[OOC] Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - An Urban Fantasy Adventure!

[Naril]

There certainly is still room! :3 I would love to see another character, and especially another woman.

[vietmyke]

*Lurks* I'm excited for new characters!

[lady horatio]

Awesome! I have to leave for work shortly, but my character sheet is about halfway done, so if I don't finish before I leave, I should definitely be able to post it when I get home tonight. :)

[Naril]

Excellent! I'll look forward to it. I'm touching this thread when I can between quite a lot of plate-juggling today, but I'll at least glance at anything you post, I'm sure. :3 I have a very busy evening, so anything meaty may wind up bleeding over into Saturday or Sunday, but they'll get done!

[jasonwolf]

two questions that will determine if I wish to apply here:

1. does Paranormal include cryptozoological?

2. Can I have a mute character? (this is less important but I'm thinking of rezzing an old character and setting him all up here).

[Naril]

Hiya!

If you're talking about Bigfoot, the Ogopogo, and Jackalopes, then I don't see why they wouldn't be a (quiet) part of this world. If you're talking bout were-creatures, then that's fine too. I'm surprised nobody's written a werewolf character, not that I'm necessarily complaining. :3

And if you show me that your mute character works really well with the world and the other characters and in general is a character I would let into the game, I'll let them into the game. That's rather a tautology, but it's the best I can do right now. In general, I have few limits on characters - they just have to be interesting, complex, work well with the story, and all the other nonsense I put in the first post.

[jasonwolf]

Alright working hard now. Not going with the mute, but I'm challenging myself to earn a more supernatural character. I will edit in all the details as I go just too excited right now.

Markiel Rovalnski

Name: Markiel Rovalnski. Mark.

Gender: Male

Race/Species: Human (Warlock)

Age: Twenty six. Clearly in his mid twenties.

Appearance: Mark has dark brown hair kept a little shaggy above the collar and out of his eyes. He has an average complexion. His features are sharp in that they are well defined rather than soft and rounded. His eyes are sunk back with a clear darkness around them. The most visually distinct feature is his amber irises the same color as his mother and his grandfather.

Mark stands six foot three and is muscular but lean. His body distinctly lacks a lot of body fat. This does cause Mark to get a colder a bit faster than other people. He prefers to wear simple clothes like jeans and T-shirts. For footwear he’d stick to his favorite pair of hiking boots even in less reasonable situations like urban areas. He has a number of other clothes: coats, vests, and such which are worn when the situation calls for it. His preference is efficiency over elegance in his fashion choices.

Personality: Mark is hungry for knowledge. New information is what he lives for. Being taught by his grandfather in traditional witchcraft Mark was exposed to the paranormal very early. Knowing there was more than just what he was learning in school made him want to know more since he had only been given this little window into the “real” world. He wants to learn more about his family and about this world he’s apparently a part of. He knows very well the danger of knowledge, and has the self control to not go too far.

Mark is not a leader. He’d much prefer to let someone else lead and take charge of everything. He has a good tactical mind and is wonderful with puzzles, but would rather be consulted rather than the end all be all. Mark likes to be prepared even if that requires getting someone else to scout ahead.

Mark does have a bit of a temper. Usually leading to a physically aggressive outcome. This can vary from a punch in the face to freezing all the saliva in your mouth. Mostly this goes back to his need to fight back against bullies from his middle school and early high school years. Words tended not to work, so a fist became his main option. He’s normally logical and reasonable, but he has his moments where he has to stand up for himself with some force.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities:

Mark as a semi-trained warlock has access to a variety of spells. The majority are simple charms and cantrips to handle menial labor meant for the modern warlock to make life simpler. Things like: telekinesis, floating lights, sparks for lighting a fire. He did complete the first manuscript on divining and enhanced senses a collection passed down through the family. The collection of spells enhance his five natural senses as well as letting him act as a divining rod. He can only have one active at a time and casting and dispelling them takes him about two minutes.

Later on he discovered a polish manuscript on cryomancy which he has begun studying from. He has learned how to draw heat out of things rather handily. This allows him to freeze a gallon of water instantly with it taking around thirty more seconds for each added gallon. He also can condense the water in the air to make a sphere of ice about the size of a baseball.

As his grandfather was a true Pole he learned Polish very early on and is now fluent in it. He also has learned an ancient Polish dialect used by his ancestry. The only sport he ever got into was Archery, and has become an awarded archer over the years. He still maintains his skills though mostly for recreation. He did hunt, but never had enough need for it to justify letting an entire animal go to waste.

Mark is a lover of reading preferring informative books rather than stories. He is a speed reader able to pick out words of importance very fast and carry on. His research into the paranormal helps him understand the logic of it how it doesn’t just come out of no where.

Mark’s greatest skill is not his magic nor his library of knowledge, but his innovation. Experimentation has let Mark turn his small arsenal into a swiss army knife of abilities. For example his ability to condense water in the air has been used to to make shapes besides just a sphere. He has cast it into the cracks of a door to pop a lock open, and used his water freezing ability to solidify the water in someones mouth making an efficient temporary muzzle. He always is working to come up with a new use to his old tricks.

Background:

Markiel Rolvanski is the grandson of warlock Gravin Rolvanski, and son of witch Lurena Rolvanski. Gravin was an immigrant from Poland leaving a few years before WWII moving to the U.S. and staying in Maine. Lurena was born not too long after. As first born she inherited the magical blood of her family tree as would Mark when he was born.His mortal father has mostly been irrelevant providing a connection to the mundane world. He was a good and simple man, but did at least made sure Mark realized that humanity was still a worthy part of the world. A tether to his own humanity.

Every saturday night since he was five Markiel would spend time with his grandfather being trained in magics. He learned the simplest charms first as modern warlocks rarely needed to use the darker arts as well as the risks that came with using such powers in this modern world. Around the age of thirteen his grandfather began teaching Markiel the family manuscripts on divining and sensory enhancement. Markiel studied these spells intensely some of the spells dating back to before the creation of english.

At eighteen he headed off to college pursuing a degree in archaeology hoping to use this as a means to fund searches for more magic in his homeland of Poland. While at a dig site of a supposed religious structure Markiel discovered a magically preserved manuscript on cryomancy. As well he was able to deduce the site was an ancient summoning circle and has kept many notes on it curious if he will ever need them again possibly for his own use.

Upon returning home he was told that his grandfather had passed from a brain aneurysm. When Mark left Gravin was in near perfect health. He was very healthy for being late ninties. Mark felt something was wrong. He knew something was wrong. He went to his grandfather’s house. He lived alone now his grandmother having passed some time ago sad, but she was simply old. Mark used his family’s magic to inspect the entire house and discovered this was not just an aneurysm it was a murder, an execution. Someone had carefully unlocked the front door and gotten inside way nary a trace mark’s enhanced senses let him find a trail of footsteps that were too large for his grandfathers and were too shallow for the MTs who came after he was found dead. this man was clearly sneaking around. In his grandfather’s bedroom he sensed a strong magical aura, but he knew that his grandfather kept all of his magic to his workshop as he was an enchanter in his youth. This magic was too strong for a cantrip. Clearly someone with a knowledge of magic was there the night mark’s grandfather died.

Mark explained all of this to his mother who hadn’t even thought to look into the matter as she was too overcome with grief. She reminded him of a phone number he was only to use in the most dire of emergencies, magical emergencies. He made the call, and soon two men of arrived. They began their own investigation of the crime, and mentioned a couple of leads. One that seemed very likely to them was a witch hunter with some sort of magic device or even an advanced piece of technology. Mark did his best to provide information disgusted to see that someone had killed his grandfather a good man simply because he was different. Before they left sadly unable to find enough to pursue anything Mark insisted they explain why his family knew about this group. As it turned out his grandfather’s enchanting was typically of devices for PHI. It was how he was able to come over to America in the first place. Mark had one question left at that point. Where could he sign up?

Mark needed answers, but also this organization had gotten his grandfather out of Poland right before the biggest war in human history likely saving his life. Even if his grandfather had paid off his work Mark felt it was time for him to put his skills to a better use. Do something to honor his grandfather’s memory.

[Ace of Hearts]

What an oddly small world.

Hello, Naril. It's nice seeing you again.

[Naril]

*arches an eyebrow* Well well! Nice to see you too. :3

[Ace of Hearts]

I'll keep an eye (or three, given the nature of the game) on this. I might be a little reluctant, seeing the similarities between this and a writing setting of my own, but I digress. It looks good, regardless! :3

[Naril]

@jasonwolf - My comments got sort of extensive, so to avoid cluttering up the OOC, I've sent you a PM. :3

@Ace of Hearts - Whether you join or not, I'm glad you like the setting. :3

[bluejay_gl]

Sorry @Naril, I should have a character sheet for you some time this weekend. I'm a little obsessed and I just want to make sure it's perfect. (:

[lady horatio]

@NarilHere we go! I was originally going to make a character that was very practical and efficient, but after taking a look at the other characters we already had, I tried to create someone who would fill a different niche. I may tweak her a bit, but I wanted to at least get the CS posted tonight, as promised!

Amanda

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 DNA, 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.

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.

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. 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 and grew up with the chance to make friends that were at least a little like her, but she never felt truly rooted. So, when she’d done her time trying to make the college thing work and graduated without any better idea of what she wanted to do with her life, 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...

[lorelei]

If there's still room, I can try to have a character sheet completed by tomorrow morning/early afternoon. Depends on when I crash for the night, honestly.

My character will be a bit of a deviation from the typical "grizzled cop" archetype, so I hope you'll like her.

[Naril]

Mmm. Forgive me, everyone. I seem to have quite a few VMs and PMs to get to. I'll do that soon, but at the moment I'm curled up on my couch, feeling extraordinarily ill. I'm sure you'll hear from me after I have a nap and stop trying to just "grr" my way through this.

[lady horatio]

Oh, no! Feel better, @Naril! Naps do seem to have extraordinary restorative powers.

[Ace of Hearts]

So, what's maybe the tech level of this setting? I'd love to see if some light science fiction could fit here.

[Naril]

Mm. Well, I'm awake, and I feel...well, I think I feel a little better. My kitten slept next to my head for most of the time, and that's always a good way to spend an afternoon. :3

@lady horatio - I am deeply, deeply charmed by this character! And not just because I...um, well I have a lot of cats. *grins* I'd like to see some more in the History section, though - maybe some diversions as to how her life has been affected being half-Fae. Has she ever met another faery creature? Is she really "tuned in" to the supernatural, or has she let that aspect of herself be more by the wayside, and focused on "being more human?" What did she go to college for? Just some more in there, so I can get to know her a little bit more.

Also, I know she's not supposed to be imposing or anything, and that's actually fine with this character - but just so you know, she'll need to have a "base" sort of rough-and-tumble, since she's working at PHI. She doesn't need to know how to Aikido a 400-pound creature down, but the organization's going to expect her to have some way of defending herself (Firearm, sword, whatever), and to know how to use it. :3 I'm seriously not saying "make her tougher," just letting you know that there are some things I'm going to expect her to know how to do. I hope that makes sense!

@lorelei - There is still room! I'm happy to read anything that comes along. :3

@Ace of Hearts - This world is basically our world, but "with bells on," as it were. There's certainly artefacts, and even active "mad science" projects in the world that might look like "superscience," (If you want an idea, there's probably at least one working example of something like the portal-to-the-Ogrdru-Jahad device from the opening of Hellboy hanging around) though they are very likely rare and the ones that actually work are also unlikely to be entirely secret. I am always happy to hear ideas, so if you've got something you'd like to talk about, do send me a PM!

[vietmyke]

Hmm... I'm probably gonna think about changing the name of Jacob's daughter then. Lol, since @lady horatio's character is also names Amanda.

[lady horatio]

@NarilYes, that does make sense, thank you! I really appreciated your comments. :3 I'll work on fitting them into my CS, but for the moment here are the answers to some of your questions/concerns:

• Meeting other faeries - I should have made this clearer; that is totally my bad! The "oddball orphanage" was full of half-bloods and mixed-breeds. I'm a bit torn on this backstory; I considered going with a slightly rougher one that put her on the street for at least a little while, which would both support the feeling of loneliness that makes her so happy to work at PHI and give her more opportunity to have learned to defend herself. Brainstorming on this now.
• Self-defense - Because she can partially transform, Mandy always has at least a set of claws at her disposal--they may not do killer damage, but they will definitely convince most people to put her down. She's not aggressive, but like any cat that's backed into a corner, she'll bite now and feel bad about it later. She has probably taken at least one self-defense class in her college career, and she's particularly good at moving fast and making her opponent do all of the work (though admittedly, she specializes in doing just enough to get away).
• College - I have a feeling Mandy spent a good deal of time registered as "undecided" before finally graduating with some kind of liberal arts degree. I'll think on this, too. xD

Unrelated, but high-five! I, too, am a parent to multiple cats. :P

EDIT: @vietmyke Oh, God, I'm so sorry! Even though I read his character sheet, I totally missed that. If you want to keep her name, though, I think it's something that could probably be played for laughs in the office. (And if it helps, Mandy's birth name was actually Amandine.)