Legends of Dragonia Re-Vamp

[Ryan - Loki]

Well since a few of you have put forward ideas to keep Ki on the site, despite what I’m reading somewhat conflicting the votes lol, I think it's safe to say that Ki - or at least a form of life energy that flows within everyone - should remain on the site, but like Aion and Kihaku both stated I think it should be severely down powered, limited, and redefined. These quotes in particular stand out to me as the path we should move towards, and then down:

‘I guess Ki being reintroduced as a forbidden magic/element of "Life" would be a simple fix for this, though. However, I'd suggest that we keep this limited to two experienced members at the moment, and increase this number slightly as more members come in.’ - Aion.

and

‘The idea of life energy being used to attack shouldn't be entirely removed from the site. As a way to prevent people from using energy attacks, we should introduce the idea that "life energy" can be channelled to increase one's physical attacks or movements, but putting it outside the body as its own form of attack will severely limit one's ability to function.’ - Kihaku.

Now if we could gain a mixture between both these ideas I think we’ll be moving down the right path to greatly improving the site.

Perhaps if we made it so that life energy - Ki - is thought as a sacred form of energy as it gives, and sustains the life, and strength, of each individual. Using it outside of ones body does grant you great powers - such as energy attacks, power upgrades, etc.- but as you’re using the very substance of your existence, your life force, it not only drains you of life but actually physically hurts you. So because of this fact, and not to mention that Ki seems to be the main cause of destruction upon Dragonia, it is forbidden/illegal to use Ki on Dragonia, but isn’t impossible if a person REALLY wants to.

Inexperienced members cannot use Ki anyway, as IC they’d not know how to contain it properly and they’d end up using far too much and killing themselves. A way to keep this in check could be that to use Ki outside of ones body you have to have a special Class I ability, which will be creates specifically, that allows you to do so, BUT to be able to purchase this Class I ability you have to met the requirements, such as have a total of 250 posts on the site, or have been a member for 6 months/one year.

I’m just throwing down some examples/thoughts I’ve got here people, feel free to keep your own ideas coming.

[Jimmy Claymore]

I agree with this idea that normal people can't use Ki without effectively killing themselves, you could give it some limits like being able to manifest two inches outside the body to enhance attacks or act as a shield but sending it flying as a beam is impossible since your using your own life force and its doubtful that you'd survive. Or at least you'd die young... *shrug* I dunno

[kihaku]

‘I guess Ki being reintroduced as a forbidden magic/element of "Life" would be a simple fix for this, though. However, I'd suggest that we keep this limited to two experienced members at the moment, and increase this number slightly as more members come in.’ - Aion.

and

‘The idea of life energy being used to attack shouldn't be entirely removed from the site. As a way to prevent people from using energy attacks, we should introduce the idea that "life energy" can be channelled to increase one's physical attacks or movements, but putting it outside the body as its own form of attack will severely limit one's ability to function.’ - Kihaku.

A redefinition of "Ki" for the next-gen Dragonia:

"A form of life energy common to all beings, sentient or not. This energy is necessary for all creatures of the universe to exist, and if anything loses it for any reason, their body will whither and die. The 'amount' of energy, per se, is not uniform from person to person; to say that a middle-age lay-about with no goal in life has noticeaby less life energy as a vibrant young child or an elderly person who takes life by the horns is a perfect example.

However, this is not to say that to use this energy for various uses is entirely out of the question. Several cultures on Dragonia have outlawed its use for any sort of attack, but that does not mean it is impossible. As life energy is meant to remain within the body, to move it about and reinforce one's physical movements or traits is a simple function, and won't normally have any adverse effects.

On the reverse, to put this energy in any way outside of the body is extremely detrimental, and in most cases causes more harm than good. One's life expentancy will greatly decrease, as will strength and stamina. It also requires a great amount of experience to attempt, and very few people will ever have this ability.

To move the energy around within the body to power up a physical attack (punches, kicks, eye-sight, sixth-sense, etc.) is a moderately difficult ability, as most powerful warriors do it without realizing it anyway. To upgrade a character, or acquire a new character, with the ability to manifest life energy outside the body will require the Class ? ability of being able to recognize life energy and move it about within the body, as well as a membership of six full months, which consists of at least 300 posts."

~Re-Definition as written by Kihaku, approved by ~~~~~

Any comments/suggestions? Yes? No?

[Jimmy Claymore]

Cool! I like Kihaku's definition but also got some more to add as potential uses, which was an idea that came to me. Y'know how we have a kind of, allegance thing, like Good, Evil, Neutral? Well, logically this could also affect what characters "Ki" is like, so these are some more that let people potentially have long range or energy like attacks

Good Characters

Celestial Energy- The energy source of Angels and other heavenly beings, also called Tenki by some, it's main usage is healing and creation, it resembles light when projected as a weapon or attack. The strength of the attack depends on the character's own spirit and the spirit of the attacker, if it's used on a being of darkness then the energy will burn them severely, but a being of light will barely feel it. Main attack style: Light rays and Beams

Evil Characters

Demonic Energy- The power of Demons, hard to wield but with few limitations save how much the body can hold. Humans have extreme difficulty using both this and Ki, has been called Jikokuki. It can only be used for destruction but even this is difficult to control, most frequently it resembles lightning or fire in disorganised shapes. Like Celestial Energy, it relies on the spirit of the attacker and whose being attacked, heavenly beings are hurt more than other dark entities. Main attack style: Red Fire and Lightning

Neutral Characters

Spirit Energy- Using your own soul as a weapon is a perilous endeavour, although it won't damage you in the long run when used in moderation if you over exert by even a small amount you can kill yourself, has also been called Reishi. A normal human can used one Spirit Energy attack a day and will then have no energy for at least 24 hours, if they even attempted to use it, it would be lethal. Spirit Energy is close to Ki, but where Ki is life energy essential to running your body, Spirit energy is what gives your soul life, using it up without leaving time to replenish... well, lets say you wont see Heaven OR Hell. Main attack style: Blue and White glow (basically, Yu Yu Hakusho stuff)

All kinds of Characters

Magic- Bog standard, limited by your Mana, mostly used by Humans. Majority of spells are elemental but not of the strength an elementalist would have. Can also be used as blunt force trauma, i.e. Magic Missile, yo! Has no natural enemies except in itself
Fire = Water
Earth = Wind
Metal = Wood
Sun = Moon
(n.b. Light and Darkness are NOT usable elements as they're Celestial and Demonic energy respectively)

Elemental Manipulation- Woo! The big dog of magic, you have mastery over one area of magic and thats all, but you don't need much else. If Fire's your bitch you can evaporate lesser water spells with ease and you have a huge advantage over a standard mage. Except y'know... variety is the spice of life.

Ki- See Kihaku's explanation ;D

But yeah, I reckon this could be fun. I also added four new elements cos the basic Four bug me...

And along with this we get whatever physical abilities and weapons we already have so.. it works. Might need to make some more 'elite' options, like Elementalists have to be neutral or something... I dunno.

[Ryan - Loki]

Kihaku, that was perfect! That's basically ready to be put up on the main site as new rules, or at least will be when we're ready to add all the new content.

As for your ideas Jimmy I actually do like the concept of the majority of it. I mean when thinking about it Angel and Demons pretty much live, and come from, the other world - heaven and hell - which means they're both live on planes of death and usually one has to be dead to be able to go there, let alone reside there. So being that they aren't alive in the sense as normal characters are they wouldn't have the use of Ki, life energy, as they've passed on from their life.

I'm probably not making much sense, i'm starting to confuse myself if i'm honest, but can anyone see where i'm going with this? I'm not too sure about the spirit energy thing, but I think Dimitri uses a similar form of energy for his character so perhaps with a little work, who knows.

As for all these new changes it's going to mean a lot of changes to everyones profiles. I'm currently in the process of stripping the majority of the Ki related abilities/attacks from my profiles, or re-writing the abilities/attacks so they don't use Ki. If/when everyone makes their changes to their profiles keep a tab on the abilities that you discard and total up the credits and they'll be added straight into your bank accounts, or instead you can just simply replace the attacks with new ones that fit the new rules.

It'd be a bit strange is Dragonia suddenly changed it's views over Ki, etc. overnight so i've thought up a storyline to help make the transistion a bit smoother and to make a bit more sense. It wont be happening until after my saga so you've got plenty of time to make the changes to your profiles.

But all in all i think this thread has been great. We've all put in some great ideas and the site is already starting to improve from it all, so keep it all coming!

[kihaku]

No Ryan, I totally understand where you're coming from, it was the exact same thing I was thinking after reading Jimmy's response as well. Personally, having spent 95% of my childhood dreaming about these kinds of things (elements, magic, life energy, etc.), I think that I've managed to connect them in ways that will make sense, that I will now attempt to make for everyone.

Using my definition of life energy, one can then begin to amalgamate all of the other forms of magic. If life energy and spirit energy are common to all people, then to combine them within the body, then change it into magic that can be used outside the body would have no harmful effect, as it was spirit energy changed by life energy that is being manifested. Basically, spirit energy, which is replenishable (thank you Jimmy), is shaped and molded by the life energy, which then spring-boards it to a new kind of useable external energy. The manifested magic, therefore, is maleable, and is fully capable of instantly changing into any form of straight-up elemental attack. Pure spirit energy that is unchanged by life energy, on the other hand, can create generic magic spells that have no elemental affinity and are used simply to smack people around, i.e. Magic Missile.

Fire = Water
Earth = Wind
Metal = Wood
Sun = Moon

- Light and Darkness are NOT usable elements as they're Celestial and Demonic energy respectively
- Lightning is the pureset form of Fire, and is no more difficult to manifest than Ice.
- Ice is simply another form of Water, and is no more difficult to manifest than Lightning.

However, Celestial and Demonic energy, coming from two completely different places as mortal Spirit energy, change the effects of the created spells. They are basically the same thing as life energy, but are completely replenishable like Spirit energy, since the person using it is a manifested spirit of a soul that has already passed on and been changed. Therefore, any form of elemental attacks created by either form of energy will create devastating effects against the other, but the normal amount of damage against a neutral, mortal soul. Pure Celestial attacks are normally white beams, and elemental attacks are usually a bright white or sky blue. Pure Demonic attacks are normally black lightning or fire in appearance only, though elemental attacks are normally dark blue, indigo, or black.

Summary:
Pure spirit = generic non-element magic
Life + Spirit = elemental magic
Celestial = good spirit + life = good magic
Demonic = bad spirit + life = evil magic


Is this good, or did I go a little too overboard?

[Garoten Reklor]

Just a few thoughts from your friendly neighborhood Inter-dimensional traveller (meaning Falkan). As our trouble seems to be in keeping active members (I'm afraid I've been part of the problem, not the solution myself), it seems to me that eliminating something is going to help. For my part, it wasn't the presence of this or that element that turned me away from other sites, but the lack of certain elements. Dragonia's greatest asset, besides its writers, has always been the creativity one is allowed. Nobody here is forced to choose from a certain race or use a certain energy or fight a certain way - take Falkan as an example. He's a medieval type warrior who favors the use of weapons, elemental 'magic', and the occasional use of ki. Where else would such a character be welcome?

My advice, take it or leave it, is to leave ki alone. In fact, open the floodgates up. Allow ki, chakra, rieatsu, magic, and whatever else anyone can think of. I can't speak for our English members - and I know that's likely the majority of us - but here in America anime is in a fever state. Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach are as popular as - if not more than - Dragonball ever was. And all of them share the same 'ki-like' idea, although the terminology is different.

What I'm trying to say is let's not take away an element that could attract some old DBZ fans like myself - lets instead add elements. Let's focus on ways to attract the Naruto, Bleach, Pokemon, Zelda, LOTR, whatever else fans out there. I think it would be great to see in our next tournament a summoner battling against a ninja, or a mage against an android, or a weapon-based warrior against a ki-based one. I would like that. Maybe I'm alone?

That said, we do need a way to balance it. Ki based attacks capable of destroying planets are going to discourage other types of characters because there would be no way to compare. I know Falkan has evolved from his original state out of necessity - just to stay competitive. I like some of the ideas I see here, but lets be careful to limit the energy itself, not the writers who want to use it.

Anyway, I voted for something in between, because I love the use of ki, and if someone wants to create a character centered on that, I want them to have that option.

[kihaku]

Well, I agree, but to a point. What my whole idea behind writing up that long ol' post was not an attempt at getting rid of Ki, but rather expanding on it's idea of what it really is. It might seem as if I've contorted everything around, but what I *hope* I've done is created an amalgamation of a generic and standardized method through which new writers with few ideas on how to get started might gain an idea of where to begin.

This isn't to say that creativity is going to be quashed to one side, we were originally a DBZ site, and after the recent census, things proved to be quite another story. I myself have four characters that have nothing to do with Ki, and a fifth in the works that has nothing to do with Chaos Energy either. My own Kihaku, in character, once stated that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of different forms of energy, additive, neutral, and negative. Granted, that was his definition, but the point stands that by creating a baseline, not a limitation, for people to get ideas, their own might branch out. What if, for example, Dramanius were to become human? His Chaos Energy would be forcibly replaced by Ki, unless the freedom of new energies is allowed.

Our, meaning Ryan and I, original idea was to pull away from DBZ just enough so as not to be labeled as a DBZ RPG. I was under the impression that we'll not do away with Ki entirely, but rather ask existing and future members to be free with their ideas, and not limit themselves to a single form of energy, as the original rules did. I'm a big fan of anime myself, and I am certainly aware of the huge differences between each series. By setting Ki off into one corner, we expose others for new or old characters to fill.

[Jimmy Claymore]

+ if your flexible you can bend what we have now to fit with whatever anime you want to mimic, i.e. Magic for Naruto Jutsus, Spirit Energy for Bleach Reihatsu, even the DBZ Ki idea works only its now got a bit more of a cap on it since you need to replenish energy.

The major difference we now have is we're slightly more open ended in how we apply our basic moves (isn't just Ki as in Ki's always DBZ style Ki. 'Spirit' and 'Life' energy is basically Ki but with slight differences) but at the same time we have a kind of a new original energy source for characters which makes us more like an actual anime/manga setting rather than borderline plagiarismo half the time ;D (ignoring the fact I ripped the idea of Spirit Energy almost completely from YYH).

But, uhh, yeah... thanks for making everything I wrote look better Mike!

[Ryan - Loki]

I must admit that when I first began to concoct this entire concept we’ve all been so vigorously speaking about, quite a while ago now, my original concept, which stuck with me right up to the point after I in fact started this very thread, was to scrap Ki (the type we’re all so familiar with from DBZ) completely from the site. However, throughout this thread, reading the several different ideas and suggestions from the many different members of the site my opinion has been swayed quite drastically.

Falkan is right, the main focus of the site, besides evolving it as time passes, is to attract some budding new members, the next generation of Dragonia’s finest, and to pick up on our lost activity. Sometimes it takes removing parts of a whole to improve on it, I now believe that in this situation this is not the case. On the other hand I do believe that we, as a site, are too focused on our DBZ roots and in turn are intimidating, perhaps even pushing away, possible new members from joining because they feel their ideas will be too different from what they may perceive, and what has pretty much become on LoD, the ‘norm’ .

I think what has now become our, and by our I mean myself and Kihaku, main focus is not to completely rid the site of Ki, but instead to find a healthy medium that will not only hopefully bring new members with flourishing new ideas, which will obviously lead to higher activity, but to also help the site move on from it’s past and develop.

The main problem with Ki, which had continued to crop up in this thread, is that, like in DBZ, it seems to be an almighty force, a ‘planet destroying’ force - to quote Mike - without much fault; all the advantages, none of the weaknesses. We’ve all been guilty of this. We use our characters to unleash devastating Ki attacks on each other and our opponents with very few of us ever showing the strain it would have on our characters bodies and minds. I’m not saying that none of us never show it, I’ve seen some great examples of finely detailed writing in such a sense in the past, I’m simply saying we’ve all been guilty of avoiding these details the majority of the time.

Example; I imagine it’d be a strain on a body to cause it to exert itself in a manor that would force an inner, even bodily energy in the sense of life or spirit energy, outside of the body. To manipulate or attack with that said energy, no matter what type/form of energy it is, would surely cause a great drain on the bodies natural defences and/or functions - even more so if it is in fact spirit or life energy that is being taken outside, and away from the body.

It’s for these reasons that I first thought Ki should be scrapped, and it is for these exact same reasons that I now believe a serious limitation should be set on using it, or any other form of energy for that matter. I still like the idea of it still allowed to be used, but not only with the great limitations and drain of using it, but the idea that ‘to upgrade a character, or acquire a new character, with the ability to manifest life energy outside the body will require the Class (I or II) ability of being able to recognize life energy and move it about within the body, as well as a membership of six full months, which consists of at least 300 posts.’


Mike, your last post - followed up by Jimmy’s add-on - was once again down to the post. Filled with detail, it was precisely right to what path the site needs to go down in the future (at least in my opinion anyway). I myself, when and if these changes come into action, will be taking the opportunity to remodel both Ryan and Loki as to remove Ki almost completely - if not completely - from their arsenal to make way for their elemental manipulation and to take them back to their basics as samurais.

[kihaku]

And the Lord said unto the Board, "Let there be muffins."

And it was good.

[Archer]

falkan said:

Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach are as popular as - if not more than - Dragonball ever was. And all of them share the same 'ki-like' idea, although the terminology is different.

One Piece doesn't use anything like Ki >_>

Yes, I know, Oh my Christ, Kilix is actually making a post! It's been a while, but real life is seriously killing me this year. However, I'm debating a return... but judging by the discussion herein, I doubt Kilix nor Dalian will be involved in it. Namely because Dalian's been slipping for me inspirationally, and also Kilix basically runs off Ki energy, and me being the lazy bastard I am, I'm not going to spend that much time altering his profile for whatever the new rules end up being.

Although I'm sorely tempted to keep KGB around, if only to please Mike and Ryan.

However, I had a few ideas for a character recently, which I may put into action (although I've just realised it may be slightly difficult, depending on a few things).

As far as the changes go, I'm going to stay out of it: I've been gone too long to give a valued opinion. However one thing I will say is this: don't make it too complex. It's all well and good widening the spectrum of options for new members, but don't close it off to the ones who don't want to have to learn a whole massive system just to make the basis of their character work.

[Garoten Reklor]

Yeah, this is going to be good.

So I'm going to re-make Falkan - I love writing him, and now that I look at it, all the changes I had to make to keep him competetive in a ki-based world sort of watered down the original character. I'm enjoyng writing a new profile for him already. Looking forward to the glory days, since I know they're still ahead of us!

[Aion]

Meh...figured this may be the perfect place to ask.

So I'm redoing Aion's profile and had a couple small issues with "Aura Color". First, being a pure elementalist he doesn't manipulate energy at a high enough level for it to be noticed, so it'd be insignificant, right? Second, since energy is being replaced four(?) specific types can it still be customized?

Should I just replace "Aura Color" with "Element" or what...?