Here we are. Let's take a look at this big old plot, shall we?
Salvager plot emerged from one simple idea: I knew that as I did The Game Hoard with gusto, I would come across many and more interesting characters who had untapped potential in their source material. Moreover, I knew there would be many I would be tempted to RP in some way even though doing them as a protagonist would be too much focus for characters who are sometimes interesting just because of a design or power. I didn't want to dive into this idea too quickly back when there were hardly any games to pull from, and even as late as the Salvager finale I was still finding characters from games I could integrate, and I really wouldn't be surprised if I find some way to use video game characters I encounter through The Game Hoard in some other major capacity. However, Salvager plot was the big Game Hoard plot without it being about the website itself in any direct way, meta or otherwise.
I remember early on the main villain for Salvager plot, back in its barely formed shape, was going to be Konstantin from Rise of the Tomb Raider, a chilling villain who both managed to be imposing despite being a regular looking man but at least had some elements to his motivations that made his actions understandable. In early phases of the plot he was still the intended endgame villain but he would be scrapped unceremoniously when better villain concepts entered the picture. He was around when I was trying to figure out the general concept of why a group of characters would come together in an alliance like this.
I wish I could remember every formative part of how this plot came together, such is the way of taking so long to commit it to documentation, but I do remember the kidnapping element being there early on, it being a fairly smart way to motivate interaction with the Kobbers without touching on ideas like domination or other familiar ground for megaplots. One of the earlier ideas I remember is the proto-Salvagers trying to create a perfect world in virtual reality, meaning they'd kidnap people and hook them up to a device where they'd have no choice but to help with maintaining paradise since they only exist in this virtual form. The "Better World" of connected minds was definitely the first angle, and Zara was actually going to be sympathetic to it because it plays into her ideas of interconnected minds bringing world peace so I think her ethos was actually a big factor for early Salvager ideas. There were ideas of immortality and being able to prevent corruption or evil acts in this virtual world they had control of, and I think that's one area where the small meta undertones of Salvager plot began to emerge. Since these proto-Salvagers were forming their own reality and I was coming to realize my plot would line up with Season 10, the big anniversary, I soon conceived of characters who wanted to "escape the pen of their creators". Basically, the villain group's aims would be to find an in-universe justification for trying to break free of us, the RPers, since we essentially cause everything bad in their lives and they have no true free will. This was honed into the characters instead trying to escape the all-powerful forces that already exist in the ZFRP universe and is definitely the better fictional motivation even though we still got the undertones through ideas like trying to escape our universe. There was the idea of creating their own universe to hide in, but the growing science of dimensional walls and access and all created to justify finding their own space in the multiverse free of all powerful beings meant it would be a little weird for them to have universe making tech and throw a lot of questions up into the air.
The dimensional explanations are also a key part to explaining away little problems with ZFRP's fast and loose travel and allowing people to reasonably limit it if need be. No "they can just teleport over" excuse for literally any situation if dimensional walls are a different degree of malleability and such. The idea of a ZFRP character being wholly separate from their source material was also an idea that compelled me even though it played little part in the overall plot, Serene instead just aware of his counterpart from the actual game Quantum Break and the acknowledgement that we literally cannot truly crossover with certain works because we'll never be canon to them.
So, ideas of why the Salvagers were gathering people and thus crossing the Kobbers were coming together, but as I tried to figure this all out, I realized I could incorporate the anniversary angle in another way with it being recognizable faces from our history. It wasn't embraced to the level I considered but that is also because I didn't request many kidnapees directly, but protecting valuable people became the main objective and the idea that Salvagers needed these valuable people to get in themselves soon started forming the main body of the plot. Of course, when I realized that Serene from Quantum Break already had a sort of "save from the potential end of the universe" angle and he was already one of my favorite video game antagonists I've encountered, it soon became clear I had to use him for this plot and the last bit of detail came together to form the Salvagers. Picking the name was hard, I specifically avoided Scavengers because it implies picking apart something that's dead, but Salvagers fit with the idea they were trying to take as much of this good world to the next better world. I kept telling myself I had a perfect name I came up with once but lost it before pen met paper, but I think it might have just been Salvagers but I misremembered something.
Anyway, making this into a megaplot just happened as more and more ideas spilled in. I wasn't actually sure how big I wanted it even back when I did the teaser in 2019 even though I knew it would be big, but it kept getting bigger and bigger even though I literally was not making notes to help keep track of it. Instead, I think one big thing that helped Salvager plot not only go so well but work without pages of notes was the arc structure I decided to use for it. While things like Deckplot had Pre-Brawl and Post-Brawl, Salvager plot would be divided into multiple small arcs that each dealt with one of the big names of the organization. Originally I did want the big characters of Salvagers to all be regular humans, the longest members of the group being the people helpless against superpowered beings like Serene, Eggert, and Em, and even Mister Valentine was an unaltered human being. Moonface and Mustacho were brought in though to represent the lengths the group was being pushed to though, but I did very much like the idea of a main Kobber antagonistic force being headed by people who weren't super strong, supernaturally gifted, or packing wild tech. I even wondered whether or not Serene and Em should ever be fought in any capacity, or maybe making the Doomseye the final boss of sorts. There was an early concept where Eggert would actually successfully transfer the Doomseye over to the new universe and we'd have to fight to regain control of the Doomseye to reverse the trip, or we'd have to find some new method of dimensional travel to break free.
Before I get too distracted, the arc structure was super important to Salvager plot worked as well as it did! Each portion was regimented to provide a clear purpose as well as play into the escalation, but funnily enough, it wasn't always set to play out the way it did! I think we got the best shape of the arcs in the end, but here's the overview.
-Mustacho Arc was meant to bring the idea of The Salvagers to us. Not only would it introduce us to a personable group of consistent characters with Brad's group, it also showed us differing motivations and introduced us to the concepts at play. It allowed people to make their Salvager events instead of having to wait for me to get going and I even wanted to do Brad's event as the first of the year to get things going but I was too slow. Mustacho was also a less serious villain and one whose defeat would eliminate the surveillance network, something that allowed the Salvagers to operate secretly and efficiently until now
-Moonface Arc, while it was originally meant to be after Serene's to show what happens when Eggert lets his "lieutenants" off their leashes, I think benefited Salvagers a lot more where it ended up. With an idealist at the helm but an obvious morally loose second hand man, some sort of transition would need to be forced so we could move onto the real villain instead of the reasonable mislead man. Moonface's extremism was made to be the breaking point, with Claire being a strong personal connection to it all who emerged through RP happenstance, but things like the fireworks event showing a harsher side after silly Salvagers like Brad or people operating in the dark like Miss Monday would force the Salvagers hand if they didnt' want to be straight up villains.
-Serene Arc, one of the most important because of its transition. Pitohui can attest that I was considering doing Aitem's event during this. This was meant to be sort of the sympathetic part in general but I pushed up the Salvager Surge instead because I was worried that after the schism in the group it might not work as well. I meant to do more with Nicolas's power but time didn't work out that way and his event will definitely be explained more later to show how its shifts made it a better or worse fit. The most important part was of course the talk and the betrayal by Eggert, this shifting us into the endgame and allowing us to save anyone who wasn't in the Salvagers for less moral reasons.
-Valentine Arc, the smallest due to trims both made for our cramped year and just to make the plot work better. Heading right to the end might have been too much of a rush, and without Moonface around Valentine instead allowed for us to fight the last vestiges of The Salvagers' power.
-Eggert Arc, you could almost say this included Valentine with the way things hashed out but his big final battle does feel separate still. The big day to confront the warped ethos of those who have committed to being bad guys and the fight with the true antagonist.
By having everything sorted into arcs made it easy to remember the events each one needed. I'd know that we needed to hit a beat like "zozo/stranger question their work with the Salvagers" or "Moonface's extremism is revealed" even though I wouldn't know the specifics until I saw how things shaped up or concocted events to fill those roles. It's how I was able to request things like CarverCorp inclusion or the Grab N' Go attack without completely throwing my plot plans off track, and Claire was able to seamlessly be integrated because I had the big story beats in mind but never overly committed to smaller details until things were fully ready for the big time. I doubt I'd recommend this tactic, I'm sure with a less loose approach I could have done more foreshadowing and early character appearances or whatever, but I do think it helped with event fluidity and plot renovation as needed.
We'll definitely be covering each arc and the events and characters therein with more detail later in the blogpost although I'll try not to be exhaustive or just go "this was the idea I had that you saw in action so why am I reexplaining it", but before we dive into the things that were, we'll take some more looks at the things that weren't.
I will not note every single character I lightly considered for the plot, but I'll give details on interesting scrapped ideas.
One such idea was using the King of All Cosmos from Katamari Damacy (who meets the "Must be from The Game Hoard" criteria I set for all my characters in the plot save Eggert). Back in Season 1 of RP I said I intended to avoid RPing video game characters, the idea then being that it was an easy well to draw from. I did say in RP discussion though that if I were to RP a character from a video game, I would choose the King of All Cosmos. His unusual mindset and attitude have made him appealing even if he is rather unjustly rough on the Prince, but while I have considered RPing him since that day, him being enormous is one reason he hasn't shown up, his attitude another, and his cosmic implications a barrier as well. To lean into this plot about video game characters I thought it could be cute to revive the idea that no one else probably remembered me mentioning, but he certainly couldn't be a member with his abilities. The main thing I considered was the Salvagers using him as a source of power or fuel in their plans for crossing the dimensional gap, the King probably destined for, at best, a role as a big battery that we never fought or really interacted with. Probably not the best way to do things and it didn't fit with the reasonings I invented for dimensional travel so it was scrapped and no ideas for any other form of integration seemed right.
Bubsy, as well as characters like Drake from Drake of the 99 Dragons, were considered, Bubsy even potentially being the first potential reveal of a character's identity for the antagonist behind it all, but I think, despite those two being the first Game Hoard characters by technicality since I've included Disaster Reports on the site, they either feel like they need their own thing one day or just to be integrated without gravitas. An event to be silly with them or some sort of Kusoge plot maybe, but every time I try to rope Bubsy into something it feels too big for the bobcat. I'm relieved that Mr. Hippo will probably get some mileage out of their material and we've seen random bits of their games here or there, but mostly their shadows are a little too large and their potential for dramatic or emotional storytelling not the best fit for where I keep trying to cram them, that being "very little unless I really devote my mind to them specifically instead of a plot they might just be a cute part of".
The hero of Comic Jumper and his talking star were on a short list for potential characters to join the plot, especially back when I wasn't very sure of the direction. Captain Smiley isn't very charismatic or likeable but the built in banter of him talking to his chest star could have gone somewhere. In a similar vein, I originally had the racoon Tan Tan riding the llama Ola from SuperEpic: The Entertainment War on a list of potential characters, and had I made the Salvager introduction blogpost sooner he would have been on Zozo's team! He would have actually been seen helping collect Brad, in that we'd see the after battle mayhem of Brad's mistaken defense of himself instead of hearing the aftermath. The idea of using The Stranger instead was more captivating here and I acutally specifically played Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath just so I could use him and his living ammo instead since it was more interesting than a racoon riding a llama as an opponent. War from Manual Samuel was going to be a gruff killer lady, the skeleton lady having an almost Game Gear attitude despite being more murderous but also her deal didn't seem to fit with the anti-religious ideas that Salvager plot sort of inherently had. Chahn the gunmancer from Cosmic Star Heroine, besides having a killer theme I'd want to share, not only controlled floating guns similar to Oda now that I think on it but with a scifi bent, but she'd be a good pick for a potentially sympathetic member of the Salvagers I could slip into a character grouping that might need it. I even considerd Chahn as a regular cast member but she never really clicked to that degree after a passing fancy. Early 2019 actually had a lot of games I started actively searching for RP characters in, it had Quantum Break, Princess in Love, Stay Stay DPRK, Federation Force... must have been I really was taking a close look at what I was playing in anticipation of the plot!
To cap this segment off, I had some "Standby" characters who could have joined things in the way characters like Ninja and Dynamo joined the Lord fight. Linda from Stretch Panic would have used her powers to stretch things out of shape with that game holding a weird spot in my heart because it's what I see whenever I opened The Game Hoard's pinterest board. A glass ballerina from 88 Heroes was considered to be Claire's confidant and close friend in the Salvagers, scrapped mainly because I never did as many behind the scenes posts as I liked and having Claire be a more straight loner who was only starting to get friends worked better I felt. The aliens from Under the Skin I used were selected more for having clear renders available online than the ones I liked most from that game (Baron Proptop being the one I'd have preferred to replace with a biological alien that didn't look too human or bland). Considered using both more Tokyo Tattoo Girls and more of the Tabemon boss monsters from Munchables but I didn't have roles for the girls and Moonface basically just didn't spend more time fighting us so we didn't get to see more of them. Zozo almost had the zombie Strongman from Creepy Road as a servant but I want to keep her zombies to the body-mod style rather than just animated dead. Gooper had made a joke on one review about a Game Hoard anime with some characters like the weird face from Palamedes's box art so I tried to concoct a way to include them but never did. Considered using Mega Man 11 bosses like Bounce Man but didn't want to wade into the territory of Mega Man's ZFRP lore or user rights. Malice with her big old hammer was a sort of "if I REALLY need someone" choice.
The Maw, that being the purple blob from a game of the same name, is a creature I considered someone using as their attack method if I needed a weird fight angle, especially since it can change its powers based on things it consumes. The mutant trio from Mutant: Year Zero, that being the Bormin, Dux, and Farrow, were almost shunted over to this plot after I decided against their inclusion in Curse, but the idea had shriveled and lost its appeal from disuse. The Chestbeak from Shining in the Darkness, a take on the mimic concept but a bird creature pops out of the treasure chest, was considered for whatever reason, I think I just had a big net spread out during early 2019 as I was committing to the idea of doing the plot in 2020. It's probably also why I had ideas like "maybe one of the cooks from Battle Chef Brigade" or "a boss from Bomberman Generation maybe?" The blacksmith cat from Cat Quest was a cutie so I considered having her be a support character for the group, Vendy from Yooka Laylee also potentially being someone we'd see on The Doomseye just living life. If I had done more scenes on the space station I would have used more of these non-combat characters I bet and I think I got worried about introducing any who wouldn't be clearly resolved as focuses of events. Vore Frog from Frogger 3D was considered to be either part of an animal event that never took form or actually a personal pet of Serene or Eggert that we'd see in their office only for it to help defend them at some point or some such. I remember considering using the Resident Evil: Revelations monsters for something that escapes me currently, maybe more Zozo monsters, but I couldn't remember which ones Cornwind had or had not used. Scaler, Woodle, Hibana from Nightshade, the prince from SPRay... I have no idea how many random "I could use this" characters exist so I won't waste your time with each one! Besides Disaster Report characters or characters from games like Wandersong I considered for non-Salvager roles I doubt I'll go back and grab characters from any older reviews for future content. The cut-off line is basically Minecraft Story Mode since that is where PAMA is from if you're curious where this nonexistent line might be since all it takes is the right spark and suddenly something I thought gone might find its footing.
Let's start diving into the arcs, shall we?
MUSTACHO ARC
Brad was always destined to be our first fight of the Salvager plot. The meatheaded egotist from Comic Jumper felt like a perfectly punchable individual and by the time I started planning events instead of trying to figure out what the plot is at all he was already locked in for being our introduction. He's a normalish guy but isn't really evil so much as selfish and willing to drag others on the Doomseye to assure his safety.
One thing about Brad was, despite having stuff from the game that made him good for two plot events, I actually intended to have him crop up a lot more. Before I had a clue how I wanted events paced, the idea that he'd tag along to Salvager stuff and Zozo would keep reviving him after he found some way to die was meant to be a running joke, and since he was perfectly punchable I thought that might reduce the irritation of seeing him repeatedly. However I erred on the side of caution and only had him twice for Salvager stuff, but Zozo's ability to revive was actually meant to single her out as a huge threat in their ranks since she could undo any death they suffered. I considered it maybe being used on others but since she so quickly became sympathetic her time with the Salvagers wasn't going to be long.
Brad was originally going to go solo for his first event too but the idea of a tight knit group of four we got to know through their actions meant it felt right to have The Stranger debut there too. I considered alluding to his game's material more despite it being spoilers if certain aspects of his life cropped up in RP, but instead he just became the more moral of the group and the one who could get Zozo to doubt herself too. I do feel like he could have gotten more out of his cool living ammo stuff but his morality meant I didn't get to go ham. I did make sure the Rabid Fuzzles were at least not actually rabid so we didn't have a rabies scare as part of a plot event!
Zozo is definitely the Salvager who was added to the group that I felt I could have RPed as a main character but I worried her near nudity was prohibitive for one. I also wasn't sure I'd actually like roleplaying her but here we are with her joining season 11. Her zombies servants are the hardest part of making her work though. She doesn't just raise corpses and she wouldn't make something she knew was in pain so finding zombies like that in fiction isn't easy. I considered the spider monkey from One Piece that is a giant spider with monkey parts for a bit but it didn't feel like a right fit, mainly because she would not likely include spider parts in her work. Her powers were sort of limited too because I was going by memory but even after looking up her moves we'll probably just see me developing a bit more of a magic moveset for her on my own, the electric shield was already part of that. She almost had a general zombie horde which would have been easier to wrangle video game monsters for.
Miss Monday definitely went the longest without a clear idea for how her event could unfold if she would even get a solo one at all! I considered ideas like her cybernetically enhancing the team, having a big fuckoff cyborg where she just sat to the side as it did its thing, and fight with her own cyborg parts, but eventually we got what we saw with the Doomseye warehouse. Clint Hurdle was actually part of my trouble with selecting interesting hostages, mainly because I delayed so many obvious ones like Q for a potential Mister Valentine event that never came together. When I decided we'd basically visit the Doomseye thrice in our efforts to take it on, having a batch of rescues on the first visit felt like a good way of giving us some progress without too much and let me get Clint Hurdle out of there after I wasn't too satisfied with picking him. I was probably harder on my own picks with who is a High Value Target than I would have been with other suggestions. I guess I can mention here too that magic teleportation or using Dingpot the cauldron like a weakly conceived early plan to make teleportation happen to get on the Doomseye that was far away and hidden was always a key part to preventing the idea of just attacking the Salvagers early. The Doomseye has super good defensive options though based on Federation Force even emphasizing its powerful shields, and while I considered having a space assault on the Doomseye where we try to make an entry point I think it would need too many people showing up with space stuff they didn't have on hand. This all being for a climax of course!
Miss Monday's two cyborgs we did see though, I knew I really wanted to use Piedmont from Bendy and the Ink Machine after fighting that living amusement park ride boss and when the idea of him being a twisted Miss Monday creation came to me I was happy to get him in the event. I didn't feel the two could carry it alone though so I tried to think of other cybernetic characters from Game Hoard games, and while I was thinking that Yaiba from the same game as Miss Monday was eligible, I'm glad I went with the girl from Stack on Stacks (On Stacks) because it then allowed me to have a weird power balance out Bertrum's limited attack options while the idea of two failed Salvagers being taken advantage of worked for these strange forms. Miss Monday's alterations being a secret was definitely meant to keep us from diving too deep into Salvagers doing irredeemable things yet.
Still can't believe I forgot to link the big boss of Mustacho's fight initially :V Shows how important a good image goes to explaining a weird monster concept! Anyway, Mustacho being a decrepit old wizard was always meant to make him hard to fight, and even in his source game you battle him after a body swap and that body is also enhanced to monstrous sizes. Doing that in RP would make less sense, but I had already wanted to use some Monster Party bosses somehow and that's when Mustacho being a monster summoner came to be. I did actually intend for all monsters to be wiped out the day of the party of course, but I'm glad they weren't! I think Handy's survival was definitely more impactful than Medusa being there to set up Aitem's deal, but it was a fortuitous pair left behind that worked well with future plans. I did kind of strain to think of where they might attack and some of those monsters didn't really have attacks in their source material worth putting in RP so I had to concoct some better ideas for them.
The idea of trying to take Evacu8 did originally have me wondering if maybe I should have them hacked and turned into a force that the Kobbers fought, something Miss Monday could maybe do, but I didn't like the idea of having these protectors prove their fault and undermine the idea they could protect people. The whole emphasizing they had no programming that even allowed them to conceive of violent acts was part of me trying to assure I wouldn't go that direction... but I also considered maybe having them puppetted in some way by magic or whatever so they could punch people :V The Jet Jaguars will remain peaceful protectors though, I won't completely dismiss the idea of something interesting happening with them but unless it really clicks or has a strong narrative explanation for what should be impossible, I doubt we'll ever see them do anything but assuage concerns about collateral damage and help us avoid the super lame "empty warehouse district" jokes.
Mustacho being rather detestable was to help him be an early villain who was easy to beat, and I'm glad he got to stay alive after I was willing to have him killed. I think the Bree effort to have him work on his misogyny added one of the best returning villain parts of Blastoplot's jail event and I had it in mind pretty quick after Meiling took those efforts to educate him. Still, I did like him as the sort of "we have to have him on staff because of his powers" character and he had no major obvious awful deeds to him to make him irredeemable, he was actually perhaps so pathetic and maligned by even so called allies it might have saved him in the end. If he was a powerful wizard it wouldn't be worth doing anything for him, but this cranky old guy who struggled to make social connections because of his very niche interests and social ignorance made it easier to say prison could have helped him.
Not sure what else there is to say about this Pre-Brawl arc. I could even see it being cut off from the Salvagers as a whole to make its own small plot about a group of villains, and while Mustacho was even ostracized from the team he was helping do their deeds about Olympia, part of retooling could have certainly made him a more capable leader. The whole idea of it being the intro was to have something easy to digest and didn't demand immediate action, and saving some hostages was actually done to help a little with the Kobbers being more comfortable not immediately moving to save the rest. Losing their easy in and the betrayal of Stranger and Zozo being exposed meant they had little means of moving forward, but still!
MOONFACE ARC
While it's probably obvious I can't speak for the events hosted by other people that are a part of Salvager plot even though we saw some creative and interesting directions taken with them, Moonface's section is where we start to see a lot more of the collaboration integration. I got a lot of "just use this character where you like" from Chao and Goops and it did make me worry for a bit I wouldn't have space or might misuse them, but I think again we find that having things not fully set in stone allowed for events like the attack on Carvercorp's lab that integrated so many different ideas. Gooper's Team Flare ladies even did that thing where we got to see characters acting before they were bad guys, and Chao laying out all his options in one big recruitment dealie definitely helped me start to cater to the concepts and distribute them appropriately.
Moonface's stuff was one of the three sliding arcs as I tried to figure out how I wanted to have Serene's turn to good unfold. I thought maybe Mister Valentine stuff first since it's more stylish and clever plans rather than Moonface's outright violence that would work good as a lead-in to the finale, but that also would mean Serene just kinda got inspired to talk with the Kobbers because I guess they ran in with each other so often? The Lord event did a lot to get this ball rolling on Moonface's things as it gave us that strong personal connection with Claire, and I think the fact that many of the arcs had some grounded character for us to look towards and help meant that, even though the stakes where always preventing kidnappings and keeping them from leaving the universe with who they already had, we had something more immediate, tangible, and easier to interact with. Claire, of all the characters from 88 Heroes, stuck with me as a memorable one not because she was the most unique of the bunch but because her flight and ability to move things from long range meant that she broke open the game's rather poor and random level design so she was a great character to have show up and the one I'd invest in reviving if possible. In game she actually has a rather raspy, "Raven from Teen Titans" voice that sounds always disinterested, but our Claire is probably a bit cuter in her sound :V
Claire's power is what hooked me to the concept after I came up with it. Guys like Skeleton with a Hat were just there because I liked paying homage to some of the bad indies I was sent on the Hoard and no one would ever think to reference, and Dynamo from Ninja Gaiden Black was more just an obvious tough guy, but having Claire stand out amongst the "on hand backup" lead to the, appropriately enough, clairvoyance. Very quickly the RP application fascinated me and soon the other elements all started to lock together thanks to Chao's event where she could be saved and Clownpiece began her attachment to her. Moonface was supposed to be just sort of a cackling villain strong right hand man to Eggert, not totally shallow thanks to the concepts of how his Gridworks history and all played in, but that whole desire to be in full control of everything he wanted as his own worked perfectly for taking on the little girl who would let him see the future and avoid situations he didn't like. In PictoQuest, his source game, he's kind boring, but he has his base in a volcano and that's one reason we saw it in the final fight with him! I did want Picross to be his magic essentially, and I enjoy writing and imagining the grid he makes and draws in so the idea of Claire keeping that alive was partly selfish and partly a good way of reconnecting the two after she entered Kobber care.
The Tabemon Monsters kept in the grid of course had some that didn't make it to RP but thanks to Claire there is potential to explore that angle so I won't spill them out here despite already doing so once in chat I believe. Basically it was just finding the right big food monster for the event, like the flying cantaloupe being perfect for actually grabbing and transporting a successful smash and grab. I actually considered having a lot more successes for Salvager work so they didn't look ineffective, things like an event maybe having us save some but not all of the targets. I probably would have done so if there had been just a lot more characters involved, but I think Moonface having that big success kinda adds an interesting bump to his arc. I do find it kind of funny he became perhaps the most despicable Salvager and we'll likely still see some of the scars from how he treated Claire all those years resurface as we spend more time with her.
Looking at the start of this arc with the fireworks festival, Taito is a good example of a character who was just a lady with fireworks in her game that I gave wild powers so she could hold up in a fight. Karin from Fossil Hunters, the bomb girl, has a very cute design I knew I would want to use somewhere and maybe killing her off was a shame since we'll never see it used elsewhere now, but she was a part of the whole event's theme of showing us the extreme side of the Salvagers that would force action. Plus, unless I got creative, all she had for attack options was bombs and that doesn't have long term mileage. Claire being a good guy allowed for a much more interesting opener than the original plan, although the whole concept of them having people they could blow up if the Kobbers aren't careful was always a piece of it since that is what made this event different from just grabbing important people and fighting to defend themselves as they were attacked for doing so. As we know, the Kobbers aren't very good at being careful or stealthy, to the point we had to remove Sine immediately revealing our plan to the bad guys :V Sometimes the villains hold a set of cards you have to take away carefully and Claire was a good means for doing so without handholding TOO much. I don't want to railroad but also like, if you put people in mortal peril and then the roleplayers don't treat it as real danger I don't feel like it's on me to resolve it without bloodshed. It worked out pretty well ultimately though!
Speaking of moments where Kobbers could have royally screwed up, Claire being puppeted in a Moonface costume was perhaps a crueler way that could have gone. I would have let her get roughed up a fair bit if no one was picking up on what was going on but made sure the hints were there and not to, alternatively, railroad us into accidentally hurting her badly. Claire having her legs snapped so Moonface could make the disguise work is just one of those moments where I looked at the character art, realized that there had to be something done to pull off the look, and the harsh solution came to mind and since Moonface was that demented and focused solely on his own goals rather than morality, we were there.
I can't remember quite what my plan for the middle point between fireworks and Moonface battle would have been to get Claire back in Moonface's hands if Carvercorp stuff hadn't lined up. I almost think Sir Nicolas's big day was part of it potentially with her being a success of the event despite the other failures. The fluid nature of the shifting plans means a lot of half-formed ideas are tossed away the moment I spot a better angle. Other times though like attacking the Grab N' Go was sort of something I had planned for a while but then asked for permission to do so and the setup perhaps much later than I should have? It helped to have guys like Elliott or Evacu8 around who served as reasonable kidnapping targets if I needed my own targets. Despite being important to the Moonface arc though this was mostly lead by others so good job on everyone else both in carrying the event and working it into the grander plot perfectly!
The Moonface day is where we meet Martin Li and Golvis too. I wanted Eggert to have some right hand men to defend him once everyone else was gone and the role was up in the air quite a bit, my eyes always on the lookout for interesting characters who could be slotted into the role. This actually happened in a few different areas, like I kept waiting for potential cool mechas that could be used by Serene and the girls to defend the Doomseye but soon ran out of time and leaned back on the one I was sure of, Battle Unit Zeoth, and a back-up idea I had, the one Kirby boss that always stuck in my memory specifically because of its weird arm movements. I thought it was a safe pick but in Dark Matter year I guess I should have known eyes would be on Kirby material more! It also sort of broke my intent on drawing from stuff we would likely not be drawing from in RP otherwise, and Mister Negative sort of fit that bill as well since Spider-Man stuff isn't obscure, just the villain pick was a bit more niche. I definitely wanted Martin to be more interesting powerwise and quickly scrapped any idea of him using his ability to make people "draw out their negative side", the attack reversal concept a far cooler ability to go up against and one that probably would be very frustrating if we still used tractors! Once I was sure Martin would be one of the Eggert defenders I started to cook up his other realms of importance, and centralizing a lot of Olympia's bureaucratic problems into a punchable face felt like a nice way to send off the setting. He filled a lot of slots really! One big reason I wanted to use him though was hearing the "Accentuate the Positive" song that I thought would be nifty to invert for him.
Golvis, despite not being a design I like too much save in a really cool fan art I found and Pac N' Roll's use of the ghost guitarist was not particularly interesting, quickly became an idea I had for a potential Not So Bad Guy. His removal of limbs from the Pac-Man characters soon became his ability to just suck pieces off something and reattach them as he pleased and actually grounding his mindset into something less evil was partly so that he was justified in not doing that to like, immediately win. He wasn't there to be a true defender, and he grew attached to people like Jack Spicer. That angle was actually one I had in place to use if we needed a way to get on the Doomseye for the finale before I cemented in the OSI assisting with that instead. Spicer never called on him though so there wasn't the room to explore that avenue.
SERENE ARC
Since this starts off with the Salvager surge, let's explore how Sir Nicolas's role shifted around so much! Besides kicking of Sonata's thing around Roller Derby plot, he was definitely supposed to use that invigoration power a lot more. One idea was him broadcasting his message all across Olympia to turn common people into temporary Salvagers who would grab whoever they could and the Kobbers would have to deal with that, mostly by fighting the more interesting people caught up in such a wave. One idea was him spurring an attack on the ZFPD to try and grab Randy, and that's one reason Randy was still part of the event. Sir Nicolas was noted as being part of Mister Valentine's troops early on when characters were delegated because the whole "driving people to act" angle was a strategic edge, but I do like the kind of "adjust to the current climate" thing that lead to internal political struggles within the leadership and all. I wasn't sure about doing a "take all comes" event but the Salvager Surge concept was gaining popularity and got approved by the group so if anyone was a good lynchpin for pulling it off it would be Sir Nicolas, and with Serene's turn to being a good guy coming it was important to do it early. It was also important to have him, as someone religiously devoted to the idea of Salvagers, to get his action in before the group would turn towards the more selfish motivations.
Tess, the cat girl I used during the event, was actually a pretty early pick for Salvagers. Actually, I remember now! Tess would have been part of a big attack for the Moonface stuff, using some giant mechanical boss in lieu of the big rejected Pokemon Gooper brought to the table. In Super Lucky's Tale she has this mechanical grasshopper that reminds me of that old Zoofighter that I considered using, but I also was hoping to find a different giant mech she could pilot instead. I think it's a fun cat design and the mad scientist gimmick works easily for cooking up an interesting battle, but when she was scrapped from a major role I tacked her onto Salvager Surge along with the mechanical dog from Enslaved who stood out to me for having a cool design but one that could still work as a small scale threat instead of a big boss for the battle. Fijit, the little alien from Aliens Don't Exist, was there for the same reason Skeleton with a Hat was. Fijit was available to be tacked onto any event that needed more bodies so his weird fidget spinners were added there. I think placing it after the Serene talk event might not have been the best thing structure wise but also I didn't want characters to leave the Salvagers without having a chance to do things, this being an event a few chao characters like Malina could participate in and this being a good moment for Koto to get dealt with. It's definitely a case were preestablished stuff had to be dealt with in a matter that wasn't unsatisfying, and while Mister Valentine forcing the Exterminator back into action both worked as a show of his master manipulator status and his devotion to proper planning, I can't do that with a bunch of characters who would have likely left after Serene and Eggert had their falling out!
Speaking back to Serene, I am very happy with how the conversation event went! I did feel bad for sort of delaying the big questioning of their ideals everyone wanted to do since the day the ethos was established, but it also gave people time to figure out their arguments and me my counterarguments. It wasn't just a big "the villain is wrong" deal too which I think could have hurt the event greatly as I did put a lot of consideration into how the Salvager fears and ideals work, some ideas hard to completely dismiss even if their methods are clearly wrong. It's definitely hard to say if an event where we debate or just speak with someone will be worth the time and its often easier to sort of work in a fight on top of the talking, but Serene being the main face of the organization and a guy built up as a reasonable and caring fellow I think really helped with it making sense to try and pull off. Speaking of Serene, while he had a very weak final fight in his source material, the fact you followed his story so much and made decisions for how he would work as the antagonist is one reason he was so captivating, but another is that he's not a guy who turned to villainy immediately. His source game is about time collapsing and Serene has the means to time travel just enough to try and stop it but never the know how, power, or methods to succeed. After countless tries he has been worn down, and slowly he devotes himself to less scrupulous ideas and means to try and save all of reality but just can't, eventually enacting the Lifeboat Protocol where he saves the people he can by locking them off into a place outside of time when things do go down. Many ideas from this ended up reshaping how the Salvagers would address the preexisting concepts of escaping a universe they viewed as doomed, and unlike his video game counterpart, he wouldn't be so world weary that he couldnt be saved.
Em was definitely plucked for plot usage in the same manner as Skeleton and Fijit, that being "this is character no one Earth cares about or would ever think of using elsewhere but me for this very specific plot concept". However, she got a much more important role, working well as the logistical side and guidance for the Salvager organization while Serene was the ideals and Eggert the misguided drive. I toyed with ideas like having Serene and Em be a married couple and Jeong and Eunji their adopted daughters after rescuing them from North Korea, but instead I felt keeping it professional did more for both of their characters and kept them independent and relying on their usefulness as characters rather than as a family unit. They still get along wonderfully of course, and they kind of consider the girls their daughters despite not being in a relationship with each other, but life is complicated like that sometimes. Em's arc was always going to tie to Serene because they are so closely tied as the human side of the Salvager mindset while Eggert is sort of the "monstrous" side. I did wonder who to have at the conversation event and considered Eggert being there, listening in by way of a screen he couldn't speak through or whatever, but Em being there felt important to diversifying the views on Salvager work too as did the girls in their younger and less logical views. I do remember considering having the chat in the bar or having actual imposing bodyguards on hand, but my faith in my fellow RPers allowed it to take this form. I could very well see this going south and hardening Serene's heart some, the battle event perhaps not as peaceful because of it or Eggert cutting them loose more for his benefit rather than because they actively want to dissolve the Salvagers, but good arguments meant it could go down the course I expected it to, that being the beter people in the Salvagers seeing the error of their ways.
Looking back a little, the Chao Salvager introductions had Serene select characters who I expected might match his potential for being swayed or had good in them in some way, Em leaned towards multipurpose characters who could be slotted in well into other roles, Moonface leaned towards the violent or useful for his morality-free ways, Valentine looked at the strategic use of characters, and Eggert was the one looking for the most easy to use for his clandestine actions or assuring he could see through things no matter what people did to try and prevent the Salvagers from leaving.
Also, Serene arc is where Yellow M&M joined the group, one of the last additions I allowed myself besides PAMA who was a special case. Yellow M&M being an old lingering joke from me just saying I would RP him once but Gooper remembering it and waiting for it to happen like other old "I'll RP this character" jokes like North Dakota. Yellow working as a way to hush up the bigger moves of our more villainous leaders was a good way to sort of bench them for a short time, but also it played into his betrayal as he couldn't bring himself to stop the defection. I am still very proud of all that happened with Hermes thanks to Pitohui reaching out to Yellow in particular, and Yellow's sacrifice turning into what I think might be one of the saddest things I've written with Yellow's death was incredibly satisfying payoff to his use. I realize he's a living candy mascot dying but I wrote it by pulling on some very real things like, you know, actually seeing people near death and all, and while it did end in a meme, it was one of those bitter things where it worked well within the character setup and had such a tragic setup that I can still choke up thinking of that line. I don't want to be too self-congratulatory here but I really did put my best into that despite it sounding silly on paper because I always believe that humanity can exist through anything and the world and fiction is weaker if we dismiss that notion. Also, I was very curious if Hermes would lie to Yellow near the end just to comfort his dying friend but Hermes stuck to his character surprisingly! An interesting test to see through and not part of the Serene arc at all but this has been a little all over the place anyway!
Golvis being around made getting the Kobbers off the Doomseye after Eggert gained control much easier. I think the original idea was that, in a similar way to the fact the dimensional travel engine was made to jetison, the hangar would be rigged that way as well to eject everyone once the event was done. Having Eggert and Valentine be behind the manipulation needed to force Serene out also was a good way of justifying why we didn't have others coming to aid with the battle, and while maybe the upheaval could have been neat to see in an extra scene, the year was packed and my brain tired so instead it was just alluded to how uneasy the transition was in some regards.
MISTER VALENTINE ARC
If you give a character a mask, people will want to see behind it. It's practically a rule of writing fiction! Mister Valentine was picked from Guilty Party almost purely because of his stylish appearance but also because he filled a role within the Salvagers' less scrupulous leadership in that he's a conniving strategist instead. in Guilty Party the last case of the game is actually about discovering and proving Mister Valentine's twist identity and I almost considered just having that be his identity in RP too, but the anniversary got me thinking and a callback would be more fun than a random reveal. Diamond Eyes was a character left as a sort of loose end back in Season 1 after the Pool Robot turned evil grotesquely maimed her gang, and while at the time she seemed like she had survived the trauma well enough and was going to live a normal life, I do keep these sort of "unresolved" background characters in my head just in case I want to follow up sometime. Mister Valentine having a twist identity meant it had to be someone we could at least potentially know, so I dug her up and her concept worked surprisingly well! The Evil Pool Robot's thing with the attack was it made violent art, so someone spinning that off into evil deeds done stylishly as a result of the emotional damage doesn't feel like a huge jump. I actually worried that, when Mister Valentine revealed his origin, someone might identify who it was, but I don't think anyone did!
There was more to it than just having a twist though. Mister Valentine's premise going in was he is this amazing criminal who was never caught but pulled off so many huge crimes. 10 years of RP and never hearing about him or these crimes before is a little suspicious, but even more it would be very weird that the moment he encountered the Kobbers he just mostly fails repeatedly. He did get some successes as we'll discuss, but I didn't think it was believable to introduce a character who was an informed master criminal... and so it became a legacy name. I considered having Diamond Eyes killing the original and supplanting him, but instead it was a mantle passed down, Diamond Eyes still being an effective and stylish criminal but the legacy was before Kobber times and Diamond Eyes had only started rebuilding in when she assumed the name some time after 2011, meaning she might not be on our radar as much as she's working up towards the infamy rather than pulling off the kind of crimes that would make Mister Valentine famous like the mentioned supposed stealing of the Tokyo Tower. That crime in particular is based on it actually being stolen in Gun Gun Pixies and I almost had the two tiny alien girls from that game be in the Salvagers under Mister Valentine who would shoot people with their heart guns to make them more emotionally pliable or less likely to resist Valentine's manipulations. They didn't have a good event or moment to slip in and things like threatening Exterminator with a researched life felt like they did more for Valentine than having two tiny minions.
I've mentioned this in chatzy, but the scrapped Mister Valentine arc event and its intended finale whether it was near the end of the plot or where the arc was almost put before Serene's arc involved a sort of test. Mister Valentine would lure us to a building which would appear to be a giant rotating cube, helped along by Escher and hence why Escher was present for the retooled Valentine finale. The cube would have the faces of various Kobber characters from the past, people like Q, Faith, Bottom Dollar... pretty much a lot of my better callback characters that never made it to the plot. The premise of the event was that Mister Valentine didn't actually kidnap them all, but he did capture some. If the Kobbers could guess who, then they'd be able to rescue them condition free. If they didn't pick the right people in a certain amount of rounds, Valentine flees with the remaining hostages having made the Kobbers look foolish and grabbing his valuable prizes. Valentine often spoke of his desire for a stylish crime over raw success for this reason. If we did pick wrong, the cube would rotate to what appeared to be that character, but it was actually an attacking Doppelganger, using either the shadow archers from Towerfall or the Doppelganger boss from The Last Story to pull off the deception even though I could just as easily say they're doppelgangers without a reference! Still, we'd fight a false version of them as we kept up the guessing game, more enemies added with each unsuccessful round. There would be a lot of commentary from Valentine with him trying to psych Kobbers out, things like saying how he might pick someone less valuable specifically to avoid the obvious picks, and honestly I never planned who would be real or not. I think shifting Valentine's identity did help me overcome my desire to show off his cunning through his event to this degree and I don't miss it because it never came together in a way that fully satisfied me.
The event in the laboratory with the Under the Skin aliens impersonating characters was a deal long before Among Us was a hit but the line up was cute. Mainly I just wanted an event with the idea of having to figure out who is real amongst a group we don't know well and having little complications so it's a mystery we need to unravel. This was, I think, one of the first if not the first event I had fully conceived despite later alterations that made it into RP in the end. Zara was always meant to be the main target, and as said earlier, in the original version she would have been swayed just by the ideas of the Salvagers to willingly volunteer, likely after this event. We would still be saving people though, and that's because in the original version of this the entire Zara supporting cast would be there! Broderick, Absalom, and Tyresias would have been among the people impersonated, and Absalom's method of transforming into people could actually be used to determine who's real since he transforms by copying a person, not their disguise. When Exterminator was added to Chao's Salvagers I considered having her incapacitate these buggy boys or only some of them, as well as the idea that maybe the bugs were already captured and being carried away and we had to identify the aliens quick so we can force the truth out of where the others are before they escape. I didn't want the idea that we could just lock everyone up or wait them out or something to arise since the event would have no tension or immediate stakes so I tried to cook up various ways to add to the tension. Psybe, on the other hand, was pretty much confirmed for this the moment people suggested Zara talk with him last year and I had to contain my giddiness at things lining up that way. I think his presence helped me justify not including Broderick callbacks and all, Broderick was also considered for a regular VIP too though.
The Grinch being part of the Salvagers plot was a big thing planned way in advance as well, to the point I made sure to tell Chao WAY in advance not to touch any more characters from the Devil Ed trial so he would likely forget before it became relevant. He felt like the only one who might, and so I was able to get the Grinch his return to keep up the weird trend of salvaging characters from that pop culture jury. Speaking in rhymes was meant to mainly just help him make people suspicious in the start of his reveal post but I stuck with it because it's fun and different despite being hard! Taking ideas I considered for him as a Brawl mystery fiter to use here worked well as well, but pretty much the last event before the Doomseye raid was almost always going to be the remaining Salvagers leadership, whoever it might be, calling in this thief who did something so monumental that his skill was undeniable. That being stealing Christmas as it was revealed, but I liked the idea of him being the redeemed Grinch who did it to help the Whos since bad guy Grinch is kind of the obvious route and it made actually fighting him a reality instead of the more interesting idea of helping a good person see the error in their ways. I did wonder if maybe Moonface's cruelty was too strong of ammo for late game conversions like this but I tried to not have him just immediately fold under the extreme example of Salvager activity.
The OSI call back was tied to Grinch very early too since it's an obvious source of technology and characters that the Salvagers could attack and gain successes without feeling like a huge loss if they did grab what they needed. The OSI tracking the stolen equipment though wasn't always the plan, as mentioned with Golvis earlier, but also Mister Valentine was going to bargain for his life by selling out the group and how to get on the Doomseye without raising a huge fuss.
Going back to the Under the Skin aliens, Cadabra almost got to be part of the big fight on the Doomseye! Originaly I thought of varying up the aliens who impersonated people and spread deception like with tricking Hermes and Claire, but building up Cadabra as the main baddie of the group ended up much more interesting. I even offered Draco a chance to take on Cadabra one on one with Clownpiece early on but when he stuck around I made him used for all of Valentine's deceptions instead. While Cadabra would betray Valentine to get ahead in the group by ratting out Valentine's false identity to Eggert, the original idea would be that it could lead to Cadabra joining Martin and Golvis for that battle on the Doomseye. It could have also just become a way for Valentine's standing to drop considerably, but instead it lead to the uneasiness that forced Valentine into the less than optimal OSI attack. Why was Cadabra picked of the aliens? I think the toad guy was the right mix of interesting design and being a design fit for a slimy yet smart little deceiver. Itazura's body is weird, Proptop is a robot, and Becky is cute so we risk people wanting to save her :V
Aitem! Aitem's source game has baby death, which wasn't going to fly. The post-apocalyptic Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon has Aitem as a robot butler who can't quite understand that the infant he was meant to tend to has died, so he goes around the empty world collecting items to try and make her smile again. It's a sad and touching moment in a game that could have used more of that, especially from characters that aren't a goofy merchant who just suddenly gets that explanation thrown at you in a scene before he leaves the plot. Aitem's design and merchant leanings made him interesting though so I brought him in and quickly retooled that sad story. The Princess became an abandoned child, and the focus on "broken" things came from that sort of grimy item salvaging that his design and use of the baby carriage to cart junk around implies. I knew the Princess could be rough to integrate but it was one of the different Salvager angles I wanted to explore, someone doing it for someone else entirely, someone who had barely lived yet, a lot of that stuff where it's hard to tell Aitem he was outright wrong for trying to do what he did, especially since he wasn't very violent himself until forced to be by the leadership.
Of course, Aitem's original event had a lot less sympathetic stuff to it. I don't think the Princess was integrated into the plans when I conceived of the sort of battle arena idea I originally had where the Kobbers would be split up and have masks lower down over their heads to restrict their powers. They'd all be released to fight other masked people, and if they "bargained" with Aitem, he'd happily give them edges like weapons or their powers back if they were willing to take a handicap like having their arm numbed to uselessness or temporary blindness. The Kobbers would actually be turned against their disguised friends and the RPers would have to figure it out, and I worried I might not have the writing skill to obfuscate the fact that I'm redescribing other people's attacks when writing the "enemies". There could have been legit baddies in the mix to make it work better, but when the ruse was up we'd turn against Aitem and win or something? I scrap a lot of ideas because they never come together fully! Instead, Aitem's event soon changed to him seemingly working with... SATURN!? Yeah, before Saturn accidentally took off by way of appearing in the voting corner, her lack of appearance was meant to set up the eventual moment where she WOULD appear! We'd think she had betrayed us and the Hard Girls due to how the trade between the two would be presented, we'd show up to stop it before Aitem could trade Dr. Games for whatever thing Saturn had grabbed, and then Saturn would be like "dude! I was tricking him! I had a plan!" and things would go south and we'd get attacked. We kind of saw this in how the event did unfold, in that the opening was similar and Saturn was turned against us, but her evolution into a character meant we were able to rope Ravio in as well to make it work for his plot stuff as well!
EGGERT ARC
When it was considered that Valentine might wrap up with the cube event, the Grinch event was going to be an Eggert desperate plan. Instead, Valentine's stuff wrapped up and Eggert basically just has the two finale events for his "arc", but of course as the main antagonist he had plenty of meaningful moments along the way so it wasn't like he came out of nowhere or didn't get his chance to leave his mark!
But why, do you ask, was Pelswick Eggert made my big villain? Well, the idea of someone having a selfish motivation for setting up in the new universe was always a concept in the back of my head, the idea that some group or leader would try to seize control of an isolated people and make their own paradise. Eggert's actual embrace of this slid around because he does both believe the people need guidance for a perfect new world but does legitimately fear all the same things as Serene, even moreso since he was aware of the universe blending since his home universe was gone. I actually considered having Eggert's home universe play a bigger role in that we might go there with the Doomseye or that his Ooze form outright converted everything it touched, people and objects, into his world' style. Also, while Draco exploring the universe tears for survivors was an interesting idea, I didn't like the idea of having people trapped in that limbo for ten years since that raises the question about universal folding having other such victims, so we probably just have the rest of the cast of Pelswick bumming around the RP universe without the same complexes Pelswick had about it.
But yet, anyway, why Pelswick? Well, the old Pelswick RP jokes I made of course! The anniversary year was a good time to revive this old joke about me making RP into an exclusively Pelswick focused RP, and that's partly why he could originally convert things to his art style by touching them in Ooze form. A Pelswick controlled RP instead became the way I could pull off the idea without so much dimensional weirdness, the idea being he'd control everything in a new dimension where he gave everyone the roles they're meant to play to ensure it went as Pelswick desired. I tried to touch up a Pelswick image to make him look older but it never looked good, but I do like the unamused image I found to use of him. I did realize early on such an important character couldn't go without a visual reference for long, hence the Final Fight character being used as a disguise that also set up the Under the Skin characters would later use for their event and trickery! I also realized his true identity might be hard to keep under wraps and since Goops learned it oh so close to the event itself by having details click, I might have waited a touch too long! In an old idea for the plot thought we wouldn't learn Eggert was Pelswick until like, the two day finale. Day 1 would be versus Serene, but then Eggert would reveal his identity and take control of the Doomseye for the day 2 stand. Day 3 was still a likelihood but he didn't have the defenders back then save Aragami so it felt more likely I could smush them together. Also, Aragami was there to prevent anyone from just killing Eggert while he was suspicious and doing backroom deals with characters like Cryer, but just fighting him with his cool shadow powers before the Eggert Ooze fight didn't feel right, hence the later additions of Martin and Golvis.
As you can see, Eggert becoming the Ooze early on was pretty much planned to make him fightable since very early on. Save for drafts where we fought the Doomseye more than him it was usually his destiny, although the machinations of how it would happen changed. Cryer was going to be more directly involved in changing him but I had trouble arranging it. Also, while putting the name Eggert there was a big clue to anyone who somehow knew Pelswick's last name, I didn't expect it to actually clue anyone in! It also helped make it make more sense why we didn't get the reveal sooner since people were calling him his name instead of inexplicably avoiding it, just not the part people know. But as I've said elsewhere, using The Ooze from the Sega Genesis game as his final form was explicitly because it was the first review done directly for The Game Hoard compared to the Disaster Reports that predate it. Pelswick was my only break from characters from games I reviewed specifically because of the callbacks, but he came around to being a reference by way of his altered appearances. I think one reason I never expected the wheelchair to be a problem with beating up Pelswick though was I always knew this monster form was at the end of his story.
Yellow was added to the plot mostly for reasons described earlier (memes and having the moment during Eggert's betrayal where Eggert stopped Em's attempt to prevent it), but his role in the final events shifted a bit. I considered having Yellow be inside Fat Chocobo after we were confirmed he was captured by the Salvagers, bursting out of the mouth of the big bird in the go-kart to fight perhaps rather ineffectively. I do really like what we got in the end for reasons explained elsewhere, but even before the death scene was planned, just the idea that Eggert was betrayed in turn and left desperate at this final moment. The shotgun blast to kill Yellow helped to show he wasn't just scared as well, Eggert still motivated mostly by things like mortal terror and feeling separate from our universe but his morals were eroded to the point we could fight him without the guilt of killing a desperate man.
PAMA from Minecraft: Story Mode was a late addition to the plot, as in I think only days before it was relevant. Mainly, with the Salvagers' numbers so low I wanted to explain why the Doomseye could still function and the AI I met in that game seemed like a reasonable way of explaining it. It also gave us a "busy work" boss in the big confrontation so people like me could send more characters than would actually be participating in the focused fights! Mooks often fill that role, but I thought having a guide for the mooks and a face that still got punched through the background action made it make more sense why someone with investment in the plot wasn't gunning for a bigger name. Not sure if I'll utilize this often but I think it's good for an event that is meant to be big but not overwhelming in the details that need to be covered. When the Doomseye returned for the big Dark Matter battle I considered reviving PAMA as a good guy AI since it was just doing whatever its programmers instructed, but I didn't feel like muddying waters or robbing a victory from the characters who fought it.
After Eggert's Ooze form no longer converted the world around him I was worried I wouldn't have a good reason for him to attack Olympia, but Serene being on our side and in the area worked as a good motivation for him. The idea of the process being impossible without them both was not only meant to keep the tech of breaking impenetrable universe technology out of other characters' hands and make sense as a caution in-universe, but Eggert, after the old ideas of the jump being made and us fighting to leave the new universe were scrapped, was always doomed to face this final roadblock to his escape. Eggert and Serene really were great friends, student and teacher, united by knowledge and fear. This final tragedy for them, the cost of that betrayal of that relationship, was the punishment for Pelswick putting himself first.
CONCLUSION
I am very happy with the shape Salvager plot took! While all the major characters were borroed by nature, many basically had nothing in their source material, sometimes not even interesting powers. I think I was able to draw so much out of all of the borrowed designs and characters, and while Deck was definitely a more world-building and characer role focused plot, Salvagers feels like it was focusing more on the personalities and goals of its cast. I think the arc structure is one reason I really like how it turned out, with things working well as flowing into the grander plot, different segments featuring characters like Claire, Zozo, and Serene who aren't just about fighting someone to make a change, and just the general variety and ability to include others in the plot! I definitely will give major gratitude for Curse plot for things it kind of took directly from it, that being the collaboration angle and character profile structure, but since the events and characters and all themselves weren't trying to mimic Curse at all I can still be proud of what I built instead of feeling like I'm just copying the previous year's cool thing. Curse is probably the number one plot ever for RP if I was asked, but Salvagers is my number one plot of my own creation, and I do hope people will continue to do these big plots that can intersect with things like CarverCorp and the Forgotlings and merchant plot and all that! It makes things so much richer to have a world where things connect like that!
Rather than whining that I probably forgot something as I always do, here I shall accept that I can just like, mention it in chatzy later if I remember something I left out! But this was behind the scenes on the stuff I had a major hand in for Salvagers plot! I invite other people who were a big part of it to leave any behind the scenes they have, maybe even things I don't remember about when we worked together to plan things! Of course I'll answer questions about motivations, plan changes, or any old little thing as well.
Anyways thank you for reading this! And thank you for participating in Salvager plot! I was really worried about it when I started in the year, especially when people accidentally called it Scavengers and stuff, but I think once it really got rolling I started to become a bit more confident! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did and it provided some memorable moments and characters. I do think it had its weaker moments like Salvager Surge, but I won't beat myself up about an event I created so others could have fun. Instead, I'll say see you next year in Agama where I won't be doing a huge 20+ megaplot! Hopefully!
