StormWolf

Task Force: Sentinel - Occult Covert Operations

Hey I'm very interested in joining :)

On a sidenote, are you @StormWolf from RPNation? If you are, perhaps you don't remember me but I was also part of your Occult roleplay on RPNation

@MysteryBroom

Well, good golly, what a small world! This should be familiar enough with small changes. Welcome!

Task Force: Sentinel - Occult Covert Operations

roleplayerguild.com/topics/183419-tas…

The OOC is live. Sorry it took so long, everyone!

Task Force: Sentinel - Occult Covert Operations

Name: Clinton Bronson

Alias/Callsign: “Strider”
Cú, but he hasn’t been called such in a good many years.

Gender: Male, he/him

Race/Species: Human

Age: 34

Concept: The Human Monster

Appearance

Clinton is a firmly built man of notable height and formidable build. Standing at a solid six-foot-two and weighing in at 205 pounds of steely sinew, he is something of an imposing figure. Fair, moderately tattooed skin, touched by the sun, is stretched over imposing ridges of muscled physique. He cuts the hard silhouette one would expect from an apex predator. Clint sports masculine jaw and firm, handsome, even wolfish features – a strong nose and jaw with stern brow; all stony planes and angles. Settled into their sockets are eyes like chips of blue-grey ice; cold and severe in their gaze. Atop his head is a tightly cropped mane of dirty brown-blond hair, cut close to the scalp at the back and sides, leaving enough at the top to style should the occasion. Often, Clint will have a short beard upon his jaw. Borne not out of a fashion standpoint as much a neglect to regularly shave.

Division Medics have estimated that roughly twenty-five to thirty percent of Clint’s body is covered in scar tissue; old wounds inflicted by beast, blade, ballistics, and burns. It is a collection of badges of courage from his years among the Valkyries. Where scars do not tread, tattoos are often scrawled, nordic, Egyptian, and celtic-druidic in origin and design - wards against possession and blessings of battle etched into his very flesh. To those with an inhuman sense of smell, or simply in an intimate proximity to the man, his is a heady scent of a man well-traveled; Clinton has a constant aroma of coffee, leather, tobacco smoke, gun oil, and Old Spice around him.

In his day to day, Clint dresses as if constantly expecting to do some kind of taxing outdoor activity. Always in his steel toed boots, he often wears boot cut jeans or cargo pants with a light long sleeve shirt or a button-down shirt. When required to dress up for an occasion, he can clean up nicely. Connor’s full-tilt operational gear is what one would expect from a modern military operative - full tactical gear, including Crye BDUs and customized ballistic armor.

Personality

Clint is a man of firm temperament. Emotionally detached, but tenuously stable despite the horrors experienced in the day-to-day. He finds camaraderie with his fellow Sentinels but remains withdrawn and brusque even among the tightly knit brotherhood. Clint is always one to internalize and desensitize in order to maintain control and to keep a sound head. He is not one to trust easily, and whether a genuine display of apathy or a coping mechanism for the job, he takes a casual and cavalier attitude towards violence and the grotesque. Despite his resilience, he is only a mortal man, and turns to the crutch of stiff drink when the burdens grow too heavy to bear.

Division psychoanalysts have diagnosed Clint with an Automatic Nervous System Disorder, putting him in a constant, but fluctuating, state of fight-or-flight and hypervigilance. In their diagnosis, he is still “fully operational”, but may be prone to psychological degradation over time. “A ticking time bomb” if there ever was one.

His are a killer’s eyes. Far-seeing, piercing, and cold. They’ve held and beheld miracle and madness, and like the rest of him, never seem to be capable of rest. Clinton is always expecting the other shoe to drop, perpetually scanning and surveying his situation and surroundings for threats. Over the years, he’s developed a nervous tick that has manifested as a faint twitch in his gun-hand. One might not expect nor endorse a man such as him to be a guardian for the Oracle-Child, but since Operation: Cassandra, he’s been devoutly protective of the asset, even expressing the rare moments of tenderness and vulnerability to them. Footage exists of Clinton having a tea party with their ward, a dyed-in-the-wool killer hunched over a tiny playskool set, sipping imaginary tea from little plastic cups.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities:
Focus, Commitment, Sheer Will - Just as the body can be trained to endure, and excel in, combat situations, the mind and emotions can be trained to shake off the harrowing impacts of violence and existential dread. The mind, body, and spirit of Clinton is an ironclad fortress.

Field Expertise - There is no substitute for time spent in the field. Soldiers with enough experience in battle develop an almost supernatural sense of the ebb and flow of dangerous situations, predicting opponents’ moves on a subconscious level.
Ever since his upbringing in the Montauk Project, he has always had a gun either in hand or within reach. At his current level of skill, Clinton exists within the upper echelons of military operator accuracy.

Close & Personal - Lethal up close as he is from afar, Clint is skilled in close-quarters combat with a mixture of martial arts, armed and unarmed. His choice weapons at the intimate range are knives and daggers. While he would prefer to not get in a position where he is left with just his fists, he is considerably lethal with them, as a proficient practitioner of multiple martial arts. These include Aikido, CQC, Krav Maga, Systema, Silat, Glima, Muay Thai, Kickboxing, and Judo.

Fears, Flaws, and Vices: Though it may be only subjective as a flaw, depending on ones surroundings, Clint is incapable of harnessing any magical power on his own. He is a fine specimen, but he is completely and utterly mortal. The only way we can access arcane power of any sort is to use imbued trinkets or charms, or to take on a Pact-Mark.

But, more to the core of the matter, Clinton has an addictive personality. He’s leaned on the crutch of a stiff drink for a great many years, and when around a vampire of high blood-potency, his palms begin to sweat. He’s tried going sober several times and has struggled every single step of the way. In the end, he’s maintained abstinence from vampiric vices only by leaning into the caress of a stiff glass of whiskey.

When Clinton gives his word, he’ll go through hell and high water to put himself – and others with him – to keep it. He is stubborn to a fault and cantankerous as a mule. It’s as much a boon as a bane, giving him the foundation of his reputation, both for good and for ill.

Standard Loadout:
STI Tactical DS 10mm – A 5-inch barrel 1911 chambered in 10mm, sporting 18-round capacity magazines. Fitted with a surefire light on the rails and RMR optics. The barrel is threaded for use of suppressors.

AR-10 Recon Rifle – Clint’s “do-it-all” primary firearm, chambered in .308 with a 13.7 inch barrel. Mounted with a Nightforce ATACR 1-8x scope, canted C-More red-dot sight, gunfighter foregrip, surefire scout light, and Black Aces PAQ IR illuminator.

Silvered Kerambit – Sometimes in a Sentinel’s line of work, you must get nasty. Clint’s silver nitrate coated kerambit dagger gives him a nasty claw when he otherwise has none to work with.

Background

Ever since the incident in █████████, ██, select agencies United States government have been as obsessed with occult warfare. It started with the Division, but with the nearly-cataclysmic events of World War 2’s hidden fronts, like the siege on ██████, the highest echelons of government have invested in morally dubious occult research.

It started with the Philadelphia Experiments in 1943, then incidents in Roswell, culminating in the Montauk Project in 1984. Women from across the United States were experimented on within the fringe fields bio-occult and thaumatechnology. One Ms. █████ was a volunteer from the rural province of ██████, Massachusetts. Given its close proximity to Innsmouth and Salem, areas within several hundred miles were thoroughly screened. ████ was treated with the proper bio-occult solutions and received a donation from a prime male sample, her offspring showed potential.

Subject 013 was born a healthy male, showing no birth defects. 013 exhibited moderate psychic potency in the fields of minor precognition. Attempts were made to enhance these latent abilities through various means. While subjects 001-006 perished in similar means, 007-011 experienced vastly improved psychokinetic aptitude, and 012 and 013 fell into regression, their psychic energies all but disappearing. However, they experienced increased mental activity as a resort. 013 in particular showed acute adrenal hyperactivity, enhanced reaction time, and highly attuned hand-eye coordination. Additional tests were made with stimulants ██-█, █-██-█, and ████, yielding no psychic recovery. Subject 013 was scheduled for termination, labeled as a failure, despite achieving the highest markers in physical aptitude tests than all other subjects in the 001-020 subject rangelacus.

However, before Subject 013 could be successfully terminated, one of the Montauk staff appeared to have smuggled the young male out of the program’s ████ ████, ██ headquarters in the winter of 1995. Subject 013 was 11 years old at the time. Though Montauk Asset Containment Units tracked down every league, Subject 013 technically didn’t exist, which made tracking him complicated. Unable to weed out the night staff that extracted Subject 013 from containment, all night staff were terminated in order to eliminate loose ends.

Subject 013 was fostered by a Raylan and Eleanor Bronson - D.O.G.S. operatives at the “Ranch” facility near Aspen, Colorado, where he experienced an unorthodox rural upbringing. Raylan was a Vietnam veteran and a firm believer in a occult-communist-wrought apocalypse. Just like their other “recruits”, Subject 013 - named Clinton Bronson - was put through the same paramilitary “extracurriculars” as his foster siblings. Intense physical conditioning, firearms and martial arts training, and rudimentary explosive ordnance was drilled into their bodies and minds. This, of course, armed Clint with an immense arsenal as a juvenile delinquent. Clint was a mediocre student, at best, showing aptitude for history, mathematics, and language.

As a result, Clint had the rare happenstance of being raised among the Division’s operatives, trading a normal life for a particular education that has made him something to be feared among the supernatural community. Much of his operational history is heavily redacted, some missions even scrubbed from his own memory by amnestics or a one of the Division's neuromantic assets. Despite the sensitive nature of Operation: Cassandra, that mission's details are left untouched - staying in perfect, polarized clarity.

He remembers the taste of blood and sand in his mouth, the blasphemous chanting of the cultists and the brief, brutal violence that culminated in the climax of the operation. It was the one time Clinton recalls losing himself mid-operation. The parameters were, in his mind, due to is failure in duty. He had been on the protective detail of the Oracle's mother, and despite suffering wounds at the time of her extradition, Clint pushed through. When the team discovered the newborn Oracle alive and unharmed, but her mother perished in labor, Clint succumbed to his baser instincts.

For a year and a day, Clint vanished. Only the Old Man knew where he was and what he did.

Was the Operative a part of Operation: Cassandra on October 17, 2010? Yes

Task Force: Sentinel - Occult Covert Operations

Task Force: Sentinel

To the public - magical or mundane - our contact information is not available. Our Organization isn’t in the yellow pages under “Professional Hunters”, “Wizard P.I.” or “Bounty Hunter Witch”. We have been in business since the Pyramids were young and have been working ever since. If you know of us, you are either in need of our services, or you will live the brief remainder of your days fearing us.

We are the Watchers in the Dark
The Keepers of the Long Vigil.
We are the Sentinels

Non Dormit Qui Custodit Antequam Tenebras
The Sentinel Sleeps Not Before the Darkness

The World as we know it – our History – is incomplete. The true picture has been cropped and cut to best protect the feeble minds of the mundane and meager three dimensions of existence. Sheltering them from the cold, dark, and malicious things that twist and constrict at the tangent edges of their perception. Why do you think we mortals have an unexplained fear of the dark and unknown? An innate distrust of what cannot be explained. Ever since we had discovered fire to protect us from what lurked in the shadows, we have huddled close to that flickering and feeble light, doomed to be snuffed out by the darkness that crawls and slithers its way ever closer. There are monsters of the terrestrial sphere, of our resident dimension, that see themselves as the peak of the food chain. Humans, Vampires, Shape-changers, even the alien and eternal Sidhe fall into such trappings. It is the feeble defense of a mewling child before the eternal and inconceivable vastness of the Outer Darkness. But not all is lost.

There have been those who stood valiantly in the face of such voracious darkness throughout the ages. With the vastness of the world, ideology, and culture separating these courageous souls, they remained united by one singular purpose:

Keep the Vigil.

To keep the Vigil is to dedicate one’s life to the preservation of the Veil, to be the warden of ancient and eldritch secrets. To lay down one’s own life, sanity, and soul for the world to keep on turning. It means killing monsters who pose a threat to all that is held dear - be that monster a vampire, a werewolf, a deep one, or a mortal man.

Welcome to the Division of Occult Global Security.
We are the DOGS that guard the Gates, and we set out teeth stalwart and imperishable.

You are to be among the best of us. The most highly trained, talented, and skilled in your field and craft. Entrusted with the protection of the greatest defense against the gnawing Nothingness, you wear weight of your badge as a mantle of honor and a burden. You are the first and last resort, you are hammer of wrath and the hand of mercy.

You are a Sentinel

The Veil is the balance of the world we know and the world we do not. The Hidden World running parallel with the mortal world. A cosmic force binding everything together, a balance of karma; Light and Dark, Creation and Void . Whenever the Veil lifts or tears, reality heaves. Fire falls from the skies, rivers run with blood, floods consume the planet, and plagues return entire Empires to dust. The Vigil kept by these fiery spirits is thankless and will at times falter, but without them, the world would be a dark and primordial hell. The greater the Vigil grew, the more sophisticated the organization had to become, using a marriage of mortal and supernatural resources to keep both worlds in check. But the Vigil is a mere calling – a shimmering blade in need of a firm hand against the terrors of the Nevermore. In a world where one is surrounded by secrets, knowledge is power. The power of prophecy, to See and Listen to the true nature of the world. Such is the burden and terrible power of the Oracles.

Oracles are mortals bestowed with vast knowledge of things esoteric, arcane, and unnatural. Many are lost to the pages of history along with the rest of the Hidden World, but there are some who, during times of great upheaval, drew attention to the eternal struggle, like the fabled Oracles of Siwa and Delphi. To be an Oracle is an ancient birthright as well as a curse. As one Oracle dies, the next will be born. An unwritten law of cosmic balance is that there must always be five Oracles alive at one time. To break the chain of reincarnation would leave the world defenseless to the most sinister of threats from the Beyond - the Outer Dimensions. When an Oracle is born, a shockwave is felt around the world, most potently by the psychically sensitive and those gifted (or cursed) with the Dream.
The Oracles will begin experiencing the World-Dream and expressing psycho-kinetic abilities as soon as their mind has matured enough to process such information and energies; usually between █-██ years of age, depending on the stage of mental and physical maturation.

Magic is real, as are magicians. Witches, wizards, sorcerers. Magicians gather in secretive cabals known as Societies, ranging from the stringent traditionalist to the experimental rebels.
The Archmagus Collegium is the ruling body, a selective collection of Societal Heads, typically keeping to traditional Teutonic European standards of magical tradition and decorm as a means to deny any problematic bodies from occupying space...

Vampires are real. They are graceful, ageless predators who appear human until the hunger and blood lust takes control. That is when they shed their guise and assume their true form, like a tiger’s eyes flashing green before the kill.
Beneath the Regents, Vampire society is divided into broad swathes of territory around the world, known as Baronies. Each Barony is, of course, ruled by a Baron who the elder authority of the Regents.

Shapeshifters are real. Were-beasts, therianthropes. Hunters without equal and peerlessly savage apex predators. Ancient breeds with ancient cultures who gaze defiantly down the barrel of looming extinction.
Shapeshifters live in tightly knit groups and communities, usually of their same kind. Packs, Prides, Gangs, Troupes. These groups are widespread and disparate, but two powerful families seek to unify the Breeds once again.

The Fae are real. Some appear human, imposing and hauntingly beautiful, but others are vile and monstrous, lurking in the dark places to fulfill darker appetites. No matter their shape or size, these alien beings are not to be taken lightly.
The Fae gather in their fabled Courts, attended by the high lords and ladies of innumerable Houses, rife with rivalry and strife older than the memories of mankind.

Ghosts and Spirits are real. They prowl the twilight realm of the Nevermore – the in-between. They are psychic reflections of those who have once lived and were unable to let go, or the manifestations of constructs; primal, animist, and complex.
Above them all is The Consortium, the supernatural United Nations, or at least that is what the respectable members try to achieve.

Sitting at their High Table, the Consortium is all smiles above the Table and drawn knives beneath.
The Consortium is the global authority of the Hidden World, but like any governing body, they become lost in the quagmire of bureaucracy and self-interest, tangled up in too much red tape.

[Dec. 10, 2010] - Something terrible happened. All seven oracles were killed in a coordinated attack the likes of which the Division and our sibling societies have never seen. For seven days, the world experienced supernatural upheaval hitherto unimagined. It came to be known as The Week of Nightmares.
[Dec. 17, 2010] - Seven Oracles were born - the mothers of the Dream-Children all entered labor at the same time, down to the minute. They were, for a time, lost and unaccounted for, leading to an unholy amalgam of human trafficking and arcane arms race.

Denizens and Information
We are not alone...

The Fae

The Fae are a widely varied menagerie, from the puckish pooka to the imperious High Sidhe. They are the creatures of fantasy and fable, occupying the Planes adjacent to our world. They are beautiful and terrible beyond the meager three dimensions of mortals, more treacherous and dangerous than the sea in a storm. Their Courts and Houses war with each other as frequently as denizens of our Plane, but they hold law and decorum as sacred. Several times in the history of the Hidden World, the Fae have taken part in conflicts as allies, enemies, and independent parties.

They are alien in their motivation, drive, and existence. They function differently from us in ways that are too complex and varied to tell. All that is known is that iron is to them as silver is to us, and their magic is limited to Court and House. An Archfey can, if fable is to be believed, impart her power to one who wears their mark.
There are, first and foremost, the Great Courts of the Fae; Seelie (Summer) and Winter (Unseelie). Within the Courts, Greater and Lesser Houses operate to garner favor from the High Lords and Ladies that sit at the head of the Stone Table.
In the centuries of overlapping existence with our history, it falls to reason that cross-pollination occurred. The half-fae offspring of these liaisons are called Changelings, capable of manifesting their inherited Fae-traits in a limited capacity. Many Changelings garner favor from Houses and Courts, seeking to turn into a True Fae.
Those who choose to retain their humanity exist as outsiders in either world, often forming together into small, insular communities called Freeholds, where they are not beholden to Courtly law and politics, but also devoid of the protections that come with being part of a Court and House.
Fae and Changelings are both vulnerable to iron, though the latter has something more akin to an allergic reaction, where the former treats is as caustic anathema.

The Vampyr

Stragoi, Lamia, Leech, Blood-sucker. Vampyr.

A contagion that hungers, the Vampyr have been present ever since there was the Herd. Civilization is their experiment in domestication, keeping their food supply well-fed, docile, and prepackaged. A simulation that grew far beyond their control

The Vampires are a peculiar sort, sporting one of the greatest varieties of terrestrial prey than any other as their hunger elevates their human condition while they live, and becoming completely devoid of humanity once they die.

When an individual is first Turned by the Embrace of Vampire, they go through a series of minor changes. The Turn takes a full twenty-four hours after the sire imbues their blood into their would-be progeny. After which, they become a Living Vampire, or a Scion. They function much as they would normally, going about their day-to-day if they so wished, but their Sire is always in their head.

A Scion, while light sensitive, is not burned by the sun or succumbed to the same banes of the Undead Vampire. A Scion can even eat and drink mortal food, even sire biological children of their own, but there will never be anything more fulfilling than slaking their blood lust or pleasing their Sire. The person the Scion was before the Turn is dialed up to eleven as they feel the supernatural strength and grace that comes with Vampirism. So long as they stay fed, aging slows to a crawl.

All this changes when the Vampire dies. Dying is not permanent, unless the heart or head are removed, the body is burned or slurred into mulch, or other such obliteration occurs. The Vampire will return as an Undead Vampire. Aging truly ceases, and their power magnifies by a grotesque magnitude, capable to truly miraculous feats. Once undead, a vampire cannot go into the sun. Fire is anathema as silver is to werewolves. Neither food, nor drink, nor drug can sustain them. Only the blood can. There is no joy unless it is through power, nor is there sorrow or fear but for the light of the sun. Only burning and beheading can assure the True Death.
Should a Vampyr – living or dead – procreate, 99 out of 100 offspring will be rapidly aging monstrosities, called ghouls. The one-in-a hundred is born a Dhampyr, a creature that possesses greater power than a living vampire, but cannot ascend to a status of undeath.

To mortals, vampyr venom and blood is a toxin. The venom is an opiate, capable of muddling the senses and inducing a sense of euphoria. This venom is secreted in trace amounts through their saliva and sweat, allowing them to subtly nudge potential prey into complacency through proximity. Vampiric Blood, however, is an intense stimulant, akin to an amphetamine.

Aggressive Appetites

-Hemophage: Your classic vampire as fetishized by modern media of the day. Blood is as much food and drug, sex and sustenance. The more they feed upon it, the more they need it.
-Auraphage: Vampires that feed on emotion, aura, and the impulses between neurons. An elder Auraphage can feel a ghost of emotion by ripping it from another being.
-Thermophage: The Thermophage sustains itself on heat. They can take it from anywhere, but only the body head from a living creature can truly satisfy the gnawing cold.

The Mages

Witches, Wizards, Sorcerers, Mages.

Humans with the gift, talent, or ability to tap into the source code of the universe, channeling the powers from other planes of existence, binding pacts with entities of great and terrible power. At face value, they might not seem like much, and that mindset will assure that you never live to make the same mistake again. Mages are not to be trifled with, trusted at an arm's length at the closest, and hunted with extreme prejudice should they weaken the fabric between dimensions.

Like any creature with access neigh-infinite cosmic power, they will always want more. Too much is never enough for their kind. The greatest point of caution is a Mage seeking a Familiar. The power of the True Name is nothing to be understated in any aspect of our world, but a Mage can turn any living being into a Familiar, nominally through a ritual invoking the True Name. The Familiar has their will shackled to the Mage, their minds linked, their powers shared.

There are few hobbyist mages, as anything but dedication to the craft will see the would-be sorcerer consumed by their on works. Focus and Foci are required to narrow the flow of cosmic energies into complex constructs and commands, and these vary from magus to magus. There are traditional foci, like amulets, staves, and wands, but also concepts like words of power and faith. Foci is the framework for the spell, allowing a magus to visualize and manifest planar powers through them like a lens.

The Thera

Shapeshifters. Skindancers. Beast-folk. Ancient Predators.
In every culture, there exists tales of individuals who can assume a terrible beast-form to wreak havoc upon the hapless, helpless villagers. The best known is the werewolf, thanks in great part to the march of modern media and cinema, but there are much more. As a people, they are much more.

Therianthropes – or Thera – are always derived from predatory species. Wolves, bears, big cats, and the like. In their words, they are “thrice born and thrice sworn”, reflecting the three shapes they may assume:

The Human form, the man-skin. One's own hominid shape with which to blend in among the Herd. The Form to drive a car, wield a gun, and hold their children to their breast. Since the time of the First Fire, the First Spear, this Form has been of dire necessity.

The Beast form; The animal-shape, running on four clawed paws with keen senses and the greatest connection to the spiritual realms that spawned them. In this form, they are closest to Nature.

The Primordial form; the shape they took in antiquity, unbridled primal rage and fury, killer instinct made manifest in a hulking, fine-tuned murder-machine.

Therianthropes are all weak to silver, sharing similar core ancestry, but divergent breeds have different external vulnerabilities. Wolfsbane, for example, will not effect a Weretiger the way it does a werewolf. In recent centuries, they have become greatly endangered, many of their ancestral hunting grounds and sacred sites destroyed by wars and consumed by industry.
Unlike vampires, who and embrace others into their fold, a Therianthrope must be born. The bite cannot change an individual, neither can blood transfusions or other practices of modern magical science and medicine.

A True-Born - a Thera with two Thera parents or the winner of the genetic lottery with only Thera-parent, will undergo their First Change under two circumstances. The first, and the most common, is during puberty. The body is already changing in more ways than one, allowing the Blood to manifest. While painful, it is rare for one to lose control during this type of change. Tightly knit Thera communities will throw celebrations for the Cub as they assume their True Self.

The second circumstance is, in all honesty, just as common as the first. If not more so, in the last century. In a word: trauma. Something triggers a life-or-death fight/flight response, or a life-threatening injury occurs. It is in this that the Beast-Spirit stirs to protect itself and the host. The transformation is violent and frenzied, acting on pure survival instinct.

Magic

Magic is mercurial and ephemeral, varied from individual, tradition, and the source of power used. Of the sources, there are three: Chi, Ley Lines, and Patrons. These power sources are not exclusive in access.

Chi, or Ki, is ones own personal power, the culmination of personal willpower and spirit. Everyone has this personal spring of power, but not everyone can access it. Chi is used to tap into magical charms, trinkets, and other arcane-imbued items.

Ley Lines, or some concept thereof, can be found in nearly every arcane tradition around the world. A flowing lattice of raw power that stitched through the world. The most common form of power used for High Magic as it is known. Famous mages who have achieved great feats of arcane apotheosis have done so through Ley Line magic.

Patron, or Pact-Magic, is dubious and dangerous. It involves bearing a mark to a being of great power, ultimately being a Familiar to that entity. Bearing a Pact-Mark, an individual acts as a conduit for the entity, capable of channeling portions of their Patron’s power through them.

For the most part, magic must obey the rules and laws of our world. Being the building blocks and source codes to the universe, it must fall within the constraints of its own rules, but a clever magus can also bend the rules and framework if they apply themselves.

The exception to this is Pact-Magic, which is what makes it so dangerous and unpredictable. Pact-Magic draws power not from the self or the fabric of the universe, but from an entity beyond it.

Operative Dossier Template

Name: What is your True Name?

Alias/Callsign: Your radio handle? Your name this century? Don’t be too edgy with it, okay?
Note: Callsings of godly names is a bad idea, as the god likely exists and will take offense at a pesky flesh-bag using their name.

Gender: Be what you want to be.

Race/Species: If you’re not human, how evident is it?

Age (Real and apparent, if applicable): Are you fifty and look fifty? Are you twenty and look ninety? Are you three-hundred and look like you’re not even ready for college?

Concept: This can be anywhere from a word to a paragraph. This is as much for me as it is for you. A quick reference to keep everyone true to their character.

Appearance: A good description and/or an image. No anime, please and thank you

Personality: Broad strokes is fine, I don’t need to know every bawdy joke they like to tell. This should not just be a list of character traits; tell me how they see the world, how they think, how they act.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities: Let this cover supernatural powers, mundane skills, and whether or not they’re particularly good at shooting snot-rockets. As above, this should not only be a bulleted list of specific powers. Enough specificity to give me the shape of their abilities is good, a spreadsheet is not.

Fears, Flaws, and Vices: Pretty straightforward. What are their shortcomings? What keeps them awake and night, and what tests the limits of their bravery? What breaks them?

Standard Loadout: While equipment will vary depending on mission and situational parameters, every member probably has a select few items that they always have on them. This should include ‘signature’ weapons and any talismans, relics, or misc foci.
Keep it reasonable.

Background: Take this opportunity to show me where your character came from, why they became a Sentinel. This can be a biography, a short story, a comic strip, or whatever.

And if there are parts of your character’s backstory you want to expose through the game, that’s fine. Surprises are always fun for everyone. If you have some ‘under the table’ stuff you want to include, PM me so it can be incorporated, also so I know you aren’t planning on making the descendant of Dagon, or something.

One question to be answered: Was the Operative a part of Operation: Cassandra on October 17, 2010?

Note: The IC will begin in medias res

The Sentinels

- "Strider"

Mission Files

I. "Dread Harvest"

The Blackwood Chronicles (WIP title)

Task Force: Sentinel - Occult Covert Operations

Yup, Grimm remains one of my favorite urban fantasy shows to date :)

Task Force: Sentinel - Occult Covert Operations

@The Harbinger of Ferocity
Oh, definitely. Supernatural communities are expected to police themselves, and they will of course pursue their own interests, and that manner of political maneuvering is 100% viable.

Task Force: Sentinel - Occult Covert Operations

Seems cool. Are there allowances for Sentinels that are themselves supernatural?

@Dead Cruiser

Yes, suoernatural individuals and Hidden World denizines are permitted within reason. You can be a werewolf investigator, a Changeling analyst, etc etc.

I am interested in this roleplay. This is an interesting concept; something I've often been intrigued with. I wonder what your intentions are for Sentinel's abilities. Are they strictly mortal using technology of the day or do the Sentinel's also have magical abilities or possibly immortality/regeneration?

@Landain

Mortals by their nature are greater in number, but there is room for mortal practitioners of magic as well supernatural operatives.

Full disclosure, one of the NPCs as a Handler/Analyst is a post-middle-aged Orc pacifist.

Task Force: Sentinel - Occult Covert Operations

Excellent! I'll get the OOC/Character Page up soon as I am able :)

Task Force: Sentinel - Occult Covert Operations

Task Force: Sentinel

To the public - magical or mundane - our contact information is not available. Our Organization isn’t in the yellow pages under “Professional Hunters”, “Wizard P.I.” or “Bounty Hunter Witch”. We have been in business since the Pyramids were young and have been working ever since. If you know of us, you are either in need of our services, or you will live the brief remainder of your days fearing us.

We are the Watchers in the Dark

The Keepers of the Long Vigil

We are the Sentinels



Non Dormit Qui Custodit Antequam Tenebras
The Sentinel Sleeps Not Before the Darkness

The World as we know it – our History – is incomplete. The true picture has been cropped and cut to best protect the feeble minds of the mundane and meager three dimensions of existence. Sheltering them from the cold, dark, and malicious things that twist and constrict at the tangent edges of their perception. Why do you think we mortals have an unexplained fear of the dark and unknown? An innate distrust of what cannot be explained. Ever since we had discovered fire to protect us from what lurked in the shadows, we have huddled close to that flickering and feeble light, doomed to be snuffed out by the darkness that crawls and slithers its way ever closer. There are monsters of the terrestrial sphere, of our resident dimension, that see themselves as the peak of the food chain. Humans, Vampires, Shape-changers, even the alien and eternal Sidhe fall into such trappings. It is the feeble defense of a mewling child before the eternal and inconceivable vastness of the Outer Darkness. But not all is lost.

There have been those who stood valiantly in the face of such voracious darkness throughout the ages. With the vastness of the world, ideology, and culture separating these courageous souls, they remained united by one singular purpose:

Keep the Vigil.

To keep the Vigil is to dedicate one’s life to the preservation of the Veil, to be the warden of ancient and eldritch secrets. To lay down one’s own life, sanity, and soul for the world to keep on turning. It means killing monsters who pose a threat to all that is held dear - be that monster a vampire, a werewolf, a deep one, or a mortal man.

Welcome to the Division of Occult Global Security.
We are the DOGS that guard the Gates, and we set out teeth stalwart and imperishable.

You are to be among the best of us. The most highly trained, talented, and skilled in your field and craft. Entrusted with the protection of the greatest defense against the gnawing Nothingness, you wear weight of your badge as a mantle of honor and a burden. You are the first and last resort, you are hammer of wrath and the hand of mercy. Whether you are an occultist, and investigator, a soldier, or a scientist...

You are a Sentinel.

The Veil is the balance of the world we know and the world we do not. The Hidden World running parallel with the mortal world. A cosmic force binding everything together, a balance of karma; Light and Dark, Creation and Void . Whenever the Veil lifts or tears, reality heaves. Fire falls from the skies, rivers run with blood, floods consume the planet, and plagues return entire Empires to dust. The Vigil kept by these fiery spirits is thankless and will at times falter, but without them, the world would be a dark and primordial hell. The greater the Vigil grew, the more sophisticated the organization had to become, using a marriage of mortal and supernatural resources to keep both worlds in check. But the Vigil is a mere calling – a shimmering blade in need of a firm hand against the terrors of the Nevermore. In a world where one is surrounded by secrets, knowledge is power. The power of prophecy, to See and Listen to the true nature of the world. Such is the burden and terrible power of the Oracles.

Oracles are mortals bestowed with vast knowledge of things esoteric, arcane, and unnatural. Many are lost to the pages of history along with the rest of the Hidden World, but there are some who, during times of great upheaval, drew attention to the eternal struggle, like the fabled Oracles of Siwa and Delphi. To be an Oracle is an ancient birthright as well as a curse. As one Oracle dies, the next will be born. An unwritten law of cosmic balance is that there must always be five Oracles alive at one time. To break the chain of reincarnation would leave the world defenseless to the most sinister of threats from the Beyond - the Outer Dimensions. When an Oracle is born, a shock-wave is felt around the world, most potently by the psychically sensitive and those gifted (or cursed) with the Dream.

The Oracles will begin experiencing the World-Dream and expressing psycho-kinetic abilities as soon as their mind has matured enough to process such information and energies; usually between █-██ years of age, depending on the stage of mental and physical maturation.

* * *

Magic is real, as are magicians. Witches, wizards, sorcerers. Magicians gather in secretive cabals known as Societies, ranging from the stringent traditionalist to the experimental rebels.
The Archmagus Collegium is the ruling body, a selective collection of Societal Heads, typically keeping to traditional Teutonic European standards of magical practice and decorum as a means to deny any problematic bodies from occupying space...

Vampires are real. They are graceful, ageless predators who appear human until the hunger takes control. That is when they shed their guise and assume their true form, like a tiger’s eyes flashing green before the kill.
Vampire society is divided into broad swathes of territory around the world, known as Baronies. Each Barony is, of course, ruled by a Baron who forms the elder authority of the Regentry.

Shapeshifters are real. Were-beasts, therianthropes. Hunters without equal and peerless, savage apex predators. Ancient breeds with ancient cultures who gaze defiantly down the barrel of looming extinction.
Shapeshifters live in tightly knit groups and communities, usually of their same kind. Packs, Prides, Gangs, Troupes. These groups are widespread and disparate, but two powerful families seek to unify the Breeds once again.

The Fae are real. Some appear human, imposing and hauntingly beautiful, but others are vile and monstrous, lurking in the dark places to fulfill darker appetites. No matter their shape or size, these alien beings are not to be taken lightly.
The Fae gather in their fabled Courts, attended by the high lords and ladies of innumerable Houses, rife with rivalry and strife older than the memories of mankind.

Ghosts and Spirits are real. They prowl the twilight realm of the Nevermore – the in-between. They are psychic reflections of those who have once lived and were unable to let go, or the manifestations of constructs; primal, animist, and complex.

Above them all is The Consortium, the supernatural United Nations, or at least that is what the respectable members try to achieve. Sitting at their High Table, the Consortium is all smiles above the Table and drawn knives beneath.
The Consortium is the global authority of the Hidden World, but like any governing body, they become lost in the quagmire of bureaucracy and self-interest, tangled up in too much red tape.

* * *

[Oct. 10, 2010] - Something terrible happened. All seven oracles were killed in a coordinated attack the likes of which the Division and our sibling societies have never seen. For seven days, the world experienced supernatural upheaval hitherto unimagined. It came to be known as The Week of Nightmares.

[Oct. 17, 2010] - Seven Oracles were born - the mothers of the Dream-Children all entered labor at the same time, down to the minute. Centuries of tracking the Oracles and their development went up in smoke, open season unofficially declared on the greatest defenses our reality has, leading to an unholy amalgam of human trafficking and arcane arms race.

[Present Day] - The world is on fire. Chaos is everywhere. As a Sentinel, your mission remains the same, but Division assets are spread thin. As always, the Sentinels are the first and the last line of defense.

Bad news always comes like a bullet - nothing travels faster...