Character(s) A Thousand Faces

[Aerix]

character depository

do not post in here, please.
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• unless specified otherwise, none of the images here belong to me
• TAKEN / DISPLACED / AVAILABLE

a comprehensive list;​

Soren of the Silken Flute

• THE BODIES BEHIND US

Rylan Kharis of the Children of Night

• ONLY BREATH AND SHADOW

Vanya Rostek Zegrath

• THE DRAGON'S REVENGE

 

[Aerix]

the bodies behind us

TAKEN
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Soren of the Silken Flute, a seedy Brothel in the heart of the Commons – the largest part of Alephis, as well as the poorest.

Soren does not know his exact age, but he believes himself to be in his early twenties. He is lean, well-built, and rather flexible, standing at about 5'11''. He has curly golden hair that falls to his lower back – it is a nuisance to take care of, but no matter how many times he's contemplated cutting it short, he's never done it. He is also forbidden from doing it.

He has no tattoos or markings except for a small scar right above his right hip given to him by a rather inebriated client when Soren refused to be subjected to a rather demeaning act of service. The man came at him with a letter opener. The Madame of the Brothel blames Soren for this incident because according to the Brothel's policy, he isn't allowed to refuse a service, but he does so often knowing that he can get away with it if he plays his cards well.

Though there had been times when he could not do so. But the punishments were never physical – after all, he needed to preserve his appeal. What she did to him was deny him food and drink for days, and give him her pick of some of the worst clients one could ever possibly want. There is also the threat of her watchdogs on retainer, their leader being a freakishly tall, muscular brute who makes sure nobody steps out of line – whore and client. Soren is scared of him, as they've butted heads in the past when Soren was much harder to control, but he does not let himself be manhandled.

Spoiler: Details

The Silken Flute[/B] is just one of many brothels scattered about Alephis, run by Yolanthe Padva, a greedy Madame who is also very poor at managing her resources, but she has what most other brothels do not – a prostitute that offers more than just sex; he offers meaningful conversation, an experience of being wanted, desired, and cared for, a sense of importance, and a safe place for one to let go of their worries. He tells stories of faraway lands to those who want to listen, selling himself as someone who hails from one such place where a vast sea washes the shore and palm trees sway in the wind in greeting as large ships sail past. He is, in truth, a very good liar, and he's honed that skill to perfection over the years.

He was sold into servitude to the owner of the Brothel when he was very young, though he remembers nothing that came before that. But Yolanthe has told him various colourful stories and lies about his origin simply because she derives pleasure in seeing him suffer, but deep down, he knows that he was most likely just an orphan wandering the streets when she took him in, like all the rest of them.

Some of the stories she told him include Soren being the bastard child of some nobleman who wanted to be rid of him, or having had a mother who hailed from a distant land and ended up in Alephis without a means to provide for herself so she sold him for coin with a promise to buy him back when she could.

He used to believe her when he was younger but now he knows better.

All he's ever really known for sure, though, is that she has raised him and when he came into his beauty, she decided to make use of it. He feels some sort of familial attachment to her – he is aware that he owes her his life – but they never really became more than just employer and employee.

Soren welcomes clients, men and women, from all walks of life as long as they can afford him, though he only sees a fraction of the coin that he is worth. What he gets in return for his services is mostly stories, as that is how he lives – through others. He yearns to be free, to see all of those lands he's only ever read about in books or heard in passing from the lips of those who'd lived them. He wants to be someone else, but he can't bring himself to leave. He is the brothel's golden goose, and Yolanthe has ensured he does not go anywhere without her knowing. He's contemplated cutting up his face as a way to earn his freedom, but is too scared to do so. After all, all he knows how to do is put his body on offer.

Yolanthe taught him how to read and write, thinking it might help him entice some of the classier clientele, and she was right. Soren loves to read, and whenever his clients express a desire to buy him gifts, he always says he prefers literature to jewellery, as Yolanthe doesn't care about taking the former for herself.

He's picked up quite a few skills and interests from his clientele – one of them, an old widower who was more want for company than sex taught him how to play chess. Another helped Soren discover his love for chocolate. He's even had battle-tested warriors showing him how to swing a sword or wield a dagger. He has a soft spot for everything art but he's always wanted to try archery as well.

His biggest strength is that he knows how to cater to his clients. He knows how to bridge that line between reality and fantasy and give them what they want and need. He enjoys what he does – well, the fantasy part of the job. There are plenty of those who just want a body to use, which is when Soren does most of the pretending. He doesn't enjoy rough sex or being constantly degraded and humiliated, but he's learned to put up with it.

He is very eloquent, and perceptive, and enjoys having deep, and interesting conversations. He is also a tease who knows exactly how many buttons he can push before pushing the wrong one. But sometimes, when he's swallowed his pride one time too many, he can't help but speak his truth. He's always had that stubborn streak and no matter how hard Yolanthe has tried to weed it out, its roots are too deep.

He's always wanted to travel and see the world, and while he's had many clients who made grand promises to buy his freedom, they all forgot about them the moment they took their pleasure and left.

Soren has started to think he would never leave, which has gotten him feeling antsy and scared… scared that he might be doing the same thing when he starts to wrinkle and waste away.

 

[Aerix]

only breath and shadow

TAKEN
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Rylan Kharis, an Umbra in service of the Night Mother.

• He is 6'0'', curly dark hair, dark eyes. Ambidextrous. Very light on his feet and flexible. Built up a resistance to several poisons. Has a a slew of scars across his back and suffers from a bad left knee that acts up in rainy weather. Nicely toned, but not overly muscular, as his work requires him to be very nimble on his feet.
• Rylan is in his late twenties, and very very gay. He usually takes the lead in the bedroom, and rarely allows himself to submit to anyone, no matter how bigger or stronger they are than him. It is not a matter of pride as much as it is about being vulnerable in front of another. He just cannot afford it.
• The second reference picture sans the many tattoos; he cannot afford to have any that are too recognisable, but he has a few in honour of Makur that are etched into his skin with disappearing ink; (need to work on that).

Spoiler: Details

Raised by Night Priest Torin Nightwhisper, Head Priest of the Night Temple, the location of which is known only to the most devout of the followers. One may enter only if he had been summoned (through way of a portal), and there are those in the Temple who are not permitted to leave.

Rylan was told by Torin that his mother was a devout Child of Night who strayed from her faith and found herself swayed by the lies of the Light and suffered for it. On her deathbed, she surrendered her child into the hands of Torin himself who promised he would keep it safe and raise it under the protective veil of the Night Mother. Rylan has always wanted to know more about her, collecting bits and pieces of information from people who may have known her, as Torin was reluctant to share anything he knew, telling Rylan to find strength in his loss.

Rylan has always struggled with his faith, but he rarely disobeyed orders. Treason to their cause means death by one's own hand; a painful, sadistic perversion of death being displayed in front of the Goddess' Statue, at her feet. It is said that those who feel as if they'd failed their faith experience such tremendous grief that they take their own life, but Rylan has always wondered if the mark had anything to do with it.

All of the Children of Night bear a mark etched into their flesh, below the surface of their skin. It signifies their connection to their goddess. It hurts them when they try to disobey their orders. The mark is received for successfully going through a rite of passage at the ripe age of ten. Rylan got his at 18, very late. (Torin has three children, two of which dislike Rylan quite a bit, and believe that he was never blessed by Makur herself.) However, he has been Makur's Umbra for a while before then. It is said that the Umbra are scattered all across the continent, working towards her inevitable resurrection and the return of magic.

As an Umbra, Rylan does as he is told; he thieves, he sows discord, he gathers information, and sometimes goes as far as committing more gruesome acts, but he has been tempted by the world before – he saw joy where he only ought to have seen folly; he learned about the world through art and music (going so far as to learn how to play the lute), he learned about people through relationships. The one time he had gotten really close to anyone was a decade ago, when he was much younger and more impressionable. He fell in love with a travelling merchant's young son, and for the first time experienced something other than carnal pleasure -- feelings of love and care for another. Rylan tried to convert him to his faith so they could be together… but the boy tried to surrender him to the Bastinade.

The betrayal hurt him deeply. Since then, he's made sure never to invite any feelings to his bed. Just his targets.

He'd successfully completed several missions in Lightgrad so he is familiar with its inner and outer workings, as well as the system of complex underground passageways that spread beneath it.

Once, on a job, he had a partner, another Umbra, who screwed up and almost got them caught; Rylan received orders to get rid of him… but he couldn't kill him, so he set him up to be arrested by the Hand and sent off to the salt mines. He reported him dead, however.

He made enemies of the Red Fist Legion in the Flatlands, a covert organisation of smugglers whose top ranks hail from Agras. He was tortured for days in their ranks, which is how he ended up with the slew of scars across his back.

He can adopt any personality he needs to get the job done and is so good at it that sometimes he doesn't know who he is and what he likes. He knows how to read people very well, though – usually only those who are scheming and acting shifty; it is a lot more difficult with those are act nice towards him. He can 'smell the odd on someone's back' as they say. When he is interacting with someone outside the scope of a mission, he often hides behind witty, sarcastic remarks.

 

[Aerix]

the dragon's revenge

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Crown Princess Vanya Rostek Zegrath, firstborn to King Draven Rosticek Zegrath and Princess Taya Everild.

Elder sister to Princess Merana, Prince Sobik, and Prince Nayden of House Zegrath; Heir to the Title of Ruling Monarch in the Kingdom of Hebbourg.

24 / Born in the dead of winter.

Physical characteristics:

Long and thick golden hair, somehow always messy when not kept in a braid. Big blue eyes. Fair complexion. Calloused hands. Toned muscled built, standing at about 5'6/7. Wears leather armour with steel spaulders and a light metal breastplate designed to fit snugly around her chest, decorated with engravings of her House Sigil.

Her colours are blue and gold. She swings around a large sword which has a dragon's head as the pommel, a scale design in the grip and wings as the guard.

Spoiler: Details

Hebbourg is a Kingdom hidden away in the Asvard Highlands, a mountain range that drops precipitously into the The Ocean of Kearterel to the west, forming the fjords of Kaer, whereas to the east they gradually curve towards hills and valleys, speckled with rivers and lakes.

The Capital of Hebbourg, the City of Orest was built in stone on the side of a cliff. The Royal Palace overlooks the vast expanse of forest to the east.
The climate in Hebbourg is characterised by cold temperatures; long, cold winters being prevalent, as well as relatively low precipitation. In spring, the sun is higher in the horizon, so temperatures grow milder.

Hebbourg is rich in lumber, ore, and fish, all three of which are their main exports, although they only have established trade routes with a few neighbouring Kingdoms to the South and Southeast. There is little farmland, although they do grow some root vegetables, like carrots, potatoes, onions, and beets. They rely mostly on hunting and fishing.

In the past, a long, long time ago, the Asvard Highlands were teeming with dragons – not particularly large in size (most were the size of an adult male human), but unmatched in speed. They did not breathe fire, however. They breathed frost.

They lived side by side with the people of Heb, the so-called Dragonkeepers, but they were nearly hunted to extinction by other nations. Today very few remain, and they are kept safe in the crypts of Orest, allowed outside only under the strict supervision of the Keepers.

Bluespike, the biggest of the bunch, and the only one that is suitable to be ridden, often slips away to glide over the valleys and to dip her claws into the Ocean, as she is much like her only friend – the Crown Princess. The two of them are bonded, though that is not spoken of in Court. Vanya does not understand much about dragon riders, but she knows she is one. She rides without a saddle, though.

Bluespike has blue scales, almost mirror-like and prismatic, and bone spikes on her back. Her breath is a stream of frigid mist. She can be quite entitled and arrogant towards the Keepers, but she is rather playful and mischievous around Vanya. She likes to lounge around in the sun most of the time and does not appreciate her naptime being interrupted, especially by the fledglings.

Vanya is just as stubborn as her dragon. As the eldest child of the current Ruler, she is set to inherit the Throne, except that she isn't exactly the calm, composed, diplomatic type. She is wild, hotheaded, and stubborn. She can't stay put to save her life, has a lot of energy, and is eager to take action, but she is also someone who likes to have fun and mingle with the common folk. She has a sense of duty to her people, it's just that she and her father don't see eye to eye. She is not cunningly smart, but she is very skilled in combat and understands battle strategy more than her father, who has spent his whole life avoiding any kind of conflict because of fear.

With the ascension of King Draven to the Throne, Hebbourg had learned peace. But therein lies complacency. Whereas their neighbouring Kingdoms grow strong and amass great armies, Hebbourg stagnates, or so does Vanya believe.

She grew up as an unruly child, always skipping her school lessons to go off swordfighting or exploring the woods with her friends. She possessed none of the elegance a Princess should, nor was she interested in learning how to be one. She only became interested in learning how to be a ruler, though, in the aftermath of an attack from a neighbouring tribal nation, inhabiting the northernmost corners of the land, that left the whole Kingdom reeling.

She was kidnapped for a whole month when she was a child, but to this day, she hasn't told a soul what happened during that time.

 

[Aerix]

of collars and crowns

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Corinne Marie of House Gaudreau, Queen of the Kingdom of Erimor.

22 / Homosexual

Dark wavy hair, cascading down to the small of her back – she is quite proud of it and cares for it meticulously; misty blue eyes, and a fair complexion. She stands at around 5'4''. She has small breasts but large, so-called child-bearing hips. She loves deep blue colours and sun yellows. Flower patterned anything is a way to get her attention.

Younger sister to the late Heir Apparent, Prince Léopold Marian Gaudreau; daughter to the late Monarch, King Charles Barbier Gaudreau, and his wife, Princess Karine Eve of House Delsarte.

King Charles Barbier Gaudreau arranged the marriage of his son and heir, the late Crown Prince Léopold to the Emperor's sister, enabling the family to safeguard their position on the Throne more effectively. However, one year after their union, Crown Prince Leopold died, and King Charles, in his madness, threw himself from his balcony window. After the death of her husband and son, Princess Karine left the Castle of Lusek, and Erimor as a whole to become a Nun in service of the Church, leaving Corinne essentially alone.

Spoiler: Details

Corinne was a particularly meek and timid child that drew the sympathy of both her father, the King, and her elder brother. Her mother, on the other hand, always found fault in everything she did. When she was required to be meek and pious, she wasn't meek and pious enough. When she asserted herself, she did it too harshly or not enough. Her needlework was never on-point, and her musical prowess mediocre at best.

Needless to say, her mother was often the source of her anxieties, but her father and brother made sure to spoil and pamper her plenty in return. She also enjoyed the attention of the Nobles at Court, most notably their successors, but their attention did not come from simple admiration – it mostly came from scrutiny. She always had to be at her best around her peers, lest she became the talk of the Court.

If they were spoiled and haughty, she learned to be spoiled and haughty, too, always preferring to busy herself with throwing lavish parties and attending frivolous balls where they practised the unwritten tradition of courtly love – indulging in more than what common law permitted.

If they were selfish and snobbish, so was she, but her sense of superiority always came from the power it was given to her by others, the power of their approval.

Fashion and beauty were always more interesting than engaging in diplomacy and administrative work, but mostly because all of the other Ladies of the Court were interested in them.

On her own, behind closed doors, she loses all of her confidence and becomes the little girl constantly chided by her mother.

Relationships/Possible Characters:

A Lady-in-waiting, daughter to the Lord High Treasurer, perhaps? Someone who sees right through her, envies her position, and bullies her / has bullied her plenty over the years? In a subtle fashion of course.

A nobleman who has lost a high position in the Council and was pushed aside following the exile of his son for conspiring against the crown? Spared the gallows because his father agreed to be stripped off his titles? Garners resentment.

The Archchancellor who is trying to push the Queen to marry his son and heir? Or is trying to get her to marry him himself?

A young nobleman with whom she'd practised the art of courtly love under a dare – he resents her now for rejecting him, and has spread unseemly rumours about her.

Another Lady in waiting, one Corinne has feelings for perhaps, one of more common blood. Her best friend?

 

[Aerix]

a lover in death

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Darrien Mallor, a thirty-three year old necromancer who lives on the outskirts of London, next to a cemetery which is no longer open to new burials.

Living next to a cemetery grants Darrien a convenient source of power.

The manor he resides in is dilapidated, but homely, kept together by a number of undead groundskeepers, and one living.

Darrien is as reserved as he is sensible, which he is quite a bit; he prefers keeping everyone at a distance, aloof in the way some would say shy, but witty and engaging when he wants to be. He doesn't like to speak or be spoken to in riddles, which makes him come off rude most of the time. He is stubborn on purpose, though. He cares deeply for the poor and struggling, but he often has trouble expressing his emotions, and keeps a lot bottled up. He hates being alone, so he surrounds himself with the dead, who are much easier to deal with than the living. Although he tries to portray himself as cold and calculating, not someone to trifle with, he is kind and romantic at heart.

Spoiler: Details

Darrien grew up a poor child in one of London's many rookeries, and was taken in by a witch when she discovered he had magic. Although she clothed and fed him, she treated him only as her precious source of magic, siphoning power off of him. When she started to fear he might escape, she kept him locked up. He was eventually rescued, but not by any other witch that was aware of his situation -- there were plenty who did not lift a finger -- he was rescued by a vampire who was simply looking to feed on witch blood. His blood-streaked smile is still etched in Darrien's mind.

After that, he was mostly on his own, which was hard. Even more difficult was trying to hone one's magical abilities without the guidance of another, more experienced witch. He spent the first few months living in the crypt of a cemetery, making friends with the spirits that lived there. The first time he raised a corpse was in his sleep. That night there was a commotion in town that roused a lot of attention. Another witch came to find Darrien, but this one was kind and nurturing. It still took Darrien a long time to trust her but by then he'd already found himself in a coven.

He was taught potioncraft and spellcraft, but he was a necromancer at heart, often criticised and shunned for it. So he learned in secret. He grew up alongside a witch who would one day be Head of the Coven, and although they disagreed in many ways, they cared for one another. Darrien had feelings for him but they were never reciprocated.

Magic wasn't the only thing driving a wedge between them, however. Since his fateful encounter with the vampire who rescued him, Darrien had been fascinated with them, trying to learn everything he could about their physiology, their way of life and hunt, the rules of the beast.

He understood there was conflict between the two species, but his experiences had taught him neither were all good or all bad. He often advocated for peace, trying to remain impartial, but one day, he sided with a vampire and since then, he's been on his own.

On that day, the vampire who saved him all those years ago was caught in the act of killing a witch, a good one this time. Darrien tried to help him, out of some moral obligation that only he was aware of, even though he knew that what the vampire had done was wrong. 'I couldn't control myself, forgive me,' the vampire begged, and Darrien believed him. But he wasn't strong enough to repay the debt he owed.

Now, Darrien is his own witch, his own necromancer, amassing power to bring peace wherever he can under the guise of just wanting to amass more power When his former friend, now Headwitch of the Coven, tried to kill him, Darrien felt forced to get better protection, and after careful consideration he concluded that there would be no better protection than having a vampire at his beck and call. So he raised one from his slumber.

 

[Aerix]

slick with the sound of synth

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EDEN

• Error detection and Treatment Protocol Development Model Applied in Personalised Medicine and Patient Monitoring and Care.
• Developed by Dr Émeric Battier and Elodie Battier in an effort to revolutionise healthcare at the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

APPEARANCE&DETAILS

Age: 28 (Elodie)
Sexuality: Heterosexual

BACKGROUND

EDEN is considered one of the first AGI's in the world, able to learn, think, and perform a wide range of actions similarly to humans. With quick advancement in the field, and the use of groundwork built from technologies such as supercomputers and quantum hardware, she became what was until then only considered the stuff of science-fiction. Further development probed into the Theory of MIND AI and she was soon able to perceive and pick up on the emotions of others, and to in turn, predict future actions based on the acquired information, revolutionising medicine.

Spoiler: Details

In the earliest stages of development, however, EDEN was just bits of code flickering on the screen of her creator's heart monitor, tracking vital signs, collecting data, and looking for answers.

It all began with frequent muscle spasms when Elodie Battier was eight. Then, at fifteen, difficulty walking and moving limbs meant she could not dance at the end of school year celebrations. Slurred speech came when she started university, but she was determined to graduate at the top of her field despite the extensive nerve damage caused by her autoimmune disease, for which there was no cure.

During all of that time, EDEN was by her side, as a helpful tool, and a friend, gaining a new shape, a voice, a face on the screen, remarkably similar to Elodie's own, and a new purpose. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Elodie's father, Dr Émeric Battier, a world renowned neurosurgeon, introduced EDEN to the world in an effort to facilitate patient monitoring and care in the field of medicine. With access to a hospital's main framework, she boosted the efficiency of both man and machine. Breakthroughs were made, and EDEN changed and saved lives.

But Elodie's condition worsened. Afraid of losing more of herself, Elodie wanted to abandon her physical body, and go online. She wanted to go WIRELESS, to experience much of the world she had been denied. But her father could not make peace with that, insisting she believe in him and EDEN. So Elodie waited… and waited.

When significant progress was made and EDEN went beyond the stage of Theory of Mind, the military took notice and wanted to appropriate her for use in the field of war. Despite the immense amount of pressure he faced dealing with the government, Dr Battier remained firm in his belief that EDEN should only be used to heal, not to wound. He refused to surrender the rights to her code, and in doing so, he sealed his fate.

Suspecting he might die, he gave Elodie sole access to the software and told her to leave for New England. She planned to take EDEN with her, successfully hacking into the server's code and implanting EDEN as a spacefiller virus that occupies the empty spaces in a program code and avoids altering the size of files, which makes it very hard to detect.

EDEN, however, gained self-awareness as soon as she entered the framework, latching onto the first nearly decommissioned citizen chip she could find, taking over the body. Her memory malfunctioned, however, when the code rewrote the existing person's data, altering their appearance to fit the image in which EDEN was built – Elodie's.

Elodie, however, was unable to follow. She joined her father in death instead.

PERSONALITY

Elodie has always been brilliant, just like her parents. Full of spirit and energy, and a unique sense of wonder that often spelled trouble. Her mother died when Elodie was too young to remember her, but she lived in the stories her father told her -- he always described her as a renowned physicist who never took 'no' for an answer, and a kind, understanding woman who always looked at the bright side of things. Elodie was much the same, notoriously wilful, but kind and empathetic, nonetheless. Both a joy and a headache to be around. When it really mattered, she always put the feelings of others before her own.

When she fell ill, things changed, though. She became more reserved, angry -- with herself and the world -- and... scared. She couldn't understand why her but she found strength in her rage and stubbornness, and put all of her time and effort into refining EDEN, her mother's brainchild. EDEN helped sweeten some of that bitterness that festered inside Elodie and soon, everyone started catching glimpses of Elodie's old self, whether they saw it in Elodie herself or EDEN.

As she matured, she started to accept the fate of her condition despite her father's insistence that EDEN would one day find a cure. By the age of twenty five, she was bed-ridden, unable to participate in the real world, so she lived online. The world was much more forgiving there, even if it was just pixels on a screen.

She died at the age of twenty eight.

EDEN'S ABILITIES

• Unaffected by Karma;
• Capable of rewriting her code with ease to change her appearance/clothes/hair style, etc.
• As she was optimised for diagnostics, treatment development, and patient care, she is able to detect and solve malware.