The Worlds were once one, but became shattered into many in a catastrophe no one truly remembers. Since then, they have remained separate, with great distance between them until each evolved into an individual world in their own right. By present day, the times of the Worlds being one has been completely forgotten. Now they exist as if they had always been separate, and with no knowledge of the other worlds' existence. That all began to change when the Heartless started appearing. Within the Realm of Light, each World has a Heart, a Keyhole granting access to the equal-but-opposite Realm of Darkness. From these openings, creatures of Darkness were discovered by kind-but-misguided scientist named Ansem the Wise. Ansem studied the Heartless, and the Realm from which they came extensively. His research even went as far to create man-made Heartless that he marked with an Emblem so that they could always be distinguished from their Pureblood brethren. This obsessive research eventually led to the opening of the Keyhole of Ansem's world, Radiant Garden. With the floodgate opened, Heartless overran the once-beautiful Radiant Garden until only a hollow shell of the world remained.
At around the same time, a powerful fairy enchantress called Maleficent was preparing to make her move. She'd discovered the existence of other worlds nearly ten years ago, and was now in her final preparation to begin an invasion to rule all worlds. When Radiant Garden was overran by Heartless, Maleficent moved right in and took the castle and its world for her own, renaming it Hollow Bastion. From here, she contacted a select group of like-minded entities from other worlds. With promises of power and the right to rule their respective worlds, they came to align themselves with Maleficent's plans. Only one entity stood in their way. A world called Disney Castle - ruled by the kind-hearted King Mickey - discovered Maleficent's plan and began work to thwart it.
And finally, on a tiny world called Destiny Islands, there lived three children. These three children would eventually come to hold the fate of all worlds in their hands: Sora, Riku, and Kairi. With Kairi having mysteriously moved to Destiny Islands from parts unknown, the three children plan to set out on an adventure to discover Kairi's home, and any other lands and worlds they come across in the process. But fate had other plans. A a fateful night, a storm hit Destiny Islands, and from it Heartless began to emerge and swarm. Riku, viewing this as an opportunity to expand his horizons, dived headlong into the rising Darkness and vanished. Kairi, too, was also taken away by the Darkness. Standing alone, Sora managed to summon the fabled Keyblade and defeated the Heartless boss. But by then it was too late, and Destiny Island's fate was sealed.
Sora survived and found himself in a strange town. Here he made a slew of new friends. Leon, Yuffie, Aerith and Cid; who were all aware of the Heartless and the power of the Keyblade. It was here Sora met his closest friends and allies, Donald and Goofy. During all of this, King Mickey instructed Donald and Goofy to seek out a "key" and then guard it. This search took them to Traverse Town where they joined Sora for a quest to find the King as well as Sora's missing friends. A grand tale unfolded from there. The trio traveled from world to world, occasionally doing battle with Maleficent's allies and sealing the Worlds' Keyholes along the way to prevent them from being swallowed up by the Heartless. Eventually the quest took them to the ruins of Hollow Bastion. Here they confronted Maleficent directly, as well as Riku who had joined her side in his search for the missing Kairi.
After a fierce battle, Kairi and the other missing Princesses of Heart - whom Maleficent had gathered for her nefarious purposes - were freed and awakened. However Riku was not so fortunate. A ghost or spirit calling himself Ansem had taken over Riku's body and retreated to the ominous End of the World. Sora, Donald, and Goofy followed suit, and confronted Ansem deep within the End of the World at the ruins of Destiny Islands. What happened next is a blur. Sora, Donald, Goofy, and even Riku and The King never returned from End of the World. Their fates remain unsolved.
Nearly ten years have passed. Those remaining at Disney Castle and Traverse Town believed the battle against Ansem to have been victorious despite the loss of the heroes in the process. But a new enemy soon made their existence known. All at once, fleets of Gummi Ships emerge from where Hollow Bastion once stood and begin attacking worlds one after another. This force only calls itself The Empire, its ruler remaining unknown to almost everyone outside of it. Instead the Empire was mostly commanded by a set of hooded figures calling themselves the Imperators. In response, Disney Castle scrambled to rescue as many worlds as possible, managing to unite a number of them together into a World Alliance.
With a threat of war between multiple worlds looming in the near future, and heroic figures such as Mickey and Sora nowhere to be found, things have begun to look bleak. Now the responsibility of saving the worlds has fallen onto the shoulders of anyone and everyone willing to stand up and fight.
Character Progression System
We'll be using a freeform-version of the Command Deck from Birth By Sleep and Dream Drop Distance. With that in mind, use the various Commands from both of those games as a reference for how Spells and Attacks will work. Just like in those games, Attacks or Spells are first typed as either Physical or Magical, then typed as either one of the elements (Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, etc) or as Non-Elemental. From there, they are classed either as Basic, Advanced, or Ultimate level. The only part of the Command Deck system we'll be ignoring is the Deck size cap, as it will mostly serve as a reference list for any and all Spells and Attacks your character knows how to use. Below are some example Commands:
- Quick Blitz - Physical/Non-Elemental - Basic
- Thunder - Magical/Thunder - Basic
- Fire Strike - Physical/Fire - Basic
- Sonic Blade - Physical/Non-Elemental - Advanced
- Blizzaga - Magical/Blizzard - Advanced
- Spark Raid - Physical/Thunder - Advanced
- Ars Arcanum - Physical/Non-Elemental - Ultimate
- Mega Flare - Magical/Fire - Ultimate
- Time Splicer - Physical/Stop - Ultimate
Every character is allowed to start with Guard, Dodge Roll, plus 3 Basic Commands. Whether those commands are Physical or Magical or a mix of both is up to you. As we reach certain points of progression I will let players know that they've earned a new Command to add to their deck. Minor points of progress will earn Basic commands while major points of progress (the defeat of a Boss for example) will earn the party Advanced Commands. Ultimate Commands, being the most powerful spells or attacks of their kind, will generally be earned less often to balance them out.
That just leaves me with Shotlocks and Command Styles. Shotlocks are a very powerful type of Command that targets many enemies at once, while Command Styles are a powerful shift in fighting style to incorporate elemental attacks or other such gimmicks into one's regular fighting style. These are very powerful, stronger than even Ultimate Commands and as such will be the most difficult to obtain. Acquiring these very powerful abilities often requires the completion of a story arc or taking a major step in a character's personal journey.
