In Another World: Isekai Story Creative Discussion and Idea Thread

[TheDivineDemon]

Oh! I was about to make an Isekai thread, I'm glad I looked. Anyway, I have an idea!

Working title: They call me, Spot.

The idea is based on the same concept as Re:Monster and So I'm a spider so what. Where the main character is reincarnated and brought back as a monster with a gaming/evolution system to tower over others along with their consciousness.

In this case the main character, Johnathan Smith, is reincarnated as a dog. A malformed one with three heads. A rare beast in the wild unlikely to survive on its own. The reason for this malformation is that Johnathan Smith didn't just die on one world, he died in three.

The Right head: A Police Officer in a low sci-fi world where they are just starting to colonize Mars with a full colony on the moon. He's a bit by the book and has already seen some shit. Druggies, splicers, rape victims, murder scenes. The future wasn't as bright as his grandparents had thought it was going to be but he still dreamed of helping people. Or he did until he tried to stop that perp. (nicknamed Nathan)

The Middle head: A College Student who's on his way to a liberal arts degree because he didn't know what to do with his life. He spent much of his days playing video games and reading comics instead of studying or focusing on the future. He thought he could glide through life. Too bad he couldn't glide away from that drunk driver. (Nicknamed Johnny)

The Left head: A Smith. His last name wasn't a family name but an occupational title. Well, it was his father's last name too and his grandfather's and his great-grandfather's… He had dreamed of something more, of being an Adventure. Of swinging a mighty sword and earning epic loot. But the closest he came to this was when goblins tried to overrun his town. (Nicknamed John)


John knows how a fantasy world runs, Johnny knows all about game systems, and Nathan is their moral compass.

But for anything to work they need to co-operate. Nathan only controls his head and the left leg, John controls the right head and leg, and Johnny has his head and the back legs (the tail seems to have a mind of it's own as it wags like insane and thumps everything). Their first day has alot of stumbling and arguing.

And each head can level up on it's own, gaining abilities separately from the main body/the rest and could actually be detrimental/weaken another head's abilities. (John wants to have fun/cool/epic abilities like the legends the bards sing of, Johnny wants to min-max, Nathan goes with what he thinks is effective.)

They go hungry for the first day or so. Unable to catch anything in their stumbling awkward gait,

Eventually, they see a fire and cautiously approach it. John telling them that they are likely to be killed as a monster if they are caught but all three too hungry to care too much. They approach stealthily, seeing only one person at the fire cooking a rabbit.

They tried to wait until the man was distracted to steal his food but something gave them away and the man confronted them. With a staff in hand glowing with ethereal energy he demanded them to come out/forced them out with a shake and shove of earth.

In the firelight the mage saw them and their ribs pressing against their fur and he took pity on them.He tore off a leg of the rabbit and tossed it to them… they fought over it… Which the man laughed at and gave each defeated head their own piece. He even let them sleep at his camp, with a ward around them but still they were warm near a fire and had a full belly for the first time ever.

The next morning the man let them go and started to walk off. As a group decision, they followed the man, deciding their chance of survival better with him then in the wild. Said man, while at first tried to shoo them away, resigned himself to having them follow him.

Eventually, almost off handedly, he names them Spot. He takes their barking as agreement.

Now the protagonists follow the mage who they eventually learn is named Hansin (temp name for now) and get wrapped up in his adventures. Dealing with his unruly and rebellious little brothers, the asshole of a father who's out to kill them all, his persecution for being a necromancer of some skill, and his various misadventures including kidnapping a druid girl.

And they stay by him through all of it. After all, what's a dog without his human?

Thoughts?

 

[TheDivineDemon]

Sorry for the double post but I'm wondering if it's bad that I feel like I've been putting more thought into Hansin's story, his brother's revolution, thier magic system, and blending Greek myths into a middle age going into Renaissance setting then I have on the John's?

 

[Accelerator]

A question on isekais.

Why must it always be technology?

Why can't it be stuff like social institutions, social structures, and social ideas?

 

[TheDivineDemon]

A question on isekais.

Why must it always be technology?

Why can't it be stuff like social institutions, social structures, and social ideas?

Click to shrink...

Probably laziness and unfamiliarity along with the likely effort Implement ideas with no immediate satisfaction.

Plus you don't know if implementing something like democracy is going to improve the life of the paseants who lived with generations of good/just Kings. Hell, they might rebel ahaagai the hero for trying to 'dethrone' thier king.

 

[Accelerator]

Also, do you know bronze age era actually had command economies. And didn't die?

I mean seriously, one would think that the bronze age was chaotic. But it had more order and sophistication in it than the feudal system.

 

[TheDivineDemon]

Working title: They call me, Spot.

Click to shrink...

... I'm tempted to change the characters name from Johnathan to Alexander so the nicknames would be Right Head: Al, Middle head: Lex, Left head: Xander.

Get it?

Al Lex Xander

Too gimmicky/cheesy?

 

[sunandshadow]

... I'm tempted to change the characters name from Johnathan to Alexander so the nicknames would be Right Head: Al, Middle head: Lex, Left head: Xander.

Get it?

Al Lex Xander

Too gimmicky/cheesy?

Click to shrink...

Shouldn't you make it Albert or Allan or something so it's not that one's name is the same as all three together?

 

[Die Forelle]

A question on isekais.

Why must it always be technology?

Why can't it be stuff like social institutions, social structures, and social ideas?

Click to shrink...

As someone who's seen my fair share of the adjacent genre of ASOIAF SI fanfics, it's because most people have a more concrete grasp on things like the printing press and gunpowder. Their consequences and effects on a society, not so much.

 

[Adloquium]

A question on isekais.

Why must it always be technology?

Why can't it be stuff like social institutions, social structures, and social ideas?

Click to shrink...

They do exist, but yeah, they're pretty rare. The one I read most recently (Outbreak Company) deals with those, as well as the potential consequences of upending the existing social order.

I suspect it's because these things take a very long time to see the results of, and certainly longer than the timeframe that most character-driven stories have to deal with, while technological changes can be explained more easily.

Also, technology can be introduced by a random person, and spread more or less on its own (assuming the protagonists don't really care about how it spreads). However, spreading new ideas for society requires some level of influence, and a lot of isekai stories don't have the protagonist start with that influence. So they have to build it up by making a name for themselves, which again has technological innovation as the convenient go-to.

I think Isekai Smartphone low-key tries to change the social order as a sort of side thing (rather than the main goal, which is to protect the world against invaders), while Realist Hero does it more openly (at least up until where I read, which was fairly early in the story).

Some of the otome-game isekai stories also have this in small scale, with their group of friends. Destruction Flag Otome is the obvious one that comes to mine, as does Kenkyo Kenjitsu to a lesser extent (because it's already set in our world).

 

[TheBiggerFish]

Christopher Nuttall's Schooled in Magic series has the protagonist spreading technology as usual, but there's definitely some attention paid to the societal effects of, for instance, the printing press. And

Spoiler: for, like, book 5? I forget. It's around a third of the way in in a 15-book series, I think.

when the main character gets a barony she implements a lot of policy changes.

Oh, and just recently

Spoiler: for book 15

there's a revolt/civil war/etc. going on in that same kingdom.

 

[willard bayle]

I have to go somewhere so i will expand in this idea latter original post hear


I have this idea for a story i actually want to write some day about a japans otaku that dies and wakes up inside a spirit plane dimension as a female loli neko. The man character that is now a female Neko after exploring and befriending other spirits is tolled by them that the only way to the Physical world is ether by mastering magic and carefully creating a portal to the physical world and once there have the power to endure the constant energy lost that if she is can,t pay will have her being sent back into the spiritual plane or being summoned as a shikigami where her master basically acts both as a mana generator and anchor to the physical world .

After some time passes she becomes skilled in magic along with a special ability that lets here create chains made of light that can entraps targets preventing them from escaping by physical or magical means. The day that she attempts to open a portal to the physical world she is summoned into a court yard of a castle in a scene reminiscent of familiar of zero by a blonde boy with blue eyes that then kisses her in the lips and brands her as his shikagami . Its after being summoned by the main male character and having the world setting to her the the unique traits of the fantasy story finally come to fruition first.

First of all the castle has electronica lighting and computers and the guards us energy guns next there are a number of non human but still mortal races that actually inhabit the school the last shock is the name of the guy who summoned her.

check this out he is a moisture farmer from a small desert town named Rūku Sutākirā its when she checks Sutākirā 's computer the Uniqueness of the Isekai finally sets in the computer then explains what is going on to he protagonist and readers first of all Ruku is an onmyoji studding in the republic academy coming from another planet second its actually set throughout an entire galaxy with star ships and ftl travel.And third that as a Shikagami her job is to assist Ruku and his fellow Onmyoji in performing exorcisms on demons that range from ones that poses one person or terrorize a small house all the way to ones that can put curses on entire solar systems. But unbeknownst the the protagonist a demon king is gathering power and influence in a bid to manifest in the physical world and rural over the galaxy. Did i mention that Ruku's father is a former demon king named tatăl întuneric and that he has the power to summon a demonic arm

she is basically the main wafui in a story that is star wars but with anime troops and i do mean main wafui later on in the story the protagonist and Ruku meats a wind fairy Shikagami named Marcy and here Onmyoji that is basically a ten foot tall gorilla and also star ship captain another character is a girl named Rin and her ice dragon Shikagami on that is a noble girl with elf ears dark waive hair that reaches her wast and cares around a Lightsaber bustersword named Beatrice also there is an assassin girl sent by the demon king to kill the protagonist and Ruku that switches side after falling in love with Ruku that becomes and Onmyoji. later Ruku's younger sister joins in and her and the protagonist bond over being the only ones that can she the harem troops happening to Ruku.

I still have no name for the protagonist though

 

[TheDivineDemon]

Because I failed the female isekai Challenge (because goddamn if a 3 month old doesn't make it hard to write) decide to write the gist of the idea here.


Working Title: I Am, I Accept/Pray to Me

Her name was Allison Baker, a fighter and an achiever but most of all a dreamer. Where her parents pictured her as a doctor or a lawyer (a point of contention for the couple) she dreamed of the Stars. She dreamed of becoming an Astronaut. She knew her parents weren't going to approve but she dreamed and she planned. She told her parents she was going to use the first year or so of college to make up her mind, take up the universal mandatory classes and a few extras like astrology and other science classes (making the mother dearest happy as it pointed towards a medical degree). But all the while she is talking to Airforce recruiters about becoming a pilot.

She worked out, she studied, she dreamed, repeat.

Her roommate thinking her too much of a workaholic all but drags her to a party. The party is in the middle of the boonies, a bit off the beaten path and on an abandoned farm, but apparently, that was a part of the appeal. And if she was honest with herself it was fun. A bit tipsy and working up a little sweat as she danced in the field to the sound of a half a dozen car stereos... And then the drama started.

Apparently, her roommate's boyfriend had a bit of a crazy Ex that blamed the roommate for the breakup, and the Ex's friends apparently agreed. Allison, trying to be a good friend, steps in feeling confident in her fit body and four years of kickboxing lessons to take on the slip of a girl. Unfortunately, she did not consider the alcohol in her system or that one of the girl's friends would have such a mean shove...

She remembered fading in and out. She remembered her roommate crying over her, calling for someone to call an ambulance. She had an odd peace with herself as she stared up at the stars, appreciating her last sight.


Next thing Allison knew she was waking up in some strangely long hut with a dead deer at her feet and a handful of people chanting in front of her. Most distressing was that she didn't really seem to be there. She couldn't see her hands, she couldn't see her feet. She couldn't even feel herself but was aware she there still.

The first thing she wondered when she processed all this was "Is this Hell?" Was this her afterlife? A long room filled with strangely dressed people and dead deer?

Her words, weirdly enough, sent a swirl of wind through the room and a chill up the spines of each person in the room. They knew she was there but didn't seem able to see her, just the general direction, a direction of what seemed to be a crudely built alter. They asked her the "The Great Spirit" if she was there and "If she was willing to be their god."

So, she wasn't in hell. She was in some weird afterlife where the natives wanted to treat her like a god... She was okay with this.

Turns out that the deer at her feet, at the base of her alter, was an offering and with a touch she drained something from it. The deer seemed to deflate and started to look ash grey, cracking and flaking with every passing second until it was dust. This seemed to encourage the people in the room, the apparent leader of the group bowing greatly and saying she had to get the village leader.

Not two minutes later a man named Gaston stepped in with the woman, Naija, and gave her great praise (again she could live with such an afterlife). Then they explained thier story.

They revealed to her that they were all slaves (roughly 300 in total), slaves being shipped to a new land by a company to set up shop as it were. But they had managed to overpower the crew and take control of the ship, killing a good number of their would be masters. The only problem is... None of them knew how to steer a ship, forcing them to sail aimlessly in a single direction (some debate went about turning around but Gaston pointed out they didn't know how or how far away from land they were). There was infighting (as people came from different and warring tribes or nations) and there were miscommunications (again, different tribes and nations) but they managed to survive under Gaston's direction.

Upon landing in the newland they took what they salvage from the ship and left the remaining Empire men behind out of what little mercy they had left. The former slaves ran from the coast, afraid of being found and sold again. They wandered through the forest, many unused to seeing so many trees in one place, and eventually found a village.

Only, it was abandoned. The only things left standing were the buildings and a pit filled with chared bones.

Despite them putting the clues together the former slaves move into the town, thinking some shelter was better than staying exposed to the elements. It was then that people truly grasped how alone they were and how far away from home they were, sleeping huddled in a foreign land in huts that may be diseased. And though many of them had lost faith in their gods they still tried to reach out only to find they were too far and too few (as many worshipped different pantheons) to receive anything.

And in this land gods were needed.

To ensure a good harvest.
To protect against disease.
To empower/bless their warriors in battle.
To give a school of magic to their people.
To fight/hold off other gods.

And they were already feeling the lack. They were running out of supplies that they took from the ship, hunting was difficult for those who were hunters in the new terrain, and the fields left by the Natives were overgrown. And they've already lost people to skirmishes with the locals who apparently weren't happy to have them there.

They needed a god if they were to survive.

So anyone with magical training or talent were put to work to summon her, though none were fully trained and they all had to mash together what they knew to get anything to work.

Though they don't know whether to be happy or distressed to have a "newborn" goddess as their new patron. Happy that they didn't attract a local god and thier anger/won't be absorbed forcibly by another group but distressed that their god is relatively weak by having only those 300 as thier power base.

Gods are empowered by belief, prayer, dedications ('this game is for' and devotion versions both), and offerings in that order. A new god would have none of that and would have to build up. She couldn't even manifest yet, only able to have omnisentience of the area of the longhouse/single alter, and could only communicate (eventually) through those who wish to be her clergy. She doesn't even have a sacred animal or plant.

Another thing that worries them is that their god wouldn't have a large sphere of influence if they had one yet at all. A Sphere of influence is the base of all the gods abilities, as Zeus started as a sky god or Hades as an Underworld god but both expanded into other things (Honor/Order/Hospitality for Zeus, Hades is the god of riches and the head of another pantheon).

But they would make do. And Allison was going to enjoy her strange afterlife as best she could.


Allison is a Goddess of the Stars and her eventual avatar is colored as a night sky. With blues and purples swirling as skin, stars freckling her face with jumbled constellations, and an afro that shifts like nebula colored smoke (she was mixed in life). The magic she can teach her people are gravity and plasma based.

She is playing a civilization building game where she is only half of the planning committee, Gaston the leader being the other half, and needs more alters/time to be of any true use or power.

The Belief of her worshippers can allow her to expand into a larger Sphere of Influence or Affinity. But this a two-sided sword as it makes her stronger but it can change her. Luckily she can choose, somewhat, what path she wants to follow. After a bit of time, her first few options were "Goddess of the Sky", "Goddess of Darkness", "Goddess of Death". Not exactly great options or options she feels that fit her.

She has to build up strength quick to fight off Natives who don't like invaders (A goddess makes this clear to her) and settlers from the Empire that enslaved them in the first place (their main pantheon is ruled by 4 war gods (Strategy of War, Brutality of War, Honor of War, Naval Warfare) who've all expanded their affinities.)

The Natives are based on various Native American tribes as there are going to be a lot of villages (some will be allies, some will be enemies), the Empire is based on a combo of Rome and Britain (some settlers on their side others not so much, but the slaves are fair game), and the former slaves are going to have a pan-African theme as they try to rebuild themselves.


Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions?
Edit: Too racial?

 

[Sumeragi]

A question on isekais.

Why must it always be technology?

Why can't it be stuff like social institutions, social structures, and social ideas?

Click to shrink...

Probably laziness and unfamiliarity along with the likely effort Implement ideas with no immediate satisfaction.

Plus you don't know if implementing something like democracy is going to improve the life of the paseants who lived with generations of good/just Kings. Hell, they might rebel ahaagai the hero for trying to 'dethrone' thier king.

Click to shrink...

Also, do you know bronze age era actually had command economies. And didn't die?

I mean seriously, one would think that the bronze age was chaotic. But it had more order and sophistication in it than the feudal system.

Click to shrink...

They do exist, but yeah, they're pretty rare. The one I read most recently (Outbreak Company) deals with those, as well as the potential consequences of upending the existing social order.

I suspect it's because these things take a very long time to see the results of, and certainly longer than the timeframe that most character-driven stories have to deal with, while technological changes can be explained more easily.

Also, technology can be introduced by a random person, and spread more or less on its own (assuming the protagonists don't really care about how it spreads). However, spreading new ideas for society requires some level of influence, and a lot of isekai stories don't have the protagonist start with that influence. So they have to build it up by making a name for themselves, which again has technological innovation as the convenient go-to.

I think Isekai Smartphone low-key tries to change the social order as a sort of side thing (rather than the main goal, which is to protect the world against invaders), while Realist Hero does it more openly (at least up until where I read, which was fairly early in the story).

Some of the otome-game isekai stories also have this in small scale, with their group of friends. Destruction Flag Otome is the obvious one that comes to mine, as does Kenkyo Kenjitsu to a lesser extent (because it's already set in our world).

Click to shrink...

Simple: A piece of work is only as smart and educated as the author.

Given that most Isekai authors are essentially trash yellow writers who are just hopping onto a trend and going "Nihon Sekai Ichi!" without actually thinking of the necessary social+political+economical background, it's rather obvious that we would have very few "reasonable" works.

 

[Accelerator]

Well.... any good sources for stuff like social institutions and structures and how they help build society?

 

[Sumeragi]

Well.... any good sources for stuff like social institutions and structures and how they help build society?

Click to shrink...

Well, you're better off focusing on what sort of period the Isekai world is in, then look up books which focus on that era. Given the multiple factors that go into human society, some comprehensive book is unlikely to be of much help.

 

[Glimmervoid]

A question on isekais.

Why must it always be technology?

Why can't it be stuff like social institutions, social structures, and social ideas?

Click to shrink...

Have you read Legal Systems Very Different From Ours by David Friedman? It is specifically about legal systems but I think it can project broadly on a winder range of social technologies. In it, Friedman goes through a range of exotic legal systems, with features that might seem strange, primitive or weird to us. He explains why these strange/primitive/weird systems actually make perfect sense and serve important roles.

Why am I bringing this up: changing society is hard. It doesn't exist for arbitrary reasons. It exists to solve the challenges a society faces. It doesn't like to change and when it does, it often goes wrong. This seems especially common when the change comes from outside rather than organically from within, rising from changes to underlying challenges such that the current society isn't meeting them.

(And that's not getting into the more practical reasons changing society is hard. Large change creates losers - most often the group currently in power. Whether your freeing the serfs, breaking the power of the landed aristocracy or even something obliviously good as freeing the slaves, you directly attacking the group best empowered by the existing system to oppose you.)

With admittedly a lot of exceptions (see slaves above) it is very easy to think of our systems as 'better' but are they really? Or are these older systems simple optimized for a different set of challenges. If feudalism is the most efficient way to maintain a powerful army given the current technology and the power blocks you need to keep happy, is introducing Universal Declaration of Human Rights going to work, or is it just going to throw your country into civil war?

Technology might really be the best way to bring about social change - far better than turning up with a copy Robert's Rules of Order or strange ideas about gender equity. Change the technology and you change the underlying assumptions upon which socity is based. Change the assumptions and the challenges society must solve are also changed. Change the challenges and society will move. Think of all the problems the West's nation building habit has in the real world. Now picture doing that without the backing some of the most powerful nations on Earth and an intellectual establishment with decades of experience trying (and often failing) to make it work.

 

[Ugoki]

With admittedly a lot of exceptions (see slaves above)

Click to shrink...

That's actually a better alternative over just killing all your enemies. Better for the economy too.

 

[Glimmervoid]

There's an anecdotes I'm really fond of for technology driving social change.

Before we have trains, Britain didn't have a unified time. Oh it was mostly unified but did it really matter if Manchester's 10am was a little before or after London's 10am? Not really. Travel times were such that the small differences in local time simply disappeared and it was plane easier and more useful to set your local time by the sun where you lived, using something like a sun dial. That was more relevant to you than when the sun rose in London after all.

But then the trains came. Suddenly travel times were drastically cut and it became very important that 10am was 10am country over - so trains could be properly timetabled. This lead Railway time being created and spread and from that we got unified time the country wide. It created the national now.

One Isekai that really gets the idea that technology drives social change is the Schooled in Magic series. I'm less sold on its precise execution of the idea in that series, but it really keeps driving home the idea. Introducing trains, gunpowder, double entry bookkeeping, phonetic spelling, Arabic numbers and so on, these have massive social effects that can easily topple countries that don't adept and even those who do adapt will be deeply changed by it.

 

[jseah]

Are we collecting ideas? Oo, I have a few... more... okay, a lot of ideas.

Spoiler: Angel Pair

So this idea is sort-of isekai but the origin world is more like heaven or an afterlife.

Two Angels, very good friends, decide to reincarnate in the Lower World to get new experiences.
They get reborn in different social classes in a pseudo-medieval fantasy and have to navigate the troubles and hardships they face while trying to find each other "down there". They do know that they can find each other because their faces will be perfect mirror images of each other.
They make a promise to find each other, exchange their experiences and try to make the Lower World a better place.

*insert fantasy politics / adventure here; add suffering to taste*
> being actually angels in human skin, they have inhuman patience, tolerance and general good nature; no matter how bad their experiences or how deep the suffering, while something they won't enjoy, it doesn't affect them like it would normal people. The angels don't get PTSD, don't lose their fundamental trust in people, and in fact, don't have major shifts in personality or goals

In human legend, it is said that dopplegangers (who are not twins) cannot be allowed to meet as they will kill each other.
When they finally do so, the pair of angels recognize each other and have a laundry list of "things to fix"
As it turns out, if they start using angelic powers, they turn into angels and have a short time to do whatever before having to return to heaven
And angels reincarnating for a joyride has been a thing that happens, hence the legend.

Spoiler: The Genre is Wrong!

Very Crack.

So MC gets hit by truck-kun and wakes up in isekai fantasy land with an OP special ability... to change the genre?!

MC can activate the ability, which shows a list of genres, eg.:
Hero's Adventure
Otome Game
Magical Girl
Mecha Battle Action
Spy Thriller
Romance Comedy
and more...
including the "goal": Slice of Life

Plus they can pick Fantasy, Modern Day, SF or more flavours.

When MC chooses a genre other than one they're currently in, the world changes to fit that genre. Characters, abilities, even the plot, is translated into what would be normal for that genre.
For example, MC gets into trouble in Adventure Fantasy land, jumping in to save Love Interest #1 from orcs and getting in over their head. They trigger the ability and pick Magical Girl! Suddenly, the orcs are mooks of the invading Dark Kingdom, the Love Interest is a potential MG recruit in trouble and MC is a new magical girl/boy.

So MC doesn't want to get into life threatening situations and is trying to solve their problems enough to get to Slice of Life, in which all problems are basically tolerable (or so they hope). Unfortunately, MC can only change to genres which have an analog of the conflict that is present.
A Sauron antagonist in Fantasy Adventure would translate to the Dark Kingdom in Magical Girl, and faceless hordes of Antagonists in Military Battle Action; but having that conflict would block MC from moving to say, Romance Comedy.

Additionally, swapping genres can make a certain conflict more or less difficult. A monolithic BBEG type of antagonist would be easier in Magical Girl or Adventure Fantasy where it is Convention that Heroes Win. Swapping to Survival Horror is basically asking to get your face eaten. Spy Thriller SF might result in Star Wars where MC has to assassinate the Evil Emperor in the name of Freedom!
A rising tension of an MAD exchange in Mecha Battle Action becomes heroically resolvable by MC as-super-spy in Spy Thriller, or in Otome Game Fantasy, devolved into a spat between the competing corrupt prince faction and the noble Duke over the attentions of the MC as-love-interest that threatens to spill over into civil war.

Another thing to note is that all the genres (except SoL) will slowly ramp up their conflict and may even result in shifting genres automatically. Eg. MC shifts to say Sports Competition and thinks "even if we don't win, I can still live here"... only to find that in the final heated match, the opposing team doped themselves with an experimental drug that turns them into contagious zombies! And MC finds the genre has automatically shifted to Post-Apocalypse Survival.
So MC is forced to genre hop and not sit around too long.

Living long term in Romance Comedy is liable to lead to Drama which is liable to lead to shuraba fought with knives and a Nice Boat.

These two are only sort of isekai, in that they use the premise and focus on something else:

Spoiler: White Mage

MC is summoned as the saint by another world and is told she can only return once her job is done. Having a bad impression of them, MC decides to just do whatever she needs to do and return ASAP.

Three years later, MC reappears on Earth and has to deal with the problems of being missing for three whole years. Her life is a mess, her university course is obviously gone, her family and friends think she's dead. Plus the government will likely have questions.

Oh, but her saint powers (basically white mage) still work. Too bad using them in a hospital is going to attract attention. So yay?

Spoiler: Babysitter

MC is a maid in the Royal Palace. She is doing her job in a time where the Kingdom is under assault by the Demon King. In their desperation, the Kingdom summons a group of otherworlder heroes to help them in the war!

Said group is a clique of middle school kids dysfunctional in the extreme and have a tendency to view the world in incomprehensible ways. That and a combination of being insanely OP is not a good mix.

All attempts to make the "Heroes" somewhat fit the title resulted in the 'advisors' suffering hilarious humiliation, PTSD or just generally giving up on keeping up with the Heroes' capacity for causing mayhem.

MC gets drafted for the job. Of course, the King is also hoping she'll seduce one of them to give them ties to the Kingdom. The Heroes are annoyingly perceptive for hyperactive time-accelerating 14 year old squirrels and the princess who schemed to marry the cool warrior guy ended up running out of court in tears after the magic-nerd decided to read her thoughts out loud in front of everyone.

Follow the trials and tribulations of MC maid as she gets dragged around isekai fantasyland babysitting a bunch of Heroes who seem to treat everything like a game and have the raw OP power to continue doing so. The only reason why she's not been kicked out of their group is that she's the first 'advisor' who cooks and cleans for them and said 14 yr olds are not going to let their convenient maid and occasionally interesting toy escape.

 

[TheDivineDemon]

Crossposting some stuff from SB:

Temp title while hammering out details: Contracted Isekai.

Premise; combinding trends of "Isekai reborn/turned into a monster" with the currently popular Dungeon Core stories.


As most stories go the protagonist (name pending) had been summoned to the Fantasy World (name pending) to defeat the Demon Lord. By weilding the 3-4 sacred objects in unison they can put an end to this latest dark lord.

The reason for their summoning? They needed someone who was completely unrelated to any of the gods as thier nature's/personalities/energies naturally conflict and to lean towards one god is to through the items powers out of balance, going from multiple powerful items to one. The only issue with this being that a blessing from a god is all but needed in setting to live.a.healthy life, giving mild protection from disease and enemies. Plus, as the country became more civilized the pantheon's influence spread no making it increasing difficult to find a "blank slate/person".

So, for the last few hundred years they've been outsourcing from other worlds to find a hero.

Our hero(ine) isn't exactly happy about the summons but goes along with it. Over the next month or so the protagonist made some head way against the Demon Lord's army and had recently gotten into an epic battle with a regiment captain (the protagonist skill wasn't that high yet but they were quickly coming into the items powers).

But the captain had the last laugh. Using the last of it's magic and life force they cursed the protagonist with Undeath (not sure if not-so-common temporay debuff in universe or not). Suddenly becoming undead/unholy while wearing or holding the most holy relics in the land did not lead to a good result.

Literal Holy Fire.

They had to through the relics away, they had to jump in the river to stop the burning. But it was still all to late.

They had been burned to the bone, surving only through the curse (a temp thing) and determination. But they had limited time and they were losing parts.

Chart muscle and sinew deterating as the hours passed into days, worsening with every movment. A finger bone here, a jaw bone there. They were in shambles, they needed to rest.

They didn't want to die.

As they rested in a cave, chased off by a rabid mob/wolf pack, a floating box appeared in front of them.

Form Contract with Dungeon?
[] Yes [] No

Click to shrink...

After asking a few questions an actual contract with terms, benefits and conditions.

The benefit of not dying out weighing everyrhiev else they pressed yes.

Now they have a pushy voice in their head from a single floor dungeon demanding items to go along with their not-life but at least they weren't getting worse. And now they saw thier stats and skills clearly listed.

The three main goals of the story:
1. Repair and/or improve self, likely through evolution function that comes with being a dungeon's monster.
2. Keep the dungeon healthy and protected so that they keep living.
3. Find a way to kill the Demon Lord, cause fuck that guy and his curse throwing captain.


That's the basic start anyway.

But I do wonder how you are going to play up the interaction between the Heroine and the Dungeon.

Click to shrink...

I'm thinking of treating them as co-protagonist with the Dungeon having a inhuman almost robotic attitude in the beginning but develops into something more through interactions with the Isekai. They would be rather insistent/demanding as they send the Isekai out to collect materials and annoyed when they refuse to kill random humans for loot/Mana/materials. They are about efficiency in survival which comes in conflict with the other protagonist's empathy and desire to fight the Demon Lord.

Though through mutual means of survival and being the only intelligent life either can talk to they bond.

Also, the Isekai isn't going to go the typical undead route of most in the genre (Skeleton -> Ghoul -> Vampire -> Lich, or some variation of this). Instead they will be like the Patchwork man and Frankenstien, salvaging parts (humans, elves, monsters, ect) from the recently dead (some at thier own hand some scavenged). They look stiched up and uneven most of the time but gets streamlined with level ups/evolutions.

Inspired by this scene from Becoming Human Detroit

Spoiler

After being shot and damaged an Android was tossed into the dump where they repair themselves using spare parts from other discarded Androids.

The Dungeon's first level I'm debating on Undead, Gnolls, or Kobolds. The former to fit with Isekai's theme but I think it'd be too coincidental for them to stumble on to an undead dungeon (unless that's how they found the cave, the presence of undead calling to them as a beacon/safe haven). The later two because most people seem to use Goblins instead of other low level fodder.


Any thoughts or suggestions on how to expand would be appreciated.

 

[sunandshadow]

Crossposting some stuff from SB:

Temp title while hammering out details: Contracted Isekai.

Premise; combinding trends of "Isekai reborn/turned into a monster" with the currently popular Dungeon Core stories.


As most stories go the protagonist (name pending) had been summoned to the Fantasy World (name pending) to defeat the Demon Lord. By weilding the 3-4 sacred objects in unison they can put an end to this latest dark lord.

The reason for their summoning? They needed someone who was completely unrelated to any of the gods as thier nature's/personalities/energies naturally conflict and to lean towards one god is to through the items powers out of balance, going from multiple powerful items to one. The only issue with this being that a blessing from a god is all but needed in setting to live.a.healthy life, giving mild protection from disease and enemies. Plus, as the country became more civilized the pantheon's influence spread no making it increasing difficult to find a "blank slate/person".

So, for the last few hundred years they've been outsourcing from other worlds to find a hero.

Our hero(ine) isn't exactly happy about the summons but goes along with it. Over the next month or so the protagonist made some head way against the Demon Lord's army and had recently gotten into an epic battle with a regiment captain (the protagonist skill wasn't that high yet but they were quickly coming into the items powers).

But the captain had the last laugh. Using the last of it's magic and life force they cursed the protagonist with Undeath (not sure if not-so-common temporay debuff in universe or not). Suddenly becoming undead/unholy while wearing or holding the most holy relics in the land did not lead to a good result.

Literal Holy Fire.

They had to through the relics away, they had to jump in the river to stop the burning. But it was still all to late.

They had been burned to the bone, surving only through the curse (a temp thing) and determination. But they had limited time and they were losing parts.

Chart muscle and sinew deterating as the hours passed into days, worsening with every movment. A finger bone here, a jaw bone there. They were in shambles, they needed to rest.

They didn't want to die.

As they rested in a cave, chased off by a rabid mob/wolf pack, a floating box appeared in front of them.



After asking a few questions an actual contract with terms, benefits and conditions.

The benefit of not dying out weighing everyrhiev else they pressed yes.

Now they have a pushy voice in their head from a single floor dungeon demanding items to go along with their not-life but at least they weren't getting worse. And now they saw thier stats and skills clearly listed.

The three main goals of the story:
1. Repair and/or improve self, likely through evolution function that comes with being a dungeon's monster.
2. Keep the dungeon healthy and protected so that they keep living.
3. Find a way to kill the Demon Lord, cause fuck that guy and his curse throwing captain.


That's the basic start anyway.


I'm thinking of treating them as co-protagonist with the Dungeon having a inhuman almost robotic attitude in the beginning but develops into something more through interactions with the Isekai. They would be rather insistent/demanding as they send the Isekai out to collect materials and annoyed when they refuse to kill random humans for loot/Mana/materials. They are about efficiency in survival which comes in conflict with the other protagonist's empathy and desire to fight the Demon Lord.

Though through mutual means of survival and being the only intelligent life either can talk to they bond.

Also, the Isekai isn't going to go the typical undead route of most in the genre (Skeleton -> Ghoul -> Vampire -> Lich, or some variation of this). Instead they will be like the Patchwork man and Frankenstien, salvaging parts (humans, elves, monsters, ect) from the recently dead (some at thier own hand some scavenged). They look stiched up and uneven most of the time but gets streamlined with level ups/evolutions.

Inspired by this scene from Becoming Human Detroit

Spoiler

After being shot and damaged an Android was tossed into the dump where they repair themselves using spare parts from other discarded Androids.

The Dungeon's first level I'm debating on Undead, Gnolls, or Kobolds. The former to fit with Isekai's theme but I think it'd be too coincidental for them to stumble on to an undead dungeon (unless that's how they found the cave, the presence of undead calling to them as a beacon/safe haven). The later two because most people seem to use Goblins instead of other low level fodder.


Any thoughts or suggestions on how to expand would be appreciated.

Click to shrink...

This is interesting. I think it would be good to develop the no-god-affiliation thing more with the dungeon; maybe it's literally the only dungeon not affiliated with a god, which makes nearby adventurers quite curious. It might even turn out that growing really powerful without affiliating with a god is the only way to become a new god. But, I'm not sure if you wanted to have the dungeon be associated with a god of the dead/undead.

 

[TheDivineDemon]

This is interesting. I think it would be good to develop the no-god-affiliation thing more with the dungeon; maybe it's literally the only dungeon not affiliated with a god, which makes nearby adventurers quite curious. It might even turn out that growing really powerful without affiliating with a god is the only way to become a new god. But, I'm not sure if you wanted to have the dungeon be associated with a god of the dead/undead.

Click to shrink...

That's not a bad idea.

Maybe dungeons are the larvel forms of Gods and Great Demons, with Godkings and Demon Lord's ontop of those?

Im not sure. This is going to take some thinking...

 

[Accelerator]

Here's a reverse isekai:

Once, there was basically a flat land, floating in the void of space.

Then the apocalypse happened.

the Witch of Envy, a silver haired, purple-eyed half elf, basically nearly ended the universe. She killed and ate the rest of the Witches of Sin, devastated half the world, and was sealed away by the Dragon, the Sage, and the Hero.

The entire thing was catastrophic. Racism against elves, half elves, and demihumans shot up. After several wars, genocides, and nastiness associated with ethnic cleansing, it all settled down.

Into this cesspit comes in our heroine, Emilia.

She's a silver-haired, purple eyed half elf. You can see how people treat her. Its not very nice.

But despite this, she's still a very kind person. Too kind. Too caring. Too trusting. And then she got chosen as a candidate for the throne, after the entire royal family died from disease. Her stated goal? To end discrimination of demihumans and halflings. Problem. There's an apocalyptic cult after her. Her own backer is trying to use her as a pawn. Half of the council in charge of the candidacy hates her for her appearance. The capital dislikes her on sight, cause, ya know, resemblance to the closest thing the universe has to the Devil.

Well, the thing is, I'm going to use it as a setting and backstory. But not the character. But vague outlines are there.... but twisted, instead.

So there's this thing, where instead of one world, its instead a multi-world parallel universe. A woman, no, a girl, is used by the people around her, hoping to use her as a pawn to the throne. The royal family has died, and the old traditions have chosen her as a possible heir. Problem. Her appearance and heritage work against her, making it near impossible for her to join the throne. think of it as a black president in 1970. But a girl like her, with no support? Prime figurehead. So people rally around her, hoping to use her for their own ends.... until someone tries to assasinate her.

The ship is leaking fuel and air, drifting through the dimensional sea. The engines are dying. Enemies are all around. A desperate attempt is made. The helmsmen sets a course to a distant, backwater, magicless world. A world where the linker cores barely exist, and magic is unknown to the populace. And then dies from his wounds.

The ship crashes in an area far from civilization. Unknown, with no fanfare. No one will find it, cause its so remote. She stumbles out... linker core injured, magicless, and after several days of wandering the forest, she collapses, and is found by a boy. The boy, finding her, brings her home to recuperate, and is about to call the police until she stops him, begging him not to. She doesn't want to be found out, because 1. the Assassins may be tracking, and 2. breaking the masquerade brings in unwelcome attention. He, thinks that she's a runaway or an escaped sex slave. But its kept quiet all the same.

So they stay like that. The boy's parents are... not here. Or are there, and agree to hide the girl. The days go by fast. The girl isn't waited hand and foot on by servants... but those servants hate her, and the boy's eyes never show anything but respect and love. The food isn't half as exquisite or rare as before, but every time during the meal there is always happy chatter. The home is small, but so much more happier than before.

Can you imagine it? Someone hated and beaten down by everyone around her, someone who had barely any positive contact... is now showered by love and care from... everywhere. The boy's a nice guy, see, and is lonely too. So this is the first pretty girl he meets. So... yeah. Small thing for him. Big for her.

He tells her everything a person should hear. She's wonderful. She's beautiful. She deserves to be happy. How she was treated was wrong. That no one deserves to be punished for something that they had no control over. That all are equal. That she shouldn't ist down and let others abuse her. She sits around at the house, reading the culture and the thought processes of basically everything in the world. Vlad Tepes. Caesar. History. Science. The industrial revolution. Stalin and Mao. The French revolution.

She regains her magic. And manually teleports back to the base. Back to the hisses, stares, pointing fingers. The abuse, the gazes of contempt.

But the doll has found her spirit, and a spine of iron. See, the boy had given her a fanatical self-confidence, a love of herself, a will to live and decide her own destiny... and not much in terms of morals.

So after enough backstabbings to fill the worlds with Et Tu brute, purges, slaughters, backstabs, false flag operations, betrayals, intrigue, seduction, war, assassination, slaughter, purges, and enough atrocities to make Vlad Tepes faint. All in the name of equality. All in the name of her happiness. And all in the name of revenge. And then, expansion.

So it is done. She's queen now. Ruling over an empire of matchless splendour. Of cowed subordinates. Of ruined and barren lands, alongside fertile fields and magnificient cities. She's the top of the world, now.

So she remembers. She remembers the first kindness. She remembers the boy. She remembers the laughter. She remembers the smiles. She rememers the meals. She remembers the house.

She marshals the fleet, a thousand strong army of mile long vessels, each capable of burning the atmosphere off a world. She gives them a command, and they obey. Years of indoctrination, of terror, of uncertainty, of purges, of brainwashing, has meant that her army listens to her every command without question.

In the far corner of the universe, a recently fired corporate drone despondently signs a divorce papers, leaving custody to his wife. And paying alimony too.

God save us all from the queen.

 

[TheBiggerFish]

-snip-

Click to shrink...

I am very confused.

 

[Accelerator]

I am very confused.

Click to shrink...

how so?