COWDYDF

I personally feel like the malevolent beasty is a tired and dry old mechanic that's become a bit of q cliche, read: borderlands, darksiders, et cetera. I think I like the idea of the Planar Ogre/Onion, because it seems more feasible to mobilize on a single, known point with various conflicts in the mean time, than to go to space each time you want to go to the next world.

In fact, I'm imagining a scenario in which on of the g2 dudes comes out of the portal, apparently fufillinf some creation myth by the natives, and has the choice to roll with it and have anyone else who comes through attacked or to tell them shits fake, et cetera. My point to make here, is that I think having natives of the planes who don't know how to use the portals, whether they revere the Heirs of Power, or hate them, whatever.

Perhaps these natives could have a whole mythology that formed around the Lords of Ppwer, and the Heirs come around and screw with them. That shit sounds really cool actually. Like one of the going through a bunch of portals being helped because he looks like the Lord who helped them, and then having a huge reality check when one of the worlds hates his guts, and the Lord explains he lead some massive genocide on them for whatever reason. This is a good tool for character dev, I think.

Well, the forces of Light and Dark still exist. Those were the factions I was referring to. Basically, the war has always existed between the two, the beings consisting of an ancient race of... well, I haven't decided on a name yet, but, essentially, they are psychic beings who can shape themselves and the fabric of the universe around them. Their battles, while seemingly epic and grandiose from a mortal's perspective, essentially boil down to petty schoolyard antics: a common practice of Light captains being to create their own world and populate and govern them how they see fit (like one would make a sandcastle), while Dark forces like to go in and screw with them, destroying them if they possibly can (essentially: kicking the sandcastle). They exist in castes, with the majority of Them being on the same level of angels and demons, ie. having no creationary power of Their own, while some fewer exist in higher tiers (either naturally, or from slaying another and absorbing Their strength. The reason this is more petty and meaningless is that They do not stay dead, instead reforming themselves at lesser power.

Anyway, thus it existed this way for eons, until whispers grew that, in the vast reaches of the Void, They had found the Maker, the tool that had been used in Their own creation. Assembling their armies, the Lords (us) assembled their (our) armies and began a race to see who could reach it first, as such was a thing that could finally break the age-old stalemate between the sides (and would be reflective of the conflict to come in the actual game, albeit on a much small scale). There was great conflict and struggle, but the race ends with the Lords reaching the Maker at the same time. It's at this point that they realize that the Maker is a conscious entity, who has been slowly recovering from its hibernation, and it was it that implanted the thought of itself within the minds of the Lords, stirring them to action and leading them into a trap, as it needed their essence, the power of its creations, if it was to regain its full strength and delete this universe to start anew, as it had always done in the past. Realizing that, though they wanted destruction, they did not want to die, the Dark Lords agreed with the Light that it should be stopped, and, after easily destroying what remained of their own armies, they combined powers to weave the [Name Needed, but the onion-verse, essentially] and weaken the Maker further.

Ages pass, and civilizations and societies rise and fall upon the [I'm gonna call it the Tapestry], and the forces of Light and Dark slowly begin to arrive again and consolidate their forces. However, since the Lords were the most powerful in existence up to that point, and there is simply no way that either side would agree to work together in a way that would give them enough power to simply undo the Tapestry, they each begin to make their own way through the massive puzzlebox. However, The Maker, now forced into being the Core, sets his own plan into motion which involves shattering the minds of the Lords, liberating them from their essences and the prison they built around themselves (they've been in essentially what are comas this entire time) and sending them upward and outward. Gone are their memories, and, unaware that they are pawns, they bind themselves to those they think are most worthy of their power (the players, thus making them the Heirs), and begin another race to the Core, carrying out what I've described earlier. Meanwhile, the Outsiders are the ones that reveal the existence of the Worldcore to the Denizens of the Tapestry, thus gaining more disposable followers to help them in their own race, and though they should've know to stay away, most of their minds have decayed over time to the point of insanity, with only this single-minded goal to keep them going.

None of this is revealed to the players. Rather, this is what they must piece together as they play the game (and the readers follow along, because let's be honest here, we'd only ever have a shot of making any of this work as a comic or a novel).

Well, dark is probably a good way to describe it, but that's just because when I worldbuild, I tend to make grander scale settings darker than smaller scale settings, mainly because its easier for me to make light of a dark situation than an already lighthearted one (Thinking Shakespearean comedy, where everything starts out really crappy yet gets better and eventually ends on a high note). Also because when I was fitting it all together, that was simply the easiest way for me to make the whole thing as concise yet still believable as possible. That's not to say that you or anyone else can't make one better, there are probably thousands more things I haven't thought of that could fit together to make for a better story, but then again, I suppose that's true for everything.

I do, however, have some other ideas that could fit into either setting easily:

1. Magic
I think no matter what, the basic idea for the existence of the onion-verse has still remained the same: To largely keep the primal forces from easily reaching the Core. Magic, however, is a force that can easily subvert many of the challenges of having to travel across worlds. However, I don't think we should get rid of magic entirely. So what we do is this: The Onion is largely antimagic, so inner rungs will have little to no magic or magic users. The outer rungs, however, would be much closer and thus much more susceptible to the influence of the primal aspects, thus the outer rungs would have much higher levels of magic. This helps to accommodate for a wide variety of worlds, and therefore, a wide array of stories.

2. Outsiders
I also personally think that Outsiders should be a thing, that do act as agents of their respective forces. While each one possesses great power outside of the Onion that would make any mortal tremble in fear, the way the Onion affects magic would be even more pronounced on them, forcing them to make pacts or bargains with the mortals (whom they refer to as Denizens), if they really want to make progress or gain influence within it. This would help in creating settings where things like angels and demons actually exist, while still giving them a tangible reason to be there, while also giving a clear sign to teh readers that the conflict between Light and Dark is really a thing that affects the world.

3. Onion
I feel like most mortals would not understand the exact nature of the world, so they would simply refer to their own planes by whatever names they've given it. The outsiders, however, would be acutely aware of how the world works, and in their attempt to explain it, the analogy to onions would be brought up. This could easily lead to a running joke where all the Denizens refer to it as the Onion, where the the Outsiders keep attempting to correct, until eventually they all just give up and call it the Onion anyway.

Aye, his tragedies are quite tragic, but I was referencing his comedies, which, although most are not as well known as his tragedies, are still just as legitimate. A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, and The Tempest all hold up extremely well. They also follow a consistent formula: Whereas his tragedies would start high, sink, and end it a death, his comedies would start low, rise, and end in a marriage.


That's a really good idea, one that I certainly never would've thought of. However, I do still prefer the idea of multiple G1 ghosts aiding the new players. Maybe, even if they weren't united in the goal of resetting the Core, they were still trapped by their close proximity to it (assuming they were all still racing to it), leading to their binding in the future.


Aye, that is generally how brainstorming works. No shame in that.

In mine, the universe is naturally magic, as are its natural denizens (Magic, of course, being shorthand for the ability to alter the universe around it.) The Onion is naturally or was designed to be antimagic, or, at least, resistant to the magic of anyone besides its creator(s). However, like a rock in the ocean, it's constantly being eroded by the natural forces above and below. Thus, Denizens of the outer rungs would be more naturally magic, and can wield it to great extent. However, as they travel deeper, they find their magic weakening (but never entirely gone), until, much like a parabola, their power begins to increase again as a result of the Core's natural magic eroding away the inner rungs (unless they started within those middle rungs, in which case, they simply aren't magic).

I do rather like that spin you've put on the Onion. It feels very primal and powerful, and it explains exactly why the worlds exist as they do and why the Core is at the center of it (they're part of a natural defense mechanism, like layers of skin.) However, now we have a hanging plot point we need to address: Who exactly were the G1 players, what did they collectively want to accomplish, what changed, or stopped them from accomplishing that, and how do they affect the story now? I'm really in love with the idea of their spirits being bound to the new players and lending them their own power. What we now need to address is exactly why. Personally, I think that, just as the core is a repository of wishes and emotions, it should also act as a repository for souls, making it the literal heart of the Onion (ie, when a mortal dies, its soul returns to the Core and is sent back out to begin anew, much like a blood cell.) Perhaps the G1 players did something that caused their souls to fall out of the cycle, either consciously or no.

And no, I haven't seen it, but that is another one that's on my list.

EDIT: Just had another idea for a twist, which I'm recording here really quickly before I run off to bed so I don't forget. I had listed reincarnation as something I wanted to see in this story, but thinking about it, I was really unsure of how exactly to tie it in without it seeming unnecessary. Of course answering a question like that help develop a world and make it feel more alive, but I wasn't quite sure how exactly to tie it in without it seeming like an extraneous detail. But then it hit me. What if the new players aren't simply new people chosen to take over for the old, but the old souls reborn again, with their old minds being separate fragments of the new? Just a basic idea I just had, that I can probably flesh out later.

Well, I've always been fond of reincarnation in my fantasy, with the idea being that each new iteration of someone's life tries to be better than the last, even though they're not consciously aware of it. But that was just an idea based on personal taste.

Ehhhhhh... I dunno about setting it on Modern-Earth. I was always under the idea that the heirs came from different worlds and thus would allow for a wider variety of character backgrounds. Even if the modern players are all human from the same place, it being on Earth doesn't explain why one of the ghosts is a selkie or literally a jar of honey (or a robot-suit powered by an intelligent honey-like substance, as CMP proposed way earlier in the thread). But then again, I'm also biased because I jsut can't get excited about boring-old Earth. And maybe that's a bit petty but that's the truth of it.

If we were to set the starting line in a single world like or literally on Earth, however, I can think of one catalyst: Say that, like the analogy to skin earlier, the planes are constantly growing and pushing outward, until eventually they are cast off like dead skin cells (as new planes are constantly being created in the center and pushing outward. Perhaps the one above the Home plane was cast off fairly recently, causing the spirits of the old Lords to awaken and bind to them, as they realize that this plane is the next to be cast off (and the sudden exposure to the outside universe causes the outside magic to begin flooding in again, and with them, a new influx of Outsiders, moreso than perhaps the small crop that already lived there for whatever reasons). This would give the heroes a a reason to seek out the Core, in an attempt to 'save' their world. Also along the way they learn that Outsiders are Denizens from cast off planes, and Outsiders who die within the Onion rejoin the cycle and become Denizens again. But other than that, it would follow the same basic storyline as before from there: The Heirs travel deeper into the Onion, with the spirits of the Lords slowly regaining their memories, along with surprise twist, one of the Heirs is actually the reincarnation of the Unaligned (a cooler name can surely be found. ), or some other sufficiently cliche thing, oh, and also that the last group collectively wished to give them another chance when all hope seemed lost and the Core decided that was the best way or something. Haven't decided how it ends yet, but that's mainly because I'm just spitballing here.

EDIT: I desperately need to branch out with my emoticons.

Maybe we could come to a final version that involves reincarnation? I'm okay with it too, it just doesn't fit into my current ideas for the Onionverse.


I didn't mean actual Earth! Just... a planet of equivalent tech-level to our modern world, would be a way to put it? So not like, medieval or futuristic or magical. Still a different planet with different culture, history, ect., but one with the equivalent of mundane modern tech. As for the G1s, I just imagined them as being based off of ourselves/avatars but still human? Especially given that the Worldcore only starts sheding magic and twisting dimensions when it 'reaches maturity' (need name for it), which is also when the war starts aka when the G1s were picked. I suppose they could come from other planets entirely? Also, the conception of the Worldcore I've been using makes it the product of a single sentient species (in this case humans). Although perhaps our made-up planet has several made-up species! Also, because G1 happened like fuckthousand years ago (we should figure this part out- how long was the game paused for?), there couldn't be stuff like robots yet. So what are your ideas like? Time period, tech level, existence of magic, number of planets/species involved, ect.? I'm really interested in hearing more!


It sounds like in your version the planet is the topmost layer of the onion, and old ones get cast off. This could be cool, but it definitely conflicts with my ideas. As I imagined it, the other planes formed out around the Worldcore just sort of built up in twisty fractal layers around the Core, with no immediate outward effect on the planet (except, I suppose, for some portals to the first plane appearing) because they are other dimensions accessible only by portals (although they must still be traversed from outside to inside in order). The old layers do get 'pushed out' from the core by new ones forming, but because they are separate magical realities they can just... keep pushing out, forever, and can't 'run out of space' or start pushing on the mundane planet level.

I really hope I explained my ideas well?
In my personal opinion, we also don't need the planet being cast off as a reason to go after the core. They already have a reason: either to use it to get what they personally desire, to save the planet from the Power of Darkness, or to help said Power fuck everything up forever. I mean, the layers being cast off COULD be included as a thing, please don't think I'm dismissing your ideas they're cool. I'm just saying, we already have a main driving plot force.
It looks like we also differ in our ideas of the Outsiders, and the G1s. For me, the G1s always had their memories, since that was one of the major points of the whole game plan- use our knowledge to help a new generation of Chosen do better than we did. The Outsiders were just the agents of the higher Powers (I'd actually been calling them angels in my head for a while tbh) and facilitated the whole conflict over the Core.
As for the rogue player, they could be called... maybe something to do with Void, Hollow, Nihilism, Emptiness, Nothing, ect.? Because they wanted to erase reality. Or maybe they just had a normal name like Elizabeth, so everyone spoke in fearful tones of Elizabeth the bringer of the end, and by G2 time period that name is mythologically associated with that stuff so the reaction to somebody named Elizabeth would be like if someone in real life said their name was Satan (I actually kind of like that idea it sounds hilarious).

Overall, It seems like we have waaaaaay more differences between our cosmologies than I initially thought! Which is cool because we get to compare our ideas and help to refine them. It would especially be even better if more people would join in and offer feedback hint hint nudge nudge come on guys. Also, if I left anything out of my response or you want feedback on anything or misrepresented your ideas, please tell me!