Maiara: A Continent's Collapse

The Basics
Maiara is a land where Pokémon live completely free of interaction with humans. There are some Pokémon that form social groups, usually called packs, and hybrids of different species are fairly common. There are even breeds that exist at Maiara that are not found where humans have identified them.

If it works better as a description for you, this is a canine/feline-hybrid RP, the details of that are discussed with character profiles.

The Story
Long before time was recorded, a great many catastrophes occurred in the world. There were enough that life was made extremely difficult for the few who survived them, and the next moment was at least as deadly as the last. So, the Originals created the Guardians to contain the powers of nature, and Maiara came into shape. In their gratitude, the inhabitants paid respect to the Guardians, and all was well.

Eons passed, and the inhabitants of Maiara spread. Sometimes they fought, but other times, they worked together. Civilizations rose and fell, and mysteries were solved and made. There was prosperity and danger, love and hate. It was a land of respectable extremes, and plenty inbetween, all protected by the Guardians.

As the inhabitants' faith waxed and waned at no clear interval, so cults dedicated to the Guardians grew and diminished, making offerings and spreading wisdom. Some were more powerful than others, and one of the most widespread became the Gavidan Cult.

The Gavidan Cult started as a simple oath to repay the Guardians for their kindness, and before anyone knew it, it had roots deep in all the major packs of the land. It spread hope to the righteous and fear to those otherwise, and simply was there to those who were neither. It was a powerful symbol of faith, but as with every monument, there is a shadow, and that of the Gavidan Cult was particularly dark.

It was found, eventually, that the Gavidan Cult was practicing dark arts in secret in its most hidden sanctuaries. Though the extent of their dark power was not directly known, it was also found that they had summoned demons and forced some initiates to breed against their will. The result was a mess of demons, half-demons, and depressed initiates.

With their secret exposed, the cult turned its wrath down upon the continent's infrastructure as well as the Guard and the Police, the two largest peace-keeping factions of Maiara. However, eliminating the cult's leadership did not help--the damage was already done, and packs everywhere began collapsing.

Maiara came under a shadow. Though the Guard and Police remain, most are caught up in their own feuds and care more for revenge than for peace. It has become a dangerous land once again, though for different reasons than before.

The Rules
These are the basic guidelines for RP. I think you know them already, but they shall be restated as is tradition, anyway.
1. No flaming other members. It is fairly invariable that characters will occasionally react to each other negatively, but that should not affect your attitude towards the person playing them. I will also not accept previous relations as a reason to speak against other people.
2. No spamming. For this thread, if it is not RP, then it is pretty much spam. Easy enough, right? If you need to ask a question or something, please ask through PM. OOC may be used for things like time-skipping and wherever else it is necessary.
3. Use proper grammar. This is meant to be literate RP. I do not mind simple statements, but I would like proper capitalization, sentence structure, and so on. I understand that everybody makes mistakes occasionally, though, so do not stress too much over typos. If you see them, fix them, by all means, but they should not be overly common.
4. No god-modding. Yeah, we are all tempted to do crazy things sometimes, but if you have ideas, PM me before doing them. No character-summoning, using insane abilities, etc. Since I am not bothering with movesets, I will expect some level of caution when using moves, but similarly, it is not restricted simply to moves here.
5. Follow all the character rules. Like I said above, it is a canine/feline thing, pretty much, so the rules are a little more strict than a typical RP. However, hybrids compensate somewhat for this as the Ground group is rather large. The character rules are discussed in the character thread.

PM me with any questions as to the rules, the story, etc.

To Start
I will make a first post once we have a couple characters other than my own. We will be starting in the ruins of Nerakaso, a large complex of ruins located on the plains roughly in the midwest of the continent, which are in fairly remarkable condition for something of unknown origin.