Subject-Line

The first thing to do when you post is decide if it will be STARTER, OPEN, INVITE, MOD, CLOSED, or ONE-SHOT.

A STARTER topic is simply your first RP post in the Emissary, Lab, or Market. These are only there to catch the eye of the Starter Topic mods.

An OPEN topic is one that anyone may join with no limitations. However, if you plan to be absent for a time, let whomever you've jumped in the thread with know so they can plan accordingly. OPEN threads have a 300 word count minimum so that the monetary system isn't abused.

INVITE topics are created to RP with a specific person or multiple people, and the "INVITE" is replaced with their name(s). For instance, if Jasper wants to RP with Morgan, a thread might be titled "A Day Out [Morgan]". INVITE threads have a 300 word count minimum so that the monetary system isn't abused.

A MODDED topic is an interaction between the player and a staff member. You don't always need a Mod to play the world for you, but if you want to use them for whatever reason, I encourage you to do so! Most often, Mods will spawn Pokemon and NPCs and control those.

CLOSED topics are similar to Modded ones, except that the player is allowed to control the things the mods spawn. For instance, in a Modded thread, if a Wild Pikachu appears, the player posts, then the Mod posts as Pikachu, then the player, then the mod, back and forth. Modded threads can be very dynamic, but often incur a wait time. In a CLOSED thread, a mod can be called in to spawn (a) wild Pokemon, and then the player can control both his or her own Pokemon and the wild one(s). When the battle is over, a Mod should again be called in to review the battle (or whatever you overcame) and award experience or other rewards if it is found acceptable. These threads can also be used for taming Ferals, training Abilities, and more.

Word Count for this type of thread is 500 minimum. You may only have one Closed thread per character at a time and may only post 1/day.

ONE-SHOT topics are exactly what it says on the tin. You make one long post, no mods, no nothing. These can be used for exposition or reflecting on past events or just 'hanging out' with your Pokemon without trying to train/tame them, etc. There is no special benefit to them other than the normal money for making a post, it's just fun. Word Count for this type is 500 minimum. You may only post one One-Shot per character per week. The EXCEPTION to both of these requirements is one-shot threads quickly passing through areas through which a character has traveled before. These can be done as often as necessary and don't have a strict word count; a few sentences will suffice, though feel free to do a lot more. Note that running around the whole world just to make more mini-threads is not 'as often as necessary'.

Body & Signature

As stated before, there is no word count for any topics other than CLOSED and ONE-SHOT threads, however, it is considered courteous to always give your Mod, partner, or whomever enough to work with. Do your best to avoid dead-end posts. Ask yourself, "are there multiple ways to react to this?" and if no, try something a little different. And remember, Quality always trumps Quantity.

Now, on the first post you make of any thread you need to let everyone else know what time of day it is, the day/month/year, your specific location, the weather, and temperature. The first post lays out the setting of the thread, so it's very important that all of this information is somewhere in the post. The time/date can also be timestamped above the body if you'd prefer. Individuals should post their party Pokemon's level and status (conditions and Feral/Tamed) when they first enter a thread to avoid conflicts with other posts.

You may have noticed from reading the Character page that there are lots of Perks to deal with. For instance, Mercenaries receive a 10% bonus to experience, Barters earn more coin/post. Because of all these benefits, it's very difficult for mods to remember to grant you all of your bonuses from our own memory. Therefore, it is asked that in every post, in your Signature (or somewhere in your post code if you'd prefer) you have the following things:

As far as travelling goes, there are a few restrictions. Why? Well this is a new world! Explore a little why dont'cha! At the bottom of the description for each of the IC boards, you will see "Surrounding Areas:." These are the areas that you may travel to based on your current location. The rules are different depending on whether it's a Settlement or Route/POI. In order to "pass through" a settlement, you only have to post once, but you must post every time you pass through it on foot.

For Routes and POIs, the minimum requirement for a place you've never seen and are traveling through on foot, is 10 posts. If done with a Mod or another person only your posts count toward the 10. If you are traveling on the back of a fast Pokemon, it only takes 5 posts. If you are flying or in a vehicle of some sort, 1 post. Once you've visited a place, it only takes one post to pass through on foot, all other forms of travel can skip it entirely.

Time

Mi-aro follows the same revolution and rotation time as Earth. This is just a fancy way of saying that we'll use realtime here. Basically, December Irl is December IC. This will cut away some of the confusion here and there. PX also takes use of Liquid Time. This is a feature that allows your character to be in multiple topics at once, but all at separate times. Because of the unique plot of PX, Liquid Time is sort of a must, especially if you're in the business of founding settlements. Use it to your advantage and be creative with it. In turn, you will progress much quicker and enjoy the forum more.

It is asked that at the beginning of each new IC topic you place a Time Stamp. The format is simple Month, Week, Year. You can be more specific is you like, but that is all that is required. You will be allowed to go Four weeks into the past, but you cannot time travel forward, so keep that in mind when plotting. The exception to this, is the "TIME TRAVEL" board. Here characters can play deep into their past, even as far back as being on PokeEarth. Keep in mind this is strictly for storytelling and will not affect any current stats.

One of the many ways players drive the world of Mi-aro is with the ability (and encouragement) to own their own shops. Shops can sell a myriad of things from tattooing Pokemon, crafting armor, creating custom weapons and pokeballs, to selling specialized pokeblocks. There are two general types of good, player-made and character-made. Player-made goods are drawings, poems, paintings, songs, banners, sprites, graphics, etc, that are made OOC and bought by other players. This transaction can occur in or out of character depending on preferance. Character-made goods are items or entities found or made by the character and can be sold to both players and NPCs. The two types of character-made shops are Production-based and Service-based.

Production-based shops sell items that they've made or improved. For these shop owners, it's important to find goods that are different from those already sold at the Global Market or to create a variation that works better than the already shelved item. These shops also are required to have a place of business such as a kiosk or store. If you'd like to create a shop, you'll first need to build a place. You'll find more information on creating and improving buildings on the recipe page.

Service-based shops sell the skills of individual characters such as taming ferals, escorting caravans and people safely through routes, or even something as simple as taking care of someone's plants. Generally these types of shops don't need material locations. The best way for these shops to function is to have the character make signs with their X-Gear number and/or address, then plant them around the colony. Larger service-based shops, such as the Lucilla Jenny Post Office, need a physical palce to do their business. So remember that the bigger the service, the more restrictions it has.

Creating a Shop

Once you've decided what kind of business you are and you've built your shop, the next thing you need to do is go make a post in the "CHARACTER SHOPS" board. Here's what you need in the post:

Although many things evolved similarly on PokeEarth and Mi-aro, only creating variations and some additives here and there, plant-life is completely different and nothing that was brought from the portal will grow in the Mi-arean soil. There are 4 different types of plant-life: Berries, Herbs, Crops, and Foliage. You can read about each specific plant in the "VEGETATION" thread.

Berries are similar to those found on PokeEarth and are the equivalent to Earth's fruit. They have very strong flavor and are generally used in dessert recepies, spices, and even some medicines. Only 2 species of berry have been discovered, therefore the research is limited. So far, berries have been seen to grow naturally on large trees and spiny bushes. However, the trees seem to flower and produce fruit even when young, so it's still quite possible to grow them in you backyard.

Herbs are the leafy counterparts of Berries, they generally don't have as strong of a flavor and as a result are not typically used in foods other than as seasonings. These plants shine in the medicinal field and are typially found on bushes. There are 2 known species of herb.

Crops are cultivated plants that can be grown in mass numbers in short amounts of time. These are plants that are used to feed or clothe the colony. They are rarely found in the wild and only 2 species have been discovered.

Foliage are the trees, shrubs, vines, ferns, and flowers that grow in the wild. Berries and herbs sometimes grow on these naturally. There are many known species but uses have not been found for them other than decorative purposes. But who knows.

Clothing

After 25 years of working a new planet, most of the clothing that humans brought from PokeEarth has been destroyed and as stated in the VEGETATION thread, no Old World plants will grow in Mi-aro. This means the colonists had to find a new source of fabric. There are three resources used in clothing, the very staticy Mareep wool, Leather, and the new-found cotton replacement, Furfa. Since Furfa is much easier to refine than PokeEarthen cotton, as well as easy to dye and the perfect fabric for the climate, it took the colonies by storm. That being said, there are only two or three farms that produce it, making it a very expensive product. Most people can get their hands on a boll and start growing them in their backyards to make their own clothing, but there really aren't many other options.

Because the finished product is very light, thin, and often see-through, designers have taken to using multiple layers of drapes. Basically like having a myriad of scarves sewn into a dress. Survivors have also found that the fabric is extremely durable despite its thinness, one could say it has a similar structure to spider webs. But overall, it's an all-around perfect way to start Mi-arean fashion culture!

Animals have always existed alongside Pokémon, though the super-powered monsters tend to overshadow the more mundane creatures. This effect is especially true on Mi-aro. Small creatures- especially invertebrates- seem to exist in fair numbers, though many are somewhat different than their PokeEarthen counterparts in trivial ways. The more complex animals get, though, the less likely you are to see them. Some migrants through the portal brought animals with them in varying amounts, but most have since died either by feral attacks or of starvation. It seems that for many, no suitable vegetation could be found on Mi-aro (or at least hasn't been found yet), in the same way that most seeds brought through to plant would not take in Mi-aran soil, and the way very few suitable foodstuffs have been found even for human consumption. What few old world plants and animals have survived this long are kept under strict lock and key for research and protection purposes, and are currently useless to the population at large.

So what do humans eat? Well there are berries, kikaso-based breads and cereals and the like, and low-intelligence Pokémon. The most common meat is Corka, an evolutionary divergence of Corsola which lacks its cousins hard body or.. battle usefulness in general, really. A literal handful of specimens have ever been witnessed using attacks other than Splash (though some would argue some of those were really wimpy Tackles, most don't think that counts for much more), making them basically pink squishy blobs of meat. A few small Corka mills exist in Port City, and they can be caught off the coast if someone has some general idea what they're doing sea-fishing. Actual non-Pokémon fish are caught on rare-ish occasion, but never in very large amounts; it is unknown if they would be more or less common elsewhere. Another common food source is the number of Pidgey farms in New Pallet. A few other very small meat farms exist in each settlement, and various vegetation farms as well specializing in, again, berries and kikaso. The colonists are quickly growing bored of their grain and coral-based diet, so it is imperitive that more sources of food be found as quickly as possible.

Tech

Technology still has a place in the minds of humans. That being said, it is not nearly as wide-spread as it was on PokeEarth, and for many good reasons. Lack of resources is a big one. The only metal that has thus far been discovered in enough quantity to be widely available to work with is iron- and consequentially steel- so designs have to accommodate this. A relatively tiny amount of other metals exist, but no steady source has yet been found, so it is all currently hoarded by the major supply companies for use in such things as X-Gears. Plastic exists only in what has been brought or recycled from the old world.

Fuel is another thing. Citizens are not allowed to harm the world in ways such as burning fossil fuels (even if they had them) or anything else that could cause the sort of pollution which killed the old world. The energy must come from other sources. Luckily, researchers have discovered that Mi-aro carries its own distinct energy that can be harnessed and used to fuel certain machines. Though the energy is renewable, it is not easily found or stored. The only large supply of this energy to be found so far is given off by the Legend Portal. Therefore, the energy has been dubbed Portal Energy. Portal Energy can only be stored using crystal-like minerals found in various places on the planet. This is a delicate process that only a select few understand, meaning that even though this energy is free and essentially endless, spreading it is taking time.

The good news, though, is that one Tiny Crystal can store enough energy to last the lifetime of small devices such as lightbulbs, and years of 'battery life' for things like the X-gear, though large devices put under heavy use may require a small recharge time. These crystals can also easily conduct different waves. This quirk allows them to power holograms and radio signals across very large areas. Thanks to this new energy source, just about anything can be invented provided you can afford the resources to do it. That said, mass producing things can still prove quite difficult, as proven by the time it took to start mass-producing even the most basic trainer supplies.

One such example is medical devices. Rather than "Pokémon Centers" in the traditional sense, Mi-aro has what is more often referred to as "Trainer's Inns", with three in Port City and one in New Pallet. These are mostly what the name implies: inns in which certified trainers can sleep for the night. Lodging and meager rations are free to trainers and their Pokémon, or provided at a fairly low price for non-trainers. Here, nurses will help tend to wounds, for people as well as Pokémon though the latter are their focus, but primarily through old-fashioned methods. Medicines will generally be provided for sickness, antidotes if suffering from poison, and so-forth, and higher end technology does exist in very limited quantities to help deal with the severest of injuries quickly. For instance, a compound bone fracture could be quickly reduced to a minor wound and set up to heal within a matter of days to weeks as opposed to months. If you or your Pokémon manage to survive being gutted, they will gladly expend their energy to get those back inside you. However, most of their technology is the sort that requires recharging, so with limited machines, only 'emergencies' get the "doo, doo, do-do-do!" insta-healing of Pokémon Centers in games. Most injuries will be aided and left to heal on their own through proper rest and perhaps a mild herbal remedy.

We've talked about how PX is a very member-driven community, another way we prove this is through the crafting system. Recipes are made by putting multiple items, or lots of one item together in some fashion. Most of the items in the Recipe Book cannot be bought in NPC stores, which means there's benefits in the form of profit and simply having unique items. A few recipes have already been discovered, as you can see in the "RECIPE BOOK" thread, but it is up to members to make more. This is all about creativity, so if you feel like some of the items will mix, either write a Data Log or just go for it in one of the IC boards!

When you look at the Recipe Book, you'll see the items listed in this format:



A couple of these things are common sense, so let's go into the one's that aren't. 1) The recipes are separated into Tiers from I-V (or possibly more). Tiers are part of the "CHANGER" Skill that awards them SP based on what Tier of item they create. Items marked with a Tier of (n/a) therefore grant no SP. You many only complete each item for SP once, so it is imperitive that Changers use their skill to make as many recipes as they can think of in order to level up. 2) Next, the amount of posts it takes to complete. The recipes try to stay balanced so you'll notice that more expensive items tend to take less posts to complete. Let's take the ROPE recipe for example. This recipe requires 5 posts to complete, now this doesn't mean that you have to spend 5 entire posts rambling on about how you're braiding the twine into rope. Basically, once you have all the required materials, you just mention somewhere in your post that you're making the rope, and you do that for all 5 posts. 3) Recipes that require time. Structure recipes tend to be the culprits behind this, of course, it would be unrealistic, even for us, to allow the characters to build an entire building in one day. So here's how it works: NPC builders will do this project for free (let's say they're paid by Mr. R), so all you have to do is post the day it starts and then when the project is finished. Certain structures will allow the use of Liquid Time, but those will be specified.

While there are lots of limits on recipes, it's not all work and no play. Once you've completed a recipe, you never have to go through the "it tkes this many posts to complete" section again. So once you've made rope for the first time, all you have to do when you want more is have 3 Twine in your inventory and boom! More Rope!

Weapons

For the first 20-something years of life on Mi-aro, Pokeballs could not be made due to lack of resources. Of course, the Domestic Pokemon of Earth would still follow and protect their human comrades, but the trainer-base was low because other duties had to come first. That's when weapons came back into play. The weapons sold at the Global Market were made for the protection of the human colonists, meaning they were made to combat Feral Pokemon, not other humans. Weapons can be used against Pokemon the same way other Pokemon attacks are, which gives characters a way to stay safe in the likely event that a feral gets past their Pokemon defenses and flanks them.

There is one thing to keep in mind. Think of Pokemon as magicians who have a resistance to magic that doesn't allow them to be killed by other magic. This is why when Ferals hunt, they normally have to use their teeth, claws, etc, to deliver a killing blow (unless they can just completely overwhelm their prey, but that would be counterproductive for hunting). Therefore, if characters aren't careful with their weapons, they can kill the Pokemon that they're fighting. Don't be too cautious of course, because they are much more likely to kill you than you them.