Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Pocket Mononoke Cipher

A rather silly thought that occurred to me, in the vein of Semiotic Unstandard: orchestrating secretive / clandestine missions against the weird and unknown through the smokescreen of a Pokémon role-playing forum. Handlers are gym leaders; agents are their teams of individual Pokémon. Leadership are the Elite 4 and Champion. Different regions or specific gym leaders might mean something, I didn't think that far ahead.

Threat information is encoded in 'incoming challenger' character profiles. The first Pokémon on the team (or the first type, if they are dual-typed) will indicate the primary nature of the threat, with subsequent types and clusters thereof acting as additional information. Additional variables are denoted by the trainer class

With the amount of material available, I'm certain you can get very, very granular and specific if you want to. Known threats would likely have their own three-pokemon combos that are read differently from the normal threat cipher (Cthulu as Tentacruel-Dragonite-Drowzee?) but this, I think, is a fine-enough sketch to start with.

Threat Information

  1. Normal - Placeholder; used to break up groups of traits
  2. Grass - Biological threat
  3. Fire - Active / ongoing threat
  4. Water - Biological threat (aquatic)
  5. Flying - Mobile & uncontained
  6. Electric - Phenomenological anomaly
  7. Fighting - Human threat
  8. Rock - Threat item
  9. Ground - Threat area
  10. Bug - High or increasing number / severity
  11. Poison - Pathogen or infection
  12. Psychic - Consciousness alteration / memetic threat
  13. Ghost - Non-material entity
  14. Ice - Threat is currently stable but liable to go hot
  15. Dark - Threat unknown, proceed with caution; other type markers are conjecture if paired
  16. Steel - Technological threat
  17. Fairy - Confusingly looks like something else; Fuck this in particular
  18. Dragon - Major threat; immediate action required
  19. Egg - No threat yet; observe to determine risk
  20. Glitch - FUCK


Additional Information

  1. Youngster / Lass - Baseline; no special circumstances
  2. Bug Catcher - Capture target if possible
  3. Ace Trainer - Agent already in field
  4. Twins - Double cell deployment
  5. Psychic - Enemy sorcerer
  6. Sailor - International travel
  7. Rocket Grunt - Undercover (organized crime)
  8. Hiker - Wilderness travel  
  9. Gentleman - Rich bastard alert
  10. Biker - Long distance, in-country travel
  11. Engineer - Urban environment
  12. Expert - High difficulty
  13. Pokemaniac - We actually have good intel this time.
  14. Hex Maniac - Cult Shit (TM)
  15. Ruin Maniac - Deep Time Mysteries (TM)
  16. Beauty - Person-of-Interest
  17. Dragon Tamer - One (1) bailout is available.
  18. Parasol Lady - Shitstorm forecasted.
  19. Blackbelt - Combat mission or raid.
  20. Officer - Police on the take.

3 comments:

  1. Redacted Reports has got me in the DG mood.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like shorts! They are comfortable and easy to wear

    ReplyDelete