Ryik

I Am Thou: A Persona/SMT Inspired Story

@meri It is admittedly less useful for keeping track of where art actually comes from. Google reverse image search likewise wasn't very forthcoming at first, but I did find it in the comments of a duplicate Pinterest post; the original artist is Bowen "Bones" McCurdy.

I Am Thou: A Persona/SMT Inspired Story

Radcliff & Mermaid

Theme

Name: Radcliff "Cliff" Conary

Personality: Radcliff is a blunt and generally nonchalant person. He prefers brutal truth and practicality over idealism or having his feelings spared, and he can only sheepishly apologize when it's pointed out to him that not everyone feels the same way. In general, he is kind and polite, with a strong moral compass, but he is also a lot more reckless than most people expect, and will often walk the line when it comes to following the rules.

He's admittedly a bit promiscuous, and has a habit of viewing his relationships as transactional, though he's honest about it, and isn't opposed to romance per se, though he finds it difficult to get emotionally attached to people he doesn't know well. To that end, he has few friends, but the ones he does have he'd probably die for.

Background: Radcliff lived a relatively simple life and had equally simple hobbies: Fishing, cooking (fish), bar hopping with his friends, karaoke (though he's terrible at it) and casual hookups if he's in the mood and his two friends with benefits aren't. He's known them since elementary school, and while the time they tried to date each other had been a bit awkward considering it was after he had hooked up with both of them, he was happy for them. That being said, they eventually broke up and things returned to how they were. Alongside a few other friends, they all try to meet up and do something together once a week, if they're available. On separate occasions, both of his casual partners have dropped suspicious hints, though when he asked them about it directly, they both told him that it didn't mean anything. For better or for worse, Cliff chose to take this at face value, if only because he believes that's what he'd like for them to do if the roles were reversed.

His parents are relatively well-off, if a bit dysfunctional, so he's never had to worry about money, and he even received a boat for one of his birthdays a couple years ago, which sees quite a lot of use considering how much fishing he does. He sells some of the fish if the local stalls are manned and interested in buying them, and rents out his boat when he isn't using it for extra income, but otherwise he works at a hardware store, a job he likely won't be keeping for long. As immaculate as his customer service and de-escalation skills are, he finds it exhausting. At the least, he has this weekend to look forward to. His friends are joining him on his boat for fishing, swimming, and general partying, and the forecast for that day is... good...?

Other Information: Does it truly count as alcoholism if your tolerance is monstrous and you only drink socially?

Persona: Mermaid

Arcana: Hanged Man

Element: Ice

Affinities: Resists Ice, weak to Electric

Primary Focus: Debuffs (Chance of random debuff on hit, Stormcaller Song, eventually Pandemonic Feast)
Secondary Focus: Healing (Diarahan, Mediarahan, Amrita Shower)
Tertiary Focus: Ailments (Freeze Boost, Marin Karin)

Persona Info: Mythical Aquatic creatures with the top half of a woman and the lower half of a fish, Mermaids are sometimes regarded as omens of misfortune, associated with floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drownings. In some legends, they use their voices to charm men, causing them to crash their ships or to jump overboard before drowning and eating them. In others, they are portrayed as falling in love with humans, often with the reconciliation between the two worlds as a major source of conflict. In recent times, they are sometimes portrayed as symbols of hopelessness, doomed to suffer whether on land or at sea, choked out by the air of an unforgiving world or the pollution of a tainted ocean, the stagnation of either captivity or an insular society and the isolation of having to leave all they know behind to survive no matter what choice they make.

Flint & Es

Theme

Name: Flint Asidea

Personality: Flint is naive, and despite his terrible upbringing, can be said to have lived a sheltered life. He never received a proper education, and isn't the most socially graceful. He is easily overwhelmed and can be clingy with people who show him a scintilla of kindness, and while he tries to be inconspicuous about it, he doesn't always succeed. On the other hand, he is easily excited by new sights and experiences, and loves trying out new things. He finds mythology fascinating and has a passion for art, even if he doesn't really consider himself an artist on account of his nigh-eidetic memory.

Background: Flint was born into poverty and addiction, his parents falling victim to a particular type of drug and passing their issues with it to Flint from a young age. The drug in question goes by many names, though the most common name for the many different varieties of them are "seeds of eden." They are psychoactive drugs that induce feelings of bliss and specific hallucinations. These drugs are special in that they cause the image of a "god" to appear to those affected, and, depending on the mix, the "god" appears differently, with the same mix resulting in the same visage, even through repeated use and when used by different individuals. These "gods" range from Happy Snowmen-looking things to the very image of satan from abrahamic religions, varying wildly in appearance and surrounding rhetoric. For reasons not hard to imagine, peddlers of the drug often thinly veil their trade as a religion, each god promising a different method to get their followers to "that special place", as "interpreted" by that god's "prophet". Cleansing one's household from the evils of money, the root of all evil, is a common theme.

In some ways, they can be seen as a group of drug addicts, and in others, a group of cultists. Flint was born into a so-called church whose god's will was interpreted as wrathful. To fail to cleanse the world was considered a personal failing, and their prophet's tender mercies were just thought of as a matter of course. Prophets were unquestionable, "for god is real, and only through the prophets may one draw closer to them."

The prophet of the wrathful god eventually claimed the lives of Flint's parents. His only sibling, his older sister, still just a child herself, took him and ran away with him, and, knowing nothing else, they eventually ended up under the "care" of another prophet. Then another, and another. None quite so bad as that first wrathful god. None able to save his sister when she suddenly got sick one day. He would know, since he went back to each and every one of them to ask for help.

Alone and lost in the world, he eventually ended up under the auspices of a man who claimed to serve a god of love. One cannot enter that special place alone, he says. The church's compound tends to be filled with "the sounds of love", as the prophet calls it, and Flint, only a preteen when he joined, has always been envious of the many loving couples around him.

The god of love, a beautiful monstrosity, a heart with an eye, had to be a good god, for it did not demand its followers to suffer like the wrathful god, and it did not make Flint go hungry when he couldn't cleanse enough money. It also never got the chance to save his sister, so he'll never know if it would have failed.

Flint spent years within the church of the god of love and still lives there to this day. The prophet cared for Flint when he got sick, and praised him for the art Flint drew as a hobby. As a matter of fact, the prophet took particular interest in the art Flint drew not long after they had met. Flint's memory has always been extremely good, so he had been able to recreate the visages of the many gods he's seen over the years with exacting detail. Perhaps because of the many drugs he's taken over the years, sometimes his dreams will show him gods he's never even seen before. After asking Flint for some of the drawings, "to show to some of his friends", and getting Flint's agreement, the prophet returned saying his friends loved the drawings, but would like to see them in color. As such, the prophet gifted Flint some paints and canvases, which were the first proper gift Flint had ever received. He was touched, and declared, unprompted, that he would make as many paintings as the prophet or his friends wanted. The prophet simply smiled, chuckling to himself, and so Flint has continued to do so with relative frequency for years.

It's a bit unfortunate that the prophet and his friends don't like the paintings of his sister as much.

Other Information: Is in the habit of stealing things, particularly money, and giving it to the prophet of the god of love. He genuinely believes that doing so when he can get away with it is a moral obligation. Perhaps he recognizes on some level that this is wrong, but not consciously, at least not yet.

Persona: Es

Arcana: Star

Element: Psychokinesis

Affinities: Resists Psy, weak to Fire

Primary Focus: Magic
Secondary Focus: Healing (Amrita Shower, Samarecarm, Recarmdra)
Tertiary Focus: Defense (Ailment resistance, Regenerate)
Other/Flavor:: Lydia, Steal

Persona Info: Instinctual desires buried deep within the human psyche. Described by the famous Austrian psychologist Freud as one of the three agents that encompass human mentality, alongside the Ich and Über-Ich, which have since been translated into the Latin terms Id, Ego and Super-Ego. Es, or the Id embodies human instincts, driving the subconscious mind towards the fulfillment of selfish needs and attainment of carnal desires, pulling them to the surface and urging the Ego to give in. It is at odds with the Super-Ego, whose criticisms and inhibitions serve as a person's moral and ethical conscience, and whose aspirations and ideals represent one's idealized self-image, while the Ego; the self; the executive functions of personality mediates between the two along with the perceived demands of the outside world.

The Id, (Latin for "It") is oblivious to time or place, to reason or logic, and is perfectly capable of harboring mutually exclusive and/or contradictory desires simultaneously. It is impulse; the seeking of immediate fulfillment or at least a compromised form of it, and according to Freud, one of the primary methods for unmasking its contents is the analysis of one's dreams.

I Am Thou: A Persona/SMT Inspired Story

keep in mind that establishing an in-depth faithful recreation of a Persona game's mechanics is not the objective here. If it were, I'd be asking for stats and be providing specifications on how that works.

@Bacon

Fair; I suppose nitty gritty details like damage-boosting passives won't even come up in an RP setting. It's just a bit hard to translate a system where you usually want to stack passives on everyone to one where numbers don't actually matter.

Anyways, I think we should go for tertiary focuses, though we might want to dial it back or forward based on the category. I would mostly reference the party members of Persona 3-5 for what each focus should entail.

So, here's me trying my hand at an actual suggestion of how things would work:

For real this time

Primary Phys: Charge or Crit rate passive and Colossal-damage attacks (or their multi-hit equivalents)
Secondary Phys: Severe-damage attacks and one Colossal-damage attack (single target or AoE)
Tertiary Phys: Severe-damage attacks or Lucky/Miracle Punch
Flavor Phys: No higher than Medium-damage

Primary Gun: Charge or crit rate passive and Severe-damage attacks
Secondary Gun: One Severe-damage attack (single target or AoE)
Tertiary Gun: Crit rate passive for guns (since Snap has a high crit rate, crit knockdowns are the idea. Ideally in line with Lucky/Miracle punch, or we add in other gun skills to compensate for the lack of them)
Flavor Gun: No higher than Medium-damage

Primary Magic: Focus and either both Severe-damage spells or Megidolaon, or perhaps a unique skill that's stronger.
Secondary Magic: Focus and one Severe-damage spell
Tertiary Magic: one Severe-damage spell
Flavor Magic: No higher than Heavy-damage. Element break skills are allowed.

Primary Healing: All healing skills
Secondary Healing: Either (Diarahan, Mediarahan and Amrita Shower) or 3 of (Diarahan, Amrita Shower, Samarecarm, and Recarmdra)
Tertiary Healing: Diarahan or Amrita Shower or Recarm
Flavor Healing: No more than Dia / Mabaisudi / Me Patra / Energy Shower / Lydia

Primary Buffing: Luster Candy / Hyakka Ryouran
Secondary Buffing: Heat Riser or Matarukaja, Marakukaja, Masukukaja, Dekunda, Rebellion, and Revolution (or something like SMT5 Cautious Cheer / Red Capote which performs two team-wide buffs in one move)
Tertiary Buffing: Matarukaja or Marakukaja or Masukukaja or Dekunda or Rebellion and Revolution
Flavor Buffing: Tarukaja or Rakukaja or Sukukaja

Primary Debuffing: Debilitate
Secondary Debuffing: Matarunda, Marakunda, Masukunda, and Dekaja (or something like SMT5 Stagnant Air which performs two debuffs in one move, or SMT Strange Journey's Armshot/Legshot/Cripple gun skills that lower attack/speed/defense with attacks)
Tertiary Debuffing: Tarunda or Rakunda or Masukunda or Dekaja
Flavor Debuffing: Only Sukunda

Primary Ailments: Something like Magatsu Mandala or Phantom Show; a heavy-damage attack that inflicts ailments or a custom skill with higher odds of inflicting ailments.
Secondary Ailments: Any non-unique ailment skill in P5R (i.e. the attack skills too)
Tertiary Ailments: Either Elemental Ailment Boost passives and one single-target non-damaging ailment skill or one non-damaging ailment skill
Flavor Ailments: Makajama only
Note: Bosses are still probably immune

Primary Defense: Persona Q's Safeguard and Body Shield (Takes damage in place of one/all allies for a turn), The actually strong evasion/other defensive passive at Bacon's discretion (e.g. things like Ali Dance, Firm Stance, Holy Embrace, or SMT5's Kannabi Veil or Luminescent Mirage), plus the weaker defensive passives like Regenerate 3 and High Counter
Secondary Defense: Persona Q's Safeguard and Body Shield, Regenerate 3 and High Counter or similar passives
Tertiary Defense: 2 of: Persona Q's Safeguard (Takes damage in place of one ally for a turn), Regenerate 3, High Counter, Tetrakarn, or Makarakarn (or similar passives)
Flavor Defense: Counter

So, notes:
- I figure Luster Candy should be on the table since Yusuke gets it, albeit under another name
- Having a focus means you would eventually unlock these things, not that you get them in a timely manner. While most skills probably unlock at a reasonable pace if they have downgrades to work with, something like Luster Candy will probably have to sit on a simple aoe buff for a while before eventually getting Heat Riser, Thermopylae, and finally Luster Candy.
- I think buff/debuff stacking is ideal since it allows for more overlap with characters. Also I'm biased since the mechanical concept I'm going for with Mermaid relies on it.
- Am I weird for thinking Heat Riser is useless when auto-buffs and Vitality of the Tree Thermopylae are so accessible? I mean, I know that that doesn't apply here, but even just a bunch of aoe buffs are more turn-efficient for buffing the whole party in the long run.

I included guidelines on what qualifies as a flavor ability since there's probably a gap between flavor abilities and abilities meant as intermediaries for people who actually want to focus on a category, though you could of course modify those as well as you see fit.

I Am Thou: A Persona/SMT Inspired Story

@Ryik Your character has such a cool concept! Also, love the art—did you draw it?

@meri

Thanks. Found the art on Pinterest. It's absurdly useful for the specific purpose of finding good face claims, especially if you keep telling it you're not interested in anything else.

For focuses: Here's the classifications I had in mind.

@Bacon

This started out as a suggestion but I was also more or less trying to go by what you've said and just generally get a grasp on what each tier of focus entails. Some of these could maybe use some rebalancing, such as Support giving people very little reason to ever do anything but a secondary focus for healing skills and revives, and buffs/debuffs for being extremely committal for very little in return. A tertiary focus might remedy this and I'd generally prefer erring on the side of more options for players, but the details start to feel a bit nebulous. (Though I suppose minor utility and flavor are what most would be after with it) As an example, Ann's single-target only healing pales in comparison to Makoto's Mediarahan. (who herself would only qualify as a tertiary focus by our metrics since she lacks anything else)

If primary debuffing is Debilitate (Or equivalent? Still wondering about whether buff/debuff stacking is in and if I can get a debuffing passive as requested in Cliff's app) -and secondary debuffing focus is whatever you want from the base buff/debuff skills, I'd put (Ma)Sukukaja/(Ma)Sukunda under tertiary for being distinctly less useful and more a matter of flavor, or restrict tertiary to a single single-target buff. Tarunda and Rakunda are a bit stronger than their single-target buff equivalents due to their usefulness on bosses though, so it might be ideal to make them unequal.

idk. Let me know your thoughts on such.

list of skills? Please review

Primary Phys - Arm's Master + Charge + Brave Blade + Vorpal Blade + 2 of: Apt Pupil, God's Hand, Gigantomachia, Agneyastra
Secondary Phys - (Arm's Master + Brave Blade or Vorpal Blade or Apt Pupil + Myriad Slashes or Swords Dance or Megaton Raid + Heat Wave or Swift Strike) or Lucky Punch + Miracle Punch instead of everything else. Seems fitting to keep them exclusive to secondary Phys.
Free for everyone (for flavor) - Lunge, Cleave, Vajra Blast

Primary Gun - Charge + Snipe aka Gun Boost + Cripple aka Gun Amp + One-shot Kill + Riot Gun or Trigger Happy
Secondary Gun - Arm's Master + Gun Boost + Triple Down + One Shot Kill (there is simply not enough gun skills) or Gun Amp or Trigger Happy
Free for everyone - Snap

Primary Magic - Spell Master + Tier 4 single-target spell or Tier 4 aoe spell + Focus or Megidolaon + Element Boost + Element Amp + Elemental Ailment boost (if applicable)
Secondary Magic - Spell Master + Element Amp (the 50% one) + Element Boost (the 25% one) or Megido (for flavor mainly)
Free for everyone - -dyne skills

Primary Support - (Diarahan + Mediarahan + Salvation + Amrita Shower + Samarecarm) or (Diarahan + Mediarahan + Samarecarm + -karn skills) or (Diarahan + Mediarahan + Salvation + Amrita Shower + -karn skills)
Secondary Support - (Diarahan + Mediarahan + Salvation + Amrita Shower) or (Diarahan + Mediarahan + Samarecarm) or (Diarahan + Mediarahan + -karn skills) or (Amrita Shower + Samarecarm) or (Amrita Shower + -karn skills) or (Samarecarm + -karn skills)

Primary Buffing - Revolution, Heat Riser, Thermopylae
Secondary Buffing - Tarukaja + Rakukaja + Sukukaja + Matarukaja + Marakukaja + Masukukaja + Rebellion

Primary Debuffing - Debilitate
Secondary Debuffing - Tarunda + Rakunda + Sukunda + Matarunda + Marakunda + Masukunda

Primary Ailments - Whatever Ailments you want + Ailment Boost + Specific Ailment Boost
Secondary Ailments - Whatever Ailments you want

Additionally, due to the power of Heat Riser and Debilitate, if you take those you can't take other options for buffing and debuffing.

So to clarify, would this mean you:
A: Start with Debilitate/Heat Riser
B: Start with nothing and get nothing but your secondary focus skills and generic spells until you eventually learn Debilitate/Heat Riser?

I Am Thou: A Persona/SMT Inspired Story

I've got questions on what is allowed based on what focus your character has, considering Persona characters tend to have more than strictly two focuses. Ann with her Tarunda, Dormina/Lullaby, Diarahan, and top-tier magic attacks come to mind, or the Jazz club that lets you slap Debilitate on anyone, for example. I'm not even sure where Dekaja/Dekunda/-karn skills come in, though they're generally not useful enough to justify their own category.

Either way I've got a character ready. Would more than one character be allowed?

Radcliff & Mermaid

Theme

Name: Radcliff "Cliff" Conary

Personality: Radcliff is a blunt and generally nonchalant person. He prefers brutal truth and practicality over idealism or having his feelings spared, and he can only sheepishly apologize when it's pointed out to him that not everyone feels the same way. In general, he is kind and polite, with a strong moral compass, but he is also a lot more reckless than most people expect, and will often walk the line when it comes to following the rules.

He's admittedly a bit promiscuous, and has a habit of viewing his relationships as transactional, though he's honest about it, and isn't opposed to romance per se, though he finds it difficult to get emotionally attached to people he doesn't know well. To that end, he has few friends, but the ones he does have he'd probably die for.

Background: Radcliff lived a relatively simple life and had equally simple hobbies: Fishing, cooking (fish), bar hopping with his friends, karaoke (though he's terrible at it) and casual hookups if he's in the mood and his two friends with benefits aren't. He's known them since elementary school, and while the time they tried to date each other had been a bit awkward considering it was after he had hooked up with both of them, he was happy for them. That being said, they eventually broke up and things returned to how they were. Alongside a few other friends, they all try to meet up and do something together once a week, if they're available. On separate occasions, both of his casual partners have dropped suspicious hints, though when he asked them about it directly, they both told him that it didn't mean anything. For better or for worse, Cliff chose to take this at face value, if only because he believes that's what he'd like for them to do if the roles were reversed.

His parents are relatively well-off, if a bit dysfunctional, so he's never had to worry about money, and he even received a boat for one of his birthdays a couple years ago, which sees quite a lot of use considering how much fishing he does. He sells some of the fish if the local stalls are manned and interested in buying them, and rents out his boat when he isn't using it for extra income, but otherwise he works at a hardware store, a job he likely won't be keeping for long. As immaculate as his customer service and de-escalation skills are, he finds it exhausting. At the least, he has this weekend to look forward to. His friends are joining him on his boat for fishing, swimming, and general partying, and the forecast for that day is... good...?

Other Information: Does it truly count as alcoholism if your tolerance is monstrous and you only drink socially?

Persona: Mermaid

Arcana: Hanged Man

Element: Ice

Affinities: Resists Ice, weak to Electric

Primary Focus: Debuffs (I would like to give him a passive skill that grants a chance to debuff random stats when hitting an enemy, to go with Mermaid's unique multi-hit skill. Else, I'd probably deprioritize and maybe replace it, depending on what is allowed)
Secondary Focus: Healing

Persona Info: Mythical Aquatic creatures with the top half of a woman and the lower half of a fish, Mermaids are sometimes regarded as omens of misfortune, associated with floods, storms, shipwrecks, and drownings. In some legends, they use their voices to charm men, causing them to crash their ships or to jump overboard before drowning and eating them. In others, they are portrayed as falling in love with humans, often with the reconciliation between the two worlds as a major source of conflict. In recent times, they are sometimes portrayed as symbols of hopelessness, doomed to suffer whether on land or at sea, choked out by the air of an unforgiving world or the pollution of a tainted sea, the stagnation of either captivity or an insular society and the isolation of having to leave all they know behind to survive no matter what choice they make.

Pokétopian Dreams: Uncharted Waters

It was a bit disheartening hearing that the little critter before him wasn't likely to put up much of a fight at higher levels of competition, for as much as he'd like to believe in its fighting prowess like Bat, he was intimately familiar with the practical constraints of a pokémon defying the conventions of its species. For a depressingly large percentage of species, the convention was to be outshone. To offer a unique combination of traits in battle that was ultimately without significant merit, or perhaps worse, did offer something special, only to be countered by pokémon who could simply wield greater raw power.

Kaison didn't think he resented straightforward strength in a pokémon. Half his team, give or take, could probably be called relatively simple in terms of their gameplan, and he cannot deny that he chose, in part, to raise them because of the potential their species held as battlers. Although he certainly isn't the type to look no further than their raw power, there are some pokémon he fears he would simply let down as their trainer. After all, when he felt his team could be improved by a water type, his first thought was the 'Beautifly of the Sea.'

Storm Drain... Perhaps in double battles, though he didn't often partake in them, and his team mainly wanted a water type to handle opposing fire and ice types. Swift Swim? Besides Avici, his team couldn't particularly support weather manipulation, and they weren't known for their offensive prowess to begin with. W- ugh. Water Veil wasn't really an ability any water pokémon often needed, much less ones who didn't particularly fear the physical limitations a burn imposed. Looking at moves... Tailwind support? Defog support? Swagger and Psych Up combined with... uh... No Aqua Jet? It gets- but it doesn't get- that wouldn't work, maybe- no. Urgh.

No matter how he tried, he couldn't plan out a strategy that could take full advantage of a Lumineon's strengths, and as the Captain finally arrived and a girl named Tess made mention of her Mantine, he couldn't help but be reminded of one of the many pokémon species he kept comparing Lumineon to. Tougher. Stronger. Able to learn Defog, Tailwind, and even having a reliable recovery move in Roost whereas Lumineon was stuck relying on Rest, it was hard to argue that a Lumineon could do a Mantine's job better. He didn't want to accept training up a pokémon only for it to be a functionally inferior version of another species doing the same job. He didn't want that for any of his pokémon, ever. Perhaps his inability to find a way to use Lumineon was just his failing as a trainer. Perhaps he was grasping for some type of equality where there wasn't any. Who's to say? Grimsley would have said that nothing but the outcome matters, but he never did ask him what that would mean for the use of such pokémon.

He supposes it doesn't matter now that he has little Téhōm. He might adopt more pokémon in the future, perhaps even more water pokémon, but he finds it difficult to imagine another pokémon being quite as reliable as his cute little Téhōm.

Back to reality, he supposes he should clarify his identity. "Kaison, present."

Now, on the topic of the ship captain's Machamp... Kaison idly pulled out his phone, looking through databases with the relevant information on the species. No Guard and Dynamic Punch, obviously, but there's also Skill Swap shenanigans in doubles, often with a more supportive role with Wide Guard, usually partnered wi-

Wait a second... Machamp can learn Fissure!?

Pokétopian Dreams: Uncharted Waters

_{Location: Ocean Pier}

Prompts: @Bartimaeus

---

On the day the S.S. Avalon was to set sail, Kaison had slept right through his alarm, rushed to get ready, flew off at a blistering pace on the back of Elysium, his Togekiss, only to arrive over half an hour early. Checking over the invitation again, then double-checking the time on his phone and the clocks on the S.S. Avalon, he realized he had compensated for daylight savings time when he shouldn't have, having gotten used to doing so since Unova observed it but Alola did not. It all worked out in the end, he supposes, since he wanted to arrive early anyway to take pictures of the ship, doing a fly-around on Elysium. He had to decide which six pokémon to bring on-board, at least initially, and Téhōm's water-bound nature made it an unfortunate exclusion by necessity, at least until he decides to take a dip in the ship's pool, and unfortunately only then. Avici, ever the mature one, offered to step down next, and while Nihil said they should follow suit, the rest of his team agreed with him that having a nice vacation would do the Smeargle some good. Elysium was mandatory, since Kaison needed transportation to the ship itself, and it felt rude to just box her as soon as she got there. Given the potential he would have to participate in some battles on the ship itself, he wanted to bring his lazy monkey, Naraka, since Téhōm's exclusion made his team vulnerable to fire types, and his ace, Samsara. While the Lurantis might have been outwardly mirroring Avici's borderline ascetic lack of concern, Kaison knew better than to actually believe her. It wasn't that Samsara believed she would be okay with sitting things out, it's that she was deliberately playing coy. if he was less charitable, he'd call it outright lying. She'd insist otherwise, of course, but the subtle passive-aggression to follow was just easier to not deal with.

Tartarus, drama queen that he is, would take it as a personal slight to be left out, even if he didn't actually care to participate, and Nemesis seemed ready to throw a tantrum to get her way on the matter. Ultimately, it was all too easy for the team to accept Avalon's offer to step down, which didn't feel fair given how the number one reason he was going on this trip in the first place was because the cruise ship shared a name with the Escavalier. He was too self-sacrificing for his own good, and while he was technically in a similar boat to Nihil, he wasn't chronically depressed and didn't have the same kicked-puppy look Nihil did. Ultimately Kaison just promised he'd take pictures for Avalon to peruse, which meant it would be harder to bench Elysium later after all the extra work she put in helping him get said pictures.

Hopefully Tartarus will get bored, Avalon takes his place, Nemesis doesn't set the ship on fire by accident, and that will be the end of that. It might get awkward talking to and about Avalon when everyone associates the name with the ship, but that's a bridge they can cross when they get there.

As he finishes taking pictures, he flies back down to the pier, waiting for the ship's staff to let people on board. Of course, nothing happens for quite a while, even as the designated boarding time comes and goes. After tiring of the games on his phone, he figures he should go socialize. Most of these people are famous right? Maybe he'll recognize someone.

Well...

Not a single face in the small crowd rings a bell. If they weren't notable in the Sinnoh, Unovan or Alolan leagues, they probably didn't show up on his personal radar, and he's never been keen on social media. Even if one of these people had been on every channel, he prefers playing, modding or making games over television. Sure, he's met famous trainers from foreign regions before; anyone with the "special trainer" designation in the Battle Tree was worth taking note of, and sometimes he looks up relevant trainers when he wants to learn something specific about his pokémon, but yeah, he has no idea who these people are.

He overhears a rather flamboyant man wreathed in pink address one 'Syl Archer' as champion, and he can't help but wonder if he's an acting champion or someone who just earned the champion title, like himself. He wanders over, in any case, wondering just how many champions were invited, when he spots an Alolan Rattata and just can't keep his mouth shut.

"Cool Rattata. Not a lot of people like them. Are they a battler? F.E.A.R. Strat perhaps? It's an all-time classic."

Pokétopian Dreams: Uncharted Waters

I think a general agreement to just not power-game will help here regardless of what @Carlyle's ultimate decision is. End of the day we're writing a story, not competing in real Pokemon tournaments aye?

@BurningCold

To be clear, when I say I like the idea of Kaison being stronger in a 4-moveslot format, I mostly mean that I jive with the idea of some of his gimmicks being viable strategies in and of themselves (i.e. without alternative options) rather than a neat trick his pokémon can do that is expected to be played around for most of his opponents. I was struggling with a good way to word why I like Kaison's team in particular in a 4-moveslot format, though there's a good chance none of that matters as the RP may end up being chiefly pve.

(Of course yeah, on the topic of not power-gaming)

Pokétopian Dreams: Uncharted Waters

4 moves from their level up list, 1 egg move and 1 TM

@Yankee

Honestly more limiting than just sticking to the 4-moveslot limit imo. For trainers more or less at the end of their journey, where those moves come from shouldn't matter that much.

The problem with free-move is that I just don't want people to go "aha, my pokemon does x super effective move" all the time because they have access to other moves. It defeats the purpose of type matchups if everyone just writes the equivalent of an "I win" button.

@Carlyle

I've actually read some fanfics that write battles without the 4 moveslot limit, and while super-effective coverage moves are a common enough occurrence at higher levels of battle, they usually aren't the main focus of a battle's matchup. There's much more of the alternate ways of writing that you mentioned earlier available when pokémon have wider toolkits. Using moves to dodge or cover distance (2-turn moves, priority moves, vaguely mobility-based moves such as Acrobatics or Zing Zap) is an obvious one, though there's also a lot of emphasis on the state of the field (e.g. with liberal use of Stone Edge tearing it up or Surf turning it muddy) or even combination attacks which, with no moveslot limit, no longer comprise at minimum, half of everything your pokémon can do. One of the fics I've read resolved the issue of back and forth switching becoming an issue (besides league limitations or metaphorical sucker-punching being commonplace despite the additional issue that it may not make much sense given field sizes and trainer aim) by making it common for trainers to use setup moves during a switch, which might otherwise be hard to pull off safely in the middle of battle due to the time it takes to execute, and whereas readying an attack can just end in the opponent dodging. Even beyond the obvious stat-boosting setup moves, it also sometimes allows more niche moves like Magnet Rise to shine.

One way I've seen the move limit addressed is that it is thought of as a limitation mainly for novice trainers, with more experienced pokémon (or more experienced trainers) able to (and expected to) train their ability to remember more moves, with talented pokémon able to (effectively) use up to 10 or so at the champion level. There's variance, with different pokémon being better at different things.

In general I prefer larger movepool limits because I think it allows for a lot more creative freedom, (it also stops pokémon from being relatively one-note and usually gives them multiple "modes" of battle) and think that forum RPs are the best place to try out the wacky things we can't get from the pokémon company or even fangames, but I'm also down with the 4-moveslot limit in this instance mainly because I think Kaison's team is significantly stronger when people have less options to work with. That's probably true for most gimmick strategies, though the downside is that the pokémon lack the flexibility to do anything but that gimmick.

In any case, to reiterate what Yankee said:

Let us know if you do end up wanting people to choose specific moves and add them to the CS.

Pokétopian Dreams: Uncharted Waters

@BurningCold Valid. I guess you could say I've had some bad experiences with RPs in that vein. Happens more with Yu-Gi-Oh RPs, where, if you're not basically running it as a tabletop RP, (which very few people seem keen on doing) it usually ends up with everyone not only expected to ass-pull as much as humanly possible, but also heavily incentivized to deckbuild around doing so, making sure you have as many contrived solutions and impractical combos as you can fit into a deck. Combine that with players who do not want to collaborate in a doc nor decide on an outcome ahead of time and... yeah.