Inspired by the exciting new socialising mechanics, I’m wondering - what are your characters’ visiting-cards like? Do they bear elaborate engravings or photographic prints? Do they announce your clubs and qualifications? Or are they simply and starkly stamped with their name alone?
I’m still very much pondering my own characters’ calling-cards, but I imagine they’d be a little something like…
[ul][li]Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook: Cream card in an aesthetic design. Mentions a number of academic qualifications, salons and learned societies.
[/li][li]Reginald Hubris: A plain black-on-white affair bearing his title; the unspoken assumption being that anyone who doesn’t know to find him at the Parthenaeum isn’t worth knowing.[/li][li]Esther Ellis-Hall: A decorous but businesslike card, stating her name and professional role within the Fallen Fabian Society.[/li][li]Juniper Brown: A trade-card from the Brown family business, bearing a Surface-address and fifteen years out of date. Her name and current address have been added to the corner in cheap ink.
[/li][/ul]
On the spot I’d have to say it’d be something like this:
Sara Hysaro: Lists as many (legal) distinctions/awards as possible without crowding up the card. Gives a slight impression that she believes the calling card will be accepted solely because it is hers. Often includes invites to her Salon to give the recipient an opportunity to see her in person.
Delmar Tramontane: Contains a small list of some of his novels, and quotations from the next thing he is working on. Sometimes he has his Boneless Consort send them out. I don’t think they’re very pleasant to handle when he does that.
Gloria Marie Valdez: Unfortunately cold and uninviting. Sometimes attempts to make them more friendly by drawing cute animals on them despite her poor artistic skills. Occasionally contains encrypted messages as situations turn up.
Madison Lavery: Makes each card specifically for the recipient based on what she knows about them. Lists her Orphanage and sometimes (depending on the recipient) what she’s hunted most recently. Contains subtle hints that she’s a Revolutionary, but only if it’s not for someone known to work for the Masters. edited by Sara Hysaro on 12/3/2013
Leraika: Two-sided paperboard. One side has her full name and a motto in some foreign language in silver ink on a black background. The other side is blank, for the addition of personalized messages, appropriate poetry, etc.
Blue (Wesley Miller) actually has different ones, depending on who he wants to invite.
Strangers are usually invited via an embossed card with the intestation of his Salon, the Pragmatic Poets Society.
Friends and close acquaintances usually receive a playing card, singed at the corner - always the two of diamonds. Additional text may be added, often encrypted, for the exact location and time.
His contacts in the Great Game are, of course, always invited via encoded messages of different nature (last example - he invited Jenson Shepherd with crossword puzzle definitions. The "Italian cypher", do you remember? XD)
Krawald: A card of thick white paper, the sides cut in a wavy pattern. The name “Krawald” is written in black ink with a flourish. Those he gives out right now tend to smell faintly of the zea. When he comes in person, which he usually does, he folds down the upper left corner.
Loogan: A small grey card with a red fringe. The name “Loogan” is written in dark red ink, a few droplets look disturbingly like blood. If you hold the card up to the light, you will see the symbol of a knife.
Urthdiggger: A plain white card with text written in cosmogone sap that glimmers like forgotten rays of sunshine. Typically has a strong earthy smell to it, due to the use of a subtle mole to convey messages. Occasionally has a more exotic scent to it, of lands far off, and deposited next to one of your mirrors…
Alice Darkmoor: The calling card is enamelled in the bone of some zee-beast, and scribed in violant ink. It is signed with seven drops of peligin blood. A return address is recorded on the reverse side, because after all, not including a return address is just inconsiderate.
The delivery is unexpected - a small, glass box that could be made of smoke for its swirling sooty hue. Fitting in the palm of your hand, its silvered hinges are spring loaded when you first try them. If you are not careful, the lid will snap shut and shatter the glass in your hand. Within lies a ribbon of puzzle-damask in the most luxuriant crimson hue, curled into a circle roughly the shape of your ring finger. There can only be one person bold enough to claim this as her calling card…
Middy usually gives her cards by hand after she’s met someone, more like a business card than anything. She does not stand on ceremony, and her card reflects that. The card is a simple, black thing. There is a silver crescent moon on one side and her address at the Beth on the other in silver. One the rare occasion she actually sends it to someone instead of just handing it to them in conversation, she might write a note on the back in her typewriter-neat hand.
Polly’s card, I’m afraid, is a classic and completely generic design. Scrollwork border around her name and address in the Tower of Eyes, written in lovely calligraphy.
That is her official card, anyway, for polite society use. Urchins, rats, and people who might not be aware they’re working for someone under four feet tall are contacted by other means that do not involve visiting cards.
Bess doesn’t leave a calling card so much as a scrap of green silk with her name neatly embroidered pinned to your door with an alarmingly large knife.
Aximillio doesn’t leave a calling card, unless it’s formal. He prefers sneaking up on the victims from behind and showering them with confetti. The formal cards are plain and pretty identical to the ones you find in shops. edited by Aximillio on 12/8/2013
All right! I gave in. I wrote a calling card for my alt Narciso (narcissus_echo) –
A calling card! It’s the Ace of Hats. The Hat in question does grin charmingly, and to its side is written /Narcis- Confortola, Conjurer, Composer, Curator/. Beneath that appellation is a music note crossed with a truncated Correspondence sigil, which – if you are Watchful enough – you may interpret to mean ‘one who conducts an orchestra as the Sun conducts her celestial coterie.’ There’s an address to a shop in the spires of the Bazaar.
And for Theodor (echo_theodor) –
A plain card, the colour of tea and cream. In the center are seven pinpoint stars arranged as in the Septentriones. Above is the name and address of a bookseller in the Bazaar, the author and academic T.E Gylden. Below is a motto: Septentrionem appetimus (translatable as We seek the Seven Stars, or We hunger for the North).
Not ominous. Not at all.[li] edited by theodor_gylden on 2/10/2014
Many fine and creative calling cards here. I am disappointed, however, that I have not seen ‘Help I’m trapped in a calling card factory.’ Most unsatisfactory.