What do you expect to see in a lore doc?

[Venia Silente]

S'up everyone.

I've been working for a while on a new setting for Pokémon stories. It's going to, in general, be a Pokécentric / "PMD‑without‑the‑MD" world. Don't want to bossrush you with the details (who am I kidding, ofc I wanna) but the thing is, besides the obvious that I'm going to eventually wikify it, I'm also working on a master lore doc. Might have to be more than one, even.

There's various structural levels, plots, characters and sub-settings worked on, such as world shape and size, biomes and seasons, partially the orbital mechanics and day-night cycle (it's a long story...), the main civs and the smaller clans, changes to some "core" mechanics such as evolution, quickie character briefs, planned births and deaths, which Legendaries are available or not (and why, in as much as spoilers). That kind of stuff. As well as clarify what stories and character arcs might be unrolled in this new world. The document also pre-bakes various idea prompts for developing in this world, or extracting from and using as a base, in case they happen to eg.: fit the prompt for a contest.

All that is fine and dandy for me, aka: for internal / planning usage; but I was also hoping, partly as training on how to organize this kind of information, on publishing a public-facing / General Lore Doc. Not too many spoilers, not the ultimate fate of berries and other things, but yes to the usual niceties such as... well, here's where y'all come in, because other than the usuals of civs / clans, recent history, or answers to simple questions such as "what do carnivorous Pokémon eat?", what would you all expect to see in a lore doc that's focused on Pokémon with a world that is PMD-like, and why?

 

[ErazonPo3]

I'll be honest that I'm not super well versed in PMD-esque works but I'm pretty familiar with a lot of the common worldbuilding stuff, and I think there are a few questions that I think are kind of inevitable to come up, which could be a good start for a lore compendium!

• Does this world have a particular social strata?

I don't think pokemon fic needs to stick to the same xenofiction tropes surrounding the 'food chain' (unless that's what you want to do!) but I would expect a pokemon society to have some sort of social strata given the way people consider some pokemon to be high value or low value (looking at you, Smogon tiers). There doesn't have to be a rigid class system or anything, but whether or not all Pokemon are considered 'equal' or if some are given more/less respect will be pretty important for the setting overall, I think.

• Is there a common religion/belief about the world, or multiple conflicting ideologies?

Of course religion or spirituality doesn't have to be at the centre of the story, but for a lore doc I would probably expect to see this topic addressed because pretty much every culture has some kind of answer to better understand why the world is the way it is, and differing views can be the source of a lot of conflict. For a Pokemon only world I would also expect the concept of 'Legendary' Pokemon to be explored- are they considered Gods, are they just legends, or are they just normal guys? Even if it's a fully agnostic society, that's worth mentioning.

• What is the significance of evolution?

I imagine evolution is likely to come up at some point in any PMD-esque story, especially if it's not locked by what's usually a postgame mechanic. Whether or not evolution is significant will be pretty important in any Pokemon world, because it could easily be seen as either a super important coming-of-age ritual or something as awkard but benign as puberty. Again, it doesn't have to be super relevant to the story overall, but I would expect this to be addressed fairly early on in any story.

• Is there a clash between 'civilised' and 'wild' ways of life?

PMD has a pretty obvious distinction between civilised guilds and towns vs the wild and unruly dungeon pokemon, so in a world absent of those structures you're probably going to want to acknowledge the potential clash between pokemon who want a more ordered society, and pokemon who want to live by their own nature and instincts. It doesn't necessarily have to be a prey vs predator thing either, but there are definitely some pokemon that would benefit from a 'harmonious' society more than others (despite the irony that societies can create a lot of conflict 'wild' pokemon would never bother getting into).

• Does this setting have any other unique quirks that affect the way different Pokemon might interact?

This one's obviously a catch all, but instead of answering a bunch of different questions about the way egg groups or type match-ups interact, it's probably easier to just get straight to the point if you have some sort of twist on the world that you're eager to share! What do you think sets this world apart, and makes it yours?

 

[Negrek]

Erazon's got some good questions for you to start off with. Here are some other ones that I often think about when it comes to PMD-like settings:

- First, well, what makes it NOT PMD? A quick run-down of where your world differs from the canon would probably help people wrap their heads around what's going on. Doesn't need to be extensive; you can probably cover the highlights in a paragraph or less.

- Sort of taking off on Erazon's social strata question, specifically with PMD-like worlds there's always the question of what distinctions exist between "wild" and "civilized" pokémon (if your setting still has those), and how those groups treat each other. The "food chain" question does frequently come up, heh.

- You say this is PMD-like, so I don't know whether you're planning to incorporate dungeons, guilds, and some of the typical game structures in your world. If you do have dungeons and guilds and such, how those work is probably going to be of central interest for the setting.

- I also personally love little odd/quirky bits of trivia about a setting. Like, there was this one hapless explorer who discovered thirteen different species of bees by getting attacked by them while out traveling. Or pokémon in this particular region have a certain local delicacy that everyone else thinks is disgusting. Kind of inconsequential little things that just add a bit of fun and personality to the setting. These aren't going to be the most important topics to cover by any means, but they usually end up being my favorite to read about in terms of setting lore, personally.

 

[Venia Silente]

To begin with, I'd like to thank both of you for providing your feedback. I can already see some things that I had previously ignored under a kind of "taken for granted" perception, so now I have more interesting things to write into the doc, too!

• Does this world have a particular social strata?

I don't think pokemon fic needs to stick to the same xenofiction tropes surrounding the 'food chain' (unless that's what you want to do!) but I would expect a pokemon society to have some sort of social strata given the way people consider some pokemon to be high value or low value (looking at you, Smogon tiers).

• Is there a clash between 'civilised' and 'wild' ways of life?

[wild-vs-civilized ordering] doesn't necessarily have to be a prey vs predator thing either, but there are definitely some pokemon that would benefit from a 'harmonious' society more than others (despite the irony that societies can create a lot of conflict 'wild' pokemon would never bother getting into).

- Sort of taking off on Erazon's social strata question, specifically with PMD-like worlds there's always the question of what distinctions exist between "wild" and "civilized" pokémon (if your setting still has those), and how those groups treat each other. The "food chain" question does frequently come up, heh.

This is probably something I'll need to take more care of, and will see more revisions as the document grows. Basically while I have this mostly solved for the largest factions in the setting, I still need to work what kind of social castes or privileged lines exist in smaller factions, in particular the more nomadic ones ("nomadic housing" will be an important component of the worldbuilding for one of the factions in the worlds).

The fact that sometimes you just exist to be food or, in the worst case, a bad example, for someone else, and that is just a Fact of Nature, eventually comes to be handled as well.

- First, well, what makes it NOT PMD? A quick run-down of where your world differs from the canon would probably help people wrap their heads around what's going on. Doesn't need to be extensive; you can probably cover the highlights in a paragraph or less.

I hope to expand on this in a way that is explanatory yeah. I usually describe this style as "PMD without the MD" for short but basically what I mean is a Pokémon-run world that doesn't have either of 1.- MD-like randomness phenomena nor 2.- "Constantly Needs to be Saved by Humans" influence. So I'll try to come up with a simple way for describing that.

• Is there a common religion/belief about the world, or multiple conflicting ideologies?

Of course religion or spirituality doesn't have to be at the centre of the story, but for a lore doc I would probably expect to see this topic addressed because pretty much every culture has some kind of answer to better understand why the world is the way it is, and differing views can be the source of a lot of conflict.

While not exactly to the level of institutionalized religions in our world, there is a form of Animism that the document will have to delve into because it can be an important factor in routing character development. There are general beliefs around as well. Other than that I'll have the doc likely refer to a few creation myths from different ethnic groups and how they make the groups conflict somewhat with each other.

It's likely also going to be my response to the Itemizer Orb issue.

• What is the significance of evolution?

I imagine evolution is likely to come up at some point in any PMD-esque story, especially if it's not locked by what's usually a postgame mechanic. Whether or not evolution is significant will be pretty important in any Pokemon world, because it could easily be seen as either a super important coming-of-age ritual or something as awkard but benign as puberty.

There are plans for that as well, and they do follow from my general worldbuilding posture regarding evolution. However this new setting offers new opportunities to work with stuff like that without needing to clash with anything in canon, in particular regarding how evolution in PMD tends to be "gatewalled".

In particular for this setting I'm working on a few mechanics that I'd call "evolution-like", or even "de-evolution-like". I'm expanding on one of those slightly:

Spoiler: 'De-evolution' Mechanics

The world experiences a periodic phenomenon that allows some objects and even live beings (incl. characters) to be "reset" or "rolled back" to a previous state. Characters affected by it lose most of their memories and even get stuff like scars, wounds or partial effects from aging removed from their form, allowing to "begin anew" up to a point.
OOU, I'm having this as a convenience for when I want to try a completely new angle for a character, because I'm cheap like that. ;)

• Does this setting have any other unique quirks that affect the way different Pokemon might interact?

This one's obviously a catch all, but [...] it's probably easier to just get straight to the point if you have some sort of twist on the world that you're eager to share! What do you think sets this world apart, and makes it yours?

- I also personally love little odd/quirky bits of trivia about a setting. Like, [examples snip] . Kind of inconsequential little things that just add a bit of fun and personality to the setting. These aren't going to be the most important topics to cover by any means, but they usually end up being my favorite to read about in terms of setting lore, personally.

I'm going to take care to add some amount of flavour like that. There's I hope enough quirky or minute details to share. The one in spoilers above is a good example of a mostly unique thing about this world, for one. I could also for example mention as early as possible in the doc for fittingness, for example, that this world has a "double" day-night cycle: a half-day where the Sun goes east to west, and a half-day where it goes west to east. Or the detail that a specific mon species in this world is setting up their equivalent to the JWST program, despite the fact that the rest of the world is more or less at the stage of developing the radio.

But yeah, I'll think of stuff!

All in all thanks for the feedback so far. Ofc I'm keeping this open just in case, and once I have the document in better shape I hope to preview it around here. I'm slow to release things as a writer so I'm not sure when are stories going to be made that take place in this world, but the material that will be available might be enough to eg.: eventually set a TTRPG campaign or some other sort of adventure in it .