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Flytrap

Viridia Tales [RMXP]

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Viridia Tales

 

Viridia Tales has been a pet project of mine pretty much since RMXP was released, it has had many incarnations, but as the years went by and I worked more and more on the concept, it took a definite form. For the first time earlier this year, I actually felt confident that I was done with the planning process and could begin the final stages of the writing, so I began working on the assets and such to match the characters and everything else. 
 
There are four acts to the game, spanning around 20 - 29 years and involving three main, playable characters. The story follows each character individually through their particular segments of life until they all coalesce into the final chapter where their origins become the most relevant.
 
*A slight prelude*
There are a lot of high-fantasy races of sentient creatures in the games besides Dragons and Humans, most of which include specific backstories of how they came to be and the reason they came to be. Some of their histories may resemble commonly accepted or typical explanations of their racial histories, however ALL of them have plot-specific histories and I’m telling your right now, you really, really should leave your presumptions at the door, because I can guarantee you the way I explain their origins is in some way, critically different from how you perceive them.
 
Anyways, here's a little about the game~
 
[spoiler=Plot]In the beginning there was but a single creature, The Allfather, born when the Universe first began to take shape. This creature was more than a God, more than any comprehensible word in the English language could describe, it was the creator of everything the Universe housed. It has many forms, choosing something new with each new world it created, using its corporeal essence as the seed for galaxy upon galaxy of stars and planets. One such planet was its most cherished masterpiece, created with much thought and relishing in its brilliance, this world, it called, Viridia.
 
The great being took the form of an all-powerful dragon, winged and strong with breath of magical flames, pride and honor its two most prominent traits, seeding Viridia and its sun with its body, spirit and breath, sprouting anew another world to float about the cosmos.
At the same moment, five children were born atop the lonely bones of their father, his massive body to be used as the ground, his blood the water and spirit for life. The children were all tasked with a role in Viridia, tasked to govern their roles and see to it that their fathers efforts were not wasted, tasked with bringing life to the Eden that would be Viridia's future.
 
The first of his children, Arai, the Dragon Goddess of Power, brought forth from the fire from within the Allfathers chest, made the land and the mountains with her strength. Her endless reserve of power was matched by no other of her siblings nor has it been by any of their machinations.
 
The second called himself Monstro, casting aside the name his father had given him and taking it upon himself to live in his own mantle. The Dragon God of Chaos, Monstro was tasked with ferrying the Dead souls of Viridia through the Void and into Judgement.
 
The third was called Derz, the Dragon God of Knowledge, who gave the gift of thought to the shapeless world. He alone holds all the collective memories of Magic and Spells, helping to maintain a sense of order and time in the world. 
 
The Fourth and weakest sibling was named Mirah, the Dragon Goddess of Life. She gave form to the shapeless thoughts created by Derz and gave to the world the first mortal Dragons. Her station as a Dragon God was to see to it that the balance of life and Death was never tipped too far to one side.
 
The Final God, and most ruthless Dragon Sibling, was named Volkan, The Dragon God of Emotion. To the knowledge-filled husks of Life that Mirah and Derz had created, Volkan opened to them the proverbial Pandoras box, delivering to them both Loving emotions… and hateful ones.
 
 
These five lived and ruled the planet for a time, a few of the God’s allowing their bodies to die and reincarnate, until the Eldest Dragon, Arai, grew jealous of the living creatures that she had no part or say in creating. She hated the others for being allowed to bring true creation into existence, while she had been made responsible for mere rock and soil, hated that she could not escape from the prison of Viridia and found a new world like her father before her. On the dawn of a new age, she waged a violent war against her Brothers and Sister that lasted eons, recruiting the Mortal Dragons and even Volkan to her cause, on a path to destroy everything that opposed her. Closing onto the end of a brief existence, it seemed as though Arai’s unequalled power could not be stopped, until a group of Mortal Men, aided by both Mirah and Dragons opposing Arai’s Reign, brought a final battle to the roost of Arai herself. She and Volkan were cornered, out of places to run and with their attackers wielding a method of killing Arai for good, they staged a final battle in vain, a death blow being struck against the Goddess of power and as it seemed, sealing her envy away for good. Volkan, his station of emotion bringing him love for his violent sister, cast all his energy into stopping the ritual that would destroy her, saving her immortality and allowing her to continue to reincarnate… however the Mortal Men had managed to do damage that would follow her no matter how long she lived.
 


[spoiler=Setting]The setting takes place in a number of countries around the fictional planet of Viridia, (after which the project was named.) a world that was created by a celestial being to be home to his children. The being is known as the "Allfather" and physically died to create the world out of his planet-sized body along with the sun. (The Moon was created later by one of his children.) 
 
Climate
A majority of the game's plot takes place in the middle/Northern section of the eastern continent of "Julkrest", however nearly every continent is visited or referenced in some way. Julkrest's climate ranges from tropical to tundra depending on where you are, most of the island chains being towards the equator and acting as small ports between the three major continents, Julkrest, Ahraan and Hoffkin.
There is a large desert towards the center of Julkrest and it makes most of the inland areas fairly uninhabitable, though it is nearly surrounded by lush forest and grasslands on the west, and rocky, snowcapped mountains to the east with their own, small forested area. The map displayed is rudimentary but honestly, you should've seen the first draft, it was terrible. I'll eventually get a geographical map made but my Photoshop has been tweaking out so... TBA. 
 
Socio-Economic state
There is an enormous civil and foreign war going on in Julkrest (mostly) with a High-Elven empire, allied with some loyalist Dragons and another group that will be revealed inside the games themselves, fighting against the resident humans and Wood-Elves (also with another group that will be disclosed in-game.) who were already living there. The Empire (swear to god I made this all up before Skyrim, serious shit.) is aggressive and attacks settlements/cities/whatever that wont convert to their government and is wiping out specific races of sentient creatures, most of which are revealed in-game. For most of the cities not involved in the war, economics are good, reflecting a picturesque, magic-infused hamlet of Medieval times, however a few of the cities are well into the Victorian era with steam power and railway lines. (These are mostly the capital cities.)
 
Groups of People
There are a number of very different groups living in just the Julkrest area, but they are broken down into a handful of large factions. 
 
The Ariyu Riders - The descendants of the group of humans who turned Arai into her weakened form. (The Marked One)
They mostly act as peacekeepers and don't openly oppose the Empire, having never been directly targeted by any of their attacks, however their relationship is sour at best and tends to spark small skirmishes. They, as their names would suggest, have a more innate nature of bonding with dragons and typically have the highest rate of people born bonded to a dragon. Their bloodline is also responsible for bearing the "Marked One" curse and the Marked One will always be born from someone who has Ariyu blood. They have a kingdom to the north of Julkrest, on the border with the Draken Kingdom and the Empire's controlled area.
 
The Elven Empire - Obviously, they're mostly elves. In this world there are two types of elf: Magic-based and Nature-based. It's kinda obvious which is which. Wood elves are related to them and they both came from the same base race however a conflict earlier in history separated the two and gave each their defining traits. The Empire's home country/continent is Hoffkin, and their government completely encompasses it. Their home is mostly barren and arid, not being able to support life for long, however the vast deserts do house a number of dragon tribes that have territories spanning thousands of miles. They began the war with the various territories of Julkrest simply for expansion, since a large chunk of their population lives highly-compressed in the few cities the Loyalist dragons allow them to live. Their government is comprised of both Elves and Dragons, though the upper echelons are almost completely comprised of dragons, with very few elven people making decisions.
 
The Norse - A small group of native-humans that aren't related to the Ariyu, their numbers are small and falling, so I didn't really cover them in backstory. I don't really like them but they act as redshirts, so...
 
The Derzen - A nomadic collection of tribes that hunt and fish in a dwindling area of woods, they're typically hostile and radical zealots to the God Monstro. They don't play a huge part but they're talked about a lot in one of the games so they're worth mentioning.
 
The Draken - The other side of the Empire's coin, however this group was already on Julkrest before the Empire. They're mostly dragons and have a few unnamed races living within them. They're not typically hostile however they're very powerful and defensive so groups often have issues with them. In the area of time that the game's cover, the King act much more hostile to outsiders.
 
Snowpeak Kingdom - Another kingdom of dragons, they're much more peaceful than the Draken and were the first to openly oppose the Empire. They play a big part in the third and fourth game. Their king is the son of one of the gods.
 
There are a number of other groups that are large enough to be counted as influential however I'm not going to list them since they're pretty big plot spoilers.


[spoiler=Characters] There are three main characters, I don't consider any of the other characters to be "main" since the entire story revolves around the events that happen to and by these three people.
 
Artemis (Main character of the first game)
 
Artemis is a young adult who spent most of his life with his mother, farming in the wilderness. Around the age of twelve, he lost her to a house fire lit by their fellow villagers. Artemis left the town with revenge in his heart, however he felt himself letting it go the older he got, eventually becoming quite successful as a book merchant in an elven-controlled warzone. Either stealing or illegally buying banned books, brought a lot of attention to him, so every summer he would camp on the edge of a river close to the historic woods where Mirah and Monstro fought, though this summer would yield more than just fishing and sunshine when a young woman washes up to shore, beaten and bloody. After finding out her name, Artemis discovers that what he thought to be a myth was very real, and in his debt. The girl was called “Shinkaâ€, and admitted to being a Dire Wolf who had just been cast out of her pack. No home and no experience with the outside world left her defensive and weary of Artemis, whom she knew a truth about that seemed to go right over his head…
 
 
Leon (Second game)
 

This character is much more relevant to the background of the world, I may even end up making his game first since they are all more-or-less interchangeable. 
Leon is a teenage boy who was orphaned at birth, his skin olive-brown and covered with intricate markings that span from horned head to clawed toe. Unlike Artemis, Leon can’t hide his curse, and is known by most everyone in existence as “The Marked Oneâ€. When Arai was cursed and imprisoned, her very form was confined to a Mortal one, cursing the bloodline of the one that struck the killing blow to bear her soul and aspect until the day the spell was broken. At first, the Marked One was a being of great honor and respect, however, after the most recent incarnation, it fell to being hated a despised. Leon was unfortunate enough to have been born with this curse, and now, with his gentle heart, suffers the sins of his ancestors and is cursed to a life of torment by his fellow man. Some would call it a blessing when a kindly old man found the baby Leon deep in a dark forest, raising him as his own son, and others would call it damnation, forcing the boy to live when the sweet release of death would have been a far more humane fate. No matter who you ask, both would tell you that Leon suffered because of it.
 
 
Rena (Third game)
 

I very much like this character most of all, if only because I’ve done so much specific work on her story.
Rena is a young girl, we begin her story when she was but twelve years old and eeking out an existence as a starving thief. No family to speak of, Rena spent her days hiding in the shadows and cutting the purse of any who were foolish enough not to be clinging to it while she was around. It was only one fateful day that she would meet her future mentor and the one who would save her life: Cilus. A middle aged swordsman who spent his younger days honing his craft and sinning like no other all over the continent. After beating some sense and discipline into the young Rena, and Rena giving the old man a reason to live, the two became inseparable and lived out a number of adventures before settling down with an old friend of Cilus’s, only to be cast back into conflict shortly after.
 
 
The Five Dragon Gods and the Allfather will undoubtedly be covered and have dialogue, there are also over 20 critical characters associated with Artemis's storyline and all have depth to them, there are a number of co-mains characters that exist beside each character and typically travel with them wherever they go, each of the three main characters has at least one co-main that will be with them from start to finish.


 
I don't have any real, concrete settings down yet, I know it won't be a side-battle system or a turn by turn thing. It's most likely going to be an ARPG or a sidescroller with open world map travelling outside of levels. It won't be as open world and customizeable as I want it to be but it will be rich with story and depth, I may even decide to change the battle mechanics around anyways so no sense in getting set with a single idea. 

 

I DO know, however, that I'll be using RMXP and self-made ruby scripts.

Edited by Flytrap

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I have three words for this game idea...

 

 

 

 

just-do-it-28418.gif

 

 

I greenlight this, and I will not make any other comment of judgement unless if there is actual game stuff involved.

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:3

 

I want to, and am. That's why I made a profile here instead of continuing to lurk around stealing resources.

This is sort of my way of telling people I'm interested in collaborating without directly asking for help. 

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I am very interested in having an interface a lot like Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for the GBA, in that you can freely move around and explore while having a slightly more in-depth battle that's a little scene on its own. It would work well with how I'm writing the story and wouldn't impede the flow of the plot while providing a nice level of gameplay, however I'd obviously want to get rid of that annoying ass card-system.

 

If you can help out with that, I'd be appreciative, it's been a while since I put any thought into developing the more technical aspects of the games.

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That type of battle system is kind of hard to implement in to RPG Maker, only because RPG maker is slow as shit when it comes to anything more than a system battle system. I'll see what I can do though, though I was thinking on the lines of your menu system or aspects of gameplay that you needed help with.

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I don't want to have to use the horrific mapping of VX and Ace :c

but I guess I can switch if there's just no way to integrate a kind of battle system like that into XP.

 

I'm fairly certain I'll be using (Blizzards?) Chrono Trigger menu script with custom skins and icons. 

However, I've never gotten a good quest journal to work with any of my games, if you have a suggestion, I'd love to see it so I can start working on the assets for it. I'd like one as customizeable as possible.

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Actually I was talking about RPG maker in general sucking when it comes to programming heavy stuff, not just XP. VX and VX ace don't make any improvements on performance by that much. 

 

Anyways Blizzards battle system and I think Gubid have battle systems to your needs for RMXP.

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