O
- Status
D
Dervish
Guest
Librarian Cat let me know he was away for the weekend. He should be back tomorrow or the day after.
- Invitation Status
- Posting Speed
- 1-3 posts per week
- Writing Levels
- Adept
- Advanced
- Prestige
- Preferred Character Gender
- Male
- Primarily Prefer Male
- Genres
- Action, Fantasy, Romance, Modern, Magical, Sci-Fi, Steampunk, etc.
I've been working extra hours, hell they called me in early today. I have tomorrow off though, so I will start a post tonight.
- Invitation Status
- Look for groups
- Posting Speed
- 1-3 posts per day
- Online Availability
- Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, from 5pm-10pm US EAST
- Writing Levels
- Douche
- Adaptable
- Preferred Character Gender
- Male
- Primarily Prefer Male
- Genres
- Fantasy, Sci-fi, Modern, Warlike, and Furry RP's.
O
O|NoSoul
Guest
I see. Coolio, everyone. No rush, just getting a roll call.
- Invitation Status
- Look for groups
- Posting Speed
- 1-3 posts per day
- Online Availability
- Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, from 5pm-10pm US EAST
- Writing Levels
- Douche
- Adaptable
- Preferred Character Gender
- Male
- Primarily Prefer Male
- Genres
- Fantasy, Sci-fi, Modern, Warlike, and Furry RP's.
Whenever I post on the IC, I just wanna hit my character with a rock.
Does anyone feel the same way?
Does anyone feel the same way?
O
O|NoSoul
Guest
Whenever I post in the IC, I have to say 10 hail marys and pray every morning for 3 days after because I'm not as much of an asshole as Sevari in real life and writing him in that way almost breaks my fingers.
And git gud. Zaveed probably didn't talk to him because you never pestered Dervish about a collab. Don't worry, Ja will now have a way to have his smile and optimism: gone with this new merry jaunt through the snow, snow and more snow.
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D
Dervish
Guest
I'll actually freely admit to having missed or forgotten that Ja'Kiefer tried to talk to Zaveed, and it might be entirely possible I didn't see the post go up before I posted the Jarl post (which sucked up waaaay too much time and motivation from me), and for that, I am very truly sorry Librarian! I was reading your post and was like, "Who the heck is vomit cat?" before realizing that's how I ended my last post with Zaveed.
Man, I feel like I just stepped out of a damn time machine.
Man, I feel like I just stepped out of a damn time machine.
O
O|NoSoul
Guest
D
Dervish
Guest
I do have several weeks of beard growth going on that I may shave this weekend because there's a job interview Monday.
I just want to look as majestic as Tormond Giantsbane, goddamn it.
R
Robeatics
Guest
Hey guys, guess who's back! Even though half of you don't know me Dervs managed to drag me back to this universe yet again, and it's great to see all these cool new character sheets and fresh faces. I've been reading over a lot of them and they're all pretty interesting, so I hope I can measure up with my new character. She's a huge woobie.
Name: Gelina Vautte
Race: Breton, former werewolf
Family Origins: Colorful. She was raised by a family of acrobats, travelling with them from city to city before she was chased away with the contraction of her lycanthropy. Many of her teenage years were spent skirting civilization and surviving off the land in isolation.
Appearance: Standing straight up at a height of 5'3", Gelina is a very lithe, pale individual. Her posture often takes on a lowly slinking, like a cat before pouncing, and she is rarely found with her back to a room. When she is not brandishing a hood, her hair is a ghostly blonde, almost white, and if taken from its loose braid is about shoulder-length and silkily straight. Her nose comes to an even angle on her face, neither hooked nor upturned, her jaw is well-defined, and her light brown eyes boast impressive bags from many sleepless nights. Two long, jagged scars run from the cheekbone of her left eye to her lips, stopping just before the corner of her mouth. She wears a light ensemble of leather armor over a pair of loose, silky pants and a billowy white blouse that is cut off by bracers down her arms. Constantly covering her head is an old rag of a cowl, a priestly orange unlike the rest of her outfit and large enough in comparison to bunch up about her shoulders. In warmer climates, she is as barefoot as a beggar, clad in shinguards and footwraps to better ease climbing and running on all terrain. She bears the symbol of Dibella around her neck, hoping others take her for a pilgrim and pay little mind. (I wrote the description before I made the picture and I wasn't about to delete this whole paragraph so here's both)
Age: 23
Equipment:
1 Steel Sword
1 Steel Dagger
1 Imperial Bow
15 Steel Arrows
Miscellanea:
1 Amulet of Dibella
1 Waterskin
1 Hip Flask (Filled with a stamina potion)
1 Leather Backpack
2 Potions of Healing
1 Potion of Cure Disease
1 Pouch of Cooking Salt and Spices
1 Flint and Tinder
1 Copy of "The Beast of Honmis Hall" (A saucy romance novel. Well-worn.)
1 Copy of "A Tale of Lilies: A Scholar's Foray Into the Dibellan Arts" (An even saucier novel. Very well-worn.)
4 Days' Rations
60 Septims
1 Mortar and Pestle
2 Ingredient Pouches
3 Bear Claws
10 Blue Mountain Flowers
6 Butterfly Wings
5 Orange Dartwings
Favored Skills:
Highly Proficient-
Acrobatics
One-Handed
Moderately Proficient-
Archery
Somewhat Proficient-
Sneak
Alchemy
Destruction
Spells:
Frostbite
Flames
Ice Spike
Freeze
Fighting Style: Gelina favors methods that require great dexterity to manage while keeping her as far from harm's way as possible, resulting in an often dizzying display of flexibility and speed in the name of outmaneuvering. She isn't above using enemies or allies as springboards in the heat of combat, nor does she turn up her nose at the idea of dodging between a taller man's legs and shooting flames into his groin. Despite her magical bloodline, she can get exhausted quickly if she fires off too many spells, and so saves them purely for advantageous situations, using her off-hand dagger in the meantime. She prefers to use her bow in the beginning stages of combat, if pouncing on the enemy from an angle they weren't expecting isn't an option.
Personality: At a glance, Gelina is a polite, if odd, young woman who avoids eye contact and the word "no". Having conversations with her to the more observant, however, is an exercise in Gelina eagerly seeking out ways she can pander to her conversation partner and slip into their mold of a perfect friend. She loves agreement, even if she has to lie to get it, and seeks praise and trust from her allies whenever possible. When alone, she keeps her wits about her and her back to walls, dwelling at the edges of crowds and lingering in doorways to better gauge escape routes. Deep down, she craves the meaningful love of others but shies from it, a side effect of only recently returning to the world of humanity. Her yearning for romance and sensuality huddles beneath her fear of closeness, only allowed to half-emerge through her openness towards casual sex. Shame is nothing to her. If it will save her life or give her what she wants, she will grovel, beg, and pander until it is within sight, then snatch it away and hurriedly escape the ire of the victim. She is submissive down to her soul, always more ready to show her belly than engage in an argument or incite confrontation. She has seen loved ones cast her out too many times before, and appeasement, she feels, is the only way to make them want to keep her around. Despite her past traumas and present difficulties adjusting to society, she is freer than she has been in nearly a decade--and perhaps even before that--and tries to make the most of all that she has achieved.
Speech Color: Plum
Name: Gelina Vautte
Race: Breton, former werewolf
Family Origins: Colorful. She was raised by a family of acrobats, travelling with them from city to city before she was chased away with the contraction of her lycanthropy. Many of her teenage years were spent skirting civilization and surviving off the land in isolation.
Appearance: Standing straight up at a height of 5'3", Gelina is a very lithe, pale individual. Her posture often takes on a lowly slinking, like a cat before pouncing, and she is rarely found with her back to a room. When she is not brandishing a hood, her hair is a ghostly blonde, almost white, and if taken from its loose braid is about shoulder-length and silkily straight. Her nose comes to an even angle on her face, neither hooked nor upturned, her jaw is well-defined, and her light brown eyes boast impressive bags from many sleepless nights. Two long, jagged scars run from the cheekbone of her left eye to her lips, stopping just before the corner of her mouth. She wears a light ensemble of leather armor over a pair of loose, silky pants and a billowy white blouse that is cut off by bracers down her arms. Constantly covering her head is an old rag of a cowl, a priestly orange unlike the rest of her outfit and large enough in comparison to bunch up about her shoulders. In warmer climates, she is as barefoot as a beggar, clad in shinguards and footwraps to better ease climbing and running on all terrain. She bears the symbol of Dibella around her neck, hoping others take her for a pilgrim and pay little mind. (I wrote the description before I made the picture and I wasn't about to delete this whole paragraph so here's both)
Age: 23
Equipment:
1 Steel Sword
1 Steel Dagger
1 Imperial Bow
15 Steel Arrows
Miscellanea:
1 Amulet of Dibella
1 Waterskin
1 Hip Flask (Filled with a stamina potion)
1 Leather Backpack
2 Potions of Healing
1 Potion of Cure Disease
1 Pouch of Cooking Salt and Spices
1 Flint and Tinder
1 Copy of "The Beast of Honmis Hall" (A saucy romance novel. Well-worn.)
1 Copy of "A Tale of Lilies: A Scholar's Foray Into the Dibellan Arts" (An even saucier novel. Very well-worn.)
4 Days' Rations
60 Septims
1 Mortar and Pestle
2 Ingredient Pouches
3 Bear Claws
10 Blue Mountain Flowers
6 Butterfly Wings
5 Orange Dartwings
Favored Skills:
Highly Proficient-
Acrobatics
One-Handed
Moderately Proficient-
Archery
Somewhat Proficient-
Sneak
Alchemy
Destruction
Spells:
Frostbite
Flames
Ice Spike
Freeze
Even from a young age, Gelina's life was never particularly static. She was born to a Nord father and Breton mother, two performers who'd fallen in love at the Bards College in Solitude and decided to open up a travelling family act. She had two older siblings, an eldest brother, Jodnal, and sister, Delne, who'd inherited their father's sturdy, tall build. They liked to tease and bully the quiet Gelina, who took more after her mother, until the day Gelina began her acrobatics lessons and they discovered that her smaller frame gave her a natural agility they had to work much harder to achieve. Her father showered her with attention, and by the time she was ten she was the darling little center of the act, entertaining and aweing nobles and commoner crowds alike by juggling, scaling castle walls and showcasing her dexterity in the air.
Inevitably, this sparked a need in Gelina for her parents' praise, constantly bettering her skills to outpace her siblings and snatch up any attention they might receive. A rift opened up in the family, subtle at first; at twelve Gelina was deemed old enough to start learning ways of defending herself, as many travelling bards were apt to do. The roads were dangerous, and she found herself dreaming of all the ways she could impress her parents by fighting off a raging boar or wicked highwayman. Jodnal and Delne, however, grew increasingly angry with her talents and arrogance, culminating in a sparring match that ended in a two-on-one brawl their parents had to tear apart. Gelina was sequestered in the wagon, nursing a broken arm and crippled ego, while her siblings were scolded for being too rough. At that point Gelina recognized the rift, slowly returning to her more reserved self as she realized she was outmatched. Their parents couldn't understand their children's rivalry, and as the years went by Gelina grew distant and toothless, dodging around the ire of her siblings by training in secret and letting them take the lead in performances.
This nervous dance continued for years, eventually easing her siblings' hostilities and sparing her any prospective beatings. She'd long lost the favor of her parents, who began spending more time with Jodnal and Delne when they saw them put forth a better effort. Gelina was lonely and missed the attention of her parents, but feared her two stronger siblings enough to bear it. As the family wound about the Imperial City, performing in Chorrol, Skingrad, Bravil and Cheydinhal, Gelina found comfort in the forests and plains of Cyrodiil, taking to the wildlife as an escape from her siblings. The night the wagon rolled its wheels along the road to Bruma, however, Gelina found that there was more to the wild than deer and treetops.
She should've turned back when she heard the shouting a few hundred yards from her family's camp, should've run when the biggest wolf she'd ever seen burst from the underbrush not twenty feet away and let out a roar that shook her to her core. Men she would later recall as Vigilants of Stendarr charged in, blood-spattered and crying out a few seconds later, but too late. The beast pinned Gelina and engulfed her shoulder in its maw before she could even scream, crunching through her simple bodice into the flesh beneath. She'd never forget the gleam in the creature's eyes as a dozen blades sank into its back, the way its spine crunched and gave way when the Vigilants' maces found their mark.
Adrenaline took over, and she found her voice. She didn't wait for the Vigilants to lift the monstrous animal away, squeezing out from beneath it and taking off in a desperate sprint. She would only consider later that her panic might've saved her life, as the Vigilants would have surely killed her to keep another beast from rising. Her family had only just gone to sleep when she came lumbering out of the frosty trees, screaming about monsters and needing to escape.
Her family listened when they saw her grievous wound, and the wagon barreled away just as the Vigilants made it out of the trees. The ride to Bruma exhausted the horse, but they made it to the city walls before midnight and carried her to the healer in the chapel. By that point she was delirious and fought with them, but as the pain was eased with restorative magic, she slipped into a dreamless sleep.
When her eyes finally opened, she could feel the whispering of grass on her face, morning frost chilling her side. She couldn't remember anything beyond the chapel's vaulted ceiling and her father's panicked demands, the dark forest, gleaming blades, the beast's fangs. She was naked and cold, and as she gathered her surroundings she saw that she was on a hill far beyond the walls of Bruma. Sharp terror gripped her heart tighter than the snow that threatened overhead. She wrapped herself in a cloak stolen from a secluded cottage nearby and began her laborious, confused trek back to the city.
She met her family before she could reach the main gates, and the look in their eyes told her immediately something was wrong. Her father was the only one to approach, his throat clenched, brow creased. They'd been waiting to see if she'd return, he said. Half of Bruma was hunting for her, for the animal that had burst from the chapel with a worshipper in its mouth, that'd torn three guards apart before fleeing into the snow. Gelina could feel the earth open up and swallow every inch of her spirit whole;animal, beast, werewolf. Her father insisted that he wouldn't let anyone know, but she had to leave immediately. She noted that his sword was drawn with a sudden acuity, and quietly backed away. A mile into the wilderness, she hunched and vomited up three human fingers, a small bone, and more red than she'd ever hoped to see in her life.
Thus her nightmare began, at sixteen years of age, naked and bloody. She forced herself to keep to the wilderness around the border of Skyrim and Cyrodiil the first few months, drinking from springs and using her heightened senses to discover berry bushes and farmers' crop patches. She tried to ignore her predicament entirely, to forget her abandoning family and merely exist. Her compassion hollowed out every time she saw the rising sun in a pool of blood, and after years of near-isolation she found herself in a more secluded portion of Tamriel, facing a little priory that sat tucked away into the mountains between Skyrim, High Rock and Cyrodiil. Following her nose up the winding forest paths, she located the squat stone walls and the food and gardens beyond with ease. Starving and haggard, the few guards at the gates of the priory forced her to keep away, wary with all the unrest that was raging in Skyrim less than a mile from their mountain oasis.
The head priestess, a graying Imperial woman by the name of Androla, heard the commotion at the gates and allowed Gelina entry, putting an arm about her shoulders and offering her food, a bed for the night and directions to larger temples that could offer better charity. Gelina inwardly refused the latter two, but the former she took to with a renewed liveliness. As the sun threatened to lower over the horizon, Gelina snuck away into the forest, suddenly terrified that she'd condemned the entire priory to grisly deaths. She found a cave higher up in the mountain range, hoping to hide herself deep enough that the beast would chase spiders and creatures of the underground instead, but alas, when she awoke the next morning, it was in a ruined bandit camp, limbs strewn about and tents coated with blood. She sniffed out her shed rags from last night, washed the blood away in a cold river, and made her way back into the priory.
The Sisters were the first to greet her and ask her where she went in the night, to which she meekly lied that she was frightened of the mostly male guards and didn't want to sleep within the walls of the priory. They took pity, dragging her up to the head priestess like a group of excitable children and relaying what Gelina told them. Androla, seeing the beggar woman return, offered her a deal: she could stay for as long as she liked if she agreed to pray in the church with the Sisters just once weekly and attend to a few duties the aging laborer of the priory could not. After nearly a day of deliberation, she accepted; her heart had grown cold, and even if everyone in the priory died she couldn't bear to shun the first kindness she'd seen in years.
The bandit camp she cleaned out kept her inner beast caged for at least a night or so, and she took that as an opportunity to wrestle for control. She'd attempted many times over the course of her affliction to remain lucid at night, but the best--and most horrifying--progress she'd made was being able to remember flashes of what transpired while she was a raging animal. She chose to let herself be taken over that night, far away from the priory, and for the first time felt her consciousness actively dwindle.
This careful schedule continued for years. Skyrim was very slowly calming, and her heart had transformed. She went into the chapel to pray to Dibella every morning and afternoon, read every text she could, and took to lessons in the Arts with gusto. She stayed in a small cabin beyond the priory walls, serving as its resident hunter, servant and laysister, dancing between her dark secret and daytime kowtowing. The beast was slowly acquiescing, it seemed, and her nightly transformations carried with them a more muted dread. Until the night bandits attacked.
They came from the mists of the evergreens, pounding on their shields and crying out horrible taunts. Their apparent leader stood to the front, mace drawn, and gave the inhabitants of the priory an ultimatum: they could surrender and maybe live, or die after a few nights of "good old Dibellan fun". Gelina was in the chapel when her fellow Sisters rushed in, begging her to help the guards fend their attackers off. She felt the beast ache against her skin, and, against her better judgement, did not simply run away and leave the priory to its fate. She scaled the gates, to the horror of the guards and clergy, and moments after her feet touched the ground of the other side, the bandits faced a werewolf. The whole priory shook with a howl, and as bandits sprinted fruitlessly away in every direction, Androla could hear them be torn apart and eaten.
The head priestess hadn't always been a member of the clergy. She'd been a battlemage of the Empire during the Great War years ago, and when her flock was threatened she leapt to their defense, regardless of the attacker. The Sisters, guards and servants were herded into the chapel, but before Androla could see both everyone and herself inside, the beast appeared perched atop the gates, its bloodlust glutted but never satisfied. She met its claws with fire and ice, her last words to her priory being a command to barricade the doors.
At sunrise, after hours of weeping and silence, the inhabitants of the priory opened the chapel. Gelina lay unconscious in the center of the compound, her bare skin marked by bruises and burns. Beside her rested the body of Androla, gaping bites taken from her neck and chest. The priory erupted into chaos, jolting Gelina awake, and every available weapon was drawn and poised at her neck.
The priory came upon an agreement to shackle Gelina in a storage shed until they decided her fate. She could see guards mill about beyond the little shed window, cradling their spears and groping at the hilts of their blades before Androla's second-in-command approached and told them to help ready Androla's grave. She swung the door to the shed open then, carrying a backpack, weapons and letter. She whispered of Androla's connections, how she knew a fellow Great War veteran with a similar affliction who'd cured himself. She held the sealed letter for Gelina to regard, explaining that it was directions to find him: Calilias Nunicius of Daggerfall, a bookshop owner. Androla's trusted confidant then unshackled Gelina and sent her to the gates with her travelling supplies, ignoring the protest of the guards.
Gelina left, spared and cast out yet again, but with a new hope lighting her path. Crossing through the mountains and across High Rock, she made it to Daggerfall and the front step of Calilias' bookshop. He was bald and thin, and by the gleam in his eye she felt that he knew what she was before she could even approach the counter. Suddenly more anxious than she's been in her entire life, she weakly requested a book and loitered with it in the back of his shop until, no other customers in sight, he tiredly invited her into the back room. He blew out the candles in the window of his shop and closed the door behind them. Gelina didn't know what to say--how could she think that a beast such as herself would deserve redemption? For all she knew Androla's confidant had sent her straight to the doorstep of a werewolf hunter. She began to cry, right in front of him, and after nearly twenty minutes of attempting to speak he gave up and sent her away to "think over what needed to be said".
She spent two days in the hills beyond Daggerfall, bewildered and torn. Finally, she came upon his shop once more, deciding that she would rather die than live in torment, and as soon as they were alone, she gave him the letter and pleaded for help--be it death or a cure, she just couldn't handle the loneliness. She almost wished it was the former. The cure, he explained, may be just as damning as the disease. He told the tale of his own purification, how he tracked down a family with dormant lycanthropy in its bloodline and infected an innocent member. The transference was so powerful that his own affliction was sucked out of him, leaving him entirely human again, but forever cursing his victim. He wrote her a list of Daggerfall citizens with similar genetic predispositions, telling her that the choice was hers alone to make.
Stuck between the promise of Oblivion and a chance at Aetherius, she ran down the list of names, spending months simply judging each person to see who would do the least damage with the curse. She elected a farmer beyond the walls of Daggerfall, an old widower with all his children scattered to the winds. That night, she set her mind to finding and turning him, meditating on that goal until it became a mantra, repeated as her heart dilated and bones stretched out. She couldn't help but tear half his livestock apart, and cornered him in his stables. The mantra echoed dully against the beast's brain as it sank its fangs into the muscle of his thigh, tearing through the fresh meat before Gelina's consciousness suddenly stepped forward.
She fled the barn, half-beast, half-human, and by the time she found her clothing and supplies she'd shed her pelt and talons for the very last time. The deed was done, and as she left Daggerfall and High Rock behind, only nightmares of the beast stalked her travels. She knew she couldn't return to the priory after what she'd done to Androla, and so wandered north to seek a life she thought would never be possible.
Inevitably, this sparked a need in Gelina for her parents' praise, constantly bettering her skills to outpace her siblings and snatch up any attention they might receive. A rift opened up in the family, subtle at first; at twelve Gelina was deemed old enough to start learning ways of defending herself, as many travelling bards were apt to do. The roads were dangerous, and she found herself dreaming of all the ways she could impress her parents by fighting off a raging boar or wicked highwayman. Jodnal and Delne, however, grew increasingly angry with her talents and arrogance, culminating in a sparring match that ended in a two-on-one brawl their parents had to tear apart. Gelina was sequestered in the wagon, nursing a broken arm and crippled ego, while her siblings were scolded for being too rough. At that point Gelina recognized the rift, slowly returning to her more reserved self as she realized she was outmatched. Their parents couldn't understand their children's rivalry, and as the years went by Gelina grew distant and toothless, dodging around the ire of her siblings by training in secret and letting them take the lead in performances.
This nervous dance continued for years, eventually easing her siblings' hostilities and sparing her any prospective beatings. She'd long lost the favor of her parents, who began spending more time with Jodnal and Delne when they saw them put forth a better effort. Gelina was lonely and missed the attention of her parents, but feared her two stronger siblings enough to bear it. As the family wound about the Imperial City, performing in Chorrol, Skingrad, Bravil and Cheydinhal, Gelina found comfort in the forests and plains of Cyrodiil, taking to the wildlife as an escape from her siblings. The night the wagon rolled its wheels along the road to Bruma, however, Gelina found that there was more to the wild than deer and treetops.
She should've turned back when she heard the shouting a few hundred yards from her family's camp, should've run when the biggest wolf she'd ever seen burst from the underbrush not twenty feet away and let out a roar that shook her to her core. Men she would later recall as Vigilants of Stendarr charged in, blood-spattered and crying out a few seconds later, but too late. The beast pinned Gelina and engulfed her shoulder in its maw before she could even scream, crunching through her simple bodice into the flesh beneath. She'd never forget the gleam in the creature's eyes as a dozen blades sank into its back, the way its spine crunched and gave way when the Vigilants' maces found their mark.
Adrenaline took over, and she found her voice. She didn't wait for the Vigilants to lift the monstrous animal away, squeezing out from beneath it and taking off in a desperate sprint. She would only consider later that her panic might've saved her life, as the Vigilants would have surely killed her to keep another beast from rising. Her family had only just gone to sleep when she came lumbering out of the frosty trees, screaming about monsters and needing to escape.
Her family listened when they saw her grievous wound, and the wagon barreled away just as the Vigilants made it out of the trees. The ride to Bruma exhausted the horse, but they made it to the city walls before midnight and carried her to the healer in the chapel. By that point she was delirious and fought with them, but as the pain was eased with restorative magic, she slipped into a dreamless sleep.
When her eyes finally opened, she could feel the whispering of grass on her face, morning frost chilling her side. She couldn't remember anything beyond the chapel's vaulted ceiling and her father's panicked demands, the dark forest, gleaming blades, the beast's fangs. She was naked and cold, and as she gathered her surroundings she saw that she was on a hill far beyond the walls of Bruma. Sharp terror gripped her heart tighter than the snow that threatened overhead. She wrapped herself in a cloak stolen from a secluded cottage nearby and began her laborious, confused trek back to the city.
She met her family before she could reach the main gates, and the look in their eyes told her immediately something was wrong. Her father was the only one to approach, his throat clenched, brow creased. They'd been waiting to see if she'd return, he said. Half of Bruma was hunting for her, for the animal that had burst from the chapel with a worshipper in its mouth, that'd torn three guards apart before fleeing into the snow. Gelina could feel the earth open up and swallow every inch of her spirit whole;animal, beast, werewolf. Her father insisted that he wouldn't let anyone know, but she had to leave immediately. She noted that his sword was drawn with a sudden acuity, and quietly backed away. A mile into the wilderness, she hunched and vomited up three human fingers, a small bone, and more red than she'd ever hoped to see in her life.
Thus her nightmare began, at sixteen years of age, naked and bloody. She forced herself to keep to the wilderness around the border of Skyrim and Cyrodiil the first few months, drinking from springs and using her heightened senses to discover berry bushes and farmers' crop patches. She tried to ignore her predicament entirely, to forget her abandoning family and merely exist. Her compassion hollowed out every time she saw the rising sun in a pool of blood, and after years of near-isolation she found herself in a more secluded portion of Tamriel, facing a little priory that sat tucked away into the mountains between Skyrim, High Rock and Cyrodiil. Following her nose up the winding forest paths, she located the squat stone walls and the food and gardens beyond with ease. Starving and haggard, the few guards at the gates of the priory forced her to keep away, wary with all the unrest that was raging in Skyrim less than a mile from their mountain oasis.
The head priestess, a graying Imperial woman by the name of Androla, heard the commotion at the gates and allowed Gelina entry, putting an arm about her shoulders and offering her food, a bed for the night and directions to larger temples that could offer better charity. Gelina inwardly refused the latter two, but the former she took to with a renewed liveliness. As the sun threatened to lower over the horizon, Gelina snuck away into the forest, suddenly terrified that she'd condemned the entire priory to grisly deaths. She found a cave higher up in the mountain range, hoping to hide herself deep enough that the beast would chase spiders and creatures of the underground instead, but alas, when she awoke the next morning, it was in a ruined bandit camp, limbs strewn about and tents coated with blood. She sniffed out her shed rags from last night, washed the blood away in a cold river, and made her way back into the priory.
The Sisters were the first to greet her and ask her where she went in the night, to which she meekly lied that she was frightened of the mostly male guards and didn't want to sleep within the walls of the priory. They took pity, dragging her up to the head priestess like a group of excitable children and relaying what Gelina told them. Androla, seeing the beggar woman return, offered her a deal: she could stay for as long as she liked if she agreed to pray in the church with the Sisters just once weekly and attend to a few duties the aging laborer of the priory could not. After nearly a day of deliberation, she accepted; her heart had grown cold, and even if everyone in the priory died she couldn't bear to shun the first kindness she'd seen in years.
The bandit camp she cleaned out kept her inner beast caged for at least a night or so, and she took that as an opportunity to wrestle for control. She'd attempted many times over the course of her affliction to remain lucid at night, but the best--and most horrifying--progress she'd made was being able to remember flashes of what transpired while she was a raging animal. She chose to let herself be taken over that night, far away from the priory, and for the first time felt her consciousness actively dwindle.
This careful schedule continued for years. Skyrim was very slowly calming, and her heart had transformed. She went into the chapel to pray to Dibella every morning and afternoon, read every text she could, and took to lessons in the Arts with gusto. She stayed in a small cabin beyond the priory walls, serving as its resident hunter, servant and laysister, dancing between her dark secret and daytime kowtowing. The beast was slowly acquiescing, it seemed, and her nightly transformations carried with them a more muted dread. Until the night bandits attacked.
They came from the mists of the evergreens, pounding on their shields and crying out horrible taunts. Their apparent leader stood to the front, mace drawn, and gave the inhabitants of the priory an ultimatum: they could surrender and maybe live, or die after a few nights of "good old Dibellan fun". Gelina was in the chapel when her fellow Sisters rushed in, begging her to help the guards fend their attackers off. She felt the beast ache against her skin, and, against her better judgement, did not simply run away and leave the priory to its fate. She scaled the gates, to the horror of the guards and clergy, and moments after her feet touched the ground of the other side, the bandits faced a werewolf. The whole priory shook with a howl, and as bandits sprinted fruitlessly away in every direction, Androla could hear them be torn apart and eaten.
The head priestess hadn't always been a member of the clergy. She'd been a battlemage of the Empire during the Great War years ago, and when her flock was threatened she leapt to their defense, regardless of the attacker. The Sisters, guards and servants were herded into the chapel, but before Androla could see both everyone and herself inside, the beast appeared perched atop the gates, its bloodlust glutted but never satisfied. She met its claws with fire and ice, her last words to her priory being a command to barricade the doors.
At sunrise, after hours of weeping and silence, the inhabitants of the priory opened the chapel. Gelina lay unconscious in the center of the compound, her bare skin marked by bruises and burns. Beside her rested the body of Androla, gaping bites taken from her neck and chest. The priory erupted into chaos, jolting Gelina awake, and every available weapon was drawn and poised at her neck.
The priory came upon an agreement to shackle Gelina in a storage shed until they decided her fate. She could see guards mill about beyond the little shed window, cradling their spears and groping at the hilts of their blades before Androla's second-in-command approached and told them to help ready Androla's grave. She swung the door to the shed open then, carrying a backpack, weapons and letter. She whispered of Androla's connections, how she knew a fellow Great War veteran with a similar affliction who'd cured himself. She held the sealed letter for Gelina to regard, explaining that it was directions to find him: Calilias Nunicius of Daggerfall, a bookshop owner. Androla's trusted confidant then unshackled Gelina and sent her to the gates with her travelling supplies, ignoring the protest of the guards.
Gelina left, spared and cast out yet again, but with a new hope lighting her path. Crossing through the mountains and across High Rock, she made it to Daggerfall and the front step of Calilias' bookshop. He was bald and thin, and by the gleam in his eye she felt that he knew what she was before she could even approach the counter. Suddenly more anxious than she's been in her entire life, she weakly requested a book and loitered with it in the back of his shop until, no other customers in sight, he tiredly invited her into the back room. He blew out the candles in the window of his shop and closed the door behind them. Gelina didn't know what to say--how could she think that a beast such as herself would deserve redemption? For all she knew Androla's confidant had sent her straight to the doorstep of a werewolf hunter. She began to cry, right in front of him, and after nearly twenty minutes of attempting to speak he gave up and sent her away to "think over what needed to be said".
She spent two days in the hills beyond Daggerfall, bewildered and torn. Finally, she came upon his shop once more, deciding that she would rather die than live in torment, and as soon as they were alone, she gave him the letter and pleaded for help--be it death or a cure, she just couldn't handle the loneliness. She almost wished it was the former. The cure, he explained, may be just as damning as the disease. He told the tale of his own purification, how he tracked down a family with dormant lycanthropy in its bloodline and infected an innocent member. The transference was so powerful that his own affliction was sucked out of him, leaving him entirely human again, but forever cursing his victim. He wrote her a list of Daggerfall citizens with similar genetic predispositions, telling her that the choice was hers alone to make.
Stuck between the promise of Oblivion and a chance at Aetherius, she ran down the list of names, spending months simply judging each person to see who would do the least damage with the curse. She elected a farmer beyond the walls of Daggerfall, an old widower with all his children scattered to the winds. That night, she set her mind to finding and turning him, meditating on that goal until it became a mantra, repeated as her heart dilated and bones stretched out. She couldn't help but tear half his livestock apart, and cornered him in his stables. The mantra echoed dully against the beast's brain as it sank its fangs into the muscle of his thigh, tearing through the fresh meat before Gelina's consciousness suddenly stepped forward.
She fled the barn, half-beast, half-human, and by the time she found her clothing and supplies she'd shed her pelt and talons for the very last time. The deed was done, and as she left Daggerfall and High Rock behind, only nightmares of the beast stalked her travels. She knew she couldn't return to the priory after what she'd done to Androla, and so wandered north to seek a life she thought would never be possible.
Fighting Style: Gelina favors methods that require great dexterity to manage while keeping her as far from harm's way as possible, resulting in an often dizzying display of flexibility and speed in the name of outmaneuvering. She isn't above using enemies or allies as springboards in the heat of combat, nor does she turn up her nose at the idea of dodging between a taller man's legs and shooting flames into his groin. Despite her magical bloodline, she can get exhausted quickly if she fires off too many spells, and so saves them purely for advantageous situations, using her off-hand dagger in the meantime. She prefers to use her bow in the beginning stages of combat, if pouncing on the enemy from an angle they weren't expecting isn't an option.
Personality: At a glance, Gelina is a polite, if odd, young woman who avoids eye contact and the word "no". Having conversations with her to the more observant, however, is an exercise in Gelina eagerly seeking out ways she can pander to her conversation partner and slip into their mold of a perfect friend. She loves agreement, even if she has to lie to get it, and seeks praise and trust from her allies whenever possible. When alone, she keeps her wits about her and her back to walls, dwelling at the edges of crowds and lingering in doorways to better gauge escape routes. Deep down, she craves the meaningful love of others but shies from it, a side effect of only recently returning to the world of humanity. Her yearning for romance and sensuality huddles beneath her fear of closeness, only allowed to half-emerge through her openness towards casual sex. Shame is nothing to her. If it will save her life or give her what she wants, she will grovel, beg, and pander until it is within sight, then snatch it away and hurriedly escape the ire of the victim. She is submissive down to her soul, always more ready to show her belly than engage in an argument or incite confrontation. She has seen loved ones cast her out too many times before, and appeasement, she feels, is the only way to make them want to keep her around. Despite her past traumas and present difficulties adjusting to society, she is freer than she has been in nearly a decade--and perhaps even before that--and tries to make the most of all that she has achieved.
Speech Color: Plum
- Invitation Status
- Posting Speed
- One post per week
- Slow As Molasses
- Writing Levels
- Adept
- Advanced
- Adaptable
- Preferred Character Gender
- Genres
- Sci-fi, Fantasy, Modern (specifically thrillers or mysteries), Alternate-timeline Historical, Post-Apocalyptic, Western
@Robeatics Hey I don't know if we've met, and if we have then I'm sorry about my terrible memory, but I just wanted to say that I really, really like your character :)
Very well-written backstory, and a really unique character premise! I can't wait to see how she gets along with the rest of the party.
Very well-written backstory, and a really unique character premise! I can't wait to see how she gets along with the rest of the party.
D
Dervish
Guest
@Robeatics NEVERMIND CHANGED MY MIND NOT ACCEPTED LOLOLOLOL GET REKT SCRUB
I MEAN.
Like I said over the PM, you actually have one of my favorite and most emotionally effecting backstories I've seen in all the time I've RPed. Very happy to have Gelina (and yourself) on board!
I MEAN.
Like I said over the PM, you actually have one of my favorite and most emotionally effecting backstories I've seen in all the time I've RPed. Very happy to have Gelina (and yourself) on board!
R
Robeatics
Guest
Nice to meet you Mosis! I'm excited to see how she acts around the others too, it's always impossible to know everything about your character until you see them react to things you never expected.
OHHHHHHHHH SHIT! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--
--It means a lot that you'd say that. Character creation is among my top favorite aspects of RPing, I just love it to bits.
So everyone's in a cave, or in multiple caves or something, so where do you guys think I could drop Gelina off? I was thinking a town further down the road, or maybe she's travelling on the same road the opposite way so that when the main gang inevitably runs into trouble again she can hop into the action. I'm fine with RPing Gelina where she doesn't interact with other PCs for a couple weeks for the sake of integrating her into the party smoothly.
D
Dervish
Guest
WHERE WE'RE GOING, WE DON'T NEED ROADS.
But without getting too ahead of myself, don't expect us to be heading to any other Hold for quite some time. She can be encountered on the path towards one of the two caves.
Speaking of posts, I'm tempted to post now, but I want to give others a chance to post again first.
But without getting too ahead of myself, don't expect us to be heading to any other Hold for quite some time. She can be encountered on the path towards one of the two caves.
Speaking of posts, I'm tempted to post now, but I want to give others a chance to post again first.
R
Robeatics
Guest
How close are the caves to one another? Are they near that hot springs area, more east towards Morrowind and the mountains, in that river area above the Throat of the World and between the mountains, etc.?
- Invitation Status
- Posting Speed
- One post per week
- Slow As Molasses
- Writing Levels
- Adept
- Advanced
- Adaptable
- Preferred Character Gender
- Genres
- Sci-fi, Fantasy, Modern (specifically thrillers or mysteries), Alternate-timeline Historical, Post-Apocalyptic, Western
Actually we've left Eastmarch, and we're currently about to leave the city of Winterhold, split the party and go spelunking. The game summary is a bit out of date. In a little bit when I'm not on my phone I could give a quick summation of recent events if you'd like.
R
Robeatics
Guest
Oh yeah, Mosis, that'd be awesome. I don't want to just launch Gelina headfirst into the party if I can help it lol
D
Dervish
Guest
They're more West, definitely in the mountainous foothills. They aren't overly far from town.
I was going to update it after we got started on the new quests. It's my failure for not mentioning we were in Winterhold.
R
Robeatics
Guest
- Status