Thankee, thankee. More characters to follow. In the meantime, I adore collaborative backstory so if we don't already have some, pretty much expect mebto hit you up eventually. Feel free to beat me to it.
After quite a little while now, I have completed two of my three characters.
Full Name: Johnathan Michael Falcon
Nicknames/Aliases: "The Lord of Jesters" "The Lord of Masks" "The Lord of Crooked Smiles" "The Jest"
Age: About 50, but it's hard to tell when he's wearing a mask all the time.
Gender: Male
Gift: "The Impossible Jester" (Improbability Field Generation)
Loyalty: Lord of Erubescia
Description: Standing at 5'5" and weighing around 150 lbs, with rather young and pure skin for someone his age, and a happy white mask that's on his face while in public. There doesn't seem to be a particular reason for this though, seeing as his face is...relatively normal for someone of his age, (Odd considering his voice seems quite young for his age.) with a slight tan and few wrinkles underneath his sapphire blue eyes. What he's really hiding is not his face itself, but his expression, as his face is in an internal expression of stagnant apathy...a catatonic frown stuck on his face without change. No matter how happy his voice and body language seems, his face seems to forever personify a sense of nothingness.
He's often seen wearing very fancy black clothes over his mask, a red dress shirt under a grey vest and a black coat, black pants and dress shoes, a rose blossom on his lapel, a black tophat with a red stripe over his head, covering his hair, and a black cane in hand. Simply removing the coat, vest, and hat is enough for him to consider casual wear...still wearing that mask though.
When entertaining the masses of Erubesco, he is either wearing this outfit, or he changes into his Jester Outfit, a set of black tight clothes over his torso and legs, pointy rubber shoes, and a cape seemingly made purple and yellow diamonds...no, not just in shape, ACTUAL diamonds, and a matching cap on his head. Half of his mask is now magically painted black, and his cane is replaced with a baton with a crystal ball at its tip.
Personality: Of all the Lords and Ladies and Viceroys of Erubesco, The Jest has got to be the Happiest, most energetic and optimistic of them all.
His personality is very similar to the Wanderer, Pierrot: Eccentric, theatrical and glamorous, believing all the world a stage and himself a director of a grand show. But he takes it to a literal form as he prefers going into town, one of the only Lords likely willing to associate himself with the Serfs and peasents below him, and perform many plays, and magic shows for them. Even outside of his shows and among his own peers and even towards the King himself he never lets up the colorful jester act. He cracks jokes, mostly at the expense of everyone around him, doesn't take much of anything that seriously, and plays up laughs at even the darkest moments. He never seems to get intimidated by anyone, not even the King himself can make him truly fear his wrath, though he can certainly play-act the drama, often switching up his masks to convey different emotions.
Though when he has to, during moments where his patience is tested, his colorful attitude can make way for darkness, his voice becoming gritty and one could swear to see his eyes glow a light blue through the sockets of his mask.
But ultimately, all his emotions, every last one of them, is an act. In truth, he cannot truly feel any emotion, nor actually convey it. Nothing about his personality is genuine, nothing truly sincere, and if one was to take off the mask, all they would see on his old face is...nothing, no emotion, not even any actual expression, as if his face is stuck in a catatonic state, an eternally frozen glare of emptiness and boredom. Even so, his voice and his body still conveys the mannerisms it always has, even as the face continues to stay in place, as if his face, in itself, is simply another mask.
But no, This is his true self, an empty shell of a man, with nothing true or sincere in his heart, save for a sense of nihilism. Essentially he is the void personified; he cares about nothing, feels nothing, and wants nothing. There is nothing in this world that truly gives him anything to feel, and so there is nothing he finds valuable, not even his own wealth or power, not even his country, nor the war with the other country.
...Nothing valuable, that is, Save for one thing: The literary works of Alstair and Nicodemus Hathaway. One could say that he's outright obsessed with their works, their novellas and poetry placed all over his mansion.
Skills: The Fool's Gift- Johnathan's gift is the ability to generate from his body a large dome-like field around himself and his envionment, the size of which he can manipulate, but the minimum is a 3 feet diameter from the epicenter point in which he stands and 5 feet tall, and the maximum is a 20 feet diameter with a 30 feet height.
Within this field, all laws of probability inverts into laws of improbability, and with it pulling all the laws from physics, science, nature, and even space and time itself, inside-out.
In other words, What was impossible in the real world becomes possible within this dome, and vice-versa.
As he has had this ability for most of his life, He has experienced many many things that one can do when the laws no longer matter. So skilled, that he makes himself out to be a Wizard or sorcerer, capable of performing acts, both on the show and in the shadows, that no normal human is capable of performing; a fact that is especially deadly when in actual combat against him.
In regards of his own administration of this field, He can keep it up for approximately 10-20 minutes at a time, but can immediately switch it off and revert the area back to normal in an instant with the snap of his fingers, in the event where he no longer needs it, or an emergency within it comes up.
Once deactivated, everything that was altered within the field will revert back to its normal state, except for injuries, corpses, and whatever he touches at the time. However, whatever improbable thing makes it back into probability, shall be effected by the laws of probability in kind. (Let's say that a building get reshaped in the Improbable realm into something that's impractical in reality, like a spiral, or is bent over in a curve. In reality, the laws of physics and gravity would take effect, and the impractical building will collapse as a result of those laws.) ...It should be noted that there is a limit to the size of whatever he brings into the probable world again, so this example is merely that.
The Whims of a Trickster- Because of how Probability becomes Improbability and Vice-versa within his field, John needed to become something of a trickster to make it work to his advantage, tricking and manipulating both friends and enemies alike to be placed exactly where he needs them to be.
Outside of combat, he is an experienced puppetmaster of sorts. Rather than playing a game of proverbial chess like his other lords and ladies, he finds it much more entertaining to go for a direct approach. Contrary to his appearance, he has the intelligence and social know-how befitting a lord of Erubesco, and uses it to manipulate not just people, but events, to his favor. In fact, he uses his appearance and oddball and unpredictable personality to his advantage, baiting the people around him to underestimate him and put themselves at a disadvantage for thinking he's not a threat, not to mention making fools - no pun intended - out of those who would use intellect and logic against him. He also knows, just as much if not more so than any other lord and lady, how to win the hearts of the Erubescian masses to his favor. To top it off, he knows very well how to use his gift to the advantage of his manipulations, allowing for...'accidents' to occur or for non-existant crimes to be committed and logically lead to someone who never actually did it, an action that once again serves to humiliate those who uses logic to win their battles.
Inside of Combat however, He is a master of feints, tricks, and traps, and his unpredictable nature makes him more roundabout and indirect with how he fights others. He prefers to manipulate even his foes into walking to their doom, or provoking them into attacking him directly, only to lure them into a deathtrap. Even when he must go for direct combat, he takes advantage of the laws of Improbability, to attack in ways that are normally not possible and often strives to keep the opponents guessing.
Jack of Swords- Even without his Gift, Johnathan has trained himself in the art of swordplay fairly well. While he is by no means a master of it, preferring to use his gift over his weapon, he is still capable of going toe-to-toe with even experts of the field, often using that cane of his baton as his melee weapon of choice. (Like himself, there's more to them than one would expect.)
He is also not bad at firing a gun, but he's something of an ameteur with one.
Weaknesses: The Fool's Curse- His ultimate weakness is ironically his greatest strength, for his generation of improbability fields serves as a Double-edged sword for him.
While he can turn on and off the field on a whim, he cannot specifically control what is and isn't possible. Within this field, all people, places, and things are effected the same way: the laws of probability and improbability for all things within are inverted without exception. Even Johnathan cannot control what is and isn't possible specifically, hence why he has to be more roundabout in his style of combat.
But ultimately, this rule is also true for those who get dragged in with him. Whatever improbability Johnathan can use, so too can his opponents, and he can't switch out specific aspects to prevent this, and so he can't stop them from doing so. It's because of this that, like a Magician, he keeps this aspect a secret from everyone around him, make them "think" he's simply capable of magic unlike everyone in society. Ergo, half the battle is realizing what exactly is being done within this field. (And for this reason, I implore that most people aren't aware of his powers.) In which case, all that would remain is to try and beat him at his own game...a difficult task given how much experience he has and needing to work outside the natural laws of logic and common sense, but certainly not impossible.
Moreover, whether it expires naturally, or he switches it off manually and instantly, either way, it becomes an effective drain on his energy, and so he cannot re-activate it for an hour. The time may be earlier if he has a way to recharge his energy, such as eating, or going to someone with some kind of energy-recharging gift.
"The Strength Reversed"- As somebody who relies mostly on his Gift in combat or his talent with a sword, not to mention being aged past his prime at this point, he is not exactly physically strong or fast. If his gift was somehow gone, all you have left is an old man who knows how to swing a sword well.
Brief History: There's an urban legend about Johnathan among the lords and others who know of the man behind the mask. They say his heart was replaced by an empty bottomless void when he was born, that he never cried, or laughed, or even ever smiled from his birth to now, and that his very soul was a manifestation of emptiness and nihilism. Others say, he was a demon, incarnated as a man, who was born into this world so that he may one day bring about its end.
If only the truth was so black and white...
In reality, Johnathan was simply born with a mental birth defect that has made him emotionally and mentally numb, Heir to the Falcon Family of Erubescian nobility, his mother died at childbirth, and the desire for an heir overcame his father's want to kill this defective spawn of his loins for that.
It did not, however, save Johnathan from a physical wrath the likes of which would make even a tyrant cringe.
For the first years of his life, Johnathan was locked up in the basement, beaten by his father, cold from having no clothes, and his body getting wrecked from the inside out by the miserable excuse for food that he was fed every day. Oddly enough, the infant didn't cry or go against any of this, as he could not comprehend the feelings he should be feeling for his abuse.
His father took advantage of Johnathan numbed emotions, using him as entertainment for the lords and ladies...among other things, and calling his lack of feeling as a sign of consent, even hiring a jester to further enhance the "circus freak show" feeling of the amusement of his peers to the abuse of his son. As his father used this to try and elope with a lady of another house, hoping to try again for a better heir so he could throw this defect away, amidst the rock-throwing, and the humiliations, the only thing he could think about was the laughter...
The laughter of those who were entertained by his slow destruction every single day was something he never heard before, something he never heard his father do, and the piercing laughter of the Jester for hire was particularly striking to him. The Smiling, the Laughing, he tried his hardest to move his face to imitate these things, but his jaw and his tongue, and his eyes, were the only things he could move on his face.
One faithful day, in the midst of the everyday abuse, after the usual beating, Johnathan began to do something, he never did before, something he was wanting to find an excuse in his hellhole of a life...
He Laughed...
A face without expression, opened his mouth wide and laughed, laughed as loud as he could. It was eerie to his father, disturbing even. He has never showed emotion after a beating, not even anger or sadness, and now he was laughing, laughing without the smile to come with it. It was enough to irk him, to make him want to beat him yet again, but as he approached, Johnathan glowed, brighter and brighter as he laughed louder and louder. As his father tried to walk over to silence his child eerie laughs, suddenly a burst, a pulse, explodes from Johnathan's body and around the mansion, the mansion suddenly locking itself and turning upside down. It was like this for 20 minutes before eventually returning to normal once again.
The Impossible Gift came to life, and with it, Johnathan was reborn.
Within those twenty minutes, no one knows what happened inside that mansion, He walked out, all dressed up, doning a comedy happy mask that his mother kept before she died, his scars gone as if the years of torture faded away, his knowledge going from naive infant to the intelligence worthy of a lord, and dressed up in his father's clothes.
With his mask on, he declared his father dead and himself the Lord that would take his place. If one checked the corpse, he would confirm the truth, but the...disturbed death suggested suicide, more than whatever he could possibly have done himself.
The Next act of his life before the present time, was driven by fascinating inspiration one after the other.
Inspired by the clown long ago (Who has mysteriously vanished...), he wandered through town to perform magic tricks with his gift, wanting to see a sample of genuine happiness in the eyes of the applauding masses.
Inspired by the experiments being done in the shadows at the expense of innocent life, he supported them and ensured the silence of a resistant Knight Commander, Edward Marshal.
Inspired by romance, he thought he could feel love, or at least a moment of satisfaction and happiness when with someone...but this failed in the end and so he casted her aside forcing her leave to the Ashlands with pressure.
And Inspired by the literary works of the Hathaways, his own insanity deepened as an obsession grew for them.
Nicknames/Aliases: "The Mad Captain", "Captain Asshole", "That crazy son of a bitch with the Pirate Fetish."
Age: He appears 18, and seems to act 17, but due to his direct manipulation of his internal metabolic energy, it's unknown if that's his real age, and what his real age is if it isn't.
Gender: Male
Gift: "Internal Reality Amplifier" or "IRA" for short, also known as "Reverse-Absorption"
Description: He stands at about 5'2" tall with brown, somewhat lazily styled hair covered mostly by the pirates cap he has on his head at all times, cerulean blue eyes, one of which is needlessly covered by an unnecessary eye patch he puts on for the sake of his pirate Aesthetic. It is also for this aesthetic that he is commonly seen wearing a long red leather coat, stylized wth a black-and-yellow collar and shoulder pads, over a long-sleeve, white, cloth, button down shirt, a red ring wrapping around his neck scarf, and a pair of black silk pants, and leather boots. Around the waist is a brown leather belt with a holster for his flintlock, and a pair of sheathes for his two scimitars.
His casual attire is essentially the same but minus the red coat.
Personality: If one had to describe Arron Falcon in one word, it would be...eccentric, or Odd, or simply insane. All three of these things can be associated with him in one way or another.
To start with: Arron is often seen as an incredibly optimisitc, and energized. He's often caring of his crew, and hopefully confident in their successes.
Arron has a very eccentric love for the theatrical, sometimes even over the practical. Having a fascinated love of the olden-style Pirates of yore, he has a tendency to both talk and dress like a pirate captain from the time, damn the consequences of wearing leather and cloth in an era where guns are a thing. He often uses classic pirate terminology, and invokes the pirate code... despite living in a time where 99.9% of people probably never heard of it.
"PARLEY!" "...What?" "I invoke Parley!" "...Parle-wha-I don't even...THE FUCK'S PARLEY!?" "Part of the pirate code, lad. A pirate invokes Parley, and we negotiate the trade so that we may get out of this situation fair-" A bullet fires his hat off his head. "...Negotiation's over, me guess." Arron runs off
Also because of his love of the theatrical, he has little to no subtlety when going for a target; his Raider crew was quite large and could likely be seen from a distance by any observation deck, and he didn't care. He's confident that he and his crew would take what they want even without an element of surprise and takes a bow to their pillaging victims before running off. His love of luck and gambling goes into his usage of Helena, which he purposely randomize and even sabotage by adding two duds amidst the bullets for a fairer chance. Often times, he is singing classic pirate tunes, not caring if it's while in the middle of a mission, or simply while he's walking down a hall by himself.
Even against the odd love for theatrics, is his oddities altogether. Perhaps it's due to his abilities, or perhaps it's simply due to the constant exhaustion caused by said abilities, or maybe even a result of coping with the mental trauma of Edward's capture and execution, but either way, he thinks of things in ways that...no normal person would think on, making him look incomprehensible and frankly bloody mad at times. He never seems to call anyone by name, both the wanderers now and the Raiders back then, instead giving each one a one-syllable nickname based on how he sees them. He is often in a bit of a daze at times as if drunk off alcohol, once again possibly as a result of his ability's side-effects, and can sometimes speak in utter nonsense. Whether it's because of something only he seems to know or see, or because of his brain being effected from his exhaustion, we may never know. What we do know, is that because of his abilities' side effect, Arron has an insatiable hunger for food, always getting exhausted at the thought of eating some. When energetic and healthy, however, and his antics become hyper and outright comical, perhaps because it's a rare case of feeling alive in the wake of his ability exhausting him so much.
However, beneath all the antics, the childish nature and insanity, lies the makings of a leader. While he is technically uneducated, save for the basic stuff Edward Marshall taught him, like reading, writing, science, and math, Arron has experience and that experience had led him to being street smart. He can strategize plans simply from looking at the situation at hand, whatever it may be, and can think up less elaborate schemes on the fly. His charisma and intelligence has given him some pretty damn good acting skills as well, often manipulating friend and foe alike into an advantageous situation. He has also shown to have a darker side of him, often making tough choices that may very well go against his own morals for the sake of his crew. (They ARE Pirates, after all.) and seems to have a deep bitter hatred specially reserved for two things: His father, and the Kingdom of Erubesco...Oh, and for killing Uncle Edward, Liberty's also on his shit-list.
Skills: Gift- The Captain's unique special ability, his trump card in the face of battle. While it's unknown what he means by "Internal Reality", the main function of it is to serve as an Amplifier. Simply put, Arron is able to discharge his own metabolic/biotic energy into any person or thing he touches by his own will, letting other absorb from him rather than he absorbing from others, hence "Reverse-Absorption."
This ability works differently depending on what he is using it on. Because its pure energy created from biological means, it is energy that can adapt to properly amplify what he gives it to.
Giving his energy to a person would have their own abilities enhanced by this energy for a short amount of time. The strong ones shall be stronger, the smart ones will be smarter, the fast ones more fast, etc. Because it is simply metabolic energy, it will fade as time passes until eventually it's gone, your attributes going back to normal.
Giving it to an item, such as a battery, will make it be used as a temporary fill up, if not boost, of that item's energy. If the item in question doesn't have any energy in it, it will when he's done with it.
Giving it to a weapon, would change the quality of the weapon in hand, and provide them with special abilities for as long as he can stand the energy sapping. Much like with giving the energy to the people, Arron can't keep them like this forever and the energy would fade away after a period of time.
Helena was created with this ability in mind. Rather than giving out large amounts of energy to people, or giving it to his weapons for a period of time, Helena is capable of being enhanced and used in small but powerful bursts.
He can also enhance his body, make it stronger and faster, by controlling and redirecting the flow of his energy.
Formidable Gunslinger- His uncle taught him how to fight in the Ashlands, starting with how to fire a gun. Throughout the years, Arron has gained experience with the gun for quite some time.
Expert Swordsman- Another aspect of fighting taught by his uncle was the art of swordsmanship for those needs for attacking in close quarters. He prefers dual-wielding swords as oppose to just one.
Weaknesses: The Downside of his Gift- Because he is essentially discharging his own metabolic energy into people and things around him, as well as using it up in himself, it naturally creates a great state of exhaustion and wears him down quite a bit after constant use. Hunger, Thirst, even Delirium are common side-effects of overuse, but it can reach extremely dangerous levels if too much energy is taken from him, to the point of comatose or even Death. As such, in order to use his energy probably, he must eat, drink, and sleep alot more than usual.
His Reliance on Luck- Arron is a firm believer of luck, so much so, that he deliberately screws himself over at times in the name of a fair gamble. The four remaining bullets in his gun were deliberately left as blanks, purposely giving himself a 50% chance of nothing coming out of the gun, made worse by spinning the cylinder every time he uses it so that even he doesn't know what'll come out, if anything. Some if not most of his plans are also reliant on luck in order to work, sometimes even putting his life on the line for a risky plan of action.
Brief History: Arron Falcon is the Bastard Son of Johnathan Falcon, a Lord of Erubesco, and Mary Marshal, A former Alchemist of Erubesco. Concieved in a moment of curious lust on Johnathan's part, he wanted to feel pleasure in the hopes that it would make him feel genuinely happy, and would do so with the most beautiful woman in his eyes, which was the alchemist Mary.
But even afterwards he felt nothing, no happiness, no satisfaction, nothing, and soon he realized things would get...annoying should it be revealed that she was pregnant with his child. As such, using his own "gift", he arranged for her to be tried with Treason, hoping it would get rid of her.
...It did not, instead she was simply stripped of her title of Alchemist and reduced to a Serf. Any normal person would find that satisfactory, but John most definitely wasn't normal. He arranged the murder of loved ones and friends around her, threatening her life next, prompting her to retreat into exile away from the city with her child, born by now, in hand. For Johnathan, her self-banishment was enough to leave her be, assuming that she would not survive long in the harshness of the ashlands beyond the kingdom, and that the illegitimate son of his would die with her. (And even if he somehow was found and raised to survive out there...It could happen...he may find use for him in the future.)
He was not wrong, but Mary was a strong woman. For about three years she survived the wastelands, gaining help from a face she had not seen in many years...Her younger brother, Edward Marshal, a former Knight commander of Erubesco before he too was falsely convicted for murdering a Chancellor, and ran off in exile out into the ashlands and eventually became a leader of a group of Ashland raiders.
In the third year of her life in these lands, Mary's body could no longer handle that Ashlands, and died. Despite being the son of the man who ruined both of their lives, (The Lord of Crooked smile was responsible for his false conviction as well.) Edward took in his year old nephew, and raised him as if he was his own son.
Ever since, Arron was taught everything Edward knows. Becoming fascinated with his stories of the raiders of the days before the Ash, Pirates of blue waters and crystaline seas. They were so influential for him, that his personality shaped itself around the pirates of old. Something that gave quite a laugh for the fellow raiders of Edward's crew, but were ultimately charmed by the boy's passion for this nonetheless. He was also informed of Erubesco, his lineage on both sides of the family, and has essentially inherited his uncle disdain for it and his father as a result.
By age 17, Arron became a passionate, albeit overly theatrical raider among his peers. He had a love of gambling and luck, and his gift was discovered to be very helpful for Edward's Raiders, allowing him to power up a select few gifts of other Raiders before charging in. This, plus Edward's own charisma and skills as a former Knight Commander, were reasons that this group of Raiders, The Diamond Suns, gained a reputation among the Ashlanders as one of the very best Raiding company to ever spawn from the wastes.
However, their fame was short-lived, as Edward and his crew discovered a valuable weapon within the state of Liberty, and arranged an organized heist with local rebels in order to take it from there. While his crew was certainly on board with this, believing themselves unstoppable at this point, Edward himself had his doubts. Something in his gut was telling him that there was something off about this particular raid, and so Arron, who was sharing the crew's enthusiasm for this mission, was ordered by Edward to stay out of this, even knocked out and left behind to keep the boy safe. His suspicions turned out to be true, as the heist took an immediate turn for the worst. Turned out that this heist was a set up created by Liberty's department of Espionage, a trap made by one of its agents to lure out and trap any and all rebels in the area together. He was not anticipating that Raiders would be involved, but Edward's own reputation became the end of him as a former Knight Commander of Erubesco. The rebels and Raiders both were captured and publicly executed for their crimes, Edward included.
Arron woke with only a few other Raiders left behind with him to keep him safe. He found out what happened and the fate of his father-figure and his crew, who was like family to him, and hatred began to bubble for Liberty just as it had for Erubesco.
Without much other choice, Arron took over what was left of the Diamond Sun raiders and began raiding and pillaging with theatrical style for quite some time.
Eventually, his theatrical nature got the better of him, along with the reputation of his raider group, as the cities of both countries were becoming more and more cautious of them as they came. Eventually, yet another trap was laid, this time specifically meant for them, but the same result occured: The Raiders protected their captain as they did before, essentially rushing into the danger that was coming their way, and were devastated with Arron as the only survivor.
The Diamond Suns was now officially no more, and Arron, needless to say, was devastated. Without a home, and now a family to call his own, he wandered alone for some time, swearing revenge on the two factions if it was the last thing he could do. Even with his gift however, there was only so long he could wander the ashlands, and eventually he collapsed from the exhaustion.
Still, He was always a firm believer of luck, and lady luck always seemed to have a small liking to Arron at times. As such, it was coincidence that a group of Wanderers found the collapsed and fainted boy, and took him in. Still cocky from the moment he wakes up with nourishment and a temporary bed, after discovering that they brought him back to the brink, and also shared a seething hatred for both of these factions like himself, he shows them his gratitude, by joining their cause.
@Claw2k11 Yo, I'm not sure if Maddie would know about Aran's project, cause he's a Knight Commander that's visiting from another base. Plus, I intend for Maddie to not know about some of the things that happen at Central Base yet, so he can be properly horrified when he does find out, haha. Would you be willing to edit it, if it's not too much of a bother?
EDIT: Also, @The Jest, consider Arron approved! I'd still like to work with you a bit more on John before he's approved, though. :)
More characters in WIP because I'm scared of losing my progress.
Full Name: Dinah Jael Fox
Nicknames/Aliases: Dog
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Gift: Canine Shapeshifting
Loyalty: None, born in Liberty.
Description: Dinah is a little on the tall side and built like someone not unused to exercize. She has long, unkempt-looking light brown hair. 'Rat's Nest' might be a term used by some. She doesn't brush it quite as often as she should, and it quite often contains the odd leaf or twig. She has mismatched eyes, one brown, one blue, and freckles.
The other Dinah, her secondary form, is that of a very large, gangly dog, something like a herding breed, though due to the exact transferal of mass between forms, it is notably bigger. The dog has cream and brown speckled fur, and, like the human side, mismatched eyes.
Personality: Dinah Fox is a person who has nearly always lived by her own rules.
Di is not a person to keep how she feels about anything to herself. She is outwardly affectionate to people she likes..to the point that a personal bubble doesn't seem to exist where she'd concerned. If she likes a person she'll flying tackle them and hug them to death as a greeting if she wants to. At the same time if she dislikes a person, she will not in the slightest bit hesitate about showing them the extent of that.
Possibly in a similar vein, Di could be seen as being rather...feral. She always has been that way, and spending a lot of her time as a dog hasn't helped. She eats pretty much everything with her hands...unless it's soup, then she'll just lift it up and drink it right out of the bowl. She is perfectly happy to break social codes for her own comfort
Despite this behaviour, something that can often cause a bit of friction, Di has an innate sense of compassion. Seeing others suffer disturbs her enormously and she cannot stand unnecessary cruelty or sadistic behaviour.
Skills: -Survivalist - Dinah has been more or less fending for herself for a long time. She can hunt, forage and scavenge, and she knows her way around the wasteland.
Canid Senses - Dinah is able to make use of her dog side's keen sense of smell in order to track.
Weaknesses: Limited Ability - Faced with many of the other powers out in the world, being able to turn into a dog is a relatively minor one. As such she tends to very much avoid open combat if she can.
Brief History: Dinah, and her brother, Cyrus, were born in Liberty, to parents, Matthew and Morgana Fox, two relatively respected figures in Liberty government. Their childhood was quite standard for the faction. Right up until the time that a four year old Dinah and six year old Cyrus were sat in their living room one Sunday when homeland security ops smashed through their door with firearms.
The Foxes had been accused of espionage, funelling information to Erubesco.
In the chaos that followed, Matthew Fox was shot dead in the living room doorway by one of the security forces.
Instinct took over, and a terrified Cyrus and Dinah took canine form, scrambling out of the back of the house and into the street. From that point, the two were alone in the world. They survived for some time living, effectively, as stray dogs. They scavenged from trash bins, begged for food from passers-by, generally kept their human nature a secret.
-----
Full Name: Cyrus Ezekiel Fox Nicknames/Aliases:
Age: 20 Gender: Male
Gift: Canine Shapeshifting
Loyalty: None, born in Liberty.
Description: Cyrus is notable for his floppy, dark brown hair, leather jacket, and almost permanent slouch. He is rather on the tall side,, though his form is generally concealed under layer of jacket and shirts bearing doom metal album covers. He's scruffy and awkward, but when he is working on something, his posture and way of carrying himself seems to immediately change into something quick, confident and decisive.
An experiment gone wrong a year or so ago ended up scorching off Cy's fingerprints. He's not totally unhappy about the loss.
Cyrus' dog form is rather less family pet material than that of his sister, closer resembling a primitive dog species, with a large head, big teeth and a muscular body that makes it rather a force to be reckoned with.
Personality:Cyrus is known for being, at best, kinda serious. The young man is surly, and rather...intense at times. Unlike his directionless sister Dinah, Cyrus is very driven and focused....just often not on anything helpful. The boy is something of a conspiracy theorist, a troublemaker, always putting some scheme together.
Neither him nor his sister have the greatest respect for authority, and the young man is a law unto himself in many ways. He tends to be off working on his own little projects, tinkering with pilfered machinery or mixing up something unstable.
Dinah tends to make a sport out of trying to wind her brother up, and they seem to communicate mostly in insults.
Whilst they bicker almost constantly, Cyrus is extremely protective of his younger sister, and has both the attitude, and the necessary skills to threaten swift and terrible retribution to anyone who might hurt her, something she seems to regard as more an annoyance than any kind of protection from the world. The two are, despite this, very close and tend to know exactly what one another is thinking.
Cyrus, while appearing rather antisocial, does care about those around him and wants to protect his group, he just hates having to admit to any form of affection.
Skills: -Canid shapeshifting allows him to both move about relatively unregarded by soldiers, who mistake him for a wild animal, and also gives him the edge in a physical fight.
- Technical skill and ability to improvise.
- Leaves no fingerprints.
Weaknesses: - Low-powered ability. - Much like his sister, Cyrus would probably not last long in open fights with higher level gifted, so tends to have to use his head.
- Stubborn Independence - While he may be young, Cyrus does not like to receive help. He distrusts authority in most forms and will keep trouble to himself.This tends to mean that he ends up digging himself into deeper trouble while attempting to get himself out of it.
Brief History: (Any notable events in their background that might have shaped them. If you don't want to reveal too much, that's fine.)
@EchoicChamber I am going to need to drop this, due to the fact that I don't have enough free time for the speed and depth of post that this RP seems to require. I truly am sorry. Do whatever you'd like with Lilliana.
Loyalty: Liberty, performing a long-term undercover operation in Erubesco as a Liberty Espionage Field Supervisor.
Description: Features of blended Middle Eastern and European heritage: Hazel-green eyes; dark tan skin; thick black hair and brows; straight, long nose. 5'10", lean, quick to smile. Neither excessively attractive or unattractive, he has a real, comfortable face, like your next-door neighbor or your best friend's big brother.
Personality: Canvas is flirtatious, borderline rakish, and full of double-entendres, but his bark is much worse than his bite on that front. Though firmly loyal to Liberty, at the end of the day he feels more at home undercover among the small luxuries and lavish impracticalities of Erubesco; he believes in equality, but he sure likes indulging in individuality.
Skills: Canvas's suggestion Gift allows him to deflect suspicion, unwanted questions, or even open hostility by verbally redirecting a conversation. If, for example, an Erubescan casually asked him about his whereabouts and he couldn't answer because he was conducting Liberty business, Canvas could simply give a phony answer, then ask an unrelated question about pizza and utterly derail the person's train of thought. If the suspicion/redirection was minor, the subject likely won't remember or care that he or she had a question at all. If Canvas redirects a more severe concern, especially if a potent emotion is involved, the subject may gradually remember the concern and require more redirection. His tactics are more effective if the redirection is smooth and causes the subject to land on an appropriate attention replacement.
"Canvas you are shady af. How come I keep seeing you near the data centers?" "I was just on my way to the elevator. But know who else is shady? That Lawrence guy." "...Yeah, he's always seemed kinda off." "You should keep an eye out for that dude." "Yah will do." "Nice haircut btw." "Oh, thanks."
He also, of course, has basic hand-to-hand and firearm combat training.
Weaknesses: Combat: While Canvas can redirect to distract opponents to some degree, his Gift isn't as useful in a fight. If he pressed, he would probably qualify his fondness for nice, sparkly, Erubesco-esque things as a weakness.
Brief History: Canvas breathed Liberty culture since birth (his English mother and Iranian father were staunch believers), yet Canvas was always a bit more playful and devil-may-care than your average, model-citizen Libertian; he simply came out of the box that way. Canvas's early trainers and teachers put his propensity for mischief and theatricality to good use by setting him on track to become a spy. He has maintained his alias at Erubesco (a Knight with an affluent background and high social connections) for five years, where he manages other infiltrators. He occasionally returns to Liberty bases to brief and train new Agents.
Nicknames/Aliases: Kato (A nickname given to her by her father.)
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Gift: Summoner The abilities of her father and mother combined and manifested oddly for Kat, making her able to summon up 'creatures' from an uncertain source. Some, such as Harold, have been around her since she was a baby, others she brought about through practice and study. The 'core' set of summonings are ones she can call up with comparatively easy 'rituals'. Kat thinks she can probably summon more powerful, volatile things from the other planes, but suspects it would take a lot more effort and concentration, and that comes with the risk of the sendings going rogue.
All her summonings seem to be able to pass through shadows to some extent.
Her core summonings are as follows:
Harold: Kat's first summoning and most frequent, Harold has always been present and around to protect Kat. While Harold cannot speak, he displays a lot of intelligence and understands most of what is said to him. Harold is able to shadow-travel, though prmarily seems to use it to move between hiding in different cupboards.
Owlclops: A large, bird-like summoning with a single green eye and many sharp teeth. Owlclops is a fast and powerful flier, though is only the size of a verge large bird, so cannot carry anything as large as a human. Kat tends to summon her to deliver messages.
Bahrgeist: An enormous, horse-sized doglike sending, with glowing eyes and no skin, a skull casing round its face. The monster cna be ridden like a horse, though it will only allow Kat, and people whom Kat asks it to carry. Kat tends to call Bahrgeist when she needs to get to a place fast.
Opto: A small sending with a foxish face with three eyes and many rows of teeth. Opto is small and can fit through small gaps, making Opto suited to wiggling into small spaces. It is also a very good tracker, seeming to have some measure of ESP. Opto is quite squishy and easily harmed. Additionally, Opto is a gifted mimic, it can remember whole conversations and do perfect imitations of the speakers' voices, 'playing back' what it has heard when told to.
Loyalty: Liberty, Intelligence Division
Description: Kato is quite a distinctive sight, if for no other reason because she's inherited leucistic traits from her mother's side, giving her snow white skin and hair. She is quite small and lightly built, appearing quite delicate at first glance. She is naturally very pale, and has large, pale blue eyes, a quite striking and unnatural shade. Some people might find them rather eerie for that reason.
She likes to look neat at least, even if in general dress needs to be geared towards practicality rather than aesthetics. On deployment she tends to dress all in black with a hooded jacket zipped up and gloves on her hands.
Personality: Kat is not easily disturbed by anything. Growing up around strange creatures she spent a lot of time in the company of her summonings, moreso as things went wrong.
Kat claims by her own admission to like 'cute things' however Kato's definition of 'cute' seems to differ from that of anyone around her. Where others might fawn over cats or puppies or rabbits, Kat seems to adore anything creepy or hideous. Snakes, spiders, animal skulls, creepy toys and things most people would perceive as nasty, Kat seems to see beauty in the most hideous of things. She was always trying to save spiders, or rats or similar pests from the houses even as a child and set them outside. She seems to be fascinated by anything most would be repelled by.
Any memories she has of her father are are dim and distant, as she'd been so young when she'd watched him walk away, and out of her life. She couldn't accurately miss someone who she hardly remembered. More she felt like something was missing. And maybe that is why she worked so hard on her power. As if the next creature she learned to call might somehow fill that missing piece in her life. And while she loved all her summonings in some way or another, none have really been able to give her what she really wanted.
In this sense, Kat has often felt the need to look for validation in some way. She likes people to tell her she's pretty, or smart, or competent. She likes to show off, and she likes attention, she seems to want to be the best at what she does which sometimes drives her to take risks.
And yet, this comes along with a very calm and compassionate demeanour. Those she grew up with, and the creatures she creates are aware of it, that she can deal with situations, and people in distress very well. She is not easily shaken, doesn't panic, and seems to be very skilled at calming people down. While her outside persona wouldn't suggest it she was always doing her best to help out the other kids she grew up with when they were sick or hurt. SOmetimes her apparent serenity, even in the face of violence or dark scenes can unnerve people, but it's often unclear if she's genuinely as zen as she appears, or simply has a good poker face.
Kat's extremely curious about things, and likes to investigate stuff, even if it's not advised to do so.
Skills: - Highly intelligent and skilled, sufficiently that she was placed on a fast-track training programme and graduated into the job at a young age. -Summonings make her highly versatile.
Weaknesses: -Kat is not very resilient. She is agile and quick-witted but like Rei she's not especially physically strong and if something manages to land a hit she tends to take it hard. -If Kat is harmed her summonings tend to start going rogue, and will become increasingly hostile to those around the area if Kat isn't able to call them off.
Brief History: Katherine Nakamura, or Kato, is the one daughter of the somewhat famous Liberty Intel agent, Shiro Nakamura. A defector from Erubescan Japan, Shiro came to offer his services to the supernation with a great degree of enthusiasm. The man became highly respected, a man capable of travelling through shadows as a means to move from place to place.
Liberty were keen to pass his powers on, and he was paired with a woman named Alice Farron, with a low-grade biological gift. The result was Kat, a child with a summoning ability. Shiro treasured his daughter, and the normally stoic man showed her a great deal of outward affection.
Kato was only three years of age when her father disappeared on a mission in the Ash. A year later Shiro Nakamura was officially marked off as 'lost in action' and Alice was re-assigned a new partner in order to maintain the nuclear household. The match was... not a pleasant one. Kato's stepfather was an angry, hot-tempered man, her new parental unit hated and resented each other, and the young girl spent a lot of her time hiding up in her room, consoling herself with her summonings and state-approved children's programming to drown out the arguments downstairs. On there, she watched cartoons of heroic woodland creatures standing up to the evils of capitalism and defending the glory of their nation... this instilled a feeling of belonging in Kat where she'd otherwise had little to rely on. She drew little of her identity from family, instead pulling both on the company of he creatures, and her intense feeling of duty toward Liberty.
Kat excelled in aspects of education, and quickly achieved what she wanted. She was earmarked to be hothoused in an accelerated program, to enter Liberty service. Both her test scores and her pedigree spoke to her potential, and by her 18th birthday, Agent Kato was a fully qualified intelligence operative.
Full Name: Councillor Blue
Nicknames/Aliases: Blue
Age: [NO DATA]
Gender: Female
Gift:
- Knowledge Power - Blue has the ability to answer any question or convey any skill, though only if asked a direct question with a concrete answer. This is, like her sibling Green, a trade-off. In order to achieve knowledge from Blue, the participant must forfeit some of their own memories.
Loyalty: Liberty - Councillor for Homeland Security
Description: In stature, Miss Blue is hardly the most intimidating of the Council. She is short-set, petite in build, with inky-black shoulder-length hair. Her complexion is extremely pale, and whilst make-up isn't a terribly common commodity, Blue seems to be seen wearing dark eyeshadow. She dresses neatly, but entirely in black, her outfit giving a sense of someone in mourning.
Most notable about the councillor though are her eyes, which are shocking pale ultramarine, with black sclera. They're rather alarming to look at, and far more difficult to maintain contact with.
Personality: Blue is a very calm, collected, courteous individual. She almost always has a serene smile on her features, and has never been seen to raise her voice or become irritable, even in a crisis. She runs her department with level-headed efficiency, something her faction, of course, appreciates.
However most anyone outside of Defence would happily admit, albeit in a low tone, that there was something a little...off about Blue. Her tone never varies, making it hard to work out if what she is remarking is sincere or sarcastic. Her calm smile never seems to quite reach her eyes, which are as cold and lifeless as permafrost. Occasionally, people will catch Blue looking at them, out of the corner of their eyes, and see something else in those eyes... something avid and predatory. Like a cat watching a baby bird. Then, just as quickly it's replaced with impassivity again. Blue is a great commander, but whether she's a great person...or even a person, remains more a matter of debate.
Skills: -Ability to convey skills and knowledge upon others means that Blue's top staff are incredibly deadly in combat.
-Blue's ability have allows her glimpses into all sorts of secrets. There are a great number of questions she could answer.
Weaknesses:
-Like her Erubescan brother, Blue's abilities are dependent on the consent of the subject, and she cannot use them on an individual without the individual agreeing to a 'deal'.
Brief History:
Blue has been tied up in Liberty inner workings for as long as anyone within the faction can remember. She had been effectively managing Liberty's Security Division for many years in Pierrot's absence of responsible leadership, something she runs with total and ruthless efficiency, to both deal with enemies outside and inside the walls of Liberty.
Blue used her abilities to her advantage. She was able to convey skill and knowledge upon some of her specially chosen staff, however, these trade-offs, while they gave something, seemed to take something away too. Lacking identity, or personality, almost as if they had sold their souls.
This all served Blue's purpose very well however. Since her promotion in the aftermath of the devastating attacks, Blue has been working hard to ensure that such a thing would never take place again...and that end would justify all kinds of means.
Nicknames/Aliases: The Specter of the Ashlands, The Headhunter
Age: Unknown, presumed to be in his late thirties
Gender: Male
Gift: Metaphysicality- With this gift, Specter can turn metaphysical as the name suggests, making him, for all intents and purposes a ghost... or as he likes to call himself, a specter.
Loyalty: Ashlander Headhunter
Description: To the few people that have seen how he looks, Specter looks quite like an average person with short chestnut hair and brown eyes. His height certainly does him no advantage as he stands at about the average 5'10". All the time he spends outside, he is seen his combat and rarely if ever removes his mask when talking to a potential customer.
Personality: Having lived inside the Ashlands for much of his life, scraping out a living as best as he could. This in turn has turned him into a rather ruthless person. And while he is friendly enough when he is not on a mission, he has not made any friends for the belief that one day someone might hire him to kill that person.
However, despite that, he does have a code of conduct he abides by, putting it above anything else and rightly so, considering that this code of conduct has not failed him yet.
Skills: Mental Resistance- Over all the people he has killed, quite a few of them have had a mental based gifts, such as telepathy, or similar things that peer into one's mind, so over time, he has learned to keep his mind empty when around a person with telepathic gifts.
Combat Experience: Specter has had his current occupation for nearly two decades and in those two decades, he has fought a great deal of people, both from a range and from close quarters, meaning that he has two decades worth of experience in both types of combat, making him quite a powerful opponent in combat.
Survivalist: The wastes are a harsh place, even if you are part of a settlement. Specter, has lived in the wastes his whole life and has in turn, learned to survive within them.
Weaknesses: Ruthlessness: While he acts friendly enough, Specter is of the belief that he does not need friends and even the few "friends" he has, he would kill if a contractor would offer a high enough price on their heads.
Glass Cannon: While he is able to deal quite a high amount amount of damage, Specter is not able to take much punishment and while his gift itself nearly makes the worry of him getting hit by a physical attack null and void, it is not quite so. His gift does make him invulnerable to physical attacks, however, he can maintain the gift for a minute before having to rest for ten minutes to be able to use his gift once again.
Brief History: Specter is as mysterious as his name might suggest, nobody truly knows about his past, what is known is that he has been "haunting" the Outside for some twenty years, completing all of the contracts he has assigned to with brutal efficiency.
Other: While he does accept nearly any target, he will never accept contracts that have him kill high profile targets from any of the major factions as it would limit him greatly, contract-wise. And while he does not consider the Wanderers a major faction per se, he has shown reluctance in hunting anyone part of this group. However, whether he refuses hunting them because he does not wish to anger them, or because he sympathizes with them is yet unknown.
Combat Equipment: Sniper Rifle, two pistols, two hunting knives, 4 flashbang grenades, 4 smoke grenades, 2 fragmentation grenades and respective ammo for each of his guns.
While his gift does allow him to become essentially a ghost, he can only do it a minute once every ten minutes, giving him a total of 144 minutes of him being able to become a ghost.
@Claw2k11 Specter looks really good! I do have a few things that I'd like to bring up before he's officially approved, however. The first is that a full on resistance can't probably be built up by repeated exposure to mental Gifts, or else the faction folk would've exploited this a long time ago. (Oren was an experiment specifically made to keep out telepaths, along with being a general Gift dead zone, for instance) He can have the skills to keep his surface thoughts kind of ambiguous and vague and hard to get at/have mental distraction techniques and the skill to empty his mind, or he can have a fully blown Gift of mental resistance, but general mental resistance as a skill that he built up would likely not work.
Also, him becoming a ghost for six hours is fine, although just keep in mind that six hours might be a very long time in IC standpoints. Would that be alright with you?
Sorry for the trouble! Just wanted to kind of get that out there- Specter seems like a very interesting character. c:
Oh, the mental resistance thing isn't complete resistance to mentally based gifts, it's as you said, the ability to keep his mind empty when near telepathically gifted people, though I suppose I could have worded it better myself. Also, as for the ghost thing, instead of six hours a day, how about he can maintain his gift in short bursts, like a keeping the gift up a minute, then he needs 10 minutes of rest in order to be able to use it again, would that work?
@Claw2k11 Mmmm, yeah, that would work. And the mind clearing makes sense. c: Just wanted to make sure that your character couldn’t bar mentalists from getting into his head or something like that, haha. Would you mind clearing that up in your page, and editing the time limit for his Gift? Once that’s done, you can consider him approved. EDIT: Also, if you can PM me a bit more on his history, I’d appreciate it a lot. You don’t have to put it in your page, but I just want to see if you have anything specific in mind or anything if you don’t mind. c: