Pokemon: Adventures in the Millennium! is an Actual Play podcast using the Pokemon Tabletop United system and set in the Sinnoh region (albeit incorporating elements and Pokemon from all generations). It is played by real-life friends Ryan Mitchell, Lindsay Mitchell, and Duncan Nicholson, and GMed by Tanner Vogelgesang.
It's been 1000 years since the Sinnoh Region was founded, and while various locales across the region celebrate, three young trainers are beginning their Pokemon journey. Gabriel Charleston (Duncan) came up from Sandgem Town with Clawbert, a Krabby he rescued with the help of his Pokemon Ranger parents. Belle Reed (Lindsay) has journeyed from Kanto in order to escape a dangerous past, finding Myra the Nidoran along the way. And Julian Fowler and his Litten Erik travelled all the way from Alola in order to deal with some family issues in the region.
While all three are strangers, they decide to travel together and become fast friends—just in time for the mysterious Team Astro to begin wrecking havoc.
The show began in July 2018 and posts episodes approximately every other week. It's available on all podcasting platforms, and the show twitter can be found here
.
This Podcast provides examples of...
- Animals Hate Him: Bird Pokemon almost always attack Julian on sight. Apparently it's a family trait—Danielle thinks one of their ancestors was cursed.
- Beach Episode: Episode 16 and 17, somewhat. Though the trio hang out at the Sandgem beach for part of it, there's also plenty of battling and plot development as well.
- The Chosen Many: The end of Act IV reveals that there are a dozen trainers in Sinnoh who can act as "Chosen Ones" in order to undo the damage done to the time stream. Each one has some connection to one of the Creation Trio, four for each one
- Dark and Troubled Past: Belle. She came from an abusive home, joined Team Rocket only to realize they were just taking advantage of her, and abandoned her Pokemon because she felt like she couldn't be a good trainer to them. Not to mention the baggage she has with her old partner, Starr.
- The Determinator: Cassidy, Belle's Eevee. After discovering that her trainer had left her at a Pokemon Centre due to feeling like she wasn't good enough to keep them, she tried to follow her across the world to the Sinnoh Region—and succeeded.
- Drag Queen: Three of them—Prophetia del Phox, Talia Slowqueen, and Veronika d'Abra—act as the gym leaders for Jubilife City.
- Dumbass DJ: DJ scrtK1t1 makes their first appearance in the Oreburgh mine, hosting a rave with music so loud and bad it's threatening to cause a cave-in.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: In the games it is said that looking into the hole in Shedinja's back will steal your soul, but you're always looking at it's back whenever you send it out to battle. In this show, Gabriel's soul does get sucked as soon as he looks at its back and the next episode has him trying to escape from The Ghost Zone.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Siri and Cano, two Astro Grunts who try to defeat the main trio. They take time to do an entire Team Rocket-style speech when they first appear, their Pokemon don't respect them enough to listen to their orders, and they're so bad at sneaking around that the player characters immediately take pity on them.
- In the Back: At the end of Act IV, Starr stabs Belle in the back when she tries to shut down her Genesect-controlling machine.
- Knight Templar: The Logos Foundation want to help humans and Pokemon become strong enough to face powerful threats. Their plan to do this is to destroy all weak humans and Pokemon, as well as anything "distracting" them from growing stronger. Like culture. And emotion.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: The reveals of Julian's missing parents and Belle's Rocket background come pretty early on in the story, but are major elements of the character's development throughout.
- Legacy Character: Several gyms have new, original characters as leaders.
- Indie is the new Oreburgh gym leader after Roark disappeared alongside Julian's parents.
- Peggy took over the Canalave gym after Byron went on sabbatical, and turned it into a video game museum as well.
- Gentian took over the Pastoria gym after Crasher Wake joined the Elite Four.
-
Never Live It Down: Julian got hit in the head with a washing machine. - Only Known by Their Nickname: The Cool Loot Gang never reveal their names and are only referred to as "Cool [Item] [Guy/Gal/Pal]".
- Phantom Thief: Phantom Thief Roulette, who occasionally pops up to steal things (fake artifacts, library books, subwoofers).
- Robotic Reveal: At the end of Act IV, Lorne, Rosie, and Robbie are revealed to be robots from the future.
- Theme Naming: The main three trainers all follow specific naming conventions for their pokemon.
- Julian names all of his Pokemon after TV and Video Game characters.
- Gabriel names all of his after wrestlers, or wrestly-related terms.
- Belle names almost all of hers after historical figures, usually criminals. The Odd Name Out is Klondike, who's named after a geographical region.
- In addition, Belle and Starr are named for Belle Starr, following the same naming conventions as Jessie and James and Butch and Cassidy from the anime.
- Time Skip: There are a few that happen after particularly exhausting events where the main characters take a break to both train and relax.
- They take a two-week break after being attacked by Xurkitree at Barboachella.
- They take another week in Canalave after finding out about Damian/Darkrai's true identity, but before they take on the gym leader.
- There's one over the course of episode 46 after chasing Carina to get their Pokemon back.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: Some of the gym challenges and contests don't work the way they do in games—or the PTU rules, for that matter.
- Cöle's gym battle is a contest, netting Gabe both a ribbon and a badge.
- One of the gym challenges in Twinleaf Town is just an obstacle course that Belle and Cassiy have to complete before Barry and his Girafarig.
- The contest in Canalave is a dance contest, and has Gabe and Doink complete various Charm and Athletics rolls in order to outdance Radha.
- The Canalave gym has two challengers cooperate in a series of minigames inspired by video games before fighting Peggy.
- The Hearthome gym is an inverse battle (a battle format that was introduced in Pokémon X and Y), though for increased unexpectedness the style was not revealed to the main three, and in-universe wasn't implemented until a few days before.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Starr is incredibly cruel to her allies and enemies, and implies that she may have killed her abusive father. She's later usurped by The Logos Corporation, who believe humanity and Pokemon can only be saved by culling the weakest of the population.
- "What Do They Fear?" Episode: Episode 52, "Fear is the Mind-Killer". The trio have to go through a labyrinth in order to reach Baba Yamask's house and are confronted by hallucinations of their greatest fears.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Julian is afraid of bear Pokemon.
