The Scrap-lands (part of my bionicle AU)

#Scrap-lands

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So hey-hey! For those of you who have seen my stuff you’ll’ve probably figured out my Bionicles are set in an AU version of the bionicle world, you also may have seen mention of the Scrap-lands before, so here’s this thing, a little insight into my world and what exactly the Scrap-lands are!

Ok so to understand the scrap-lands you have to first understand my version of the bionicle world/Aqua-magna.

###Island/land additions

Essentially instead of there being just a few islands, with barely any other matoran or toa, my version, while still having those islands and toa there, there’s also hundreds (or some other reasonable amount) more islands with toa and matoran, the canon islands are somewhat well known, location and description dependent on the islands own secrecy, while the Toa-Mata, being the chosen ones of Mata Nui and all, are known about nigh everywhere, though mainly in rumors, legends and myths but most are very accurate.
The Mata and the other canons aren’t the only toa as I’ve said, there’s hundreds of other toas and teams, all doing something or other, be it protecting an island from some evil or just wandering around them on adventures/quests, the canon story-line is there and all main/known events still happen, there’s just more parts for what happens in between some of the events, nothing major and such and nothing that changes it, just adds to it.

The original Toa don’t go travelling because they are more along the lines of the village/island protector types, that doesn’t mean that they haven’t met others from different islands, many, those few who have found/know of the location have gone to see them and help them for a bit. The Mata are quiet famous due to the many legends around them that show them as Mata Nui’s chosen ones.

So in basic any matoran can become a toa, all they need to do is find the proper item/s (which are rare, typically being a great mask or toa-stone, both of which are hard to find even in the actual story-line) or maybe they’ll be chosen to help fight some great evil or other Makuta, of course what happens after that is up to them, that is if they don’t die, yep there’s plenty of toa and matoran dieing all the time, so what if they were chosen, doesn’t mean they’ll win, it’s a battle of good versus evil and both sides are even (most of the time), none better than the other, it’s up to skill and luck to survive.

Also turaga work different in mine, while they are still leaders they aren’t always toa that sacrificed their powers or are the permanent leader. The few defining aspects of the turaga are that they are quite wise and typically older than most of the other matoran, that’s not to say there haven’t been younger turaga they’re just rarer due to typically having less knowledge and life experience than an older matoran.
A turaga is not always a permanent turaga nor are there always multiple turaga at one time, it’s all dependent on how that group/tribe/village/whatever you’d call it work. Some villages actually have a governmental type system with votes, where a few select matoran that match up with specified and preset conditions will attempt to convince the matoran that they are the better choice by showing what they know and how well they are at leadership.
This has also been used in some villages that usually have a Turaga that doesn’t change until death, if the current one/s has proved themself/themselves to be a bad turaga/s or they died without training a new one, others even have rotating turaga, each turaga having their own amount of time to lead then the next one has the same amount of time and so on until it gets back to the first Turaga.

For villages that only have the first chosen turaga, and don’t change them until the current one/s die (or other certain , the turaga usually train another matoran as their successor so that another turaga with their knowledge and more will be there for when they die.

###Inhabitants special qualities

Bionicles can take apart, replace or repair almost any part of their body, so one could take off their leg and put on a new one, of course it’s difficult and typically requires specific tools, quite a bit of training and related such to get a proper, more reliable repair and connection, but almost any part can have that happen except for the head and parts of the chest, all that can be changed on those is the mask and chest piece/additions unless one is a well practiced expert in the subject, the chest containing most of the vital, necessary parts to live, and the head containing their brain.
They are still bio mechanical of course, after switching out a piece, if it doesn’t already have muscle and such connected to iy already, and there are no/not enough muscle strands available, it’ll start to grow in from the main body, the time changes dependent on size and limb strength, but a limb typically takes about a full day before being fully ingrained with enough necessary tissues and such to work, if not at full capacity.
Of course it’s not something most do unless they need to replace an irreparably damaged part.

Also, for those who are wondering, yes they can and do require food and such to stay alive, if not near the same amount and time-set as we do and they do have some other features from normal bionicle, most of which I got from other artists worlds and liked (most of which came from Tabiu-kettu’s comics), so they can get sick, yada yada, you get it.

#Scrap-lands

The scrap-lands is one of those many other islands there are in my world, albeit one of the strangest if also most interesting ones.

It, itself, is an island composed fully of broken and scrapped parts, populated by scrapped up, junky matoran and toa who call themselves scraplings, the matoran are actually called Cor-matoran but they prefer scraplings to it.
They, along with strange scrap rahi, are the native inhabitants of the island.

With new parts and other beings appearing nearly every day, no one knows where they come from or even how they get there, any beings who appear have currently retained none of their memories of their past lives (if they even had one) and are usually quite damaged when they appear.
The best theory so far is that it is all of the broken and lost pieces from around the world and that whenever a toa, matoran, rahi and such dies in ‘certain ways’ a new scrapling or rahi appears on the island.
As they and more scrap appear the island slowly grows larger, but it tends to take centuries to even see a noticeable change.

It is a somewhat chaotic realm, one of the few islands that is not involved in either side of the war, that doesn’t mean they haven’t seen some of it, they’ll allow either Makuta or toa to come on their island but if they plan to bring conflict with them that will affect the islands own inhabitants, and do they’ll have to deal with the islands full force. This doesn’t mean none of the scraplings work for either side, it’s just a very small amount of them that do.

The reason it’s so chaotic is because of how its society works, being a touch feudal. Essentially it goes like this, if you see a part you want on someone else you attack them and take it if you win, most give the defeated a replacement of their own if they can, to at least be somewhat nice but there are those who’ll take the legs from another and leave them there for the next scraplings to deal with, that doesn’t mean killing happens a lot though, it is actually extremely rare on the island and quite taboo, while killing others may get one a lot of feared respect it also gives others the excuse to kill them off, removing the taboo from them, seeing as how they do it themselves, causing nearly all of the inhabitants of the island to start hunting them down as quickly as possible.

The island’s mainly run off of social status, which is pretty much built off of how good you look, how powerful you are and how much respect/fear you have gained.

The better you look. I.e. The less scrappy you are, the more rare parts you have, the more complete your colour scheme and such, shows that you are obviously very rich or an amazing fighter/scavenger, being able to hold onto that many good pieces despite being hunted by many for them.
The more powerful you are the harder it is to beat you and take your parts and the better your parts will start to be.
The respect you get is all dependent on what you do, maybe you’ll be a famous bandit who never loses and has a hoard of parts and amazing build, maybe you’ll be the leader of a massive crime syndicate yet be physically weak, maybe you’re known as a legendary protector/fighter who has taken down many other amazing scraplings, the more respect you have, even feared respect, means how well you’ll be treated by others, a great protector/fighter will get offers from many villages, all competing for their favour and protection, and how many will try to hunt you, the more respected the more others will be too intimidated to try but the stronger those who do will be.

The island is covered in small villages, just little areas where a group of matoran decided to settle down and build some houses, and it slowly grows as more arrive and decide to stay, most villages have at least one toa protector that they “hired” to keep them safe from bandits and such. The bigger the village the better the toa and the more they’ll have, being able to afford them. To get a toa protector first they’ll have to convince one to come and protect them and then they’ll gift him with good parts they find, maybe he’ll need a replacement arm from the one he has, they’ll find/build him one, or they’ll just give him some rare part they found, upping his status. As long as the toa shows themself to be a good one, even if they lose every now and again, they’ll keep them for as long as they can.

Despite how the island is made, most of the parts it’s composed of are actually to broken to be used or even repaired, which is why it works in such a way, you can’t just walk around and find all the peices you’ll ever need/want immediately you have to hunt for them and sometimes you’ll see someone else with one of them, so either you’re going to let them keep it and keep searching for who knows how long or you’ll take it yourself. Parts can even be found buried deep beneath other parts so you’ll have to mine for it, there’s actually group of scrapling that do that, then sell/trade the pieces for more items they need. Parts do have rarity levels, the rarer and less damaged the part the more respect and status that comes with owning and managing to keep it, gold is one of the rarest and best pieces to use for status, even a couple of normal sized, well kept gold pieces can cause the average bandit to think twice about attacking you, purple is the rarest of the rare, only ever seen on a scrapling who is a legend, such as a fighter so strong no one has yet to damage him or the boss of the biggest, most dangerous criminal group out there, why it’s like this is because despite what purple means anyone will do almost anything for it and will attempt to take it. Weapons also have a status, the harder to use the weapon the more intimidating you are, a blade is about the average scraplings weapon so not very much intimidation will come from seeing one unless it’s like a massive sword or gun sword, a scrapling using something like a long shot kanoka disk launcher will show that they know how to use a more difficult weapon and will have more status, someone who wields multiple weapons also gets a pretty good status boost and will keep most low ranking bandits from them.
Even if they can’t use em, the others won’t know that and seeing a rare, difficult to use, strong weapon is enough to make most think twice and not want to chance you possibly knowing how to use it.

Every scrapling appears in the island fully built, but very scrapped up, as time goes on their form will change as they modify themselves or lose pieces to others, a fresh scrapling can easily be told out from an old one, their form will be a relatively normal build with no super strange, crazy bits, while an older one can look like anything, even having multiple arms or hands for feet, all dependent on how they’ve modified themselves and how well they’ve been able to repair themselves after being defeated.

The island itself is divided into nine parts, why nine you will understand soon, Originally when the island first came about there were very few Scraplings and it was much more chaotic and undeveloped then it is now. Among the original scraplings were 8 beings that could not be called either toa or matoran, due to their build and power, these beings, later known as the ‘Makers’, instantly commanded the respect of those around them, their power almost being able to physically feel radiating off of them, the first scraplings they met started following them, so each had their own group, eventually they all encountered each other and discovered the power each of them controlled, due to how similar all of their powers were and what the island was like they feared each other, afraid they would try to attack them and take their followers, due to their irrational fears they ended up fighting amongst each other, causing a massive war, between them and all who followed, that spanned centuries, always in a state of deadlock, destroying the island more than it already was, and that seemed like it would never end. That is until he appeared, the 9th ‘Maker’, later to be known as the Peace-bringer, he was weaker than the others and had no followers yet somehow he managed to end the war, convincing the others none of them meant harm to each other and that it would be better to work together, making them realize the extent of the damage they had caused to their land and followers.
After this they all agreed to split the island evenly between them, each getting their own area that they could develop using their powers to match what they preferred. This did not mean they couldn’t visit each other nor that their followers couldn’t live where ever they wanted, though most would reside in the same region as their leader.

The Peace-bringers area is in the center of the scrap lands, in his area he used his powers to create a large city, for all matoran who wished to reside their. Most of the Cor-matoran live in the city, yet, as stated before, there still are multiple smaller villages scattered across the island. The Peace-bringers city is essentially the business hub of the Scrap-lands, the main life force of their civilization, matoran heading there to trade, buy, sell and make parts and other needed/wanted items, such as food, weapons and house building supplies.

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I will make Peace-bringers moc myself later.

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Also here’s a question, does anyone want to make a creator moc? If people do I’ll make a contest/entry/thingamajig for this. Essentially I want to find 8 people who want to make a creator’s moc and I’ll include them and their area in the Scrap-lands description. You’ll get to make the moc, choose an area and describe it however you want, and remember the creator moc doesn’t have to go with the area, say you have a more fiery looking moc but you want their area to be more of a lake like area (like ga-koro) you can do that, it’s all up to you how you want your area and the moc to look and the bio and name for the creator moc, there wouldn’t be many restrictions. The only real ones are the area and bio have to be at least somewhat realistic and not to op, other than that go pretty much a bit nuts, say you want your guy to actually like fighting and all, work that into his area and all, just make sure he’d still be able to be convinced to stop fighting, seeing as how the peace bringer managed the convince them to stop by showing them the destruction they were causing and how many of their followers they were hurting and killing. Other restrictions are remember, the creators are a lot larger than the average matoran or toa so if you do want to make one they’ll have to be around the height of a Titan character, so piston supported legs would be recommended, also remember that when building them make sure they do look somewhat scrappy, despite who they are they would still be kind of scrapped up looking like all the others who appear, by scrappy it could just be a mismatched colour scheme and slightly different parts on some areas or it could literally be scrappy looking, with loose-ish tubes and gears and visibly different parts, also remember about the status bit and all! If you can and own any try to incorporate a couple purple and/or gold pieces in your moc.
Remember even though the goal is to make a scrappy moc don’t just throw pieces together to make a crappy moc then say that’s what you want to use, put some effort and pride into it! Make it look good despite its scrappiness, like you actually put effort into it and care about how it looks. Also remember despite all this, have fun!

(Ask me if you need a better explanation of how it’d work if you all want me to do it, I know my explaining is terrible.)

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This will probably be updated/rewritten later, just a heads up for this who like this.
Also, I will be putting up pics of an old & a new scrap-toa to give an example of what the differences usually are between the two ages and to show what they can look like.

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