The Phoenix Crew

The Phoenix Crew (TPC) was my first ever major role-playing project, but unlike DSK, it was practically all live-action and most of it was never written down. This was done with someone else, a good old friend of mine, Deadsoulcollector (DSC). He owns moontemple.cjb.net, that affiliate of ours. TPC did not have such a strict structure as DSK, although it had continuity, we did give ourselves the liberty to try out new characters and if we didn't like them, we could ditch them and pretend they never existed without affecting the overall plot.

The basic story of the TPC was similar to DSK. It was set in a futuristic world (3041/2, same years as DSK) filled with Magick but there was also a larger focus on technology than in DSK. The main events took place on a Spaceship called 'The Phoenix' and they centred on a small cast of characters that lived on it, hence the title 'The Phoenix Crew.' It followed their day-to-day lives, their mishaps and romances, much like DSK.

The first main characters were the Captain Gimmwing Flapped, a cowardly Gryphon; Navigations Officer Thomas 'Trigger' McCorrain, a dangerous Centaur Mage with a terrible temper and Demonic alter-ego called Valshunies; Vixen Gospel, a good-natured Kitsune White Mage; Manji, the ship's Velazian cook/ninja and Valerie, a Phoenix and the ship's power. As with DSK, this cast of characters grew and diminished as new people were introduced and characters left or died. The cast of characters grew to include the Wildfire family, a name you should be familiar with. I'll talk about them in their own section.

Incidental Characters
You may have noticed Vixen was one of the main characters of TPC and that she has been in DSK once or twice. Also, Valshunies was one of Levanté's warriors that fought with the gang at the very beginning of DSK. All of Levanté's warriors, and Levanté himself, were from the Phoenix Crew. Ayden, as it was mentioned by Vixen, is Vixen's son, however, his real name is Alexander. I changed it to Ayden to avoid confusion between him and Alexander Greyfare. Keith was a character belonging to DSC, my RP partner of the time. Keith was a funny character, really short and with a temper as short as your pinky finger. Leon, Levanté's son, I'll come to later, along with Dayne, Julian and Luchianno. Another incidental character that originated from TPC was the Kyungurah Rueben Ringtail. Portrayed as a lawyer in DSK, he is actually a member of Fuschian parliament. I'm thinking of returning him to that position because the gang will visit Fuschia one day in the future.

Places
Fuschia, Orca, Calanoa, Velaz, Felax, Horcia, Beikus, Rayevern and the Taro System itself all originated in TPC. Rayevern is not a planet itself, but a major city on Fuschia and Levanté's birthplace. Orca was created by DSC so I'm rather sorry I blew it up. Felax was Allen's birthplace and of course the gang went to Calanoa for their holiday. As I mentioned earlier, the gang will visit Fuschia sometime and also Velaz. However, I have no plans as such to send them to Horcia or Beikus, the birthplaces of Trigger and Gimmwing respectively, they may just remain as being simply mentioned in passing.

The Wildfires
Oh how I love them. It's such a shame that most of them, well, nearly all of them have been killed off in DSK. Though the Wildfires back-story has no influence on the main plot of DSK I do really like it, so I'm going to put it here. It might actually help fill a few holes in your overall understanding of the story, anyway.

The Wildfire family was introduced into TPC when Leon first boarded the ship to apply for the position of laboratory assistant. (There was a bit of a mad scientist-type character on board called Ryokko, but let's not get into that.) The Wildfires are all dark-haired and many of them have blue eyes. They are Neo-Fuschians (see their races page for more details) but Leon was half-Felaxian, a minor detail that has no real relevance in DSK.

Leon
Leon's story in a nutshell is he was born to Levanté Wildfire and Jade Robinson, a Felaxian woman. Levanté and Jade's marriage didn't work out, so Jade and Leon ran away. Leon got separated from his mother and ended up on Felax. He was raised by a man named Kendio along with 15 other adopted brothers and sisters. (I used the same number of siblings for Kitzie, heh.) He didn't find out who his real parents were until he was 16, with the help of the Phoenix Crew. I'd go into more detail but it's really totally irrelevant to DSK so there's no point.

Dayne and Julian

'Dayne and Julian are not my real brothers; they were created from the manifestation of darkness inside of me'. ~Leon, CP52

That needs a little bit of explaining, huh? Well, that's how Dayne and Julian came to be. When Leon met with Levanté, it turned out that he was the evil leader of the Universe's most infamous criminal organisation, Cintarr. Cintarr were notorious for kidnappings, murders, blackmailing and all sorts of stealing. (Damn those guys were cool! Maybe I ought to revive them for DSK…) Leon couldn't handle the fact that his father was such a great evil and the fact that some of that evil flowed in his veins. So he decided to rid himself of his evil and split into two sides, his light side and his dark side later called Dayne. I used a similar idea for Luneblanche/Cielnoir Lierlo.

Julian's origins are incredibly complicated, but in a quick two-sentence summary I'll say he came to be because of some astral projection, Leon and Dayne's spirits became joined again in Leon's body, leaving Dayne's empty. Leon then split into a new set of two, putting Dayne back in a separate body, and the two boys both put some of their spirit into the empty body to create Julian. Told you it was complicated. So, if Leon was white and Dayne was black, Julian was grey, a mixture of good and evil, more like Leon was before he split with Dayne originally. This means when I sent Julian to continue the Wildfire's revenge on Thorn, I really should have sent Dayne because he is the most of evil of the trio. I chose Ju because people would draw far too many parallels between Dayne and Li, as they are very similar characters, right from their dyed-blonde hair to their complete-asshole attitudes.

'I was the one who took interest in science... I can make you proud!' ~Julian, CP53

A throwaway comment in DSK, but anyone involved in TPC would know that Julian was a full-blown mad scientist type. Levanté liked the odd crazy experiment when he was younger, always fascinated with Demonic research. So that's that.

Levanté
My favourite Wildfire boy. (there are rather a lot of boys, eh? I never introduced any of the ladies, probably because most of them were DSC's characters.) I didn't plan on killing him, but then again, I didn't argue when it happened. I would have liked him to become a DSK regular and sometimes I wonder what would happen if he had survived. However, having him in as a main character would foster a very strong link between DSK and TPC and I would be obliged to bring in his family, etc. as it was established he was married with children. I wanted to start almost totally afresh with DSK, expect with a few allusions back to the days of TPC.

Just because I loved my little Levanté, I'm going to go into pointless detail about him. Levanté was born in Rayevern, the city of eternal rain, to a very poor family. He had one older brother called Lyrian, who was a nasty piece of work and always bullied him. He and his brother helped the family make ends meet by stealing the odd thing. Now one fateful day when Levanté was only 8, Lyrian was teaching him how to hotwire a truck. Excitable little Levanté was a bit over-eager when they got the engine going and started pressing down on the acceleration. Lyrian, with his head firmly under the dash, was so surprised by the truck's sudden movement, he jumped up and received a nasty blow to the head on the dash and was knocked out. Little Levanté was terrified as the truck began to move as he could hardly see over the wheel. It was bad timing as at the same moment the truck was screaming down the rain-spattered streets, Levian and Lila Wildfire, their parents, were crossing… The truck swerved… there was a thump and a crash… it collided with a wall… Levanté was the only survivor, managing to escape with only a few cuts and bruises.

Now Fuschians are renowned for their great psychic abilities. The Wildfires are especially well known to Lord Chronos and his Time Spirits because of the 'gift.' I really like this concept. The 'gift' is a special power that one in every generation of the family is born with. The person with it does not know they have it until it is used, nor do they know how to use it. It comes into effect when they are at a most desperate point in their life and they wish for something with all their might. If they have the 'gift,' time itself is altered to grant it. This presents a large problem for Chronos as it can vastly reorder the flow of time. Those blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with the 'gift' are arrested by the Time Police if it is used.

Yeah, ok, I'll summarise the rest of Levanté's story. You guessed it, he had the 'gift' and he used it to reorder time so he was born in better circumstances. He turned his wealth right around by making himself King of Fuschia. This explains the line of his, 'I was home tutored.' However, his power couldn't bring back his dead parents and brother, so he formed Cintarr to scour the land for jewels and riches that would fill the void that his parents left. This is similar to Laurenza looking for men to give her the love she lost when she killed her parents.

Ok, I'm still rambling. He later married Jade and had a child, Leon, hoping this would bring him the love he needed, but found it did not. He was not a very good husband and didn't pay his family enough attention, so Jade tried to run away with Leon. Leon got but Levanté stopped Jade at the last minute. He wasn't too happy with this and divorced Jade. When Levanté later found Leon, Leon wanted nothing to do with him because he didn't like the fact that he was a criminal. After several RPs, Levanté decided to change his ways and disband Cintarr to spend time with his son and make up for the lost years. So things happened and Levanté went through a few women and finally married Varrisha, Queen of Orca and a woman he truly loved. So that's why the Wildfires were living on Orca.

"Do you know how many of us there are? Six! And you left mum to look after us all on her own." ~Dayne, CP52

That's right; Levanté and Varrisha were horny buggers and had three kids, Miranda, Silka and James. Add that to the triplets and that makes six.

Luchianno and Lyrian
I think I might explain this in an upcoming storyline, but while we're on the topic of the Wildfires, let's talk about Luchianno. Luchianno was Levanté's uncle, and I say was because he is dead. Chronos gets his Time Spirits in two ways: some are born; others are made into Spirits after they die and are forced to work for him as a punishment for a crime against Time. This is exactly what happened with Lu, he had the 'gift,' used it and was arrested. His punishment: be cast into the endless vast nothingness of the realms outside of Time, or work for Chronos for all eternity. He chose the latter, as most of us would. What he used his wish for… haven't a clue, really. It's not important. So that's why ol' AoD Kuja didn't track down Lu to kill, because he's been dead for a long time.

Now Lyrian hasn't appeared in DSK yet, but mark my words, he will. Wonder why Levanté got away with using his 'gift' and not get arrested? Well, it seems his older brother did care for him after all, as he after he died he used all his willpower to escape Limbo and enter the Time Tunnels. He pleaded that Chronos take him as a Time Spirit instead of the young Levanté. Lyrian's life was over but Levanté's had only just begun, why take it from him now? Lucky for him, Chronos is a kindly Grand Master, so he accepted this offer.

Whee, that's the end of my stories. Still awake? Now I need to get the Thornman to write about Bo Adventures and Tobias so you can learn some more exciting origins.