Anyone a fan of Bleach, mecha animes, or Anne McCaffrey's dragonriders? I'm thinking about putting together a collaborative manga project involving some human fighters and nonhuman shapeshifters who form bonded pairs; there would be a military school where the young humans and shifters are trained and encouraged to pair up, and then troops of adult fighters who go on missions and things. Some sort of overall political plot which provides the framework to tell the intertwined stories of lots of individual humans and shifters. (The shifters are people with their own abilities and goals, so they have their own stories.) Thoughts?

I had an idea similar to this that I think I might've talked to you about before. Basically, the idea was that humans used magic to combine with dragons. Both the human and the dragon would have to train so they could both be more powerful. My antagonist was a young man who found the egg of a legendary (and currently extinct) golden dragon.

The idea was from years ago and I never did much work on it, but I'm doing a lot of work on another idea dealing with people and dragons.

Yeah I do remember talking about that one. I remember your approach to dragons was a very mythic one while mine was a more anthropological one, and that's why they didn't mesh at all lol. I did one with shapeshifters long ago too, Gimmie Those Wings, although in that case the shapeshifters were the people.

In this case I want to look at the shapeshifters anthropologically, but as a contrast to the people - I'm interested in the biology and culture of the shifters as a nonhuman race interacting with a human race.

I think that many people who are interested in gamestory writing are also interested in drawing manga. Some may even discover that drawing is what they need or want.

I am interested. But what is your expectation of the group?

Quote:Original post by Wai
I think that many people who are interested in gamestory writing are also interested in drawing manga. Some may even discover that drawing is what they need or want.

I am interested. But what is your expectation of the group?

Well, the idea is that each writer would create a few characters and tell their stories, and the individual characters' stories would weave together to fill in the framework of the overall plot. Some central characters, like the leader of the humans and the main villain, would have to be shared by the writers.

For example, one person likes writing combat so they would use the villain to send attackers at their characters. I like romance so I would have the villain kidnap one of my characters who would then get into a romance with him. The story as a whole would be produced as a webcomic, then printed and sold when enough material was produced to fill a graphic novel volume. Overall, the whole series would be comparable to Naruto or Bleach, but maybe a bit smaller and with less filler and a definite beginning and ending of each plot arc.

Because it's a collaborative project, any ideas anyone contributes become the group's property unless the group disbands - if that happens they revert to their originator. This is because if someone contributes a bunch of ideas then leaves, we can't have them deny us permission to use ideas we've already woven into the story. But assuming the person stays with the project, they would have the main say in what happens with their characters, and the group would vote on what happens with the overall story. Each writer would be expected to write the plot and dialogue for any characters they create and keep them consistent with what everyone else is writing.

I think that for an interesting story about shifters, there must be some constraints or rules about them. Otherwise they can do anything. Have you thought about the limitations?


An idea I've just got about limitation, is that the shifter can only shift if they mean to do no harm. The moment that a shifter acknowledges an harmful intention, they can no longer change shape. Even that or they would have to atone themselves before they can shift again. But it doesn't answer the limitation of what they can become.

The shifters are constrained by the fact that they have constant mass, that you have to practice any form you want to be able to shift into or any object you want to create by shapeshifting it, and by the fact that shapeshifters as a race are mostly pacifistic and lazy. The shapeshifter race is the one thing I developed fairly thoroughly before I started the project because I knew if there wasn't a strong logical idea behind them they would turn into a big mess. Here, I'll just paste the full project info here if you're interested.


Project Concept:
Probably you have all read/watched some sort of story where human-ish fighters have non-human partners. The partner might be a dragon, a mecha, an AI, a summonable spirit, a soul sword, or an internal demon/monster the human can transform into. In this particular case the nonhumans are shapeshifters which can be worn as armor by their human fighters and which also have healing abilities and limited empathy/telepathy. These shapeshifters are not just foozles but real characters; they are their own race with their own culture, lives, emotions, goals, and their own reasons for wanting to bond with a human. This will also be a school story in that one of the main settings is the military academy where young shifters and human fighters are trained and bond with each other.

The story will feature combat, power struggles, romance, humor, magic, and all the things which go on in a historical fantasy society. The manga will be the intertwined stories of several humans and shifters. Several writers will create characters and stories for those characters, and together we will create an overall plot which will provide a framework for these more personal stories.


Worldbuilding:
The planet is not earth, it is a fantasy world. The technology level is medieval plus some shapeshifting and magical abilities, so no guns or engines, but lots of swords, bows and arrows, claw/glove type weapons, and horses or a fantasy equivalent. The shapeshifters are another intelligent race that evolved there along with the humans (who aren't strictly human because they have some sort of magic powers). There are a lot fewer shapeshifters than humans, partly because the shifters do not naturally have gender or much sex drive.

All of the shapeshifters are associated with one cave, which is where they traditionally bear their young and where wounded or old ones go to rest. Historically, when humans realized the fighting value of being bonded with a shifter and also the vulnerability of the pacifistic shifters to humans who might kidnap or murder them, they surrounded the cave and built a dojo which evolved into a military academy. The current story time is the third generation after the two races started working together. There might be another population of shifters somewhere, but if so it is not yet known to these characters.

Currently all the young shifters, at least of this 'domesticated' population, get trained as shields, and the best young warriors of that country go to the academy to train as swords and then graduate into being in the army. Since there are fewer shields than swords not all swords bond with a shifter before graduation, or ever. (Thus a writer who isn't interested in the shapeshifters can use unbonded human fighters and civilians for their stories.) Also, since bonding is instinctual some shields never find a human who 'does it for them'.

Shifters cannot get smaller or larger, and they are fairly massive - at least 40 lbs, as much as 100 lbs. (They can take a human-sized appearance by making themselves hollow.) Shifters worn as body armor aren't heavy because they help do the moving, but they cannot be worn as small articles of jewelry or clothing. Instead a shifter not being worn as armor would normally wear a human or animal form and walk beside their sword. But, a shifter can make pieces of jewelry out of their body and the human can wear those for improved long distance communication with the shifter. Any shifter can heal any human, although some are much better at healing than others, and some shifters are much better at shapeshifting than others. Shapeshifting includes the ability to shift the shape of things besides the shifter's own body, and the healing ability is actually just a particular way of slightly shifting a human's shape.

Shifters are partially empathic/telepathic - which means that each shifter can hear the feelings of some humans, the ones who are on the right 'wavelength', and the humans must also be nearby. A shifter can only actually read the thoughts of a human they are bonded to or in the process of bonding to. Humans usually only get one shifter and because shifters are rare and picky about who they bond with many humans who want one don't have one. Also, a shifter bonds with a human because it feels that human needs them, a human who already has a shifter probably doesn't need a second. Having two is possible, but really unusual, such that only one or two characters have that. If there are two shifters the shifters should either be a mated pair or siblings.


Plot Ideas:
- The teenage characters in the academy have the usual coming of age issues, such as trying to balance what is expected of them, what they dream of doing, and what they actually have the ability to do.

- There are the usual conflicts of two racial groups living together - prejudice, conflicting traditions and philosophies, different biology, etc. Specifically the shapeshifters are more pacifistic and calm and the humans are more warlike and passionate. This means some of the shifters think the humans are attractively energetic or dangerous, but some of the shifters thing the humans are destructive and childish. Similarly, some of the humans think the shifters are loyal and gentle, while others think the shifters are weak and useless. Also, shifters do not naturally have gender or money, but the young shifters growing up among humans get interested in human things and may start to think of themselves as male or female, which bothers the old traditional shifters.

- The adults have all the problems adult fighters usually have: attacking enemies and difficult missions, struggling to improve themselves and move up the ranks, politics of who gets to decide the military's policy, issues with ethical use of force and guilt over being killers, marriage and children, loneliness, helping friends, revenge, money, pretty much anything.

In your description, did you use 'sword' to refer to a human fighter who has been trained and bond to an ss-shield?

I think that the army will use the shapeshifter (ss) as communication devices. So if you are in the standard army, you will have your ss-armor plus an ss-jewel in an insignia that all higher ranking soldiers of the standard army share.

SS-animals don't bleed, but how would one tell whether an object is a shapeshifter?

Quote:Original post by orionx103
I had an idea similar to this that I think I might've talked to you about before. Basically, the idea was that humans used magic to combine with dragons. Both the human and the dragon would have to train so they could both be more powerful. My antagonist was a young man who found the egg of a legendary (and currently extinct) golden dragon.

The idea was from years ago and I never did much work on it, but I'm doing a lot of work on another idea dealing with people and dragons.

Eragon? [lol]

Quote:Original post by Wai
In your description, did you use 'sword' to refer to a human fighter who has been trained and bond to an ss-shield?

I think that the army will use the shapeshifter (ss) as communication devices. So if you are in the standard army, you will have your ss-armor plus an ss-jewel in an insignia that all higher ranking soldiers of the standard army share.

SS-animals don't bleed, but how would one tell whether an object is a shapeshifter?

Yes I did, the graduates of the military school are called swords and bonded shapeshifters are called shields.

The shapeshifters don't like to give out jewels and even with the jewels the communication range is only a few hundred yards.

Shapeshifters can detect each other, and it might be possible to have a magical artifact which can detect a shapeshifter by touch, but other than that shapeshifters can't be detected. There are fewer than 200 shapeshifters in the whole country and of those only about half are bonded to human fighters, so they're like elite units, not the whole army.