Anguissette

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Anguissette

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Main Base: The Land (Pariah Bay)
Name: Aisling Grey
Nicknames: Birdy, the Grey Goose (among Rats, eg. "the Grey Goose that lays the golden eggs")

Role: Citizen (some Rat ties)
Character Pitch: Aisling was born a younger heiress of a Floater House - or at least its cadet line. Born above the Placenta, hers was a privileged existence surrounded by servant automatons, with naught to do but marry well and not disgrace the House. Yet Aisling was curiosity itself, and was responsible for disassembling more than one of her family's mechanical aides in the name of research. Though expensive, the prestige of a successful tinkerer in the family meant this hobby was tolerated and through some training from other Sky-born tinkerers was nursed into a true passion. Aisling became known for her charming little bird-automata that flew and sang, and her House sometimes gave these delightful little gifts to their counterparts at suitable soirees.

Restless and impatient, the budding young tinkerer was not satisfied to rest on her laurels (or interested in seeking to profit from her creations) and fixed on the mystery of the Puppeteer and The Doll. Determined to repeat his greatest creation, she began a series of experiments aimed to create automatons of fluid grace and living temperament, beings that would stand astride the divide between the living and the merely animate. Securing the required ingredients was not cheap, and after a long string of failures her family refused to fund her experiments further - urging her to return to the pretty bird-automata she did so well.

Sensing her progress, Aisling agreed but secretly continued, borrowing the funds from her family’s accounts. This went on for almost a year until it was discovered that “Birdy” was still continuing her experiments and her family confronted her in an intervention. Somehow her laboratory exploded in the heat of the argument, leaving her the sole survivor of her line. In the investigation that followed her peculation came to light and blame for the incident inevitably settled around her neck. Aisling escaped criminal charges through a combination of lack of evidence and the senior branch of the family using their council seat to avoid scandal, but she was expelled from the family under an assumed surname and exiled to The Land with a single purse of funds to her name and the clothes on her back.

The benign who know of her plight are convinced the explosion was a tragic accident caused by a young lady playing with forces she didn’t understand, but Aisling is utterly convinced it was murder. She was on the brink of a revolutionary discovery and the same people who killed the Puppeteer attempted to silence her and destroy her work. Since her Fall, Aisling has made and sold her little birds simply to keep a roof over her head, scraping together to afford a home in Pariah Bay and dealing with the Rats both to make some extra coin and to gain access to specialized materiels on the rare occasion they fall into the hands of the black market. Not to mention source doses of the Medicine to feed her addiction.

Driven to prove herself, avenge her family’s murder, breathe metal to glorious life and one day reclaim her place in the Sky, Aisling’s personal well-being falls a distant fourth. Fifth? Low on the list, regardless.

Note: Aisling would work well with a “protector” character whether employed by her or with their own agenda. If she is approved, please PM me if you’re interested in working out a relationship. I will likely NPC an employee in the meantime.

Appearance: Aisling’s lustrous chestnut hair has long since been cut short for practical (and financial) reasons, and is frequently stained with oil or some other mysterious liquid. She is 5’8” and distinctly underfed, dressed in a grey day-dress that comes midway down her calves. Her dainty feet are wrapped in miner’s boots, chunky but resilient, while she wears a brown duster coat whose inner pockets bulge interestingly through the line of the fabric. Her resting face is less bitch- than distrustful-, and her green eyes blaze with inner fire. If there is any doubt about her dedication to her cause, meeting her eyes takes it immediately away... though it may cause some to question if she remains entirely sane.
 
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Form

Main Base
: The Land
Name: Minerva Eliza Gifford
Nicknames: Meg

Role: Citizen, Aspiring Journalist

Character Pitch: Any city has a thousand stories, but the free Golden City has a thousand thousand - and Minerva is determined to find them all, curate them and share the finest under her byline. From political gossip straight from the Council chamber to the latest inventions from the most famous tinkers in the Land. From the scandalous exploits of the boldest Criminals to juicy horror stories of the Underground, cautionary tales that remind even the poorest Citizen that things could always be worse. A lesson that is brought home to her any time she comes up short of news and is given the Obit column to write up. Some of the lads in the newsroom lay odds on the weekly totals, but Meg isn't that hardened yet.

Her father works in the mines and her mother still minds the children for all the families in her end of the street. Two of her brothers are already in the mines, while her other five siblings are yet being raised. Minerva wants something more for herself, and though her mother sometimes complains she's put on graces she has the ambition and the drive to get anywhere she sets her mind to.

Appearance: Minerva's flaming red hair and pale skin generally serve to catch the eye when she wants them to, while the spectacles that sit on the bridge of her nose indicate (to some at least) that she works for a living. Her frilly, ruffled white blouse has a high neck clasped at the throat by a faux-gold medallion bearing a cog interwoven with scrollwork, the insignia of the Golden City Times. With this she wears a charcoal underbust halter corset sheathing her narrow waist without quite squeezing the air out of her. Beneath this a cool blue skirt and heeled boots wrought of two hues of leather. Interestingly she also bears a tinker's bracer on her left forearm with buttons which allow her to take notes in shorthand on a little coil of special paper which extrudes from its top. On one hip she wears a satchel for any supplies, small gifts or writing fodder - as well as a ladies' derringer. One can't be too careful these days.
 
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Form

Main Base: The Underground
Name: Katherine Llew ("Thew", hard for non-Welsh to pronounce).
Nicknames: Kitty

Role: Rat, Small Business Owner
Character Pitch: Katherine Llew was not born in the Golden City. She made the journey here from the coasts of Gallia in her youth as part of her family's circus. When the fifteen-year-old Kitty first laid eyes on the city - the Sky gleaming in the early morning light - she was enthralled with the bright clean brilliance of the place, so much more advanced than anywhere they'd been. Truly a city of the future, where she was sure they would make their fortune! The truth, as so often, would prove more complicated.

Inside the City's natural walls, the Land was a thriving swirl of colour and life. It might not be the glittering prize the Sky had promised, but it was a far more comfortable fit for any of the Harrison Family Circus. In the Centre they put on performances three times a week, every week for almost a year before they acquired a semi-permanent performance theatre. Acting as the Circus' contortionist and one of its singers, Kitty was very popular with a certain element of the audience but despite a few scares for her parents she was nineteen before she got serious about any of the young men paying her court. That was when she met Dylan Llew.

With raven-black hair, a lark's voice and bright green eyes, the young man with the Welsh blood made Katherine every bit as silly and dreamy-eyed as she had made the boys that came before him. The smog had begun to wear on Ma Harrison's lungs and they were making plans to leave for less industrial climes when Kitty and her swain came to confess the fruits of their intimacy. Katherine thought her hide would smart for a week from the heat of her parents' scolding, but in the end they gave their grudging blessing for their union in wedlock.

The Harrisons stayed in the Golden City as long as they could, but in the end they were forced to leave when Katherine was six months pregnant. Though she was yet twenty years old, this was the end of her charmed life. Living in small yet comfortable quarters that her miner husband could scarcely afford, she suffered through a painful childbirth with her family miles away and nowhere to be seen. Holding her tiny daughter in her arms, she knew that everything was going to be fine now.

She was mistaken.

Two months later Dylan disappeared while running an errand at night for a powerful and anonymous friend. Though she sought help from her own neighbours, no one seemed to remember her situation. With Dylan gone she was just another needy mouth to feed, and she found herself slipping down the social ladder rung by rung, making bargains she never thought she would to keep a roof over her baby's head. Finally she was forced to sell up and retreat into The Underground, where she used most of her remaining funds to set up a bar in the upper circles, a short walk from the black market.

It isn't much in the eyes of the city elite, but to those in the know The Walls is a hidden gem of a nightspot. Kitty has been running it for five years now mostly by herself, and while absolutely nothing is easy she has only grown better at what she does every day.

She has to be. For Violet.

Appearance: Kitty's last five years have aged her from the fresh-faced circus performer that captivated young male audiences in The Land for three years, yet she remains athletic and vital despite all the Underground can throw at her. Scarcely four inches over five feet, she will never be tall or dangerous with her hands, yet retains a presence that can calm a tavern brawl almost before it begins. Her hair is the rich brown of chocolate, yet is kept in a twisted topknot bun unless she's actively trying to seduce someone; or it's the evening service. Katherine hasn't seen the sun in years and the pallor of her skin reflects this; a pale hue that the Sewers frequently bead with sweat.
 
NPCs of The Walls (main timeline)
Violet
Age
:
Basic Appearance:
Tidbits:

+1 (Female, young adult)


+1 (Male, late prime)

(very wip, will update and develop this post further as the story evolves)
 
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Form

Main Base
: The Underground

Name: Alex(andra) Macy
Nicknames: Spout (commonly), Alex (rarely)

Role/Affiliation: Criminal / Chattering Choughs

Character Pitch: Alexandra Macy wasn't always the wiry young boy she presents to the world today. Up till the age of four she was the daughter of an aspiring tinker in The Land, always on the point of Making It in the cutthroat world of Golden City. When his extensive debts saw that prophecy come to fruition and her mother's swift decline she was left orphaned and without family willing to claim her. A pretty young thing in her best white smock, she was taken in by an orphanage on the cusp of Pariah Bay. The caretaker meant well, but in practice the establishment was constantly on the brink of bankruptcy and consequently he accepted extremely dubious adoptions for a sufficiently high consideration. He took bribes not to look too closely at certain requests.

One such request (ostensibly from a house for religious education situated at the base of the Stairway in the Underground) came for Alexandra at the age of seven and in a moment of malmsey-inspired moralism he cautioned her to run, as far and as fast as she could. Better to risk anything than to be locked away in Mrs Collins' Home for Wayward Young Ladies. The next morning she took his warning to heart, and as two men in priestly robes escorted her down the last stretches of the soot-stained stairwell she vaulted over the side and ran away along a stretch of piping. She could have slipped to her death any number of times. She didn't.

Alexandra quickly learned the dangers of being a street child in the Underground, still more one without anyone to watch her back. Anyone was a potential threat, driven by desperation to profit from one another's misery. One of the early steps she took as her smock became increasingly grimy and she dodged a succession of procurer's men sweeping the streets at night was to dress as a boy, taking the the guise on completely and calling herself (himself?) Alex. Even so there were not that many safe places for a child alone to sleep in the Sewers. The deeper one went, the more likely that some heavy machinery would crush, smoke or broil you in your sleep. The closer one went to the surface, the more likely that another Rat would find you and try to turn a profit. Alex compromised by keeping close to the surface, but staying well above ground level. Frequently he would take his scrounged foodstuffs up to a rooftop or an overhanging pipe, strap himself in place and choke it down before dropping into an exhausted sleep. Alex had more luck making friends as a young boy than a young girl, and was drawn gradually into the orbit of the charismatic and clever Brulow Chough around his ninth year. Among his friends he was dubbed "Spout" for his affinity for the roof-gargoyles rumored to be high up in the Land and Sky - as well as his rumored antics in peeing onto one of The Underground's harshest slumlords during a thick bout of smog.

In the last five years with Brulow's encouragement, Spout has turned his acrobatic talents toward profit and poetic justice alike. He is a highly talented cat burglar, and has on occasion snuck up into the Land to hit particularly deserving targets. Whether he is after easily marketable jewels or incriminating evidence of their misdeeds, his victims rarely realize anyone has been there until well after his inconspicuous exit. In the same period despite his best efforts (and irregular meals) Spout's body has begun to develop with puberty. Driven by necessity he has trusted Priss with "his" secret, and she has helped him conceal his true gender to date. He doesn't know whether or not she has shared this with Brulow - the head of the Chattering Choughs has never said he knows, but he has that way of looking at you which makes you think he knows everything anyway. Maybe he's always known?

Over the last five years Spout has also grown increasingly angry about the social inequity he sees between the Rats and the society that keeps them firmly beneath its heel. He hasn't yet seen a way to strike at it (after all, he's only one small teenager - what can he do?) but given the opportunity it would likely take all his friends' persuasion to rein him in from doing something drastic. Or foolish, depending on how you see it.

Besides, maybe they agree with him? He's made no secret of his views, among friends.

Appearance: At fourteen, Spout looks closer to twelve. He has a wiry underfed build and a face rarely free of smudges and smuts, although he's still too young to show any signs of downy whiskers. His eyes are a deep blue, similar to the rumored deep blue of the sea and his constant frustration are the long lashes that "make him look like a girl". As a general rule he dresses in a grey tunic-shirt and butternut shorts down past the knee - although what colour either ragged piece of clothing was originally is anyone's guess. His hair is a dark brown mop he keeps cut short and beneath a soft black cap which is his pride and joy. He usually has bare feet, although he keeps a pair of soft shoes for particularly sneaky adventures or for when he has to do the pretty to blend in with the Landies.
 
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