As you have no doubt guessed, my 2025 plot was inspired by Waluigi.
...
Okay maybe I should explain.
Many years ago, when I was just a bored kid sitting through a church mass, I let my mind wander as I often did. I decided that day I'd try to think up a video game that Waluigi could be the star of, and while I thought it should be a 2D platformer, even then I knew it needed some kind of hook to make it stand out from Nintendo's other fare. So, the idea hit me that the levels in his game should be based on disasters. Levels set during floods, earthquakes, and so on, although I really only remember concrete ideas for the tornado levels partly because Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze would later have tornado platforming that reminded me of my ideas. The thing in this game causing the disaster though would be something that should sound more familiar: Disaster Souls. So called because this was when the Nintendo DS was a major system, so... Disaster Souls... DS... Yup, that's how they got their name for the RP plot!
There was, I noticed, some occasional mix-ups on whether they were called Disaster Souls or Disaster Spirits, and I'd say in-universe that's not a problem, it's probably interchangeable. The reason I stuck to Soul though was to avoid people thinking it had some tie to Spirits like the Time Spirit and that little neck of the RP woods tied to Jumpropeman.
Early ideas involving Disaster Souls were fairly different though, and while I fear it's going to become a running joke, the rejected ideas involved the Sefirot and Qlippoth again! Actually, the idea this time was it was going to be Avon (Iniquity) or a rogue Chesed (Kindness). Whatever it was, the embodiment was going to be a guy with long purple hair and squinted eyes who acted a bit like a cult leader and would have a group of followers, and I remember considering Mendeleev from Iconoclasts as a faceclaim for his right hand.The idea was withering by the time teasers came but hadn't completely died, but the concept for the villain was in place for a while.
The idea behind this villain group would be that they believed that humanity was always at its best in times of struggle and strife. It's what motivates acts of kindness and charity and makes it harder to focus on pettier squabbles, so if he could get his hands on a bunch of Disaster Souls, he could keep the world constantly at the brink, people unable to be awful so long as they were balanced to the point they had to be kind to survive the constant disasters. I think the extent of his concept was kept from lower members of the group but I didn't really conceive of anyone else for the organization and I remember even thinking I should make Chesed a seemingly unrelated bar character first who would then turn out to be Kindness and fight against Avon if he was the one of those two chosen.
I started falling out of love with the idea but still wanted to stick with the Disaster Souls since I was then on track to make Sese one and liked that well enough. I did still consider that each even of the plot was going to be about fighting Disaster Souls though, and originally they were all going to have some real disaster in the past as their inspiration. Stegodokuro for example would have a specific extinction event or something, I think I looked up a specific earthquake related one from the far past but was bothered it didn't line up with when Stegosaurus actually walked the Earth.
A bit more interesting of a rejected idea though was that Stegodokuro was initially planned to be a character who would join us, and he didn't even have a gashadokuro bone back then. I never gave him a proper name, but he was the one who'd teach us about Disaster Souls and he'd actually have a knightly personality. Sese would ride him places and he'd be quite proper and chivalrous since he took his role as keeping Disaster Souls from people who would misuse them, his earthquake aligned one particularly dangerous in a cave setting.
A quick tangent for a different rejected idea: we almost met Zed's brother! In Mayan myth, Zipacna has a brother named Cabrakan who is associated with earthquakes. Back when I was trying to give Perona an arc for this year and DALI something to do, I conceived of the idea she would be struggling to run DALI and then Cabrakan would show up offering to help. The big crocodile demon would tell her not to tell Zed he's there or she'd otherwise not let him know since she doesn't want people to know she's being helped since she should have it all in hand, but Cabrakan would actually be using her to set up a massive earthquake meant to make Argo collapse on itself. She'd wise up before it is too late of course but her struggles with leadership almost had near cataclysmic consequences!
I did worry I was doing cave-ins and such a bit too often this year but I did want to make use of the setting some. I'll probably hold back on that threat next year, but I did enjoy doing other things like flooding a cave that again made good use of our unique environment.
Some things that could have made it to this blog will be withheld, I will note, mainly because we aren't technically done with all the fallout of Concord plot. Mainly, Marty the green Thwomp has ties to it that have yet to be uncovered and some concepts as a result are being moved into the 2026 plot. Before we get to Concord though, some other discarded ideas.
With Tapu Lele coming, I did consider also using Tapu Koko. Mainly, a villain in the Disaster Soul stuff would have captured Tapu Koko, either to harness his power or unleash him like a disaster or something. It would calm down after we fought it, but I think it was part of a two-parter where then we fought a Disaster Soul based on rampant technology. This was originally going to be Mimi's creator, who for a while was just a generic old man scientist sort, and he had helped a group create some sort of harvest like machine that backfired and killed everyone else in the science team as a strange manmade disaster. He'd be trying to figure out more about Disaster Souls but could only really observe them through utilize them or manufacturing them, and I do recall at some point a planned finale where he'd be necessary to stop a Disaster Soul and his creations would have to appeal to him, that being Mimi, Cash, Kyps, and maybe some other robots we'd meet. As you can guess, the fact I'm saying this means Originator is quite a different creator from this scrapped old man.
When the plans began, Concord was just a small arm of the Mountain, River, and Sun, and in the actual plot we did get a few hints at that despite things changing, like Lark mentioning Duchess and Cash talking about the River or when Jabali tells Kyps not to mention the Mountain openly. To what degree they're involved now is something to learn next year, but originally they were essentially just muscle for these behind the scenes characters and we'd deal with them first and then move onto the head honchos.
That didn't pan out, and new ideas kept taking things over! One early idea was that Duchess and Jabali were former members of Black Hole essentially trying to revive the organization and I remember being tempted to keep this even during the season in some form, but I already had written Black Hole as an alien organization with no humans and thus the idea never sat well with me.
For Concord events we didn't get, originally Overwatch as a lot more involved, to the point every member of Concord was originally an Overwatch reject and Winston would tell us each character's flaws and one idea was we'd use this against them in team fights we had with the group. I did enjoy writing Winston but I recognized my cast was too packed to do much with him, although I am glad we tidied up a weird part of the past and Overwatch can be another group out there so characters won't expect Kobbers to be world police when there are other heroes out there helping. They are just forming in RP verse so they don't have all the characters we'd expect yet, but I imagine if someone does want to RP Overwatch characters I wouldn't be too fussed in handing it over to them to make decisions on beyond this initial founding.
I do know, beyond the fact Winston and Reinhardt were turned against us during a gashadokuro fight, originally Winston was planned for a trick by Kyps. Dawn was also considered, but at one point Kyps would disguise herself as someone and tell Sese they were going somewhere important involving Disaster Soul business before the trap was sprung and Concord captured Sese. This was for a possible more antagonistic route if we had gone that way, and there were a fair few variants. One would have no one present for the trick but Sese would hand herself over because she was guilty and exhausted from the trouble gashadokuro stuff caused, and we'd have to rescue her for her own good. Another involved people going with Sese on the Tubes or just happening to be there when Concord staged a kidnapping attack we had to foil.
There were definitely some more negative spins the plot could have gone down, including a Vale permadeath! She was picked specifically because she was sympathetic but not too darling like Roka or Haymar would have been, and on the skull turtle day, if Naomi hadn't dived in to try and save Vale, we would have been going down the Vale permadeath path. She'd still be a soul in Sese and pull off the battle for control, but the way she was resolved after would be her being the final soul Sese would have to calm and then Vale would pass on to the afterlife or whatever.
An older version of the gashadokuro event didn't have us entering the soul plane sort of place and instead involved Sese feeling the guilt from Vale and the dam breaking on all the other souls and their anger that the only solution she would see is killing herself. Dark, yes, but it was more like she was throwing herself into danger hoping to be destroyed than a regular suicide, and it would be clear her mind was somewhat clouded and she wasn't thinking straight once we could break through to her. Importantly, during her little self-destructive rampage, the rest of Concord would be there trying to destroy her and have clear justification since she would be attacking (just not to actually hurt people much). We'd basically have to stop Concord from killing her (and we couldn't just beat them up since they were sort of justified) and then punch through, help clear her mind fog, and actually confront the guilt.
A different planned ending involved the gashadokuro bones. In the plot itself, we only ever really saw little animals get bones and transform into full gashadokuros. This was intentional, partly to show how each bone was incredibly dangerous that it could turn a little lizard or turtle into a destructive beast, but one thought was that the souls couldn't control something with enough willpower (hence why Duchess and Sese are the few examples of a peacefully existing gashadokuro compared to rampaging murder monsters). One idea though was that for a final battle with Cash, he'd use a gashadokuro bone or somehow take control of one, getting a big monster form or maybe attaching some control module to one. Some way to make him fighting fit, but I didn't want that for him in the end.
One scrapped event when I was figuring out the bones involved Sheep's appraiser Squash. At first it wasn't going to be a bunch of fights, although I think Concord plot was well structured in that the fight parts give everyone something easy to handle while the social Concord elements tied to each one gave people a more meaningful second element and one you could engage with based on how well you think you could. Action side and then the more plot relevant Concord attitude clashing that helped determine how characters would shift their allegiances and such. One event though when I wanted things to have more variety involved an out of town seller arriving in Argo with a gashadokuro bone looking to find Squash and sell it but Concord and the Kobbers would both try to intercept, possibly triggering the guy to use the bone and transform himself. Probably more a chase event or some efforts to sabotage Concord, but never got even far enough to give the seller guy a look beyond a sort of cloaked hunched figure. Many characters are loosely conceived and then later I find some character in media that can slot the role or be a faceclaim, Mimi's creator a good example since I didn't have the Originator's image until fairly close to the teaser when by then his other elements were conceptually in place.
Originally PS5 was a lot more involved in Concord plot, to the point she'd have a secret base in the Experience for them. It was meant for the nicer members and at one point if Concord got too much heat PS5 would feel like she had to do something about them hiding there from public attention. Another idea was that some more sympathetic members like 1-Off and Roka would choose to "battle" the Kobbers with some sort of stakes in play at the Experience, play one of its games against us. This would probably be some way of handing over a gashadokuro bone without actually betraying the group (as in, both sides might have to bet one) or maybe there would be a clause in their contracts with Cash they could only leave Concord if they were defeated in battle or something like that.
For that final confrontation with Cash I did consider other characters from failed live service games. We had Anthem and Multiversus represented because I felt people knew enough about them for the references to land, but I considered Sega's failed Hyenas to have a character present. There is a character from that game called The Pro who wears a Nixon mask and seemed interesting, but beyond the Nixon references to be made I don't think anyone would recognize him and he'd crowd the event with his presence. I did also consider possibly using a Foamstars character but decided against it since its represented in the Experience already and even considered using someone from Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, but the smaller focused group was probably wiser in the end.
One thing I wanted to avoid with Concord in general was ever touching the domain of "Concord redesigns" or "fixed designs". I did use two, mainly that Duchess and Star Child's final forms are redesigns, but they looked more like super forms for the two instead of realistic replacement looks. Generally, I don't think many of the fixed designs are done in good faith, especially since some "fixed" looks just look worse or lack their own appeal but get attention because they're being used to clobber and easy target. I even made sure the Duchess and Star Child variants were not part of some bit of obvious pot stirring or whatever. This plot was done almost purely at first as the idea that you can do something good with Concord, although pulling the trigger was very much partly a joke because I'd be trying to make something good out of this massive failure. There were far too many characters though, hence that early shave, although Lennox was always destined to go down first. A very early joke idea was that could be the end of the plot, Lennox gets the group disbanded after he and a few others attack the Kobbers. He's meant to represent the immediate failure of the Concord game, but extending it outward made for a more interesting plot. I don't think Concord even had a strong tie to Disaster Soul stuff until I realized the teaser revealing them needed a good hook and I decided to connect the then young plot ideas.
Duchess wasn't a Disaster Soul initially either. Just a more competent leader to replace Lennox and someone who could more believably play the role of a villain. I do think I did ride the line pretty close on how far I could push with her before we had to fight her, I bet even just another event or maybe not having things scheduled in advance could have made her unbearable near the end there. One thing I do remember scrapping from the final confrontation was that Star Child would like, straight up eat some of Sese's bones to get his power upgrade, swallow but not chew though so we could get them back for her. One thing that was never explicitly stated that is Sese and her bones are drawn to each other, we saw her make comments to that effect, hence why everything went down in Ulimaroa instead of elsewhere. I had kept that war flashback a bit ambiguous at first because I was a bit worried to commit to her being Japanese because again I felt it was so convenient that we went to Ulimaroa and all her bones were there, but ultimately I decided that A: she had already found most of them elsewhere so it is not too crazy and B: that the Stegodokuro presence could explain the other bones being drawn there over time since it was said to be a local legend for a while.
One thing with Concord was I wanted our fights against them to involve a good bit of teamwork. We definitely saw it most in the first fight with Lennox, but characters playing support or doing combo attacks that we'd have to think to counter rather than everyone just throwing out attacks and you pick who to fight. It would kind of contradict the early idea that Overwatch rejected them for not being good for teamwork, but some people like Vale it would have been "she is too eager to please others and allows her own judgment to be overrided by people with less expertise in her field".
I guess we can start going over individual members and my thoughts behind them, starting with BAZZ. Trying to come up with a personality for her and I decided on the battle weirdo, and that meant she was in place early on to be some sort of instigator type and doomed to be part of the first culling of members. There is a sort of hierarchy of who would be most likely to hear the Kobbers out or turn away from Concord's ways and she's definitely the lowest since she just wanted an excuse to fight more than anything. If I had come up with a different personality maybe it would have gone differently, but the game didn't give me much either.
EMARI was a character I had higher hopes for. Watching her character video she came of like a bit of a female himbo, just happy to fight and a bit dim but earnest. The problem was just that writing for her never felt like it was coming naturally, I think it was the environment around her perhaps that didn't feel appropriate for the personality type. I did have her be one of the characters who we fought but kind of has a good ending since she cooperated with law enforcement, but she was also a good fit for the team power angle I was talking about so she was a good fit for that early culling.
LARK was saved by Sheep's interest primarily. He was kind of getting overlooked in the fracas so I was already feeling like culling him then would be a bit forced, but Sheep gave me a good out and I started of thinking what I could still do with him. Giving Smeech and the Burrows a new named character and one who serves as another useful enforcer was a great way to give him something to do after his poor performance in the fight, although I had considered letting La Squadra take him out at first as part of an ongoing rivalry with Concord.
DAVEERS probably had to go early. They are one of the most kind and friendly of the Concord members and that might have lead to an imbalance as the group thinned down. I had to keep things uneasy enough that Cash's dirt on people wasn't the only thing keeping them committed to taking down a gashadokuro, and DaVeers would be too positive an influence. That is why they got a happy ending though, but also their weapon had overlap with Haymar's powers so Haymar's rising star would have snuffed DaVeers. People did try to get DaVeers to back down, but their dirt from Cash was actually he'd punish other members of the group if DaVeers tried to quit, the kind team grandma idea used against them. DaVeers was added late to the roster of the people we fought in the first Concord clash, originally that role was going to go to Daw but Harpy expressed some interest in him near the date of the event so I reworked it to be DaVeers to round out the group with an extra support.
LENNOX. That bit about him sleeping around and cheating on gals was actually Sey's idea, it just felt right when she said La Squadra dug up dirty he might be a two-timer. He's kind of meant to be like an out-of-touch person's version of Star Lord, the kind of selfish wisecracker egotist that works in a story but would be obnoxious in real life, we just get to see that obnoxious side. He was always meant to be groomed by Cash and Duchess as a fall guy to some extent, the one to draw attention while they did things in the dark. He probably does come off nicely when you first meet him, Haymar even mentions he had some early charisma when she met him first. I do remember considering more check-ins on him in prison or having him somehow play a big role near the end, like him being used as bait or using his knowledge of Concord to take down Cash. He still thinks somehow he'll be busted out of jail and back in charge, even though Concord doesn't exist anymore.
We were always going to fight STAR CHILD, and having a battle hungry brute as an enforcer was always meant to help Concord remain antagonistic no matter the group shape. I did attach him to It-Z to increase the ranks of people who would always be against going good though, It-Z not really against it per se but always on Star Child's side. I did consider establishing more of a relationship there, a sister-brother sort of thing but not literally, but I'm glad I didn't since It-Z going down meant I could have Star Child not flip off the handle too far. Echolux was meant to be an excuse to keep him benched until he should fight since at other times he was always trying to start a scuffle even if it wasn't best for the plot structure, and we were never really meant to like him. I am a little proud I came up with the idea his name is sort of a mark of his culture. It's a bit weird for the brute to be called a child, but tying it to the idea he's someone who has to fight to earn the more honorable title gives it reason to stay on him. There was always a bit of an undercurrent that he knew he was still inadequate to go back and become Star Elder, hence why he could be talked down from a fight since he didn't measure up to his bluster.
ROKA was like the first character I really pegged as being someone we could redeem. Before I ever looked much up on her, I became fascinated by the idea that her big helmet meant she couldn't talk to people. At first this was considered for a gag, like at the end of the year she takes her helmet off and talks normally, revealing she was talking all this time but didn't realize people couldn't hear her. This didn't last too long, the idea becoming she couldn't talk and eventually I decided to make her an alien with a physiology that meant she literally couldn't talk, her pink gelatinous true body based on some of the Concord concept art that showed an alien face behind the visor. She's still mostly humanoid, but for details on what and where she comes from (as well as how exactly she ended up in Third Chance), you'll have to interact with her next year! Giving her Reindog, another non-verbal character, is meant to help increase her flexibility in fights, since right now the rockets and explosions and all are a bit overkill for some situations. Reindog she can instruct to assist or something instead of going so hard with the heavy artillery. Her being so kind and friendly was pretty much just an evolution of me getting interested in writing her, so being a good gal meant she would get to do more than someone who was doomed to go down with Concord or move along after. More than any other member I expected her face turn, especially since she was never heel really since Concord was not ever fully morally dubious.
IT-Z! I had a lot more combat potential in mind with her thanks to her ability to disable and force fire weaponry. The combined event with Harpy's plot though kind of became about taking her down though so I'm not too bothered, I just know if she got a chance to reappear or cause trouble more than once I could have kept coming up with fun new tricks. I even say in the event that her tail was pretty much underused because I was trying to cram in all my ideas. I did have her get taken off the table to make Concord's cast more manageable though and make sure that event had more meaning and apparent progress. I didn't want to thin the group constantly or anything, but beyond the initial cull we hadn't seen the group shrink and I was feeling it. It helped that she didn't have as much potential in terms of personality compared to others, she would have probably just been kept until the fight with Duchess later and added perhaps too much extra chaos to a fight that already had a lot going on.
HAYMAR... hoo doggy did she come to be the surprise of the group. Initially what I found interesting about her was my concept for making her fire marbles into more than just what she fires from her crossbow. The idea that she could always provide the team ammo and it would explosive fire ammo seems cool and smart for a merc group but she was never really on the same side as people who could adeptly utilize it. I think that one Cornwind Alien thing though tried to make drama out of them running low on ammo even though Haymar's whole thing is making ammo, but I had agreed to do that collab before and kind of let him do whatever after it had been delayed constantly and kind of lost its purpose in pushing her closer to Naomi. Harpy's interest definitely lead to me elevating her to more importance, although I bet if I had expected from the start she would take off I would have had her be the one to help us realize Duchess was a Disaster Soul or something. We did get her saying things meant to prime us for it, like when she points out how suspicious it is only Duchess escaped from the Kulam massacre. Kulam, by the way, is Filipino for witchcraft/sorceresses, and while these ladies are meant to be from a fictional place, I figured her and Duchess looked like they could be Filipino and Haymar's name is in fact from that language. Also, the fact they look similar enough lead to them being grandmother and granddaughter, and I chose grandmother mostly because I imagine Haymar is around 20 and Duchess around 60, giving us a reasonable generational gap. It also gives us the very close tragedy for both though, since Haymar's mother would have died and that's Duchess's daughter. Haymar still being sort of on board with taking down a gashadokuro makes more sense with how close the Kulam massacre was since it wasn't just a group she was trying to distance herself from as she tried to find a combat-free use for fire. I did expect people to suggest she could use fire magic in cooking or something, but realistically other cooking forms are more convenient and cheaper so it doesn't have much of a place in our world. We'll probably see her grappling with this more next year. Also, initially she was just supposed to be kind of the bitter counterpoint to Concord, more willing to point out its flaws so you didn't think I was endorsing things like Cash's recruitment methods or whatever. I thought her complaining and pessimism would make people dislike her but I never did plan a fight or battle for her where she'd get eliminated, so I was already seeing how she'd go before Harpy fell for her and I decided to further push that to a general frustration with her lot in life rather than just a fully negative outlook.
VALE had her personality designed around her role as a sniper. A sniper is of course a good fit for that whole Concord teamwork idea, but I figured it was a funny concept that being stationed far from the group meant she didn't get to socialize with them as much as she liked. She ended up one of the friendlier characters but also didn't really get the push needed to stick or the depth that could have made her more memorable. That's actually why she felt perfect as the victim of the turtle gashadokuro, someone you felt could be eliminated but was a tragedy to lose compared to someone bristly. It did also make her being the focus of the gashadokuro fight within Sese a little tougher, but it was never meant to be as big of an appeal to the heart as other similar events. I just wanted to make sure we could get a big battle with a gashadokuro without the whole "prove Duchess right" angle. Sese was struggling to contain that part of her but never let it spill out into the real world. That star vomit is basically meant to be like her soul, and one reason the space Naomi entered with the turtle was so empty and cold was basically the turtle not having much to it.
KYPS was probably the character who got the short end of the stick most from the shifting plot ideas. I mentioned the idea of her potentially impersonating Winston or Dawn earlier, but there was also the idea for the Harpy collab that at one point It-Z's water would wash everyone down in a big water filled chamber similar to what is at the bottom of Hazy Maze Cave in Super Mario 64. Except, when people surface from the water, there would be an extra dwarf, Kyps impersonating one of them to sow discord while 1-Off and It-Z guarded the shore to keep everyone trapped treading water. Harpy was in charge of the area environment and progression though and I actually really enjoyed that format in the end, it could be neat to try it again, but it does require some flexibility and fast posting I imagine. I basically changed Kyps into the Spy from TF2 in terms of powers and wanted to use that for some fun subterfuge, there was even the idea that Winston would disappear and we'd still be working with him for a while unaware he's Kyps before she has a change of heart from being close to us. I just never could get the impersonation idea to work, so she mostly became a source of exposition. I did think Cash needed an anchor though, although I'm sure most people wouldn't have minded him getting destroyed or not having any sort of depth.
DAW was saved by Harpy, as mentioned earlier. He was going to go down in the early culling event, but I'm glad he didn't. He was always sort of meant to be the middle of the road member, kind of abrasive but not a mean guy. He's just a regular sort of fellow, doing a job. A lot of people work for a mean boss they don't like, so the issues didn't hit him as hard as it did some people like Haymar or Roka. I did always think him having a nerd side was appropriate, it just became train nerd since that was what was available for a fun angle. He's meant to be the kind of guy who can get angry or selfish but isn't really bad, he just won't stick his neck out. It's kind of a complicated personality to explain for what I keep thinking of as "regular guy", but he was good for eventually taking on some of the role as the doubter and pessimist that Haymar abdicated as she tried to turn the group towards rebelling against Duchess.
1-OFF I had a hunch would be sympathetic, and he's probably the Concord character whose behavior in trailers I copied most directly. Just a friendly robot guy who can still do violent things with that chipper attitude. Of course I leaned a lot more into the idea he's kind of a well-meaning trash can that is still figuring out social interaction, not really bad at it but linking it back to what he knows fairly often. I like his powers and they were a big part behind why I thought of the Harpy collab, the fans are great for impediment. He's definitely going to be a good guy in Argo now but I'm not as sure we'll see him like I am Roka and Haymar. He's kind of doing his own thing now, but his naivety was the main reason he never objected to Concord's actions. He didn't know what was being done was getting bad! His disabling was definitely meant to be on of Cash's more extreme methods of keeping people in line, although Cash potentially ratting Jabali out to his home country is probably the most terrifying in my eyes. I can always see revisiting 1-Off as an idea, he's just a fun friendly guy.
TEO had his main purpose being showing early on why people don't leave Concord whenever things get harsh or potentially bad. Cash's strings were tied tightest around Teo. In the late game stuff where we learned about their contracts the name Judge Rufus came up, and while we didn't meet him, he was meant to be a very much a "letter of the contract" type where it would be hard to convince him to ignore what Concord agreed to since it was never really obfuscated in the contracts. Teo's parole was explicitly defined compared to implicit threats Cash used on others, but much like Haymar I felt it was good to have a bit of dissent there from the start even if it wasn't overly strong. I also just liked the gag of a guy who keeps wanting to quit and should the Kobbers ever after or suggest it, he'd leap at the idea but also be squashed down for trying since he can't. Teo's residence in Third Chance does imply he's been in a few villain groups before, he's almost always just been a hired gun sort rather than someone who believed too strongly in it. Probably only the One Day War did he feel much about but that's because he was trying to come back from losing to Kobbers before, but he also never really held much resentment towards them as we saw when we interacted with him. Very much a soldier type in some ways, befitting his simple appearance, although I did like him enough to whip him out in a few events around town. While most of Concord's good characters will probably retire to Tennessee to help there, Teo might stick to Third Chance. I considered him joining the militia even.
JABALI was always sort of the "good" leader to counterbalance Duchess. He's not exactly morally white though, he was fine with certain dealings and he runs the mercenary group professionally rather than as an optimist. Still, his revolutionary past does mean he has limits and lines and he'd never be the one to coerce people like Cash. He's a bit cold but not cruel is the idea, more the boss you might still dislike but only because he's the boss, not because he's a jerk. Him being a healer was a good opening for him to lead smaller Concord groups and still do the teamwork deal. One reason he's the one who was at the Bimbadeen encounter was because he could be level-headed but brusque, rankle us a bit but not act as a real bad guy. If we had ever forced Concord to draw lines in the sand or provoked a schism, he'd be on the hero side to give them organization. I didn't specify which country his past is tied to in order to avoid real life uneasy subjects and to avoid it feeling like there's a dangling thread somewhere in the world. Technically there is, but it feels more abstract not to provide the nitty gritty details. I did pick his side profile image for the Character Profiles because I specifically think his head on look isn't the greatest, but he looks really good in his cowboy sort of pose. Imagination can keep him cooler than his sort of oddly plain front on look.
DUCHESS, our villainess. Looking over the Concord cast I was immediately drawn towards her since she looks more experienced and professional than the rest. The name too gives off a good sense of command and presence, so having her meant I could preserve the Lennox joke of him being taken out almost immediately while we had a more capable and imposing villain to take Concord down its dark path. I mentioned before that her being a Disaster Soul wasn't always the plan, but it patched a lot of holes. We needed a reason why Concord knew about it and why they were hunting it, so the story is she came to the area chasing the same stories as Sese and ended up making the group when Marty and Cash got in contact with her. Well "making the group" even though they let Lennox think it was his idea to put the heat on him. There's more to say but that's for next year's plot, but that way we had all the details about Disaster Souls feel believable. I will note at first I was a bit oblique in saying if she was a gashadokuro as well, not all Disaster Souls are gashadokuros, but I eventually got over it since her and Sese's tragedies were similar enough I figure they'd trigger the same manifestation. There's a lot of trauma and the sort of undead-rebirth-mindscramble at play in terms of Duchess not knowing she was a Disaster Soul, although it's also the kind of thing that clawed at her mind and she always suppressed the idea to avoid having to look at it head-on. It was pretty important we didn't attack her too soon because then we could learn her true nature, and I was also very happy that Duchess was a psychic character since it gave Tapu Lele an out for not detecting a Disaster Soul when she was otherwise the tracker. Duchess's psychokinetic earth powers already felt a bit overpowered so I hesitated to have her do too much, and I tried to keep them in check a bit still. Mostly used them for things like keeping the others from joining Lennox once enough of the people she didn't care for were gone. One idea I do remember scrapping was Duchess would get a hold of a gashadokuro bone and it might be the last one or whatever, so we'd have to fight her to make Sese full again. Duchess mentions at one point that Concord has ways of suppressing gashadokuro aura and it was her own powers, although she didn't connect why only she and Sese could do it since she couldn't possibly believe she was what she hated so much.
CASH, the one non-Concord character added to the group! I was watching some youtube video about Jimmy Neutron and remembered this character exists and after a while I realized the businessman type was a great add to the plot. Not only could we make Concord failure jokes without having to undermine the group's dramatic potential and all, but it gave us a reason to hold the group together and a purpose beyond being villains. I did kind of want people to hire Concord to do more villain security and the like but it was probably wise not to, could have overexposed them or made them cross a moral line I wasn't ready for. Cash though, when I was conceiving of the plot I was trying to think of a broader theme for it. I settled on the word "value", and that was kind of tied to the main Concord group that even these rejects from a failed game, these inferior Kobber-likes, had value if you looked past the surface, and that treating them right lead those with hope down a path to good. However, Cash had it baked into him more than anyone. He is a robot discarded for not being a good businessman, so his Concord idea taking off and then being in danger of failing... well that would undermine his own personal value. He treated each asset as an important extension of that idea and why he didn't want to make them quitting easy or let them go without a fight. His worth was tied to Concord, but he did at least have some extra worth by being Kyps's brother, and that's why he generally treated her well even if he still does have parts of him that are selfish, greedy, thoughtless, and so on. He's not meant to be a good guy in much of any way, just a business villain with an understandable enough motivation who still needs to be taken down. I've mentioned elsewhere, but Cash being the coda event was to help the climax have more weight with all the quitting and stuff and then we could seal Concord off for good. Doing him before would mean we probably wouldn't get as much drama during the Duchess fight since they'd have been pushed too far already.
For the gashadokuro animals we saw, mostly it was just an effort to give cool skeletal designs. Stegodokuro I explained earlier, he was initially destined for more before demoted to boss fight. The "unicorn" was because I was reminded it existed and thought even though it would stretch the skeletal idea some, it was too fun to pass up. Gashadokumole I almost didn't have us even see, I felt it important to show Concord could beat us to the punch (and they almost did with the unidokuro too!) but it also gave a great way to wrap up the event. I did consider Haymar taking the hip bone but later turning up at DALI and handing it over as her guilt was too much, but in the moment gave a more immediate resolution to the idea, sewed important seeds, and also meant she could lie to Duchess a bit rather than have no deniability. I did waver on using the skull turtle from Yu-Gi-Oh for our last skeletal animal, but I was going by rule of cool a bit more by then. The general hate and anger aura was meant to help some with forcing some conflict with Concord but also gave a very reasonable way for a Disaster Soul to be a problem too dangerous to dismiss. It just being around an area could drive people to their death, which is a bit harder to say is no big deal compared to being like, "oh, a vampire can just choose not to drink people's blood!". It is essentially a DALI question but with a new type of undead and it was their thing essentially, a more personal long-form look at the idea compared to how last year it was a lot more broad and societal. I do wish Perona and Sese maybe got in a chat or two more just to shore up their friendship and cover the concerns a bit more, I don't know if anyone picked up before Sese said that it Perona might have been a failed Disaster Soul manifestation even when Sese made comparisons.
Sese being the core of the plot, I did worry about it. She went from memey voter to a girl with drama, but I think it was also fun to have her trying so hard to shirk such complication but miss the value in addressing an issue. She can live and happy and fun life now because she confronted it instead of shoving it all down. I did want there to be that price that she lost her gashadokuro powers though, to show it's not all easy street and make the undead concept make more sense. The other souls are no longer there, how can she get big? Her having a tragic backstory is also meant to be an important reason why she tamped it all down and locked the memories away, even if she wanted to address the other souls, her own death was awful. I did make it so she had a fiance instead of a husband partly for extra drama of a love never realized but also so she can have the more kind of casual relationship she seems to want, I'm not totally going to undermine her mindset. I did not realize I had carried over ideas like her searching for her bones from the Len'en wiki until I revisted it months later though. Her gashadokuro puns were initially a sort of defense mechanism at times to avoid serious subjects, but she did also do them for kicks and giggles and will keep doing so. I was actually a bit surprised how quickly everyone rallied behind her when we got the exposition on Disaster Souls and all, especially since Sese hadn't shown too much vulnerability yet. I guess I underestimated how much people would care about her in-universe and out, and we did see her bearing some guilt since she didn't feel she had earned it. Her stuff next year will probably be her trying to balance her care-free life with moments of authenticity, something that suits her time with Mawile well I imagine.
Let's see, other behind the scenes... The Burrows are because I guess I can't help myself in creating little enclave societies and outcast groups. The reason Thwomps ended up a big part of it was me initially realizing a Whomp would make a great doorman, and then other ideas spilled out like Thwomps carving out tunnels that people could inhabit outside of public eye. Marty had to be included once I got the ball rolling on it, although I did worry about debuting it because I was already sensing early on that other plot stuff was likely to get pushed to 2026. Susamaru was definitely a big part in making me go through with it though. I had played a Demon Slayer video game and Susamaru is in it, and while I had read her part in the manga, her having a voice and moving made me realize I liked her energy so I wanted to RP her. I had a sort of blank spot for a Burrows enforcer, so she got the part. There was a really early planned idea for like, first or second week of RP where Mud would meet up with Smeech and Susamaru and Smeech would hold the zombie over a steam vent to dry him out. The idea was he was worried Mud was ratting them out to Kobbers, but the way I fleshed out Smeech's personality makes that kind of torture feel out of character for him now. He's cautious but not so impulsive (he let Petra walk despite fearing she might blab, but she was under surveillance for example). He's also probably quicker to just kill a guy rather than do stuff like that. The implicit threat is enough for most cases. I am at a bit of a crossroads because next year's plot will put the Burrows under a spotlight and I don't really want to upend it fully, but I reckon it will come down to you guys how you react when it comes time to actually face Smeech!
Joey the rat was just an impulsive choice to give a Burrows person character, the name picked because Australia->Kangaroos->Joeys basically. The rat part, just because I was writing a line and it was fun to say he was ratty, literally. Mud giving him some money was meant to show that the zombie isn't an awful guy, he picks pockets but he doesn't want to take from people who really need it or don't deserve it. Mud was kind of added on a whim to possibly give Litr more to do. I didn't expect much from Litr and he exceeded any hopes I had, but I wanted to give him more a reason to go places so a personality counterbalance like Mud felt right. Seeing how he was animated in Gaslight District made me fall for Mud quickly, and I do think it's important now and then to have a gnarlier undead to make DALI's work feel more robust than just protecting anime girls who happen to be dead people or whatever. I didn't expect the eventual Rumia connection at all, and like I said elsewhere, cannibalism isn't like, super-baked into the Burrows. People there who do it usually do it out of necessity or because it's what happens to be available (Smeech, for example, will partake if its better than letting flesh he kept for Susa rot). Of course, Mud's already said he's going on the DALI burgers and wants Susa to switch, but she can't trust it and only really trusts Smeech absolutely. This could lead to trouble later, but also perhaps an out for the rougher side of this underground group...
For other characters, we have Mallory. I was very happy with doing slow rollouts on details around his family. His name was picked because it sounded like a classic rich boy name, and even in universe that's kind of the case. His father, Reginald, was named for similar reason, and while I'm not too sure on the full Kuranya family tree since I'm not sure if there should be a generation between Reginald and the guy who helped found Argo, Omeo, there was definitely an effort to play the part of wealth more with such classically refined names. Omeo is actually an Aboriginal, his name even means Mountain and Kuranya means Rainbow. Mallory's mother, Petunia, is also a rich girl name but she's from outside the mountain and was a marriage of business practicality, Mallory a bit mixed in heritage now. The name Reginald is particularly meaningful though since that was originally Rutherford's name, mainly because in real life when I want to do a posh rich guy voice I pretend to call my butler Reginald. Mallory was also conceived as a really fat spoiled guy, still having his fascination with the common man but I removed the pampered part. I kept meaning to do a scene where he talked with his father and we might see it early next year instead, show his place in the Kuranya hierarchy a bit more. I have a lot of little details stored on the family, like how Mallory actually has two aunts but they left Argo, but I imagine Shadows stuff will reveal the more important details as it has already done so before. I'm mostly glad he went over well, I think the mining excursion and train plot did a lot for showing he's more a product of his upbringing and trying to shake it off where he can rather than something inauthentic or pompous.
Rutherford's cybernetic stuff is actually a bit of retained ideas from a rejected character who would have an entire lower body of bronze. The other guy was an old fellow who basically was missing from the waist down and now had robotic spiderish legs, and he had many tools built-in. Rutherford's a bit less fanciful, but he does tie a bit to what that other guy was initially related to. We only have slightly heard about "pipe crawling", a practice where Thwomp tunnels were scouted out for pipe placement by slender workers, but that could lead to a bad steam burn if you weren't careful and it was a controversial line of work. I don't recall how much else I revealed, so I'll button my lip for possible future details. Rutherford has mentioned his family though and how his children are now adults, one reason he's so unflinchingly loyal to the Kuranyas being he had a full life and now he's in extra innings thanks to the cybernetics.
Nao and Mimi were supposed to have stuff tied to Mimi's past come up this year but that's moved to next. Tapu Lele was almost going to have a dayplot made of her going back to her original island, but maybe some time next year I'll do just a thing with Gooper and Brine where she takes her closest friends to visit Akala. She lost some of her immaturity more quickly than expected. Phil is kind of me recovering an old fascination with roadside attractions. He's based on "finger gas station man", a character invented for a game CKR and I played with our toys called Cookies and Cream. I needed an NPC one day to work a gas station, so my right hand did the job, hence why it's just a picture of my own hand. He became a recurring joke character in Cookies and Cream hence why he stuck out in my mind long enough to be salvaged this way, and the fact the For Real or Fantasy is also a gas station comes from those origins. His sort of showman personality and interest in curious isn't flashy though so he didn't do too much, but Izmael and Brabham feel like the real outright underused characters. I did have more plans for the Tubes, in last year's teaser there are some people who attack the Tubes and I remember offering someone this year the chance to use those characters for an event. Might have been Chao? It didn't pan out, but it is said at one point that Concord helped stop the Tube attacks as justification for them not going anywhere. There was some idea that the Tube bandits would be three young guys who get caught up in a criminal conspiracy bigger than them involving Mountain, River, and Sun stuff, but it never came to pass.
For the PlayStation girls, I didn't expect PS5 to take off but I'm glad she did. Next year is meant to be Three and Two's year, but One was meant to do some more and make connections but that didn't pan out in 2025. Nothing to do but try again, I enjoy writing her earnest dorkiness so it's not too bad! Scruffy the Galarian Meowth got to do quite a bit, but I don't think I'll ever have him evolve. He feels more fun as the rambunctious kitten. PSP was meant to have a character arc tied to how often she messed up last year trying to help in fights, but she was quickly and too consistently competent for that to work out.
I'm not sure there's anything else worth mentioning unless it was deliberately kept off the table in anticipation of next year's stuff. This was a scatterbrained behind the scenes/look back but it got all done in one night so I'm happy with it. I do think Concord accidentally becoming my only plot this year at least meant it got the attention and room needed to make the idea work and stand out rather than be a silly footnote or whatever. In the right hands they can have value, but you have to treat them like they matter instead of designing them as some also-ran product!
I'm still thinking a lot on how to do things in 2026, here's hoping it's another fun year of plotting!
