A Pokemon RP with Fanmade Regional Variants

I'm 99% sure this classifies as a Workshop, but if it doesn't, please tell me and I'll fix it, thanks!

The Premise

A Pokemon RP with Fanmade Regional Variants? What do you mean?

Regional variants are a concept that I personally love, it gives an old or less popular Pokemon new life with a new look and some new tools to play with, or even makes them more competitively-viable if they're lucky. I've spent a good chunk of my time since the tail end of 2016 imagining what it would be like if other Pokemon were given the same treatment, especially before the reveal of Galarian forms, when the concept was locked to Kantonian Pokemon. But you can imagine all you want, you can't actually use them unless you make a sprite edit and hack it into your very legally obtained ROM of FireRed. So, why not try for the second best thing?

What I'm proposing is your average Pokemon journey roleplay, but the kicker is that there are non-canon regional forms along with the usual bestiary to play with. A Pokemon experience you can't quite get anywhere else! Of course, making the darn things is going to be the lengthiest part of this project, which will probably mostly fall on my shoulders, but I also want anyone who's interested in joining this RP to contribute some designs as well! I had a couple directions in mind for where this could go, thus why I wanted to lay out my cards and get feedback from people who'd be interested in this sort of thing before getting ahead of myself.

Direction 1: Alolan Expansion

This idea would take place in the Alola Region about five years or so after the events of Pokemon Sun & Moon, with some of the people/places/events altered to mesh it and Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon's stories. This would also dip into alternate universe territory, as a LOT more Alolan forms would populate the islands than in canon! The design philosophy for new Alolan forms would be as follows:

• Pokemon that receive an Alolan form must have some justifiable reason for achieving such a form over many generations of living in Alola. Rattata/Raticate became so spoiled from eating people food that they become gluttonous food snobs that only want the cream of the crop, Sandshrew/Sandslash and Vulpix/Ninetales adapted to different environments than the ones their mainland counterparts usually would, Exeggutor grew to its full potential thanks to Alola's sunlight, Raichu... gained psychic powers from Alolan-style pancakes? Not all of them have to make sense, just make sense. If that makes sense.
• Not every stage of an evolutionary family needs to have an Alolan form, but at least the final stage must.
• As the concept didn't yet exist at the time of Alolan forms being created (and for simplicity's sake), no Alolan forms, old or new, will get new Alola-exclusive evolutions.
• Alola took ten evolutionary families from the Kanto region and gave all or only the final stages of the lines Alolan forms. In a perfect world, we'd aim to achieve equality and give ten evolutionary families from each generation an Alolan form, but this is obviously easier said than done and as such will not be strictly mandated. Diversity across generations will still be highly encouraged, however.
• This should be obvious, but no Gen 7 Pokemon will get Alolan forms, not even Ultra Beasts. Gen 8 Pokemon, however, are on the table.
• Additionally, Pokemon that have already received an Alolan or Galarian form in canon will not be getting one here. We want to shine the spotlight on Pokemon that don't have a regional form yet, and we don't want a Meowth situation on our hands.
• As another guideline but not hard restriction, the usage of Dark and Ice types should be minimal. Alolan and Galarian forms are a bit guilty of using these types very often, but we aren't going to ban the appliance of these types onto new Alolan forms outright.

We could have Vanilluxes decorated with Pinap berries, a proper hula-dancing Bellosom... or, despite what I said, follow in Game Freak's footsteps and take even more Fire types and slap an Ice type onto them. Anything that fits within the tropical paradise of Alola!

Going more in depth with the setting we would use here, this would be an Alola that has started establishing its league after the slightly altered events of Sun & Moon, and the present being the fruits of those labors. The Island Challenge of old has stubbornly stayed in place for a long time, but has received some modifications and plays a part in obtaining qualification for participating in the Alola League. There's a trial for every type, 18 in total across all four islands of Alola, but only a certain amount of trials are required to be completed per island. Players would either be foreigners to the islands or a resident, looking to take on the Island Challenge for whatever reason you may desire. The RP's main source of conflict would be some currently unexplainable Ultra Wormhole activity, and some weirdly dressed, bumbling Pokemon thieves appearing out of nowhere across Alola... despite their deceptive incompetence, they're more dangerous than they look.

Other notes of interest would be an older Gladion heading the Aether Foundation, a reformed Team Skull that offers guidance and counseling to troubled youth, and plenty of other changes to Alola to not make it a one-to-one of Alola. Things can change pretty drastically in five years, after all.

Direction 2: Ultra Pokemon

This idea's a tad more freeform, but has less of a central theme for designs like Alolan Forms. These forms would be Ultra Pokemon, otherwise known as Ultra forms. Ultra Pokemon are Pokemon familiar to us that came from a parallel world, where something was drastically different enough to make them different from a specimen of their species from our world. The design philosophy for Ultra forms would be as follows:

• Unlike Alolan forms, Ultra forms come from other worlds, so you don't need to as heavily justify why it is the way it is in-universe. Within reason, of course. Why is this Ultra Torkoal an Electric type that spews mechanical smog and is essentially a living generator? Why does this Crustle carry an entire dumpster on its back? It's from another world, where for one reason or another, it's the norm for that species. Just don't push it and get too absurd or random; we're likely not going to have a Shelgon with a stuffed taco shell as its armor running around, or something like that.
• Every stage of an evolutionary family must have an Ultra form. Given how drastically different their environments could be, it doesn't make as much sense having a normal Pichu from elsewhere evolve into something much different when they aren't even in their original world any more.
• Ultra-exclusive Pokemon are not off the table, but at that point we're only one degree of separation away from making Fakemon, which is not the intent. If we include these, they should be the exception, not the rule.
• There's no quota for how many Ultra Pokemon there will be, but we should aim for having close to, if not equal representation of each generation.
• Every generation is on the table here, but again, we will be avoiding Pokemon that have already received an Alolan or Galarian form.
• Dark and Ice types should be applied sparingly here as well, but ideally we'd want a large amount of type diversity in general.

In a brand new region, designed after the Midwest United States, a sudden phenomena happened due to the Aether Foundation's attempts to create Ultra Wormholes across the sea having unforeseen side effects elsewhere, causing lots of Pokemon from parallel worlds to slip through the cracks. Some years later, these Pokemon have integrated into the ecosystem and society of the region so thoroughly that it's practically become what the region is known for; familiar, yet strange Pokemon seen nowhere else in the world! Ultra Pokemon have become a riddle for the ages for many a scientist (or just your average conspiracy theorist), due to their many oddities and how similar, yet different they are to Pokemon of our own world, to the point where they can even breed with their normal counterparts and successfully produce healthy offspring of either variation. Whether Ultra Pokemon are just as much of an enigma to you, or you simply don't care, a Pokemon's a Pokemon, players will be attempting to conquer the gyms of the region and become champion, the standard fare, subject to change. But while others accept Ultra Pokemon as a way of life, others dig deeper, trying to figure out the meaning of their sudden arrival all those years ago...

This is all a very loose draft, I haven't even really touched on gameplay mechanics or anything of the sort yet, but I figured the meat and potatoes of this whole idea, regional forms made by the GM and playerbase, would be much more important to flesh out first. Thus why I've marked this as a Workshop (again, hope I'm using this category correctly ^^;). But before anything else, I guess it would be important to figure out if there's any real demand for an RP like this before I put in the work. Would anyone be interested in something like this? Which direction should the RP go in? What tweaks should be made? Additionally, if anything I've discussed isn't super clear, just ask and I'll try my best to clarify since I wrote this at 1 am lol.

Both sound interesting, but the latter sounds a lot more unique.
I think that an important thing you need here though is to decide on your story too. Variants are a cool feature, but ultimately you still need solid worldbuilding and an engaging plot/premise.

gimmepie said:

Both sound interesting, but the latter sounds a lot more unique.
I think that an important thing you need here though is to decide on your story too. Variants are a cool feature, but ultimately you still need solid worldbuilding and an engaging plot/premise.

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That's one for direction two, thus far.
I have rough drafts I'm developing for both ideas at the moment, but I want to get a better idea of which one people would be more interested in before I go all in on either one.

I'd vote for number 2 as well, I feel there's a lot more flexibility here. :3

I would also endorse option 2. It has a bit more creative freedom, and the plot sounds more like a new story in a new region than option 1's "Sun 2 and Moon 2". And I would be very interested in helping design some of these variant Pokemon.

Magnificent Magilou said:

I'd vote for number 2 as well, I feel there's a lot more flexibility here. :3

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Godzil said:

I would also endorse option 2. It has a bit more creative freedom, and the plot sounds more like a new story in a new region than option 1's "Sun 2 and Moon 2". And I would be very interested in helping design some of these variant Pokemon.

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That's three for direction two, and I don't yet see any supporters for direction one... I'll give it a little more time, but I'm starting to get the feeling of what people are more interested in thus far.

the sloth said:

That's three for direction two, and I don't yet see any supporters for direction one... I'll give it a little more time, but I'm starting to get the feeling of what people are more interested in thus far.

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Alright, so while i'm fine with the whole "Alola 2.0", i think Direction two would also work. Regardless of option, i'm willing to come aboard and assist. Now while i don't know how to sprite or do art properly, i can come up with some neat ideas for the Mons, as well as Areas, Gyms/Trials (Depending on what you want) and even the way how the Pokemon work (Such as Moves they can learn, overall Stat-rearrangements, Abilities, and even Dex Entries). All in all, i'm vastly interested. Do reach me out in Discord if needed as well.

Gelius3 said:

Alright, so while i'm fine with the whole "Alola 2.0", i think Direction two would also work. Regardless of option, i'm willing to come aboard and assist. Now while i don't know how to sprite or do art properly, i can come up with some neat ideas for the Mons, as well as Areas, Gyms/Trials (Depending on what you want) and even the way how the Pokemon work (Such as Moves they can learn, overall Stat-rearrangements, Abilities, and even Dex Entries). All in all, i'm vastly interested. Do reach me out in Discord if needed as well.

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Sounds good! As far as art goes, it's currently undecided how we'll handle art... solid written descriptions at the very least, but ideally we'd have somewhat decent reference images provided for each form. Areas, Gyms and the like I've got handled already, however as for the Pokemon themselves, we at least want to establish their new typing, what abilities may/may not be changed, their level-up learnset, and some flavor via Pokedex entries. Anyone and everyone is welcome to contribute on this front, perhaps I'll set up a Discord server in a week or so for this purpose, we'll see.

Stats are something that's loosely considered, but likely won't be too heavily focused on for gameplay/in-universe purposes. Besides simple things such as, this form has better vitality (HP) but lower speed than its normal counterpart, and the like. For moves beyond a level-up moveset, to keep things simple, I think the playerbase and whoever created the new form will decide if a move a player wants to teach a form via TM/TR or have as an egg move is reasonable/believable for them to know. GM would have the word on this if a consensus couldn't be reached or otherwise. Enabling a bit of democracy for simplicity's sake while allowing for some creative freedom.

I'd be fine with either one!