Roen

TNT - The Nameless Tavern. (Always Open)

Lifting his prow-fronted helm and looking beyond Severina, the Outsider considers the wisdom and mercy of resisting the call to violence that was the Commissar’s continued obstinacy. He has spent too long in isolation, some distant part of him breathes. Too long having every whim obeyed and desired fulfilled. This was not the Threshold City, and this woman was not one of his subjects.

He did his best to bear these facts in mind in the face of waning patience, and cast his mind instead to the practical considerations that Gabriela, for whatever her flight had meant, remained within. He did not hear the sound of raised voices, nor did his hackles raise at some sense of danger most metas invoked when channeling their misbegotten abilities.

Roen sensed nothing untoward at all, and felt within his armour only the distasteful sense that he was wasting time and running the risk of losing his prey. He exhaled, the sound filtering out of his helmet with vague electronic distortion that was unable to mask his impatience. But for whatever it was worth, he did not lunge headlong into a fit of violence that so marked his typically choleric disposition. He chose instead the path of the sage, and lowered the menacing threat of his lightning-wreathed claws.

They snarled and spat while he flexed his fingers and shut down their power fields, rendering each scything blade nothing more sinister than wickedly sharp talons. They rasped again when he scissored them at his side, excising some measure of his disquiet and unhappiness in the sound and movement of an idle fidget. If this woman wanted discourse, then he would oblige her - so long as he was sure Gabriela remained within, and was not rallying support from those souls inside. It would not be the first time he has walked into ambushes laid so clumsily.

Tilting his head back down to pay the Commissar the virtue of his only slightly divided attention, the Outsider frowns within his devil’s helm. ”She is my ward,” he says, in complete and utter honesty. But the inflection in his words carry other meanings, some more terrible than others. He may as well have called her property, an unruly daughter, or his wife. In truth, the runaway princess was all of these things, and more. Shifting his weight and the muted growl of active warplate, the Outsider sets his free hand on a cocked hip, an incongruous pose if there ever was one for such an armoured monstrosity.

”And she is more dangerous than I could ever hope to be.” Raising his right hand and sweeping his talons in an all-encompassing gesture, the Outsider indicates the tavern, the lands around them, even the world itself. ”She is the worst degree of monster: she will take your life, and you will love her for it. She has brought Gods and Kings to their knees; she has brought nations to ruin; she destroyed our world, and she has killed uncounted millions.” Curling his talons into a loose fist, the Outsider points one substantial claw at the Commissar. ”She means everything to me, and I would see her spirited away before calamity strikes.” A pause; a question hanging in the air.

”You fear me because I am in the warshape,” he comments, softening his words. ”But evil does not come up to you with claws and horns. It comes with a pretty face and shadows at her heels.”

Leaning away and withdrawing with a sweep of his mantle, the Outsider turns his profile towards the Commissar and gestures flippantly with his talons, indicating the tavern and all those within. ”Five minutes. You have five minutes to bring her to me, unharmed and intact. I see now that if I chase, I will doubtless be confronted by yet more gentle hearts. And she becomes so intractable when she sees me fight to kill. Bring her here, and we will leave in peace.”

TNT - The Nameless Tavern. (Always Open)

“Am I not family?”

His fingers close, but it is only air that he is grasping. She is slipping away, a lithesome shadow turning her back on him as nature had always intended. He smiles to see it, the lines of his mouth crinkling with an artisan’s pride and a craftsman’s joy. She is perfect in word and deed; no mere facsimile of the creature she had been before, but a genuine article of faith brought back from the depths of history and neglect. To be party to her thinly-veiled subterfuge was a reminder of lives they have long since been dispossessed of, and to watch her flee felt more sublime than it should have. She was playing her role to a degree of perfection he could help but be delighted by, so much so that he nearly forgot his part role to play. He sighed with a love for it all, and love for her.

“There is nothing inside worth taking home with us,” he demures at her backside.

She glances over his shoulder at him like a nymph on an escapade, showing him her fret and worry in the sharp contractions of perfect brows and full, sweetly plump lips. She is perfect in form and shape, just like every incarnation before. It gives him hope that this would be her last, bereft of the faults he had forever found in the incarnations he devised previously. Some had been too willful, others too submissive. Some had possessed none of the charm and guile memory spoke of, while the rest veered so far off temperament, it could scarce be said they were Gabriela at all. He had killed them all, over the centuries. Indeed, like any true craftsman, he destroyed defective products. He hoped this one would not meet so similar a fate.

But she is gone, and he is left outside in the cold of night with only his choler for company. Taking the gauntlets hanging off his harness and sinking his hands into them again, the Outsider seals the articulate plates in place and flexes his hands. There is a brief moment given to testing the haptic feedback of the armour’s sensorium, but he quickly grows bored of it when he reflects that Gabriela did not intend on coming back out at all, at least not to him and perhaps not alone. This is a displeasing prospect, but not entirely unheard of. There was a magnetism to his beloved that attracted all kinds of ne’er-do-wells and overeager sycophants, and while he may have preferred it not to be the case, he had long ago since come to accept that she will forever have souls willing to intercede on her behalf.

There was one such soul now, barring entry into the tavern. Worse, she seemed intent on keeping him out through violence. An errant bouncer if there ever was one, he wonders why these things continue to bother him no matter how many times they happen. But he supposes everyone has their own roles to play, no matter the circumstance. He can respect such dogged determination, even if he somewhat pitied it. Reaching to his hip and unclamping his helmet, the Outsider lowers the piece of armour over his head and rights it until neck seals engage and the armour pressurizes. Then he starts to walk, reaching behind him to unclamp an archeotech lightning claw from the small of his back to fit it over his right hand. The movement is both deft and precise, speaking volumes towards habit and ritual.

”You’re in my way.”

Amplified by the speaker ports in the devil’s helm, the Outsider’s soft tenor comes out with a tinny electronic feedback that does little and less to diminish the smooth quality of his voice. No booming baritone, no overstated rumble to jar the bones and frighten the nerves, just a voice from behind the narrow slit of a visor backlit by a perfidious red. Faceless, the armoured knight raises his right hand and waves it dismissively with a snarl of servos while activating the ancient (perhaps futuristic) generators of the claw, each curving scythe spitting to life with crack and shower of sparks. He tests the talons with murderous theater while his shadow passes over Raine, scissoring two curving blades with a rasp and pop of conflicting powerfields.

”Think carefully on your choice. If you choose to fight, if you choose war, it is a path you will not be able to turn from once the first step is taken. It carries with it a terrible price."

A pause; patience beyond measure.

"Move aside. I won’t ask you again.”

[X]

TNT - The Nameless Tavern. (Always Open)

Thank you, friend. I am flattered.

TNT - The Nameless Tavern. (Always Open)

You are my beloved, said the dark knight, the wind carrying his words. There was more there, though. My beloved rhymed with my conquest and rhymed with my only and rhymed with other concepts that could scarce be parsed for the core of the thing’s meaning. A lifetime of perspective was bound up in the naming of her, and there only a gulf between what she could understand and what he meant. But there was no threat in the wind or the words within it, no untoward malice or significant threat. There was impatience, perhaps. Love. Caution. The need to possess and consume. But her life and her health was her own, as it ever was within the cage of his control. She was beloved, after all. Beloved first, and beloved foremost.

Exhaling breath through thinly parting lips, Roen let the mercurial wind go its own way with its gulfs and half-heard meanings. He was ever fond of his theater and cantrips, but it grew difficult indeed when beloved stood before him with her upturned chin and pretty albeit reddening eyes. She was on the verge of tears, and while he might never admit it to her and least of all to himself, this was a particular weakness when it came to the weeping of his woman. He simply could not abide by it. He softened in mien and aspect both, the grimness of his expression melted away before her sadness and beauty.

“Tsk-tsk-tsk.”

Clicking his tongue with fatherly disapproval, the Outsider unlocks the gauntlets off his hands with quiet snaps and hisses of releasing air pressure, and hangs them off his harness before moving to draw the vampyre into his embrace. His limbs and his chestplate whirr and hum with the motive force active warplate, but he hopes they are tiny inconveniences to Gabriela when compared to the warmth and comfort he sought to provide. He wasn’t soft, no, never that, not even out of his battleplate, but the black and gold alloy of his carapace is sympathetic with the heat of him, and his hands, his hard, heavy hands, they are gentle when he runs his fingers through her hair.

“Do not cry, lovely one.”

His fingers thread through inky-black hair so vibrant and crisp, each strand clings to a digit with lives of their own. But she is a cold thing, as cold as he remembered and always loved, and he warms her with pads and palms as he cradles the back of her head and draws her up and in. She is a small thing, lithe and possessed of a delicateness so sweet she demanded deference when touched, but she is made to lift up onto the tips of her toes to meet his descent. He seeks to suffuse her senses; to be all that she feels and sees and smells and tastes. But most of all, he seeks to quiet her. And to that effect, he claims her whispering mouth the way all lovers do: with a kiss. Was there artistry in it? Romance? The deft press and subtle tilt? Oh, he could be a master of kisses, this thing of Perdition; he could send the lover to her knees with a draw of his mouth and the capture of her breath.

But he feels little and less the artist tonight, and more the lord he was affected to be. So where there’s supposed to be art, there is savagery; where she might have wished for romance, only need. There was no deftness in the press of his mouth, except in the absolute pressure of it, and there was no subtlety in how he tilted his head - he was wickedly forward in his attempt to part her lips and seek out the coolness of her mouth. There was an audience, he knew. There always was and would be. But he is sidling close and clutching her head in his hands, and he coaxes Gabriela to turn so that it is his back that is facing all who would watch and appreciate a Don Juan Triumphant. He gives all his rear aspect, all broad shoulders and flowing mantle, all but subsuming his prize within the shadow of his shape. And he devours her. Ill-suited for the bite and draw of a vampyre, his only means of taking Gabriela into himself is to part her hesitant lips and pull the cold air from her lungs, which he does.

It doesn’t matter if she disobeys and cries anyway, so long as she has sense enough to not struggle with her captor. And he is not wholly cruel, at least not where eyes can see. He takes the breath from her lungs and breathes smoke and spice back into her, warming the cold woman from without and within. Yet for it all he is a clumsy lover in his warplate and need, and an errant swipe of tongue finds a sharpened fang with carmine results. He winces, and it isn’t just sweet cold that he tastes, but ichor, too. He has cut himself on her, his own prickly flower, and it makes his brows contract and his aspect returns to grimness when pain is spliced into his pleasure. She is no longer kissed, and Roen withdraws to briefly inspect his handiwork, and how he marvels at it! She is flushed, her lips are plumper and redder, and she is beautiful. Just beautiful. More beautiful, perhaps, than memory could say..

“What have I done?” He asks, swiping a bloody tongue across his mouth and wrinkling his nose at the taste of his own vitae. “You’re the one that cut me.” Soft, accusatory, even almost amused, he flashes her for one brief and startling a boyish twist to his sensual mouth. “How dare you?” Taking his hands from their cradling of her head, he lets her down with becoming gentility, now that he has taken the least of his desires from her. He had to, or there would be no end to the kissing. There were too many ways to kiss, too many deviations and variations, they could spend an eternity standing in the cold, willing to find them all. But they were being watched, and there were other things to do and places to be with her. Setting his hands on Gabriela’s shoulders and lowering his gaze, Roen smoothes out the fabric of her clothes, primping and preening her with his customary fastidiousness. She was absolutely filthy.

“Mmm, you’ve led me on a bit of a chase. Even I don’t know where we are, or how to get home. You must have been very afraid indeed if the Threshold City sent you here.” A furrow of brows; a wrinkling at the edges of his mouth and eyes. “I take a very dim view of mothers abandoning their family, Gabriela.” He says, serious. Menace crept into his low tone. He did not want to keep this beloved soul under lock and key, but by his power, she was forever testing the limits of his forbearance. And those two that were outside, watching them. He turns his head, throwing a cruel look over his shoulder at the giant and the woman. “Another tavern, another pair of friends..,” he trails off, looking back at Gabriela.

And in looking, his rising outrage peeters off grudgingly. She was afraid. She was still afraid. Willfully, unhappily, he softens himself to her.

“Are you okay?” He moves to place a comforting hand on her throat, hesitates, then brushes her cheek with his knuckles. “Don’t be scared.”

He is unfair, the wind whispers. And unfair. He is a black magician. Black arts he makes in black labs of the heart. The fair are fare and deathly white. The day will not save you. And he owns the night.

TNT - The Nameless Tavern. (Always Open)

Where he walked, the scent of Perdition and all its horror followed. This was not to say his was an entirely odious aroma. Indeed, the peat and quenching-iron taste his being spiced the air with was, to some, a charming bouquet that piqued the olfactory senses, and not entirely unpleasant. It had to do with the dichotomy of it all, if one bothered at all to articulate whatever was being breathed on the downcurrent. There was peat and iron, yes, but spice and citrus, too. There was smoke and there was flame, but there was also a subtle sweetness as well. One could be repulsed by such fragrances, but curious, too. And that unto itself was the nature of the Outsider for most: a repulsive thing that drew the curious and fascinated unto itself, wherever it wandered.

And tonight it wandered here, walking a nameless land before a nameless tavern. Side-face with his noble profile presented to the front of the establishment, the Outsider moved with the steady stride of the recently arrived and inordinately occupied, his bold eyebrows furrowed and his grossly sensual mouth compressed into one thin, hard line of introspective worry. He might have been handsome once, the creature, but time had a way of eroding the cleaner, gentler parts of a man’s face over the years, and his was no exception. Lines of fret and anger creased the edges of his eyes and the corners of his mouth, his temples graying with the hard-won wisdom of a life lived overtly long and only too poorly.

He looked unhappy, possessed of a melancholia that had long since soured into an ungovernable choler that lurked beneath the surface of fraught equanimity. Unhappy, but resolute, like a man set about a task he found particularly distasteful. And if his mien was not enough to make this observation an abundantly apparent one, then the motive force of his attire spoke volumes of his intent, for it was no dapper gentleman that tore through sodden ground, but an armoured warrior wrought in pitch and gold. He all but gleamed from beneath his fantastic gorget, fully encased within a suit of alloyed metals that hummed and snarled with both power and motion. It was not the sage that prowled, ready with a stock of easy albeit crooked smiles and off-the-cuff words that few understood came from everywhere but the heart.

Tonight, he was just himself. His beauty revealed as it has always truly been: as cruel and merciless brutalism, his noble legend set aside so that he could be unashamed, the way he was wrought. No false myth of noble devils, that guise gone so that he, though unchanged in great aspect, could become the truest, oldest meaning of terrible. A truth that should have been obvious all along, but was now unmasked, unslipped. A being of awe, when awe was a weapon of itself. An eater of worlds and taker of lives, he walked the earth within the dark majesty of his role, and looked more comfortable with the horned-helm tucked beneath his arm than he ever had bare handed and unarmed.

And oh, how he was armed. Hair oiled and spilling across gorget and breastplate with a dynamism caught between barbarity and nobility, his free hand lay heavy on the lathed hilt of his wicked sword, it’s dark-gray edge hidden by a common scabbard hung from a belt looped twice about his hips. He could have hidden the weapon, could have turned it into some harmless bauble to withhold its nature and so conceal himself, but no, there was no subtlety in him tonight, nor was there restraint. He was himself, or near enough that it made no difference. And besides, if all was going to be true to the tale, he remembered very bitterly indeed the last time he reached a heavy hand out towards his prized possession, without being armed with hate and armoured by contempt. So if there was going to be war, he felt, then it was best to reach with the aspect of the warlord, and not the sage.

It was nighttime. It was cold. He walked beneath a vaulted sky of uncommon stars and wondered, briefly, if he should have come with a more deliberate showing of force. He could see her, of course. He could see his possession, his prize and his doom. He had his profile to her, but she had the full of his attention. He could have turned, could have laid the full weight of his scrutiny and make her flee deeper still into the oblivion of this universe, but he withheld himself and that need to dominate. The orphan runaway was a skittish thing, after all, and his was the patience of stars. So he could afford strolling through the courtyard, flaunting himself, flaunting his power and flaunting his being, to terrorize her with the truth that to run was to be chased, and that there could be no hiding.

He showed his arms, he showed his armour; he walked with a purpose that made the red of his cape billow and the glossy pauldrons of his armour gleam. He showed her how he so lovingly wore her colours, as if she were some fair maiden and he her stalwart subject. And he supposed he was that, this thing of callous brutality and bloodthirsty bearing. He was her devoted as much as her gaelor. Not that she ever made such distinctions in her forced captivity. Clicking, whirring and humming, his armour made a muted snarl when at last he turned, his torso twisting and his head tilting so that, at last, he laid his ruby-gaze on her. Just a flick of his gaze, but how it landed on her. Hard, heavy, just the way his hands might strike when she was being particularly obstinate, he might have consumed her then and there were eyes able to devour.

But they were not, and there was not enough poetry in the world to wax over the sheer depravity of his attentions. There was no compromise in his stare, no room to maneuver or breadth to barter with. Perfidy, perfidy hitherto unknown and the promise of recrimination for her flight, that was his stare. But all was not sulfur and flame, not for the orphan. He could be kind when the chase was over and the prize was found. And it is that kindness that has his hand lifting from the hilt of his weapon to curl his fingers at her, first in greeting, then in entreaty. He did not want to approach and risk an altercation with her newest companion, and preferred if she came to him willing, as was his due. So he beckoned, metal digits gesturing for her to obey and retake her proper place by his side.

Ariande, the wind murmurs. Persephone. Come home.

TNT - The Nameless Tavern. (Always Open)

---

Character Sheet1

Roen

"Odi et Amo."
Height: 5'8"
Eye Color: Red with white sclera
Hair Color: Dark brown, kept long and bound.
Skin color: Complexion Type III.
Distinguishing features: He considers his deep-set eyes and his patrician mien to be his most distinguishing features. His lips are very generously shaped.
Physical Form: A martial build more inclined towards function than form, the inexorable expansion of body with age gives lends him a broad and muscular build.
Style: Utilitarian.

Age:
More than an age, less than an epoch

Gender:
Male

Rich or Poor?:
Rich

Power Descriptions:
Diabolism & Warp Craft

Skills:
Persuasion

Personality:
Greatest flaw: Possessed of a life lived too long, he has been left with a choleric disposition and melancholic humours. Reserved to the point of reticence, he prefers his solitude and takes a dim view of the gregarious and open.
Best quality: He has ambitions, and is naturally inclined towards a sense of Justice and Order. He will seldom standby if witnessing acts that contradict his moral code.
Educational Background: An erudite, his main inclinations include the esoteric arts, civil engineering, and war theory.
Character's short-term goals in life: To hold Carcosa's borders against a siege from Angelic Hosts and Infernal War-Smiths
Character's long-term goals in life: To expand Carcosa's borders into foreign territories and bring Order to the Chaotic realms.
How does Character see himself/herself? Roen knows he is fundamentally evil, but hopes his deeds and intent will pave the way to a peaceful cosmos.
How does Character believe he/she is perceived by others? He knows his actions can be perceived as callous, cruel, and unjustifiably evil, but old age and wisdom has hardened his heart to the ignorance of narrow-sighted souls. He affords others common courtesy, but will not tolerate disrespect or meddling in his ambitions.
How self-confident is the character? Roen is confident to the point of arrogance. It is the source of his greatest strength, but also his greatest weakness. It can limit his worldview and blind him to the machinations of others. Proud and prideful, his ego can be as easily bruised as flattered, and there are times he can be taunted or tricked by those that recognize these unflattering qualities.
What would most embarrass this character? Unable to leave many emotions half-felt, Roen's moods tend to be extreme. He is most shamed when others witness his ungovernable temper, or when his melancholic humours prompt him to seek the isolation of his tower.

Introvert or Extrovert? Introverted. Generally preferring his own company, duty and business often forces Roen into assuming facades and guises to better interact with contemporaries and strangers. He functions best in one-on-one encounters, where his attention can be honed to a singular focus that does not leave him spent afterwards.
How does the character deal with anger? He cannot control his temper well, though has made great progress over the last decade. A choleric creature by nature, experience and wisdom has softened the edges of his furies, but they will forever lurk beneath the surface of forced equanimity.
With sadness? Like his choler, Roen's melancholia lurks beneath calm and disarming facades. This explains, many think, his prevailing mood of sorrow and inner trouble, though he frequently denies it. The melancholic humour, he is wont to say, is misunderstood. That it should not be thought of so literally. It has, in fact, the quality of autumn. It is the spirit of contemplative change, and is the enabler of ends and beginnings.
What makes this character happy? A restless thing, he tends to spend his free time engaging in various hobbies to lighten his moods. He likes to read romance novels, learn instruments, and attend musicals and plays. When not pursuing his hobbies, he likes to engage in conversations and banter with close associates and companions, taking pleasure in their lived lives.
Is the character judgmental of others? Roen judges men and women by the strength of their character and the courage of their convictions. He finds liars loathsome, and cowards equally detestable.
Is the character generous or stingy? Roen is generous with his regard and sentiment to those that earn through flattery, respect, feats of arms, or the way they tend to the world around them.
Is the character generally polite or rude? Roen can be considered curt, even rude on occasion. He has very little patience for strangers and outspoken critics. He has gotten better over the years, affecting the manners of what he likes to call the 'Gentleman Sage'. A façade of learned behaviors, he takes great delight in charming others with a urbane and civilized persona, tending to use it whenever he wishes to ingratiate himself among locals.

Other:
He has a big sword.

Theme Song:
"Zaharila" by El Michels Affair

Roen, a work in progress

Gleaned through the tales of the most ancient, communion with the beyond, and
that lore of Hell extant before the advent of blasphemies and lies, these pages summarize the 
chronicle of the being Roen, known as the Dread Margrave, Duke of Perdition, Crimson King, and - 
in an age before reason - Outsider.

Hi, I'm Roen

Hello, my name is Roen. I'm a Role Player. Tell me about yourself and this community.