Core Vortex General Discussion

[ShineCero]

Core Vortex General Discussion​

Welcome to the General Hub for Core Vortex, a dedicated thread for Core Vortex lore, discussions and other information regarding the roleplay. Some users do not use socials offsite to communicate, so this also served to effectively communicate with all users, so they received the same information.

Is there a character registration?

No. Character registration is not required for this roleplay. You can jump in with any [original] character at your disposal. However, there is a character limit and an introduction clause when bringing in your characters.

What are Supporting Characters?

Supporting Characters are characters that are not part of the main cast and have a limited role in the story, depending on the arc. Effectively, these characters will help expand on the lore and worldbuilding into new heights. If you wish to add supporting characters in the story, you need permission to do so. Yes, there are cases where supporting characters can transition to main characters and main characters can transition to supporting characters.

What is an Introductory Clause?

An introductory clause is introducing a new character, after the initial main characters, in the story. The character must have a narrative purpose and must bring forth something valuable to the story.

What is a Chapter System?

Each thread represents an arc/chapter for organizational and reading purposes. Once an arc has concluded, a new thread will be made for the next story arc.

Can I have my own arc?

If you want to make an arc with your own antagonist, this requires extensive discussion with me. I’ll supervise, offer advice and will make story changes to avoid any conflicts with your arc with the story. Furthermore, I will also discuss whether you can keep up with the posting, including your schedule. Below are all the confirmed arcs so far:

• Confirmed Arcs: The Watchers Cult Arc [Current] – Underground Arc – Dark Shadows Arc

Boss Battles

During Boss Battles, the player controlling it will be allowed to post multiple times regardless of posting order. This is to prevent the Boss from being overwhelmed by multiple attacks and gives opportunity to response to them.

Core Vortex Rules

• The [Pending Name] are the main characters of this story.
• You are only allowed up to 3 characters to play at once.
• Your characters can be human, demon, monster, mutants, robots, etc.
• Your character must be original—existing/canon characters is for Reality Vortex.
• You can have characters shift from Main Role to Supporting Role.
• You can have a character leave for a period.
• Character Death is possible in this story.
• Be courteous to other players; do not metagame, make your characters have extensive knowledge, etc.

Subject To Change

 

[ShineCero]

Core Vortex World Guide​

What is Core Vortex?

Core Vortex itself is one of the four worlds in the Vortex. Each world in the Vortex has their own rules, laws, concepts, and of course, different “energy”. In the case of Core Vortex, it has Neutral Energy, which is the balance between Chaotic Energy and Pure Energy. All worlds in the Vortex have their own orbital paths, orbiting around a single celestial object called “Energy Star”—a powerful force that combines all energies in Vortex as one. Each world has a powerful shield to protect it against the Abyss of Darkness, an endless sea of Dark Energy that covers the entire Vortex.

The story takes place in a dark fantasy world called Terra. Long ago, in Desolate Lands, a lone human was being chased by pursuers for crimes that meant execution. However, due to his battered wounds, the human decided to take his final resting place on a mysterious tree with a single fruit. Taking one bite, the human suddenly transformed into a beast-like creature and went on a warpath of destruction in his wake. Upon his defeat—over 50% of humanity had been killed.

After his defeat, a strange metropolis formed out of his corpse, standing mighty tall in the middle of the barren desert of Desolate Lands, protected with strange magic. The beast’s carnage, and his death, had brought forth a new phenomenon onto the world: the birth of demons. Since then, Terra has become a battleground of various threats appearing one after the another. In response to this threat, each region across the world set up their own task force to deal with these issues to bring some form of peace.

Neutral Energy

Neutral Energy, otherwise known as Chi, is the life force energy of all living things in Core Vortex. A user can use Neutral Energy in different ways: drawing from within themselves (Vigor) or outside forces (Spirit). Since it is the balance between the two energies—one can have an evil or pure heart without their energy becoming Chaotic Energy or Pure Energy; they must cast out their mortality through rigorous training to achieved such.

The Overseers

Powerful Dragon entities that seem to check the status of Core Vortex. It is unknown of their goals nor purposes.

The Beast Metropolis 

A giant metropolis suddenly appeared out of the corpse of the Beast that ravaged the world. It seems to be the birth of Monsters, but no one was able to swiftly enter the premise. Many hunters and enthusiasts claim that it contains “ultimate power”. Another claim that the Beast was never killed but rather resting until his strength return to finish the job. So far, there are nothing more than rumors. It is protected by a powerful shield that no one can enter.

Demons, Mutants, and Monsters

There are many different species that exist in Terra. As a result of wars and the Beast’s rampage, a new phenomenon appeared: Demons, Mutants and Monsters. These individuals have different origins of their existence and has a wide range of personalities:

• Demons: They spontaneously sprung into existence after the Beast’s defeat. It is speculated that they were form from the corpses of dead humans. There are many kinds of Demons; some are friendlier than others. Just like humans, they can use magic.
• Monsters: When the strange Metropolis appeared in Desolate Lands, a horde of mighty creatures came out and invaded the world. They are vicious and mindless with no regard for life. They are often used as tools of wars by both humans and demons. While most monsters are usually mindless killing machines, some are capable of intelligence.
• Mutants: Desolate Lands use highly powerful weapons that completely destroyed the land, leading to an exposure of nuclear radiation. This led to humans that survive the nuclear wars to rapidly become mutants with biological abilities. They are very powerful, but they lost the ability to perform magic.

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Important Supporting Characters​

Supporting Characters are those that consistently appear throughout the story and often assist, or goes against, the main cast. If you want your character to be affiliated with an existing group, or a group you create, this requires permission.

The Beast Slayers: A guild located in Desolate Lands that deals with various threats such as Monsters, Demons, Mutants and other otherworldly beings. Founded by its leader, Valerie, they canvas the area and assist the locals with problems and seek to remedy the issue. Because of their work ethnics, they only employed the strongest of warriors. Sometimes they work with the Magic Society when Shine sends a team for a mission that deals with unknown magic and/or battle experience.

The Magic Society: A university in Paradice that practices all kinds of magic of those interest of becoming mages. Their mission is to provide instructions, discipline and harness students’ magical skills, turning them into noteworthy mages so they can go out and assist the world with their abilities. It is lead by its current leader, Grand Sorcerer Shine and the Magic Council; they implement strict regulations of magic to ensure the safety and responsibility. Whenever a mage achieved the rank of Battle Mage, they will join a team with other Battle Mages and venture off the world to gain experience in combat and honed their magical abilities before achieving higher ranks.

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Important Areas​

As the story progresses, we will be visiting new areas and revisiting old ones. Below will be an on-going list of important areas. Do check back to see new areas being added—this mean that the characters will be returning there quite a few times.

Paradice: The land of magic and serves as the trade capital of the world. It was said that Merlin, the first leader of the Magic Society, defeated the Beast that was rampaging the world. To cripple the new wave of enemies, Merlin sought to teach humans magic to make it more widespread to defend themselves.

Desolate Lands: A once beautiful land ruined by an onslaught of wars. Now, life is scarce, there are no laws or any governing body to exert any meaningful control outside of local towns. The Beast Slayers are the only place where people can rely on to combat various threats in the region.

 

[ShineCero]

Hi ya’ll

We did a soft reboot on the BoogaVerse concept, and while it worked out a bit, I can still see significant problems regarding the way BoogaVerse function. They are still held back by legacy threads (and in this context, BoogaVerse had underwent several reboots—it was originally opened rpg threads burrowed from other forums, then housed as BoogaVerse, then a relaunch) and requires members to at least have some background information to know the context. It was ambitious. Too ambitious, confusing and too many things happening at once. Reality Vortex is practically straight forward because you just need to read one thread through different arcs and that is it. No billions thread. No legacy threads. None.

Now, I think its time for a complete and utter reboot of the whole system. Reality Vortex managed to become successful by virtue for being a completely, original story without any ties to legacy thread. I understand the concept of preserving them (don’t worry, I won’t be deleting any RPG threads, except for the ones with absolutely zero posts, they’ll be push in Archives to avoid clutter), but this is the best option.

Brand new story. Give character brand new purposes, new personalities and new motivations in a new setting that’s separate from the legacy threads. Essentially, the next thread will absolutely have nothing to do with the old threads (and lore will be updated accordingly to reflect these changes and reduced significantly). Whatever happens in BoogaVerse does not apply in this new thread thus forward. They’re gone—forever as we streamline this thing.

This means that the entire section will be clean up for organizational purposes. Firstly, BoogaVerse will get a new name: The Vortex. This will house both Reality Vortex thread and Core Vortex thread. The sub-section will be now known as Chapter Archives, which is self-explanatory. It includes all old arcs that we have done so far.

Creation Box will be axe, but all character threads will be preserved in the archives. I’m still debating on whether or not we should keep the Lore thread, and if so, should be massively reduced (and completely revamped).

Here's the premise of the brand new concept for Core Vortex:

Grand Sorcerer Shine wakes up from a terrible nightmare. He did not know whether it was a vision from a future or an event but nevertheless, he shook it off and put it in the back of his mind. Today is the day to for new mages to earned their newest rank as Battle Mages and set on their first mission. He orders you, the player, along with others, to set out to a place called "Desolate Lands", an lawless land filled with hardened criminals and monsters, to recused people he hadn't heard from for a while. As you set out your journey towards this land, you ended up crossing paths with a Cult called "The Queen's Watchers", who are conducting illegal spells of revival. 

Thoughts?

 

[LoopyPanda]

Brand new story. Give character brand new purposes, new personalities and new motivations in a new setting that’s separate from the legacy threads. Essentially, the next thread will absolutely have nothing to do with the old threads (and lore will be updated accordingly to reflect these changes and reduced significantly). Whatever happens in BoogaVerse does not apply in this new thread thus forward. They’re gone—forever as we streamline this thing.

Creation Box will be axe, but all character threads will be preserved in the archives. I’m still debating on whether or not we should keep the Lore thread, and if so, should be massively reduced (and completely revamped).

Since we seem to (mostly) be starting from scratch, I think what we could do is place the old Lore thread in the archives and make a new one that doesn't have any bloat other than the bare minimum details. This way we can revamp or reintroduce old locations/concepts as we go along since it has some ideas that are still able to be used.

For example, in terms of lore, the only thing available is the map, general stuff that applies, and only 1 location to start with. In this case, we only have the desolate lands, so it is the only thing listed. But if/when the story moves to a new region/continent, it can be added to the thread sequentially under DL. Kinda like those older games where a playable character has their silhouette blacked out until you 'unlock' them!

Here's the premise of the brand new concept for Core Vortex:

Grand Sorcerer Shine wakes up from a terrible nightmare. He did not know whether it was a vision from a future or an event but nevertheless, he shook it off and put it in the back of his mind. Today is the day to for new mages to earned their newest rank as Battle Mages and set on their first mission. He orders you, the player, along with others, to set out to a place called "Desolate Lands", an lawless land filled with hardened criminals and monsters, to recused people he hadn't heard from for a while. As you set out your journey towards this land, you ended up crossing paths with a Cult called "The Queen's Watchers", who are conducting illegal spells of revival. 

Thoughts?

I gave my thoughts about this in DMs with you in terms of specific story details, but to quickly summarize, I think it would be cool to have the mages from Paradice more or less have to work with the only group who isn't immediately hostile to outsiders and that's the Guild there since they probably have no idea how to get around. Depending who the guild member is they might still not be very friendly but they have reasons to look into rescuing the missing people too. Maybe the mages have a run-in with the Watchers who notice they're not locals, and a couple Guild members step in? You could take the first encounter to be nonviolent or even a faraway observation, it can go any number of ways but would best be used to tie the two groups together in some way.

An idea I had was that Valerie's crew had a veteran-rank member who was known to be gone on missions for long periods of time and took jobs of that nature. But he hadn't been heard from at all for a long while with no sign of him anywhere. I never gave him a name or really even a fully fleshed out concept because I wanted him to be the Mystery Missing Man lol. Through this character, the guild members at least have 1 reason to even consider accepting outside help since their bosses are all kinda scary to anger!

I don't really mind changing Asuza much in concept, as Vala is already an enigmatic roguelike mage. Don't really need two of them and I feel Vala pulls it off better. Asuza can take on a lot of different stories more than Vala, so as far as I'm concerned any changes with the Cult of Watchers won't present any problem in changing Asuza. For simplicity I can easily have her join the Battle Mage ranks because she needs to get money for her bedridden ailing younger sister or something, and can't do higher-paying jobs as a rankless no-name mage. Smth like that.

 

[ShineCero]

Archiving all the lore threads is a great idea (and if one would notice, I’ve effectively moved everything to the RPG Archive, Planning, Character and Open threads respectively). Making a new one would be the easiest and most efficient method for this course. I’m in agreement with introducing new areas, especially if it is done in a similar vein as with Reality Vortex. While I don’t think we would need a map, adding short descriptions of places and regions (at least, the very important ones for story purposes) to the thread would be beneficial for the players.

That way, we won’t be bounded by these legacy and old ideas. Not saying that they are bad, but I think we’re at the point that we need to completely rework this entire system and leave the past behind. It was a great idea, but not enough players, the Solarian Arc was a bust (whereas I had to scrapped together pieces to pull off the White Void event as its last saving grace), and quite frankly, it was a lot of work to keep up. A more simplified approach is more suited and allows people to introduce (or reintroduce) concepts, characters and ideas. Perhaps, we might even gain a few new players.

I think your suggestion illustrated an example of something “new” with this reboot. We can tweak this, but that’s definitely good idea to “introduce” the climate of the region.

So, with added with your suggestion, we can phrase the premise like this:

Grand Sorcerer Shine wakes up from a terrible nightmare. It felt real, yet, looking around his room, it was seemingly a dream. Putting those thoughts to the back of his mind, as they closely disappeared, Shine realized that today was the day for mages, who earned the rank of “Battle Mage” to formed teams and set out to various mission across the world. The purpose is to protect Paradise, eliminate monsters and demons, and solved local (and often international) problems.

Your character, along with others, now a team, gain their first mission from Shine. There is a someone in Desolate Lands that hadn’t been heard for a while. So, he wants you go and find this person and returned them home. A simple recuse mission that should be an easy task for newly formed mages. Of course, Desolate Lands is a land filled with criminals, monsters, mutants and demons. A lawless land, Shine did issue a request from a friend who owes him a favor too. They will meet with a couple members of the Beast Slayers’ that will assist with them on the mission as well—since the person the “protagonists” are looking for is part of the Beast Slayers.

Throughout the mission, they started running into typical monsters, whom Beast Slayers give insight about (since they are stronger and craftier compared to the ones on Paradice). However, the biggest obstacles are running into the Watchers Cult, who are conducting illegal magic.

You can change this, but this is just a draft. Any changes/additions?

 

[~ Z ~]

Huh! This sounds like a good idea and I think a total reboot is needed to make stories shine. A problem I had was that I wanted to get many characters out in order to do certain things in certain places and regions. It overwhelmed me and I even forgot about some of my characters and their personalities. I think it would help if we approach it somewhat like Reality Vortex (Having Arcs/Chapters) since it helps keep things organized. I think the one thing we need to do is find a way to keep the stories organized and easy to read in case people want to get some backstory. 

As for Legacy/Lore, I suggest we only keep the very important things/people like Suyoi and maybe the energies. Things like Suyoi and her siblings being Gods can stay since it's something that was barely touched in the first place and can be worked on. As for the energies, I believe during the Watcher's Arc, we can slowly put pieces of new ideas and mix them with old ideas. Of course, this might need a bit of planning but leaving things open-ended is often how stories flow better imo. Even if it isn't touched, I honestly think it's for the best. Either way, I think keeping only super important things is okay. Reboot everything else.

That way we don't need hundreds of players and can work on a whole Arc/Chapter with 3 members. I also suggest that we follow the Character Limit implemented in Reality Vortex. One problem I suffered with is having waaaaay too many characters in multiple (or even single) threads. I became overwhelmed and I think that is part of the reason BGV started to decline. I had to remember a million things and sometimes people would forget to post or straight up leave. This leaves players in limbo and is either forced to drop the RP or reread countless threads to remember what one character was doing. I think having a limit helps players remember very important traits and personality quirks for characters. Whatever a character did in one Arc will be remembered in one thread. That way the player won't have to search a billion threads to find what an OC did/acted. But that's my view of the situation. I think it worked for RV and that's why we have rich and colorful characters there, each being very unique to one another and have many traits that help them stand out, even if they are not there. (i.e Cuki and Kassava)

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I gave my thoughts about this in DMs with you in terms of specific story details, but to quickly summarize, I think it would be cool to have the mages from Paradice more or less have to work with the only group who isn't immediately hostile to outsiders and that's the Guild there since they probably have no idea how to get around. Depending who the guild member is they might still not be very friendly but they have reasons to look into rescuing the missing people too. Maybe the mages have a run-in with the Watchers who notice they're not locals, and a couple Guild members step in? You could take the first encounter to be nonviolent or even a faraway observation, it can go any number of ways but would best be used to tie the two groups together in some way.

An idea I had was that Valerie's crew had a veteran-rank member who was known to be gone on missions for long periods of time and took jobs of that nature. But he hadn't been heard from at all for a long while with no sign of him anywhere. I never gave him a name or really even a fully fleshed out concept because I wanted him to be the Mystery Missing Man lol. Through this character, the guild members at least have 1 reason to even consider accepting outside help since their bosses are all kinda scary to anger!

This sounds like a great idea for a first chapter/arc! It's not super complex and pretty straightforward. It helps keep things in a straight line while allowing a ton of room for any other ideas/plans. I think it sounds like a lot of fun too! This gives Loopy enough time and wiggle room to think about her character(s), something I think a few of us kinda had trouble with before the reboot. Maybe we can talk to each other and give out ideas. Who knows, maybe we will think of something cool.

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Like Loopy, I also suffered from not fleshing out some of my characters. I particularly wanted to add Kire, Evelyn, Judas, and Mozart to the mix but never found the proper chance to do so. Maybe with this new reboot, I can finally give them a chance? I was thinking particularly with Judas and his way of 'work.' He's obviously a bad person and has access to many 'hidden' markets if you catch my drift. I don't know how/when/where he would fit in this arc (if at all) but that's just an idea for Judas. I actually have a well-established idea for Kire with some lore to give some insight. He's the one I particularly want to add to The Vortex should we start RP'ing again. 

For Kire, he had multiple dreams of the world ending, chaos, and utter destruction. He only remembers one machine being the cause of it. Obviously, he thinks they are just bad dreams/nightmares and pays no attention to them at first. As Kire's dreams continue, he gets more vivid details about the destruction around him and the machine gets clearer and clearer. Nothing he does makes the dreams go away. He begins to get paranoid until he decides to track the machine down, trying to link anything he can. Being a hacker, he's able to crack into lots of computers and machines, and eventually, he found out about Anti-End. It looks identical to the machine in his dreams and from that point, he decided to hunt down the machine and stop it before his dream becomes a reality. 

That's just a brief summary of the idea for Kire. Of course, it's open to being changed and flipped around. I'm not sure how it would fit in this arc/chapter but I wouldn't mind if he's sticking around with the Guild to try to find Anti-End, and, in return, he helps fix their electronics? Idk. 

As for Judas, he would obviously be at home in Desolate Lands. My main goal is to kinda have him be a sort of 'central hub' for obtaining illegal goods. Maybe he can have forbidden magic books or spells that interest the Watchers? Or maybe they have a dangerous book that they obtained from him? He's got connections with many people and has a large underground system that all comes back to him in some way. I don't have much on him yet but maybe as the story unfolds, I can use some ideas already implemented to help me! The idea is still up in the open tho'.

 

[LoopyPanda]

I think we can cook something up with these quite readily by connecting them for a fairly solid stroyline for Desolate Lands!

-Shine's idea is the introductory part that sends these travelers to DL with a defined objective to benefit both parties
-my idea pretty much solidifies how the two groups merge neatly
-Z's idea can be split into a new questline after the Watchers for Judas and Kire respectively. Perhaps the group learns that the Watchers obtained some of their means to practice forbidden magic from Judas who sold artifacts/spellbooks to them for a hefty fee (or maybe some sort of trade deal that infringes on ethical standards). If anything is recovered, it can be forked over to the Grand Sorcerer Shine. Depending on how the Watchers story ends, Kire might be drawn to zero in on the Desolate Lands using his intel and enlist the Guild's help (assuming Judas has any connection to Anti-End or the person who made it, or we can adjust that part as we go along). Which drags them into more crazy hijinks!

I think for the time being Desolate Lands will make for a fine location to stay in for the first set of arcs, at least until enough new ideas accumulate to transition to a new location or storyline. 

Perhaps in the future there can be small 'pauses' to do miniature arcs in other lands or characters before going back to the main one, but we would run the risk of spreading things too thinly again. So that should be considered further down the line.

RV's character limit (excluding brief NPCs) was about 3-4, so that should be the max for this one. With Vala and Eleanor, and Asuza I already have 3. Okawa can be an NPC like Valerie and Bronson for this arc to reduce the work for myself.

 

[ShineCero]

Both of you guys made excellent points.

Firstly, I am in complete agreement that the original intention of how BoogaVerse operate can lead to confusion of characters, not enough content for development and/or journeys, and relies on the crucial point: many players. It is not surprising that many players over the years since its conception had either dropped out or disappeared. With an abundance of characters, it’s only a matter of when, not if, the other characters will get shafted, forgotten, etc.

Secondly, character limits are a must. I’ve come to the conclusion that allowing things freely will always result is something erratic—even as overbearing in the news as BoogaVerse, endless characters can invite and incite problems just by that sheer concept alone. I say we set a hard limit to just three characters, excluding NPCs. Perhaps in the future, players can change their mains depending on the plot, but let’s start with something easy and small for now.

Thirdly, yes, most of the lore will get scrubbed for this new iteration. Certain things will remain, such as energies, the Vortex Gods (Suyoi, Voice, etc.) and the Dragon Guardians can easily be rebooted as “Overseers” for Core Vortex. Everything else can be toss to the bin and repurposed for something brand new and more simplified. However, I do like Loopy’s suggestion when exploring new areas:

For example, in terms of lore, the only thing available is the map, general stuff that applies, and only 1 location to start with. In this case, we only have the desolate lands, so it is the only thing listed. But if/when the story moves to a new region/continent, it can be added to the thread sequentially under DL. Kinda like those older games where a playable character has their silhouette blacked out until you 'unlock' them!

Overall, how Loopy broke down in her last post seems like a solid foundation. Focus on Desolate Lands for a bit (we can add several contents, such as Watchers, Mutants, Demons, etc.,) and explore other places when prompt for new enemies/quests.

So we have the First Mission given by Shine, and anything recovered during that Arc, they can returned to Desolate Lands to investigate the "stolen items" by Judas. Kire can make his first appearance here and assist the group. Anything else?

 

[ShineCero]

Hey everyone, 

Sorry for the slight delay, but Core Vortex is now open for roleplaying. As I said, we are doing an hard reboot that erase everything of that from the previous story. This is brand new, new lore, new information, etc. That means you have a chance to do a brand new retake of your character--and yes, there is no character registration. Just jump in and start playing  

I also updated the first two posts of the thread with new information regarding Core Vortex in a similar format of RV discussion. Check'em out.

Any questions, just ask away!