G3 Story Pitch: Year 3 Plot: Awaken Ekimu

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Foreward

So we have a lot of great concepts, stories, amazing artworks and some fantastic set designs for the first 2 years as well as a general idea of the story for those years. Now I may not be entirely correct but as I understand it:

Year 1: The Toa are created as the mask freezes the island, the Toa unfreeze the island after battling the Rahkshi and Makuta is unleashed.

Year 2: Makuta influences and manipulates the matoran to start the civil war which escalates until the Toa realize Makuta is the one who started the war, this ends the war.

Year 3 is still fairly undecided but we have had some ideas put forth by the cast and by the community, so this is my pitch which is an amalgamation of those ideas and my own. Bare in mind I may change some aspects depending on other lore changes.

The basic plot

The Toa help the regions start to rebuild after the civil war, but during the rebuilding, hordes of small Rahi beings called skull spiders start attacking and the Toa must once again defend Arthaka from this threat. The spiders can take over the Matoran and turn them into drone slaves, to battle the Toa.

A higher species of Skull spider exists called the visorak, these are the leaders of the horde and mutate their hosts, these will be the main antagonists of the first wave, with Sidorak as their leader: The Lord of Skull Spiders. The Toa eventually defeat the Visorak generals and capture Sidorak to learn of his plans.

The Toa discover that he was a distraction to allow Makuta to search the island for the temples that contain the keystones to awaken Ekimu from his Tomb so that Makuta can destroy his brother. The second wave begins with the Toa journeying to these temples, where the Skull spiders are guarding them for Makuta to collect the stones.

During one of these temple encounters, one (or two) of the Toa are captured and the rest of the Toa rescue their captured teammate(s), they then debate, should they free Ekimu to beat Makuta? Do they need his help or do they awaken him?

They travel to Ekimu’s tomb to face Makuta and initially the Toa seem to be winning in battle against Makuta, in this battle the Toa steel and assemble all of the keystones, but then the spiders swarm the tomb and capture all but one of the Toa, who has the full stone. Makuta reveals he was toying with them, filling them with hope before tearing it away and then threatens to destroy half the island by activating the volcano if the Toa do not hand over the stones.

The Toa have a moment looking at each other and silently agree what must be done, and the one standing leaps at the sarcophagus in the center of the room and inserts the stone, not before being injured by Makuta in the process. The shockwave from the blast releases the Toa but they are floored and Ekimu climbs out of his sarcophagus and faces his brother.

Ekimu speaks with Makuta before they begin to fight, Ekimu smacks Makuta with his hammer, stunning him, ling enough for the Toa to create a Toa seal around him, the skull spiders flee from the conflict and Ekimu looks down at the Toa before him.

Basic things that need to occur in this story:

  • The skull spider attacks need to be the Toa defending or fighting the Visorak general.
  • Visorak are a subset of skull spider that can mutate their host, such as Skull-basher, Skull-slicer or Sidorak.
  • The Toa must set a trap for Sidorak.
  • At least one of the Toa must be captured in the temples, the rest of the team will be able to break them out.
  • The Toa must travel to at least one temple.
  • The Toa are the ones to awaken Ekimu.

Any comments and criticisms are welcome, what do you guys think of the pitch? :slight_smile:

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Rakhshi Power-Up: What is their power-up? Are they exposed to a hazardous material, or imbued with energy by Makuta? Are they so strong that they can wipe the floor with the Toa, in their current states? There should be a sense of progression for the Toa, facing insurmountable odds and pushing through, so Sidorak might work (although we have to establish what he is, exactly).

Toa: Do the Toa get a power-up in Year 3? If so, I have a pitch here that could help you figure that out. If not, no worries.

Ekimu’s Chamber: What’s the layout? How many passageways (I was thinking 6, 1 for each Toa to venture alone through)?

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Ok so nothing is set in stone as of yet but this is how I see it:

Rahkshi Power-Up: Makuta has decided to give the Rahkshi some more power so that they may overpower the Toa, the Toa already defeated them but now the Rahkshi are on par with them power wise, their physical mutations and individual strengths still persist but they are now overall on the Toa’s level.

Maybe they use their size or number of legs to gain an advantage but now they are certainly on par with the Toa.

Toa: I was thinking new weapons (piece wise) and newer armour (minifig and art wise) given to them by the regions as a thank you for the end of the war and to aid them in future. However maybe they each unlock their empowered mode as per that pitch whilst they are finding the keystones.

Ekimu’s Chamber: So for this, it’s a hexagonal room inside the volcano itself, the Toa can each enter through a stone gate way into the room, only the floor and parts of the ceiling and floors are carved stone, parts of the wall are cave with magma visible through the cave cracks. There’s a bunch of crystals in the floor and walls for light.

The sarcophagus lies in the middle.

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This sounds pretty good so far, I like a lot of things! Let me run through and give my thoughts.

This sounds good, building up to a final climactic showdown between the brothers. Maybe also include a scene where the Toa have doubts about awakening Ekimu as they “remember” the devastation the brothers caused when they fought the first time. Maybe they get overconfident and think they can take Makuta on themselves? Heck, maybe it can be a character arc for someone, maybe Tahu.

I see where this is going, but I’m not too keen on the Rahkshi returning, at least as primary villains again.

I like the keystone idea, reminds me of '08, but I don’t know about another fetch quest. It also makes the Rahkshi problem worse as it makes the entire year basically a retread of Year 1.

I realize the Toa do have to accomplish their goal, but having them win every single time kind of defeats the purpose a little. There’s no point in plotting out these encounters if the Toa never face a setback. Again, it also makes the Rahkshi even less important.

I like this, this is a good threat for Makuta to pull, especially since his beef was with sentient life in the first place. If the other years are done right, this should also be pretty emotional if we’ve had the chance to really connect with the island and its people.

Yes! Callbacks to Metru-Nui are always a plus in my book!

Okay, but having the Toa only succeed in awakening Ekimu after Makuta has been defeated causes a few problems.
First off, the balanced sides and the climactic battle between brothers the premise promised us doesn’t happen, which is disappointing.
Second, it makes awakening Ekimu in the first place a moot point. If the Toa were able to defeat Makuta by themselves all along, then why do they need to go after Ekimu?
Lastly, and less importantly, it makes Ekimu himself, at least at this point, nothing but a MacGuffin and an exposition dumper when he reveals Karzahni.

I like this idea a whole lot better. It solves the retread issue by giving the Toa a new threat to defeat while hopefully leaving the Rahkshi out.

I don’t think the sides really need to be balanced. And besides, six powerful Toa against one massive, very powerful army and its commander? It’s not even in numbers, but it’s still a good challenge for the Toa to face, and they haven’t yet faced a cunning commander and a massive army yet.

I can see Makuta, being without the Brotherhood, making a deal with Sidorak to unleash the Skull Spider army and keep the Toa busy as he collects the Keystones and goes to destroy Ekimu himself, thus ensuring he can’t be stopped.

When the Toa defeat the hoard and interrogate Sidorak, they discover the spiders were just a distraction and that Makuta is already about to destroy the only being capable of stopping him forever.

Now from there the Toa can fight Makuta, and maybe he revives the Rahkshi for a final hurrah (I’d still rather they be left out). Now, the Toa could probably Toa Seal Makuta away, but if they do this, something should happen to the Keystones that prevents Ekimu from being awakened. The Toa can always seal Makuta, but only Ekimu can truly defeat him, so if the Toa only succeed in stopping him temporarily, it will create a lingering threat that Makuta will come back and Ekimu won’t be able to be awakened to stop him.

The other option is that the Toa get their butts handed to them by Makuta and something happens that causes Ekimu to awaken then and there and stop Makuta. Maybe, to keep Makuta around, Ekimu is weak from his eons of sleep, so he only manages to stun Makuta, allowing the Toa to seal him away. Then we can have a de-powered Ekimu join the Toa, all of them hoping Ekimu can regain his power in time before Makuta’s eventual escape.

You may even combine the two. Maybe Ekimu only awakens for a very short time, long enough to help the Toa seal him away. The Keystones are destroyed by Makuta just before he is sealed, and Ekimu falls back into slumber, leaving the Toa worried about Makuta’s eventual return and if Ekimu can ever be awakened again.

Meanwhile, a new threat looms as the third brother, stirred by the clashing of the other two, begins to wake…

Anyways, I do really like this pitch, I just think you should go with the Sidorak alternative. Really excited to see where it goes!

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Ok this is good, this is the criticism I wanted.
I’ll run through all of your comments and give my thoughts and amendments.
There’s a TL;DR if you don’t want to read everything.

Ok this will tie into the Rahkshi thing as well, so here’s my NEW idea: The Toa realize that the Rahkshi are back and so they go to fight them and split up, then maybe 2 of the Toa get ambushed and one is poisoned, another Toa group may get knocked out and maybe one is imprisoned. There are many things that could be done to show that the Rahkshi are stronger.

I like the idea of one or two of the Toa being captured and the remained of the Toa need to retrieve them, it separate this from year one and it’s no longer a fetch quest. It will eventually become a fetch quest, after at least one Toa is captured and they decide to awaken Ekimu. Maybe the captured Toa are the ones who push strongly to awaken Ekimu and the ones that did not are still unsure.

So they won’t win every time. They’ll progressively weaken over time, they’ll probably have to use stealth to retrieve their imprisoned teammates.

Given the sets and their environments, we should be able to build up some emotion from this, also I’ve been corrected he does hate sentient life due to it’s chaos, right, my bad.

Excellent.

Huh. I did not think this all through at all. Ok so the Toa all need to be present to awaken Ekimu but Makuta has to stop them but they also need their showdown. Ok so unless you have a better idea, here’s mine:

The Rahkshi have restrained all the Toa save one, Makuta then promises if the Toa doesn’t give over the Keystone he will activate the volcano, killing the rest of the toa and half the island with it.

From here we either bring in a deus ex machina to disrupt Makuta’s attention to the Toa can dive at the Sarcophagus or the Toa need to be the deus ex themselves. Either way the Toa who inserts the Keystone into the Sarcophagus will be heavily injured by Makuta.

From here we now have the showdown scenario.

I’m just wondering how viable that would be as a set but I suppose it could work.[quote=“PakariNation99, post:4, topic:44319”]
I can see Makuta, being without the Brotherhood, making a deal with Sidorak to unleash the Skull Spider army and keep the Toa busy as he collects the Keystones and goes to destroy Ekimu himself, thus ensuring he can’t be stopped
[/quote]

Ok what if we potentially combine these pitches, now this may sound very far fetched but I’m getting inspired. What if Makuta has begun to collect the Keystones to destroy Ekimu but the Toa have discovered this so Makuta sends the skull hordes to stop them and leaves the Rahkshi to collect or guard the rest until he can retrieve them. Think of it like this: The skull spiders distract the Toa, the Rahkshi prevent the Toa from retrieving the stones (assuming the Rahkshi can’t retrieve them) and Makuta is taking the stones.

Once they defeat the horde, they interrogate Sidorak as per your idea, but Makuta is lacking a small remainder of the stones, so the Toa head to these temples to find that the Rahkshi have secured them. They then battle and successfully drive off the Rahkshi and take the stone but one of the Toa is captured.

I want to point out that this hinges on bringing the Rahkshi back again as villains, which, I don’t know how their stories have panned out in year 1 due to the hiatus of brainstorm but I do understand that they aren’t needed. We can entirely ■■■■■ this to the Skull spiders and sidorak if that’s better.

I like this idea, Ekimu hasn’t fully regained his strength, maybe he needs to use his sarcophagus to heal and regenerate after his sleep. I had the idea that Ekimu sacrifices himself to restrain Makuta but thinking it over, it’s not that good.

TL;DR

Some changes and some additions, this is the current state of the pitch:

  • Rather than the Toa still beating improved Rahkshi, one Toa is captured (optional: another is poisoned).

  • The Toa will travel to at least one Keystone Temple and will recover at least one Keystone, this will occur when they arrive to a temple before Makuta.

  • The Toa must retrieve the captured teammate .

  • If the Rahkshi return they will try and stop the Toa and be the captors.

  • The Toa confront Makuta in Ekimu’s tomb and successfully wake him up after somehow disarming or distracting Makuta to insert the Keystones, the Toa that inserts them will still be heavily injured by Makuta.

  • When Ekimu is awoken, he will stun Makuta long enough for the Toa to form the seal.

  • Alternatively the Skull spiders could attack a region, the Toa defeat them and find Sidorak, interrogate him and Learn of Makuta’s plan to find the stones. The temples could still feature the Rahkshi but they are not needed if there are still more Skull spiders.

I’m still gonna be working on this pitch and once it’s a little more concrete I’ll update the main post.

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Well, not every set needs to have a villain character in it. I think a couple of decently sized Skull Spiders (maybe closer to the Visorak than the Skull Spiders) can suffice. Maybe Sidorak has some lieutenants even?

That’s basically what my idea was, yes. But…

I personally feel like the Rahkshi should be left out, but I see that it depends on what happens to them after Year 1.

I think the pitch should stay with the Sidorak idea primarily, and there can be two versions of it depending on if the Rahkshi are finished after Year 1 or if they’re still around. But Sidorak should be the primary focus until the end, I feel.

Thanks, I do think it’d be best not to bring Ekimu into the fray this early. I feel like, although the position of a Toa mentor was new and interesting, Ekimu being awakend so early in G2 was one of the things I didn’t like about it. I think this Ekimu should be closer to Mata-Nui in status, so keeping the mystery of who exactly he is I feel is important.

If you like, I’d be interested in maybe helping flesh out the Sidorak pitch? I think this’ll be cool!

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Maybe some sort of skull basher and skull slicer?

It’s a good idea, no hate to you dude, I love it.[quote=“PakariNation99, post:6, topic:44319”]
I personally feel like the Rahkshi should be left out, but I see that it depends on what happens to them after Year 1.

I think the pitch should stay with the Sidorak idea primarily, and there can be two versions of it depending on if the Rahkshi are finished after Year 1 or if they’re still around. But Sidorak should be the primary focus until the end, I feel.
[/quote]

I understand why you might not want the Rahkshi in the 3rd year, it’s too close to year 1 for them to be shown again and reusage isn’t exactly creative. If we can get some clarity or someone fleshes out the end of year 1, we can finalize this idea.

I think we leave him as this wise sage for now, sorta like @A2B2C2’s hand or Arthaka ideas. He will primarily be a mentor.

Sure! I can start on some temple or skull spider attack mocs too if you’d like.

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Perhaps, yea, and maybe there can be some elite, rare species of Skull Spider called Visorak.

Thanks!

I agree. It wouldn’t take much either way to alter the Year 3 story to fit whatever will happen in Year 1.

That’s alright with me, I’m not too familiar with a lot of G3 pitches, but I can stay in canon. It was just my personal preference to have a figure like Mata-Nui in this new story because it was something I missed in G2, but it’s not my story, so, it’s all good.

Awesome! I’m not able to do System MOCs, but I can certainly try and flesh out the story!

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Perhaps if Sidorak needs an accomplice, we could use this as an opportunity to bring Voporak or more likely Roodaka into the picture. In my pitches for Roodaka I have hinted at a spider theme (her spiders from Legend of Vakama were originally supposed to be hinted to be Visorak or Skull Spiders).

Is Sidroak the Lord of Skull Spiders meant to be a humanoid figure who can control them like G1? An arthropod like the LoSS in G2? Or is he going to be a mix of the two like a spider-centaur ?

Another idea I had tossed around was that “Rak” was a suffix and these were leftovers from the days when Mangai used to be warring tribes. Rak would’ve been the tribe name and Sidorak would have been Sidhor of the Rak Tribe. The names of the Visorak breeds would’ve been given to a group of warriors who acted as his disciples ala The Knights of Ren or the Praetorian Guard. I’m not sure if you’d be able to work with that at all.

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@Kardax love it! what if you did visorak?

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To be honest, we could just merge the concept of Visorak and Skull Spiders and have them be used as differing names.

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skull spiders - Smaller or maybe baby spiders
visorak - Adult spiders

i mean they both have four limbs, two eyes and all that. So it would not be hard to maybe even say that they are of the same species.

heck, maybe the smaller spider’s as a way to defend themself against larger creatures when the adult spiders are not around, can latch onto the creature’s face and take control over them like a parasite.

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I know I am late to the party, but one thing I really like is that Ekimu himself never fights Makuta.
I remember that the TTV cast wanted to make Ekimu morally ambiguous. It would be interesting to see the Toa expect him to fight his brother directly, when all he does is just annoy him or hinder him but not really stop him.

I think he would distance himself from his creations to see how they fare against the wall that is his brother. It would also justify why he is so unhelpful, giving the Toa the keys to higher power so they can barely match their opponents. Revealing little by little the secrets he knows.

So, it would explain why he does not really give them access to the OP stuff from the get go, and also allow for some contradictions like new people using the things without the “prerequisites”. Fans might even think it was a mistake until we reveal what Ekimu actually thinks of his creation.

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I think what we do is we have the Skull spiders are the overall species and the “uber” of the species are the visorak.

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Funny, that’s exactly what I was thinking! :laughing:

Not too sure yet, I’m not familiar with your version of Roodaka, but it’d be cool to introduce the two into the story.

I’m imagining him as what G1 Sidorak should have been: a cunning military warrior with an unwavering command over his army. I think his title should be Sidorak, The Lord of Skull Spiders, though. Maybe he can power up and merge with an elite Visorak (maybe his own personal pet, Voporak).

I do like the idea, but I’m still a little wary of it. I don’t think so many individuals should be from Mangai and have their names be portmanteaus. I did read a bit of The Legend of Vakama, and I know he has that going on, but I don’t know about everyone. It might muddy up the lore a little, there being so many different tribe suffixes.

Could he possible be from another land? I’m not up to speed on TTV’s status with there being other islands. I think it’d add to the mystery a lot more, and frankly, having every single threat the Toa face be domestic seems really odd to me. Like, the island can’t possible house this many factions is what my mind tells me.

Of course, everything here is flexible. I’m going to work a bit on a version of this pitch to put out there.

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I think the other issue with the “Knights of Rak” idea is that it may require introducing too many peripheral characters if we have a Ropor, Boga, Oohno, Vohta, Suuko, Keelar, and possibly a Kahga if we include the elite breed. To give a rough idea of what I envisioned a Knight of Rak to look like, imagine something like the old Visorak Halloween costume, but redesigned to look more formidable (Likewise, I also had a sketch attempt where I attempted to make the “Makooti” mask into something that looked intimidating)

image.jpeg600Ă—600 18.5 KB

I think it would be an interesting idea for Voporak to exist as a pet…maybe he was once his teacher whom he had turned over to Roodaka once he had no further use for him? Then in a karmic twist Voporak fused with Sidorak when he commanded Roodaka to give him more power. I envision Roodaka in this continuity as a Morgan Le Fay-esque character. Your wish is her command, but you must be very careful concerning exact words

I toyed around with the idea of having Matoran coming from other lands before it was established that there are no other islands in canon. Initially they were Pirates trying to appease Tren Krom by sacrificing land masses that they would lay anchor on and pillage. Maybe we could rework ideas from this pitch to rely on the Visorak instead?

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Wait, these were a thing?

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well no the Piraka are already Dark Hunters and I actually have another idea for Visorak so skull spiders are great

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Well, anyone can make pitches, we can have different Visorak ideas.

Yea, I think that’d be a little much. I imagine they’d just be a stronger breed of Skull Spider, collectively called Visorak, and each has the name of the original Visorak breed. So there will only be 6 Visorak, and each will be more akin to LoSS from G2 than a Visorak from G1.

Please. I need that in my life.

Hmm, or maybe Voporak was the original (and natural) leader of the hoard? Then Sidorak conquered him and made him his pet. I do like the idea of Roodaka using her mutation powers to fuse the two, though, that’s really cool.

I am 100% down for this! Great idea!

We could, yea, that’s basically the Visorak from G1, so it works. I feel like we should break a few rules, though, I don’t really think it’s viable to have every villain in the series based on the same island.

Maybe Karzahni secretly made other islands with other, more destructive lifeforms like the Skull Spiders?

Plus, really? A whole planet with only one island? Seems highly unlikely to me.

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i made a pitch last year that was about there being other islands beyond the borders of Artakha.

Many of the characters you all have plans to introduce as matorans, i have thought about introducing as the main players of a massive war that is still happening while the events of G3’s three years were going on.

Before the three brothers created the island of Artakha, Mata Nui had created the world and filled it with many variations of creatures and intelligent life. These includes the Vortixx, the Skrall, the Mahri (what i am calling the Barraki’s species), the Elementals (who later de-evolved into the Elemental beasts) and more. many of these races forged empirers after the three brothers put Mata Nui into his eternal slumber and have since then been fighting amongs each others in order to gain supremacy over the world.

If any of you wish to discuss my idea of this, please give give your own take and feedback in the topic i have linked.

also, just a side note, another one of my ideas is that there excist no Matorans outside the island of Artakha, Matorans are unique to the island because they are one of the few creatures who are able to control elemental energy and the only species who can become a Toa. Plus the fact that they were created by the three brothers and not by Mata Nui.

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