The Gungan Council (frequently abreviated as TGC) is a Star Wars-based role playing and discussion board established in 1999 by General Ceel in the wake of The Phantom Menace craze. It began on SWFans.com before moving to ezBoard and has since been one of the most active boards on the system. Since then, it has had its ups and downs, several restructuring of the rules, a massive ezBoard-wide hack, a migration toward Yuku, and then a reboot that saw it migrated to its own website. Yet, it has managed to stay incredibly active and open to anyone that wants to roleplay or just talk about Star Wars and other topics.
The premise of The Gungan Council is simple: it is an entirely character driven roleplay. Characters of any type can be freely made and introduced. After that, the characters join one of the many factions of The Gungan Council for both out-of-character and in-character training. The OOC training comes from being introduced to the setting and style of The Gungan Council as a writer, while the IC training comes from skills one's character learns. This makes TGC easily accessible to writers of any skill.
Rather than taking place during a set time in the Star Wars universe, The Gungan Council is almost like its own separate universe where all the events of Star Wars canon happened yet elements from the earlier chronological dates of Star Wars canon can be used. Also, the continuity for characters is defined on an individual basis. Many times, characters can easily retcon details of their past without any worry.
An archive of the old TGC can be found here
, with its new website found here. It also has its own wiki!
In 2011, a podcast for TGC began. It frequently features active TGC members for interviews and segments. It also managed to interview James Arnold Taylor, voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which can be listened to here.
The Gungan Council provides examples of the following:
- Achilles' Heel: With a splash of lightning or EMP explosion, Darth Apparatus is severely crippled.
- The Alliance:
- The Alliance, which is actually two factions against every known evil in the universe: The Jedi Council and the Rebellion.
- United Triumvirate, a faction that has an aliance among the Hapans, Mandalorians, and Chiss to end the oppression of their people.
- The Rebel Alliance, a defunct faction that held Jedi, Rebel fighters, or really just anyone that wanted to fight against the dark side.
- The Jedi Brotherhood, an old Jedi faction that actively fought against all Sith factions until it merged with the Jedi Council.
- Anachronism Stew: An in-universe example, where technology from any era of Star Wars can be used. For example, an Imperial I Star Destroyer can be in the same fleet as a Sith battlecruiser and no one would mind.
- Anti-Magical Faction: The Crimson Order made its ultimate goal to be the eradication of all Force users. The Galactic Empire also once had a campaign that got the common people in its domain to believe the Force did not exist.
- Apocalypse How: It happens, and whether or not it sticks depends on how long people remember it and whether or not they want to deal with it.
- Taris experienced a Class 6 after Rogue Moon crashed into it in the Galactic Crusade
- Coruscant had a Class 1 after the Death Star exploded just a few thousand kilometers from the planet. It's sometimes described to have damaged at least half the planet
- Art Evolution: Both writers and the community as a whole have seen this. Writers usually improve in their writing capabilities through time, usually getting to the point where their very first posts seem so immature and alien to them. Through time, the community's ability to write as well as roleplay has increased dramatically as a whole through the years. Many writers have developed the ability to discern whether or not to write novels or short, to the point posts based on the roleplay's needs.
- Ascended Extra: LiSah Mao and Deagan Hunt began as NPC's but are now their own player characters
- Breakthe Cutie: Very frequent, and it sometimes gets very graphic for a Star Wars roleplay. An example is Kassey Daklin who, due to torture to herself, her father, and her fiance, has essentially become a schizophrenic.
- Calvinball: Takeovers on the current "rule-less" form can be this way, with many people taking up unwritten rule to make the experience as conflict free as possible.
- Cast Herd: Formally, the factions act like this by grouping like minded characters (lightside characters joining Jedi, darkside character joining Sith) together and instill a sense of galactic conflict. Informally, cliques have formed, both just to get a reliable group to roleplay with and to further out-of-character interests.
- Characterization Marches On: Commonly happens due to changing tastes and styles of writers, especially if a character has been written for a long time.
- Claustrophobia: Ti'Cira Hawk developed claustrophobia by being locked in a cage by her former master.
- Colony Drop: In the Galactic Crusade roleplay, a moon was dropped on the planet Taris, killing all life on the planet.
- Cross Player: Many writers, notably those of Phylis, Relen, and Jessan, frequently write the opposite sex. It's more common for women on the site to write males, as well.
- Cut Short: For roleplays that died before their fortieth post, they were usually deleted. Now, they have a chance to live again with the Thread Necromancer.
- Darker and Edgier: When compared to the movies, TGC is definitely more mature across the board. However, whether or not it beats out Legacy depends on the writer and character.
- Death Is Cheap: Due to the fluid timeline and technology in Star Wars, death is not much of a concern when it actually happens.
- Disguised in Drag: C'orringath Ven'Traas and Ayin Kaes looked great as handmaidens for the queen of Naboo.
- The Empire:
- The Sith Council, a faction that compose of all Sith in TGC and has the second largest collection of planets.
- The Galactic Empire has the largest amount of planets under its control yet models itself after the Pellaeon empire.
- Dark Sith Order, a Sith faction that lasted for roughly eight years before merging with Sine Ocassu.
- Regnum In Potestas, a Sith faction that quickly grew to be one of the largest factions at the time with a huge member base.
- Expy: Several characters use avatars from the Star Wars films, including C'oringath and Ceel. Others use avatars from the Expanded Universe. Sometimes, these characters even match their avatar's in personality.
- Fleeting Demographic Rule: An unintentional example. Due to TGC being a Long Runner and the member base is constantly replaced, many roleplaying ideas are redone every few years, and the majority of the present members do not know or remember roleplays from two or more years ago.
- Game Master: Mostly averted. The only time there would be a game master in a roleplay would be if all parties involved agreed to invest such power in someone and closed the thread off from the general public.
- Heel–Face Turn: Many Sith have crossed over to the other side of the Force over 12 years of TGC roleplaying.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Phylis Alince destroys the Heart of Darkness to keep it out of the Sith's hands. Some spectacular fireworks ensue as everything near her, including herself, disintegrates.
- Hidden Agenda Villain: Some Sith and villains, such as Xyra, Ayreon, Darth Apparatus, attempt to go around with a "super secret" ambition, which usually involves just taking over the galaxy.
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Regnum In Potestas, a Sith faction, ran off of this idea by having the horsemen leading the faction:
- Conquest - Dark Sky Kerberos.
- War - Darth Roul, later replaced by Darth Phantom.
- Famine - Malice Draclau.
- Death - Anubis Starkiller.
- How We Got Here: "It's Not That I Keep Hanging On, I'm Never Letting Go" slips into three different flashbacks to explain how Bianca and Darth Apparatus found each other and were separated.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: A frequent occurrence in roleplays, such as with Beth, who got pregnant on her first time. Most of the time, sex is only written out (in vague metaphors) for the purpose of conception.
- Literary Allusion Title: A common way to title a roleplaying thread is to allude to another work. Many of them are from Star Wars. Notable examples include:
- Across the Stars (Episode II's theme).
- Endor's Game.
- The Trilogy of Troy.
- There Is No War Here (A line said in Episode III).
- Exodus.
- Battle of the Fallen- Knightfall Alliance (An unpublished New Jedi Order book).
- Long-Runner Cast Turnover: The only consistent character for 12 years is a fat Gungan that spams the forums.
- Luke Nounverber: This appears just as often as the roleplay's source material with: Skywalker, Starkiller, Darkhold, Sunfell, Ravenclaw, Holdfast, Shadowdragon, Hawkmoon, Skylark, Darksun, Eventide, and more.
- Meta Fic: In some characters' posts, it's pointed out how they're just in a roleplay as well as tons of cliches surrounding the given situation.
- Metaplot: Some roleplays defied the Negative Continuity of TGC and are considered to be running congruently to each other. Such use of the Metaplot is a frequent indicator of a major roleplay about to happen.
- Nerf: Many writers depower the Force and Star Wars technology in order to not make their characters seem to be ridiculously overpowered when they believe their character can act like a physical god.
- Off the Rails: Often in open threads, a roleplay can end up in a completely different scenario than the creator expected. For many writers, such results are extremely entertaining. For the few, these results are a pet peeve.
- Old Master: Mak Manto, who is over two hundred years old, is an example of a wizened Jedi Master who is still dangerous as a master sorcerer and lightsaber duellist.
- Plot-Relevant Age-Up: With the fluid timeline of TGC, characters can become older (or younger) at the will of the writer. This usually happens when attempting to begin a romantic angle or make the character seem stronger
- Prolonged Prologue: Introductory posts are supposed to be simple roleplays that get a new character instantly acquainted to two or more established characters. Roughly 200 words is enough. Some have over 1,000.
- Retcon: TGC wouldn't be a Star Wars roleplay without some retconning. Not only are tiny details frequently retconned, but some people have completely redone their characters.
- Round Robin: The roleplay Foxtrot Unicorn Charlie Kilo featured writers writing posts for nearly every character in the thread except for their own.
- The Siege: Theed Under Siege lasted for nearly a year with Naboo under constant attack, and the Jedi and their allies attempting to push the attackers off.
- Space Navy: Combat in space involving navies is called "fleeting" on the board. Interestingly, rules for takeovers before 2005 required factions to build their own fleets.
- The Syndicate: Several criminals have attempted to create a crime ring to various degrees of success.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Frequently called Paddy Poking on the board because of Hawk Hinata, a Jedi Master that married two of his former Padawans.
- Villains Act, Heroes React: On a grand scale, it's the Sith that attack and the Jedi that defend. Deconstructed to the point that Jedi that attack get exiled and are viewed as too similar to the Sith by their former peers.
- Web Original: While based on the Star Wars universe, every character is original.
- Written Roar:Darth Apparatus: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA . . . AAAAH!
- Zombie Apocalypse: A recurring subject every few months, especially around Halloween. With the Blackwing Virus, zombie apocalypse's have become very easy to justify.
