I've been away from the RP Guild for a while, decided to come back with this new idea that's been bumping around inside my head. Though, to avoid some of the issues with my past RPs from repeating themselves, I want to say right out of the gate that my tolerance for poor writing, plotholes, and ignorance of established lore has diminished considerably in recent years. Because of that, I am only looking for co-writers who take their craft seriously, who proofread their posts to ensure there are no plotholes, and who respect what has already been established in previous posts. If you're not sure about something, feel free to PM me to double-check before you post, and if I do notice something that falls through the cracks and I ask you to make edits, please don't take it personally.
With that out of the way, on to my idea: I've recently been playing Grounded a lot, which is kind of like Honey, I Shrunk The Kids as a survival game. And I was thinking how cool it would be if there was a secret world of tiny faeries that they discovered, and the idea took on a life of it's own. It has also spawned ideas for a future novel series after I'm done writing the ones I'm currently working on, but for now, I figured it might be fun to explore it as an RP.
So, at the beginning, our characters are normal teenagers living in Los Angeles. They've recently graduated high school and are sitting in a Starbucks discussing the prospect of Summer jobs to save up for college in the Fall. An old man overhears this and offers to hire them to help him get his house ready to sell, such as cleaning up the yard, hauling stuff to the junkyard, scrubbing the floors and walls, etc. But what they don't realize is that the man is actually a scientist who has been researching various hidden magical aspects of the world, and has invented a Morph Chamber to shrink humans down to the size of faeries. He tricks the teenagers into entering the Chamber, activates the machine, and shrinks them down. The process makes them severely dizzy and they black out, waking up later to find themselves inside a plastic cup with a rope ladder leading out and their memories a little fuzzy. There is also a shrunken tablet that has a video from the scientist explaining everything, as well as some helpful information, such as maps, survival tips, locations of supply caches throughout his backyard, etc. There are also various traps, puzzles, obstacles, and dangerous bugs and creatures throughout the yard.
The scientist further explains that the Morph Chamber is powered by a Crystal Battery that absorbs the souls of faeries, and he confessing to capturing and killing an entire village of them to charge it up. He says that the morphing process should have also granted the teens magical faerie powers, and wants them to unlock their abilities by exploring the backyard and overcoming all the dangers and obstacles. His hope is that the use of their magic will draw the attention of other faeries, allowing the scientist to capture them and create more Crystal Batteries. His ultimate, final goal is to have a global army of tiny faerie hunters so he can mass produce his Crystal Battery Technology. He also wants to keep some alive to create breeding centers so they don't go extinct.
Of course, our characters are appalled by the entire situation, but at the end of the video, the scientist warns that if they don't comply, they will never get back to their families. He has left them with no food or water, and so the only way to survive is to climb the rope ladder out of the cup and seek out the thirteen supply caches throughout the backyard. There are beacons at each cache, which they must activate, after which details on the next steps will be sent to the tablet. Though they must use the tablet sparingly, as the battery will eventually run out. For purposes of monitoring this aspect of the RP, we'll say it's at 100% when we start, and then each use it drops by 2%. So, we get fifty uses before the tablet dies, after which we'll be on our own if we don't find another way to charge it or other means of receiving information from the scientist.
The first arc of the RP deals with our adventures in the scientist's backyard, until we encounter faeries coming to investigate the strange energies they've been sensing from our emerging powers. Eventually, we have to make a decision: lure them into the scientist's trap so that we can return to our old lives; or tell them the truth and help them destroy the Crystal Battery so the trapped souls can be freed. However, that will leave us stranded in our tiny forms.
Assuming we do the latter, the faeries we helped invite us to stay in their hidden village while the Elders discuss other methods to return us to our normal size. From here the RP can really open up, as we go on a number of magical adventures all over the world in search of a way back to our old lives. We visit a few different tiny magical communities, but it seems even when expert sorcerers cast polymorph spells that are similar to the effects of the Morph Chamber, we remain tiny. Some speculate that our bodies were tainted by the dark nature of how the Crystal Battery was powered, and thus we are inadvertently repelling the transformative magicks.
However and whenever we finally regain our true form, it could leave us with the permanent ability to polymorph at will, and our adventures continue. If you're interested, please post some character ideas below, as well as what type of faerie powers you'd like to have. I'm going to play twin brothers in the group of teens; one is kind, brave, and heroic, and the other is a bit on the darker side and will eventually become an antagonist to them. The greatest schism occurs during the end of the first arc, when one twin sides with the faeries and the other sides with the scientist. If some of you want to play bad guys as well, then they could join the darker twin. He warns the scientist that the other group is planning to destroy the Battery, and so the scientist reprograms the mind control implants in all the yard critters to make them obey the dark twin.
So, towards the end of the first arc, we might see the good teens backed by an army of faeries and the evil teens backed by an army of mind-controlled bugs and creatures. Assuming this comes to pass and the Battery is destroyed, the evil teens will likely be thrown into faerie prison, but it won't be long before there is an opportunity to escape. Perhaps we can have a sub-plot where the escaped evil teens try to free the scientist, who was taken to jail for conducting illegal experiments after the explosion that destroyed the Crystal Battery drew the attention of the police.
I'm interested to see what people think XD.