decay-tale

[decay-tale]

Aesthetics

Frisk: Striped Shirt is Brown with Tan stripes, and has two rips (left shoulder and right sleeve cuff.

Flowey: Brown petals, dead stem, and LONG DEAD VINES!

Toriel: Pretty much the same, but her clothes are tan.

Asgore: Wearing masculine versions of Toriel's clothes.

Sans: Regular Sans, but with a tan parka instead of his blue hoodie. This Sans is a happy-go-lucky cinnamon roll, who would do anything to help Pap impress their Dad.

Papyrus: Also in a tan parka, slightly darker than Sans's parka, and adorned with a Yellow Scarf made by Grillby. This Papyrus is canonically neurodivergent.

Grillby: Yellow fire and Gaster Hands, other than that the same.

Undyne: Long, messy hair, a black tank top and brown cargo shorts.

Monster Kid: Literally exactly the same as canon.

Mettaton: Younger, more tattered and rusted Mettaton.

Nabstablook: Younger Mettaton, but Blue and tattered and rusted.

Muffet: Trench coat, 50's style mob boss hat, and a cigar

Gaster: Tan parka tailcoat and face isn't shattered. Has yellow eyes.

[decay-tale]

DecayTale

This AU is not to be confused with UnderDecay, and entirely different Alternate Universe. Also has elements similar to MafiaTale, but is again, an original AU. Message me with any content you want posted here and I'll post it!

The basic concept is DecayTale instead of the underground being flourishing with life, almost all of civilization has decayed, and the main characters are really all that's left of monster life.

There's sort of a sepia tone over all of the existing locations. The waterfall has dried out, the once vibrant town of Snowdin is now a ghost town with all of its buildings collapsed, with the exception of Sans and Papyrus's garage, where the brothers live.

There are very few living monsters in DecayTale. The Ruins are home to about half of life in the Underground. In this AU, Toriel and Asgore never separate, though Asriel does end up dying and becoming Flowey. The Underground is depopulated long before Asgore and Toriel are even born though, and as such, Flowey's ability to reset never let him go far enough back to when the Underground was full of life.

Gaster, father to Sans and Papyrus, remorsefully left his two sons to attempt to find a way to restore life to the underground. He met Alphys, who became his assistant. Together, the two of them managed to capture Flowey (unknown how and when this happened) and extract his ability to reset. Gaster then attempted to reset the world, but instead disappeared (becoming Grillby, more below,) leaving a battered, bitter Flowey in the hands of a morally distraught and borderline suicidal Alphys. Alphys released Flowey, and apologized for everything they did to him.

After losing the ability to reset, Flowey determines that the best way to survive in the desolate, deserted underground is to make himself useful to Muffet, who leads (and extorts) the largest population of surviving monsters. Her spiders act as henchmen to her "mob boss" operation. In the Hotlands/Lab area, the remaining monsters all pay tribute to Muffet and her Spider Mob. She serves as one of the universe's primary antagonists.

Meanwhile, having only each other for company, Sans and Papyrus grew up making puzzles all throughout their deserted, snowy homeland for each other to complete. One day, on the edge of death from malnourishment (or freezing or something?), Sans and Papyrus lay alone in their garage. Feeling as though they could barely move, they resigned that it was simply their time to die.

However, the faint yellow fire in the middle of their garage seemed to somehow sense this and came to life as Grillby, who magically provided them with food and warmth, and began fixing up their garage into a warm home, instead of the beat up shack it had been their entire life. Grillby now serves as a father/butler figure for the two skeletons, and enjoys hearing of the puzzles the two make for each other. Grillby is happy and content staying home and being a busibody in their house.

Grillby has Gaster's soul, and is a manifestation of Gaster resetting himself to be a father figure who can be content with just being a father, not a savior for monsterkind.

Alphys, on the brink of throwing herself off of the dried up waterfall, meets a hermit by the name of Undyne. After escaping Muffet's rule Undyne is fueled by one thing; her undying hatred for Muffet and her Mob. She brings Alphys to live with her and her only friend Gerson, who live in a sparkly cavern and eat luminescent plants to survive. Alphys slowly falls in love with Undyne, and Gerson performs a barely-coherent wedding for the two of them, where he pronounces them "she and shell," whatever that means.

Refilled with a will to live, Alphys creates two small robot children for her and Undyne, Nabstablook and Mettaton, who have interests in music and theatrics respectively, and actually gain monster souls. They adore putting on shows for "grandpa Gerson."

When Frisk falls into the Underground, they are greeted by Flowey, who tries to shake them down for resources for Muffet. Toriel intervenes however, making it clear that none of Muffet's gang is welcome in the "ruins" (though everything is ruins in this AU.)

She brings Frisk through the traps set to deter the mob, and brings them to the house where the refugees live. Asgore and Toriel are the couple that all of the monster refugees look to for protection. Asgore and Toriel are not technically "King and Queen," but are leaders in this capacity.

When Frisk wants to go confront Muffet and Flowey, the pair of goat parents try to dissuade Frisk, but to no avail.

Needless to say, starved for socialization, Sans and Papyrus are elated to show someone new their puzzles.

At this point, the story diverges into the three timelines: Genocide, Neutral, and Pacifist.

Pacifist Route

This route sees the player pass all of Sans and Papyrus's puzzles, and actually help the brothers set up a puzzle for Grillby. They then convince Grillby to come join them for a puzzle, for the first time. He does, and truly enjoyed it.

Both of the brothers will try to stop Frisk from leaving, however, feeling that they are like a trio of siblings. Grillby hears the fighting after a while, and convinces them to let Frisk go.

Upon arrival in waterfall, Frisk meets Monster Kid, who is there searching for the elusive "hermit people" rumored in the big city. Undyne tries to attack and kill Frisk, mistakenly thinking them a threat to her family, but eventually comes around.

Monster Kid ends up joining the family, and Mettaton, Nabstablook, and Alphys take Frisk to train them for a confrontation with Muffet. Nabstablook buffs Mettaton with his music, and Frisk has a massive dance off with the two young robots, ending in Monster Kid revealing that he can spin on his head and breakdance.

Upon proceeding to the hotlands, Frisk has many encounters with spider goons. When they get to the hall of Judgement, Flowey is there as a flower to fight. He uses vine attacks and pellet attacks, and gets faster and faster the more frustrated he gets, but ultimately is resigned. "You want to meet Muffet? Your funeral!"

The Muffet battle is an amped up version of the original, but through talking with Muffet, she eventually can be convinced that what she is doing is wrong, even if she started with the intention to unite the remaining few monsters together. Muffet tells Frisk that she's captured six human SOULs discreetly with the power she's amassed, and wants to break the barrier for the monsters to be free and repopulate the earth.

At the barrier, Grillby and Alphys appear. Grillby reveals that the skeleton brothers wanted to follow Frisk, and when they got to Waterfall, Alphys astonishingly recognized Grillby. They think that they can use Grillby's SOUL to both break the barrier and restore Gaster to life. She's prepared a robot that she's 99.99999% certain will be able to manifest a unique SOUL for Grillby.

Everything goes to plan, Grillby inhabits a robot suit, Gaster is restored, the barrier is broken, everyone is freed, monsters repopulate the earth, and peace and harmony are restored!

Neutral Route

Little about this route differs from the Pacifist Route, up until hotlands. Grillby, regardless of whether or not the skeleton brothers are alive, will follow you to the entrance of the Hotlands, and give you warning depending on how many monsters Frisk has killed. He says he doesn't know what LV is, but he knows it's bad, and can sense it inside of you.

Things proceed as normal, with Flowey and Muffet fighting/talking with you. In the barrier room, however, Grillby approaches you alone, saying that you will not be able to get back if you don't have a monster soul. He doesn't want you to go, either because the skeletons love you and want you here, or because you killed them and deserve to die (and he knows you can Save, so he doesn't hold back.)

Either way, Frisk can get his soul to flee the Underground.

Genocide

When you try to kill Papyrus and Sans, Grillby will step in the way and die. This enrages Sans and Papyrus, and an extended battle with the two of them will commence.

If you manage to kill them, proceeding into Waterfall will greet you with an Undyne the Undying fight upon trying to kill Monster Kid.

Trying to Kill Gerson and Alphys will result in Nabstablook and Mettaton fights respectively.

The game proceed like a Pacifist Route until the barrier, where Gaster confronts you, explaining that his soul returned him to existence when Grillby died. This is the final boss of this run. Upon the second of his death Gaster raises a white hand out of nowhere and hits the reset button, restarting DecayTale to the very beginning, where Frisk has just fallen down.