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somarium_ooc2014-04-20 10:31 pm
somarium_lords) wrote in somarium_ooc2014-04-20 10:31 pm
April AU Event Preview
Hey guys, Laena here! Sorry for suddenly disappearing this past week. My husband came down with a bad cold and I caught it while trying to be the cute waifu nurse :| I was unable to post up the past moon cycle, but it works out since I had nothing really extensive planned for it except for it being a break period. Only downside was that I had planned to make an NPC post for characters to interact with but...yeah there was no way I’d be able to keep up with it. Apologies for that!
That said, I’m making up for this by going ahead and giving you guys the details for the upcoming AU so you can plot away. As you may recall, it’s going to be based off the RPG Fire Emblem: Awakening but there are some other RPG game elements being thrown in from the Tales of series. It’s mostly Fire Emblem, however, but enough about that that, time for the details!
dates and formatting
Start: Tuesday, April 22
End: Saturday, May 3
That gives us twelve (12) days for this event, which should more than enough time to enjoy it! Of course backdated posts/threads will be allowed after the event ends, but it’s highly encouraged that you at least start the activity during this timeframe.
Giant mingle log. To help make it more efficient, there will be a giant mingle log posted at the start that will span the entire event time. You can make any log threads in this post, OR you can make your own, entirely up to you. Please note, this is only for logging—all network posts should go todreamnet and interactive dreams should be posted separately. Formatting guidelines will be provided in the post, but in the subject lines you’ll have to indicate whether the thread is "Open/Closed" and the "Date" to help keep some sense of a timeframe. You can forward date, backdate, current date—in other words, just because the latest thread is dated "4/24" it doesn’t mean that they have to stay in order. The next one can still be "4/22."
the "alternate" part of "au"
Now this wouldn’t be a true AU event if it we didn’t allow players to give their characters a chance to believe they had lived in this universe their whole life. This is completely optional and it’s possible for characters to be aware that what’s happening right now is not right. They will still be affected by everything else provided by the AU, but they keep their own self awareness. And possibly go insane because what happened to everyone and everything.
But for those who want their character to be completely immersed, you are more than welcome to come up with a generic backstory that would fit the setting. You can either base it off their canon history and tweak it to fit, or come up with something completely new. The only caveat is that the character must still be IC. You are also welcome to form "families" with other characters, or even design pre-existing relationships that didn’t exist before.
A note! For those familiar with Fire Emblem: Awakening, you may know that the children of the future come into their parents’ time to help stop something from happening. To not make things complicated, this will not be part of the AU. Thus it’s really only the setting, not the game plot, that’s being taken here. (Plus, zombies are next month.)
Will these memories and experiences carry over after the event? You bet your cookie face it will
So keep that in mind.
the setting
Somarium and its immediate surroundings are getting yet another makeover. Based off of the country of Ylisse, everyone will wonder if they hadn’t been sent to a different world entirely. Good thing the whole dream thing still works, huh?
job/class system
You can’t have an RPG AU without everyone have a specific job/class! For those unfamiliar with RPGs, some of the more traditional ones designate fighters into certain types, such as knight, cleric, thief, etc. These are referred to as either job or class, depending on the franchise/game and tend to have branches or advancing levels. Here is the list that everyone can choose from. Pick the one that best fits your character and you don’t have to make them a greenhorn. They can be advanced if it would fit them better. So for example, instead of being a "Cavalier," the character can already be a "Great Knight."
This also means that characters will inherit the proper abilities and weapons for their class. All of those are linked in the above chart, so feel free to look them up. To allow for more flexibility and realism, you are free to customize and make up a few new skills that would fit the class. You can also make it so that it’s the character’s own specialty.
For characters who already have their own special spells or abilities, those can carry over. They would just have to be altered a bit to fit the current setting. This also includes weapons. If your character uses firearms, the weapon will have changed into a crossbow instead and the skills will transfer so that they are prolific archers instead.
Lilium Orbs. Stealing from Tales of Xillia, everyone will own a Lilium Orb. These essentially allow the holder to level up and execute certain abilities. They are rather small and look like a shiny crystal that can be placed anywhere on the person. When in battle, fighters can pair up with their partner through the Lilium Orbs and be able to sense their movement, thus becoming more effective in battle. They can also unleash more powerful combo attacks.
Spirits. From both Xillia and Symphonia are the use of spirits, thus adding a Summoner class to our list. These people can channel the following spirits: Efreet, Undine, Sylph, Gnome, Celsius, and Volt. Traditionally all of these spirits have a personality, but to make things simpler they will not interact with the wielder. They will only appear when summoned to perform their attacks and then promptly disappear. It can be assumed they feel too high and mighty to stick around.
Changing classes. It is possible to change classes, but the character will need an item called a second seal to do it. To make things simpler, these items can be bought at merchants, but at a high cost.
social relationship/affection rankings
Another interesting thing to this AU is the use of the social relationship rankings. To put simply, interacting in certain ways will increase or decrease the affections between two people and can lead to marriage proposals. In Fire Emblem, there are four ranks: A, B, C, and S. Marriage can happen when you reach S. Everyone will start at a place relative to where their current CR is. So if two characters are already pretty good friends, they can already be at rank B.
When a certain interaction helps increase the rank, a heart will appear. Conversely, if something happens to decrease it, a broken heart will appear. And yes. These are visible to the characters.
So what are some examples that would help with this? And how will you gauge whether enough has happened to increase the rank? Well since Somarium isn’t an actual video game and we only have twelve days, I’m leaving the actual weight of the interactions up to the player. So, for example, for one pair of characters, a cooking event may only increase the rank a little bit. But for another pair, it may increase it all the way to the next rank.
Here are some very generic examples of how the rank could increase:
other things to note
This isn’t just a strange cross of Tales of and Fire Emblem setting. It’s also an RPG setting, so you know what that means!
Experience Points and Leveling. That’s right, characters can earn experience points and level up from their encounters. Not just battle encounters, either. Any task they do will also grant them some experience points and even a possible level. Numbers will appear whenever something is completed, along with victory music. The minimum level is 1 and the max is 30, so players are free to choose what level would be appropriate for their character. But let’s not all have max leveled characters. The amount of points earned is also up to you. The whole "leveling" thing is just more of a background nuance and to help give players ideas as to what their character could be trying to do, so don’t worry too much about it.
the end
And that’s it! It’s pretty robust and detailed, but it should hopefully give everyone a very good sense of how this AU will be like. If I had to give a bullet point summary of what you need to know, it would be this:
To put it even shorter, everyone is tossed into a traditional RPG game and interacting with someone a lot could eventually lead to marriage, have fun.
If you have any questions, concerns, or even other suggestions, ask them here. Feel free to use this for plotting, too. Or the mod plurk. Or your own plurks. Or whatever you use.
That said, I’m making up for this by going ahead and giving you guys the details for the upcoming AU so you can plot away. As you may recall, it’s going to be based off the RPG Fire Emblem: Awakening but there are some other RPG game elements being thrown in from the Tales of series. It’s mostly Fire Emblem, however, but enough about that that, time for the details!
dates and formatting
Start: Tuesday, April 22
End: Saturday, May 3
That gives us twelve (12) days for this event, which should more than enough time to enjoy it! Of course backdated posts/threads will be allowed after the event ends, but it’s highly encouraged that you at least start the activity during this timeframe.
Giant mingle log. To help make it more efficient, there will be a giant mingle log posted at the start that will span the entire event time. You can make any log threads in this post, OR you can make your own, entirely up to you. Please note, this is only for logging—all network posts should go to
dreamnet and interactive dreams should be posted separately. Formatting guidelines will be provided in the post, but in the subject lines you’ll have to indicate whether the thread is "Open/Closed" and the "Date" to help keep some sense of a timeframe. You can forward date, backdate, current date—in other words, just because the latest thread is dated "4/24" it doesn’t mean that they have to stay in order. The next one can still be "4/22."the "alternate" part of "au"
Now this wouldn’t be a true AU event if it we didn’t allow players to give their characters a chance to believe they had lived in this universe their whole life. This is completely optional and it’s possible for characters to be aware that what’s happening right now is not right. They will still be affected by everything else provided by the AU, but they keep their own self awareness. And possibly go insane because what happened to everyone and everything.
But for those who want their character to be completely immersed, you are more than welcome to come up with a generic backstory that would fit the setting. You can either base it off their canon history and tweak it to fit, or come up with something completely new. The only caveat is that the character must still be IC. You are also welcome to form "families" with other characters, or even design pre-existing relationships that didn’t exist before.
A note! For those familiar with Fire Emblem: Awakening, you may know that the children of the future come into their parents’ time to help stop something from happening. To not make things complicated, this will not be part of the AU. Thus it’s really only the setting, not the game plot, that’s being taken here. (Plus, zombies are next month.)
Will these memories and experiences carry over after the event? You bet your cookie face it will
So keep that in mind.the setting
Somarium and its immediate surroundings are getting yet another makeover. Based off of the country of Ylisse, everyone will wonder if they hadn’t been sent to a different world entirely. Good thing the whole dream thing still works, huh?
- Buildings. The whole place will look as if Espoir decided to expand and take over everything. Cottages now line the cobbled roads, with the larger skyscrapers replaced by two to three story buildings for general stores and inns.
- Technology. Aside from the Dreamberries, there is no modern technology. No microwaves, refrigerators, cars. Just good old traditional fantasy game living.
- Dreamberries and Dreams. As mentioned, the Dreamberries DO still work and dreams can still be broadcast and made. The concept of dreaming is considered a part of this alternate setting so it won’t be seen as strange.
- People. Prior to this, Somarium already had ponies, Sylvari, musically inclined folk, and entertainers starting to inhabit and populate the city. They’re still here acting as the fillers, but now we also have an entire population of generic people with the same skills and abilities as those from Fire Emblem. We have the fighters, the dragoons, the mercenaries, the healers—in other words, it’s not just generic passive NPCs. Although they are more or less peaceful, they are like any other standard population and can fight if needed (or provoked or you know being dastardly rogueish). They will also state that they are in the country of Yisse and have no idea what Somarium is. They will find the other NPCs strange and they will find the characters stranger still. Meaning, unlike the previous NPCs, they behave as if everyone really did enter their own world.
- Desert? What desert? Beyond the city limits lies massive forests and meadows. That’s right, the desert is just gone. Should anyone try to go beyond the green, however, they will find it to be endless and eventually loop back to Somarium. It’s quite expansive and filled with various creatures both traditional (deer, bears, rabbits, etc) and non. Watch out for dragons and wyverns—they can be pretty dangerous. Some other creatures to note are eggbears, wolves, giant hornets, axe beaks, boars, treants, mandragoras, polwigles, etc. But don’t worry. Everyone should be able to fight.
job/class system
You can’t have an RPG AU without everyone have a specific job/class! For those unfamiliar with RPGs, some of the more traditional ones designate fighters into certain types, such as knight, cleric, thief, etc. These are referred to as either job or class, depending on the franchise/game and tend to have branches or advancing levels. Here is the list that everyone can choose from. Pick the one that best fits your character and you don’t have to make them a greenhorn. They can be advanced if it would fit them better. So for example, instead of being a "Cavalier," the character can already be a "Great Knight."
This also means that characters will inherit the proper abilities and weapons for their class. All of those are linked in the above chart, so feel free to look them up. To allow for more flexibility and realism, you are free to customize and make up a few new skills that would fit the class. You can also make it so that it’s the character’s own specialty.
For characters who already have their own special spells or abilities, those can carry over. They would just have to be altered a bit to fit the current setting. This also includes weapons. If your character uses firearms, the weapon will have changed into a crossbow instead and the skills will transfer so that they are prolific archers instead.
Lilium Orbs. Stealing from Tales of Xillia, everyone will own a Lilium Orb. These essentially allow the holder to level up and execute certain abilities. They are rather small and look like a shiny crystal that can be placed anywhere on the person. When in battle, fighters can pair up with their partner through the Lilium Orbs and be able to sense their movement, thus becoming more effective in battle. They can also unleash more powerful combo attacks.
Spirits. From both Xillia and Symphonia are the use of spirits, thus adding a Summoner class to our list. These people can channel the following spirits: Efreet, Undine, Sylph, Gnome, Celsius, and Volt. Traditionally all of these spirits have a personality, but to make things simpler they will not interact with the wielder. They will only appear when summoned to perform their attacks and then promptly disappear. It can be assumed they feel too high and mighty to stick around.
Changing classes. It is possible to change classes, but the character will need an item called a second seal to do it. To make things simpler, these items can be bought at merchants, but at a high cost.
social relationship/affection rankings
Another interesting thing to this AU is the use of the social relationship rankings. To put simply, interacting in certain ways will increase or decrease the affections between two people and can lead to marriage proposals. In Fire Emblem, there are four ranks: A, B, C, and S. Marriage can happen when you reach S. Everyone will start at a place relative to where their current CR is. So if two characters are already pretty good friends, they can already be at rank B.
When a certain interaction helps increase the rank, a heart will appear. Conversely, if something happens to decrease it, a broken heart will appear. And yes. These are visible to the characters.
So what are some examples that would help with this? And how will you gauge whether enough has happened to increase the rank? Well since Somarium isn’t an actual video game and we only have twelve days, I’m leaving the actual weight of the interactions up to the player. So, for example, for one pair of characters, a cooking event may only increase the rank a little bit. But for another pair, it may increase it all the way to the next rank.
Here are some very generic examples of how the rank could increase:
- Battles. Whenever a pair is linked up through their Lilium Orb, their rank will gradually increase or decrease depending on how well they work together. Naturally those who work well with each other will increase the rank, but those who don’t or have conflicts will have their rank decrease. The amount will increase depending on the type of encounter as well. Fighting against a higher level monster such as a wyvern will have more impact than fighting against a common wolf. Injuries and the types of actions will also come into play. Helping to defend one another will net more positive gain as opposed to ditching them to fend for themselves.
- Jobs/Missions. There are odd jobs and missions around for characters to do. From basic errands to clearing out some bandits or monsters lurking in the forest, players are more than welcome to make up any that come to mind. While these tasks can be done solo, doing them with a partner will be another chance for the relationship rank to increase.
- Dreams. Participating in an interactive dream or responding to someone’s dream will affect the relationship ranks.
- Domestic. Whether it’s just from standard conversation, helping around town, giving advice, help beat up some ruffians, any of these scenarios can affect the relationship rank. Again, it can go either positive or negative, and how much of an impact will be up to the players.
- Romantic. Well this is a no-brainer. If you really want to up that rank to marriage, just take them out on a date. Hopefully it goes well because if it does, it’s an automatic rank C or S. If it doesn’t...here’s a gold star.
other things to note
This isn’t just a strange cross of Tales of and Fire Emblem setting. It’s also an RPG setting, so you know what that means!
- HP and MP bars. That’s right, everyone gets to see a nice blue HP bar and a nice green MP bar. Skills actually use energy and if that bar hits 0, then they’re left feeling exhausted and waving their weapon around until it’s refilled. When the HP bar hits 0, they’re knocked out. Not dead! But knocked out until revived. Now, it is possible to actually die, but that would require an actual fatal blow. If that does happen, the bar completely grays out and the character disappears. But don’t worry, they return at the magical fountain located in the very center. Yes, the fountain. It will happen within 24 hours of death.
- Special items. To help replenish the bars, we have special items! We have the flavorful and colorful items called gels, each of which can either help with HP, MP, or both. Life bottles are also available, but it’s a bit of misnomer. Rather than returning someone from the dead, it only revives someone from a knocked out state.
- Status ailments. There are status ailments that can be inflicted onto the characters, but they can be remedied either by a healer with the proper abilities or a panacea bottle. It will be obvious to tell what status is inflicted by an indicator that will pop up above the character’s head.
- Poison. Green puffs of smoke will float above the character and their HP will be constantly drained until cured.
- Energy Drain. Purple puffs of smoke will appear and their MP will slowly drain until cured.
- Burn. Puffs of flame will appear and the character burns. This one is pretty obvious, but an alternative to curing this is dousing the affected with water.
- Freeze. The character turns into ice. Can only be cured by abilities or items. Do not set them on fire—they will melt.
- Petrified. This one will be obvious when the character turns into an actual statue. This will last until they are cured, but be careful. They can still take damage and a powerful enough one can immediately knock them out. If no panacea bottles or healers are available, they will have to be dragged back to town (or call for help).
- Confused. A pink swirl will appear and the affected character will now attack everyone and everything. In their mind, they think everyone is an enemy. That’s not your best friend standing next to you but a horrible beast out to kill you! This can be immediately cured, but it will also wear off after thirty seconds. Trick is, can the other person survive long enough?
- Stunned. Yellow lightning bolts will appear. Every time the affected character tries to move, they will feel pain instead and forced to stand still. They are unable to do anything until cured or it wears off after thirty seconds.
- Sealed. An "X" will appear and the affected will be unable to use any of their attacks. They will be unable to use any of their special skills. If they try to use their own weapons, they will find themselves unable to use it properly, be it unable to even hold it or just missing completely.
- Poison. Green puffs of smoke will float above the character and their HP will be constantly drained until cured.
the end
And that’s it! It’s pretty robust and detailed, but it should hopefully give everyone a very good sense of how this AU will be like. If I had to give a bullet point summary of what you need to know, it would be this:
- Characters can be AU’ed
- It’s a traditional old fantasy-like setting
- There are jobs/classes
- RELATIONSHIP RANKS!!!!!
- HP/MP bars, status ailments, and leveling oh my
To put it even shorter, everyone is tossed into a traditional RPG game and interacting with someone a lot could eventually lead to marriage, have fun.
If you have any questions, concerns, or even other suggestions, ask them here. Feel free to use this for plotting, too. Or the mod plurk. Or your own plurks. Or whatever you use.
QUESTIONS/CONCERNS/SUGGESTIONS
Relationship ranking question!
And is this like the Sims, where something will give one character points and the other one won't care, to allow for one-sided relationships, or do both characters get the little floaty heart equally?
no subject
YEP. GO FOR IT. Bork away /o/
Re: Point allocation
Traditionally it's both, but out of interest of making things more, well, interesting and being realistic, just one sided works, too!
no subject