The thread you've set up has been closed, so I'm just going to leave a couple ideas here.

The Oracle could be a young adult who seems to belong in one side but really belongs with the other (i.e police informant, Mafia spy etc), which could work well to establish the story (these are the two sides, this is their relationship with each other, this what the Oracle is like etc.) The prophecy is delivered, however (maybe they just wake up with a notebook titled Prophecy in one hand or something) but it's written in some unknown language so that the Oracle cannot translate and is left unfinished. Recognising that they just wrote a prophecy (it would have to be a common enough occurrence in this world that they knew what it was or maybe their great grandmother was an Oracle or something) they agonise over which boss to send it to, before releasing it to the internet (or equivalent) so that both sides start on equal footing.

The prophecy is everywhere in the next couple of hours, a cause of much speculation and panic, and so the police and mafia get wind of it. They hire/kidnap a translator (could be a cause of conflict, depending on how many there are around, how easy they are to find, whether they actually want to work with the people trying to hire/kidnap them) and translate the prophecy, which the general gist of is:

'So-and-so Great McGuffin Weapon is up for grabs and could totally help you in this little Mafia/Police stalemate thing going on, putting you in a position of power and so on and blah blah blah, and oh, by the way, it's in-"

And so, to get the rest of the prophecy, they need to get the Oracle. Maybe both sides hire the Oracle to hunt themselves down because that would be hilarious. It could be that the Oracle still doesn't know what the prophecy means. The weapon can be mythical, magical, technological or whatever and the prophecy shouldn't rhyme because it's been translated from one language to another, and anyway, what reason does it have to rhyme in the first place?

Of course, now that I mention it, instead of just the police and the mafia racing to see who gets it first, there could be other groups as well, all with different motivations. What about a group of Oracles who want to induct this new one into their group, or to teach them, or to get them into their favour so they can make power plays over other Oracles? What about a new crime organisation that needs the weapon to pull the mafia out of their little crime niche? Surely other countries and the government would be super interested too?

They could make alliances with each other or fight with each other or so long. I hope the Oracle keeps this a secret for almost the entire story, but they might have no reason to. Maybe phrophesising is illegal and as soon as the rest of the prophecy comes out their head will be cut off. Maybe Oracles are ostracised. Maybe they like the way their life is at the moment and doesn't want anything to change. Maybe they're struggling over who their true alliance is with.

But either they tell someone or they find out somehow, because you don't keep secrets like that forever. Maybe someone betrays them? But all of a sudden it's like hell itself is after the Oracle and they're on the run. Maybe they hide somewhere or fight back? Maybe they make a tentative alliance with someone outside the city's power-system or maybe they hook up with friends or maybe they go it alone. Anyway, there is probably a lot of conflict and the Oracle will probably be captured once or twice.

Anyway, sooner or later, the later half of the prophecy arrives and after last time the Oracle sure as hell ain't putting it up on the internet (or maybe they do, because they're an idiot). If the Oracle is captured at this time the person who captured him will have it anyway and now they have the sweet problem of finding a translator (or maybe they have one already, because otherwise how did they translate it last time?). If the Oracle isn't captured they most probably want the translation of it anyway, or maybe they wanted the translation all along because I'd want to know why a f*ck-ton of people were after me as well. So they'd have to kidnap/hire/rescue a translator.

This would probably be the climax point of the story. And because it would be boring for the Oracle to be walking to the McGuffin by themselves (unless that's going to be used as an epilogue), the end of the prophecy needs to be leaked (betrayal?). Now we have the various forces converging on a single point and there is a fight-fest. It would be nice if the Oracle got hold of the weapon somehow and had to chose which side to give it to, finally deciding who they're loyal to. The best case scenario would be if the weapon was somehow nullified or broken. It otherwise depends on who gets it and what their motives are and what the weapon actually does on what the ending is.

I have no real ideas to the characters other than that the relationship between the Oracle and whoever they give their information to should be interesting. XP

Other ideas for this storyline:

• The Oracle gives the prophecy in full and understands it but puts it on the internet anyway/it's leaked out somehow (again, betrayal). However it can only be partially translated (although why they just wouldn't put up a translated version is beyond me). Thus, conflict as they try to find the Oracle to translate the rest.

• The Oracle is someone else entirely, a child maybe or someone close to the original Oracle. The original Oracle protects them.

• The Oracle translates the prophecy themselves and goes off to find the weapon. Knowing there's a prophecy, but not what's in it, everyone else comes after them.

The setting/genre for the story line I thought up is maybe 20 minutes into the future with hints of (urban?) fantasy. A lot of action/thriller stuff with elements of politics (dunno if that's the name for the genre I'm thinking of). Maybe the city is a city/state? It's definitely a little rundown and a lot corrupted.

Pretty much the setting for this will have to include elements of fantasy, but here are a couple ideas that don't include fantasy in any way:

• The Oracle is a fraud/insane. Maybe they're trying to provoke the Mafia or Police into fighting each other, or maybe they're working for one side trying to topple the other.

• Somebody has invented a machine that predicts the future.

• People from the future come to the past (or claim to come from the future).

For the prophecy to have any large effect, the people or some influencial ones have to believe in prophecies. Is this a superstitious society? Or a fantasy world where prophecies tend to be true? Or is the oracle a scientific expert that a few will actually listen to, albeit reluctantly? In building the setting I think it is important to show why the prophecy is not going to be ignored. This alone is a good starting point for imagining situations that will depict the world in a believable way.

Is this project still going? We have a very similar open collaboration in another community so it may be interesting to share experiences and probably even join our forces and merge into a common place instead of having two separate groups.

I find collaborations so fascinating.
Has anyone suggested starting story where each page is from a different artist/creator? it might be tricky to coordinate, maybe the artist/creator can declare their page in a post and edit post with that completed page?
I wouldn't mind working with a writer/creator on something short-form. maybe a good 24-30pg story. just my two cents.

Yes, we have a separate Reddit community called Evotale2

Right now our project is practically dormant, but I'm constantly poking around for new contributors and I think that if we'll somehow merge our efforts, we'll be able to bring more people in. Judging by your initial post, we have practically the same set of rules, guides and requirements, we also have an established workflow of sharing assets via Google Drive and Docs. Separate community is less prominent and needs advertising, but in my opinion it is easier to manage because you can have different topics from different contributors all stored in one place as well as sticky posts for common uses. I'm not advocating to move to our place, but we had a successful start and our workflow proved to be reliable.
Since I’m practically on my own at the moment, I can move around between the projects, but I’ll need someone to get me acquainted with your working assets.

Regarding your project: as far as I can see, your project have a couple of posts with synopses and ideas, but do you have any actual drafts, scripts or at least a repository of working resources? I must admit that our own repository is outdated, but it won't be a problem to sort it out or establish a new one for a new branch.

Has anyone suggested starting story where each page is from a different artist/creator?

Yes, in fact our community started exactly this way: our initial plan was to create a random story one page at a time when multiple authors can suggest their version of the plot and then we’ll combine, vote, refine and create an actual page. This system proved to be more or less reliable, but due to technical difficulties our current branch came to a halt and now I’m trying to attract people for a new one.

And a little stupid question: I've spent almost an hour trying to figure out how to send private messages here, but I still can't find it. What am I doing wrong? I'm not a fan of whispering, but sometimes it's more convenient to drop a private message to keep the main topic clean.

Edit: Endless Winter is a very good example of open collaboration, but it looks like there are only slots for artists while our project was designed for everyone.

Something that could help for future collab posts would be to create a format or guide based on the type of role you'd like to fill in the comic making process. Such as writer, editor, lettering, ink artist, concept artist, etc.

Perhaps if a group can divide roles, it can help break up the workload more evenly so it doesn't become too much of a strain.

Another avenue that could be pursued would be to create an anthology. Especially if the goal is to create an actual book.

I was a part of a writer's group and we managed to publish a book this way. By collecting all of our short pieces we were able to fill up a whole book relatively easy. And since there were about 12 os us. It made it really cheap to pay for the publishing process.

Hopefully that helps encourage more collaborations on here.

Workload distribution is one of the most important parts in any teamwork and that’s why I tend to be against strict division of roles in open collaborations. Strict role distribution is important for static groups, but open collaboration is a highly dynamic working environment so it would be much more productive if every contributor will outline the possible roles it can take. “I’m a writer so I will only write stuff” is not a good approach for such kind of work and I believe that everyone should aim for filling as many roles as possible.

For example, I cannot draw a stick figure by hand, I’m not very familiar with modern web technologies and I cannot proofread English, but I can do pretty much everything else: I can act as a project manager, refine story logic and plot points, do research and assemble moodboards, make 3D drafts for certain extent and assemble panels and wording into a page. I’m not an idea guy so I won’t be very helpful with generating ideas, but I can help with picking ideas from idea pools and assembling them into a working block.