Suggestions

[Zenith]

What part does Mandy play in the story? Personally, I'd rather keep Fernando if we have to get rid of one (or move one to the E4). The Venap line would keep a resistance and lose a weakness (in Dionare's case, a double weakness).

Moving on, to my gym idea.

As we all know, Dark has yet to actually have a gym. We can potentially remedy that, and fix some of the starter imbalance. Dolphure would gain an advantage, Dionare would gain a resistance, and more importantly, Kelvoyant would gain a weakness. This would especially help if this replaced the Bug gym (if we go with 8 gyms; irrelevant if we go with 12).

This gym would be somewhere in central or eastern Kirant, under the Defenders' influence. This is important, as the gym would have an emphasis on "Dark Is Not Evil". I'm not exactly sure about the gimmick yet, to be honest (limited vision is cliche). The leader's name would have to be one that has a real-world bad rep (Cain?), his/her signature 'mon would be Abyssus, and he/she would give the player the Crescent Badge (as in crescent moon) and the TM for Nightfall.

Thoughts?

EDIT: We could still keep Mandy important to the story. She could be a part of the conflict around Hollowlog, and a strong trainer. The player won't see her again for a long time, until the Champion's Tower (or whatever we decide to call it), when they've all but forgotten about her, and they run into her...as an E4 member. As a nod, she could mention that she used to be a gym leader before the League requested that she become a member of the C/K Elite Four.

And I still think we can do more with Mt. Mist than just make it a dungeon you have to go through along the way.

In addition, I have a couple small ideas for messing with Light type a little, for more balance.