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

Comments

[summonere]

Do I look like I'm made of nanobots, lady? I'm a demon!

Angela is missing out on a mouthy tirade, and it is V who seems to catch onto this. He Reaches over and closes the bird's set of beaks.

"She can't hear you," he says. "So no need to shout in my ear."

The bird shakes its head loose irritably, large wings span extending in a show of defiance. One of the wings does indeed graze V's head, sweeping hair into his face. The bird is not apologetic.

"This is one of my familiars," he explains for Angela's benefit while glowering sidelong at the jerk that just hit him.

[mercyful]

"Familiars," she repeats, recalling the word from stories with magic. She had grown out of them rather quickly in her childhood and had focused on science instead. That doesn't, of course, mean there isn't a scientific explanation for what she's just witnessed; it just means she hasn't worked it out yet.

"It's unusual that I can't hear them," she continues. "Can you perhaps hear at a frequency my ears can't detect?"

[summonere]

"He's normally unpleasantly audible to everyone," V corrects with a jab at his very crass demon bird. "He is, however, made of magic and his core may be interacting differently in this world."

He can take a look, in fact. The bird collapses down in a fine black particulate mist that swirls around purple sphere of energy. V holds this in his palm, examining it back and forth.

While he does this, he humorously confides to Angela, "It would be inconvenient if I could no longer use him as a distraction."

[mercyful]

"I see." Unfortunately Angela won't agree that it's magic. There's no such thing! Magic is just another word for something that science has yet to explain. So in her mind, that's what this is. After all, didn't she see Gabriel in Cairo, moving in a strange black mist that encircled him as he fired his guns?

"Do you need to distract people often?"

[summonere]

"Demons," he corrects, distracted. The composition of the core seems the same, feels the same. He'll have to investigate further another time. For now, he just closes his hand. This places the bird back where he belongs, and returns the tattoos to V's arm.

"But, he is also a much better conversationalist than I am."

So yes, he does find the need to distract people sometimes. Mouthy birds interrupting otherwise sensitive conversations helped V to avoid saying things he didn't feel like saying.

[mercyful]

"I'm afraid I only know of demons from stories," she admits. The word is familiar, but she's lacking context. Perhaps he'll fill her in. Perhaps not, if he really finds himself such a poor conversationalist.

"Then it's a pity I can't hear him. I wonder what I might be missing out on. Hopefully something more intriguing than migratory patterns."

[summonere]

If it's demons you want to talk about, he can talk all day. His conversational skills begin to let him down in the fact that he is 47 days old and has never lived a normal human life. He has no daily drudgery to submit for small talk.

"Demons are spawn of the demon realms. They are a primary malevolent race that is empowered by human blood and destruction. At the lower levels of their chain of command they have an insect-like quality, both in their internal hierarchy and their intellectual capacities." He rattles that right off like he's been studying it for all of his apparent life. "The higher level ranks aspire to be King, and the king and his circle aspire to be gods."

[mercyful]

Angela listens in rapt attention at learning something new, and since she can't see these demons for herself (which is a good thing, she's sure), she can only offer an opinion on what little he's said. And of course try to learn more. What is she if not a researcher? Well, she's several things, but that's a big part of her.

"They sound monstrous. How are they empowered by human blood and destruction? I can see consuming the blood, but that's only my first thought. How does the act of destruction itself contribute as well?"

[summonere]

"In the form of clout, I suppose you could call it. They're very driven by their delusions of grandeur and the hunt for infamy among their own kind."

Demons are not subtle and they are not humble.

"The demon realms were sealed off by one of their commanders who... spontaneously developed a conscience, but they often find their way to the human realm to wreak havoc all the same."

Probably because V's original self kept inviting them.

[mercyful]

"Ah, that makes sense." And makes her thankful once again that she doesn't have these demons in her own world. Sure, there were gangs and organizations who caused destruction, so the concept of doing it for clout isn't wholly unknown to her, but he makes it sound like the main enemy in his world are these demons.

"Interesting. They aren't known to have a conscious to start with, but this one developed one? I wonder what triggered that change."

[summonere]

"The love of his human wife, I assume," V's smile is a bit tired and sad, but he knows the humor of only just now introducing that piece of information. It provides important context. "A whole religion sprung up around his sense of justice. Some humans see him as the savior of their entire race and believe that he guides their world still."

No one knows where Sparda is. The story of his two half-demon sons would be a much different one if they did.

[mercyful]

"Well, that's quite romantic, I suppose, though that does raise the question of what she saw in a demon." Always practical, Angela would rather have answers than swoon over the plot of a romance novel.

[summonere]

"Only she we would know, and she's been dead a long time now."

Sounds enough like some old tale that can't even be corroborated. He doesn't mention that she's his mother. Kind of. That she is only 'kind of' his mother makes it a very long story to get into with a new acquaintance.