A common trait in many text based RPGs is a single thematic goal, which the characters work at throughout the game's life. Kingdom is not such a game. Instead, we function by following several campaign, each of which consists of chunks of the game's timeline. Within these chucks of time, players are allowed to roleplay essentially whatever they want. The beginning and ending events of a campaign are PPEvents, which bring the cast together, usually to solve a mystery or to fight a daemon. We've found this lets the game cover more ground within the storyline. However, because we do not write the stories in chronological order, we have a flexible date method. This can be a little confusing at first, but we keep track of all stories within a campaign's specific timeline on the wiki. For example
Anyone can post a story, drabble, artwork, etc during the current campaign. For example, say you want to draw a comic about how your character took down some nasty daemon-seedling nest. As the even happens during the first campaign, feel free to have that comic exist as an official canon moment. This means it goes on the official timeline for that campaign, with a little description summarizing what happened (for people reading just the timeline).
In the event you want to go back and write a story in a campaign that happened earlier, feel free! However, we do ask that it doesn't changing of the basic storyline of what happened before. So you can’t go back and write a pre-seal story where your character is running around as a Guardian. The exception to this rule are AU stories, which are not posted on the official timelines. Internal consistency for the win!
Similar to backdating logs, sometimes people like to start writing stories early, which might take place in a future campaign. For internal consistency, we label these stories are as AU’s until we reach that point in the story, simply because storylines have a way of evolving in ways we can’t imagine in collaborative fiction. Additionally, limiting ourselves to one potential future isn’t good for the writing process ;).
Below is a very rough idea of what our Campaigns are like. You are welcome to write whatever you want within a campaign— your character doesn’t have to follow what the other Hunters are doing— but we do ask that all the active players collaborate on the PPevents. These are stories intended to bring all the characters together, and are used to kick off-- or close-- a campaign. Think of these as season openers and enders from a television slant.
Campaign 1: Welcome to the Black Parade
Timeline: Late August, 2008 — a date yet to be determined. Tentatively the middle of Pacificon.
Campaign Running Dates In Real Time: February 28th, 2008 (hopefully ending in May-June, 2008)
Inciting Event: Cracking of the Last Seal.
Background on the Campaign (How We Got To This Point):
Since the founding of Sunset City in the early days of the Gold Rush, an unusual number of Hunters have been drawn to the area. The area has long been a hotbed of daemonic activity, steadily growing until it reached a peak in the WWII era.
Several Bands of Hunters gathered at the original Sunset City Elementary School with one goal: end the daemonic presence for good. An epic battle was fought with many losses, but in the end all the daemons were routed out— and the school was destroyed. Unknown to the Hunters, the Faen had taken notice. They had been waiting for the omens to line up for an era of particularly strong Hunters, and that time was fast approaching.
While the Faen plotted, a generation of Hunters passed— and remained inactive, as with no daemons, no Hunters were called. Things began to change at the end of the century, as Daemonic activity began to draw closer to the peaceful community.
In December of 1999, the first of a new generation of Hunters was awoken; unfortunately, this first Hunter died battling the Daemon. Others rose up, and slowly a community of Hunters were awoken and began forming Bands. Most remained oblivious to their Geld legacy. A knowledge gap spanned between the WWII generation and Modern Hunters, and many of the old traditions were lost.
In 2005, the Faen judged the era had arrived, and snatched the Purity Princess Cloahni from the Geldon Kingdom and dropped her into the modern era. In order to protect Cloa, the Faen split her essence in half, creating two females in the process. One is a high school student with unusual Hunting abilities, the other a college student who manifests no outright Hunting abilities— but has all of Cloa’s memories. Both of these characters act as MacGuffins in this and the next Campaign.
2007 was a record year in Daemonic activity and saw the formation of The Fortress Band. Through the work of several Hunters, including one Mara Thompson, communication began between the various groups. The Fortress Band makes one of their missions the tracking and cracking of Seals, particularly a suspicion one that is first felt in August of that year.
Just over a year later, the Fortress Band found the Seal, and successfully crack it, thus releasing the Guardian’s ability to enter the Totem state— and dissolving a protective binding that made the essence of the Purity Princesses invisible to Daemons. Now, like what occurred at the tail end of the Geldon Kingdom, hoards of Daemons are being drawn to the town.
Oops.
Plotting the Campaign (What the general plan is):
For the Guardians, this acts as introduction to their abilities and to their mission. Those who have awoken are drawn to one another and struggle with the conflict between their Hunter and Guardian instincts. Slowly, the Guardians begin to unravel key information about the Geldon Kingdom— and the knowledge their Princess was brought to their time.
Hunters struggle with revelations about their former teammates and with the increased amount of Daemonic activity. Up to this point, most have only dealt with nests of daemon-seedlings, much easier to deal with than adult Daemons. At least one Band (Gumbies) is created during this time.
The tentative conclusion of the Campaign begins during the second PPevent of the game, set at Pacificon. Hunters and Guardians come together to investigate the creator of GKMMORPG and do battle with some surprising foes.
Major Hunts of the Campaign:
* Breaking the Seal
* Pacificon
Other Stories of the Campaign:
* ??
Note on the Campaign:
Not all the stories will be listed on this page. Please see the wiki for all the stories that take place within this specific campaign.
Teasers for the Second Campaign
Timeline: Middle/Late September, 2008; date yet to be determined. Tentatively the middle of Pacificon.
Campaign Running Dates In Real Time: Hopefully we get to this point by May-June, 2008
Inciting Event: Events at Pacificon.
Background on the Campaign (How We Got To This Point):
Not up yet! We haven't even started the first campaign yet :P.
Plotting the Campaign (What the general plan is):
The major plot of this Campaign for the Guardians (and any Hunters who chose to help out) to locate the Purity Princess. They remain oblivious to the fact there are actually two, discovering only the younger of the two girls. The Guardians being their task of protecting the girl, but many are worried because she doesn’t have much of the power she is suppose to yield. More things happen, including at least one Indiana!Jones!esque adventure, before the Guardians find out in a stunning conclusion to the Campaign that there is a second Purity Princess.
The Hunters continue their efforts to take out the Daemon population. Bands begin to shift alliances as the question of helping the Guardians in their quest is posed. There is a possibility of introducing the Jinn at the close of this Campaign, giving Hunters some new enemies— and potentially some new allies as well.