Creating Pokemon with Magic

In magical worlds, it may be that not every Pokemon one finds is created the natural way.
Wizards may call Pokemon from other planes of existence to do their bidding, rather than going
outside and risk dirtying their robes. Crazed scientists may combine technology, magic, and a
few “leftover” parts to create life itself. Necromancers might craft undead Pokemon, summoning
spirits to inhabit well-worn bodies. Or perhaps a civilized society has means for the rich to
custom-order their Pokemon, skipping generations of breeding to get right to the desired result.

However you go about it, the concept of magic allows for a world of possibilities when it comes
to “creating” Pokemon. What follows is a system that attempts to codify those possibilities.
Whether the GM makes this system available to the players is up to them, however: It may be
that your world strictly regulates the magical creation of Pokemon, so that it may only be
performed at specialized Guilds by expert wizards; or perhaps your world has lost the ancient
secrets that enabled the creation of life by arcane fiat.

Hatchers and Scientists

The following system may be considered to be hedging on the territory of the Scientist and the
Hatcher. We recommend that Hatcher and Scientist feats apply to Pokemon created with this
system, if the Hatcher or Scientist is the one who actually performs the ritual and expends the
resources to create the Pokemon - after all, they’ll have sunk quite a few Edges and Feats
into the process, and the Pokemon created by this system is, at best, about as unique and
different as the most “out-there” Shiny Pokemon.

For Hatchers, they may create their Pokemon as an Egg. When the Egg hatches some time
later, they can then apply their Feats to it as normal. (In the case of This One’s Special, the
GM and the Player should come together and determine what those special additions are -
you may simply allow it to be a free, costless use of this system, with a Master Occult skill
supplied by a patron wizard, guardian spirit, or simply The Universe.)

In the case of the Scientist, their feats “For Science!” and “Playing God” simply allow them to
perform certain functions of this system without a skill check, or for a lesser cost. (Depending
on the game and the Scientist in question, you may want to alter or add to the list of Pokemon
the Scientist can create.)

For both, if a Feat allows them to do one of the Modifiers listed below, then they can do so
without rolling a Check. Further, that Modifier’s Difficulty is not added for future Modifiers.
(They must still pay the Cost listed in the Feat, of course.)
Cost and Difficulty
Every step of the Pokemon Creation process has an associated Cost and Difficulty.

To attempt the step, you must first pay the Cost, given in P$, in ritual magic supplies - magic
crystals, special herbs, runic inscriptions, or whatever is appropriate to the character and the
world in question.

Then, the Trainer must roll their Occult Education skill, plus any relevant modifiers (from
equipment, circumstance, etc.). If they meet or exceed the total Difficulty of all the steps
involved to-date, including the new step they’re attempting, then they succeed - otherwise, they
fail, and the Cost is spent to no benefit.

Step 1: Determine Pokemon

First, you must determine the species of Pokemon you’re summoning. Typically, you may only
create a Pokemon that you have at least seen before, or have detailed information on (from
researching arcane tomes or the like); make sure to confirm with your GM that the species you
intend to create is okay. Even if you’re attempting to create a brand-new species, you must
select a known species to be the ‘base’ (which you would then apply many Modifiers to)..

The formula for the base Cost and Difficulty of creating the Pokemon is as follows:

Base Cost: (Base Stat Total) x 100

Base Difficulty: (Base Stat Total) / 2 (rounded down)

When the Pokemon is created, the GM decides its Basic Ability, Nature, and Gender as normal.
(Hatchers and Scientists may apply their Feats to select these as normal, as well.)

Hatchers: Remember that you can only hatch Pokemon from their Base or Baby stage!

Step 2: Modifiers
Once the Pokemon is created, you may begin adding modifiers to it. Each Modifier has a Cost
and Difficulty. Remember that as you add more Modifiers, the Difficulty increases cumulatively!
To wit:

Difficulty to Add a Modifier: (Base Difficulty of Species) + (Sum of previous successful

Modifiers) + (Current Modifier’s Difficulty)

Again, if you fail a Modifier, the Cost is expended, but nothing else happens. Failed Modifier
attempts do not add to the difficulty of successive Modifier attempts, so you can just try again -
though note that lots of failures may have drastic consequences, noted in the Failure step
below.
 Easy (DC +3) Moderate (DC +6) Hard (DC +12)

Name Cost Name Cost Name Cost

Choose 500 Head Start 750 Alter Egg 2,000

Nature (Knows 2nd Ability at Birth) Group

Choose 500 Increase Loyalty 1,000 Alter Ability 3,000

Gender List*

Choose 500 Increase a Base Stat by 1 2,000

Basic Ability (up to 5, count as
Vitamins)

Alternate 1,500 Add Egg or Tutor Move to 2,000

Coloration Inheritance List
(up to 3)

Alter Type 2,500

* When altering a Pokemon’s Ability List, you may substitute out one of its Basic, Advanced, or
High Abilities for an Ability from the Type-Shifting Movelist Helper of the same tier, for the
Pokemon’s type(s).

Finishing Up
The Trainer creating the Pokemon may call it quits whenever they like, and accept their result.
Once they’ve done this, though, the Pokemon is finalized - they cannot go back and resume
adding Modifiers to it at a later date. (That’s the province of classes like the Upgrader.)

When the Pokemon is finalized, the player may immediately capture it and automatically
succeed, unless failure penalties were applied that make this impossible (see below). By
default, a created Pokemon starts at Lv. 5, and Loyalty 2 towards its Trainer.

Possible Failure Results

Typically, failing a Modifier’s check just results in the Cost of the Modifier being spent without
any gain. Depending on your world’s rules of magic, however, you may want to institute
additional penalties. If you, as the GM, decide to have failure results, be sure to discuss this with
your players beforehand, including which ones you intend to use! It may alter how they
approach creating a Pokemon via magic.

What follows are some ideas for failure penalties that the GM can apply, but take them only as
guidelines - you have free reign, especially after multiple failures! If you invent your own failure
results, be sure to not make them so bad as to discourage use of the Pokemon once the
creature’s been created - a player will have sunk a lot of time and resources into creating it.
Failure results should be seen less as overt punishments, and more as quest or roleplaying
hooks that “start with the stick, and end with the carrot”. Rather than encouraging a player to
abandon the created Pokemon, they should be problems that the player can solve - after a
side-quest or two, of course - to remove the failure result from the Pokemon.

● The Pokemon loses one stage of Loyalty.

● Backlash: The Trainer has a stat’s Default Combat Stage set to -1 for the next day.
● The Pokemon has a defect of some kind, which does one of the following:
○ Set one of its stat’s Default Combat Stages to -1
○ Lower one of its Skills by 2 dice
○ Reduce one of its movement Capabilities by 2
● The Pokemon gains a Weakness to a random Type it wasn’t weak to before.
● Remove a natural non-movement Capability from the Pokemon.
● The Pokemon has its own agenda, a very specific goal - such as attacking a known
friendly NPC, stealing specific kinds of treasure, or attacking foes of a specific Type. (GM
and Player should discuss this one, since it requires strong roleplaying skills on the part
of the Player. GM can keep the exact target a secret.)