mystical Marxist western assassins, so it's not particularly surprising in context. I mean, after something gets just so cracked out, there's not much weirder it can get. And... this isn't the only such uprising. It's actually triggered by one in the next kingdom over. I wasn't really aware there was anything original about Communist uprisings, but if you say so...

Oh, and yes, I have already come up with a way that there can be Marxists in a world with out Marx- he got a look-alike. (He happens to be Kita's foster parent-ish: He saw her as something a bit less like a daughter and a bit more like a mildly inferior protegee, really)

Kita-Ysabell

Distinct Conversationalist


Kita-Ysabell

Distinct Conversationalist

PostPosted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 7:36 pm


Post #1 has been updated, so that the information is now accurate.
PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 1:27 am


Characters- The Ice Kingdom(for VGR)


Name: Sherlock

Age: 20
Origin/Location: Ice Kingdom
Nickname(s): Forelock, Seifer
Backstory: Started out training to be a knight, but got mixed up with the Clockmaker's Guild, and got in enough trouble to come to the attention of the Queen. She got him out of trouble, but used the incident as leverage to keep him loyal to her and her alone.
Occupation: Captain of the Queen's Spies
Personality: The problem with Forelock is that he doesn't know when to admit that he's totally screwed the pooch. It gets him into trouble, see; lots of trouble. Independent to a severe fault, with a bit if a martyr complex to boot. Comes off as a cruel snot, which is exactly what the Queen wants.
Torments and Tortures: Has a partially mechanical arm, due to losing a fight (rather badly) while using a poisoned weapon. Hates his job, but does it anyways. Was a disgrace to his family. Doesn't actually get along with anyone (except Expy, of course). Oh, and did I mention the ambiguously romantic angst crap? That too. Yes, he's one of my angst muffins.


Name: (none yet)
Age: 20
Origin: Ice Kingdom, moved to Industrial City
Nicknames: Expy, (or Ex-Spy, as it were) Squall
Backstory: Started out as a knight-in-training with Forelock, followed him in "fall from grace" to become a spy before leaving due to actually having a conscience.
Occupation: drunken rogue
Personality: If there is honor among theives, it might be because those theives used to be knights. Hides all emotion behind a mask of stoicism and calls it a knight's code. A better person than times allow, but can't always keep his priorities straight. At all. In any sense of the word.
Torments and Tortures: Having a conscience while working as a spy for Crazy Princess Lady,

Name: Katya

Age: 18

Origin/Location: Ice Kingdom

Nickname(s): Psycho #1, Curlers

Backstory: Spent her youth as some lord's younger offspring dissecting small animals to see how they worked. Was shipped off to be a clockmaker ASAP.

Occupation: Royal Clockmaker's Apprentice

Personality: You've got to be a little bit insane to be a clockmaker, a qualification which Katya certainly meets. Although she' got a job putting things together, she rather prefers taking them apart. Besides that, she's a cheerful, decent person, but some days that's like saying that besides the whole slavery thing, there wasn't much wrong with the Old South. Good at not saying things, and often comes off as rather air-headed, but don't let that fool you; she's sharp and attentive- enough so to organize a rebellion all on her very own.

Tortures and Torments: I don't dare. I really don't. I mean, she gets killed in the end, (hung or beheaded I do believe) but that hardly counts.

More coming soon.

Kita-Ysabell

Distinct Conversationalist

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