LorelleQuips

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

Careful. Cool to the touch. If she meant them immediate harm, she was hiding it well. But then why was she here? Because if she was a spy of some kind, she was perhaps the worst one he had ever met. He gathered from the runes' comments that she had entered through the window. What kind of spy would choose such a flimsy and easily disproven cover as 'I'm a rune'?

"How rude of me. Clifton is the name."

He made no visual response to the voice in his ear, as though he didn't hear it at all, but his actions proved he read Mitch loud and clear. He had been here long enough to know that when Mitch made a suggestion, you wanted to follow that advice.

Clifton feigned relief at Kana's explanation, which he wouldn't have bought even without the bluetooth in his ear. He was no entry-level flunky. He knew who his superiors were.
"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Kana. My apologies. I wasn't made aware of such an exercise."

He could see what Silvarae was doing as she positioned herself. He made eye contact with her and turned his head ever so slightly. No, implied the subtle, momentary narrowing twitch of his eyes. Don't engage. He had a similar subtle look for Oren, whose hostile interrogation, though not at all off-point, was lowering the temperature of the room to uncomfortable degrees, and he needed this Kana Cerulean comfortable.

Snakes, suggested Volkir. Perhaps he was onto something, there, if in no other way than in the metaphor of the snake in the grass.

Clifton addressed the room at large. "Oh, I'm sorry, would you all enjoy the refreshments and each other's company a moment longer?" he asked. "Cut Mr. Moons some slack, Miss Oren. Not all of us have your impressive dedication on the subject! You are correct, of course. Perhaps you can give the others the, ah, spark notes crash course on basic runes. While you're here, Miss Kana, I believe Mr. Jamesons had some documents about the Jotuns near base 5 that he wanted to pass up the chain of command in person. His break begins in a moment, so would you mind taking a detour to his office before we begin here?" He placed a friendly, light hand on Kana's elbow and gestured toward the gaping doorway, taking a step as though to guide her into the hallway. "Mr. Jamesons and his classified information. One can hardly blame him after what happened in Chicago, though, can they?" He laughed, the picture of ease.

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

Toby

Name:
Toby Schippers. He still had a college student ID in his pocket.

Age: Looks like he was somewhere in his late teens or early twenties when he died. A bit difficult to say with the subsequent decay.

Gender: Male

Race: Draugr

Appearance:
Mousy brown hair.
Eyes that were probably hazel but now just look kind of cloudy and bloodshot and terrifying.
His natural features gave him a look of perpetual concern, and now the corner of his mouth is torn badly, adding to it the look of a perpetual lopsided smile.
Head lists to one side due to some severed tendons.
Shoulder stuck in a half-shrug due to the angle of some smashed bones.
Wearing an argyle sweatervest.
Splattered with old blood.

Personality and Explanation Thereof:
Weirdly docile for a draugr. He can't speak, but he can make various noises to express emotion.
In life, Toby had something wrong with his amygdala. He didn't really experience fear, and he never displayed aggression. He died after the deterioration began to spread rapidly through his brain, putting him in an increasingly disoriented state. With no fear response, in a confused daze, Toby Schippers passed away in a tragic accident involving a garage door, a silver hubcap, and a sealed package of sidewalk chalk.
When Hel, Queen of the Dead, raised her undead army to kickstart the apocalypse, Toby returned to the world as a draugr. But his amygdala was still broken. And so was most of the rest of his brain. Though he still had the vague desire to eat human flesh, he didn't have the frenzied aggression of most draugrs to back it up, and though he knew he was supposed to follow Hel's orders, he didn't have the cognitive power to really remember what the orders were, making him possibly the most useless draugr in history.

Skills:
Biting things.
Like all draugr, he cannot be killed by most injuries. Not even a zombie-style headshot, though damaging his brain any more would probably make him even more useless.
Each draugr possesses some kind of magical ability, and Toby's is to pass through solid objects, though he frequently forgets how to do this.
Inhuman strength.

Weaknesses:
Toby is absolutely useless in terms of intelligence and strategy and combat.
Effectively he's just absolutely useless.
Chopping off his head and burning him will do the trick.
Being a dead thing, he also smells like a dead thing.

History:
Toby was part of the big army and Hel told him what to do. He liked Hel. She was pretty. Mostly. 50%.
They were supposed to eat and smash some things, he supposed.
Everyone moved faster than him though. Made it hard to eat anybody.
Toby followed his friends who never actually talked to him into the big building but he accidentally turned on his power and fell into the floor and he hated when that happened.
He forgot what he was supposed to be doing but he heard a sound.
It sounded like a growly thing.
Maybe the growly thing was a dog. He liked dogs.
He went through another wall.
It was a dog. A really big one. It had a big ribbon all tangled around it. There was a circle on the floor.
The circle was made of things that were maybe letters but maybe not because Toby didn't remember if he could read.
Toby went inside the circle.
But Toby remembered he wasn't supposed to be playing with a dog. He was supposed to be doing the smash-roar-kill thing.
He seemed to have forgotten to bring any sharp things.
The dog had a sharp thing in its mouth though. And it had its head down like it wanted him to take it.
It was very growly now but its tail was wagging like it was happy so it was probably friendly.
So Toby took the sharp thing out of its mouth.

Meanwhile upstairs, the Blessed sealed Hel, defeating the Queen of the Dead and her draugr army with her...all except the lost one who happened to be standing inside a ring of runic inscriptions that sealed Fenrir's holding place from outside magical influence.

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

Yeah, ugh, I think I lost the majority of what I actually wrote there.
Everything is the worst. D:

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

Crap. Please hold for character, my stupid internet gave out on me while I was posting and it kicked me back a draft. Let me rewrite.

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

The next arrival breezed into the room wearing a slim fitting Italian suit and a smile like the sun, in that it was bright and that if one looked straight at it for too long, one might get a bit uncomfortable. He carried with him a rather sharp but not unpleasant scent, like he had perhaps just peeled a tangerine, after taking a bath in rubbing alcohol.

"Miss Helena, I suspect that the Uruz rune had something to do with it," said Clifton, deftly relieving her of the topmost precarious object and setting it on the table next to the muffins by way of example (since she looked a bit lost), and so that nobody would have to clean coffee and donuts off the floors. "Don't worry, Miss Amity. Such mishaps are only to be expected at this juncture. A technician will take care of that."

He dusted off his hands to make sure no stray bits of donut powder had found their way onto them. None had. But he dusted just in case.

"Hello, my friends. Good to see you up and about, Mr. Sydnous," he added specifically, feeling a mild sense of obligation to make sure the lad felt welcome...seeing as their other meeting had ended less than cordially. "I hope you're getting settled and aquain--"

He paused abruptly upon spotting the unfamiliar girl.
Clifton's smile remained perfectly cheerful, and to any outside watcher his posture seemed perfectly at ease.

"I don't believe we've met. Care to introduce yourself?"

He took an unthreatening step toward her, one hand in his suitcoat pocket, the other extended for a handshake, ready to learn something about the stranger. One could learn a lot about a person from a handshake. Of course, if Kana took his hand, she'd learn something about Clifton too: He had a perfect handshake. Just the right amount of strength in the clasp to be bracing but not uncomfortable, just the right amount of time held to be personal but not awkwardly intimate, just the right intensity of eye contact to be engaged but not creepy. It was a perfect damn handshake.

...Whatever that said about him.

Clifton's other hand, the hand in the pocket, lay on a concealed pistol.

...Whatever else that said about him.

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

My Blessed up for review.

Clifton

Name:
Clifton (Is it his first name? His last name? Nobody seems to have any clue.)

Age: 28

Gender: Male

Appearance:
5’11”, neat white-blonde hair, bright aquamarine eyes. Smiles a lot, with a kind of customer-service smile that might make you wonder if he’s going to try to upsell you on something. Unfailingly dressed in a pristinely pressed white shirt and a well-tailored black suit.

Personality:
Businesslike, polite, and quick to shake your hand with a smile so friendly and a grip so firm and honest that it seems suspicious, because surely nobody is that nice.

But Clifton really is that nice. An honest-to-Odin good Samaritan.

He just also happens to be capable of murdering you with a homemade garrotte without losing a wink of sleep if that’s what work requires. These contradictory sides of his personality are managed by an excessively active sense of compartmentalization, and the fact that he strictly follows his own professional code of ethics, even if it's...unconventional.

Skills: Clifton is skilled in most standard forms of physical combat, but his real proficiency lies in stealth and dexterity, not brute strength.
Resourceful and clever, he has a knack for turning miscellaneous objects into weapons and household chemicals into poisons, sedatives, etc.
He consistently delivers quick, clean kills, with no collateral damage.
Adequate knowledge of runes and lore.

Weaknesses:
For all his capabilities, he’s still human and can therefore be shot, stabbed, and strangled just like anybody else.
A pathological perfectionist and germaphobe, Clifton cannot stand to be disorganized or dirty, and he does not do well with any bodily fluid (with the exception of blood, which is something a guy sorta gets used to as a skilled assassin), so spitting on him is nearly as likely to incapacitate him as shooting him in the kneecap. This obsessive corner of his personality is not immediately apparent to most people, the only hint of it being that he always smells like citrus hand sanitizer.
His good-naturedness is exploitable.

Brief History:
He's been one of the Blessed for about seven years. Though only 21 years old on arrival, he came already armed with an impressive and...well...specific set of skills. He doesn't do much by way of talking about where he got them or where he came from. But his background check would be just like the way he keeps his desk: squeaky clean.

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

Spire

Full name: Fenrisúlfr, Hróðvitnir, Vánagandr, or, most commonly, Fenrir

Nicknames/Aliases: Spire

Age: ...Really, really, really freakin’ old.

Gender: Male

Abilities: Fenrir can shapeshift into a massive wolf...or maybe he’s a wolf who can shapeshift into a human. In any case, in his wolf form, he’s enormously strong, and huge. We’re talking bigger than a car. Big enough to bite a human being in half with one easy snap.

Description:
- Human form: Spire appears to be a lean, tall, good-looking man in his mid to late 20’s, with dark hair, pale gray eyes, a charming (if rather cold) smile, and short-trimmed facial hair.



- Wolf form: Black, shaggy, corded with muscle, and generally mean looking. As previously mentioned, the most striking aspect of Fenrir’s lupine side is his staggering size. Picture canines the size of cats. (Not cats’ canines. The approximate volume of actual whole cats.) His eyes catch the light in shades of gray, but they're known to take on a demoniac glow at times.



Personality: Clever and silver-tongued, with a backhanded sense of humor. He is also manipulative, sadistic, vengeful, and generally psychopathic.

Skills:
-Considerable brute strength, even in human form
-Considerable natural agility, even in wolf form
-Enhanced senses, especially aural and olfactory
-Has become pretty handy with a knife
-Made of tougher stuff than most. Literally. The dude is half immortal god, after all. While not entirely immune to damage from ordinary weapons, it would take a LOT to hurt him enough to hinder him
-Knows exactly how and by whom he is supposed to die, so doesn't have much to fear

Weaknesses:
-Stealth and finding cover in combat when he’s in wolf form, because where are you going to hide a wolf the size of a school bus? Spire is sometimes reluctant to transform for this reason, and therefore doesn’t always utilize his full capability in a fight.
-Lack of restraint, because although he can be calculating and patient, once Fenrir lets loose and goes full on bloodthirsty rip n’ slash, he won’t have the good sense to back down even if his life depends on it.
-Dreads the idea of recapture.

Brief History:



Fenrir’s earliest memories consist of living among the Jotun with his mother, Angrboða, and his two siblings, the half-dead girl Hel and the serpent Jormungandr. On a few sparse occasions, he recalls meeting his father, Loki the trickster god.

Weird family, but things seemed pretty okay until the Aesir decided to hunt down the children of Loki. Big prophecies, coming apocalypse. Etc. Etc. Hel and Jormungandr struggled against their kidnappers. Even at his young age, Fenrir’s natural impulse was to attack, but he had enough guile to try a different tactic.

Be adorable.



Hel was kicked to Nifflheim, and Jormy got banished to the ocean, but the Aesir just had to keep the puppy. They soon learned, of course, that the puppy could turn into a kid... a bit of a smartass kid… but he didn’t make much trouble at first.

But then the puppy started to get bigger. Drastically bigger. By the time his human form looked like a teenager, his wolf form was bigger than a horse. And, more and more often, he showed aggressive tendencies. And behavioral therapy wasn't a thing yet, so...



"Hey, go wolfy and see if you can break these chains. (: It’ll be a test of strength."

Three different kinds of fetters later, one dude lost a hand and Fenrir was bound. Furthermore, a sword stuck vertically in his mouth kept him not only from biting, but from turning to his smaller human form, unless he wanted a blade through the roof of his mouth and out the top of his head. They packed him into a crate and moved him a few times to various secure compounds, but they never loosened his bands, rarely spoke to him, and everyone totally neglected to pet him behind the ears.

A dozen or more centuries of that tends to mess a guy up a little.

Five years prior to the present, the Queen of the Dead's army caused some trouble which allowed Fenrir to escape. But he hasn't managed to find Hel herself, nor has he done more than catch whiff of a familiar of Jormungandr. He has, however, caught up on a passable number of pop culture references, learned how to cheat at cards, and become quite an adept killer.

Fenrir--now going by Spire--has a goal more than a thousand years in the making: Find his sisters and kick off the bloodbath that is Ragnarok.

.

.

.

.

Bonus Spire in real life.

Clifton

Name:
Clifton (Is it his first name? His last name? Nobody seems to have any clue.)

Age: 28

Gender: Male

Appearance:
5’11”, neat white-blonde hair, bright aquamarine eyes. Smiles a lot, with a kind of customer-service smile that might make you wonder if he’s going to try to upsell you on something. Unfailingly dressed in a pristinely pressed white shirt and a well-tailored black suit.

Personality:
Businesslike, polite, and quick to shake your hand with a smile so friendly and a grip so firm and honest that it seems suspicious, because surely nobody is that nice.

But Clifton really is that nice. An honest-to-Odin good Samaritan.

He just also happens to be capable of murdering you with a homemade garrotte without losing a wink of sleep if that’s what work requires. These contradictory sides of his personality are managed by an excessively active sense of compartmentalization, and the fact that he strictly follows his own professional code of ethics, even if it's...unconventional.

Skills: Clifton is skilled in most standard forms of physical combat, but his real proficiency lies in stealth and dexterity, not brute strength.
Resourceful and clever, he has a knack for turning miscellaneous objects into weapons and household chemicals into poisons, sedatives, etc.
He consistently delivers quick, clean kills, with no collateral damage.
Adequate knowledge of runes and lore.

Weaknesses:
For all his capabilities, he’s still human and can therefore be shot, stabbed, and strangled just like anybody else.
A pathological perfectionist and germaphobe, Clifton cannot stand to be disorganized or dirty, and he does not do well with any bodily fluid (with the exception of blood, which is something a guy sorta gets used to as a skilled assassin), so spitting on him is nearly as likely to incapacitate him as shooting him in the kneecap. This obsessive corner of his personality is not immediately apparent to most people, the only hint of it being that he always smells like citrus hand sanitizer.
His good-naturedness is exploitable.

Brief History:
He's been one of the Blessed for about seven years. Though only 21 years old on arrival, he came already armed with an impressive and...well...specific set of skills. He doesn't do much by way of talking about where he got them or where he came from. But his background check would be just like the way he keeps his desk: squeaky clean.

Toby

Name:
Toby Schippers. He still had a college student ID in his pocket.

Age: Looks like he was somewhere in his late teens or early twenties when he died. A bit difficult to say with the subsequent decay.

Gender: Male

Race: Draugr

Appearance:
Mousy brown hair.
Eyes that were probably hazel but now just look kind of cloudy and bloodshot and terrifying.
His natural features gave him a look of perpetual concern, and now the corner of his mouth is torn badly, adding to it the look of a perpetual lopsided smile.
Head lists to one side due to some severed tendons.
Shoulder stuck in a half-shrug due to the angle of some smashed bones.
Wearing an argyle sweatervest.
Splattered with old blood.

Personality and Explanation Thereof:
Weirdly docile for a draugr. He can't speak, but he can make various noises to express emotion.
In life, Toby had something wrong with his amygdala. He didn't really experience fear, and he never displayed aggression. He died after the deterioration began to spread rapidly through his brain, putting him in an increasingly disoriented state. With no fear response, in a confused daze, Toby Schippers passed away in a tragic accident involving a garage door, a silver hubcap, and a sealed package of sidewalk chalk.
When Hel, Queen of the Dead, raised her undead army to kickstart the apocalypse, Toby returned to the world as a draugr. But his amygdala was still broken. And so was most of the rest of his brain. Though he still had the vague desire to eat human flesh, he didn't have the frenzied aggression of most draugrs to back it up, and though he knew he was supposed to follow Hel's orders, he didn't have the cognitive power to really remember what the orders were, making him possibly the most useless draugr in history.

Skills:
Biting things.
Like all draugr, he cannot be killed by most injuries. Not even a zombie-style headshot, though damaging his brain any more would probably make him even more useless.
Each draugr possesses some kind of magical ability, and Toby's is to pass through solid objects, though he frequently forgets how to do this.
Inhuman strength.

Weaknesses:
Toby is absolutely useless in terms of intelligence and strategy and combat.
Effectively he's just absolutely useless.
Chopping off his head and burning him will do the trick.
Being a dead thing, he also smells like a dead thing.

History:
Toby was part of the big army and Hel told him what to do. He liked Hel. She was pretty. Mostly. 50%.
They were supposed to eat and smash some things, he supposed.
Everyone moved faster than him though. Made it hard to eat anybody.
Toby followed his friends who never actually talked to him into the big building but he accidentally turned on his power and fell into the floor and he hated when that happened.
He forgot what he was supposed to be doing but he heard a sound.
It sounded like a growly thing.
Maybe the growly thing was a dog. He liked dogs.
He went through another wall.
It was a dog. A really big one. It had a big ribbon all tangled around it. There was a circle on the floor.
The circle was made of things that were maybe letters but maybe not because Toby didn't remember if he could read.
Toby went inside the circle.
But Toby remembered he wasn't supposed to be playing with a dog. He was supposed to be doing the smash-roar-kill thing.
He seemed to have forgotten to bring any sharp things.
The dog had a sharp thing in its mouth though. And it had its head down like it wanted him to take it.
It was very growly now but its tail was wagging like it was happy so it was probably friendly.
So Toby took the sharp thing out of its mouth.

Meanwhile upstairs, the Blessed sealed Hel, defeating the Queen of the Dead and her draugr army with her...all except the lost one who happened to be standing inside a ring of runic inscriptions that sealed Fenrir's holding place from outside magical influence.

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

Here is Fenrir/Spire. With lots of pictures because why not.

Spire

Full name: Fenrisúlfr, Hróðvitnir, Vánagandr, or, most commonly, Fenrir

Nicknames/Aliases: Spire

Age: ...Really, really, really freakin’ old.

Gender: Male

Abilities: Fenrir can shapeshift into a massive wolf...or maybe he’s a wolf who can shapeshift into a human. In any case, in his wolf form, he’s enormously strong, and huge. We’re talking bigger than a car. Big enough to bite a human being in half with one easy snap.

Description:
- Human form: Spire appears to be a lean, tall, good-looking man in his mid to late 20’s, with dark hair, pale gray eyes, a charming (if rather cold) smile, and short-trimmed facial hair.



- Wolf form: Black, shaggy, corded with muscle, and generally mean looking. As previously mentioned, the most striking aspect of Fenrir’s lupine side is his staggering size. Picture canines the size of cats. (Not cats’ canines. The approximate volume of actual whole cats.) His eyes catch the light in shades of gray, but they're known to take on a demoniac glow at times.



Personality: Clever and silver-tongued, with a backhanded sense of humor. He is also manipulative, sadistic, vengeful, and generally psychopathic.

Skills:
-Considerable brute strength, even in human form
-Considerable natural agility, even in wolf form
-Enhanced senses, especially aural and olfactory
-Has become pretty handy with a knife

Weaknesses:
-Stealth and finding cover in combat when he’s in wolf form, because where are you going to hide a wolf the size of a school bus? Spire is sometimes reluctant to transform for this reason, and therefore doesn’t always utilize his full capability in a fight.
-Lack of restraint, because although he can be calculating and patient, once Fenrir lets loose and goes full on bloodthirsty rip n’ slash, he won’t have the good sense to back down even if his life depends on it.

Brief History:



Fenrir’s earliest memories consist of living among the Jotun with his mother, Angrboða, and his two siblings, the half-dead girl Hel and the serpent Jormungandr. On a few sparse occasions, he recalls meeting his father, Loki the trickster god.

Weird family, but things seemed pretty okay until the Aesir decided to hunt down the children of Loki. Big prophecies, coming apocalypse. Etc. Etc. Hel and Jormungandr struggled against their kidnappers. Even at his young age, Fenrir’s natural impulse was to attack, but he had enough guile to try a different tactic.

Be adorable.



Hel was kicked to Nifflheim, and Jormy got banished to the ocean, but the Aesir just had to keep the puppy. They soon learned, of course, that the puppy could turn into a kid... a bit of a smartass kid… but he didn’t make much trouble at first.

But then the puppy started to get bigger. Drastically bigger. By the time his human form looked like a teenager, his wolf form was bigger than a horse. And, more and more often, he showed aggressive tendencies. And behavioral therapy wasn't a thing yet, so...



"See if you can break these chains. (: It’ll be a test of strength."

Three different kinds of fetters later, one dude lost a hand and Fenrir was bound. Furthermore, a sword stuck vertically in his mouth kept him not only from biting, but from turning to his smaller human form, unless he wanted a blade through the roof of his mouth and out the top of his head. They packed him into a crate and moved him a few times to various secure compounds, but they never loosened his bands, rarely spoke to him, and everyone totally neglected to pet him behind the ears.

A dozen or more centuries of that tends to mess a guy up a little.

Five years prior to the present, the Queen of the Dead's army caused some trouble which allowed Fenrir to escape. But he hasn't managed to find Hel herself, nor has he done more than catch whiff of a familiar of Jormungandr. He has, however, caught up on a passable number of pop culture references, learned how to cheat at cards, and become quite an adept killer.

Fenrir--now going by Spire--has a goal more than a thousand years in the making: Find his sisters and kick off the bloodbath that is Ragnarok.

.

.

.

.

Bonus Spire in real life.

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

Hello, hello! My name is Lorelle and I will shortly be posting a character application for the figure of Fenrisúlfr. For this canon, a semi-recently escaped Fenrir as a shapeshifter who has taken the name Spire. (:

Just wanted to introduce myself first. Nice to meet you all.

Dead Roleplay, Ignore

Yeah, I was hoping to hash out, like, the backstory and leadership and such but I'll move this talk to discord now that im there.