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Fandom Avatar: Walk Through the Fire (Open!)

Planxty

New Member
UPDATE:

Well, we're live!

IC thread

Our story takes place during Sozin's reign as Fire Lord and focuses on a group of Fire Nation rebels who didn't agree with his vision to conquer the world. Their current goal is to esacpe the Fire Nation and start a new life.


Ugh, titles are hard! If you can help me come up with a title, I will give credit where credit is due!

I'm craving some ATLA, and really want to explore the timeline around the beginning of the Hundred Year War, probably around the time between Roku's death and the genocide of the Air Nomads. Mainly, I'm curious to see if there really is any interest in this era, so long before the vast majority of the beloved canons were born. I'd like to get a sense of if this is even a viable idea before I put a ton of thought into it, and I'm open to feedback and ideas!

So, the plot is basically that Sozin's being an imperialist garbage fire, the next Avatar hasn't been revealed yet...things look bleak

Some logistical things I should have included from the start:
-5-10 players is my ideal number, but I'm cool with each player taking on as many characters as they can handle
-I don't like labels, I don't get hung up on length. I only ask that players write in paragraph form with a best effort for correct spelling and grammar. However long you need to set the scene, respond to other players, and move the story forward will be just fine.
 
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Could be cool but if you stick to canon you've instantly cut out anyone playing the avatar or a airbender aha

Unless you had some rebel airbenders who decided living on a mountain not eating meat is poop and left to eat meat and be a airbender without Buddhist/shaolin monks getting in the way of living how they want

On second thought I'm totally down to play a rebel airbender who defected from the air temples because they wanted to eat meat drink and start multiple families.
 
Planxty Planxty It's a neat idea, but you're going to have a problem with a plot where the players can't accomplish anything. The Avatar isn't found (as far as everyone knows), the Fire Nation succeeds in destroying the Air Nomads completely (minus Aang), Sozin isn't defeated. There isn't really much room for good guys to win during this time period. You could do a story about how the Fire Nation fails to breech the walls of Ba Sing Se and somehow lose almost all of their footing on the main continent. It's assumed that the Earth Kingdoms kept falling one by one to the Fire Nation while Aang was frozen, but at the beginning of A:tLA the Fire Nations appears to have a very small presence on the main continent, if any at all. The Earth Kingdoms still seem to control the whole continent. Omashu is near the western coast and doesn't seem to have been in combat with the Fire Nation for some time when the gaang shows up, but you would expect the western coast to be one of the first places to have fallen to the Fire Nation's initial invasions, or at least one of the few beachheads the Fire Nation had managed to occupy throughout the entire 100 years.

I think if you want to do a story during the 100 Years War before Aang shows up you would need to give people a basic idea of what their characters would being trying to do and allude to what the players are going to change about the world (even if it's only something small) if you want to get a more people to commit to tagging along for the story. That's just my two cents.
 
Another option is to start a decade or two before the start of ATLA, with our character's goal being to push the Fire Nation out of the colonies. There would be several time skips, with the end of the RP being the Gaang making enough of a difference for our characters to succeed, possibly during the Day of Black Sun.
 
Unless you had some rebel airbenders who decided living on a mountain not eating meat is poop and left to eat meat and be a airbender without Buddhist/shaolin monks getting in the way of living how they want

On second thought I'm totally down to play a rebel airbender who defected from the air temples because they wanted to eat meat drink and start multiple families.

Bwahaha i kind of like that idea

Thanks so much for the input, guys, I wasn't expecting this much feedback. I've got a lot to think about!
 
Planxty Planxty This looks interesting, but I agree with the concerns ithinkcat ithinkcat brought up. Another option to work around those constraints on the story would be to focus on a small group of characters whose character arcs happen on a very personal, individual scale with the war as more of a backdrop. Say, a ragtag group of misfits, all with various issues, who fall in together and try to carve out a life for themselves amidst the chaos. This is the basic idea of a fanfic I came up with a while back (but never wrote, haha). It involved a nonbender Earth Kingdom girl who tries to provide for her little brother and find a place to live after losing their home and parents to the Fire Nation, a waterbender boy who is afraid of water (and possibly mute) after a tragic childhood accident and runs away from one of the Water Tribes, and possibly a Fire Nation runaway of some description. Needless to say, this is a darker, edgier take on the source material, but given the time period I think a darker tone works well. We could play as a group of refugees, or bandits, or wandering traders, or even a guerilla resistance force like the Freedom Fighters as long as we place the focus on the characters' internal and interpersonal struggles, and maybe go with slice-of-life style pacing.

Alternatively, we could play as the Fire Nation, which eliminates the problem altogether. Because, you know, we'd be winning. 😈 We might explore the political intricacies of the Fire Nation court, or we could stick to the battlefield, maybe flesh out a young Azulon's campaigns in the Northern Provinces. What do you guys think?
 
Another idea: if we want to lean really heavily into that darker tone, we could play as people in a Fire Nation prison camp. On another site, I did a roleplay set in labor camp for political prisoners in a dystopian United States. Surprisingly, it was quite fun. Some PCs were guards and some were prisoners, all of whom had interesting foibles and funny escapades, albeit in a black comedy sense. The prisoners communicated in sign language to avoid notice and managed to hold secret meetings despite the odds, probably because the guards didn't want to be there either and could care less as long as they wouldn't land in hot water themselves. My character was an obnoxious type-A personality who bullied other prisoners out of extra food they managed to score despite being very petite, and who wasn't invited to any secret meetings but managed to barge her way in to whatever plot was afoot anyway. Two guards, each with improbably grim backstories, somewhat randomly fell into a passionate love affair while wrestling with personal demons. Also one of them tried to get dirt on their superior and take over the camp. And I think one prisoner snapped from the trauma and developed delusions of being a Greek god. It was pretty wild.
 
Monday Monday Planxty Planxty Exactly. It's not that there aren't interesting stories that can happen during that time period. They just have to stay small in scope. Another potential plot would be instead of a globetrotting party (staying thematic to both Avatar series), you could have a story about a bunch of people living in an Earth Kingdom village trying to stop it from falling into the hands of a maniacal Fire Army captain that's been raiding Earth Kingdom lands or something. In the grand scheme of things, defeating this captain and keeping the village from burning (or maybe it gets burned down anyways and thus begins a globetrotting chase sequence of the captain chasing down the party to "finish the job") doesn't really effect the outcome of the war or other future events, but, in the context of our characters, the village and the people that perish defending it mean the world to them. They aren't fighting to save some king they've never met or on a journey to find an Avatar that abandoned them; they're fighting to save their gram-gram that's too old to evacuate the village or mount a rescue operation to save their father who was taken prisoner by the evil fire captain.
 
Monday Monday @ithinkcat

Yeah, my goal was to keep it smaller in scope all along. Not every story has to be epic save the world scale, and I honestly think such a big plot can be tough to pull off. My interest is more to explore the world.

I was originally leaning toward the ragtag group of misfits trope, because I like that it would give players the opportunity to play character from different place and walks of life and get to visit more settings....but....dang...to do something from the point of view of the Fire Nation? I'm kind of stuck on that idea now.

Oooooh, and since I love a good stickin' it to the man plot...surely not everyone accepted GarbageFire Lord Sozin's horribleness without question, what about a secret group of rebels within the Fire Nation itself? eeeee...my brain likes this one
 
Planxty Planxty If you're set on exploring things from the point of view of the Fire Nation (but not being bad guys), then I have an idea. So, we know that the Fire Nation launches an attack at the passing of Sizin's Comet where they seem to be unstoppable (probably thanks to cosmic hacks). This is when they manage to wipe out the Air Nomads (who aren't really nomadic when you think about it), but after they make landfall on the main continent and the comet is no longer in the sky, things grind to a halt for them. They make some major wins (just from having morale and momentum on their side from earlier), but Earth Kingdom gonna Earth Kingdom. They're stubborn, dug-in, and think naming a strategy after a pig-turtle was a good idea. In fact, the Fire Nation starts losing the war especially after the Southern Water Tribe joins the war as an ally of the Earth Kingdom and starts patrolling the waters. Several Fire Nation noble families on the war council (and are therefore privy to how the war is actually going) see how terribly the war is going and start voicing ideas of peace talks. They see the changing winds, and would be happy to just hold onto the island territories they've acquired while not sacrificing more soldier lives. They might win some more battles, but the war is already lost. Best to quit while they're ahead. The Fire Lord rejects their concerns. Some of the nobles begin spreading news to the public that the war isn't going well in order to try and force the Fire Lord's hand, but it backfires on them. It's at this time that the Fire Lord implements massive propaganda campaigns (further radicalizing the common citizens as to their superiority over the other nations), begins putting restrictions on free expression (its weird how much the Fire Nation mirrors Imperial Japan prior to losing WWII), and begins arresting political dissidents. The noble families that spoke out against continuation of the war are stripped of their status (perhaps some members having to perform Angi Kai's to the death as a form of honorable seppuku), but, as with all dictatorships, the fires of resistance can never be fully stomped out.

One issue is, technically, Jeong Jeong (Aang's first firebender teacher) is supposed to be the only Fire Nation member to defect and live to tell about it. This is probably supposed to be the case considering the Fire Nation's liberal use of mercenaries and assassins. Even if you manage to get off the Fire Nation island(s) and make it passed Fire Navy patrolled waters, they'll know you went missing and will hire assassins to go dispose of you. Being as wealthy as it is, even if one assassin fails, the Fire Nation can always hire another two or fifteen more. Imagine when Aang is being chased down by Azula on her giant gecko thing. You'd never have a chance to settle-down or sleep, and eventually you'll make a mistake. It could be fun having to run from some original and memorable assassins (like sparky-sparky boom man was).

Another issue with doing a Fire Nation focused story is, again, what can the party possibly accomplish (as far as sticking it to the man)? Usually stories of rebels fighting against an oppressive regime end in the rebels defeating the oppressive regime. That obviously can't be the case here.

My suggestion would be to start with thinking about who you want the antagonist of the story to be (specifically that is and not just "The Fire Nation"). Are the players going to be fighting off a nasty crew of pirates, a brutal Fire Army captain, one or more cutthroat assassins, or what?
 
@ithinkcat

OK, I think we are getting closer! Maybe the plot could be centered on the surviving family members of those initial dissenters: the kind of people who would support the cause and be a target, but maybe not so urgent of a target. IDK, I am tired and have jello brains. Anyway, it would leave the door open to a little more travel and evading badass bounty hunters and assassins leads to a nice monster of the week setup. And maybe there's also the setup for a main antagonist, I mean there's gotta be somebody organizing all those bounty hunters and assassins.
 
Planxty Planxty Cool. That could work really well. Have us be a group of political dissidents (or relatives of those that spoke out against the Fire Lord). We could be on the run trying to find a safe place to hide while the war blows over, but we are chased by a series of mercenaries and assassins at every turn (could be fun coming up with a bunch of different baddies for us the beat on our journey). For the climax, though, you could have some super badass Fire Nation secret police kind of guy that's the head of some task group (not unlike the Dai Li) that we have to take out. Maybe we all eventually come to the conclusion that we'll need to take the fight directly to him (could be fun also coming up with a way to infiltrate ourselves back into the Fire Nation) in order to stop them from coming after us non-stop. We fight a big, final, climatic battle against this boss character who is a master of firebending, master of manipulation, and always 3 steps ahead of everyone else. We win, flee the Fire Nation in the chaos of them losing one of their most strategic minds, and the Fire Nation admirals/generals that fill the empty shoes of the man we just beat never dare sending another assassin after our group again out of fear of our group returning to invoke our wrath on them as well.

Just as a side note, even if you go with this kind of story I think you can still allow players to make non-Fire Nation characters. There's certain to be spies from the other nations that might get mixed up with the group and try helping them escape safely, there might be ambassadors from other nations being held captive since the war kicked off and the group breaks them out to take them with them to safety, or maybe they have to enlist the aid of some pirates/smugglers to get off the main island (and pirates/smugglers could have been born in any nation). Basically, if people get creative enough, I think you could get a good spread of people from all walks of life being a part of this story.
 
Ok, I think I've figured out what direction I want to take this in, and I am getting excited!

Gonna take a little time to ruminate on this and then get the ball rolling.

Thanks so much to everyone who gave feedback and ideas, you are all awesome!
 
*slowly raises hand* So umm... Hello... Hi. Is this still open to outsiders? And if so I would very much like to know the actual direction of this storyline and join.... please?
*still holding hand up*
 
LibbyM098 LibbyM098

So, the general idea is going to be what ithinkcat ithinkcat described. I'm going to hopefully find the brainspace over the next few days to tighten it up, make some choices, actually set up the darn thing. So, while some details are subject to change the big picture is that the story will focus on some renegades from the Fire Nation trying to get out and start a new, safe life while running from assassins/the thought police/etc. Still open, of course, because we haven't even started yet!
 
Slowwwwwly chipping away at this. I've been stuck in this loop at work where every week feels like "just get through this week, then things will calm down"

The main thing I'm stuck on is if the main group of rebels should already know each other or if we should play out everyone meeting?
 
Planxty Planxty Personally, I think the Fire Nation characters should all know each other at the start. They're all nobility, right? So the families would already be familiar with each other through high society events, war councils, business, and intermarriage. Even if they aren't all nobles, it would make sense for the political dissidents to have begun to organize and hold secret meetings. The story could perhaps start with a secret meeting called by the patriarch of one of the noble families where he elucidates the situation: the war is happening with or without their consent, they've already lost status and loved ones, and those that are left must choose either to capitulate or face the Fire Lord's wrath. He then proposes a third option: leave the Fire Nation. They argue about this and eventually come up with their escape plan. Either things proceed as planned, or their secrecy is compromised and the escape unfolds rather messily and different members wind up in different places and have to track each other down while on the run. I dunno.
 
Planxty Planxty Vulpes' idea is great. Not everyone has to be nobility, though. Like I mentioned a little while ago; it's very unlikely that there aren't other factions involved in a mission to smuggle a bunch of people out of one of the most well guarded places in the world.

- Maybe an admiral that rose to such a high rank despite not being noble-blooded knows that the other elitist admirals don't like him and are going to try getting rid of him sooner or later. He might have befriended said patriarch of this rebelling noble family long ago (maybe fought alongside each other or something) and decides to mutiny with his small destroyer in order to carry everyone quickly across the ocean to Earth Kingdom territory.
- Maybe a pirate queen, born in the Earth Kingdom, has been hired by various Fire Nation officials (military and/or administrative) over the years (off the books of course) to import exotic and sometimes outright illegal goods to satiate their eccentric tastes. For her, it's always been about the money and the freedom. The nobles have deep pockets, are willing to pay handsomely for being discreet, and Fire Navy patrols don't bother her too much. Said patriarch hires her without giving her the full details. She doesn't care. He's paying well enough to afford her, and just taking some rich nobles off island for a discreet randevu will be easy. Little does she know just how dangerous of a job she is accepting. She's pissed that she got lied to by said patriarch, it too late for that though, but maybe when they're trying to quickly sail away a fire shot blasts a hole in her ship. Her. Ship. And now her and the Fire Nation are mortal enemies.
- Maybe a Southern Water Tribe spy has been in contact with said patriarch and wants intelligence on Fire Navy patrol maps, code signals, fleet numbers, supply routes, and maybe even schematics on the Fire Navy's advanced destroyers so they can try to find a weakness in its design. Said patriarch can give him all this information, but needs him to help put together the plan to get him, his family, and friends to safe lands. Only after everyone is safe will he give up the information to the spy.

You get the point. I was mostly just having fun coming up with character ideas for myself there. Anyways, I think you should start right as the group is about to excute order "get-out-of-dodge". Jump right into the tension of sneaking past patrols, meeting up with fellow conspirators to invite them along at the last minute, maybe say goodbye to some npc friends that don't like how things are going but are too scared to try running, and as Vulpes mentioned, possibly get caught and having to fight the last 200 meters to the private beach where the boat(s) are docked. You can just have the opening post have some npc or something reminding everyone what the plan is (just come up with the plan before we start so we can jump into exciting stuff immediately and get to know each other's character under pressure). Oh, and everyone should at least be acquainted with each other, but that doesn't mean they have to have ever spoken a word to each other. Maybe just seen their face at the meetings and heard their name.
 

ooooooh dang i did the thing :o
 
Quick question- we can make multiple characters, right? I'm planning on making a mother- son duo.
 

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