Revision as of 01:27, 16 July 2015

Introduction

The Prism Keepers--as well as the villains they are destined to fight--have not always been a part of reality. They do not come from a great kingdom, long destroyed, or a cosmic feud that spans millennia. In fact, not so long ago, the Prism Keepers were simply the fantasy of a young girl and her friends.

It would have remained that way, were it not for the mysterious forces that made their imaginary world become reality.

Each Prism Keeper is a girl from the ages of eight to twelve who possess the power of a certain color of the rainbow, in addition to Pink, which was added in by Mei only because her mother forced her to let her little sister Momo play with her. Together, these young children must stop the forces that seek to drain all color and life from the world.

Current Plot Status

Arc 1 begins!

Prism Keepers Red and Orange have awakened, finding themselves thrust into the unfamiliar world of the magical girl! They face myriad challenges, struggling to come into their own. Along the way, they're making friends and enemies.

Meanwhile, Griselda too has awakened, sending forth the Shades to do her bidding and drain the world of color! For now, though the Prism Keepers haven't seen or confronted Griselda directly, they've been able to contain each Shade attack.

But they still have more questions than answers! What force granted life to their imaginary world? And why?

Cast

We're always looking for more cast members, and some of us are willing to run Awakening and character development scenes for you. Please contact us for help with making characters. Note that the descriptions of the open slots are merely suggestions (with the exception of Prism Keeper Pink), and that even if you have a totally different idea, we'll work with you to make your particular vision work.

Heroes

Mei Akatsuki - Prism Keeper Red, the first Prism Keeper and feisty leader of the group

Reiko Touyama - Prism Keeper Orange, the second to awaken, a shy but skilled artist with a keen desire to support her friends

Slot Open - Prism Keeper Yellow, a pretty social butterfly and socialite's daughter, always ready to rally the team with her warm personality

Slot Open - Prism Keeper Green, a shy but academically gifted young girl, using her intelligence to help defeat the Prism Keepers' enemies

Slot Open - Prism Keeper Blue, a tall natural athlete and accomplished martial artist, always eager to fight to help or defend her friends

Slot Open - Prism Keeper Indigo, a reserved girl with a penchant for spirituality, with a gift for supernaturally accurate, if vague, fortune telling

Slot Open - Prism Keeper Violet, a girl unsure of herself with an undiscovered talent for singing, with a big heart and kind streak a mile wide

Slot Open - Prism Keeper Pink, Momo Akatsuki, Mei's younger sister, the youngest of the Prism Keepers

Mascots

NPC - Roy, the most active of the three bird mascots who guide the Prism Keepers, taking either the form of a birdlike human man or a red robin.

NPC - Biv, the compassionate maternal voice of the Prism Aegis mascots, taking the form of a birdlike human woman or a bluejay.

NPC - Gigi, the youngest of the three Prism Aegis mascots, a young green chick not yet able to speak or transform into a human.

Villains

Hiroko Koumoto - Griselda. By day, a schoolyard bully at Seishou Public School. By night, arch-nemesis of the Prism Keepers and leader of the Gray Kingdom's forces, bent on draining the world of color.

Slot Open - Miss White, lieutenant to Griselda and one half of the Monochrome Duo. By day, a desperate-for-cash Infinity University finance major struggling to work her way through school. By night, a vindictive, money-obsessed woman dressed in a sharp white business suit, using money-themed attacks to fight for the Gray Kingdom.

Slot Open - Mister Black, the second half of the Monochrome Duo. By day, an overprotective Seishou 2nd grade teacher still struggling with the trauma of the accidental hit-and-run death of one of his students years ago. By night, a harsh disciplinarian obsessed with rules, using school-themed attacks to do the Gray Kingdom's bidding.

Monsters

The basic youma for Prism Aegis is the Shade. Shades begin as humanoid shadows which can only travel along solid objects. However, they eventually choose to take root somewhere and begin draining color from the surrounding area. This happens slowly at first, though in the final stages, it can be quite sudden, suddenly rendering an entire wide area gray. Once the Shade has drained enough color, it transforms into a monster by animating nearby objects and combining them into a greater animated whole of varying shapes and sizes. Shades often have "names," or single words related to the area they've drained or shape they've taken, which they use as a vocalization. The best rule for running shades is Be Creative. They're meant to evoke a Tim Burtonesque sense of horror-meets-art.

As a general rule, when inanimate objects are color drained, either by Shades or by Prism Aegis villains, they function the same as before, just lacking color in their visual appearance. For people, however, the effect is more severe. Most people are initially rendered unconscious by the process, potentially for a long period given a severe enough attack from a PC villain. This process is usually undone when Prism Keepers defeats a Shade and releases the color it drained. However, those that are fully drained without having their color restored (usually for plot purposes by a PC villain) either remain unconscious perpetually or eventually get back up and continue to go about their daily routine, albeit entirely gray in appearance and totally lacking in emotion or motivation beyond the bare minimum needed to continue their daily routine.

Making a Prism Keeper

This section is intended to be a basic primer for those interested in playing a Prism Keeper character. Playing a Prism Keeper allows for a large amount of creativity and freedom in how your character looks and fights, but there are some restrictions for the sake of fostering RP and thematic consistency.

Background

Most of the Prism Keepers are of roughly the same age (10) and grade (4), in addition to being students at the same school (Seishou Public School). Though there are thematic reasons for this, it's also an OOC means of fostering RP between various members of the theme. Some of us run school RP scenes for character building within the group, so it's recommended that you be a student at Seishou Public School's Elementary School. Your age and grade might vary, but at this time, we're asking that you stay between the ages of 8 and 12 and grades 2 through 6. Prism Keeper Pink is the sole exception here, being 7 years old and in the 1st grade.

There is some leeway here, though. What ties the Prism Keepers together is not only age or friendship, even if most of them do belong to a single circle of friends in the same class. At one point, every person destined to be a Prism Keeper (and the villains too) was involved in the imaginary Prism Keeper games that Mei and her friends used to play. A given character might have played with them all the time, or said character could have played with them only once. This means that, if you really desire it, your character doesn't have to attend Seishou or have any lasting connection to Mei and her circle of friends. However, it is strongly recommended that you do.

Tone

Prism Aegis, like many magical girls themes, has overarching emotional themes of hope, friendship, and growth. So while Prism Aegis characters might face darkness and despair, and might even temporarily succumb to those things, they are eventually pulled back into the light by the actions and feelings of those they care for.

However, being a magical girl is dangerous and difficult work. This is especially true for the Prism Keepers, most of whom are normal girls with no experience with combat or magic before their awakening. They can potentially feel just as much fear, doubt, and regret as any normal person might in their circumstances. They might even face injury while battling the villains threatening Tokyo and the world. However, even if the stakes ultimately feel just as high for the characters, this is not an ultraviolent theme or one which lightly kills characters, even NPC's or villains.

Still, Prism Aegis is not meant to be emotionally "easy." Not every challenge is conveniently or quickly resolved in favor of the Prism Keepers, and like other magical girls themes, sometimes plot arcs can have a pretty deep trough before the protagonists find their way back into the light.

Character Themes

The Prism Keepers are young girls thrust into an unexpected and challenging set of circumstances. In addition to their magical challenges, many of them face difficult mundane lives which they struggle to navigate. Very often, the two sets of problems intersect in unexpected ways. The broad theme of a Prism Keeper story is coming-of-age and friendship amidst trying circumstances. Beyond that, the more particular themes of your character are entirely up to you. The Prism Keepers are each supposed to be different, both in character abilities and themes explored, in order to complement each other and create a more interesting whole.

Appearance and Power Set

As a general rule, while in their base (untransformed) form, Prism Keepers have both hair and eyes that are some shade of their chosen color.

For transformations, while Prism Keepers can and sometimes do have a more conventional magical girl uniform, there's enormous variation in transformations from person to person, with their forms ultimately being a reflection of each girl's personality, power set, and potential. The only hard rule is that outfits be comprised of a given Prism Keeper's color, in addition to white as a filler color.

In lore terms, Prism Keepers manipulate "color energy" to create objects that move according to their will. Functionally, every Prism Keeper has a single theme which all of their attacks follow, and this theme must be strongly identified with their color. As an example, Mei's theme as Prism Keeper Red is "Roses," and most of her attacks involve flowers, vines, or other parts of the rose plant. Griselda's theme (her color being gray) is "rainy days," and as such, she uses gusts of wind, clouds, and rain for many of her attacks. The specifics of a Prism Keeper's theme and attacks are up to them, but as a general suggestion, Prism Keepers are children, and their attacks, while potentially just as damaging as a technomagical laser beam, tend to reflect their childlike imaginations.

Finally, the weapon of the Prism Keeper is their "wand," and while many of these may look like conventional magical girl wands, the form for a given Prism Keeper's wand is ultimately up to their player to decide.

Making a Prism Aegis Villain

This is a basic primer for those considering making a villain character within the Prism Aegis theme. Being a villain is challenging, and it requires self-sacrifice as a player. However, it can be a rewarding and fun playstyle. If you're considering this and want to know more, you can contact Hiroko (Griselda) directly in-game.

Background

It should be noted that, like the protagonists, all Prism Aegis villains (excluding youma like Shades) are normal humans that were changed by the same mysterious force that created the Prism Keepers. None of them consciously chose to be evil or to become magical. They're also not inherently bad or evil people beforehand. In Prism Aegis, the villains of the theme are as much victims as the protagonists, and they're not meant to be one-dimensional representations of evil, even if they can be menacing in their transformed forms.

However, the villains are chosen for a reason, usually some seed of negativity which has taken root within their heart. It's important to note that this seed is a normal negative emotion that has become pervasive within the villain's mind, not anything truly evil. This is meant to be something a character can potentially grow out of, not a fatal flaw. For Griselda, as an example, the seed was her insecurity.

And like the Prism Keepers, the villains were at one point at least tangentially involved with Mei's imaginary Prism Keeper games, though since some of them are adults, this involvement was likely in passing. However, for both narrative and character growth reasons, the civilian identities for Prism Aegis villains should bring them into roleplay contact with other PC's, even if those PC's aren't necessarily Prism Aegis PC's.

Tone

The people chosen to be villains in the world of Prism Aegis are flawed but not evil. And their flaws are usually the result of challenges put before them which they couldn't properly handle, not inherent character defects. Hiroko is a schoolyard bully, for example, because that was the easiest way for her to handle the pressure she felt herself under.

The villains of Prism Aegis walk a very careful tightrope in tone. They are corrupted by darkness, and they are driven by that darkness to consistently attempt to color drain both people or objects, usually without remorse or hesitation. And though individual players may choose a less aggressive tone, Prism Aegis villains are generally capable of significant violence toward magical girls, particularly toward the Prism Keepers, even seriously injuring them in battle. In tone, they are generally meant to unwavering and threatening.

However, at least in this arc, Prism Aegis's antagonists are meant to be tragic villains, not forces of elemental evil, so there are lines they don't cross. Torture, maiming, and outright murder, either of PC magical girls or NPC's, are not within the tone of the theme.

Character Themes

The overarching themes of Prism Aegis villains are self-discovery, contrition, recovery, and growth. Put simply, all of them have one or more life challenges and accompanying tragic flaws that underline the behavioral problems in their civilian identity. These issues in turn inform how they act in their transformed forms. For example, Griselda's bullying turns into violent aggression and a desire to humiliate the Prism Keepers.

However, a villain's tragic flaws and circumstance are things they're meant to overcome and grow out of, even if it takes them some time to do so. As such, one should pick issues that have playable emotional themes associated with them and avenues for character growth away from them. The specifics are for players to decide.

Appearance and Power Set

In their base (untransformed) forms, villains are expected to have hair and eye colors which are reflective of their chosen color, though there is some leeway here. If necessary, make appropriate grayscale substitutions.

As partially preset villains, there is less leeway in appearance for Griselda, Miss White, and Mister Black. To start with, none of them may use color in their transformed forms. They're all grayscale in appearance, with Griselda leaning exclusively toward grays, Miss White predominantly dressed in white, and Mister Black predominantly dressed in black. Both Miss White and Mister Black can use gray for a contrast color. Also, as a general suggestion, they're meant to be dressed in more formal clothing. Miss White and Mister Black, in particular, are supposed to look very adult in their clothing choices, as they signify menacing forms of adulthood.

Like the Prism Keepers, Prism Aegis villains also have a theme to their attacks, though their themes aren't as strictly tied to their color. Instead, as a general suggestion, their themes should be concepts that are potentially stressful or threatening to children. Note that their attacks do still appear primarily in their color, along with other grayscale shades for definition, so it's good to pick a theme that doesn't clash too much with that.

Note that Prism Aegis villain attacks drain color from their victims, though this should be a posed or consensually roleplayed effect rather than anything with any mechanical benefit.