It looks like Viric and Caroline are rather firmly on opposing sides in the wars of illusion, which makes them both having notably intense green eyes sort of ironic. I think it would be a good idea to puzzle out how they will interact and be teammates. We can do that in PMs so as not to bug people or here to get input from other players.
Ehh, not sure I’m keen on the Museum. Nikki will point out it’s been done, and often. She’s done it herself. Where’s the challenge?! But the Ministry proper, where they keep the GOOD stuff. Maybe even Mr. Pages’ special vault there…?
We’re not stealing Mr. Inch’s animals, we’re stealing…well, something else. But animal defenses will make it FUN!
Nikki would be glad to help rob the university. Even if it will give various academic types she knows fits. They’ll get over it.
currently working on char sheet!
That is a good idea indeed. Let’s start in PMs and ask for input from the other players once we’ve discussed a bit?
Lee is thoroughly mercenary and has no real compunction about any of these targets. She might taunt anyone who confesses to any fear of or loyalty to the Masters.
I added a "skill" (Black Wings Drunk) to her skill section, but I’m not sure about it - it seemed like a cool idea, though.
What about characters’ Companions? They’re usually an important part of a character for me, but I haven’t seen any mentioned except for Michael’s 400 weasels. Lee has a different servant/henchman for each outfit, and she just got a dog. But I can understand not wanting to clutter the scenes. (I may add them to her character sheet anyway, though, even if they’re not invited to meetings.)
Player Name: shylarah, Shy
Character: the Playful Daredevil, Nikkolaira "Nikki" Wyatt
Gender/Pronouns: she and I are both female, and use feminine pronouns
Age: mid/late 20s
Appearance: Nikki is of average height, an athletic woman with generous curves who loves showing them off. Her hair is blonde, though on occasion she has been known to splotch-dye it so it looks calico. Her eyes are closer to amber-gold than proper brown, and they gleam brightly. She has a a wide smile, an expressive face, rosy cheeks, and an upturned nose. She prefers the colors black (or dark gray) and amber, with cosmogone being a particularly Neathly fondness. For her clothing, she makes sure it won’t get in the way of her many activities – absolutely nothing fluttery or easily torn. Beyond that, she likes to look good, and she tends towards common skirts and blouses, and has a shocking fondness for slacks, which make her long legs look particularly fine. She has a variety of pouches and pockets in all her outfits, many holding useful items: a striker, a ball of sturdy twine, her second-best lockpicks, a couple knives, treats for various animals, a fountain pen with permanent ink, stinkbombs, smoke bombs, flashbangs, a few clockwork gadgets…
Personality: Nikki is first and foremost a free spirit. She is wild, always looking for adventure. She’s an adrenaline junkie, actively courting danger and considered by many to be a bit mad. Her luck is excellent, and she is as good at getting out of trouble as she is at finding it. Her smile is ever-present, her laughter bright, and her intense love of life readily apparent in everything she does. She is a playful woman, often expressing childlike glee. She flirts, she taunts, she teases, she plays pranks, she rides her stolen velocipede through the Flit like a bat out of Hell. She’s never run anyone over – barring a few instances of outside interference – but there’s any number of adults that swear she scared them half to death. She does not think matters through and is easily distracted. She’ll do all sorts of things on a lark, and rarely takes matters seriously. Her antics are good-natured and generally harmless. She’s not malicious, and while some people are infuriated by her, many find her eccentricities endearing. She’s highly excitable, a vivid social butterfly who wants nothing more than to have a good time. Misfortune and trauma roll off her; it takes quite a lot to bring her down, and she rarely stays there for long. It makes her appear flighty and fickle, and while she can be shallow and oblivious to finer details, Nikki is actually a devoted friend and would never break a confidence. She’s excellent at keeping secrets, and there’s indications that if she bothered to devote herself she’d have a decent amount of skill as a trader or businesswoman.
Skills/Abilities:
+Feline Features
Nikki’s balance is unparalleled, her agility superb, her footsteps feather-light. She’s an excellent leaper, and she always lands on her feet. Her vision in dim light is every bit as good as in bright light – perhaps better. She seems to have the sort of luck that comes with a cat’s nine lives, and she’s impossible to keep down for long.
+Sneaky Cat-Burglar
While she is a bit of a loose cannon, Nikki is able to pass undetected when she wants to. As an upstairs-man, she’s a great climber, and she’s able to slip through any hole wide enough to accomodate her bust. She’s an excellent pickpocket and she specializes in picking locks. There’s actually a couple rats that use her to test new designs. If she can’t get it open in five minutes, it’s good.
+Velocipedal
Master of the Flit-bound Velocipede, which has not touched the street since the day of its theft. She can take that thing places it has no right to be.
+Prankster
There’s nothing quite like a good practical joke. It’s surprising how much they have in common with traps. Ink mustaches and monocles, in particular, tend to appear on those found sleeping in her vicinity.
+Distraction
She loves attention, and she’s good at getting it. She’s also pretty good at escaping the pursuit that invariably follows.
+Mostly Harmless
Playful and affable, most people that she doesn’t infuriate can’t stay upset with her for long. And she’s great at bluffing. It helps that she always has three different wild stories of varying plausibility for any situation.
-Did Not Think It Through
Exactly what it says on the tin, and her greatest source of difficulties. This also extends to a general lack of filter on what she says.
-I’m a Thief, Not a Killer
Nikki dislikes hurting people without reason. She’s not particularly good at hurting them even with reason, being better suited to running away than standing and fighting. The availability of explosives can change this dramatically. There is always room for more explosions.
-Ooh, Shiny!
Nikki’s focus is not the greatest. She’s generally reliable, but anything shiny or intriguing will attract her attention, and the results can be unpredictable.
-Forbidden Fruit
When handling Nikki, the best way to keep her from doing something is to make in uninteresting, instead of telling her no.
Backstory:
Nikki’s father runs a small store in the Neath. She was born in Fallen London, and it will always be home no matter how far she travels. She’s not as close to her mother, who separated from her father years ago to focus on her professional life in law, but the two do see each other regularly – and if Nikki gets in serious trouble she knows she can count on a good, if plausibly deniable, word from her mom.
As a child, Nikki ran with the Urchins. She is at least partially responsible for the Regiment’s ownership of a cannon, one of her earliest real heists. She never did pick one gang to settle with, and has run in turns with all of them. She may have been involved in the start of the Nought-Cross war, and it’s entirely possible that she fought on both sides as a kid, at one point or another. It’s also possible that she managed to annoy BOTH sides simultaneously, and lead the entire hoard on a furious chase halfway across London, only to give them the slip in St. Fiacre’s. As a Longshanks she enjoys privileged status with them, and still partakes in a number of games. The Urchins are as loyal to her as they are to each other…which is to say that they’ll accept other folks’ offers, but it does need to be a /good offer/. And they’re sorry about that, but hey, that’s how it goes, yanno?
She became a thief for the challenge of it and the thrill, rather than any need. She’s shown significant skill in various Shadowy areas, and there are a couple novellas based on her better heists. She doesn’t quite fit among the Criminals, being by turns admired and a joke. She’s on good terms with the Cheery Man, and a tolerated pest amongst the Constables. They know her as annoying but overall harmless – not that they don’t want to catch her, but she’s slippery. Also she tends to enjoy getting caught, and has been known to fake stealing something just for the thrill of getting chased. So it’s a toss up if they put serious effort into trying. But she’s also /great/ training for catching other ne’er-do-wells, and is always willing to help them test out their velocipedes.
She’s been seen in Veilgarden, but her preferred vices are not found there exclusively. She enjoys the lively atmosphere, the vivacious temperament of the creative – not to mention listening to the drama. Mahogany Hall is great, though she’s as likely to cause trouble as help out. She has tried to unmask Feducci repeatedly, never with much success. She’s also tried to sleep with him, with similar results. He seems to enjoy her uninhibited daring, but shows her no particular favoritism, beyond a certain fondness. The Topsy King treats her like a court jester, and she mimics his mode of speech when in his presence. If either one of them has trouble understanding the other, it’s never evident to those watching.
Nikki has cultivated relationships with a number of the more unusual populations in Fallen London. She’s endlessly curious about Rubberies, though she doesn’t really understand them. She gets on famously with the rattus faber, and adores both them and their work. She has as many ratty friends as she does human ones, in all likelihood. Oddly enough she also has an affinity for the local felines. She understands how they think. Her habits of prying and eavesdropping result in a lovely assortment of choice tidbits with no direct obligations to the original party, and she doesn’t mind sharing these, if properly approached. She is graceful (for a human), clever, and daring, and so the cats tolerate her company. Never say they are fond! They are not fond, they merely deign to indulge her. The bats know she is kind to their messengers, and often has a treat to give in exchange. This makes sending letters a simple matter, when she doesn’t feel like paying (or trusting) an urchin.
And of course most of London know the tale of the the Flit-bound Velocipede, even if they don’t know her.
Other:
Nothing at the moment.
edited by shylarah on 12/24/2017
It seems like the party is getting rather cramped! If there’s room I’d love to join, but if not I’m just as willing to play an antagonist for the group to overcome. I feel like my character could work well in either role. ^_^
Player: Gul
Character: Gul al-Ahlaam, the Uncanny Hierophant
Called: They/Them for both
Appearance: Gul is long and narrow, with olive skin and tangled black hair. Their deep-set eyes used to be hazel, but after a long dance through dreams, they’ve softened to a pale cosmogone. Under their high collars and narrow frocks, their body is a tapestry of scars. Their left arm was lost from the elbow down after a failed experiment, and replaced with the still-living claw of an enormous crab (or a wooden prosthetic, in polite company). Their face, normally hidden under a mask or veil, was torn apart by a riposte from Feducci’s saber; the wound was deep, and healed slowly and incompletely. During their pilgrimage to the Mountain of Light, they plunged their face into her lesser wound and drank of her blood, restoring their youth and strength, but also reconstructing their face around the scar, creating a cleft in their lip all the way up to their forehead, studded with dozens of tiny interlocking teeth.
Personality: In their public life, Gul is elegant, dreamy, and fey. Their insatiable curiosity leads them to take interest in just about anything, and their conversations tend to drift between confusing poetic metaphor, needling questions, and praise of their conversational partner. They have a habit of inventing sweet if embarrassing pet names for their friends, and disparaging ones for their enemies. In private they are more earnest than elegant, and are quick to lavish care and affection on their family and close friends, or on anything else that seems to desire it. But their compassion is a perilous gift. What Gul thinks of as a grand and beautiful expression of love might not be recognizable as such to anyone outside of their imagination.
Backstory: Dr. F____ D__________ was a natural philosopher on the surface, with a special interest in the Exile’s Rose, the study of which eventually brought them to the Neath. After a brief scuffle involving a stylish but illegal monkey, and an awkward visit with an estranged uncle, they managed to make themself at home. For a while they plied the trade of an investigator, but their lack of interest in actually resolving any of the cases was a quick route to professional infamy, and they soon directed their attentions toward the University. Their academic career has been… well, let’s say exciting! They fit in very well at Benthic, to be sure, and between their enthusiasm and adventurous lifestyle they’ve become quite popular among students, even if their reputation in the academic community is less than stellar.
Qualities:
Pythian— The Hierophant’s mind is a labyrinth of honey dreams and moonlit visions, blood pacts and prophecies, soaked through with the colors of night. They frequently lose track of chronology and confuse their own memories with dreams or glimpses of the future or memories belonging to someone else entirely. It takes a complex system of colored inks, reminders, and incense to keep track of what’s going on around them, but if this is the burden of prophecy, it is one they are more than willing to bear. While the uncertain and often incomprehensible nature of their visions makes them too unreliable to plan around, they still provide the Hierophant valuable insight and secrets.
Bromeliad— As in the mind, so too in the flesh. Through years of accidental miscalculations, purposeful self-experimentation, and secret ritual mutilation, the Hierophant has become an ecosystem in microcosm, their patchwork body run through with all manner of guest and infiltrator. Each of their disparate elements comes with some benefit to the gestalt (their crab claw is unexpectedly sharp, the mushrooms rooting in their hair give them confusing but valuable advice) but also bring some detriment (they have little in the way of manual dexterity, their face must be kept covered in polite company, etc).
Echidna— The Uncanny Hierophant is a divisive figure in Revolutionary circles. Their studies of those arts which subvert the Law are valuable, and for those students who take on their lessons, a boon to the cause. But their alliances are inconvenient, and their notably aristocratic politics somewhat problematic. Even among those groups with whom their relationship is strong and enduring, like the Cousins or the Rubbery Men, they cannot be fully trusted, simply because their aims and priorities are idiosyncratic. While they have friends in many places, their capricious nature means they’re always at risk of betrayal.
As far as targets go, for the most part Gul could go either way, with perfectly logical reasons to work with or against the team on each one. The only exception is the Gracious Widow, who they regard with a combination of awe and terror. They’ve never even considered looking her in the eye, let alone robbing her.
edited by Gul al-Ahlaam on 12/24/2017
I’m going to leave this to you guys. 9 players is kind of stretching me as GM – it’s more than I first expected – but if you guys are open to letting others join, I’ll do my best.
As for the heist targets, Canvas still hasn’t given his opinion. I’ll wait for him before releasing a plan for the heist that all of us can hopefully agree on. Thank you all for the suggestions!
Side note: while I’m okay with February, Virginia, Dr Orthos and the Museum being targeted, someone else will have to take the lead. I barely know anything about them, definitely not enough to write a story. Jen hasn’t gone to the Cave yet.
By the lack of comments about when we start, I assume 27th is okay with you guys?
I think the GM should have only as many people as she can handle. That is on you. If you can handle that many, I have no issue if they can get along with us. If you feel unsure I would say to sleep on it and decide. I have GM’d TT and may could swing one of those four. I would want to see how this runs first before committing to it. The 27th should be okay; I am pretty solid player during the week, and I try to post weekends with mixed results. As long as we are starting during the week I am happy.
No objection to Gul, nor to any proposed target, but I think that Lia should probably stick to what she feels comfortable with. These things usually wind up being more work than anticipated. You might want to stick to your core list of targets and players to start with, but leave room for later expansion (or, to be frank, to replace players who drop out - we all have RL complications after all, and sometimes those unexpectedly multiply.)
It’s also sensible to shift extra work to other players, and you can do that while remaining in charge overall. I expect that Lady Karnstein would be a good auxiliary GM. I am also willing, but I agree that an auxiliary GM would need to get a feel for the story before jumping in.
I agree with Aberrant; I don’t have any particular objection to anything, but you should go with what feels good with you Lia!
For the 27th, that should be okay; I will be in-and-out what with New Year’s Eve, but I’ll try to be as active as possible!
Oh, I also meant to say that the 27th should work for me as well. And I’m working on my introductory scenario.
Sorry for the delay!
Canvas isn’t particularly picky about his targets, as long as it makes for a grand heist and doesn’t end up being petty theft. Go big or go home.
However, he considers some of them off the table;
He is very opposed to stealing from the Masters, both because he considers them a close ally and because of fear.
His involvement in the Great Game brought him closer to the Clathermonts and he wouldn’t feel comfortable betraying them.
Unlike most, he holds a fondness for Feducci, but he could be persuaded on the matters.
Dislikes stealing from the less wealthy. (Private residences, the Raggedy Men…)
He knows little of February and Virginia and would hope not to waddle off into unknown territory.
He is still very keen on ransacking a couple of other locations though, such as:
The Brass Embassy. He never was fond of the devils and their schemes.
Ministry of Public Decency. Imagine all the secrets! It’s basically what he thrives off!
The Shuttered Palace, the Duchess and the Court. Not exactly his kind of people.
Everything else is neutral ground.
edited by Canvas Blank on 12/24/2017
Everything quoted here matches my own feelings and logistics.
[li]
I feel the same way. I’d be happy to sit this one out, either entirely or until I’m needed to replace someone.
EDIT: I’m clear for the 27th as well.
edited by Gul al-Ahlaam on 12/24/2017
[quote=Aberrant Eremite]No objection to Gul, nor to any proposed target, but I think that Lia should probably stick to what she feels comfortable with. These things usually wind up being more work than anticipated. You might want to stick to your core list of targets and players to start with, but leave room for later expansion (or, to be frank, to replace players who drop out - we all have RL complications after all, and sometimes those unexpectedly multiply.)
It’s also sensible to shift extra work to other players, and you can do that while remaining in charge overall. I expect that Lady Karnstein would be a good auxiliary GM. I am also willing, but I agree that an auxiliary GM would need to get a feel for the story before jumping in.[/quote]
Pretty much this, and what Spooky said. Also, the 27th works for me too!
Well if the Museum of Mistakes is not something Lia knows that much about to start with, then I definitely think there’s more to be gained from the ministry proper.
Certainly if you’re not worried about official canon (given that there isn’t much of one) for the layout of various buildings, it’s not that hard to draw up a map. Figuring out defenses is more difficult.
Definitely we should not strain our lovely DM. I’m willing to help, but my help is…not that helpful. Nikki has a good bit of me in her – all the overly-excited, well-meaning but less-than-helpful bits. ^.^;;
Tim and I chatted and we do not think there is going to be any major issue between Viric and Caroline. We should be careful about hitting the interests of either side in the Wars of Illusion, but we both want fun RP and have discussed our characters a bit so it should work out. They won’t necessarily be on a collision course either way, and we had some ideas on building their mutual respect.
IMO a little contrast in interests and maybe even some confrontation is a good thing! Look at all of us; Master’s assistants and revolutionaries, Shroud and Glass, scholars and assassins, admirers of the Duchess and followers of the Widow… putting (or trying to put) our differences aside for a noble cause; Robbing them all blind!
LOL. Yeah well. Some conflict is good for a RPing group, long as it is not too much.
[quote=Canvas Blank]
Look at all of us; Master’s assistants and revolutionaries, Shroud and Glass, scholars and assassins, admirers of the Duchess and followers of the Widow… putting (or trying to put) our differences aside for a noble cause; Robbing them all blind![/quote]
I’ll drink to that!