So here's my idea, you might wanna tell me if this is being done already lol.
Cradle had fallen victim to The Swarm, but the knights found that, aside from the power boosts in monsters, it really did nothing else. Knights weren't corrupted, Cradle didn't fall into anarchy, all the monsters weren't even corrupted. For the better part of a year ((9 months)), Intel knights, Recon knights, all the way up to Captain Ozlo himself puzzled over why this had happened. But something else major, something else threatening occurred and demanded the Spiral Order's attention.
The Core Opened.
True, The Architect designed the Core to protect something, but The Order had always thought it was being protected from The Swarm. But, hours before the momentous opening, Recon Knights found an abandoned Gremlin facility, with extremely important information.
The Swarm is still not strong enough to destroy the entity in the Core. King Tinkinzar fears the worst. If the Emberlight gremlins cannot make The Swarm stronger, the Core will kill everything on Cradle. There will be no hope.
Immediately upon receiving this information, a team of the finest Vanguards ((Urcon, Izuri, Eldritch, Omurus, and Aslinth)) was sent to The Core. They were just in time, too. The Core had opened, but the creature had only let out miniscule effects of its influence. The knights forced it shut again, and sealed it by welding metal from the Skylark itself onto the opening. They paid for that effort with their souls, as the influence of the creature had entered Cradle, and had started by corrupting the knights sent to trap it.
Now, these knights, The Core Squad, have vanished. They are on Cradle somewhere, maybe in the Clockworks, maybe on the surface, and they are building their empire. The other influxes of power the creature sent have taken over the Clockworks, totally eradicating all traces of The Swarm. The Shadow Lairs were destroyed, leaving only the Sanctuary. While not all the monsters in the Clockworks have been taken over, every type of monster has been corrupted, and they are much stronger and more violent than when they were corrupted by The Swarm. The Spiral Order has decided that they are now fighting a losing battle, and must leave Cradle as soon as possible.
The Strangers, once sensing the emergence of the beast within the Core, returned to Apocrea, revealing their true existences to the Knights in the process. They may come back in full force to try and take over Cradle at any time.
The gremlins also merit mention. Their plan of using The Swarm to counter The Beast failed, they have accepted the options of escape, or die. A ship large enough to transport a race would be of great value to them, as it seems to be the only thing that it escapes their capabilities to build. They are monitoring the Order's activities, though the Order still does not know where The Great Colony is. Those aside, you are liable to die once you set foot in the Clockworks, which you may have to do at any time to find materials.
The Owlites have returned, and though it seems that the Kats were their demise, the flock of Owlites that were present in Cradle was just that, a flock. A substantially greater amount is now present in the Clockworks, and they have been revealed to harness the very magic The Beast used, though in a less potent form.
You are a knight of the Spiral Order. Your primary objective is searching for materials to make a new ship for escaping Cradle. However, as knights, you will have no allies at all. In my view, knights are humanoid, but still with the equipment used in the game. So there.
or
You are a gremlin. Your mission is to sabotage the knight's attempt to escape Cradle, and find possible trumps to The Beast, whose true nature you still do not know. Naturally you can be of any clan of gremlin, even one of the Crimson Order, but I prefer for that to be for major antagonists, please.
or
You are an Apocrean, since the emergence of The Beast you returned to your homeworld. Not due to being short on power, but to plan, as you have been lying in the shadows waiting to lay claim on the planet, and The Beast, for eons. Now, the time has come. The levels of Apocrean are Harvesters, who capture souls for use, their powers you know already. The next level is the Hierarch, who uses the souls to supply Apocreans with life, and power. Therefore, the more an Apocrean kills and captures, the closer to immortal it becomes. Hierachs can summon weapons of Obsidian, and Obsidian itself, using it in various ways, even for magic.
or
You are an Owlite. Your mission is to decimate the knights and gremlins, the sentient beings on this planet. Once this is achieved, Cradle will be yours for controlling. Robed, Owl-Headed and winged, they stand on long, developed talons. However, arms and hands are also present, which they use to carry their weapons.
The two types of Owlites are the warrior and the enchanter, which carry blades and guns or wands respectively. Naturally, this belies what they do in combat.
Now, should you choose an Owlite, the magic should be within reason. So basically, you start out with maybe one specialty in magic, which is categorized as elemental (earth, wind, FIRE AND AIRR, umm I mean fire and water.), artificial (by which I mean not composed of the natural elements), personal (relating to you) or interpersonal (relating to someone else). Based on the importance of your character you might get more leeway.
The Apocrean magic should always be (somehow) connected to Obsidian. I'll let pretty much most things fly, as long as it's connected to Obsidian.
Gremlins. Not much more to expound on here. You've seen them in the games. The higher up you are however, the better stuff i'll let you have. And frankly, I assumed if anyone picked gremlins, they'd pick either Darkfang or Crimson anyways.
Knights. Do I need to say more? You can be any kind of knight though, if it makes it any clearer.
You also don't HAVE to be a fighter, just making that clear.
***
(I've been typing for a while)
So, as GM, if I feel the story needs to be furthered towards on of the goals, I will loosely control the activities of the clans, and state how it affects speific characters, which it may or may not do. So for example, I say the Knights are weakened. I may have one of the other clans decide to attack them at this point, and then redirect charcters of that clan to attack the Knights.
Also, just like how Kora gives Knights missions in the game, that will happen in this RP, in each clan. It may happen happen a lot, or seldomly, but it will happen. I will have a "Kora" in each clan, (though in the Knights, it literally is Kora). Also, I will have a character in each clan as well, as to what they will all be i'm not sure yet.
Alright, naturally, you need to create an app so I know what's up and if everything's good with your character. It basically is your regular app form, but i'll do one as my next post in case you need clarification.
OOC posts are done in double parentheses, and I may make a discussion thread for strictly OOC posts, but I don't know if this will take off yet lol.
So, let's get to it, if you're interested.
((Seems trivial, but I edited the brackets to parentheses))
That was my SK conspiracy theory (The strangers being apocreans)! I might join when we finish outnumbered