Personification Life OOC IX [CLOSED]

[Monfrox]

He's baaaa~aack.

Oh shit...

[Torsiedelle]

Cer said we could choose whether or not to remember the Zalgo events this time around.

And after posting in a different RP, I'm done for the night, see you guys!

EDIT: Toscha's gonna' start freezing pretty soon, someone might want to help.

I can send Jasmine to him.

[Fvaarniimar]

I am so confused. Woohoo!

In other news, I'm going to sleep. Will attempt to wake up if you reply to Nick, Rmwtyliin, or Kwa'a.

[Rygondria]

you take away a mans gun and give him a broomstick. He will beat you over the head with it.

[Fvaarniimar]

*Looks around* ah, never mind methinks. Night...

[Swith Witherward]

Hello peeps! Goodnight peeps! It was a long day for me, and I have one more thing to wrap up, and then I'm going to bed.

[Monfrox]

Hello peeps! Goodnight peeps! It was a long day for me, and I have one more thing to wrap up, and then I'm going to bed.

*hugs*

Night, Swith!

[Northwest Slobovia]

Hello peeps! Goodnight peeps!

/peeps in Swith's general direction.

[Fvaarniimar]

Hello peeps! Goodnight peeps! It was a long day for me, and I have one more thing to wrap up, and then I'm going to bed.

Night! Sweet dreams!

[Giovenith]

Hello peeps! Goodnight peeps! It was a long day for me, and I have one more thing to wrap up, and then I'm going to bed.

*cradles and sings lullaby*

[Tiltjuice]

Z for the fennec.

[Mincaldenteans]

The Irish Wrestling Chicken...

[Tsuyoi Tekikoku]

The Irish Wrestling Chicken...

Tsu's worst enemy..

[Mincaldenteans]

The Irish Wrestling Chicken...

Tsu's worst enemy..

-eats kettle corn and watches-

[Northwest Slobovia]

Application:

Your NS Nation's Nickname: Slobo

Character Name: Sanford “Sandy” Bela

Character Gender: male

Character Species (nation personification, human, alien, etc): human

Character Physical Description (height, weight, apparent age, actual age): dark brown hair, ruddy complexion, hazel eyes, 5' 10”, 185#, appears/is 37 years old

URL to Character Picture, if any:

Powers and Skills Overview: magic (some), alchemy (a little), martial arts (some), owns one magic dealie (a staff)

Primary Skill or Power: Apollonius' Fifth Metamorphosis: This spell turns Sanford into Pegasus. Not a pegasus, but the Pegasus, the child of Poseidon and Medusa, birthed when Medusa's blood mixed with seafoam after Medusa was killed by Perseus, and raised by the Muses on Mount Helicon. That Pegasus.

Pegasus is, of course, a large, strikingly handsome, flying white horse. He's capable of sustained flight at 40m/sec (90 MPH), and by the Grace of the Muses, only very powerful beings can affect his flight. (He can be wounded as normal, but not grounded by being trapped in a mere mundane net.) As another gift of the Muses, Pegasus hears magic as music, and has a keen ear for it, allowing him to hear magic from a great distance and learn a lot about the magic being worked from its sound. Pegasus can carry a rider (or two, in a pinch).

Pegasus can fight like, well, a big flying horse. Being kicked by Pegasus is gonna hurt, and you don't want him to land on you. However, he's not a skilled fighter; kicking, bucking, biting, and running people over are just things horses do.

Power Weaknesses/Flaws: Pegasus tends to produce strong emotional reactions in people who see him: adoration, awe, hatred, envy. This makes it rather hard for him to mingle with most people (Heroes, Gods, and other powerful beings are unaffected). Being an Immortal, Pegasus' presence is easily noticed over long distances (hundreds of meters) by those sensitive to the supernatural. His wingbeats make a loud, distinctive sound, so he's not at all sneaky in flight, though he's eerily silent if he's just gliding. (Figure a 4:1 glide ratio if it matters: he drops a meter for every four meters flown. Pegasus glides better than a brick, but not as well as a bird.)

Being a large horse, Pegasus can't really communicate. The best he can do is play trick horse, nodding or shaking his head, neighing, or stamping his hooves. Likewise, he can't do much more than clumsily handle objects with his hooves or teeth. Pegasus has trouble moving around in buildings because he's so big, and may be unable to fit through doors. Finally, when Sanford returns to his normal form, he's exhausted: the spell saves up all the effort casting and maintaining it until then.

Like most of Sanford's spells, the Fifth Metamorphosis takes a few seconds of chanting and gesturing to cast, so it's not the easiest to do while otherwise busy (fighting, for example)

Secondary Skill or Power: Apollonius's Sixth Metamorphosis: This shapeshifting spell allows Sanford to take on any humanoid form. This spell can be cast silently, a minor bonus.

Power Weaknesses/Flaws: It's not a disguise spell, so Sanford can't copy somebody else's appearance. Nor does it affect his clothing, so he needs to arrange something suitable for his new form, especially if it's a different size than he is. The spell is a bit tiring to keep up, so if Sanford is doing anything other than (slowly) walking and talking, he's limited in how long he can maintain it.

Other magic:

* Mage Sight (an ability, not a spell): Sanford can see magic. He can see that an object or spell is magic, and get an idea how powerful the magic is. Sometimes, especially for powerful magic, he has an idea of the kind of magic it is (or most powerful kind of magic in a complex spell or object). Flaw: his Mage Sight is a bit nearsighted, so beyond 5m it starts to blur – he can't always tell what specifically is magic – and it's useless beyond 20m.

* Hypatia's Gate to the Worlds: a dimensional travel spell, which brought him to Bielefleld. The Gate opens into alternate Earths (Earth-like worlds?), each in its own timeline. Flaw: it's difficult to cast properly, especially for one as little skilled in magic as Sanford. Opening the Gate requires an hour-long ritual. {OOC note: this is a plot device for getting Sanford to PL, and unless dimension travel is common in PL, I don't intend on using it in play.}

* Four wolf spells: three of them boost his senses to something like a wolf's senses. One spell lets him see in the dark, another gives him sharp hearing, and the third gives him excellent senses of smell and taste, even letting Sanford track people by their smell. The fourth spell makes wolves and other canids friendly towards him. He can usually get them to follow his wishes, but the effect is like they act like well-trained dogs; he doesn't have supernatural abilities to command them per se. Flaw: these spells last only 20 minutes per casting, so Sanford finds himself frequently recasting them during routine uses, like walking around at night.

* Three convenience spells: the Ever-full Cup allows Sanford to fill containers with any beverage he's ever drunk (up to a couple of gallons). The Critiques of the Heat and Chill allow him to remain comfortable in extremes of normal temperatures. He can walk around in below-zero cold without getting frostbite, and explore blazing deserts in summer without dropping from the heat. Neither will protect from more extreme heat or cold (fire, magical cold attacks, etc). Weaknesses: They're “flavor” spells or mere special effects. They don't really do anything Sanford couldn't do with mundane tools, they're just handy.

Alchemy: Sanford has several books of alchemical methods and a small collection of alchemy/chemistry equipment. He's learned some chemistry, too, as it's helpful for refining some ingredients. Sanford has recipes for a couple dozen potions, oils, dusts, incenses, and pastiles (small, simple smoke bombs) that produce magical effects.

Alchemical Weaknesses and Flaws: Alchemy always requires the right ingredients, and some are quite rare. Making potions and such takes time, at least hours and more typically days, and making more than six or eight doses at a time is beyond Sanford's skill and equipment. Sanford isn't the most skilled at alchemy either, so he sometimes screws up.

The Extensible Staff: The one enchanted object Sanford's found is a mere stick... but it can change size. At its smallest, it's barely bigger than a pencil, and at its longest, it makes an excellent vaulting pole. It can change shape slightly, so Sanford sometimes uses it as a flat-headed cane. Sanford's gotten pretty good at using it as a vaulting pole, as it's proved handy for escaping people trying to kill him. He can even use it for leaping attacks, though he's not the best at it. With a running start, Sanford can use the vaulting pole to leap up to 10m high and 20m across. (Yeah, it's longer than an Olympic vaulting pole, and more like what ancient soldiers used to assault fortifications before the scaling ladder was invented.)

Skills

* Stick Fighting: Sanford's spent a fair amount of time in a dojo learning how to use the Extensible Staff as a weapon. He can not only strike and parry with it, but also disarm and trip people too. He's an OK martial artist – a mid kyu rank (a green or blue belt) – so he's much better than an untrained person, but no match for a “serious” martial artist (dan/black belt ranked).

* Historian: Sanford is, above all else, an academic historian. He specializes in Greek history, especially the period from the founding of the Classical city-states to the conquest of Greece by Alexander the Great. Sanford is intimately familiar with the area and people, and speaks and reads Greek fluently.

Character Background/Biography:

Two years ago, Sanford Bela was a happily married historian specializing in classical Greek history at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. On a research trip to New York, Sanford found a scroll in the Met Museum's collections with text only he could see superimposed on a copy of Apollonius' Inclinations. He eventually figured out that the text was a pair of spells, one of which let him turn into Pegasus, and the other allowed him to change his appearance. The spells proved surprisingly easy to learn despite their power. As Sanford later found out, that was one of their author's specialities.

Sanford spent most of a month exulting in turning into Pegasus before his flights over the rooftops of Philadelphia caught the notice of other … things with magical and supernatural abilities. Sanford was sucked into a many-sided war between forces he didn't understand and wasn't able to handle. If not for chancing onto some allies, Sanford surely would have been killed.

With his allies' help and protection, Sanford was able to learn more sorcery, little alchemy, and – with their cover – even a bit of mundane self-defense. Sanford's allies were scattered after a crushing defeat, and Sanford and his wife fled to Europe, both for safety and to search for more magical knowledge.

Europe's security proved fleeting, and Sanford was again discovered, despite elaborate precautions. However, by then he'd come across a spell that could take him to other worlds. It was a difficult spell, but after a few test jaunts to places that were easy to reach, Sanford tried for an idyllic forested world where he and his wife could rest for a while. The return trip to Earth didn't go as planned, however, and Sanford and his wife arrived in a strange city...

Why the character is in Bielefeld/Occupation: Failed attempt to return to Earth by magic.

URL to Apartment Picture: http://www.felmiatika.com/wp-content/up ... modern.jpg

Link to RP examples: (this MUST be a DIRECT LINK to your IC post in an RP, NOT a link to the RP thread itself. If you don't have examples, make your biography good.)

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=307045 (Due to the way the guy running that universe ran things, he posted all OPs, but the first post is my text, as seen from my posts in the rest of the thread.)

viewtopic.php?p=19389190#p19389190

IMPORTANT:
One paragraph that sums up your character. This paragraph is what we'll use on your player tab on the first page of the thread. This MUST be brief. Your tab will contain a link to your application so people will have full details: Sanford is a quiet, professional historian turned jumpy, outmatched amateur sorceror. Sanford's playful curiosity proved a bad match for supernatural guerilla war, and Sanford ended up on a losing side, pursued by foes he only partially understood. A refugee in his own world, Sanford sought sanctuary in another. Botched wizardry brought him and his wife to Bielefeld, and while bewildered by their new environment, they hope it will be safer than the one they left.

Approved but I'll need an app for his wife even if she's mundane.

...and one for her:

Your NS Nation's Nickname: Slobo

Character Name: Amanda Bela (married to Sanford “Sandy” Bela)

Character Gender: female

Character Species (nation personification, human, alien, etc): human

Character Physical Description (height, weight, apparent age, actual age): curly, platinum blonde hair; fair skin; big, brown eyes; 5' 3”, 115#; 32 years old, but looks a bit older. Amanda has a plain face, but many people think she has simply amazing hair, and both men and women have been known to ask her how she keeps it that way. Amanda has no idea; it's just always been that way.

URL to Character Picture, if any:

Primary Skill or Power: God's Advocate: Amanda is an excellent trial lawyer. No, scratch that: she's an incredible trial lawyer. She can get juries to lock up guilty people and throw away the key on only the sketchiest of circumstantial evidence, and can convince juries to bring down the Wrath of Tort on all sorts of slippery characters. Criminals have accepted all sorts of plea bargains and settlements on hearing that Amanda's going to represent the DA or the plaintiff.

Amanda's the same way when defending the innocent. She has gotten somebody acquitted of murder despite them being caught with a smoking gun in their hand. The “victim” was eventually shown to be an enforcer for a loan shark, and Amanda's client was rightly defending himself.

Amanda doesn't have any special sense for who's innocent or guilty, God's Advocate just manifests when she's prosecuting somebody guilty or defending somebody innocent. She's not even aware that something unusual is happening until she sees or hears people's reactions to what she's saying, and then she knows when she's got somebody dead to rights/pure as the driven snow.

Amanda convinced Sandy to watch her in court, but even when she was acting as God's Advocate, Sandy saw nothing special about her. Apparently God's Advocate isn't magic, at least not as Sandy recognizes it. Amazing insight and a talent for speaking passionately? A divine gift? Neither Amanda nor Sandy is sure how God's Advocate works.

Power Weaknesses/Flaws: God's Advocate only works when she's accusing the guilty or protecting the innocent (Amanda doesn't think this is a disadvantage, but it does limit her lawyerly powers). It also only works in court or other formal settings (Amanda often forgets this, and is surprised when people don't believe her in “civilian” life). Significantly, it doesn't work on her husband Sandy, who blithely ignores her warnings about the sorts of supernatural beings to associate with. Also significantly, Amanda isn't the best judge of supernatural beings, and she has falsely accused one who turned out to be legitimately angelic, much to her intense regret.

Amanda is otherwise just a good lawyer, better trained and more dedicated than most, but not beyond any of her former law school classmates.

Secondary Skill or Power: It May Be a Ladies' Gun, But it Will Kill a Man Just Fine: Amanda is a natural with small caliber pistols. She can just pick one up and put shots through the X ring of a target the first time, every time. She doesn't know why; she never even held a gun before Sandy found a new sort of rival to disagree with. Amanda's not a dead shot in combat, but she can outshoot most Philly cops, and even professional soldiers don't look down on her.

Additionally, It Will Kill a Thing Just Fine. One advantage of being married to an alchemist (and being a bit of one too) is that Amanda has a few clips of silver bullets, cold iron bullets, and odder things that work on supernatural beings that typical lead bullets just can't touch.

Power Weaknesses/Flaws: Only works on pistols .32 caliber and smaller. Amanda doesn't have lots of “special” bullets either.

Skills

Alchemy: Amanda's picked up a bit from Sandy and his translations of Greek and Arabic alchemy scrolls, folios, and books. She's nowhere near as good as her husband, and is hampered by her lack of Mage Sight (she can't just see whether something is working or not, she has to test it).

Singing: Amanda has a pleasant voice. She got a little training in church choir as a girl, but mostly, she just sounds good when she sings. Amanda's pretty good at picking up the lyrics to new songs too, which helps. While she can read music, she can't sight-sing the way a professional singer can.

Little Suzy Home-maker: Amanda is above average at typical Being An Adult skills: she can cook pretty well, balance a checkbook without trouble, fix typical household objects quickly, write a thank-you note with feeling, and other do other important but dull-sounding things quickly, easily, and efficiently. She'll never be mistaken for a master chef, accountant, repairman, or any other specialist, but she never fails to be surprised at how many people can't properly manage their own lives.

Francophone: Amanda had to study a language in high school and college, and she chose French. She's more or less fluent, but other than the little bit of time she and Sandy were lying low in Nantes, she hasn't had much opportunity to practice it.

Character Background/Biography: Amanda's been a “smart kid” all her life, but her gift didn't really bloom until she started working for the Philadelphia Public Defender's Office. Her career took off at that point, and she switched to the City Attorney's office to help break up an organized crime ring. Eventually, she was hired by a fancy law firm to argue complicated civil suits. That made Amanda a pretty penny, but she continued to take pro bono work defending poor people, and a special clause in her employment contract let her take on special criminal prosecutions at city request.

Amanda had already met Sandy by then; they met when she was an incoming law student and he was a junior tenure-track professor. They bumped into each other sometimes at parties near campus, but they didn't really hit it off until Sandy invited her to his apartment for a dinner date. Amanda was charmed to discover that Sandy had trained his parrot to say romantic things to her; Amanda thought that was sweet, and decided to keep them both. They married about four years ago.

Amanda was initially disturbed by Sandy's claims to be able to work magic, then fascinated when they turned out to be true. She'd never ridden a horse before, much less a stunningly-handsome flying one. Amanda's fascination turned to fear when Sandy blundered into enemies more powerful than he was, then to relief as they both were sheltered by some “friends” Sandy had made.

Amanda's fell apart in sync with Sandy's when they were on the run from Sandy's friends' enemies; that was when Amanda discovered that she could kill a man in cold blood (also a woman, two werewolves, and a scaly man-thing with yellow blood). But now that Sandy seems to have accidentally brought the both of them to a new world, she's hoping she can forget all that for good.

Why the character is in Bielefeld/Occupation: Failed attempt to return to Earth by magic.

URL to Apartment Picture: http://www.felmiatika.com/wp-content/up ... modern.jpg

Link to RP examples: (this MUST be a DIRECT LINK to your IC post in an RP, NOT a link to the RP thread itself. If you don't have examples, make your biography good.)

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=307045 (Due to the way the guy running that universe ran things, he posted all OPs, but the first post is my text, as seen from my posts in the rest of the thread.)

viewtopic.php?p=19389190#p19389190


IMPORTANT:
One paragraph that sums up your character. This paragraph is what we'll use on your player tab on the first page of the thread. This MUST be brief. Your tab will contain a link to your application so people will have full details: Amanda is a sorcerer's apprentice's wife. She'd rather be known as a gifted, personable attorney, but that hasn't been so important for over a year now. Amanda's tired of running for her life, but is looking for something more fulfilling than going out in a blaze of glory. A few weeks of arguing a complex case before a jury would be great, and even a few days in a quiet city would be acceptable.


Edit: I added links to both characters' applications to link them together, and added a mention that Sanford knows a bit of Arabic (got left out me copying my draft to NS).

[Rygondria]

well i have no idea what to post.

[Fvaarniimar]

well i have no idea what to post.

Why don't you have Reginald go join one of the groups that's formed?

[Torsiedelle]

well i have no idea what to post.

Why don't you have Reginald go join one of the groups that's formed?

If Bran can have Toscha wait a moment, or whatever, I can have Jasmine come over and help Reginald, then he can join that group.

I have an idea just for a post, actually. I can just quickly have Jasmine break off, help him, then return to Toscha in a few posts.

[Torsiedelle]

Anyone else having issues with post search?

[Rygondria]

Why don't you have Reginald go join one of the groups that's formed?

If Bran can have Toscha wait a moment, or whatever, I can have Jasmine come over and help Reginald, then he can join that group.

I have an idea just for a post, actually. I can just quickly have Jasmine break off, help him, then return to Toscha in a few posts.

ok go ahead.

[Torsiedelle]

A'ight.

Bran can wait a few posts. I don't think he's online ATM anyway.

[Fvaarniimar]

Anyone else having issues with post search?

Intermittently. Actually happened yesterday as well, and I know that circa 8 hours before this time either sat or sun it wasn't very cooperative.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Anyone else having issues with post search?

Intermittently. Actually happened yesterday as well, and I know that circa 8 hours before this time either sat or sun it wasn't very cooperative.

There's a nice, long thread on Technical full of people saying it's broken. [violet] probably forget to feed the server hamsters.

[Fvaarniimar]

A'ight.

Bran can wait a few posts. I don't think he's online ATM anyway.

Guess who is probably about to have a baaaaaaad headache?
(Aka: Posted for Nick.)

[The BranRiech]

I'm back! I'll post for Mon in a few, and I can wait for Jasmine to come back as well.

Downloading a game that I hear will make me depressed!