Vortigern

Onix.
Onixes are native to the Mountains of the Moon, between Pewter and Cerulean. The network of tunnels largely used to traverse the path between the cities was carved out by onixes for the most part, with just a few holes knocked through by men later on. Onixes are rock-type pokémon, though that is something of a misnomer: they are regular reptilian creatures underneath their calciferous exoskeleton, which grows thicker and tougher throughout the course of their lives, to the extent that some of the older onixes are considered to be more or less invincible. They are thought to be able to live for over a thousand years, but obviously this is nothing more than conjecture based on observable growth rates and estimated measurements of sightings. Onixes are solitary creatures for the most part, but for their biannual migration, when they head north for the summer to avoid the heat. During their migration, which takes place over the course of approximately three days, onixes travel both en masse and above ground, neither of which they do at any other time. The sight of several hundred onixes between ten and two hundred feet long is quite something, and people come from all across Kanto to witness it.

Bulbasaur and bellsprout.
These two pokémon share a deeply unusual form of symbiosis in which the bellsprouts use the bulbasaurs as a carrier to spread their seed and expand their population. The plant growing on a bulbasaur's back, which provides photosynthetic nutrition and many of the bulbasaur's combative abilities, contains the seeds of bellsprouts, which are intelligent and mobile plants. This is the only known manner of genesis for bellsprouts. They later grow into the forms known as weepinbell and victreebel, but when a victreebel lays down its seeds and allows them to devour it from the inside out, it is weepinbells that emerge. Bellsprouts are thus widely considered to be an evolutionary dead end that clings on mainly because of the benefits it conveys upon bulbasaurs, even though their plant will ultimately cost the later form, called venusaur, its life. When the bellsprout plant begins to outgrow the venusaur, reckoned to be after around one hundred to one hundred and twenty years, the venusaur will remove itself to the forest of its birth where it will lay itself down to die. When it does this the bellsprout plant will take root in the soil and eventually grow into a bellsprout tree capable of flowering and deploying its seedlings to the backs of new-born bulbasaurs, which are always conceived and left to hatch under one of these trees.

Magikarp and gyarados.
Magikarp are unique among pokémon in that only the tiny minority ever grow into their adult shape, most simply remaining in the magikarp form until they are caught or die of old age, which some scientists think can take well over a hundred years. All through this life as magikarp, they will be almost entirely useless as combat pokémon, but a vital form of sustenance for fishing communities all across the world. Gyarados, on the other hand, are some of the most dangerous and unknown pokémon on the planet, as they are nearly impossible to capture alive. They live in herds in the middle of the ocean and are in constant migratory motion, eternally circling beneath the planet's storm belt, which as legend has it is caused by the presence of the legendary bird pokémon Zapdos. Every year, when the path of the gyarados brings them closest to land, brave or foolhardy sailors, colloquially known as 'dragonmen' battle the storm belt to take down a few gyarados and sell on every last part of them at colossal profit. It is a dangerous life, but those who survive can make a fortune from one trip if luck is on their side. The dragonmen tell stories of gyarados five hundred feet long, impossible to catch because the storms intensify around them. The largest specimen ever returned to land was nearly a hundred feet long, with teeth each the size of a child.

Magmar.
Magmar are thought to be a distant cousin of the charmander line, given the degree of physical similarity and elemental type. However, that is where the similarities end. Magmar have only ever been found on Cinnabar Island, living inside the volcano, and are therefore thought to have evolved in isolation there. They live bathed in lava. Quite how powerful they may be is largely unknown, because nobody has ever successfully removed one from the heat of the volcano.

Eevee.
Eevees are an entirely unique pokémon. They are known to evolve into three later forms: vaporeon, a water-type; jolteon, an electric-type; and flareon, a fire-type. However, consensus opinion has it that there are likely many more forms that simply have not yet been discovered. Certain types of mineral appear to have different effects on an eevee. When an eevee has significant quantities of lodestone residue in its environment, it becomes far more likely to turn into a jolteon. Similarly, the presence of high sulphuric deposits begins an eevee's growth into a flareon. To make an eevee grow into a vaporeon, a significant level of limestone in the environment is required. Current scientific opinion has it that the various residues of these particular minerals seep into the foods that make up an eevee's diet, thereby effecting the change. It is interesting to note that all the various adult forms of eevees produce regular eevees as their offspring, regardless of how their growth has been affected. However, given the environment, some can begin their development even before birth. Eevees themselves are relatively weak pokémon, not wisely used in combat. Their various adult forms, however, can grow to be extremely powerful, displaying an unusual level of mastery over their elemental affinities which few other pokémon can match.

Machop, machoke and machamp.
These pokémon are a heavily protected species, it being more or less entirely outside the law to own one. The reason for this is that they are far and away the most intelligent pokémon currently known, thought by some to in fact be sentient, or almost so. They live in communities of anywhere between five and one hundred, sometimes in caves, though more commonly in crudely-constructed houses made of rocks and logs. Their colossal strength means that they have little trouble carrying their building materials great distances from where they are found, and equally little with putting them together in construction. Machokes (the general name for the species) are a patriarchal society, with one alpha male leading the others in hunting and mating practice until such time as he dies or is ousted by a younger, stronger competitor. Machamps are extremely rare, and always male, and are the result of a recurring genetic mutation which appears to be recessive and can skip several generations at a time. When a machamp is born, the alpha machoke seems to defer almost instantly, though there have been instances of infant machamps being left to die while the community moves its settlement elsewhere. For this reason in particular it is thought that machokes are intelligent enough to have developed basic religious tenets and practices and reasoned argument amongst individuals, although no headway has yet been made into understanding their language. Female machokes are usually much slimmer than their male counterparts, though their strength still far exceeds any human, male or female. Their gestation period and the common problems and concerns of their birth are very similar to those of humans. There are two regions in Kanto in which machoke settlements can be found. The first is the Mountains of the Moon, though they are usually to be found well to the north of where human habitation extends. The second is the Blackrock Mountains north of Lavender and east of Cerulean and which are significantly smaller than the Mountains of the Moon, so perhaps naturally the numbers of machoke communities to be found there are much less.

Voltorb.
Voltorbs are the first, and so far only, man-made pokémon. Their outer shell is made from a simple metal container and is packed with explosives, making them extremely effective siege and anti-armour weapons, and at the centre of it all is a tiny pokémon, maybe a centimetre in length, but inordinately powerful for its size in the electric type. Most of these 'lightning bugs', as they are commonly known, remain in their real form in the wild, but are naturally very difficult to catch due to their size and not a great deal of use once they are caught, so they remain a generally untapped species in combat. Their electric affinity, when combined with the explosive power of their surroundings, makes their selfdestructive function even more dangerous than it would be anyway because it also creates a powerful electro-magnetic pulse which can stun or render unconscious electric pokémon within a far wider radius than the explosion would catch, they being the most sensitive. Given the type's prevalence in military affairs, this can be an extremely effective tactic. They were first created by James Surge, then lieutenant, in the Kantonine War of Independence some thirty years ago and have since become a staple of almost every army.

Gastly.
Gastly, along with their adolescent and adult forms known respectively as haunter and gengar, were long considered to be ghosts due to their hideous aspect and pseudo-psychic abilities. The pokémon themselves are significantly smaller than they appear as they have evolved a defence mechanism by which they cloak themselves in 'psychic' vapours which cause in both humans and other pokémon hallucinations and feelings of dread upon contact. Prolonged exposure can also cause more permanent damage and result in night terrors, hence the old legend that ghost pokémon could 'eat dreams'. This belief was furthered by the fact that gastlys are nocturnal and, somewhat unnervingly for many a would-be trainer, feed on decaying flesh, having not the strength in their jaws to tear fresh meat. This is why they are often found around graveyards and breeding grounds of the more profligate species of pokémon. Another myth concerning ghost pokémon is that they have no solid form; this is manifestly untrue, but not hard to understand. They are very rarely found in captivity, because the nature of their gaseous defences make it extremely difficult for anyone to be around them, let alone spend the time to train them. That said, some have succeeded in convincing these pokémon to control their discharge and turned them into extremely effective weapons.

More to come.

“There’s just so much more I want to see,” she had said. “I don’t want to spend my whole life being the boss’s daughter with the pet incinerator.” Isolde, her beautiful six-tailed vulpix, had stood as ever at her side.

“I understand that,” her father had replied. “I wanted to see the world too, once. But it’s not a good world we live in, Cait,” he had told her. “There are people out there, and pokémon too, who would kill you without a second thought.”

“So what?” she had said. “Why should I be forced to live a sheltered life in some boring little village just because you’re scared of everything?” She had known that wasn’t the right thing to say, but it hadn’t mattered. Her father had looked so crestfallen, so disappointed that she wouldn’t, couldn’t agree with him. She’d had no choice but to apologise, to hug him and tell him it was alright. She wasn’t going to forget about him, disappear off into the great wide world and never think about him again. She knew it was just the two of them now, that his little mining business would suffer without her and Isolde around, that he would be alone again.

“I know you’re going to leave sooner or later,” he had said to her the next day. “You’re too much like your mother to be satisfied with this life.” They had spent the next couple of weeks making sure that Caitlin had everything she would need on her ‘big adventure’, and then she had set off, but not until everyone at her father’s company had thrown her a little goodbye party. She had almost burst into tears then, almost decided not to go, but she was set on this path by that point.

“So that’s how come I ended up on the road with only my little girl for company,” she said, scratching Isolde’s head with one hand while the vulpix stretched and let out a deeply satisfied growl. She looked up at the young man sat across from her in the little common room of the hostel by the side of the road between Cerulean and Saffron. “So what’s your story?”




((That young man is whichever one of you gets in here first.))

Name: Caitlin Moratti
Starter pokémon: Vulpix, called Isolde.
Hometown: A village in the Mountains of the Moon.
Background: Caitlin comes from the Pewter side of the Mountains and had never been beyond the Pewter Prefecture until she was 15 and visited Cerulean with her father, which was when he presented her with Isolde. The natural sulphurous deposits in the Mountains meant that Isolde grew unexpectedly quickly, and is bigger than most vulpixes her age. Caitlin spent most of her childhood exploring the mountains and forests when she wasn't in school, doing her best to avoid the wild pokémon when necessary. Eventually she decided that the life of her father - mining - would never be for her and set about preparing to see the world and where it could take her.

Pallet Town.
A large town/small city on the south coast of Kanto, south from Viridian City. Its only really notable aspect is that it contains the headquarters of Oak Labs, a dedicated pokémon research firm mostly funded by government grants. Pallet also has a university of sorts, but one that is, again, largely dedicated to pokémon research. Apart from that, Pallet has a large lumber industry and an equally large fishing community. Illegal pokémon fights are often to be found on the quays. The town itself is the culmination of a multitude of fishing villages along the coast, so can be extremely hard to navigate for newcomers, or even locals if they stray from their usual haunts.

Viridian City.
A middling city which plays host to the Viridian Gym, headed by Giovanni Vitelli, who is also the governor of the Viridian Prefecture, which includes Pallet as well. Victory Road, the route to the pokémon league, lies west of Viridian. Viridian has a large mining community based around the Victory Road mountains. The city was built relatively recently and laid out in a very uniform manner, which has its critics and proponents. Almost all of Viridian is built of the Victory Road stone, blasted from the mountainsides before mines could be opened.

Pewter City.
A large city, notable for being the home of Pewter Gym, headed by Brock Davis, and the History Museum, which was founded after numerous fossils were found in the mountains surrounding Pewter. It is extremely isolated, being hemmed in by the colossal Viridian Forest to the south and west and the Mountains of the Moon to the north and east. The path through Mt. Moon is very dangerous, as is the Forest Road, so Pewter has become a remarkably insular community. The major industries are mining, lumber and archaeology. Most visitors to Pewter come either to fight at the Gym or to look for new fossils, and twice a year to watch the onix migration. Pewter is really a series of mining towns that have all grown into one another over the years, so becomes quite a tangled hodge-podge of winding streets and overhanging eaves in places as space became short. The official city limits go right up to the edge of the forest and the feet of the mountains.

Mountains of the Moon.
High and largely impassable mountain range, eventually traversed by digging out a passage through tunnels dug by onixes in the past. It is something of a maze regardless of man's efforts, and the path often changes due to the roaming nature of the onixes. It is a favourite with hikers, who provide most of the income for the villages scattered across the mountains. The Mountains fall under the jurisdiction of the Pewter Prefecture. The Mountains are also home to one of Kanto's two indigenous machop settlements.

Cerulean City.
Home of the Cerulean Gym, led by Misty Lovecraft. Cerulean is a relatively large city, smaller only than Saffron and Celadon. A large part of the appeal of Cerulean to pokémon trainers is Cerulean Caves, notoriously populated by powerful pokémon. Along with the Mountains of the Moon to the west, this gives Cerulean a thriving trade in all things physical, from exploration to extreme sports. To the north the Cerulean Prefecture extends to encompass the Bridge and the Cyan Hills, notable for being the home of Bill Taylor, a well-known expert on pokémon and news personality. His home has become something of a pilgrimage site for professional trainers. He has recently declared his interest in becoming the governor of Cerulean Prefecture, his primary platform being an end to the pokémon league and all forms of pokémon battling. Cerulean is notorious for its constant programs of redevelopment, which have turned it from a confusing mess of alleys and back streets into a town of wide open boulevards and formulaic grid squares, but only in places. More than half the city remains a labyrinth.

Vermilion City.
Home of the Vermilion Gym, led by General James Surge, a man who made his name in the war for Kanto independence thirty years ago. Like Giovanni Vitelli, he serves as both gym leader and governor. Vermilion is the largest port city in Kanto and is also the location of the headquarters of Kanto's military, both on land and sea. The docks, just as in Pallet, often play host to illegal pokémon battling. Rumour has it that Surge secretly endorses this practice. Vermilion is a very orderly city, having been consistently rebuilt under the guidance of General Surge's ordered military thinking.

Lavender Town.
Seen by many as a morbid place, Lavender is the site of Kanto's largest graveyard, originally founded as a military cemetery for all those killed during the War of Independence, but later expanded to include pokémon killed in the war. Lavender is a relatively small town given its importance, as it has its own prefecture, led by Henry Fuji, another active proponent of making pokémon battles illegal.

Celadon City.
The second-largest city in Kanto, Celadon is a heaving metropolis with high proportions of the population in service industries. Sometimes known as 'Kanto's playground', Celadon Prefecture is the only one to have legalised gambling and bookmaking. Celadon also hosts The Mall, the largest retail centre in Kanto and one of the largest in the world. It is estimated that around one million people pass through The Mall every week. The Celadon Gym is led by Erika Havens, a perfumer by trade. Her Gym doubles as a greenhouse in which she grows most of the plants and pokémon whose scents she employs. Celadon is at the northern end of the Cycling Road, the over-sea path to Fuchsia City and the Safari Zone. The amount of traffic through Celadon makes it one of the richest regions in the world, and as such it is highly developed and Kanto's central point for technological development in all fields other than those related to pokémon, in which Silph Co., based in Saffron, exceeds them. Celadon House, now an entire business park, is the home of this industry.

Saffron City.
The Saffron Prefecture is the most populous in Kanto and the city is the capital. It is also home to the government of Kanto and claims to be the only city with two pokémon Gyms, although one of them is no longer affiliated with the pokémon league and thus not an official Gym. Sabrina Eckhart is the leader of the official Gym, though she is deeply unpopular around the city thanks to her aloof manner and apparent delight in the more terrifying aspects of pokémon. Anthony Kiyo is the leader of the unofficial gym and much more widely respected around the Prefecture for his honest and honourable behaviour, as evidenced by the frequent petitions to see him run for governor. As yet, he has refused to do so. The largest employer in Saffron is Silph Co., a corporation with interests in all things related to pokémon. Their CEO has stated that they have no need to expand further because they have the market so completely cornered. The second-largest employer in Saffron is the Kantonine government. The third-largest employer is the Saffron Times, the newspaper whose circulation covers all of Kanto and large swathes of Johto, Hoenn, Unova and Sinnoh, although their employees are largely based elsewhere. Saffron is also the location of Kanto's international railway station, linked with Goldenrod City, Pyrite Town, Fall City and Pueltown.

Fuchsia City.
The city of Fuchsia itself is relatively small, being little bigger than Lavender. However, it is the location which makes Fuchsia so important. To the west is the Cycling Road and all the commerce that brings with it, while to the north lies the Safari Zone, one of the premier travel destinations in Kanto. Such is its success, in fact, that every other nation on the continent has attempted to create their own in imitation. The Fuchsia Gym is led by Janine Serafian, the daughter of the former leader Koga, himself now governor of Fuchsia Prefecture and one of the 'Elite Four', the top-ranked trainers in the pokémon league. Fuchsia's economy rotates almost entirely around the Safari Zone and the tourism that it brings, though there is also a reasonably-sized fishing industry, and some more intrepid tourists use Fuchsia as a base from which to travel to and explore the Seafoam Islands.

Seafoam Islands.
The islands are the most popular destination for aficionados of water- and ice-type pokémon in Kanto, and as such have become reasonably heavily populated, both with permanent residents and holiday homes. There is also excellent skiing and hiking to be had, and the Seafoam Caves remain a favourite. The islands fall under the jurisdiction of the Cinnabar Prefecture, although they are a separate archipelago.

Cinnabar Island.
The island town of Cinnabar is rather sparsely populated but hugely important to Kanto. The volcanic soil of the island produces nearly one third of the grain and wheat for the country, and the fishing industry is similarly important. The Cinnabar Gym is headed up by Blaine Heslop, who also serves as the governor of the Prefecture, being perhaps the only really prominent citizen of the Kanto islands. The volcano at the centre of Cinnabar island is home to all kinds of fire pokémon, and the only known breeding ground for magmars. As such, most of the island is a protected area, which limits immigration.

Sevii Islands.
The Sevii Islands have only recently become a part of Kanto, ceding their independence in return for a greater share of Kantonine subsidies and unrestricted trade with the mainland. The Seviis are renowned for the unusual strength of their pokémon. They do not have a gym, but they do have the Trainer Tower, in which challengers fight some of the best trainers from the islands, many of whom have themselves completed the gym circuit and taken part in the league. The governor of Sevii Prefecture is Lorelei Ducheyne, a member of the elite four. The majority of the Sevii economy comes from farming, fishing and tourism.



More to come later.

1) I just came across this, and find myself entirely in agreement. What we're attempting here is a world of realism that happens to involve animals with control over certain aspects of the world around them. That does not mean that everything levels up as you do, nor that everybody is focused entirely on these animals. Life carries on much as it does in any other universe for the vast majority of people. Being a pokémon trainer is a career and lifestyle choice, much as being a doctor or a teacher would be. So let's try to keep this as similar to the real world as we can, because let's face it, people are people wherever they're from.

2) Pokémon do not 'evolve'; they grow. A basic, 'unevolved' form is an infant, a 'fully evolved' form is an adult. There is a constant pattern of growth among pokémon from birth to adulthood just as you would expect from a real animal.

3) Two of the same pokémon (e.g. charmanders) can be as different from one another as two humans, especially if they're raised differently. Each and every one of them is unique. They have different lifespans, life cycles, lifestyles, everything.

4) The map portrayed in the games is ridiculous, I think we can all agree. The biggest city has about twelve houses and a giant corporation. Therefore, how about we bear this in mind instead: cities are the size of cities, not unusually well-developed roadside hamlets. The major towns and cities are the following: Pallet, Viridian, Pewter, Cerulean, Vermilion, Lavender, Celadon, Saffron, Fuchsia, Cinnabar. Saffron is the capital, and the largest city in the country, as well as being the home of Silph Co., a corporation with wide-ranging interests and a serious research and development department based around the abilities of pokémon. (It should also be noted that Silph Co. does not exist solely in one building that can be overrun by criminals, and the CEO almost certainly does not live there. Remember: realism.)

5) The primary method of inter-city transportation is trains. (Or boats, which are mostly powered by sails, though sometimes oars.) The trains are powered by electric-type pokémon. As would be the case with this world, it has taken some very different turns in technological advancement, seeing as electricity was known and able to be exploited by humans at around the same point as fire. For example, there are no cars, though there are trains, as mentioned already. Medical care is limited and only very recently beginning to seriously develop. Largely, what technologies there are are based around pokémon. For example, the postal service heavily relies on messenger birds, while most ships carry at least a couple of strong water-types with them in case of unfavourable circumstances.

6) Pokémon die. If you make your pokémon battle, they will get hurt and there is a serious chance that sooner or later they will end up on the wrong end of an ass-kicking. Or more probably, a throat-ripping or flank-devouring. Either way, it's not going to end well. There is also a good chance that enemy trainers will simply stab you in the face rather than go through the whole pokémon battle rigmarole, especially if your pokémon don't particularly seem to like you or respect you.

7) Nothing comes for free. As a pokémon trainer, you're going to be a freelancer unless you can get yourself employed by the police or one of the pokémon League teams, who have medical insurance. So every time your pokémon gets injured (or you do, that happens too) you can either wait and hope it gets better, try and fix it yourself or pay for better care. There's also the issue of food. Some pokémon will feed themselves (herbivorous pokémon, for example, will happily feed themselves while you're walking along somewhere that isn't a desert or a frozen tundra), while some can be trained to hunt for you. but all of them need to eat, and so do you. Don't forget that part.

8) Pokémon are caught not by shiny magical poké balls at your waist. Rather they are caught by subduing them however you can and tying them down with the strongest chains you can get hold of. Of course, those pokémon will still have been born into the wild and will probably not adapt awfully well to a life of servitude and obedience. The more usual course would be to catch a pokémon, contain it and present it with opportunities to breed, then raise the offspring as domesticated pokémon. Pokémon used to being in the wild will usually be stronger and fiercer than their domestic counterparts, but also less likely to obey their supposed masters. And of course, the ultimate loyalty of a pokémon is worth far more than a little extra strength most of the time. A wild pokémon may also take the opportunity to flee from a fight rather than stand.

9) There are pokémon gyms in the cities, but they are not as they are in the game. The gym leaders are some of the best trainers in the country. Every one of them maintains a full roster of pokémon (six, of various types but often with a particular favourite) and is an affiliate of the pokémon league: without all eight badges you cannot take part in the league itself, which is of course as in the game. But they are the absolute best. There is no linear progression here. They are all more or less equal and all seriously tough. Their pokémon will show yours no mercy at all.

10) There is a movement which I'm going to call the PRA: Pokémon Rights Association. They want to ban all forms of pokémon combat beyond the absolutely necessary, which means the police and the power grid.

11) The government maintains a strict degree of control over the strongest pokémon. To own one of the stronger pokémon, classed as 'restricted', you have to get hold of a permit and submit to an inspection to ensure the pokémon is sufficiently under your control to be allowed in active society. If not it will be remanded into custody and either kept for government use or put down. The same applies for rare and endangered pokémon, though of course they would almost certainly not be put down under most circumstances.



More to come, as and when I think of things to add.