Metamor Keep

A Web Original fantasy story universe, and the predecessor to the Urban Fantasy podcast and story universe Metamor City, Metamor Keep is a massive shared story universe that has been active for many years, and still enjoys a good following of writers and readers. With well over six million words archived to date, Metamor Keep is attractive, not just for the interesting stories already present in the universe, but also for the reasonably open policy to submitting your own content.

The setting chronologically begins with the fierce engagement, known as the Battle of the Three Gates, in which a wizard from the north attacks all three gates of the titular Keep, seeking to pass through the surrounding valley and into the southern Midlands, which he believes are waiting to be conquered. In order to quickly dispatch his enemies, he engineers a Curse, which changes the defenders minds and bodies into one of three forms; animals, babies, or the other gender. This incapacitates the defenders, and allows the wizard and his army to enter the city. Unknown to Nasoj, however, was that a group of mages from the Keep had been sent to activate an ancient defense system. They succeed a few minutes after the curses fall, and the defenders, restored partially to their old bodies and fully to the own minds, attack the invading army with enough fervor to drive them out, keeping the Midlands safe for now.

The story universe focuses on the inhabitants of the Keep after the Curse. Now bipedal animals, gender flipped, or unable to age past puberty, they are now thought of as monsters in the south, and still subjected to constant attacks from the north.

It also has an IRC channel, and as per The Wiki Rule, there is a wiki.

The Character Page needs some love.

Provides examples of:
""I used to be a human like you - then I took an arrow in the knee.""
 * All There in the Manual: There's info so that newcomers aren't bogged down having to read millions of words to join in, as per The Wiki Rule.
 * Animorphism
 * Attractive Bent Gender: Pretty much everyone affected by the gender bender curse - actually justified, since.
 * Baleful Polymorph: One of the three curses.
 * Big Bad: Nasoj,
 * Chaos Architecture: Metamor Keep itself. It's actually justified - the keep itself changes its architecture.
 * Cerebus Rollercoaster: Some stories are quite serious; others are just plain silly. Reading recommended stories in order can cause this, or reading them in chronological order; because if you do this, you see some people who write comprehensive story-arcs and then the next story that takes place after that is by a different author who is writing about a day in the life of the keep.
 * Curse: Obviously.
 * Dark Is Not Evil: Surprisingly, a couple Daedra, Nocturna for example is simply the goddess of dreams, omens, and death.
 * Doorstopper: One of the reasons there's such a strong All There in the Manual is because Matthias's stories (Which comprise a lot of the content) are LOOOOONG. Heck, if you turned this into an anthology, it'd be bigger than most phone books.
 * Eternal Sexual Freedom: Averted, Metamor is more accepting of homosexuality and women's rights only because of the curses.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Invoked, as the wiki describes regions as being similar to real-world counterparts to establish a sense of familiarity. (Irombi is Africa, the Giantdowns are Siberia, the Kkhart empire is Egypt, someone may potentially place a Mesoamerican-empire in Fan Shoar, etc.)
 * Fisher Kingdom: The Valley is pretty much this.
 * Flat Earth Atheist: Raven considers the Aedra and the Daedra to be nothing more than beings of immense power who trade "miracles" for prayers and other "favors", despite being a High Priestess.
 * Fountain of Youth: Kinda-sorta. This was one of the curses hit.
 * Gender Bender: Being related to the Transformation fandom (often the Furry Fandom, too.) there is some of this. Oddly enough, it's actually not as common in this universe as in other bits in the Transformation fandom...and even includes an implication of female to male.
 * Genius Loci: Kyia, the spirit of the Keep.
 * Half-Human Hybrid: The curses were designed to work on humans, half-lutins  are susceptible but half-elves are not.
 * High Fantasy / Low Fantasy: It goes in and out of this.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: Hundreds Some of which are considered NPCs.
 * Long Runner: This started in the late 90s. Yeah, not that old compared to other long-runners...but for a Web Original series, that's actually quite old, especially since it has had spinoffs like Metamor City and a What If universe in the making.
 * Misplaced Vegetation: The wiki mentions potatoes; with no clear equivalent of the Americas...at least not yet. (Fan Shoar is implied to be the Americas)
 * No Antagonist: Some stories lack an Antagonist, merely being a Slice of Life.
 * No Bisexuals: Averted by Malger, among others.
 * Orcus On His Throne: Zig-zagged. Nasoj appears to be taking his sweet time destroying the keep; but one of the biggest story arcs was actually dedicated to an assault lead by Nasoj.
 * Our Elves Are Better: It's assumed the elves in this universe are descendants of the Fair Folk.
 * Our Orcs Are Different: Lutins.
 * Our Werewolves Are Different: There are other lycanthropes, not just Werewolves. An entire dynasty in the Kkhart Empire was a line of werelions. There are also even werespiders in this universe, too, commonly found around Irombi.
 * Physical God: The Aedra and Daedra.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Averted.
 * Running Gag: Authors have plenty of running gags, such as latex, the Hyacinth in the Garden, or how Copernicus can never be beaten in pool. (The latter of which is actually a cardinal rule of the setting.)
 * Shout Out: At least two stories use this quote:


 * Also the "good" and "evil" gods of the Lightbringer faith are called the Aedra and Daedra, respectively. Though the individual gods are quite different from The Elder Scrolls, and seem to be more black and white (save for Nocturna).
 * There are also shout-outs to classical mythology too. Such as the spider trickster called Anansi.
 * Slice of Life: Some stories lean into this...even a Slice of Life in this universe can be quite fascinating!
 * Voluntary Shapeshifting: Everyone cursed, morphs can become full animals (and sometimes 'taurs), the age regressed can become as young as babies, and gender benders can control the size of their "endowments".