Pokemon Tabletop United

Theo decides to just be fantastically convenient, get changed into their hiking gear without further incident, and head down the pyramid's face to go find Caroline if nobody else is gonna do anything.

They notice the old guy outside Capture Supplies, and decide to ask for directions.

"Hey. Have either of you seen a girl, red cap, baseball uniform, probably crying?"

"Crying baseball girl? Aye, she passed through here. Ran right past the shops, over that way."
The old man gestures vaguely in the direction of the gatehouse.
"She your sister or something? Doesn't pay to stretch out those goodbyes too long you know."

"Uh, no, she's not my sister. She's a pilgrim, one of the dudes was being a consummate ass, and -"

Theo considers that maybe broadcasting their group drama isn't a great option.

"Anyway, I should chase after her."

The Old Guy probably tells Theo to hang on, why don't you battle my grandson first, we've got Pokemon supplies, to which Theo probably declines, which the Old Man probably says something pushy/rude/disparaging.

"Ugh, fine," Theo probably says, sending out Kaddy (I'm just spitballing here). "Can we make it quick, though?"

"Excellent!" roars the old man, "Junior! You're up!"
The kid just rolls his eyes and tosses a pokeball to the ground as his grandfather continues;
"You're a little new to this business right? Here's a couple of ground rules;
Don't worry too much about wandering outside the lines on the ground but please don't have your uh... bug friend run too far away or I'll have take that as a sign of surrender. Can't have a pair of animals chasing eachother all around town you understand? Going too high in the air is a little unsporting too but it doesn't look like that will be a problem.
Don't interfere and don't try and get your pokemon to attack the other trainer, first to knock the other's pokemon out or get them to call it quits is the winner and if that's you then there's a prize involved.
That all sound fair to you?"

The boy pipes up, "Try to avoid the shop windows too, it's not him who'll be installing any replacements..."
His Eevee yaps excitedly as he ferries it into position at one end of the crude arena and waits for Theo to take their place at the other.
"Any time you're ready".

Battle Grid:

SpoilerShow

Theo is faster than Mr. Kid, so you have initiative!

"And maybe bring your friend to have a go too when you find her hmm?"
"Shut up grandpa."

---

GM Stuff:

SpoilerShow

Woah, it's time for some actual Pokemon ??
We could do the whole thing in the topic, but if schedules allow it would probably be a lot faster to run it through Roll20 as I proposed at the start of the topic!

The Invitation link for the Campaign I've set up for us is right here, I'm going to leave it open so I can listen for any "new message" notifications but obviously I'll be on IRC too if you think you need to ping me. If anyone else catches me online at the same time it might be useful to pop in too so I can authorise access to your simulated character sheets. And if you want me to tell you how this client actually works, I mean it's pretty intuitive I think but I've had a while to mess around with it now.

I'm pretty sure the way Cyber has done it with multiple-people battles is to just leave the thing open so people can drop in and out and leave commands and he rolls dice when he sees them? The visual representation which does not require constant image manipulation seems like it will be very useful regardless.

I'll have to make better icon representations for all the trainers too eventually...

Theo and Kaddy succeed in battle against the conveniently named David Kid and his Eevee!
After an initial fairly monstrous tackle (two sixes on 2d6!), both parties came to the sudden realisation that one, venipede can move further than Eevee in the same stretch of time and two, venipede does not need to be sitting next to eevee to attack it, whereas eevee does.
And even if it catches up, it can't do much through Defence Curl.

Kaddy: +16 Exp (now Level 11), +2 Injuries (but the Pokemon Centre is like, right there)
Theo: +2 Exp, +1 Sketch of Tackle, +4 Pokeballs, +1 Weighted Net

After handing over the prize, the old man points over his shoulder.
"Hey, another of your friends went over that way while you were occupied, they were carrying some kind of fancy lute? Maybe they know where baseball girl got to, eh.
And don't forget to bring them both back here when you find them!"

He then draws his grandson aside and they engage in a heated whispered debate about the crowd-drawing merits of public pokemon battles, which have so far attracted no customers and cost them p1500 in goods.

Theo confers with their Venipede as to whether they should rush to the Pokemon centre, before heading first up for the gatehouse to find Caroline. Unsurprisingly, they hear Nando before spotting either of the pair.

Theo opts to see how Caroline reacts before charging in to do damage control.

After a few moments of stunned silence, Caroline finally finds an appropriate response.

"What? Fucker!"

"And to think I put my trust in you to not fuck shit up for five minutes," Theo mumbles to themselves, the complaint obscured by a hand over their face.

"Caroline, look. I can emphathise with your, uh, exasperation with half this crew, but you're better than that! You're better than Lucian, but that asshole's not going to ever acknowledge that until you prove his shitty philosophy is, well, shit." Theo shrugs, Kaddy makes grumpy bug noises and regains her balance.

"There's some rude old dude a couple blocks up who'll give you free stuff if you beat up an Eevee." Theo shrugs again, a bit more subtly this time to keep Kaddy quiet. "I need to head up that way to get Kaddy patched up, why don't you come give it a go?"

"I doubt Lucian's going to acknowledge anything, I'm not sure how ethical it is to take turns beating up on an Eevee, and I can't believe I just got mocked by some keytar-wielding tryhard."

Caroline gives the ground a halfhearted kick.

"At this point, I don't even care. Lead the way, Theo."

Theo figures that's as good a response as they're going to get, and begins the trek back up to the Capture Supplies store. They pointedly don't encourage any more antics from Nando, and hopefully they make it up to outside the Medical Supplies store without incident.

"Ok, sorry, yeah. Exaggerated a bit, I didn't 'beat it up', Kaddy beat it in a regular old battle. They run a promotion or something for pilgrims; I imagine the kid with the Eevee took it over to the Pokemon Centre."

Kaddy wallclimbs her way off the backpack, up and over Theo's shoulder. Theo pats her and points with their other hand first at the Capture Supplies store, then over to the Pokemon Centre.

"If you head over there, I'm sure they'll offer up a challenge. Me? I need to take this one to get patched up. I'll come watch your match in a minute, unless you'd rather I didn't." Theo shrugs.

Quietly impressed by Theo's handling of Lucian, Ylva agrees to the plan to meet up in an hour. She stuffs the remaining cleaning supplies back into the janitor's cupboard and heads out onto Regipolis' south face a few minutes after Theo and Nando.

Assuming the pair has the whole finding Caroline task well in hand, she decides to stop by the General Outfitters for a strategic purchase before looping down towards the bank. While her snow boots are indispensable in the North, southern climates are hardly the place for them.

Outfitted with brand-new Running Shoes, Ylva is heading further down Regipolis when the lines of an improvised Pokemon battle arena catch her eye. She walks up to the arena, pointing at the simple sign next to the debating Capture Tools proprietors.

"Is this offer still open?"

"Hrm? What? -Oh!"
Spinning around ready to chastise someone for interrupting him, the old shopkeeper instantly takes in Ylva's uniform and his manner changes from surly to obsequious.
"But of course! We are always open to the valiant protectors of our realm. Time was I was known as Sergeant Tobias Kid myself, in fact, before I was retired."
His grandson rolls his eyes, clearly he's heard this all before.

"Well don't just stand there lad! Show her what us civilians can do, eh?"
"Yeah alright gramps, there's really no need to get excited."

The pokemon the youth sends out this time is about the same size as his last, but slightly thornier, purplier and... rodent-ier than an Eevee. He hasn't quite had time to go to the pokemon centre yet.

"Any time you're ready".

(That last sentence is a Roll20 link, once again the player character conveniently has initiative.)

Through the magic of beneficial type matchups, (and some pretty strong rolls) Svava's battle is a far quicker and easier affair. Poor Frankie the Nidoran managed to lose almost 90% of his stamina on the second turn, in fact, and wasn't really able to deal such significant damage in return.
The poor kid feels slightly humiliated.

Svava: +16 Exp (now Level 11), just managed to avoid even getting any injuries too (it would only have taken a roll of two higher!)
Ylva: +2 Exp, +4 Pokeballs, +1 Weighted Net

After receiving her prize, Ylva also made a single purchase of a Friend Ball for p500, and Shopkeeper Tobias Kid Sr revealed that they'd been hoping to get a little more cash today than they have thus far, in order to pay off some mysterious Kid-related debts.
Maybe they'll find some more dedicated customers yet!

Ivy winced when sparks began to fly between Theo and Lucian, reaching up to run her fingers through Gingham's fluff, a nervous habit she'd picked up in her adolescence when her older sisters (and, consequently, their ghastly and misdreavus) would get into similar bouts of barely constrained hostility.

Closing her eyes, she linked herself to the cottonee's aura and relaxed a little. Gingham's patient nature always helped stave off panic attacks, at least temporarily. The sound of the door shutting somewhere behind her jolted Ivy back to the present and she found the irascible inventor to be the only other human left in the room.

Unpleasant as he seemed to be, she felt a bit bad for him even if he did more or less bring everything on himself. She approached after a moment's hesitation with a crooked, uneasy grin on her face. "It's uh...not been the...most auspicious start to the journey, has it?" She said, extending a hand. "Um, I'm Ivy Amaranth. Florist and amature botanist. It's...ah...nice to meet you."

Lucian glares sullenly after Theo, sinking into himself. Three out of five to avoid already, one of which didn't seem amenable to being ignored. Neither ideal nor practical, but not exactly new, either. At least he was getting it out of the way this time. His gaze sweeps over the guards, one of whom seems to be watching him intently. Why was he here? Buying into this loathsome system so... what, so he could dismantle it from within? What kind of halfwit thought like that? Aside from Champion bait...

It was all just... so tiresome.

"It's uh...not been the...most auspicious start to the journey, has it?"

Shaken from reverie, Lucian looks to... the... small one, briefly cursing his minimum of attention during the certificate ceremony. Why were they still here, anyway?

“It's... ah... nice to meet you."

Oh, right. Meeting and greeting. A lie, of course, but one he can’t muster the drive to refute. Instead, he cocks an eyebrow and grumbles, "Is it? That's new." He accepts Ivy’s hand, gripping more gently than might be expected. "Lucian Mandragora. Mechanist, futurist, humanist. Hopefully, the rest of our journey will go more smoothly. Eventually."

Zeus radiates <doubt> before popping off to scour for sour at the buffet. Annoyance begins to bubble back.

Theo leaves Caroline to go battle the kid, or not, whatever. They head to the Pokemon centre to patch Kaddy up, have a look round and see what the locals are up to this time of day.

Caroline goes to battle the kid, or whatever.

Svava perched on her bag, Ylva makes her way towards the Pokemon centre. While the battle had gone well, it was probably more the dumb luck of the Kid using a Poison-typed Pokemon than any real skill on her or Svava's part that had decided it.

Beating a schoolkid with type advantage on her side certainly isn't anything she should feel particularly proud of. Still, Ylva can't help but grin a little at Svava as she enters the centre. As the doors slide shut behind the pair, she leans down and quietly talks to her diminutive friend.

"Here we go, the Nurse'll heal you up in a moment. You were amazing out there!

I'll see you again in a bit."

Recalling Svava, Ylva looks back up and around the centre for the Nurse's station.

Theo and Ylva very conveniently enter the Pokemon Centre at almost the same time!
The building is clean and well-lit, and while not exactly bustling there are a handful of people milling around within. A couple of barriers have been set up to corral people in times of high activity, but they're pretty useless at present.

A large machine under the stairwell advertises itself as "Pokemon Storage Access", while a similar-looking device on the far wall is marked "Online Trading Database".

A female nurse waves to the pair from behind the counter as they walk in.
"Hi there! Do you need any help?
Pokemon treatment's at this desk, beds are upstairs and if one of you is a little injured we can take care of that in the back room too!
If either of you can't handle stairs, I can show you where the lift is around the back through the treatment room."

A shockingly pink blob carrying an egg bobs around happily behind her as she speaks. In the far corner, a male nurse is conversing with a middle-aged man, a young girl who is bouncing even faster than the pokemon behind the desk and a bipedal rabbit that barely reaches two feet tall.

A person whose eyes are concealed with sunglasses is engaged in a heated phone call by the trading machine. A female bodybuilder and her companion, who could almost pass for a child bodybuilder if if not for the grey skin and almost repitlian head, are sitting at the left-hand table.

---

The old man scratches the back of his head uncertainly.

"Eh well... I'm more of a collector than a battler myself..."
He glances back at his grandson who holds up three fingers at him, then lowers two of them.
"Oh. Right.
Youngster here's only got one pokemon left anyway so I guess I don't have much of a choice do I? Can't make you wait for him to dash to the Centre and back.
Go easy on Tess though eh? She's not had much practice at this."

The two members of the Kid family take their places at one side of the increasingly scuffed arena, and wait for their challengers to do the same.

"Remember, play fair. Pokemon only, no kicking or using items, don't wander too far outside the lines or we'll annoy the neighbours.
Last team standing wins!"

SpoilerShow

Roll20 link~
Although I'm also just going to link it again when the both of you are on IRC at the same time, so don't worry too much about hanging around in there until then.

This battle didn't go quite how you'd expect if you were a spectator of the previous two, a chief reason being that unlike the other two this one actually gathered some spectators.

Nando disguised his use of the move Screech (while not in range of any enemy targets) by screaming the name of the pokeball store, which Mike copied with Mirror Move and unfortunately managed to miss both of the enemy pokemon. What it did do was attract some people to come and watch, the entire point of the exercise!

Pichu struck early and hard, blowing Mike down to a fraction of his HP, then fainted the very next turn to combined attacks from the angered birds.
Nincada conversely managed to take six to eight hits, despite all of them being super effective, but finally lost out due to inability to fly and lack of moves particularly effective for dealing with birds.
He valiantly tried twice to rope himself to Mike and grab hold in mid-air, but it was just not to be.

Charlie: +16 EXP (now Level 11)
Mike: +16 EXP (now level 11) +2 Injuries (oof)
Caroline:+2 Exp, +4 Pokeballs, +1 Weighted Net
Nando:+2 Exp, +4 Pokeballs, +1 Weighted Net, -1 Can of Glitter
I can feel a pattern beginning to emerge here.

After receiving his prize, Nando attempted to charm the shopkeeper further and obtain some form of sponsorship. He didn't quite manage that, but did get a deal of a different sort.

"Junior here recently lost a whole bunch of our stock in the woods outside of town, says he was mugged by some big furry thing. The pokeballs were pretty easily replaceable but we had to get him a new Trainer's License too and they aren't so cheap. If you can get us his old one back, maybe we can work something out.
I ain't saying you'll be our mascot or anything but we can always use more publicity."

"I'll see what I can do then eh?" was the obvious response.

A small crowd of eight people is now milling around inside and outside the store. Despite having lost and had to pay out again, the shopkeeper is much happier. His grandson shrugs and starts to leave to the pokemon centre.

Indeed, Carol does the same.

Kaddy is recalled and her Pokeball handed over to get healed up; Theo listens surreptitiously in on whatever the nurse is talking about. (And to look at the rabbit; unfamiliar Pokemon are always of interest.)

"May I see your trainer license? Thank you~
Anyone else?"

A little glass cylinder rises around Kaddy's pokeball as it is inserted into the machine, accompanied by an animated digital timer and pixelated representation of the venipede herself popping up on a big screen overhead. However this process works, it doesn't look like it's going to take much more than about ten minutes.
The timer's shorter for Svava, presumably because she ended up significantly less battered.



Theo manages to lean on the counter close enough to the chattering nurse to overhear bits of the conversation but not to arouse suspicion.
"It took his trainer's license? That's... certainly pretty odd. Not to mention inconvenient."
"I know! Apparently it was pretty insistent too? I mean, the way he tells it, it shook out his jacket pockets and then only took that rather than anything shiny that was in there. I'm honestly not certain he didn't just lose it and come up with a poor excuse! It'll take about a month until he gets a replacement, either way."
"I hope it wasn't too expensive. And I'll have to find someone else to make the delivery too! I suppose I could just post the stuff but... those couriers just don't seem to understand the meaning of the word Fragile sometimes you know?"
"A headache all round really."
"Hmm..."

The small child and even smaller rabbit pokemon seem to be a lot more interested in each other than what the adults are talking about, taking turns to impersonate each other's actions. The girl lacks prehensile ears though, so has significant trouble duplicating the slightly bizarre sight of a rabbit rolling and unrolling its own at will like furry pistons.



By the time Nando, Caroline and Kid Jr. arrive, Svava is already fully healed and Kaddy's timer is nearing completion.
The poor pokeball shop boy nearly catches the eye of the man talking to the nurse and then stares at the floor in embarrassment. Noticing him, the little girl runs over and starts tugging on one leg of his shorts in search of attention.

(I'm going out on a limb and assuming Mirdini entered the pokemon centre to get his pokemon healed, I hope that doesn't seem out of line to you!)

Grumbling something about the passage of time directly into the wastebin, Lucian makes for the exit. "You should prepare while you can. I don't doubt those more eager may leave without us. Zeus!"

The Abra, now sporting a cheese cube confetti halo, shrugs at Ivy before blinking atop his metal steed. Barring any further digressions, Lucian stalks off to Pokemon Medical Supplies.

Theo greets Ylva with a nod and a smile, Nando with a look that was meant to convey "if you caused Caroline any more grief I am 105% done with you", before giving an actual vocalised greeting for Caroline. "Oh, hey. How'd your match go?"