Hello all! First of all, thank you for clicking here and I do hope you take consideration into this roleplay of mine and continue reading.
Let me say first off that this is an interest check for a Touhou Project roleplay. That said, my intention is that this roleplay will be directed to all players who enjoy roleplays about Japanese Youkai and folklore, or just set in a traditional Japanese setting. Indeed, the setting is that of the Touhou Project franchise, but only around half of the characters will be familiar, and this will take place over a hundred years before any official Touhou work, where the rules are very different. In that way, it won't be too hard to distinguish from any other fantasy or Youkai roleplay, thus allowing all kinds of players to pitch in.
Originally, it was going to be a literary fanfiction (and it probably still is) but I felt on a whim that it would make a great roleplay, and I've been looking to make a roleplay now that my busy period is ending. Having GMed and co-GMed both successful and unsuccessful roleplays and being very much more experienced with them than before, I am confident that I know how to manage a roleplay correctly and successfully. So, here's my idea;
The plot of this roleplay is going to go back, way back, but not all that far. The year is 1885 and Japan is in the midst of the Meiji Restoration. Feudalism is being thrown out for western ideals, the Emperor has regained full power over the country and Japan is going through rapid westernization and industrialization, on it's way from being a nation ripe for taking over by imperialism to being on par with (and later on, exceeding) some of the world's current great powers during pre-WWI times. Indeed, just as in any other era of rapid change, many old ideals are forgotten, or rather, are considered better off forgotten. There is one area of Japan that fits in this category all too well, a haunted place where might makes right, and humans live in constant fear of the night, and the monsters that lurk in the shadows. Gensokyo.
During the Meiji era, Gensokyo is a word that is heard less and less, some considering it hardly more than a mythical place, like Mayohiga of legend, but nonetheless, this frightening place is quite real. In it, Youkai of ancient times run rampant, constantly fighting for dominance, much like the warring states of an older era. Commonly, they band together and cause all sorts of incidents. There is always a risk of them banding together and becoming a major threat to the whole country, but something keeps them at bay. Within Gensokyo are a community of humans, not uncommonly being host to strange powers, who have either been sent or have volunteered to do battle against the Youkai. Some are considered great heroes, like the superhumans of old legends, while others are condemned and exiled for their cursed abilities, where they can do harm to nobody but the monsters or each other. For an unspoken amount of time, they've held this tradition, practically giving up their lives for the sake of their honor and the integrity of Japanese society.
In this era of great change, many denizens of Gensokyo reject change, mainly the Youkai who risk having their existences denied. Many believe their is a risk of them banding together to create some sort of incident to shake the balance of Japan, and possibly the world, just as they've attempted before, and just as before, it is the duty of these brave humans and the shrine maiden of the Hakurei clan to stop them. This is a time of great unrest, yet many hope to be able to continue their ordinary lives. This is a savage time long before spell card rules, before danmaku was even widely popular among Youkai. This is the time before the Great Hakurei Border.
As a roleplay, I feel this would make for a great semi-original story centered around a half-original cast, while the other half are characters we're familiar with, to give a very different taste of Touhou, yet something that is still very much recognizable as Touhou. In this way, I want this roleplay to be open to both fans of the series and people who are unfamiliar with the series, but enjoy playing roleplays involving old Japan or Youkai and such. I can imagine it being something between either slice-of-life (like many of the written works) or it would be more heavily filled with drama and action, but that really depends on whatever the roleplayers are more interested in. It'd be nice to make it character driven, but I think for the sake of making sure it's successful, I'll be having overarching plots that will steer characters in the right direction. My biggest design philosophy, however, is that all roleplayers are able to contribute to the roleplay in more ways than simply posting. I want to give players the ability to discuss various aspects of the roleplay, such as plot ideas or developing the setting, and to truly feel involved and engaged. I feel the best way to make sure roleplayers are dedicated to the roleplay is to make good friends with them, so there will definitely be the use of tools like RPG Write for collaborative writing and Skype for communicating (that is, if you have Skype. The RPG Write makes a great substitute though.)
So, my biggest question is; are you interested? I'd like to hear all about the thoughts running through your head, and you can feel free to ask me any questions either here or in a PM. I'm interested to see both if there are roleplayers on this site who are familiar with Touhou project as well as if there is possibly anybody who is unfamiliar with Touhou project yet still interested in this roleplay. I'll be sure to design the roleplay in such a way that ordinary roleplayers will be up to speed with any sort of information they need about Touhou and Gensokyo, but there shouldn't be too much of an issue, seeing as we won't be seeing any special Spell Cards or Danmaku in this roleplay, in favor of more conventional fights between Humans and Youkai.
Also, as a side not, I'd like to make the roleplay look pretty, to resemble the many various anime-based roleplays that we've been seeing a ton of as of late, what with their fancy images, both animated and static, that flood the page. I certainly am experienced with BB Code, but I've not been able to reach that level of fanciness purely because I lack the resources (such as experience with Tumblr or decent image editing software). Therefore, I was wondering if anybody who is experienced with making intro pages or character profiles like that could possibly collaborate with me to help me do so. After all, this is Touhou we're talking about. One of the main premises of the entire series is beauty.
