Leodiensian

The Dunwall Curse [Dishonored/Dark Souls Crossover]

Rusalka said
Not too big on Dishonored, but you had me at Dark Souls and Bloodborne.

Well, the idea came about when I was watching a Youtube video about Bloodborne and saw some similarities in the setting and themes to Dishonored. I thought perhaps a mashup wouldn't be too unnatural or jarring given the similarities - but since Bloodborne isn't out yet, the similarities there will be a bit more surface-level and the deeper ideas will drawn on the Dark Souls games, which I know better.

Royal Hounds ~ (Hunters of the Crown)

Mr Tinker's his official codename, but he's used to going by many other..

Royal Hounds ~ (Hunters of the Crown)

In all things, conduct oneself with dignity. Even in the face of certain oblivion.

The room was dimly lit, cast a little crimson by the fading sun behind thin, scarlet curtains. It was the roomed of a scholarly man, a learned man and a wealthy one at that. Tall mahogany bookcases were stuffed with all many of old and obscure tomes. In the middle of the room, two lush and plump armchairs sat. Two gentlemen, each clad in pinstripe, shared a box of fine cigars.

"Can I ask who gave the order?" said the elder gentlemen, as he considered the glowing ember at the end of his Cuban.

"You can." said the second.

"Would you tell me?" The gentlemen took a drag on the silken smoke, smooth and bitter. After being caught a moment in his lungs, it was expertly pushed out through the nose in twin spirals. He took another breath, a deep drag this time.

"But of course not." The two of them shared a single, solemn laugh before the gunshot cut it short. The silencer turned the Webley's report into a cough and a single brass cylinder landed gently on the thick shag carpet. From the punctured lung, fine cigar smoke drifted. The second bullet ruptured the heart, finishing the job. Double-tap, from sitting, guaranteed kill. Mr. Tinker took a drag on the cigar, savoring the rich, exotic flavor of the tobacco. Fine stuff, fine stuff indeed.

It seemed poor taste to use such a fine cigar as the first spark in an arson, but one made do with what one had to hand. Some kerosene from the manor's kitchen, splashed liberally around the library and making sure to get a lot of the accelerant on certain leather-bound, ancient tomes that were not on any approved reading list, then the last nub of still-burning Havana to set it all going. From the bottom of the house's garden, the fire was quite beautiful as it consumed all evidence of the cult, its holy book and its demagogue. But really, anyone who read the Necronomicon for fun or pleasure should have expected what was coming to them. He met his end with dignity, at least. Mr. Tinker checked his phone, seeing a text message commanding him back to London on quite short notice. Well, the Aston Martin still had a full tank, he supposed.

On the road back, he flipped open the phone again and dialed a number from memory. "Yes, Minister, it's done." Then the phone flipped shut again.

Naturally, a gentleman was never late and Mr. Tinker was nothing if not a gentleman. Though he had to drive through the early hours to arrive at the expected time, he found such times quite meditative and calm, never seeming to drain as much as the normal hours. Still, his current suit smelled quite awfully of smoke and he'd had to change that, naturally. There was a spare in the back seat and on the side of the night road, he'd swapped umber single-breasted for charcoal pinstripe double-breasted. He parked the Aston - silver, vintage - in front of the facility and checked his tie was nice and straight in the rear-view mirror before heading in properly. The conference room was already close to full by the time he'd arrived, which was perhaps a little surprising.

Tinker respected many of his colleagues, but others he considered little better than the beasts they fought against. Take, for instance, the snake-man, the one to his right hand side. Dreadful specimen, that one. Just never sat right with him, a gut-thing, nothing particularly personal behind it. And the blood-soaked fool - Lazarus. Whatever virtue the Crown saw in keeping him on a leash instead of in a cage or in the ground, Tinker would never see. Walking around soaked in crimson somewhat defeated the point of a covert organization. If nothing else it was unhygienic and unprofessional. But of course, it would have been quite improper to give voice to such opinions directly. So he calmly sat near the other Black Dogs - Raven, Rune and Striker - and produced a small moleskin from his pocket, ready to make note of any important briefing information.

The Dunwall Curse [Dishonored/Dark Souls Crossover]

On The So-Called Undead Hollows,
By Anton Sokolov

In researching the rat plague and the Weepers that it creates, I have surmised a connection between those who present aberrant plague symptoms and bearers of a certain dark mark on their breast. These aberrant sufferers seem to suffer the plague's madness but not as much of its physical sores, weeping pustules and other grotesque effects.

While Weepers are very much living, these so-called Hollows have extremely suppressed vital signs. I was hard-pressed to find a pulse on these Hollow infected, while Weeper pulses are clear and rapid. I have noted that in this and many other regards the Hollows are akin to walking corpses, though naturally such an idea is irrational and to be ignored.

The bodies of the Hollows have many old wounds on them, some hanging still open and showing little to no signs of immunological response or healing progress. The more severe the injuries and the more numerous, clearly the greater the mental strain upon the Hollow - the ones who are truly mad have clearly been 'killed' many times. Why they are able to function after such traumatic injuries is something I am still studying. Some samples in my laboratory have been opened by dissection as I study their continued automation and aggression.

Those Hollows still capable of speech have expressed delusions of dying and returning many times, of losing humanity upon death and craving some way to regain it. They speak of a curse - more pagan and puerile nonsense - that has been placed on them by the Outsider, that mythical figure of such childish tales. They point to the blemish as the mark of the curse and its proof. Absurd, to be sure, yet still interesting that so many of them tell the same tale so consistently. There must be some figure in the ghettos spreading such slop, or perhaps it is the word of the Overseers blaming the plague as divine wrath and the work of villainous powers. Fools commenting on fools.

Still, the concept of a test subject who will always survive whatever I put them to is extremely intriguing...

The Dunwall Curse [Dishonored/Dark Souls Crossover]

There is a child on our throne.
There is a plague on our streets.
There is a curse on our souls.

Ten years after the death of Corvo Attano, the assassin of the Empress, the city of Dunwall is as corrupt as ever. The conspiracy that Corvo fought was destroyed, but never made public knowledge and the child-queen Emily sits on the throne, an unpopular figure considered by most to be a puppet of the Lord Regent even after her formal coronation. Corvo himself was found burned to death under the throne room, in a strange secret room filled with ash.

The rat-plague wrought by foul powers still ravages the population, without a cure. Worse still has been the manifestation of the Darksign, cursing those who bear it to a perpetual half-life, dying and dying over and over, eventually losing their sanity and turning to mindless Hollows. Those who bear the mark are considered touched by an outer power, a dark force that wishes to bring about an end to the New Age of Fire.

Strange beasts stalk the streets at night. The old prayers aren't bringing the same warm feelings they used to. The world is winding down, the cycle will begin again.

You bear the mark. You are cursed. Through it, a fell patron speaks to you and whispers of destiny and madness. Through it, you gain power beyond those of mortal men. Death will not touch you, but with each passing day your humanity and your memories slip further and further away.

Soon, you will find yourself in front of a certain pub, the doorway lit by whale-oil, and you can't quite remember why...

---

So, yeah, like the title suggests I had this idea for a crossover between the game Dishonored and the FromSoftware "Souls" games - Bloodborne but also the Dark Souls games since Bloodborne isn't out yet, even if it is thematically very similar to Dishonored.

Still thinking of ideas for mashing up the metaphysics, but the idea is that while Corvo had the Outsider's brand which gave him his powers, that you as the Undead are marked with the Darksign that will also give you power. Your patron doesn't have to be the Outsider though.

The idea is that PCs are all Undead, bearers of the accursed Darksign, who have lost some of their memories through the process of Hollowing (dying and recovering, losing fragments of their soul). They can hunt and kill people or monsters to earn more souls and keep the Hollowing away. They could use their newfound power to pursue their personal agendas - for as long as they can remember that agenda. They could delve into the sewers, to face the adversity in the cities beneath the city. They might rekindle the flame or bring about the Dark..

Thoughts?

Royal Hounds ~ (Hunters of the Crown)

You missed out my character, Mr. Tinker. He's in the Black Dogs.

Royal Hounds ~ (Hunters of the Crown)

"Mister Tinker"

Name: Carson "Mr. Tinker" Derby

[b]Appearance:

Mr. Tinker appears quite a dapper fellow, a Caucasian male in his mid-to-late thirties, typically found in a pinstripe suit. His most obvious distinguishing feature is the fact that he's missing his right eye and wears a black eye-patch to cover the wound. He seems extremely concerned with his appearance and always makes sure his clothes are well-pressed, immaculately coordinated and perfectly styled. Though he might dress a little anachronistically, he always notes that "style never goes out of fashion".

Age: Estimated to be at least ninety years old.

Gender: Male

Corps: Black Dog

Bio: The Crown first became aware of Mr. Tinker when computerizing several data archives and streamlining them for the modern age. What initially seemed to be a glitch led canny investigators to discover a most unusual paranormal phenomenon living quite happily, and civilly, in the heart of London. They discovered Mr. Tinker. Notably, they discovered him because they found records of the same identical man having died and been buried multiple times since the late 1920's. Then he would crop up again, with a new name of course, but then go about his business quite happily. Were it not for some official zeal about removing potentially-harmful supernatural influences from the public, this fellow would have been allowed to keep on living, dying, getting up again with a new name and then presumably going on to die another time.

Mr. Tinker, when approached, actually proved quite amenable to serving the Crown. He expressed quite old-fashioned views about Queen and country - well, he had to remind himself that it wasn't "King and country" anymore - and happily told them of his life story. What parts of it he could remember, at least. The problem with his unusual talents was that he didn't bring all memories of his old lives into new ones.

He certainly remembers serving as a soldier in France, fighting Germans, both times. Records independently corroborated him serving (and dying) at the Somme and then later landing on the shores on Normandy (where he also died). Between the two wars, he seemed to do fairly well for himself as a civilian businessman, working in the Northern counties as a peddler of fine clothing to the upper and middle classes. He has fond memories of the Yorkshire Dales, so he assumes he's a Yorkshireman by birth, though that's a little foggy even to him. He does the accent quite well, though it might just a skilled imitation.

After WW2, he actually managed to join the civil service for a while before perishing in a traffic accident. The sixties and seventies were spent working under a variety of aliases in the booming narcotic underworld, though always in the most sharp-cut suits one could have imagined. By the time Maggie invaded the Falklands to garner votes, Mr. Tinker had grown bored of crime and gone into academia. When the Crown found him in the early 2000's, he'd finished a stint in jail for financial crimes and the assassinations of certain church officials.

As to the underworld and the supernatural, Mr. Tinker doesn't actually seem to have touched on that part of life very much. Whatever made him the way he was happened long ago, and many deaths ago, so he doesn't really remember any more. But he also doesn't seem to be particularly troubled by it all that much and is much more interested in the task at hand..

Personality: Mr. Tinker is a quite old fashioned archetypal gentleman, speaking in a crisp Radio-4 accent and always dressing smartly. He's a good liar, an excellent one in fact, and casually moves between various identities and deceptions with remarkable ease. Something that followed him from the good-old-days was his patriotic attitude - not quite a screaming jingoism so much as a near-religious certitude that the Crown knows best, that Britannia shall ever rule the waves and that England is God's own country. Because, well, it obviously is. That said, he seems almost nauseatingly good at a spot of the old ultra-violence and carries out the wetwork tasks with talent, experience and, well, style. He doesn't have any qualms with doing something utterly gruesome for the greater good - or for what certain government officials quietly assure him is the greater good - and might be considered some form of high-functioning sociopath. He certainly reads and manipulates people well and maintains a comprehensive list of surface-level interests to keep conversation flowing and smooth; no matter who he's talking to, he'll probably find a way to twist them into a friend.

Of course, his old fashioned attitudes can also sometimes make him come across as a tad.. unpleasant to certain demographics. He has very traditional views of, say, marriage and gender roles. He doesn't necessarily mean the things he says maliciously, but a poorly gauged request for a certain ethnicity to do his laundry might potentially ruffle some feathers.

Skills: Mr. Tinker's long life (well, lives) and varied careers has left him with a quite comprehensive list of talents that he can draw upon both in and out of combat. Naturally, he's a trained marksman and combatant, having served in both World Wars and picked up a few languages in the process. While stealth is something he's quite adept at, Mr. Tinker's real talent lies not in going unseen but in going unnoticed. He always seems to fit in with the environment perfectly - he looks just official enough that no-one would consider him out of place in upmarket places and just rough enough to look like he'd fit in with the down-market types. He's also got quite a network of contacts across multiple strata of society, from the House of Lords to the black market - you'd be surprised who he knows, what he can get his hands on, what he can make happen... what he might know about you...

Then there's Mr. Tinker's.. unusual talent. He is on file as a "serial ressurectionist". Essentially, Mr. Tinker does not seem to quite stay dead. It's not that he heals quickly, per se. It's more that he.. resets. Shoot him in the head and he dies like a normal person would, but somewhere between one minute and twenty four hours later, every wound is gone and he's awake. The current scuttlebutt among the research-types in the organization is that at some point in his first life, Mr Tinker was exposed to some kind of temporal anomaly and upon his death is restored to a point in his timeline before he died. He retains some but not all knowledge he had at the moment of his death - he probably remembers who killed him, but might not remember that he was married in his previous life. However, since the injury that lost him his eye stays with him when he resets, it seems that he lost the eye BEFORE he gained his talent. He also doesn't seem to age normally, probably as a result of the temporal anomaly. As a result of his talent, he does not fear death or pain, since he knows he can come back.

If there's something that can permanently kill him, he's not found it yet - obviously. But it's possible he's just not been killed the right way yet. And the more severe the injury, it seems to take longer for him to restore from it - a knife in the heart would take a few minutes, but a grenade would knock him out for hours.

Gear/Weapons: Tinker carries a silenced pistol with him at all times, as well as a wire garotte. In proper combat situations, he typically gets his hands on a quite high-end assault rifle with suppressor, tactical scope and extended mag. He also has a fair few spy gadgets on him most of the time - small microphones, sabotage equipment and the like.

Other Information: Mr. Tinker has amassed quite a sizable bank account, which he does not touch. It's possible he's entirely forgotten what he's saving up for. Also, clocks tend to break around him and it's easy to lose track of time around him.

DragonBlood Brotherhood (Dragon age/Assassins creed crossover)

How're you working in things like Pieces of Eden or the Templars in? Like, are the AC Templars going to be the DA Templars?

[01] Untitled - Interest Check

Could be interesting, with the right players.

In the Name of the Empress

Full Name: Qian Rong Wu

Aliases: Colonel Of The Storm, Charging General, Cripple Rong (only used by his detractors)

Title: Marquis of Zhou

Race: Etherian

Gender: Male

Age: 30

Height: 6"

Weight: 190 lbs

Home Town and Kingdom: Two Rivers City, Zhou Province, Galkahr Region, Tera Sui

Occupation: Imperial Military Commander, nominal governor of Zhou

Family: Rong's notoriously intense but short-lived passions have led to a string of pregnancies and marriages, leaving him with many wives and many more children, though he rarely interacts with many of his wives, who he has fallen out of love with but does not resent enough to divorce. He practices polygamy and is a lover of men and women alike, commonly taking willing military subordinates as concubines and temporary lovers when away from home on military campaigns. He is the eldest son of the Qian family, the head of their family since his parents died, and his younger siblings are all in fairly notable positions in Tera Sui culture; his youngest brother's poetry has recently become very popular in the Imperial court.

Social Status: Rong is a mid-ranking member of the noble caste, his family traditionally charged with the governance of the Zhou province of Tera Sui. He is Marquis of Zhou in name but rarely exercises that authority and leaves it to delegates, subordinates, several of whom are his wives or former lovers. His most notable and commonly exercised social status is within the Imperial military, where he is a commander of one of the armies.

Affiliations: Imperial Military primarily, though has close ties to the Qizhou law enforcers.

Appearance:


Rong is a powerfully built and physically imposing man, one who dresses with little care for the changing of fashion. He wears his hair short to and shaves so his enemies have nothing to grab on the battlefield and has plenty of scars that testify to a life on the battlefield. Most obviously is a strike across his left cheek from an enemy blade. Even more obvious, his left arm has been taken off between the shoulder and elbow, leaving him an ugly stump that he is simply too proud to have regenerated or hide with a prosthetic, but that he resents nonetheless.

Personality: Rong is in many ways an archetypal Etherian, fiery and intense. He is commonly criticized for being brash and reckless, charging personally into battle instead of leading from the rear like the other generals do. He is far from stupid - in fact, like most of his social status he's well-educated - but he has little time for academia and study or knowledge that isn't practical. For instance, he values things like science and law more than art and philosophy. He is fast and quick witted, prone to snap judgements and operating on instinct rather than slowly thinking things through; again, it's not that he's stupid or acts without thinking at all, more that he tends to decide on actions faster than others and more impetuously, which can give that impression.

Rong doesn't do anything by halves and is known for his intensity and dedication in whatever he does; he falls in love easily and hard, burning with passion unequaled, and when he sets his mind of a task he is devoted to it almost single-mindedly. Of course, he falls out of love just as quickly. His appetites are extensive and broad for food, wine, women and whatever appetite he sets out to sate, he won't stop until he's fully sated, over-indulging often. Were he not so aggressively physical, he probably would have run to fat long ago from his prodigious meals and boozing. But the one thing he seems unable to sate himself on, of course, is his dedication and loyalty to the Empire; in this regard, he is perhaps one of the Empress' fiercest and most ardent supporters and advocates, though perhaps not her most eloquent. He has gotten something of a reputation as he attack dog, her slobbering hunting hound to be unleashed on her enemies.

Like the fire, he craves stimulation and novelty, despising stasis. For this reason, he tries to spend as little time as possible on the courts and his administrative duties, delegating those to an endless succession of seneschals, viceroys and factors. He visits court when entirely unavoidable, but doesn't really have the head for political games and much prefers military life.

Personal Philosophy: If you can do it, do it well. There is nothing that cannot be overcome with enough effort and force.

Training: Rong has extensive martial arts training, focusing on swordplay especially, though he is also a trained military tactician and strategist. His combat style is practical and pragmatic, a soldier's form rather than a spiritual one. He has quite a fearsome reputation as a warrior, known for leading charges from the front and personally scything through enemy ranks.

Magical proficiency: None; he lacks the talent entirely. He has some academic understanding of magic's military applications, though no practical abilities.

Chi proficiency and Techniques: Rong's chi burns in intense auras, powerful and unsubtle when he uses it, lacking finesse but in no way lacking sheer force. He uses it primarily for self-augmentation, to push himself beyond the typical limits of strength, speed and power available to Etherians while retaining greater self-control than in the typical 'berserker state' of this people. These techniques aren't actually that hard to master for anyone learning to use Chi, Rong simply pushes them to levels most don't. When push comes to shove, the most refined and advanced technique he has learned has been to temporarily form his chi into a kind of second arm in the place of his missing limb, which appears to be made of intense red light.

Weapons/Gear: Rong carries a pair of mastercrafted blades at all times and has high quality armor to take onto the battlefield with him.

Skills: Rong is a swordmaster and an excellent military leader; the men respond well to his fiery passion and his preference for leading from the front, fighting alongside them.

Other Abilities: He has extensive knowledge of geography and various tidbits of obscure local trivia, which he ostensibly studies for military advantage, but really has more to do with a love of travel and nature.

Weaknesses: Rong's most obvious weakness is his injury; his left arm was severed in an incident he refuses to speak of. It is a source of great personal shame for him and has earned him the unflattering nickname "Cripple Rong" among his enemies at court.

Back-story: Rong comes from a privileged family and didn't want for much; the family of Qian are the traditional rulers of a particular province of Tera Sui and apparently their history indicates that they were warlords who rose to prominence after the Etherians were lost from the Empire and that Zhou province was their kingdom until the Empire reintegrated the Etherians. The Qian family were allowed to retain their position of leadership to smooth the transition and things carried on fairly well since then.

Rong is the eldest son of the family, though in the Zhu matriarchy that doesn't mean much. He became the nominal head of the family after his younger sister died in a military action out on the fringes of the Empire and he regrets not being there to protect her. In stepping forward to fill her shoes, as the eldest surviving child of the family, he found things not quite to his liking and quickly delegated his duties in order to focus on his military career. He faced many obstacles as a man trying to have a family (and a large one at that) at the same time as a full career and was often reprimanded by his superiors who told him he should be spending more time at home with his kids while his wives did the work. He loves his wives and his children, mostly, but simply could not stand being at home as long as those duties would demand. Instead he relished the travel, the battle and the excitement of the military, rising quickly through the ranks though making some enemies along the way. Eventually he came to command one of the Empire's many armies, though in one of his early military actions he lost his arm under circumstances he has yet to disclose, against a threat from beyond the stars. This was a blow to his career and caused him to be stuck back home on forced medical leave much longer than he feels necessary, to play politics and government. He itches to travel, to go somewhere new, or at least for a fight, but finds himself bound by shackles of honor, duty and culture.

Other: Rong is a notoriously promiscuous and indiscriminate lover of both men and women alike and has frequently been reprimanded for fraternizing with subordinates and even superiors; he rarely enters long-term relationships and isn't stupid enough to sire any illegitimate children, though often these brief romances turn into mutually-beneficial friendships, which span the Empire thanks to his travels. Most of the representatives working under him in the day to day runnings of Zhou province are former lovers of one gender or the other. On the other hand, he also doesn't have qualms about, say, sleeping with another man's wive or woman's husband - only if they're willing, obviously - which means his dueling schedule is quite full..