Well, here are some general ideas for the planning of this side arc. Feel free to ask questions.

The gist of it has been posted in one of my latest D!posts. Basically, the Ashcloud returns, wants to make Copahue (and by extension any friend of his) suffer, and also wants to make a try at world domination because that's what villains do. And Jemma, being one of the victims of the Ashcloud too, is none too happy about that, so she calls forth a group of Total Losers (ie.: the players) to help her deal with the competition.

So, some specific details about the side arc:

* Timeframe: now-ish and until at most the lead-to-finale of the next big arc (ie.: Hoenn-2 +1).
* Continuity: OU based, but there might be chance to involve PMD, AU or Otherverse characters. This side arc does not grealy affect any of the core elements of the RP.
* Players: current plan is for 2 or 3 players tops, extensible depending on assistance / participation.

Storyline

The Ashcloud was once a mere cluster of soot that tried to drown Copahue during one of his early depressive episodes. Eventually and thanks to shenanigans it got merged with a magical energy cloud fired by a mon from Snowbelle Gym during Every and Mezzo's run of the Sinnoh Gym Challenge.

After some recent shenanigans (6Island among them), the Ashcloud meets Jemma and from her it learns about power and ambition, thus it embarks on its own quest to make its creator (Copahue) suffer in order to strengthen itself and muster the power required for World Domination™. But the Ashcloud by itself can not gather enough lifestream life essence, so it needs to tap on to some of the power sources of the Pokéverse.

The attack will begin with the Ashcloud targeting mons who are or have been close to Copahue and work from there to make him suffer, as Copahue's suffering strengthens the Ashcloud. Finally managing to open a portal to the Dream World, the Ashcloud will go there to siphon the life energy and aspirations of a sleeping Copahue in order to expand its own dimension, the Dimension of Doom Ashness, where the Ashcloud intends to build up enough power to connect to [insert number] places of mystical properties in the Pokémon World in order to tap into their energy for nefarious purposes.

The Ashcloud can't do everything by itself though, so by using the information and essence about mons it has gathered in the Dream World, it will summon the dream mist and infuse it with its own power in order to materialize some creatures called Mannikins Monikers, crude reproductions of various Pokémon that know no other thing than to extend the influence of the soot across the land. Chief among those Monikers will be [insert number here], of Boss Rank, infused with enough power to create their own territory, materialized in the form of Battlegrounds or Dungeons, where they will draw power from the environment in order to feed the Ashcloud.

In each "side" of the Dimension of Ashness, a dungeon will be erected and connected to one mystical place in the Pokémon World. In order to prevent the Ashcloud from becoming more powerful and extending its reach over the real world, the dungeons in the Dimension of Ashness must be cleared.

Jemma of course will have none of that Ashcloud thing. She will bring up some mons around to a specific place where a portal to the Dimension of Ashness will be opened, and from there she will -partially- guide the group of losers so that they do her bidding, that is, to get back at the Ashcloud for taking advantage of her plans of World Domination™. And thus, it will be the role of the players's mons to clear the Pokéverse and the Dimension of Ashness from the Ashcloud's influence, before it's too late for Copahue. Oh and the world.

Participation and Goals

Players sign up some of their mons for the adventure, and they work together in the form of a team (no, not a Team). A team can be comprised of mons from different players if they can agree on the management (or mons are passed around to be NPC'd). The nominal limit of mons per team will be of five (5) for the moment.

Teams must attempt to raid the Dungeons in order to complete puzzles, eradicate the Moniker population or destroy the connection between the Dimension and the real world, materialized in the form of the Dungeon Boss.

There are [insert number] Dungeons, each of them containing a Boss Moniker, a collection of lesser Monikers, and a hidden Artifact. In order to clear the Dungeon, the Boss must be defeated or the Artifact must be taken outside of the Dimension of Ashness.

Once a given amount of Dungeons are cleared, an optional comprised of a small puzzle and a Bonus Boss will be made available. The nature of the Bonus Boss is yet to be discussed, but expect it to be, well, a Bonus Boss.

Mechanics

(Note: most of the following mechanics information is available to be discussed)

Combat in the Dimension of Ashness takes the form of active mode many-on-many battles in a model not much unlike FFXI or FFXIV. Monikers usually roam the world in a "calm" behaviour where they do nothing but wander around aimlessly, as far from each other as possible, so as to enlarge the Dimension and thus the Ashcloud's powers. Monikers have a given radius of enmity and moving within that radius, or attacking the Monikers from any distance, will trigger their "aggro" or aggressive behaviour.

Once combat is entered, things change a bit notoriously, as this being a different dimension it has rules of its own.

The different Pokémon types still exist, but the damage relation for Monikers is different. A Moniker, unlike a normal Pokémon, can only have one type, which is one of the types of its model. Most importantly, the meaning of STAB is changed within the Dimension of Ashness: in order for a Moniker to suffer actual HP Damage, it must be attacked with a move of its own type (eg.: Water Gun against a Water Moniker); attacks of other types can cause damage, knockback or interrupt the Moniker's moves, but they don't actually harm its body nor are they able to knock it out.

However, defeating a Moniker is not as easy as just spamming Water Gun on a Water Moniker. Monikers have something similar to a Shield Gauge as they are shielded by the energy of the Dimension of Ashness, and their shield must be broken each time before landing a STAB attack, otherwise the STAB attack behaves similar to a normal attack.

For the purposes of this plot, shields are quite simple: they merely are equivalent to a Substitute of a given HP (let's say, 50HP) determined loosely by Rank, and they have no type, meaning all types of moves damage them with equal relation. If the players so desire, they simply can make a low-rank Moniker's shield 1HP, meaning it will always fade away as soon as it takes a hit.

Remember Monikers attack in groups, so varying strategy and changing targets is key.

Once a Moniker's aggro is activated, it will stop at nothing but its own demise or the edge of its Dungeon, as Monikers are trapped within the confines of their own establishment.

Monikers

Monikers are crude reproductions of specific Pokémon that exist only for battle. They are created from the power of soot, and they function differently from normal Pokémon. Monikers have only one type - one of the types of the Pokémon they are modelled after (eg.: a Pidgey Moniker can be Normal or Flying, but not both). Monikers can not change type under any circumstance, not even under the effect of eg.: Soak.  They have no Natures. They also don't have normal Abilities like normal Pokémon have, instead they have one (and only one) of three special abilities:

* Power Raise -- at low health Attack and Special Attack increase greatly (equivalent to an in-game of +2, more or less) and they gain access to the most powerful move of their type, even if they are at low level.
* Power Spread -- at low health the reach and accuracy of their moves becomes much higher (accuracy raise equivalent to an in-game +2, more or less)
* Power Temple -- at low health they become immune to Critical Hits, and they don't suffer debuff, knockback or recoil from the moves they use.

A Moniker is determined by:

* Model (the species it's based off)
* Ttype (one of the types its model has)
* Level (from 1 to 100)
* Rank (from A to whatever)

A given Moniker can use any attack its model can learn up to its Level it has, be it naturally or egg move.

The Rank of the Moniker gives a general idea of their intelligence or disposition, the idea is that players use highest-rank Monikers (eg.: A Rank) as difficult encounters that can use items or that can ambush opponents, whereas lowest rank Monikers are basically cannon fodder. t is the choice of the different players what Rank, Level and Type of Moniker they want to fight as NPCs; however there are some specific Moniker battles that will follow special rules - them being the Sub Boss and Boss Ranks.

There is any number of Sub-Boss Monikers in a dungeon, even zero, whereas there is only one Boss Moniker in a Dungeon.

Sub-Boss and Boss Rank Monikers will also have access to TM moves and Custom Moves to the discretion and approval of the players. Each Boss Rank Moniker will also have one special move that requires charging and that functions as an in-battle event - if the charging is not interrupted, any Pokémon the attack hits is knocked regardless of HP.

The rest of this section will be edited in soon.

Prizes

As was the case with the Auric Sol Tournament, I intend to hand over prizes for the players who manage to clear the adventure. The nature of those prizes is yet to be discussed.