Dulcet

The Last March of the Living

@A Heretic Yeah I figured; I'm just all nerves as it is.

The Last March of the Living

Hello everyone; I believe I've been summoned. Please pardon my slow response (things have been quite busy) and any gaffes I might make in my CS--I'm still wet around the ears with roleplaying.

Aliya Montcarre

Name: Aliya Montcarre
Gender: Female
Age: 20
Race: Human / Lavas
Appearance:

A woman of middling height, with sun-kissed going-on-olive skin and strong, but not overly toned muscles. Healthy, from a rich diet of fresh seafood and island fruits, with a thin, soft layer of fat mostly concentrated in a faint paunch stemming from a fondness of weak drink. She has a head of full but unkempt long black hair that reaches the small of her back, with a large swathe of the center tied up into a folded updo, while her remaining hair is tied into two long braids that disappear into her garments, to be affixed her clothing. Should she have an assistant to help her, and she feels like wearing a special set of clothing, her hair is instead worn in thirteen long strands, twelve tied into metal loops on the back of her dress clothing, and the last, central strand braided and adorned with a keepsake from her late mother.

Her appearance betrays her youth, despite her attempts to conceal it. Typically she wears a white veil and only reveals her turquoise eyes. Without them, one can see she has a small, unremarkable mouth that seems to constantly be curled up into a gentle smile. Her face is not striking; rather, her features are soft and blend together well, to compliment a slightly-rounded profile and sharper chin, with cheekbones closer to her eyes than to her mouth. At first glance, without her veil, one would see her bright eyes before taking in her face.

Personality:

Immediately welcoming, but increasingly reserved the closer one gets to her; at the gates of her heart are walls she deems insurmountable. Quick to make poorly-thought jokes and to dole out compliments and generous gifts, she, like other Lavas, also has a mercantile side lacking in any amount of reservation. Coin is her greatest ice breaker, and she delights in adding to her extensive hoard. She can be controlling, but it’s yet to be seen if she has a rotten madness within when things don’t go her way. If she’s not pleased with something, she’ll simply smile and bear it, and then proceed to cut her losses.

If there is one thing she holds in reverence, it is the ocean, and the life that flourishes in and around it. She prefers not to bother most sea creatures unless they’re common foodstuffs, overly-large (enough to ride on,) or if they pose a threat to her or her ship. Contrasting this, she despises dry land, and would spend fortunes to avoid setting foot on it; to the point that she purchased two galleons and crewed them exclusively with hand-picked women so that she could board an outbound vessel while one went to port. Her dislike of land is closely followed by a strong dislike of both the Glamhoth and the idiot general that started the war in the first place. She reasoned that a fool that couldn’t read a map would get their entire crew killed.

Short-Form History:

Born into a rich family, Aliya never once knew the feeling of dry land until she was well into her adolescence. She spent her days picking up hobbies ranging from the mundane to the strange, and eventually settled on a fixation on swashbuckling. She was eager to pick up a boarding axe and cutlass, and soon found joy in leaping haphazardly from the decks of her ships.

While she was getting a grasp on combat, her mother quickly fell ill and perished. Her father was devastated, and called his entire fleet back to port for a month of mourning. Aliya associated the stillness of dry land with the stillness of death, and decided she’d rather die than be forced to live on land. She redoubled her efforts in bettering herself, and soon her father gave her command of a small personal fleet to explore with.

Aliya understood that—because she only accepted women into her crew—she would need a group of experienced fighters to accompany her. Her choice of mercenaries, however, was a grave mistake. Only two months after setting out, the mercenaries betrayed her and ambushed her with a group of pirates. The mistake cost Aliya’s crew fifty of the sixty lives it had, and she limped back home in disgrace.

This did not deter her, and she soon returned to the open ocean—this time with a crew of only the finest female sailors she could find. She personally drilled them in the lessons she learned from her brief stint in combat, and they learned dutifully. She gained fame and fortune from running clandestine cargo, and settled into her new life.

Things changed for her after she docked in a port city close to the Anfangrim mountainhomes. There, she met a mad clocksmith that bestowed a prototype weapon on her. It was one of many, and the clocksmith hoped that by spreading the technology as far as he could, it could one day save someone’s life. He did not explain it, but Aliya was intrigued by the suggestion that some great happening was on the horizon. She graciously accepted the man’s invention, and anxiously awaits the adventure to follow.”

Long-Form History

Aliya was born into a rich family, with a fleet of fishing vessels to their name. She was born at sea, where she would spend the vast majority of her lifetime. From a young age she worked with her mother’s personal crew—all women—and quickly picked up the finer points of command. She never quite got the hang of sailing, but could always trust her crew knew what to do based on what she told them. Trade and exploration were her joys for much of her life, and her parents whole-heartedly supported her with her endeavors; though they would never let her set sail without one of them aboard her ship.

Being out on sea gave Aliya plenty of time to pick up strange hobbies and think. At first she took more common hobbies, like fishing, or whittling, but over time she grew to crave more and more complex, esoteric pursuits. For a short while, she was interested in the tarot, and to a lesser extent, the occult, but this phase came and went, though she keeps her birth cards on hand: the Devil, and the Lovers. One of her attendants had a small flute, which Aliya learned to play with some degree of skill. On and on she went, until she settled most recently on combat skills: particularly fond of boarding actions and deck combat.

While she was learning how to handle an axe while jumping from one moving ship to another, her mother fell ill and perished to an unknown disease. Her father, gutted at the loss, brought all his ships to port for a month to mourn her. This would be the first time that Aliya was on solid land for an extended period of time. Soon, the grief over the loss of her mother was augmented by a certain sickness—a feeling that land was too solid; too foreign for her. She came to associate the stillness of the land with the stillness of death, and was relieved to finally go out to sea again. Her father—still grieving—chose to stay on land, and for the first time Aliya set out in sole command of a small fleet of three clippers.

Her choice of vessels complimented her desire for boarding actions—rather than cannon warfare. Her ships were equipped with reinforced bows and installed the strongest rams that she could find, along with three harpaxes on both sides of the ship. Knowing that her female crews would be at a disadvantage in a melee, she begrudgingly hired a company of mercenaries to accompany her in another clipper of her specification. The mercenary company headed their fleet, and would specialize entirely in combat; both with cannon and in melee.

Aliya’s days of exploring were short, however. Only two months into her exploration, the mercenaries in their company disappeared during a storm. At the time, they had been docked by a large island, and Aliya assumed that the mercenaries would be somewhere nearby. A few days later, their fleet was ambushed by a two pirate frigates, led by the missing mercenaries.

The resulting fight was brutal, but through superior speed and tactics, along with smaller displacements, Aliya ran the two pirate ships aground and set them afire. The mercenary clipper, however, caught up to her while her other ships were busy burning the pirate vessels. Their men were excellent marksmen, and landed their harpaxes from extreme range. Aliya’s crew couldn’t cut the harpoons before the mercenaries were on them. Her crew numbered sixty, while the mercenaries fifty. Their difference in combat skill was immediately apparent, however, and Aliya and a large group of her crew were driven up the aftcastle in short order.

With nowhere to go and her two other ships too far out to render aid, Aliya and her crew used anything they could as weapons. They went from swords and axes to resorting to using mops to push the mercenaries back, and eventually ended up kicking stray barrels down the stairways at them. Her crew kept Aliya far away from the front against her orders, and were cut down. By the time Aliya was able to fight, her crew was down to ten able to fight against twenty men.

It was at this time that Aliya realized that her training amounted to very little without experience to back it up. Her form with a boarding axe and cutlass was excellent, but she was easily brushed aside by more muscular, battle-hardened foes. She called the surrender of her crew with the mercenary captain’s voulge to her throat a short while after she was cornered, and the mercenary crew was quick to bind and gag her crew. The captain extended a “cordial” offer to Aliya: an empty promise that his men, “will hold out raping, abusing, and killing her crew for as long as they can,” in exchange for Aliya’s servitude whenever the captain pleased.

There was no room for negotiation, but for once that was not what angered Aliya the most. In a brief window of opportunity, she knocke the voulge out of the captain’s hands. When he tried to clumsily pick it up, the shorter handle disconnected from the shaft, and Aliya’s skill and speed finally pulled through for her. She seized the blade and drove the spike through the man’s stomach, before swinging it around and catching him on the neck. In her rage, she kept chopping until the man’s head was cut clean off, and then crushed it underfoot. The other mercenaries were too busy hauling Aliya’s crew onto their vessel, and the prize crew was below-deck checking for any hidden survivors. Aliya only had to fight two men to start.

She turned the captain’s head over his throat to cover it in blood, and then ran to the two men on her deck. She threw the bloody head at the one on the left and landed a perfect hit as he turned to face her. The other mercenary was too slow to react, and she drove the spike of the voulge into his stomach, and similarly swung the weapon around to disembowel him. His partner didn’t even see Aliya before she charged him with the spiked end of the shaft and tossed him overboard. She repeated similar actions—freeing her crew as she went—until she could hang the dead bodies of the entire mercenary crew from the sides of her ship and the mainsail.

Despite the sudden victory, her ship was far too damaged to continue sailing for long, and she grudgingly returned to port. Her father was outraged at the mercenary guild, and several men were tried and executed in the following weeks; many more were found strung up and gutted around the port areas. Aliya took to training her crew as hard as she could, and soon she felt as if she mastered the trophy she had taken from the mercenary captain. She had another one made to her specifications, and burned the old one. She swore to her crew that they’d only ever rely on themselves from then on. She hired the finest, and then the women sailors not quite the best at what they did. She organized training for her crew; going so far as to hire master crews and famed female warriors to teach them. Her crew devoured the training she administered, and she built up a truly remarkable crew. She returned to her father triumphantly, and requested a small loan from his fleet to call her own.

Her father was delighted when he tested her crew, and gave her a much newer set of ships:four clippers and the fastest frigate available. The timing of this could not be any better. With both speed and sizeable defenses, her fleet was considered one of the best at ferrying precious cargo and sensitive information in a time of growing unrest. Whispers of a great war were brewing, and all races spoke in frantic whispers and hidden gestures in an attempt to stay ahead of the oncoming storm. Aliya went from being simply wealthy to nearly controlling a small city’s worth of coin in secrets.

On her journeys, during a short stay in a port city with links to the Anfangrim mountainhomes, Aliya encountered what she thought was a stark-raving mad clocksmith. He would not stop going on about his invention; his “masterpiece.” He called it a clock that told the user more than just the time: it told them the time left on their life. Aliya was perplexed, but couldn’t get any reasonable explanation from the man. She dismissed him until she noticed a single figure just barely out of place in the shadows; weapon drawn. From their steely look, she could only guess that they had heard the madman, and knew exactly what he was talking about.

Before they could attack, Aliya hauled the man away; back to her ship. She had him confined to a small room, and she waited at attention for something to happen. At dawn the following day, a squat pair of humans requested boarding, and left Aliya with a box addressed to the clocksmith. She could not shake a feeling of dread that came from the imp-like men.

The clocksmith, on the other hand, seemed saner the moment he saw the box. He eagerly opened it and tinkered with its contents, and Aliya watched in surprise when she recognized the silhouette of a pistol. She could not recognize was the strange lock it had. The dwarf would not explain it in detail, fearing “leery ears” were listening to them. When he inquired about what Aliya and her ship did, he was delighted to hear that they were well known—perhaps counterintuitively—for their ability to take clandestine cargo from one place to another. He said that he would make as many of the weapons as his tired hands could manage, and he would entrust them to as many people as he could believe would keep them safe. There was something looming on the horizon, and—while one invention might not change the course of history—there was a chance that it could. He begged Aliya to take one with her, and told her that when the time came that it would be needed, she would need to find the most adept engineer she could to bring the weapon together.

“By no means will this save the world,” the clocksmith said, “But it may save you, or whomever you bring it to; and that certainty is what keeps me working tirelessly.”

With little reason to refuse, Aliya took the box that had been delivered to her ship and locked it safely in her quarters. The clocksmith disappeared in that short time, and Aliya did not press the issue any further. She smelled an adventure, and would have her take of it.

Equipment:

Voulge—shaft splits about 20 cm from the blade and can be detached to use the head as an axe / cleaver, while the other end has a short spike in the bottom
Complete set of parts of a wheellock pistol and a bag of shot and powder.
Cotton sailor’s clothes
Boots
Small bag of supplies
Mother’s Hair Ornament: a thin golden ornament about the size of 3 fingers side-by-side. The top portion of the ornament is a manta ray with its fins outstretched, facing ‘upwards’; a blue gemstone rests along its dorsal region. Below it is the visage of a jellyfish.
Two tarot cards: the Devil and the Lovers.

Other:
Capable of fishing (with adequate tools)
Familiar with Lavas flutes

As it stands I have a reason for what she's doing on dry land even though she hates it, but I'm thinking it's more something that can be revealed IC.

I'm looking forward to fighting hordes of shamblers with an axe; all those magicky types just don't know how to have fun!

[+]

Also, if I'm getting into this, would I be posting IC right away? I feel like I'm in a job interview and quite terrified, but excited.

Superpowerd - A Modern Fantasy RP

@Leechee Here's my CS; apologies for the jankiness; it's surprisingly hard to find a good, neutral not-in-uniform image of the guy I based my character's appearance off of.

Roland Sharpe

Name: Roland Sharpe
Alias: None
Age: 23
Gender: Male

At 6’4”, and with a bit of training, Roland only just recently shook off an overly-lanky frame and boyish features. His face is still softly-rounded and welcoming, but the way he holds himself tends to give him a sterner look. However, after recent events in his life, his muscle mass deteriorated, and despite the warm look still on his face, there’s an underlying tiredness to him; the faintest hint of shadows under his eyes, slivers of grey in his hair, and small wrinkles around his mouth and nose.

When not working, he wears a pair of plain black trousers and a 5-button grey jacket. Atop that, he wears a dark green Inverness cape. When out with a vigilante group he’s part of, he wears the same jacket, but replaces his trousers with cargo pants, and replaces the cape with a large waterproof cloak.

Biography:
Shortly after graduating from high school, Roland befriended a local bartender: Marlow La Piette. They became good friends, and eventually Marlow brought Roland into a small vigilante organization. He served with them for several years, and found himself in a comfortable position in their ranks. However, the group would make a powerful enemy. Their enemies began to hunt them down, and eventually Marlow fell victim to a hit.

Roland did not take her death well, and threw himself into his work. He worked himself nearly to death finding the person responsible for Marlow’s death, and after exacting his revenge, succumbed to weeks of sleeplessness, exhaustion, and several grievous wounds. When he was taken to the hospital, the doctors could only just barely save him, and he slipped into a coma shortly afterwards.

His luck held out, however, and he woke in less than a year. His muscles had miraculously remained workable, albeit weak. His doctors congratulated him on his speedy recovery, but the damage done to him was beyond help. On the eve of the Breach, he sat in his hospital bed, ready to be discharged

Long Biography

As a boy, Roland was always taught—above all else—to respect those around him, and to value what society worked tirelessly to uphold. His father would always repeat that as they passed through poorer parts of town on their way to school and work, and Roland watched the people they passed by closely. Despite not living amongst them, he felt a certain familiarity with them. He felt like he understood how they lived their lives better than how he lived his. He wondered if he would ever understand his place all through his school life.

After graduating from high school, he met who would become his closest friend: Marlow La Piette. At the time, she was the bartender at a local bar he and his classmates escaped to after an uneventful aftergrad, and Roland sat at the bar with her while his friends took to chasing skirts. They never seemed to run out of things to talk about, and by the time Roland drove Marlow home at the end of the night they had planned to meet again sometime.

As time went on, Marlow became increasingly secretive, and one day revealed to Roland that she had been invited into a vigilante group. She told him that her previous work with the police would put her in a high position, and she was seriously considering joining them. While she didn’t explicitly invite Roland, he could tell that she was nervous, and that she wanted him to do so. He told her he would be supportive of whatever she chose.

Some time later, Marlow finally asked Roland if he would consider joining the group. She had been given a small squad to command, and was told that she could pad it with whomever she thought would help. Roland joined, not knowing the extent of what he would get involved with. He was initially assigned to be her aide, and was quite awkward around her squad at first, but quickly established a central position in their group with his easygoing demeanor and excellent work ethic. Taller than most of his squadmates, he found himself watching out for them whenever they were on patrol. Time and time again he would spot something that would have otherwise gone unnoticed, and at Marlow’s suggestion, Roland began to push his perception to what many would believe to be its human limits. His list of achievements only grew as his skills did.

The first two years of his service were uneventful. However, by not only helping Marlow with her tasks, but other higher-ups, he made several strong connections in the group. His relationship with his superiors was always good, and he quickly noticed that his time on patrol continuously shrank until he was essentially working a desk position. While he had his objections, encouragement from several friends—especially from Marlow—kept him in line.

The two of them spent an increasing amount of time together while they were off-duty. They discussed work over meals and personal matters over coffee and stiff drinks. Their peers whispered about them, but nothing seemed to come from their relationship. They acknowledged people’s curiosity, but time and time again they insisted that they were nothing more than close friends. At the time, in Roland’s mind, he believed that to be true.

Things rapidly changed in the city, however, when groups of smugglers began to make their presence known. Rather than small, scattered bands that traded in the dark, the new smuggler cartels were bold and powerful. They clogged entire streets with large protected convoys that they cleverly blended into civilian traffic. Their first clashes with Roland’s group were small, relatively harmless fights, but blood was drawn shortly after, and the fights grew larger and larger. Casualties mounted, and Roland was quickly placed in an analytical group. His sharp eye proved invaluable for picking out targets from shoddy photos and dimly-lit videos. The list of captures to Roland’s name rapidly grew long and prestigious.

His meteoric rise in renown came to a sudden stop during the Autumn of 2015. After meeting with Marlow for supper one last time, Roland would never see her again. Her record of impeccable service exempted her from suggestions that she had gone AWOL, but that did not offer any answers. Squads were dedicated to finding her, and Roland himself remained glued to photos and video feeds, searching for her. He was, unfortunately, the one to find her. Only the higher-ups ever really knew what he saw, but there was one thing that was certain: there was no consoling him; both in his earth-shaking anger and in his haunted grief.

The official autopsy report was not sure how much she suffered in her death, but it was clear that she was the victim of a hit. Eyes immediately moved to the smugglers, but Roland’s eyes remained on Marlow. She had been bludgeoned several times with a large blunt object, and shot a total of twelve times with low-velocity pistol rounds. They were certain that neither were the cause of death. Instead, they ruled that massive trauma to her abdomen had killed her. They found it incredibly difficult to remove the small pile driven through her and into the wall behind her.

Roland did not know sleep for weeks afterwards. He went positively mad with his work; poring over every single bit of detail that he could find surrounding Marlow’s death. His superiors—his friends—couldn’t bring themselves to stop him, and eventually reasoned that if Roland found out who ordered the hit and where they were, it would answer many more of their questions. They watched him waste away. Roland’s eyesight—once one of his greatest prides—deteriorated to the point that he could no longer focus on objects; his vision was one blur of colours and light.

His persistence eventually paid off when a smuggler turned themselves in and begged for Roland’s forgiveness. A mole in the group had watched Roland’s spiral into madness, and apparently it had been enough to convince one of their top men to change his ways. The turncoat gave Roland all the information he needed, and submitted willingly to incarceration. The turncoat told Roland that he hoped he could atone for what he had done, and went in peace.

Roland, on the other hand, flew into a rage. He pulled every favour that he could, and several of his higher-ups had some powerful connections. By the end of preparations, several group members were heavily armed and willing to go, and even a SWAT team was readied for the raid on the smuggler’s den. He accompanied them on their mission, and during an agonizing hour, Roland was at the peak of his physical performance. There were more people in the den than anticipated, and several citations for bravery were given to members of the team afterwards. The unsettling number of casualties determined to have been executed after the raid was not pinned on the official SWAT team, but its members would not divulge Roland’s actions. They instead suggested that a clean-up crew of smugglers had been sent to silence any survivors looking to take plea bargains.

During the fight, Roland took several grievous wounds, and was quickly picked up by paramedics. When they reached the hospital, doctors assumed that his languished wails were caused by his physical wounds, and quickly put him to sleep. However, despite their best efforts, the surgeons could only just barely stabilize Roland. He slipped into a coma shortly after they placed him under observation.

On the eve of the 1st of December 2016, Roland awoke. His muscles ached, but they had not atrophied nearly as bad as the doctors expected they would. His eyesight had not returned to its peak, but was much better than before he went out to avenge Marlow’s death. He complained that chest felt hollow, and he inquired with the doctors about it. They assured him that it was fine, but the psychiatrist assigned to him feared for his mental health. He would have to be observed.

Two weeks passed, and Christmas was drawing near. The doctors said that discharge would be Roland’s gift for the year, and commented on his speedy recovery. Roland had regained the ability to walk properly, and was getting the hang of fine motion in his hands again. Late in the evening of the 19th of December, he was looking out of his window, unable to sleep. The city seemed to call to him, but at the same time repel him.

Marlow’s death had seriously shaken him, and his time recovering—despite how short it had been—also did so. He wondered if his life could remain normal after all he had gone through, but hoped he could pull through. He would never live down never telling Marlow how he felt until it was too late, but perhaps he could forgive himself... one day.

Superpower: To be assigned.

The Season of the Witch

Yeah, I'm completely fine with waiting; I've got a rough outline for my character already made up and I'll just need the limitations to fine-tune him.

Looking forward to it!

Superpowerd - A Modern Fantasy RP

This reminds me of rolling for powers on forums based on random charts... I always ended up with really benign powers.

Interested.

The Season of the Witch

I would be interested in participating; however, like the other poster I'm wondering what the exact limits of the setting are.

Also, are there any limitations on the motivations / situations of the characters? Not in the sense that one can secretly be an antagonist (though it would be nice to know if a participant could betray us), but things like not being part of the Order proper--such as if they were a contractor or collaborating outside force. Do you have any particular vision for the kind of backgrounds of our characters?