Pokémon Thread XXX: Hot Skitty on Wailord Action!

[Qwertystop]

Normal offers a lot of broadly-useful physical athleticism that would be nice to have (Strength, Rock Climb, Extremespeed, Endure), some other generally-useful things (Cut, Protect), and some stuff that's actually pretty weird? (Camouflage, Disable, Flash, Hidden Power, Razor Wind, various moves assuming the presence of a tail or horn or other non-human appendage). Oh, and it's got most of the sound-based moves, and the good healing ones (Wish, Rest, Recover, Refresh). And Recycle. Pretty sure that'd be my pick.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Ok, Pokemon Go question again:

What determines a "Great" or "Nice" or "Excellent" throw? They seem to happen at random for me.

You’ve seen the green/orange/red circle that changes size? You have to get the ball to hit the Pokémon inside that circle to get the Nice/Great/Excellent throws. Which you get is determined by the size of the circle when you hit it; Great is when the circle is about half its maximum size, Excellent is half of that and Nice is anything bigger than Great.

[LibraryOgre]

You’ve seen the green/orange/red circle that changes size? You have to get the ball to hit the Pokémon inside that circle to get the Nice/Great/Excellent throws. Which you get is determined by the size of the circle when you hit it; Great is when the circle is about half its maximum size, Excellent is half of that and Nice is anything bigger than Great.

Ah ha! Thank you very much. My aim SUCKS!

[Rater202]

Has anyone else ever spent time coming up with a "fan region?"

In mine, everything looks nice and clean with windmills and solar panels everywhere with a note that the region used to be badly polluted but they went to great lengths to clean up over the last few decades...

But the region is full of pokemon that have adapted to living in a polluted environment: All of the starter pokemon have or gain a secondary type that resists poison. Ghost, rock, ground, and steel are the most common wild types, but usually as secondary types and there are a lot of regional variants that are either poison type or a type that resists poison.

And when you go into the caves, they're just full of pollution pokemon—koffing, grimer, trubbish, and their evolved forms. Nobody really comments on it, except for a couple of people who think it's a bit odd that they're finding those in the wild instead of around cities.

Very rarely you might find an Alolaon Grimer or Muk or a Galarian Weezing in the wild mixed in with the regular ones.

Among new pokemon would be a Ghost/Poison that appears to be a biohazard disposal bag come to life. Nothing graphic is shown but the Pokedex entries imply that it's a bag of cancerous or diseased limbs and organs that had to be removed brought to life by the lingering anger or regret of patients who did not survive emergency medical procedures.

I'm also imagining at least one original regional variant of grimer, koffing, and rubbish. I'm imagining a trubbish/garbador variant that's part water-type due to augmenting its diet with goop and polluted waters—basically an inversion of the Alolan Muk, as well as a koffin that scuttles around on little bug legs becuase it's started eating solid garbage instead of the fumes it lets off and now it's too big to float.

On a regional muk, I kind of like the idea of a smoke-belching grimer that evolves into a fire-type muk variant that's just a pile of flaming tar but I also like the idea of a Poison/Steel type that's saturated with lead and mercury and other toxic metals.

Towards the climax of the game, you discover that while all the trash and pollution has been cleaned up, it hasn't been contained very well—they mostly just pumped it underground and periodically throw trash down into a massive semi-sealed hole in the ground. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to the regional government, the area was filled with a deposit of various evolution stonesthe radiation of which causes the toxic gasses and rotting garbage and industrial sludge and other pollutants to come to life as their respective Garbage pokemon which are constantly feeding on other bits of the pile of pollutants and occasionally each other and periodically escaping into the caves and tunnels of the region via cracks in the stone wall of the hole in the ground they were buried in.

Eventually, the whole heap would dissolve and amalgamate into a Legendary that's just the purest conceptual essence of pollution come to life that needs to be captured because if permitted to wander unchecked it could cause permanent damage to the entire planet. I have the mental image of a giant Alolan Muk with a crown of Galarian Weezings circling it's head and it's tongue is made of trash and has a garbador's face on the tip.

[Lord Raziere]

I think my pokemon region would end up predictably darker and subversive and thus most pokemon fans wouldn't want to know about it, whatever it would be. its just the directions my brain goes. I don't know the specifics but given what I've done in the past, thats probably where I'd go but at the same time try to figure out truly interesting places that could pop up in the pokemon universe while putting thought into how all this works.

like how do armies work in pokemon world? are soldiers given pokemon with specialized roles? do navies command water pokemon to fight on the sea? the air? are pokemon wars simply vast armies of pokemon organized in formation while human commanders relay orders through the radio?

which pokemon are selected for what role or job? does it vary region by region? so many questions....

[Rater202]

like how do armies work in pokemon world? are soldiers given pokemon with specialized roles? do navies command water pokemon to fight on the sea? the air? are pokemon wars simply vast armies of pokemon organized in formation while human commanders relay orders through the radio?

Lt. Surge was a Lieutenant in a military(originally he was American but that retconned to be ambiguous) and fought in at least one war.

Electric Pokemon saved his life during the war.

So at bare minimum, we know that there are military ranks and that pokemon are present on the battlefield.

If we ever do the Pokemon Cyberpunk thing, that might be a thing to explore—sapient pokemon, cyborgs retro engineered from Steel Types and various "animated object pokemon," with a symbiotic rotom providing the power sources and helping integrate everything Human/Pokemon Hybrids might be pursued for military reasons—a squadron of superhuman soldiers would be easier to train than a squad of squishy humans teaching tactics to animals that range in intelligence from "animal" to "about as smart as human, but there's a communication barrier."

An unscrupulous Government would pay a fortune for that, and if the region is controlled by a corrupt megacorp then obviously the Government is gonna be looking the other way in the interest of reaping the rewards.

[Lord Raziere]

see the main problem is that I have to figure out what normal pokemon warfare is like first.

because lets say I want to make a normal ground-pounding soldier in pokemon world:
1-are they issued a gun? do guns work on pokemon? is this game dark enough that I want to give them guns and be effective on pokemon?

2- if they are issued pokemon, what pokemon are they? does it vary region by region? do they attempt to make the standard team of a soldier well-rounded so that they can fight in as many environments as they can? do they make specialists for certain environments? like I assume they have to be flexible because they'd travel to many environments and face many pokemon and people and be probably be given something like the elemental monkeys, a flying type, a normal type and a fighting type because those are relatively common and make for a well-rounded team. you wouldn't be defeating any pokemon leagues with it, but it'd serviceable, but you'd have like air and naval specialist trainers because they'd need to tailor their teams to the environments they fight in.

3-how many roles would the military reasonably use pokemon for? probably a lot, but what point does a human come in to do something? do, five naval trainers just show up with like, 30 gyarados to wreck your naval base by blasting hyper beam everywhere? do humans come in with guns shooting at people while their pokemon back them up? when do you stop using a phone and start using psychics to send telepathic messages? do they still use rapidash to ride into battle so they can flamethrower people? after all its not as if you'd invent flamethrowers when you already have creatures to do that for you. are voltorb and electrode launched at people so they can explode near the enemy repeatedly? do people recruit and send grimer at each other to screw up their lands and resources? WHAT IS WARFARE IN THIS UNIVERSE!? the complex multifaceted paradigm that this runs on is confusing, chaotic and full of so many variables that its hard to figure out how it would play out in any predictable manner, because pokemon could potentially do so many things to change how wars are fought. I'd have to figure out a way of organizing or simplifying it all before I start throwing cyborgs additions on top of that.

[DataNinja]

Has anyone else ever spent time coming up with a "fan region?"

Yep. Quite a few, really. A good chunk of anyone who's GM'd for a Pokémon Tabletop game'll have decided to have fun with a region of their own invention when they don't feel like bandying around canon ones.

The big one for me was one based off of Canada, with 'temples' scattered around that each had Plates in them. As each was retrieved by the PCs in turn, it warped the world more to confine to that element. So you started to see oceans of lightning, or trees of fire, or rains of seeds or whatever. It was really fun coming up with the Elemental Chaos-esque effects.

[Rater202]

I'm not sure about the games(other than various techniques being named after bullets and bombs) but in the anime Team Rocket is on multiple occasions in the early seasons using firearms of various types.

Most notably, Mystery at the Lighthouse where they shoot a crapload of missiles at the one-of-a-kind giant Dragonite that Bill's been trying to befriend with the expectation that the missile barrage would weaken it enough that they could catch it.

So... Yeah, it'd be safe to assume that military-grade guns and other firearms exist and are effective on at least some pokemon. Probably not legendaries or super huge ones, but...

I imagine it'd be a thing like every squad has a couple of machops or machokes for heavy lifting and I wouldn't be surprised if military vehicles didn't have the means to be powered by an electric pokemon(or in recent years are just possessed by Rotoms. Imagine tanks, APCs, and Choppers that fly and operate themselves.)

I wouldn't be surprised if Pokemon Warfare wasn't a case of a normal squad but everyone's equipped with a Pokemon or two based on their role—instead of a siege unit having a flamethrower, they've got a fire type that knows flamethrower. but based on Lt. Surge's example I'm assuming that, unlike a pokemon battle, the trainers are fighting alongside their pokemon.

The question is more are people bringing their own pokemon when they enlist, or are they leaving their pokemon at home in the hands of trusted careers and using pokemon owned by the military.

We can also infer from the fact that Sailors are all wearing naval uniforms that a traditional Navy exists... Honestly, it might just be a normal Navy but people also have water-type pokemon on their person. I could see every Naval ship having a Surf HM onboard and encouraging/requiring everyone to put it on at least one Pokemon in case the ship goes down. Dive might be used where we in real life would use submarines, since using Dive seems to be able to provide air to the trainer indefinitely, but I'm not seeing that being practical for anything but short term exploration purposes.

Military Intelligence probably includes heavy use of psychics and mediums who, naturally use psychic and ghost types who are probably also using their powers to help gather intelligence. Espionage and saboteur units probably make use of ghost and dark types. And Rotoms and the Porygon line for computing.

I imagine that the use of Poison Types in warfare might violate bans on chemical or biological warfare if they can fatally poison people.

There's probably international bans and/or agreements on capturing and using Legenaries as military assets comparable to bans against the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Can you imagine Groudon marching through a region bringing harsh sunlight down to cause drought and triggering earthquakes and volcanic eruptions? I don't think anyone wants that at all, let alone for purposes of military conquest.

I'm gonna assume that Wars in the Pokemon World are short but brutal.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Has anyone else ever spent time coming up with a "fan region?"

I have some half baked ideas for a fan game I'm never going to make with properties from both the mainline and the Pokémon Ranger games.

You get one partner, free pick from all mon in the regional browser/dex (and some sort of random options for people who want to go in unspoiled), everything else you catch does not gain experience and runs off into the hills when if runs out of HP (which might refill before every battle just because I don't like running back for healing all the time). Pokémon appear in the overworld, because that way you can actually try to catch the mon you need for this next obstacle, and also because it makes for a much nicer Pokémon world. Every pokémon always knows one field move, including your starter (although I guess through evolution your partner could get several of them or you could ditch them all, which is fine). It would be a small game in scope, a story that does not revolve around the end of the world, probably no legendaries or pseudo-legends, possibly quite a small number of total pokémon, but with good reasons to actually catch them all. There might be a bit of a pseudo-historical angle to it, kind of a frontier vibe. The map might end up loosely based on the Benelux countries (Belgium Netherlands Luxembourg), just to continue that tradition. Maybe put in some references to Kalos and Galar. Get a bit of a feel for where you are in the Pokémon world, in the same way that Almia (from Ranger 2, best region ever by the way) was close to Fiore (from Ranger 1) and Sinnoh.

Aside from my lazyness (in itself more than enough to make me never do this) the biggest obstacle might be that it seems a lot more difficult to try and make something using the superior looking Ranger style overworld. Bundles like Pokémon Essentials for RPG Maker XP have a lot of ripped and fan made content and scripts for imitating gen 3-5 main series games, you can pretty much start building your world right away. Wanting to do something else probably means having to do a lot of actual game making.




On the Pokémon war thing: I think it's actually kind of cool how they have avoided answering so many questions for 20 years and it doesn't bother me at all until I start trying to come up with answers. Do people eat Pokémon? Are there non-Pokémon animals in this world? There are some obviously very weak Pokémon in this world that are still based on predatory animals and get Pokédex entries that suggest they hunt, like Spinarak, what are those things preying on? Speaking of the Pokédex, it seems like before the TV series came out it was intended to be a thing the player character wrote, that's why the descriptions are so ridiculous. Are we ever going to find out who comes up with this crap? Healthcare is completely free for Pokémon, what is it like for humans? Champions who have spend years honing their craft can be dethroned by a kid who spent a few weeks on the road, what's up with that? Does everyone have like a hidden level cap they can't get their Pokémon to get past, with the player character just being so unnaturally talented that he can go up to 100? There are sooooo many questions the games never want to make me ask. It's actually kind of cool. War might be the least of my problems. I mean, a ten year old with a mouse is usually enough to get rid of any world dooming trouble anyway...

Edit: Okay, maybe that sounds a bit harsh. It's a fun topic, I just don't have that much to add on it. I think there have been one to a few big fan projects on it though.

[Bartmanhomer]

I wonder there's any good Pokemon fan-fiction out there?

[Rater202]

In the distant past, it was somewhat stronger than the horribly weak descendants that exist today.

That would be an interesting Fossil Pokemon to encounter at some point. A distant ancestor of the Magikarp evolutionary line.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

That would be an interesting Fossil Pokemon to encounter at some point. A distant ancestor of the Magikarp evolutionary line.

If they did something cool with it.

Maybe give both stages the same stat total, in the high 400's, but the "Gyarados" is more rounded while the "Magikarp" is more specialized. Maybe it has huge speed and defense to mimic its present day distribution, with a bunch of HP and moves that prevent harm to it, like attract and charm and something that paralyses and maybe something that lets it run away from a fight? Either that or it's just a physical beast that kills everything with no subtlety whatsoever but doesn't learn any water type moves or something.

Maybe even make the "Gyarados" weaker than the "Magikarp", a bit reminiscent of Dragonair maybe, but with more different moves and the ability to breed. So if you want to breed "Magikarp"s you need a "Gyarados", and there are certain "Magikarp" egg moves that can only be obtained through a "Gyarados" who learns them through level up or TM.

And maybe make stage one rock-water and stage two rock-dragon. Just to throw some extra firewood on the eternal discussions around Gyarados' typing.

[Rater202]

If I were doing it, I'd give it an elongated, semi-flexible body: Make it the middle ground between a fish and a sea serpent, if you will, but obviously closer to Magikarp than Gyarados. A middle point, if you will, between it's modern descendan'ts too forms.

And it doesn't evolve

Present the weak, worthless modern Magikarp and the process of metamoprhosing into th more powerful Magikarp as an evolutionary advantage that was selected for.

I mean, something as big an powerful as Gyarados would logically need a lot of resources.

And Magikarp despite being the most useless Pokemon in a fight... Is probably, from an evolutionary perspective, the most successful.

Think about it: Magikarp can be found in the wild in every known region except for Orre.(you know, the one place in the world that has no native Pokemon?)

In every region where Magikarp can be fished or encountered wild, they are found in every or almost every body of water. Rivers, lakes, ponds, bays, seas, oceans, freshwater, saltwater, and multiple Pokedex entries note that Magikarp are able to survive in any body of water even if it's too polluted for most pokemon to survive.

Magikarp are noted to reproduce in ridiculous numbers, and despite being weak and feeble in some places you can encounter Magikarp of every level implying that Magikarp are, in fact, getting battle experience somehow.

It's noted that Magikarp sometimes gets stranded on land and die becoming an important part of the food chains of a wild variety of organisms... But it's also implied that Magikarp can survive out of water for years and even climb mountains by repeatedly using splash over the course of years... And "Splash" has nothing to do with water, it's name is a translation thing.

And, also, in the anime at least it's noted that Magikarp are not good eating—they're mostly scale and bone and the scales are hard.. This is supported by the fact that the Pokedex repeatedly notes that they have underdeveloped musculature. I imagine the animals that prey on stranded Magikarp are either scavengers picking the decaying corpse or something with an iron stomach.

Between the pollution thing and the spending years climbing a mountain thing, that would imply that they require very little food(or alternatively can eat almost anything.)

I legitimately think that Magikarp's so-called "worthless" form is an evolutionarily selected form that's designed from the ground up to ensure that at least some of the species survives to full maturity and metamorphoses into it's ultra-powerful apex predator form. I think that happened because it's more efficient to do it that way than to try and be born as an apex predator and survive that long.

[Bartmanhomer]

I wish that all Pokemon can talk or at least have the same intelligence as humans can.

[LibraryOgre]

"Make 3 Nice Curveball throws in a row"

Look, I'm lucky to make 3 throws in a row, and have no idea how curveballs happen.

[Rater202]

I wish that all Pokemon can talk or at least have the same intelligence as humans can.

Depending on continuity, they do have human like intelligence.

---

Observation on Dragon Type.

In the original Japanese, rather than written with the Japanese Character's for dragon, Dragon Type is "doragon" spelled out in kana.

Most types uses the Japanese or a loan word with a specific meaning in Japanese—water type is "mizutaipu." fire is Honōtaipu, and so on. Psychic is Esupataipo, "esper type" which is using the loan term ESP as a root word, but the only types in gen 1 that just flat out use the english name in the original japanese are normal, dragon, and ghost.

There would not be another type to follow this conversion until Fairy.

so, ignoring Normal becuase it's normal: Ghost Type in gen one seems to be based on Western Ghost stories with just a little bit of Japanese Ghost Lore to give it flavor. Gengar is named after a german "doppleganger" in both generations, and in Japanese Gastly an d Haunter are literally named Ghos and Ghost so Ghost type refering exclusively to this one familial line in gen one and 2 using the english could have been a pun.

Fairy is pretty clea cut based on western pop culture fairies and western lore or fairies, goblins, and the like.

Now let's look at Dragon Type:

Dragon-type Pokemon, due to the majority of them being legendary, pseudo-legendary, Third Form evolutions, or Mega Evolutions, have the highest stat totals of any type, on average.

Dragon-Type moves all talk about power and rage and destruction. Drago types are fered to as difficult to control but very powerful.

There is not a single Pure Dragon-Type pokemon that resembles an Eastern Dragon Most of them resemble serpents, lindworms, wyrms, or wyverns: Different kinds of western dragons. The ones that don't resemble dinosaurs. The exception is the Goomy evolutionary family, who are based on the Tarasque(a shelled dragon) or Lou Carcolh, a snail-like dragon, both from French folklore.

Of duel types, Rayquaza comes closest to an Eastern DRagon, but more closlty resembles a flying Lindworm.

The rest, if they resemble a dragon, resemble a western dragon or sometimes a dinosaur.

So, what Pokemon do resemble Eastern Dragons?

I am 100% certain that "Dragon Type" is meant to refer to "Western Dragons" and tha'ts why Gyarados isn't Dragon Type—Gyarados resembles an Eastern Dragon and is based on a legend about how Eastern Dragons are born.

It gets Dragon tYpe moves, but as a Water Flying type it fits pretty well into Eastern depictions of dragons as spirits of water and wind.

I think Gyarados is meant to represent dragons as an embodiment of nature.

More controversially: I think that Dragons as sources of mystical power and wisdom are represented by the ABra Line. come on, they look like anthropomorphic eastern dragons.

[danzibr]

"Make 3 Nice Curveball throws in a row"

Look, I'm lucky to make 3 throws in a row, and have no idea how curveballs happen.

I can help with that!

If you use the phone left-handed, draw a 6 with your thumb (but starting at the inside, release at the end). If you're right-handed... a 6 but mirrored left to right.

As for the 3 in a row... when you get 1, celebrate. Then when you encounter another 'Mon, disconnect your device from the interwebs. If you fail, force quit the app, reconnect to the internet, open PoGo. You won't lose your streak.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

"Make 3 Nice Curveball throws in a row"

Look, I'm lucky to make 3 throws in a row, and have no idea how curveballs happen.

This is kind of hard to explain without being able to show you, but here goes:

(Note that this is assuming the Pokémon is in the middle of the screen.)

Drag the Pokéball off to a lower corner of your phone. While holding down on the ball, rub your finger in a tight circle until sparks start coming off. Then throw it at the Pokémon’s feet or shadow. For a ‘Nice’ curveball you need to hit inside the colored circle as usual.

Curveballs give a bit of a catch boost and a tiny bit of extra XP when you use them to catch a Pokémon. They take practice, but once you’ve got them down there is zero reason not to use them all the time.

[Rater202]

That feeling when you're watching a let's play of a Nuzlock and realize that every single death has been becuase the players doing something stupid or just nor paying attention.

Like leaving a Slowbro in against the rival's haunter. One crit later and the plans for the Elite 4 are just fricking shot.

[OracleofWuffing]

So, what Pokemon do resemble Eastern Dragons?

Drampa.

(Not to put too fine a point on it, Drampa's still more of an exceptional case that happened long after Dragon Types were created, so it doesn't defeat the point, just that he deserves a mention in the topic. To an extent, Eternatus and Dragalge, too, but Dragalge's probably more coincidental.)

[Rater202]

Drampa.

(Not to put too fine a point on it, Drampa's still more of an exceptional case that happened long after Dragon Types were created, so it doesn't defeat the point, just that he deserves a mention in the topic. To an extent, Eternatus and Dragalge, too, but Dragalge's probably more coincidental.)

I missed Drampa when checking, but Dragalge's is clearly based ona sea dragon so it's dragon typing is more of a "pun" than anything else, and Eternatus is more of a winged serpent than a Chinese dragon.

And honestly, Drampa's weird enough to be an outlier. For one, it's a Normal Type with dragon as secondary so...

Drampa breaks my brain.

Like, aren't normal types supposed to be mundane animals?

[Qwertystop]

I missed Drampa when checking, but Dragalge's is clearly based ona sea dragon so it's dragon typing is more of a "pun" than anything else, and Eternatus is more of a winged serpent than a Chinese dragon.

And honestly, Drampa's weird enough to be an outlier. For one, it's a Normal Type with dragon as secondary so...

Drampa breaks my brain.

Like, aren't normal types supposed to be mundane animals?

Normal type tends to be brute physicality, without the weird effects of other types or the skill of Fighting. Except for when it's sound, a lot of sound-based moves are Normal. Drampa is a dragon who mostly just Is Big. I think it works.

[Fable Wright]

Drampa breaks my brain.

Like, aren't normal types supposed to be mundane animals?

How would you type Puff the Magic Dragon? Goofy, good with small kids, not naturally intimidating, despite the fact that they're a ginormous dragon, and might either be an allegory for childhood or drugs?

Because whenever I look at Drampa, I see a magic dragon that lives in Hona Lee (which sounds linguistically related to Honolulu), that may be a reference to drugs (Sap Sipper and Cloud Nine), that's mentioned to be friends with children (see Pokedex entry).

They're not a fairy, but they're big and goofy and good with kids first and may be an allegorical representation of childhood wonder, which fits Normal-predominant typing, and a dragon second.

[Rater202]

If you had to design a new Eevee Evolution, what would you do?

I like the idea of a steel type "Aegeon" from "aegis", who evolves from an Eevee with high friendship leveling up while holding a metal coat...

...But it's just a bigger Evee, with a body proportionate to the other evolved forms, wearing a suit of plate mail armor.

[Saambell]

If you had to design a new Eevee Evolution, what would you do?

If I was to design a Dragon type Eeveelution I would make it purple, with yellow horns and underbelly, and golden wings. Make its pokedex entry talk about how its preferred prey is Wooloo or Mareep.

[danzibr]

This is kind of hard to explain without being able to show you, but here goes:

(Note that this is assuming the Pokémon is in the middle of the screen.)

Drag the Pokéball off to a lower corner of your phone. While holding down on the ball, rub your finger in a tight circle until sparks start coming off. Then throw it at the Pokémon’s feet or shadow. For a ‘Nice’ curveball you need to hit inside the colored circle as usual.

Curveballs give a bit of a catch boost and a tiny bit of extra XP when you use them to catch a Pokémon. They take practice, but once you’ve got them down there is zero reason not to use them all the time.

To expand on this, a curve pokeball has a higher catch rate than a non-curve greatball (and a curve greatball has a higher catch rate than a non-curve ultraball)

[Rater202]

What's the Nidoran family supposed to be?

The base forms look like lagomorphs—rabbits and hares—but they're spiky in a way that doesn't seem to be mammalian spines and they're venomous(well, poisonous per the dex entries, but it acts more like venom.)\

The evolved forms, meanwhile, look reptilian: Nidorina more so than Nidorino, but obviously so by the final forms.

[Lord Raziere]

What's the Nidoran family supposed to be?

The base forms look like lagomorphs—rabbits and hares—but they're spiky in a way that doesn't seem to be mammalian spines and they're venomous(well, poisonous per the dex entries, but it acts more like venom.)\

The evolved forms, meanwhile, look reptilian: Nidorina more so than Nidorino, but obviously so by the final forms.

According to bulbapedia:

Origin
Nidoran♀ appears to draw inspiration from hamsters, rabbits (perhaps an Amami rabbit, specifically), mice, or porcupines, with aspects of venomous mammals. Anatomically, however, they are arguably most like hyraxes – small, rodent-like mammals that are genetically more closely related to much larger mammals like elephants and manatees featuring thickset bodies with tough hides (similar to Nidorina and Nidoqueen).

so close. but its probably not any one thing. some pokemon are just mishmashes or blends of various animals into something a lot like this or that but isn't really any of them, rather than being a 1:1 inspiration.

[Rater202]

So, in the pokemon Games, there are just...

People who know Pokemon Moves.

The Move Tutors, they... Seem to know the moves.

Like, the guys who teach Mega Punch and Mega Kick in Gen 1 are martial artists specialized in Punching and Kicking. The Dream Eater tutor is a guy who knows how to eat dreams after dreaming about his dream being eaten.

Not a tutor, but the manager at the Kanto Power Plant in Gen 2 claims to be so mad he can blast things... And Acts like he himself is the one who can use Charge Beam.

Was that ever explained? I don't think you see that talked about very much.