Peik

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 1 (Completed)

Where does the Bthamz crew go from here?

@Hank

My assumption is 'out'.

Faces in the Moonlight: Trust Games and Shadow Wars, An Occult Action Thriller

Daniel Allen

Name: Daniel ‘Dan’ Allen

Age: 32

Gender: Male

Appearance: Earning himself a ticket to intrigued aside stares with his pale complexion, amber colored eyes and somewhat messy, thick reddish brown hair, but not having the attractiveness to go to the next level with his fairly standard, perhaps even bland looking face, Daniel’s one of those many people stuck between the blurry area between ‘attractive’ and ‘normal’. Standing at around 5’9’’, and weighing 170 pounds, he’s got a fairly regular build, with defined arms and a stiff neck. There are four stitched-up bullet holes around his chest area, with four exit wounds on his back.

His face is square-shaped, with prominent cheekbones that make his cheeks look somewhat sunken. While his nose may have been once straight, leading down to a rounded tip, it now crooks slightly to the right. Eyes are of a hooded shape, with a mole on the lower eyelid of his left eye kind of ruining their symmetry. Daniel has a mouth with thin lips, with a small surgery mark on the left side of his upper lip, thanks to having been born with a harelip.

Agency/Organization: FBI, Special Agent

Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Criminology from Pennsylvania State University, 5 years of experience as Police Officer in Pittsburgh Police Department, 4 years of experience as FBI Special Agent

Background: Dan’s never had much of a background aside from education, admittedly. Born in Pittsburgh to a mother of Irish descent, and a father of English descent, he had somewhat of an introverted childhood – Thanks to the mythology books in his mother’s library, relics from her youth, he mostly spent his time mixing mythologies together and then pouring them onto paper with a ballpoint pen. Despite this childhood hobby taking up a lot of his time, he never really excelled in drawing. His mother, believing her son to be a genius thanks to his interests in reading and writing, tried to emphasize on this during his education and peppered him with material, although this did not amount to much, aside from an interest in detective novels.

The lad opened up a bit more in high school. Having garnered an incredibly dry sense of humor, and a penchant for sarcasm, Daniel managed to learn how to make his presence known with his wit. During his adolescence, in an unexpected moment of clarity and maturity, it occurred to him that he really had no idea what he was doing with life, and what was to come – faced with this teenager existential crisis, Daniel took up sports, running in his spare time. The physical exhaustion somehow brought satisfaction to him. It was also during this time that he made his choice for the future – he would be a detective. Although one could say this choice was made for him years before when he had first met Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Enrolling in Pennsylvania State University in the sophisticated-sounding Department of Sociology and Criminology, Daniel continued his life as usual. Deciding to prepare himself for his bright future as detective, he took up boxing and kickboxing, and became a quite well-trained practitioner of the sports, although he took a break after getting his nose broken in a rather intensive spar. Applying for the force quickly after graduation from the university, Daniel suddenly found himself in the Pittsburgh Police Training Academy, and before he knew it, he had achieved his ‘dream’. He was in for a rough awakening.

Daniel realized that, in retrospect, he never really had any idealism to keep him in the job. In fact, he had nothing to be passionate about. He figured he had simply clung to the idea when young to give himself something to go on with. But it was too late to complain, and plus, nothing fundamental had changed in his life. He figured he could keep on. So far, he had done so, without fault. And so he did, without much difficulty - Pittsburgh wasn’t anywhere like Detroit or Oakland. He saw bad things nonetheless. Sometimes he saw scary things. Daniel felt that he should feel surprised by mankind’s penchant for cruelty and pettiness, but he never was easy to faze.

He got bored, eventually. He had a good track record in the PPD, a college degree, a desire to go further, and there was nothing much that he felt attached to in Pittsburgh, aside from the boilermaker. His father had died in Daniel’s third year of the job. Prostate cancer. His mother had moved in with her sister, so she didn’t exactly need caretaking. He decided to go with it, and applied for the FBI. He didn’t know what to expect – at least that uncertainty brought some tension and elation into his life.

While the job did not end up much different (things only got more tense and longwinded), Daniel’s personal life was somewhat kindled thanks to his partner, Special Agent Julia Tasso. He found out that it was nice to have a friend that you could feel relaxed around, or maybe just that it was nice to have a friend. He had plenty of associates and colleagues in Pittsburgh, but nobody he could exactly call a true companion. Daniel enjoyed the presence of this woman. She was lively, and could cheer up even the ever-somber Pennsylvanian. The dynamic duo, empowered by each other, proved quite effective.

However, things changed while on the tails of a child-trafficking ring in New Hampshire. Caught up in a shootout inside a convenience store (Daniel’s third shootout in his entire life, and the first one he ended up in without any SWAT teams around), Julia got shot. Thanks to her Kevlar vest, the bullet wasn’t even dangerous, let alone fatal, but the sight of his partner choking on the ground kind of sent Daniel over the edge. He chased after the man, into the store basement, where he stumbled upon a grotto converted into a pool, the man having vanished.

Then he got shot. Then he got shot again, and then he got shot two more times. By his adrenaline-fueled estimates, the exit wounds were probably about the size of a toddler’s fist. He tried to choke, but ended up falling into the pool. As he sank, he heard more gunshots, one from the gun that had shot him, and the other sounded like a Glock. It was likely Julia had come down and shot the man down. He couldn’t tell. He was sinking, and there was a ringing in his ears. Not of the gunshot sort - it was more like an instrument. He couldn’t make much sense of it. He still cannot.

Daniel woke up three days later in a hospital. Julia came to visit the day after, heavily shaken up. According to reports, his survival was a miracle – apparently, the perpetrator had used a .30-30. A cartridge used to hunt big game. Of course, his Kevlar had absorbed some of the impact, but not enough. The bullets had gone clean through him, stopping only at his vest’s back plate. His recovery was almost as miraculous as his survival. A week later, he was able to walk without any issues. They told him that the doctors had done a great job.

Nonetheless, Daniel feels a bit different after the whole thing. It’s only normal that a person would feel strange after a two day coma induced by an aggressive kind of lead poisoning, but he feels even duller. Almost as if he’s lost his joy of life. And the wounds still look fresh, as if they were only recently stitched up. He doesn’t know whether he should be concerned or not.

Personality: Daniel’s like an engine – he feels cold and slow at first glance, but shows his spark after a period of warming up and getting to work. Somber, and incredibly hard to faze, rarely has he been seen reacting to something with more than a slight facial movement – while in a constant low mood, it’s practically impossible to take him even below. He is mostly work oriented, and inwardly distrustful of many people he meets, and doesn’t open up easily. While these, aside from his workaholic behavior, aren’t exactly admirable traits (and even being a workaholic is of questionable admiration), they’ve proven themselves useful time and time over in his line of work. While questioning and constantly skeptical, Daniel lives these feelings inwardly, and often does not let his true colors show. For people he’s taken a liking to, though, Daniel’s immensely protective, even though he does not let this show either. Outwardly a stoic, but a romantic at heart, rarely does Daniel live his emotions – and when he does, it’s a rollercoaster without brakes.

Skills:

Gifted(+5): Criminology, Forensics
Adept(+3): Marksmanship (Handguns), Hand-to-Hand, Awareness
Average(+2): Marksmanship (Long guns), Interrogation, Stealth
Novice(+1): Tactical Driving, Anthropology, Psychology, History

Weaknesses:

-Stubborn: Rarely does Dan get picky about something, mostly thanks to his nonchalant personality, but when he does, it’s practically impossible to steer him clear of his course of action. If he’s made his mind up, he can forsake anything for the sake of what he’s chasing. Of course, this has happened once in his life, and it got him killed. But turns out not even death could make him change his ways.

-Misanthrope: While he can be quite enjoyable if you manage to bond with him, Daniel is cold, almost hostile, to people he meets, and has fickle standards. His first impressions are quite hard to erase, and you’re in for a ride if your first impression upon him isn’t a good one. He isn’t above letting misfortunes grow for colleagues he doesn’t like.

-Dead: Dan’s dead, baby. Dan’s dead. While that should make him somewhat harder to keep down, being not living and all, it’s unlikely he’ll be recovering from anything at all if he's wounded.

Off-Duty Clothing/Equipment:

Clothing: Casual clothing with an affinity for Polo shirts, sneakers, jackets, steel-toed boots, cheap suits
Weapons: Glock 21, Taser, Collapsible Baton
Tools/Equipment: Phone, police radio, CSI First Responding Officer Kit, pen, journal, credentials

Operational Clothing/Equipment:

Clothing: Casual clothing with an affinity for polo shirts, steel-toed boots, jackets, gloves
Weapons: Remington 11-87, Glock 21, Glock 30, Taser, Combat Knife
Tools/Equipment: Police radio, Kevlar vest, Helmet, NBC mask, chest carrier

Foreign Language – Spanish, slight French, slight Latin

Clout

-Special Agent Julia Tasso, FBI

Faces in the Moonlight: Trust Games and Shadow Wars, An Occult Action Thriller

@Big Dread, @Peik Do feel free to post your character in the characters tab.

I look forward to how you rise to the challenge of maintaining good relations with everyone if Dan ever gets shot or stabbed.

@Leidenschaft

I'm pretty sure Dan himself would be quite surprised. But I assume the higher-ups of the operation know of his condition, at least. I figured that 'miraculous survival' part as a government cover-up.

Faces in the Moonlight: Trust Games and Shadow Wars, An Occult Action Thriller

Daniel Allen

Name: Daniel ‘Dan’ Allen

Age: 32

Gender: Male

Appearance: Earning himself a ticket to intrigued aside stares with his pale complexion, amber colored eyes and close cut, thick reddish brown hair, but not having the attractiveness to go to the next level with his fairly standard, perhaps even bland looking face, Daniel’s one of those many people stuck between the blurry area between ‘attractive’ and ‘normal’. Standing at around 5’9’’, and weighing 170 pounds, he’s got a fairly regular build, with defined arms and a stiff neck. There are four stitched-up bullet holes around his chest area, with four exit wounds on his back.

His face is square-shaped, with prominent cheekbones that make his cheeks look somewhat sunken. While his nose may have been once straight, leading down to a rounded tip, it now crooks slightly to the right. Eyes are of a hooded shape, with a mole on the lower eyelid of his left eye kind of ruining their symmetry. Daniel has a mouth with thin lips, with a small surgery mark on the left side of his upper lip, thanks to having been born with a harelip, although this is concealed by his mustache.

Agency/Organization: FBI, Special Agent

Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Criminology from Pennsylvania State University, 5 years of experience as Police Officer in Pittsburgh Police Department, 4 years of experience as FBI Special Agent

Background: Dan’s never had much of a background aside from education, admittedly. Born in Pittsburgh to a mother of Irish descent, and a father of English descent, he had somewhat of an introverted childhood – Thanks to the mythology books in his mother’s library, relics from her youth, he mostly spent his time mixing mythologies together and then pouring them onto paper with a ballpoint pen. Despite this childhood hobby taking up a lot of his time, he never really excelled in drawing. His mother, believing her son to be a genius thanks to his interests in reading and writing, tried to emphasize on this during his education and peppered him with material, although this did not amount to much, aside from an interest in detective novels.

The lad opened up a bit more in high school. Having garnered an incredibly dry sense of humor, and a penchant for sarcasm, Daniel managed to learn how to make his presence known with his wit. During his adolescence, in an unexpected moment of clarity and maturity, it occurred to him that he really had no idea what he was doing with life, and what was to come – faced with this teenager existential crisis, Daniel took up sports, running in his spare time. The physical exhaustion somehow brought satisfaction to him. It was also during this time that he made his choice for the future – he would be a detective. Although one could say this choice was made for him years before when he had first met Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Enrolling in Pennsylvania State University in the sophisticated-sounding Department of Sociology and Criminology, Daniel continued his life as usual. Deciding to prepare himself for his bright future as detective, he took up boxing and kickboxing, and became a quite well-trained practitioner of the sports, although he took a break after getting his nose broken in a rather intensive spar. Applying for the force quickly after graduation from the university, Daniel suddenly found himself in the Pittsburgh Police Training Academy, and before he knew it, he had achieved his ‘dream’. He was in for a rough awakening.

Daniel realized that, in retrospect, he never really had any idealism to keep him in the job. In fact, he had nothing to be passionate about. He figured he had simply clung to the idea when young to give himself something to go on with. But it was too late to complain, and plus, nothing fundamental had changed in his life. He figured he could keep on. So far, he had done so, without fault. And so he did, without much difficulty - Pittsburgh wasn’t anywhere like Detroit or Oakland. He saw bad things nonetheless. Sometimes he saw scary things. Daniel felt that he should feel surprised by mankind’s penchant for cruelty and pettiness, but he never was easy to faze.

He got bored, eventually. He had a good track record in the PPD, a college degree, a desire to go further, and there was nothing much that he felt attached to in Pittsburgh, aside from the boilermaker. His father had died in Daniel’s third year of the job. Prostate cancer. His mother had moved in with her sister, so she didn’t exactly need caretaking. He decided to go with it, and applied for the FBI. He didn’t know what to expect – at least that uncertainty brought some tension and elation into his life.

While the job did not end up much different (things only got more tense and longwinded), Daniel’s personal life was somewhat kindled thanks to his partner, Special Agent Julia Tasso. He found out that it was nice to have a friend that you could feel relaxed around, or maybe just that it was nice to have a friend. He had plenty of associates and colleagues in Pittsburgh, but nobody he could exactly call a true companion. Daniel enjoyed the presence of this woman. She was lively, and could cheer up even the ever-somber Pennsylvanian. The dynamic duo, empowered by each other, proved quite effective.

However, things changed while on the tails of a child-trafficking ring in New Hampshire. Caught up in a shootout inside a convenience store (Daniel’s third shootout in his entire life, and the first one he ended up in without any SWAT teams around), Julia got shot. Thanks to her Kevlar vest, the bullet wasn’t even dangerous, let alone fatal, but the sight of his partner choking on the ground kind of sent Daniel over the edge. He chased after the man, into the store basement, where he stumbled upon a grotto converted into a pool, the man having vanished.

Then he got shot. Then he got shot again, and then he got shot two more times. By his adrenaline-fueled estimates, the exit wounds were probably about the size of a toddler’s fist. He tried to choke, but ended up falling into the pool. As he sank, he heard more gunshots, one from the gun that had shot him, and the other sounded like a Glock. It was likely Julia had come down and shot the man down. He couldn’t tell. He was sinking, and there was a ringing in his ears. Not of the gunshot sort - it was more like an instrument. He couldn’t make much sense of it. He still cannot.

Daniel woke up two days later in a hospital. Julia came to visit the day after, heavily shaken up. According to reports, his survival was a miracle – apparently, the perpetrator had used a .30-30. A cartridge used to hunt big game. Of course, his Kevlar had absorbed some of the impact, but not enough. The bullets had gone clean through him, stopping only at his vest’s back plate. His recovery was almost as miraculous as his survival. A week later, he was able to walk without any issues. They told him that the doctors had done a great job.

Nonetheless, Daniel feels a bit different after the whole thing. It’s only normal that a person would feel strange after a two day coma induced by an aggressive kind of lead poisoning, but he feels even duller. Almost as if he’s lost his joy of life. And the wounds still look fresh, as if they were only recently stitched up. He doesn’t know whether he should be concerned or not.

Personality: Daniel’s like an engine – he feels cold and slow at first glance, but shows his spark after a period of warming up and getting to work. Somber, and incredibly hard to faze, rarely has he been seen reacting to something with more than a slight facial movement – while in a constant low mood, it’s practically impossible to take him even below. He is mostly work oriented, and inwardly distrustful of many people he meets, and doesn’t open up easily. While these, aside from his workaholic behavior, aren’t exactly admirable traits (and even being a workaholic is of questionable admiration), they’ve proven themselves useful time and time over in his line of work. While questioning and constantly skeptical, Daniel lives these feelings inwardly, and often does not let his true colors show. For people he’s taken a liking to, though, Daniel’s immensely protective, even though he does not let this show either. Outwardly a stoic, but a romantic at heart, rarely does Daniel live his emotions – and when he does, it’s a rollercoaster without brakes.

Skills:

Gifted(+5): Criminology, Forensics
Adept(+3): Marksmanship (Handguns), Hand-to-Hand, Awareness
Average(+2): Marksmanship (Long guns), Interrogation, Stealth
Novice(+1): Tactical Driving, Anthropology, Psychology, History

Weaknesses:

-Stubborn: Rarely does Dan get picky about something, mostly thanks to his nonchalant personality, but when he does, it’s practically impossible to steer him clear of his course of action. If he’s made his mind up, he can forsake anything for the sake of what he’s chasing. Of course, this has happened once in his life, and it got him killed. But turns out not even death could make him change his ways.

-Misanthrope: While he can be quite enjoyable if you manage to bond with him, Daniel is cold, almost hostile, to people he meets, and has fickle standards. His first impressions are quite hard to erase, and you’re in for a ride if your first impression upon him isn’t a good one. He isn’t above letting misfortunes grow for colleagues he doesn’t like.

-Dead: Dan’s dead, baby. Dan’s dead. While that should make him somewhat harder to keep down, being not living and all, it’s unlikely he’ll be recovering from anything at all. No scar tissue for this fellow.

Off-Duty Clothing/Equipment:

Clothing: Casual clothing with an affinity for Polo shirts, sneakers, jackets, steel-toed boots, cheap suits
Weapons: Glock 21, Taser, Collapsible Baton
Tools/Equipment: Phone, police radio, CSI First Responding Officer Kit, pen, journal, credentials

Operational Clothing/Equipment:

Clothing: Casual clothing with an affinity to polo shirts, steel-toed boots, jackets, gloves
Weapons: Remington 11-87, Glock 21, Glock 30, Taser, Combat Knife
Tools/Equipment: Police radio, Kevlar vest, Helmet, NBC mask, chest carrier

Foreign Language – Spanish, slight French, slight Latin

Clout

-Special Agent Julia Tasso, FBI

Faces in the Moonlight: Eldritch Cults, Brujos, Cartels and the CIA

<Snipped quote by Big Dread>

I'll wait until we've got one more guy roped into this thing before I open up the OOC. You can start throwing together a CS now though.

<Snipped quote by Peik>

Do elaborate. Really, anything is fair game to have witnessed/felt on the stipulation that it wouldn't cause a character to lose all sanity.

@Leidenschaft

I was thinking of playing a man who, unbeknownst to him, was dead for two days (shot or something). Probably played into why he was selected for this sort of thing.

Faces in the Moonlight: Eldritch Cults, Brujos, Cartels and the CIA

<Snipped quote by Peik>

Definitely nothing insanity-inducing on its own. It's really places where the mind could wander but you really don't want it to. Things like your SEAL guy raiding pirates in Southeast Asia (for the CIA, no less) and has to wonder why the CIA spook had to double-tap that thing in the bodybag.

A big smuggling ring getting busted by US Coast Guard and Navy SWCC, only to have the guys from team two that went to secure another shipping container with the "DoD Liaison" all developed acute radiation poisoning.

Etc.

@Leidenschaft

What about unexplainable occurences or phenomena that has happened to the agents? You know, something odd has happened, but the agent has no idea of how or why, or even what happened.

Faces in the Moonlight: Eldritch Cults, Brujos, Cartels and the CIA

To what extent can the 'shoulder brushing' with the strange go? Are we talking 'might've seen a Skinwalker' level, or 'got swallowed up by the Dreamlands for a week' level?

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 1 (Completed)

I'd like to say Happy 2017 from Turkey, folks, but it seems we've got terrorist'd on New Year's celebrations. Stay safe when 2017 comes.

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 1 (Completed)

Er, hello.

If you're still accepting, I'd love to join (in fact I more or less registered for it).

I'll read the first page in its entirety tonight, but is there anything beyond that I need to know? (e.g. where the plot is.)

@Chia

We've got an officially appointed summarizator, being @Frizan. He has a good summary for the events so far iirc.

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 1 (Completed)

@Peik the Turkish santa delivers.

@gcold