A Tutorial On A (bit Cheating) Way Of Creating Fictional Maps.

Poorly drawn Pokemon of Myth

BEING A TANK. IS ALL ABOUT LOVE.

I think my absolute favorite kind of game has to be class-based co-op horde shooters. Games where you, preferably in a party of friends, mow down waves of enemies, but specifically where you've picked a particular class, so you have abilities or gadgets that others do not.

A great example of this is Deep Rock Galactic, or DRG, where the gadgets of each class compliment and work with others. For example, the Engineer has a platform gun, which can be placed on cave walls, so that the Scout, with the grappling hook, can get those previously unaccessible resources.

Another example is the Borderlands franchise, though the classes less "work together" and more "have different ways of slaughtering as many enemies as possible." In Borderlands 3, one character has helpful pets that draw attention away from the player, with skills that focus on critical hits, survivability, or upgrading your pet. Meanwhile, another character has a large, tanky mech suit, with skills that focus on high damage output, explosion damage/radius, or becoming a glass cannon.

However, as much as I love these types of games, to a certain degree, you are locked in. You choose the class which you enjoy playing the most, and are locked into that in your party for the extent of either the full story or that particular round/mission, only helping in the ways your class can.

So I have an idea. I want a fantasy, class-based, co-op, PvE game that allows you to have multiple classes.

Let's say you the maximum party size is the four, as is common in these kinds of games. Before you jump in, you each get to pick three specialties or proficiencies out of a long list, perhaps 20-30 or so. Each "class" is simple, having a few small perks, but you're free to build your character however you want. Progression works by playing with that class equipped, and your abilities in that class slowly grow stronger as you play with it and they level up.

Some classes would also naturally compliment one another, but you could mix it up for variety in case you want to do multiple things. For example, you could dedicate yourself fully to support, picking three classes which specialize in 1. party-wide healing, 2. single-target healing, and 3. offensive buffs. OR, you could mix it up, picking 1. single-target healing but also 2. bulkiness (for health and armor) and 3. self-buffing defense, to become a benevolent healing tank.

Parties could customize the skills they want to take in a particular session, working together to make something overpowered with every person playing what they want to play, without being limited by whatever the class' intended limits are, instead deciding for themselves what pros and cons they want to live with. The classes would be locked in, but there would be opportunities to swap them out at regular intervals so you weren't fully stuck. Customize, make the fantasy character of your dreams with all the features you want!

(Side note: this could also apply to a sci-fi setting as well, but I personally like the idea of a fantasy setting more).

motherfucker ate all my crabby cakes

Alright, so, uh, hi! Intro post time.

I'm Ophion, he/him, and I am a gargantuan fucking nerd. I love good worldbuilding or interesting concepts, and because of that I have often found myself obsessing over tv shows, games or movies with awful fandoms. I liked their ideas, don't judge me.

My main hyperobsession is Pokemon, though (yes, I'm neurodivergent. ADHD diagnosed, high probability of having autism as well). Probably because I'm a biology nerd, and I'm studying Bio in college right now. I play a shit ton of video games, and read a LOT of fanfictions. Mostly the ones trying to tell a good, cohesive story, though. You could hold me at gunpoint and you could not force me to read anything unsavory.

I'm mostly planning on posting my worldbuilding ideas for either those media bits or personal worldbuilding projects. Or just inane ramblings somewhat related to those things.

You've been warned.

this guy gets it

Humanity’s Place in Pokemon

Ok, hear me out.

Humans are weak as hell.  Compared to Pokemon, they’ve got no semblance of a chance in a fair, one-on-one fight. Pokemon can breathe fire, or control nature, or shift the earth with merely a thought. Humans? We can… punch, I guess. Kick. And it’s far weaker than any fighting type.

When humans evolved in a world of Pokemon, they needed to find other ways to even the odds. Tools, first. Then makeshift weapons. Then machines. Civilizations sprung up out of necessity, specifically in places where humans could have a chance of surviving: breeding grounds. Fertile areas, full of resources, food, and great places to nest made these little areas less prone to extremely strong Pokemon, places like the Indigo Regions, or Hoenn, Unova, Kalos, etc etc.

And that’s probably it. These little places on the coasts of great continents, carved out of the wilderness with back-breaking effort and so so much time are the only bastions humanity has against the terrifying, powerful depths of whatever lies outside the borders. Crossing the wilds is unthinkable, it’s suicide. The only option for travelling between regions is by sea, or by air (excluding Kanto-Johto). So these regions are all that humanity has. Little islands of safety in a world of unimaginable power and strength.

TL;DR: Humans are survivors, and had to MAKE their place in the Pokemon World, because otherwise they would have gone extinct a LONG time ago. 

this was my first pokemon game and it was my childhood, i have not played a better pokemon game since

you bitches had pkmn mystery dungeon, pkmn ranger, xd and gale of darkness, pkmn snap or even that one talk to pikachu game but MY pkmn spinoff was MOTHER FUCKIN POKÉPARK

I never finished it and I don’t even remember if it was even that good- but damn it I played the SHIT out of this game as a kid and it defined a good chunk of my childhood and I will always remember it

Some Pokemon types are simple. Their definitions are solid, and are unchangeable. For example, Fire Pokemon. Fire is the type of not just fire, but magma/lava and most of all, heat. Or Ice, being the type of frozen water in the form of glaciers, icicles, and snow. 

Others... not so much. Either their type energy isn’t fully explained how it works or where it comes from, or it’s explained, but difficult to explain. As an example of the the first, we have the Dragon Type. Dragon energy is not fully explained, or understood, due to how volatile it is (which makes it so hard to contain and do research on), but it is thought to have been first used and harnessed by the first Dragon, or the common ancestor of the True Dragons: Tyrantrum, the Despot Pokemon, living roughly 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. This Pokemon would go on to split off into hundreds of different branches all across the world, creating the Dragon typing as we know it (save for those few species that haphazardly stumbled across it in a case of convergent evolution, such as Exeggutor).

As an example of an explained but difficult to explain type is Ghost and Dark, which are closely linked by an strange matter known as Distortion. Distortion is a corrosive substance, though its less corrosive on solid objects and more corrosive upon time and space as a whole. Most ghosts naturally hail from the Distortion World, or from some other world closely related to it, as they are almost entirely compromised of Distortion matter (those ghosts who are not from the Distortion World spawn as a result of a recent death and a recently deceased soul being exposed to distortion matter, and becoming a ghost Pokemon as a result). They are not fully corporeal, able to shift in and out of existence as they please, and gleefully break the laws of reality as if a game. Dark Types, on the other hand, do not hail from the Distortion World, and are corporeal, yet they wield distortion as a water type does with water. Their bodies naturally produce the substance (often at the cost of their own health and survivability), and as a result, the distortion is far more concentrated and potent, which overloads and disrupts Ghost Pokemon.

However, by far the hardest type to explain is Fairy. Ever since its discovery and classification in Kalos roughly 200 years ago, Fairy type energy has defied full explanation or understanding, and the creatures that wield it are hard to fully classify as “alive.” At this time, it is believed that the first fairies, like Ghosts, hailed from another plane of existence. However, unlike the ghosts, Fairies accepted a degree of physicality to become somewhere in-between corporeal and incorporeal as whimsical and magical, somewhat grounded in reality.

The most common theory, though, is that parts of them are and are not corporeal. Take the Gardevoir/Gallade lines, for example. It’s been found that the only truly solid part of their body is their signature chest spikes. Instead, the rest of their anatomy is somewhat incorporeal, requiring no organs or muscles, simply being controlled by the will of the Pokemon (Fairy types have been found to have a pseudo-nervous system made of pure, concentrated energy running throughout all of their limbs and appendages, which is likely how they manipulate their bodies). Since this spike is the only truly corporeal part about them, it is the only thing that does not dissipate after death, as the rest of the body simply fades away while only the spike remains. 

Fairy Types continue to defy explanation, and even the most telepathically adept fairies do not or cannot provide concrete explanations, so likely, the Fairy type will remain a mystery for years, if not decades to come.

Humanity’s Place in Pokemon

Ok, hear me out.

Humans are weak as hell.  Compared to Pokemon, they’ve got no semblance of a chance in a fair, one-on-one fight. Pokemon can breathe fire, or control nature, or shift the earth with merely a thought. Humans? We can... punch, I guess. Kick. And it’s far weaker than any fighting type.

When humans evolved in a world of Pokemon, they needed to find other ways to even the odds. Tools, first. Then makeshift weapons. Then machines. Civilizations sprung up out of necessity, specifically in places where humans could have a chance of surviving: breeding grounds. Fertile areas, full of resources, food, and great places to nest made these little areas less prone to extremely strong Pokemon, places like the Indigo Regions, or Hoenn, Unova, Kalos, etc etc.

And that’s probably it. These little places on the coasts of great continents, carved out of the wilderness with back-breaking effort and so so much time are the only bastions humanity has against the terrifying, powerful depths of whatever lies outside the borders. Crossing the wilds is unthinkable, it’s suicide. The only option for travelling between regions is by sea, or by air (excluding Kanto-Johto). So these regions are all that humanity has. Little islands of safety in a world of unimaginable power and strength.

TL;DR: Humans are survivors, and had to MAKE their place in the Pokemon World, because otherwise they would have gone extinct a LONG time ago. 

shoutout to the gay couple at the grocery store where i work that were staring at the shelves and shelves of cereal brands, looking so concerned, and the one of em that whispered "this is the hardest decision of our lives"