The year is 1921.
Welcome to Arcadia – the Lost City.
Welcome to a world of wonders unseen, where the strange and fantastical is as common as the dirt beneath your feet.
MOBILE NAVIGATION
ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS!
OPENING: [ 01/02 ] ACCEPTED PLAYERS
ESTABLISHED: AUGUST 28th, 2016
Mature OC fantasy & supernatural RP.
is there any limit to powers a creature/demihuman can have, if it's supported by myth, or will there be limits set in place? :)
So long as it’s in keeping with established folklore – for instance, if a creature is tied to water, don’t change it to fire – you can go wild creation-wise!
As for in-game limitations that should also be considered, take a look at our pages regarding magic and the world itself!
doesthe bio havev to be 5 bullets or can it be longer?
I’ll allow a total of six – and remember, the bullet point paragraphs can be decently sized!
All I ask is that you bear in mind that there’ll be a good number of bios for players to familiarize themselves with, so keep the length in mind. You can always message me to take a look at it before you hand it in!
If you submit it and I feel it’s too long, I’ll go over it with you then. <3
Is this still active? Please have some more promos lined up, I would really love for your RP to succeed.
We are! Thank you for your concern. <3
I’ve been filling up the queue on our promo blog, as well as sending them out to assorted RPHs. In addition, we also have a promo tag on the main, so feel free to reblog one if you would like to give us a boost!
Name: Xiomara “Xio” Canul
Species: Demihuman – cursed
Age: Appears mid-twenties, is in reality 32 (born 1889)
Gender & Pronouns: Cis female, she/hers
Sexuality: Pansexual panromantic
Allegiance: Neutral
Occupation: Archaeologist & explorer
Place of Employment: The Arcadian Institute
Residential Area: The Southern Sphere
Faceclaim: Lindsey Morgan
Account: TBD.
Played By: Grace
BIOGRAPHY.
I.
All her childhood, Xio always felt a little different from the rest of her family. It was in her foreign name, the shape to her face; the shaking heads of village elders that they thought she couldn’t see. When Xio was alone with her mother, her various half-siblings and cousins causing havoc somewhere else, her mother would tell Xio about her father, how handsome he was and how much she looked like him, how he would come back and meet her one day. All Xio wanted was to be like the rest of her siblings and family; happy and blissful with their part in the village. So, she spent her childhood trying extra hard to fit in with the rest of the village. She picked up dialects from the elders so she could listen to their stories, wove baskets for the market, did anything anyone asked her to, even if it turned out to be a prank. Whatever she did never felt like enough.
II.
And then one day, a woman barely grown, she overheard two different groups talking while in the town market. Her life split into a crossroads; for one group had to well-known agent of a wealthy landowner and the other a group of bookish academics from Olympia Academy, both with the same goal. Find and pilfer through local ruins while the civil war in the bordering Republic of Anáhuac distracted nearby authorities. There were three choices; let fate run its course, aid the collector who would take her heritage and lock it up in mansions, or help those who wished to preserve it. Maybe she acted rashly, naively, as she contacted the academics, and quickly led them to the ruins she had grown up around before the other team could stake claim. Maybe she watched them with a mixture of guilt and relief and anxiety as they painstakingly catalogued each item, reassured her that the items would be kept safe, and most importantly of all, open to the public. Her village saw things more plainly; a betrayal. Xio was cast out of home, and with no one left to turn to, she was packed up and sent off with the academics like another artefact up to Olympia Academy.
III.
It was there that Xio learnt her trade. The researchers felt responsible for her exile and managed to twist the vice chancellor into giving her lodgings and an education. While she was never very studious, or really actually attended her classes, the archaeologists always nabbed her from her studies to take her along on expeditions. It was from these travels that Xio gained most of her skills. She started as little more than a glorified maid, setting up campsites, until her atrocious (but edible!) cooking had her promoted to helping at the digs, friends tutoring her on schoolwork. Eventually her natural charm and curiosity had her helping lead researchers scope out locations and lead expeditions. She graduated (barely), and for a while, life was good. She made a living off her stipend, and a little extra on the side with the less-than-honest selling of antiquities and a few good bets won in bar fights; what else was there to ask for?
IV.
Atlantis. The mystery continent discovered three hundred years ago and just as much of an enigma upon its discovery. It had always enchanted her; from the first time she’d seen a (sketchy, half-missing) map of it at the Academy. A whole other continent, and barely any evidence of a society living there? Please. Xio became obsessed, to the point where she actually degraded herself to filling in the paperwork to be transferred to the Arcadia Institute. She was accepted in a heartbeat; the Institute was surprisingly low on archaeologists (nothing to worry about, they said), and she made the move to Arcadia shortly after.
TRIVIA.
I.
Despite being thrown out of her hometown, Xio continues to send large chunks of her paycheck back to her village. Really, with her skills she should be able to live somewhere affluent, with a nice view of the Floating Gardens and a comfortable bed to boot. Instead, Xio holes herself up in a cramped apartment with beige everything (windows, walls, carpets, water), and sends letter after unanswered letter with money back to her village. Is it guilt that drives her, the need for acceptance, or a simple duty?
II.
Xio can never seem to sit still (unless exhausted) and can barely suffer her way through reading a paper one of her colleagues recommends her. Out in the field she’s much happier; practical work keeps her interested to the point where she can become hyper-focused on a task like sifting through dirt. In our world, she would be diagnosed with ADHD.
III.
Now, the science of Archaeology is perfectly safe when practised correctly. Too bad Xio rarely follows the rules. She’s known for getting into bar fights, turning up with unexplained scrapes and bruises, and as a result, she’s got a few scars to show for it. Noticeable contenders include the thin, white line on the top of her nose from when it got broken in a fight, a slash on her left forearm from a spear-flinging booby trap, and a smaller, crescent shaped scar on her right cheek-bone (from another fight.)
ATTRIBUTES.
Skills
Outdoorsman Skills
Great in the wilderness, setting up camp, hunting and gathering food, cooking (bland, but edible), firestarting, and general survival skills. Transitioning to city life doesn’t go so well for our adventurer; Xio prefers the night sky to neon lights, and can be quite patronising to city-folk. (Oh, the price of milk rose a dime, did it, Carol? That sounds so hard for you… one time I had to make do surviving in the jungle by roasting leeches on a spit… for eight days straight, Carol.) Heaven forbid she gets sentenced to bed rest; cabin fever doesn’t begin to explain her state of mind when confined to one place.
Archaeology
Not as fun as it sounds, kiddos. Often involves a lot of planning, tedious note taking and record keeping, sketching skills, conjecture, precise and light hands, and a fine eye for detail. Then there is the matter of Xio’s constantly growing stack of unfinished (not-started) paperwork back at her dusty desk at the Arcadian Institute. It doesn’t help that despite knowing more than five languages, Xio isn’t all that good at academic writing – or reading, for that matter. Her brain can’t seem to stay focused on the words, and really, she’d rather be off adventuring than sitting around and slogging away. If it wasn’t for her knack of finding the damned sites she would definitely have been fired, or worse, sentenced to refresher courses.
Treasure Hunting:
Now this is the part where Xio really excels. A quick-learning polyglot, back on Nikaia Xio was renowned for befriending the locals and getting them to drop hints to the locations of various buried treasures. From there on, Xio enjoys the challenge of finding the site, disarming various traps (or outrunning them), and removing just the right amount of treasures to turn a tidy profit without letting drop that it had already been raided when presenting the finding to the Institute. Xio does have a terrible weakness for gold, the older the better, which has gotten her into a fair bit of trouble on occasion.
Hand-to-Hand Combat
Xio is an old favourite at Fightin’ Jack’s, to all but her competition. While she should be past her prime, she still fights like she’s in the middle of it. This she puts down to good genes and a healthy lifestyle, which… is not quite the case. Her young face belittles the considerable experience she has in fist fighting. Still, she tends to have a nasty habit of biting off more than she can chew, and is prone to responding to taunts. Despite her hand-to-hand skills, Xio isn’t all that skilled a swordfighter or shooter.
Artifacts & Belongings
Big-Ass Knives:
The jungle undergrowth is treacherous to travel through… Unless you have one (or two) of these bad boys to get you through. Xio usually carries at least two; a machete-type knife for slicing through trees and vines, and a thicker, tougher, smaller blade for more delicate manoeuvres. Xio’s current machete is called Mr. Chop-chop, while her knife (a long-time companion) is called Yatzil.
Cursed Necklace
About seven years ago on Nikaia, Xio picked herself up a little knick-knack. Now, she was low on money at the time and needed some gold to sell on to get by. Funnily enough, once she picked up the necklace from the long-abandoned ritual sacrifice site, she never could seem to be parted with it. Unbeknownst to her, the necklace was part of a botched attempt towards immortality: it grants eternal youth, but not eternal life. Now it hangs around her neck, warm from her body heat. Xio didn’t stick around the site long enough to decipher the strange ruins that would have warned her of the consequences, and whether there is any way of ridding herself of the curse remains yet to be seen.
Name: Doe Finnegan
Species: Demihuman – half-siren
Age: 32 (born 1889)
Gender & Pronouns: Cis female, she/hers
Sexuality: Pansexual demiromantic
Allegiance: Neutral
Occupation: Lounge singer & con artist
Place of Employment: El Rey
Resides In: The Eastern Sphere
Faceclaim: Ruth Negga
Account: TBD.
Played By: Malin
BIOGRAPHY.
I.
Her father was a sailor, or so her Grams told her, anyway. He’d be gone for months at a time, returning once in a while to the small island he’d grown up on – and one day, he came home with a little bundle in his arms, and that bundle was Doe. It was the last time Grams saw her son – his ship went down in a storm three weeks later, and she was left with a grand-daughter to raise. As the girl got older, it quickly became clear that she wasn’t all human: she could talk people into doing just about anything. While Doe quickly figured this out, she really only used it for mischief and light-hearted things – talking the old ladies by the docks into giving her sweets for free, getting out trouble scot-free.. in her Gram’s eyes, it was a miracle that she didn’t have any antagonistic tendencies. The look in their eyes as her grand-daughter used her voice on them made her son’s erratic behaviour finally make sense: whatever being he had found and fallen for, they had been his demise.
II.
Growing up meant that her powers got stronger, and while Doe’s grandmother by all means could – perhaps should – have been afraid, she wasn’t. It was Doe’s second miracle: rather than being taught to fear her powers, she was taught to control them, and Grams loved her with every fibre of her being. A childhood that could have gone so tragically wrong went right; an uncommon narrative for many demihumans who grow up not knowing what their other half is. Through trial and error, Doe learned the limitations and strengths of her siren song; her voice. Singing became a calling as she got older, something deep down breaking out of its shell. Still, her years on the island didn’t have a happy ending. She’d avoided so many of the pitfalls that could have happened that the big one – the one she should have seen – tore through her life like a storm.
III.
She didn’t mean for the man to drown – not consciously, at least. Her song drew him into a frenzy, and then her horrified scream sent him straight towards the waves. His lifeless body drifted in with the tide a day later, sand sticking to his blue-tinged skin, and that was the end of her days on the island. It was the first time she had ever been afraid of her own power, and the feeling didn’t disappear.. much like it didn’t disappear from the eyes of everyone else. They’d always known she wasn’t human, but the accident proved to be too much – fear won out over kindness, and while no one ever said a bad word, the issue was perhaps just that: they avoided her as best as they could. At nineteen, she left her home behind, intent on finding out what she could about her own origin.
IV.
She sang her way across Nikaia, going from stage to stage, all to keep herself afloat.. and not once did she use her gift. The journey to Atlantis was long, but she got there at the right time: with barely a coin to her name, she had to get herself a job.. and in a city like Arcadia, that meant using her power. It was do or die, and so she sang herself into what would be her big break: the year was 1918, and El Rey was looking for a singer. They tell stories of it still: one evening, a doe-eyed slip of a woman stepped out from the shadows, and made a bet with the manager: "Make me cry,” she said, “and I’ll see what I can do.” Half an hour later, the job belonged to Doe. Since then, Doe has been on stage almost every evening, her voice drawing in crowds night after night.
TRIVIA.
I.
One of Doe’s favorite pastimes is gambling – an old workplace hazard, if you believe the woman herself. It is the one activity she tends to refrain from cheating in.. even though she very well could.
II.
Thanks to her abilities, Doe has been courted by both the Clawed Hand and the Thieves Guild. She hasn’t deigned either with a response yet, though she knows she’s more likely to wind up a thief than an assassin. For the time being, the club’s pay suits her just fine.
ATTRIBUTES.
Skills
Sleight of Hand
It’s a skill she picked up when she first came to the mainland: lean in real close, whisper to keep their focus elsewhere.. and slip their bracelet, ring or pocketwatch right off them.
Fighting
Most of the time, her song works just fine.. but sometimes, a knife can do the job better. While she’s lithe, she can take a punch – and hand a couple out, too. This abillity is only human, meaning that if she goes up against someone more experienced with nothing but her bare hands, the odds are stacked against her.
Abilities
Siren Song
It’s like using a muscle: if Doe uses her siren song – whether she's humming, screaming, singing or speaking – she can convince people of the strangest of things.. like giving her their wallet and forgetting all about it after.
The ability is guided by intent and emotion: it’s why she doesn’t actually have to use words on the customers inside the Lady Luck.
It doesn’t work on other sirens, or creatures of a similar kind. In return, Doe cannot be swayed by their ability, either.
Amulets, curses and enchantments designed to work against abilities like this cancel it out entirely.
Artifacts & Belongings
Silver Dice
A gift from an old flame – it’s about as much of a detail as anyone’s gotten out of her on the story of her most-prized possession. Doe keeps them in a small velvet bag, and has them on her person at almost all times.
I was so excited to finally see your app in the inbox! From her determination and curiosity to her big-ass knives and the cursed amulet around her neck, Xiomara will be a wonderful foil to the mysteries of Arcadia & Atlantis. I can’t wait to see our intrepid archaeologist get in – and out – of trouble.
You have 24 hours to send in your account.
Be sure to take a look at our checklist!
[ OUT OF CHARACTER ]
Name & Pronouns: Grace – she/her
Age: 20
Timezone: GMT + 13
Triggers, and can we publish them: nah bruh
“Please do not approach me with..”
plots about cheating if my character is stated to be in a committed, exclusive relationship unless I bring it up!
[ IN CHARACTER ]
DETAILS
Name: Xiomara “Xio” Canul
Age: Appears mid-twenties, but is actually 32 (born 1889)
Pronouns and gender: she/her, cis female
Sexuality: panromantic, pansexual
Species: Demihuman – cursed
Allegiance: Neutral
Occupation: Archaeologist/explorer
Place of Employment: Arcadian Institute
Residential Area: The Southern Sphere
Associated Locations:
The Outpost Ruins & the Rainer Wilds: Depending on the latest archaeological lead, of course. Xio has been known to go there solo on occasion, hunting for said leads.
The Docks: Close to home, full of gossip and often the easiest place to organise expeditions.
Fightin’ Jack’s Cellar: Well, all those drunken bar brawls had to count as practise for something useful, right?
Faceclaim: Lindsey Morgan it’s decided we can’t change this now fight me
Influences: Pretty much femme, mestizo Indiana Jones… I am a simple woman with simple needs and they include big buff and tuff adventurer running frantically away from booby traps and making people of various genders swoon while winning an arm wrestling match.
Real life origin: Originally came from my character who was a mestizo/mixed treasure hunter during the 1930s-40s from Mexico.
BACKGROUND
Character Quote:
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” – Helen Miller
Biography
All her childhood, Xio always felt a little different from the rest of her family. It was in her foreign name, the shape to her face; the shaking heads of village elders that they thought she couldn’t see. When Xio was alone with her mother, her various half-siblings and cousins causing havoc somewhere else, her mother would tell Xio about her father, how handsome he was and how much she looked like him, how he would come back and meet her one day. All Xio wanted was to be like the rest of her siblings and family; happy and blissful with their part in the village. So, she spent her childhood trying extra hard to fit in with the rest of the village. She picked up dialects from the elders so she could listen to their stories, wove baskets for the market, did anything anyone asked her to, even if it turned out to be a prank. Whatever she did never felt like enough.
And then one day, a woman barely grown, she overheard two different groups talking while in the town market. Her life split into a crossroads; for one group had to well-known agent of a wealthy landowner and the other a group of bookish academics from Olympia Academy, both with the same goal. Find and pilfer through local ruins while the civil war in the bordering Republic of Anáhuac distracted nearby authorities. There were three choices; let fate run its course, aid the collector who would take her heritage and lock it up in mansions, or help those who wished to preserve it. Maybe she acted rashly, naively, as she contacted the academics, and quickly led them to the ruins she had grown up around before the other team could stake claim. Maybe she watched them with a mixture of guilt and relief and anxiety as they painstakingly catalogued each item, reassured her that the items would be kept safe, and most importantly of all, open to the public. Her village saw things more plainly; a betrayal. Xio was cast out of home, and with no one left to turn to, she was packed up and sent off with the academics like another artefact up to Olympia Academy.
It was there that Xio learnt her trade. The researchers felt responsible for her exile and managed to twist the vice chancellor into giving her lodgings and an education. While she was never very studious, or really actually attended her classes, the archaeologists always nabbed her from her studies to take her along on expeditions. It was from these travels that Xio gained most of her skills. She started as little more than a glorified maid, setting up campsites, until her atrocious (but edible!) cooking had her promoted to helping at the digs, friends tutoring her on schoolwork. Eventually her natural charm and curiosity had her helping lead researchers scope out locations and lead expeditions. She graduated (barely), and for a while, life was good. She made a living off her stipend, and a little extra on the side with the less-than-honest selling of antiquities and a few good bets won in bar fights; what else was there to ask for?
Atlantis. The mystery continent discovered three hundred years ago and just as much of an enigma upon its discovery. It had always enchanted her; from the first time she’d seen a (sketchy, half-missing) map of it at the Academy. A whole other continent, and barely any evidence of a society living there? Please. Xio became obsessed, to the point where she actually degraded herself to filling in the paperwork to be transferred to the Arcadia Institute. She was accepted in a heartbeat; the Institute was surprisingly low on archaeologists (nothing to worry about, they said), and she made the move to Arcadia shortly after.
Trivia
Despite being thrown out of her hometown, Xio continues to send large chunks of her paycheck back to her village. Really, with her skills she should be able to live somewhere affluent, with a nice view of the Floating Gardens and a comfortable bed to boot. Instead, Xio holes herself up in a cramped apartment with beige everything (windows, walls, carpets, water), and sends letter after unanswered letter with money back to her village. Is it guilt that drives her, the need for acceptance, or a simple duty?
Xio can never seem to sit still (unless exhausted) and can barely suffer her way through reading a paper one of her colleagues recommends her. Out in the field she’s much happier; practical work keeps her interested to the point where she can become hyper-focused on a task like sifting through dirt. In our world, she would be diagnosed with ADHD.
Now, the science of Archaeology is perfectly safe when practised correctly. Too bad Xio rarely follows the rules. She’s known for getting into bar fights, turning up with unexplained scrapes and bruises, and as a result, she’s got a few scars to show for it. Noticeable contenders include the thin, white line on the top of her nose from when it got broken in a fight, a slash on her left forearm from a spear-flinging booby trap, and a smaller, crescent shaped scar on her right cheek-bone (from another fight.)
ATTRIBUTES
Skills
Outdoorsman Skills
Great in the wilderness, setting up camp, hunting and gathering food, cooking (bland, but edible), firestarting, and general survival skills. Transitioning to city life doesn’t go so well for our adventurer; Xio prefers the night sky to neon lights, and can be quite patronising to city-folk. (Oh, the price of milk rose a dime, did it, Carol? That sounds so hard for you… one time I had to make do surviving in the jungle by roasting leeches on a spit… for eight days straight, Carol.) Heaven forbid she gets sentenced to bed rest; cabin fever doesn’t begin to explain her state of mind when confined to one place.
Archaeology
Not as fun as it sounds, kiddos. Often involves a lot of planning, tedious note taking and record keeping, sketching skills, conjecture, precise and light hands, and a fine eye for detail. Then there is the matter of Xio’s constantly growing stack of unfinished (not-started) paperwork back at her dusty desk at the Arcadian Institute. It doesn’t help that despite knowing more than five languages, Xio isn’t all that good at academic writing – or reading, for that matter. Her brain can’t seem to stay focused on the words, and really, she’d rather be off adventuring than sitting around and slogging away. If it wasn’t for her knack of finding the damned sites she would definitely have been fired, or worse, sentenced to refresher courses.
Treasure Hunting:
Now this is the part where Xio really excels. A quick-learning polyglot, back on Nikaia Xio was renowned for befriending the locals and getting them to drop hints to the locations of various buried treasures. From there on, Xio enjoys the challenge of finding the site, disarming various traps (or outrunning them), and removing just the right amount of treasures to turn a tidy profit without letting drop that it had already been raided when presenting the finding to the Institute. Xio does have a terrible weakness for gold, the older the better, which has gotten her into a fair bit of trouble on occasion.
Hand-to-Hand Combat
Xio is an old favourite at Fightin’ Jack’s, to all but her competition. While she should be past her prime, she still fights like she’s in the middle of it. This she puts down to good genes and a healthy lifestyle, which… is not quite the case. Her young face belittles the considerable experience she has in fist fighting. Still, she tends to have a nasty habit of biting off more than she can chew, and is prone to responding to taunts. Despite her hand-to-hand skills, Xio isn’t all that skilled a swordfighter or shooter.
Artifacts & Belongings
Big-Ass Knives:
The jungle undergrowth is treacherous to travel through… Unless you have one (or two) of these bad boys to get you through. Xio usually carries at least two; a machete-type knife for slicing through trees and vines, and a thicker, tougher, smaller blade for more delicate manoeuvres. Xio’s current machete is called Mr. Chop-chop, while her knife (a long-time companion) is called Yatzil.
Cursed Necklace
About seven years ago on Nikaia, Xio picked herself up a little knick-knack. Now, she was low on money at the time and needed some gold to sell on to get by. Funnily enough, once she picked up the necklace from the long-abandoned ritual sacrifice site, she never could seem to be parted with it. Unbeknownst to her, the necklace was part of a botched attempt towards immortality: it grants eternal youth, but not eternal life. Now it hangs around her neck, warm from her body heat. Xio didn’t stick around the site long enough to decipher the strange ruins that would have warned her of the consequences, and whether there is any way of ridding herself of the curse remains yet to be seen.
[ PARA SAMPLE ]
What hurt could one little gold trinket do? It wasn’t like the medallion was particularly big; in the flickering torchlight it glittered a brilliant gold, jewelstones of aquamarine and garnet winking at her like a flirt. Come on, it teased, drawing her in like a moth to a flame. You don’t have to sell us, just see how good we feel in your hands before the other academics take their time drooling over us. Xio gritted her teeth together and swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. Surely, it wouldn’t hurt. Just a taste… Her tongue slipped out to whet her lips, tasting sweat and dust.
That was how Xio found herself holding the amulet in her hands, surprised by how small it was in them. The size of a reasonably large coin. It was still tethered to the neck of the idol that wore it, a fertility deity, no, a deity of the harvest, life, birth… Their eyes had been fitted with red, glinting garnets, much like the garnet in the centre of the amulet. Xio traced her calloused fingers over the designs on the amulet, a lost language of sorts; pictographical. It was a strange one, but it looked like it shared runes with Zetan… Xio skimmed for those she could recognise. Life water… blessing from/of…
Xio’s torch sputtered, casting her in momentary darkness. Cursing under her breath, she softly lowered the amulet back around the idol’s neck and grabbed her last torch from her pack. The new torch crackled to life and Xio carefully put out the old one before slinging it onto her back. Technically, this wasn’t an ‘approved’ expedition. Rather, Xio had come to grab a few trinkets, announce her new find and quietly sell the pieces once the hum had died down. If her map was right, the burial chamber would be just down the hall, but… She glanced over at the idol again, shivering at its red, glimmering eyes paired with the archaic, peaceful smile.
Wasn’t she the one putting her neck out? Surely, she deserved a little something to take with her on her travels. Xio bit her cheek at the thought, and before she knew, it she was pulling the necklace up and over the idol’s head.
Click! Xio’s eyes darted at the sound, caught the blur of the thread connected to the idol’s head a second later as it disappeared into the ceiling. Xio crouched and rolled to the side, hearing weights shift and gears groan in the walls, and soon after, the thwack-thwack-thwack of sharp darts crashing into the front of the deity, splintering in seconds. Xio closed her gaping jaw, the amulet ringing in glee, swaying from her grip. Absentmindedly, Xio put it over her head, grabbing her torch from where she’d dropped it.
Only now did she see that the walls of the chamber were covered in rune after rune, engraved visages of the deity leading rituals. The way the floor was sloped, a conspicuous drain in the wall. Ah fuck, she thought, the clanging in the walls continuing, lethargic in its old age. What the fuck have I got myself into this time… Cursing, loudly this time, Xio bolted for the exit, the amulet already finding its home around her neck and swinging with every lurch. The groaning in the walls followed on her heels like some lumbering, ungreased automaton. She skidded out into the rainforest, humidity hitting her like a wall. Whipping around to see what the final trap was, Xio could only blink as a solid slab of stone slid into the doorway, sealing it tight as a drum.
She shivered alone in the forest, hand coming up to fondle the amulet like it was an old habit.
Along with our new theme, I’m here to announce that we’ll be opening as soon as we have at least two accepted players! In the meantime, I will be filling up the queue and working on a playlist, as well as finishing my own remaining bios.
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome!
Name: Anjali
Species: Undead – vampire
Age: appears 31, is in reality 1244 (born 677)
Gender & Pronouns: Cis female, she/hers
Sexuality: Bisexual biromantic
Allegiance: Brothel Union
Occupation: Bouncer
Place of Employment: Hall of Sighs
Resides In: The Southern Sphere
Faceclaim: Priyanka Chopra
Account: TBD.
Played By: Malin
BIOGRAPHY.
I.
She doesn’t know where she was born, or when, nor what her first name was – just that for as long as she can remember, she was raised for one purpose, and one purpose only: she was to be a sacrifice, an instrument for the gods to use as they saw fit. She was raised in the old temple grounds, and spent her youth accepting what would become of her once she was of age – she would be given to the great snake-god in the darkest, deepest part of the temple, and that would be her end; one befitting a heroine. At sixteen, her life was over: dressed up as a bride, she was focal point of a long and arduous ceremony, and then, she was led into the heart of the temple, left alone with her crown of flowers and jewels, to be eaten by the divine being.
II.
But the serpent was no god. It was but a man, one made immortal through strange means, one who had taken advantage of the beliefs of the time, and when he bit her, Anjali was drained of life and remade into a creature she could scarcely recognize. Her skin was never again just skin: on occasion, she would catch herself growing scales, venomous fangs pressing out from above her human teeth, and sometimes, she wouldn’t be human at all.. instead, she would be all-snake, with no control over her own powers. It was, however, her hunger for blood-and-flesh that was the brutal part of her change. She had never been cruel, but now, as a girl made goddess, it was expected of her – after all, her sire had never been very kind to the humans who worshipped him, and it was only then, when she was so far removed from those who had raised her, that she could see it.
III.
The man had chosen her, and fully expected her to do as he pleased. She was to be his mindless, dutiful consort, nothing more, and Anjali found that circumstance.. was a formidable motivator. She learned what she could from him, the man who saw himself as her rightful overlord, and once she felt ready, she sprung from her coils, devouring him in one foul bite. She had become a goddess, one dressed in scales and blood, and the cult worshipped her for centuries, their serpent-queen and holy mother; a cruel but just ruler.. until her subjects slowly died out, one by one, leaving her to lonesome obscurity. It was then that she left the temple, and began roaming the wilds as country borders changed around her, Anjali paying it no mind. Her myth grew with time and spread across the land, telling all of the the vengeful she-snake who sought to bring down every cruel and unjust man it could find. Though she lived on as a folktale, a different version of it for every drop in the sea, her true story was left behind in the ruins of her temple, her face and likeness left behind on murals and as statues.
IV.
For centuries, she remained as a giant snake, but the advancement of humanity caught up with her. Soon, roaming free became difficult – and that was when she took to her human form. She stayed under the radar, for the most part, and learned what she could about the rest of the world from a distance. For years, she spent her life on the outskirts of society, peeking in through windows, observing the rest of them with shy curiosity.. and then, one late night at a dockside somewhere, she overheard them talk of it. Atlantis. The very word seemed to pull on something deep within her, and before she knew it, she had made up her mind. What little possessions she had were sold for startlingly low prices, Anjali not yet wise to how money worked, and thus began her journey across the sea to another continent.
V.
She traveled for a good few months before she even reached the ship that would take her there, the vampire hidden as a stowaway in the darkest corners of the ship. She fed on rats and mice, took care not to terrorize the humans lest they discover her presence before she even stepped foot on shore.. and then, she found herself mesmerized by the glittering lights of Arcadia. It’s held her affection since then – it was her first real home in centuries, and while her gig as a bouncer at the Hall of Sighs wasn’t meant to be permanent, she found herself getting attached to the people there. She’s worked there for half a century, now, and while many are aware of her status as undead, no one knows just how old she is.. or who she was, once.
TRIVIA.
I.
Anjali has no tattoos, but she often draws intricate designs on herself – floral patterns in ink, mostly. Because of how her skin heals, she isn’t sure the ink would take, either, though she certainly remains curious.
II.
Though she’s lived in Arcadia for almost fifty years, she still doesn’t know much about modern culture. For the most part, she’s like an alien trying to blend in.. an alien obsessed with the radio and grammophones, that is.
III.
Snakes and other reptiles defer to her, despite largely being solitary creatures. She’ll seek them out just as much as they seek her – more often than not, she’ll have smaller ones wrapped around her wrists and arms, a few hiding away in the pockets of her coat.
ATTRIBUTES.
Skills
Brawling
While not a trained fighter, per se, Anjali is still quite adept at fisticuffs – as a bouncer, she has to be. Her vampiric abilities boost this ability, letting her go up against opponents twice her size with relative ease.
Abilities
Immortality & Accelerated Healing
Anjali isn’t dead.. but she isn’t alive, either. She was turned when she was just sixteen, and slowly aged until she physically reached her thirties, at which point it seems she’s stopped. The reason behind it is unknown to her.
A bonus that seems to come with it is accelerated healing: no scars stay, and her skin remains unmarred. Even so, getting injured really hurts.
Snake Physiology & Poison Immunity
Whatever curse her progenitor was under – or whatever mutation his vampirism had become – it meant that Anjali upon turning was subject to not only the hunger, but the serpent-form. In short, she has three real stages: human, snake humanoid, and snake.
Upon entering Arcadia, she found that the only two she can access are the two first – her third form, that of a giant, man-eating serpent, has been blocked by the magic of Arcadia and Atlantis itself.
Because of her own venom, she has gained immunity towards all types of poison.. or at least the ones she’s ingested so far.
Power Absorption
Memories, skills, vampiric powers– she can have it all, so long as she eats you whole, bones and all. Of course, now that she can no longer swallow others in one bite like she could when she had her monster-serpent form at her beck and call, it’s.. difficult.
The few powers she’d absorbed throughout her long life were gone the second she stepped onto Atlantean soil, though she can still obtain memories and certain skills, depending on how deeply rooted they are in the person she’s eaten, through just regular feeding.
Enhanced Strength & Endurance
Though she’s no longer as strong as she was outside of Atlantis, Anjali still has freakish strength – lifting up a grown man thrice her size isn’t a problem. Still, this doesn’t mean that fights can’t hurt – after all, despite her accelerated healing, her bones can still break.
Weaknesses
Weapons & Temperature
Any lethal hit from a stake made of wood can take her out.
Cold in general will weaken her abilities – extreme cold will kill her.
Name: Nari
Species: Human
Age: 24 (born 1897)
Gender & Pronouns: Cis female, she/hers
Sexuality: Bisexual biromantic
Allegiance: Thieves Guild
Occupation: Thief and go-between
Place of Employment: The Châtelaine Pub & Parlour
Resides In: The Western Sphere (lives at the Châtelaine)
Faceclaim: Lee Sung-kyung
Account: TBD
Played By: Malin
BIOGRAPHY.
I.
Nari spent her first years in an orphanage in the Southern Sphere, after being abandoned on their steps as a baby, with only a note to her name: “I love my daughter very much. Her name is Nari. Please take care of her.” Though the orphanage was a good place, they were struggling to get by, and with the influx of mouths to feed, taking care of the orphans was a task that only got harder with time.. and so, at the tender age of five, Nari began to pickpocket. At age seven, she’d already been dragged by her ear back to orphanage by disgruntled officers more times than she could count, though she could – with pride – say that the times she’d gotten away far outnumbered the times she hadn’t.
II.
Much to the worry and dismay of the orphanage nuns – who had quickly discovered that neither harsh words nor severe beatings could get through to the girl – there was no doubt that without the proper guidance, Nari’s criminal talents would only grow. While her offenses were small, her quick hands only ever nabbing loaves of bread and pieces of fruit, Nari had a way of getting around that was uncanny: with steps quiet as a cat’s and a firm knowledge of every nook, cranny and corner in Arcadia, the girl was set on a firm path straight to the local penitentiary. Her skill got her nothing but trouble, or so the orphanage carers though – but it had also gotten her the attention of the Thieves Guild, and that changed her life.
III.
She can still remember the day she was adopted in vivid detail. Light rain had left her damp, her dark hair clinging to her forehead, and one of the Sisters was trying and failing at covering up her bruises when the two of them walked in, accompanied by another of the orphanage carers. Luisa and Kara were to be her new mothers, and the two of them had made a convincing speech to the Mother Superior of how they would raise their new daughter; take care of and clothe her, feed her, set her on the right path. Luisa wore bright purple, while Kara was dressed in somber shades of dark green and black, and they both smelled warm – like dust in a sunlit room. On their way out, Nari walked between them, Luisa on the left and Kara on her right, all three of them holding hands.. and once they’d gotten off the Metro in the Western Sphere, Luisa said How much do you know about the Thieves Guild? and all Nari could do was grin.
IV.
From her adoption onwards, Nari was raised as a pickpocket, her natural talent and instincts honed until they were sharp as a knife. The Châtelaine became her home, and when she wasn’t out working the streets, she helped out in the pub, a tiny thing carting off jugs of beer on trays much-too-large for her size. Wallets, brooches, watches and pearls: if you had it on you, Nari could get it off you without you noticing nine times out of ten. From her newfound family, she learned a variety of new things – everything from crying on command to picking a lock; how to spot traps and which targets to go for.
V.
Starved for love and eager for approval, Nari did her absolute best to excel in her ‘lessons’, blooming in the presence of teachers who saw the use in her, and the emotional relief of finally being accepted, of being part of something, became an addiction of sorts. It’s the determination she applies to all her work which has led to her newly being appointed as a go-between; a trusted member of the Guild that carries out tasks to do with the Clawed Hand.
TRIVIA.
I.
Over the years, she’s acquired several scars, most of them small and barely noticeable – but she has a large one running down the back of her left thigh from a job gone horribly, horribly wrong. Rather than get an ointment to heal it for the sake of vanity, Nari’s deigned to keep it: she says it’s a reminder to not get cocky. (Whether or not that’s a reminder she always follows is another thing entirely.)
II.
In her spare time, she picks locks and solves puzzles – it’s a good way to kill some time, and besides keeping her mind occupied and her skill sharp, Nari finds it fun. In a chest beneath her bed, she keeps a variety of her ‘conquests’; ask her nicely and she just might show you her collection.
III.
While the other thieves in the Guild have certainly become her strength, her love for them is a weakness: to her, they are all family, and she loves them with all her heart.. and love means being loyal, which – coupled with Nari’s particular brand of innocence – means that she can easily be manipulated by said ‘family’. Nari herself might be a rogue with a heart of gold, but many direct and extended members of her makeshift family are not.
ATTRIBUTES.
Skills
Rogue
An expert at hiding in shadows and walking in silence, Nari can avoid being detected almost anywhere. Her childhood has also left her with an uncanny knowledge of the entirety of Arcadia, and the girl can climb like nobody’s business – if the streets are too crowded for her taste, Nari will take to the rooftops with ease.
Unlike some of her brethren, however, she cannot shapeshift, glamour or enchant herself invisible – which means that should you see her face while she’s up to no good, she’s in for a good bit of trouble.
While she’s certainly talented in this area, the skill is only human, and she has no enchantments nor curses attached which fortify them.
Fingersmith
Nari has quick fingers – sleight of hand, pickpocketing, lockpicking.. if you need a break-in to run smoothly, she’s your woman.
Artifacts & Belongings
Unbreakable Lockpick
A gift for her fourteenth birthday, Nari’s lockpick is enchanted to never break, and to fit any lock.
On occasion, she has to take it in for enchantment maintenance, as the magic wears down with each time it’s used.
Black Coin
As a go-between for the Clawed Hand, Nari is in possession of one of their Black Coins. With it, she gains entry to any establishment under the rule of the Clawed Hand.
Under the cut, you’ll find our example application!
You can find our app form here, and the HTML sheet for it here.
OUT OF CHARACTER
Name & Pronouns: Malin, she/hers & they/them
Age: 21
Timezone: GMT+1
Triggers, and can we publish them: N/A
“Please do not approach me with..”: N/A
IN CHARACTER
DETAILS
Name: Nari
Age: 24; born in 1897.
Pronouns & Gender: she/hers, cis female
Sexuality: Bisexual biromantic
Allegiance: Thieves Guild
Species: Human
Occupation: Thief & go-between
Place of Employment: The Châtelaine Pub & Parlour
Residential Area: Western Sphere – lives in the Châtelaine
Associated Locations:
The Docks: lots of people, lots of pockets.
The Floating Gardens: this is where Nari goes when she wants some quiet alone-time.
Faceclaim:
Lee Sung-kyung
Influences: Nari was heavily influenced by Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden, as well as the book the movie was based on (Fingersmith by Sarah Waters), as well as games like TES: Skyrim and Dishonored. I’ve always loved the archetype of the good rogue, so playing one in TLCRP was a given!
Real-life Origins: If Nari existed in the real world, she would be Korean.
BACKGROUND
Character Quote:
"In the realm of hard, cold and done for,
it’s best to rely on nothing but touch–”
Biography:
Nari spent her first years in an orphanage in the Southern Sphere, after being abandoned on their steps as a baby, with only a note to her name: “I love my daughter very much. Her name is Nari. Please take care of her.” Though the orphanage was a good place, they were struggling to get by, and with the influx of mouths to feed, taking care of the orphans was a task that only got harder with time.. and so, at the tender age of five, Nari began to pickpocket. At age seven, she’d already been dragged by her ear back to orphanage by disgruntled officers more times than she could count, though she could – with pride – say that the times she’d gotten away far outnumbered the times she hadn’t.
Much to the worry and dismay of the orphanage nuns – who had quickly discovered that neither harsh words nor severe beatings could get through to the girl – there was no doubt that without the proper guidance, Nari’s criminal talents would only grow. While her offenses were small, her quick hands only ever nabbing loaves of bread and pieces of fruit, Nari had a way of getting around that was uncanny: with steps quiet as a cat’s and a firm knowledge of every nook, cranny and corner in Arcadia, the girl was set on a firm path straight to the local penitentiary. Her skill got her nothing but trouble, or so the orphanage carers though – but it had also gotten her the attention of the Thieves Guild, and that changed her life.
She can still remember the day she was adopted in vivid detail. Light rain had left her damp, her dark hair clinging to her forehead, and one of the Sisters was trying and failing at covering up her bruises when the two of them walked in, accompanied by another of the orphanage carers. Luisa and Kara were to be her new mothers, and the two of them had made a convincing speech to the Mother Superior of how they would raise their new daughter; take care of and clothe her, feed her, set her on the right path. Luisa wore bright purple, while Kara was dressed in somber shades of dark green and black, and they both smelled warm – like dust in a sunlit room. On their way out, Nari walked between them, Luisa on the left and Kara on her right, all three of them holding hands.. and once they’d gotten off the Metro in the Western Sphere, Luisa said How much do you know about the Thieves Guild? and all Nari could do was grin.
From her adoption onwards, Nari was raised as a pickpocket, her natural talent and instincts honed until they were sharp as a knife. The Châtelaine became her home, and when she wasn’t out working the streets, she helped out in the pub, a tiny thing carting off jugs of beer on trays much-too-large for her size. Wallets, brooches, watches and pearls: if you had it on you, Nari could get it off you without you noticing nine times out of ten. From her newfound family, she learned a variety of new things – everything from crying on command to picking a lock; how to spot traps and which targets to go for.
Starved for love and eager for approval, Nari did her absolute best to excel in her ‘lessons’, blooming in the presence of teachers who saw the use in her, and the emotional relief of finally being accepted, of being part of something, became an addiction of sorts. It’s the determination she applies to all her work which has led to her newly being appointed as a go-between; a trusted member of the Guild that carries out tasks to do with the Clawed Hand.
Trivia:
Over the years, she’s acquired several scars, most of them small and barely noticeable – but she has a large one running down the back of her left thigh from a job gone horribly, horribly wrong. Rather than get an ointment to heal it for the sake of vanity, Nari’s deigned to keep it: she says it’s a reminder to not get cocky. (Whether or not that’s a reminder she always follows is another thing entirely.)
In her spare time, she picks locks and solves puzzles – it’s a good way to kill some time, and besides keeping her mind occupied and her skill sharp, Nari finds it fun. In a chest beneath her bed, she keeps a variety of her ‘conquests’; ask her nicely and she just might show you her collection.
While the other thieves in the Guild have certainly become her strength, her love for them is a weakness: to her, they are all family, and she loves them with all her heart.. and love means being loyal, which – coupled with Nari’s particular brand of innocence – means that she can easily be manipulated by said ‘family’. Nari herself might be a rogue with a heart of gold, but many direct and extended members of her makeshift family are not.
ATTRIBUTES
Skills
Rogue Basics
An expert at hiding in shadows and walking in silence, Nari can avoid being detected almost anywhere. Her childhood has also left her with an uncanny knowledge of the entirety of Arcadia, and the girl can climb like nobody’s business – if the streets are too crowded for her taste, Nari will take to the rooftops with ease.
Unlike some of her brethren, however, she cannot shapeshift, glamour or enchant herself invisible – which means that should you see her face while she’s up to no good, she’s in for a good bit of trouble.
While she’s certainly talented in this area, the skill is only human, and she has no enchantments nor curses attached which fortify them.
Abilities
N/A
Weaknesses
N/A
Artifacts
Unbreakable Lockpick
A gift for her fourteenth birthday, Nari’s lockpick is enchanted to never break, and to fit any lock.
On occasion, she has to take it in for enchantment maintenance, as the magic wears down with each time it’s used.
PARA SAMPLE
Outside, the rain fell in heavy torrents, sheets of it crashing against the glass windows of the Châtelaine. Downstairs, the fiddler was still going – she could hear them sing some ditty from a far-off corner of Nikaia, boisterous and interspersed with drunken cheers. It made her smile, even as she concentrated. Crosslegged, Nari sat on the wooden floor, and in her hands, she held a thief-lock – a puzzle of sorts for lockpickers; a professional entertainment of sorts. She’d solved a good few handfuls of them throughout her childhood, many of them simple in design save for their locks, but this one was a precious little thing, lovingly crafted. It was a small steel box, of a size she could hide with ease in her palm, and on the back, there was a painting of a robin, no larger than her thumb.
Where he’d gotten it from, she didn’t know, but Calvin had promised it would be impossible for her to crack – that he’d show her in the morning how it worked – and as usual, he’d fanned the flames, Luisa sighing as she saw the determination light up in Nari’s eyes. Quick as a slap, she’d snatched the present right from his hands, eager to test her skills out.. but he’d been right. It was a hard lock to crack, and she’d been at it for hours, her own mug of brew long-since forgotten on the windowsill.
Thunder crashed overhead, snapping at the heels of long-gone lightning, and her shoulders jolted.
Click.
“Shit!”
Perhaps it was because of Calvin’s words, but she could swear that the lock seemed smug, somehow satisfied that it hadn’t been her skill so much as pure chance that had made its little chest-lid pop open.
With a careful finger, she gently pried it open, finding that its contents were nothing but the written word.
hear, the nightingale cries–
a song for the brothers of Renard.
i give you lock, but not key:
the treasure is your pride.
Ah, she thought to herself, artsy entertainment, then. Most of the thief-locks she kept beneath her bed had jokes, or even crude little drawings of thieves and pickpockets.. sometimes both, and some yet were repeats; popular designs drawn centuries apart.
Nari’s brows drew close for a frown, her lips curling into a pout as she considered her options. She could run down the stairs and trick Calvin; grin wide and bright and make him red in the face for doubting her.. but it hadn’t been her own doing. Not really. She had been so damned close, too–
Her fingers pushed the chest-lid back down, the thief-lock closing with another click.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, our acceptance day has come and gone with no actual acceptances, and while today was meant to be our opening, there aren’t any other players around but me! Thus, I’ve decided to revise the plan some:
I will be doing a “soft revamp” of the content available on the main, in the interest of hopefully making it easier to browse through for those still on the fence about joining. Once finished, I’ll post an update detailing what’s been changed.
A new opening date will be announced as soon as we actually have some apps in our inbox.
Until then, feel free to approach me with any questions or comments you might have!
I hope it's not too much to ask, but could you give some occupations examples? And what type of characters would you most like to see? Personality wise?
Not at all!
If you want to go with the occupations that come with the allegiances other than neutral, there’d be prostitutes and brothel owners for the Hall of Sighs; thieves, pickpockets, con artists and the like for the Thieves Guild; assassins for the Clawed Hand and witches with a keen interest in creating elixirs, potions and herbal remedies for the Teague Coven.
Beyond that, some brawlers for Fightin’ Jack’s would be cool, as well as gamblers, whether they bet on the men in the pit, or get their kicks at Lady Luck.. I’d love to see more smugglers and members of the black market, too!
Hunters, whether they sell their game for food or for parts – just about anything you could think of goes, and if you want any help fleshing something out, I’m always available, though I’d appreciate it if we could do it off-anon. ü
If you have ideas that go outside of what’s been established by me, that’s more than welcome, too – as soon as we get the ball rollin’, I’ll be making the location request format available to our players. (Thus, if you establish that your character owns a shop, for example, and you want to “broadcast” the existence of it to everyone else, as well as potentially opening it up for other players making their characters employees or customers, etc, you can do so!)
As for personality types – this won’t be very helpful at all, but I think the most important part is that you have someone you yourself feel happy playing.
Because the personality pool in the roleplay is rather small at the moment, and confined to just my own characters, you can basically go wild – though I know that there always tends to be a shortage of kind and/or naive characters in most RPs, if that’s something you’d be interested in. ü
Im sorry if this is already established in the rp but are humans with special abilities allowed? Like telekinesis and the like? Or would that just be considered witches?
No, not at all – this is a very good question!
Humans with special abilities are absolutely allowed, just keep in mind that by the standards of this universe, their abilities would be considered magic. They don’t have to be witches, though – if you’d like that for your eventual character – that could definitely be part of it!
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