Mikhail Rochdale

Misha (close friends and family only, seriously)

After all this time, does it really matter? (Appears to be in his twenties)

Male

Heterosexual

Single

Born Vampire

Mikhail is a tall man with a lithe build, not muscular but not skeletal either. Like his siblings, his features bear a striking resemblance to a frozen corpse: frosty pale skin with the slightest tint of deathly blue, unruly snow-white hair, and a set of piercing, ice-blue eyes. He looks great for his advanced age, the very picture of youth, and he can usually be seen with a cunning smirk on his lips and a dangerous glint in his eye. Royalty suits him well and he isn’t afraid to show it, wearing only the best and often adorned with rings and other finery.

Extremely charismatic with a haunting talent for reading people, Mikhail's outward personality can be whatever he needs it to be to get what he wants. He can just as easily play the part of friend or lover as he can tormentor or authority figure, and this two-faced tendency of his has worked more in his favour than against it over the years. While his sister may not believe him, Mikhail is genuinely devoted to the King and the Black Iris Society at large, though his motivations, sincere or otherwise, are unclear.

Mikhail is the type of man who is either a joy to talk to, or absolutely infuriating. A trait that some admire and some despise, he has a way of talking that ensures that whoever he's talking to only knows as much as he wants them to know. There are those who love him, those who hate him, and those who fear him, though they all seem to agree that he has the sort of smile that doesn't quite reach his icy eyes.

“History, legend, constructs of memory… after this long, who can tell which is which?”

The many, many years of Mikhail’s life have blended and blurred together, but it works out in his favour; he isn’t one to cling too closely to the past. Still, the basic details remain: he was born alongside his sister Irina about a century after his brother Dmitri, second in line for his father’s throne and perfectly content with that. His talent for manipulating people came out in his youth, one he spent getting into trouble only to weasel his way out of the consequences, much to his dutiful twin’s considerable chagrin. Not the leader his brother was and lacking the martial talent of his sister, Mikhail settled comfortably into the shadows, capitalizing on his unmatched skill with people and spinning a vast web that grew over the years to entangle just about everything in the Society's domain.

Centuries of making connections, allies and enemies alike have put Mikhail in the enviable position of ‘knowing a guy’ for just about everything, trading both in gold and favours, ever plucking the strings of the underworld and knowing just the ones to pull. Well on his brother’s good side, he’s set for a position of high influence should his father die or abdicate, and is well equipped to use every puppet at his disposal for the benefit of himself and the Society alike.

Colour Code: 91B5D5
(more to be added later)

Full name

Anything they're called

No limit

Female

Self explanatory

Self explanatory

Werewolf

Kora cuts quite a distinct figure, even by werewolf standards. She'd do this without trying, but she does little to try and dissuade it.

In many ways she serves as a pretty textbook example of her family's own traits. She is tall, very tall, at six foot six,

At least a paragraph detailing their flaws as well as their virtues.

What are they good at?

What are they not so good at? Things that impact their performance?

A brief or not so brief history.

Faceclaim if applicable, this can be deleted if not. | Color Code
Misc facts.

Esther Frey

Essie, Ess. Use them as you please. She won't mention it.

20. Or at least, she says she is.

Female

Heterosexual

Single

Witch

Esther, at first glance, has an unremarkable appearance. She is slightly above average height, average build, just about average everything else. Underneath of her fringe, right in the middle of her forehead, is the birthmark of her species - a crescent moon. Even at home or around other witches, she prefers not to pin up her hair. Her eyes are naturally a very pale grey, often covered to seem dark brown by a glamour. Or contact lenses, if Esther's feeling lazy.

There's nothing about Esther that is out of place, but some find looking at her for too long somewhat unsettling. There's something uncanny about her and those eyes that do not blink nearly as much as any normal person should.

Her style is very elegant and feminine, wearing skirts and dresses year round, and she continues to perpetuate stereotypes by wearing a lot of black. As far as accessorising goes, Esther wears a lot of jewellery. Earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, you name it, she's never seen without. She often fiddles with them when she gets nervous.

Esther appears reserved at first glance, but she's actually very sociable, breezing through conversations with her own unusual brand of charm. When she speaks, she comes off as cool and collected, though her voice carries a condescending air. Almost as if she thinks she is better than whoever she is talking to. Whether she actually does or not is up for debate, but it wouldn't be too far fetched.

Esther possesses strange trait inherited from her mother - the obsessive need for control. She has complete faith in her methods and the fact that they are better than anyone else's. She believes that people should do as she says, and refusal to do so wears her otherwise endless patience thin. When things don't go her way she also gets agitated. She prefers environments where it is easy to maintain some semblance of control. That is, smallish spaces with very few people in them. Anything else may be liable to making her stressed, something she does not deal with well.

► A skilled witch. She mainly makes potions, though she has a knack for glamours as well.
► Good at most household tasks - cooking, cleaning, the lot. Someone has to do them.
► Fairly athletic.
► Origami master of the modern age. She likes to fiddle.
► Sings well, but never in front of other people.

► A real control freak.
► Atrocious at most things involving teamwork.
► Afraid of crowds.
► Doesn't function well under pressure.
► Physically weak, with very little to offer for combat magic.

"Ah... isn't she just perfect? We don't need anyone else, dear," the woman in black said, cradling her child to her chest. She rocked back and forth in her chair, cooing affectionately. "Let's move to the countryside, darling. We'll live peacefully in the countryside, darling."

"She ought to be, after all of that trouble," her husband sighed. "Let's hope the next is easier, hmm?"

"Ah, dear. We don't need such silly things, we don't need more, do we? Isn't this wonderful? Isn't this enough?"

"Vivian, I thought-"

"Aren't I enough?"

"Well, I never said you weren't..."

"Aren't I enough, darling?"

"...Of course, dearest."

Esther, sole daughter of Raphael and Vivian Frey, born in a year no one cares enough to remember. The pitiful father that can't say no to his wife and the doting mother whose sweet smile conceals her true intentions. Indeed, as her childhood came and went, Esther became more and more like her mother with every passing day. Not only in appearance, but in personality too.

Her life has been, and still is, hectic. She lives in a household of seven, along with the general struggles of daily life, there's also the added trouble of being witches. Constant accidents, moving around whenever their ageing is too suspicious, the whole lot. For someone who enjoys stability, Esther's life is filled with chaos.

At present, she works at another branch of the Frey florist business, owned by her aunt. As expected, she is the one doing the brunt of the work. It operates like any florist would - selling flowers. Of course, if you'd like, there are other services for the supernatural. Potions, various magical herbs, or even a little bit of magic.

Artist: KD Chen | #978ab8
► The Frey Family
▼ The Frey Family is a large and ancient one. There are probably a hundred of them running around somewhere on the planet. The family branches interact with each other as little as possible, while all claiming to be the main family. They are all concerned for each other's safety, however. If one Frey is exposed as a witch, it doesn't bode well for the rest of them.

Name: Athena Lovell
Nicknames: Nothing official
Sexuality: Pansexual if you must insist on labels
Relationship Status: Open
Species: She’s a witch darling

Indicators of her status as a powerful witch, both her crescent moon birthmark and her vibrant dark purple eyes are Athena’s most stunning features. Normally, her birthmark glows pale white, however, depending on the amount of magic Athena uses, her birthmark has been known to glow even brighter. Contrasted with her olive complexion and raven hair, her look has often been called striking. Athena, well, she agrees. A full mouth, high cheekbones and wide eyes, her conventionally attractive features, curvy figure, and deep pocket, has often been used to her advantage. While everything about her look screams woman, two deep dimples give a hint of the innocent and naive person hidden behind her assured persona.

Often clad in expensive, well-fitted clothing, Athena cuts an imposing figure despite her short height. Her air of self-assurance and confidence, coupled with her polished look have often intimidated or awed others. Easily distinguishable from the crowd, she has been at pains to ensure that her distinction from everyone has been for the right reason. Expertly covering up how insecure she is about her place and role in Black Iris, Athena portrays a confident, and vivacious persona.

A veritable social butterfly, Athena is a naturally gregarious flirt who simply enjoys people. She loves debating with others, but has been known to quell many arguments with a simple smile and a redirect. Despite having the reputation of knowing everyone and being friends with everyone, Athena has a very small circle of close friends. With these select people, Athena drops her graceful and confident mask. With those she trusts she is silly and slightly naive, in spite of her long life. She has a strong mothering instinct towards those friends, and can fall prey to a sob-story. While highly intelligent and ambitious, Athena is not particularly cunning and can therefore, sometimes be taken advantage of.

Some have guessed that she has a tendency to surround herself with others as a means to combat her internal loneliness, but none have dared say it to her face. And if they did, well who knows what might come for them under the cover of the shadows.

Born with purple eyes and a crescent moon birthmark, the sight of such an unnatural baby lead to panic in her household. The first known witch in her family, her mother tried to kill the young child. However, some self-preservation instinct kicked in and turned her bright purple eyes into an ordinary brown. Her once moon-shaped birthmark became a simple black mole. Convincing themselves that it was a trick of the light, her parents tried to raise the young girl as an ordinary child. However, the suppression of her magic manifested itself in uncontrollable casting. The people in her village immediately turned her over to the Inquisition that had heard tales of a young girl born with purple eyes and a glowing moon on her forehead.

One of the youngest witches persecuted during the Basque Witch Trials, and with little training to her name, the Trial would have spelled the end of her short life. But rumours of a young, powerful witch had reached les Sorciѐres de la Lumière des Étoile— one of the oldest and most influential French covens. Saved, and transplanted from the small Basque village to the center of Paris, she was named Athena. The newly named Athena tried her best to fit into the coven, learning French and magic at a rapid rate. The SLE guessed that the suppression of magic lead to her birthmark glowing a soft, diffused white once she finally started tapping into and training her magic. Athena spent many years in Paris with the coven and helped oversee the shift to New York City as Europe became increasingly militant in wiping out all supernatural persons.

Now one of the senior most witches in her coven, Athena strives to maintain the legacy of the coven while cultivating a bright and secure future for all witches. But despite being a powerful witch, Athena’s memories of her long past childhood and her feeling of ill-belonging in supernatural society and the Black Iris have carried on into the present.

Jenna Coleman | 801CA3
She has a black cat because she finds human stereotypes funny and also feels bad that black cats are left in shelters because of human superstitions.
Also her coven can be called SLE or Sorceresses of the Starlight if you wanna be fancy.

Name: Marion Beauchamp
Nicknames: Don’t.
Sexuality: Bisexual
Relationship Status: Open
Species: Human

The first noticeable feature of Marion’s are his green eyes. Not for the color, of which they are a dark brown-green, but for the intense look. It can unnerve even the most hardened of hunters, as it feels as though he can see into your very soul. Evidence of his hunter life have aged him beyond his 37 years, and have forced wrinkles on his forehead, and grey in his thick wine-brown hair. He has large, capable hands filled with callouses from the hunting lifestyle. His hands, much like the man himself, can be deceptively strong. While only of average height, and with a decent amount of muscle tone, he seems to occupy a large presence. That could be due in part to the large, bulky coats he wears, or his scruffy beard and various scars scattered in every visible area, or even the impression he gives that there is more to him than might meet the eye.

His general lack of awareness, in his day to day, of himself, and his clothing almost seems deliberate. For the most part he dresses in soft cotton shirts, and pants with a bulky coat that seem to hold an innumerable amount of objects that he pulls out as, and when he needs. Most of his clothing is peppered with tiny rips, and cuts that he barely notices, and, even more rarely, fixes. However, this all changes when he is on a hunt or planning out the next hunt— both for himself and others. There, others will see a sharply focused man who pays a high level of attention to the image he projects when outside the walls of the Council of Hunters. He is able to blend in extremely well in a multitude of situations, and adapts his appearance as needed.

Marion spends most of his time in the Council, and especially in either his room or the library. When he does interact with people they find a wry, intelligent, and observant man. Occasionally funny, purposefully pre-occupied, and constantly on guard, Marion hides behind a carefully constructed wall. Most of the Council interact with him only up until a certain point. He is fiercely protective of his personal self, and prying information from him— when he doesn’t want to give up anything— is harder than killing the entire supernatural population with one feather. Basically, impossible.

If, however, one becomes his friend, they would find a genuine, and extremely loyal person. While sensitive Marion has learnt, or been forced, to become a harder version of himself. He places great weight on people’s capabilities, and once others have proved worthy of his respect he is willing to listen to them. Once he has placed his trust in someone, however, he would protect them till his last breath.

Born in the resort town of Banff in Canada, Marion spent his formative years growing up in the mountainous region. He learned how to track, and hunt animals from his father, as well as basic survival skills. When his younger brother Jason was born, Marion spent most of his pre-teen years looking after him and teaching him all he knew. He grew up in a storybook household, with loving parents and an adoring brother. But that all changed when a pack of rabid werewolves attacked. They massacred his entire town, leaving only a handful of the residents alive. Luckily both Marion and his younger brother survived. Grieving from the death of his parents, however, Marion poured everything he could into figuring out what killed his parents, and most of his town.

This lead him into the hunter world, as he slowly uncovered the truth about the supernatural community. Marion and Jason became hunters in due course, learning first from other hunters before branching out on their own. But barely 5 years into hunting, a vampire took down Jason. With no family left, Marion became almost obsessed with hunting. Not caring for himself or his own life, Marion became known as the guy who’d take on any and all missions. However, as the pain lessened and Marion slowly developed a circle of friends, his all-in approach tempered into a meticulously planned one. He started to learn as much as he could about the creatures, and used knowledge gained from research when hunting supernatural creatures.

Tom Burke | A30000

Dmitri Rochdale

Dima (friends and family, though he won’t balk if you call him that)

As far as the years have dragged him, his goal still lies ahead (Appears in his thirties)

Male

Asexual

Single

Born Vampire

Dmitri is fairly tall, a bit shorter than his younger brother Mikhail but makes up for it with a more solid, muscular build. He shares the same white hair, pale skin and ice-blue eyes as his siblings, but looks the part of eldest, appearing somewhere in his thirties. He usually wears something between a kind expression and a solemn thousand-yard stare, rarely outwardly emoting beyond a polite smile or disappointed glare. He keeps himself neat and tidy and wears clothes that are simple, but refined; he takes pride in his position, but doesn’t flaunt, usually avoiding jewelry and extravagant clothes unless necessary.

First and foremost, Dmitri is a gentle soul. Calm and quiet, he takes more after the gentle touch of his mother than the iron fist of his father. Still, he has a commanding presence; though he speaks softly, people tend to listen. Subdued by the centuries of hardship, conflict, and suffering he witnessed his people subjected to, he can seem quiet, even a little somber at times. Still, with others around he does his best to portray the persona of a strong, reliable heir to his father’s throne.

His calm and mellow demeanour often clashes with his brother’s airy confidence and his sister’s intensity, and he often finds himself playing mediator, a skill that has served him well diplomatically in the past. While he questions his father’s methods and intentions, Dmitri remains loyal to his father and the Society, holding duty above all else.

Dmitri clings more to his memory than his brother does, though lacking the uncanny retention of his sister, it still blurs in places. Some memories are crystal clear, like the day his father and the Council commanded all members of the Black Iris Society to retreat into the shadows or the night that he lost his first friend to the stake. Other times, his memory slips; the smoke and shouting of the night his home was raided by villagers with stakes and torches sometimes slides into the hellish cacophony of mortar fire pounding above as he fought in the trenches of World War I. Over the years he’s kept careful journals, and the pressing details of his life are well recorded.

He was the first child of King Astris Rochdale and his wife, a Russian vampiress whose heritage shone in the names of her children. Dmitri was born some time before the Society ordered its members into hiding, and as such he remembers a time when supernatural species did not hide their nature from their human neighbours. Or at least, not on Council command. But he saw firsthand the barbarism and scorn with which the humans persecuted his people, saw how his own kind and other supernatural species consumed, butchered and cursed them in return. He saw neighbourhood healers strung up as consorts of the Devil, saw entire villages wiped out by gluttonous werewolves, saw vampires steal children only to have themselves and their whole families strung up in the sun for their crimes. What tortured him, though, was that he also saw his people and the humans coexist; a coven of witches who warded their town from evil, a vampiric scholar who uplifted his village with knowledge, werewolf packs who hunted dangerous game for their fellow man when food was scarce, and all along he saw humans who would defend their mythical allies from those who would see them burn.

Dmitri was heartbroken when the order came to hide from humans, but he understood why it was given; though he had hope that his people could coexist peacefully with humans, it was a time when fear and distrust infected humans and the supernatural alike like a plague, poisoning any and all interaction and dooming it all to conflict. As the years wore on, though, he kept waiting for a time when the world could develop enough for a second chance at coexistence, only to find that history had a dastardly way of repeating itself.

With members of the Black Iris long faded into myth and superstition, those he saw as war-hungry humans did what they always did and turned on each other. Bloody battles raged with the supernatural safely in the shadows, though they were not impervious to infighting either. The years between conflicts blend together, but one he remembers well was the First World War, a conflict the scope of which neither he nor anyone had ever seen before, nor expected to see again. Unable to escape conscription without arousing suspicion, Dmitri ended up in the trenches, fighting alongside human soldiers. By then he had grown jaded, seeing humans as vicious warmongering beasts beyond salvation, and he expected the deadliest war in human history to only further confirm his suspicions. But, as he fought as well as he could without drawing attention to his superhuman abilities, the incredible determination, courage, and sacrifice of his fellow soldiers showed him a side of humanity he hadn’t seen since before the Black Iris order was given. The lengths they went to to protect and save each other were astounding, and their impossible ability to hold onto morale in the jaws of hell without even the assurance of superhuman resilience to cling to stuck with him long after the war was over. He knew redemption was possible. He just needed to find a way to effect it.

He abandoned combat altogether after the war ended, turning his focus to diplomacy. There was much work to be done internally before he could even think to turn his intentions to reconciliation with the humans, but to this day he works tirelessly toward his goal, deaf to the disapproval of his father and his peers and eyes focused firmly on the future.

0355AD
Dmitri doesn’t make judgement on species; he sees value and potential in all of his subjects, whether they’ve realized it or not.