Roleplay / Usagi Quest

The year is 1992. In the neighborhood of Azabu-Juban, located in Tokyo's Minato Ward, lived a girl named Usagi Tsukino. She was the typical lazy junior-high school student. In other words, she’s a softhearted crybaby who would rather spend her days playing video games, eat, or sleep instead of handling the responsibilities put in front of her. And yet, a chance encounter with a cat with an odd crescent moon mark on its forehead resulted in Usagi becoming the Magical Girl Warrior known as Sailor Moon, one of the champions of the long destroyed Moon Kingdom of the Silver Millennium.

And yet, things are not that simple. Alongside the return of the Moon Kingdom's destroyers, the Dark Kingdom, other supernatural forces are beginning to act on Earth. And there's the fact that Usagi is really the reincarnation of Serenity Celene, the Moon Princess, and in time, the future ruler of all of humanity. But at this moment Usagi is not leadership material, meaning it'll take time for her her to overcome her flaws. Luckily for her, she'll come upon allies to help her achieve what destiny foretells...

Usagi Quest is a Crusader Kings III/Princess Maker-style Forum Quest hosted by Lunaryon on the Sufficient Velocity.com forums, primarily based on Sailor Moon, specifically from the 1990s anime. Players take on the role of Usagi Tsukino, following her awakening as the pretty sailor-suited guardian Sailor Moon, as she navigates between life as a normal girl and as a magical warrior against the forces of darkness, all the while preparing her for her future role as the ruler of Crystal Tokyo.

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Usagi Quest contains examples of:

• Adaptational Badass: In various ways, several characters. The Senshi as a whole have escalated
  • Usagi Tsukino. Usagi starts maturing out of her canonical 'crybaby' tendencies rather quickly, much more quickly than in canon. In-setting this is justified as the result of nudges from Princess Serenity's ghost.
  • Ami Mizuno. In canon, Sailor Mercury spends the entire Dark Kingdom arc as the physically weakest Senshi and lacks an attack spell. Here, she develops multiple attack spells and regularly holds her own in solo hand-to-hand combat.
  • Naru Osaka. While the original source had as being a Designated Victim due to being the Weirdness Magnet, the quest has Usagi bring Naru in as a confidant. It later turns out that Naru does have the capability to use magic, and can understand Elysian, the language of the Earth Kingdom due to being a reincarnation of a Earth Kingdom resident. In particular, she is the reincarnation of 'Pandora,' the progenitor of many of Earth's native magical creatures, granting her special abilities to animate golems and consume magic.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Usagi manages to end up being enrolled into the Crystal Seminar earlier, and thus encounter Ami/Sailor Mercury earlier.
  • Usagi, looking for a martial arts dojo in Nerima, ends up running into Makoto. Makoto ended up being the third Sailor Guardian to be awakened instead of Mars, during the events surrounding the Cinderella Caravan.
  • A chance personal outing by Naru had her running into Haruka and Michiru and their Sailor identities. With Naru being in the know, she was able to convince them to meet the other Sailors, especially since they haven't yet developed the hardline mentalities as seen during the Infinity Arc.
  • It turns out that Luna and Artemis are sharing access to a hidden space where they keep assorted magical artifacts. By prevailing upon Luna to use this space to pass messages, and then communication equipment, Rei is able to get in touch with Sailor V, who at the time is still fighting her own solo battles in England.
  • The Black Moon Clan has arrived in the present in the midst of the Dark Kingdom arc
  • Chibiusa/Minori shows up while the quest is still in the Dark Kingdom arc.
• Adaptational Explanation:
  • People in canon Sailor Moon who know the Senshi in their civilian lives often cannot recognize them when they see them as Senshi, and vice versa. In this quest, this is explained as a powerful glamour effect that effectively mind-controls people into being incapable of recognizing the Senshi and "blurs" their distinguishing features in the observer's mind, even when basic logic and common sense would make their identity obvious.
  • In Sailor Moon and most of the other crossovers numerous people have hair colors that either don't occur naturally among Japanese people or don't occur naturally among humans altogether. It's revealed that this sort of thing started happening during the 50s for reasons that were initially unknown, and later it was revealed that it was due to the members of the Silver Millennium reincarnating.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: While he's still a panty stealing public menace Happosai is notably less horrible than in canon, taking his position as Grandmaster of the Anything Goes School of martial arts seriously, actually helping Ranma in his attempt to train apprentices, etc.
• Age Lift: Chibiusa/Minori is 7 years old in this quest, compared to 900 in canon.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Erika is able to find a loophole in the glamor of the Empty Faces. How? By habitually observing the suit measurements of everyone she meets!
• Beam Spam: Usagi is able to combine Moon Sparkling Sensation with an aiming technique of Princess Serenity, one based upon the targeting suite of a Silver Millennium warship. It's able to disintegrate hundreds of leaves falling from the tree in Uminari, and later knocks out scores of drones during Labyrinth's attack on MCAT's headquarters.
• Big Bad Ensemble: And how! There are so many Magic Girl villain groups running around that this user lost count.
  • Let's see. As of July 2022, there's the Dark Kingdom, which is running multiple operations worldwide that may not count. The Senshi have encountered and fought four Pretty Cure villain groups in crossovers. We have confirmation that at least two more Pretty Cure factions and their corresponding villains are active, bringing the total to seven. Then there's the Knights of Oblivion and the Imperial Ministry of Onogoro- nine groups that someone is definitely fighting. At least three more antagonistic players or factions have been indicated but not directly confronted any known magical girl group, so... twelve?
• Broken Record: After his attempt to mind control Sailor Neptune backfires, Stanenge can only say "i obey Neptune."
• Chain Pain: Venus' weapon is the Venus Love Me Chain, which she can control with her mind.
• Composite Character: Sort of. The character of Tuxedo Mask at first appears to be exactly as seen in canon. However, it is revealed that the spirit of the original Prince Endymion has been firmly in the driver's seat of "Mamoru Chiba's" body for the past decade, after a car accident that silenced Mamoru's own consciousness. While the Senshi may remember and echo their past lives, Tuxedo Mask is Endymion. It is unclear whether anything remains of the modern-day Mamoru.
• Crime Fighting With Cash: Following the Sailor Guardians defeating the youma that infiltrated her business, Alice Yotsuba makes a deal with the Sailors to provide financial assistance and even provide a base of operations.
• Crossover: Characters and elements from other anime have been added to flesh out the world.
  • Numerous girls from the Pretty Cure series have made appearances. (Updated as of March 2024)
    • The Senshi have fought alongside the magical girl duos from the first two series against some of their respective villain groups. And, more recently, the fourth and fifth.
    • The the third team showed up during a multiple crossover with Nanoha (see below).
    • Elements of the eighth and ninth team's conflict have been seen on-screen or mentioned in news updates and confirmed to be at least partly active.
    • Characters from certain other series have been sighted. But as yet, they have showed no sign of magical powers in their only on-screen appearance, and may not be active yet.
  • The Sailor Guardians also have come across characters from Ranma ½ and teamed up with Inuyasha and Kagome more than once.
  • Characters from Symphogear first appeared offscreen as part of MCAT. At first, the Senshi only directly interacted with one of them over the phone. Jadeite, who surrendered to Endymion after the battle at the Shapelin Gym, is directly working with them now, and the Symphogear characters later began to appear more directly.
  • Certain vocabulary used to describe the workings of magic early in the quest hinted at a possible crossover with Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. This was later confirmed by the Ferreting out the Dangers event, and the conspicuous disaster of Nanoha's Episode 3 formed the core of a major crossover event.
  • During the introduction of MCAT, it's mentioned that they have a certain Dr. Atsuko Chiba on their payroll.
  • During the fight at MCAT headquarters, it's revealed that Dr. Chiba has Yuko Yoshida as an assistant.
  • During the second fight against Cendrellion, the granddaughter of Atsuko Kagami makes an appearance.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Senshi are much stronger than the typical Pretty Cure villain, to say nothing of ordinary humans, so fights between them tend to be quite one sided.
  • Usagi's fight against Snackeys is ridiculously one sided, to the point that she even considered it to be relaxing.
  • The Senshi's battle in Clover Town was a particularly egregious example, with Usagi and Co. effortlessly defeating Eas and her Nakewamake. The hardest part was being sure to use restraint in besting the Nakewameke, which had been created out of a little girl's dog.
  • The fight at the Night Market turned out to be one, with Venus, Neptune and Uranus easily defeating Lord Kurayami's guards and the Oni of the Night. Though there was an unexpected complication with a giant enemy self-propelled house.
  • Sasorina is effortlessly defeated by Mars and Venus, with the latter capturing her and No Selling her attack with her hair stinger. Venus even compares what she's doing to seal clubbing.
  • Soular is on the receiving end of one of these, courtesy of Haruka, after he conceptually erased "mothers" in the vicinity of Yotsuba City. By the end of the fight, he had a broken collarbone and a somewhat crushed arm.
• Curse:
  • Minako was cursed by the youma who was formerly betrothed to Shukra^note The Princess of Venus AKA Minako's previous incarnation to never find love.
  • As a joke Naru cursed Usagi to have her first child's hair be as pink as cherry blossoms. She now insists there was no real curse, and Minori/Chibiusa's hair color is a coincidence...
• Defector from Decadence: The Akaishi Mountain Oni Wardens flip to the Japanese Government after the Imperial Ministry spends months faffing about the issue of the malfunctioning(?) oni curse doll while MCAT solves the problem in only a few days. Turns out that a group of hereditary prison wardens with little contact with the outside world may eventually feel that they have more in common with their prisoners than with the government that empowered them.
• Door Stopper: At 1.2 million words and counting its quite a hefty read.
• Evil vs. Evil: A the very least the Dark Kingdom is hostile to the other groups of villains.
• Explosion Propulsion: Rei possesses a spell that allows her to do this, which she uses to no small effect during the battle against Poisony and Kintoleski
• Flat "What": Usagi's reaction to the Seventh Head of Orochi intending to kill the Eighth Head and have them replaced by Cendrillion
• The Force Is Strong with This One:
  • During the his discussion about Chen's actions, Mousse reveals to Usagi and Makoto that he can sense that the two are capable in magic, and tells them that the Joketsuzoku Matriarch had tasked him with directing magic users to her.
  • During Usagi and Naru's exploration of the Night Market, an otherwise unremarkable Wolf Man is able to detect not only that Naru and Usagi are magic-users, but that Usagi is an exceptionally powerful one- even though she is not transformed into Sailor Moon at the time.
• Glamour: The Senshi's transformations provide them with these. Notably their significantly more powerful than what is available to the "mainstream" magical community.
• Government Agency of Fiction: Multiple examples; two in Japan alone.
  • The Imperial Ministry of Onogoro is a centuries-old splinter government, which rules over the Japanese magical scene. The IMO oppresses magical beings and uses harsh, even murderous methods to conceal knowledge of magic from the general public and the mainstream Japanese government. Unfortunately, the IMO is more interested in maintaining the masquerade than in actually fighting back against magical girl villain groups.
  • Because the IMO is so secretive, the government doesn't know Japan even has authorities capable of responding to magical attacks. With no means to respond, the public government founds its own organization, MCAT, for that purpose.
  • Various other world governments are implied or confirmed to have separate government branches that secretively handle magical affairs, as well. Though in many other nations the magical masquerade is kept up by institutions like the IMO that are effectively separate from the mainstream government.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Wiseman is revealed to have been the reason for Queen Metallia. Even worse, the Black Moon Clan is confirmed to be in Tokyo while the Dark Kingdom is still active…
• Hammerspace: The Senshi (as well as Naru and Minori) possess this as an as of yet unnamed ability. Usagi uses it to grab things she forgot to take with her like the disguise pen, Rei's able to use to obtain a bag of popcorn, and Minori has demonstrated a mastery of it that outshines everyone else seen so far. Minori even calls it "hammer place" magic.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Usagi's second variation of the Beacon of War spell transforms the Moon Rod into a long, two-handed straight edged blade made of crystal.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Stanenge's attempt to turn Neptune into their lobotomized slave backfire, and they end up the one mindlessly attacking their own allies.
• Improvisational Ingenuity: Before realizing that the Sailor Senshi are active and reasonably effective, Tuxedo Mask came up with his own plan to try and stop the Dark Kingdom singlehandedly. It involved creative application of the Prism Stones, the MacGuffin of a different series within the crossover.
• Kirin: Or rather Qilin. These existed before being hunted to extinction in the early 1800s for their horns. Usagi and Co. obtain a fossilized Qilin egg from the True Equality Party.
• Masquerade: There is one, first hinted at by a magic shopkeeper's claim that fighting demons in broad daylight is against international law. It becomes apparent that there is an extensive hidden society of Original Character magic-users and magical beings existing alongside the various crossovers. In Japan, the masquerade is presided over by the Imperial Ministry of Onogoro.
• Mook Promotion: Cendrillion was first introduced as one of Jadeite's youma, responsible for handling the Cinderella Caravan plot. She survived a battle with the Sailor Senshi and became something of a fan favorite, and showed up again later. After Jadeite's defeat, Cendrillion takes over the remnants of his operations in Japan.
• Mother of a Thousand Young: Pandora/Tiamat was the creator of the gods, youkai, cryptids, etc. and all such creatures ultimately trace their origin to her. As her Reincarnation Naru has the potential to be another example of this trope, though so far she's only created four new species.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • During the clean up fight at the Cinderella Caravan, Jadeite points a sword at two girls who stumbled upon the scene, threatening their lives if Sailor Moon doesn't surrender. As it turns out, they were Nagisa Misumi and Honoka Yukishiro, aka Cure Black and Cure White, who promptly transform and deliver a lot unexpected pain to the Dark Kingdom general.
  • Tsubomi and Erika are accosted by an Empty Face on their way to the Crystal Millennium Building. The Empty Face quickly flees after Erika transforms into Cure Marine.
• Oh, Crap!: Happens somewhat frequently, typically when people realize how much the Senshi outclass them
  • Shinju's reaction the Zakenna survives a three story fall and is still going after her.
  • Sasorina teleported away in panic shortly after realizing that Sailor Venus and the "blonde destroyer"^note  Usagi are different persons. Sailor Venus had her rather frightened even before that.
• Oni: Oni are amongst the yokai populations of Japan. The Imperial Ministry has mostly confined them to four reservations. The reservation seen most closely, the Akaishi Mountain site, has control enforced by a hereditary garrison and a doll enchanted to spread a disease-curse amongst the oni clan on command.
• Outside-Context Problem: Usagi and the Sailor Senshi are this for the Imperial Ministry, not only wielding power far greater than even their best enforcers, they do so with a casual ease that causes some students attending a combat school immense frustration. Even something as simple as their Glamour is absurdly overpowered compared to what is available to the Ministry, not only is it capable of being maintained without any conscious effort on the Senshi's part it also transmits through film and photographs and provides some sort of exclusivity, so that those attempting to disguise themselves as one of the with glamours of their own Senshi will find themselves looking like obvious fakes.
• Police Are Useless: Averted big time. The Dark Kingdom's plots do not go without a response by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. The TMPD begins with followup raids after Usagi stops the youma. This later leads them to raid other Dark Kingdom operations on their own, thinking they're dealing with a terrorist cult. The police manage to take down one youma and capture another, though they lose multiple SWAT teams in the attempt.
  • Subsequent police efforts seem to be folded into large-scale disaster response to things like the Uminari Tree Incident, or into MCAT's operations. MCAT performs some of a police agency's disaster response and enforcement roles, but they rely heavily on recruited yokai, mages, and Symphogear technology to even up the odds against youma and other threats.
• Related in the Adaptation: Queen Selene reveals that Ikuko Tsukino is the reincarnation of her sister, though it's possible that her use of "sister" is metaphorical.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: The Imperial Ministry's Agents capture Rabiroo, a youma, and send her to live on a rabbit youkai island reservation to "live amongst her own kind" until they need her for future interrogations. They do this without telling the Guardians and indeed tell the reservation's wardens that the Guardians are not to be informed of this.
• Secret Test of Character: Chen Yong-Sool was given a task to see if he was worthy of learning the secrets of the Joketsuzoku tribe. The task? Fight and defeat the prize pupil of the Daitō-ryū Dojo. As Chen was unlikely to win, the real reason for the task was to see how Chen handles loss. However, instead of fighting the prize pupil directly, Chen chose to attempt get the dojo shut down by depriving it of students, namely by fighting whoever is headed there. This has led to a chain of events that inadvertently brought the Joketsuzoku tribe a lot of unwanted attention from the Japanese and Chinese governments.
• The Social Darwinist: The Seventh Head of Orochi wants youkai to be free to prey upon humanity so as to make mankind's magic stronger.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Jadeite surrenders to Tuxedo Mask after a few clashes with the Senshi, and reveals much of what he knows about the Dark Kingdom's activities.
• Stunned Silence: Everyone's reaction to when Naru devours a mammoth Zakenna like a "massive furry noodle."
• Telepathy: The Silver Millennium communicators used by the Senshi and distributed to many of their allies seem to converge on this, among many other features. They allow silent communication over long distances. Usagi recently^note 12/7/2023 used this to coordinate who was going to help during the attack on MCAT's headquarters, while sitting in a classroom and outwardly not saying a word.
  • Telepathy, with or without device support, is also a common plot point in 'Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha,' one of the crossover elements.
• Too Dumb to Live: Many people in Japan's magical community have trouble comprehending how dangerous magic girls and magic girl villains are.
  • The Seventh Head of Orochi is a hardcore social darwinist who wants to free yokai so that them preying upon humanity will make mankind stronger and intends to ally with the Dark Kingdom and have the Eighth Head of Orochi killed and have Cendrillion take their position.
  • After Team Stallion was ordered by Mistress Sato in no uncertain terms that they should stop their hunt for Youma, jewel seeds, Senshi and such they decide to continue it anyway because they're more concerned about being upstaged by Team Eagle.
• Transhuman Treachery: The Crystal Seminar operation wasn't about just draining Life Energy, but turning humans into youma. The transformed youma there, had quickly given up on their humanity and embraced their new lives, meaning they were outright vanquished when Sailor Moon used her powers on them instead of being purified. This meant she didn't know it was possible some of the youma Was Once a Man until the news reported on the missing children.
• Wainscot Society: As noted under Masquerade, there's an entire society of Original Character magic-users and magical beings all over the world. As of the start of Usagi's adventures, they have kept up a largely successful masquerade for most of recent human history. However, the sudden onslaught of at least half a dozen groups of magical girl villains, some of them operating on a global scale, and the ensuing pitched battles between magical girl groups and their enemies are punching holes in the masquerade fast.
• World of Technicolor Hair: Ever since the 1950s people have been being born with hair colors that either do not occur naturally in the ethnicities they were born to, or flat out do not occur naturally at all. While it's theorized in-universe that its caused by some manner of chemical that hasn't yet been identified, in truth its being caused by people from the Silver Millennium being reincarnating.
• Yuki Onna: These are among the yokai inhabiting Japan. For the most part they live on reservations, which Onogoro has naturally put in southern Kyushu.^note  Southern Kyushu has a subtropical climate and as such is perhaps the worst place for Yuki Onna to live without leaving mainland Japan. However due to the Imperial Ministry's incompetence Samui is able to get her clan, the Icewinds, hired by the Japanese government to help form MCAT.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Luna ends up learning that Usagi is the Moon Princess by chance, and chose to reveal the truth. Usagi is in disbelief that she could be the princess, given what a princess is supposed to be capable of. Luna points out that Usagi managed to broker a deal with Alice for corporate support, something in line with the duties of the Princess.