"Fan-mage regions" have kind of been a staple of Pokemon since... since I've been in the fandom, really. And to be honest I've always been someone who very much enjoys seeing what other people do with their own fan-regions more than I do creating them. Mostly because any time I try to do my own fan-regions, I either got way into the process of creating the fan-made Pokemon themselves, or I get way into trying to figure out which existing species of Pokemon would interact with each other when they wouldn't normally have before.
And... and the draft for this particular article was sitting in my Blogger.com dashboard since before even Galar was even announced. I had a bunch of ideas after I did my "Gotta Review 'Em All" feature for Generation VII about how I would do things if, hypothetically, I was given free rein over the Pokemon franchise's creative department. And I was kind of... paralyzed, back and forth, on how to include all the existing Pokemon properly (and, yes, it is non-negotiable that ALL the Pokemon exist in any fan-region I create. I still think cutting the National Dex is the absolute worst thing Sword/Shield did) and how this hypothetical region would look geographically. I even ended up going back and forth on my 'roster', thinking how many weird designs that appeal to me would realistically only be around 30-40% of an actual generation's Pokedex.
And one of the biggest reasons that I had so much trouble is that I wasn't trying to adapt any specific nation or country or island or city or whatever -- I will very readily admit the fact that I am terrible at geography. But even then, I really do want a region with lots of deep, dark rainforests but also swathes of ocean similar to Hoenn. Diving and underwater areas will most definitely be one of the major exploratory gimmicks of any fan-region I make, and so... yeah.
Originally one of the concepts I had for my fan-game would revolve around the Delta Pokemon from the TCG, but that's just... kind of redundant and a bit less interesting with regional variants running around.
And, let's be honest, I think I got a bit intimidated by the sheer creativity shown by other fan-made Pokedexes like Quarantine Crystal and Uranium. This was the closest I got! But you know what? I got super-bored, the content has been kind of slow on this blog for this year, and I've been slowly adding and refining this article for a while, and I just did Hisui's Gotta Review 'Em All, and I did go through some Legends Arceus... and since the Pokemon bug has bitten me, I suppose I'd give it a shot of publishing this.
Eventually, while rifling through my large amounts of articles that I never actually made into reality, I decided to take another crack at this. I briefly thought that this could be a super-multi-part thing, but... nah, we'll just go with two parts. This one would cover a 'rainforest' area and a 'mountain' area, while a second part would cover the deep sea. The deep sea parts could even be a DLC, if we're going by Sword/Shield rules...
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NOT-FIORE!
...so because I have the artistic capabilities of a six-year-old, I won't try to embarrass myself with my scribbles. I'll instead just borrow one of Pokemon's already-existing (if more obscure) side-regions. This is Fiore, from the first Pokemon Ranger game, and I feel like it serves as more or less a similar idea to a fan-region that I would design.
Obviously there's going to be a lot more cities dotted across the area, since we need to have the requisite eight gyms, but the idea of the area being mostly a location with loads and loads of forests would more or less be the same. The forests would be pretty deep and densely-populated. Think the super-long grass in Hoenn, or the lost woods of Kalos, or that fairy forest in Galar... actually, that wouldn't be too bad of an idea. Some of the forests would be 'typical' rainforests, some of them would be 'Victreebel country' as Pokemon Adventures have showed, haunted forests populated by Trevenants, one section would be full with spiders, some of them would be whimsical giant mushroom forests populated by Fairy-types... I can already imagine that last bit populated by Morelulls, Impidimps and terrifying Hatterenes as the 'witches of the forest'.
And there are actually some island settlements and harbour cities in the large ocean to the south. The big difference, of course, as mentioned above, there would be a lot of very visible parts of the ocean that dips down below the continental shelf -- basically all that area in the lower right would probably be filled with Hoenn-style 'strong currents' and diving areas. (We'll cover the ocean parts later)
There's a whole mountain range in the north covered by mist, and in my mind it'd be an inactive volcano range, with a vast internal cave network not too dissimilar to Pokemon Diamond/Pearl's Mt. Coronet. There's going to be a major, 'main' mountain that we'll be visiting (in Fiore, it's that dot in the middle), but to tick off the checklist of biomes to fit all the Pokemon, perhaps there's going to be an active, smaller volcano somewhere closer to the forested areas.
If there's a change that has to be made, I feel like the whole east area could be transformed into a desert biome for all our sand-dwelling Pokemon to hang out in, though it probably won't be the focus of a lot of the 'new' fan-mon that I'll be introducing to the region.
The cities themselves would probably be more or less not be too different from your standard Pokemon fare -- there'll be obligatory ones that would follow the specific biomes, of course. A mountain city, a Fortree-style deep-woods city, a Seafolk-Village-style fishing village in the center of the ocean... but the huge 'metropolis' central city, which would be the equivalent to Lumiose or Castelia or Hammerlocke, would feature a lot more urban encounters. Probably even a junkyard or landfill area -- I think I would definitely love a redux of Kanto's Power Plant, only this time we have a bit more emphasis on the fact that it's an abandoned industrial location.
Also, some other random note-keeping stuff is that this region would probably still work on the whole "Ride Pokemon" style introduced in Alola. I wasn't sure about it, but yeah, HM moves taking up slots are kinda doodoo. I guess if you have a Pokemon with a specific HM move, you can still use them to deal with certain obstacles? Sort of like in the Pokemon Ranger games? But as far as 'locking' area progression, I'd rather the game revolve around collecting or upgrading plot devices instead of assassinating your Pokemon's movesets.
All Pokemon species will be available, and just like a feature in Pokemon Legends Arceus, trading or trading with an item would change to them evolving through alternate means -- perhaps 'radiation' from an area similar to how Leafeon or Magnezone or Vikavolt evolve; or learning a specific signature move a la Mamoswine or Lickilicky. Yes, this means the region will be big. It's a fan-game, it's allowed to be as big as I want it to!
Gameplay-wise, it would be your typical Pokemon game... but a lot of it would be similar to Legends Arceus, with many shorter side-quests and quest-chains revolving around specific Pokemon species. There would be quest chains for all the legendaries that existed before, and while not all of them would be elaborate, at least every single gym leader and prominent character would have some ties to a legendary.
Also also, Mega Evolutions, Gigantamaxes and Z-Moves all exist to some degree in this game, but you can only use one of them in any given battle. You probably have a single key item that synergizes with all of them, but you can only use one for the sake of 'game balance'. I appreciate the fact that some people's favourite designs are these Megas and Gigas and whatnot. Previously, I had the idea of retconning all (or most) of the Mega Evolutions or Gigantamaxes into regular Pokemon evolutions, but that would be a bit too messy.
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OBLIGATORY EARLY-GAME POKEMON:
So I'm going to be illustrating these with either the real-life inspiration, or, whenever possible, a Pokemon. I will refrain from using any actual fan-made designs, though, because that would kind of be rude, I feel, taking someone else's fan-creation and then (most likely) talking about how I'll do things differently. I won't be actually naming these Pokemon, though. I tried, but then thinking up of a good, punny name that sounded like a proper Pokemon name took way longer than writing this entire article, so for the most part I'll just use descriptive names. My pun game is, regrettably, nowhere as strong as Pokemon Company's.
I'll start off with the typical 'start' to any generation; the typical early-route Pokemon...
For the longest time, the starters were the ones that I left blank here, because... I really didn't have a solid idea for any fan-starters. I've always been more or less competent with the starters we have gotten, y'know? Galar aside? I even thought of cheekily leaving this blank, Legends Arceus style, and just allowing the hypothetical player to pick any of the previous starters... but no. We're going to do this, and we're going to do this properly!
There are certain patterns that the fandom had spotted among the starters since around Generation V or VI, and it's that the grass starters are always some sort of extinct creature. And... well, I kind of thought of several possible ideas, from something more obscure like a hadrosaur, to a stegosaur, pterodactyl, giant sloth, saber-toothed tiger and, for the longest time here, a compsognathus-velociraptor-therizinosaur line (which I recycled later below). But that was a bit too similar Grovyle. But this is what I settled on -- a lystrosaur and a dimetrodon. It's all very obscure (and less visually distinct) prehistoric reptiles from the Triassic period, the least-represented of the three dinosaur periods in media.
And, yes, I know IRL the Lystrosaur and the Dimetrodon isn't super-closely related, but I do really like the distinctive horned-beaked face of the Lystrosaurus. It's evolve into a Dimetrodon with its very distinctive sail, and, of course, being a Grass-type, that sail would be patterned like a flower and be able to absorb sunlight and stuff for Solarbeams. Maybe its special ability or whatever enhances the power of Solarbeam? I don't really put too much thought into the actual battle mechanics of any fan-creature I make, because, well, if you can't tell, I'm much more of a 'flavour' guy.
And... okay, turning the final stage into good ol' Spinosaurus is kind of a cop-out after I talked about having representation for the Triassic Period, but I can totally see Pokemon doing that, can't you? Going from a Dimetrodon to a Spinosaur just because they share a giant back-spine? Now normally a Spinosaur would most definitely be classified as a Water-type, but we can't have a Grass/Water starter, so I guess the Spinosaur would have to be Grass/Flying (I could give Dragon, but Nintendo doesn't really like giving Dragon out to starter final evolutions). As shown here in this picture I stole from Wikipedia, the final form would definitely be feathered and be able to use Flying-type moves if not necessarily fly around too long.
Fire Starter: Fire Snake-Hydra
Now, the fire-starters follow a theme of following the Chinese zodiac. As of the time of writing, we're only up to Generation VIII, and that means we've got the goat, horse, snake and ox remaining. Fuecoco is a 'crocodile', though, so I guess the zodiac might be wrong? There's really not a whole ton of thinking that goes through here. I was flip-flopping between making a fiery angoran goat or a fiery snake... and it's just a bit odd, I felt, to have two reptiles among the starters. But then I remember that dinosaurs are kinda-sorta-birds, aren't they? And anyway, Galar had two mammalian starters, so clearly I can put whatever I want here.
One of the big problem with either the goat or the snake was that I was a bit confused on how to make them feel, again, like a three-stage line. Short of making them an anthropomorphic humanoid randomly in the final evolutionary stage the way, anyway. But I remembered that there have been reports of snakes found with two heads -- a very rare congenital condition known as bicephaly, made particularly famous by "We" the rat snake (pictured here). Bicephaly is a condition that isn't fatal, though the two-headed snake is likely to not be able to survive in the wild due to two heads controlling a body. And then this snake Pokemon could just gain heads as it grows bigger, turning into a final form with either three or five heads, a la the Yamata-no-Orochi or the Lernean Hydra.
The Fire Snake will be based on a constrictor snake, like a boa constrictor (pictured here) or an anaconda, which is a snake variation that I don't think has had representation in Pokemon yet. We've got cobras (Arbok, Silicobra), vipers (Seviper), rattlesnakes (Ekans), vine snakes (the Snivy line)... and, yes, Sandaconda is ostensibly named after an anaconda, but it's more of a cobra-meets-sidewinder, isn't it? We've never really had a snake that really embodies the crushing abilities of these constrictor snakes, beyond certain moves like 'bind' or 'constrict'.
And since this is a fire-type Pokemon, it'll probably heat and cook its prey while it's crushing their bones. They will not be part-poison, that defeats the whole point of being a constrictor snake, but actually, maybe they can become Fire/Fighting? Does 'constricting' count as them using muscles enough to fight? It'll be a hilarious subversion of the Fire/Fighting fire starter meme, at least...
Water Starter: Baby Dolphin-Dolphin-Orca
Again, I really don't have too much of an idea on these starters, and I just picked the design that I felt would be pretty 'marketable'... and a dolphin has been on the top of everyone's "animals that has to be a Pokemon!!!" list. It's frankly quite amazing and probably a conscious decision on Nintendo's part not to release a dolphin Pokemon for so long.
And my idea for it is that the first two stages are what you'd expect from a dolphin -- a cute baby dolphin that evolves into a sleek dolphin, and then in its final stage it basically becomes a killer whale. Killer whales, despite their common names, are actually part of the dolphin family!
And... and I actually kind of want them (or at least the final stage) to be Water/Dark? Sort of like Pangoro -- where they act and behave like punks in the ocean, but are nice to smaller creatures and children? After all, despite their reputation, dolphins are actually pretty savage apex predators that will do pretty brutal things to sharks and rival dolphin pods -- it's just that most of the ones that meet humans kind of 'know' to either avoid humans or to at least play nice with them. And, well, characterizing this dolphin-orca evolutionary line as a Pokemon line that plays on the typical 'noble thug' stereotype, would, I feel, tie in both the 'friendly to humans' and 'savage predator' sides of these animals pretty well.
And that's just it, really. I'm not that big of a dolphin fan as most people are, but I can see the appeal and the need for their representation in Pokemon, and in this fan-region they get to be the water starter!
Three-Stage Hummingbird/Bird-of-Paradise
We need to have an early-route bird, and I'll readily say that nearly all of my knowledge about bird species (dinosaurs aside) come from tangential research from playing Pokemon. I'm just not a bird person! But out of the various early-route birds like pigeons, chickadees, sparrows and owls, I feel the one type of bird is the hummingbird! They could have a special ability that gives them bonus damage against Grass-type Pokemon with flowers on them like Roselia or Gloom!
And all of these early birds will evolve into a badass larger bird-of-prey, ignoring actual taxonomy, but for a colourful hummingbird, I feel like the most appropriate thing for them to evolve into wouldn't be something badass like a falcon or a kite or a condor. And I briefly thought about a peacock here, but I think the most appropriate final stage would be something based on a Bird-of-Paradise, or a Cendrawasih. I mean, Alola had a woodpecker evolve into a toucan; Galar had a chickadee evolve into a metal raven.
For extra bonus points, the Bird-of-Paradise could be Grass/Flying, having merged with the flowers it fed on during its earlier stage and these plants ends up giving it the colours of its feathers. I feel like this would be an ideal species to inject loads of random appearance variations like what Nintendo did to Vivillon and Alcremie.
Two-Stage Water Shrew
Not the biggest fan of rodents either, but once I stumbled upon the shrew family, I know that it's prime estate to make the obligatory rodent interesting. I felt like Sinnoh's Bibarel and Kalos's Diggersby was on the right track when it looked for a rodent that could conceivably get a secondary typing. And the water shrew -- specifically, the Eurasian Water Shrew -- I feel would be particularly neat as an early-route rodent for two facts. One, it hunts near water and even uses its tail as an anchor before it dives underwater. And two... it's one of the handful of mammals that's venomous! So yes, this would be a pure Normal-type Pokemon that evolves into Poison/Water in its final stage.
Two-Stage Fossa
This would be a pure Dark-type that evolves into a Dark/Fairy. Since Generation III, there's always an early-route mammalian Pokemon that's not a rodent -- your Poochyenas, your Shinxes, your Thievuls, your... okay, Unova had a different Normal-type in Lillipup, but my point stands. And I briefly thought about tossing in one of my own personal favourite dog breeds here, but I went for this one instead. The Fossa is a cat-esque mammal from Madagascar that's actually more related to mongooses. And there are many folktales of its real-life inspiration that talks about how it's got supernatural qualities -- that its scent can kill poultry, that it has the ability to disappear from sight, and, most relevant to its later Fairy-typing, that it creeps into homes and steals human babies. I feel like it's the kind of creepy thing someone would associate with fairies -- and as mentioned above, I'd like to have one of the areas in the many, many forests of this region to be populated with the fair folk.
Of course, our "fakemon" here isn't actually that evil, just like the real-world Fossa and a lot of other Dark-type Pokemon. That would be a very 'Pokemon' thing to do, right? Instead of having a sinister motive for kidnapping children, it's actually trying to nurse them back to health after they've been attacked by actually harmful Pokemon like, oh, Hypno or something. It's trying to help them because they think they know better than the humans, but the act of spiriting away children is treated as something evil by the humans. As an additional bonus, maybe we have two contradictory dex entries similar to Gen VII's Araquanid -- one that claims it's behind the kidnappings, and the other talking about how it nurses children to health.
Originally, this article had me try and do one-line draft Pokedex entries for every single entry (and I might go back and do it) but here's an example of what this line's would be:
"[Speciesname] is notorious and feared due to its propensity to spirit away children from their cribs. Naughty children are especially common to be victims of this Pokemon." / "Local folk tales speak of how [Speciesname] would care for children that are wounded, nurse them to health, and bring them back to their families."
Three-Stage Caddisfly
Stays Bug/Water throughout all three of its forms. I toyed a lot with what the "Butterfree" equivalent in my fan region would be. If you couldn't already tell from my many, many geek-outs from my Pokemon-reviewing segments, I am a huge bug geek. And I think since the Vikavolt line from Alola, the doors are open for the 'early route' bug to be anything arthropodal, and not just from the lepidopteran order. This draft has gone through so many iterations, and I've toyed with a lot of insects that have relatively drastic metamorphoses (flies, mosquitoes and ants were at the top of my list) to some that doesn't (dobsonflies, crickets, weevils, katydids). But I keep going back to the Caddisfly. I think Quarantine Crystal also does something similar with this, although as a later-game ice Pokemon? Cadddisflies are super-duper cool, though.
Found in ponds, the 'larval' Caddisfly would collect debris and create a portable nest-house made up of gravel and other kinds of discarded items. Since it's a bit larger than a real-world bug, this Pokemon would probably craft its nest from items like bottlecaps and coins would be used by this Caddis-mon. It's a bit of a riff on Burmy, but the larval stage would initially appear as a Bug/Rock or Bug/Steel or Bug/Grass depending on the items that it uses to scrounge up to make its 'nest', and then lose that secondary typing which gets converted to water when its 'real' form is exposed after taking any single hit.
The pupa stage of the real-life Caddisfly actually has mandibles and oar-like legs, allowing this species to still fight and be mobile -- a trend that's been a bit more emphasized for pupal Pokemon since Gen V. The final stage of the real-life Caddisfly would technically be a short-lived Bug/Flying if we're going by real-world rules, but this is the Pokemon world. Our adult Caddisfly would have a gimmick similar to Wormadam, where its wings are crafted out of the same 'element' of the stones or bottlecaps or mud that the larval stage makes its nest out of, though it doesn't change its typing exactly -- it just allows access to moves of that type.
Three-Stage Housefly
This would be Bug/Poison type all the way through. I actually didn't realize just how many regions actually have two 'early route bugs'! Caterpie/Weedle, Spinarak/Ledyba, Venipede/Sewaddle... even Beautifly and Dustox, techncially, even if they are from the same family. So yeah, since this is my region, we get two different early-route bugs! I was so tempted to just fill the entire dex with mostly Bug-types, but no. We still have to make this a functional region -- just as I would be pissed if Generation IX had no Bug-types, I wager that the region wouldn't appeal as much if we have nothing but bugs.
And I settled on the housefly -- an insect that's pretty damn ubiquitous in the world, but unless I'm forgetting someone, I don't think we've gotten a representation of them at all in the Pokemon world. Again, I toyed around with having dragonflies or mosquitoes, but being semi-aquatic would be a bit too similar to the Caddisfly Fanmon, and besides we techncially already have a representation of those two in Yanma and Buzzswole respectively.
I feel like the maggot stage would have a comedically exaggerated face of that one 'fanged zoom-in maggot' face that made the rounds in the internet recently. It'll go through an unremarkable pupa stage, and since Pokemon don't really like to talk about carcasses and corpses and stuff, our Housefly Pokemon would probably just be notorious for hanging around filthy areas populated with Muk and Garbodor and Weezing, and then going around spreading disease to human food. I would emphasize a housefly's propensity to actually cleaning its own front legs all the time in terms of its behaviour, too. Pokemon very rarely just does 'just an animal but drawn by Sugimiori' designs, but a housefly's face can very easily be exaggerated into either a gas mask or a vaccuum cleaner.
Two-Stage Capybara Pikaclone
Electric-type that evolves into Electric/Water. One of the things that irks me is that these damn Pika-clones show up every gneeration but ever since Marill, they never evolved anymore. Why is that? It's kinda dumb, and I had to resist the urge to drum up fakemon evolutions for every single Pikaclone from Generation IV to VII. But no, my region's Pikaclone is... kind of the obvious choice for me when I went to google the list of rodents in the world. And... Capybaras are apparently still classified as rodents. So, yeah, a capybara it is!
So the first stage would be your typical electric rodent. Hell, it might even look like that specific Beta Pichu design I really like (this won't be the last time you see one of the discarded Beta Pokemon here...). And if you don't think Capybaras are cute enough, I have included a picture of baby Capybaras there. Upon exposure to a Thunder Stone, it would evolve into the Electric/Water final stage, which would be a bit of a calm, defensive tank. It wouldn't be like, the most badass creature ever, but I still feel like it's a huge wasted opportunities for these "Pikaclones" to just remain a single-stage.
One-Stage 'Monster Egg' Creature
Pictured here is a "Digitamamon" from Digimon, and I know, I know, we have Togepi as an egg Pokemon all the way back in Generation II, and Exeggcute is (are?) egg-seed monsters. But I really do like the look and idea of a creature who stays almost entirely in the shell, not too dissimilar from the Ryu-Ran from Yu-Gi-Oh as well. It would obviously not be a copy-paste of Digitamamon here, but I like the idea of the 'bad egg' glitch from Generation III actually be translated into a Pokemon.
'Eggy' here would be a pure Fairy-type, and I think to prevent any desirable eggs being made by players who are actually breeding, it'd be immediately obvious that this is a 'bad egg' from the moment you receive the egg from the breeding facility. I think the story I have in my mind is that your original egg has been replaced by this Pokemon, which leaves its egg like a cuckoo bird? It won't evolve or anything, it's just... and egg with feet and maybe claws (I really do like Digitamamon's armless silhouette, though...), and glowing eyes encased in the darkness. In the wild, it would follow around Chansey or Exeggcute, hoping to be accepted as one of them.
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RAINFOREST AREA:
And with that done, I think we'll move into the region by biomes. One of the two 'main' appeals here, I think, will be the vast rainforests of Not-Fiore. We'd have a lot of separate 'territories' catering to different types of forest. As mentioned above, one segment would be filled with whimsical mushrooms and glowing lights and filled with Fairy-types, ruled by a group of Hatterene. Another would be filled with tendrils and vines, controlled by a vicious colony of Victreebels that consume anything that's not a Grass-type that dares to enter their territory. Another territory would be filled with massive beehives, and colonies of Beedrill and Vespiquen vie for harvesting rights of the flowers below. Another would be morose and haunted, with dead trees resembling Trevenants. There would be a misty segment not too dissimilar to the Slumbering Weald in Galar. Another very 'tropical' rainforest filled with Toucannons, Slakoths and Passimians. A river segment where the frogs and crocodile Pokemon hang out. Another part where the trees loom so high to the sky. Perhaps a 'forest temple' overgrown by moss and vines, filled with Claydols and Golletts that have been inactive for centuries before you stumble by.
The theme I wanted to explore here is that it's extremely dense, looks rather endless, and that there's so many more trees than anything else. I really do want to capture the idea of a very deep, very mysterious forest that is unmolested by human civilization, and it's just nature all the way through. It's a bit different from Breath of the Wild or even the recent Legends Arceus (which I have only barely started at the time of writing this) where we explore mainly grassfields and plateaus.
A specific idea that I wanted to explore in this game is to incorporate the 'event' legendaries that... that never actually got a story in the actual games. Those that were just randomly distributed, and the fandom just have to wait for a movie or a manga or a future generation to fill in the gaps. A colony of Zarude would be dwelling in the deepest parts of the forest, and you might need to aid these Zarudes before they give you 'permission' to pass their lands. One location might be overgrown with vines, and you need to seek to prove yourself to Virizion to pass.
Two-Stage Parasitoid Wasp
Bug/Dark. Just because I'm not going to fill in the entire Pokedex with bug-types doesn't mean that I'm not going to fill most of it with bug-types! A Parasitoid Wasp like the Tarantula Hawk (left) is definitely one of my top 'wants' for a Pokemon, and I feel like we could get a 'hidden grisly nightmare story' the way Generation I did with Paras and Parasect. Instead of something gory like bursting out of a poor Wurmple's body and ripping it apart, the parasitic wasp would 'attach' its larva as a held item, permanently taking up that held item in any Bug-type Pokemon in your party. Having the little larva stuck on your poor Caterpie would cause it to be unable to evolve, and all EXP it earns is funneled to the 'item'. Perhaps it only sticks around for the equivalent of a level, before evolving. But to evolve, you need to have an empty space in your party, just like how you'd evolve Nincada into Shedinja.
After turning into its 'first' stage, it'd evolve further at a higher level into a final form roughly equivalent in power to someone like Yanmega after attacking and defeating other Bug-types specifically. Its signature ability would give it additional damage against Bug-types. My mental image of this creature is specifically based on one of the wasps (like the Potter Wasp shown on the right) with super-elongated abdomens, which would be distinctively memorable.
"The bane of all Bug-types, [speciesname] will lay its young to parasitize its hosts. Only when it has drained enough nutrients will the [speciesname] assume its true form."
Two-Stage Mosquito
We get a Bug/Water larval stage that's pretty simplified-looking, then an evolved form that's basically a cartoon mosquito. Maybe with an exaggerated, syringe-like proboscis. This one would be the 'Zubat' of the region, except in the forests instead of caves. It would specialize on 'sucking' moves like Leech Life and Giga Drain, and there could be a sexual dimorphism thing where the males would do extra damage against Grass-types, while the females do extra damage against Normal-types.
Two-Stage Water Bug Line
Bug/Water, of course. Sick of bugs already? Sorry, you've wandered into the wrong region! We do have Surskit, which represents pond-skaters very well, as well as Dewpider representing the delightful diving bell spider, but I feel like there are more watery bug goodness to explore. And as much as it would appeal to me personally, I wouldn't want every single arthropodal family to be accurately represented and transformed into a Pokemon.
So my idea for this is more of a chimeric combination of some of the more distinctive freshwater insects -- as pictured here, we have the Diving Beetle, the Giant Water Beetle and the Backswimmer (from left to right here). They'd probably be combined together into a more abstract, chimeric, creature in the vein of something like how Drapion represents a scorpion. My idea is that the first form has the distinctive furry legs of the Giant Water Beetle but swims in backstroke like the Backswimmer. Eventually they evolve the large forelegs of the Giant Water Beetle (middle) and ends up getting fiercer. Just like these larger water bugs, these things would specifically hunt tadpoles, which means... oh no, poor Tympole and Poliwag!
Branching Two-Stage 'Fungal Eevee'
One of my 'must haves' for a region would be a mushroom Pokemon -- I love my Shroomishes, my Morelluls, my Foonguses and my Parasects, but while I moan about the types of arthropods or aquatic creatures or prehistoric dinosaurs that haven't been represented in Pokemon yet... the fungal kingdom is an entire kingdom that had like, eight members in Pokemon.
So yeah, my idea would be a simple toadstool fungus on top of a cartoon 'face', somewhat like Oddish or Gloom but with simple toadstools instead of leaves on top of it. This would be Grass/Poison. The it would evolve into one of two different evolutions, all of which having a relatively similar 'Oddish-esque' or 'Shroomish-esque' body layout. Imagine the Oddish sprite here as a stand-in for this generic mushroom creature. This would basically be the stand-in for the obligatory cute Grass-type, the likes of Bounsweet or Petilil or the very recently-revealed Smoliv.
The first is a Poison/Dark-type Devil's Finger mushroom that crawls around like an octopus (the fungus' other name is the Octopus Stinkhorn), with the central body hanging below the large limbs. This one would go around preying on Bug-types. And, yes, I know most mushroom-Pokemon use 'Grass' as the base, but for the sake of uniqueness I feel like Poison-type works better as the 'base' typing here.
Then we have a Poison/Grass dome-like creature that is covered by a shell of bracket fungus (not unlike the Amanigo from Quarantine Crystal), which mostly hangs out in caves. I've always loved how these bracket fungi can really organically just grow and look like flowing terrain. These would glow in the dark and probably show up mostly in cases.
Finally a Poison/Fairy bleeding tooth fungus. Maybe this one looks a little bit more like Gloom, but with the bleeding tooth fungus instead of a rafflesia? Obviously nowhere as grisly as the real thing, but since the real-life bleeding tooth fungus' secretions are actually used as a form of anticoagulant (rather ironic, one of nature's hilarious jokes) I could actually see this thing being the Chansey equivalent of this region, with its secretions being treated as a more generic bitter panacea of sorts. There's a 'tooth fairy' joke there I can make somewhere.
I had a lot of ideas for fungal monsters -- the puffball, veiled lady, lattice stinkhorn, general bioluminiscent mushrooms, penicillin and a bunch of others almost made it here as well, which is when I hit upon the idea of an 'Eevee style' creature with multiple evolutions.
Two-Stage Wolpertinger
Normal/Fairy. It's a very common fan-made Pokemon ever since the Fairy-type was announced. Uranium and Quarantine Crystal, to my memory, both had fan-mons based on the jackalope or wolpertinger... and I feel like it's kind of a fun and easily recognizable design, isn't it? The whimsical idea that there's just a bunny out there with extra features -- wings, deer horns, fangs and whatnot? I feel like it'd be perfect for being part-Normal, too.
I feel like this would look less of a 'wolpertinger drawn in Pokemon style' and basically just a design more akin to Buneary and Lopunny, a humanoid bunny -- though obviously not based on a playboy bunny the way Lopunny is. I'm not a huge fan of 'anthro' designs, as the lingo for them is, but I do acknowledge that they do add a variety to the dex. I suppose since the wolpertinger is already a chimeric being, their 'limbs' could look a bit more like a lanky lemur's or ape's, making the second stage in particular look a bit more uncanny. Maybe they mimic the gait of the Zarudes!
Three-Stage "Fairy Dragon"
Um, Fairy/Dragon, obviously. This is something that's kind of based more on the recurring 'fairy dragon' creature type seen in like, Dungeons & Dragons and Warcraft and the like, and Pokemon Uranium did something similar with the Bug/Fairy Nimflora. To not completely rip off that, my idea of adapting a fairy dragon would emphasize less on the bugginess of butterflies, but rather have them be like, replies or geckos. I see the first phase being based more on something like the extinct Kuehneosaurus (right), just a weird lizard with wings that look like a butterfly's wings. They do this to mimic the large and powerful Bug-types that live in this deep forest, though! I feel like that's a neat way to bring in something akin to adaptational mimicry or something.
The middle type would grow larger and larger, losing the false pseudo-antennae and becoming more vibrant, until we basically end up in something akin to a colourful, bubblegum-coloured Flygon.
Single-Stage Fresno Nightcrawler
Fairy/Ghost. Not all my weird shit is based on real-life animals! Spooky forests also carry with them spooky ghost stories, and I feel like a way to not just redo Phantump would be something like this -- cryptids! And I feel like Fairy-types would explain these weirdoes pretty well. We already have the Hopskinville goblins adapted into Sableye, so I feel like these guys being relatively tall (around the same height of Alolan Exeggutor or slightly shorter) would work.
They hide in the misty depths of the forest, often standing still and be mistaken as tree trunks. It's not until they move that hikers realize that they're looking at a strange, ephemeral Pokemon. Being part-Ghost would also help explain their elusiveness. My idea for their anatomy would probably be them having a simple cartoon face, again, a la Oddish -- or maybe a shit-eating grin like Sableye -- on the basic giant stilt-leg anatomy.
Two-Stage Spider-Monkey
Poison/Fighting. This came from me going 'man, we don't have enough spider creatures' but realizing that I introduced like fifteen different bug-lines in this fan-region. Not every bug needs to explicitly be a Bug-type, though. On another vein, I had a baboon penciled in as 'obligatory monkey Pokemon'... and then I decided to combine two of these as a pun. A Spider Monkey (who is a monkey) and a King Baboon Tarantula (who is a spider). My idea is that this creature would look like a regular spider-monkey (left) but with a couple of extra hands. And, yes, I would be remiss if I didn't note that this would basically just be Spider-Monkey from Ben 10 -- I didn't actually make the connection until I finished typing this, but looking at Ben 10's alien Spider-Monkey, the extra eyeballs would definitely work too.
The second stage would adopt a more monstrous, quadrupedal gait and have a more explicitly baboon-like face. The primate baboon, that is. Its legs would however be structured in the creepy, chunky way that the baboon tarantula looks. From a 'lore' standpoint, this creature would fight with its fists like a monkey, and is able to 'use tools' as ranged weapons -- shooting urtication hairs like a ninja throwing senbon. As a reference to the oft-exaggerated claim that tarantulas often prey on smaller birds, it could have a special ability that causes it to deal extra damage to Flying-types. My idea is that this one would look kind of creepy and combines the nasty aspects of both baboons, but knowing Pokemon, it's probably not going to be creepier than Ariados or Galvantula or Araquanid.
Alternate Tangela Final Form -- Monja & Jaranja
Two of my favourite designs in the 'beta' Gold & Silver. These are such precious babies, and I feel like they would be perfect to be transplanted more or less as-is into the Pokemon world. Monja would just be a simple one-eyed pre-evolution to Tangela, while Jaranja could be an alternate evolution -- perhaps tied to the 'moss rock' style that Leafeon and my fanmade Vigoroth evolution would turn into. I see Jaranja being a cheeky Grass/Dark, running around with a psychotic grin and tripping people that wander into its territory, focusing on speed instead of Tangrowth's defensiveness. Where Tangrowth is a lumbering giant, Jaranjas would be giggling and running around like little gremlins, pranking and tripping up any who tresspass into their territory.
Alternate Slakoth Evolution -- Megatherium
I originally envisioned this as a completely brand-new species, but since Alola and especially Galar has been really hammering it in with alternate branching evolutions, I feel like it would actually fit as an alternate version of Slakoth's final evolution. Again, I feel like this is a way to fill in a lot more concepts without making this region a 200-species dex. Which I feel Pokemon itself is already doing anyway.
Slakoth would still evolve into Vigoroth as usual, but when it evolves near the equivalent of the 'Mossy Rock' that trigges Eevee's evolution into Leafeon, Vigoroth evolves into this dual-typed Normal/Grass Megatherium-based titan. The ancient giant ground sloth has always been a creature that fascinates me, and my mental image of this would be a lumbering giant whose fur is overgrown with moss and fungus -- and since this is Pokemon, they'd have a symbiotic relationship. The fact that the Megatherium has very prominent claws also makes the silhouette from Slakoth to Vigoroth a lot more cohesive... and the 'sloth monkey' theme, I argue, is still maintained by adapting the walking gait of a walking gorilla.
In contrast to Slaking, the Megatherium doesn't have Truant, but has much lower stats. It's also very slow.
Alternate Bellsprout Final Form -- Tsubomitto
Another one from Beta Gold & Silver, though unlike the previous two, I'd definitely like this to be expanded upon instead of just being 'thick and huge Bellsprout'. Whereas Victreebel is based on the hanging pitchers of Nephentes, this alternate evolution would be something more serpentine, based on another pitcher plant with a distinctive look -- th Cobra Lily, Darlingtonia californica. It'd look a bit more serpentine and a lot more aggressive side-by-side to Victreebel, while still preserving the idea of a more 'upright' final form like the rejected Tsubomitto design. (I can't imagine this to be anything but still be Grass/Poison, as much as all these branching evolutions tend to have alternate typing)
Regional Slugma/Magcargo
Grass-type. I do want more grass-type invertebrate representation, but I do realize that just introducing random animals all the time will get pretty monotonous, so let's freshen things up with... Slugma and Magcargo! They're grass-type slugs, now -- Slugma is a regular slug, and Magcargo carries like a huge chunk of hard wood shell, like a watermelon shell or something, on its back. My idea for their colouration might even borrow from the ever-iconic Banana Slug, featured here. And, yes, I realize their names no longer make sense, but neither do the name of ice-type Sandshrew!
Regional Pinsir
Another one I kind of 'stole' from the Beta Gold/Silver game is "Plux" here. I just... we already have the Hercules Beetle in Mega Heracross (and one of my old fan-region prompts was to turn as many Mega/Giga Pokemon into regular evolutions or regional variants) but I feel like there's just something so... unnerving about Plux here having a Bleach-style Hollow mask on its face. I felt like making it Bug/Fairy, but... we already have a bit too many fairies? Bug/Dark was a bit more obvious but sometimes the obvious way is the best. I kind of want a species that's a bit more... brutal, I feel, in hunting down and combating rival species.
"These regional variants of PINSIR are far more savage than their more widely-spread cousins. Their face look like porcelain masks, and it hides their brutal intentions." / "It is thought that HERACROSS evolved into being a Fighting-type Pokemon as an adaptive measure against these [region name] PINSIR variants."
Regional Politoed
It's always kind of impressive the amount of frog variations we've got in Pokemon. This was originally a poison arrow frog entry before I realized that Toxicroak is already technically one. But then I thought about Politoed and how he's kind of... pretty boring compared to his Water/Fighting cousin Poliwrath. So my idea is to turn Politoed into something that we don't exactly have a representative of in Pokemon -- and also one of the more iconic creatures in a rainforest. My idea is that Politoed would have much more exaggerated froggy eyeballs and fingers -- just like this frog here. That weird little hair-cowlick thing that regular Politoed has could turn into a 'leaf', representing how this is a literal tree frog. I'm not sure on how well-received a regional form that shares the primary colours of its original inspiration would be, but there are so many other colours that tree frogs can have.
"A regional variant of POLITOED that has adapted to live on trees. They call on the rain to fill up the large leaves of the trees they live in, making little ponds for POLIWAG to swim in."
Regional Seismitoad
A lot of people have speculated that the orbs on Seismitoad's body is a reference to the slightly-disturbing but completely natural toad called the Surinam Toad, or Pipa pipa, which carry their young on little hole-like parts of its flat, leaf-like body, upon which they emerge from these holes, frightening so many typophobics in the world. Zelda: Twilight Sword had a pretty great enemy in this with the Deku Toad, and arguably Dragapult also does a similar thing...
But my idea for a Seismitoad variant would replace those orbs with little Tympoles, and it would have a signature move similar to Dragapult. Instead of shooting the Tympoles at the enemy, though, they would emerge and just help Seismitoad out in fighting before wiggling back into their parent's body. It's Grass/Ground because the actual body of the Surinam Toad is explicitly camouflaged as a dead leaf.
Regional Beautifly & Dustox
I'm trying to avoid using too many Generation I Pokemon as regional variants, but all other generations are fair game! Beautifly and Dustox are painfully left behind compared to other early-bugs, and for the longest time I really want a creepy skull-themed Bug Pokemon, like the Death's Head Moth here. And... well, Dustox's weird wings would be perfect, right? I could really imagine it just having a cartoon skull marking extended across its lotus-like wings. Instead of spreading poison dust, Dustox would now spread curses all over the enemy! Dustox, in this case, would be Bug/Ghost.
You can't just do Dustox without Beautifly, and I settled on having eyespots be the theme here. Regular Beautifly do have those little red markings on their wings, right? Now just replace those with more obvious eyespots... and then superimposed over those eyespots are clusters of psychic enery, forming like a 'magic circle' of psychic energy shaped like eyes. Think Marvel comics' Psylocke and her 'psychic energy' mask. Obviously, Bug/Psychic.
With this regional Dustox having a giant skull on its back and Beautifly having giant psychic eyeballs, it also coincidentally means both of Wurmple's final forms would be able to essentially 'pretend' to become a giant angry face!
--
...and those would be my main entries for the rainforest. I had so many other species running around in my head -- the solifugid! The hellgramite! The pseudoscorpion! The whipspider! The pill bug! But then that'd really skew the pokedex way too much towards having nearly 50% Bug-types. And while I'm still going to skew more towards bug monsters and water monsters, I also have try to restrain myself a bit. Also remember that a lot of the already-existing Pokemon will populate these forests as well. Moving on to the next area...
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MOUNTAIN AREA:
I don't really have too many new creatures to add to the mountain area -- but I still feel like any new region needs to have a mixture of types and designs, so I did add a bunch eventually. The mountain range, as noted, will primarily focus on a subterranean cave network, but the exterior would still have areas that are the requisite 'volcano' and 'ice mountain' areas.
Again, dipping into the pool of past legendaries that have not been touched whatsoever, the primary legendary that would be part of the focus of the story would be Diancie, who lives at the innermost part of the mountain filled with crystals and a massive colony of Carbinks.
Single-stage Ibex
Ice/Rock. Ibexes are a type of ungulate that I felt was kind of lacking among the Pokemon world. We do have a bunch -- like Gogoat and Stantler and Sawsbuck and the musketeers -- but a proper mountain goat, I feel, is kind of lacking from Pokemon's selection. I thought about this being a regional variant for Gogoat... but nah. The visual image I have about this creature is how some mountain goats can climb any surface that's not perfectly 90 degrees. The goat could even have a 'hiker' or 'mountaineer' vibe going on with its beard.
Just an icy ibex would be boring, so I had the idea that the horns are made of the sturdiest rock. To offset the rather poor defensive typing of Ice/Rock, perhaps the Ibex could have an ability that cancels out all 4x effectiveness?
Bomushika
Another Pokemon rescued from Johto's "beta" designs, a Fire/Water seal is honestly pretty damn cool, especially with the whole 'circus lava rock ball' thing. It'd be a fun little addition to the volcano lava area! To make it perhaps a bit less 'boring', I'd probably give Bomushika the patterns of a leopard seal? As a standalone creature I feel that Bomushika is pretty all right, but maybe its special move deals Rock and Fire damage together, similar to Hawlucha's 'Flying Press'.
Hot Springs Fairy
Fire/Fairy. Just to get things a bit more varied and that it's not all just animals, my idea is for a little creature, think something similar to Wynaut, that hangs around pools and makes it instantly the right temperature for a hot spring. Nothing too fancy, I guess.
Single-Stage Glow Worm
Bug/Fairy. I thought of just adapting a firefly before I realized that Volbeat and Illumise actually already exist. But these Glow Worms are based on New Zealand's Arachnocampa luminosa, which look positively ephemeral, hanging down from cave walls with glowing globules of silk. Like most wacky insects in the world they evolve into a rather mundane flying adult gnat form, but since this is Pokemon-land we don't need every single bug to evolve out of their more interesting larval forms!
The concept here isn't too different from the real-life species, where they use long sticky glowing strands to trap prey -- but since it's glowing, we could have the balls of light resemble will-o-wisps. Since they're Pokemon, the more iconic-looking strands might atually be part of their anatomy instead of just a substance they produce... a single one of these Pokemon might contl various strands at once. They'd send their little fishing rods down, somewhat like a twisted angler, only they use the glowing lights to confound cave Pokemon before it preys on them.
"[Speciesname] use the haunting lures at the end of their fishing lines to attract prey. It is theorized that species like Zubat and Woobat evolved to lose their eyes to avoid being preyed on by them."
Two-Stage Mole Cricket
Bug/Ground. Do all our Bug/Ground Pokemon lose their Ground typing when they evolve? Nincada and Grubbin are the only ones, right? The Mole Cricket is practically already a Pokemon in real life anyway with its very unique anatomy. It'd grow from a regular looking, nonassuming cricket into a mole cricket with massive honkin' digging claws. Not much else to say here, it would probably compete for ecological territory with Diglett and Drillbur -- actual moles!
There could even be a bit of a story similar to Yungoos and Alolan Rattata -- mole crickets are invasive creatures in some parts of the world, and humans attempted to biologically control them with parasitoid wasps -- of which we have an example of earlier in this page!
Rock Mimic
Pure-Rock type, single stage. No, not all of these are going to be animals. This dex will have an above-average amount of weird insects, sure, but all dexes need some amount of variety among them! This 'Rock Mimic' is something more along the lines of the traditional fantasy game image of an angry, living treasure chest. Only instead of a treasure chest, it's a pile of rocks that kind of looks like a treasure chest, I guess. Instead of pokeballs like Foongus and Voltorb, this one mimics a 'rock smash' rock in its hidden stage, and then reforms into a vaguely humanoid form with a caveman gait. Since it's made up of a whole bunch of sentient rock, it would constantly reform and change its appearance as it attacks. Basically kind of like a non-legendary, non-bricky version of Stakataka.
"Sometimes, Geodude hide under [speciesname]. When an unfortunate passerby try to investigate it, they get ambushed by two different Rock Pokemon."
Earthworm / Giant Sand Worm Monster
Pure-Ground, then Ground/Dragon.. This would be the Magikarp equivalent, with a relatively common first-form that's not exactly weak, but found all over the place in the caves. The earthworm stage has been captured and imported to farmlands all over the Poke-world, and helps to make the soil fertile for growing crops and the like. Its evolution is more of a 'secret' than Gyarados is, and you can only evolve it in the 'deep mountains' with a special magnetic field, similar to Magnezone or Probopass.
Upon doing so, it evolves into a giant Dune-monster creature, not too dissimilar to the prototype Gyarados, or to this giant Sandworm from Dune. Perhaps with a friendlier set of eyes? Or a friendlier set of fangs akin to Guzzlord? Pokemon doesn't like to make straight-up monsters that just look super-badass without the capacity to hang out and be petted and be given berries, after all. Or maybe the original earthworm body peeks out on the top of the deathworm's 'forehead', the true body controlling the giant form. In this form, it competes for territory with Onyx and Steelix.
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THE LOST WORLD:
Here's my favourite part -- and this is based on a very, very memorable scene in that Lucario movie, where our heroes find an unmolested land protected by the Regi golems deep within a gigantic tree where supposedly-extinct creatures still roam. Based on novels like Journey to the Center of the Earth or King Kong or The Lost World and the like, but I still feel like this being an ancient preserve of supposedly-extinct animals would work very, very well. Plus, that's why there's a bit of a wink-wink-nod emphasis on extinct animals in some of the creatures we see in the rainforest area.
That's why we had a bunch of extinct creatures elsewhere in this page, too -- my Lsytrosaur/Dimetrodon/Spinosaur grass starter; the Kuehneosaurus; the Megatherium Slakoth-evolution...
Going on with my idea that most of these areas would feature legendaries, the reason of this area would be the presence of Celebi keeping the ecosystem in stasis for its prehistoric friends, and perhaps trying to drain this 'primal' energy, or to poach all these rare Pokemon and sell them, would be the requisite evil-team plotline.
Three-Stage Plesiosaur: The Kurusu Line!
Water/Ice. We do already have a canonical Plesiosaurus Pokemon in Lapras, but I feel like it's about right to bring in this rejected starter line from the Spaceworld Gold & Silver demo. Admittedly I've always seen why these designs are rejected, being that they're a bit too simple. My envision for them would probably highlight their longer neck a bit more and add a bit more... details for them? More prominent claws at the end of their flippers, a more reptilian look, maybe even cut out the first form?
Oh, oh, oh! Maybe instead of looking like Kurusu, the first form is based on an Ichthyosaur, and as it evolves into its final form, it loses its dolphin-like snout and its neck elongates? More importantly, though, is that this is the Pokemon whose rear half gets amalgamated into Arctozolt and Arctovish -- yes, you're going to see a running pattern where I try to kind of 'canonize' a lot of these prehistoric Pokemon!
My idea is that the final form, "Aqueria", would have slight nubs on its back. "The reason for its extinction is its unprotected back, which made it vulnerable to attacking Kabutops. Ultimately, Aqueria would evolve to grow powerful armour on its back, protecting itself from young. This transformed them into a completely different species, however."
Two-Stage Stegosaur:
Dragon/Fire. I always knew I wanted a stegosaur Pokemon in my fan-region even before I had folded this 'Lost World' area and integrated it with the Frankenstein quartet from Galar. Which works absolutely well with the fact that the 'Draco' half is implied to be some form of a stegosaurid! I originally envisioned this creature as a Grass/Fire that emphasizes on the somewhat-debatable idea that members of the stegosaur family would use their spines like solar panels to absorb energy and heat their body -- and instead make it into basically a Solarbeam rail-cannon, with Dragostego or whatever we call this guy absorb light and then unleash it like a kamehameha from its mouth. However, we have way too many Grass-types in this region and I felt like it was appropriate enough for this to be a Dragon/Fire Pokemon. Perhaps with a specific ability that allows it to utilize a unique variant of Solarbeam that does Grass and Fire damage.
Its evolution line would go from looking like a regular cartoon stegosaur (essentially the 'drago' part of the Galarian fossils) into a more serious design whose spines are wreathed in fire similar to Typhlosion.
"The true form of the FOSSILIZED DRAKE. In its pure form, [speciesname] is able to properly use its back spines to absorb sunlight which it uses to power its powerful muscles, as well as its fire attacks." / "One of the earliest-known Dragon-types known in the fossil footprint, [speciesname] channels the power of the sun into the Fire-type. Scientists are studying this species to develop solar panels."
Three-Stage Deinonychus-Therizinosaur
Electric/Flying. This was originally my Grass starter idea -- a Compsognathus that evolved into a Velociraptor/Deinonychus, then finally into the recently-popular Therizinosaurus. For the longest time, I had two theropods in this list, one that was basically a dromaeosaurid with leaves for feathers. But that felt a bit too similar to Grovyle and Sceptile,
But when I zeroed in the fact that I was going to focus on previous generations' fossil Pokemon, then suddenly the 'zolt' side of the fossils, which is pretty obviously an Electric-type raptor creature. I think the electric-raptor design is pretty much already rather pretty finalized, just add the back end of the body. Obviously, it'll be feathered, just like a real-life dromaeosaurid.
My idea for this to be a three-stage starter was that this is a line based on several different theropods. So we go from a Compsognathus (most famously known as those little dinosaurs in Jurassic Park 2) to the ever-popular Velociraptor, to the recently-pretty-popular theropod, the Therizinosaur with its very distinctive bladed claws. Of course, it'll grow those lightning-arm-feathers like Dracozolt/Arctozolt has. The distinctive raptorial hook-claws and later arm-claws would, of course, be made up of electricity.
It's part-Flying, too, because I imagine the lightning-feathers would allow it some degree of flight -- mostly because I thought merely being a pure-Electric is kind of boring for this line? Perhaps it hadn't really perfected flight, something similar to the Archeops line where it can't fly properly, but it's slowly evolving into a bird.
(We'll go through the '-Vish' Dunkleosteus later on, in the aquatic area in the next part!)
One-Stage Diatryma:
Dark/Fighting. The 'Terror Bird' is a prehistoric creature that has been growing a bit more in popularity recently, and it'd probably be one of the nastiest, Beedrill-esque aggressive creatures in this Lost World. I don't really think you even need to do too much of a modification other than to make it drawn in the Sugimori style. The Diatryma Pokemon would be Dark/Fighting instead of Flying, relying more on bludgeoning attacks with its powerful kicks and pecks.
"Due to its highly competitive nature, it is thought that [speciesname] drove itself into extinction after fighting with its own species for resources and territory."
Regional Fossil Pokemon Variants:
It's not all of the fossil Pokemon, because some are aquatic and I'm saving them for my 'deep trench' area I'll post in a bit. But this is going to be one of my big personal appeals -- having a whole lot of ancient creatures represented in Pokemon! It has been a huge headcanon of the fandom that all these fossil Pokemon are part-Rock because of the way modern-day science has resurrected them, but in the 'Lost World', you could meet them (and some non-fossil-but-prehistoric Pokemon) in their true forms:
Regional Aerodactyl
Water/Flying. Pterodactyls are water fowls, and we already have a more 'rocky' Aerodactyl with its Mega form. Prehistoric Aerodactyl would probably still look mostly the same but with more colourful wing markings. Maybe with a more prominent crest like more common depictions of the Pteranodon. I thought about giving it a beak, but then fish Pokemon are pretty large and Aerodactyl would need those fangs to crush them.
"The primal form of AERODACTYL, their jaws have developed to crush the heavy shell of OMANYTE and ANORITH. Their crests help them to navigate through air currents."
Regional Shieldon
Ground/Steel. They would be a bit more offensive this time around, with Bastiodon's 'holes' on its giant shield-face allowing it to launch spike-cannons, an adaptation of a Triceratops' horns. Shieldon would have a more beak-like mouth. Its ability would be similar to 'Weak Armor', but increases Attack instead of Speed.
"When threatened, Bastiodon consumes the iron deposits in its shield and crafts them into horn-shaped missiles. It will willingly sacrifice its defensive capabilities to protect its herd."
Rock and Rock/Dark. Just because we're purging Rock-type from most of the other fossil Pokemon doesn't mean that Rock-types don't exist in the past! Since they're already pure-Rock, I guess we'll keep it for Cranidos (maybe Cranidos is the only first stage to not have a regional form, since it was 'resurrected' in a way similar to its original form? In my imagination every 'first stage' wouldn't look super different anyway), while Rampardos can become Rock/Dark. Rampardos always looked mean to me -- and the reional Rampardos in my head would have its tail end in a massive Ankylosaur club, which would be another real-life dinosaur representation without severely saturating the dex with even more individual species-es.
Regional Archen
Fighting/Flying. For the longest time, I don't really have too much of a concept for a regional Archen, since it's pretty much an adaptation of the real-life Archaeopteryx in a pretty faithful manner. I thought about making it Dragon-type, but I feel like Archeops isn't quite that draconic... but then I thought of some Pokedex prompts, so now Archen is a Normal/Flying that evolves into a Fighting/Flying Arhceops.
"The forebearer of most Flying-type Pokemon, ARCHEOPS is still trying to figure out flight. What it lacks in aerodynamics, it makes up with sheer muscular power. "
Regional Tyrunt
Pure Dragon. I've always thought Tyrantrum was a bit too messy, and an ideal regional variant for me would have them be less cluttered, losing essentially all of its weird greebles other than its 'crown'. The end result would probably be a much less toyetic and more 'organic' dinosaur, kind of like Mega Charizard Y but bulkier. (My original idea was to have him look like the now-outdated version of how dinosaurs were portrayed, but I guess Tyranitar exists.)
"Before Fairy-types and Ice-types evolved, Tyrantrum was the unquestioned apex predator of the prehistoric world."
Regional Amaura
Ice. Pure-Ice, and the Aurorus in my mind would be wreathed in almost ephemeral icy winds. Its 'sails' would look a bit more merged with its anatomy and run all the way to its tail. Something similar to Basculegion's 'ghostly wisps' or Ninetales' 'tails'.
"It is theorized that Amaura were the first species to internalize the power of the cold into their genetic material."
Regional Dreepy
Water/Dragon. It ain't all fossils! Dreepy's line is noted to be extinct when we play through the Kalos region, but they thrive here in a swampy area of the Lost World. They don't hover in the air like their ghostly counterparts, but wade around in the bogs, covering themselves in a layer of swamp muck that give the impression of a ghostly 'trail' as it moves around. Dragapult would still launch its young with water jets, but instead of using them as missiles, the little Dreepies would merely stick to the enemy and bog them down, reducing their speed.
Regional Mamoswine
Pure-Ice. It's a mammoth! Of course we need to have this one here. Regional Mamoswine would have an actual elephant trunk made out of frost. Its fur would be super shaggy the way that Piloswine looked like. I've always felt like it was a shame that Mamoswine lost a lot of the shagginess that defined Swinub and Piloswine.
"Herds of these prehistoric variants of Mamoswine would intermingle with Sinnohian Mamoswine, but the difference in their fur coating means that it is difficult for the two breeds to find a common temperature to coexist."
Yanmega Evolution
To be honest, Yanmega is alerady pretty plenty cool. I'm obligated to introduce it because it's a prehistoric creature (and tied to 'Ancientpower' like Mamoswine) but I guess we could have it evolve into an even bigger Bug/Flying monster, replacing its mouthparts with the xenomorph-esque extendable fangs of a dragonfly nymph, as pictured here? I'd like its colours to be like shiny Yanmega, too, which is a pretty killer colour scheme on a dragonfly body.
"Yangiga's fangs had evolved to become an extendable limb. Any who get caught in these mighty pincers have no hope of escape."
Regional Genesect
Bug/Flying. One of the few legendaries out there, pure, non-cyborgified Genesect would look the same except with wings instead of a jetpack. Instead of transforming into a flying saucer, it'd transform into a form that's a bit less humanoid and look like a flying treehopper (which is what it's based on. Instead of shooting lasers, the Genesect would launch gigantic thorns (like those thorned treehoppers pictured here). This is the only legendary on this list that I'll be mentioning.
"The true, primal form of Genesect. This ancient prehistoric predator died out because of changes in the atmosphere. In its natural habitat, it preyed on Aerodactyl with its blinding speed."
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DESERT AREA:
I've never been super-big on desert areas, to be honest, but Hoenn and Unova both had really memorable desert areas! And honestly, unlike most other biomes, I do feel like Pokemon's got a pretty great set of desert-dwelling creatures. That said, I would still throw in my hat for some of my own fan-mades!
My idea of a desert would be filled with large towering structures like these pictures -- which are termite nests that would revolve around the termite species that I'm suggesting as a fan-made Pokemon. Humans would turn many of the abandoned nests into temples. A specific large temple inhabited by 'ruin' Pokemon like Cofagrigus would be the base of a Hoopa, whose rings would be a 'post-game' feature that unlocks other "cover legendaries" in certain locations -- probably not too dissimilar to Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire, except with less random element to it. Another set of ruins would have a seemingly advanced technology, patrolled by the likes of Claydol and Golurk, and within it lie a powerful Volcanion.
Three-Stage Termites
Bug/Ground, at least initially. Termites and their insanely-gigantic termite mounds are pretty damn badass, and since this is Pokemon, these would be gigantic mini-dungeons scattered all over the desert, being the most prolific parts of the area. I have a very vivid mental image of a desert dotted with these giant monolithic termite mounds, and the Pokemon trainers would walk into these long corridors to gather treasure and maybe rescue some trapped people.
The evolutionary stage of these termites would be similar for both males and females for the first two stages, where they go just a bit meaner... and I know it's not exactly accurate to the real-world creature, but the males would become Bug/Flying, representing the mating elates with wings, while the females would grow into the iconic giant-abdomen queens -- and only at a ridiculously high level. Think Volcarona. They would be Bug/Psychic!
"Only a single female [secondstage] is allowed to evolve into [finalstage] in a colony. She serves as their queen, using her psychic powers to command her soldiers to victory." / "Some nests of [speciesname] recruit other Bug-types to serve as guards to offset their weaknesses. These other Bug-types are considered honorary members of the hive."
They would be competing a lot with Durants, which would also be featured a bit here...
Regional Durant Evolution / Variants
I thought of making an Amazon 'army ant swarm' variant for the forest region, but I decided to capitalize on the ant-vs-termite rivalry instead. So in this region, due to the intense rivalry with not just Heatmor but with the termite species, the Durants have evolved to wield other elements. With the classic Bug/Steel Unovan Durant representing the Trapjaw Ant; we'd have Durants that are Bug/Fire, representing Fire Ants. We'd have Durants that are Bug/Fighting, representing Bullet Ants.
And we'd have healing-specific Bug/Fairy Durants that are based on the Honeypot Ants focusing on healing moves. We'd have Bug/Grass Durants based on Leafcutter Ants which in lore would help to construct their nests, while in battle would focus on casting 'terrain' moves and other status ailment moves.
I feel like this would make them feel a bit more different, somewhat more similar to the polymorphism in certain ant colonies (which have 'workers', 'soldiers' and 'majors') -- only instead of being boring and being a bit too accurate to real life, which I already did with the termites, these would feel a bit more varied. (I thought about adding a pre-evolution 'grub', but that'll make this a bit too busy)
Single Stage Dung Scarab Beetle
A Bug/Ground single-stage. The mental image of a dung beetle rolling a gigantic pile of dung much larger than itself is pretty damn memorable, but there's the fact that, well, Pokemon won't go for something that's so... fecal in concept. That's okay, though, which is why I've placed this guy in the caves! Instead of rolling a giant ball of doodoo, it rolls rocks together. Its signature move would be something similar to the long-forgotten "Secret Power" -- it rolls up mud in forests, snowballs in the icy mountains, rocks in caves, sand in deserts and giant dust balls in urban areas. I feel like the physical appearance of this guy would be more cartoony, somewhat similar to Ledian and it'd 'run' on the giant ball like a old-school cartoon character.
"It is suspected that the Nuggets found by miners are the results of [speciesname] rolling together precious minerals into perfect spheres."
Two-Stage Thorny Devil
Pure-Dark. I feel like there's a lot to be done with this animal. It already kind of looks like a Pokemon with spikes all over it, but in addition to that, the real-world animal has a fake head on the back of its 'neck' (that lump you can see here) and the ability to squirt blood out of its eyes. Now I don't think Pokemon would allow a creature to straight-up squirt blood, but maybe we could handwave it as squirting its water reserves as a distraction?
Pure-Dark. I feel like there's a lot to be done with this animal. It already kind of looks like a Pokemon with spikes all over it, but in addition to that, the real-world animal has a fake head on the back of its 'neck' (that lump you can see here) and the ability to squirt blood out of its eyes. Now I don't think Pokemon would allow a creature to straight-up squirt blood, but maybe we could handwave it as squirting its water reserves as a distraction?
My idea of this creature would be a crafty bastard that uses its spiky body, its fake head and all sorts of dirty, underhanded tricks to bully the enemy. We already have Helioptle/Heliolisk and Salandit/Salazzle as two-stage reptiles that become bipedal, so maybe this one remains quadrupedal?
Two-Stage Bug/Fighting branching Grasshopper/Locust
We've had a couple of 'close enough' insect species like crickets and mantises, but we've never had a single grasshopper Pokemon! I toyed with this being a grasshopper/locust idea similar to Wishiwashi, but... but... and I feel like I'm not being hyperbolic in saying that Pokemon would totally spring for a Kamen Rider reference, right? Perhaps something more in the vein of Scyther, Pinsir or Heracross instead of just tossing in Takeshi Hongo wholesale as a creature we could catch. I don't know -- having a Kamen Rider reference would definitely be grounds for a humanoid bug, I guess, but I feel like there should be a nice balance where this 'hoppermon' wouldn't look as being 'just a dude'.
My mental image would be something in-between Scyther or Golisopod, but where those two designs emphasize the arms of their species, the grasshopper would have tiny arms (think the size of Golisopod's head-mandibles) and much larger legs.
Now here's the kicker -- you catch the creature in a 'nymph' stage, and normally it evolves into a Grass/Fighting monster. But bring it to the desert, and just like many real-world grasshopper species, it would transform instead into a far more aggressive Bug/Dark 'Locust' form that goes around devouring crops and plants with the sheer force of numbers. Part of me want this to be just a more 'insectoid' design, but no. It'd have to be something similar to Shadow Moon or one of the many evil Kamen Riders out there, wouldn't it?
Alternate Ground/Poison Skorupi Evolution
I feel like Drapion is a very cool design... but it doesn't really fill the hole in my soul that wants a more traditional scorpion Pokemon. So instead of evolving into the 'ogre scorpion' Drapion, when brought up close to the desert region (it would be 'evolves in a specific area' evolution), Skorupi would evolve into a more traditional creature with a scorpion anatomy, perhaps being more orange or brown in colouration. I would still feel like it would have the similar... weird... slinky-thing anatomy that defines Skoupi and Drapion, but it'd look less like a centaur and more like a monster scorpion. Not much beyond that -- I feel like the mental image of this creature is different enough from Drapion that it'd count as a branching evolution.
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...next, we'll talk about the ocean area as well as some additional monsters in cities and beaches! This... this was much more fun than I expected it would be! Click here for part two!
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