Cradle of Gods - The Seventh Anarchy (Sign-Up Thread)

On the eastern edge of the continent of Hollende, sitting on a peninsula which stretches itself like a spike into the dark sea, lies the city of Rousson. Its lands are shrouded within eternal night, with an everlasting moon watching over it forevermore. Millions of people live behind her walls, thriving, singing, struggling, dying. Away from the noble politics of knights and kings, they live in their own little world and many of them spend their entire lifes without ever stepping out of the boundaries of this ancient, gothic metropolis.

Rousson however is in chaos. The Cycle of the Twelve is coming to an end. The once mighty Gods having fallen silent and without their watch over the Realms, order is beginning to break down. The Void once more encroaches on reality and daemons crawl out of the shadows to plague the lands of mortalkind. Already their influence has reached Rousson, as the old mayor of the city has gone mad and any attempts to remove him have failed. The Cathedral Knights have been banished from the city and the Crusaders, who once have kept the streets safe, are now stretched thin. The Lunar Bishop can barely contain the daemons stalking the dark corners of the city, while his own church labours under its own corruption.

These are dark times, in which the greedy and ambitious rise up, as the old order dies and new powers rise. The cursed people of the Bloodlords once again step out of the darkness, to regain their lost glory and gorge themselves on a populace too scared and disorganized to resist them. Lycanthrope packs roam the streets, seeking to carve out their own territories with claw and fang. Amoral merchants build armies of mercenaries to create their own pockets of power and throughout it all the Assassin-Troupes murder whoever they are paid to. Fools masks, bloody claws and cold blades are illuminated by the moonlight, as the Seventh Anarchy breaks out.

But as streets are burning in one part of this collossal city, where entire Quarters can run thick with blood without anybody noticing. As men and monsters fight over the scraps of power, while madness spreads throughout the districts. There, in a cold, abandoned manor, a new power makes its first step. A scant few individuals, who are thrown into the crucible of chaos. Their fate is closely intertwined with the city and their actions will mark Rousson for Cycles to come.

This is their story.

Hello, everybody and welcome to the newest Spin-Off to Cradle of Gods. As always, it is not necessary to have followed the Main-RP in order to participate in this one. This play is merely set in the same setting, with the story unrelated to what is happening elsewhere.

The Seventh Anarchy is a gothic horror adventure and base-management RP. It is set in the vast, old city of Rousson. A metropolis thousands of years old and cursed with eternal night. Imagine medieval france crossed with gothic architecture, carnival and Bram Stoker's Dracula. It is a sprawling setting, in which all manner of horror and monsters can lurk within the shadows and even twenty lifetimes would not be enough to uncover even a fraction of the cities secrets.

Anyone willing to join will be greeted with a veteran playerbase, that is already involved with similar projects and happy to welcome new arrivals. The setting is detailed and dense, with plenty of lore already present and also allowing for creative freedom and contribution. I myself have several years of experience as a GM and am happy to help when it comes to characters, ideas and personal storylines.

As for the plot, you will be playing newly born Bloodlords/ladies. As the name implies, these are basically vampires, though with a few twists. The player-characters are essentially waking up in an abandoned manor as Bloodlords, without knowing why. Important to note is that all player-characters have to be in some way connected to one another, be that familial relationship, rivalries and so on. Part of the plot will be to unravel the mystery behind who created them, as well as figuring out why several factions within the city want to either kill or capture them. As the story progresses, they will uncover more about what caused the Seventh Anarchy and their own part in it.

This game features base-management, with the players eventually acquiring territory and having to manage, build up and expand from their base. Both in order to gain followers and allies, but also to ensure their own safety in the escalating civil war around them. The group can grow from a few confused individuals to a powerful Cabal, that rules entire quarters of Rousson. Or perhaps they will instead roam around the streets, constantly on the run? Maybe they will find refuge in a desecrated cathedral and dabble in unholy arts? The possibilities are vast and will depends on what choices the players make.

The setting itself is High Medieval Fantasy. So plate-armour is a thing, but no gunpowder weapons. Magic users are not really rare, but not extremely common either. As Bloodlords/ladies player-characters will all be able to use blood-magic from the start, with several disclines available for them to customize their characters with. As always, make sure to follow proper RP-etiquette and do not dabble in Godmodding, powerplay or ghosting.

If you want are interest, join us on our Discord-Server.

This RP is open to six players. Once all spots are taken, the Sign-Up will be closed, so if you are interested say so beforehand. I'm looking to writing with all of you and hope we will have a fun time.

• Name: Your characters name. This can be both their real name and their nickname/title.

• Age: Your characters age. While Bloodlords no longer age, although your character has just been reborn as one, it would be important to mention their physical age here. A character should at least be 14 years old.

• Occupation: Describe here what their job, duty or affiliation was before their Change. Were they a crusader, a merchant, an artisan, urchin, etc.?

• Appearance: Looks and physical traits of your character, including equipment. Describe both your characters actual appearance as an immortal Bloodlord and their Glamour, which describes how they look when they hide their true nature.

• Personality: What is your character like? Quirks, likes and dislikes.

• History: The backstory. Please recount your characters life here, up until their Change. Keep in mind, that your character does not remember what caused them to become a Bloodlord. Also describe here any existing relationships to at least one other player-character.

• Blood Art: Every Bloodlord/lady has access to magic called Blood Arts. These represent their innate ability to manipulate blood and is a form of biomancy. This can include familiar vampire-abilities like super-speed and strength, but can also be more esoteric like manipulating the bodies of enemies or controlling animals.

There are four Blood Arts available at the start, from which you can choose one for your character to start out with.

• Abilities: Describe here what general skills, abilities, etc. your character has. This includes fighting style, special items and so on.

• Misc.: Anything that doesn't fit into the other categories can be put in here.

Edited by TheNohen on Jul 2nd 2022 at 3:29:39 PM

• Name: Dr. Robert Ward
• Age: 37
• Occupation: Professor of Rodentia Studies in residence at Kejl Academy
• Appearance: Robert already had rancid vibes and his transformation only made it worse. He wears fine clothing, and outside of his glamour his eyes glow and his teeth visibly poke out of his mouth, like a walrus or a rodent. When he gets excited his eyes bulge and Boggle. He wears his hair long and keeps it undyed. With his glamour up he's significantly shorter, his features are softer, and his hair is brown, doing all he can to look less threatening. His eyes stay small regardless of his actual boggling state.
• Personality: Robert values humility, patience, and rationality. He is very serious about taking time to hold up, wait, and assess situations before acting. This is primarily because he has a simmering reservoir of fury, a lust for indulgence and treating himself of all kinds, and a killer survival instinct he feels a deep shame of. This also leads to a lot of projection too, where anyone demonstrating similar urges to the ones he keeps buried are like dirt to him.
• History: When Dr. Ward was 14 years old, a supernatural street brawl spilled into the flat he was raised in and collapsed the entire thing in an instant. He remembers nothing about his life before that moment. Crawling through the wreckage in anguish and pain, trapped for a day and a half, he was not rescued by humans. Instead, a brown rat the length of his forearm did. It was no doubt just looking for carrion, sure, but its burrowing revealed a path of least resistance to crawl out to freedom, widening a tunnel through wood and plaster that left Robert sprawled on the street. He managed to secure his generous inheritance from his swooping relatives with the same survival instinct that got him out of that building, but when all was said and done he became acutely aware of that savagery building beneath the surface. The stress back to back had turned his hair completely white by the time he was 18. He turned to biology, studying the rats of the city, hoping to understand himself as well as the creatures. It showed him some real humility, and a little bit of satisfaction. See, everyone gets eaten by the rats eventually. The creatures were just part of the city's ecosystem like everyone else, and this empathy was what got him his doctorate of Rodentia Studies. He has since become an expert in the animal, consulted by city officials and ratcatching guilds, as well as some fringe biologists proposing a connection between the animals and the spread of disease in Rousson.
• Blood Art: Blood Hold
  • Rat King: Robert can control any rats he can see like puppets, with more rats being much more difficult to work with. His knowledge of the creatures also allows him to take control of vast swarms not by directly controlling the rats but by asserting dominance through body language to direct the swarm as an actual leader-rat would.
  • Sovereign of Secrets: Robert's like a (un)living medical monitor. If he focuses on someone in line of sight he can get a detailed understanding of their body's state—health, vital signs, things like that.
  • Extradition Official: If Robert sees an open wound he can accelerate the flow of blood in order to prevent clotting and drain out a victim's vitality more aggressively.
• Abilities:
  • Robert is a talented academic and Kejl Academy's gen-eds are no slouch either. He knows a lot of abstract academic facts that many poorer people don't.
  • Robert's stayed in shape; he doesn't know how to fight, but he does know how to take a hit, and run for his life.

Edited by Taco on Jul 2nd 2022 at 8:04:22 AM

• Name: Priscilla Delacroix^note  Known also as 'Sister Grey' or 'Priscilla the Grey'
• Age: 23
• Occupation: Conservator Maiden of the Church of the Moonlit Cross
• Appearance:
  • Glamour: A woman of stature, with a height of around 6’5”.◊ Priscilla even when under glamour is an almost doll-like figure of modest dress, but is frighteningly pale and has a greyish complexion that seems to permeate her whole being. She appears as a woman whose colour has all but sapped from her body, and even her eyes are a murky grey with only stark black pupils indicating them to be indeed functional. Priscilla carries with her a spiked mace sharp enough to puncture a man’s skull with ease, and always wears armour intermingled with her robes due to the possibility of danger and combat always being on her mind. On her right hip are vials of blood secured to her belt, on her left is a book of prayers and hymns which is made durable in order to withstand punishments even greater than that which would kill her.
  • True: In her undisguised form, Priscilla is considerably more animalistic and horrific to look upon, carrying features belonging to that of a goat including curved horns atop her head along with a long coat of greyish hair across her body, and her few bald patches of skin on her form are wrinkled and bear seams that indicate how it can be separated into individual ribbons at will. Along with this she also possesses the telltale features of a Bloodlord, with sharp vampiric teeth and slitted pupils that combine to create a fearsome countenance. It is notable that her normally uncanny grey eyes look perfectly natural on this form, as if they truly belonged to the visage of this demonic figure from the beginning. Priscilla is ashamed of this state of hers, fearing it as too beastly for a woman of faith to resemble, and so she only adopts it willingly in moments of utter humility or when she is required to put fear into the hearts of man.
• Personality: Priscilla is pious almost to a fault, but profoundly humble and courteous towards others, considering herself obligated to act as a gentlewoman despite her low social standing and deliberate poverty. Priscilla has no belongings to her name, only the provisions that are donated by others or from the Church, and she herself refuses charity in the form of vices or excessive riches even by her sisters in the convent. Despite the segregation between male and female in the Church, resembling that of the main Hader Temple to an extent, Priscilla considers her male fellows in reverence as brothers in worship, and overall does not bear ill will or distaste towards those of different faiths. Though she believes in and devotes herself to the ideals and persona of The Light, she has no bigotry except towards those who she believes are actively evil in attitude and practices, and though she is stern when her principles are threatened she is more often than not serene and meek with other people. Priscilla often keeps to herself, revealing her true thoughts and feelings readily only through prayer, and shies away from intimacy out of fear that it will besmirch her abstinence and render her weakened in her loyalty towards her faith. However, Priscilla is also affectionate with others and keen to assist them in all manner of things should they show a need—despite her reserved nature she is kind at heart, and only wishes to use the lessons she has learned in her time of worship to make herself a boon towards the good-natured.
• History: Priscilla was initially a convert, once a housemaid from a humble farming background working at the estate of a noble with a nasty reputation of dehumanising his servants and flaunting himself above his guests. Having showed disgust with her master’s attitude and feeling increasingly listless and lacking in purpose as a result, Priscilla turned her attention towards faith as a means to get through her employment until she had the opportunity to leave of her own accord—however, she was pleasantly surprised when her master promptly dismissed her along with several other servants out of dissatisfaction with their work only a few days after she’d delivered her prayer. Further interested in the divine as a result, and seeking refuge as well as a sense of belonging someplace, Priscilla eventually joined the Moonlit Cross denomination of the Lunar Church as an unsullied maiden, and devoted herself to a lifestyle of sacred service and prayer towards the Light in order to find her true calling. Since having become more comfortable with her new identity and personality, Priscilla has branched out into the work of a conservator for her convent, protecting both her sisters and the general public as a dutiful warrior determined to defend the innocent from the forces of The Dark. Due to this Priscilla has become an expert in combat despite her normally peaceful attitude, and is more than willing to take arms if it means acting as a guardian for the righteous. Outside of her life in religious service, Priscilla has a personal interest in biology and specifically the ties between the bodily form and the spiritual essence, and in particular is curious regarding the potential secrets that lifeblood holds for greater connection towards the divine. As such, Priscilla has a fascination with haematology, and in her rare moments of free time collects blood samples as well as some other fleshly components for her research in holistic medicine. It is this field of interest that has allowed Priscilla to cross paths with Dr. Robert Ward at a few points in time, as she has delighted in sharing findings in her studies of blood regarding (in her own terms) 'the human animal'.
• Blood Art: Muscle Manipulation
  • Dermal Ribboning: Priscilla has the ability to ‘ribbon’ her flesh down to the muscle into dexterous strips of skin that can lash about rapidly like sharp, cutting whips, or alternatively manipulating objects or mechanisms carefully from a distance with almost surgical precision given her awareness of the subject. This separation of flesh from muscle effectively numbs her entire body due to nerve endings snapping in the process, but strangely enough the mechanisms of this ability don’t seem to affect her in terms of infections or blood loss. Rather, her conversion into a Bloodlord seems to have coagulated said blood, making it harder for her to bleed out overall even while her muscles are exposed to open air. Priscilla does unfortunately have to consider her clothing while using this ability, and her propensity towards modesty means that she has to limit her ribboning towards locales of appropriately exposed skin—she permits herself to remove her gauntlets and pull up her sleeves in order to use the flesh on her arms, or more commonly use the flesh on her face in order to leave said arms free for wielding her mace or other activities. The ribbons of flesh that Priscilla creates are capable of being extremely thin and borderline invisible, enabling them to whip out at her enemies sharply and quickly so as to cut into them with little effort—however, skin ribbons of this thinness are also highly fragile, and so to save herself from losing flesh Priscilla keeps them fairly sturdy at the cost of being slower, making her dermal weaponry more akin to many tendrils that can forcibly gouge into her opponents instead.
• Abilities: Due to her experience as a housemaid, Priscilla has common household skills including that of cooking and general organisation of properties, which will likely become useful in the matter of maintaining and expanding home bases. Priscilla is also a trained combatant best suited for the likes of shortswords and spiked maces, and knows how to fight with agility even in plated armour should she be required to. Priscilla lastly has knowledge of the human body and its weak points as well as its strengths, and can treat wounds and some ailments with the right resources and equipment should she be given the time and space to do so. Her relatively eminent position within her convent also gives Priscilla something of a reputation among her brothers and sisters serving in the Lunar Church overall, giving her some respect and legitimacy in dealings with said Church and those affiliated with it, along with some other neighbouring religions with similar values.
• Miscellaneous:
  • For reasons unknown, but what she attributes as a continuous side-effect of her years of worship, Priscilla’s hair and eyes have become grey and colourless as if aged, while her skin has adopted a deathly pallor. She doesn't mind this due to her aforementioned association of this phenomena with her faith, but it is still a curious and somewhat disturbing factor regarding her appearance. Her pallid complexion and unusual hair and eye colour have earned Priscilla the moniker of 'Sister Grey' among some circles, most usually other denominations who she has made an unusual impression on. According to the testimonials from her previous coworkers in the estate before she was discharged as a housemaid, Priscilla had white hair and pale eyes from young, and they had darkened and become more grey as she'd reached adulthood. It is possible that she was born with some sort of condition that has caused this progressive effect in her.
  • In her youth, she cared for goats and beasts of burden at her family's farm, and this background may have influenced the appearance of her true Bloodlord form. Priscilla's memories of her early years are fragmented and blurry, though she knows that she once had a more energetic and vigorous personality before her experiences as a houseworker broke her down. She prays occasionally for the resurgence of these traits that she has long since lost, but views it both as hopeless and selfish to spend too much of her time wanting for. It is possible even her current name is not the same as her birth name, but she would not know it due to her life being so full.

Edited by Enirboreh on Aug 14th 2022 at 11:24:46 AM

• Name: Godfrey Baudin
• Age: 68
• Occupation: Butcher
• Appearance: A tall gentleman of advanced age. Grey-haired, down to his beard and mustache, with unassuming brown eyes, and still fit and muscular despite his years. Beneath the glamor one would find his skin a deeper shade, almost crimson from the hot blood beneath it, bringing to mind the image of a demon.
• Personality: Calm and confident, a man of few words. Godfrey is not a particularly complex person. He desires nothing more than a quiet life. A hint of a temper bubbles beneath his outward composition, but he's quite good at keeping it hidden. He is, however, fairly impulsive - he tends to immediately rush into action if he feels it necessary.
• History: Were you to ask him, he'd explain his history to be fairly simple: he apprenticed to his father from a young age, inheriting the family butcher shop fairly early into adulthood when his father passed of illness one winter. He was always prone to getting in fistfights with local delinquents as a youngster, and even into adulthood found himself occasionally beating up a petty thief or two. He intended to pass the family shop to a son or daughter of his own, only to discover that he was, in fact, sterile. His wife, desiring children, left him for another. Godfrey found himself alone, tending to his shop. His only company the stray animals who would eat his leftover scraps. His disappointment in life he channeled into exercise, and as a result became known for his impressive physique as well as his prime cuts. He hadn't expected to live much longer when the Change happened.
• Blood Art: Muscle Manipulation
  • Bulk Up: Godfrey increases bloodflow to his muscles, pushing them beyond mortal limit. At full force, his blows can easily shatter stone or send a man flying twenty feet, and enhanced jumps can carry him to the tops of buildings. A simple but potent art, especially given Godfrey is already quite physically fit.
• Abilities: Knows how to prepare meat, good with knives and cleavers, and is a decent chef in general. Completely unbothered by blood and guts, and knows where to cut to kill something. Decent hand-to-hand combatant, if only from years of experience.

All three characters are accepted.

Currently all applications are set. Character sheets will still be posted, but all player spots are taken for now.

Name: Katherine de la Haine

Age: 24

Occupation: Singer; Curseblood Huntress as a Hobby

Appearance:

• Original: Before the Change, Katherine was a woman who radiated confidence. People generally detect her arrival by all the bystanders who stopped to stare at her. Hair as dark as the moonless night, skin as radiant as the stars, eyes as entrancing as the depth of the ocean, and a smile that says she enjoys being the center of attention. All of these things made her quite a striking figure that most people wouldn't forget.
• Glamour: After the Change, Katherine's Glamour projects a form quite different from her original appearance. Her hair had been bleached to be as pale as the full moon, and her eyes are now as red as blood. She now prefers clothes with high collars to hide the gruesome scar on her neck. Though her stance and her smile radiate the same confidence, anyone with eyes can see that she was somehow changed.
• Bloodlord: Without her Glamour to hide behind, Katherine's scars are much more apparent, covering most of her torso rather than just her neck. Her ears become pointed, her teeth and fingers grow long and sharp, and her pupils are slitted and better able to see in the dark. As someone who spent the better part of their lives fighting Bloodlords, Katherine despises her 'True' Form and prefers to stick with her Glamour instead.

Personality: Katherine is not a woman possessed of complicated or far-reaching ambitions, instead preferring to go wherever the wind takes her. With an ever-present smile on her lips, Katherine is someone whose only wish is to live a life of freedom. Katherine can come off as aloof and detached, but never unemotional. She cares less for whatever suffering and conflicts happen around her and more about whether doing something about them would fit her definition of a good time. She's also not overly fond of intimacy or close relationships, finding them suffocating. Katherine honestly prefers the company of fans and sycophants she can just sort of ignore over actual friendships that take work and letting the other person into her personal space. Katherine isn't a fan of promises and oaths, feeling such things unnecessarily restrictive at best and completely ineffective at worst. Back before the Change, she enjoyed traveling throughout the city to see the sights. She'd often just pick a direction or a street on a whim and then follow that whim wherever it leads. Even now, she dreams of leaving the City of Rousson and seeing the sun one day.

History:

• If you were to ask Katherine about her past, she would tell you that it doesn't matter. She always tries her best to distance herself from her history and be more than the circumstances of her birth. Unfortunately for Katherine, even being reborn as a Bloodlady isn't enough to sever her past.
• Katherine was born Katherine de la Fouaciere, the second child of Arlette la Fouaciere nee Devereaux and little sister of Reynard du Fouaciere by about two years. House Fouaciere is a merchant family that specializes in textiles and clothing. In particular, the Fouaciere has been running a near monopoly on linen and linen-based products in Rousson. Arlette knew that many merchants were willing to pay handsomely to have her 'taken care of', and so she prepared successors for that inevitability.
• Katherine and Reynard were born and bred to manage the family business in the future. They suffered through countless lessons on trade, economics, and even textile working down to the most insignificant detail. They were taught how to defend themselves from assassins because they were as valuable targets as their own mother. They were taught about things like family honor and filial piety and about upholding the values their family represents.
• Reynard fully bought into what his mother taught him, throwing his all into becoming a proper successor to House Fouaciere. He held up filial piety as the highest virtue and would do whatever it takes to defend the honor of his family.
• Katherine, meanwhile, suffocated under her mothers controlling grip. She didn't want to be a merchant, she just wanted to be free. To be herself instead of the person her mother wants her to become. Her spirit demanded that she fight to secure her own freedom instead of laboring under the destiny her family had decided for her.
• Arlette didn't take Katherine's rebellious spirit well and tried to 'correct' her behavior. Once it was clear that Katherine would just rebel harder in response to discipline, Arlette decided to just bear with her daughter's eccentricities instead of wasting her effort any further. After all, she already has a son who would dedicate himself to protecting what she has built, and simply forcing Katherine to run the family business wouldn't is likely to backfire. Better to focus on raising Reynard properly over handling Katherine's tantrums.
• With her newfound freedoms, Katherine relentlessly pursued the things she liked. In particular, Katherine pursued singing and dancing as her favorite hobbies. Singing was one of the few hobbies she and Reynard were permitted before, and Katherine was always a natural dancer. Katherine relentlessly pursued these hobbies of hers until she became a skilled performer even by Rousson's standards. She even learned how to combine her two hobbies with what self-defense she was taught to become a renowned Curseblood Huntress, hunting down the fiends of the night with her sirenic voice and her artful movements.

Blood Art: Blood Hold

• Puppeteer's Strings: Katherine can control the bodies of anyone who is either close enough to her or whom she is sufficiently familiar with. The degree of control she has depends on how close the target is and how familiar Katherine is with controlling their body. Just being next to Katherine would be enough for her to gain full control while being in her line of sight might let her take control over an arm or cause some unfortunate slips. Familiarity with a target increases the range of this power. Given time to become familiar with a target, Katherine can fully control their movements from a distance.
• Siren's Voice: Katherine can telepathically communicate with other living beings through the use of her Blood Hold. Generally, this is limited to those within her line of sight. However, familiarity with her target can waive that restriction. This technique has a very good range for how complex it is, allowing it to be used to long range communications.
• Thief's Spyglass: Katherine can use Blood Hold to tap into the senses of other living beings, riding along behind their senses and qualia to experience the world as her target does. She is mostly limited to those within the same building as her, but once again, familiarity with her target can loosen this restriction.

Abilities:

• Katherine's most prized skill is her Singing. Whether it's the songs she wrote in her youth, the traditional songs of Rousson, or the mystical Hymns she once used to hunt Cursedbloods, Katherine loved to sing and listen to songs. The fact that listening to songs hurts now isn't something that would get her down. Katherine can withstand songs better than most Bloodlords and can identify any song or Hymm she hears.
• In addition to singing Katherine is good at dancing and fighting, pair of skills that bleed together when it comes to Katherine's use of them. Katherine's dances always carry an edge of danger or violence to them. And in a fight, Katherine is always quick on her feet and prone to flashy and exaggerated movements. This served her well during her time moonlighting as a Cursedblood Huntress, though evidently not well enough.
• Of course, not everything Katherine is capable of is something she learned willingly. As part of her upbringing, Katherine was taught much about the ways of the merchant, from the complex mathematics involved to socioeconomics to the best way to make textiles. All of this knowledge has been inflicted upon Katherine for much of her life and thus has become second nature to her. She is recalcitrant to use these skills, but successfully coaxing her into it would let her demonstrate skills worthy of the daughter of one of Rousson's greatest merchant families.
• Similar to her knowledge of mercantilism, Katherine was inflicted with the knowledge of the Lunar Church, especially the Moonlit Cross. It was in this way that Katherine first met Priscilla.

Misc.:

• Arlette is basically the only person Katherine is well and truly afraid of. As well as the only one she tangibly hates. Katherine lived most of her life suffocating underneath Arlette's authority and expectations, which shaped her into what she is now.
• Katherine has no interest in the family inheritance, going so far as to change her own name to represent her cutting ties. People often assume that she does care, which is quite aggravating.
• Last that Katherine remembers the family was managed by her mother, Arlette. After Katherine's Change, it seems that her older brother, Reynard, has taken over the family's leadership. Katherine does not know what happened to her mother.
• Katherine doesn't remember the how, but it's pretty obvious that her scars are all the result of a Lycanthrope attack. Something had damaged her precious voice and she will hunt it down to the ends of the earth.
• Katherine starts off the game only being able to whisper, as her voice box is still recovering even after being raised as a Bloodlady.

Character accepted

Name- Lukas Riese

Age- 31

Occupation- Bodyguard and Occasional Thief

Appearance- Being from outside of Rousson, Lukas has noticeably warmer, less pale skin than the sun-sensitive Rouens. Lukas's overall apperance is untidy. His clothes are of low quality and perpetually dirty, and his brown, slightly orange hair is a tangled mess. Lukas wears a distinctive thick cloak around his shoulders made of magpie feathers.

Without glamour, Lukas's skin, fat, muscles, and bones become a translucent light red, though his internal organs stay the same, making them clearly visible. In addition, his teeth sharpen and his pupils turn into slits.

Personality- (Read History first) Lukas can seem disconnected from reality, and can easily ignore truths and facts when they are inconvenient to think about. He believes in luck, specifically in that bad luck is a sign that good luck will eventually come. Years of poverty has taken a toll on his patience, still. Lukas is methodical and careful, despising recklessness. He is nearly always attentive, despite being laid back, and has an interest in just about everything. Lukas is distasteful to crime on principle, but he is better at persuading himself into it then he would admit.

History- Lukas was born to a life of opulence, and set to inherit much. His father, a prolific businessman, had built a great amount of wealth after accidentally stumbling upon an untapped salt deposit. His father was a man of luxury, paying for only the finest for his family, and paying quite a lot. He was more stringent with his time, prefering to spend his time on himself, and not on raising or training his son. As a result, Lukas spent most of his childhood surrounded by luxury but alone, following his father on his business pursuits. One of these business travels was to House Fouaciere, where Lukas briefly met it's daughter Katherine. Lukas would spend the spare time he had while not traveling on exploring his many interests, notably learning to use a crossbow.

When Lukas was 17, his father took a large finacial risk. The Riese's business was focused around one initial mine, which had turned out to be quite lucrative. To try and squeeze some more money out of the mine, Lukas's father ordered a downward expansion. His engineers told him that it would be highly risky- no mine in recored history had gone this deep before. Lukas's father, a gambler at heart didn't care in the slightest about this risk and went through with the expansion anyways. Lukas himself was unconcerned as well, since he had grown accustomed to his father's reckless investments. This investment, however, would prove to be a fatal failure. A few months after the expansion, the whole mine collapsed, leaving hundreds of workers dead dead. After the primary mine failed, the overcentralized business was already dead. While Lukas's father tried taking more risks, none of them paid off, only accelerating the business towards bankruptcy. Lukas was dropped sharply into poverty, and Lukas's father would die shortly thereafter of presumably natural causes.

The next fourteen years of Lukas's life would revolve primarily on scraping together enough money to survive. Using his skills with a crossbow, Lukas was able to find decently steady work as a bodyguard and mercenary, supplementing his income with occasional thievery, but he was never able to lift himself into finacial security.

His most recent job was protecting a trade route to Rouson, an uneventful mission. He had only planned to stay in the city a few days before the Change.

Blood Art- Ichor Craft

~~~~~~Blood Bolts- Lukas forms artificial crossbow bolts out of blood. These bolts are sharper than normal bolts, can be loaded quicker, and can be slightly moved/manipulated after firing, effectively making Lukas more accurate.

Abilities- Lukas is decently experienced, though unexceptional, with using a crossbow. Experience as a bodyguard has sharpened Lukas's perception. He is very aware of possible threats. Although his father had little interest in teaching his son trade, Lukas did pick up some skill in mercantilism from his childhood, primarily what not to do. Lukas is fully capable of riding a horse, as well as shooting a crossbow while riding one.

Notable Equipment- A Crossbow and a Feather Cloak.

Edited by AxionTheGhost on Aug 22nd 2022 at 12:26:46 PM

• Name: Claire Bessette

• Age: 24

• Occupation: Scholar at Kejl University

• Appearance:
  • Glamour: Trying her best to appear like her old self. She often sports a cloak and/or robes when wandering around Rousson to keep her warm. Although, despite all the fiery imagery, the ethereal, spiritual paleness of her true form's skin shines through.

  • True: Claire's true form as a Bloodlord is far more ethereal. She appears ghastly, almost translucent. Her now-slitted eyes have become an piercing unnatural blue buried in a sea of sheer white. Her nails have lengthened into pointed claws, and her body has gotten thinner and ganglier. Her hair has followed suite with her new colour, becoming a pale silver marked with streaks of black.

• Personality: Claire carries herself with an air of consummate professionalism, perfectly aware of the weight of her name even after she's discarded the title of heiress, though she would rather spend her time with her nose buried in a book of lore and mysticism. In that element, she becomes excitable and fascinated, able to ramble and argue on for hours at a time, and is always eager to absorb new information or research more. Though she has some deal of charisma, she tends to get irritable beneath the façade of politeness. Indeed, while she isn't exactly short-tempered or impatient, she does have her limits of annoyance. She's a chronic busybody who just can't sit still and relax most of the time, a force of habit that's come from necessity and experience, which does tend to make her prone to overstressed outbursts when she's doing something that isn't her scholarly work, which is something of a natural relaxant for her.

• History: The Bessette family, one of the newer merchant families in Rousson, had quickly made a name for itself when Evrard Bessette arrived from the Dagmar Union and set up a small jeweler's shop. Soon, his business savvy and social deftness took him from a small workshop with the bare essentials and Evrard as the only permanent employee to one of the finest in the city, with fine craftsmen chosen and trained by the man himself. He found himself a wife, Marie-Noelle Beaulieu, and soon their daughters followed.
  • As the eldest, Claire was first in line as heiress to the family business, though her younger sister Angeline was also schooled in the ways of commerce that was to be expected of her. However, Claire grew fascinated with the world around her, the forces of magic and spirits, the curse surrounding her home that plunged it into eternal evening, all of it. She would sit in her room, gazing up to the sky above with the moon and all the stars, and simply...ponder. In those moments, she no longer felt like the merchant-princess of the Bessette family. She felt altogether different, somehow more authentic. She had the knack for the business, but as she came to realize, none of the drive for it. Of course, her family wouldn't just let her up and leave to do as she pleased. And so began the negotiations, as they had taught her.

  • A compromise was reached. Claire would be allowed to pass on the title of heiress to Angeline and follow her own path in life, on the condition that she went back to the Dagmar Union's Lowfree States to help expand the family business back in her father's homeland by managing a new workshop there alongside her studies. Sensing that this was probably the best deal she was going to get, she agreed and began packing.

  • The next few years passed in a stressful, filled blur, juggling the stressors of running an upstart business in an unfamiliar land and the weight of academic responsibilities, and so Claire had to learn how to organise her life and time quickly. But after what felt like an eternity, it was done. With a heavy sigh of relief, Claire packed up her things, recommended a trusted employee to manage the business to her father, and returned to Rousson to take up a position as a scholar and wizard there, which is how she's come to know her colleague, Dr Robert Ward. She's also rather glad to see her old friend and kindred spirit in Katherine again.

• Blood Art: Dark Alchemy
  • Fire Magic: It's rather straighforward. Claire is able to make blood combust in order to imitate fire magic using this Blood Art.
    • Igniting Arrows: One of her fallback staples, Claire sends forth a streak of fire, much like an arrow, towards something to burn it or set it alight. It costs about a vial of blood, but one of her favourite tactics is to create a small barrage of them underneath her cloak only to unleash them in a general direction when she flings it opens.

    • Gust of Flame:A spell of variable power, Claire projects a burning stream from her hands, roasting anything and everything in front of it. Costs a small flask for a brief moment at the weakest intensity, but it can be sustained by continuing to "burn" blood. More intense gusts of flame would require something in the realm of half a litre to a full litre.

    • Flash Combustion: Requiring a full 2 litres of blood, this spell is one of the most devastating that Claire knows how to use, creating a large, powerful explosion at a point that'll burn just about anything to ash with a bloom of white-red blood-fueled fire, and blind anybody that looks upon it. It's nasty, blunt, horribly resource inefficient, but provides more than satisfactory returns if used properly.

• Abilities:
  • Arcane Lore: When it comes to magic, curses, spirits and other things, Claire is incredibly knowledgeable, not surprising considering it's her area of scholarly specialization. She's also got decent general knowledge in other academic areas, enough to have done well in her studies, though she's gotten rusty after not needing them over the years, and obviously doesn't stand up to the experts in the fields.

  • Social Etiquette: Claire knows her way around the negotiating table, though she doesn't tend to use it that often, and has decent charisma and charm. She's also somewhat clued in on the social scene of merchants in Rousson, though her knowledge might be horribly out of date.

  • Dagger Skill: Claire is a passing dagger-wielder from the lessons to protect herself from matters of intrigue and so on, but she's still not really a decent physical fighter.

  • Organizational Acumen: Claire is rather good at keeping things organized and keeping notes. To that end, she's often got a small notebook and some sort of writing implement on hand.

Both characters are accepted.