Difference between revisions of "Gentry"
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=== Gentry's Name === | === Gentry's Name === | ||
[[Image:GenericGentryIcon.png|100px|link=]]<br> | [[Image:GenericGentryIcon.png|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
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* '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts, Elementals, Ogres. | * '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts, Elementals, Ogres. | ||
* '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Darklings. He's uninterested in those with no great love or ability for physical violence. | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Darklings. He's uninterested in those with no great love or ability for physical violence. | ||
− | * '''Escapees:''' [[Andréia]] | + | * '''Escapees:''' [[Andréia]], [[Cori]], [[Ellie-Mae]], and [[Randall]] |
=== Behind-The-Curtain === | === Behind-The-Curtain === | ||
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* '''Uncommon Seemings:''' None. One can find anything Behind-The-Curtain, though often in unexpected forms. | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' None. One can find anything Behind-The-Curtain, though often in unexpected forms. | ||
* '''Escapees:''' [[Rachel]] | * '''Escapees:''' [[Rachel]] | ||
− | |||
=== The Crone / The Witch in Shadow === | === The Crone / The Witch in Shadow === | ||
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* '''Common Seemings:''' Darklings, Ogres, Wizened | * '''Common Seemings:''' Darklings, Ogres, Wizened | ||
* '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Beasts, Elementals, Fairest | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Beasts, Elementals, Fairest | ||
− | * '''Escapees:''' [[Mae]] | + | * '''Escapees:''' [[Mae]], [[Rafe]] |
+ | === The Crucible-in-Promise === | ||
+ | [[Image:CrucibleGentry1.jpg|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
+ | {{Tab}}''"There are none more base than the oath-breaker, none more malleable than the penitent sinner."'' <br>The bite of candle-light held too close to palm. The close, hot breath of another. The warm, nervous sweat on a lying brow. This is where the Crucible-in-Promise waits, simmering embers sparking in the void, watching for the slip, the falsehood, the betrayal. The white lie or the knife-edged treachery, it matters not; it leaves your lips and suddenly, you're not in Kansas anymore, and have been found wanting. | ||
+ | |||
+ | This Title cares not for territory nor whimsy; the Crucible desires only to aid those who need it, or so it whispers. It captures the false and pulls them to its realm, plucking lies from their tongues, casting them aside and rebuilding the subject to be '''better'''. It matters not whether it takes a habitual liar or a saint who has been tricked into falsehood, all are worthy of reformation. Despite it's often depraved methods, the Crucible-in-Promise does genuinely believe it's doing its captives a favour. | ||
+ | * '''Realm:''' The Kilning is a forge built upon a forge, built upon a forge; brick-walled tunnels, burrowed deep underground with no passage up to the surface (if there even is one); air thick and cloying with coalsmoke and the eternal sounds of blade-on-blade and hammer-on-steel. When the bellows sound, the fallen are collected and re-forged with mallet and tongs, and begin anew. | ||
+ | * '''Common Seemings:''' Wizened, Ogres, Elementals. The forges must be manned, the battle-lines kept strong, the fires burning hot. | ||
+ | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Fairest, Darkings, Beasts. But none are impossible. | ||
+ | * '''Escapees:''' [[Bernard]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | === Faraway-and-True === | ||
+ | [[Image:Faraway-and-True.png|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
+ | {{Tab}}Her name is now Faraway-and-True, and she writes her stories in the stars and hangs the suns and planets with reckless abandon. After lifetimes of creative endeavors fell short, she went to the faraway places and came back strong and strange. She's been sharing her vision with the captives collected by her Meteorfen, the chosen kidnappers she holds in such high regard, and those who endure her focus come to suffer isolation, madness and the loss of self-indentity in ways which curdle the soul. | ||
+ | |||
+ | She is as pitiless as she is brilliant, and her knowledge is icy and remorseless. Yet she can not stop smiling. After all, she can dance under the moon as often as she wants, wherever she goes. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * '''Realm:''' Her realm, The Astrolabe of Forges, is an orrey of seemingly-endless moons and stars, each one just barely visible and silent to one another, further compounding the terror of the place. When she visits her prizes, they can expect to be modified in cruel, heartless fashions, and sometimes, not often, she has a Grand Convocation, in which the heavenly bodies are aligned, and the real nightmares begin. | ||
+ | * '''Common Seemings:''' Fairest, Darklings, Elementals | ||
+ | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Ogres, Beasts, Wizened | ||
+ | * '''Escapees:''' [[Sebastian]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | === The Glass Lady === | ||
+ | [[Image:Glass_Lady.jpg|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
+ | {{Tab}}She is the Glass Lady, a Gentry who once roamed our realm, collecting broken things and putting them back together while maintaining their fragility. They are her consorts, those she takes and reforms, her servants and companions who see to her every whim and desire. If she picked them for a talent, they will perform for her and her strange friends, and when they defy her, she reminds them how fragile their new glass skin is. Her Durances are easy in the beginning, her victims doted on and adored until the new pretty or interesting thing breaks and she decides to fix it. Her footman is a red cap who runs escapees down and takes them home in glass carriages. | ||
+ | * '''Realm:''' Her realm, the Palace of Mirrors, is named for its many reflective surfaces, and it's easy to get lost there. Her servants and friends seem to navigate the place easily enough. The most alarming quality of the Palace of Mirrors is that everyone except for the Glass Lady and her friends find themselves as tall as a tea-cup. | ||
+ | * '''Common Seemings:''' Fairest, Darklings, Wizened. | ||
+ | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Beasts, Ogres | ||
+ | * '''Escapees:''' [[Gordon]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | === Hexburn === | ||
+ | [[Image:Hexburn.png|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
+ | {{Tab}}Anyone who goes in search for monsters must gird themselves against finding them - and becoming their next toy. | ||
+ | * '''Realm:''' The Ashen Sparrowfields is the home of Hexburn and her minions, the Ember-Boned, all of whom are slavishly devoted to her who burns their nightmares for warmth and spreads the smoke across her captives' dreams, infecting them with malignancies grown only in the far reaches of terror and dread. Her castle, Fearview, is an idyllic paradise paradoxically used as an even more menacing place of torment - failure to maintain what Hexburn believes is "ideal" behavior and appearance can see someone burnt to a cinder and dragged into the ashen fields to be regrown as a new, terrified form. Most people who escape can describe a trip or three through Fearview - and know it has a real-world counterpart... somewhere on the planet. | ||
+ | * '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts, Elementals, Ogres | ||
+ | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Darklings, Wizened, Fairest | ||
+ | * '''Escapees:''' [[Eddie]] | ||
=== The Indulgence === | === The Indulgence === | ||
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* '''Escapees:''' [[Candy]] | * '''Escapees:''' [[Candy]] | ||
+ | === The Jarl of Blood and Snow === | ||
+ | [[Image:TheJarlOfBloodAndSnow.png|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
+ | {{Tab}}Brutality above reason, honor above merit, and his will above all else. A tyrant in every sense of the concept. | ||
+ | * '''Realm:''' Jotanheim, the hoarfrost hellhole realm run by the Jarl of Blood and Snow, is a place where death and cold come in equal measure and severity. The memories who are most often retained by escapees are of endless winter, harsh combat and brutal living conditions. | ||
+ | * '''Common Seemings:''' Just about any seeming is possible there, but it will be the most brutal version, such as Worg Beasts, Ice and Snow Storm Elementals, alfaer Fairest. | ||
+ | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Any of the "softer" formats, such as Antiquarian and Rabbit Beasts. Only the tough are likely to survive long. | ||
+ | * '''Escapees:''' [[Kase]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | === On the Nose === | ||
+ | [[Image:OnTheNose.png|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
+ | {{Tab}}On the Nose is a Gentry who targets people from large metropolitan areas, Chicago included. Not only an enemy of the Crysanthemum Freehold, the Twilight Accord sometimes has to deal with the Huntsmen that the Gentry sends into the city. Most of On the Nose's creations and cohorts have no idea what the creature looks like, or even its gender, but a large amount of the Lost in the Windy City are its victims, and it had a hand in the previous iteration of the Freehold's destruction. | ||
+ | * '''Realm:''' The Fading is a strange realm with constantly shifting distances, where time can move even backward, and where the laws of physics seem to alter at a whim. Sometimes the world's colors disappear, and sometimes they seem more vibrant than ever. And sometimes, places just seem to disappear forever. Some of the Changelings who've escaped the Fading claim it is a plague upon the Fae, and that its destruction will spread to the other realms of Arcadia until the Fading has claimed everything. | ||
+ | * '''Common Seemings:''' On the Nose has claimed people of all sizes and shapes, and those who escape vary. | ||
+ | * '''Escapees:''' The Queen and most of her staff have escaped from the Fading. Also: [[Nisha]]. | ||
=== Queen of Feathers === | === Queen of Feathers === | ||
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* '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts (Avian or Avian-like), Elementals (Air, Light), Fairest, Wizened | * '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts (Avian or Avian-like), Elementals (Air, Light), Fairest, Wizened | ||
* '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Ogres, Darklings | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Ogres, Darklings | ||
− | * '''Escapees:''' [[Elias]] [[Loreley]] | + | * '''Escapees:''' [[Elias]], [[Loreley]] |
=== The Swarmkeeper === | === The Swarmkeeper === | ||
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* '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts are by far the most common. Darklings and Elementals on occasion. | * '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts are by far the most common. Darklings and Elementals on occasion. | ||
* '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Fairest are entirely unknown, and Wizened are vanishingly rare. | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Fairest are entirely unknown, and Wizened are vanishingly rare. | ||
− | * '''Escapees:''' [[Solomon]] | + | * '''Escapees:''' [[Solomon]], [[Heloise]] |
=== The Wildwoods Aunt === | === The Wildwoods Aunt === | ||
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* '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts, Ogres, Darklings, Elementals | * '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts, Ogres, Darklings, Elementals | ||
* '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Fairest, Wizened (neither are impossible) | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Fairest, Wizened (neither are impossible) | ||
− | * '''Escapees:''' [[Razi]], [[Fiametta]] | + | * '''Escapees:''' [[Razi]], [[Fiametta]], [[Theodore_"Ted"_Keene|Ted]] |
=== Timber Sledge === | === Timber Sledge === | ||
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* '''Common Seemings:''' Darklings, Wizened, Beasts. | * '''Common Seemings:''' Darklings, Wizened, Beasts. | ||
* '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Ogres, Fairest, Elementals (except for fabric-based examples). | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Ogres, Fairest, Elementals (except for fabric-based examples). | ||
− | * '''Escapees:''' [[Sonny]], [[Ben]] | + | * '''Escapees:''' [[Sonny]], [[Ben]], [[Elodie]] |
+ | |||
+ | === Silence-Is-Golden === | ||
+ | [[Image:SilenceIsGolden.png|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
+ | {{Tab}}To those who are lost, she's the worst sort of Keeper - she inspires competition in games she runs, with rules that change and with prizes which fall short of worthwhile for the efforts and sacrifices. She makes the winners love her and the losers love her more. | ||
+ | * '''Realm:''' The Theater of Miracles is her showcase, prison and playground - she enacts endless variations on scenes from the worst periods in her victims' lives, condemning them to relive them over and over again, save that there's no dialogue - only the misery of eternal, crushing silence. | ||
+ | * '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts, Elementals, Wizened | ||
+ | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Fairest, Darklings, Ogres | ||
+ | * '''Escapees:''' [[Bishop]], [[Angel]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | === Those-Watched-Best === | ||
+ | [[Image:ThoseWatchedBest.png|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
+ | {{Tab}}Those Watched Best is much enamored with the legacy of a story as much as its narrative. To that end they collect, without rhyme nor reason, those who have some tangential connection to stage, screen and microphone, and those then become their chosen instruments in what T.W.B. calls its "symphonic miracle". | ||
+ | |||
+ | Others have said it was a noisy, obnoxious mess on its finest days, of which there are few, and a hellish shadow of existence, forced to mimic lines and vignettes from an endless rota of poems, plays, even radio serials, forever trying to capture an essence left undefined and unknowable. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * '''Realm:''' The Grand Stage, wherein this hellscape exists, is populated by the unluckiest of creatures: survivors of previous Acts and Scenes. The longer one endures, the more pragmatic and cruel one's choices become, until it is an issue of life and limb.. and the choices become easier. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Those who escape are always missing.. something. The lucky ones can point to their scars. | ||
+ | * '''Common Seemings:''' All are equally valid as victims. | ||
+ | * '''Escapees:''' [[Xanadu]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | === Throned-in-Coins === | ||
+ | [[Image:TiCGentry.png|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
+ | {{Tab}}As is the way of all things far removed from human ken, dragons are vicious, often violent and capricious. Such is the case of Throned-in-Coins, a Gentry based in Miami, Florida, who runs a small-to-important human trafficking concern, forever smuggling in living flesh and future captives of his realm, a tropical hellhole. | ||
+ | * '''Realm:''' That hellhole, a massive expanse of jungle and blasted landscape, bears the saddening title of The Valley of Hunger, as nothing is ever satisfied with their last meal, and is acutely aware of how often one can experience that - by being someone else's food or by claiming them as a living meal. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Escape, while difficult, is possible - and requires as much bravery as it does guile, finesse as well as control, and the overriding sensation of impending doom that only creatures hunted for sport and food can grasp. Those who escape tend to visit violent places, if for no other reason than to feel more 'at home', in a world which has largely left them behind and sometimes forgotten them. | ||
+ | * '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts and Ogres; no finer way to express the concept of "eat or be eaten" that cleaving close to such natures. | ||
+ | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Fairest, Wizened without a combat element, and most Darklings - after a while, running or relying on social mores will only turn one into a victim, not a victor. | ||
+ | * '''Escapees:''' [[Arnaud]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | === The Witch of the White Wastes === | ||
+ | [[Image:Witch_Wastes.jpg|100px|link=]]<br> | ||
+ | {{Tab}}The White Witch, the Snow Queen, perhaps she inspired the legends or perhaps she is simply the product of them. Either way, she is an Ice Queen, even among the Gentry. Cold, bitter, and unforgiving. She has not an ounce of warmth within her, nor does she tolerate it in her presence. She rides winter storms, and claims those lost in their icy depths to her realm where they either adapt or die. A few she keeps to serve her, but others she draws over simply to see if they can survive in the frozen wastes she rules over. | ||
+ | * '''Realm:''' The White Wastes are an endless snowfield. Only a few stunted trees dot the pale expanse, and a few mountains mark the edge of her domain, otherwise she rules over a plain of endless white. Only her palace of ice in the middle of a frozen lake truly breaks the bitter and bleak landscape. | ||
+ | * '''Common Seemings:''' Beasts (Arctic), Elementals (Ice and Storms) | ||
+ | * '''Uncommon Seemings:''' Some Fairest or Ogres may survive in the frozen wastes. A few Wizened tend to her in the palace. | ||
+ | * '''Escapees:''' [[Walter]] |
Latest revision as of 05:31, 1 April 2023
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