Legend of Zelda iCheck

[Double]

The actual title is still pending, and I don't think I have all the details ironed out yet, but here is a rundown of the game I'd like to attempt to run:

The plot will focus heavily on the Hero Defeated Timeline, namely the aftermath of Ganondorf's victory. Unlike the official timeline, however, there will be yet another divergence. The Sages were unable to assemble in time to seal Ganon away, and were defeated one after another by Evil King's army. Those who did not perish, were instead captured and forced to serve Ganon as enslaved generals. Ganon wasn't completely victorious, however, as the Triforces of Courage and Wisdom somehow forced themselves from his grasp, shattering in the process. Unable to enter the Sacred Realm, and the other two Triforces seemingly lost forever, Ganon could only focus on his conquest of Hyrule. But were the Triforces of Courage and Wisdom truly lost? Or were they, perhaps, simply waiting for some brave or worthy souls to claim them and become Hyrule's last hope?

So that's how it is. Princess Zelda and Link failed to defeat Ganon and were slain, the Sages either killed or enslaved, and the two other Triforces broken and scattered across what is left of Hyrule. This is where you come in. Perhaps you are a survivor of the Kakariko Massacre? A former guard for the King and Princess? Or perhaps just a wandering mercenary or traveler trying to find their place in the world? Whatever lot in life you've been handed, it changes drastically when you, by chance, happen upon a mysterious golden shard, a fragment of some relic you've never seen before. Unknown to you, what you hold in your hand is in fact one of the many scattered pieces of the Triforce of Courage and Triforce of Wisdom. Will you discover the secrets it holds? Reassemble the lost Triforces and restore hope for Hyrule? Or will Ganondorf's reign go unchallenged for years to come?

[Jester Acharis]

Interesting, sign me up!

[jumpadraw]

I'm interested

[Bai Suzhen]

Is there any particular game we should assume this is drawing the map, species etc from? Is Kakariko Village at the base of Death Mountain, or somewhere to the south-west of it? Are we going to meet green River Zora or blue Lake Zora?

Either way, I'll add an 'interested' to this.

[Double]

@Jester Acharis@jumpadraw@Bai Suzhen

Here's what I've got so far:

Game/Map - The main Zelda game we'll be drawing from is Ocarina of Time, including Map layout. However, I will be altering it slightly to be upscaled, having more of a population of people living in it than what the game shows. Ganondorf's initial takeover of Hyrule has come to be called the Seven Year War. His latest campaign began one year after he defeated Link, Zelda, and the Sages. After the Massacre, Kakariko Village is little more than a ghost town now, literally. There are reports of vengeful spirits haunting the grounds of the Massacre and the Graveyard just beyond it, attacking anyone foolish enough to enter the town, no matter which side of the conflict they are on.

Races

Kokiri - They are still alive, more or less, but enslaved. Saria was one of the Sages unlucky enough to be captured by Ganondorf. Through her he has assumed control over the forest region, forcing the Kokiri to cut down sections of the Lost Woods to provide his war machine with lumber.

Gorons - A large of number of them were devoured by Volvagia before the Hero defeated him. What was left of them tried to help defend Kakariko Village from Ganondorf's attack, but they were soundly crushed. Rather than kill them, Ganondorf enslaved them, sending them back into the depths of Death Mountain to mine it for stone and ores. As for Darunia, he was slain by Ganondorf personally at the Kakariko Massacre. Those few Gorons who managed to escape from the Massacre are in hiding, living as refugees in the desert outpost called Oasis.

Zora - Long before the events of the Seven Year War, the Zora tribe was torn apart by a civil war. The events of the war are unclear, but it ended with the tribe dividing into two separate factions, the River Tribe and Lake Tribe. The Lake Tribe sent the River Tribe in exile, effectively forcing them out of Hyrule with the authority of their alliance with the King. However, one year after the Hero's defeat, the River Tribe suddenly returned. They discovered the state of ruin Ganondorf left the Lake Tribe in and returned to take advantage of it. Zora Hall is now ruled by the River Zora, who have allied themselves with Ganondorf. As for the Lake Tribe, King Zora was captured and executed by the River Tribe, while Ganondorf captured and imprisoned Princess Ruto within the Water Temple. The rest of the surviving Lake Tribe mostly live in hiding, many of them in Oasis.

Deku - Of the various tribes, the Deku are the most unaffected by the wars. A clever people, the Deku Scrubs knew better than to openly oppose Ganondorf, especially after the Seven Year War. Instead they've effectively began profiting off of the war, selling wares to any side of the war who possess the Rupees to pay them. Not all Deku are so greedy or corrupt, though, pockets of Deku still loyal to Hyrule can be found running hidden shops and underground businesses that oppose Ganondorf, a few them can be found in Oasis.

Sheikah - The Sheikah were always a mysterious lot, but the one thing that never changed nor faltered was their loyalty to Hyrule's ruling family. What few of them that still remained in Kakariko Village were crushed and slain during the Massacre, Impa along with them. However, that did not spell the end for the shadow warriors, as a small few of them happened to be away on covert missions at the time of the Massacre. They still operate to this day, sowing whatever confusion and chaos they can among Ganondorf's ranks from the shadows. They regularly report to resistance forces operating out of Oasis.

Gerudo - Of all the tribes, one wouldn't think the Gerudo would oppose Ganondorf as strongly as they do, and yet here they are. No one's sure when exactly the bandits turned against their king, but most speculate it happened at some point during the Seven Year War, as that was when Nabooru rose up to become their leader and ultimately joined the Hero's quest to overthrow Ganondorf. After the Hero's defeat, Ganondorf sent his forces to wipe out the Gerudo as punishment for their treachery. The crafty bandits held strong, however, and managed to survive the onslaught. Nabooru, however, was not so fortunate. She confronted Ganondorf directly, and such was the first Sage to fall before him. Instead of killing her, Ganondorf placed her under his dark spell, transforming her once again into the mighty Iron Knuckle and set her forth to serve as one of his generals. The rest of the Gerudo were not so cruel as to leave the remainder of Hyrule to its fate, and instead offered a place to remain hidden from Ganondorf's wrath. Together with the other survivors, a hidden outpost was built far out in the Gerudo Desert, and it was appropriately named Oasis, as a way of labeling it as the safe haven it was meant to be.

[AcerRo]

Im intrested

[Bai Suzhen]

Good to know. I might go for some kind of zora sorceress.

[Kanami]

Call me silly but the first thing I thought of when reading the opening was
"Hey, I want to be a crazed wolfos gone rogue" xD
Just in case it isn't obvious, I'm not serious
Not sure if I'll join, but the idea seems interesting. Good luck!

[Zeroth]

Possibly interested. I was part of a Zelda based RP very similar to this one's idea before--taking place after Ganon's rise to power in the fallen hero timeline--and if I joined this I'd like to use the same character. However, there are a few questions I have related to that:

When Link pulls the Master Sword, Ganon gains access to the Sacred Realm that it was sealing. It's never addressed in the game, but would the Sacred Realm become the Dark World like in A Link to the Past, with the same corrupting properties? Would Ganon use such a portal to bolster his armies, either calling out the creatures of the dark world, or throwing prisoners into the portal and then enslaving their corrupted forms? And would such corruption spread to the Light/Real World through the portal, or would passing through negate the transformation?

Obviously this is all moot if you choose not to have such a mechanic in your story, and that's fine. I just thought I'd ask because the character I was thinking of using is tied to all of that.

[Ace of flames01]

I'm interested in this... I kinda want to make a reincarnation of navi that is much less annoying than the original or a reincarnation of one of the sages if that's ok

On a side note, I happened to notice that you didn't list hylians/ hyrulians in the races. Are they extinct?

[Jester Acharis]

I've got a few different ideas involving quite a few of those races, but considering Sheikah and Gerudo are probably going to be super popular as usual, I should probably veer towards the less popular ones to avoid too many duplicates. Speaking of which, are we going to have any caps on any of the races, or is it up to the players to make sure there's variety in that regard?

Also, I don't see Hylians or Humans on the race list? EDIT: Ninja'd by Ace.

Either way, definitely still in, just gotta settle on an idea.

[Gowi]

"Hey, I want to be a crazed wolfos gone rogue" xD

I have literally run this character before, it's a fun time. Not sure if I'm confirming interest, but the last Zelda RP I made a character for died before IC launch.

[Double]

@Zeroth The official Hyrule Historia has the Sacred Realm and Golden Land/Dark World as one and the same, so I see no reason why that wouldn't apply here. Since the Moblins had a very limited role in Ocarina of Time's story (seriously, they were reduced to a glorified one-off enemy in the Future Kokiri Forest) I plan to have them hail from the Dark World, Ganondorf managing to summon an army of them when he briefly entered the Sacred Realm at the start of the Seven Year War. As for the transformation aspect, well, I don't recall Link ever transforming while in the Sacred Realm. However, I'm willing to bet that was probably thanks to some kind of protection he was given by the Sages or the Triforce, especially since the Sacred Realm/Golden Land hadn't been fully corrupted yet.

@Ace of flames01 That's... not really possible. Reincarnation suggests that it's been years since the Hero's defeat, but it's only been one year. The Sages were just recently defeated, and some of them aren't even dead yet. So I'm gonna have to say no on the reincarnation. As for your second question, Hylians are certainly around still, I simply hadn't gotten around to working on them yet like the others.

@Jester Acharis I actually do intend to put a cap on the Shiekah race, since like you said, they tend to get overdone in these RP's. As my info for them said, only a small handful of them are around, and they pretty much all exclusively stick with their own kind in a tight-knit guerilla team that rarely cooperates with other groups. They help resistance forces, but they do it from the shadows, preferring not to intermingle when they can help it. Gerudo on the other hand make up a surprising majority of the free people along with Hylians. Recall that unlike the Zora and Gorons, they actually did successfully defend themselves from Ganondorf's forces, plus the town/outpost of Oasis is in their desert.

[Kafka Komedy]

Hmm. Just wanna confirm before I do any serious research, is a spot still open? And how often would you be expecting posts? How long?

If I do end up joining, a crafty Deku would definitely be my choice of character.

[Double]

@Kafka Komedy Gonna say yes, but I don't know how much larger I'll let the group get. If I do go ahead and make it a large group game then I might look into appointing a co-GM or something so I don't get too overwhelmed with management.

[Zeroth]

@Double Then the character I had in mind would probably work, if you approved of it. The idea is something similar to Berserker of Fate/Zero, an enraged knight. In the game, there's one knight we see in the back allies of Castle Town dying from a wound received from Ganondorf. This character is based on something similar; what if, after Link pulls the Master Sword free and Ganon passes through the portal into the Sacred Realm, there is a knight left from the coup d'etat between Ganon's forces and the Hylian army who is still following Ganon, determined not to let him have his way. He fails, of course, as Ganon has already entered the Sacred Realm and taken the Triforce of Power, corrupting the realm into the Dark World. When this Knight enters the portal, he becomes lost in the Dark World, and corrupted by the very rage it pulls out of him. And at the start of the RP, he finally manages to fight his way back into the world of light, with his battered mind only capable of remembering one thing: his quest to destroy Ganon.

Would this work, or does it sound too far fetched for the kind of things you planned to let characters do over the course of the story?

[Double]

@Zeroth I won't lie, a character like that is going to have issues. If the only thing he is able to remember is "stop Ganon" does that mean he literally can't fight anymore or navigate his way around Hyrule because those are skills he forgot? You'd have a very rough time at the start, the character would practically be unplayable. Consider that the only way into the Sacred Realm is the Temple of Time, meaning that's where you would exit from as well. The Temple of Time is in Castle Town... which is basically the exact center of Ganondorf's forces. You'd start out exactly on his doorstep practically, not to mention being absolutely surrounded by hostile forces out for your blood. No one's coming to save you, either, since they either have problems of their own or they will start out in Oasis and be too far away to help you in any way.

Not saying it's impossible, but I am saying that you will almost certainly not have much fun being so trapped behind enemy lines and with no one to help you or interact with.

[Zeroth]

@Double
Sorry, I should have been more clear. "With his battered mind only capable of remembering one thing: his quest to destroy Ganon" is narrative, not meant to mean that he LITERALLY can't remember anything else. I'll PM you further details so I don't clutter the thread.

[Ace of flames01]

@Double crud well then I got nothing sorry :/

[Kafka Komedy]

Hey @Double could you describe the town of Oasis a little? A general look and feel of the village and the people in it. A merchant needs to know their customers, after all!