Started making a homebrew solo campaign for my fiance to play in. Specifically I'm using Kingdom of Monsters to make a Pokemon campaign. My reasoning for doing this is partially because the world of Pokemon revolves around pets fighting in often legitimate duels the campaign can avoid a lot of the pitfalls of solo campaigns, namely the ability to suffer from save or suck/die effects without any support. Also my fiance is not familiar with the Red/Blue storyline so this is mostly new territory for her.
I plan to mimic the general world of the Kanto region story with a bit of fanon and Pathfinderization. The region is a decade after a large war with a foreign area and is currently dealing with it's insurgency. This leaves the land somewhat vulnerable to bandits gangs and monsters. The world's magic is acquired by binding monsters which makes bindable creatures significant in developing new innovations, fighting wars and have as a result become a staple in much of the region's culture. With Adults either rebuilding the region, off on military duty or maintaining basic occupations binding monsters have become popular for children who can easily contribute in many duties if bound to a monster. A lot of the technological aspects are taken away from the world unless it can be replicated or supported by the Monster Trainer spell list.
Mechanically I'm houseruling in some aspects that are more pokemon-like. For example you have a 6 monster limit but you can store excess monsters in a Phantom Container(PC). The monsters also take their retain damage when called until they are healed.
The general goal of the campaign is to compete and win to be the monster training champion, most likely for the cash prize or fame. The rest of it is going to be made up of embellished translations of situations in the Kanto plot, such as the organized crime, motorcycle gangs, the haunted tower, ect. Also an NPC asks you to keep a journal of bindable creatures as the overall knowledge of rarer monsters is limited. The Mewtwo has a analog story where to create new bindable monsters the first psionic monster is created, which escapes and starts feeding on minds.
So I'm looking for suggestions on how to make this world really pop since Pokemon doesn't really have much of a plot. Also I have a few other problems to think around.
Collecting Gym badges is still a requirement for higher tournaments but without the arbitrary obstacles of the videogame this can be accomplished in whatever order although I may give the Gyms 'ranks' as sort of a guidline for how strong they may be. However random battles will be tricky if she wanders into powerful monster territory.
Going with your use of Kingdom of Monsters, that world is structured such that arenas (gyms) have different levels of monsters they battle various trainers with. If you come there fresh from your hometown with one or two monsters, the arena master will often use the youngest of his monsters, and probably only 1. If you're there after several adventures and other arena matches, he or she is more likely to let you challenge the more powerful monsters available.
Storyline works such that the entire western half of the Kingdom is ruled and run by an evil dictator of a King who wishes to take over from the dwarves and elves to expand his reign. In the east, past the mountain range that divides the land, trainers face more pokemon-like plots such as a thieves' guild who kidnaps trainers and forces them to trade valuable or rare monsters (trading is just both parties agreeing that their active monster will be traded, then magic changes to whom the monster is tied).
Again, if you're looking to keep with the Kingdom of Monsters setup, have her begin in Quill during the annual Choosing Day ceremonies at the local keep. She'll have her pick of monster and can try it out in a duel with somebody else or have the whole thing interrupted by the guards shouting that somebody stole several monsters from their pens and escaping through a hole in the ground. Or, if she's more the kind to just leave her home town, she can find a local scout who was attacked by a guild member's bulette.
Anyway, many of these suggestions and a few others can be found sprinkled across my facebook and in Chapter 4 of the book. There was also a playtest document from the Kickstarter that includes the intro story for new players.
Have fun, I'd love to hear how the game goes for her!
If he's using kingdom of monsters as written (for the most part) there is no captured monster death.