[OOC] House Wars and Blood Feuds In Old Venara

[POOHEAD189]

I'll post again Tuesday at the latest!

[Lauder]

Mayhaps I shall write a post later today

[Atrophy]

@Big DreadOkay, I've been creeping on this RP for far too long to not say anything. Would ya'll be cool with adding another member to your big happy family?

[Big Dread]

@Atrophy Got an idea for a character? We are still holding try-outs and happy to have a new person to get killed in the ensuing chaos! :D

[Sypherkhode822]

Pleased with how this is picking up! Debating if I should make another post just filling in more on Pieter's reaction to Lucien and Nalia.

[Big Dread]

@Sypherkhode822 Go for it man! Get one in there if you got a good idea! I am going to be posting the next section for our little creeper, since they got people sent after them, soon. Get in some reactions while you can before things change.

[Atrophy]

@Big DreadOh, well, since you asked, I just happen to have this character sheet that I certainly wasn't plucking away at for sometime now.

The Fourth Child

Name: Juniper Delorano

_{"Junie, mom would call me, or Junebug. I never really liked the nicknames, but what I would give to hear them again."}

Age: 15

_{"Old enough to know better but young enough to be ignored."}

Sex: Female

_{"If things hadn't changed in Old Venara I probably would've been shipped off to marry some third son of some rival house that I had never met before."}

Race: Human

_{"Doesn't change the fact the people look at me as if I were an Umbrakin."}

Appearance:

Juniper

While Juniper has some of the traits of her family, she feels as if she got the ones that were meant to be left behind on the cutting floor. Her body has seemingly only grown upwards, and with her narrow hips and gangly arms she looks more like a child that has been stretched on a rack rather than a young woman. Her brown, dry hair is chopped just beneath her chin, and it seemingly cannot decide if it would rather lay straight or curl up. Her brown eyes are bloodshot and baggy, and almost always looks as if she had just finished up having a nice, long cry. Her skin is pale but, unlike her aunt or her sister, her fair complexion has been fighting a long, tiresome war of attrition with the dark forces of puberty, and while the acne outbreaks have finally seemed to retreat in force evidence of lost battles can still be seen dotting her cheeks and forehead. For someone who claims that she doesn’t give a damn about how she looks, Juniper spends quite a lot of time preening herself in mirrors and tends to wear clothes that are less revealing (because she fears that then people would see the already obvious fact that she has nothing to reveal).

_{“I’m glad I’m not pretty. Unlike my sister, I don’t have to worry that the men who try and spill my family’s blood in the streets will also try to get me to spread my legs underneath their sheets.”}

Personality: According to Juniper’s tutor, a noble lady should be polite, caring, and patient. How he came to this horseshit conclusion Juniper cannot say, but it only serves as the ammo she needs to convince herself that it is much more wise to act the way she does. Although young, Juniper has mastered the fine art of being discourteous and disrespectful, knows more foul words than even the saltiest of sailors, and can easily hold a grudge that, if she were an elf, could imaginably outlast even the longest of Blood Feuds. She’s rather sick of how everyone in Old Venara loves putting on airs and refuses to play her part in their pageantry, and has grown even more distant and moody after the death of her parents. In other words, although she shies away from being a model young lady, she’s quite happy with falling into the typical trappings of being a shitty, envious, self-centered teenager.

_{“I might be the only good person that I know, but that’s like saying I’m the only good singer in a room full of deaf-mutes.”}

Biography: Juniper will forever be the baby of the family, even if she has begun to spoil like forgotten milk as she has aged. She did not get to spend much time with her siblings thanks to the gap in their age, although she had certainly tried to tag-along when she could. Still, even in her happiest childhood memories of her siblings, which are few and far between, she can only remember herself as being an outside observer, a tiny pair of eyes peeking out from behind a closed window or as a stumbling pair of small feet unable to keep up with them as they ran ahead to the pier. Yet, despite not being part of their clique, Juniper felt that she was the one who got punished for the mistakes of her siblings. Nalia may have been the one wounded by the blade of an enemy or Lucien may have been the one to stow away on a ship, but it was Juniper who was kept under lock in their manor lest she tried to imitate her brother or sister.

During these times the only person in her family that she was really close with was her mother. Her father was there, yes, and he saw to it that she was educated and sheltered, but he was busy a man. It was her mother that nurtured her, that told her that she was sweet, that she was smart, that she was special, and in a way she was, spending most of her time cooped up in her home with plenty of time to toy with her hobbies when she wasn’t throwing a fit or being moody. Yet while Juniper was kept sheltered from the plague, her mother was not. Her father, fearful that his daughter might catch the disease that ate away at his wife, kept her barred from visiting her mother as she faded away and, inevitably, succumbed to the sickness.

It strained their already tepid relationship. She needed someone to blame for her mother’s death, and she couldn’t blame the plague—you don’t curse the axle of a wagon when it breaks and makes you late to a soiree, you curse the driver. During the years after her mother’s death, she and her father often butted heads over even the smallest of things. Servants could determine the location of Juniper at all times by following the slamming of doors and the rattling of china, and the prolonged absence of these noises often would put the house on alert, because it meant that the youngest daughter of their lord had yet again snuck out while under their watch. Still, she did not truly hate her father; it’s a shame she had to become an orphan to realize that.

Now, Juniper finds herself without the mother who cared for her or the father that sheltered her, her life hung in an uncertain balance that is to be determined by relatives that are more strangers to her than anything else.

_{“I’m trying to look on the brighter side of things since Father’s death. For starters, the odds of me seeing Mother sooner rather than later has jumped greatly.”}

Position In House Delorano: 4th child and youngest daughter of Leon Delorano.

_{"Although I think they tend to treat me more like a door mat in the way that they otherwise ignore me except for the times that they need something on which to wipe off the shit on their boots."}

Equipment: Juniper is never seen without her mother's hand-me-down hair clip except for when she sleeps. Even when she's home the girl keeps a set of lock picks and a small letter opener tucked safely away in her garter, and she has three pistols and the key to her father's gun case stashed away in a lock box beneath her bed in case she ever needs to go out.

_{"Father wanted me to never need to carry a weapon because he wished I would live a life that had no need for such things. The others want me to never carry a weapon because they think that I'll end up shooting my eye out.”}

Skills:
Racial: Human, +1 to chosen field (Gunnery)

_{"Thankfully, there's enough ambient gunfire echoing through the city these days that nobody pays mind when a shot rings out, even in their backyard."}

Gifted: Gunnery +4, Athleticism +4

_{"I can run further and faster than my siblings or my cousin, yet I am the one who's a slugabed according to my beloved aunt."}

Above Average: Brawling +3, Skulduggery +3, Reputation +3

_{"I may not be anywhere near as good with a blade as my brother or sister, but who needs to be when I can just mention their names to get my way? And if that doesn't do the job, well, I'm not above a using a few dirty tricks."}

Deficient: Acumen -2, Grace -2

_{"I don't need others to help me, and I'm so sick of this little masquerade our houses all play with each other. I rather we all just be honest with each other instead of acting nice—and no, this isn't all because I embarrassed myself at the last dance, fuck!}

Unlisted: Soldiery, Archery, Dueling

_{"I get it. Some people are tied to the old ways. I'm sure there's some value in knowing how to swing around a hunk of wood and metal but, well, us smart people have guns. Okay, I guess I don't get it.}

Lemme know if anything I put in there conflicts with already established facts; I think I double-checked the other character sheets to make sure I didn't bone anything up, but it's not completely impossible.

[Sypherkhode822]

I absolutely love her. She's so perfect. I *would* like to to know how she learned how to pick locks and get her hands on multiple firearms, however. (Though I suppose one could definitely lead to the other....)

If she's accepted, I would love to talk @Atrophy, because I would to collab together on her and Pieter's past history. Not to mention a collab post of them bantering. (I've retyped this post at least 5 times trying to find a balance between me enthusing about your character and me not trying to sound like Pieter is trying to sleep with someone nearly a decade younger than him)

[Big Dread]

@Atrophy I had a really wide stupid grin on my face the whole time I read that! It looks great. Go ahead and throw it in the characters section and get your intro post in! Things are about to kick off.

[Atrophy]

@Big DreadWord! Thanks boss. Should have one up later tonight.

@Sypherkhode822I figured Papa Leon would have enough guns around the house that a child with enough determination could get there hands on like in one of those old PSA videos where they always end up shooting themselves in the face. As for lock picking, well, hmm...maybe we should talk about her past with Pieter.

[Zverda]

@Atrophy It's great because Nalia would love the fuck out of her younger sister and gut anyone who tries to touch her <3 Overprotective much? XP hahaha

@Big Dread@Sypherkhode822@Lauder@POOHEAD189@Heap241@Flagg I will be working on House Banners, I need Mottos GDI! If you think of one for each house please PING ME!!

[CreeXLR]

Finally posted mine, sorry it took so long, work n life n stuff, you know the drill.

Think only Miri, @Heap241 and @Polybius would know Jacques personally, the rest would have been either too young the last time he visited Venara (almost 11 years ago) or were not part of the House yet.

Will knock a post out somewhere in the next 24-30 hours.

[Big Dread]

@POOHEAD189 You change your avatar so much! I'm just not ready for it! Plus, the last one was Sword the Stranger and that made me happy. Miroku is still pretty tight though. :P

[POOHEAD189]

@Big DreadI'm only Miroku for Valentines :P
I'm changing back to SOTS soon!

[Sypherkhode822]

Looking forward to seeing how everyone joins in!

[Zverda]

@Atrophy@Big Dread@Sypherkhode822@Lauder@POOHEAD189@Heap241@Flagg

YO! DISCORD IS UP :D

discord.gg/mWfR9Ew

[Heap241]

@CreeXLR Did you mean Fiona or Lorenzo or both? Lol

[Zverda]

I will do an answer when I wake up :D Sorry Juniper, you won't be allowed to leave, but not for the reason you may think @Atrophy

[Atrophy]

@Zverda"BUT I WANNA GO HOME!"

Oh, wait...

[CreeXLR]

@Heap241 Well Fiona will obviously know him since he's her bloody brother! As for Lorenzo - he probably met him once, 11 years ago for about a month, don't specifically know if they'd socialize much since he's not Leon's child.