ROXIEPLOT
Roxieplot was unsurprisingly built around her as she was left without a story after I abandoned that Death Cure plot I mentioned in a previous blog post. She was naturally carried over and retooled but you're also probably wondering about Sierra up there, who was initially going to be carried over too. Mostly just because I like her cool design, but ultimately it was instead Oleana who got to come along who was initially considered for Death Cure too. Oleana's very reactive faces in Pokemon Shield won me over more since it would allow for some cool breakdowns and such, but it would be a bit before certain things came together on her part!
A lot of different ideas were considered and dropped when this plot was coming together. Early on I clinched on the idea of Roxie having a band and Cherry quickly become a guaranteed member after I played Streets of Rage 4, Master System eventually the way we could loop it into RP rather than a bunch of strangers dropping in. I knew I wanted a drummer for the band though, so for a while, there were many other candidates for who it could be.
And this design became the new frontrunner for a Brume drummer. Kind of imagined her a bit too close to what Cherry ended up like except maybe more positive in her outlook. However, I did start to think I wanted a boy in the band just to mix things up in terms of the kinds of characters I RP, so eventually Pablo started to come together. Pablo's name actually comes from a guy I knew in elementary school while the character design is an edited version of the drummer from Double Kick Heroes which will come up again soon. As I tried to think of a personality for him I eventually just settled on a chill dude, kind of 80s/90s stoner archetype almost.
So there we have the four main characters of this plot, but things were still up in the air for a while on how the plot was going to unfold. I thought of it being sort of lower stakes at first, just a bunch of bands battling more for fun than any danger, but it lacked stakes. From there I considered something involving Agama's canals since that was a big part of the city that could use exploring, and I started to think maybe there was some sort of river boat battle kind of thing where the bands would each be playing on a raft and the loser sinks. This never got a good justification but the concept lasted a long time, to the point that some stuff involving the finale was conceived around it. In our current finale Oleana captures Roxie's band mates but originally they would have showed up as a group on the raft ready for battle only for Oleana to blast the raft out from under them, upsetting their ability to play a countersong. As the Kobbers and friends wore her down, eventually the band would get out of the water, get it together, and start pumping out Under Pressure.
Under Pressure was picked as the finale song pretty early on, hence why in the plot teaser for this whole plot at the end of Season 11 the group mentions they'll be practicing Queen songs as they get to know each other. I wavered on actually using it, fearing it would undermine the moment with a too recognizable tune, but I was relieved to see people got into it. I think the main reason it felt so important was I was enamored with the line "It's the terror of knowing what the world is about". These are a bunch of young people coming into their own and starting to have some rough first experiences like the band breakup and Roxie needing to stand up to her mom. They were already punk so it wasn't like, a fracturing of innocence, but it felt right still! Other song choices involved me having to swap lyrics. Zombie that played during the Tozacatl the Disruption Muse battle I liked how well it could tie into Oleana's struggle as a mother feeling her daughter becoming distant with the right tweaks. Songs like Rock Hard singing 96 Quite Bitter Beings was because I liked the jam first and then found a way to make it more applicable, but I also felt bashful every time during the plot I posted lyrics because it's weird! I know some people probably skipped it even when I did edit it to be more relevant, but also, it felt weird to leave out parts of the song since it helped sort of map to the battle better without ommission...
Anyway, we'll keep focus on Oleana here as there's a few other things to say. Originally Oleana would just have a straight up gun with her, it would be a while before she got the cool megamuse. I did consider a Gigamax Garbodor as her muscle but what the muscle entailed swapped around a lot too. However that gun was meant to be key in the final moment where Oleana was on her last legs, ready to just open fire on Roxie's band so she had no choice but to stay with her mom, but Roxie would get in the way of it, placing her forehead right against the barrel and strumming out those final chords of Under Pressure while giving her mom a silent death glare. Oleana would be crying and quivering and then we'd hear a gunshot, and I wasn't sure how to do what happened next. It would either be a spoiler or a next post where we see Oleana couldn't bring herself to do it, firing to the ground next to her instead and falling down to weep. I even cried imagining the original version of the scene I had fleshed out! But it felt too much, and we did get a bit of an allusion to it in the end as Roxie does something similar enough when Oleana tries to use muse powers for a last attack. Not quite as emotional though.
Another thing about Oleana was that she was kind of an inversion of the bad parent trope that's been prevalent lately. I'd already have bad dad later in the year with Victor so instead we got Oleana's motivation calcifying into wanting to support her daughter as much as possible in a desperate bid to cling onto her and keep her close. Love but certainly not a good kind. I did worry her initial appearance made her too obvious as a villain but I was surprised to hear Goops didn't peg her as the main villain waiting in the wings, but I did deliberately seed doubt! There were a few characters introduced mostly just to make you wonder how they were involved. Tepo the music store owner was actually a holdover of an earlier idea where a music producer was going to be "behind" the artificial muse phenomenon... but only because he was well paid by the true person behind it all. Basically, we'd think we had stopped the real bad guy because Oleana wanted us to think that so she could operate more quietly for the big connecting ritual. He was initially a cliche music producer villain type but I started shifting him up, even getting the Tepo faceclaim before I realized I wanted to do something different. Tepo was a suspect of course, an Ancient Agaman with music ties and everything, but he was saved from being an actual villain. Calliope kind of took the evil music producer angle and went a different direction anyway (while her name comes from a music instrument, it's mostly inspired by the fact that I knew a great dog named Calliope!)
Other suspects include Adam and Errit. Errit the Brume scientist was a holdover from a rejected character. I had a concept for a character who was sort of a ghost in a film camera. Originally a movie producer, he ended up somehow enfused into camera and could now only appear wherever its lens could capture. He couldn't move outside the borders of a scene but he could walk around the space freely enough, and he could even manifest different powers based on the type of film he was making so he might have a fight as a silent film character or maybe get weird with a horror movie. Thing is his camera literally couldn't move on its own, so he would have to employ someone to carry his camera everywhere and "project" him onto reality. The original idea was he was coming to Agama because Hollywood was getting too full of superhero movies instead of real cinema (it was going to be implied Sine's hand in Hollywood was responsible for the glut of superhero films :V) and he'd be trying to find success in a new less solidifed market. I considered, again, a Brume to help him, but eventually Pablo was picked to do it but then the camera character was scrapped entirely. However, I liked the idea of Pablo having a day job, and so Errit started to form using a Yo-Kai Watch chameleon doctor faceclaim. Errit was mostly useful for exposition and I considered having him show up for other things but I wasn't sure what he could do. Ultimately he'd just be part of this plot as a suspicious character but he was at least an Ancient Agama resource and could reappear if anyone ever wanted to tap that vein again as an expert on the subject.
Adam Hunter was supposed to be a bigger part of my RP this year, but perhaps appropriately, his NEO ties meant he was a bit of a swing and a miss. His backstory ended up being relevant far too early so it felt odd to back him up to cool and friendly dad character before we learn about his misgivings with Boston, but I don't think it's really a problem it didn't work out. I considered a Cherry/Adam team for the Brawl at one point showing how committed I was to RPing him but also, I think he might just not have had enough outside of relationships to make him a good character to whip out. He will be our NEO contact should I resurface them again for something, but their purpose is sort of the caretaker group for the rest of the world so we can believably say there are issues elsewhere during the RP year, they're just being handled by someone else. Him being sketchy about the call he got to come to Agama was his only real hint of being the possible big bad, but also him diving into the Scorchbeast stuff enthusiastically probably cleared any suspicion pretty quickly.
Time for name fun! Errit is naturally a name that comes from Maya Angeloua (Marguerite is her real first name), but the artificial muses were named for Mesoamerican instruments! The "muse" term carried more weight this year than anticipated but I just thought the whole angle of a group doing music for the wrong reasons was more interesting than the usual passion angle fiction takes towards musical performance. Muse just happens to be a term for inspiring beings so there you go! I think the name came together much later than you'd expect but I wanted something clear and easy to attach this danger too. Huehuetl the drum god was named for a specific tall drum, Quijongo the guitar Restriction muse is named for a musical bow kinda of thing, and Tozacatl is named for a "sounding cane" similar to a horn. Unable to find much more about the Tozacatl it seemed perfect for the otherworldly Disruption muse, the muses all having their names and powers before I found art for them. Huehuetl I got the drum boss from Final Fantasy X-2 stuck in my head early as a faceclaim and he ended up winning out, others were DevArt searching. Quipu, the big ethereal butterfly final boss thing, isn't an instrument, but its Connection role ties to the term I chose. Quipu is sort of form of record keeping involving strings, the concept feeling appropriate for something that connects together ancient beings and all. Quipu's powers probably changed the most as I didn't want it to be too powerful since each one uses their associated -tion word for their attacks. Quipu was going to do a lot more with connections like removing people's connections to the ground to make them float off and other physics fun but even the whole "homing attack" connection angle devastated so I knew to not go too far. Huehuetl's destruction was actually going to be emphasized more at first, we'd be more protecting Agama from its efforts to break stuff than fighting it directly. I wanted to do the whole "focus on how we help instead of hurt" idea, saving people and stopping disaster instead of just beating up bad guys.
For things I wish I did better, I wish Master System's issues were explored more. Madison probably isn't doing 100% better with her whole skewed motivation problem. However, I think I can describe where she is in an assuring way. Right now she does partly play with the band because she feels being important to them is gratifying, but it's also because it aligns with what she wants to do, her personal passion. To best compare this, someone can be really into cooking, but they get much of the satisfaction from sharing the fruits of that passion with others. Hence, Madison gets satisfaction out of her music sharing bringing joys to others, even if she still needs to work to overcome some hang-ups about the value of her own desires. Roxie's Pokemon, I feel weird never using Whirlipede in battle but also I never intended her to lean into Pokemon stuff much at all. I am glad for that late game moment with Aono though, because one thing I also learned is that doing a plot so heavily tied to the personal development and issues of its main characters so early can leave them sort of adrift in later plots! Cherry's mindset was addressed pretty heavily thanks to pushes from people like Sanae and Suwako but also, Pablo found unexpected footing as a more serious character by having the early year plot to pull that depth out of him. I still think it made them harder to rope into later year appearances, although they did at least have some excuses, most of them even quick to mention that battle wasn't their thing and they joined Kobber fights first to try and pay back all the help they got. I can't help but make character arcs part of my plots, but I'll probably try to give some room for more personal growth on other plots too.
Also, I don't think I got back to it... Rock Hard! The band's characters are all from Double Kick Heroes, including the character who would become Pablo! The blonde guy looks pretty different in the game's cover art, much thinner, and I almost made him Pablo's brother or half brother as a cute reference to the fact they're both cut from the same cloth. I also considered just having them be friends, but it was hard to show it well in an even that would end up having a lot of characters and elements even before we got the interesting angle of Valerio being on their side. The band member names are all supposed to be like, cool punk/grunge names but in Brazilian Portuguese: Ferida (the vocalist) is wound, Gosmo (on drums) is a male version of the word for goo or gooey, Lama (bassist) is mud, Lixo (keytar) is trash, and Cheiro (lead guitar) is smell.
THE MAN OF 100 POWERS
So I imagine quite rightly anyone getting to this section wants to see the full list of 100 powers uninterrupted, so that's what we'll kick off with right away! I do think a few were edited slightly before they hit the forum to make certain limits clearer or adjust how they work, I had a Pastebin open with the powers and deleted them as they were used. I'll post the uninterrupted list now and we'll talk about them after!
POWER 1: Vault: The ability to remove and redistribute innate supernatural abilities.
POWER 2: Power Tracker: Any power the user comes in contact with can be traced, giving an impression and sense of where it is used upon activation.
POWER 3: Undo Effect: Reverse the lasting effects of a power.
POWER 4: Extra Arms: Make a temporary second pair of arms that emerge below the armpit.
POWER 5: Bullet Break: Shatter any bullets that enter the space near the user.
POWER 6: Explosive Charge: Turn an object you’re touching into an explosive.
POWER 7: Buff Up: Provide a permanent considerable boost to the muscle mass of a target.
POWER 8: Miscellany: Create a handful of small objects of random size and make.
POWER 9: Shrapnel Burst: Fire razor sharp shrapnel in a direction.
POWER 10: Parch: Remove the water from an object and hold it in your grip.
POWER 11: Pain Bullet: A shot of energy with no actual solid form stimulates pain wherever it hits.
POWER 12: Thermal Lance: Release burning oxygen from your finger capable of cutting through steel.
POWER 13: Gaseous Blows: Your strikes carry through the air by way of distortions approximating your limbs.
POWER 14: Steel Skin: Flesh of the user becomes similar in strength to steel.
POWER 15: Prickly Ice: A surge of ice with lingering spine-covered chunks.
POWER 16: Halt: Objects entering a space in front of you can’t move.
POWER 17: Organic Chainsaw: Turn an arm into a bone chainsaw.
POWER 18: Adhesive Trap: Spray a substance that will stick those who touch it to the ground.
POWER 19: Air Walk: Freely walk through the air as if there was ground where desired.
POWER 20: Floodwaters: Generate a wave of abundant water.
POWER 21: Shooting Stars: Fire burning stones towards a target.
POWER 22: Duplicate: Make a near identical copy with lower defenses.
POWER 23: Swap Sight: Two targets see through each other’s eyes.
POWER 24: Pyrite Molding: Create an object in your desired shape out of pyrite.
POWER 25: Absorb and Repel: Briefly pulls in attacks before launching them back at increased speed.
POWER 26: Liquid Touch: After making contact with a surface, it is temporarily rendered into a liquid membrane that can be penetrated by sight, sound, and touch.
POWER 27: Scouring Sand: Airborne sand rapidly whirls around target location, wearing down things within with ease.
POWER 28: Propel: Launch yourself forward in a burst of speed.
POWER 29: Dust: A strange yellow dust fills the air, obstructing speedy movement by clinging to bodies and weighing them down and interrupting teleportation through matter displacement.
POWER 30: Numb: Dull the nerves in an area you’re touching.
POWER 31: Glass Shard Spray: Miniscule shards of glass fire forward in a dangerous spray.
POWER 32: Melt: Turn a solid into a liquid, regardless of composition.
POWER 33: Vine Flail: Vines extend from the arm for use as a lash.
POWER 34: Sun in your Hands: A blindingly bright fireball is formed and can float in place.
POWER 35: Store: Make an object temporarily disappear, reappearing when desired.
POWER 36: 360 Degree Vision: Vision extends in all directions from the body.
POWER 37: Cannon Fingers: Fire cannonballs from the tips of your fingers.
POWER 38: Live Wire: Extend electrified lines in a space in front of the user.
POWER 39: Servant Swords: A set of floating blades attacks anything that nears the user.
POWER 40: Metallic Growth: Protrusions of metal emerge from the user's skin.
POWER 41: Null Zone: Prevent people from entering a specified space.
POWER 42: Puppet Strings: Attach lines to a target that allow control of their limbs.
POWER 43: Full Darkness: Eliminate all light in the area for a time.
POWER 44: Attack Dogs: Generate a pair of temporary artificial canines.
POWER 45: Axe Hands: Briefly change your hands into axe heads.
POWER 46: Action Loop: Your last action is repeated by an energy-based stand-in.
POWER 47: Slip: The body contorts as necessary to move through or escape a space normally too tight for it.
POWER 48: Magma Burst: Pull up a burst of magma from deep within the earth.
POWER 49: Full Rotation: Body parts can spin without injury or impediment.
POWER 50: Blood Stores: Replaces lost blood to allow for a longer period of stability after injury.
POWER 51: Fuse Flesh: Seal together flesh pressed beneath your hand.
POWER 52: Bone Shell: A protective barrier of bone forms up quickly around the user.
POWER 53: Collapse: Bring down a targeted structure immediately.
POWER 54: Soul of the Ram: Make an object relentlessly charge at a target.
POWER 55: Emanate Plasma: Plasma arcs off the body in a small range.
POWER 56: Magnetize: Turn an object into an incredibly powerful magnet.
POWER 57: Floating Mines: A set of invisible explosives float in place.
POWER 58: Needle Coat: A covering of spines appear over the users body.
POWER 59: Shackles: The ground rises up around the target’s legs to bind them to it.
POWER 60: Rebuild: Restore a broken inanimate object to a recent state with ease.
POWER 61: Expanding Thorns: Create a group of barbs that grow in size until they crumble.
POWER 62: Cape Sundew Arm: One arm becomes covered with sticky tendrils that burn away whatever it snags with acid.
POWER 63: Reel: An imperceptible connection is created between the user's hand and an object or individual in sight. The user is able to tighten and pull in whatever they're attached to at will.
POWER 64: Starving Roots: Roots wind around the target and start sapping their life.
POWER 65: Create Iron Bowl: Create a large iron bowl.
POWER 66: Imitate: Briefly copy a supernatural or inherent power.
POWER 67: Expanding Spear: Create a steel spear that can extend its length at your discretion.
POWER 68: Brick By Brick: Rapidly construct a brick structure.
POWER 69: Bulge: A part of the body expands in size and density temporarily.
POWER 70: Blow Off Steam: Multiple scalding steam vents fire from the user’s body.
POWER 71: Ripple: Make the ground move like rippling water.
POWER 72: Floating Lashes: Energy lashes hang down from above, striking at anything that ventures near.
POWER 73: Jellyfish Tendrils: Stringing tentacles like those of a jellyfish extend from the user’s arms.
POWER 74: Target Swap: Redirect incoming projectiles to a specified point.
POWER 75: Reduce Weight: Reduce the weight of an object you’re in contact with.
POWER 76: Swarm: A cloud of artificial insects seeks out prey.
POWER 77: Erase Presence: Target is undetectable to all senses but your own as long as they remain nearby.
POWER 78: Soften Solid: Reduce the density of a touched object.
POWER 79: Clear Breathing: Immunity to poisons and suboptimal breathing conditions so long as oxygen is still present in the area.
POWER 80: Heavy Rain: A downpour of solid drops slams down in the target area.
POWER 81: Javelin Surge: Wooden spears fly forward in a sudden burst.
POWER 82: Boomerang Effect: Object you touched will return to you regardless of distance or obstruction.
POWER 83: Sound Bomb: Transform a sound you hear into a detonation of force based on its volume level.
POWER 84: Ash Cloud: A choking cloud of ash forms in the area.
POWER 85: Concrete Spray: A spray of fast hardening concrete.
POWER 86: Fight from Shadow: Your shadow acquires a physical presence.
POWER 87: Unbreakable: Make an inanimate object impossible to break.
POWER 88: Oil Burst: A splash of petroleum oil coats the nearby area.
POWER 89: Lock Language: Target cannot speak vocally.
POWER 90: Lactic Surge: Target you’re touching has their body tricked into fatiguing itself.
POWER 91: Disguise Other: Make others take on your appearance.
POWER 92: Lock: Block off a power’s usage.
POWER 93: Bestial Arm: An arm detaches and becomes a fanged loyal subject.
POWER 94: Crunch: Pull together objects before you into a tight dense bundle.
POWER 95: Graft: Attach something to your body and control it like a limb.
POWER 96: Scorpion Tail: Sprout a scorpion tail with a venomous barb.
POWER 97: Rotate Space: The area around the user is constantly rotating vertically on a set axis.
POWER 98: Perfect Burn: Ignite even things that cannot normally burn.
POWER 99: Forgetful Haze: Blow a haze of air that makes people forget the past few minutes.
POWER 100: Revival: Undo fatal damage.
So, for how powers were picked! First thing I really didn't want to lean on were cliche powers, things like using elemental attacks, flight, or things clearly taken from a specific superhero so like, no Spider-Man skills. I did value a bit of fun at times, like having the scorpion tail there to reference the DeMonde running joke, and while I did have the Bulge power arise independently of being power number 69, I felt like we might as well have the little joke there. Some people were amused by the Iron Bowl power's simplicity, but that actually ties into another element of how the powers were picked!
These are, conceptually, all powers chosen by Osiris Vault to take and keep rather than gifting them to someone else. The Iron Bowl for example was imagined as a sort of novelty power that Vault used when interacting with people of the Oasis, him making it and filling it with food to hand out to people. While the powers aren't listed in the order he acquired him necessarily (he would have grabbed Power 100 sooner but the drama of its reveal is important) there is some grouping. The first ones for example, besides Vault and Power Tracker (originally they were one power but I didn't want power descriptions to be too long either) are the ones key to his power premise. The ones after though, things like powering people up, causing destruction, protection things, it's all meant to represent his early picks that helped him become effective. He could get more eclectic in choices later and afford to hand off some abilities because of these strong foundational powers. I tried to imagine some practical reasons for other powers too, like he kept Liquid Touch because he could reach into things like safes or other obstructions so he can't be impeded well. Some powers like the extra arms and the duplication were there so we had a good chance of seeing everything but it's kind of hard to remember all the ideas for the powers, partly because many were conceived off all at once!
I had the Google Doc that lists all the powers on the side for a long time, adding to it on occasion but realizing the idle thoughts weren't really whipping up many powers on their own. The day would come where he'd have to start using them, especially since he would appear before the big fight and I didn't want people wondering why a power like 360 Degree Vision wasn't always active when it's always benefiting him. One idea behind Vault is that so few of these powers have a true downside, the downside of course instead that the Vault power itself was killing him subtly hence his concern over his legacy. It made him much more imposing in battle, but still, whipping together 100 powers that could be used believably was a job and a half and I feel like maybe 60 of them were composed in one mad rush that dominated an entire night.
I had the idea for 3DS's history before she debuted as preparation for the inevitable saving of our Nintendo girls, hers being a rougher story of traveling abroad without a plan and having become hardened by what she did to get by, but what exactly the organization she ended up falling in with took some more time to form. I considered it just kind of a kid street gang, I considered this idea where she was working in mosaic tile shop that was actually a front and she had a bunch of other kids there (this was based on a random youtube video and dropped to make it more believable why she'd turn to Vault's side) but I think I always planned for it to be somewhere in Africa or near the Middle East since the idea was 3DS basically tried to get as far away from her plain American life as possible and that area is basically the other side of where America is on a globe!
Eventually it started to come together more that there was a group with an ethos more than a criminal group, but at first 3DS was kind of just almost willfully ignorant as a member of a much worse group. The whole trafficking of people angle was there from the start, but 3DS would have been part of a more traditional criminal organization and she was just muscle for taking out other gangs and people in the same business of drugs and weapons. Seeing a plane full of people would be her breaking point as she couldn't pretend she was just hurting bad people only anymore, but eventually things started to come together on what the organization could be, and finally Vault was coming together as a character... sort of.
Initially Vault was just kind of a powerful guy at the top. He was always planned to be this absurdly strong character on the other side of the globe, someone the Kobbers never ran into because he managed his organization well to keep himself under their radar. It was supposed to be some message about the hidden evils still in the world as well as how people with incredible power in this world of incredible powers could be exploiting it. If you really need a good picture of what my original picture of Vault would have been like, the scene where we met his lieutenants post-brawl would have originally taken place at a strip club! It was a bit too much like the crime bosses I saw in movies instead of the kind of villain I like to create though, so things started to come together and they were sort of turned into a group that does some bad stuff for the right reasons. They have ideals, or some do, and since even in real life Egypt's government isn't the best, I didn't think it would take much for people to believe a small enclave had developed within that were setting out to make their own system of rules. Oasis was a name that came later to me than I care to admit because of how long I was fiddling with the ideaology of the group, but naturally by the time the name came up and we saw the characters, things were set in stone.
Osiris Vault himself, I didn't want to use the Doomfist faceclaim but it looks so good! I gave him the metal production power purely so I didn't have to chop up a good intro shot of Vault himself, but other faceclaims were a little harder. I feel like the perfect version of Khepri exists out there waiting for me to remember who it was again, but Mark Henry did the job. Well everyone in this villain group was an OC first before the faceclaims came, Bastet is from some anime called Michiko & Hatchin that I've heard is quite good. Getaway was a later addition (and based on a recognizable Jackie Chan Adventures goon because I spontaneously was reminded of him) as was Anubis, Anubis coming from an official DC webcomic about Vixen where the design of the the character caught my eye and gave form to this subservient character who would help Bastet's power be more interesting in battle. Sobek I struggled with for a while, and eventually I realized fan art of Hody Jones from One Piece that made him look more human could make for a very unsettling looking character. I didn't find anything really in that vein, but the sketchy one I did grab seemed to hide his fish parts well enough that it pulled off the same job.
The Egyptian god motif, I made sure to avoid obvious picks like Ra and Anubis being a more obvious pick was literally part of Bastet stringing along her underling with the idea he could be important too. I considered having Osiris's name some of his "family" in line with the Egyptian god's family, but also, like any mythology, things get too weird with how those relations are and I didn't want unusual associations hanging over things like how Vault considered 3DS an adoptive daughter. The names tended to line up more with the powers, Khepri carrying a large gold dome like the sun the scarab god rolled, 3DS as the original Bastet able to give herself sharp edges like the claws of a cat (and the second Bastet able to shrink her prey and play with them like a cruel cat) and Sobek... well he's not a crocodile but I really fell in love with the idea of his power synergy where he could reshape his body but also detach it or other people's parts.
For the actual plot events we actually got many of the fights in their expected forms, although Bastet's event was much better for the EMMI. I did like the idea of Bastet bringing a bunch of objects to mess with tiny people to fight while Anubis gave us something to actually punch while she did so, but I think the EMMI was a more central threat to focus the group better. There was an idea of the EMMI mixing with maybe Sobek instead back before I realized how people would react to him ambushing Gamecube and Virtual Boy at home. It was also considered just to be muscle for Bastet as she was trying to ensure 3DS didn't try anything funny after promising to turn herself over to stop the fighting. 3DS was always destined to give herself up to spare everyone any more pain, although there was the removed element of her initially pretending on the day we went to confront Vault that she was fine with working for him to try and make everyone leave and not get hurt more. She would have maybe done a "I fight you but clearly am holding back so you don't get hurt" thing but the fight was going to be jampacked already!
Similarly, exactly how Victor Rochefort, Virginia's dad, got roped into things changed. Originally he would be mentioned when Virtual Boy was kidnapped, the Oasis group preparing to turn her over but when 3DS handed herself over to Vault, Virtual Boy would be delivered back to the Kobbers as per his promise. Victor, having already been told about them having VB would be waiting for her return only to learn of Vault's downfall and then realize he needs to take things into his own hands. He would have went to acquire his card at this point and then, when Gamecube and VB were walking around town, he would show up and snag VB with debt chains while easily knocking aside Gamecube. Gamecube's whole issue this year was about how helpless and weak she felt in battle so this was meant to exacerbate that. I didn't really have a good plan for how Victor could back up his plan before I settled on the card fairly easily although I'm happy to have it changed from the original Bills to Debts since I would have portrayed bills as in like, pay the bills you owe to get the same effect. I didn't want Victor to be a transparent easily dismissed bigot either. Like, he doesn't hate his daughter because she's intersex, he didn't hate Valerio because he's trans. He simply believes that if people can pick their genders, they have no reason to pick anything beside male because of the societal advantages it affords! It's a bigoted and awful way of thinking yes, but it's not your usual "it's different so I hate it" mindset. I did consider having Virginia's given name from Victor to just be... Victor again, to show how deeply unimaginative and focused on pure success he was, but the Victors were getting confusing enough already! Virginia is actually fine with being either male or female based on how she feels, but since she was raised male she has spent a lot of time identifying as a girl since and hasn't seen reason to change that. Maybe one day with less negative associations she might try it on for size again, but she's interested in new experiences mostly so maybe not! Still, she's on a happy path forward.
Due to Vault's 100th power, it was actually expected that the event we fought him in wouldn't end with his death! I didn't want to give him a healing power so that people always felt we were making progress in the fight but also I worried it could strain believability why he didn't have one... but he also felt he didn't NEED one because of that 100th power. Unfortunately by the time he realized he needed to cure a terminal affliction there weren't powers out there to help. Anyway, I thought during the fight we'd get to that big moment near the end where he reveals he can survive death and we'd need to realize that death isn't the only way to stop him. I considered having 3DS lop off some fingers or leave a hole in him that lasts to show that he could still be hurt and the idea would be we could wear him down to the point he couldn't fight anymore, but I think things had built up where the whole "good man ruined by desperation" had to follow through to that final conclusion.
One thing fairly early on in plot designing is I anticipated Julia or Dawn trying to confront Vault once we knew enough about him. The building we see him in both during the teaser and his fight was a sort of base for him, but it also wasn't a guaranteed place for him to be. Oasis's sort of nebulous nature was to help hold off any "let's blow up the place" ideas as was the idea that not only were there many good people under him, but they liked the lives they had under him. He wasn't a despot, but I did expect the whole "eye for an eye" ruling approach to maybe rankle RPers more than it did... before realizing that maybe some of us or are characters are cool with the threat of capital punishment being used to quash criminal activity! Anyway, before I had better explained away the reason we didn't just go over and attack him was initially going to be because of his power, and when Julia or someone showed up to try and take him out, they'd get wrecked. Funnily enough, I got this in a way still, but without even suggesting it to Cornwind! He came up with Julia confronting Vault on his own and even said he wanted Julia to fail, but of course I was happy to let her get in her good hit in the final fight to make up for it. Some powers like Lactic Surge were specifically created to give a good justification for why someone like her could fail, because even if you are super strong, a single change to your body could throw that out of whack. I didn't want to spend too much time being like "oh he's just soooo strong guys" though, I think the scene worked better as a prelude to the real fight.
I've mentioned elsewhere the main reason 3DS didn't use her power sooner was because she knew it would alert Osiris to the fact she was still alive and where she was with some degree of specificity. Vault actually didn't act on learning her location in-canon partially because he was so conflicted at that point. Writing a villain who deliberately masks his intentions and even lies to hide them was a risky gamble but I think it paid off because it didn't invalidate the truth when it was revealed. Like, he was portrayed as a more brutal guy than he was because that's how you want to portray yourself so people don't test you. He wasn't forthcoming with why he wanted 3DS back so bad because it would reveal his vulnerability and likely lead to the Oasis slipping away. It was very hard to keep it under my hat and Khepri being a bit more sympathetic than the others helped get some of that out there that there was more going on... but anyway! Her edge power is pretty dangerous and not something she'd use lightly anyway considering how easily lethal it could be, but I think as she grows more distant from Osiris's death she'll become more comfortable in using it as the mental block fully fades. I hope some people noticed, but people who called Osiris Vault by his first or last name tended to represent how they thought of him. Khepri called him Vault because of their friendship before the god names, Bastet used the god name because she bought into the vision of them being on high, it's not too hard to imagine the justification once you know the character involved!
I mentioned before I considered having each of Vault's lieutenants introduced in a different perspective. Khepri still got his first person meeting with 3DS to set up their connection and Bastet's talk with Anubis was part of that idea, but Sobek's was a bit rougher to conceptualize. It was conceived as Sobek sort of imagining 3DS's perspective on the day she found out about the human trafficking for powers, saying things like "The look on your face when you saw the truth" and phrases like that. We already knew about that by then though and I think Sobek worked well with what we saw, although I think he had a sort of "fight out in the street" setting at first. Conceptualizing how Vault would meet with Switch was hard at first too. I considered like, some sort of emissary that couldn't interact much beyond talking, and he'd meet her when she was near the group home of the Nintendo Girls. After their chat, there would be the seed of doubt planted on if Switch would protect her new family by sacrificing 3DS, and we'd get a scene where she enters 3DS's room and say she needs to talk to her about something serious... only to find Virtual Boy standing there, freshly returned from being kidnapped with a letter written by 3DS about how she turned herself in before we found out what Switch's choice would have been.
WEASELPLOT
You know, I couldn't tell you why I came up with a weasel themed plot. I almost feel like it must have been I thought of the phrase "Weasel Wednesday" and it evolved from there, and the original plan was for every event to be on a Wednesday. That did seem like a bit of a problem as the finale was planned to be a two-day thing from the start, not because it was dramatic, but because I came up with the idea of Don Weazo actually deciding to fly off and leave Agama after realizing he wasn't winning out so the first day would be the distraction he left behind to ensure his unassuming aircraft made it out of town. Of course we'd stop him, but exactly how changed over time. Originally there were no Kamaitachi for example so it would have just been us versus the helicopter, but I remember thinking it needed a bigger threat. The game The Wild At Heart has this sort of weasel-like creature named Cath you encounter that I considered as sort of the muscle for this final fight.
I think the problem is it's not actually a weasel, and that came up a few times in picking what we'd face! For example, there's the mention of Minerva, Erol's secretary, and even a joke that she might be a mink, and for a while I was considering borrowing media characters who were species closely related to weasels, but I'm pretty sure one reason this plot started in the first place is I was a bit fascinated with how often weasels, even the specific depiction of them, crop up in cartoons and other works. Minerva Mink from Animaniacs came up when I was looking into "Weasel" characters but she's a mink! Weasel is an animal term that can encapsulate them sometimes but I wanted to keep it more clear on what constitutes a weasel to avoid confusion, Brume already can be a bit broad after all.
Looking into more weasels to potentially broaden this plot did make me consider things like a Sneasel/Weavile for a while, but I wanted to keep them clearly humanoid and capable of speech and civilized life. The Kamaitachi get a pass specifically because they're sort of a mythical ancestor rather than something identified as part of this type of humanoid weasel that is building up a society in Agama. I know Don Weazo was a quick pick for the big bad, the Conker's Bad Fur Day character originally spelled Don Weaso but I think the main reason for the letter swap was just... I saved the image file with a Z instead and by the time I realized my error, I liked it more. It helps with pronunciation as well so it's hard to complain.
The range of named cartoon weasels with not-quite-generic designs is less than I anticipated, not quite a mole army unless I wanted to use a lot of generic goons. Especially since I tried to keep them pretty cohesive, so we didn't get things like I Am Weasel or the DC villain Weasel since they raise some questions. The plot wasn't going to be huge but there were times I was aching for some more weasels to pull from, hence why Xandra the firefighter weasel's face art is literally just something I came across on google and not a recognizable character. Some characters got name changes, Dan DeWeasel was "Daring Dan Dawson" from Talespin and Lecio is the character Le Sewer from Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers, although I can't remember how that name came to be.
Funnily enough, in his source material (also a Chip n' Dale), Erol is a pretty unrepentant bad guy who first acts nice to trick the team. Basically the way I played him was all original, but that scene in his office where we confront him changed a little. Originally when Weazo meets with him and is about to flee town, he was going to suggest Erol find that man handing out cards to defend himself from the coming Kobber anger. I was amused that even in-character no one believed that Erol could be behind the weasel uprising! But, then when we got there we wouldn't know if he had sought out the card. Already the idea of him pointing a gun at the arrivals, worried for his life and requiring a talking down, was going to be part of it and made it in, but we still got a card fakeout of sorts. A less believable one unfortunately because the way events lined up meant that Erol couldn't get a card at the time he would have been told to go looking for one, but still!
The weasels from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? were immediate shoo-ins for the plot, although I renamed some of them so it became more reasonable that someone would call them that. Their odd names actually lead to the whole cultural thing about people picking up a negative nickname they're meant to shake, and while that's not really a great way of making someone better themselves, I mean, many traditions aren't great anyway! Still, it made more sense we'd get a character called Dummy or Sleazy if they were deliberately unflattering. Wacky, the weasel from Bonkers who ended up joining them, was actually considered for an entirely different element. Originally I had planned a small amount of Weaselplot events, but I did consider this idea that Wacky would be a stand up comedian we'd check in on a few times, through things like the bar T.V. or whatever. He'd be cracking wise about Kobbers, kind of trying to turn sentiment against them in subtle ways. The kind of "I wouldn't want to mess with those guys, I like having two eyeballs!" sort of barbs that were meant to get under people's skin but you couldn't really say he's lying or find a reason to attack him really. I imagined one day people would want to confront him and maybe do a verbal smackdown, but not only is time slim in RP at times, I'd also worry I couldn't hold up his part of the vocal battle in a confrontation. I did conceive of some good commentary/comedy at times for this angle, almost even did it as a one time thing before he'd appear in an actual battle plot, but didn't pull the trigger.
Norwell and the church of the tutelary weasel was also imagined pretty early on but the exact nature of it changed a bit. It was originally unsympathetic, a clear "religion for profit" kind of deal. There is some acknowledgement in RP that it's a young religion so a lot of it is in flux or poorly defined at the moment, but initially it was going to be portrayed as a tool by Weazo and associates to sort of make the weasel uprising happen by making them feel they were owed more than they got. In fact, I worry if I had been able to do a planned hook for Weaselplot it might have made Norwell a less likeable chap! See, I had plans for Discovery Day where we'd basically get that scene where Erol and Norwell talk about the shrine being desecrated and all, but Norwell would have been portrayed more negatively then. A lot more about believing he was owed more of Shrine Hills or even parts of Bruma, since I felt bad that I was doing less Brume stuff this year and thought a brief Weasel vs. Brume drama could help that. My brother's visit meant I couldn't do this, but having this earlier lead-in would have maybe helped with laying down some of the anti-Weasel sentiment that characters often pointed out they had no idea existed until the Shrine Hills event.
Speaking of, Weaselplot is kind of my attempt to redeem myself after I accidentally made people anti-Brume for a bit last year. Both plots are actually kind of similar, a single figure utilizing a marginalized group to further their own aims, although this time around it's not as revenge against them. More importantly, I tried to manage the characters better. We didn't know many Brume at the time and the ones we were meeting all seemed to have ties to the conspiracy (only for it to be that there were very few actually bad actors once the truth came out) but this time around, I made sure that there was, in the least accommodating account, at least as many good weasels we knew as bad, and then some people like Looney and Dummy were portrayed as being manipulated due to their mental faculties being off rather than extremists. But, I was banking on the normal cultural sentiment to sort of shortcut us to the prejudice the weasels would have experienced, just the verb "weasel" already gives a good amount of mileage towards having a clear way people would be skewed against them. The weasels are a smaller group in Agama as well compared to Brume, the little neighborhood where the finale after the helicopter crashed is probably the only area in Agama with a significant weasel populace. Also, the point of the plot was addressing the stigmas head on and having the villain confrontation tie into shooting down this extremist approach. Now, while the Kobbers didn't "end racism" here, they did put weasel relations on a better path, the kind of thing that would pay off if we check in on Agama down the line.
The moles vs. weasels angle was actually a sort of jokey line in the teaser for the plot. I've mentioned before I almost didn't do a weaselplot teaser and even the teaser itself was sort of designed to give me an out, like I could make it a smaller thing if need be or change its elements quite a bit as required. Erol was the only thing set in stone and it was kind of his plot. As another element of showing that weasels are good people and would stand up for themselves if they could, we had both Erol trying to shoot Weazo even though he knew he'd likely get in trouble for it just to end things before they got worse and Dan DaWeasel refusing to give a ride to Weazo when he realized things were awry. The actual moles vs. weasels elements always did have some tie to Bill knowing Erol well and that's how we got some weasel stuff in the Scorchbeast stuff early in the year, but I think the only major tie actually planned for the plot initially was going to be the attack on Moleville, and that wasn't even as big as it ended up being. Originally, the Roger Rabbit weasels were going to attack places all over Agama, things like the smoker weasel puffing it up to a dangerous level at the Millenium Forest and one of them doing wild graffitti. Lower stakes stuff the Kobbers would respond to in minigroups, and it was kind of meant to be a little tour of the major locations of Agama before we left it. However, it would turn out to be a distraction, and we'd learn that the last weasel had attacked Moleville and started the fires. I do prefer the version we got where the moles were more tied to the overall plot, even if Bill kept getting hurt since I had a lot of variables to manage and the extra characters would have made it rougher!
Nack and Nic were early picks for the plot and I considered having Nack utilize his various weird vehicles from the Game Gear games in his fight. I do remember at one point the plot had shifted to where we knew Don Weazo was escaping but the reason we couldn't give chase was that as we went out in the streets, moles were getting sniped left and right. It was basically a battle to catch and stop the snipers before they did more harm to the mole crew, and I believe the card was already factored in because it wouldn't be easy to determine the shot's source thanks to weird card powers. I do appreciate Chao letting me have the twins share the card, I think having them toss it around really gave that battle a different feel from other cardholder confrontations with a big focus on the card itself. I think I did have them more mean originally, they're still rather mean but they did know when to quit and were less interested in sniping as a violent means and more as trick shooters. Another thing that would have shown up on Discovery Day was the pair doing trick shots to a minimal or disapproving crowd!
Something I also considered is some sort of tie to Woozles, with a possible appearance by Stan and Wooster near the end of the plot. Don't think enough came together on it but Woozles and humanoid weasels are probably close species in RP. I think a brainwashed Wooster was considered as Weazo's muscle in the finale.
And that might be it for my 2022 reflection! I played a few characters by ear this year like Ani and Zoey. I considered having Cherry's sister show up but I have two possible sister characters for her and I'd rather keep them in my pocket as potential standalone characters. Here's some Brume character designs I kept around just in case I had ideas for more people:
