- Morgan Blackwood (Naril) - Robert Miller (@Habibi359) - Jacob Mcalister (@vietmyke)
Very likely accepted
- @lorelei's human character (Based on some great conversation and feedback)
Under Consideration
- Amanda Staten (@lady horatio) - Waiting on character sheet edits, but a a character I am charmed by - @bluejay_gl's vampire character - I have a PM I'm working on for you!
As a point of note, for pure transparency's sake, there are enough characters to fill the cast size I was hoping for right now. However, nothing is set in stone yet - If I get more characters that I find utterly fascinating, I'll expand the cast size past what I was originally planning, and we'll go from there. :3
Thanks, everyone, for your interest. This should be a fun time!
Eep, the ball's a-rolling! I'm about to go over to the bestie's house to make brownies and marathon movies, but I'll make sure Mandy's sheet is edited tonight.
I'm an interested in this and due to the popularity of this and your deadline I'm just going to Indian Jones it and post a character sheet and see whether it works for you or not.
Name: Benjamin Cross Gender: Male
Race/Species: Human
Age:26
Appearance:
Standing at 6'3'' with a strong jawline and a fairly symmetrical face, Benjamin could be considered handsome if he didn't constantly look like he was on death's door. Because of his constant sleep deprivation the lad who is often dressed in casual corporate attire looks more like a deranged scarecrow, which may be fitting given his position in the company.
Personality: If there's one thing that people will notice about Ben, its his constant nervous energy. Far from the hard-boiled P.Is that populate the building Ben has a habit of rambling, apologizing for his rambling, explain what he thinks is the cause of his rambling before having to be reigned in so he gets to his original point. That being said his dedication to the job allows for people to allow for his 'quirks' as what he finds tends to make up for it. In his own way he could be considered cheerful if you ignore all the self-reprimanding and his sometimes naive ways may come across as endearing, or delectable to the denizens of the night.
Powers, Traits, and Abilities: For all intents and purposes, Ben is a wizard, sorcerer, magician, whatever you want to call him, although he prefers the term mage. As such he uses the strange unwritten formulas and sheer will power to bend the universe to his whim -something that he has become dangerously fascinated with- and while he certainly has the raw power and aptitude for the arcane arts, the role that he fills at Priest & Hawthorne Investigations is as a 'data analyst' which is a nice friendly way of saying he does illegal things with technology to get information that can't be retrieved by traditional methods. He is ironically enough, also good at disingenuous magic e.g. card tricks, slipping out of handcuffs and misdirection.
Background: Benjamin had always been fascinated with magic. Always the small and nervous one, Ben was a walking cliche of a nerd since he first entered grade school, and he would often use the tricks he'd learn from books as a manner of breaking the ice with people he'd meet- or the mechanical skills to get out of a locker he was shoved into, as would happen in his small town of Echo Hills, Massachusetts. And so when he had found a genuine book of magic with his two best friends he seemed to be living the dream at first. As the boy and his two friends grew more powerful and discovered that there was more supernatural occurrences happening in their hometown they went on wacky adventures where they would look into rumors of jackalopes and skunk apes to haunted houses and forests. Things changed however when Ben's best friend and savant of the group went mad with power during their junior year of high school and in the process ended with a magical duel that Ben had barely made it out of alive at the death of his friend. Due to the depression that came with guilt Benjamin's grades slipped and he lost his shot at MIT. Things were not all bad for him, as he was able to get a full ride to NYU where he got into programming, the mathematical aspect of logic being similar to magic in its own way without the passion or art to it, Ben threw himself into it, closing the book on magic. Or at least tried to. Perhaps it was his now built up magical chops, or perhaps its because he spat in reality's face but not long after he moved to The Big Apple, Ben started to run into the supernatural more than ever. While he tried to ignore it, soon he was sucked back into it and even acted as a sort of vigilante living out super-hero power fantasies and ignoring self-growth and his emotions through violence and sabotage of those he thought of as evil. By his last year of college he had pissed off people higher up on the food chain who decided not just to kill him, but set him up with the police, framing him as a rampant serial killer. While he was in an interview room a man appeared and offered him a choice. Go work for him in Seattle, or see how the criminal justice system treats someone who has already had someone close die under mysterious circumstances. The choice was obvious and ever since, Ben has been working for P&I investigations as their online presence and after much deliberation will be heading out into the field on a probationary status to see if he has the reins on his magic.
@Arcanaut - While I think "wizard hacker" is a kind of a great idea, this sheet as written has a lot of issues - at least for this game. If you'd like to refine this character or talk to me about him, let me know. :3 Otherwise, thanks for your interest, and I hope to see you around the site!
@Arcanaut - While I think "wizard hacker" is a kind of a great idea, this sheet as written has a lot of issues - at least for this game. If you'd like to refine this character or talk to me about him, let me know. :3
I'd really appreciate that. This character sheet was written up in about seven minutes or so it probably couldn't be considered a first draft. PM about what changes need to be made and I'll go ahead and do it.
I know you were getting to your limit but it was too good an idea not to pitch a character. Plus the other characters sound amazing!
Name: Emmaline Von Morganstern (Goes by Emma Stern)
Gender: Female
Race/Species: Human
Age (Real and apparent, if applicable): 28
Appearance:
Emma is a tall Germanic woman with straw blond hair. She is pretty, although her high cheekbones and angular features seem to conspire to rob her of true beauty. She has a hiker’s lean trim build which bespeak many years of alpine life in her native Austria. Although her eyes are a piercing blue, they are usually kept behind the large glasses she wears to aid her with her reading.
Emma affects a stern masculine body language and takes pains to limit her femininity. Her hair is kept in a tight bun and her back rigid. She wears tailored suit of an academic cut when she is at work but is equally comfortable in sportswear when off duty or the situation demands it. Her taste in jewelry is her only divergence from strict propriety and she is almost always seen with bracelets and necklaces made of silver or polished copper.
Despite having lived in the United States for several years, and her best efforts, Emma has been unable to eradicate her crisp Austrian accent.
Personality: Emma is first and foremost an academic and her scholarly career has been the primary influence on her personality. Competition with men and the institutionalized biases against women have encouraged her to do what she can to discount her sex. One of these tactics is to adopt the prim manners of a German Schoolteacher and her speech is frequently pedantic and over exact. Another is to keep her romantic side walled away beneath her professional demeanor.
Playing against these traits is a natural curiosity about the world and the people in it, which drives her closer to others the better to interrogate them. She has a dry and understated sense of humor and has even been known to laugh, though she tries to keep this under control due to her embarrassing tendency to snort when she does so.
In every situation Emma attempts to exude an aura of knowing control expected of a professor. Unfortunately the more uncontrolled a situation becomes, the closer this drives her to panic.
Powers, Traits, and Abilities: Hexen - At some point in the mysterious past Emmaline’s ancestors acquired certain powers, most notably the ability to manipulate the energies around them. The first Hexen discovered that these abilities passed from mother to daughter and each generation made its own contribution to the craft. For most of recorded history this has required covens of women to work together but with the onset of modern mathematics this has changed. Emmaline can do the traditional tricks, like draw heat from the air to create ice, or call up a wind by creating a pressure differential, but her true calling is in the realm of curses. Emmaline has a talent for altering probability, she can, if she puts her mind to it, ensure that a particular person has a run of unusual good luck, or she can curse someone so that Murphy's Law punishes them with a special viciousness. Unfortunately in both of these cases the luck has to even out somewhere, and for every miracle there is a corresponding tragedy.
In addition to, or in conjunction with, her occult powers Emmaline holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics and has lectured at several major universities.
Background:
Emmaline sat straight backed in her chair, primly sipping at the adequate wine before her. It was expensive, sure, but somehow Americans always seemed to conflate expense with quality. She peered down at a napkin on which she was carefully writing an equation with an ornate fountain pen. The ink spread out through the porous medium in unlovely blobs but it would serve her purpose.
Across from her sat a nervous young man with his awkward date. There was an aura about him that spoke to her, the nervous way he ran his fingers through his hair, the slight sheen of sweat on the back of his neck. He was about to have the worst night of his life. Unless she intervened of course.
Concentration fell away in shattered shards as someone cleared his throat in front of her. With a vexed hiss she looked up and pushed the glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. The man before her was of indeterminate years and he wore a suit that probably cost as much as she made in a year.
“Professor Von Morganstern, I hope I have not startled you?” he asked in a smooth, almost liquid alto. She forced her professional colleague smile to her lips, uncharacteristically reddened by lipstick.
“Of course not,” she lied sweetly, looking down at the menu to give her face time to smooth way the incipient frown.
“You are Mr…” she began but he nodded cutting her off.
“Yes from the Agency,” he concluded before she could speak his name. She clucked she clucked her tongue disapprovingly against the roof of her mouth. He clearly didn’t fear her powers but he was demonstrating that he knew something about them by not speaking his name. The beginnings of a superior smile indicated that he had guessed what she was thinking. She glanced down at the formula on her napkin and then laid it face up on the expensive table cloth. Another sip of resinous wine. He slid into the seat across from her.
“I will be brief Professor Von Morganstern…” he began but it was her turn to hold up an interrupting hand.
“Professor Stern," she corrected, "I don’t go by my full name, also this isn’t a lecture you may call me Emma.” The clipped Austrian accent made the admonition seem harsher than she meant it. People weren’t always her thing. Screw it, served him right for showing off with her real name.
“I invited you here tonight because I want to offer you a job.” Emma sat back a little shocked. When she had received his letter employment was the furthest thing from her mind. It was rare to meet a man who knew about Hexen and rarer still for that meeting to end well.
“I already have a job mien Herr,” she began her english slipping, “As clearly you know by addressing me as Professor.” Her tone was defensive, a faint stirring of anger bubbled within her. He gave her an almost pittying look.
“Yes but I’m afraid that UCLA will decline your application for tenure, and there maybe little opportunity for you to earn it again. Faculty politicking I’m afraid.” He sounded genuinely sympathetic. Emmaline’s stomach plummeted, years of work and academic research for nothing. It was a given that his information was true, there was no lie in his voice and anyone who could discover she was a Hexen could penetrate the flimsy boundaries of University security with ease.
“There are few people with your particular talents in the United States,” he continued, his voice gentle and consoling. He waved away the waiter.
“We could use your more… ahem occult skills,” he concluded pushing a printed letter on expensive paper across the table to her. Fighting to keep her bottom lip from quivering with disappointment at losing her shot at tenure she mechanically scanned the document. When she reached the figure printed on it her eyebrows rose in spite of herself. The elegant man set back with a satisfied look on his face.
“With bonuses,” he added with a mischievous grin, lifting his glass of adequate wine to her. Reluctantly she lifted hers in tacit acceptance of his offer.
Across from her she saw the young man tense. With a hiss she sat down her wine and scribbled frantically on her napkin for a moment more closing the last few parenthesis, then sliced her thumb on a silver ring she wore on her ring finger, dribbling a drop of blood onto the paper with a muttered word. The boy stood up and drew a small box from his pocket before falling to one knee before his date. In the window behind him fireworks suddenly bursts, framing him and dazzling his intended as he knelt before her. Her moment of hesitation swept away by the fireworks, she cried her acceptance and rushed forward to hug him. In the background there was a mechanical pop as the buildings air conditioner coughed and died. Emmaline smiled, a few hours of discomfort for a lifetime of happiness. Fair trade. All the boy had needed was a bit of luck after all. The elegant man raised an appreciative eyebrow at her.
“I think you will make a fine addition to Priest and Hawthorne Professor Stern, a fine addition indeed.”
Haven't had time to finish off my sheet all day - some relatives swung by for a visit, and I've just now finished cleaning up after them - so since it's past midnight where I'm at, I'll have to postpone its completion until tomorrow. I'll try my best to meet the deadline, though!
@Naril Here is Mandy's sheet, take two! I hope it has all the information you need--I added to the skill and backstory sections. I also wanted to ask: would it be plausible that someone at PHI might have seen to it that she got some of the required field training, if they knew they could use her in other ways?
Name: Amanda Staten, but it’s likely that anyone she becomes friendly with at PHI would call her Mandy.
Gender: There is, in fact, a girl buried somewhere beneath all those sweaters.
Race/Species: Half-breed, poor thing. Amanda’s mother was a cait sidhe, a race of faerie cats with both human and feline forms. Mom had a fling with a human man, and a few months later, Amanda was born, the runt of the litter. Her human half is most definitely dominant. (More details in the traits and background sections.)
Age (Real and apparent, if applicable): Amanda is recently turned twenty-five, but is often mistaken for younger. As faeries go, even as a half-blood, she’s still considered an adolescent by most standards.
Appearance: Lean and angular, Mandy clocks in at about five-five—neither terribly short nor terribly tall. Narrow wrists, a fondness for oversized clothing, and an absolute refusal to take up space conspire to give her a diminutive appearance, despite her middling height. Her long brown hair is very fine and easily mussed, falling in indecisive waves down to her waist. Her fair skin shows everything easily, from blushes to bruises, and her battle with under-eye circles is constant. Her eyes and ears—golden-green and subtly pointed, respectively—are the only real hints of her heritage, and they’re both things that even her limited grasp on glamour can usually hide.
Her aesthetic can best be described as “starving college student,” and she likes to be comfortable above all else, so dressing professionally can be a challenge. As in everything else, she tries. She does at least have a good eye for color and a fondness for cashmere, so if she could just be convinced to buy a sweater in something resembling her own size, she’d be in pretty good shape.
Personality: If there’s an ounce of the stereotypical feline standoffishness in her genetic makeup, Mandy doesn’t know it—think less hardened alley cat and more that friendly stray that hangs around your back door until, somehow, you now have a cat. She can be skittish when presented with strangers or conflict, but she wants to like people, and once her affection’s been won, it’s hard to shake. The only time she’s the least bit grumpy is when she’s just been woken up; living on a human schedule takes its toll, and sleep deprivation leaves her disoriented and disgruntled.
Amanda is generally surrounded by an aura of comfortable chaos. She tends to be scatterbrained, though not specifically forgetful. Her files may be all over her desk, but she knows what’s in each one. She tries very hard to be organized for the sake of her teammates, but sometimes, she just works best when left to her own devices, as seen below.
Powers, Traits, and Abilities: Amanda is good at making connections, in more than one sense. Dump a pile of information in front of her, and Mandy will scatter it, rearranging things until “like” items are together, creating pairings that other people might not have thought of. Whether or not on the matter at hand, her mind is always working on something—and she has been known to dream up the answer to a problem during one of her midday naps. Focusing is sometimes difficult, but she battles this by always having a pen handy, so that she can jot down ideas as they come and set them aside for later.
With her open personality, it’s no surprise that Mandy is also good at making connections with people. She occasionally sticks her foot in her mouth, and her methods may grate on more linear thinkers, but she is always trying—her mixed reception in both the fey and human communities has made her eager to please. She puts people at their ease, largely because she is the least intimidating person you are likely to meet, especially in the world of the supernatural.
Her specialty in a fight, when she is forced to have one, is the ability to move fast and force her opponent to do most of the work. Most of her clumsy moments are due to distractedness; when she puts her whole focus on something, she’s naturally pretty agile. She also doesn’t fight completely fair, having been taught to defend herself by older kids that believed it was better to play dirty now and live to feel bad about it later.
As far as “powers” go, Amanda’s are limited. Her night vision is not as good as that of her feline counterparts, but it’s better than a human’s. She doesn’t shift easily anymore; partial transformations are easier than full ones. Claws are still within her reach and are her first line of defense; they won’t do killer damage (unless she gets lucky and hits an artery), but they’ll definitely convince most attackers to let her go. Glamours are almost completely beyond her, but she has a knack for sensing ones that have been cast by someone else.
Just like mundane cats, cait sidhe are crepuscular, most active at twilight and dawn and sleeping sporadically in between. Amanda is no different, but she’s determined not to let this interfere with her work, and so can sometimes be found napping in empty offices in the middle of the day, rather than going home.
Background: Just as with “real” cats, the kittens in cait sidhe litters can have different fathers. Amanda was the only one in her litter with human blood. Her faerie blood was dominant in her infancy, but her human side asserted itself as soon as she stopped being dependent on her mother for nutrition. The cait sidhe aren’t kind to runts or outliers, and Amanda’s mother was quickly faced with a dilemma: what to do with a child that could no longer reliably shift or keep up with her stronger siblings, and how to protect that child in a community where she would never be completely welcome.
Then came that gold-embossed card. Amanda was too young at the time to understand everything, but she remembers being passed off to a social worker that didn’t think it at all strange to be picking up a child in an alley, and she remembers the long car ride to an orphanage full of children of all shapes, sizes, and colors. And she remembers the look on her mother’s face as she gave her away—one of affection, yes, but also of guilty relief.
Amanda has not been home since her mother gave her up. She doesn’t know who her father was. She passed her time at the oddball orphanage in relative comfort, surrounded by kids like her—half-bloods and mixed-breeds, some of them with blood so thin that they passed for human, many others doomed by non-human features and not enough glamour to hide them, making it impossible for them to live comfortably in either world. But the orphanage was run by volunteers, understaffed and overcrowded; it was impossible for any child to truly get the attention he or she should have, and adoptions were rare. Mandy left at eighteen with a basic education and a legal enough identity to qualify for a work-study program at a human university.
College was not an easy transition; Mandy’s lack of experience in a traditional classroom and her trouble staying focused meant that she almost flunked her first semester. Depressed and dispirited, she almost quit, but had nowhere else to go. A kind professor stepped in, got her in touch with one of the guidance counselors, and helped her get on track. By the time she graduated a few years later, she had made a few friends, taken classes in almost every discipline, and somehow qualified for a degree in the humanities with her hodge-podge of credits. She did not, unfortunately, have a great sense of purpose, nor did she feel like she’d found her home in academia (though it did get her her first job, working as a research assistant).
So, once she’d found a way to temporarily support herself, she went looking for the first place that ever wanted her. And it took a while, but eventually, it showed up: that little, gold-embossed card...
Rob was back at the office, enjoying his coffee on a fifteen minute break he allowed for himself. The coffee had been sour and strong and Rob had put decent amount of sugar in the cup, so the moment was perfect. His mind was wondering on the good book he had been reading yesterday evening. So he didn't notice the footsteps before they were five yards away.
Robert looked over his shoulder and straightened his back on the chair. There was a file in the agent's manicured hands. "I'm having a case already, see if Jacob is free." He told. Unfortunately it seemed the Agent wasn't going anywhere, so he turned on his chair to see the file and the woman carrying it.
"Not a case, lad, there'd be another recruit 'nd someone needs to guide the poor kitten." She said, grinned as if she had told something clever and put the file on top of the pile containing witness statements. Robert opened the file and made a quick look. Brown hair messy as a pile of hay and clothes size too big stated she wasn't much of a fashion model, but the degree in humanity showed she had some smarts.
"Half-breed?" Robert asked after half a minute looking at the file. Rest he could read later. "With nine lives, aye. Could give 'er to Jacob, but you at least crack a smile every now'n then. Nothing more than teaching the basics, shouldn't be too hard, eh?" She told back, arms folded. Five seconds passed in silence, the two looking at each other. Robert then let let out a small sigh. "Fifteen minutes."
Though it wouldn't have mattered, the coffee break was ruined anyway.
But yeah, I'm sure Jacob or Rob would've shown the new girl the ropes some time or another. I know the smaller Mcalister of the same name would like her, lol. Jacob's always been a cat person anyway.
@Habibi359 I am delighted by this idea. It would be an interesting dynamic, since Rob still seems a bit wary of the supernatural. I have a feeling that Rob's going to walk away from his desk on more than one occasion and return to find a mug of coffee sitting there that wasn't there before. It may also be cold, half the time, as the person gifting it to him will never do it when he's actually in the room... Mandy's like a brownie; you do not actually mention the coffee, but if you accept the coffee, it's her signal to move on to step two in her circular friend-making process.
@vietmyke Your response made me grin! It may never come up aloud, but I think Mandy's going to be fascinated as much by the fact that Jacob's a father as by his magical talents. Like Rob, he might notice her occasionally appearing in the room he's in--seated far away, without making noise. A few days later, she might move to sitting a few desks away, still doing her own thing. If that goes well, she might sit a little closer, and on, and on, until... Well, suddenly, you have a cat. :P
- Morgan Blackwood - Robert Miller - Jacob Mcalister - Professor Emmaline Von Morganstern @Austronaut - Amanda Staten @lady horatio
I'm going to be extending a grace period through a little after when I actually get the IC up - it may be closer to this evening than this afternoon, as I've been a bit more busy than I expected today. :3 Life is what happens when you're making other plans, and all that.
Now! You'll notice that there are five accepted characters. I am really hoping to cap the cast at six, or at the very most seven. There are some of you I that have PMs to respond to, and I'll get to that as soon as I can. However, really, 99% of my advice is in the first post of this thread. :3
I don't necessarily want you all to feel like you're in a Hunger Games-esque rush for the last spot, but...well...;)
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Now!
I have the outlines of a few "first posts" written up, since I'm hoping this game will go in "chapters," with a large, overarching plot connecting everything. Don't worry, each chapter should be pretty meaty and fun, and they're easy to connect to one another. :3 With that being said, let's have an informal poll:
To start this story, would you prefer:
- Vegetative State: A very quick, one-scene, sort-of"Monster of the Moment" that functions as a sort of rehearsal for the cast. This would be very analagous to a tutorial level in a video game, and will feed into the "first chapter" as chosen at my capricious whim.
- Festive Spirit: Diving directly into a case relating to ghosts, spirits, and an unpleasant discovery. Possibly set around Christmastime.
- Bad Romancer: Something is stalking Seattle's streets, leaving bodies behind. A new client says she doesn't believe the police's explanation. (Note: Will contain suicide and mental illness.)
- You Can't Spell "Occult" Without...: A couple of Priest and Hawthorne's agents are among those invited to an occult-themed party at a manor house away from the city, given by a grateful client. Things do not go as planned. May be Halloween or masquerade-themed.
Regardless of which one we pick, you'll be seeing what all of these look like, hopefully - and they feed into quite a few more stories I'm not telling you about yet. ;)
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Also, I think you can post your characters in the "characters" tab now. :3
I'd definitely play any of 'em. At the moment "You Can't Spell "Occult" Without..." would be the most interesting one because of some interesting backstory possibilities for the PHI. At times it's nice to see how people are doing after the cases :D
1x Thank
