The Three Relics

The Three Relics is a Play By Post Pokémon roleplay on Gaia Online that was started in 2005 inside the Gaian Pokemon Academy by the user Mitsuko' and since then has reached over 1400 pages, totaling to nearly 21,000 posts. It follows the adventures of a group of young Pokemon trainers as they work towards their personal goals as trainers and coordinators. While it started as a much more comedic roleplay, the story-line hit puberty and everything sort of changed from there. In line with this shift in maturity, the focus of the story changed from the day to day life of the average Pokemon trainer, to the development of the characters through backstory and personal connections.

The Three Relics is currently headed by Airelesanya, Mikallen, and Andragoran.

The Three Relics can be described with, but is not limited, to the following tropes:

 * Aerith and Bob: Every moniker nationality under the red sun.
 * Bag of Holding: Seriously. Where the hell do these kids find the pocket space for half this crap? Especially those kids with bikes.
 * Battle Couple: Mike and Kasiya, the two are extremely protective of one another.
 * Battle Theme Music: To date, there has been two 'official' soundtracks released. These are made by players selecting music they feel exemplifies their characters, as to help other players understand and enjoy their work.
 * Beach Episode: Slateport Beach Party was basically an entire plot of this.
 * Big Bad: Giovanni, leader of Team Rocket.
 * Big Damn Heroes: Mike and Kilik kicking in the door and rescuing Sasha from Team Aqua.
 * Busman's Holiday: Any time these damn kids go anywhere, whether it be the beach, a festival, or even a hike, they run into trouble.
 * Calling Your Attacks: Pokémon!
 * Cerebus Syndrome: While some characters (Mike, Kilik, Nina) started down the path of troubled and gritty earlier than others, the Slateport Beach Party incident (in which Giovanni crashed the party and revealed dark secrets of the main cast on national television) can be seen as the major event that changed the overall tone of TTR.
 * Character Blog: Many of the players have created character Twitter accounts as a fun diversion when faced with downtime. They can be found here.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: What happens when you pair Mike and Kasiya together.
 * Dark and Troubled Past: Mitsu and Mike take the proverbial cake, one having accidentally slaughtered a city to protect the girl he loved, the other is a living experiment.
 * Duels Decide Everything: Pokémon!
 * Experience Points: Each post grants you a base amount of experience. Posts with specific Pokemon grant that specific Pokemon experience. Each tenth page, experience is tallied and added to the Pokemon, base experience divvied up as per the moderators discretion.
 * Fan Service: The aforementioned Beach Party, and that shower and bath scenes are written (at times) rather teasingly.
 * Free-Range Children: From volcanos to shopping malls, these kids go places.
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation: Certain technical aspects of the game don't appear in TTR, such as stats, attack damage, accuracy and other intricacies. Actual fights between players and NPCs are done on the honor system.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Being a PG-13 board with varying-aged members, some of the older, more perverted members have to be a bit more subtle when discussing adult topics. Some fail.
 * Inspiration Nod: Notable examples include Blaz Blue and an ass-load of Buffy.
 * Jerkass: Has a few of them. Notable (consistent) examples include Crenu and Keegan, but almost everyone has had their moments.
 * Level Grinding: What's level 60?
 * Limited Wardrobe: At times averted, but for the most part true.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: As of now, the main roster has nearly 40 characters (with varying levels of activity), and that's not even counting the many NPCs.
 * Money for Nothing: Gold is given to players for each level they gain, but where the money is received from is never explained, so characters have dug into their wallets to find out they are rich.
 * Not Quite Dead: Sabrina after getting shot by Team Rocket, posing as a grunt after nursing her wound.
 * Mike, after actually dying from falling down the side of the volcano, then resurrected by Moltres.
 * Pokémon-Speak: Subverted slightly by Pokemon with telepathic abilities, including a very well-mannered Breloom.
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: The policy has always stood that 'Real life comes first!'. As such, there have been many instances of players taking extended absences, or at times, simply disappearing.
 * Real Time: Players only skip time when they are sleeping. Other than that, nearly every action is detailed.
 * Side-Story Bonus Art: Everyone loves girls in bikinis, right?
 * Team Mom: Airelesanya, player of Kasiya, Jaeshan and many others, current head of TTR and guild leader of the GPA.
 * Team Spirit: Not only with the Pokemon themselves, but the trainers at many points have to team up to take on challenges.
 * The Villain Makes the Plot: The larger plots in the roleplay happen almost exclusively when one of the villains acts first.
 * Time Stands Still: It certainly seems that way sometimes, as it has taken over a year to complete one plot.
 * Versus Character Splash: Many of the players have created sprites and splash sprites to make the characters feel more authentic in the Pokemon world.