Pirouette

U N I V E R S A L ™ (Accepting New Players!)

(Jotunn Draugr/Pirouette)

Margaret didn't even jump as the head of her undead companion was blasted by a far off shot. "Tch" Margaret scoffed as she watched the body crumple. Gunrat, as she apparently called herself, just wasted her freebee shot killing some poor zombie instead.

Margaret lingered a bit longer, rocking back and forth on her feet, counting in her head. It was a short count, only seconds before she finished. Once she had finished her count, she bent down and hastened off in an inhuman sprint. A mere moment after she had moved, a second loud bang echoed out and Margaret's hair whisked away from the shockwave of the passing bullet, missing her just. She tried her best to guess where the shooter was but she didn't have much a mind for guns. She did, however, have a mind for Gunrat, as the past few months of squaring off with the would-be hero had provided Margaret a lot of information on this fight.

Margaret scurried through alleyways, all the while dodging obstacles, before finding a way up one of the taller buildings in the area. A fire escape hung to the side of the building and the Ghoul quickly made her way up the stairs, curious to see if her hunch was right on whether or not Gunrat was up there.

"Wo-cao", Gunrat hissed. The shot missed, and now that monstrosity was in full sprint. She fumbled through her pouch again, trying frantically to load another round in before the damned monster was out of sight. She successfully loaded the next round in, but The Ghoul had already ducked into the alley, out of sight. Xiu could only assume it was coming straight for her, and a long-range rifle would be nearly useless. Slinging it over her shoulder, she pulled out two 44. Magnum pistols from holsters within her jacket.

"This'll leave a dent", she snickered, scanning her surroundings for a shadow. "Zhang, send backup quick. Make sure Jiao has gasoline, in case it goes well, and a medkit in case it doesn't. Copy?"

"Copy ma'am", Zhang answered, just as Xiu heard the metallic shaking of the fire escape out of her other ear. It was already making its way up to the roof.

"Hao-ba-mei-nu-ren", she sang in her native tongue, pointing both barrels at the building's edge. "Time to die."

Up and up Margaret went as she scaled the building's fire escape until eventually she reached the top of the staircase. She leapt up, clearing the distance from the fifth floor to the roof. She didn't even have a time to land on her feet before she came under fire. Gunrat opened fire with her .44 magnums and at this range, she was deadly accurate.

Margaret landed just as a chunk of metal lodged itself into her leg. Her face tightened from the sudden shock but she didn't linger and quickly continued her charge towards her opponent. She raised her arms and covered her face as she darted forward, closing the gap quickly but not without injury as several bullets pierced Margaret's body, each hitting her with an impact to slow her down but not stop her.

Close enough, she lashed out swinging her powerful arms out hoping to smack Gunrat with her super strength.

Gunrat braced for the impact, as the freakish girl-thing came barreling down on her. Dropping one of her revolvers, she thrust her left arm out in an attempt to block the attack. It landed square on her forearm with a deep CLANG, ricocheting off her metalic under-skin plating. Still, the force was enough to send her flying backward.

Gunrat hit the roof hard, but managed to tuck into a roll. Tumbling to a bruised stop, she looked up at the monster, suffering no major effects from the several bullets currently lodged into her body. As The Ghoul continued its approach, Gunrat jumped to her feet, drawing a combat knife to replace her lost pistol. As the creature wound up for another swing, she dove forward, aiming her blade directly at The Ghoul's eye.

Margaret's feet slid to a stop as she tried to be more defensive as Gunrat leapt for her. Instinctively, Margaret raised one of her arms to cover her face which turned out to be a prudent move as Gunrat's knife lodged itself into the Ghoul's arm, slicing all the way through to come out the other end, almost reaching her face.

With Gunrat this close, Margaret cocked her other arm in prepartion for her attack. Her hand stretched back as the fingers were forcibly folded back on themselves revealing the bone in her forearm suddenly grew to a sharp point. She thrusted this arm forward towards Gunrat's stomach in hopes of piercing her armor and skin.

Gunrat gave one instinctual heave with her left hand, attempting to free the knife now burried in her opponant's arm. It was no use, and she left herself wide open as the Ghoul thrust its bone shiv toward her. Reacting quickly, she attempted to sidestep out of the way. The shiv found its mark in Xiu's side with a great deal of force. Thankfully, her leather jacket also carried steel plating, like her arms and legs. The collision landed with a deep crunch, as a couple of her ribs shattered under the sudden impact.

A groan of pain escaped her mouth as she again fell backward. Landing square on her back, breathless, she lined up her remaining revolver. It still had a few rounds left in it. If she lined the shot up correctly, it would still make it through the beast's knife-stuck arm, and burry itself in its brain.

Her eyes grew wide as she focussed, measuring the angle as best as she could. The shambling monstrosity still moving in.

"Hnngh, mark!"

Margaret raised her arm with its bone shiv and attempted to leap down onto her opponent, aiming to plant the shiv right into Gunrat's face but the sudden defeaning sound of gunfire rang in Margaret's ears.

Gunrat hit her mark as her bullet barreled through Margaret's arm and went right through before finding Margaret's eye. The bullet painfully lodged itself somewhere inside Margaret's head as she stumbled backwards covering her eye. As her flesh began healing around it, she hissed in pain as she could feel the bullet agitate the area around it. In pain, Margaret retreated to the edge of the building. She lingered for a moment before jumping off the building and onto the fire escape that she had ascended earlier. She took the oppurtunity to escape from plain sight as well, and leapt through one of the windows, glass shattering as she tumbled through, and into a lofty apartment.

U N I V E R S A L ™ (Accepting New Players!)

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U N I V E R S A L ™ (Accepting New Players!)

The Ghoul

Archetype: Feral Man/Woman
Name: Margaret Anne Haefield
Alias: Ghoul
Age: Looks 15 but is actually 48 years old

Powers: Super Strength, Rapid Regeneration, Bodily Manipulation, Bloodlust
Margaret’s experimentation on herself worked and her body’s limit has been vastly improved upon. Her improved strength allows her to lift and toss small cars with relative ease.
Rapid Regeneration is just how it sounds. Margaret’s body rapidly recovers wounds, disease, poison, and so forth. That’s not to say she isn’t affected by such things, quite the contrary, as Margaret feels every bit of it. Recovery for injuries can occur within minutes but can take up to 24 hours depending upon the amount and severity of injury sustained. During periods of recovery, Margaret is often noted as lethargic and tired as her regeneration saps her physical strength. Recovery for severe injuries can reduce Margaret to a sickly comatose state for a time period as her body works intensely to recover the damage done. It should also be noted that any foreign material, like shards of bullets, will have to be removed. Her regeneration has also had the uncanny effect of reversing her aging so she has reverted to appearing much younger than what she actually is.

Bodily Manipulation works in tandem with Margaret’s regeneration ability and her regeneration is crucial to her survival if she were to use her Bodily Manipulation power on herself. This power manifests itself as her being able to consciously control the formation of her own biological material. The result is that Margaret is capable of morphing her body into a weapon of bone and flesh. For example, she could manipulate the structure of her arm to form a crude blade made from her bones or she could sprout two bony fangs from her mouth. As you can imagine, her power is quite… repugnant to many.

Finally, her Bloodlust is an unconscious drive for blood. The sight of it drives her feral and her increase in aggression is directly related to just how bloody an altercation could get. Her savagery only amplifies her strength and speed as she appears to get ‘hungrier’ for blood but she doesn’t actually have to drink it. In fact, she doesn’t really need anything to sustain her at this point. She’s entirely self-sustaining.

There is an interesting interaction that happens between these of these powers. Namely, Margaret’s own conscious changes to her body will not be undone by her more unconscious regeneration, but rather, it will assist in the process greatly. As you can imagine, altering someone’s body in such a way would cause all sorts of problems like bleeding out, shock to the system and so on. However with Margaret’s regeneration, her body can readily adapt to those extreme changes without the negative impact. The only exception is that the process is still quite painful as nerves twist and turn along with the rest of her body. But the payoff from this power can be huge.
There are also some other creative strategies that Margaret utilizes. She learned that she could remove sections of her brain and plant that into a fresh human corpse in order to control the living dead. Essentially real zombies, right down to the slow shuffling feet and the need to eat living flesh. Stopping them is just how you’d expect, blow out their brains.

Weaknesses: The best strategies to take Margaret on aren’t too complex and albeit that incapacitating her is easier than killing her. She’ll still sustain damage and harm as severe wounds need time to heal. Aiming to inflict heavy damage upon Margaret could give one victory. Electricity still has an effect on Margaret and something as simple as a Taser can halt her dead in her tracks. Fire is another way to heavily impede and damage Margaret as the whole process of burning is quiet painful.

Alignment: Villain
Personality: Psychotic, Childish, Cunning, Deceptive, Intelligent

BRIEF Bio:
Margaret Haefield was one of the greatest minds in the modern era for neuropathical studies. It was her work that managed to propel modern medicine into a new era as some other leading experts called it and her work was used to fight and cure many neurological diseases. However her passion was an obsession and it was noted that her labor intensive practices constantly put her health at risk as she often forewent food and sleep.
About two years ago, Margaret was working on a unique project that was supposed to stimulate the brain to increase human tissue regrowth. The end goal was to eventually be able to allow humans to cheat death naturally, but the project was doomed from the start. Various setbacks and conditions of red-tape had stagnated the project to the point where eventually Margaret was given a week to succeed or the whole thing would be canceled. Seeing as this project was also her vegetable of a husband’s last chance, she was dedicated to seeing her project through.
In the end the project was a failure but not due to the deadline. The project ended two days before then as Margaret had exposed herself to the mutagen and her body underwent violent stress before she eventually passed away. Many believed she accidently made a mistake in her sleep deprivation and exposed herself but others support that she purposely exposed herself out of desperation. Whatever the case, she had been exposed and was pronounced dead at the scene. Her body hauled away and the whole project terminated.
As it turns out, Margaret ended up coming back alive but at this point she was no longer the same old Margaret. After being dead for days, Margaret had lost grip of reality and her mind, either corroded or corrupted, fell to madness.
Storylines: Margaret is in a primal lust for blood and gore at the moment. She desires nothing more than savor her unsavory appetite. However, there is a hidden motive lying among her seemingly random moves. In truth, she seeks revenge but there is a small part of her that wants her husband back, but he is no longer in his comatose state.

Notes: I invite anyone to come up with previous encounters and such with Margaret. She's pretty easy to figure out for the most part.

U N I V E R S A L ™ (Accepting New Players!)

Still want a "Feral Man/Woman [Wolverine, Tigra, Beast]" character?

Looking for F for 18+ Post-Apocalyptic...thing

Sure. I have a character in mind.

The Lord of the Rings RPG

Elf
Specials: Night vision and far vision

@Sigurd

Since you'll be going for a "wintery" setting, I believe you should include the fact that Elves walk on top of snow instead of trudging through it like Dwarves, Humans, and Hobbits.

The Lord of the Rings RPG

Oh wow. Very thorough.

The Wards of The King - A Song of Ice And Fire Roleplay (High Casual)(Reboot)

Stewing over it will only serve to upset you; if you are just basically decent to them and encourage no further conflict, you'll both be rid of them and show everyone else that you're the bigger person ^_^

@Obscene Symphony

@ViolentViolet Yea, this is your take away message, hun.

Free Sorcery: An Alagaësian Roleplay

Our repeated posts are keeping us on the front page, we've got lurkers now.

@Gisk

Hello.

The Wards of The King - A Song of Ice And Fire Roleplay (High Casual)(Reboot)

Syla Greyjoy

What is Dead May Never Die

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---

The longboat creaked as the gentle wake rocked the boat from side to side. The crew shuffled about on the deck to begin preparations to dock. A calm breeze gave them a headwind and it was only a matter of time before they'd reach their destination. King's Landing. A place of overcrowded squalor where one man claimed to be the most powerful in the known world and where many lords and ladies spent time kissing up to that man in hopes of recognition and reward. The place hardly suited the tough rigor of the maritime raiders, the Greyjoys, and for the most part, history had always upheld that. Today, however, was going to be one of the few exceptions that the Krakens of the Iron Islands would dare the politics and intrigue behind those walls of the Red Keep. The Greyjoy ward, Syla Greyjoy, was the youngest of Bailin Greyjoy and to the lord of Pyke, his daughter offered the least value if held as a captive. She was not likely to be an heir at the Kingsmoot and the scandalous rumors of her being a homosexual brought mixed opinions.

Besides, the position of "ward" to a Greyjoy was nothing to brag about. Sitting around, playing petty politics wasn't a Greyjoy ideal and there was no strength in it according to any Islander. In fact, it was a curse that doomed whoever to be stuck on land for however many years of wardship. It was a waste and nothing more than a distraction as any Iron Islander worth their salt was out raiding plump merchant vessels and innocent coastlines. Indeed, as even Syla protested her father's wish to become a ward in King's Landing. Hell, she even felt insulted and rejected by her father at the offer. It wasn't until he offered Syla the promise that she'd have an opportunity to raid during her long voyage around Westeros, that she accepted the offer because up to this point, she still hadn't had her first kill.

Sure enough, Syla and her longboat vessel did raid several unsuspecting ships around the coast of Dorne, plundering loot to stock their ship. Syla did manage her first kill to and in the eyes of her people, she was a true Ironborn now. Easily the highest part of the trip for her so far. But now, seeing King's landing on the Horizon, Syla got a feeling of dread and depression as she would soon leave the sea behind.

"Well, lass, there it is." Syla's captain, Armin Tawney, said as he snuck up behind Syla's nervous vigil on the bow of the longboat. Syla remained focus watching the distant red of the Red Keep but responded to her captain. "Too late to turn around now?" Syla's question made the old captain chuckle. "Aye. About two months too late." Armin said and stepped forward placing a hand on Syla's shoulder. "Don't worry lass. The moment yer done with the bootshiners, you'll be back out here leading yer own crew." Armin said, trying to sound reassuring. It was strange, but Syla had grown rather fond of the old man as he gave Syla her first kill, her first raid. It was special and this whole trip around the continent of Westeros would be etched in Syla's memory forever.

Syla took in a deep breath, inhaling the salty sea air as if it were the last breaths she'd ever take. She had a feeling that upon her return, things would go back to the way they were. Her father didn't care for her, not like his sons. She wasn't going to lead men, her father would forbade it. But she didn't relinquish her feelings and superstitions to Armin as that wasn't strength. Not Ironborn strength anyway. So she simply nodded and Armin stepped away quietly to continue his command of the crew, leaving Syla to watch as King's Landing grew larger and larger as they got closer and closer.

--

Docking went smoothly and it appears they were expected as a group of several Gold Cloaks and servants from the Red Keep were awaiting on the dock. Syla hadn't moved from her perch on the bow as she watched the hustle and bustle of King's Landing with a quiet intrigue. It wasn't until Armin piped up behind her again. "Time to go, lass." He spoke softly, almost sounding sad that this moment had come. Whether intentional or not, Syla had appreciated the sentiment. She turned and smiled at Armin, "Thanks, Armin.". She gave him a nod and he returned it. No need to get teary-eyed over it.

Syla stepped from the bow and walked over to the ramp. Joining her were a small house guard of about seven with an eighth man, Garrow Blacktyde, serving as an advisory role due to his better education than most on the Iron Islands. He wasn't the current lord or prospective heir to house Blacktyde so he wasn't needed per sae on the Iron Islands. Still, his knowledge and cunning were noted by Syla's father and he would be a perfect instrument to keep tabs on the politics of the King's Landing and relay information. He gave Syla a nod as she stepped off the ship, her black overcoat flowing in the breeze as she moved with a purpose.

"Lady Syla of the House Greyjoy?" One of the servants stepped forth and inquired. Syla rolled her eyes at the formal title and obviousness of the answer. Their longship's sail was the rust golden kraken after all. "Yes." She shook her head as the servant nodded and turned to lead with the Gold Cloak escort that accompanied them. It was at this time he mentioned that they other servants will bring up Syla's other stuff and she need not worry about it. Which was fine by her account, and thankfully some of her guard hung back to make sure their stuff would make it.

The long walk up to the Red Keep was an educating one. Everything that was rumored about in King's Landing was true in Syla's eyes. The place stunk of feces and the streets were packed with people. That reality completely changed when they reached the gates of the Red Keep where the servant escorting them announced Syla's full name as a sort of password to enter. The gate opened and Syla and the other Ironborn were ushered inside. "Lady Syla, good day to you." Another servant said with a bow. "If you would please follow me, the other wards have gathered in their commons room. I'd be glad to show you."

Syla nodded and followed, discovering very quickly that she was meant to go there alone as the rest of her Ironborn were lead elsewhere. The Red Keep was massive, Syla soon found out, as she was lead through the building, but eventually the servant bowed again and gestured towards a door that lay in front of her. "The ward's commons. Please make yourself at home." Syla thought by his tone that she was being fed to the wolves but she steeled herself and marched through the door discovering quite the scene.

The place was a zoo as animals were all about and yet everyone seemed okay with a bear just sitting in the center of the room. Syla scowled as she mouthed the words 'What the fuck?'. That seemed wildly inappropriate but the happenings of mainlander people were lost on her. Maybe that was a normal thing, though in some way, she doubted it. Outside of the literal bear, there were many figurative animals in here as well. Direwolves, Lions, Stags, and Snakes. Even Syla could roughly tell them apart based on what was recorded in history books.

Syla stalked quietly along the edge of the room, eyeing all the other individuals who were all deep in amidst of their conversations. Syla had little intention to join and actively participate but it seemed like several were bickering like children while the others seemed not to care. It also seemed that Syla wasn't dressed for the occasion, whatever that might have been. Everyone appeared to be wearing their best robes and dresses while Syla adorned herself in her weathered overcoat and hardened leather as if she were still on a longship. The one oversight was that she didn't have a sword as she didn't put a lot of faith in those wild animals. But Syla didn't care all that much, though she had to admit to feeling a bit isolated from these people already.

Normally quite gregarious, Syla chose to remain quiet for a moment as she slipped into a regal-looking chair next to some brown-haired girl who sat further away from the group but chiming in just loud enough to give some other girl some lip. In all honestly, she couldn't tell which family these two were from but the one sitting was most likely a Tyrell due to the very revealing nature of her dress. That was partly the reason why Syla chose this chair apart from the rest. Eye Candy.