TDM 1 ⬡ The Oval Portrait

[liburuzaina]

	Casting Call The Oval Portrait Edgar Allan Poe »» "Long — long I read — and devoutly, devotedly I gazed." Name: The Aristocrat Casting Call: Characters with a Birthday from September through December Physical Notes: Desperately wounded, to the point of being bedridden, but not losing consciousness. Personality Notes: Curious, and prone to becoming enraptured by the pursuit of learning about whatever has caught their curiosity. Mildly delirious due to injury. Compulsions: To learn about their surroundings, whether through study of the portraits in the chateau apartment, conversation with a companion, or ill-advised exploration. «« »» "We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments." Name: The Valet Casting Call: Characters with an Unknown Birthday Physical Notes: Older than The Aristocrat by ≥ 5 years. Personality Notes: Willing and able (by force or by cleverness) to break in to a home for the well-being of their employer. A caretaker by nature. Compulsions: To see that The Aristocrat is comfortable for the night and their wounds are tended to, and to get some rest themselves once their duty is complete. In the absence of The Aristocrat, The Valet is free to act as they please. «« »» "She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee." Name: The Maiden Casting Call: Characters with a birthday from May through August Physical Notes: Young, aged from 15-20. Personality Notes: All smiles, loving and cherishing of all things, hating only The Painter's art, for they deprive them of their lover. Compulsions: To live life to the fullest, to love, to be happy... But also to make their husband, The Painter happy, by being a good and willing subject for his portraiture, should he ask. ⬡ Will slowly waste away and die, should they sit and allow themselves to be painted. «« »» "And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter." Name: The Painter Casting Call: Characters with a birthday from January through April Physical Notes: Older than the maiden by ≥ 10 years. Personality Notes: Passionate, studious, austere, wild, moody. More in love with his art than his wife. Compulsions: To paint. To paint, and paint, and paint some more. To ask their lovely wife to be the subject for their next piece, and to throw themselves into the completion of it. ⬡ Unaware they are doing harm with their painting, until it is complete. «« code @ efryndiel The Chateau ⬡ Common Cast Characters most likely to originate in The Chateau are The Aristocrat and The Valet ⬡ Literary Description "To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret of the building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque." ⬡ For Your Exploration Characters may attempt to explore the Chateau, but it will be shrouded in darkness, and every room they enter will bring them back to the apartment chosen by The Valet. What decorations may be seen are dark and victorian in design, and the room and halls may be lit by candlelight. The Maiden's portrait is on the wall, and will initially be cloaked in shadow for The Aristocrat to find. It appears remarkably lifelike, almost as though it is a window instead of a portrait. The other paintings on the walls will contain figures that are almost familiar to The Aristocrat and The Valet - as though they could be someone they know, but only if they squint. There is no electricity. Characters will not have access to any powers. The Artist's Tower ⬡ Common Cast Characters most likely to originate in The Artist's Tower are The Maiden and The Painter ⬡ Literary Description "But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour, and from day to day." ⬡ For Your Exploration Should characters leave the Painter's studio, they will immediately be transported outside, to a sprawling field of wildflowers. There won't seem to be anything else around, but there will be a light breeze and the sound of the sea in the distance. Inside the studio, the air is stale and musty, smelling of oil paints and turpentine. It's dim, lit only by a skylight. There is a stool for the subject and an easel with canvas sitting in the light, but everything else - art materials, more canvases, both empty and with the beginnings of paintings, and props - are all pushed to the sides of the room and cloaked in shadow. Like The Chateau, there is no electricity, and characters will not have access to their powers. The Library ⬡ Welcome! Free from their roles, through either death, completion of the Story, or from not being pulled into the tale in the first place, characters will find themselves in the gardens outside of the Library itself. As always, it will look and feel like a temperate, autumn afternoon. As this setting is part of the Library itself, characters will have full access to all their powers. ⬡ Grand Opening Coming Soon! The front door will, unfortunately, be locked, and a sign will be taped on the doors, detailing how the Library will be opening soon, but in the meantime to please enjoy the grounds and the pizza party in the courtyard. ⬡ Pizza party? Pizza party! In the courtyard, there will be tables set up that will be absolutely covered in stacks of paper plates, 2-liter bottles of any soda one could dream of, and stacks and stacks of pizza boxes, containing any flavor combination that could be desired. Opening a random box will provide a random, but popular, flavor. Opening a box with an Intent and a Desire for something specific will provide exactly that. Enjoy! It won't run out. navigation • premise • reserves • faq

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II

[purport]

[ Sandalphon is a Primarch on a mission. When he isn't diverted by the well-being of certain strangers, that is. He marches his way from one stretch of this foreign realm to the other, sharp-heeled boots gouging into any yielding terrain and snapping sharply against the rest.

He has people to get back to, and seeking the means to achieve this carries him to a curious tower jutting up among a field of wildflowers. Into and up that tower he goes, nose crinkling at the acrid odor that assaults his senses when he reaches a certain room.

His distaste is immediate, and only compounded by what the lone shaft of light filtering in from overhead illuminates like some prized artifact in a museum.

A nude Erune perched on a stool. ]

What in the Skies are you doing?

[ Isn't that uncomfortable, at the very least? ]

[savanaclaw]

Eh?

[This isn't his Beloved.

Some fluttering of something tells him he should cover himself, a stronger feeling of pride and not giving a single solitary fuck about this interloper ensures he doesn't. Instead, his ears perk up and his tail lashes behind himself in very clear annoyance at the interruption.]

I'm waiting for my husband to come back. He's convinced me to allow him to paint me.

[Hm. That feels... both right and not-right at the same time. Oh well. It's out there now, so better to just... go with it.]

What are you doing?

[...Okay, it's kind of uncomfortable, yeah, but not The Worst.]

[purport]

[ As a matter of retaining sanity, Sandalphon has long since moved past trying to make sense of certain portal pursuits. He's known a few artists, in his tenure on the Grandcypher. Lunalu, for instance, with her picture books, at times had need of a great deal of coffee before debuting a new volume. But never before has he observed one mortal expecting another to sit around nude like a piece of decor, waiting thus, when nothing was yet transpiring.

His only response to such a peculiar thing is, naturally, a helpless little scoff as he plants his hands on his hips. Perhaps two millennia more of life still won't be enough to understand all the oddities that humanity might come up with. ]

What nonsense... How long have you lingered there?

[ He might've taken the fellow for a statue at the onset, if he didn't know any better. If there hadn't been muttering. Not that there weren't statues out there which did in fact mutter, but it was a rare anomaly. ]

[savanaclaw]

I...-

[Huh. He can't say he really... knows. The sun hasn't moved in the sky, but that doesn't seem to mean much in this odd place. It's not like there's a clock around where he could have been watching the time... he just knew he had to wait. And wait. And sooner or later, his husband would return to paint.

And he hated it, but... what could he do, really?]

What does it matter?

[Be a bit defensive at this interloper, apparently.]

[purport]

[ Having waited for millennia, knowing that the one who values most may now wait for him for as long or more, Sandalphon finds this state of affairs oddly disquieting. Perhaps it hasn't been long, perhaps it hasn't been very long at all, even to the short-lived perspective of a mortal being.

Still... ]

I saw no one outside. [ And considering this fellow may have been drawn here from elsewhere, as he has, it concerns him. ] Perhaps he's in need of aid, wherever he has gone.

[savanaclaw]

[It's difficult to say how long it's been. It feels as though his beloved was just there a moment ago, but it also feels as though he's been alone for hours. Days? Waiting...

It feels like this... isn't terribly unusual, either. Not the waiting in the studio, no, but... waiting at home - wherever home is - for him to return. Waiting outside for him to take a break. Waiting for him to look from those damned art materials and see him...

Ah.

But that has nothing to do with this guy who just came in.]

You probably just missed him. He never goes far from here.

[...Right?]

[purport]

[ The silence makes him wonder. Makes him think.

Is this tower something like the Seraphic Cradle, where time lost all meaning, felt long and short all at once? He has difficulty imagining what manner of being could create a vessel similar to that wrought by a Supreme Primarch, and yet...

What if this whole place is such a realm?

There's little he can do for that now, he realizes. ]

If you mean to wait here, perhaps I should look for him. My eyesight is quite keen, I would not have overlooked someone on my way here.

[ Whoever it is, he might be lost in all this...whatever this even is. ]