Prism Aegis (Proposed)
Hi. This page contains a WIP proposal for review only. This is not the actual Prism Aegis theme page.
Contents
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 forced their imaginary game to 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.
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 wise teacher 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 fresh green hatchling, not yet able to speak or transform into a human.
Villains
Hiroko Koumoto - Griselda, leader of the Gray Kingdom's forces. By day, a schoolyard bully in Seishou. By night, arch-nemesis of the Prism Keepers and bent on world subjugation through color draining.
Slot Open - Miss White, lieutenant to Griselda and one half of the Monochrome Duo. By day, a financially-stressed Infinity University finance student working two part-time jobs to pay 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 unsuccessfully coping 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 fight for the Gray Kingdom.
Monsters:
The generic Monster of the Week 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, rendering an entire small area gray. Once the Shade has drained enough color, it transforms into a monster by animating nearby objects and combining them into a greater 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 defeat a Shade and release the color it drained. However, those that are fully drained without having their color restored either remain unconscious 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.
Biography
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). This is both due to thematic reasons and meant as an OOC means of fostering RP between various members of the theme. Some of us run mundane 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 3 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. At one point, every person destined to be a Prism Keeper (and the villains too) was involved in the then-imaginary Prism Keeper games that Mei and her friends used to play. They might have played with her all the time, or they could have played with her 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 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 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 any white or black filler needed.
In lore terms, Prism Keepers manipulate "color energy" to create objects. Functionally, every Prism Keeper has a single theme which all of their attacks follow, and this theme must match 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
Biography
It should be noted that, like the protagonists, all Prism Aegis villains (excluding youma like Shades) are normal humans that were changed by the power thrust onto them. None of them consciously chose a magical path. 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. They're not meant to be one-dimensional representations of evil.
However, the villains are chosen for a reason, usually some seed of negativity which has taken root within her heart. But this seed is more a normal negative emotion that has become pervasive within the villain's mind, rather than anything truly evil. 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 narrative and character growth reasons, the current base 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 consistently attempt to color drain both people or objects. And though individual players may choose a less aggressive tone, Prism Aegis villains can potentially be extremely violent 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 behavior problems in their base identity. These flaws and issues might have any number of character themes attached to them. The specifics are for players to decide.
Appearance and Power Set
As partially preset villains, there is less leeway in appearance for Griselda, Miss White, and Mister Black. To start with, none of them have any color in their appearance. They're all grayscale in appearance, with Griselda leaning exclusively toward grays, Miss White dressed in white, and Mister Black dressed in black. 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.
Like the Prism Keepers, Prism Aegis villains also have a theme, though their themes aren't as strictly tied to their color, even if their attacks still appear in their color. Instead, as a general suggestion, their themes can be concepts that are potentially stressful or threatening to children.
