The Crystal Cult [OOC]

[JNAProductions]

System: Freeform.
Player Count: Not more than four.
Style of Play: Action! Investigation! Heroics!
Allowed Content: Anything you can imagine.
Character Creation: Use a post in this thread (and later the OOC) or a Google Doc or whatever works.




Backstory: Skirt length.
Experience: Competent, but not perfect.
Wealth: Per backstory.
Alignment: Heroic.



Other Notes: Not that I can think of for the moment.


The shining city of Altenheim, centered around a large, floating chunk of land, raised eons ago in some magical ritual. The nobility lives primarily on this central area, known as The Spire, with esoteric means of descent, from griffons to personal conjurers who can teleport them to even odder things.

Today sees a celebration, held for Princess Elibazeth Fleur. She has reached adulthood, and King Jothanan Fleur is holding a gala, having a parade throughout all of Altenheim, and being a little generous on taxes for the occassion.

You are...
-Someone who shouldn't've been invited to the gala. Maybe you snuck in. Maybe there was a mixup. But you're here!
-Someone who just barely managed to get in. You might be from a merchant family, and they saw this as a networking opportunity, pulling strings to make you get there.
-Someone who belongs there. You're of noble blood yourself!

Please repost and finalize all PC details.

IC Thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?662655-The-Crystal-Cult-IC&p=25922635)

[NontheistCleric]

I have more I want to add on her relationship with the Margrave, but I'll put what I have here for now. Elaborated on her magic a bit from the recruitment thread.



https://i.ibb.co/5rf5C7Q/Marble-Girl-VII.jpg


Madam M
The Marble Girl

A living statue of marble, the Marble Girl has served the Margraves of Khendia for over two centuries. She was the boyhood companion of the grandfather of the grandfather of the current Margrave, Nathaniel Faron. Instead of the more common conjurer, she is a transmuter who turned herself to stone to live forever.

There has recently been some tension between herself and Nathaniel. He is old and wants the same immortality procedure she used for himself, but there are magical reasons she can't just do it on someone else. If she's being really honest with herself, she isn't even sure she'd want to if she could. As a stopgap, she's been keeping him transmuted into an inanimate statue for extended periods, only reviving him when the margraviate needs serious decisions made.

Nathaniel's son Thomas, Count of Uktor (a subsidiary title of his father's), is the effective head of the house most of the time, due to the Margrave's situation. As it has been with generations of Farons, the Marble Girl is a trusted retainer to him and something of a favoured aunt. Still, he isn't so young anymore himself, almost fifty. No doubt he has his own unspoken dissatisfactions...
She is perfect–or close to perfect–at the transmutation of her own body, and stone-or-metal-based transmutations (although she isn't limited to that). It also helps if she's very familiar with the person or thing she is trying to change, so she can work with the Farons almost as easily as herself.

Inanimate objects can be transmuted permanently, but when she gives something animation, like a griffon conjured from dust or just a stony griffon-golem, it will require eventual recharging with magic. Her most painstaking creations can go months without additional input from her, while something made on the spot might only last a day or less. Even 'living' creations will expire after this time if they are made wholly with her power, and generally, living material requires more time and effort for her to transmute.

Her powers depend strongly on the extent to which she can conceptualize what she is doing. It doesn't matter so much if the conceptualization is actually correct, but this does have implications when she tries to affect creatures that aren't herself or made using her power. She can turn someone flesh-to-stone wholesale by 'locking' their original form entirely inside the new one (or killing them if she doesn't care about them), but changing only part of a living thing is risky, because her idea of how that part works might not be how it really works, and that makes everything go wrong almost immediately. If someone was wounded, she could staunch the flow of blood, but not much else directly if she wanted them to be safe. With someone familiar to her like Nathaniel Faron (who is about eighty and whom she has known since his birth), she can go a bit further–fix a broken bone or ease his gout, but not reverse his aging or anything like that.

She has a sort of sense for the internal structure of things she touches, which helps in her work, and a little ability with mental magic, because it overlaps in certain places with her speciality. However, she will never be truly adept at the latter.

The Marble Girl is very proficient at simply practicing her craft, but translating it into action, investigation and heroics is something she does not have a lot of experience with.

[Plaids]

The Brown Knight

'I should be there amongst the waste and refuse. My absence is a sign of the kingdom's dereliction to its tenets of excellence!
Tavaris Blackmon "The Brown Knight"

Backstory:
The Brown Knight was once favored member of the noble house Zuerlein. With the martial prowess and a mastery of beasts and survival skills he gained the houses favor winning the title Green Knight of Zuerlein. With his title he earned the reward of strutting through the noble estates manicured forest stocked with game and cutting the fattest cuts of meat at their dinner parties. With fighting skills and etiquette befitting an iron gauntlet wrapped in silk his favor and rewards grew to include invitations to royal celebrations.

His status became one of the many casualties of the chaos left festering within the house. His secret dalliance with the third eldest daughter elicited an uproar at the Zuerlein gala leaving several broken noses and reputations.

After being subdued he was tried and found guilty of conspiracy to sabotage the house in an expedited trial. His sentence was the removal of his title public service. The service of the cleansing of the city's waterways with the dung sweepers guild, a fool's errand. Tasked with cleansing the winding tunnels, clouds of miasma, and vile creatures inhabiting the refuse his silk was exchanged for stained denim. Under the command of the Elder Dung Sweepers he works his ignoble task now known as the Brown Knight amongst his former peers.

Recently the waterways have become more dangerous and hideous as fecal golems and animated refuse rise to assault the lowest stewards of the city. The warnings and requests for reinforcements have gone unheeded. Seeking the ears of the nobility the Brown Knight has been dispatched to the celebrations with an embossed and embellished gold leaf invitation of his own gained during his service to Zuerleins, defunct as the invitation may be.
Now within the celebration the ears of the attention of the ruling authorities and possibly his redemption is within reach.

Abilities:
Tracking and pathfinding - Previously used for sport and pageantry but now these tasks are used for cleansing the sewers and his survival.
Martial combat - No longer used to project the prestige of noble house but now used to fight the everyday threats to the Dung Sweeper Guild
Animal handling - The majestic pure breeds are no longer available to him, but animals are still a part of his occupation. The guild often sends him out with a canary to avoid unstable clouds of miasma.
Royal Etiquette - He learned the custom and etiquette of the nobility in his service to them. While doesn't miss practicing these traditions he sure misses being in the places where the etiquette come in handy.

Weakness:
Pride, culminating in lack of prudence discretion.

Tell me if I'm missing any requirements or backstory details.

[JNAProductions]

IC Thread is live! (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?662655-The-Crystal-Cult-IC&p=25922635)

Edit: Could you both post your PC's actual names? Not just titles. :P

[NontheistCleric]

I was thinking that she probably does just go by 'M'. Whether it stands for 'marble' or anything else is up for interpretation. Some people might mistake it for a shortening of 'Emma', and she isn't that interested in correcting them.

To Thomas and Nathaniel and the rest of the family, she's 'Aunt M', but 'Madam M' to other people.

Also, she's not a conjurer, so I'm going to interpret 'entry portal' in the IC as a fancy arch for the Margrave's carriage to land through.

[JNAProductions]

I was thinking that she probably does just go by 'M'. Whether it stands for 'marble' or anything else is up for interpretation. Some people might mistake it for a shortening of 'Emma', and she isn't that interested in correcting them.

To Thomas and Nathaniel and the rest of the family, she's 'Aunt M', but 'Madam M' to other people.

Also, she's not a conjurer, so I'm going to interpret 'entry portal' in the IC as a fancy arch for the Margrave's carriage to land through.

That's on me for misremembering your PC's abilities.
So yee, fancy entry arch.

[Dusk Raven]

I apologize for not posting, I've just... been forgetful. And also haven't thought of a way to integrate Emera.

Regardless, here is her info, copy-pasted.

Emera was ten when her powers began to manifest, when she started gaining the power of darkness, and started hearing the whispers, too faint to make out, but present all the same. It wasn’t long before word of her powers began to spread, and before her eleventh birthday she was kidnapped by a secretive cult known only as the Followers of the Eternal Dark. The cult had determined that her powers were due to her destiny as the avatar of the dark entity they worshiped. From that point on, she was both their prisoner and their chosen one, and they began to raise her to accept the role fate had for her.

Of course, this upbringing was interrupted after five years, when a group of good-aligned adventurers raided the camp’s base, seemingly wiping out the cult. They discovered Emera in her quarters, and since she was not hostile to them, they listened to her story of how she’d been kidnapped by the cult, and spared her. She told them she had nowhere to go, and asked to join them, promising to aid them with her powers. They accepted, and for a time she journeyed with them. She did not, at any point, tell them of her true nature, or why the cult had such an interest in her.

Over time, her powers grew, but so did the strength of the whispers in her mind. Though still mostly indistinct, and in an alien language, they occasionally became understandable, giving her fragments of advice or suggesting courses of action. The rest of the time, the whispers became soft background noise. Eventually, she even started to find it comforting. Likewise, she’s at peace with what she believes is her fate, to become a vessel for the darkness that lies beyond. The darkness without is her home, the darkness within is her strength. It flows out from her magic and flows through her very soul. When in the dark, she’s at peace. Without the darkness, she’s nothing. Or so she believes.

But there remains a question she cannot truly answer - is this inner peace and stability the true nature of the entity she serves? Or is it her own self shining through? Is her strength of will and determination because the darkness is always with her? Or perhaps… was the darkness drawn to her because of the strength of her soul?

https://i.imgur.com/0x2g4QN.jpg

[NontheistCleric]

Don't feel bad. I, too, have been abominably late with my first IC post.

Sorry about that, by the way.

[JNAProductions]

Let's figure out a bit in the OOC how to integrate Emera-if you've got a great idea, though, feel free to just skip to the IC. :)

[Plaids]

Introducing Emera to the scene shouldn't be too hard. It doesn't seem like she is or was associated with a noble house. Maybe be she could be working security with the adventuring company she is associated with?

@NontheistCleric
Also, I plan on having Tavaris interact with Marble Girl if there is some time for guests to mingle before the royal birthday celebration goes into full swing.

[JNAProductions]

Introducing Emera to the scene shouldn't be too hard. It doesn't seem like she is or was associated with a noble house. Maybe be she could be working security with the adventuring company she is associated with?

That'd make sense.

[Plaids]

My short term plans are to have Tavaris drop off his letter to some officials close to the king then try charm the Marble Lady.