Jun 9, 2025 1:52 pm
THE PITCH: noble magical-girls in soul-powered power armors/robots battle against demons to save humanity in an alternate history magi-tech world!
GENRE MIX: Mahou-Shoujo, Mecha, Tokusatsu, Romcom (& comedy in general?), alternate history. Loosely inspired by Sakura Wars, Valkyria Chronicles and Symphogear, among other things.
THE PREMISE: the history of this world has been marked since times immemorial by the battle between Order and Chaos, Good and Evil. Since antiquity, the shamon, monsters from the Underworld, have invaded Earth, most of the world's crisis were caused by their incursions and the great wars to set them back. Humanity always survived by a close call.
In this timeline, many of humanities conflicts didn't happened (as they were too busy fending off the shamons), our greatest minds dedicated their lives studying means of fighting these terrible enemies: holy magic flourished, its users called mystics, majorly present among the clergy. Japan maintained a cordial relationship with the European powers early on, since contact with the Portuguese in the 16th century.
After a century of peace and prosperity, crisis struck once again: on the turn of the 19th century, a huge incursion from the underworld attacked France, the damage unprecedent, the kingdom torn apart.
It was then that, under French Princess Éloïse d'Anjou's iniciative, the Steel Petal Project was born. Under heavy funding by the world's powers and joint cooperation between the Church's mystics and Japanese inventors, they aimed to create a weapon that would turn the tides of the war. Japan had recently discovered deposits of Tamashishi, an incredible rare mineral capable of channeling a person's soul to produce astonishing amounts of energy. With that discovery, the first Petals were born: soul-powered highly mobile armored vehicles.
The princess assembled 6 of her personal maidens and they went to battle in their new Petals, quickly turning the odds of the conflict. In the end, the whole division perished in martyrdom, their sacrifice buying the victory against the Forces of Darkness.
Fast forward some decades of peace and tranquility, at the turn of the 20th century, shamon activity began growing once more, all around the world, prompting the forming of the Holy Pact, where the world's great powers coalesced to prepare for another war, and to keep the world safe from these minor incursions. Japan, as the only place where tamashishi can be found (though recently traces of deposits were found in Brazil), holds monopoly on the world's production of Steel Petals. They, thus, founded the Imperial Academy, with the goal to train new pilots, from all around the world.
But not everyone has what it takes to be a Petal pilot: amongst the world's populations, only those of noble blood have a strong enough manifestation of their soul as to fuel them; and even among these, it has been a tradition since the first generations of pilots that they're almost exclusively girls: it could be said it is to honor Princess's Eloise and her maiden's memory; a more pragmatic explanation would be that the girls smaller frame fits better in a cramped Petal, as their maximum size is still technologically constrained (most Petals are around ~2.6 meters tall, with some reaching at 3.3; taller ones exist, but they're normally specialized units).
GAMEPLAY FOCUS: narrative-driven game, mixing slice-of-life, comedy, drama, and INTENSE ROBOT ACTION!!
PLAYER ROLES: You are noble girls (or potentially other "exceptional souls") chosen for your lineage and potential, from all around the world. There are some people capable of piloting petals who are completely clueless of their own heritage as it got lost in time. Fret not, the demand for pilots is big and the evaluators wont make a pedigree check on you!
You will start as fresh-girls at the academy (this won't be the game's focus, just for the introduction); afterwards you will form an independent division, will work on your spare time on some kind of cultural production: music, theatre, etc. As well as anything from the PCs day-to-day deemed funny. The division's commander will be a young somewhat (allegedly) charming and somewhat dense and extremely irresponsible man. At any rate, things always go well in the end!
But then, as characters are minding their business in town, a shamon incursion suddenly attacks it! Now they must do what they can to set them off and avoid any greater damage, while they have to wait some minutes, for their steel petals to be air-dropped or canon launched at their location, so they can finally put up a real fight and save the day! Hopefully, the petals come before the shamon capitain of that incursion arrives and they only have to worry about its canon-fodder, still a big deal to fight without a petal!
The current year in the game is Spring of 1916.
LOOKING FOR:
+ 4 to 7 players. At least 4 to start working on it.
+ At least 1 post per day.
+ Proactive players when it comes to cooperating with everyone to create amusing stories.
HEADSUP:
+ Very anime game in general!
+ May very tangentially touch on politics. Then again, this is an alternate world where geopolitics barely changed since the 1400s, the world is still ruled by aristocracies and it's set in the 1910s, any similarity between a country and it's modern real counterpart would be in name only.
+ I mentioned romcom in the genres. This mostly have to do with the idea of the players having a """healthy and respectable rivalry, proper of the fine ladies they are""" (not throwing grenades at each other's rooms, please) when it comes to winning the heart of their commander. Of course, maybe the greatest challenge would be to start having any sympathy towards that incompetent fool. This of course would be an optional dimension of the game for each character (though engagement on it would be welcome, if it makes sense for the PC).
THE SYSTEM: QuestWorlds is the new edition of HeroQuest, released this year. It's a narrative freeform game. I think it would be a great use for PbP, since, in it, most whole scenes are resolved with a single roll (and maybe a single batch of posts), while there are options to make more dramatical sequences be resolved in a sequence of contests.
For those who don't know it, characters are made of freeform abilities that have a rating. Players roll a d20 trying to roll under their rating to achieve a success, then the GM rolls the same way for the resistance. The party with the most successes wins the prize (the narrative goal behind the contest), the difference in successes sets the degree of success or defeat, which impacts the result.
Hello everyone. Since things got easier on this part and I started craving to run something, I came up with this little funny idea.
GENRE MIX: Mahou-Shoujo, Mecha, Tokusatsu, Romcom (& comedy in general?), alternate history. Loosely inspired by Sakura Wars, Valkyria Chronicles and Symphogear, among other things.
THE PREMISE: the history of this world has been marked since times immemorial by the battle between Order and Chaos, Good and Evil. Since antiquity, the shamon, monsters from the Underworld, have invaded Earth, most of the world's crisis were caused by their incursions and the great wars to set them back. Humanity always survived by a close call.
In this timeline, many of humanities conflicts didn't happened (as they were too busy fending off the shamons), our greatest minds dedicated their lives studying means of fighting these terrible enemies: holy magic flourished, its users called mystics, majorly present among the clergy. Japan maintained a cordial relationship with the European powers early on, since contact with the Portuguese in the 16th century.
After a century of peace and prosperity, crisis struck once again: on the turn of the 19th century, a huge incursion from the underworld attacked France, the damage unprecedent, the kingdom torn apart.
It was then that, under French Princess Éloïse d'Anjou's iniciative, the Steel Petal Project was born. Under heavy funding by the world's powers and joint cooperation between the Church's mystics and Japanese inventors, they aimed to create a weapon that would turn the tides of the war. Japan had recently discovered deposits of Tamashishi, an incredible rare mineral capable of channeling a person's soul to produce astonishing amounts of energy. With that discovery, the first Petals were born: soul-powered highly mobile armored vehicles.
The princess assembled 6 of her personal maidens and they went to battle in their new Petals, quickly turning the odds of the conflict. In the end, the whole division perished in martyrdom, their sacrifice buying the victory against the Forces of Darkness.
Fast forward some decades of peace and tranquility, at the turn of the 20th century, shamon activity began growing once more, all around the world, prompting the forming of the Holy Pact, where the world's great powers coalesced to prepare for another war, and to keep the world safe from these minor incursions. Japan, as the only place where tamashishi can be found (though recently traces of deposits were found in Brazil), holds monopoly on the world's production of Steel Petals. They, thus, founded the Imperial Academy, with the goal to train new pilots, from all around the world.
But not everyone has what it takes to be a Petal pilot: amongst the world's populations, only those of noble blood have a strong enough manifestation of their soul as to fuel them; and even among these, it has been a tradition since the first generations of pilots that they're almost exclusively girls: it could be said it is to honor Princess's Eloise and her maiden's memory; a more pragmatic explanation would be that the girls smaller frame fits better in a cramped Petal, as their maximum size is still technologically constrained (most Petals are around ~2.6 meters tall, with some reaching at 3.3; taller ones exist, but they're normally specialized units).
GAMEPLAY FOCUS: narrative-driven game, mixing slice-of-life, comedy, drama, and INTENSE ROBOT ACTION!!
PLAYER ROLES: You are noble girls (or potentially other "exceptional souls") chosen for your lineage and potential, from all around the world. There are some people capable of piloting petals who are completely clueless of their own heritage as it got lost in time. Fret not, the demand for pilots is big and the evaluators wont make a pedigree check on you!
You will start as fresh-girls at the academy (this won't be the game's focus, just for the introduction); afterwards you will form an independent division, will work on your spare time on some kind of cultural production: music, theatre, etc. As well as anything from the PCs day-to-day deemed funny. The division's commander will be a young somewhat (allegedly) charming and somewhat dense and extremely irresponsible man. At any rate, things always go well in the end!
But then, as characters are minding their business in town, a shamon incursion suddenly attacks it! Now they must do what they can to set them off and avoid any greater damage, while they have to wait some minutes, for their steel petals to be air-dropped or canon launched at their location, so they can finally put up a real fight and save the day! Hopefully, the petals come before the shamon capitain of that incursion arrives and they only have to worry about its canon-fodder, still a big deal to fight without a petal!
The current year in the game is Spring of 1916.
+ 4 to 7 players. At least 4 to start working on it.
+ At least 1 post per day.
+ Proactive players when it comes to cooperating with everyone to create amusing stories.
HEADSUP:
+ Very anime game in general!
+ May very tangentially touch on politics. Then again, this is an alternate world where geopolitics barely changed since the 1400s, the world is still ruled by aristocracies and it's set in the 1910s, any similarity between a country and it's modern real counterpart would be in name only.
+ I mentioned romcom in the genres. This mostly have to do with the idea of the players having a """healthy and respectable rivalry, proper of the fine ladies they are""" (not throwing grenades at each other's rooms, please) when it comes to winning the heart of their commander. Of course, maybe the greatest challenge would be to start having any sympathy towards that incompetent fool. This of course would be an optional dimension of the game for each character (though engagement on it would be welcome, if it makes sense for the PC).
THE SYSTEM: QuestWorlds is the new edition of HeroQuest, released this year. It's a narrative freeform game. I think it would be a great use for PbP, since, in it, most whole scenes are resolved with a single roll (and maybe a single batch of posts), while there are options to make more dramatical sequences be resolved in a sequence of contests.
For those who don't know it, characters are made of freeform abilities that have a rating. Players roll a d20 trying to roll under their rating to achieve a success, then the GM rolls the same way for the resistance. The party with the most successes wins the prize (the narrative goal behind the contest), the difference in successes sets the degree of success or defeat, which impacts the result.
Hello everyone. Since things got easier on this part and I started craving to run something, I came up with this little funny idea.
Last edited June 9, 2025 2:17 pm
