You can read this post and see images of the Positive Quasi-Elemental Planes on Dump Stat

What are the Positive Quasi-Elemental Planes?

Between the major Inner Planes are the positive quasi-elemental planes that bridge the gap between them and the Positive Energy Plane. Four quasi-elemental planes blend the pure energy of Positive with the elements, creating worlds of agitating elements that are often as deadly as they are beautiful. The four planes are Lightning, Radiance, Mineral, and Steam, each adjoins a different elemental plane of Air, Fire, Earth, and Water, respectively.
These planes are crackling with energy and its occupants are just as full of life as the plane. Unfortunately, for many travelers, these planes are just as dangerous as the Positive Energy Plane and pose very real risks for those who visit them.

History

The positive quasi-elemental planes are first introduced in the Manual of the Planes (1987) where the foundations of each are laid. This book provides the reader with information on how deadly these planes are and their relationship to the Inner Planes as well as the Positive Energy Plane. It isn’t until The Inner Planes (1998) is released though that additional detail is provided on the inhabitants and specific places to explore. Unfortunately, little information is actually known about these planes.

An Outsider’s Perspective

Survival in any of these planes is difficult for the ill-prepared. Not only do travelers have to overcome the challenges of the major element that each quasi-plane represents, but they are energized by the Positive Energy Plane, creating agitated realms of chaotic energy.

Lightning

Travelers are greeted with a world alight with lightning and energy. The sky is crowded with black clouds and arcs of lightning. The entire plane smells of ozone while bolts leap from cloud to cloud and touching anything in this world is enough to cause static shock to explode out. A glowing brilliance, known as St. Elmo’s fire, coats everything that visits the plane, giving every creature an electrical brilliance. The biggest secret to survival on this plane is to avoid bringing any metal as even a dagger is enough to attract the elemental energies of this plane, turning the traveler into a lightning rod.

Mineral

Thought of as the treasure trove of the multiverse, the plane is made up of brilliant gems, ores, rubies, sapphires, gold, and more with veins of pure metals wrapped around each other like tree roots. Because this plane represents the positive energy of the Plane of Earth, it is filled with the positive minerals and materials with pure metal and gems of the finest quality. Despite how easy it is to find such valuable goods, this plane isn’t often visited simply due to the deadliness of it all. This world is filled with razor-sharp edges from gems, ore, metals, and more, cutting and slicing any creature that attempts to move through the world more than a few feet.

Radiance

Beautiful and made of pure color, this plane is of an aching and burning beauty. Radiance is the mixing of the Positive Energy Plane and the Plane of Fire, creating a burning, cleansing energy that glows and burns in painful splendor. Every color can be found glistening in this realm of energy, with colors swirling in a dazzling display. There is a price to witnessing the beauty of this plane, as anyone who visits goes blind from the Radiance unless they can properly prepare for their trek into the plane.

Steam

This plane, despite its name, is surprisingly cool and many believe that calling it Mist would be a better name for it. This mist is clammy and thick, seeping into everything and drenching it completely. While there are pockets of superheated water, it isn’t the biggest danger that travelers should be mindful of, instead, it is drowning on the plane. The mist is so thick and prevalent that every time a creature breathes, they are also breathing in lungfuls of water, choking on flooded lungs.

A Native’s Perspective

Creatures of these planes exist, though they are rare and typically don’t like leaving their home plane without good reason. These creatures are based on the elements of their planes, overflowing with energy from the Positive Energy Plane, and are often thought to be bubbly and over the top. Very few powers make their home on these planes, though they are often visited by many gods who simply wish to re-attune themselves to a specific element, like storm gods who visit Lightning.

Lightning

The natives of Lightning are largely the lightning elementals, though there are a few others who soar through these storm skies. There are even creatures, the Uun, whose entire life cycle starts and ends in the flash of lightning that arcs through the sky. Many of the creatures found here take on the form of lightning, making it hard to discern what is a living lightning bolt and what is a natural construction of the plane, with many believing that every lightning bolt is sentient and alive. Some outsiders have lived here so long as to understand the dark of this plane, though they are rare and reside in the center of the plane on a small mote of earth.

Mineral

One of the few quasi-elemental planes with an Archomental, Crystalle, who holds claim over the territories of the plane. The inhabitants of this plane are largely the quasielementals of Mineral, though there are also the Tsnng, a race of crystalline creatures who are renowned for their spellcasting and magic. The inhabitants of the plane are typically only encountered by outsiders when they begin trying to take precious gems and ore from the plane, especially in large scale operations like with teams of miners. The inhabitants are constantly having to protect their plane from outsiders looking to get rich quick, and even fighting off the Xorn who travel to this plane from the Plane of Earth and try to devour everything they find. Strangely, the Dao are allowed to take what they want from this plane and are not hassled or destroyed for their greed, making many believe that the Dao are offering something to the Tsnng and Crystalle that allows them such freedoms.

Radiance

The beings of Radiance must be able to survive the erratic energies of the Positive Energy Plane, as well as the burning heat of the Plane of Fire. This radiance isn’t simply hot, but its blinding beauty is enough to burn out those unworthy travelers who would travel to this plane. The quasielementals who reside here are aloof, even with each other, and rarely choose to make themselves known to outsiders. While the people of Radiance rarely ever leave, several distinct groups reside on this plane.
The Varisoh, a group of bird-like humanoids who live in a place known as the Refuge of Color where two regal figures, King Black and Queen White, watch over them. It is said that the two are powerful and have godlike powers. Apart from them are the inhabitants of the Kingdom of the Blind, occupied solely by outsiders who have journeyed to this plane and refuse to leave. Thanks to the protection of their home, they are not blinded by the beauty of the plane.
Efreet also journey to this plane, though the inhabitants despise them. The only outsiders the inhabitants like, at least a little, are the celestials who pilgrimage to this plane. Devas, solars, holiphants, and more journey to this plane to witness the splendor of Radiance.

Steam

Steam holds a variety of natural creatures who appeared in the mists of this plane. The most common are the elementals of this plane, though they are incredibly hard to see as they are mist themselves, allowing them to blend into the plane almost seamlessly. The easiest way of locating these elementals is to look for their communities as they constantly trade with the Marids for slaves for unknown purposes.
Apart from the elementals are the Faberes, gigantic balloonlike creatures who propel themselves through the plane by breathing out gases, the Javoose and Calden, which appear to be large water bugs that flit across the plane in search of food, and the Klyndesi and Wavefires who also appear like steam or mist in strange forms. The Klyndesi are dangerous to outsiders as they hunt the Fabere and travelers, while the Wavefires simply hunt the plane for dry air and don’t bother attacking other creatures.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere on these planes is akin to the major elemental plane that they represent, though they introduce their risks. Every plane is breathable, though in the case of Mineral, there just might not be much to breathe as it is made of solid ore and gems, like the Plane of Earth, and there are only pockets and tunnels to travel through. These planes can support life, though each has its own unique dangers associated with them.

Lightning

Arcs of lightning fill this world and any metal immediately begins building up charges and attracting lightning to it. The atmosphere is breathable, though it tastes like burnt ozone with a tang. So long as travelers aren’t wearing metal, they probably won’t get struck by lightning often though certain spells are needed to help ward them from harm.

Mineral

Like the Plane of Earth, this plane is almost completely filled with minerals occupying almost every space of this plane, though the difference is that it has no limestone or granite filling in the spaces between gems and ore. Air exists in the twisting tunnels, and apart from the deadly razor-sharp edges of this plane, it is easy to survive here.

Radiance

Brilliant lights blind all creatures who journey here unless they take the necessary precautions to protect their eyes. Those who are resistant or immune to the heat of Radiance, which is dependent on the edition if it is simply fire or radiant damage, can look upon this world without going blind. Others must cover their eyes in thick bandages that can protect their eyes from the intense light of the plane. A common tactic by many is to cast darkness on themselves before they enter the plane, as the spell makes the plane around them just dark enough that they can see without going blind.

Steam

While this plane is breathable, it is like breathing in heavy fog and mists that fill up your lungs with water. The only way to survive in this plane is if you can naturally breathe in water or air, or you have a water breathing spell cast on you. Many unprepared travelers have drowned on the air of this plane, their lungs so full of water that they burst.

Traits

Travel to the Planes

Traveling to these planes is not too difficult, though it isn’t as easy as traveling to one of the major Inner Planes. There are known portals that link to these planes, as well as vortices that suddenly spring up where their element is strongest. While portals are commonly used by many travelers, you can also hire guides from the major planes, and they can take you across the planar boundaries that separate their plane from one of the quasi-elemental planes. The borders at these intersections of planes can be quite dangerous, but with a trusted guide, it isn’t too difficult to get across them, of course, the guide may only know where the border is and not be able to help navigate you across the new plane.
The most common portals appear in places that are linked to the planes, and of course, Sigil holds at least one portal to each of these planes, but they can be constantly changing their location as the mood comes. Portals are often guarded by creatures who embody some form of that element, like Storm Gods on the Outlands have laid claim on a series of portals to Lightning, or a group of dwarven miners, also on the Outlands, have laid claim to a portal to Mineral. Celestials feverishly guard a portal to Radiance from fiends trying to unlock the power of radiant energy, while Steam might be located at the bottom of Aquallor on Arborea.
Vortices, quick and temporary portals that are often only one way, often form at points of large gatherings of elements. Lightning storms on the Prime Material Plane could be a bridging point for Lightning, while many Prime Suns are thought to spawn vortices on their surface to Radiance. Mineral also creates vortices when massive amounts of brilliant gems and pure ore are gathered together, while Steam often appears in dense, massive fogs that are so thick as to be impossible to see through.
Another popular method of traveling to these planes is by using the Ethereal Plane and traveling through the Deep Ethereal until you find a quasi-elemental plane’s color curtain and stepping through. Most Border Ethereals for these planes are relatively safe, apart from the standard inhabitants of the Ethereal Plane, though there can be errant bolts of lightning that suddenly appear on Lightning’s Border Ethereal, just as thick fog might seep into the Steam’s Border Ethereal and threaten to drown anyone there.

Traversing the Planes

Traversing these planes is difficult for those unprepared, and it isn’t solely because of the inhabitants or the elemental nature of these planes. The planes are so agitated with energy that they can have secondary effects that make staying in them for an extended period of time quite dangerous. While moving across these planes is similar to how it works on the major plane they are part of, it does come with its problems.

Lightning

With arcs of lightning and balls of electricity that chase after living creatures, traveling the plane is often thought to be a death sentence. Those who journey here, and wish to travel, must take a lot of precautions to protect themselves and their equipment from the hazards of this plane. Most planewalkers simply discard any metal items, instead, bringing in wood swords and leather armor to protect them from building up too much static in the plane. Those who choose to bring metal objects attract lightning immediately upon entering the planes, and those who survive a bolt, or several, find themselves walking around with metal objects increasing in static charge. Simply touching or brushing the metal is enough to set it off and a massive eruption of energy soon follows, often destroying everything and everyone nearby as a blast of lightning, thunder, force, and fire explodes out.
Once a traveler has arrived on this plane, and survived, the next problem they face is the cacophony of this realm as peals of lightning are soon followed by the rumbles of thunder. This plane is full of thunder, shaking, and booming across the plane, causing creatures to become deaf, and it has even been known to cause some to implode from the vibrations. To properly travel through the plane, travelers need thick earplugs of wax shoved into the ears to help reduce the noise, which unfortunately makes them deaf to their companions.
Finally, a traveler is now ready to traverse the plane. To travel across the plane, it is the same as the Plane of Air where you determine your gravity and fall to your destination. This type of travel can be awful for those unused to it, though there is less material in Lightning than in the Plane of Air so the chance of hitting something as you fall is greatly diminished.

Mineral

This plane is solely composed of pure ore and beautiful gems that are so sharp that it slices any creature that walks through the plane. Only twisting tunnels and caverns allow egress through the plane, but luckily those empty spaces are filled with breathable oxygen. If you don’t wish to follow the natural and artificial tunnels that have been mined through the plane, you are forced to dig yourself your own tunnel or have the ability to walk through stone like a Xorn. This is the same process as the Plane of Earth, though the Plane of Earth is far less lethal to simply walkthrough.
Sharp edges and crystals extend out from the walls of tunnels and caverns, almost invisible to the naked eye. These edges slash and cut through thick leather, hard metal, and more, cutting creatures and visitors to ribbons simply from walking through the plane. The only way most can travel this plane without being sliced and bleeding out is by wearing thick heavy armor, like full plate, or have magical protections. While planewalkers disagree on how much magical protection is required, they all know that a ring of protection is not going to cut it, but rather you need magically warded armor.
If journeying through a world of sharp and deadly edges isn’t enough to deter visitors, those who spend more than a day here must also save against petrification. Those who are unable to withstand the effects of this plane turn into a perfect statue of crystal.

Radiance

Unlike the Plane of Fire, which has a super-dense layer of fire to walk upon, Radiance is more like the Plane of Air and Lightning. A creature must simply decide which way is their down and travel in that direction. Inhabitants of this realm have no understanding of gravity and find creatures who ‘fall’ to travel the plane as being ridiculous and lacking. For them, traveling the plane is simply done by existing and that by existing, they can move across their home plane. Planewalkers will often compare their movement to be similar to flying, though they have no wings or visible signs of levitation.
Of course, traveling across Radiance is all for not if the traveler is blinded by the radiance of this plane. Creatures must wear thick padding over their eyes, cast darkness on themselves, or wear special lenses over their eyes to block out as much radiance as possible - these obstructions can’t stop all light and so while a creature might be blindfolded, light still pierces through and they can make out dark shapes against a painfully bright background. Planewalkers have discovered that certain smoky gems from Mineral can be crafted into lens caps that can be worn over the eyes, these special gems can block out almost all of the radiance and allow a creature to see as normal in the plane. Unfortunately, they are quite delicate and if a traveler gets into a fight, they can be knocked off or destroyed by such quick movements.

Steam

Traversing Steam can be done in a variety of ways based on the abilities of the traveler. Due to how thick the air is with water, creatures can easily swim through the air, almost like they were flying, while other creatures can treat the plane much like the Plane of Air and decide on a new down for them to fall in, though it is slower like they were falling through an ocean. Birds and other creatures with wings can fly through the fogs, and the most common method of traveling is using steamships.
Steamships are large objects that are similar to airships in that they have a large balloon with a carriage of metal or wood strapped to the bottom of the balloon. Unlike an airship though, they don’t use rare gases to levitate the creation but have captured, or trained, steam mephits to release steam into the balloon. Once the balloon is full, the pilot of the steamship can release the steam and the ship moves at frightening speeds across the plane. Occasionally, Fagere might act as the balloons with carriages constructed below them and act as large whales that taxi creatures across the plane.

Locations

Despite the dangerous and hostile atmospheres of these planes, there are many settlements and reasons for visiting each of these planes. Because these planes connect the Positive Energy Plane with a major elemental plane, they provide a bridge of sorts between the two and are often visited by travelers hoping to go from one to the other. Also, every plane that borders the Positive Energy Plane has a tower made of its substance created by an unknown being eons ago. These towers pierce into the Positive Energy Plane and provide peninsulas into the plane of relatively safe spaces.
Where the planes border another, it’s difficult to tell where one plane ends and the other begins, and instead, these borders are split across the planes. When describing a realm of Radiance and Mineral, known as Brighthome, it’s not restricted to a single plane but rather acts to adjoin the two planes and stretches between them.

Lightning

Lightning shares borders with the Positive Energy Plane, Steam, Ice, the Plane of Air, Smoke, and Radiance, each creating a unique interaction with the erratic energy of Lightning. Steam and Smoke both create an area of electrical fog that sparks with deadly energy and makes it difficult for creatures to see further than a few inches in front of their face, these two areas are both known as the Dark Land. The space near the Plane of Air is known as the Subdued Cacophony where there is more space between the dark thunder clouds and less errant bolts of lightning. As an opposite, where Lightning adjoins the Positive Energy Plane, the realm is known as the Wall of Energy where a physical barrier of lightning exists like a wall to the next plane.
Ice and Lightning create the realm known as Glistening Crystal where solidified ice crystals of lightning crackle with the green energy of lightning ready to explode out. Bright Ice, a rare material, can be mined from these ice glaciers though it is incredibly dangerous to get ahold of and transport safely off the plane. Where Lightning reaches Radiance, it creates the Bright Land, a region of the plane where it resembles the inner portion but the clouds themselves glow a dazzling array of different colors.
While Lightning is a massive storm cloud, there are a few important locations that all planewalkers should be aware of in their travels.

The Eye

Located near the center of this plane is a place of quiet and peace. Generations ago, some powerful individual was able to use their magic to quiet the plane and create a small area of peace. In this peace is a large earth mote where a small town has formed, welcoming outsiders who need a respite from the cacophony of Lightning.

The Tower of Storms

Located in the region known as the Wall of Energy, where Lightning abuts against the Positive Energy Plane, this tower has a glistening blue hue that crackles with electricity and bursts through the barrier between the planes. No entrance has been found, and no one has been able to enter the tower, at least no one is telling if they had. Even the elementals of the plane know little about this structure but are convinced it must hold powerful sway over Lightning.

Mineral

Mineral shares borders with the Positive Energy Plane, Steam, Ooze, the Plane of Earth, Magma, and Radiance, each creating a unique interaction with the crystalline structures of Mineral. Steam creates the realm known as the Misty Caverns choked with thick mists and fog. Ooze, also known as the Plane of Mud, creates the glistening, underground sea of mud and crystals that float through the thick ocean known as Sparklemire. It is rarely traveled as it is a slog to move through the mud, and even if you do, the crystals will slice you into ribbons.
The space near the Plane of Earth is called the Unnamed Border as it is impossible to tell where one ends and where the other begins, it just a massive sheet of stone and rock with caverns and tunnels dotted throughout. As an opposite, where Mineral adjoins the Positive Energy Plane, the realm is known as the Gemfields where the gems begin glowing. The closer you travel to the energy plane, the less gems there are, and the more they glow until they become stars glistening in the void.
Magma and Mineral create the realm known as the Natural Forge which is filled with precious metals but they only exist in the state of molten ore. Those who can survive the intense heat can pull forth such pure metals that when fashioned into jewelry or weapons, take on a supernatural beauty of their own. Where Mineral reaches Radiance, it creates the Brighthome, a realm similar to Gemfields where the gems are less deadly and instead glow with radiant energies. The vast majority of outsiders choose to make their home here as it is far safer than in the dangerous depths of the rest of the plane.
There are not a large number of sites on Mineral, and those that exist are defined by what ore or gems are in abundance.

The Tower of Lead

This tower is massive and gray, jutting up through the borders of the Positive Energy Plane and Mineral, uniting the two together over a thin peninsula of minerals. Inside the tower is the best forge in the multiverse, at least according to dwarven legend, which is blasphemy to many dwarves as Moradin claims to have the best. While no one knows who built the place, it is largely abandoned and those who work the forge only stay for a short while. Those who decide to stay longer mysteriously disappear and no one has puzzled out where they leave to. There are also tools and machines inside the tower whose purpose is unknown, though they were built by someone for some specific reason. Many believe that these tools are meant for the technology yet to come and some dwarves have tried experimenting with the tools to little success. No matter how hard the dwarves have tried, no one has been able to steal the tools from this tower.

Radiance

Radiance shares borders with the Positive Energy Plane, Lightning, Smoke, the Plane of Fire, Magma, and Mineral, each creating a unique interaction with the burning radiant energy of Radiance. Lightning creates the Bright Land, a region of the plane of radiant clouds and lightning. Smoke creates the Sea of Stars, thick clouds of smog with twinkling stars of radiant energy burning through.
The space near the Plane of Fire is known as Brightflame, a region of fire in such varied colors that it appears as a rainbow of flame. As an opposite, where Radiance meets the Positive Energy Plane, it creates the region known as the Light, a place of healing and brilliant illumination. The realm holds such influence of positive energy that wounds themselves can heal, though not as quickly as the energy plane itself.
Magma and Radiance create the realm known as the Glowing Dunes, molten lava that gives off a radiant glow of energy. Where Radiance reaches Mineral, it creates Brighthome, a realm of glowing crystals where the Kingdom of the Blind can be found.
While little is defined about Radiance, those who travel to this plane are meet with such intense light and colors that it can be difficult to truly define where you are on this plane.

The Kingdom of the Blind

This city occupies Brighthome, the border between Mineral and Radiance. The city is formed inside of a massive mineral and is difficult to locate. This mineral also acts as a shield from the burning light of Radiance, making it a welcome respite for those who occupy the city from the energies of the plane.

The Heart of Light

Also known as the Tower of Healing, this tower punches through the borders of the Positive Energy Plane and Radiance, creating a peninsula of radiant ground. This tower is largely abandoned but sees visitors constantly as they journey to this tower to heal curses, wounds, and afflictions. This tower is also studied by mages for it is constructed solely of blue light given physical form, no one has been able to reproduce it.

Steam

Steam shares borders with the Positive Energy Plane, Mineral, Ooze, the Plane of Water, Ice, and Lightning, each creating a unique interaction with the mists of Steam. Mineral creates the realm known as the Shard Forest, crystals of all sizes float through dense fog, with the tiniest of the gems sharp enough to slice through tough leather armor. Ooze, also known as the Plane of Mud, creates the Realm of Cloying Fear, a place of nothing but a thick atmosphere of stench and oily air unfit for breathing.
The space near the Plane of Water is called the Islands of Water where the plane is more water than air and bubbles exist between massives droplets of water. As travelers move further away from the Plane of Water, these droplets get smaller and smaller until they become a fine mist. As an opposite, where Steam adjoins the Positive Energy Plane, the realm is known as the Raging Mists where the droplets are so incredibly tiny it is like a super fine mist that radiates brilliant light.
Ice and Steam create the realm known as the Hoarfrost where a freezing mist coats everything in a layer of ice. This region is overrun with ice and steam mephits fighting to gain control of the realm. Where Steam reaches Lightning, it creates the Death Cloud, with large clouds carrying massive electrical charges that blast apart any creature, mineral, or object that gets too close to them.
While Steam is a massive fog cloud, there are important sites that cut through the dense mists and is well occupied for such a dangerous plane.

Adrift

This city was created by outsiders to the realm and is in the shape of a spinning ring with clouds gathered around the outside. While there are the perpetual mists of this plane in the city, it is not so thick that travelers have to worry about drowning on it. At the center of the city’s ring are the Floating Statues, massive sculptures of human men and women that are over 1,000 feet in length. While no one is quite sure who these statues depict, they are quite old and many are beginning to fall apart, though their broken pieces still float next to the statue they broke off from. Creatures of all types live and work next to the mephits of this plane, creating a safe place for travelers to visit.

The Tower of Ice

Piercing through the borders of the Positive Energy Plane and Steam, this massive tower is made entirely of ice. While it is difficult to enter the structure, a secret not often passed on to strangers, alchemists and poisoners find that the arcane laboratories within create potions and poisons of exceptional quality. Control over the tower is tenuous and those who work within the labs rarely stay for long to cement their rule over the tower.

Factions & People

The Powers

Only one power claims a domain in these Positive Quasi-Elemental Planes, and that is the powers known as King Black and Queen White located on Radiance. Many other powers will journey to these planes simply to reattune themselves to those energies, or if they are searching for something specific within the planes, but no other had decided to make their realm here. It could be that since the Inner Planes are focused on existence, and less on beliefs, that they just find it too difficult to reach their worshippers and petitioners on these planes.

Archomental

While they are not truly a power, or godlike being, the Archomental on Mineral, known as Crystalle, holds a small domain throughout the plane. Its tower is made of crystalline structures and an army of crystal elementals guards it against outside forces.

Quasielementals

These elementals are known as quasielementals by sages and researchers of the planes, though the elementals themselves don’t refer to themselves as such. They are thought to be the plane given sentience and are often summoned by the spellcasters looking to trap elemental energies or control elementals in battle. Most of these elementals that walk their plane are simply the animals of their planes, creating the birds, vermin, and natural beasts in varying displays of elements. From radiant rats of dazzling colors to lightning birds crackling with energy to the mist deer that gallop through the clouds of fog, these creatures have a natural place in their ecosystems.

Encounters

Djinni’s Hunt - A djinni is planning on going on a great hunt through the Lightning plane and is inviting a large number of individuals to join him. He is hoping to bring down a massive, ancient blue dragon who has made their roost in the lightning storms. While the djinni has some skills, he is hoping for the party to weaken the beast for him so that he might land the killing blow and show off his victory to the other djinni nobles.
Cursed Existence - A party member has been cursed with festering wounds and no spell has worked. Rumors of the Tower of Healing has spurned them to traveling through Radiance in search of its healing energies.
Miners of Mineral - A team of dwarves are heading out into the Mineral plane and are looking for stalwart defenders who can protect them from Mineral Elementals, Xorns, and other foul creatures that dislike them taking gems from the plane.
Xanxost - Xanxost, a slaad, is looking for tasty mephits to eat. Unfortunately, Xanxost is having problem as all the mephits keep running away from him in Steam. Xanxost is having difficulties as the mephits keep running for protection behind larger Steam creatures and Xanxost can’t eat them. Xanxost looking for adventurers to kill big Steam elemental, then Xanxost can eat mephits.

Resources & Further Reading

Manual of the Planes (1st edition) For more information on the introduction of the Positive Quasi-Elemental Planes.
The Inner Planes (2nd edition) For more information on the locations and people in the Positive Quasi-Elemental Planes.

DnDBehindTheScreen

The Infinite Storm: The Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning
The Quasi-Elemental Plane of Minerals
Quasielemental Plane of Radiance
The Plane of Steam, Aerosol, and Mistbloods

Reflective Planes: Feywild / Shadowfell

Outer Planes: Astral Plane / the Outlands / the Abyss / Beastlands / Limbo / Mechanus / Mount Celestia / Nine Hells (Baator) / Pandemonium / Sigil

Inner Planes: Elemental Chaos / Ethereal Plane / Positive & Negative Energy Planes / Plane of Air / Plane of Earth / Plane of Fire / Plane of Water / Para-Elemental Planes

Far Realm

Catalogue for Previous Weeks - F.A.Q
Song of the Week
This article is far too long to fit within the thread word limit, so it's going to be continued in a child comment which I'll link when it gets there. Furthermore, I've elected to name a few pokemons who technically have niches but too fringe to expand more on. Some of them can be found in previous weeks if appropriate.
RBY
Rhydon and Golem are the most prominent Ground types in the tier, the former with significant more usage stats in the modern metagame. Their shared Rock Ground typing hardwalls Zapdos and, to a much less prominent degree, Jolteon and Moltres. They’re also both countered by Exeggutor, as well as weak to the very popular Blizzard slamming them on their pitiful special bulk.
Rhydon is the significantly more popular of the two. It boasts better bulk, though not to a significant degree. More crucially, it has a 130 base Atk that allows its Earthquake to 2HKO Chansey, 3HKO Slowbro (sometimes), and 3HKO Snorlax. As it threatens these slower bulky mons, it can use many opportunities to set up a Substitute. Rhydon is the only viable user of the move this generation, seeing as it doesn’t block status in gen 1, but Rhydon was already immune to Thunder Wave. It needs to watch out for Sleep Powder & Stun Spore from Exeggutor, however. STAB Rock Slide helps it chase out the fliers which it walls, and the last move slot is reserved for Body Slam, whose only real use is to threaten Paralysis on Starmie or Exeggutor’s switching in. Rhydon can be an incredibly dangerous threat given some Paralysis support, and being immune to Thunder Wave itself is a great characteristic to have.
Golem’s advantages over Rhydon are: speed (which outspeeds nothing more than opposing Rhydons) and Explosion. Its Earthquake misses on very important benchmarks, and therefore it leverages its Explosion, the 2nd strongest move in the game behind Snorlax’s Self-Destruct, to wallbreak for its teammates. While Rhydon can be a late-game sweeper, Golem instead darts in and out of battle to scout for the perfect Explosion timing. OHKO-ing an opposing Tauros can be game-breaking, but it has to be very careful of Gengar or opposing Rock Grounds absorbing it.
Not mentioned: Sandslash
GSC
The ground typing becomes even more prominent in this generation. As Blizzard has been largely phased out, along with the legendary Electrics being on every single team spamming Thunder, every notable Ground types can act as a switch to them.
Nidoking is an excellent offensive threat in the GSC metagame. Aside from STAB EQ, it also learns the famed Ice Beam Thunder(bolt) coverage that allows it to punish many EQ switchins like Zapdos, Skarmory, or Cloyster. While its power without super effective coverage isn’t amazing, only boasting 92/85/85 offensive stats, the move that truly pushes it into great territory is Lovely Kiss. GSC Sleep isn’t as terrible as RBY Sleep, but it’s nevertheless a huge momentum swing. Nidoking therefore can take advantage of this to fire off strong attacks to eventually break through its usual checks given the right opportunity, something no other mixed sweepers can do. If desired, it can also run Thief to steal enemy checks’ Leftovers at the cost of a moveslot.
Steelix is the new evolution of the worthless Onyx, with excellent physical bulk and an auspicious Steel Ground typing. This makes it not weak against the common Hidden Power Ice which the legendary Electrics run, and acts as a near surefire counter to them unless they carry the rarer HP Water. Its base Atk is a pitiful 85, however, and therefore it relies more on Explosion like RBY’s Golem to break walls, but also carry Roar to act as a phaser against things like Mono-lax, Raikou, or Perish Trap Misdreavus. This shuffling also allows its team to rack up more Spikes damage. The last move is often Curse, which allows it to create some offensive pressure with a boost or two, and then abuse Roar even further.
Golem returns with renewed vigor. Having learnt Rapid Spin in a Spike-ridden metagame, Golem found itself as one of the better role compression mons that acts as an Electric check, Rapid Spinner, phaser, and Snorlax check all in one. It still never enters a battle without Explosion, and its poor special bulk means that it must scout enemy Hidden Power lest it becomes a free kill. Nevertheless, Rapid Spin is such an important utility that it sees consistent usage on many teams, so much so that the rare Hidden Power Water from Zapdos or Raikou are mostly aimed to remove it. Unlike other Spinners, Golem matches up poorly against the spiking Cloyster and Forretress, and requires offensive support elsewhere to make sure the hazards stay off.
Marowak boasts the strongest Earthquake in the game. While somewhat gimmicky, its Swords Dance set can give it the maximum 999, and with Spikes support can OHKO nearly the entire metagame at +2. However, this requires serious backup, as Marowak is otherwise painfully slow, frail, and cannot hold Leftovers. Furthermore, help against Skarmory is highly appreciated, as even with 999 Atk, a Rock Slide only 3HKOs the metal bird, who is immune to Spikes and can proceed to phaze Wak out. The 4th moveslot is usually either HP Bug to slam Exeggutor on the switch, or Rest to give it a second chance at sweeping. To get Marowak to work, some support with Agility Baton Pass from Jolteon, or Screens from Blissey is recommended, especially since the latter can Heal Bell off the sleep from Rest.
Rhydon has taken quite a fall in viability since the last generation. With weaknesses to many special attacks, Machamp, and Earthquakes, Rhydon finds itself hard-pressed to accomplish much. Unlike Golem, it provides no utility for the team aside from Roar, and the Snorlax-checking Steelix isn’t weak to Grass, ice, nor 4x weak to Water. Rhydon runs a Curse set to take advantage of its strong 130 Atk and natural physical bulk, as being slower in this generation means your Roar will go first. It cannot get past Skarmory, but can still provide some strong hits to break walls with.
Quagsire’s sole niche is a near fool-proof counter for the legendary Electrics, being immune to their Thunders and not weak to either HP Ice or Water. Its typing makes it a decent mixed wall, as not a lot of pokemons run Grass moves this generation, and can use the free turns its ok bulk generates to set up Belly Drum. EQ and HP Rock makes an ok attacking combo, and Rest can be used for longevity. If unable to set up, however, it’s defensively outclassed by the likes of Miltank or Raikou, and offensively outclassed by Marowak or Snorlax. One must build their team capable of taking advantage of this offensive defensive combination to justify using Quagsire.
Not mentioned: Piloswine, Sandslash, Donphan, Gligar, Nidoqueen
ADV
Zapdos continues to be a prominent threat, and the rise of Tyranitar, Aerodactyl, and general Rock Slide coverage gives Grounds even more viability. Lastly, an immunity to Sand in a tier where Tyranitar is king effectively boosts the longevity of all Ground pokemons, allowing them to actually gain health in Sand with Leftovers.
Swampert is the face of bulky waters in gen 3. It’s one of the most sturdy DD Tyranitar counters there are, resisting Rock unlike its Water-type brethren, and can also act as a catch-all check to many more prominent physical sweepers in the tier like Metagross, Aerodactyl, and DD Salamence. It’s so prominent that it basically forced many, many pokemon to run HP Grass just to have a chance to get past it. As a pokemon itself, however, Swampert can be as defensive or as offensive as one likes, possessing decent mixed offensive stats to complement its STAB EQ and Hydro Pump / Surf, while carrying Ice Beam for many Flying types, especially Salamence, and Grasses, like Celebi. It also has access to the great Focus Punch, which allows it to threaten Snorlax and Blissey while OHKO-ing max HP Tyranitar, something its Hydro Pump cannot do. Toxic, Roar, Protect, Refresh are all excellent moves for a more defensive variant. No matter what set it’s running, Swampert’s role in ADV OU cannot be understated, and is therefore one of the most common offensive / defensive threats of the metagame.
Dugtrio has gained Arena Trap this generation, and becomes one of the best revenge killers of the metagame. While it’s not very strong, the introduction of Choice Band gives it the power to achieve crucial KOs, and its amazing base 120 Spe means it can outrun basically any threat it encounters. The list of its victims is vast: Tyranitar, Metagross, Jirachi, Blissey, Celebi, opposing Dugtrio, Breloom, and many, many more. It’s undoubtedly a metagame defining threat, as something like Jolteon is considered superior to the legendary Raikou by many simply due to its Dugtrio-beating speed and access to Baton Pass to escape trapping. It’s also a very important team member of special offence, an almost required piece that exists solely to reliably remove Blissey, sometimes by the otherwise unseen Beat Up.
Claydol is the Rapid Spinning Ground type of ADV. Its unique Ground Psychic typing along with Levitate means it resists all of Ground, Fighting, Electric, and Rock, and is immune to Spikes and Dugtrio’s Arena Trap. All of this means that Claydol finds many opportunities to switch in and get off a spin against many common attacks like Rock Slide, EQ, Thunderbolt etc. It also possesses a STAB Psychic to threaten out the most common spinblocker of the tier: Gengar. Finally, Explosion gives it utility as a wallbreaker, especially if running Adamant to threaten out most of the Explosion-resistant pokemon with Earthquake. However, its support requires teammates’ help against Skarmory, as it can’t meaningfully threaten the metal bird, who often forces the issue with Drill Peck.
Flygon is last. Its Ground Dragon typing and Levitate means it’s also resistant to QuakeSlide and Spikes, while also not being weak to HP Bug from DD TTar or HP Grass aimed at a teammate’s Swampert. While its 100/80/100 offensive stats won’t be winning awards, STAB EQ and a myriad of offensive options almost guarantees it’ll find a target to hit, and its defensive profile is excellent for finding chances to enter the field. It can even run a more defensive Protect Toxic set that abuses its defensive capabilities to spread status and break down many teams late-game.
Not mentioned: Gligar, Steelix, Donphan, Marowak, Camerupt, Rhydon
DPP
Stealth Rocks (SR) was introduced in this generation and became the most influential move in the metagame. Coincidentally, Ground types get them.
Swampert returns once again as the premier bulky water. With Tyranitar as popular as ever with physical Pursuit, Superpower, and STAB Stone Edge, Swampert’s defensive capabilities are called into need once again. That said, the physical special split also gave it access to physical water STAB in Waterfall and special Ground STAB in Earth Power, along with extra Ice Punch and Superpower coverage for the physical side. The most popular sets feature SR in some way, to guarantee Pert value as either a lead or a role player, either with max Atk for more damage, or mixed defence to be more of a tank. In this capacity, physical coverage is far more popular. If even more offence is desired, a bulky Choice Band set that runs Stone Edge for Zapdos and Gyarados can do a bit of wallbreaking, or even Modest special set with Hydro Pump spamming. However, these more offensive options remain unpopular compared to the utility set.
Gliscor features an excellent Ground Flying typing that gives it only 2 weaknesses, a SR neutrality but a Spikes immunity, and resistant to the new Close Combat and Superpower. 75/125/75 defences make for an excellent physical defensive profile, and 95/95 offensive stats are surprisingly decent for a mon with such great bulk. Its Stallbreaker set is its most popular, running Taunt to shut down recovery attempts on walls while also preventing offensive mons from setting up on it, and Roost for reliable recovery. If some offensive power is needed, it can run a Swords Dance set to abuse its natural bulk to gain multiple boosts due to its incredible staying power. Its attacks usually consisted of the mandatory STAB EQ, Ice Fang for Flyings, Dragons, and the occasional grasses, and perhaps Thunder Fang for bulky waters or Wing Attack for Breloom. Taunt and SR also make Gliscor a decent lead, as it can U-Turn out to keep momentum.
Flygon appreciated the generational shift very much. It gained an excellent physical dragon STAB in Outrage, and U-Turn allows it to run a very effective Choice Scarf set to utilise its good speed and great neutral coverage in just Outrage and Earthquake. Its last slot on a Scarf set can therefore be very flexible, either Thunder Punch for Gyarados, Dragon Claw for more stable STAB, or Toxic to cripple a wall. The new Life Orb also synergises well with its mixed move pool, allowing it to drop powerful Draco Meteor while still running Earthquake and Fire Blast to crush the Steels that resist its Dragon STAB. Roost can be used on this set to offset Life Orb recoil and give Flygon more general longevity, but if Expert Belt is run instead, U-Turn is always an excellent option.
Nidoqueen, despite its NU placement, is an excellent OU Stall machine. Its claim to fame is the new Toxic Spikes, and on stall teams the Poison Ground typing provide resistant to Fighting and Rock, which couples with 90/87/85 mixed bulk to check the likes of Breloom, Lucario, and Tyranitar, especially since EQ as a coverage move is rarely ran, and Poison Point can punish a lot of the U-Turn spammers in the tier. A lack of recovery does hurt, and thus Nidoqueen prefers Protect to get as much recovery out of Black Sludge as possible. While Nidoqueen’s offences aren’t anything special, its vast movepool means that its moveset can be specifically tailored to cover the threats which the rest of its team does not.
Hippowdon is the alternate Sand setter of the tier. While most prefer Tyranitar’s offensive prowess, Hippo itself is a near sure-fire Tyranitar counter, boasting a titanic physical bulk of 108/118 that can sit on most of the physical threats of the metagame. It complements this by excellent recovery in Slack Off, and SR which allows Hippo to always get pressure out of the switch. Roar synergises with this even more, racking up damage on the pesky flying types or Levitate-rs that otherwise walls it. If a more direct option is preferred, Ice Fang can slam the Gliscor and Dragons. Still, since it relies on pure bulk more than resistances to wall physical threats, it’s usually very specially frail, and has a weakness against some physical threats in Gyarados and Breloom.
Mamoswine boasts a meaty 130 Atk stat, and a unique STAB combination of Ground and Ice. Its Ice Shard is an excellent priority move which knocks the life out of dangerous threats like Latias, Flygon, and Gliscor, its STAB EQ crushes most neutral targets, and for everything else, there’s Stone Edge. Life Orb is the most popular item, allowing it to switch moves and especially abuse Ice Shard to finish off faster threats should the opportunity arise. While Superpower is a fine 4th move to slam Steels not weak to EQ like Bronzong or Skarmory, and OHKO Blissey without a second thought, Stealth Rocks can be used here to exert some pressure as the opponent switches out. Choice Band is an alternative, but locking into any of those four moves can be exploited heavily. Focus Sash makes Mamo a decent SR lead as well. Despite all this, its typing gives it a lot of common weaknesses, and 80 speed isn’t nearly as good as it used to be.
Quagsire lived under Swampert’s shadow in gen 3, but access to reliable recovery in Recover as well as Encore to counter setup sweepers gave it a niche this generation. As Swampert’s more often than not opt for offence this generation, Quagsire is a fine defensive Water Ground type that walls Starmie (with Water Absorb), Metagross, or Tyranitar. Its moveset is very predictable, however, as after the prerequisite Earthquake, the last move is either Toxic for more residual damage or Ice Punch for Flygon or Dragonite. Quagsire is extremely predictable, and must be used with consideration.
Gastrodon is yet another Water Ground type. While it isn’t immune to Water, and therefore doesn’t counter Starmie or Gyarados, it has Sticky Hold which makes it immune to Trick from a lot of choice-d pokemons. Its sole unique role is therefore as a Curse sweeper that’s immune to Trick, who sports good mixed bulk and Recover for longevity. Waterfall + Earthquake a.l.a Swampert is good enough coverage, but it’ll struggle to beat the likes of Gyarados or Latias with such limited coverage.
Rhyperior is a fierce wallbreaker, as 140 base Atk is nothing to scoff at, and its attacking options ranging from STAB EQ + Stone Edge to coverage in Aqua Tail, Megahorn, or Fire Punch are all excellent options. However, it’s really, really slow, and therefore easily forced out with its double 4x weaknesses and poor special bulk, even with Solid Rock or Sandstorm SpD boost to soften them. Choice Band is by far the most powerful option, boasting the ability to 2HKOs everything in the metagame with the right coverage. However, it doesn’t have a lot of opportunities to fire off this power due to its speed and poor matchup against the bulky waters of DPP like Swampert or Milotic.
Donphan gained SR and Ice Shard this generation. It’s now a fairly respectable Rapid Spinner in the metagame with excellent physical bulk and priority. For the most part, it’s a fine support pokemon that aims to set up SR, takes a few physical hits, and threatens revenge kills against Dragons with Ice Shard. It’s a very one dimensional pokemon in this aspect, but its effectiveness as a Rapid Spinner is appreciated.
Not mentioned: Dugtrio (R.I.P), Steelix, Nidoking, Camerupt, Gastrodon
BW
Landorus-Therian is a name one should not fail to keep in mind. It has Gliscor’s auspicious typing, combined with an excellent ability in Intimidate, fearsome 145/105/91 mixed offensive stats, and a respectable 89/90/80 bulk if kept in mind its typing and ability. Lando-T is is one of the best pokemon of gen 5 OU, and is one of the best glues for any good non-rain team. Its Choice Scarf set is an excellent scout and revenge-killer, with a strong U-Turn to punish the like of Latios. Lando-T is in fact so common that it also runs HP Ice for the mirror matchup, despite it not hitting too many other relevant targets. Earthquake is its STAB move of choice, but any other move can be slotted in and out depending on sets. Stone Edge is a natural pairing on the Scarf set, but Superpower is a fine option to drop Skarmory, Ferrothorn, or Air Balloon Heatran. If an offensive pivot is desired, just drop the Scarf and speed for a bulky spread and either Leftovers or Rocky Helmet, and you have one of the best physical checks of the metagame against the dangerous Terrakion. Lastly, access to either Swords Dance, Rock Polish, or even both on the same set can turn Lando-T into a fearsome sweeper at the drop of a hat.
Excadrill is another gen 5 addition, and after a tumultuous history of ban and unban, it settles into the metagame as the best non-rain Rapid Spinner, a.l.a old Donphan. However, it instead boasts Steelix’s typing and a 135 base Atk, making sure that Jellicient cannot simply switch into its Spin with impunity in fear of eating a STAB Earthquake. Its most common set is an offensive spread but with Leftovers and Protect for longevity, befitting of a Rapid Spinner. Unlike most other Grounds, it prefers STAB Iron Head to Rock coverage, as the former hit Latios harder, and can help it beat Breloom. As a Spinner, it can either lean into an offensive spread with STABs, or a more defensive SpD spread that prioritises its laundry list of resistances, especially to Dragon, for better longevity. Though Sand Rush is banned, a Scarf set works perfectly fine to revenge kill, or get up a desperate fast Rapid Spin before falling. Sand Force comes in nicely here, as Exca runs all 3 types of moves that get the boost in its STABs + Rock Slide.
Garchomp dropped to OU this generation, but perhaps that was the chance it needed to flex its power on the metagame. While it’s never seen without its trusty Earthquake, the sheer breadth of sets this pokemon can and does run boggles the mind. The most popular is a very straightforward Choice Scarf set to elevate a great 102 base Spe, and would be great even with just 2 moves in Outrage and Earthquake. It can afford to run Dual Chop for Sash Zam or Multiscale Dragonite, or just straight up Dragon Claw as a more reliable 3rd move. The last move on a scarf set is usually a fire coverage, either Fire Fang or Fire Blast, to roast the likes of Skarmory, Bronzong, or Ferrothorn. As a sweeper, Garchomp leverages its forced switches well with a Substitute Swords Dance set that uses Salac Berry to boost its Spe past most opposing Scarf revenge killers, as its sheer STAB combination is so good on its own. If desired, one can run just an offensive Stealth Rocks set like other Ground types, but Garchomp’s Rough Skin means it has extra synergy with Rocky Helmet that really punishes U-Turn while being simultaneously immune to Volt Switch.
Gliscor gains the excellent Poison Heal this generation, giving it amazing passive recovery and immunity to statuses. For the most part, it uses its typing and access to reliable recovery to spread Toxic with Substitute, while having STAB Earthquake to slam the Steels and Poisons immune to the status. Being always poisoned means that it now has access to Facade as a really strong neutral move to complement its EQ, and thus the Swords Dance Roost set yet see a healthy amount of usage. While Gliscor can’t get past Skarmory at all, its general positioning against the rest of the physical metagame means it will probably always have value in a team, especially if running Taunt. As with all Ground types this generation, it can run a support Stealth Rocks set as well that spread statuses in the meantime.
Mamoswine is once again an excellent offensive threat. Having learnt Icicle Crash as a strong STAB Ice attack this generation, its general offensive coverage with just its STABs is very notable. As DragMag becomes a legitimate offensive force in the metagame, Mamoswine can be found with or against them, leverage Ice Shard to shut down the Salamence, Dragonite, or Garchomps one can find on those teams. Superpower is a great general coverage move to slam Ferrothorn and Kyurem-B with, and Stealth Rocks is always an option that goes well with priority and a Focus Sash.
Gastrodon gained a water immunity this generation, and has propelled into stardom as an anti-rain wall. Its distinction comes from being a Keldeo check that isn’t weak to Pursuit, unlike Jellicient and Latios, and instead spreads status of its own with Toxic and the ridiculous Scald. It also stops Thundurus-T cold, something many other Keldeo checks cannot claim. Physically defensive is the most common spread to fulfil this niche, and with proper support from the rest of its teammates to cover its vulnerability to Toxic and Grass types, Gastrodon is a stalwart defensive answer to many of the metagame’s biggest threats.
Seismitoad is Gastrodon but with Stealth Rocks, in essence. It does everything else Gastrodon does a little worse due to its poorer bulk and no access to Recover, but the role compression can be highly desirable on more offensive teams who prioritise the momentum that hazards give, rather than a long-term wall like Gastro is.
Hippowdon once again plays second fiddle to Tyranitar as a physically defensive Sand setter. Reliable recovery means it can act as a check to many strong physical threats and prevent their setting up with Whirlwind, while setting up Stealth Rocks of its own. Its poor special bulk and weakness to Rain spam means that it might not always put it as much work as it wants to against opposing Rain, but if you want your Sand setter to also be a physical wall, Hippo’s the one for the job.
Not mentioned: Dugtrio (R.I.P), Golurk, Nidoking, Nidoqueen
Continued here in a comment

^{(hello there people, here's a writeup I've been working on for like I don't know how long at this point, feels like eternity. pretty much getting into the nitty gritty of what makes One Piece so different from (and better than tbh} everything else out there, and exploring Oda's approach in a definitive way. I'm adding the medium link as well if you prefer to read it there, as it's a little bit more easier on the eyes and it actually fits there as just one post unlike reddit:) ^{https://medium.com/@fakalit/how-is-one-piece-as-good-as-it-is-df8d5d991d65})

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One Piece. It’s the best. It just is. There isn’t any piece of fiction that’s been more impressive than One Piece in the history of the world, and if you think there is one, you’re just wrong. Am I trolling a bit? Yes. Am I exaggerating at all? No.
One Piece is the odyssey of our times. A series of countless drawings, with each one serving 10 purposes at once, juggling an absurd amount of plot lines and preserving an impossible balance in the services of its goals that it never loses sight of for 25 years, and culminating them into constant, exhilarating peaks. Not to mention that all of this is achieved in one of the most overproduced and limiting mediums: comic books that are supposed to target 14-year-old Japanese boys; the shounen manga. A space with millions of rules on how you can do things. Imagine writing a chapter a week of the same novel for 25 years without looking back, and then publishing the first draft. Imagine that draft being any good. And imagine it being the best thing that ever was. The famous Hemingway quote on writing -“The first draft of anything is shit.”- obviously doesn’t apply to One Piece.
But just how? What could be the process of creating something like this? One Piece, to me, is the single biggest achievement by an auteur, and the question burning in my mind for the longest time was how it is even possible for one human to create something like this. Surely, we can just say the guy -Eiichiro Oda- is just that good. It comes naturally to him, he just writes and draws, and this is what comes out. He is “GODA”, as his fans put it, after all. But, as even a little bit of closer inspection would make it obvious, this thing is methodical as fuck. One Piece is tirelessly engineered with a complexity that would scare some hard-ass scientists away. It’s something that’s planned with peerless ambition and executed with confidence. And this is my attempt at understanding the method to the guy’s madness.
I’ll try to go over the central aspects that make One Piece what it is, one by one, in some vague order of importance. Through these, I’ll try to figure out how One Piece took shape in Oda’s mind, how he approached his work, and how the series slowly came to be the juggernaut we know today. I doubt any of this will turn into “writing tips for beginners” though. From what I can tell, Oda’s approach to creation is very tightly coupled with the contents of his work. Whether it is its context or contents, One Piece is uniquely him. But I’m hoping this would be an enjoyable read for anyone who wants to look a little deeper into how the series works, all the while demonstrating how almost every little detail in it is carefully and purposefully put together. Finally, I have to note there’ll be lots of surface-level spoilers in this, so if you’re looking from outside and want to be convinced why One Piece is the best before you jump in, this might not be the best read.
1. Themes are King
2. The Moral Anchor
3. Gardener vs Architect
4. A Postmodern Manga
5. The Compass
6. Confidence, Love and Talent
I’m gonna go ahead and start with the north star of the series and the fattest section of this writeup: the themes.

Themes are King

The level of importance themes have for a fictional story is an interesting conversation. Some even question their necessity outright. Back in 2013, David Benioff -the notorious showrunner of “Game of Thrones”- famously said that “Themes are for eighth-grade book reports”. Whether that controversial statement has any validity or not, I’m not gonna get into it. I don’t even know if series writer George R. R. Martin agrees with it. But it certainly serves as a great backdrop, when it comes to examining the high regard One Piece gives to its themes. And this won’t be the only time I put the two series against each other in this writeup. “A Song of Ice and Fire” is frequently mentioned as being in the same vein as One Piece with the scope of its lore and the ambition of its storytelling. With its recent failures, I think these comparisons became even more fascinating to look at.

-dude, you should totally make a pirate series.
Let’s go back to the very beginning of One Piece, when the series was bare-bones, and consisted only of its setting. We can more or less piece the story together from Oda’s interviews: he was determined to create a manga, even from the times when he didn’t know what that manga was going to be, except that it should be an “adventure” story. His driving instinct was to make something that no one ever did before (a “disposition to stand above others” if you will, like the way he defined his coveted “Conqueror’s Haki” in the series). But before long, around when he was in middle school, he found that novel setting for an adventure in pirates, thanks to one of his childhood influences: the Vicky the Viking cartoon. Once he decided what the setting was going to be, it was all about outlining the themes he associated with piracy, figuring out the ideas he was compelled to explore, and gathering a lot of material.
He experimented a lot with the themes that would permeate in his manga, as the earlier versions of One Piece -the prototypical one-shots- displayed a variety of ideas. But by the time he was publishing the first chapter of the actual thing, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with the story and what its themes were going to be. In this first section, I’ll mostly try to prove that point by going over how clearly each of those themes was communicated from very early on in the story, and the extent of which they came to define everything about it afterwards. While most of us naturally didn’t realise the weight of those signals when we were reading One Piece for the first time, now that we’re almost 1000 chapters in, it’s crazy to look back and see how in control Oda was of its progression from the very start.
I’m gonna cheat and give you the whole conclusion of the section here and now: To me, this dedication to the themes was always the secret behind the impossible consistency of Oda’s story; it’s not that he planned the details ahead of time, he really didn’t. It’s that he always stayed true to what he wanted to do. So whichever way he expanded the universe, and however crazy he went with it, all additions to the narrative and characters always fed the same core framework. This unifying purpose in everything that he did gave him the confidence to let his imagination go wild at every turn, and it’s the reason how he never lost sight of the spirit of the series throughout the decades. While many long-running stories that depend on techniques like “the mystery box” consistently disappointed their audiences with their resolutions, this one technique that we learned in the eight-grade was capable of keeping the eyes of the audience glued to the pages year after year.
I’m sure it can be summed up in a lot of different ways, but to me, there are 7 framing themes that define the manga: Romance, Camaraderie, Loving fun, Dreams/Ambition, Freedom vs Oppression, Inherited Will, and finally The Tide of The Times.

“Inherited Will, The Tide of the Times, and People’s Dreams. As long as people continue to pursue the meaning of Freedom, these things will never cease to be!” — Gold Roger

Romance
Piracy is about the call of adventure. It’s the promise of something amazing always on the horizon. It’s the shine in Luffy’s eyes. To Oda, first and foremost, being a pirate was about being an optimist, about going out to the vast oceans to look for something more than what life has to offer on land. The clearest sign of how important this theme was to the story is the working title of the series from early one-shot days: “Romance Dawn”. While it ended up being the name of the first chapter only (maybe because Oda thought naming the series with the final goal in mind instead of the starting point was a better choice), the series didn’t end up being any less about romance because of it.

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In One Piece, nothing has to be bound by the gritty reality. With the first words written at the beginning of the very first volume, Oda complains that the pirates he researched sadly didn’t leave any written records behind them, probably because they were so busy having fun, and just didn’t have time to write things down. Because One Piece was never about “actual” piracy, Oda made the conscious choice to make it instead about the romanticised idea behind it. As long as a story element has its internal logic -and mostly it does- the more crazy, unusual, and exaggerated it is, the better. This was so important to Oda that he says he even developed his drawing style purposefully to suit this kind of a series; just so that whatever he wanted to draw, he could find a way to make it look plausible in that limitless world.
So, One piece is 7-year-old Luffy listening to the crazy and impossible tales of passion from Shanks in a bar. It’s about islands in the sky, ships that eat other ships, people that are 10-meter tall, a goldfish so giant that its shit is as big as an island. And it’s about how men searching for romance in the great age of piracy will change the world.
Camaraderie
Piracy is about being in a crew. It’s about trusting each other, about the crew’s trust in captain and captain’s trust in the crew. It’s about their journey learning to trust each other through thick and thin. So while not being outright told by the narrator, Roger or Shanks at the beginning of the series like the others, the camaraderie theme was so ubiquitous with the first 100-chapter prologue of the manga, that the word “nakama” came to represent what the early One Piece was all about in all of the readers’ minds. Unlike the similar and more commonplace “friendship”, camaraderie was about the bond between people who shared their days on the same journey.

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Oda thought ‘camaraderie’ as a theme was something very new to the shounen manga at the time he was starting out. This might also be one of the reasons he was attracted to the piracy setting in the first place, as chasing fresh ideas was most important to him back then. But whatever the reason is, it was one of his best decisions. Most of the emotional peaks in One Piece came from moments about having people around that you can depend on and trust, to rise to the occasion.
While it seems like its prevalence decreased a bit with the introduction rivalry theme in the second half of the story, camaraderie never really went away. And it’s quite unlikely that it ever will.
Loving fun
Piracy is about having fun. Not caring about the rules, drinking, dancing, singing shanties and having endless parties. And more than anything else, it is about not taking life seriously. This idea is clearly communicated in the first chapter through Shanks’ crew, who quickly show that this story is not about being a violent outlaw, being self-serious, and starting a fight over a kid who insulted you. Being a pirate is more like being able to laugh at yourself when someone spills a drink in your face.
With “loving fun”, I might be merging a few themes that are close in spirit. The other half of this is that One Piece will always be about embracing the silly side of life. So much so that in addition to frequently being put on a pedestal as the way to live, it was this idea that determined Luffy’s unusual powers. While many comic book authors opt for putting their main character in the coolest premise they can think of to catch more eyes, Oda had other priorities. Luffy can stretch because it allows for a goofy vibe that keeps things from getting tense unless he wants it to. This is an aspect Oda never compromises on no matter what, probably because together with “romance”, it enables him to be endlessly creative in his work. This insistence sometimes goes against the tastes of his power-fantasy loving shounen audience, very much like how it annoyed the 7–year-old Luffy at the beginning of the story. But not compromising the party-potential at the end of arcs is so essential to Oda that he would let almost nobody (even enemies) die in the current timeline. (Funny how Punk Hazard and WCI, arcs that didn’t allow for banquets at the end, had actual, rare deaths.)

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If we ever needed more proof of how important this theme was to him, we have Oda’s recent response to a question asking his 3 favourite scenes to draw in 25 years of publication. He mentions the campfire scene at the end of Skypiea, as I guess he doesn’t think there is anything more “One Piece” than partying with dancing wolves after a treasure hunt in the skies.
Dreams/Ambition
Piracy is about having dreams. It’s about wanting things from life that others don’t, leaving the comfort of your home to seek it, and having the willpower to see it through.
The series-defining quote of Gol D Roger, right at the end of the 100-chapter prologue before the actual story begins goes like this: “Inherited Will, The Tide of the Times, and People’s Dreams. As long as people continue to pursue the meaning of Freedom, these things will never cease to be!” We didn’t know what these things exactly meant at the time, but among them, “Dreams” was the one Oda didn’t waste any time talking about. All of the protagonists in One Piece are defined by their dreams; it’s what differentiates them from other people and it’s why they join the crew in the first place. Right at the very end of the same chapter, each one of them says it out loud before they start their legendary journey. As is the case with most ideas put on a pedestal in the story, this too reflects Oda’s own dreams to create the story for the ages.

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Most people notice the dreams theme having less of an importance in the second half of the manga, but this is less about going away and more about changing shape. Dreams has smoothly and sneakily transitioned into ambition, as the protagonists’ dreams actually start to appear on the horizon and become tangible goals. How can you continue to call Luffy’s goal of becoming the pirate king a dream, now that the rest of the world believes he is a prime candidate for it? The introduction of haki -literally meaning ambition in Japanese- coinciding with the start of the second half of the series, along with the ambition theme, is no coincidence either. And who knows, maybe haki being the talent that literally gives things tangible form so that you can touch them is purposeful too. Both Dreams and Ambitions have been usually accompanied by the willpower to reach them, which is another trait quite frequently praised in the series.
Freedom vs Oppression
Piracy is about freedom. Honestly, it represents the quintessential pirate conflict: Chaos versus Order, Rebellion versus Civilisation. While being what most piracy stories are about, interestingly the freedom theme wasn’t mentioned in the manga at all until the chapter 100, where it was quickly singled out as the prerequisite to everything else in the same Roger quote, pretty much stating that the story of One Piece is only possible because people continue to chase the meaning of freedom. From then on, it came to define the series more and more, and at a certain point, took centre stage as the driving conflict. We saw Luffy take down one oppressive force after another. We learned what “freedom” means for Luffy. And we witnessed what “order” meant for both marines and the public struggling under it. Exploration of this duality came to a peak in Marineford as the eventual conflict of the series finally became visible. Here the final antagonists of the series let the audience know who they are and what they represent: the absolutist marine Admiral Akainu and the chaotic pirate Admiral Blackbeard.

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What I love about the timing of this theme’s introduction is that it’s exactly in the same chapter as the introduction of revolutionaries, through Dragon. The Revolutionaries as a concept is something quite distant to the pirates themselves, so it looks to be an unexpected addition to a series about pirate adventures at first glance. But once we know this whole setting is going to be defined by its oppressive world power, it makes all the sense in the world that such an entity would have a direct opposing force, unlike the pirates who are mostly just circumstantially opposed to it. It’s just another amazing example of the organic growth of the world through its themes, and an unintuitive yet genius addition to the setting.
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Other than all of these themes that Oda associated with piracy, there were two different ideas that he was compelled to explore and that he signalled with the same weight.
Inherited will / Carried Over Wishes
While being one of the most spelt out themes, it’s also one of the million examples in One Piece of how short-term storytelling is pointing towards where the story is going for the long-term. While Sanji’s and Zoro’s stories touched on the concept briefly without really explaining it, it was the Drum Island arc -first recruitment arc after the theme has been declared out loud- that clarified what it’s actually going to mean for the story: In One Piece, death is not the end as long as your will is being carried through time by others. This was precisely the same arc when the Will of D, the will Luffy is bearing, is introduced to the series as well. While we couldn’t really understand what shape “inherited will” would take until the Enies Lobby arc with the introduction of The Void Century, that declaration of the theme was what told us this narrative is going to be way bigger than just one lifetime.
If we still had any doubts about it by the halfway point of the series, Whitebeard finally put it into clear words at the end of Marineford: “Someday, someone will arise bearing the weight of centuries on his shoulders, to challenge the world.” One piece is about the weight of those centuries being carried throughout time.
The Tide/Flow of The Times / Destiny of the Ages
The most overlooked one: One Piece is about changing times. While it was right in there in the same quote, most of us just skipped thinking about what it was going to mean for the story, probably because it’s not mentioned out loud in any other point in the narrative again like the others. One Piece is about empires rising and empires falling. It’s about the spirit of eras and their inevitable destinations. It’s about the faithful moments that change the history of the world. While having no direct relation to the piracy theme, it’s obvious Oda was fascinated with the idea of shifting ages. Maybe it started when he was researching the real world “Golden Age of Piracy”, or maybe he always liked it. Either way, he patiently constructed his narrative with these moments. Like the duel of Ace and Blackbeard, or Luffy and Law destroying the smiles factory, or the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in the WW1 arc. Every age slowly boils, and the small moments carried out by the wills of people living in it push it over to their finishing lines.

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Combined with inherited will next to it, this theme pretty much told all of us that this was always going to be a multi-generational, world-scale narrative taking place over different eras. I’m not sure how much of the actual story Oda planned back then, but just the knowledge that this is the type of story that One Piece was always going to be, combined with his patience, enabled him to always move forward in the right directions until we found ourselves at the climax of Marineford. And soon we will be within another by the end of Wano it seems like.
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It’s quite surprising how a big part of the unapproachable complexity of One Piece starts to feel a lot more digestible when we make the attempt of outlining its themes.
In a basic sense, the mystery behind a lot of decisions regarding the smaller story elements goes away. Like, if you’ve been wondering why the hell Oda keeps maiming his characters time and again but never kills them until they achieve resolution, he gives the answer in one of the interviews. It’s because “living another week with good cheer and vitality” is, in fact, a theme in One Piece. While death is permanent, losing a limb should never stop you from chasing your goals, and One Piece is never tragic without the hope for better days on the horizon. Even if there’s an opportunity to evoke more intense emotion from the reader at times, if it doesn’t serve the purpose of the themes it’s not gonna happen. Killing Conis’ father Pagaya in Skypiea to make the arc feel heavier in readers' stomachs is not worth it if it’s gonna cost us the campfire with dancing wolves.
And beyond that simple clarity, it starts to feel like there was no way for One Piece to be anything other than its very impressive self today. Just think about what someone would imagine if you explain all of these themes in detail and tell them to come up with a story that explores all of it. It’s hard to think someone would be able to come up with a story that doesn’t sound more or less like One Piece. Getting “what you want out of a story” right ahead of time is just that imperative: it transforms a work that feels like an impossibility, to feel like an inevitability. So to me, while obviously not nearly enough to create a recipe for success on its own, there is no more important ingredient in One Piece’s success than Oda’s uncompromising dedication to his story’s themes.
Obviously, there are way more recurring themes in One Piece that I haven’t touched on, and they all help Oda write his story with more purpose. The subjectivity of justice, manliness, the night & the dawn, war & peace, people coming together for a common goal are all ideas that come up again and again. I’m sure there are a lot of points to dig out by exploring their positive impact on the story as well. Still, if this writeup is ever going to end, we should just stop and move onto other aspects.

The Moral Anchor

Do you need your protagonists to be always morally justified in a story? Not really; it depends on the story you’re trying to tell of course. But One Piece is a story of a group of tightly knit people challenging the whole world with their own ideals and beliefs, and it is a story targeting young kids, so we could argue it has an ethical responsibility. Even though Straw Hats are frequently put in positions in the story where they are the actual troublemakers, the audience's belief in the justness of their journey feels like a necessity of sorts.
The thing is, finding the moral compass in a setting where leading actors are fiends with no regard for law is very challenging. But Oda responds to “challenging” as Luffy responds to danger, so of course this didn’t stop him from putting a lot of thought into getting the ethics of Luffy’s brand of piracy right until starting publication. We could see his struggle to get it right from his shaky early attempts. In both of the prototypical one-shots "Romance Dawn Version 1" and "Version 2", pirates were unnaturally split into two distinct groups: Peace Mains and Morganeers. A peace main was a pirate who goes on adventures and does not really care about treasure or fighting other pirates, while a morganeer fought for treasure and personal ambition. The latter were greedy, loved to fight, and often enjoyed causing other people pain and misery. Luffy and his idols were obviously Peace Main pirates, and that might’ve been enough to isolate them from the villainous connotations of piracy. But evidently, Oda was not satisfied with his solution and found it unconvincing. Luckily, by the third try, he arrived at something a lot more natural and profound.
Shanks and his crew were always supposed to be the model pirates of the series. Through them, we would learn along with Luffy what it actually meant to be a pirate. The first chapter “Romance Dawn” is so rich with ideas and themes that it’s not a surprise to also find the series’ code of ethics outlined here, through Shank’s crew, a code that we can sum up as: The ones who can shoot at others are the ones prepared to get shot at. At the end of their short skirmish with the mountain bandits which they were mostly laughing about until then, the crew's outlook suddenly changes when one of them raises a gun to Shanks’ head. Shanks then explains the weight of the bandit’s actions: taking up arms and guns is not the same as taking up a toy, and the moment you raise one is the moment you reject and move out of society’s and law’s protections; living outside of the law means being at peace with your death.
Taking it a step further, we can ask what happens when the law & order that was supposed to keep the world safe for the weak, becomes the cause of oppression itself? Then, the struggle to get to a better order can be the burden of the people who are willing to go outside of the law at their own expense. While that puts them in the same category with the criminals who hurt others for their own benefit in the eyes of the law-abiding, it is also the inherent moral necessity and romance of their decisions to be a pirate. So, being a pirate doesn’t have to be about selfishness, it can also be about self-sacrifice. As was the case with mountain bandits, sometimes justice can only be achieved through other people who put their lives on the line. These are the people who, for a better world, give up their standing and rights. Hence the constant emphasis that there’s no such thing as fair for pirates, as being a pirate means giving up on the whole notion of fairness.
Again, while it’s arguable how important it is for a story like this to have a moral framework to be successful, I think it’s obvious this clarity helped Oda settle down on what the story was going to be about. It helped him zero in on the specifics of the setting that a pirate adventure might work the best in, and it let him approach the story with a lot more confidence the rest of the way. The concept is quickly explored in the first arc with the conflict against the marine captain Morgan, but its best illustration is in the first major story arc of Grand Line: Arabasta. Interestingly, in one of rare crew in-fighting scenes of One Piece, between Vivi and Luffy. For a while before the conflict, we watch princess Vivi -the honorary straw hat who is frequently portrayed as an ideal representation of a leader for a civilised society- doing her best as always to solve the crisis through reasoning with the rebels. But eventually it becomes obvious that her noble efforts are in vain, as the institutions she is trying to operate under are too corrupted by Crocodile. Things finally escalate into a direct confrontation with Luffy as he explains the futility of Vivi’s approach. When she asks for an alternate solution in tears, Luffy shouts the obvious answer: “Put our lives on the line.” In the same arc, Smoker goes through similar shit, unable to do his job within the corrupted system. In both Smoker’s and Vivi’s futile efforts we witness that there are times we can not outgrow oppression without people like the Strawhats.

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What was even more interesting to watch was, Oda’s insistence on getting the morality of the series right beyond a superficial level, slowly leading the series into the concepts of moral relativism and pluralism. If we establish that being just is not about following the order of society, what is the logical next step from there? As One Piece kept exploring conflicts between people who are following their own sense of justice, we found ourselves more and more surrounded by the subjectivity of justice theme. So by the time that we were at Water 7, the manga had naturally started to ask bigger questions on how we can decide what’s wrong and what’s right; these, I believe were the result of the questions Oda found himself trying to answer early on. We watched Sakazuki and Kuzan -two marine admirals to be- trying to find and justify their own brand of justice. Was it the order that had to be preserved above all else? Were we burdened to sacrifice people to whatever that order deemed the greater good? Or could the answer be taking on yourself the responsibility to risk that greater good, just for a chance to see what our actions would mean in the long term?
These questions became more and more pronounced as the series went on until they came to a head at the Marineford arc, like most other ideas within One Piece. In his fan favourite quote, Doflamingo was clearly spelling out what the series was pointing towards for a while now: that there is a plurality of value systems, and the de facto one is the one usually enforced by might. Or as Oda would put it personally in an interview later: “Opposite of a justice is yet another justice.”
This grounded take on the actual meaning of morality serves as a nice contrast to how, with almost every other element, One Piece is as unrealistic, imaginative and dreamy as it can get. Oda has a great sense for knowing when to be silly and when to be serious. But in both of those cases, I think the more crucial point for our purposes is the fact that he refuses to settle on answers that do not satisfy him in the first place if that answer is to become a part of his work.

Gardener vs Architect

Let’s go back to George R. R. Martin. He has a famous quote in which he splits writers into two distinct groups. The architects, he says, plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners like himself, on the other hand, dig holes, drop in a seed, and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, but they find out the details as it grows. This distinction got quite a bit popular, as lots of people started to pigeonhole their favourite writers into one of these two groups. Some took this as an inspiration and tried to apply one of these approaches to their writing.

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The dichotomy seems pretty convenient until we try to apply it to One Piece and watch it break apart; the way Oda writes seems to somehow transcend this premise. One Piece kinda makes the whole idea of having to choose and limit yourself into one of these approaches look like an excuse for people who lack the imagination and willpower to do both at the same time. To put it more clearly, One Piece just makes Martin look like a little bitch.
As One Piece is one of the most tightly written stories in existence, let’s start with the less obvious other end, and try to see how “gardener” characteristics apply here. The characters within a story are usually responsible for most of the unforeseen developments, as they have a tendency to take control away from their creator if they are well-developed. The first thing to notice is that Oda loves his characters, more than any other writer I know. This love doesn’t just manifest as isolated appreciation, but also as an unwavering loyalty to who they are, whatever they are going through. On the very surface level, this starts with very simple things. Every time he draws a face or a body, the expression and the body language of the character is always informed by who they are and the situation that they’re in. It’s an easy thing to get lazy on a project of this magnitude, considering he’s drawn 20 thousand pages of panels occupied lots of different characters. But the characters’ faces is one thing Oda never lets any of his assistants touch, even at this point in his career. Because while in a comic book format characters have to express themselves in simple ways, the characterisation that goes into that simplicity is always complicated. Look for every reaction shot ever drawn in One Piece with named (or in some cases unnamed as well) characters, and each time you’ll be able to tell how they feel about what they’re seeing.
The second thing he does is always letting the characters’ identity drive the dialogue within a scene. Whatever the purpose of a scene might be, each character is given enough space to define the mood and the intensity of the exchanges that they’re in. Since Oda knows a lot more about his characters than he is depicting at any given moment, all of these scenes age very well on later visits no matter their importance. One of my favourite moments in Thriller Bark that I’m sure nobody besides me cares about is the final exchange between Luffy and Moria towards the end of their battle. Out of all the things Luffy has said or done to Moria throughout the arc, Moria gets the most angry and animated the moment Luffy claims “nobody can crush him”. Not that he destroyed his ship or laid waste to his 10-year project, but this seemingly arrogant take from a young inexperienced guy is the thing that triggers him the most. Moria’s anger here is based on his own past experiences; he sees himself in Luffy at that moment. I love it because it's so authentic.

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But more importantly, Oda lets the characters impact the narrative itself. Obviously, it’s hard to tell the intention behind a narrative point, to decide whether it is motivated by plot or character. But there are many times in One Piece where we can pinpoint a character’s individual impact within a story arc. One of my favourite moments in Water 7, and I’m sure almost everyone agrees with me on this, is the fight that escalates between Usopp and Luffy. It’s a fan-favourite scene, and if you ask most readers why they love it, the common answer you’ll get is that it feels so real. I think the reason it feels so real is that it was actually totally unnecessary for the purpose and plot of the arc and a completely organic addition to the narrative. If we remove the Usopp plotline in its entirety from the Water 7 — Enies Lobby arcs, nothing gets lost for the long term storytelling of One Piece. Oda even said in his interviews that the initial purpose behind the Water 7 arc was to get a new ship and a new shipwright. That’s its function in the overall plot. But how would Usopp feel about both his role and the precious gift from Kaya being replaced? And if this is going to lead to a conflict, what would drive the emotion behind it? With these questions in mind, the setup is then enriched with the “Franky Family stealing the money from Usopp” storyline (which also feels organic and respects all involved characters, and ties up neatly when Franky uses that money to buy the wood he’ll use to make the crew’s next ship). This new plot point, combined with the beatdown that he received, works to push Usopp’s insecurities and feelings of inadequacy even higher, putting him in an emotionally unstable state. This set-up then explodes into a memorable scene that is unlike anything we’ve experienced in One Piece until then. The only thing I’m still wondering is if Oda came up with Sogeking on the spot when Usopp was in the train with CP9 costumes and masks. That’s just too good to be true.

“An ‘emotional story’ is one that springs up from the life of your characters, but if a writer tries to force emotion as a goal when writing a story, you end up crushing the characters [under it]. It’s the characters that have to make the story” — Oda

Like with any other story, One Piece characters are usually created based on what the setting and purpose of a story arc necessitate. But before they are put in positions to act out, they are always developed organically according to their standing within the story. Along with other details of an arc, their designs and their backstories are fleshed out further to be consistent with themselves and their surroundings. One small example of this that I like is marine captain Axe-hand Morgan’s design that Oda details on an SBS. Chronologically, Morgan is designed after his son Helmeppo, who seems to be conceived with “looking like a douche” as his only characteristic. But within that, he has a cleft chin, and that is a genetic trait, meaning that it should show up in his dad as well. But unlike his son, Morgan is obsessed with his self-image and strength to the extent that of making his soldiers erect a stone statue of himself to display his might for all to see. So of course if this guy had a cleft chin, he would hide it. Preferably with a metal mask that would make him look intimidating. Oda says he is usually quite lax with this process and he lets things go within their flow. While sketching he even lets them say a few lines of words without even thinking about it, and this helps him figure out what kinda person they really are.
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--- continues from comments ---

This is intended to be a description and analysis of the biggest thing my wife and I fight about, from my perspective. While I may make some effort to express what I think is going on on my wife's end, I acknowledge that my perspective may seem biased, and I expect that she would feel unfairly represented by some, if not all, of what she reads here; I simply don't know any other way to clearly outline these topics.
I feel that sexual intimacy is one of the primary ways that intimate partners can affirm their love, commitment, appreciation, and desire for one another. In my experience physical interactions have always been the most trustworthy indicators of how another person is feeling about you.
Words can be twisted, manipulated, misinterpreted. But physical, instinctive, and primal reactions to another person rarely lie. It is far more difficult for people to control, hide, or distort physical reactions than verbal or emotional reactions.
I was sexually active long before I married my wife. I am not proud of that and consider that my life was impacted negatively by that decision. My sexual activity was frequent and varied. I found that I was seemingly successful both at finding sexual partners and pleasing sexual partners. Arousal and intimacy came easily to me.
Relationships of varying lengths (3 years was my longest before marriage) seemed to indicate that I was capable of maintaining a relationship, but not one to feel trapped in a relationship that wasn't working. Not once in my single life did I encounter a complaint or even difficulty in my sexual interactions with my partners. Relationship problems more often manifested as a result of my partners wanting our relationship to progress into marriage, and me feeling unprepared for that. I feel my partners and I fell into the many and well-documented pitfalls which accompany that dynamic.
When my wife and I were dating, I found nothing in our interactions to indicate that anything was different or amiss in this area. I certainly had no complaints or concerns and none were expressed to me by her.
When things got more serious and we went through a period of celibacy in preparation for marriage within the guidelines of our church, I struggled with that. My wife would get angry with me for pushing the boundaries of physical intimacy as required for our goal of a church marriage. This was the first indication that we even COULD have friction in this aspect of our relationship, but I figured it was because she had more self-control than I did. I didn't see that friction as a problem because I actually admired that self control and it supported goals to get back to my core values. I figured that once we got married and those obstacles were removed, the friction would disappear.
My wife asserts that also during this time she felt abandoned in the planning of the wedding. I see this as a fundamental misunderstanding of intent and unrelated to our sexual intimacy issues, but these types of misunderstandings seem to have contributed to her feelings of emotional disconnect. She has stated that a lack of emotional intimacy is directly responsible for the difficulty she finds being aroused for sexual intimacy. I'll circle back to this at some point.
Immediately after marriage (during our honeymoon in fact), it became apparent that my wife was exhibiting avoidant behaviors regarding sex. The next 3 or 4 years seemed, to me, to be a parade of excuses. On our honeymoon she suggested that I was too large for her and that it was just painful since we had been celibate and she needed time to adjust. That was flattering, but I was never under any illusions about my size and it confused me. I was unsurprised to hear her admit, later in counseling, that it was a spurious and panicked excuse to not engage in sexual intimacy.
Then she decided it was the pace that was the problem. So we tried slower initiation, with long cuddling, soft touches, etc. That didn't work.
Then it was that we didn't talk. So we tried talking every night at bedtime. That didn't work.
By this point my patience was low and my frustration had reached a boiling point. We began to fight about this and I found myself accusing her of being lesbian, or asexual, or asking if she had been abused or raped at some point and never dealt with it. I hurt her feelings.
My wife's expression of hopelessness and hurt caused me to take a step back, and realize that I had been focusing only on what she could do to change. I decided to give her time to work on what she felt she could, and to focus on changing where I felt able. I hoped that perhaps if I stopped pushing, and made efforts on my end instead, maybe we would settle into a middle place where we could make things work.
I don't know why this failed. I changed behaviors. I stopped pushing to initiate, I stopped discussing it entirely. I tried to do the things she said she needed. I did chores, I talked to her.
As my efforts bore no fruit, I found that what started as giving my wife space to heal and work on herself turned into cold detachment. Not attacking her turned into the silence of "useless to even bring it up". Communication became over-polite and cold.
I felt bitter resentment, especially because my wife seemed visibly happier during this time. I was doing chores, I was talking to her about her day, and when we went to bed I was not even trying to have sex. And she seemed happy as a clam. And that infuriated me.
It was at this point that I now realize I was depressed. I gave up a lot here that my wife never asked for. My health deteriorated, I stopped taking care of my body. It's significant, I think, that there were environmental pressures acting on us as well. Her parents had offered to have us live in their house for a period of time while they took care of her grandmother, and then changed their minds and brought grandma into our home. We were cramped, living with her parents and dying grandmother, we had a newborn baby, and we were VERY poor, as most are when starting a business. I withdrew, not wanting to interact with others really except as needed for the business I was still trying to build. I found that was my only outlet. It was the only time I could justify being happy, since in some way being happy there seemed to support our goal of someday having the business meet our financial needs. Then my wife started criticizing the business, and how I was managing it, and I felt the last refuge of my happiness being pulled slowly from me.
I hit my lowest point. I wondered why I was with her. Realized that I love everything about her except how she interacted with me, and particularly how a lack of sexual intimacy had sucked the life out of our relationship.
One of my clients approached me and indicated desire to pursue a sexual relationship. To my shame, I responded. I will forever regret that choice to betray my wife's trust. Regardless of our issues.
When I realized that I couldn't live that way, I confessed my adultery. She decided to make efforts to work things out between us. I was grateful and humbled by that unexpected decision. We went through counseling, and I went through the church disciplinary proceedings.
We made major life changes as part of this process. She asked me to abandon my business, immediately and completely. I did that, though I disagreed with the premise that the business was any sort of cause of infidelity, and also with the premise that it was failing. My wife seemed to believe both of those things, and I decided that a chance of fixing our relationship was worth that sacrifice on my part. I still believe that.
Our life after adultery has seemed to settle into two different lives really. We have a comfortable, functional daily life with normal struggles that we are equipped to handle together. Our parenting and household management is, I think, an excellent blend of our strengths with occasional, but manageable, friction.
Then we have our sex life. Problematic at every turn. Unresolved land mines going off all the time. Even when we have sex, questions about motive, value, and efficacy often crop up in the aftermath to tarnish any potential benefits.
My wife would no doubt argue that we have a 3rd life, some desert of emotional connection. This garden that she says has failed to blossom should either be pre-requisite to a healthy sex life or somehow combined with it into a homogeneous whole. To be honest I have walked a curve on this. Initially I thought she might be on to something, and I tried very hard to adopt various strategies that she mentioned to try to meet her emotional needs. I have thought that I might be a sociopath, or a narcissist (my work with a solo therapist convinced me that neither of those seem likely). I daresay I grew as a person and learned tools for emotional connection that make me a better person. In terms of our relationship, however, I didn't see that it had any impact on how she responded to me. Lately I find that I am feeling like I have been far more emotionally available than she seems to believe, and that this idea of me being an emotionally dead robot is simply the latest in a long line of "you're just too big and it hurts" excuses.
Now, and most recently, my wife has started to say that I somehow hurt her and she doesn't feel safe with me. She claims to have 7 years of built up injury and pain to work through before we can fix our sexual intimacy issues. This is an odd echo of things I have said to her. I often express how she doesn't seem to want or appreciate many aspects of my personality. That I have given up or changed many things I liked about myself in an effort to be someone she can feel desire for. I reject this idea that I have made our relationship an unsafe place for her to express herself or be herself. If anything I feel I have, for the last 5 years, bent over backwards to accommodate her slightest whim. I don't always do it without comment or argument, but our life together has become most of the things she has said she wanted. Meanwhile my hopes, dreams, and aspirations have been put off indefinitely or abandoned completely.
My wife says I don't want her, I only want sex. This seems ridiculous to me since I have stayed with her for 7 years while feeling like I have had to fight tooth and nail for any sex at all. It seems obvious that if I didn't want her, and only wanted sex, I would leave her and have all the sex I wanted. Infidelity is not now, nor ever will be again, an option for me.
My wife says, "yes I can achieve orgasm but it's meaningless without the *je ne sais quoi* that turns me on." I could make you two lists: A long list of things that I think SHOULD turn her on that apparently do nothing for her, and an equally long list of things that she has SAID will turn her on that have proven ineffective. The list I have trouble with? A list of things that Do, in fact, turn her on. Effectively and consistently.
Let's talk about physical touch. If it's a light touch on any erogenous zone, it tickles and that's unacceptable. Nipples, Lips, Genitalia, the inside of elbows or the backs of knees, all off limits. If it's TOO forward, basically anything that could be considered groping, then I get the "I'm not ready for that and in fact now that you crossed that line I'm upset and not interested at all," treatment. Back rubs, scalp massages, leg rubs, hand holding, and even kissing are all in the category of "warm affection but not necessarily sexual." I've been accused of ruining affectionate touch because I always want it to lead to sex.
It's in my nature to flirt and sexual humor is and always has been a staple of my romantic interactions. My wife complains that we can't flirt. I have to admit, I have lost my will to joke or flirt. I cannot find the humor or the happiness in toying with the idea of sex that never materializes. It's not fun or funny anymore.
My wife claims that sexual desire and tension needs to build throughout the day. I can tell from experience that it does not matter if I text sweet nothings, do all the chores, stop in the middle of hustle and bustle and grab her and hug her and kiss her. We can have the most amazing, affectionate, loving day… and at the end of it when we climb into bed we're starting from scratch every time. Her bucket never fills, it feels like pouring my emotional energy into a sieve.
My wife seems to think if we fix everything BUT the sex, the sex will just magically come. I have several problems with that. First, and most importantly, I don't think it will. Second, it seems to me that the rest of our problems combined could be easily solved with the amount of time and energy we put into fighting about sex.
My wife claims I put too much of the onus on her. She has convinced me, at times, that if I change something about myself just a little more, or do just that one extra thing, then it will help. Perhaps it has. Certainly some of those changes were needed and I benefitted from them somehow. But she is right… I have trouble taking responsibility for this mess in any way that seems to fix it. If I want sexual intimacy, and she doesn't then one of us has to change. Do I get to say that sex is better than no sex? I suppose that's presumptuous but I hazard that most people would agree with me in general principle. Ok so now she says sex is good. So arousal is the issue? I suppose that could be my fault. So let me try to ask what she wants… oh, it's hard to define… oh wait, it's not hard to define, but it's extremely situational… oh wait, it's not really situational or hard to define but it turns out it is entirely subjective, which apparently means that she gets to decide and any explanation she gives me isn't up for debate...and now it's not actually a decision that she makes, it's more a natural consequence of me failing to understand, anticipate, and adequately meet her arbitrary and entirely subjective requirements for arousal. There, neatly tied with a bow, clearly my fault.
You can see my objections to this line of reasoning.
I find myself in a terrible position. I am unhappy. I am bitter. I don't trust my wife. I don't feel like she loves me or cares about my happiness. I feel like she is selfishly withholding a sexual intimacy that is not a limited resource, creating a false scarcity to control me. I feel like she tells herself she wants to stay in this relationship, not because she loves me, but because she is afraid of life after a divorce… or possibly that she thinks she should want me and can't see any logical reason not to, but she's not self-aware enough to acknowledge that she just doesn't. I think she doesn't want to admit this to herself, and in an attempt to justify it, has created a myriad of problems and issues where none should ever have existed.
At the same time, I love her. I admire her. She is everything I desire. She is smart, she is sexy, she can be SO much fun. She's an amazing mother and an incredible life partner. She is capable and intelligent, and independent. I don't think I have the strength to leave her. I dream about having this woman love, respect, admire, and desire me the way that I do her. Just the hope that it might happen has been enough to drag me through insecurities, struggles, problems, and fears that I never in my wildest imaginings thought I would have to deal with. If I went back in time to warn pre-marriage me that I would someday be depressed enough to choose to cheat on the woman I chose to marry, that I would get fat, that I would lose touch with all my friends and never go out … past me would have laughed in my own face.
And yet here I am. I wake up every day, I try to please her. I try to arouse her. I try to make her smile. I try to make her proud. I go to bed and hope that things will be different. I try to communicate. I swallow the pain, and the disappointment, and push aside the bitterness. I have learned to enjoy the things I can. The parts of our life that she allows me to be a part of. I enjoy our children and the way we work together to raise them. I have learned to enjoy our home, and helping to balance the budget. I even enjoy doing chores and helping to manage the household. I am learning to enjoy what physical intimacy I DO get. The occasional touches. The sitting next to each other on the couch. Snuggling in bed. Sometimes these are roads to battlegrounds, but I try to enjoy the trip even if I suspect where it will end.
I am trapped. My rock is the love that I have for my wife. My hard place is my remaining self-respect that says I am justified in wanting more from her. If I let go of one of those things, the pressure is gone, but I know if either of those things goes, I have given up on the kind of happiness we could achieve if we could find a way to fix this.
Honestly, not sure what I'm hoping for from this community... advice, reassurance... I suspect I am mostly writing this, erm.. manifesto.... just to get it off my chest. Share what you can with me here, I'm hurting.

Author's Note: This story contains graphic violence. Reader discretion is advised.
________________
Drug dealing is one gigantic occupational hazard.
I think I always knew that deep down. But in our youth, we feel invincible. It doesn't matter if you carry a Glock or a rocket launcher, the Grim Reaper eventually collects his dues. For drug dealers, death usually comes earlier rather than later. Still, it's natural to think the rules don't apply to you.
"That guy who got his head blown off in a drug deal gone bad"––couldn't possibly be me, I'm quick on the draw. "That one girl who wasn't hauling in the profits her boss wanted, then got switched to prostituting"––I'm not a woman, so I'm in the clear. "Those junkies who had their own little French Revolution, rose up, and decapitated their neighborhood dealer like he was King Louie the Sixteenth"––we work in twos now for that very reason. And the junkies responsible were skinned alive to make an example. No chance in hell that history will repeat itself.
But I was wrong. Like I said, drug dealing is one gigantic occupational hazard. Any number of things can happen. What happened to Faulk, though––I didn't see it coming. There's no way I could have.
Something like that is damn near impossible to wrap your head around.
***
Monday through Saturday, Faulk and I went to our alley on the harbor and dealt drugs. As Faulk's understudy, I was responsible for packing dinner. Faulk was responsible for teaching me the ins-and-outs of managing unruly Skells.
That's what Faulk called our junkie clientele. I looked it up once. Urban dictionary defines Skell as "a lowlife, non-bill paying, possibly crack or heroin-addicted being." We dealt a lot more than crack and heroin. But the lowlife, non-bill paying part summed up the people who Faulk and I sold to almost perfectly.
The rainy night that everything fell to shit––a Friday––Faulk had just finished beating a Skell within an inch of his life. Faulk was fucking huge. When he wasn't dealing, he was either lifting or pounding the heavy bag in his boxing gym. His arms looked like tree trunks.
The dude Faulk had just finished beating the shit out of now had a face that resembled raw hamburger. Faulk dragged him by the scruff of the neck to the mouth of the alley we dealt from. He called in The Hearse, and then he waited for them to pick the guy up.
That's what we called the black sedan that prowled our territory: The Hearse. On the other side of tinted windows were high-level lieutenants of the kingpin Faulk and I worked for. I'd never met the people inside The Hearse, nor had I met the dude who ran the whole operation. Faulk said I would eventually if I kept up the good work.
After the Hearse picked up the half-dead Skell, Faulk jogged back to our spot, excited as a kid at recess.
"Whadda we got, whadda we got?!" he asked, rubbing his hands together like he was warming them over a fire.
It was dinnertime. I grabbed my plastic lunch pail and pulled out that night's meal.
"You sneaky little devil," said Faulk, laying eyes on it. "My favorite."
I'd made two peanut butter sandwiches on Wonder bread. I'd also packed two snack-sized bags of Fritos, two Cokes, and a large ziplock bag full of apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.
"You remind me of my mom,” said Faulk. "I feel like a schoolboy all over again."
He took his sandwich and unwrapped the cellophane. He lifted one piece of bread, inspecting it. I noticed Faulk's knuckles––they were gummed up with the junkie's blood. Pink valleys were torn into the flesh thanks to repeated contact with the junkie's now-missing teeth.
"You know me too well," Faulk said, shooting me a coy smile. "Creamy peanut butter or bust."
"I cut the crust off too––"
"Hey, I was just about to mention that! I notice you, man! You think I don't!"
Although I'd warmed up to him over time, Faulk still scared the shit out of me. When he wasn't pissed off, he was gentle as a teddy bear. When he was mad, he was violent as a grizzly in heat. Every night before going out to the harbor, I said a little prayer that I wouldn't fuck up and end up on the wrong side of his boulder-sized fists.
Dudes who beat Skells half to death, then eat their crustless, white bread, creamy peanut butter sandwiches like nothing happened––suffice it to say they make an impression on you.
We ate dinner, sitting on the curb like we always did, talking about Netflix. Faulk had become a huge fan of Bridgerton. His favorite character was Eloise. He said she'd have been his choice if he lived in Regency-era England, during the season where debutantes are presented at court. I thought of telling Faulk that if somehow we managed to time travel across the pond to the early 1800s, we wouldn't have been royalty. There were dudes who fucked up Skells and dealt drugs back then, too. But I decided against ruining his little fantasy. I let him tell me more about how his type of chick was sarcastic, cheeky, and most importantly, brunette.
Various clientele came down the alley to pick up drugs. Every time, Faulk sent me jogging to the drop spot to grab their fixes. Heroin. Coke. Meth. We had it all.
But a few of them asked for the Special Sauce––or The Sauce, as it was called. It was a new drug on the street, a powerful hallucinogen that supposedly packed one hell of a body high. As the adage goes, a dealer never dips into his stash, so I'd never tried the shit myself. But I couldn't deny that I was intrigued by what people said about it.
The Sauce came in little zip-lock packets. It looked like the gooey gel inside cold packs, the kind they use in boxed dinner kits. Legend had it among the dealers in our network that a batshit oceanographer had discovered the Sauce. He'd found a new species of deep-sea jellyfish. Then, for some unknown reason, he licked the fucking thing. But he got high as balls, his body thrumming like a rogue vibrator, his mind transported to wonderous otherworldly vistas. Realizing The Sauce was the best thing since fried rice, he figured out a way to harvest the shit and sell it to the cartels who supplied drugs to the likes of Faulk and me.
Someone heard the legend from someone, who heard it from someone else. Dealers spend a lot of time talking. Standing in a cold, wet alley gets dull real quick. We're chatty as a group of cat-lovers in a sewing circle.
But business was booming. The Sauce––Skells fucking loved the stuff.
Faulk and I kept talking about Netflix shows long after we'd finished our cinnamon-sugar apple slice dessert. Given that Faulk was about to run out of Bridgerton episodes, I told him that The Crown was similar, if somewhat less steamy. Then two people showed up at the mouth of the alley, interrupting our conversation. Even at a distance of fifty yards, even through the buckets of rain dumping down from swollen clouds overhead, I could see that they were shaking.
"Oh Jesus-fucking-Christ," said Faulk. "I need these motherfuckers like I need a hole in the head."
We both had radars for addicts with the shakes. It meant they hadn't had a fix in a while. Could have been due to poor planning. Could have been due to not having any money. Desperate addicts, in my experience of dealing drugs, are almost always trouble.
As the Skells came closer, I noticed that it was a guy and girl, maybe in their mid-twenties. They were wearing raincoats with the hoods pulled up, but their faces were slick. It couldn't have been rainwater due to their hoods, so I chalked it up as sweat. But as they came closer, I saw that the shit on their faces was glassy, like their skin had been smeared in hair gel.
Faulk stood up. I stood up too. As the Skells came closer, I noticed a rotten stench about them. Their heads looked large and swollen, like sponges soaked in water overnight. I noticed that their eyes looked strange too—milky, almost blind, like the eyes of dead fish.
"That shit you gave me!" yelled the guy, his voice trembling. "The Sauce––it fucking fucked me up, man! You gotta help us!"
Faulk shook his head; then, he cracked his knuckles.
"Wrongo," he said. "I don't gotta do shit. You need to head back out the way you came."
The girl looked even sicker than the guy. Something was leaking through her pants. I thought it was piss at first. But then I noticed it was thicker. More of the gel shit that was covering their faces was trying to force its way through the stitches of her rain-soaked jeans, splitting the hem. She wasn't just shaking––she was convulsing. I heard a rumble in her guts. Then, a throatful of thick, viscous liquid poured out of her mouth, mixing in with the rivers of rain running across the pavement.
Faulk grimaced.
"What the fuck is wrong with you two?"
He reached for his phone. He was getting ready to call the Hearse. But the guy moved forward, almost drunkenly, and fell into him.
"Back up motherfucker! You're giving a rash!"
Faulk forgot about the phone and reached for his piece, which he always kept concealed in his jacket pocket. Suddenly, the guy started vomiting out the same sizzling goop the girl had. It spilled onto Faulk's Timberlands, eating through the yellow suede leather. I watched as Faulk's eyes went wide, his face contorted in pain. Looking down, I noticed that the vomit had eaten through the leather of his boots––now it was eating through his feet, skin peeling back from the bone like patches on a week old sunburn.
Steadying himself, Faulk pulled out his gun, pointed it at the guy's head, and pulled the trigger. The blast was deafening. It split the silence of the alley. A flash of light erupted from the end of the barrel, dissolving into the falling rain like a quick strike of lightning.
The guy's head vaporized into a misty pink cloud, but no handgun I'd ever seen did that kind of damage. I realized that the bullet had only popped the swelling balloon that had been the guy's head. Out of the tree stump of his neck, the goop he'd been vomiting out bloomed upward. He fell back due to the gunshot, but more of the goo continued pushing through his neck stump like a mushroom in time-lapse.
Faulk turned on the girl, but she was ready for him. And she'd begun changing. Her skin had stretched, like a garbage bag filled with a week's worth of unrefrigerated sludge. She was taking a new shape, similar to the guy Faulk had just shot in the head. Her clothes began to sizzle away as more of the goop forced its way out of her pores, her nostrils, her eyes, her ears, and any other orifice it could. An amniotic gush blasted from between her legs like a burst pipe.
Faulk's eyes were peeled in terror. What had formerly been a twenty-year-old girl had become a strange alien creature. It glowed in the darkness of the alley. It shot out two massive tentacles in a swift motion, a left and a right, and wrapped them around Faulk's body in opposite directions.
Puckpuckpuckpuckpuck–– the sound of suction cups making contact.
The tentacles constricted, snakes with a mind of their own. Faulk would have screamed if he could draw a breath, but he was being crushed, becoming blue, his eyes on the verge of popping out their sockets. His bones, still covered by skin and muscle, made a series of muffled snaps.
Faulk's clothes had sizzled away too––whatever the creature's arms were made of ate through the fabric and began sizzling through his skin like hydrochloric acid.
Suddenly, the creature's arms ripped away in opposite directions. In contrast to the suction cups' pucking sound, I heard a machine gun series of cracks as Faulk’s spine twisted, then broke. I watched in slow motion as his skin unstitched itself, busting at the seams around his eyes, the corners of his mouth, the pit of his belly button.
His frowning, crimson anatomy hung there for a moment, twin sheets of skin torn free from the ream of his body. Then the creature dropped him. The bottom and top hunks squelched onto the rain-slicked pavement.
Behind me, the guy whose head Faulk blew off––the creature he'd become––rose up, slithering over to its mate. I fell onto my ass, backing away on my hands. They came closer. I looked into their strange, dead eyes, into an alternate dimension a billion light-years from earth.
“Thazul moglash shahhh.”
"Azath iru naphtha."
"Wazak gazath mephala."
A strange language––something forbidden. Something human beings weren't meant to hear. The words dug into my brain like parasites, coating my synapses with the same strange substance of which the creatures were made. I felt suddenly aged, like a block of cheese past its prime. In a few short seconds, I learned secrets of the universe that human beings are simply not meant to know, ancient truths that shave time off your life just by knowing them.
But by some divine stroke of luck, my head didn't explode.
I waited for my death. And waited. And waited some more. But it didn't come. And when I finally opened my eyes, the creatures were gone. All that was left was the two halves of Faulk's body and a trail of slime leading to a gutter nearby, not far from where we'd eaten our dinner an hour before.
***
Reaching into the charred remains of Faulk's jacket, I grabbed his phone. I did my best to avoid looking at his gory skeleton, at the rags of flesh that still clung to the few undissolved bones. I found a contact: The Hearse. I called the number, and a man answered.
"What is it?"
"Faulk," I said. "He's––he's––"
"Be there in five."
Five minutes later on the dot, the Hearse pulled to a stop next to me, its headlights cutting through the dumping rain. The passenger window rolled down. A man stared out. He looked angry and inconvenienced, like I'd just taken a piss in his morning cereal.
He leaned out and looked at Faulk's body.
"What the fucked happened to him?"
"I––he––there were two Skells––"
The guy in the passenger seat nodded to whoever was sitting behind him. Doors on both sides of the Hearse opened. Two men got out. They opened the trunk of the car, got out some garbage bags, and quickly went about their work. Stuffing what remained of Faulk's body into the bags, they cinched them shut, loaded them into the trunk, and got back into the car.
"Go home for the night," said the guy in the passenger seat. "We'll be in touch."
***
They gave me Saturday off, but I didn't sleep a wink. My apartment wasn't far from the harbor. All I could do was stare out the window in the direction of the alley where Faulk had met his end.
The language of the creatures echoed in my head.
“Thazul moglash shahhh.”
"Azath iru naphtha."
"Wazak gazath mephala."
And as the words sounded, I experienced the same visions I’d had in the alley. Visions of faraway worlds, of horrifying truths, of the fate of humankind. I felt crushed under the weight of knowing.
By the time Sunday rolled around––by the time I got the call from my employer––I'd pissed my pants three times, sweat through a dozen sets of clothes, and cried so much that my tear ducts dried up. In the years I'd worked with Faulk, I'd seen a lot of scary shit. Junkies rotting in doorways. Calloused dealers murdering Skells without remorse. Dead prostitutes with slashed throats, stuffed into dumpsters like they were nothing more than errant trash.
You name it, I saw it. But before that fateful Friday night, I'd always been convinced we were alone in the universe. Denizens of a rock floating in the middle of space, the only intelligent life. A biological accident hellbent on killing itself and ruining the world in the process.
I was wrong, and seeing the other things that lurk in the dark corners of our universe taught me the true meaning of fear.
***
"You ready to go to work?"
The call had come from an unknown number. It was my employer, who I'd never met. A woman––I always assumed Faulk and I worked for a man.
"Go to work?"
"Those drugs aren't going to sell themselves."
"What about Faulk?"
"Who's Faulk?"
You know, the guy who was mentoring me. The one that got ripped in half in the alleyway by an alien creature. Despite all the things I wanted to say, I kept my mouth shut. I was scared by what I'd witnessed, but I also feared wronging the people in charge.
"Oh, right," said the woman. "Yeah, that was a real shame. But we need to keep up the supply. The harbor is one of our most popular locations."
The truth finally dawned on me: I was stuck in this line of work, maybe forever. What started as an innocent desire to earn a little extra money had turned into a career that would last until the day I died. Dealing drugs on behalf of powerful people wasn't the type of thing you retired from.
"Work starts tomorrow night," said the woman. "Oh, and if anyone asks for The Sauce, we stopped selling it. Pitch them on our China White. We just got a new batch in. From my understanding, it packs a pretty good punch."
***
I showed up at the alley a few hours later. Rain was dumping down, just like it had been on the night Faulk and I encountered the creatures. A kid was waiting for me, maybe fifteen or sixteen, standing almost exactly on the spot where Faulk had been ripped in half.
The kid had a plastic lunchbox in one hand and a big, excited smile on his face.
"My name's Richie," he said, sticking out his free hand. "Nice to meet you."
I shook it. It was either clammy or slicked with rain, maybe a combination of the two. In either case, past the excitement, I saw that the kid was nervous as hell.
"I'm ready to learn the ropes," said Richie. "I heard the other guy you worked with quit. I want to step in and do a good job."
Faulk quit––that's what they told the poor kid. They neglected to tell him that Faulk had been ripped in half and that they'd stuffed his body in garbage bags, which, I hazarded a guess, had since been submerged in concrete.
It was just like Faulk said. He'd told me that someday if I kept up the good work, I'd get a promotion. I never imagined it would happen the way it did.
That night, Skells came and went. A few of them asked for The Sauce. I told them we didn't sell it anymore. I pitched them on the China White like I'd been instructed. A few took the bait. Others inquired about the rest of our stash. Everyone went home happy.
It was like The Sauce never existed in the first place.
Dinner came around. The kid and I sat on the curb just like Faulk and I always had.
"Hope you like deli sandwiches," he said. "That's what’s on the menu tonight. But you just tell me what you want going forward. I'll make it happen."
As the kid chattered and I ate mouthfuls of turkey, butter lettuce, and too much mayo, I thought of Faulk. I thought about his love of peanut butter sandwiches, but I also thought about the gutter where the creatures had disappeared after killing him. I couldn't take my eyes off it.
"You know it’s not even true, right?" The kid had noticed me looking at the gutter.
"What's not true?"
"It's just hippies being hippies.”
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"The plaque," he said, "What it says––it's not true. Same as global warming being a hoax. Same as thinking recycling makes a difference. It's all bullshit that hippies come up with. They scare us into believing. They want to take over the world, that's what I heard."
The kid must have sensed that I still didn't know what the hell he was talking about because he stood up and beckoned me to follow him. I did. We came closer to the gutter. My pulse was pounding. I wanted to be as far away from it as possible, fearing what I'd see inside. But I couldn't help my curiosity.
When we got close, I saw the metal plaque above the gutter the kid had told me about.
"Like I said," repeated the kid, smiling smugly. "It doesn't actually."
Oh, but it did. If you only knew, kid.
The creatures had jumped in and headed home. Not to some far corner of the universe. No, they stayed right here on Planet Earth.
I saw that the plaque was etched with the image of a fish. It was also chiseled with five words:
No Dumping––Drains to Ocean

Death is a natural part of the gameplay loop and economy of Realm of the Mad God. By dying, you lose gear and alive fame, and have to max a new character. This requires that you go back through the grinding process to get all of that back - motivating you to keep playing.
At least, this is what one would hope. However, due to some major unhealthy game mechanics, the last thing that many deaths do to players is encourage them to continue playing and earn back what they had.

Instapops

Let’s define instapops as attacks by one enemy that result in instant death, regardless of HP. This means we won’t be taking into account things like the Shatters stacked stone spike bug (although this does deserve to be addressed as well), huge stacks of medusa grenades, or other situations that would be generally too restrictive to design around. We’ll focus mainly on things like, to name one common example, sitting on one of Dr. Terrible’s green potions.
Instapops on their own aren’t necessarily bad design, but let’s look at the effect they have on a player’s mentality. Getting deleted by something - taken from healthy to 0% HP without a single frame to react - could be the result of a player’s own mistakes. Perhaps they positioned poorly and put themselves in a spot to get hit by something, or perhaps they missed a warning like the shots before the laser in High Tech Terror. I’ll discuss the importance of the perceptibility of these warnings further on.
Regardless of this potential warning, instapops fundamentally introduce an element of unforgivingness to the game. If you make a particular mistake, you die - no nexusing, no questions. It doesn’t matter how well you’ve played up to that point, you are dead. To some, they’re cool with letting go of a character and getting back on the grind. To others, especially if they’re wearing some of their most valuable gear, this creates immense frustration.

The Purpose of Instapops

Instapops served an important purpose in Realm for a very long time: continuing the gameplay loop. With divine pets preventing people from really getting killed in most situations, instapops prevented the overpowered level of regeneration they brought from keeping players alive. With the addition of the Vital Combat system, this justification is now in question - you can die to taking consistent hits no matter how good your pet is now.
Thus, the only purpose served by instapops is to frustrate players and drive them to either quit, hack, RWT, or dupe.

The Existence and Perceptibility of Warnings

Recently, we received an update which introduced a red warning flash to many enemies that feature instapopping attacks. This is a very welcome change to be sure, but it’s both incomplete and, in many cases, poorly implemented. Take, for example, yellow trains (Cavecrawler Maggots) in Fungal Cavern. At the time this update was released, their behavior was:
Follow the nearest player -> Flash red -> Jump to the nearest player.
This may seem like a totally reasonable pattern. It sure does to me. That is, until you realize that the aggro range is wider than player vision, and that that jump would always close most of the distance to the nearest player. This means you could just be peacefully clearing a room, only for a yellow train - an enemy infamous for its ability to pop even the beefiest maxed characters - to RKO you out of nowhere, yeeting itself onto you from an entire room over. So much for visible warning.
It is extremely important that deadly behaviors be telegraphed. Learning how a normal enemy works shouldn’t cost a character. Additionally, there shouldn’t be random, rare, unpredictable variations in behavior that can cost someone who’s faced the same enemy countless times to get popped by it once.
All this should go to show that instapops are very hard to design around. They require some amount of telegraphing, and have to require some kind of critical, literally fatal error on the part of the player in order to be anywhere close to reasonable.

Hidden Warnings

In the previous section, I mentioned yellow trains and their ability to jump into a player’s line of sight from outside of it without any visible warning. The problem with this is specifically that the warning is not visible to the player. This is similarly the case in O3’s exalted meteors - they’re capable of instapopping, and if you move too far, the meteors’ indicators on the ground can disappear and leave you liable to get popped without warning. Somewhat similarly, in the Mad Lab’s first boss, green potions can be hidden by various sprites, including the big ol’ capsule in the middle of the room that you might have to go near while fighting him. Normally, it’s trivial to avoid taking damage from green potions, but in cases where they are drawn underneath other sprites, that same trivial task suddenly becomes impossible. One could argue that being anywhere near sprites that could cover up a green potion is technically a mistake, and you’d be right - but there should not be conditions in which a warning is hidden from the player. When such a thing happens, there’s no real way to know you’ve made a mistake until you’re already dead - once again, an unforgiving and extremely frustrating way to die.

Inevitable Instapops

While in the previous section, I covered ways in which instapops are reasonable with warnings, and ways in which execution of this in the game falls short. However, I didn’t cover another, especially frustrating and unreasonable type of instapop: one without warning. Something that you can’t avoid and can’t prevent without kneecapping the way you play the game, or something that wasn't an intentional mechanic at all.
clip for context - a revive was promptly requested, but as always, support gave the same automated reply, so he (understandably) quit
Here, we see the split phase of 3-headed demon in the Cultist Hideout. In this picture, the pepperoni man is charging at a relatively low-speed wizard, but something unusual is happening: while pizza time is still 2.5-3ish tiles away, an entire sausage has spawned on top of the wizard, giving him 939 pounds of shmeat he didn’t ever want. How strange! Either the demon whipped out an uno reverse card and spellbombed the wizard, or it’s a time traveler. Either way, a number of issues exist here.
This instapop:
-is impossible to react to
-is misleading compared to the enemy’s usual behavior
-lacks any sort of warning
-follows a change in behavior that also happens without warning
-excessively punishes the player for something that is not the player’s fault
To call this a failure of design and execution would be too kind. Want to fix your hacker problem, DECA? Start here.
https://i.imgur.com/QyhgfX1.png
This image probably gave some of you Vietnam flashbacks. This is because this unique and wonderful enemy’s behavior involves going turbo mode onto the nearest player the second it gets activated and blasting out 3 lines of shots - depending on what direction you’re moving in, this is another unavoidable instapop with no warning. The only way not to have some unknown chance of getting forcibly torn from this plane of existence is not to go to Oryx’s Sanctuary at all.

Latency and Instapops

This section is just a very important footnote. Latency does play a big role in how possible it is to react to an instapop. It’s for this reason that it isn’t reliably consistent to design warnings for instapops in an online game - there will inevitably be times, especially with how shaky Realm’s servers almost always are, when avoidable pops become unavoidable.

Death’s Effect on Players

Dying was one of the best things to happen to me as a player for a while. I was a blue star with no positional or situational awareness and would just get steamrolled. However, I’d get back up, see what went wrong, and not die that way again.
With unavoidable instapops, this isn’t the case. There’s no way to avoid the clipped death without staying entirely outside of aggro range and not dealing damage - in other words, not progressing the bossfight. You get to choose to either sit in a stalemate waiting for nothing in particular to happen, or die. I personally like to play the game by dealing damage, dodging shots, and earning my loot, but stuff like this makes that a bit tough to do.
Dying this way doesn’t yield any lessons, nor any motivation to earn the stuff back and try again. Dying this way causes frustration, demotivation, and fear. Nothing else.

Instapops and Hacking

It’s no secret at all that hackers just can’t die. They can literally nexus at negative HP and be totally fine. To some of you, this is ridiculous - what’s the point in the game if there’s no risk? How is that any fun at all? And I’d be inclined to agree.
But to that I must also ask, how is it any fun at all to lose your characters and gear that you’re most proud of to factors completely outside of your control? I don’t hack. Years ago, I used to, but I never will again. I don’t enjoy it at all. That said, it’s easy to empathize with people who are pushed to hack by incidents like this. Imagine losing gear you grinded literal thousands of dungeons, hundreds of hours to get - to something like the clip above, with absolutely no recourse or way to prevent it. Among things I’d consider doing in response, “make a new character and get back at it” isn’t even in the top 3.
Now, imagine you can not only prevent yourself from ever losing the gear, you can even get copies of it. I mean, if you’re already breaking TOS, why not, right? - so you continue down the TOS-breaking rabbit hole.

Potential Solutions

Solving this problem could solve issues that have plagued Realm and DECA’s ownership of it for the entirety of the game’s recent history. The popularity of hacking, demand for RWT, and dwindling playerbase that is increasingly dissatisfied with the direction and experience of the game could all be mitigated by systems that improve the experience of death.
I’m not suggesting that DECA make death more forgiving (although loosening the ‘never revive’ policy of the support team in egregious cases of poor design or server issues would be a more than reasonable change, I feel). I’m saying to make deaths the player’s fault, not the game’s fault. Here are a few ways this could be done:

Draw deadly items (e.g. UFO bombs, Shatters stone spikes, mad lab green potions) above EVERYTHING, and/or visually contrast them more heavily with their environment. Making these more perceptible makes deaths to them feel significantly less bullshit - it won’t have been hidden until suddenly you go from full HP to a boost in account fame.
Cap damage to players. If someone, say, eats an entire bomb they didn’t see or gets run over by a deadly enemy that just charged in from out of line of sight, let their HP drop to 1 and give ~0.3 seconds of damage immunity and sick. This still punishes having been hit by it, but by essentially forcing them out of the dungeon instead of excessively forcing their character 6 feet under. It provides a minimal yet usable window to react to the unexpected damage and hit the nexus key while also not letting them just HP pot back to full and go on their merry way. Additionally, for consistent players, it removes the one appealing feature of autonexus. This should, of course, not apply to all damage taken - just huge amounts of damage taken at once - within a couple of frames, rather than from getting shredded by a bunch of shots lined up.
Remove these mechanics from the game entirely. Change the behaviors of enemies who try to sit on players and delete them, remove instapops like UFO bombs, O3 meteors, and Beisa’s falcons, and challenge players in different, more reasonable ways than how lucky they are.

Each of these has merits and demerits. As I see it, option 1:

Makes instapops more ‘reasonable’
Provides a better window to react

But it also

May be difficult to execute while also keeping the game visually appealing.

Option 2:

Creates a way for players to keep their characters alive based on skill, not on 3rd party programs or luck
Mitigates unreasonable and frustrating deaths while still allowing devs to explore design space that would otherwise necessitate instapops
Gives players less reason to cheat, and reduces the advantages cheaters have over actual players

But it also:

Would likely not be reliable, considering DECA’s track record with features in exalt meant to keep players alive (see: hp pots not working)
May be too powerful, depending on its implementation

Option 3:

Provides a chance for DECA to emphasize the bullet hell aspect of Realm
Can modernize many of Realm’s dungeons and enemies

But it also:

Implies an extremely labor-intensive rework of a ton of enemies and hazards
Limits future design space for the game

Given all of these, to me, option 2 seems like the best. A game mechanic that allows some of the more absurd attacks enemies have to be survived makes actual deaths feel less bad, and ensures that people actually have a chance to react to the things killing them.
Personally, the last death I had that wasn’t an instapop was literally 3 months ago. A significant number of those deaths were due to other players intentionally killing me, inconsistent enemy behaviors, and missing or hidden indicators. This doesn’t come from a place of salt, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a personal stake in this.
I’m tired of dying in a bullet hell in ways that don’t feel like they fit the gameplay at all. To call instapops in RotMG's current state game-ruining is an understatement.
Thanks for reading through all this, but if you didn’t, tl;dr: instapops are and feel unfair, and are a major reason why hacking is such a big problem - they need to be changed especially now that vital combat is a thing.
What do you all make of this? Have you had less trouble with instapops? Any better solutions, or commentary on the ones suggested here? Personally, I think I’ll find some other game to play until this is fixed. Hades looks quite good.

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Explore the Positive Quasi-Elemental Planes of Lightning, Mineral, Radiance, and Steam; the borders between the Positive Energy Plane and the major elemental planes.

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[Long-ass essay] Vital Combat, Death, Hacking, and the Role of Instapops in a Post-Vital-Combat RotMG

Instapops

The Purpose of Instapops

The Existence and Perceptibility of Warnings

Hidden Warnings

Inevitable Instapops

Latency and Instapops

Death’s Effect on Players

Instapops and Hacking

Potential Solutions

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