City of Shadows Mux City of Shadows Mux

Changeling: Gentry

Gentry's Name        Describe the general attitude, approaches, focuses and concerns of this Keeper. Realm: Wherein one defines their realm of the Keeper in question. Common Seemings: Which of the Seemings were quite common. Uncommon Seemings: Which of the Seemings were not very common, or not present. Escapees: The player, with [[ ]] on each side of their name. The August Shrike        This cruel warlord takes a predatory delight in seeking out broken warriors amongst the mortals, taking them at their nadir and twisting them to his will by whatever means he judges fit. Though possessed of cunning, his infatuation is to constantly poke and tear at the boundaries of other Realms, seeking worthy opponents amongst the Gentry and hurling his creations against them until they relent. He seems to care for little else but war and pain, though a few who have betrayed him and survived can attest that he exhibits much the same passion for vengeance - when he isn't otherwise preoccupied. His methods inspire a slavish loyalty, and his soldiers who have escaped typically do so because they have been driven beyond psychosis, comprehending their own loss of self and the inevitable destruction that awaits them in the Shrike's service. Realm: The Thornfields are a land of decaying castles, blood-tainted rivers, and thorny overgrowth, the ashen hills littered with the impaled and burning forms of failed defectors. Between his incessant warring with other Realms, the Shrike runs 'training maneuvers' that are little more than bloody free-for-alls between his own misbegotten wretches. Common Seemings: Beasts, Elementals, Ogres. Uncommon Seemings: Darklings. He's uninterested in those with no great love or ability for physical violence. Escapees: Andréia, Cori, Ellie-Mae, and Randall Behind-The-Curtain Pay no attention, that's how you avoid getting caught. Behind-The-Curtain is both Keeper and Realm, with many associated Titles, many of which are Keepers themselves. It is a dark shadow of human civilization overlaid with the fruits of conspiracy and occultism made real. A world waiting for the stars to be right, for unfathomable horrors to rise up from the seas, where power and madness walk hand in hand and can be glimpsed, can be seized, if one just puts together the right clues, rolls over the right stones. There is always more than meets the eye, always another terrible secret truth, and all of it will hurt you, twist you, change you just for the knowing of it, for the seeing of it. Sometimes just mentally, but sometimes very physically. Those most at risk for abduction have analytical minds. Not necessarily intelligence, but a willingness to pay attention, to examine and extrapolate, to dive deeper beneath the surface knowledge and see how inner workings fit together, how parts come together into a whole and the whole is divisible into parts. It does not distinguish between brilliance and idiocy, so long as they are willing to ask the next question, follow the chain of "logic" to the next step. The neurodivergent are also common victims, as is anyone who's perception of the world is notably different from the norm, either physically or mentally. Common Seemings: Darklings, Ogres, Wizened Uncommon Seemings: None. One can find anything Behind-The-Curtain, though often in unexpected forms. Escapees: Rachel The Crone / The Witch in Shadow        The Keeper known as 'The Crone' or 'The Witch in Shadow' rules from her cottage-maze in the woods. The Crone epitomizes stereotypical legends of the fairytale witch, often embellishing in the imagery and appearance within her dark realm.        She lures and takes children and younger adults, both, with a penchant for focusing on those who feel left out of attention by their own parents. Orphans and middle children are often her favorites! Realm: The Cottage in the Woods is a maze-like realm of cottage rooms, dark cellars, and thorny woods that perpetually exists in darkness. The Crone comes and goes from her realm, often locking her children up when she isn't present. Common Seemings: Darklings, Ogres, Wizened Uncommon Seemings: Beasts, Elementals, Fairest Escapees: Mae, Rafe The Crucible-in-Promise        "There are none more base than the oath-breaker, none more malleable than the penitent sinner." 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        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        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        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        Describe the general attitude, approaches, focuses and concerns of this Keeper. Realm: "Don't take candy from strangers" - especially when they are Gentry. Dissatisfied children on their favorite night as it comes to an end will sometimes run from their own family on Halloween. Once lured to a kingdom of endless sweets, where the crops, the rivers, and sky itself were all made of candy. The gluttonous little goblins are made into princes and princesses of this land, and allowed to feast all of its delicious bounties, as well as its delectable subjects. In the end, they can not resist nibbling on the courtiers they become most fond of, and eventually gobbled them all up. Even their screams were delicious. Such is life in the Big Rock Candy Mountain. Common Seemings: Ogres, Fairest, and Elementals (with food-related themes, such as being crafted from food or served as cookware) Uncommon Seemings: Darklings; Beasts (other than sugar-eaters or vermin types); Wizened (other than cooks and servers) Escapees: Candy The Jarl of Blood and Snow        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        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        The Queen of Feathers is a decadent ruler concerned with her own pleasure and surrounding herself with the exotic and beautiful. Ruling from her palace in the sky, the Court of Birds, she considers herself above most of the petty politicking and rumormongering. Though she does enjoy it when it happens at her frequent balls and parties. She is a Lady of excess, hedonism, and egocentrism and her chosen are beaten down to serve her and always see themselves as far beneath her.        She takes those who she feels can add to the overall beauty of her realm, and seeks those with some natural talent. Either good looks, an artist's skills, or even those who would make particularly good servants and know how to stay out of the way. As her name implies, many of those taken by her display feathers or avian features in some manner, and bright sometimes garish colors. Realm: The Court of Birds is a palace of gold set among the clouds, with beautiful gardens, wild menageries, and extravagant art. Those who dwell here either add to the beauty, or take care of it. Common Seemings: Beasts (Avian or Avian-like), Elementals (Air, Light), Fairest, Wizened Uncommon Seemings: Ogres, Darklings Escapees: Elias, Loreley The Swarmkeeper        Hunger and spite, wrapped in chitin, with a swarm of legs and mandibles, surrounded by a ravenous horde of once-humans. This is the Swarmkeeper, and its domain is all dark tunnels, moist primordial forests, and filled with the constant hum of wings, and the gnawing of the jaws of the Swarm. Realm: The Deeps are an endless maze of dark tunnels, broken occasionally by primordial landscapes: ancient forests, fungal meadows, sullen magma pools, and eternal night. Insects and arachnids of all types - real and unreal - scuttle and hide in every shadow. It is a bug-eat-bug world in the Deeps, and the once-human here learn to hunt and kill and eat...or be hunted, killed, and eaten in turn. Of course, even being devoured doesn't end their imprisonment; when the Swarmkeeper desires, all the dead rise again to begin the cycle once more. It's a primal, vicious, competitive place where the residents are reduced to their basest natures. 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. Escapees: Solomon, Heloise The Wildwoods Aunt        All she ever wanted was the perfect day. Realm: The Cottage is a sprawling maze of half-finished hedges in need of further trimming, lapsed projects and endless chores, all of them subtly deforming the landscape. The perimeter is guarded by the Grand Hives, which serve as both listening posts for surveillance as well as working spaces, with her subjects forever collecting honey from bees disinclined to allow it often or for long. Common Seemings: Beasts (especially feline), Wizened (for focused work), Elementals Uncommon Seemings: Darklings, Fairest (she loathes competition), Ogres Escapees: Kellas The Game Master        The Game Master wears many faces, but all seek to draw in those who will provide the best challenge or entertainment to their favorites or their guests. The realm shifts appearances depending on the Game. Sometimes it is a foreboding forest. A lonely isolated stretch of road with darkened dwellings few and far between. The alleys and rooftops of a strange city. A decrepit but large house. Some are taken because in their heart, they’ve always wanted to Hunt. Others are taken because either outwardly or in some hidden way, they won’t be easy quarry. But it’s the fear and pain and terror, along with the wild abandon of victory, that feeds the Game Master of the most dangerous game.        They’ll play it over and over again, changing the place where the hunters stalk and give chase and the hunted seek to make it through to the dawn. Sometimes the Game Master even joins in to prowl and pursue alongside his favorites, and rewards them slowly with honing them physically and emotionally into the ravenous and hungry predators or the tireless companions that they wish their attendants to be. Others that impress the Game Master by their will to survive are rewarded by shaping them into quarry that lures only to turn the tables on the predators–or will give the greatest sport. Shadows and lurkers that lead the prey astray, or harry the hunters. Those to become the environment of the game itself. The Game Master has need for many, to sate the desires and bloodlust for their guests. And they keep the tally of their triumphs and endings writ in ledgers of paper, flesh, and stone. Common Seemings: Beasts, Ogres, Darklings, Elementals Uncommon Seemings: Fairest, Wizened (neither are impossible) Escapees: Razi, Fiametta, Ted Timber Sledge        His domain is an endless market, wherein the Slaves to Fashion and the Peasants of Plenty must march through endless heaps and piles of discarded clothing, skins and bones, assembling the New Bargains. At the end of every day, the New Bargains are either destroyed and returned to their component form - or used as dressing dummies for the next round of punishments to be inflicted, guiding the hand of Timber Sledge to mutilate his newest captives. Realm: The Salt Hills Forever Mines - inaccurately named with the intent of making the situation of finding the place all the worse. Just another of Timber Sledge's "fun" lies. Common Seemings: Darklings, Wizened, Beasts. Uncommon Seemings: Ogres, Fairest, Elementals (except for fabric-based examples). Escapees: Sonny, Ben, Elodie Silence-Is-Golden        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        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        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        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