"Y...yes my friend! The ancient rhino god rock that holds great power! But we must find my box first. Quick! Scout the area around you! Look under tables, rocks, look everywhere!"
—Razar, both thoughtlessly provoking the story's first few conflicts and summarizing much of the rest of the story
Lost or Stolen or Strayed is an ongoing roleplay based on Legends of Chima. Centering on a group of fairly insignificant fan characters about halfway through the original series' story, LoSoS follows what happens when a mysterious red box containing one or more unknown items is put up for sale. The ensuing conflict over the box and its contents, and the resulting alliances and enmities formed over its contents, provide a surprising number of unexpected consequences, even once the box is opened and stored away…
The main cast includes:
- Levani, a resourceful Lioness thief who doesn't care much about other people. Hides her female status via a helmet, as Lionesses are rare in Chima.
- Rheinstein, a Mad Scientist Rhino obsessed with finding a rock with godlike powers.
- Egregious, a ditzy Eagle who helps Levani despite her abuse of him.
The published part of the story can be found here
.
Due to the ongoing nature of this roleplay, making it difficult to tell what plot details count as spoilers, all potential spoilers will be left unmarked.
All relevant Legends of Chima tropes apply except where explicitly stated otherwise.
This story provides examples of the following tropes:
- Animal Stereotypes: Zigzagged with the fan characters. Some of them, such as Egregious and Rhubarb, conform to the stereotypes established in Legends of Chima. Others, such as Badly, Levani, and Rheinstein, defy those stereotypes, with Rheinstein doing so explicitly. And then there are a good number whose conformity to their stereotypes is rather hazy.
- As the Good Book Says...: When told that he needs prices for his wares, a very confused Badly begins quoting Revelation 6:6.Badly: A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny, and see that thou hurt not the oil and the...
- Berserk Button: Don't call Rhubarb "son".
- Call-Back: At the end of Chapter 15, Badly repeats the same thing that he called out to nobody at the beginning of Chapter 1.
- Comically Missing the Point: Badly, Egregious, and Rhubarb do this occasionally.
- The Ditz: Badly, Egregious, and Rhubarb are all this to some degree, largely centering on not understanding Chi (for those other than Egregious) and having poor coordination due to not paying proper attention to their surroundings.
- Don't Call Me "Sir": After being called "ma'am", Waggz asks to be called by her name instead.Waggz: Heaven knows I ain't old enough ta be called Ma'am just yet.
- Dream Walker: Badly can enter the dreams of others to help them get over nightmares.
- Evil Laugh: Rheinstein uses this frequently in Chapter 6.
- Funetik Aksent: Wain and Waggz have these.
- Gadgeteer Genius: The story has a lot of these.
- Egregious, like many of the Eagles, is this, with the ability to whip up PlotDevices on demand that usually explode shortly afterwards.
- Rheinstein is also this, with similarly technological and explosive devices.
- Warren is indicated to be this, though his potential is not fully shown.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Discussed and Averted. Scarf very carefully words a compliment about Wain to Waggz to avoid invoking this sentiment in Waggz.
- Happy Dance: Rheinstein does one of these after getting Levani to stop chasing him.
- Hastily Hidden MacGuffin: Rheinstein hides Razar's Box when he realizes that it'll get taken from him otherwise. He plans to come back for it later, but finds it missing when he returns for it. Rheinstein is not happy.
- I Call It "Vera": Wain's hammer is named Waggz, after his dearly departed wife.
- Kubrick Stare: Egregious gives one of these to Razar before asking to buy a shrubbery from him.
- Mad Scientist: Rheinstein fully embraces this stereotype, using a wide variety of very dangerous devices that often fail spectacularly.
- MacGuffin: Razar's box is this, as its ownership, the battles over it, and the fallout of those battles drive the rest of the story.
- Meaningful Name: Carrying over the tradition from Chima, some of the characters have these. Most prominently, Badly, who is (initially) bad at disguise.
- The Mole: Badly is a Crawler who pretends to be one of the good guys to avoid detection.
- My Favorite Shirt: Rheinstein has this reaction when his coat is ripped. This is, however, downplayed.Rheinstein: That was one of my favorite coats, so one day you will pay for that.
- Nerd Glasses: Egregious wears these, further cementing his Gadgeteer Genius status.
- Nice Guy: Unlike many of the other characters in the roleplay, Egregious sometimes goes out of his way to be nice to the other characters, mainly Levani.
- No Longer with Us: When Wain refers to his wife, Waggz, as "dearly departed", Levani assumes that Waggz is deceased. However, Wain literally meant that she had departed, being on holiday, and that he missed her.
- The Nose Knows: Zigzagged. Wain can smell that Levani is female, but can't figure out where a hidden Razen is.
- Race-Name Basis: Levani, in one of her more annoyed states, calls Egregious "Eagle" once.
- Samus Is a Girl: Averted. Levani expects others to have this reaction, but not only does the reader know of her gender early on, when she ultimately reveals this to Egregious, it takes her explicitly telling him what he's supposed to notice for him to realize.
- Secret-Keeper:
- Egregious is this for Levani, not telling anyone about Levani being a Lioness.
- Later, Wain is this for Levani on the same issue.
- Shout-Out: The story has several, though none of the things referred to likely exist in the story's universe. The story's title refers to A. A. Milne; Egregious, Rheinstein, and Badly's alias all refer to Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Badly refers to Simon & Garfunkel; and Rhubarb refers to Hatsune Miku (indirectly, in the roleplay resources), MC Hammer, Backstroke of the West, Paul Simon, and BIONICLE.
- Stunned Silence: Egregious falls into one of these when extremely confused by Levani's confusion over his lack of reaction to her revelation of her gender.
- Suddenly Shouting: Egregious does this after the Golden Chi experiment is successful.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Levani wears a helmet and speaks through it in a masculine voice to try to make others think that she's male. This is done because Lionesses such as herself are uncommon, so she tries to hide her Lioness status to let herself stay as much under the radar as possible.
- Team Dad: During his few chapters of appearance, Wain acts as this to the other characters, making them stop fighting and work out their differences.
- Tsundere: Levani acts like this towards Egregious, flipping between deriding him and acting nice to him, dependent only on slight environmental shifts.
- Verbal Tic: Basalt says "ah" a lot at the beginnings of his sentences.
- Word Salad Philosophy: Rhubarb lapses into these occasionally.
