Supernatural/Urban Fantasy Mercenaries/Private Eyes (open)

[This is actually now closed and not accepting new players for the time being.]

Yes, I know the title is terrible.

So, you've been hired by a small private agency who catches criminals, usually (though not strictly) for other criminals— people who can't report their organized crime rivals to the police instead come to you to defeat them and/or turn them in. Except, around 80% of the time, they're not strictly people, but vampires, centaurs, selkies, demons, and most of everything else.

That's the premise, and I do have a few specific mission ideas already (players could vote on which to do first). Usually, it'd take place in a city (in California. Most of the specific locations would be fictional but inside real world continents, countries, states, etc.), but that includes fantastic elements, and there would be some travelling to alternate locations, since jobs often require that.

I'm looking for 4-6 players. Characters can be almost (nothing overtly sexual) any mythological creature or urban legend, or just a regular human. You can think outside the box, as well— a clown could count because of modern fears/supernatural versions of them. Overall, I'd want to keep this PG-13 content-wise. If anyone has questions, please feel free to post them here, which would be better than D Ming because then anyone else who reads the thread could see them.

Character Sheet Format:

Name: Species: Age: Gender (non-binary/genderless is fine): Appearance: Personality: Place of origin: Backstory (can be multiple paragraphs or just a few sentences): Specialty: How they joined the agency: Pet peeves: Any extra information (optional):

Edited by pyrounicorn on Mar 29th 2021 at 7:27:25 AM

Quick question: What does "specialty" mean? Special powers? Investigative skills? Something else? Thanks!

It means what they specialize during missions, sorry for not being more clear. It can be a supernatural power they have, or just the character’s biggest skill, like stealth or lying, or just raw strength. You can write more than one thing there, but it might be better to focus on a limited number of areas, so as not to make your character overpowered or have too much going on.

Name: Daniel Browne

Species: Variant human: cursed

Age: 300~

Gender (non-binary/genderless is fine): Genderfluid

Appearance:

Daniel has one purple eye, one blue, Dark brown messy shoulder-length hair, Filed teeth, and stands at a non-threatening 5'7", although that's a sore topic for him. He wears just about anything with a preference for the style of clothing you'd see at Zumie's or Hot Topic. His work outfit would be simple, consisting of a utility belt filled with various weapons, his baseball cap, a denim jacket with numerous patches across it including a large circular purple one on the back with a skull wearing headphones ironed on, as well as the word 'restless' sewn into the right arm and 'Danny Skullbuster' on the left chest area. The outfit would also have black jeans and combat boots.

Personality: Snarky, violent, and unstable, Daniel is the type you usually wouldn't want to cross. Despite his rough exterior and general malice towards anything that breathes, he does genuinely care for those few who get on his good side and would do anything to protect those lucky few. He'll occasionally start fist-fights just for the fun of it, and never knows when enough is enough in a fight.

Place of origin: Brooklyn

Backstory (can be multiple paragraphs or just a few sentences): A serial killer from the 1600's, he managed to make a Deal with the Devil during the last moments of his execution, granting him powerful abilities, as well as immunity to disease and aging.

Specialty: Berserker, but a smart one. Can think well on the spot and, even if it looks like he's just jumping in, usually has a plan laid out in some form, although if necessary he can think one out whilst fighting.

How they joined the agency: Sorta just busted in one day and insisted he join.

Pet peeves: Overly cheery people, obnoxious vegans, Mormons, dubstep, bad manners, rats (as in snitches; he loves the animal), and superstitions and stereotypes about Hell and demons.

Any extra information (optional): His powers include energy constructs/projection (think Green Lantern but highly unstable, having a flickering, flame-like appearance), resistance to poison and toxins, moderate shape-shifting (same general appearance but can alter things like body-type, slight bits of facial structure, and outfit or hair color. Mostly just uses it to match whatever gender he's feelin' at that moment in time), moderate regeneration, and enhanced strength and agility. His favorite weapon is a white-handled, obsidian-black carbon Damascus bowie knife he smithed himself. Also, he makes beats/music in general and knows several instruments.

Edited by Omega-Z on Feb 26th 2021 at 1:24:25 AM

Accepted, just a couple of notes: - This is nitpicking, but officially humans with any abilities, including ones they were given but an external source are considered like a separate or sub-species in this universe, so Daniel would probably be officially variant human: immortal or variant human: cursed or something like that. Of course, there was absolutely no way for you to know this beforehand, it's just like. a fun fact - His energy constructs, while definitely allowed, miiight be a little overpowered when combined with his other abilities. Maybe they don't last very long, or disappear if he's not concentrating on them, or he can't make them very large, or something.

Overall, sounds like a fun character with a lot of potential, thank you for the submission :)

yea the instability of the constructs means he has to be constantly focusing on them, and it cant be anything larger than his body.

ok, sounds well balanced. thank you for elaborating

Is this still open?

Yes, it is still open.

• Name: Khulan
• Species: Bebilith/Human Host
• Age: She'll give an age of '41'.
• Gender: Female
• Appearance: Khulan is a short, toned woman, often found in fancy, colorful clothing. She has green eyes and dark hair, and her face is somewhat lined with age. She usually averts Arachnid Appearance and Attire. One of the benefits of being out of the Abyss is that prey doesn't see a bebilith coming even when she's right on top of them.
• Personality: Khulan is very active and enjoys adventure and action naturally. She loves being a flamboyant show-off and is easily lured by promising thrills. Its hard to break her good spirits, even when she's bleeding out. Khulan's love of action doesn't make her impulsive though, if only because she likes the tracking part too and that requires patience. She's cavalier about competition and danger.
• Place of origin: New York City.
• Backstory: Khulan is a bebilith summoned by a half-done attempt at resurrection. After reaching Earth, she kinda just went with being Khulan. And she didn't half do it; she really set about building Khulan's best life. Khulan took up old Khulan's job in stage shows and made herself a sensation. To her two kids, her foul moods ended abruptly, she inexplicably gained an ability to make swings on demand, and she started taking them out on the town or giving them money to do it themselves. (Her family has no idea of how she changed. They just think Khulan got herself a great life coach at best).
• Specialty: Khulan is a preying abyssal spider in human form with (naturally) spider themed abilities and a slight Horror Hunger. ^note On her Horror Hunger, she doesn't eat demons for sustenance. She doesn't even like the way they taste. Its just something that she has to do. Her preferred prey is demons, but to any target she can be an implacable pursuer. Even outside her innate talents, Khulan is adept at finding and following tracks, urban navigation, and recognizing telltale behavior patterns of different targets.
  • ^{Detailed Power set} 
    • Hand Tunneling - Khulan can dig through earth and similar material at about the speed of a human's walking pace.
    • Wall Crawling - Khulan can also crawl along surfaces at more than 40 miles/hour.
    • Blindsight - Khulan can detect things even in complete darkness by telltale vibrations in the air. She can track targets over short distances by smell and taste.
    • Spider Webs - Khulan can spew webbing from her mouth. They nullify demonic and other abyssal abilities.
    • Spider Bite - Khulan bites hard. She can chew through solid iron and straight through demonic natural armor.
      • Liquid Drain - After biting someone, Khulan starts to liquefy their insides and absorb them to increase her own strength and health. She can drink for as long as she's attached and the victim first withers then drains away.
    • Abyssal Tempering - Khulan is quite durable, resistant to (but not immune to) gunfire, and utterly immune to damage from fire and smoke. And while an excellent wrestler and very strong, she's on the lower end of Super-Strength. (Read: She can get a hulking werewolf in a joint lock, but don't expect her to lift and toss a car).
    • Hocus Pocus: Khulan has magical potential but mostly focuses on her innate abilities and hunting. She can do rituals and prestidigitation-like tricks inherently. She'd have to learn anything else.
    • Hell Spider - Khulan can shift into a monstrous spider the size of an elephant that can endure autocannon fire and move much faster than in her human body. Naturally, she has the strength to match in this form. However, Khulan rarely does this. She actually loses her stamina more quickly, and, unless she's really focused she'll probably revert to factory settings and hunt anything alive, only preferably demons. Further she's not actually immune to bullets, let alone artillery and is a much bigger target as a giant spider. And the city center just isn't as suitable a place as the Abyss for chasing prey as a giant spider.
• How they joined the agency: Hunting demons was a clandestine hobby Khulan had, more fun to fit in between circus acts and sword dances. Yet, while Khulan hid in plain sight in many ways, the agency eventually noticed that demonic activity around her had a tendency to inexplicably vanish. They caught Khulan in the hunt by observing a demon in the area and waiting on her to act. She has never actually come clean about being a demonic spirit herself.
• Pet peeves: Not many. Rushing into obvious traps irks her a bit, but she's still spirited about the new challenge. Implying she's the agency pig in polite company may get her to choke, but it doesn't really upset her. And she kinda is—you just can't talk about it. The agency often asks Khulan to dispose of organic evidence.
• Any extra information (optional): Street performances and stage shows are technically her day job. Khulan usually gets around via bicycling... on the rooftops. She's very mobile in general, and keeps her things in a collection of rental lockers and stashes. That and her knowledge of nightlife and an ability to be as eccentric as she wants in plain sight gives her the ability to do alot of her agency work openly and still be covert.

Accepted, also that was an amazing application, very detailed. Side note, it's been a while but if we get 3-4 players to confirm to start with, we can begin— it probably wouldn't be too hard to write in new player characters after the fact since they can just be other employees assigned to the same case.

Edited by pyrounicorn on Mar 24th 2021 at 4:41:28 AM

ye im ready

Name: Richard Slater

Species: Boring Human

Gender: Male

Appearance: Richard is normal human with brown hair and pale skin. He dresses scruffily, and all his clothes appear somewhat worn, regardless of how long he has owned them for. He carries a tome of magic with him wherever he goes.

Personality: Richard is impatient and somewhat acerbic, and those who interact with him cannot help but get the sense that he finds his presence in the conversation to be an embarrasing stain upon his reputation. Desptie his pridefulness, he is somewhat insecure and this too is manifest in his interactions with others. His main redeeming feature is an insatiable desire for knowledge.

Place of Origin: Urban U.S

Backstory: Richard was born in the city to a family of middling prominence, he received an excellent education and was accepted into one of the most prestigious schools of magic in the country. His unwillingness to cooperate with either his peers or faculty would make him an outcast with few associates, but he contnued to do fairly well academically. Richard continued to pursue his passion for summoning magic, a passion for which he eventually be expelled when he attempted to conjure a powerful extraplanar abomination and managed to destroy a large portion of the campus summoning facility. Down on his luck, Richard turned to less legitimate enterprises as a means of making money and honing his skills.

Specialty: Magical Expert, Richard is skilled in the use of rituals to conjure various magical entities, the nature and societies of which he is very familiar with, this is a versatile ability, but offset by the fact that he needs to bargain with said entities for their cooperation, as well as the fact that the rituals pertaining to more powerful entities require a great deal of research and preparation. In adittion to this Richard has an innate sensitivity to magic, and a good understanding of sciences both mundane and supernatural.

How They Joined the Agency: He was contacted soon after the "incident" with an offer of employment, presumably because someone higher had taken notice of his antics. Never a particularly upstanding indoividual, Richard agreed, hoping to gain more magical knoledge along the way.

Pet Peeves: ignorance, art, disorganization

Edited by bobbitwormhobbitwyrm on Mar 24th 2021 at 5:37:42 AM

Haven't been in a PBP in ages, but this seems really fun. Thanks to Century for helping me with the formatting, TV Tropes is a darn nightmare. Here's my entry- a phoenix, since dragons seemed a bit overused for this sorta thing!

• Name: Marin

• Species: Phoenix

• Age: 23

• Gender: Female

• Appearance: In her human form, Marin has flaming red hair, long and tied into a ponytail. She wears black biker shorts and a black jacket, and some studded chains (and a necklace). Essentially, Marin is a biker girl without a bike- for good reason, as the phoenix has found that clothes designed to protect against wind help if she turns back to human form in her normal hideouts (which are usually very high up). Marin is fit and athletic, and very tall and graceful- she tends to move like she can fly, sure-footed even in the worst scenarios. Since she can fly, this confidence is rarely misplaced. In her phoenix form, she appears to be a very large red and orange hawk. Her eyes are a light yellow, while her talons and beak are a dark gold. When not in a fight or when carrying passengers, she simply appears to be a massive bird, as she lacks any fire around her. As a reference- this is more or less her true form. https://www.pngfind.com/mpng/TRTRiR_phoenix-bird-hd-png-download/

• Personality: Marin is curious, social, and generally relatively friendly. She likes helping people and meeting new people, although she isn't not naive enough to think that everyone wants to be her friend. She enjoys new experiences, especially human experiences, and is a bit too enamored with human practices- she could be described as a Hard-Drinking Party Girl because alcohol is surprisingly great when you have never had it before and your immune system tends to burn off most of the lingering negative effects. She mixes her friendly personality with a tendency to chat with anyone and anything, including other monsters, regardless of situation or the dangers involved therein (although sometimes this is stalling for time or for reasons other than just talking).

• Place of Origin: The Sierra Nevada Mountains.

• Backstory: Unlike quite a few supernaturals, Marin was never human to begin with. Born in the Sierra Nevada, she soared the skies for her first nineteen or so years as a phoenix. Hidden away from humans, she had always been somewhat interested in people, but was not allowed allowed to leave the nest yet. It was when she was twenty that she actually decided to leave the nest, as was her right as a fully adult phoenix. Except not really, because she more or less snuck out from under her parents watchful gazes and just has yet to have been caught. Twenty two is in fact not enough to really be out in the world by phoenix standards- while she isn't quite a child, due to phoenixes maturing faster than humans do, she isn't not quite an adult by their standards, either. By human standards, she would be a full grown adult. By phoenix standards, she might be physically mature, but she's making terrible decisions like running off to see humans in their natural habitat. Marin, culturally, is more or less a cross between older teen and young adult in a culture where you stay until your parents are completely sure you can survive.

• Specialty: Ranged combat and public relations. In a fight, Marin is best at long range, using her fire to harry enemies and destroy things from afar. Out of a fight, Marin is kind and personable, and her phoenix form is less scary than an eldritch abomination or hellfire spider- in fact, she happens to be almost downright cute, something she happens to be willing to play up to calm people down in the event of a supernatural attack.
  • ^{Detailed Power set} 
    • Control Flames - Marin can control smoke and fire and attack with the latter. Her control is genuinely relatively fine, although limited to very close to her unless she can devote focus to concentrating. For example- without concentration, when faced with a burning building, she could cause the flames and smoke around her specifically to part enough for innocents to walk to safety as long as they stayed close. With concentration (IE, while not doing anything else), she could likely dampen the flames and disperse any smoke, although the moment she lost concentration or stopped maintaining the power, things would start right back up. This is her main claim to fame- the bird form is more flashy, but her control over fire is what actually makes her a threat in a fight.
    • Wings of Ash: Marin can transform into her true form at-will, although she usually remains in human form in polite company. In her true form, Marin resembles a giant red and orange bird with yellow eyes, gaining the power of… flight, mostly. In this form, Marin is roughly the size of a large horse, although her wingspan makes her look a fair bit larger. This power is mostly used for either scouting, a tactical advantage, or to carry passengers- she can usually carry two humans on her back comfortably, but could lift a third with her claws if pressed. She does have talons and a beak in this form, but neither are very sharp. She prefers to avoid combat in this form if possible- Marin remains a Glass Cannon despite her increased size and strength, as her durability does not increase measurably and she is still a larger target.
    • Fiery Rebirth - When killed in phoenix form, Marin bursts into flame (often setting anyone unfortunate enough next to her on fire) and resurrects. Her new form is weak and often still relatively injured, so this is more an escape mechanism than a combat tool- especially as she can only do this once a week. When forced to resurrect like this, she usually either flees or surrenders (whichever is more likely to keep her alive), as she will not be in any shape to continue a fight. If she were to be killed while in the recovery phase (IE, before a week had passed) she would remain dead.

• How they joined the agency: Marin will never, ever tell anyone this story, but she joined the agency because they helped her out of a very tight spot. Literally- while flying downtown at night in an abandoned part of town, she got her wings tangled above the ground in a few bits of a rusty, old building. Normally, she would have simply shifted back to her human form- but she was high up enough that the fall would kill or seriously injure her, but low enough that she would not be able to shift before she hit the ground. The agency rescued her and she joined more or less in gratitude. She does not necessarily need the money to survive or anything, but they got her out of a very painful situation and the money is still awfully nice to have.

• Pet peeves: I Am Not Weasel is a large one. She has been mistaken for a demon a few times, and it is always frankly somewhat insulting- the ability to turn into a flaming bird does not make her demonic, thanks. Asking for feathers is a less common one- phoenix feathers are a useful ingredient in alchemy and she would really prefer people stop trying to get her to give them one, because plucking them hurts and she usually only does it for friends. Hurting children is more a Berserk Button than a pet peeve, but it bears listing. Assuming she can drop everything to just come fly you around, like she does not have her own stuff going on.

Both accepted! I'll leave this open for 2-3 more days and then we'll start.

Sorry, apparently my reading skills short-circuited there. Anyway, here's my signup, please tell me if it's a bit overtuned:

Name: Tia

Species: Leviathan

Age: tells people ‘30’

Gender: Female

Appearance: As a human, Tia has loose black hair with dark blue highlights, a little longer than shoulder-length. She wears a loose rainjacket over a tight long-sleeved shirt and water-resistant rain pants. Tia is an excellent swimmer but prefers to move slowly and steadily on land, like someone with perpetual sea-legs. As a leviathan, she appears as a large dark-blue-and-black aquatic sea serpent with slightly glowing green eyes. Her left eye, across both forms, is marked by a white film and a small vertical gash just above.

Personality: Tia is perhaps one of the ultimate pushovers in world history, ready to agree to whatever as long as she is sufficiently prodded and to do it quietly. She's not excellent at things like conversation, both because she has trouble not being groggy all the time and people move a bit too fast for her without some small talk first (which is hindered by the aforementioned grogginess). If someone starts talking to her, she feels obligated to continue, but her standards for how interesting a conversation should be are perhaps a bit too high. Is interested in human experiences, but she tends to take a while before feeling comfortable about expressing that interest to other people.

Place of origin: tells people ‘California’

Backstory: Somewhere in the vastness of the Atlantic, an egg clutch hatched, and Tia was born, along with roughly 10 siblings. Leviathan parenting culture is in varying degrees "let the kids fend for themselves once they can swim", and Tia’s parents were abnormal in this in that they actually cared about their offspring - to a point. Once 100 years or so had passed, Tia was set adrift and eventually made her way to the Gulf of Mexico off Florida. There she stayed, growing curious about the ever-more-prominent sound and lights from the coast that occasionally woke her up. The occasion that prompted her to move was when a boat accidentally passed over her, nicking her with the keel straight in the eye after the sound of a loud party had stirred her. In the resultant capsizing of the boat, Tia was quite fascinated at how these puny creatures had managed to build something that had injured her so severely and washed them back to shore mostly intact. Sure, a few bones were broken, but they were alive and everything.

Specialty: Tia has an affinity for manipulating water on a large scale, especially in her true form. Tia is also relatively young by her species' standards and, as such hasn't had much practice with exercising control over it and gets tired easily. She can also transform into her true form at will, which is much tougher on account of being scaled, though she tries not to do so in small spaces because then she ends up stuck in buildings. Can theoretically carry things and/or people in this form, probably up to a large weight, but Tia has a bad habit of napping on the seafloor whenever she feels too tired (which is, as one could guess, often), which is rather detrimental for consistent transportation.

How they joined the agency: A few decades after the Florida incident, word spread of a series of struggling farms in California whose crops had been ruined by sudden, inexplicable rainstorms. As it began to hit national news, the agency investigated and found Tia, who had taken the whole "watering the plants" thing a bit too enthusiastically. After the agency sorted out all the insurance and/or other possibly clandestine payments, they made an offer to Tia, who accepted, partially out of guilt and partially out of not knowing what to do next.

Pet peeves: droughts, cramped spaces, loud parties

Any extra information (optional): Has a tendency to underestimate her physical strength and overestimate her magical strength, which along with the tendency to misjudge others has caused a few problems. As a result, she tends not to like straight confrontations and would rather wait in ambush if she absolutely has to do anything aggressive.

Edited by Altris on Mar 26th 2021 at 10:39:27 AM

Accepted, if it’s good with all of you we can start Monday.

Aye, Monday works for me!

Monday works for me as well.

Monday Works for me as well.

Mayhaps we could get a discussion thread or a discord server set up for talking about stuff outside signups/the actual game thread?

Ok, created a discord: https://discord.gg/jFjfT8kagU

Could we also do a discussion thread? i really don't have the best history with Discord and i'd much rather avoid using the platform.

No problem, created: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16170400850A27618000&page=1#1 . If anything important comes up in the Discord (which it probably will, since I have a couple things to discuss beforehand), I will also post it in that thread.

First post is up!: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16170687000A36424200&page=1#1