Jig

Woll Manor

MyCatGinger said @Jig: YOU HAVE HANDS.

I HAVE HANDS.

IN THE PLURAL, LIKE GOD INTENDED.

Woll Manor

corneredbliss said @Everyone: If the dialogue is what's holding y'all up, then perhaps it'd be better if you all just let your characters sit in silence for the ride. That way, we'll be able to move forward to a quicker pace, yeah? Just my two cents.

My two cents: yes, and probably. We can always later flashback or reference any inconsequential natter they may have had. Presumably there's no sneaky-sneaky Bliss manipulations taking place that would be of plot significance. How'd you like my sneaky deduction? But yeah, I wouldn't mind anybody else kicking us along a bit, but if everybody else is chomping at this particular bit, I can just send Benji to sleep again until I want a turn. x3

I won't tell you had to GM your own RP, but when I've been running plot-based RPs like this in the past, I've flagrantly manipulated events to pair characters together where no posting order is specified and there's no obvious sequence of events to follow. That way, players don't have to overcome the RP-minefield that is the dreaded Directionless Group Conversation of Doom and can back-and-forth more easily. I, at least, find these situations difficult to maneouver and hate being the one to break the ice. Hope you don't mind me suggesting the idea, but it's a trick that's worked wonders for me in the past.

It's also a bit tricky to write anything without establishing anything about the manor. The sooner we can get that info, the more we'll have to work with.

Thicker Than Water

Got it, and replied. :)

A couple of people have sent me PMs about ideas, which I definitely approve of, but unless you especially want to keep ideas under wraps, I'd prefer they were posted in the OoC. You don't have to worry about somehow cluttering it up! It's what the OoC is for.

Sharing ideas around can inspire others and get lots of people involved in the same plot strands, which is really helpful for a group RP. Keep it up guys. :)

Thicker Than Water

I'll be creating an older (in vampire terms, anyway) vamp that could well have sired your character, depending on what that character may be like.

Double-post derp.

Thicker Than Water

I'll be creating an older (in vampire terms, anyway) vamp that could well have sired your character, depending on what that character may be like.

Woll Manor

AuntFlavia said
I'm good. Still haven't been struck by the curse.

It's a matter of time. >:D

Thicker Than Water

UPDATE TO THE CHARACTER SHEETS.

I forgot to include 'occupation' in both Vamp and Human sheets.

Thicker Than Water

cthulu said
Hope there's room for one more, just spotted this rp before logging off for the night so I'm going to finish reading the OP in the morning but it certainly looks interesting to me.

I mentioned in the Interest Check that I don't really see why there should be any limit to the number of players.

Kraft said
I'm working on a sheet currently, however, I had the idea that maybe the vampire who sired her would be another player. Would you be okay with this sort of development Jig?

I'd positively encourage it. ^^

Thicker Than Water

Humans:

Lailaa - Touch of Insanity

Name: Lailaa Mary Visser
Gender: Female
Age: 26
Nationality: Dutch
Occupation: Club Dancer/Stripper/ Blood Donator
Appearance:

Personality: Lailaa is very fake when it comes to interacting with people at work. She puts on a flirty and happy personality for the people to see as a way of making more money. However, due to her history she is very depressed and hates life. She is currently working on turning her life around but still struggles daily trying to make herself really happy. She is very submissive when being told to do things and doesn’t really know how to say ‘no’. She tries to project herself in a way people want her to be and therefore, can slightly change how she acts with the people she’s with. Over all though, she tends to keep to herself and doesn’t voice her own opinions. She never acts shy at work, because that’s not the real her in her mind, but if you try and get closer she is very closed off and shy. If you try and get close she tends to close off even more and push the other person away.

Attitude to The Age of the Vampire: Lailaa is all for the vampire age and is very apart of the culture of it all. As much as she’d like to leave the night life and start to become ‘normal’ as her parents had been, part of her craves to always be a part of it without her realizing it.
Reason for being in Amsterdam: Born and raised there, stayed for work.

History: Lailaa was born and raised in Amsterdam. She had been lucky and her family didn’t have to become donators. Her mother was a teacher and her father a cop. However, she is not fully Dutch. Both her parents were born and raised in area, her mother’s father was a businessman from the USA. He came over for business trying to make some deals with the vampires of the area when he met her grandmother and never went back. It explains her more Americanized first and middle name well her last name remains Dutch.

In Lailaa’s childhood her mother tried to keep her as far away from the vampires as possible, creating a slight fear for the mystery creatures known as vampires, or ‘them’ as her family called them. It did not help her impression of them as her father spoke of them from his job when she would lay in bed trying to fall sleep. As she got older and they started to learn more about the vampires and their way of life connected with theirs, they still scared her but where so alien as they used to be. At one point they even brought a few in to talk to the class to help them understand that they were not to be feared and that they were meant to be viewed as everyone else.

It was shortly after that visit from the vampires into the school classrooms that she would really start to notice how many of the people in Amsterdam were vampires and as she got to her first year in high school she no longer noted the difference between the two races and accepted them as the same despite how her mother’s views were.

High school was when Lailaa started to real change into who she is now. She had the same views of one boy, Carlo, whom was in many of her classes in her first year. The two started to date within the first few months of their school year. However, as time went on and they started to change as all teenagers do, her Carlo started to become abusive. It started off by isolating her from her friends, and keeping in contact at all times. If she didn’t reply within five minutes of a text, he would send another, by the fifteenth message if she still hadn’t answered he’d call until she picked up. By their second year of high school he was mentally abusive to her. Telling her that she wasn’t good enough and that the was ugly if she did things he didn’t like. As a girl whom had loved for the first time she was too blind to see that he was abusive to her.

As the end of their second year, her parents finally started to step in and try and get her to break up and no longer see the Carlo. He did not like that at all and convinced her to drop out of high school and run away into the worst part of town with him. Neither of them realized how hard it’d be to live on their own, and soon enough he had her donating her blood for housing, food and more. It was only when she asked why she was the only one who had to donate that things started to get abusive. She had to be totally submissive to him and listen to everything he told her or else he’d hurt her. She started to turn to drugs and alcohol as a way to numb herself. When she turned eighteen, Carlo had become a local dealer and she was forced into the vampire night scene. She started off as a dancer, then started to strip. The deeper Carlo got into crime the lower she had to go. When she was twenty-one she started to go into the private room with clients, where she’d let them do things for the right price, the one being drinking right from her neck.

With her life hitting such a low point, where she no longer loved herself, and at twenty-two tried to kill herself and failed which only made matters worse at home. The beatings happened almost every three days, and the screaming at her every day. She didn’t know how to get out of the relationship now, but she knew now that she wanted to leave him and no longer loved him. So at the age of twenty-three she checked herself into rehab to get cleaned up. It was a long year there but it was good getting the space from him. He was pissed and came to visits her everyday and almost got kicked out every day when he started to mentally abuse her. They all tried to get her to leave him, and the city, but she couldn’t. She was too scared to and something about this city just kept pulling her in.

So when she finally left rehab clean, she moved back in with Carlo and nothing had changed. At times she thought about going back to drugs and a few times she almost did if it wasn’t for one of her vampire clients, Anthony Caito helping her stay clean. She did start to pick up drinking again and would get wasted a lot, but in her mind that was better than going back to cocaine.

Yannick - AlidaMaria

Name:Yannick Bakker
Gender: Male
Age: 20
Nationality: Dutch
Occupation: Artist

Appearance:

Personality: Yannick is quite the aloof guy. His motto is: If you don't bother me, I won't bother you. And he lives his life according to that. He isn't too talkative, especially when he's working.
Attitude to The Age of the Vampire: He has no reasons to fear or hate vampires, so he doesn't. Since his artistic style is similar to the Hague School, the old vampires provide him with enough work. After all, humans find his style quite passè the older vampires on the other hand, tend to find his work melancholic.
Reason for being in Amsterdam: After finishing his education at Minerva in Groningen, he moved to Amsterdam to start a new life, figuring that a city as big as Amsterdam must have a place and need for artists.
History: Yannick lived quite the ordinary live in a small town in the periphery of Groningen. His mother died of cancer when he was only four years old and since he didn't have any siblings, he grew quite fond of his father. His father used to be an artist and he was the one that discovered Yannick's talent. He ushered Yannick to follow an artistic education and to revive the Hague School. After all, the vampires might find that an attractive style. When and earthquake destroyed his hometown and killed his father, Yannick decided to fulfill his father's wish and study art.
At the moment he's making enough money to rent a small apartment in the suburbs of Amsterdam and he has a few vampiric and some human patrons. He isn't all too impressed by the vampires, if anything, he's a bit disgusted by them and he'll do anything not to become a 'blood donor'.

Natalia - Cthulhu

Name: Natalia Andronikova
Gender: Female
Age: 21
Nationality: Russian.
Occupation: Drifter, currently a bar maid in one of the red light districts ‘vamp friendly’ strip joints.
Appearance:

Natalia stands at about 167cm in her bare feet, which is why she usually wears soft heeled boots for her work to make her seem less a push over, she has a slim build but the clothing she wears can't hide the definition in her arms. Often wearing black jeans with the 'fashionable' rips and a black turtle neck over a black tank top which only occasionally seen on busy nights. She'll often wear her mid-back length wavy hair up in a high messy bun at work or loose while at home.

Personality: Natalia is still rather naïve, her upbringing left little room for freedom of choice and now that she is out on her own it shows in her behaviour that she doesn’t always know what she’s doing. Despite that she is a well read woman with a keen thirst for knowledge, she prefers to make her own, informed decision on things which is why it can take her a while to decide one way or another. She has a bubbly, friendly personality but often keeps herself guarded around strangers and has a whimsical mix of both fear and awe in the presence of vampires. She prefers to stay out of arguments but is a sucker for someone who needs help and often is found feeding stray animals behind the back of the bar she works at and giving them medicine.

Attitude to The Age of the Vampire: Confused.
Reason for being in Amsterdam: To find a certain Vampire and either kill him or learn more about him. She’s still not sure which way she’s going with it yet.

History: Natalia's earliest memory is of a warehouse, it's window's reminded her of a ghost and the steel shutters that closed behind them sounded so final and absolute. She remembered the bitter cold and the snow that howled across the window panes causing them to lightly rattle in their places. The floor was cold despite her fur lined boots and when she blew into her hands she could see the air condense before her. It smelled odd to her young nose, she couldn't have been more than six years old, of beer, body odour and blood and made her nose feel itchy with every breath. Their were sounds too, aside from the men and women around her who laughed and joked with her parents and told stories, horrible sounds, scratching and howling, growls snarls and the worst was the sobbing. She'd tugged on her mothers hand in hopes of getting her attention, to ask what the noise was and what was making it but her mother ignored her and hurried her forward to meet their uncle.

Uncle William and Aunt Vanessa scared her, they had scars, tattoos and seemed to always be serious and aggressive. As they approached a big table she noticed the huge map pinned down with multi-coloured drawing pins and decorated with string, it reminded her of a puzzle but when she reached for it her hand was slapped away and Aunt Vanessa glowered at her. The adults started to talk about things she didn't understand, blood suckers and raids, cataloguing and disposal, they sounded like words she had no business knowing so instead she peered into the room. It had three floors, the main floor which took up most of the area, an upstairs cabin that over looked both the lower floors -she wasn't allowed up there- and a downstairs that jutted into the main room, she wasn't allowed down their either.

The shutters rolled up and a waft of cold snow drifted in followed by three people half carrying, half dragging a forth who looked to be sleeping with his hands tied and his legs bound. He had blood coming from his head and sharp pointy teeth in his gaping mouth that had a pink sheen to them.

By the time she was ten she had a better understanding of what was going on, her parents and her Aunt and Uncle spent a lot more time together and they all but lived in the 'instillation' as she had come to know it as. They were all members of a group called Freedom for Human Rights, an underground group that had been labelled terrorists by some and heroes by others. They fought and eradicated Vampires as a mission 'from God' and protect the people who would be killed by them if they were left to roam the streets. She was told that Vampire's were all Sinners who could no longer repent and were cursed by God, their deaths merely meant their souls were freed and were delivered back to Lucifer their master.

She was finally given access to the lower floor in the Instillation and there she saw the enemy up close and personal. They locked her in a room with a hungry vampire, chained to the wall via a thick neck collar and steel chain, at the prospect of fresh blood the creature whimpered at first and cowered as if the sight of the small girl was enough to frighten it but just as Natalia dared to step forward to check on the man he turned and lunged, eyes flaming red and skin both pallid and sunken, it was the teeth that still haunted her vision to this very day, long, sharp and hungry. He had his hands bared like claws, grabbing at her shoulders only to miss as she fell to the ground screaming. Her screams only seemed to make it hungrier and angrier as it scrabbled for her leg and would have sunk it's fangs into her leg had her mother not come in and shot the creature straight through the forehead.

From then on she was trained as one of them, she was taught how to fight Vampires, how to kill Vampires and more about their 'faction' which had, according to her tutors, been around for over a hundred years. She was trained how to use the arts of stealth and subterfuge to capture live targets or execute unsuspecting ones and how to use small hand guns and rifles (which she was not too great with). If she disagreed with her tutors or failed them she was met with painful punishment by having her hands wrapped with a cane until she learned not to answer back.

By the time she was eighteen she was considered an efficient soldier to be employed into their movement and their was just one thing she had to do to become a full member. She was sent to what was killed 'The Pit' little more than a ten foot across hole in the ground usually used for sparring other initiates but today was a bit different. On the other end of a chain held by her Uncle was a man, even without the thick neck collar she knew the signs, he was a vampire and she was supposed to kill him.

The fight lasted twenty minutes the Vampire giving as good as he got but unable to keep the upper hand for long without the master of his chain pulling him back up against the wall. The Vampire's fangs were fully out and Natalia splat a glob of blood to the floor from where she'd cut her tongue from his last blow. It didn't take too much longer to have the Vampire pinned to the ground, a serrated blade pinned to his throat and the roar of her faction to finish him deafening her ears. However through her own deep ragged breaths and thick haze of hatred she saw something she had, until that moment, thought impossible for a Vampiric monster. He looked afraid and in that moment he looked so very human, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Lowering her blade and climbing out of the pit much to the boo's and calls for blood from her faction.

That night she was dragged from her bed and taken down to the holding cells, little more than refurbished storage rooms. There her hands were tied and she was hung from a hook in the ceiling like meat, her toes barely reaching the floor. Each cell door was open, a dozen hungry eyes staring out at her and one pair that seemed almost familiar. It was her Aunt's face she saw and her voice she heard as she began to lecture her but she wasn't alone, her uncle and parents were also there.
“You show them mercy? Do you think any of them would show you mercy?” She felt the sharp familiar sting of an blade against her thigh and felt the hot blood as it spilled from the fresh wound. Immediately she heard the slither of chains as the inmates hastened forward, she saw five faces straining against their collars to get to her and only the heavy collar holding them back.

She had to admit she was scared, they looked vicious and reminded her of sharks or piranha, if it weren't for the chains about their necks she wouldn't last a minute trussed up as she was. Though while she bit back her fear at the five lunging for her it was the one who didn't that caught her attention. He was doing something in the back of his cell that she couldn't see but he wasn't lunging, he wasn't trying to get to her, he wasn't a shark.

Before she could question if what they were doing had ever been right she let loose a scream that caused 'six' to flinch and the others to salivate. She'd been punished before but the cane across her back was unexpected and harder than usual. By the time her Aunt was done she had to be dragged back up to her caught, whimpering with tears down her face but 'six' was whimpering, the sound so similar to the sounds she had first heard here years ago.

After that she was given time to recover but her back was a mess of wounds and had a habit of reopening. She learned to fight but was made to train harder and was forced in the holding cells with one through five more often, forced to sit there with them mere inches from her face in hopes of reinforcing their belief's.

It wasn't long after the wounds had truly began to heal that something happened, to this day she isn't sure what, whether they were infiltrated, attacked or simply betrayed. Ultimately it really didn't matter, the prisoners were set free while the faction was sleeping. The first Natalia heard of it was the terrible screams which shook her from her nightmare and forced her to glance to her right. Not seven cots over a Vampire had its fangs embedded deep in the throat of one of her 'family'. More screams went up and Natalia slowly slid out of her cot and under it, as the room began to erupt with movement. Others were waking up and arming themselves but there was little worse than a starving vampire it seemed, at one point Natalia was dragged out from under the bed by one of the five, a kick to his jaw left him confused enough to let go and she bolted across the room to where her mother was handing out guns. She was handed one as were the others and told to go 'deal with the issue', she really hated guns, something about the weight, the noise, the smell, she fired two half hearted shots before a scream from behind had her whip around to see Six with his fangs buried into his mothers neck. She was struggling but there wasn't anything she could do to get the monster off. Natalia levelled the gun with Six's head and steadied her hand, if she fired right now she could probably save her mother but she didn't fire, she wasn't really sure what she was waiting for, if anything, Six wasn't like the other five and yet he was acting like them now. She was confused and wanted to understand but none of her training explained it to her, movement to her left caught her gaze and the gun was knocked from her hand by one of the other vampires.

Stumbling back she hopped over a cot and toe flipped it in the way of her attacker, giving her enough time to duck towards the exit, avoiding gun fire as she made her way to the shutters. When she thought she'd more or less escaped a strong arm grabbed her and through her back into the middle of the room where she promptly smacked her head. Her vision blurred and she saw her Uncle's boot hovering above her head, then he was simply gone and a brief glint of familiar eyes before everything went black.

When she woke up she was dressed in her winter coat and out in the snow, her head hurt and she had blood in her hair but she was alive, she was a mile out form the facility but she could still see it and the black smoke that rose from it as the sound of siren's swam in from the main road.

After spending over a year trying to locate the one she called 'Six' and any news about the other members of her group, only to be met with shrugged shoulders and dead ends she finally conceded and moved to Amsterdam in hopes of finding answers and Six. That was a few months ago and she's still no closer to getting her answers, though she makes pretty good tips.

Other Details:
- Is legitimately scared of Vampires.
- Likes: The smell of roasting nuts, the colour purple, classical music, swimming, being wrapped up in blankets, good books and fireplaces.
- Dislikes: Being cold, the smell of cooking meat, the colour black or red, techno and thrash music, enclosed spaces and being restrained.
- Is skilled in Systema and knows moves from other martial arts styles though not overly proficient in any.
- Knows how to use handguns but doesn’t like them.
- Has scarring on her back from her 'childhood' so doesn't wear low backed clothing or like her back being touched.

Skylar - Love Dove

Name: Skylar Lockett
Gender: Female
Age: 22
Nationality: Irish American
Occupation: College Student/Blood Donator
Appearance:

Her hair is naturally a darker red; she dyes her hair a brighter red and adds the black streaks in.

Personality:
Skylar has what many would call an adaptable personality, meaning that she often picks up quirks and attitudes from the people she is around, which could be caused by her time in foster homes. Normally though she stays very bubbly and enthusiastic to the point of being annoying at times. Whenever she actually is sad, it’s not very hard to tell, because she isn’t able to hide it. She’ll usually get quiet, then runs away and start crying. Also, Skylar isn’t a very trusting person; she cautiously picks who she shares her feelings and history with. If asked about her family or childhood, she changes the subject as quickly as possible, and gets quiet if pushed about it.

Attitude to The Age of the Vampire: Skylar has a neutral feeling for the Age of the Vampires. She mostly sees it as a way to make a little extra money. Besides, her opinions cannot change the way the world is anyways.
Reason for being in Amsterdam: Came on a scholarship.

History:
Skylar was born in Ireland, both her mother and father were Irish, however, she moved to America when she was just a baby, and grew up there. Most of her life, she and her twin brother were raised by a single mother, who worked three jobs to support them. Other than the fact they lived the lower class life, the first part of her life was fairly good. She excelled in school and was one of the top students in her third grade class. However, after her grandfather passed away, things took a turn for the worse.

Her mother ended up having a metal break down, and shortly after turned to drugs and alcohol. Around the time Skylar turned ten, CPS was called and her mother was deemed mentally and physically unfit to take care Skylar and her brother. Though the case workers did manage to find her father, he was already married with other children and refused to accept them as he did not want to admit the fact he had cheated on his wife, and knocked up Skylar’s mother. So because of this, they both became custody of the state and put into a foster home, until their mother could be able get the two of them back.

For the first two years their mother actually did fight to get them back, visitation with supervision and working with the courts. After those two years her mother gave up, and stopped going to court, thus the two of them were forced to stay in the foster home. While her brother was adopted quickly, Skylar bounced around from foster home to foster home for the next two years until she was finally adopted at fourteen, and once again things in her life started to pick up. Skylar once again had a family, and though she never managed to find out where her brother went to, she was happy.

She had never really had many dealings with vampires being in America, until she turned nineteen, when she was given a scholarship for Musicology at the University of Amsterdam, and moved there with a few of her friends that had gotten the scholarship as well. She is currently working as a Blood Donator to earn a little extra money to survive while studying her way through college.

Thicker Than Water - (Vampires)

Ladies and gents: the OoC