Not far from Kalos, there is a small region by the name of Arkadia, very different from the other regions of the Pokemon World. While other places have focussed on the rapidly advancing technology, Arkadia prefers the simple life, a life where Man is one with nature, one with Pokemon. They use natural medicines instead of potions and antidotes, they have no Pokedex but instead keep track of the varying species of Pokemon through books and writing, and instead of using Pokeballs to capture Pokemon, they form friendships with them naturally and expect Pokemon to stay by their side out of loyalty and friendship, not the sense of duty that Pokeballs enforce.
At the centre of this region's philosophy is the Temple of Yggdrasil, dedicated to three Pokemon Xerneas, Yvelta and Zygarde, who represent the cycle of life through to death, and are believed to be embodiments of a greater entity known as Yggdrasil, a giant tree that not only holds the balance of their world but also thousands of others. That's right: the people of Arkadia believe in alternative dimensions and realities, very different from each other but similar in other ways, and it is Yggdrasil which connects them all. In the Temple, there is a statue of a tree that is meant to represent Yggdrasil, though it no more than simple model. However, at the centre of this statue is something far more precious, a large green jewel known as the Heart Of Zygarde. No one knows where it came from, but it is believed that it is connected to the legendary Pokemon Zygarde, who imposes order upon all realities. Therefore, the Heart is kept safe within the temple to ensure that reality will continue on smoothly.
However, one night, when all at the temple are asleep, a thief sneaks into the temple, steals the Heart and runs off with it. In his haste, he wakes up a few guards who chase after him. They chase him from the temple and into the forests that surround it. They chase him for a long time until he is cornered at the edge of cliff. Feeling trapped and full of spite, the thief decides that if they're going to catch him anyway, he might as well claim victory in another way and he drops the Heart of Zygarde off the cliff. When it hits the grounds it smashes into many pieces. The thief thinks he has claimed victory over his captors, but he doesn't realise that what he has done spells disaster for all the worlds. It is that point that reality slowly starts break apart and the thief is sucked into a vortex, a hole in reality, which sends him from his own world into another. And as he is transported, his own physical forms starts to change as he transforms from a man into a Pokemon...
Meanwhile, in another reality, a world inhabited completely by Pokemon, where humans are but the stuff of legends, many unusual natural phenomena have been occurring. Natural disasters such as tornadoes and earthquakes have been happening, causing pain for many. Some Pokemon have slowly been getting more and more violent and feral, attacking others for no apparent reason. Weirdest of all have been the appearance of Mystery Dungeons, strange areas which don't seem to work by the normal laws of nature. These are all effects caused by the Heart of Zygarde's destruction and the break down of order in all realities, but the Pokemon there don't know this yet. However, while they don't know what the cause of these disasters are, they are aware that something amiss. So, in order to combat this crisis, a young Braixen by the name of Willow (one of my characters) has taken it upon herself to create the Adventurer's Guild which is dedicated to helping Pokemon in need during these dark times. Their long term goal is to find out the cause of this disaster, but for now they are simply trying to help Pokemon on a case-by-case basis.
Your character - or at least one of them as you will be allowed to play multiple characters, but we'll get to that later - will be a Pokemon who has volunteered to join the Adventurer's Guild. Unlike in other Mystery Dungeon games, you will be not split into your own teams. This guild is not like Wigglytuff's Guild. Wigglytuff's Guild was a guild that had been running for a very long time, formed by experienced explorers. The Adventurer's Guild is not this at all. The "Guildmaster", Willow, is not super powerful nor experienced, she's a young and naive Pokemon who wants to do the right thing but actually has no idea what she is doing. The guild itself is also fairly new so it will have few members to begin with, all who are either well-meaning but unexperienced Pokemon or adventurers who have only gone solo up until now.
To begin with, the guild members will instead function as a single team, with Willow and her recruits heading out to various Mystery Dungeons depending on what jobs they get and they'll only be able to deal with one job at time. As more and more members join, Willow will be able to send multiple groups out to deal with jobs, but they won't be set teams, they'll just be groups formed of whoever wants to do a particular job the most, plus which characters would be best suited to said job. Willow herself will be a surprisingly active Guildmaster and will often go on jobs herself along with other Pokemon.
As well as playing heroic characters, I also expect some people to play villain characters or townsfolk NPCs. I myself will be playing Willow, multiple shopkeepers, and also the mysterious thief who has ended up in this world in Pokemon form. (That thief, by the way, is going to be a reoccurring villain.)
On the subject of human-turned-Pokemon character, I was originally planning it so the Thief would be the only human-turned-Pokemon character. However, due to someone else's character's backstory, I've decided to modify this. After all, since alternate dimensions are a big part of this roleplay, I will be allowing them, as well as Pokemon who have travelled from another universe into this one... though please keep it in moderation.
In the same way that Rescue Team, Explorers and Gates To Infinity are set in their own universes, Tree Of The Cosmos has its own world. This following section is about Sunny Town (TotC's equivalent of Treasure Town and Post Town) and the NPCs that live there, and also will have the list Mystery Dungeons, which will be updated as the story goes along. It will also contain a section about the building where the Adventurer's Guild is based, which is slightly north of Sunny Town.
Adventurer's Guild
The building where the Guild is based in a very large treehouse which actually an old library owned by Willow's mother, Constance, which contains a lot of various information about different legends in the Pokemon world and the history behind it. Constance herself passed away a couple of years back, leaving the library to Willow. It still... looks a lot like a library, filled with many books which Willow is still looking for a place for. There are quite a few rooms in the treehouse, one being Willow's own room, another being Constance's room (which no one is allowed in), a kitchen, and large empty hall which will be where Willow will assemble everyone for important meetings, and several guest rooms where various members of the guild will be sleeping.
Yes, it's very messy in there and not at all professional. Willow is hoping to later upgrade it to an actual Guild building if the Guild becomes successful.
Sunny Town
Sunny Town is a small town filled with various shops, facilities, as well as the houses of the various townsfolk. A lot of the Pokemon who live here are fire types, interestingly, though there are Pokemon of other types here as well.
The town's mayor is Camerupt, a very slow and elderly Pokemon who lives in the a small rocky building in the centre of town. He's a good sort but doesn't seem to really know what's going on half the time due to the fact he hasn't got very good hearing. He's more like a figure-head of the town rather than the actual leader.
No, the real figure of authority in Sunny Town is Sergeant Arcanine who runs the local police. He's an aggressive Pokemon, very loud and opinionated and he doesn't suffer fools lightly. All the Pokemon who work under him are Growlithes. He is strongly opposed against the Adventurer's Guild, feeling that the work they are trying to conduct should be left to the Police, not some "inexperienced thrill-seekers". Expect him to interfere a lot, but he's not a bad sort. He genuinely has the town's best interests at heart.
Next, we have the sly Meowth who runs the Meowth Market. She sells various items such as special orbs, seeds, berries and the occasional gummy. You can't buy TMs here, that is going to be separate character who not be available at the beginning.
Then, there's Murkrow Bank, run by a very haughty and antisocial Murkrow. He doesn't talk much, coming off as quite rude, but he'll agree to store not only your money (Poke) here, but also your items.
There's also the Kangaskhan Orphanage... this is weird little addition. Mrs. Kangaskhan runs the local orphanage where young Pokemon who have either lost their parents or been abandoned live. She does this in order to make up for the fact that she lost her own child long ago, though you wouldn't know this as she is genuinely quite upbeat and cheerful, treating each child she cares for as if it were own. If you ever receive a Pokemon egg as a reward for a job, you can give it to Kangaskan to look after until it has hatched. Afterwards, you can decide whether you want Kangaskan to keep said hatchling or if you want to take it on as your own. We'll cover this later when it comes up.
Finally, we have Cafe Magmar, a restaurant run by Magmar and Magby. Here, they sell delicious food, which you can eat fairly cheap. This place is where you'll often get to sit back and talk with other townsfolk and where you can at times hear some interesting rumours.
And that's it for the starting shops. More will be added later...
Mystery Dungeons
The current Dungeons available are...
Mushroom Forest - A small forest, luscious, green, and filled with variety of species of mushrooms, some poisonousness and some benign. It home mostly to weak grass and poison Pokemon, particularly ones that resemble mushrooms like Paras, Shroomish and Foongus, as the forest provides them with plenty of camouflage.
Echo Cave - A dark cave. The silence that fills it is only broken by the gentle drip, drop of water that falls from the ceiling... and the occasional fluttering of wings. It is inhabited by bat-like Pokemon, mostly Zubat and Woobat, but occasionally Noibat too. Also, on lower floors, you're likely to encounter a few water-type Pokemon.
Breezy Plains - Open plains and hills, home to many bird-like Flying-types, with the occasional Grass-type and Normal-type as well.
More to be added...
To be revealed...
Guild Members (you only need to make character sheets for Guild Members, villains and other can be left a little bit more mysterious)
Willow the Braixen - XxFellsingxX (me)
Monado the Honedge and Ame the Frogadier- Card Captor
Lupus Umbra the Zorua - 1Charak2
Isra the Pancham - Rabbit Goddess
Russet the Furrett - Ngoc
Lillith the Eevee - Ace Of Jacks
Abby the Abra - Kiddo
Timothy the Rhyhorn - Draexzhan
Franklin the Turtwig - Drake
Espurr - Stitches
Villains:
??? (the Thief) - XxFellsingxX(me)
Other:
None yet besides the town NPCs listed above
Blank Character Sheet
Name:
Gender:
Species:
Ability:
Starting Level: (can start from any level between 10 and 20)
Starting Moveset:
Personality:
Brief History:
My character
Name: Willowisp (Willow, for short)
Gender: Female
Species: Braixen
Ability: Blaze
Starting Level: 19
Starting Moveset: Ember, Psybeam, Howl, Flame Charge
Personality: Willow is the last person you would put in charge of something like the Adventurer's Guild. Her good intentions are one thing, but she lacks the qualities of a true leader, the most notable one being confidence in herself. She tries to hide this by putting on a strong front but it comes off more as bossy than authoritative, ordering people about and trying to make her opinions heard. In truth, she's more comfortable as a researcher, as it runs in her blood. She can easily find information and memorise it, keeping it in her mind indefinitely. She's much better with books than she is with other Pokemon, and will often excuse herself to go off and read when she's becoming particularly frustrated with others, which is often. She rarely means to offend anyone but she's so unused to social situations that she can comes of blunt and brutal with her honesty. Still, she's determined that her Adventurer's Guild will become a success, and that stubbornness may end up carrying her long way... as long as others have the patience to put up with it.
Brief History: Willow grew up in a family researchers, both her mother Constance and her father Todd being interested in the lore, history and mythology of their world. Her father in particular was interest in the elusive Volcanion, and he searched all other for the mythical Pokemon. One day, when Willow was still very young, Todd got a lead about where Volcanion may be lurking and went out on a search... only to never return. Willow was too young to really understand what was going on but her mother Constance became very quiet and subdued after that, becoming less of a motherly figure to her daughter and more of an overly critical teacher, trying to get Willow to carry on the family interest in myths and legends. Constance's pressure caused Willow to grow up without really experiencing the carefree nature a child is suppose to have, which probably has a lot to do with Willow's stuffiness, lack of confidence and inability to really understand people. As years went by and Willow grew up, eventually evolving into a Braixen, Constance eventually got older and older, weaker and weaker, before eventually dying of old age, plus probably not having much will to go on. Willow's desire to start the Adventurer's Guild started soon after that, though she only really got motivated of recent with all these natural disasters. It probably is because, deep down, Willow is very lonely, and her building the guild is her way to move on from her past and achieve something new, something productive.
