Player CharactersName: Rachel Weston
Appearance: Rachel has curly blonde down a little past her shoulders, light hazel eyes, a notably attractive face and a damn nice figure. She prefers nicer clothing (although heels bug the heck out of her - they look good, but there’s the issue of needing to walk, dangit!), usually black or blue. She cares somewhat about her appearance in public, at least enough to try to look good, although among friends or at home she’s less on top of this.
Background:
Rachel’s had a much nicer home life than many Americans. Her family never really struggled with poverty, although they weren’t overly rich (Her mother being a real estate agent and her father being a stay-at-home dad). Unlike many families, her parents were happily married. She has a younger brother, fourteen, who she has occasional conflict with but nevertheless a good relation.
Rachel is not the greatest student in NYU, but she is by no means bad. In her areas of interest in particular she is a very good student. It’s the uninteresting parts that she takes issue with. She finds math in particular dreadfully boring. She hasn’t picked a major yet, despite being in her second year.
Her interests are somewhat varied and often depend on random whims. Reading (fantasy and romance mostly), social media (and forums), movies, etc.. It’s largely random.
Shortly before finishing high school Rachel had a brief run in with narcotics, but after that decided that she hated how she basically was not herself when under their effects and hasn’t touched them since (although the temptation has been there before, in harder times of more stress). Alcohol she is cautious of, but hasn’t outright sworn off (well, she mostly drinks red wine. Heart health benefits, she’s heard). She is the flirty kind of drunk, if that sort of information becomes relevant. Both ways.
In terms of health, she’s not unhealthy but she’s certainly no fitness nut. She’s pretty good at running, not so helpful in a fist fight.
Stigma: Shapeshifting
Blessing: Persuasion
Inventory: Wallet (with $165), purse containing general appearance care items, a family photo, school ID for NYU in New York, pocket knife, and more general things that one would expect to find on a college student.
Name: Janet Platinum
Appearance: Standing at a fairly impressive 6.3ft tall, Janet is broad-shouldered, and possesses a fairly stocky build. Years of training have given her plenty of muscle mass, particularly around the arm area, but it’s fairly proportionate. A long black ponytail reaches down to her waist, although she is never seen with her hair down. She typically wears a plain black singlet, with fairly unmodest shorts, which show off her smooth, yet strong thighs. Her face and body are adorned with scars, and she seems to be perpetually grinning in a shark-tooth smile. She also wears knuckle dusters constantly. Just in case.
Background: Born into a small farming village in Europe, Janet was a working child. She was the eldest, and thus made to do a lot of grunt work on the farm. Occasionally, she’d go on visits to town to sell produce, but she’d always get strange looks, likely due to her large stature. Not fat, just very muscular. She eventually left her small home, but spent some time wandering, not knowing where to go. She travelled the world, looking for a goal, and found out about a group of fighters. Not just any fighting group, though. This was a group of women who fought in arena matches to win money, which they then donated to women’s rights charities around the world, after taking some ‘tax’. She was ecstatic about this, and joined as soon as she could. However, she faced the same strange glances as before. The members didn’t respect her, because she was ‘too masculine’. After fighting with them for a year, she left, once more lost. She was a hulk of muscle, bordering on the excessive. So, she did what she was good for. She became an arena fighter. She was held in an amazingly high regard, among circles all over the world, and lived a lavish lifestyle. However, she simultaneously felt terrible. She couldn’t stand the money, but she couldn’t donate it to the same charities she was going to fight for before, because of how she obtained it. This was blood money. She had killed many, and had sustained a few injuries herself, with scars mocking her entire muscular body. She eventually gave it all up, resorting to living off farming, as she once did. She built a cabin, and lived in the woods for years. She faced intense loneliness, and sustained this with homemade alcohol, resulting in an unhealthy dependence on being inebriated. The alcohol did make her stronger, however. She was found, after 7 years of being off the map, by an old man who lived in the same woods, lying in a ditch, drowning in a pool of her own vomit. He took her in, and she thanked him greatly. She did the work he could not, and made many improvements to his house, and added a farm. He helped her stop drinking, although she occasionally still got cravings. That was, until the day he died. It wasn’t anything malicious, simply age. He died asleep, with Janet’s tears caking both their eyes shut. This was when she decided to go back into society. She then realised she had an unspent fortune, from the will of both this old man and her parents. And she spent it on alcohol, paying for damages, other’s health insurance, and any food she would eat. That was, until the day she got so drunk that she passed out, and woke up in a strange, strange place.
Stigma:
Janet can punch with enough force to crumble a mountain to pebbles.
Blessing:
Fist Equipment.
Inventory: Spiked Knuckle Dusters, Empty Bourbon Bottle, Letter.
Name: Thomas Lachance
Appearance: Medium height and build, with a sightly scruffy face. Young looking, with messy light brown hair and tan skin.
Background: In one word, Tom is an "Outdoorsman". In two, he is a "Crazy Survivalist". Born in the boonies of Idaho, his prepper parents followed the post 9/11 survivalist boom spending much of Tom's childhood warning him of the dangers of energy shortages and bird flue while teaching him a variety of useful information for how to survive an apocalypse. Aside from that, it was a fairly normal rural upbringing, full of hunting and fishing and normal high schools. Well one normal high school, at least, which he passed slightly-above-average. He had just moved out of his parents bunker home to an out of the way place. Just as he was deciding what to do with his life, go to college or join the military, things took a turn for the unexpected and he ended up here. He has almost as many fears as he has guns, and he has plenty of guns. 19 years old, having spent a year working in a feed mill to fund whatever step is next in his life (and his ammunition expenses, though his parents helped a bit with that). Enjoys root beer and red meat. Never very good with women, had high school crushes that never went anywhere.
Stigma:
Be Prepared! Tom is capable of manifesting useful supplies out of thin air. They supplies are fairly limited, but practical when paired with pre-existing items. He can't pull out a machine gun or attack helicopter, but can pull out ammunition and fuel that makes their use more viable, for example. Other items effected by this power include food, medical supplies, purified water, batteries, simple tools, and other things you would expect to find in a survivalist stockpile.
Uh, lets say at high Mania he is capable of pulling out temporary weapons/explosives/armor of incredibly high caliber, such as an arsenal of miniature nuclear weapons, black hole grenades, anti-matter bullets, and other equipment of the appropriate strength.
Blessing:
Guns!
Inventory: Survival knife, Swiss army knife, wallet (leather, $20/drivers license/shooting range card), truck keys (with flashlight attachment), smartphone, small gold ring (for when hyperinflation makes the paper money useless, of course). To his horror, no guns :0. The troubles of EDC when you are too young for a concealed carry license. A pair of camo cargo pants, combat boots, camo t-shirt, and large flannel coat.
Name: Iris DuBlanc
Appearance: Tall, with an athletic yet attractive figure. Looks her age (around 18), besides the height, with wavy dark hair and fair skin. While nothing to do with appearance, Iris is deaf - almost completely unable to process all but the loudest sounds. Communicates via notebook, generic gestures, or British Sign Language to those that know it.
Background: Born into a wealthy family - very wealthy, in fact. Has an older brother and an older sister. On good terms with entire family and extended family. Born with partial hearing but degenerated into near-total deafness before the age of three.
Very polite and submissive, sometimes to her own detriment. Taught by several tutors, all of whom she liked immensely. Took up martial arts - primarily for exercise purposes - at a young age. Also interested in firearms, and a decent marksman with sporting rifles and shotguns.
Avid reader and writer. Enjoys using forums and instant-messaging services.
Doesn't have many friends. At all.
Stigma: Necromancy - If it's dead, Iris can give it life, no matter how long it's been dead for - to the point of a sort of pseudo-telekinesis. From corpses to dead skin cells, Iris can control organic objects that are dead, with the amount of input on her end being proportional to the intelligence of the dead thing. Controlling a dead blade of grass would be essentially telekinesis - she could well make it float, but she would need to concentrate on it - and more importantly, feel the strain of lifting one blade of grass. An inconsequential amount of stress - lifting a dead tree, however, would be difficult.
Controlling a dead dog, for instance, or a dead human, would instead grant it some degree of agency - rather than direct control Iris must give mental commands. A dead human could follow an order to flip three switches in order, or even operate a firearm to a shoddy degree of competency. The dead dog, meanwhile, would understand commands to attack, wait, or maybe roll over - as one would expect of a dog.
Blessing: Making people happy.
Inventory:
(Unless otherwise specified, assume an expensive variant of whatever is listed.)
Mobile phone, solar charger and cable for same.
Smartwatch.
An umbrella.
T-shirt, sweater, parka, jeans, boots.
Wallet containing £400 in cash, debit cards for several bank accounts, and various ID cards. Also contains a £15 Amazon giftcard.
Right jeans pocket contains a half-used packet of chewing gum, left jeans pocket contains the wrappers of two more packets.
Name: Joseph Carlson
Appearance: 4'9", skinny, long face, thin lips, head of dirty blond curls, hazel eyes. He wears a black suit and tie, a size too big, and scuffed up shoes.
Background: Born too soon to a young couple in Scotland, his options were always considered slim. His father was once a construction worker, absent for most of his youth, but that changed when a work accident left his father unable to work. He went from not being around to being around all the time, a harsh presence that only truly left when drowned in alcohol.
To help pay the bills, or he suspects, just get out of the house, his mother began work as a librarian, indulging in her own escape through her books, and later in the arms of another man.
After Secondary, in which Joseph did above average, which really didn't mean much, he knew he didn't want to end up like his parents, miserable and escaping into a vice of choice. He now believes their main failing was a lack of planning, married too young, had a kid before they were ready.
Deciding further education was the way forward, he moved in with his at the time best friend and applied to a business course that he had hoped would give him the skills he needed, the meantime working part time as a supermarket cashier. Their plan was they would work together to make something of themselves. That fell to the wayside as they became involved and later realized they each had different views of what that something was half way through the year.
Overall he prefers the company of men, though he has never had a truly serious relationship since.
His favorite cartoon, as a child and to this day, is Tom and Jerry. Favorite book is Fight Club, movie is Saving Private Ryan.
Stigma: The Estranger. Joseph is capable of conjuring and dismissing an executioner's sword, when it strikes something, it is capable of "estranging" it from something else, separating the two, sometimes forcibly.
Blessing: Slapstick.
Inventory:Wallet, £40, drivers license, old picture of family, picture of ex, keys.
Name: Arun "Aaron Ram" Ramnarine
Appearance: An Indian man in his thirties, Arun looks rather stereotypical to the Western eye with his dark skin, big nose, thick black hair and full beard. His torso is quite large compared to his head and limbs. He usually wears a yellow T-shirt two sizes too large for him, cargo pants, name brand sneakers and a long and wide woolen scarf to complete the ensemble.
Background: Arun Ramnarine was the third child of a middle class family in Mumbai. From a very young age, he had always been very interested in the written word. At the age of 12, he decided he wanted to write his own books. His father didn't like this much as he'd rather have had him become a doctor, for the family's wealth had slowly been dwindling over the years. At the age of 15, Arun was getting better and better at writing his texts. Comedy or horror, romance or fantasy, anything flew from his pen with ease. His father had none of that. He arranged a profitable marriage between Arun and the daughter of business magnate. The dowry alone would have secured a comfortable life for a few years. But Arun didn't love her. He loved writing. Behind his family's back, he applied for scholarship to a big-name high school and university in London. He got it. He left for England without a word and began his higher-level studies as Aaron Ram, a name given to him by his peers who had trouble pronouncing his real one. Some years later, this was indeed the pseudonym under which he published his first book, a tragicomedic satire of tradition, freedom and love. It sold surprisingly well, beginning a long line of international successes, securing Arun's path to wealth. But now, a decade later, he has been running low on inspiration. The quality of his books has been steadily going down, and with it, the sales. His latest manuscript he burned before it even reached the publisher's desk. He needs something new and interesting, and he needs it now.
Arun is very humble and polite, to the point of self-deprecation. He has a rather dry sense of humor, and uses it to cope when he is feeling uncomfortable. In spite of his roots, his accent has mostly died down from exposure to Londoners, though a hint of it is still noticeable. His interests beyond writing include the study of cultures around the world and music, particularly that of his birth country. He hasn't been in contact with his family for years, but he has valuable contacts in the writing industry and a few non-work related friends he likes to sometimes have a round of beers with. He isn't in terrible shape, but doesn't have much interest in particularly physical pursuits.
Stigma: Anagrams. An enemy isn't very dangerous if its ASSAULT RIFLE suddenly turns into A LITERAL FUSS. And is that a SCARY MONSTER? No, it's a MARTYR'S SCONE. Yum!
Blessing: Fans
Inventory: Clothes, notebook & pen, wallet (cash, credit/debit card, driving license), cell phone (not a smartphone)
Name: James Rogers
Appearance: James stands at 5'8", and is fairly thin in build, but far from unhealthily so. His skin is white, but fair rather than pale, which well complements his black hair, which is straight, relatively neat, and a couple of inches long on top. His eyes are a brown color, and the man doesn't have any scars or the like, besides a small one on the back of his shoulder -- the result of rough-housing and falling as a kid. As a combination of all of this, he tends to cut a rather unimposing and sometimes unremarkable figure, though it's hardly like he's some sort of preternaturally average creature, considering he is rather angular and can tend to look a bit more gaunt than he actually is. He's in a set of moderately casual office clothes, that is to say a khaki pair of pants and a blue dress shirt but no suit, rumpled slightly with a day's worth of wear.
Backstory: Born in a hospital in Hackensack, New Jersey, James grew up in the nearby borough of Edgewater, having a childhood that, though it had its share of quirky little stories, of young friends and of roughhousing, was ultimately rather uneventful -- no parents dying, no life-threatening sicknesses or conditions, no gang violence. Instead, he simply lived out a rather comfortable middle class lifestyle in the suburban borough, graduating from Leonia High School with decent enough grades (particularly in mathematics and statistics) to get accepted into New York University (later, he would decide these to be the most exciting days of his life, notably marked with a brief but fiery relationship in his third year despite his rather even, stable personality). After graduating with a financial degree, James took a job as a corporate statistician, a job that two years later the now 24 year old James has come to simply tolerate -- it pays well enough, even if at times it can be tedious.
Stigma: Invisibility
Blessing: Finance
Inventory: Khaki slacks, blue work/dress shirt, wallet with driver's license, Bank of America Merrill Lynch work ID, Visa credit card, 67 dollars in cash. iPhone 6, graphing calculator
Name: Phoebe Anderson
Appearance: Phoebe is of average height for a woman in her early twenties. Her thin build and general lack of musculature, however, makes her seem even less imposing. Her short hair is dyed deep teal, a habit she'd taken up in hopes of looking like one of her favourite fictional characters and something she'd never really stopped doing. She often wears thin-rimmed round spectacles over her clear blue eyes, a necessity due to her short-sightedness. She tends to wear dark clothing, more a concession to the cold weather of her hometown than of any personal preference, though she often wears long, white skirts. Phoebe often wears a leather satchel, carrying the few belongings she tends to carry around; mostly a wallet, a few books, keys and a laptop for work.
Background: Phoebe was born to an average family in a small town in upstate New York. Her family was by all accounts ordinary; no richer or poorer than others and by all accounts was a stable family. Miss Anderson, however, died of cancer when Phoebe was three years of age, leaving her father to raise her. This scarcely affected the family dynamic; Phoebe always favoured her father anyway and barely remembered her mother in the end, and her father returned it in kind, working as hard as two for his beloved daughter. Apart from that minor blip, Phoebe had nothing more out of the ordinary during her childhood. She was noticeably gifted, however; she got good grades, read a lot of books and had few friends. Despite her father's best efforts, she became rather introverted, though she was rather kind to those who managed to get her to befriend them. It was less out of lack of trying and more from choice; Phoebe was simply one of those who preferred to have few, but very valued, friends. Her relationship with her father was one of her closest relationships; he imparted, among other things, his love of metal and rock to her. It was a caring relationship, by all indications. Phoebe seemed set for a bright future, as her grades earned her a top place in one of the best colleges in the country. However, two things happened to her; while not radically changing the course of her life, they still stuck with her for a while.
The first incident was one that happened in her second year of high school. Phoebe had been returning home late from a literature competition- she, of course, had won- and had been completely oblivious to her surroundings. So much so that, in fact, she ran into the aftermath of what police reports had later determined to be a gang fight that had spilled over from another town in the area, with several people injured. Phoebe, having been in the wrong place at the wrong time, was believed to be responsible for subduing the gang members. The town, being small, spread word quickly and Phoebe was immediately branded as a delinquent who hung out with gangsters; this was aided by some malicious activity on the part of jealous rivals. Though her reputation had been pure beforehand and her father, an upstanding citizen in the community, had tried his best, she never quite shook the reputation; this was aided by her introverted nature, making it easy to spread rumours with her being unable to answer to them. This remained with her until the end of high school, upon which she left the town, never to return.
The second happened when she was in college; her father died in an automobile accident, on his way to visit her. Phoebe was devastated by her father's death, and for a long while, was rendered a recluse. It was only at the beginning of her final year that she recovered, though still rather introverted. However, it remained clear that her father's death had had an effect on her; she had occasional nightmares about it and remained in therapy up to around a year before the present time. However, even this didn't completely stop Phoebe, and she eventually recovered to graduate with a degree in literature.
Eventually, she moved to Albany, gaining a job as a librarian in a big library and working on a novel of her own, about a stereotypical bogeyman attempting to reconcile themselves with the world that had rejected them. By all accounts, her life is comfortable, if not luxurious, and she tries to move on, attempting to leave behind her past and hopefully move on from it.
Stigma: Scary Monsters: Phoebe is capable of transforming into the manifestation of terror and fear. She is able to transform into monsters using Mania, taking on their abilities while retaining her faculties and emitting an aura of terror. As the Mania expended increases, Phoebe's assumed form gradually becomes more and more horrifying, as her Stigma begins to embody the most primal fears of the human psyche and the models she copies gain in power and horrific potential. Her Stigma becomes stronger, more directed and effective if she knows what the target is afraid of.
Blessing: Knowledge
Inventory: Satchel, iPhone 6, 80 dollars in cash, wallet with driver's license, clothing (see description), books, pepper spray
Author
Topic: Eschaton OOC (Read 5383 times)