It has been four decades since the adventures of Ash and his friends as they travelled across the world. Since that time the world has changed, mostly in part to the Oak Institute. It is an organisation run by the great grand daughter of the famous Professor Oak, choosing to follow in his footsteps over her grandfathers, Ash's great rival Gary. The institute primarily focusses on monitoring and researching the Pokemon population in line with its breeding program. The breeding program has resulted in Pokemon no longer being located in only individual regions but are now in fact widespread across the world.

Outside of the Pokemon institute the once widely feared villainous teams like Team Rocket and Team Magma were all disbanded in the last decade, the world uniting to bring them and their leaders to justice. This has resulted in a gaping hole that someone somewhere is undoubtedly going to try and fill. At present the authorities know of no organisation trying to take over the mantle but expect it to only be a matter of time.

Ash Ketchum, the world famous trainer, now resides on a small archipelago in a far corner of the world away from all the cameras. His story and journey is the inspiration to all new young trainers after the creation of numerous movies and tv series chronicling his life. The Oak Institute took this fandom and set up an operation on the outskirts of Pallet Town, Ash's home. This building acts as a starting point for new trainers to collect a Pokemon and begin their journey. Called the OI Trainer Project it gives budding young trainers the opportunity to retrace Ash's steps and become the next Pokemon Master. The waiting list is extraordinarily massive as anyone would expect, with only 20 people being selected each year through a publicly televised lottery. Some people are on the list for years before being selected while others have handed in their application and had their name drawn a day later.

Your character is one of these lucky people to have had their name drawn. Alone or together with the other trainers, they will travel the Kanto Region retracing Ash's steps. They will build friendships, make rivals and maybe find love, but by the end they will all learn about themselves, their Pokemon and finally come of age as a Pokemon Trainer.

◉ Normal forum rules apply
◉ Ideally I would like people to link up into small groups rather than one large one because this will mean much less time waiting between posts. I find groups of three tend to work quite well. This isn't an order but more a suggestion.
◉ If you are running solo in the story, one post a week will suffice. If you are running in a group then please take no longer than three to four days to reply to someone.
◉ If you are going to be away for a period of time then please let us all know. In these circumstances I will allow people to move someone elses character along to avoid stalling.
◉ While there isn't a hard age limit for people taking part, there will be some darker story lines than Pokemon is known for. In addition, mild and infrequent use of profanity is allowed.
◉ Romances are perfectly acceptable but only for characters with a minimum age of 18. All usual forum rules regarding romances apply.
◉ All players need to treat each other with respect. I'm all for banter but if you're just flat out being a dick then goodbye.
◉ In terms of the story, there will be an over arcing plot that will affect everyone but for the most part people are free to go about their journey however they wish.

◉ In terms of Pokemon battles a few people in the interest check queried the use of Showdown and a battle generator, this is due to previous experience with RP's where people refuse to lose and spend all their time dodging attacks. It ruins it for everyone else. Just bare in mind, even Ash lost his fair share of battles.
◉ Battles vs NPC's, whether Gym Leaders, random people or wild pokemon, will be up to the each persons discretion to write. Wild pokemon and random people you can write as easily stomping, but Gym Leaders need to push your PC and their Pokemon to their limits. I would much rather see a person lose and deal with that loss, instead of someone go on with a 100% record.
◉ When it comes to Gym Battles, there will be a character sheet for each Gym Leader and each person challenging the gym leader will be responsible for writing the battle. You will need to reference the CS to get a feeling for their personality, how they battle with their pokemon and such. While I would love to write each and every gym battle as a collab with each player, the amount of time and work that would take is beyond me.
◉ Just a point, nobody is going to get through this story undefeated, even if it means I have to force the situation.
◉ PVP battles are a thing and if you want to do it through purely RP I will allow it, but please agree to a winner prior to starting. For those who would rather let their skills decide, feel free to use Pokemon Showdown.
◉ There will be no mega evolutions or Z moves. Held items will have no actual effect on battle skills and will be purely cosmetic, apart from weapons such as Cubones club.

Catching pokemon has always been half the fun of the games but when it comes to this RP, I want it to be more about the characters developing relationships with others and their main pokemon. As such each player will be limited to catching one pokemon per week. This isn't to be awkward but to just ensure people are not spamming and taking all the pokemon for themselves. Once a pokemon has been caught it will be added to the dibs list. In terms of your dibs list at character creation, those pokemon will follow the same rules for being caught. Ash didn't have a full party of six within ten minutes of setting off, so neither will the characters in this.

Throughout the RP I will create scenarios for characters to resolve which can result in receiving an additional pokemon. It will all depend on player choices and the out come of the scenarios.

◉ No canon characters although you may be related to a canon character.
◉ Character ages must be 16+.
◉ Characters will need to be sensible. By that I mean no anthromorphs, characters with horns etc.
◉ While most RP's say no anime appearance pictures, all character pictures must be anime based. You can here to create one as I have or use something you have found else where.
◉ I encourage people to be creative with their backstories. Most people are likely going to choose a character who wants to be the best Pokemon trainer in all the land, what I want to see is different reasons as to why.
◉ I'd prefer to see characters who can be developed over time rather than being completely amazing at everything and anything.
◉ When creating your character they will have 1 starter Pokemon that will need to follow the following rules:

◉ Once you have selected your Pokemon you may select 4 starter moves for it. This must be moves they learn up to and including level 20 in the games. It cannot be egg, TM or HM moves.
◉ When posting your CS feel free to change the layout if the code is too messy to read. As long as you have all the sections then appearance doesn't matter too much.

This RP will have a dibs list which will be in place to avoid people having duplicate pokemon. Not everyone is a fan which I understand but there are over 800 pokemon now so there is more than enough to choose from. The following list is how the dibs process will work:

◉ Each person will have dibs on six pokemon. One will be automatically claimed at CS creation with the other five to come prior to the start of the RP. I will create a post where I will ask for dibs lists to be PM'd to me. The order I receive them will be player priority.
◉ Each list needs to be numbered 1 to 5, with 1 being your most preferred pokemon.
◉ When all lists have been received I will compare them. Ideally everyone will pick unique pokemon but I can't see that happening.
◉ If anyone has duplicates I will unforunately need the person who has the highest player priority to change. The only instance a player with a higher player priority number will not have to change is if they rank it higher than the other person in their dibs list. In this case the lower numbered player would need to change.
◉ The only exception to the dibs list is Pokemon that have different evolution options. The perfect example of this is Eevee. In theory 9 players could each have an Eevee to start. Each would have dibs on one of the eeveelutions with the last player keeping standard Eevee.
◉ Pokemon outside of the completed dibs list will be free to be caught by any player (aside from pseudo-legendary, legendary and mythical pokemon).

In the games Pokemon level up and as they do they unlock new moves and in most cases, evolve at certain a level. This game will not have clear and defined levels for each and every pokemon, instead we'll work with a trainer level. Your starting pokemon is able to pick moves up to and including level 20 so while not written anywhere, you can assume your trainer levels are level 20. This means that any pokemon you own will be able to have moves up to and including level 20 and also attain any evolutions that may occur prior to this(more on evolution below).

To increase your trainer level you need to beat the gym leaders, with each victory granting you a gym badge. The following list will give you the level for each badge you acquire:

◉ No Badges - Level 20
◉ 1 Badge - Level 26
◉ 2 Badges - Level 32
◉ 3 Badges - Level 38
◉ 4 Badges - Level 44
◉ 5 Badges - Level 50
◉ 6 Badges - Level 56
◉ 7 Badges - Level 62
◉ 8 Badges - Level 70+

So using Grimer as an example, after earning my 3rd badge I would be able to learn moves up to Level 38. However I would also now have free reign to evolve him into Muk whenever I would like due to the evolution level being 38.

Pokemon can only initially learn moves that are included in their bog standard move set, meaning no egg moves, TM's and such. However throughout the story the opportunity will be given to learn these moves. With every gym badge your character will receive 1 token which will either allow them to see a move trainer or cash it in for a TM. The move trainer will teach ONE of your pokemon any egg move it is capable of learning. The TM you purchase can be any TM you wish but it can only be taught to ONE pokemon. You could use every single one of your tokens to buy TM Flamethrower if you wanted.

All movesets, levelling and TM's will follow Gen VII. The TM list is here. The same page can be used to search for your pokemon to see move levels and evolution levels.

Evolutions can occur once your trainer level has surpassed a pokemons evolution level. These will be RP based and preferably will occur during exciting and dramatic moments. I will allow evolutions during gym battles if you intend on winning the battle, but only if the badge will put your player level above the pokemons evolution level.

All pokemon that evolve through trading in the games will evolve like the majority of pokemon, by achieving a set level. For a pokemon that evolve once, that level is default set to 35 (e.g. Onix -> Steelix). For pokemon that evolve twice then the default is set to 45 (e.g. Haunter -> Gengar).

For pokemon that evolve through stones, happiness, time of day etc, they will work under a similar premise to the trading pokemon. That means being able to level up at 35 for pokemon with a single evolution (e.g Pikachu -> Raichu) and level 45 for a pokemon with two evolutions (e.g. Floette -> Florges). The big difference here between the trades is that I expect the evolution to feature the actual pre-requisite. So if you have an Eevee, I want to see a post (preferably several posts making up a sort of side quest), where you get the stone and give it to them. Hopefully you understand what I am getting at with this part.

Gym leaders are going to be entirely NPC characters and players will be responsible for roleplaying as them when it comes to doing their gym battles. Each gym leader will have their own CS which will explain what they are like and the pokemon they use just so everyone has a solid guideline of the type of person they are up against. I'm hoping that nobody intends on going through the gym leaders like they are non-existent or beating every single one first time, because that isn't what pokemon is about.

Also I want to avoid having any one player running off on their own to power level their pokemon, collecting all the gym badges before anyone else has gotten one. I am not going to set a limit on how many badges ahead you can get, but if I think you are rushing through then I will send you a polite PM.

Just as a reminder, for every gym badge you acquire your character will receive 1 token which will either allow them to see a move trainer or cash it in for a TM. The move trainer will teach ONE of your pokemon any egg move it is capable of learning. The TM you purchase can be any TM you wish but it can only be taught to ONE pokemon. You could use every single one of your tokens to buy TM Flamethrower if you wanted. You do not need to RP the training or learning of the TM if you do not wish, but mentioning it would be worthwhile.

As mentioned above, you can feel free to use your own style CS but it must include each of the sections shown below (apart from the misc section).