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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[sidenote]

[Hold on, he's briefly looking away to watch this bird deep throat a slice of pizza, possibly the only thing so far today that's earnestly surprised him. That's an incident he just witnessed, for sure.

Hmm! Alright!]

Ah— the magic, what else?

[He cannot say he particularly enjoyed, in hindsight, being the token subservient character, but objectively: fascinating magic, indeed.]

[summonere]

[ His lips purse and he makes a faint noise of discontent. Only after a moment does he begrudgingly agree, ]

Yes, I suppose so. It's certainly beyond my means to conjure any of this.

[ He would have a lot less problems on his mind if he did. ]

[sidenote]

A mage, then? You are the first I've encountered in this place.

[Besides himself, but who's counting. And besides, perhaps, The Place, but doubly who's counting, because it's no Fade and therefore it's not any better than "impressive."

Anyway, human mage. Slightly better than Regular human, if he has to pick.]

You aren't going to start showing off all your unique magical talents, are you? I work poorly on an empty stomach.

[summonere]

Not in the slightest.

[ The giant bird gives an offended squawk. So V clicks his fingers and the bird disintegrates back onto his body. ]

Don't mind him.

[sidenote]

That does count, you know.

[As showing off. Neat trick, admittedly, but it does count as showing off, sir. A beat, and then, in no small part amused:]

Were you carrying a bird around the whole time inside the illusion?

[summonere]

[ Ah the illusion. That really dampens down that hint of a smirk that had started to show on V's face. ]

He was in my portrait, but I didn't see him while I was there. And I didn't know to summon him.

[ The bird was very protective of his safety, withering away at the hands of some lover was not a fate Griffon would have allowed. ]

[sidenote]

All the more pity, then. Forgetting how to be a mage at all is a powerful form of suggestion, I suppose.

[Not that he's saying one way or the other that that happened also to him, because then he'd have to dwell on it, and boy, he doesn't want to do that. He is far too old and magic to think too hard about being rendered powerless.]

What do you think it is? Mage circle? A handful of demons with nothing better to do?

[summonere]

This is subtle for demons.

[ Even the demons intelligent enough for such a complex illusion had delusions of grandeur that have to be presented. Pizza party outside of the library is pretty humble and mundane. ]

[sidenote]

[It is infinite and free, which is grandeur to people who like pizza, probably. So, others.]

Most things demons do are too subtle for humans, as a rule. [A beat; ah.] No offense.

[summonere]

[ Now V is giving him a focused and considering look. ]

Perhaps that would be more interesting. The demons of my realm are cruel, power hungry. The lower ranks are mindless insect types, the higher ranks want infamy and destruction. Every once in a while, someone tries to become a god.

[sidenote]

[Felassan purses his lips and hums before he says something like That just sounds like people. If he had another dandelion he would be chewing it for self control, but alas.]

Perhaps your demons are bigger idiots than the ones I've met. Or perhaps when you live long enough, you tune out the flashier nobodies out of habit.

[summonere]

A long-lived species, then? How lucky for you.

[ Don't mind him, he's only 47 days old and already falling to pieces. ]

[sidenote]

That is, [he purses his lips again, brow furrowing slightly.] Not the usual response. I suppose you don't know many elves.

[Because humans that know elves don't call them lucky for anything, full stop. Completely impossible.]

[summonere]

None.

[ While someone he is quite irritating about all the things he knows, this isn't something where it serves a single purpose to pretend he does. ]

I don't believe that's a species in my realms. Only a fiction.

[ Although what is 'fiction' going to mean in the magic library. ]

[sidenote]

[He doesn't say it, but he also doesn't try to pretend he's not looking over significantly at the big library that just made them all play in storyland for a few hours.

Well, anyway.]

I can assure you that I am as real as you and your bird, if that helps.

[summonere]

[ Calling the bird 'real' has a touch of irony. A fading nightmare anchored into a fading human, diving straight into a suicide mission. ]

Or we've all just been pulled out of our respective books.

[ He is being a touch sarcastic, but that might also very well be within the capacity of the magic here. The boundaries are currently extremely undefined. ]

And we're all as fictional as each other.

[sidenote]

That does not necessarily make what I said any less true.

[Just in the wrong direction! It's probably fine; he is simply not very bothered by the possibility that they're all some measure of imaginary. He nods toward the library itself.]

Who knows, someone may come out of there and explain it all any moment now.

[summonere]

Wouldn't that be anti-climactic.

[What a shitty sense of humor, V.]

[sidenote]

What kind of story ends when the villain gives away their secrets? Show some spirit.

[Eat some pizza, maybe that helps.]

[summonere]

I don't know that I have time for another villain in my life.

[ Old douchebag is enough for him, thanks. ]

[sidenote]

Something tells me that isn't up to us, as if it has ever been.

[A shrug! Life sucks, wait for the t-shirt.]

What is your name, or shall I call you bird mage?

[summonere]

You can call me V.

[ He could go by whatever he wants, no one knows him here, and yet he sticks to this lazy, uncreative pseudonym. ]

[sidenote]

[Hmm. That is a letter, so Felassan can only assume that it is indeed a pseudonym, because what parents would ever-- but it is still... a letter.

He hums.]

Are you sure you wouldn't like 'bird mage'?

[summonere]

It's devil summoner, actually.

[ Leave it to V to 'well actually' someone. ]