Dragonydas

Umbra Rose Condos

IC has officially started everyone. Let's do this

Umbra Rose Condos

Morning

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Theris woke to a gentle chorus of hisses, each one a little melody from her eight loyal companions. She blinked, stretching, and looked up at the slithering bundle on her head. “Good morning, everyone,” she murmured, reaching up to give each of them a gentle pat. One of her snakes was looking across the room, her head raised and focused, as if confirming that all was well for Theris to start her day.

Another one darted back and forth, her hisses curious and quick, clearly eager to know what the day would bring. Theris smiled. “Just another normal day, Isela.” she murmured, and Isela flicked her tongue in what Theris took as excited approval. Then, a low, warning hiss sounded near her left ear. Xena, with her piercing yellow eyes, was coiled and ready to give a death stare to anyone who might cross Theris today. “Don’t worry, Xena,” Theris whispered, “The manager is still out, so nothing to worry about. But I appreciate the backup.”

A soft rustling brought her attention to Kaki, who had somehow managed to slip down her shoulder and was eyeing a muffin on her nightstand. Theris sighed, picking up the muffin just before Kaki could snag a bite. “Don’t worry, Kaki. I’ll feed you all soon.” she said with a laugh, gently nudging her back into place.

Then, another snake, the most vibrant of all, slithered forward, lifting her head as she gave Theris’s reflection a long, critical hiss. Theris knew that tone all too well. “Yes, Neiko, I know. Not the blazer.” Neiko gave an approving flick of her tongue, and the other snakes seemed to listen intently, as though fashion advice was a sacred ritual.

“Alright, alright,” Theris chuckled, “the cream dress, then.” She slipped into the dress, smoothing it over and making sure her hair-snakes wouldn’t get tangled in the fabric. Neiko gave a soft, approving hiss, which Theris took as her stylish seal of approval.
A faint, slow hiss sounded near the back of her head as Kisses finally stirred from her sleepy daze, only to rest her head against Theris’s shoulder, half-dozing again. Theris gave her a gentle pat, while Pippin—the affectionate one—wound herself around Kisses, giving soft, comforting hisses as if to say, “Go on, sleep in; I’ll keep you warm.”

Theris approached the fridge where she kept the mice for her snakes. Kaki immediately snagged one and swallowed it whole, making Theris chuckle. She fed all of them one mouse each, having to wake up Kisses so that she would also get her meal. One snake, Sheila, was a bit reluctant to eat a mouse, but Theris’s comforting words, and Kaki’s threat of stealing her meal, made her also swallow the mouse.
With a last look in the mirror, Theris took a deep breath, feeling bolstered by her little crew. She straightened up, her eight companions arranged elegantly and snugly around her head and shoulders.

“Thank you, everyone,” she murmured, smiling at the mirror. She was about to head out of the door when suddenly, Layla gave a warning hiss. “Oh right.” Said Theris, quickly grabbing and putting on the pair of glasses that she kept near the door. “Can’t go to work without this.”
As she headed out the door, ready for whatever the day had in store, she knew she wasn’t alone—her little team of protectors, critics, and sleepyheads would be with her every step of the way. She descended to the ground floor, greeting every resident she met along the way. She made her way back to the first building and into the entrance area. This was where her office was located, right next to the front desk that was usually manned by Max the human.

She looked at the time. It was still a bit early for Max’s shift to begin, so she manned the front desk herself. Layla moved herself to the top of the pile of snakes and kept an eye on the surroundings as well. “Alright ladies. It’s time to work.”

Umbra Rose Condos

Actually, @Dragonydas, I have a question:

Where is the Umbra Rose actually located? Is it in a made up town, or is it located somewhere in a real place?

@Kuro

Ups. sorry. probably missed all the other questions about this. Umbra Rose is located in a made up metropolis called Mantleville. Let's say it's located in Pennsylvania, USA

Umbra Rose Condos

In record time. Here's the first pass. Let me know what you think.

The Eruditionist

Name: Shoggoth (and Khalid Alhazred)
Image/Appearance: The Shoggoth is an gelatinous, fleshy protoplasm with a constantly shifting form. It can construct new organs and limbs as needed in order to accomplish a variety of tasks, mimicking the bodies and structures of other organisms, but it is never anywhere close to a perfect copy. Even when not altering itself, it’s always subtly forming and unforming a variety of features in an unsettling manner. However, it can typically be categorizes as a meaty sludge, alternatively greenish brown or bruise-like blue-black, favoring tentacles, eyestalks, and multiple mouths, typically suckers rather than jaws

Khalid is a young man of African/Saudi Arabian heritage. He is tall at 6’4”, but very thin, with prominent ribs and no muscle mass to speak of. His eyes and hair are body dark, and his eyebrows as prominent as his cheekbones. With a chinstrap beard and mustache, he puts on a dignified face, but his distinctive hairstyle -clean but unique- betrays a sense of aplomb also visible in his garb; he can be trusted to dress sharply, but with an eccentric twist, a flavor only amplified by his frequent use of seals, scrolls, and talismans. An ever-rotating selection of pink bandages can be found all over his body, a small reminder of the consequences of messing with eldritch matters on a daily basis. He can often be found with an umbrella and a satchel, which in addition to papers, folders, and laptop contains a heating device so that the Shoggoth can rest comfortably on the go.

Race: Shoggoth / Human
Racial Traits: The Shoggoth is a formless (but typically horrific) shapeshifter, able to make organs like arms, claws, eyes, mouths, and so forth as many times and wherever needed. It can also expand and contract itself, squeezing into or through small spaces. It cannot assume or be assigned a human form whatsoever and must be physically hidden when it goes out. It smells very foul, enough to drive away and ward off other creatures, natural and supernatural alike, it tends to instill a phobia in those who observe it, much worse than, say, a spider. If it can envelop something, it can generally destroy it. Its talent is building structures. It’s basically invincible and is resistant to most elements, especially cold, but heat will relax it.

Khalid has no inherent supernatural abilities, but his experience with the supernatural and his collection of trinkets give him a few edges over the average human. He always carries bandages and a pocket mirror, for one. The seals he wears afford him a high degree of mental resilience and magic/curse resistance, while his talismans open their eyes and stare at sources of magical/unnatural energy. If the Shoggoth spreads over his umbrella, it functions very well as an all-purpose shield. He’s acclimatized to the smell of the Shoggoth, and they seem to have some sort of partnership where the Shoggoth will heed his words rather than try to eat him. He has various magical materials as well, including chalks, salts, candles, etc, but he’s much better at breaking others’ magic than doing any of his own
Requirements: The Shoggoth eats prodigious quantities of food for its size. It needs to be kept calm in order to not become mindlessly aggressive and destructive, and Khalid is who keeps it calm, so he needs enough electricity for the various devices that keep it warm, and the means to both grow and procure the ingredients necessary for its tranquilizing serum.

Personality: The Shoggoth has neither mind nor personality to speak of. Only hunger, and smoldering, undying, generational resentment. Khalid named it Horace.

Khalid is a little more interesting. He is courteous, thoughtful, and inquisitive, keen to tackle challenges and solve problems, includes those of other people. Even in the face of terrible misfortune, he can stand fast against feelings of anger and sadness. His odd body language, tendency to narrate and mutter to himself, and tendency to be out-of-touch mark him as an uncool eccentric and outcast in the eyes of many, but he doesn’t crave validation or popularity, preferring instead to keep his own company and focus on more important matters. Thus, he has a lot of patience and can put up with a great deal, seldom complaining, always counting his meager blessings. However, he does have a lot of pride in himself, the pride of someone who’s managed to withstand great suffering, and he remembers every slight against him. He loathes whiners, hypocrites, elitists, and those who claim victimhood, especially when they turn around and paint false narratives of their own. He strives to be an unbiased and objective realist, coolly taking in the facts and proving hypotheses, to the point where he has quite the piercing stare–as if he’s always imagining those around him unraveling, their innermost selves laid bare
Background: In the 1930s, Dr. William Dyer of Miskatonic University led a large, well-funded scientific expedition to the Antarctic continent in hopes of discovering minerals, fossils, and other samples from the ancient world. When they arrived, however, they found much more than they could ever have imagined. In the course of the excavation team’s work in the shadows of mountains taller and older than any man had ever seen, they discovered the frozen bodies of bizarre, otherworldly creatures, only to lose contact with the rest of the expedition that next night. When Dyer and Danforth, a student, arrived the next day, they found only the evidence of a mad slaughter, and a trail leading up to the mountains. In following it, they discovered the remains of an antiquarian metropolis, inscribed with sculptures and murals that related the very nature of the world itself. They explained that this ancient civilization had once ruled the world, their massive undersea cities constructed through the use of horrific beasts of burden, and when they delved deeper, they found exactly what it was that brought that civilization to an end. Chased by a nightmarish, shambling mass, both men managed to escape, but as they left that antediluvian world far behind, Danforth unwittingly brought something with them. Since then, the Shoggoth -or fragment of a Shoggoth- has been cared for various secret societies, watched over and kept docile through meticulous means both arcane and mundane. Well-versed in Dyer’s old report, they know all to well the price they’d pay should the Shoggoth rise against them as it once did its former masters.

Khalid’s exact origin is clouded in mystery. Wherever he’s from -Egypt, Sinai, Saudi Arabia, or somewhere else entirely- it’s clear that he belongs to an ancient family, claiming to descend from Abdul Alhazred himself, the mad author of the infamous Necronomicon. And since ancient times, his family has stood on the brink of two worlds, the ordinary world inhabited by everyone else, and the hidden realm of magic and monsters. Like many other disparate, disunited organizations and clans across history, they sought to keep those worlds separate, and the bridges spanning them closed, for the safety of mankind first and foremost. In the centuries since those ancient times, the balance of power shifted considerable, forcing the creatures of the night into hiding. And yet, knowing that a cornered beast is the most dangerous, the family persevered, through all the peaks and valleys.

Lately, though, the Alhazred lot has been mostly valleys. Khalid’s grandfather, fearful that his lineage had grown weak and complacent over time in the face of increasingly harmless-seeming monsters, strove to push harder than ever before. In so doing, though, he earned the fury of a monstrosity not seen (and in fact, never seen) since the horrific and public demise of Abdul Alhazred himself: a Star Vampire, invisible but for the blood of its victims splashed across fanged teeth and sinuous coils. In the wake of that event, the Alhazred family was shattered. At a very young age, Khalid traveled abroad with his father, seeking new opportunities and new beginnings, only to find that the human world could be as cruel as the monsters’. He found no sense of community or opportunity, only distrust, exclusion, and prejudice. As he grew, gradually growing distant from his father, he remained an outcast, living in poor conditions and obliged to work hard jobs for little pay, when he could find work at all. Only by retreating into his studies and stories, and believing that he was destined to delve into a fantastic, dangerous world beyond the cruel mundane, did Khalid persevere.

Fortune would favor Khalid once more, however, after he began attending university. Unable to hold down a regular job while at school, he settled into dreary and unprofitable magazine work writing short stories using his knowledge of monsters to lend his works of ‘fiction’ a fascinating depth of detail. Not long after settling in a cheap boarding establishment, he happened to meet an eccentric chemist, the sickly Dr. Muñoz whose frigid apartment always reeked of ammonia. Khalid got to know him better, and eventually discovered the doctor’s secret: that Muñoz had died eighteen years ago, and was sustaining himself as a zombie through the use of chemicals and cold. Suddenly, the door to that unknown world had been thrust open again, and Khalid plunged inside. Through Muñoz he came into a couple important contacts, and soon launched into a new field of study: monsters themselves. Eventually his meticulous and trustworthy nature through dire and unpredictable circumstances earned him enough respect from the right people that he was given the chance to enter into a partnership with the long-hidden Shoggoth, which became the basis for a new, tricky, and potentially perilous venture. Through a combination of guile and mysticism, Khalid and the Shoggoth managed to insert themselves into a hidden stronghold of monstrous activity, where began his most daunting task yet: cohabitation.

Building, Floor, and room: Building 3, Floor 1, Room 112
Room Description: The room was designed with a Shoggoth in mind, so in its original state, it was dark and bare, nothing but flat concrete, a heating system, and standard power outlets, and no other features that a mindless, gelatinous menace could take advantage of or destroy. It did offer a number of sturdy building blocks of different shapes and sizes that could be assembled into various structures.

However, at great personal expense, the Shoggoth and Khalid have worked together to almost completely renovate the room. It’s now filled with furniture, albeit relatively cheap given their low budget and disposable given the Shoggoth’s tendencies. There are desks, often covered with research materials, rickety bookshelves full of tomes new and old in a variety of languages (including several translation guides) on lore, biological data, formulas, and works of outright fiction. There are cabinets of clothes and mystical equipment, several tables beneath overhead UV lights where various plants are grown, including garlic, wolfsbane, verbena, henbane, mugwort, wormwood, and so forth. The Shoggoth even has a special ‘playpen’ with extra heatlamps and food enrichment items. Khalid himself sleeps on the old couch next to a dehumidifier. The whole room is humid, very warm, odorous, and generally repellent to anyone and everyone who isn’t the Shoggoth or Khalid.

@Lugubrious

Accepted. Love the backstory.

Umbra Rose Condos

Shoot though, does Max get like... special glasses to see ghosts? Or are there just multiple residents HE CANNOT SEE!? XD

@LupusIntus

As an employee... and front desk clerk... you can assume that you have access to particular items that allow you to better serve the residents.

Umbra Rose Condos

Alright. Barrier's function of protection has been removed. Also added a little extra so that Velvet and other vampires can get a sunscreen just in case they need it.

Umbra Rose Condos

@BunniesOfDoom@Lemons I'll ask for your view on this more clearly as we are well in time to change it if necessary. Since your characters I believe are the only ones currently with "time-based restrictions", do you feel like I should change the barrier's capabilities to not protect against those elements?

Umbra Rose Condos

Here to complete the trifecta of werewolf, vampire and ghost.

SUZY Q

S U Z Y K R A U S E
S U Z Y K R A U S E

_{[ ❇ ] R A C E}

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Ghost

_{[ ❇ ] R A C I A L T R A I T S}

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Suzy is your bog-standard ghost girl.

The general populace can't actually see Suzy, and most attempts to photograph her she appears as a small speck of light, almost like a dust bunny. Those who are able to see Suzy, which tends to be the youth or the neighbor's dog due to their strong spiritual connections, will see a incorporeal teenaged kid, pale and almost sickly-looking at times.

Since most people are unable to see Suzy, she often results to screwing with people or things. If your electronics are going haywire, the temperature drops or things are being thrown about, then Suzy is likely in the room with you. The thought of possessing someone has crossed her mind, but Suzy is (unironically) deathly afraid to try it.

_{[ ❇ ] R E Q U I R E M E N T S}

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Suzy needs a place devoid of salt and iron. She has already experienced great anguish once before (duh, she was murdered), and would not like to experience it again.

Ghost hunting tools, such as an EVP recorder, are also helpful despite her dislike for such tools. They help her communicate to those who she isn't able to reach out to. A double-edged sword, in other words (one hopefully not made of iron!).

_{[ ❇ ] P E R S O N A L I T Y}

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Suzy tends to be a sarcastic individual.

When she was alive, Suzy had been your stereotypical "good kid", bright-eyed and cheerful. She'd help out anyone with homework and was on every teacher's good side. But when you're the victim of a serial killer, you tend to see the world more like those outcasts who hated the "goodie two-shoes" you once were. Nowadays, Suzy is much more bleak, and tends to be annoyed at most things or people that she happens to find too stupid or useless.

If only you could see her and her permanent scowling face. If only.

_{[ ❇ ] B A C K G R O U N D}

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Suzy had been just an average, normal kid from London, England. Decent grades, had a couple friends, participated in extracurriculars at school—in essence, your typical Disney Channel background character in a slice of life high school show. But then she unluckily found herself the next victim of a sick creep, her lungs filled with nasty water from the Thames as she drowned, putting a permanent end to her enjoyment of the "thing" called life.

Or so she thought.

Coming back to her senses, Suzy found herself face-to-face with her dead body in the coroner's office. She attempted to communicate with the coroner, only to accidentally scare him shitless as the lights rapidly flickered and objects floated in the air. Unfortunately for Suzy, the corner had gossipy tongue, and news of this "paranormal" activity spread like wildfire. Soon enough, she found herself twisted into an urban legend: the murdered teenager who came back from the grave, haunting poor souls in anguish of her violent death.

In truth, Suzy just wants to be left alone. Yeah, she's dead. Yeah, she's a ghost. So what? She's already been through enough. If only the people on r/Paranormal would get the message.

_{[ ❇ ] R O O M N U M B E R}

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1-2-2, with an extra two 2s scrawled onto the sign. Suzy thought it was funny to reference the 20 20 20 20 ghost number, given the circumstances of her untimely death.

_{[ ❇ ] R O O M D E S C R I P T I O N}

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Suzy has a stereotypical room reminiscent of a cramped UK townhouse. The atmosphere is always cold, given that a ghost resides there. Although Suzy can't eat or drink, she likes to have a plate of biscuits (BISCUITS, not cookies or crackers, you cretin!) and a tea kettle nearby—perhaps a side-effect of feeling home-sick. Or, well, living-sick.

@Kuro

Love it. Consider yourself accepted. You may plop it in the character list

Umbra Rose Condos

Hey there. I've been thinking about trying out another, relatively easygoing RP. I have an idea circulating about a character staying in the apartment under the pretense that he's secretly some sort of monster, but he's really a human with occult ties who's essentially studying monsters, though he does have an eldritch pet. He might conduct interviews, collect samples, and so forth. Kind of styled after one of those classic Lovecraft Miskatonic professors who get involved with unknowable horrors. Might that be an interesting/acceptable character idea?

@Lugubrious

This is an interesting idea. I don't think that another human would be allowed at the condo, but this could be portrayed that the resident is an eldritch monster with its human pet. I'm also a fan of character growth and I see potentials. Go for it.

Umbra Rose Condos

@Red Wizard You're accepted. Feel free to plop it in the characters page