Another Shade of the World - An Urban Fantasy RP

I'm not gonna lie, I have my doubts about this kind of thing being treated with the delicacy it deserves. It's not a complaint leveled against Saturn or even tropers in general, I just wouldn't even trust experienced writers to handle this topic in a way that isn't gonna offend some people, and in general, it seems like it's veering way off course in regards to the tone other people's characters have taken.

I can't vote for obvious reasons, but I think this is getting blown way out of proportion for tons of reasons.

Has anyone ever seen Aliens?

Despite what some people are saying, I think some people are biased. Enough said.

edited 25th Nov '13 11:48:06 AM by Saturn

Eh.

That about sums up my reaction.

It's weird, but I've seen worse. Not in reality, mind you.

Comparing your intentions to Aliens is not helping your case.

• Name: Rachel 'Ambriel' Pasteur^† Ambriel is, additionally, her proper name.
• Age: Memories stretch back to shortly after the Hundred Years War. This really annoys her, because it means she doesn't have a damn clue where she comes from.
• Gender: Female... probably.
• Religion: Agnostic
• Race: Angel
• Appearance: Normal people don't get to see the feathery stuff. The supernatural wonder why the hell there's a tail as well. So does she, come to think of it.
• Personality: Lazy and rather selfish, she does just enough work to satisfy her immediate desires and then gets back to lounging around. Or, at least, that's how Rachel used to act. Now, she's rather acutely aware this can't really continue as it is... and she's trying to actively do good rather than just helping people here and there when she notices them. Rachel has also finally started to care about her past.
  On the downside, that's centuries of indolence weighing her down, and she's still inclined to put herself first.
• Bio: As far back as she can remember, Rachel has always had trouble sticking to what she's meant to be doing—in fact, the very first thing she recalls is having a choice between helping a farmer look for some missing livestock, and a mummer's play. Guess which Rachel chose to spend her time on?
  This set up the pattern down the ages—no matter where she wandered, she only worked as and when necessary to continue entertaining herself, and helped only when it wouldn't interfere. She's never been explicitly bad—just self-centred. And, over time but especially recently, she's found her abilities getting weaker and weaker, and her once brilliant plumage has turned a drab brown...
  So she's vowed to turn her life around. The first step to this? A lost, rather... sooty child. No name given, and nothing much to say about her past. For the past few weeks, Rachel has been taking care of this enigmatic child and trying to help her remember things. Said child is also aware she's an angel—after all, the first thing that happened when they met was that she got set on fire, so letting the child in on the supernatural side of things didn't seem so bad.
• Skills:
  • Mundane:
    • Omniglot: Well, not quite, but it's close. She's been around a lot, learned a lot of things, and she can find a common language to communicate with almost anyone. This also includes a lot of clerical and religious languages.
      No explanation is forthcoming for how she's actually fluent in Akkadian, of all things...
    • Booze Knowledge: Guess what she's spent a lot of these centuries doing?
    • Swordsmanship: Not the fancy fencing kind, either. When you always have a sword to hand, and it's so very easy to get in trouble... well, you pick things up, right?
  • Supernatural: All of Rachel's supernatural abilities—or, at least, the extent of them—is determined by how good she is. One way of looking at it is the stain on her own soul (or even just her mind) corrodes her supernatural powers. As it is, she's very close to being powerless in her entirety.
    • Flight
    • Light (of the torch variety)
    • Ability to hide feathered stuff
    • Sword hammerspace.
• Possessions and Assets:
  • Her Sword◊: Despite often being on fire, most people can touch it without the slightest bit of harm. It will only burn those that prey on the innocent—a Serial-Killer Killer, even if they're required to eat human flesh, would get away fine, whilst your average mugger and thug will find that it burns flesh a lot better than normal flames.
    Or would, if it wasn't also tied to Rachel's own strength.
  • Her Apartment: Reasonably well-maintained, and not too cheap, it's nevertheless poorly furnished and in need of some serious work.

edited 25th Nov '13 12:31:31 PM by RainehDaze

Maybe I'm just not experienced enough in the whole R Ping things, but I'm for it.

I'd like to expect that such a subject, handled with care could present interesting opportunities.

That being said, the sentiment expressed in this thread are largely evident, and it should be kept in mind that good R Ps would be a largely collaborative effort.

In all, I'm voting for it with a big red sticker labelled: Handle with care!

Just my two cents, is all.

Fine. I'll think of another idea then.

As Saturn said and based on feedback from the thread, I have to disallow the character. The idea intrigues me a bit though, so I'll keep it in mind and may apply it during the RP with Saturn's permission.

Rachel is approved by the way!

edited 25th Nov '13 9:55:01 PM by daltar

Ugh, being sick tends to prevent one from whipping up a good character quickly.

I swear, I will eventually make one and try and sign up.

• Name: Maria Andreas Figaro Saint-Thomas de Larosa, aka Maria de Muertos
• Age: 19
• Gender: Female
• Religion: Roman Catholic
• Race: Still technically human
• Appearance: She Who Runs Away With the Night◊
• Personality: Maria is, at the end of the day, extremely passionate. She is unshakeable in her beliefs, whatever they may be, and she puts her absolute all into everything that she does. She can be very impulsive, but she always has motives. She can let her emotions get the better of her, and she has a very strong sense of loyalty, commitment, and family. She despises those who tamper with or speak ill of the dead. She is, at heart, an absolute party girl. Wild, unpredictable, often speaking in half-Spanish, or in non-sequiturs. Ultimately, she likes to have a good time, but she doesn't let anyone get in the way of her plans, and she isn't afraid to hurt or kill innocent people to get her way, because in her eyes, Death is a far sweeter Mistress than Life, and the living should actually be jealous of the dead.
• Bio: Maria was born in the early 1900's in Mexico, and she has forgotten her direct origins, but they are firmly rooted in Hispanic heritage. As a young girl, she was taught to cherish life and pay tribute and homage to the dead. When she became a young adult, a tragic disaster resulted in the decimation of her entire town by ruthless bandits. She was the only one kept alive. Over the last year of her life, she was traded and owned, tortured into madness and insanity, then left for dead in the desert where her hometown once stood proudly. Maria was returned to life by a Shaman who she shared ancestral ties with. She was furious with being brought back to life. According to her, death was the ultimate party, and she was never unhappy, surrounded by her family and friends, singing, laughing, dancing, and making fun of the living. Now cursed to walk among the living as a human once more, she has learned the ways of the shaman, and in her madness, communicating with the spirits for knowledge and power, vowing to show everyone just how much of a party death can be.
• Skills: Maria is a shaman with growing abilities. She can communicate with spirits of those who have passed, either by bribing, tricking or convincing them for help, probing them for secrets, knowledge and wisdom, as well as calling upon their powers for a short amount of time for things like healing, animal summoning, and astral projection. Her spirit animal is the crow, and she has the ability to summon them to do her bidding, as well as dissipate her form into a Murder of Crows, and reconstitute back to her physical form. She is a skilled and practicing swordsman. She is also a pretty good free-style rapper.
• Possessions and Assets: A very large and growing wardrobe of wild styles from all over that she uses to create her lavish costumes that change every single day. She also owns an authentic Rapier handed down from past generations of her family.

edited 25th Nov '13 10:49:52 PM by Saturn

• Name: Hilda Inoue-Cho
• Age: 16
• Gender: Female
• Religion: A liberal Born-again Christian, she follows and takes the teachings to heart while making sure not to let it dictate her life...by being comfortable with the idea of breaking the rules from time-to-time, within reason of course.
• Race: Human-Witch
• Appearance: ...
• Personality: Mousy, taciturn, suspicious, polite, and anxious—she learnt to keep her head down and busy herself to avoid being uncomfortable from attention. Despite all this, she is in no way a coward even with the irrational fear of social interactions in the way. This young girl could defend herself if need be, and considering how hot-tempered she could be, one needs to avoid setting her off. Other than that, she's mostly harmless, polite and a person of action.
• Bio: Hilda is the result of an interracial marriage, Korean-Japanese at that. With the history and rivalry over the two countries, along with the attention of such union—that pushed the couple to bring the then fourteen year old child to a place boasted to be the melting pot of culture. Her Japanese mother is a witch who could concoct potions and foresee the future, and then secretly teaching Hilda the ways of the witch... ^note  lol how cheesy xD
• Skills: Could exorcise spirits by making light appear over the tip of the stick, and making viable potions. And gives a good jab, slap and kick.
• Possessions and Assets: The family lives in a small flat, obscure in a place filled with tenants to make sure that they wouldn't be noticed. She brings around home-made pastries by her dad, books, a cellphone (which she uses for games) and a staff...which is a wooden stick.

edited 28th Nov '13 1:27:19 AM by TheTomatoFairy

• Name: Jonah Quinton Westbrook
• Age: 57
• Gender: Male
• Religion: Lady Luck
• Race: Spirit (formerly Human)
• Appearance: Feel like takin' a chance?◊
• Personality: An easygoing drifting spirit, Westbook lives on chance, believing in fate to guide him with what's right. He always has his coin with him, and presented with almost any decision, he will simply flip it and let luck decide. To talk to him, one would just find a guy who seems to just be a calm, agreeable country boy.
• Bio: Jonah lived a life that could be described as very boring for it's first twenty years. He made his living by gambling, banking on an incredible streak of luck that seemed to be handed to him. He blamed it on a coin, a family heirloom he was passed down, but he had no idea that he was in fact exactly right. Time passed and he drifted all over the states, betting his way into a better living until one bet went badly wrong. You see, this poker game was organised by the mob and was in fact very well rigged, but such was Jonah's insane luck that he won anyway. This prompted the mob to take other methods to extract money from Jonah. But it seems Fate had more in hand for him, the coin he had inherited so long ago showed it's true potential. It resurrected Jonah's spirit and allowed him to walk the earth once more, free from mortal issues like aging and needing to avoid death.
• Skills:
  • Gambler's Psychology: Jonah has a silver tongue and is very well in control of his emotions. He can bluff with the best of them and will rarely give away anything.
  • Sleight of Hand: He can do quite a lot without the untrained eye even suspecting. You didn't think winning at gambling was all luck did you?
  • Spirituality: Jonah is functionally immortal. Things that would damage his health, do not since he doesn't have organs to damage, although he can strangely still be beaten up and feel strength-sapping pain. He can also turn non-incorporeal, although this does work both ways, meaning he can't affect anything else whilst in this state.
• Possessions and Assets:
  • Coin of Twenty Sides: This is a very special coin. When Jonah flips it in the presence of another supernatural, he will take on any of their supernatural traits for a short time. If there are multiple supernaturals in the local area, the 'twenty sides' part comes into play - the coin will randomly select one of them. (honest-rolls random too). It also gives the guy some damn good luck. Jonah's existence is tied to this coin, and if he's separated from it for over 24 hours he will begin to fade from the world.
  • Deck of playing cards, including Jokers.
  • Kawasaki ER-5 motorcycle, 2000 model in silver.

edited 27th Nov '13 2:45:44 PM by Plumbum

Hmmm a couple things about Hilda. Her parents are Japanese-Korean and still, her witch magic sounds a bit western in comparison to what one may expect of Japanese witchcraft and the like. Also, the link to the image isn't working.

That's true... there's always onmyoudo if you don't feel like going the more direct Shinto route. Though I don't know anything about Korean folklore...

Finished the signup from before.

I...could somehow sneak it in that they have a distant Western relative, especially for the choice of name I gave her. I haven't thought of it that way...

I'll switch it to Onmyodo and spiff it up, since I've only heard of it until Red brought it up and it looks cool. ^_^ I'm still keeping the stick that lights up.

edited 28th Nov '13 1:28:11 AM by TheTomatoFairy

Will wait for the changes Fairy.

Ah, Plum, define take on the supernatural skills of others.

edited 28th Nov '13 12:40:46 PM by daltar

I would never dream of taking away the shiny stick!

Well, he copies them for lack of a better term, but possession certainly does not imply mastery. Say he were to take on the ability to fly (although taking on his non-incorporeal form allows him to float, flying with wings is a different matter), he would gain wings of his own, but be incredibly lucky to no slam face-first into the ground. Although his luck is pretty good, it's also no substitute for actual skill and experience with his power he acquires.

It wears off after he is out of the presence of the supernatural the coin chosen or if he or that supernatural are injured.

edited 28th Nov '13 3:51:54 PM by Plumbum

I'm not sure I'm even going to be able to start posting until after the end of next week, but I just wanted to get this idea down before it flew right out of my head.

• Name: Ash(ley) Vesa Greenwald
• Age: 18
• Gender: Male
• Religion: Panpolytheism
• Race: Half-Dryad
• Appearance: A tall but thin youth with longish, stick-like limbs, untamable silver-white hair and dark red eyes. Thanks to the weirdness filter of normal humans, the latter traits are most often seen as white-blond hair and brown eyes. He naturally exudes the scent of sandalwood, and the air around him somehow always seems fresh - probably because it is. In case words aren't enough, have a picture.
• Personality: If Ash's entire personality were to be summed up in one word, that word would be... relaxed. Drawn-out. Languid. Spacey. Deliberative, perhaps to a fault. He is a generally thoughtful and happy person who tries his best to get along with anyone and everyone, human or otherwise. With a philosophical mind and a poet's soul, he's also "that guy" who always has an open ear and a word or two of sound advice for those who ask. However, he also has a certain tendency to turn otherwise simple conversations into deep explorations of the human psyche and other mysteries of the universe. Needless to say, such a passtime is not enjoyed by many. He is also rather absent-minded, and has an unfortunate habit of halting in the middle of a sentence as he hunts for the proper word, then forgetting entirely what he was talking about in the first place. On a side note, he's the sort that enjoys taking long walks out in nature, and is good friends with the Fae in Central Park.
• Bio: A little over twenty years ago, a certain California State Senator from the obscure city of Volwick, scion of a long line of politicians, rose like a firework through the ranks of the state's Democratic Party, only to burn out just as fast in a nebulous, easily-forgotten political scandal. The source of the scandal itself was a little odd from the outside - he'd quietly earmarked hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state's budget to pay for the total transplant of a single tree all the way from Greece to Volwick's Central Park. For this man, however, any cost was worth being closer to that tree, even the destruction of his incredibly promising political career. For you see, that tree - which the city kept, seeing as it would be a waste to simply cut it down - was actually the home of a dryad. About nine months later, from the union of that Greek spirit and the disgraced Senator, a white-haired boy was born. Having grown up intermingling with and with full knowledge of the city's myriad supernatural elements, Ashley Vesa Greenwald is presently in his first semester at the local University.
• Skills:
  • Cunning Linguist: Fluent in English and Ancient Greek (learned from his mother), and German. Knows common East Asian languages after years of friendship with some transfer students, but only enough to hold a basic conversation.
  • Diluted Divinity: With all nymphs ultimately being descended from Greek deities, Ash's mother is no exception. Thus, a very, very, very small part of Ash's blood is that of the Olympians. This affords him no real benefit per se, but for the purposes of detection methods that distinguish between divine and non-divine, he registers as divine. It's at least useful for keeping away some mischievous supernaturals who don't want to raise the ire of what they think to be a god.
  • Green Thumb: The ability to communicate with, alter the growth of, and control nearby plants, owing to his mother's side of the family.
  • Photosynthesis: As a benefit of being half-plant, Ash doesn't actually need to eat to live in the usual sense. All he requires to generate his own nutrition is hydration and a reasonable amount of direct or indirect sunlight during the day. That isn't to say that he doesn't eat normal food at all - he has to keep up appearances sometimes, and besides, food is delicious! - but it isn't unheard of for him to go for weeks at a time without eating meals. As a side-effect, he is nigh-constantly taking in carbon-dioxide and generating oxygen, leaving the air around himself fresh and invigorating.
  • Piano Mastery: A lifelong pianist, Ash is a virtuoso of the keys. He especially favors the works of classical masters and improvisational jazz, and can reproduce by ear a song heard only once. Wherever he finds a piano, he sits down to play at least a couple songs, almost always free of charge.
• Possessions and Assets: Having saved and invested all the money he's accumulated over the years from gifts (relatives didn't know what else to get him) and from not having to eat normally, Ash is well-off enough to room in a fairly spacious, one-person apartment at the edge of downtown, paid for with his own money - and with about $40,000 to spare in the bank. Not owning a car, he typically uses his bright blue bike or the city's public transit for long-distance transportation. Has a high-end (musical) keyboard, which he keeps at his apartment. Usually walks around with packets of sunflower seeds in his pockets for the sake of an occasional snack - and moreover for feeding small animals.

>Cunning Linguist

You can go jump in a fucking sarchasm for that pun. I'm suuuure you'll enjoy that.

I know it's terrible, but it's not my fault someone made a trope out of it.

In fact, I think Shakespeare did it first, although I don't exactly know my Shakespeare.

edited 28th Nov '13 5:15:20 PM by darksidevoid

Ash Vesa Greenwald is approved.

Jonah Quinton likewise, though with a few limits to his abilities. His power would allow him to mimic the abilities of others, but only to a certain power level. For instance, if someone's power is to be strong, he would be strong... but if this person was way strong, he would only get as strong as the power sunked into his ability to mimic the effect. And there is a bit of loss powerwise with imitating something that you don't have normally.

...I edited the profile for Hilda, but I forgot to ask if foreseeing the future is allowed. I could limit it to glimpse an hour into the future, if it's too much of a game-breaker.

@Red: Good.

edited 28th Nov '13 10:12:59 PM by TheTomatoFairy

So I've been kind of thinking over this second character idea and yeah:

• Name: Elizabeth Adams
• Age: 18 in appearance... and actually... 19. She's not a particularly old vampire.
• Gender: Female
• Religion: She practices no religion
• Race: Formerly-human, currently Vampire.
• Appearance: Long black hair, very pale skin, red eyes, dark brown sweater, and... um, well, usually the rest is a skirt or something when she goes out.
• Personality: Elizabeth is a socially awkward girl who has difficulties interacting with people. She's shy, though not cripplingly so. Still, it makes it hard for her to approach people and harder for her to talk with them, especially given that she tends to pick odd and rambling subjects that seem rather disconnected from many things. She has a deep liking for various video games and also many anime and manga, having a large connection stored in her apartment. Where she spends much of her time, really. She is very aware of her daily need for blood, which is most of what drives her outside to search for people she can drink from. Elizabeth is too nervous to break into the homes of others while they sleep... but is also very poor at talking to people to get them somewhere private so she can drink from them. She has no desire to kill people via drinking and will only drink so much from a single person.
• Bio: Elizabeth lead a normal and quite uneventful life of sitting very privately in her apartment and consuming her favorite media and venturing out every once in a while for a few purposes. At least... until one time, where she was suddenly grabbed from behind and something stuck her in the neck... and then she passed out. When she awoke, many things hand changed. Her eyes had gone from blue to red, for one thing. She was even paler. And she had fangs, that was notable too. It didn't take her too long to realize what had happened to her. In the following year since her vampirization, she has gotten rather used to requiring blood... and hasn't gotten any more used to talking to people, much to her dismay.
• Skills: The variant of vampire that Elizabeth has become offers her a few abilities. For one, she is much faster and stronger then she appears, capable of very easily overpowering a grown man by herself. She can regenerate from any injury, no matter how bad, as long as her brain and heart are intact. If one or the other is destroyed she will die. This comes with a daily requirement to drink blood(which actually tastes nice to her now, at least). In addition... sunlight is not pleasant for her. While it won't kill her, at best she'll get disoriented, dizzy, and feel very sick. At worse, she passes out. She can deal with this by using a wide-brimmed hat or an umbrella. She also possesses a vast knowledge of video games, anime, and manga, which is totally useful in this situation. Totally.
• Possessions and Assets: Elizabeth has an apartment and a vast amount of video games, anime and manga, and related merchandise. And that is about it.

edited 29th Nov '13 9:39:25 AM by AnnoR