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| Working on an idea for an alternate Pokemon setting/interpretation; Neither animals nor spirits, yet both | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 22 2016, 05:25 PM (656 Views) | |
| Dusk Raven | Mar 22 2016, 05:25 PM Post #1 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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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. Edited by Dusk Raven, Mar 24 2016, 04:01 PM.
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| Nacho_Rocket | Mar 26 2016, 06:42 PM Post #2 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I like the idea of the the Fey influence. In Celtic mythology, the Aos Si (or Sidhe, or fairies) usually take on a multitude of forms. This would permit any Pokemon to be used as they all would technically be fairies (Fairy types could be the Tuatha Dé Danann, pretty much god-like beings that dwell within the Tir na nóg, the Land of Youth). The Aos Si don't have a metaphysical connection to the land. They instead are fiercely protectively of their land that they call their homes. However, in Celtic mythology there are several Otherworlds that connect to the mortal world. You could easily have that the various Otherworlds, one for each type, to be the homeland of Pokemon before they entered the mortal world. Now the Pokemon them selves are not directly affected by changes to the natural land, but instead affect the Otherworlds. Poisoning a river in the mortal world would cause the Water realm to start manifest poison within it as well. The Water types would then fight to restore the river, and thus their realm, to its original condition. How you would have some Otherworld connect to the mortal realm, such as Normal, Dragon, and Fighting, is beyond me. |
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| Dusk Raven | Apr 26 2016, 01:25 PM Post #3 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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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 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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| GabryelFall | May 11 2016, 07:21 PM Post #4 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I love this. Keep up the good work, I may use some of this in my own group cannon and/or add if the mood strikes me.
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5:31 PM Jul 10
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Pokéball created by Sarah & Delirium of the ZNR





![]](http://z4.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)



Keep up the good work, I may use some of this in my own group cannon and/or add if the mood strikes me.

5:31 PM Jul 10