Obscene Symphony

Post a random fact about yourself.

I hate live music.

The Wolf Plague

@ReveTheDreamer oooo I can't wait to read about yours!!

The Wolf Plague

@ReveTheDreamer That's fair enough. The character I'm designing is kind of like a mother figure, but the kind of mother you don't want to piss off unless you want an ass-whoopin'. I'm thinking she acts as a sort of mentor to new people, helping them cope with their disease and slow its progression by adhering to a lot of exclusively human mannerisms (discipline, schedules, communication, keeping emotions in check, etc.). No one would be compelled to listen to her, but I envision her as the type of person worth listening to, if that makes sense. She has a group of people who associate with her because they value her leadership of their own accord, but there are lots of people in Deadware who don't. She wants to help people, and doesn't want anyone causing any more chaos than there already is. Of course, if you still don't like it, that's fine.

I was thinking she'd been there about five years, could bring it down to four though. She's been able to slow her progression through methods like the ones above, clinging to humanity and doing her best not to succumb to more basic impulses. I'm looking for someone pretty significantly progressed who hasn't lost their human rationality yet, but is beginning to grapple with the occasional lapse.

Obscene's Scratchpad

_{Interacting with@Hero and @Scribe of Thoth}

Aaron all but jumped back when a hiss sounded from behind the study door, followed a moment later by an off-the-cuff insult and a threat he didn’t care to think too hard about. Comparatively gentle to what he expected, all things considered, and he was content to hurry back into his bathroom and out of his clothes without further inquiry. Nope, he did not care for Varis’ “guidance” again. But at least his first instinct had proven true, he’d remember that for the future. “Hurry the hell up when Varis is hungry” seemed like a safe enough bet.

He showered quickly, though he did remember Varis’ tip about leaving his conditioner in longer and paid careful attention to his neck, and soon enough he was out, putting clothes in his hamper and pulling out fresh ones. This time he chose a pair of black slacks and another white shirt - luckily he had no shortage of those - but didn’t put it on just yet, opting for the long-sleeved black crew neck from earlier. An awful combination, obviously, but only a temporary one for feeding, just like he’d planned that evening.

Only about ten minutes had passed by the time Aaron returned to the study door, knocking a little more hesitantly this time. “I’m ready whenever you are, Master,” he called, before remembering what he’d been told on his first night. “Emotional state is… generally fine. Slightly nervous.”

“Enter and sit.” Varis ordered as he looked over the page he’d written, ensuring everything dried evenly. He had been concerned about the section that the boy interrupted during but his worries were unnecessary. It was perfection. As if he’d produce anything less. Varis looked up as Aaron settled, eyes immediately drawn to his neck as his hunger made itself known again. He still remembered the taste he had the other night and he strode over to Aaron.

Varis stood in front of Aaron for a moment more before using the boy’s chin to expose his neck, tilting his head back and away to give the Count easier access. The darkness in his eyes faded and they slowly brightened as he put a knee on the chair between the mage’s legs to support himself. Tightening his hold on the boy’s head, Varis pressed his fangs gently against the boy’s neck and held it there for a brief second to give the boy time to prepare himself. Then in a single movement, Varis pierced the boy’s skin and drank.

He closed his eyes and gave an involuntary groan of appreciation as the warm liquid burst over his tongue. Orange and cloves overwhelmed him with that perfect kick that bottles always missed, the pleasant zest of living. Varis let himself indulge, drinking just a bit deeper knowing he wouldn’t let himself have this again in the next few days. He lapped at the wound hesitantly, sucking out what last bit he could get as the wound shut itself, and he sat back against the boy’s desk with eyes closed to revel in the sensation of fresh blood in his body again.

Holding very still, Aaron was actually grateful for the Count’s grip on his head as he aligned his fangs; the consequences of misplaced punctures weren’t fun to think about, and he didn’t want to be accidentally moving. After the initial butterflies and burn of the bite, though, Aaron’s nerves faded away, body and mind overcome with a pleasant warmth. His head got light as his body got heavy, whatever tension was left in his muscles relaxing. His headache was all but forgotten as he allowed himself to savour possibly the only moment of serenity he’d have that night, eyes sliding closed as a grateful sigh escaped him.

To his chagrin, the feeling didn’t linger quite as long as the first time, and he mostly came to his senses shortly after Varis drew back, though a pleasant calm did still linger. As he gradually came back to his senses he noticed a red smear on the still-entranced Count’s cheek, however, accompanied by a drip down the side of his chin. Automatically his hand went up to his neck and absently prodded the spot where he’d been bitten, more curious than alarmed. The wound was healed, of course, but wet; when he brought his hand away, his fingers were stained red.

“...Ah-ha…” Aaron murmured, still a little dazed as he examined his hand. A knock on the front door made him look up, and he stood, making his way out of the study and down the hall to the door on autopilot. In the remnants of his feeding stupor he opened the door without a second thought, only to be greeted with the sight of Eris and Max.

Bloody neck forgotten, Aaron blinked at the pair for a moment, eyes a little glazed and wondering if feeding had made him more confused than he’d thought. Still, he turned back into the dorm just the same. “Master, Mr. Samael is here,” he called, glancing back at Max inquisitively, “with... Mr. Alderman.”

Varis originally ignored the knocking, reveling in the feeding and expecting the boy to send the interloper quickly but that name made him sigh. He'd brought this on himself after all. He ran a hand over his clothes, smoothing out any wrinkles that popped up during the feeding, and forced himself to move to his own desk. He wasn't about to let them see him so defenseless after a feeding. He picked up his quill, put the other page in front of him, and began working on the next letter.

“Send them in. Tell Eris I'm in the study.” He responded calmly as he worked. He felt the euphoria fading far faster now that he had a task to do.

Aaron turned back to the pair in the doorway, stepping aside and beckoning them in. “Master’s in the study, sir,” he parrotted, offering a dip of the head to Eris before closing the door behind them. Once they’d gone through he went straight to his room to clean up, loath to present himself so poorly in company any longer. On his way through the doorway he reached to close his own door behind him, only to come up empty once again.

Obscene's Scratchpad

Feliks Vasiliev

Name: Feliks Vasiliev, né Shvets

Appearance

Height: 5'7
Eyes: Steel grey
Hair: Black
Build: Thin

Age: 34

Gender: Male

Element: Metal

Personality:
Feliks is intelligent, proud, and no-nonsense, often coming across as rudely blunt and cold. He scowls more than he smiles (with the exception of being in his wife's company) and tolerates disrespect only from those he can't get away with dressing down. Luckily, his position as the husband of a Viscountess and a sought-after designer affords him the privilege of respect from those who otherwise might afford him none. He can't stand self-pity and will call it out when he sees it, though he isn't blind to real suffering either.

Around his wife, he is a different man, loving and gentle and passionate. The disapproving glares and vicious gossip of the upper class bother him none, but he feels for how it hurts her.

Bio:
Feliks had a humble beginning, born to a single human mother in a city in the frigid north of the realm, deep in traditionalist territory. Vampiric harassment of human communities was commonplace, though of course never outright recognized, and most of the populace accepted grim reality and did their best not to exacerbate the problem. Once he was old enough to understand it, Feliks quickly grew jaded and resentful as he watched vampires toy with the lives of humans who were poor enough off as it was, but he was smart enough to keep his head down.

After his mother, a seamstress, died of illness in his preteens, Feliks spent a brief stint on his own before an acquaintance of his mother, a man named Mr. Ivanov, took him in. Mr. Ivanov was a tailor, a human man who had somehow managed to impress some of the lower ranking nobility in the territory, earning him a certain amount of consideration under the otherwise iron fist of the Astorio-aligned family that controlled the area. Immediately Feliks was fascinated, in awe of how the territory at large could live in such fear of the vampires who ruled them while people in Mr. Ivanov's part of town seemed to live their lives in relative peace. The man had a type of power that Feliks didn't understand, and it was tantalizing.

When Feliks showed interest and talent in tailoring, Mr. Ivanov took him on as an apprentice, the boy learning quickly and soon falling in love with the craft. By the time his eighteenth birthday rolled around, Feliks had graduated from doing alterations and otherwise assisting Mr. Ivanov to taking on commissions in his own right, building rapport with Mr. Ivanov's clients and even gaining a few of his own. He had a promising career ahead of him, until his Awakening crystal lit up.

Somehow he ended up paired with a mid-tier noble in the territory, a young Viscountess named Katya Vasiliev, only just reaching maturity herself. Feliks had no love for vampires - quite the opposite, in fact - but he knew resistance was pointless and only liable to get him beaten or killed, so he resolved to obey quietly and find some private way of coping with saying goodbye to all his hopes and dreams. However, he was shocked to find in his new mistress a kind and gentle soul, the Viscountess not taking after her family at all. She was sweet and patient with him, even eventually encouraging him to keep practicing tailoring. Feliks was slow to come around, justifiably suspicious, but gradually he came to see that perhaps every vampire wasn't an uncaring monster.

First she convinced him not to resent his magic. Eventually she got him to quit smoking. After a year, she befriended him, and Feliks started coming out of his shell. After three, he'd fallen in love; with magic, and with her.

Their relationship had to be kept under wraps at first, the pair of them knowing Katya's family would despise it. However, after the pair were ambushed and Feliks injured in the midst of fleeing wider political conflict in their homeland, they decided that life was too fleeting to live in secret and made their relationship public. As of now, they've been married for ten years and with tireless work and Katya's support, Feliks has been able to progress in his craft to become one of the most sought-after designers in the realm, patronized by celebrities and nobility alike. Even Princess Ryner herself is a fan of his work, and has worn dresses of his design on a few notable occasions.

Likes:

• Smoking
• Working
• Warm weather
• Antagonizing, when he can
• Hot tubs
• His wife

Dislikes:

• Smoking
• Ugly clothes
• Eris (it's a love-hate relationship)
• Cold/wet weather
• Being waited on
• Mistreatment of humans and mages
• Self-pity

Habits:

• Searching his pockets for cigarettes when agitated (he doesn't have any, he stopped smoking years ago)
• Using magic for mundane purposes
• Looking at people's clothes before looking at their faces
• Drinking when his leg hurts more than normal (he's trying to find a better way to cope)
• Vicious sarcasm
• Glaring

Other:
Feliks walks with a limp owing to an old injury to his left hip, which left him with limited mobility in the joint and chronic pain. He can walk fairly normally with the use of a cane; without it he can still get around, but his limp is much more pronounced.

He has a thin scar on his forehead above his left eyebrow from a small wound inflicted during the same event as his leg injury. He also has an ugly spiderweb of deep scars cross-hatching his back, dating back to his early years under the Vasilievs.

Feliks took Katya's last name when they married, as part of a complicated bargain with her remaining family not to get her disowned. He really doesn't mind; his maiden name was ugly anyway.

Text colour: 8FA1B4

The Wolf Plague

@ReveTheDreamer I see you've put this on hold and that's totally fine, whether or not it starts up soon (and whether or not I actually join by then, haha) I'm creating a character, and I have a few questions regarding that. No rush, though; I don't need answers right away!

Firstly, you said in the OP that the disease's progression is accelerated by things like anger, hunting, and survival instincts. Is there anything that can actively slow progression? Also, forgetting acceleration, roughly how long does it take for the disease to progress all the way to beast-mode? Months? Years? How many?

Regarding a character, I'm thinking one who's been living in Deadware for some time now, is somewhat more progressed in her disease than the rest of the cast and took on a sort of alpha for the existing residents of Deadware. Experience in animal behavior as well as her more progressed status has given her a knack for catching the attention of fellow infected and exerting some measure of influence over them. I'm going for the type of person who commands respect, and who others kind of want to follow. Is that a sort of character that could work here?

Obscene's Scratchpad

Eliza Marks

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Character Summary

Name: Eliza Marks
Aliases: Liza, Marks, Boss
Age: 23
Birthday/Zodiac: Leo - August 17
Gender: Female
Occupation (Pre-Infection): Trail Guide, Infantryman

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Appearance

Height: 5'6"
Weight: 125lbs (originally 140lbs - lost ~15lbs of leg)
Build: Wiry
Eyes: Pale amber (were brown before infection)
Hair: White (was blonde before the infection)
Skin Tone: Medium-pale.
Tattoos: A thin black line extending from the nape of her neck to the crest of her tailbone, a series of thin black lines around her ankle, and a right sleeve tattoo of a forest scene.
Scars: Most notably, Eliza is missing her left leg, amputated just above the knee. She also has a multitude of minor marks and scars on her arms and her remaining shin, but none of them have any incredibly interesting stories to go with them.
Piercings: Standard earlobe piercings, one upper-ear piercing.
Clothing: Liza prefers clothing that is easy to move in; cargo pants and tank tops are her general go-tos, as well as a worn pair of hiking boots. In cooler weather she'll don a hoodie or a denim jacket, but she doesn't seem all that bothered by the cold. She still has a few sets of fatigues, but doesn't wear them much.

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Psychology

Steadfast / Blunt / Protective / Hardened

Personality: (This is probably the most important thing so I expect a good amount of detail here)

Fears:
Succumbing to the disease -

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Skills

Pre Infection Skills:

• Navigation - Eliza always had a good sense of direction and good navigational skills. Even hiking through unfamiliar areas or on training missions with faulty equipment, she has yet to get lost.
• Decisive - Eliza was always able to think on her feet, capable of making quick decisions that tended to work out for the better. She doesn't flip flop: she makes a choice and commits to it.
• Combat skills - From her military training, Eliza is very familiar with various types of firearms and is capable in hand-to-hand combat. Now that her military days have ended, the usefulness of these skills at the level she possesses them is unclear.
• Leadership - Even as a child, Eliza was a natural leader; other children would follow her lead in anything from sports to group projects. Her military training helped her sharpen these skills.
• Discipline - Perhaps not so much a skill as a necessity, Eliza responds well to discipline, leading a regimented life and encouraging similar practices in others.

Post Infection Skills:

• Senses - in the years that her disease has progressed, Eliza has developed senses beyond her human capability, particularly hearing and smell, with smell being the stronger of the two. She can distinguish species by scent and is learning to distinguish individuals the same way.
• Empathy - Eliza has developed a reliable sense for people, able to get a fairly accurate 'read' on them. This has made her sensitive to emotional changes in others; she calls it their "vibe."
• Influence - Due perhaps to a combination of her former personality, military training, experience in animal behavior and later progression of her disease, Eliza has developed a knack for getting fellow infected to fall into line. A sharp glare from her and some subconscious posturing can calm rowdy infected, and she has an air about her that commands respect. It's debatable whether this is a true post-infection development or if it's just a combination of a previous talent for leadership and Eliza having learned how to better deal with fellow infected over time.

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History

History Before Deadware: The only child of two veterinarians, Eliza grew up around animals of all shapes and sizes, from pets to livestock to exotic animals. Much of her free time as a child was spent shadowing her parents on calls to farms and zoos, watching the animals with wide-eyed fascination. It was there that her love affair with nature began.

Unlike her parents, Eliza never showed interest in veterinary medicine, but more in the animals themselves, their habitats, and their behavior. With dreams of someday becoming an animal handler for a zoo, Eliza first set her sights on domestic species as a teenager before she would move on to learning about handling exotics after high school. During high school she took a job as a trail guide, leading tourists on hikes through the scenic expanse of Jasper National Park that could sometimes last multiple days, teaching her wide-eyed clients about the local environment and wildlife along the way.

However, after graduating high school with few academic prospects and little direction, not to mention realizing that seasonal work as a trail guide was unsustainable as a career, Eliza enlisted in the military. Almost immediately, what had originally been a choice made out of necessity became a passion, and Eliza took extremely well to her training and to military life in general (of many things, she was amazed and delighted to find that strict organization and living in a Spartan environment helped her think more clearly). She quickly showed potential for leadership, her squadron members almost naturally looking to her, and Eliza was actually excited for her first deployment, eager to get out on duty and serve her country.

Eliza's first deployment was fairly simple; her platoon was working with relief workers, guarding supply and transports, and helping administer aid. Unfortunately, both her deployment and her military career were cut short when an undiscovered IED detonated beneath the a transport vehicle she was

Recovery and rehabilitation took months, but eventually Eliza was able to stand and walk again with the help of a new artificial leg. However, when her hair started turning white soon after her recovery was completed, she was tested for Lycanthropy. The result positive. The doctors hypothesized that some of the blood she'd received in her initial surgery was to blame, and just like that, all of Eliza's future prospects were abandoned, and she was sent to Deadware.

That was five years ago.

History Since Diagnosis/Arrival: In the years since making the lengthy trip to Deadware, Eliza's disease has progressed slowly, and she's fallen into a sort of leadership role with some of the residents. Drawing on sage advice from an old mentor (one who has since passed the point of no return), her own previous experience and her experience with her own progression, Eliza tries to act as a mentor for new residents, doing all she can to advise them on coping with their disease. There is also a particular group of fellow lycans who look to Eliza for leadership and order, though there are of course others who either reject and oppose her supposed authority, or who simply have no dealings with her.

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Extras

Other:

Her prosthetic looks like this.

Let's Gush!

Endless gushing to the most infuriating and schemey GM I've ever encountered, @Achronum. Never have I written with a GM who is so dedicated to a group and invested in a story that every week feels like hopping in place, waiting to read the next chapter of a book I simply can't put down. This guy right here and his RP has caught and held my interest better than any other I've ever done. A+ buddy, I'd join your other RPs but stats and dice rolls scare me XD

And of course there's @Hero, with whose help I have achieved the most well-developed character I've ever made, and a full-length novel's worth of AU and unrelated content that may never see the light of day. Love ya bb, you know just how to make me cry <3

Gushing over @Scribe of Thoth because he makes me jealous and makes me feel like I need to step up my prose game, congratulations on being the fan favourite and thank you for lighting a fire under my ass to learn some new freaking words

Always happy to tear @Apoalo to shreds, hope she keeps doing the same for me!

And of course a general one to the people of Of Blood and Magic for bringing together probably the most diverse and vibrant set of characters I've written with in my career on this site. We got a great bunch in there folks!

_{my rp roster is small but dammit I like it}

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Give Me Your Favorite Quote(s).

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Themistocles, The Battle of Salamis