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by Latvijas Otra Republika » Tue Jul 07, 2020 7:41 am
by Dyelli Beybi » Tue Jul 07, 2020 10:22 am
New Udonia wrote:Character DescriptionName: Cowal Fergal Mulloy
Personal Effects: A monochrome (black and white photograph) with him and Sibéal.
Gender: Male
Age: 19
Nationality: Irish
Appearance:
Background:What is your job: Factory Worker
Backstory: *snip*
Europa Undivided wrote:Character DescriptionName: Narek Ashjian
Personal Effects: A frying pan (yes, a frying pan), a little magnifying glass, two changes of clothes, a notebook and pen, and a revolver. Plus a black trench coat.
Gender: A Man
Age: 32
Nationality: Armenian
Appearance:
Other than these, he also keeps old photos of everyone he had lost in the Armenian Genocide.
Background:What is your job: Physiologist
Backstory:
*snip*
Latvijas Otra Republika wrote:Character DescriptionName: Elmer Sickle
Personal Effects: A wooden 1829 comb with half of it's bristles broken off, A rusty butter knife, an old framed picture of his mother, a paper letter.
Gender: Male
Age: 43
Nationality: Welsh
Appearance:
Background: Woolf farmer & former servant.What is your job Unemployed
Backstory: *snip*
by Reverend Norv » Tue Jul 07, 2020 12:06 pm
Character DescriptionName: Dr. Jean-Martin Isidore de Florac
Personal Effects: Several gabardine three-piece suits; several white oxford shirts; various silk neckties and gold cufflinks; a pocket watch and compass; a fine camelhair overcoat; one pair of dress shoes and one pair of hunting boots; a doctor's bag including a surgical kit; a broad-brimmed fedora; reading glasses; a Star Model 14 pistol, a souvenir of his military service; a French Model 1882 officer's sword, likewise; a box of service medals; a large flask of cognac; and two leather-bound books (a Huguenot Bible and a copy of Verlaine's Romances sans paroles).
Gender: Male
Age: 28 (D.O.B. 28 Oct. 1890)
Nationality: French, though not recognized as such by some Parisian conservatives: for Jean-Martin is of Huguenot faith, and was born in Algeria.
Appearance:A man of average height, trim but fit, Jean-Martin has a lean and wiry strength that suggests more hours spent in the saddle than in the weight room. His hair is reddish-brown, the color of dull bronze, and very curly; Jean-Martin wears it short, combed roughly back from a sharp widow's peak. His face is all angles, handsome in a sharp-boned and aristocratic way: firm jaw, narrow lips, an aquiline nose, a high forehead. The eyes are dark sea-green, the color of the ocean at dusk.
Jean-Martin's skin is naturally fair, but the Algerian sun has given it a constant pale-gold tan. White scars mark it: an ugly cicatrice of knotted tissue across the belly, a long white line on one thigh, a circular scar just beneath his clavicle. His left arm ends a few inches below the elbow; rather than use a prosthetic or hook, he usually simply pins up his sleeve to hide the stump, making it obvious that he lacks one hand.
Jean-Martin favors three-piece suits of hard-woven gabardine, as suitable for the hunt as for the city - though he is equally comfortable in a burnoose and slippers when at home. In the chill of the English winter, he often dons a camelhair overcoat. He wears a small, centuries-old bronze signet ring on his right pinky finger - the seal of the House of Florac. He often carries a sidearm in a shoulder holster, and uses brass-framed reading glasses to see up close, especially in dim light.
Background:What is your job? Jean-Martin spent most of the last four years as a French Army surgeon. He was invalided out of the Army after losing a hand at the Battle of La Malmaison, and completed his recovery a week or so after Armistice Day. Reluctant to return home to Oran, he has taken a temporary position at the Charing Cross Hospital in London, which needs even a one-handed and hard-drinking doctor to deal with the massive wave of influenza patients.
Backstory:I was born in Oran, a child of Algeria. I am the third generation of my family to grow up under the North African sun; my grandfather came to Algiers in 1852, fleeing the putsch of the Bonapartists. He was the last native scion of the noble House of Florac, a long line of Huguenot aristocrats in the remote mountains of the Gévaudan. There they had resisted the Catholic crown and then the godless Revolution for generations, and grown wise in the ancient secrets of those trackless mountain forests. My grandmother still told me tales, when I was small, of the great loup-garou of 1765, and of the pagan witches who gathered in the shadow of ancient Roman ruins. We remembered that origin, in my family. We remembered its lessons: that we were aristocrats, and carried the burden of leadership no less than the privilege of birth; that we were Huguenots, and arbitrary power had ever been our foe; and that the ancient places of the world hold more secrets than electric light can reveal.
But I was also a child of Africa. My grandfather had built an olive oil business in Algeria, far from the sneers of Bonapartists and Jesuits, and I grew up among twelve thousand olive trees and three hundred Algerian laborers on our estate outside Oran. I learned Arabic and Kabyle Berber with my native French, and preferred couscous and merguez to tripes à la mode de Caen. If my tutors taught me fencing and horsemanship, poetry and rhetoric, and all the other accoutrements of the French nobility, then my childhood friends taught me to haggle in the souk, and play the oud, and find my way through the trails of the Atlas mountains. In my adolescence, as it became clear that my parents could no longer stand the sight of each other, I spent my days more and more in the saddle: riding far into the dry highlands to sit beneath a cedar and do my schoolwork, and joining with my father's gamesmen to track and hunt the lions that preyed upon the sheep of those remote villages.
Once, when I was sixteen, one of those lions raked my leg with his claws, and my horse threw me. The gamesmen had refused to follow me on that hunt; they said that this mountain was cursed of ancient days. Well, I dragged myself into a cave, my trousers soaked through with blood. I struck a match, and I remember seeing faded figures painted on the wall of the cave: stylized men racing after great horned animals with spears. It seemed to me, in that moment, that I could see those ancient figures move across the wall - and I felt cold and dusty breath on the back of my neck, and darkness took me.
When I woke up, I was in the hospital. To this day, I do not know how I got there. I remember watching the doctors in Oran work on my leg with calm professionalism as my blood sprayed into their faces, and it was that experience that convinced me that I wanted to go into medicine. I wanted to have the same ice in my veins that these men had in theirs.
So off I went to the medical school at Algiers. We were a mixed bag, there: colons who felt more French than Algerian, and some who felt more Algerian than French, and a substantial number of Jews, and even a few Arabs. But we all knew that doctors trained in Paris would look down their noses at us for the rest of our careers. They were good years, those years of medical school. I had a few love affairs, smoked a little hashish, read all the symbolist poetry that my mother had refused to allow into our house. I did well in my classes and focused on surgery. I discovered, to my delight, that I did have that ice in my veins that I craved: that I could open a man like a fish, and look at his beating heart, and still keep focused on the task at hand.
Then the war came. We were exuberant in Algiers, exhilarated. None of us had ever seen Metz or Strasbourg; the lost provinces meant nothing to us. But we knew that the war meant a chance for all of us Africains to prove our worth, our loyalty to the Patrie. We volunteered in our droves. I had graduated medical school in May of 1914, and the guns of August were my celebration.
As for the war - what can I say of it that has not already been said? I was a captain in the Medical Corps, a field surgeon. I never went over the top with bayonet fixed, but we had our share of shelling at the triage stations close to the front lines. I slept in the same mud, wrapped in the same filthy greatcoat, and woke every morning to the same thunder of the guns and stink of rot and death. It seemed that I went years without seeing a tree, a blade of grass, a single living growing thing. I had a friend, another doctor - until he started crying all the time, and when I knew I couldn't make him better, I left him alone, so he shot himself behind the observation post. I was five months at Verdun, and spent three days huddled in the same hole, because the shelling was too intense for us even to try to practice medicine. When I close my eyes, I am back there still: in that scrape slowly flooding in the freezing rain, curled up covering my head, watching between my fingers like a frightened child as the mud slowly fills the hole and covers the faces of the dead.
Yes - mostly, I remember the dead. They were brought into my tent alive, missing arms or legs or eyes, faces deformed by gas and shrapnel, screaming for their mothers. I cut into them to try to clamp arteries, release tension in the thorax - all our scientific rationalizations for slicing a man's flesh with a scalpel while he begs you to stop. I cut into them, and they died. Then they brought me the next man. Every day, for four years. And each night to bed, to sleep, and to dreams of the blood of millions soaking the earth as a burnt offering to some dark god, only to wake at last to the sounds of the guns and the smell of rot from yesterday's bodies bloating, and to the knowledge that tomorrow will be exactly the same. That was the war.
In the end, it almost killed me. A German counterattack during La Malmaison: mad, crazed, desperate boys who ran through our trenches firing at anything that moved. They ran into the aid station and shot me - here, through the collarbone. The laws of war were a distant memory by '17. I grabbed a pistol and shot one of them in return. They tossed a grenade into the aid station and the shrapnel tore my belly open and severed my left arm below the elbow and killed six of my patients where they lay on their cots. I waited to die, to mingle my blood with that great sacrifice and become part of whatever came next.
A Senegalese platoon found me and invalided me out, instead. A military hospital on the Loire: six months draining the contents of my perforated guts through a glass pipe, six months reaching for my reading glasses with a hand I no longer had. In the end, my honorable colleagues declared that I had made a miraculous recovery, because I could shit without going into septic shock. It was a week after Armistice Day.
I could not go home. You understand that, I hope. Many of us who went to the war feel that way. We do not belong in those homes anymore; the parts of ourselves that allowed us to make sense of our homes, we left them in the mud. We are all casualties.
I had learned some English, from my tutors and from British soldiers and doctors during the war. I decided to go to England and see what life might bring me. I took a temporary job at Charing Cross Hospital, which pays the rent on a small Stamford Street flat and a steady supply of cognac. The hospital needs all the help it can get, with this new wave of influenza patients, and even a one-handed French surgeon can be of some assistance. But today I found this letter waiting when I got home, and I feel the cold breath of an Algerian cave on the back of my neck, and I believe that my life has changed once again...
by Dyelli Beybi » Tue Jul 07, 2020 12:21 pm
Reverend Norv wrote:Character DescriptionName: Dr. Jean-Martin Isidore de Florac
Personal Effects: Several gabardine three-piece suits; several white oxford shirts; various silk neckties and gold cufflinks; a pocket watch and compass; a fine camelhair overcoat; one pair of dress shoes and one pair of hunting boots; a doctor's bag including a surgical kit; a broad-brimmed fedora; reading glasses; a Star Model 14 pistol, a souvenir of his military service; a French Model 1882 officer's sword, likewise; a box of service medals; a large flask of cognac; and two leather-bound books (a Huguenot Bible and a copy of Verlaine's Romances sans paroles).
Gender: Male
Age: 28 (D.O.B. 28 Oct. 1890)
Nationality: French, though not recognized as such by some Parisian conservatives: for Jean-Martin is of Huguenot faith, and was born in Algeria.
Appearance:A man of average height, trim but fit, Jean-Martin has a lean and wiry strength that suggests more hours spent in the saddle than in the weight room. His hair is reddish-brown, the color of dull bronze, and very curly; Jean-Martin wears it short, combed roughly back from a sharp widow's peak. His face is all angles, handsome in a sharp-boned and aristocratic way: firm jaw, narrow lips, an aquiline nose, a high forehead. The eyes are dark sea-green, the color of the ocean at dusk.
Jean-Martin's skin is naturally fair, but the Algerian sun has given it a constant pale-gold tan. White scars mark it: an ugly cicatrice of knotted tissue across the belly, a long white line on one thigh, a circular scar just beneath his clavicle. His left arm ends a few inches below the elbow; rather than use a prosthetic or hook, he usually simply pins up his sleeve to hide the stump, making it obvious that he lacks one hand.
Jean-Martin favors three-piece suits of hard-woven gabardine, as suitable for the hunt as for the city - though he is equally comfortable in a burnoose and slippers when at home. In the chill of the English winter, he often dons a camelhair overcoat. He wears a small, centuries-old bronze signet ring on his right pinky finger - the seal of the House of Florac. He often carries a sidearm in a shoulder holster, and uses brass-framed reading glasses to see up close, especially in dim light.
Background:What is your job? Jean-Martin spent most of the last four years as a French Army surgeon. He was invalided out of the Army after losing a hand at the Battle of La Malmaison, and completed his recovery a week or so after Armistice Day. Reluctant to return home to Oran, he has taken a temporary position at the Charing Cross Hospital in London, which needs even a one-handed and hard-drinking doctor to deal with the massive wave of influenza patients.
Backstory:*snip*
by Sarderia » Tue Jul 07, 2020 1:42 pm
Character DescriptionName: Francesco "Frank" Piero Martelli
Personal Effects: 1867 Longines pocket watch, a pack of Cuban Cigars, Webley Mk.VI Revolver (glazed red, white and blue)
Gender: M
Age: 32 (born New Haven, Connecticut, 28th of January 1886)
Nationality: Italian-American from Federal Hill, Providence, Rhode Island
Appearance:
Background:What is your job U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (former), U.S Army 1st Expeditionary Division (former), Webley&Scott Gunsmith Birmigham (currently)
Backstory:Early Years: New Haven and Providence
Francesco "Frank" P. Martelli was born on 1886 on New Haven, Connecticut. His father Guido Martelli was an Italian immigrant from Bergamo, Lombardy, who came to Connecticut after Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand concluded - as he was a soldier in the Expedition, and the political and economic instability in the newly-declared Italian Kingdom forced many to seek better life elsewhere. In 1862, Connecticut was still recruiting men to serve in the 14th Infantry Regiment. Guido, as a war veteran and saw little to no economic opportunity in the crowded New England area, enlisted in the 2nd Battalion. He quickly rose into the rank of Sergeant - having participated in battles such as Antietam. Charlottesville, and Gettysburg. Guido amassed a significant fortune after the end of the war, and married Mary McCulloch, the daughter of his Irish superior in the 2nd Battalion. They returned to New Haven and managed to acquire a new home in the city's little Italy neighborhood, as many more Italian immigrants began arriving in the United States in those years.
Before being a soldier, Frank's father worked as a blacksmith and gunsmith under the apprenticeship of his grandfather - the occupation is referenced in the surname Martelli being Italian for "smith". Guido Martelli was employed in the Winchester Repeating Arms Factory, where he worked specially to bulid custom models of the famous Winchester Hotchkiss and Model 1894, for example. Frank was the 5th and last child of Guido and Mary Martelli's marriage; he had three older brothers and a sister. Frank's brothers never had any penchant for their father's gunsmith and engineering business; the family fortune was enough to educate them to become respected lawyers, bankers, and businessmen. Guido Martelli was a known craftsman in the Winchester company, and he apperenticed Frank throughout the years of his work. On 1901 however Guido decided to resign from Winchester, having amassing a large amount of wealth and acquiring a new factory to start his own metalworking business, where the main products are watches, ornate pieces of lockets and blades, and other expensive antiques the rich of New Haven flocked to.
While the rest of his family continued on in the white-collar occupations throughout Connecticut, Frank decided to embrace his father's works instead. On 1907, Frank moved to Federal Hill in Providence - where Guido's cousin Leonardo Martelli has just moved from Milan - and started a branch of the famous Martelli works in the city. He worked at the Providence workshop only for four years, though, before deciding to enlist in the U.S Army on 1911. President William H. Taft, facing a Mexican political conflict and the Banana Wars, wanted construction of the Panama Canal be finished as soon as possible - Frank's previous occupation as a blacksmith made him eligible for stationing in the Army Corps of Engineers.
U.S. Army Career and the Great War
Not long after the Panama Canal was completed in 1914, the Great War erupted in Europe; however, the United States kept its neutrality for the first years. As an Army Corps of Engineers servicemen, Frank was stationed first in Wyoming to help the construction of several bridges crossing the state's gorges and valleys, and then stationed in the Mexican border. Occassionally during break days he would return to Providence and helped with his uncle Leonardo's business in the Martelli workshop. On 8 June, 1917, Frank's battalion received a command that summoned them to Fort Jay, New York City, where the battalion would be one of the many Engineer units that formed the U.S. 1st Expeditionary Division; America has declared war on Germany. They departed from Hoboken on 10th of June; the unit arrived at Le Havre a week later.
Frank's first assignment was artillery training in Le Valdahon. Most of the French and British troops present were using American-produced armaments back then, because the French industry itself has already been very strained courtesy of the war. The meager Engineer battalions could not address the problems in all Entente forces present at Le Valdahon at once, so the Engineer corps were divided. However, Frank still found himself serving with the 16th Infantry corps - the force that would parade around Paris to bolster the French people's morale. Coincidentally, his battalion were also the first American unit to fire upon German forces in the war. Frank himself saw little action; his job was primarily tending to the Army's vehicles and guns - but he manned several artilleries and followed charges in Soissons, because the 16th Infantry has been so strained that medic and engineers were required to defend themselves. Frank participated in the Meuse-Argonne offensive as a mechanic and a gunman. He was carried out by a medic battalion halfway through the offensive - a German sharpnel stuck in his right leg, but he managed to avoid amputation. Frank returned as an Engineer corps sergeant in the Battle of Montfaucon and capture of German defenses at Buzancy.
Post-War Years: Birmingham
Following the German armistice, the 1st Infantry Division was sent home to New York - however, there are options available if its members wanted to resign on the war's immediate aftermath. Frank met Catherine Haroway, a Royal Army nurse from Birmingham, in Paris after the war. He applied for resignation - being awarded several war honors from the Army, the resignation was quickly affected, and Frank granted a pension. Though Catherine and Frank haven't married yet, they decided to move into Birmingham, Catherine's hometown, to settle there. In addition to the pension, Frank earned his money through Leonardo Martelli's workshop, which was recently booming in Providence. The British industry were in for a year of massive job-recruiting following the war's aftermath. Frank's previous background as a gunsmith and in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers earned him a decent position in Birmingham's local gunsmith Webley & Scott, enough to give the engaged couple more cash to buy a larger home in West Midlands countryside after they married. However, a month after, Frank found two letters in his townhouse's mailbox - one from Webley & Scott regarding several ornate design orders... and another, from the ‘Order of Saint Thomas of Canterbury’ at the Four-Horse Club in London. Apparently, he's been invited to some sort of secret meeting, and Frank arrives in London with much curiosity.
by Danceria » Tue Jul 07, 2020 1:47 pm
by Sarderia » Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:13 pm
Character DescriptionName: Catherine Frances Haroway
Personal Effects: WIP
Gender: F
Age: 31
Nationality: British (Scottish-English)
Appearance:
Background:What is your job Principal Nurse, Birmingham General Hospital
Backstory: WIP
by Dyelli Beybi » Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:38 pm
Character DescriptionName: Eleanor von der Marwitz (goes by Eleanor Martin)
Personal Effects: A discrete collection of bottled perfumes, a tin of cosmetic powder, silver glove stretchers and number of assorted hair care products and a very expensive Kent hair brush. A copy of 'Jane Eyre' and the latest edition of 'Jus Suffragii'.
Gender: Female
Age: 24
Nationality: British
Appearance: Eleanor von der Marwitz is a tall (5'9''), slender young woman with a fair complexion, dark eyes and chestnut coloured hair that she usually wears up.
Background:What is your job Librarian for the Order of Saint Thomas
Backstory: Eleanor von der Marwitz is the descendant of a certain Dietrich von der Marwitz, a Prussian officer who settled with his family in Britain in the 1860s, according to family history, due to a strong rivalry with Albrecht Graf von Roon. Whatever the reasons for leaving Prussia, von der Marwitz proved to be a reasonably gifted businessman, making a number of fruitful investments in steel, shipping and the railways. While his son, Kar,l did nothing to increase the size of the family fortune, he didn't fritter it away either and on top of what is invested in various enterprises, the family have a modestly sized country house in Devon as well as a town house in Knightsbridge.
Following an incident at a steelworks, Karl von der Marwitz became involved with the Order of Saint Thomas, eventually rising to become one of the trusted advisors to the Master of the Order at that time. While visiting the headquarters he would, on occasion, allow his bookish young daughter, Eleanor, to look through the tomes in the Order's library, a place which she became intimately familiar with. While this was, strictly speaking, against regulations, von der Marwitz was senior enough in the organisation to bend the occasional regulation and doted on his only child.
When Karl von der Marwitz died of pneumonia in 1911, Eleanor continued to be allowed access to the Library, a place where she found considerable solace from the grief she felt at her father's passing. Five years later, when the incumbent librarian was drafted into the military, Eleanor was the obvious choice for a replacement, though a lot had changed for her over that period.
While anti-German sentiment had been something Eleanor had always known, the outbreak of war with the German Empire, this sentiment grew to the point where suspected Germans were being assaulted and stores of people with German sounding names, looted, Eleanor and her mother decided to adopt the surname of 'Martin' in place of 'von der Marwitz'. While both of them were born in England (her mother has no German ancestry whatsoever... at least that she knows of), and have distinct home-counties accents, the name does give the wrong idea to anyone looking to settle a score with 'Germans' on the home front. While not naturally shy, Eleanor has taken to avoiding revealing too much information about herself in conversation; just in case she gets a bad reaction.
On top of this, Eleanor has developed a somewhat sceptical attitude towards men, having come to the conclusion, mostly from reading far too many novels on the subject, that most young men are after the fortune which she is now the sole heiress to. In many cases she is probably right.
by Dyelli Beybi » Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:52 pm
Sarderia wrote:Finished the App! Please forgive me, I can't enter an image rn for some technical reasons. However I'd very much like for you to review it.Character DescriptionName: Francesco "Frank" Piero Martelli
Personal Effects: 1867 Longines pocket watch, a pack of Cuban Cigars, Webley Mk.VI Revolver (glazed red, white and blue)
Gender: M
Age: 32 (born New Haven, Connecticut, 28th of January 1886)
Nationality: Italian-American from Federal Hill, Providence, Rhode Island
Appearance:
Background:What is your job U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (former), U.S Army 1st Expeditionary Division (former), Webley&Scott Gunsmith Birmigham (currently)
Backstory:*snip*
Note: Frank is an U.S. Army veteran and U.S. citizen, so that might complicate things a bit in London. He's looking for UK citizenship since he's engaged with an UK citizen, though.
by Voxija » Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:00 pm
Character DescriptionName: Victoria Esther Wasserman
Personal Effects: At least seven dresses of the Gay Nineties style, and more than twenty-three hats. Pictures of her father, mother, and brothers. Several Kabbalist tomes, including the Zohar and the Bahir.
Gender: female
Age: 32
Nationality:jewishBritish because religion is not nationality.
Appearance:
Background:What is your job Former adventurer, no job as of the moment but her hobby is politics.
Backstory: Victoria Esther Wasserman was born on 13 August 1886 (Friday the Thirteenth) to a Nouveau riche Jewish family living in London. Victoria's father, Isaac Wasserman was a banker, and he taught his daughter to be a proper lady. However, Victoria grew up with an independent streak and often tussled with her four brothers. Victoria loved her mother's gowns, and became obsessed with nineties fashion. In school, she had a tight-knit circle of friends and argued with the teachers. However, she did well academically.
Victoria was raised as a good Jew by her parents, but she often asked the hard questions, such as "Why is G-d always male?" That made the young Victoria Wasserman disapproving of religion, until she was twelve. When Victoria was twelve, she met a recovering alcoholic who had found religion and introduced Victoria to his Reform synagogue. Then Victoria became a religious, if rather irreverent sometimes, Reform Jew. Her father was disappointed that his daughter that gone astray, but her mother was proud of her.
Victoria wanted to go to college, but she felt a call to adventure. She became an explorer, going to many exotic places for fortune and glory. Victoria first explored the protectorates and domains of the British Empire, such as the diverse subcontinent of India, the bustling island city of Hong Kong, the wilds of Africa, and Canada. She had a couple of missed encounters with supernatural things, but she never knew and they didn't affect Victoria... much.
Victoria Wasserman next visited more exotic places, often with the help of fellow adventurers. She visited the Amazon forest, the Andes, and America. Victoria's next adventure, what turned out to be her last adventure, was in the Ottoman Empire. She toured Palestine last, after exploring the rest of the sandy desert lands. What happened in Palestine would scar Victoria Wasserman for the rest of her life.
When Victoria was walking in the streets of Jerusalem, she suddenly found herself on the other end of the city, with a pistol in her hand, missing four hours of her life. This was incredibly scary to Victoria, and she did a bit of digging. Victoria hypothesized that a dybbuk, one of those demons of Jewish lore, had possessed her and used her body to fulfill its purpose, most likely a grisly crime of murder, and had abandoned her body once the murder had been done.
Too affected to do any adventuring again, Victoria Wasserman traveled to Britain, where she figured she would be safe from eldritch threats. This was right before WW1 started. True enough, no eldritch threats attacked her. Victoria started studying Kabbalah frantically, trying to learn more about dybbuks and other supernatural threats, further dismaying her father (her mother had died when Victoria was in Asia). Between diving into esoteric Kabbalah texts, Victoria Wasserman became a radical suffragette, who once chained herself to the car of an MP who opposed women's suffrage.
As of now, Victoria Wasserman is happy. No supernatural threats have attacked her in London, and now she spends most of her time attending parties and lobbying for certain laws to get passed. She wants to run for Parliament, but this bloody pandemic is getting in her way! That is what all Victoria worried about, until she received a strange letter in the mail...
by Khasinkonia » Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:27 pm
Character DescriptionName: Lady Yalin(雅琳) of the Niohuru clan by birth, Fucha clan by marriage
Personal Effects: Gold dragon bracelet, a collection of earrings made with various precious gemstones, a set of sapphire rings, her family history (the Manchu, Classical Chinese, and Korean copies), two family portraits with small photographs of them for travel, a pristine collection of Joseon-era celadon pottery, and a Silver City Writing Tablet with a fountain pen.
Gender: F
Age: 33(Born 1885.05.13)
Nationality: Qing(Formerly), British
Appearance:
Background:What is your job: Socialite & Investor
Backstory:
“Before you can know my history, it is important to clarify that of my family’s. I was born a member of the Niohuru clan, although the circumstances of which are certainly of interest. Now, I will not be such a bore as to translate the full records of my family history, for such an affair would be rather time-consuming. If you should find yourself sufficiently intrigued, I would happily take the time to translate my family history into the English language. But I digress. I will begin with describing the circumstances of my youth and upbringing, particularly my birth. I will speak with regards to personal affairs during my father’s life, but I must insist certain details remain private if I am to continue.
My father was the Qing diplomat to the Korean Empire, although he began his work when he was young and the now extinct Korean Empire was the Joseon Kingdom. Although I cannot say the same for other members of my direct family line, it is without a doubt that my father set the stage for my own international endeavours with his decisions. Although my father and I did not often speak with regards to beliefs, my understanding has always been that, though he was loyal first and foremost to the dynasty, he was also a man hopelessly fascinated with the world at large and a firm believer in the pursuit of knowledge, which I believe affected his choice in living in Hanseong before the Japanese annexation of Korea.
I am the eldest, with two younger brothers, and one younger sister. AS the eldest child, I of course had the opportunity to reach certain understandings with my parents that younger children rarely have the time and rein to. My father was inspired by the late Dowager Empress Cixi, and especially Empress Myeongseong. Even though he had sons, he told me this regarding the necessity of my education, something which I have always remembered:
“I desire your brothers to be wise men with strong wills, but there are many men with little wisdom and weak wills. If you learn to act with yang as well as yin, then you can do for a man what he cannot do for himself. And if he does have abundant yang, then you will be in a position to propel yourself and our descendents higher and higher. History is not written by the stupid.”
My siblings and I received excellent, if strenuous, international educations at our father’s behest, which one must understand were rather expensive. By fortune of living in Hanseong, the capital of Korea, procuring teachers was, as I understand, easier, but that does not devalue my education. I was educated in Chinese classics as well as a selection of Western ones. Regarding other matters of the humanities, I was taught history, often in tandem with my classical studies, and spent a significant portion of time practicing languages to take advantage of a variety of teachers. As a result, I am fluent and literate in Manchu, fluent in Guanhua, literate in Classical Chinese, fluent and literate in Korean, serviceable in Tibetan and Japanese as far as basic reception and conversation goes, fluent and literate in English—though I will remark that I rarely read English literature as a pastime—and have a working, if rather atrophied, competency in the French, German, and Russian. I was taught Latin but recall none of it, as I see no use from my perspective, being that I know my own region’s classical lingua franca already. Further, although it was not a focus, I also received education in the fields of science and arithmetic, although I cannot say I was an enthusiastic student in that regard. Outside of fundamentals, my womanly education was also not neglected, and so I am a competent piano player, and have been trained in necessary schools of etiquette from a very young age, as one might imagine. I further know a number of dances, more than enough to well navigate the social scene, but do not personally enjoy it. I much prefer the opera to a ball, quite frankly.
Eventually, of course, it came time, of course, for me to place studies secondary to the endeavour of marriage. I was fortunate enough to find myself in a seemingly auspicious engagement with a junwang. In English, this is essentially translated to as a Prince of the Second Rank. I was very fortunate to have married Zairong, as he was a sort of man my father had hoped for me. He was well-to-do and quite favoured, to the extent that Empress Dowager Cixi herself provided us with her blessings for our marriage. I do not wish to speak excessively regarding my marriage, as excessive nostalgia brings me sorrow, but I will elaborate to my satisfaction the nature of our relations. Given the circumstances, we often occupied ourselves with speculation and investment, which provided excellent returns. When my husband was invited to participate in the annual Imperial Hunt with the Guangxu Emperor, I would take full control of the finances and watch them carefully. For a period of time, it felt as if we were well set. Indeed, though the national sentiments were perhaps different, from our residence in Guangzhou, we enjoyed parties in Xianggang nearly every month.
However, all good things must come to an end. The Xinhai Revolution took down my country, and its constituent rebellion in Wuhan killed my husband, who was visiting on business. With the forced abdication of the Xuantong Emperor, I found myself in an awkward, if not frankly terribly difficult situation. Now that I was a widow in a brewing warzone, there was one decision that seemed most reasonable. I liquidated my old assets to the best of my ability, and left China, never to return. I took important things, of course, family heirlooms and other such things, but as much as I could, I left to make expatriation easier. Given the choice between Portugal and the United Kingdom, it was clear which to choose, for a variety of reasons, some of which are evident. In any case, since my arrival I have continued my husband’s endeavours in the stock market, with help from choice brokers, of course. Due to my situation, I found myself reasonably present in the social scene of the London upper class after a period of time, as they found me quaint, quite frankly, I have reluctantly made quite well for myself, with a lovely home on the corner of Chester Street and Wilton Mews. Intrigue is an excellent way to keep oneself occupied.”
by Demencia » Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:43 pm
Character DescriptionName: Quinn O'Hearn/Sophie Quincy
Personal Effects: Men's suits in various styles ranging from a casual Norfolk suit to a formal Mackinaw jacket or summer white with cane, M1917 (S&W) revolver in .45 ACP, a locket with a picture of a woman in it, a lighter engraved with Tank Corp's insignia and a pack of cigarettes.
Gender: Female (presents as male to avoid discrimination)
Age: 22
Nationality: American
Appearance:Quinn is 5'4
Background:What is your job Former soldier (Cpl., 1st Tank Brigade, 344th Battalion, Fifth Corps)
Backstory: Sophie Quincy was born in central Indiana to a less than well-off family not too far from Indianapolis. Life was relatively unassuming until she was sent to Catholic school where she met a girl and suddenly found herself burdened with a dark secret. The two of them had a friendship that... went beyond the bounds of polite society and very dishonest in the eyes of the church, so neither of them were keen on letting anyone in on it. They were willing to keep living their lie as normal until the war in Europe was getting close to dragging America into it, and Sophie's friend joined the Army Nurse Corps out of a sense of obligation to her country. Sophie didn't want to be a nurse, but she also wasn't ready to be left alone while her lover went to Europe without her, so she altered her appearance and faked her name to impersonate a man so she could join the Army. Now using the name Quinn O'Hearn to lean into her Irish heritage, she was sent to Bourg, France as a student of Captain George Patton's experimental tank school. She was assigned the Commander/Gunner role of the Renault FT, and given to the 327th(later reorganized to the 344th) Tank Battalion where she saw combat from Saint-Mihiel through the Meuse-Argonne Offensive all the way to Lorraine. While they didn't see each other often, Quinn being frequently on the front and her paramour being at field hospitals behind it, the Army made it very easy for letters to be exchanged quickly between the two.
After the war was over, the pair didn't feel like they were ready to go back to the United States, having been fascinated by the big city feel of European metropolises like London and Paris. They would spend some time in the UK before returning home to their small town, if they ever could. When a mysterious letter awaited them at their hotel asking for a meeting, Quinn was sure she'd been found out, and she'd do anything to stop someone from spilling her secret.
by Bingellia » Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:49 pm
Voxija wrote:Reading all things, I'm a bit worried that Victoria Wasserman might be too similar to the character of Eleanor von der Marwitz, but I'll app anyway.Character DescriptionName: Victoria Esther Wasserman
Personal Effects: At least seven dresses of the Gay Nineties style, and more than twenty-three hats. Pictures of her father, mother, and brothers. Several Kabbalist tomes, including the Zohar and the Bahir.
Gender: female
Age: 32
Nationality:jewishBritish because religion is not nationality.
Appearance:
Background:What is your job Former adventurer, no job as of the moment but her hobby is politics.
Backstory: -snip-
Khasinkonia wrote:Character DescriptionName: Lady Yalin(雅琳) of the Niohuru clan by birth, Fucha clan by marriage
Personal Effects: Gold dragon bracelet, a collection of earrings made with various precious gemstones, a set of sapphire rings, her family history (the Manchu, Classical Chinese, and Korean copies), two family portraits with small photographs of them for travel, a pristine collection of Joseon-era celadon pottery, and a Silver City Writing Tablet with a fountain pen.
Gender: F
Age: 33(Born 1885.05.13)
Nationality: Qing(Formerly), British
Appearance:
Background:What is your job: Socialite & Investor
Backstory: -snip-
Demencia wrote:Character DescriptionName: Quinn O'Hearn/Sophie Quincy
Personal Effects: M1917 (S&W) revolver in .45 ACP, a locket with a picture of a woman in it, a lighter engraved with Tank Corp's insignia and a pack of cigarettes.
Gender: Female (presents as male to avoid discrimination)
Age: 22
Nationality: American
Appearance:Quinn is 5'4
Background:What is your job Former soldier (Cpl., 1st Tank Corps, 344th Battalion)
Backstory: -snip-
by Illegal Planets » Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:35 am
Character DescriptionName: Sakai Tetsuo
Gender: Male
Age: 34
Nationality: Japanese
Appearance:
Personal Effects: Assorted tools, books, journals.
Background:What is your job Tutor/Tinkerer
Backstory:
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been-“
Mr. Sakai, when was the last time you saw your wife?
“I haven’t spoken to her in years. We are estranged.”
Yes, but when was the last time you saw her?
“...”
Mr. Sakai?
“I can see her right now.”
What is she doing?
“She’s looking at me. That’s all she ever does.”
I see. And when did you last see your daughter?
“Why are you asking about them? How do you know about us?”
Please answer the question. How long has it been since you last saw your daughter?
“Since the accident.”
You mean the murder?
“Who are you? Are you really a priest?”
How long?
“Two years. It’s been two years.”
Tell me about what happened.
“I’m sorry. Give me a moment. This is too much.”
Take your time.
“We had just moved to Nagasaki together so I could earn more from my work as a private tutor for the children of a venerable and wealthy family, who I refuse to name, though something tells me you already know everything I’m telling you... Well, do you?”
Please continue, Mr. Sakai.
“We were already doing well, for they paid generously. But I could only go twice a month because of the distance involved. They offered to compensate for the expense of relocating, right down to the home we moved into. They offered to increase my pay as well, as I would be working there more often. Maria was always an anxious person. She would get very nervous around people, so she was terrified of the thought of the city. At first it was a minor annoyance, a bit embarrassing, but over time she became a complete recluse. Stricken with a frustrating morose attitude and strange compulsions. Towards our daughter she lost all interest in raising her in any meaningful way. When I would return from long trips at work for my family the girl would be unwashed, hungry, petulant.”
So the move was difficult for her?
“It was beyond difficult. She absolutely did not want to go, but I gave her no choice. I wish I had left her behind. After we arrived, her compulsions intensified over the course of a month. Neighbors told me they saw her catching rats from the street. I caught her eating them, mutilating the bodies. In front of our daughter. I snapped. I am not ashamed to say I beat her and demanded she stop.”
Was she developing any other strange habits?
“She was killing people’s pets, which she would bring home and... you know... Even after I had sworn to beat her again. I was at the end of my sanity. The house... it had become a vile place. It reeked. There were flies everywhere, and maggots, of course. The family I worked for fired me because my clothes smelled like rot. I was furious. Humiliated. I confronted her again, and her eyes... they changed. It was like I was looking at a completely different person. It frightened me more than anything ever had. I made up my mind to take Ami away, as she had become sick from the neglect. But when I arrived that evening...”
What is it?
“She’s crying.”
Who is?
“Maria. This has never happened before.”
Please, go on with your story.
“When I... arrived home... I’m sorry, she is getting louder. Sobbing. I knew something was wrong when I arrived. I called out for Ami but nobody would answer me. I went looking for her and found them... in the room together. So much blood. Ami was a mess. Maria, please stop screaming.”
What had become of your wife?
“She... put the knife to her throat. But first she spoke to me. Not with words. It was her eyes. Then...”
That will be all, Mr. Sakai. I have something for you now. A letter.
by Dyelli Beybi » Wed Jul 08, 2020 11:04 am
Illegal Planets wrote:Character DescriptionName: Sakai Tetsuo
Gender: Male
Age: 34
Nationality: Japanese
Appearance:
Personal Effects: Assorted tools, books, journals.
Background:What is your job Tutor/Tinkerer
Backstory:
*snip*
by Voxija » Wed Jul 08, 2020 12:52 pm
by Bingellia » Wed Jul 08, 2020 1:02 pm
Character DescriptionName:Viviette Sinclair, less famously known as Bridget Reeves
Personal Effects: A cigarette holder, a silver cigarette case engraved with a floral pattern, a collection of fan letters, and a few outfits.
Gender: Female
Age: 25
Nationality: English
Appearance:
Background:What is your job: Actress. Viviette is currently employed in a troop that makes the rounds through the various music halls that dot London, though she may be better known in certain circles for her more racy shows from time in French Cabarets.
Backstory: Bridget was born in London to Lionel and Jessamine Reeves. Her father has worked as an Accountant for the Great Eastern Railway for nearly thirty years, which enabled the family to live a comfortable middle-class life within the city. Giving Bridget the opportunity for formal lessons in both song and dance, the girl took to them from a young age.
While she may not be formally educated to the degree her older brothers were, Bridget showed an independent streak from a young age, often earning her father’s ire from her incessant questioning and occasional rejection of the Edwardian norms he was keen on enforcing within the family. Her tendency to reject suitors and frequent attempts to sneak out at night strained her relationship with her father, who had on more than one occasion forbidden her from seeing whichever boy had caught her fancy at the time.
Neither camp had fully made peace with the other by the time Bridget was eighteen, new conflicts had made sure of that as Bridget became concerned about her own financial independence. Prior eavesdropping of the young men on the streets one day on an outing gave her an idea, she’d become an actress. She knew how to sing, new dances were just a matter of learning the steps, and there was a music hall not far from home. She started her career secretly there, sneaking out of the home to routinely perform shows under several rather obvious false names.
Her new found love of the spotlight drove Bridget to take on more shows from halls further away, becoming ever racier with each show, until it was impossible to hide the activities from her father. His reaction of disgust was predictable, but Bridget’s choice to leave the security of her upbringing to continue her career shocked her family, with her father claiming she’d be back in weeks. He’d be wrong, but the transition from a comfortable middle-class life to one of a traveling performer did take some getting used to, especially in regards to the quality of the food.
Bridget soon found herself in France after crossing the channel at nineteen. With it’s more favorable attitudes to more burlesque and promiscuous performances, Bridget embraced cabarets of Paris with open arms, learning French as she did so. She met Bruno Courvoisier during this period, who would take the young actress under his wing as he guided her through the Parisian nightlife. Courvoisier was responsible for developing Bridget’s stage name.
Now known as Viviette, the woman now had a concrete identity to properly build a career out of, and became a local name in Paris during the lead-up to War, earning a livable amount from both public and private shows involving a circuit of clubs. Growing slowly more popular with each passing month as she frequently made shows, she had made it a point of pride to have never canceled one until an odd affair occurred in early 1914.
This had been a cold February evening, at a small club she had not yet heard off that contacted Courvioisier seemingly out of nowhere with an offer of 200 francs upfront for an entire night. Viviette agreed, given that the price was too good to give up. Stepping over the small into the club before her show was supposed to start, a wave of nausea seemed to overtake her as a member of the staff greeted her in a dull, monotonous voice. Leading her into the dressing room, Viviette was surprised to find it empty. This wasn’t normal, given that backups and assistants were common even for a small show.
Naturally, Viviette inspected the necklace. It was a simple thing, black cord supporting a single red crystal. It was surprisingly cold to the touch given the stuffiness of the dressing room, and seemed to have fluid that moved inside of it, reacting to her touch as she ran her finger along it. Placing around her neck to try on, a wave of fatigue swept over her, forcing her nausea over the edge as the room seemed to begin to move. Then hellish screams bombarded her senses as she pulled herself out of the chair, before tumbling to the floor. Feeling her strength fade, she instinctively tugged at the cord in an failed attempt to snap it before taking it off and flinging it across the room. Gaging as she got onto her feet, she hurried out the back door, eager to blacklist the club and forget about the night as a fever dream
Then war broke out in July. Even with the war pulling young men out of the city, the war did little to halt her career once the theaters, cabarets, and cafe-concertes of Paris resumed their operations. However, Paris was a city at war, and even Viviette could not avoid hardships as she refused to leave the city as a sign of solidarity. She endured through German shelling and bombing, the harsh winter of 1916 and 1917, and the first wave of the Spanish Flu in the Spring of 1918 in her apartment. Two notable incidents from 1917 and 1918 involved German munitions shattering the windows of the theater she was performing at and her apartment’s windows respectively.
When the war ended in 1918, Viviette was swept into the celebrations of victory, being one of the many in the crowds at the Champs-Elysee on Armistice Day, but soon left Paris to pay her mother and brothers a visit now that the scourge of the U-boat was no longer an issue. Seeing her family was more for their sake than hers, but catching up needed to be done. Of course, she also couldn’t help but revisit the music halls in London where she had started.
Between appearances on stage one night, she had found a letter with a pressed wax seal waiting for her at her seat in the dressing room.
by Dyelli Beybi » Wed Jul 08, 2020 1:30 pm
Bingellia wrote:Character DescriptionName:Viviette Sinclair, less famously known as Bridget Reeves
Personal Effects: A cigarette holder, a silver cigarette case engraved with a floral pattern, a collection of fan letters, and a few outfits.
Gender: Female
Age: 25
Nationality: English
Appearance:
Background:What is your job: Actress. Viviette is currently employed in a troop that makes the rounds through the various music halls that dot London, though she may be better known in certain circles for her more racy shows from time in French Cabarets.
Backstory: Bridget was born in London to Lionel and Jessamine Reeves. Her father has worked as an Accountant for the Great Eastern Railway for nearly thirty years, which enabled the family to live a comfortable middle-class life within the city. Giving Bridget the opportunity for formal lessons in both song and dance, the girl took to them from a young age.
While she may not be formally educated to the degree her older brothers were, Bridget showed an independent streak from a young age, often earning her father’s ire from her incessant questioning and occasional rejection of the Edwardian norms he was keen on enforcing within the family. Her tendency to reject suitors and frequent attempts to sneak out at night strained her relationship with her father, who had on more than one occasion forbidden her from seeing whichever boy had caught her fancy at the time.
Neither camp had fully made peace with the other by the time Bridget was eighteen, new conflicts had made sure of that as Bridget became concerned about her own financial independence. Prior eavesdropping of the young men on the streets one day on an outing gave her an idea, she’d become an actress. She knew how to sing, new dances were just a matter of learning the steps, and there was a music hall not far from home. She started her career secretly there, sneaking out of the home to routinely perform shows under several rather obvious false names.
Her new found love of the spotlight drove Bridget to take on more shows from halls further away, becoming ever racier with each show, until it was impossible to hide the activities from her father. His reaction of disgust was predictable, but Bridget’s choice to leave the security of her upbringing to continue her career shocked her family, with her father claiming she’d be back in weeks. He’d be wrong, but the transition from a comfortable middle-class life to one of a traveling performer did take some getting used to, especially in regards to the quality of the food.
Bridget soon found herself in France after crossing the channel at nineteen. With it’s more favorable attitudes to more burlesque and promiscuous performances, Bridget embraced cabarets of Paris with open arms, learning French as she did so. She met Bruno Courvoisier during this period, who would take the young actress under his wing as he guided her through the Parisian nightlife. Courvoisier was responsible for developing Bridget’s stage name.
Now known as Viviette, the woman now had a concrete identity to properly build a career out of, and became a local name in Paris during the lead-up to War, earning a livable amount from both public and private shows involving a circuit of clubs. Growing slowly more popular with each passing month as she frequently made shows, she had made it a point of pride to have never canceled one until an odd affair occurred in early 1914.
This had been a cold February evening, at a small club she had not yet heard off that contacted Courvioisier seemingly out of nowhere with an offer of 200 francs upfront for an entire night. Viviette agreed, given that the price was too good to give up. Stepping over the small into the club before her show was supposed to start, a wave of nausea seemed to overtake her as a member of the staff greeted her in a dull, monotonous voice. Leading her into the dressing room, Viviette was surprised to find it empty. This wasn’t normal, given that backups and assistants were common even for a small show.
Naturally, Viviette inspected the necklace. It was a simple thing, black cord supporting a single red crystal. It was surprisingly cold to the touch given the stuffiness of the dressing room, and seemed to have fluid that moved inside of it, reacting to her touch as she ran her finger along it. Placing around her neck to try on, a wave of fatigue swept over her, forcing her nausea over the edge as the room seemed to begin to move. Then hellish screams bombarded her senses as she pulled herself out of the chair, before tumbling to the floor. Feeling her strength fade, she instinctively tugged at the cord in an failed attempt to snap it before taking it off and flinging it across the room. Gaging as she got onto her feet, she hurried out the back door, eager to blacklist the club and forget about the night as a fever dream
Then war broke out in July. Even with the war pulling young men out of the city, the war did little to halt her career once the theaters, cabarets, and cafe-concertes of Paris resumed their operations. However, Paris was a city at war, and even Viviette could not avoid hardships as she refused to leave the city as a sign of solidarity. She endured through German shelling and bombing, the harsh winter of 1916 and 1917, and the first wave of the Spanish Flu in the Spring of 1918 in her apartment. Two notable incidents from 1917 and 1918 involved German munitions shattering the windows of the theater she was performing at and her apartment’s windows respectively.
When the war ended in 1918, Viviette was swept into the celebrations of victory, being one of the many in the crowds at the Champs-Elysee on Armistice Day, but soon left Paris to pay her mother and brothers a visit now that the scourge of the U-boat was no longer an issue. Seeing her family was more for their sake than hers, but catching up needed to be done. Of course, she also couldn’t help but revisit the music halls in London where she had started.
Between appearances on stage one night, she had found a letter with a pressed wax seal waiting for her at her seat in the dressing room.
by Europa Undivided » Thu Jul 09, 2020 1:47 am
Character DescriptionName: Dragoslav Čarapić (formerly known as the Grey Stalker by his now dead comrades)
Personal Effects:
Gender: A Man
Age: 25
Nationality: Serbian/Yugoslav
Appearance:
A grey overcoat, a pistol, old pictures of his squad and platoon in the Serbian Army, and several books.
Background:What is your job: Currently working in a jewelry shop; formerly a sniper of the Serbian Army.
Backstory:
Dragoslav Čarapić was one of the first volunteers in the war effort of the Kingdom of Serbia against the Empire of Austria-Hungary. He was born to a family of craftsmen, jewelers, and clock makers; Dragoslav himself was destined to work in his mother's jewelry shop, grinding and cutting diamonds, rubies, and emeralds to shapes of elegance and radiant beauty. He had already been working with jewels when the war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire broke out. Dragoslav was only 21 at the time; young, naive, and filled with visions of grandeur and the glory of battle. After all, Russia was their nation's ally, and by extension France as well. Surely, the war was going to end within next Christmas, right?
Wrong. They were all wrong. Completely, utterly, dreadfully wrong.. Christmas had already passed and the winter snow had already melted into the cold earth, but there was no end in sight. Dragoslav had survived so far, but many of his friends were already dead. Perhaps the reason that he has fared better than most was because he was a sniper; he was inducted into the sniper divisions when he had displayed an eloquent patience and a steady hand with the rifle during one of the first battles against the Austrians. Dragoslav would be nicknamed the Grey Stalker by his comrades for his almost legendary patience as he awaits his targets. Still, the war extracted a heavy toll on him, as he found the people he knew dying one by one in seemingly quick succession.
In 1915, Bulgaria attacked Serbia from behind, splitting the army as the Kingdom scrambled to defend itself on two fronts. In the end, the entire nation was occupied by the Bulgarians and thousands of Serbian soldiers were captured, including Dragoslav.
The war has been terrible so far; captivity in the hands of the Bulgarians was much worse. They treated their prisoners harshly and cruelly, and when Serbia was finally liberated from occupation, Dragoslav's right eye was already blinded by a cigar butt that was pressed on it. He returned to Belgrade just to see his parents' house completely leveled by artillery; he spent the next two weeks taking their bodies out of the rubble in order to get a proper burial.
Exceedingly wracked by despair and hopelessness in his broken homeland, Dragoslav immigrated to the United Kingdom, where his mastery of the English language would serve him well. He quickly found workin a jewel shop in London, earning some good money. He also crafted for himself a pair of glasses that hid his blind eye.
After a few days of work, he found a note on his station, telling him about a certain Order...
by Kowloon-California » Thu Jul 09, 2020 3:46 am
Character Description - WIPName: Liu Zhen (劉真); Anglicized name "Eric Liu"
Personal Effects: Several suits of clothing: one western style suit and one Chinese "Zhongshan" suit, two photographs, one group photo of his master and martial arts school, and a faded one of his long lost lover. He also carries a simple long suitcase carrying a simple set of identity and travel documents, serving as his proof of service in the Chinese Labor Corps, as well as his only true memento of home, a Chinese martial arts jian sword. Though capable of real use, Liu Zhen keeps it stored away whenever possible. As a sword passed down by his father, it is a symbol of honor and virtue, and not a true weapon of war.
Gender: Male
Age: 24
Nationality: Chinese
Appearance:
Background:What is your job: Former police officer, martial artist, and demobilized member of the Chinese Labor Corps
Backstory:
"I was born in Suzhou, China, the beautiful "Venice" of China as it were, during the waning years of the Qing Dynasty. We were the lucky ones, not quite nobility, but wealthy enough from business, that we might as well have been. Our clan had lived in Jiangsu for nearly eight generations, and neither war nor revolution could pry us from making the best of business in times both good and bad. As a child I had bad habits and a pattern of getting into trouble, I admit it. I thought the world, as little as it was, lay at my feet, and that no street urchin could get the best of me, a real "Tiger of Jiangdong!" Sticks, stones, fists, I used them all and I was quite good. Eventually, though, things caught up to me, and when I was fourteen, I got into trouble for beating up the child of a magistrate. Oh how my poor father prostrated and kowtowed to that magistrate! In the end, I was sent away to attend an international boarding school in Shanghai to learn my manners.
Apparently, I still didn't learn my lesson well enough, and soon enough I had gotten my nose in some petty gang fights. I picked one fight too many when I finally came across the man who I would come to call Master Chen. He was just another old man, and I somehow had it in my mind that I was going to take his pipe right from under his nose for having the misfortune of walking down the wrong alley. The next thing I remember, I was lying on the floor and struggling to catch my breath! What happened after was simple, I wanted to learn more, and resolved to never again be left so incapable of fighting. So began my recruitment into the Jing Wu Athletic Association, one of the first modern martial arts institutes in the country.
Honestly, it wasn't all that long ago, but eight years ago was when I really grew up as a man. Oddly enough, the more I learned, the less I wanted to fight, and the less influence the anger I had spent pent up over the years began to dissipate. Away from my own family, I learned the real meaning of honor and virtue from another one. Of course, I'll be the first to admit that the Jing Wu Athletic Association was founded by Republican Revolutionaries, but even now I still believe that only by modernizing all aspects of our country can we be free to enjoy a new era of prosperity, and that extends to how we treat martial arts. It is way of life, but it must also be a practical way of fighting as well. The techniques which serve no value but art must be shed for that which is truly effective in a proper fight!
Haha, I must be getting a little bit ahead of myself. You wanted to know how I ended up here?"
After reaching the limits of my education, I was ready to go back home to Suzhou, or at least that's what my family wanted. In truth though, I was ready to settle in Shanghai for good. There, I had my master and my brothers, an institution that supported me through the ups and downs. There, I could see the city lights, and the new innovations that came from overseas every day. There, I had her."
Liu Zhen's voice cracked for the first time and he pressed his hands to his face for a moment, hiding his eyes before resuming.
"It's stupid, we shouldn't have met, and maybe she would've been happier for it. I hope you'll excuse me if I don't tell you our story, but it's something now that only she and I should share . . . but I did love her."
Liu Zhen clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white and squirmed in his seat further, before taking an effort to breath and relax.
"I became an officer in the Shanghai police, it was a respectable job and many of my brothers in the Wu Jing Association were in truth police officers. One of the few jobs that puts to use a man's fighting abilities I suppose. The irony is that on the first day of the job, I was given a gun and told not to be stupid - Kung Fu is Kung Fu, but sometimes a bullet can do what years of training cannot.
It was exciting, fun even, for a year as a young man, but the world is cruel. A few years ago, In 1915 I believe it was, I was tasked with assisting a detective handle a particularly sensitive corruption case. To be clear, corruption is essentially a fact of life in the Republic, but even for us there were limits as to what a person could be allowed to get away with. It was an arms smuggling case, and there were said to be some Japanese men who were selling arms to a general who was planning on overthrowing the local warlord clique that dominated the Shanghai area. We knew that the Green Gang, one of Shanghai's most powerful organized crime syndicates, had their hands in the pie, but we couldn't touch them.
Obviously, it didn't take long before we were told to get lost by the kingpin himself, Du Yuesheng. Still I wasn't afraid, it was all like noise to me, I was in love and happy. Whatever happened on a day's beat could easily be forgotten after I took off the uniform. Threats didn't scare me.
In the end, however, I had no way of comprehending what came next. What was supposed to be the happiest day of my life turned into the worst. I proposed to the woman who was to be my wife, and I had already spent months winning over her father. Everything seemed to be perfect, I don't know how . . .
Hours after she had accepted my proposal, one of my brothers from the Wu Jing Association told me that she was gone. Witnesses said that they saw her stand up from her seat on the river ferry, and jump into the Huangpu river. A clear suicide. How I ask you? I could not, would not accept that she could do that on the happiest day of my life. The only answer was murder.
The next day I walked into the club frequented by the Green Gang and killed three men. I put a bullet between the eyes of the doorman, another into the chest of one of the big boss' lackey, and one more right into the bastard Du Yuesheng's face. He had the gall to look surprised by my retribution. He even played dumb when I put my revolver into his mouth.
I had no choice but to run after that, to leave behind everything I had built under my master and my brothers. All of my honor thrown away in a bloody daze of bullets. I didn't want to live, but I wasn't ready to die. When I saw that the government was recruiting peasants to join the Chinese Labor Corps to serve in Europe, I signed up and never looked back. That was 1916.
These last two years I've been worked like a dog digging trenches, burying bodies, and unloading ammunition. We weren't formally at war with Germany, so Chinese wouldn't be fighting on the front lines, but our government was perfectly happy to sell our labor in return for winning favor from the Entente. Not that danger did not come to us all the same, many of my comrades died of disease, and German shells did not distinguish between friend or foe when were tasked with burial duty close to the front lines.
I was ready to work myself raw then, and try to build a new future after the war. That was until I started getting letters from back home. Some of my brothers had tried to calm things down so that I could one day return, but in their probes to the Green Gang, every single person they met denied that they had anything to do with my wife's death. They even got an eyewitness to write me a letter explaining the circumstances exactly as they saw it. Clear as day, no one had forced her to jump but her own volition. There were no words or any hint of fear, she took step after step and calmly allowed the embrace of death.
I am a haunted man. I killed three men. They were no paragons of virtue, but they had done nothing to deserve death. In China, we revere our martial artists greatly. The best ones are to be exemplars of martial virtue, Wu De (武德). Something like the knights of your society. In one fit of anger I threw away my honor and life, but I still didn't know why my beloved left me, why she chose to leave this world. Was there something that even I, her fiance, did not know? It is the kind of guilt that eats a man out, carves him out raw and bloody with regret. Was it my fault? These questions follow me every waking moment.
A few months ago now, I came to London looking to book passage back home to Shanghai. As the pandemic got worse, I decided to stay here at this inn for a few months (I may have worked like a peasant, but I'm no pauper!) to try and avoid the flu in the confines of a small ship. That's when I met you.
To be honest, I didn't quite believe the rumors that I've heard. That there are forces in this world beyond our understanding, and that these forces prey on the innocent of this world - but I heard you out."
Liu Zhen leaned forward in his seat with a determined look on his face.
"The love of my life did not leave this world of her own accord. I have struggled with this in my heart but now I have hope. She loved me, and I loved her. At least this much is true, and this is strength enough for me. We men who pledge our lives to learning Kung Fu do so in order to uphold peace and justice - to protect the weak. I don't know anything about supernatural evils, I've buried enough men to know that our own hearts are dark enough - but someone, something, TOOK her. If there is such an evil out there in this world, and I must believe that there was, then I pledge to fight it.
I believe you because there is no alternative, my fiance did not kill herself!"
Liu Zhen finally sunk back into his seat before speaking one final sentence, barely above a whisper.
"I've never been so sure of anything in my life before."
by Dyelli Beybi » Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:32 am
Kylantha wrote:Character DescriptionName: Sabina Trestana Vallée-Masson
Personal Effects: Sabina brings lots of clothes to a fancy place she is staying at, as well as a lot of money, and some medicines and a compact kit of medical supplies from her office.
Gender: Female
Age: 35 (Born the 5th of August, 1883)
Nationality: French, with Breton blood
Appearance:
Background:What is your job: Zoologist/Taxidermist
Backstory: *snip*Character DescriptionName: Ciaran O'Sullivan
Personal Effects: Clothing, money, a number of personal memorabilia, including an expensive looking locket that Thomas used to own. It needs a key, which is missing. (Ciaran isn't expecting to have to use tools from the mortuary, so he leaves them behind)
Gender: Male
Age: 19 (Born 29th of April, 1899)
Nationality: British (Irish)
Appearance:Just about 5'8" foot in height and muscular in build (>.>)
Background:What is your job: Apprentice Undertaker
Backstory: *snip*
Europa Undivided wrote:Character DescriptionName: Dragoslav Čarapić (formerly known as the Grey Stalker by his now dead comrades)
Personal Effects:
Gender: A Man
Age: 25
Nationality: Serbian/Yugoslav
Appearance:
A grey overcoat, a pistol, old pictures of his squad and platoon in the Serbian Army, and several books.
Background:What is your job: Currently working in a jewelry shop; formerly a sniper of the Serbian Army.
Backstory:
*snip*
by Dyelli Beybi » Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:33 am
Kowloon-California wrote:Here is my WIP app. I'd definitely like to think about making another character in the days to come as well once I finish creating this one.Character Description - WIPName: Liu Zhen (劉真); Anglicized name "Eric Liu"
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