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Character Info
Jan. 18th, 2021 07:48 pmSUMMARY
Name: London Picard
Pronouns: "I would prefer not to". (They/them, but they aren't familiar enough with modern non-binary pronouns to realize it's an option.)
Canon: World of Darkness - Changeling: The Lost (OC)
Seeming: Darkling
Kith: Antiquarian
Age: 30s by appearance and behavior, 90s by chronological age.
Height: 185 cm / 6'
Occupation: Academic, fixer, professional cryptid
APPEARANCE
London has both a metaphysical Mask, which is visible to everybody, and a Mien, which is detectable to those with magical senses. Just to be complicated, they also have two literal masks, both with magical qualities.
MASK
Eyes: Dark brown
Skin: Tan, but pale from lack of sun.
Hair: Black
Voice: Mid-Atlantic accent. Tenor speaking range, fluctuating from baritone to alto by mood.
Other notable features: Thin, dark circles under their eyes. Always looks more haggard during the daytime, especially when lit by direct sunlight.
MIEN
Eyes: Entirely black, with the color and sheen of oil-based printing press ink.
Skin: Like old book pages, in color, texture and smell. Creases rather than wrinkles.
Hair: Black
Voice: Largely the same, raised voice or coughing may produce a rustling or tearing paper sound.
Other notable features: Unnaturally thin and sharp-boned. Slightly translucent during daytime, like a light being shone through several sheets of paper. Their skin is invisibly printed with the text of The Three Musketeers in the original French (1844 ed. from Baudry press), which becomes visible when bruised, blushing, sunburned, or standing in the direct path of sunlight.
MASK #1: BUGBEAR'S MASK
Physical description: a cheap dollar store halloween costume piece, made of nylon and cheap plastic. The average wearer would look unconvincingly like they have no face.
But when its power is active: The wearer appears to be a featureless approximation of a humanoid, but their parts don't seem to fit together, or fit comfortably within reality. All edges and angles do not seem solid: their outline slides and snaps to match the silhouettes of objects in the background, as they or their observer move. Its movements only become fluid against featureless backgrounds or areas between outlines.
Magical power: At the cost of some glamour, meeting the eyes of a target causes the victim to develop a temporary phobia of the monster they are currently witnessing. For the rest of the day, the wearer is struck with narcissism. If Glamour is not spent to perform this action, the mask bonds with the skin of the neck and causes damage to the wearer upon removal.
MASK #2: THE ALIBI
Physical description: a melted-looking, crudely handmade latex mask with a cloth strap. It has no hole for the mouth.
But when its power is active: The wearer appears to have no mouth, and the eyes have no whites at all--just skin. Visual aid here (fair warning, it creeps me the hell out).
Magical power: Uses glamour to appear real, both physically and magically. To all observers, barring exceptional success, this mask is the skin of the wearer. Does not work without glamour.
WARDROBE
Evidently, someone introduced them to Victorian gothic upon their return. That, or they just happened to stumble into a black wool frock coat, which they've modified to add more pockets to the inner lining. Paired with a cravat or knotted silk scarf, a wide-brimmed black felt fedroa to keep the sun off their face, sunglasses, and black gloves (leather, occasionally switched out for PVC or exam gloves depending on the day). Shoes are formal flats or tall boots.
ABOUT
London isn't their real name. In fact, they don't remember quite who they were--only that they were crossdressing to hold down a job as a graduate researcher at an all-male university in the 1950s. One day they entered the library and didn't come out.
They were stolen by one of the True Fae, and taken to one of the many realms of Arcadia. They were trapped within infinite, sunless library where they fetched books--some literal, some, like them, printed with text on every layer of their flesh. They remember very little of this time too, only short glimpses of living a marginal existence among the high shelves, forever in fear of the book-eating creatures that roamed the lower levels.
Escaping in the 2010s, they found the world--and themselves--deeply changed. They were now diminished by sunlight, but preternaturally adept in quick-thinking, stealth, investigation and academics, and full of knowledge they couldn't quite explain. They fell in with a local changeling power broker and secret crime boss, who they were hopelessly smitten with. Her murder less than a year later made it clear that the mortal world could be just as dangerous to them and their desires as Arcadia had been, and they resolved to never be so vulnerable again.
Their behavior became sufficiently exemplary of the seasonal Autumn Court that the season chose them several times as its local monarch, gaining temporary control of their local changeling population and a position of responsibility at points when the Fae tried to exert their power on the mortal world. Through all seasons they acted as a fixer for the local mayor--also secretly a changeling, with political rivals, crooked dealings and perceived threats among the changeling community. They also played a similar role for the national government, enforcing a code of secrecy among local changelings and other magical beings. They also joined the Scarecrow Ministry: An Autumn Court organization that creates and acts out urban legends of monsters and ghosts to frighten off mortals from more terrible dangers.
All three professions required stealth, creativity, and a willingness to commit crimes against others, up to and including murder. Their care in carrying out these tasks and their significant service as seasonal monarch left them with a reputation as a relatively upstanding member of their changeling Freehold. Still, that doesn't leave them feeling any safer--they know better than most that enemies and monsters could be lurking around every corner.
PERSONALITY
London is smart, observant, paranoid, and constantly navigating social situations through a haze of poor social skills and did I mention paranoia. They've survived quite a lot, and inflicted quite a lot on others, which gives them even more reason to worry what they might have to survive next. They are careful to hide their true nature around non-Changelings, especially non-magical entities. Mortal humans are both dangerous and essential to sustaining their magical power, but changelings are also a different sort of threat. One that knows the score, and might try and sell you out to the Fae.
Still, they are willing to form working relationships with those that they find laudable or useful, though this only rarely develops into friendship or romantic feelings. Those that antagonize them should watch their back--expect anything from light sabotage all the way up to opportunistic murder, depending on the perceived severity of the slight. Given London's criminal and legitimate work both include elements of violence, they have no particular compunction about causing harm to others.
London is a terrible liar, and covers for this with a dry affect and half-truths rather than outright falsehoods. If all else fails, they just glare at their target until they give up.
They keep a journal, written in a logo-syllabic script of their own making, which is often used to work through their thoughts, feelings, plans, and ventings.
They are non-binary, but due to their 1950s origin and disconnection from modern queer culture, they don't have the terms for it, instead choosing to strategically change the gendered aspects of their wardrobe and glare balefully at people until they give up trying to classify them. They are also asexual by nature, and presently aromantic due to trauma--they very much fell for their first employer upon their return to Earth, and her death was difficult for them.
ABILITIES
Beyond their Mask and Mien mentioned above, they have a number of abilities due to their changed nature. Changelings can use magic, charged by Willpower and their changeling Glamour. Willpower can be recharged by acting according to their Virtue or Vice (Fortitude or Wrath for London). As a Changeling tied to the Autumn Court, London recharges their Glamour by harvesting the fear of mortals.
All changelings are altered in accordance to aspects of the Fae they were stolen by, why they were stolen, the realm they were taken to, and the role they were forced into. These manifest as the various Changeling Kiths, which can have wildly different attributes. Darklings bonded with the shadow while in Fae captivity, and are blessed with preternatural quick-thinking and affinity for subterfuge and stealth, but they weaken during the day, especially if they’re in direct view of the sun.
Antiquarians learned a lot while in Faerie, and are similarly blessed in academics and investigation, and can use their Glamour to dredge up obscure facts about a topic from memory.
Autumn Court Changelings also have a bit ofAesthetic seasonal energy that follows them: cool breezes, rustling leaves, withering greenery, ripening autumn fruit. And, as a fun bonus, one might spot occult sigils around them--in random detritus, wood grain, wallpaper, etc.
Changeling: The Lost game mechanics splits abilities into merits and contracts, both of which can be supernatural in nature.
London's relevant merits include:
Eidetic Memory: a greater capacity to remember photographic detail of events, with increasing difficulty based on compromising factors (speed of motion, distractions, mental state, etc.)
Mantle: Harvest of Whispers: Tied to their place in the Autumn Court. A preternatural ability to occasionally learn useful rumors, at the cost of potentially drawing attention to themselves.
Kung-Fu: Neo.jpeg
London has specialties in Chemistry, Improvised Weapons, and Stare-Downs.
Their Contracts include
Darkness (rank 5):
1. Creeping Dread: Render one or multiple targets susceptible to fear or intimidation. Works best against intruders in your home.
2. Night’s Subtle Distractions: Blend into the background, becoming more unnoticeable rather than invisible. Works best outdoors at night.
3. Balm of Unwakeable Slumber: Prevent a sleeping target from being woken by disturbances. Works best against someone in their own bed at night.
4. Boon of the Scuttling Spider: Move across solid surfaces, regardless of angle. Works best across outdoor walls at night.
5. Touch of Paralyzing Shudder: Inflict spasms of fear that half motor control for the target. Works best on targets that are already isolated and unnerved.
Fleeting Autumn (1)
1. Witches’ Intuition: Learn one of the subject’s fears. Works best if the subject does not know the Changeling’s name.
Blessing of Forgetfulness (3): Allows the user to erase any one memory from the target's mind, but curses the user to suffer a dramatic failure the next time they need to get someone to believe a necessary lie. Works best to erase memories of the user’s betrayal of the target.
Note: Obviously, all of those powers that affect others are player opt-in, and their use will otherwise be avoided.
PERSONAL EFFECTS:
A flip-knife
Antique cold iron hedge trimmers
A briefcase enchanted for extra bashing damage
A cursed pair of shears. While they are on someone's person, it's impossible for them to run.
A frightening mask enchanted to magically seem like a real face of the wearer, even if magically probed.
A different mask that acts as their badge of office in the Scarecrow Ministry. Wearing it transforms their appearance into that of a monster.
Lost Fobwatch: Lets the user move twice as fast for a short period, at the cost of moving slower at the start of the next time they end up in danger.
Mother's Love Locket: Displays the worst fear of the target, but has a 50% chance of doing the same to the wielder.
Unmaking Needle: draw a drop of blood to unravel all cloth in the vicinity
Persephone's Promise: pomegranate seeds that magically compel the consumer to spend time and effort on whoever fed them.
PRIZED POSSESSION: A copy of The Three Musketeers in the original French.
Name: London Picard
Pronouns: "I would prefer not to". (They/them, but they aren't familiar enough with modern non-binary pronouns to realize it's an option.)
Canon: World of Darkness - Changeling: The Lost (OC)
Seeming: Darkling
Kith: Antiquarian
Age: 30s by appearance and behavior, 90s by chronological age.
Height: 185 cm / 6'
Occupation: Academic, fixer, professional cryptid
APPEARANCE
London has both a metaphysical Mask, which is visible to everybody, and a Mien, which is detectable to those with magical senses. Just to be complicated, they also have two literal masks, both with magical qualities.
MASK
Eyes: Dark brown
Skin: Tan, but pale from lack of sun.
Hair: Black
Voice: Mid-Atlantic accent. Tenor speaking range, fluctuating from baritone to alto by mood.
Other notable features: Thin, dark circles under their eyes. Always looks more haggard during the daytime, especially when lit by direct sunlight.
MIEN
Eyes: Entirely black, with the color and sheen of oil-based printing press ink.
Skin: Like old book pages, in color, texture and smell. Creases rather than wrinkles.
Hair: Black
Voice: Largely the same, raised voice or coughing may produce a rustling or tearing paper sound.
Other notable features: Unnaturally thin and sharp-boned. Slightly translucent during daytime, like a light being shone through several sheets of paper. Their skin is invisibly printed with the text of The Three Musketeers in the original French (1844 ed. from Baudry press), which becomes visible when bruised, blushing, sunburned, or standing in the direct path of sunlight.
MASK #1: BUGBEAR'S MASK
Physical description: a cheap dollar store halloween costume piece, made of nylon and cheap plastic. The average wearer would look unconvincingly like they have no face.
But when its power is active: The wearer appears to be a featureless approximation of a humanoid, but their parts don't seem to fit together, or fit comfortably within reality. All edges and angles do not seem solid: their outline slides and snaps to match the silhouettes of objects in the background, as they or their observer move. Its movements only become fluid against featureless backgrounds or areas between outlines.
Magical power: At the cost of some glamour, meeting the eyes of a target causes the victim to develop a temporary phobia of the monster they are currently witnessing. For the rest of the day, the wearer is struck with narcissism. If Glamour is not spent to perform this action, the mask bonds with the skin of the neck and causes damage to the wearer upon removal.
MASK #2: THE ALIBI
Physical description: a melted-looking, crudely handmade latex mask with a cloth strap. It has no hole for the mouth.
But when its power is active: The wearer appears to have no mouth, and the eyes have no whites at all--just skin. Visual aid here (fair warning, it creeps me the hell out).
Magical power: Uses glamour to appear real, both physically and magically. To all observers, barring exceptional success, this mask is the skin of the wearer. Does not work without glamour.
WARDROBE
Evidently, someone introduced them to Victorian gothic upon their return. That, or they just happened to stumble into a black wool frock coat, which they've modified to add more pockets to the inner lining. Paired with a cravat or knotted silk scarf, a wide-brimmed black felt fedroa to keep the sun off their face, sunglasses, and black gloves (leather, occasionally switched out for PVC or exam gloves depending on the day). Shoes are formal flats or tall boots.
ABOUT
London isn't their real name. In fact, they don't remember quite who they were--only that they were crossdressing to hold down a job as a graduate researcher at an all-male university in the 1950s. One day they entered the library and didn't come out.
They were stolen by one of the True Fae, and taken to one of the many realms of Arcadia. They were trapped within infinite, sunless library where they fetched books--some literal, some, like them, printed with text on every layer of their flesh. They remember very little of this time too, only short glimpses of living a marginal existence among the high shelves, forever in fear of the book-eating creatures that roamed the lower levels.
Escaping in the 2010s, they found the world--and themselves--deeply changed. They were now diminished by sunlight, but preternaturally adept in quick-thinking, stealth, investigation and academics, and full of knowledge they couldn't quite explain. They fell in with a local changeling power broker and secret crime boss, who they were hopelessly smitten with. Her murder less than a year later made it clear that the mortal world could be just as dangerous to them and their desires as Arcadia had been, and they resolved to never be so vulnerable again.
Their behavior became sufficiently exemplary of the seasonal Autumn Court that the season chose them several times as its local monarch, gaining temporary control of their local changeling population and a position of responsibility at points when the Fae tried to exert their power on the mortal world. Through all seasons they acted as a fixer for the local mayor--also secretly a changeling, with political rivals, crooked dealings and perceived threats among the changeling community. They also played a similar role for the national government, enforcing a code of secrecy among local changelings and other magical beings. They also joined the Scarecrow Ministry: An Autumn Court organization that creates and acts out urban legends of monsters and ghosts to frighten off mortals from more terrible dangers.
All three professions required stealth, creativity, and a willingness to commit crimes against others, up to and including murder. Their care in carrying out these tasks and their significant service as seasonal monarch left them with a reputation as a relatively upstanding member of their changeling Freehold. Still, that doesn't leave them feeling any safer--they know better than most that enemies and monsters could be lurking around every corner.
PERSONALITY
London is smart, observant, paranoid, and constantly navigating social situations through a haze of poor social skills and did I mention paranoia. They've survived quite a lot, and inflicted quite a lot on others, which gives them even more reason to worry what they might have to survive next. They are careful to hide their true nature around non-Changelings, especially non-magical entities. Mortal humans are both dangerous and essential to sustaining their magical power, but changelings are also a different sort of threat. One that knows the score, and might try and sell you out to the Fae.
Still, they are willing to form working relationships with those that they find laudable or useful, though this only rarely develops into friendship or romantic feelings. Those that antagonize them should watch their back--expect anything from light sabotage all the way up to opportunistic murder, depending on the perceived severity of the slight. Given London's criminal and legitimate work both include elements of violence, they have no particular compunction about causing harm to others.
London is a terrible liar, and covers for this with a dry affect and half-truths rather than outright falsehoods. If all else fails, they just glare at their target until they give up.
They keep a journal, written in a logo-syllabic script of their own making, which is often used to work through their thoughts, feelings, plans, and ventings.
They are non-binary, but due to their 1950s origin and disconnection from modern queer culture, they don't have the terms for it, instead choosing to strategically change the gendered aspects of their wardrobe and glare balefully at people until they give up trying to classify them. They are also asexual by nature, and presently aromantic due to trauma--they very much fell for their first employer upon their return to Earth, and her death was difficult for them.
ABILITIES
Beyond their Mask and Mien mentioned above, they have a number of abilities due to their changed nature. Changelings can use magic, charged by Willpower and their changeling Glamour. Willpower can be recharged by acting according to their Virtue or Vice (Fortitude or Wrath for London). As a Changeling tied to the Autumn Court, London recharges their Glamour by harvesting the fear of mortals.
All changelings are altered in accordance to aspects of the Fae they were stolen by, why they were stolen, the realm they were taken to, and the role they were forced into. These manifest as the various Changeling Kiths, which can have wildly different attributes. Darklings bonded with the shadow while in Fae captivity, and are blessed with preternatural quick-thinking and affinity for subterfuge and stealth, but they weaken during the day, especially if they’re in direct view of the sun.
Antiquarians learned a lot while in Faerie, and are similarly blessed in academics and investigation, and can use their Glamour to dredge up obscure facts about a topic from memory.
Autumn Court Changelings also have a bit of
Changeling: The Lost game mechanics splits abilities into merits and contracts, both of which can be supernatural in nature.
London's relevant merits include:
Eidetic Memory: a greater capacity to remember photographic detail of events, with increasing difficulty based on compromising factors (speed of motion, distractions, mental state, etc.)
Mantle: Harvest of Whispers: Tied to their place in the Autumn Court. A preternatural ability to occasionally learn useful rumors, at the cost of potentially drawing attention to themselves.
Kung-Fu: Neo.jpeg
London has specialties in Chemistry, Improvised Weapons, and Stare-Downs.
Their Contracts include
Darkness (rank 5):
1. Creeping Dread: Render one or multiple targets susceptible to fear or intimidation. Works best against intruders in your home.
2. Night’s Subtle Distractions: Blend into the background, becoming more unnoticeable rather than invisible. Works best outdoors at night.
3. Balm of Unwakeable Slumber: Prevent a sleeping target from being woken by disturbances. Works best against someone in their own bed at night.
4. Boon of the Scuttling Spider: Move across solid surfaces, regardless of angle. Works best across outdoor walls at night.
5. Touch of Paralyzing Shudder: Inflict spasms of fear that half motor control for the target. Works best on targets that are already isolated and unnerved.
Fleeting Autumn (1)
1. Witches’ Intuition: Learn one of the subject’s fears. Works best if the subject does not know the Changeling’s name.
Blessing of Forgetfulness (3): Allows the user to erase any one memory from the target's mind, but curses the user to suffer a dramatic failure the next time they need to get someone to believe a necessary lie. Works best to erase memories of the user’s betrayal of the target.
Note: Obviously, all of those powers that affect others are player opt-in, and their use will otherwise be avoided.
PERSONAL EFFECTS:
A flip-knife
Antique cold iron hedge trimmers
A briefcase enchanted for extra bashing damage
A cursed pair of shears. While they are on someone's person, it's impossible for them to run.
A frightening mask enchanted to magically seem like a real face of the wearer, even if magically probed.
A different mask that acts as their badge of office in the Scarecrow Ministry. Wearing it transforms their appearance into that of a monster.
Lost Fobwatch: Lets the user move twice as fast for a short period, at the cost of moving slower at the start of the next time they end up in danger.
Mother's Love Locket: Displays the worst fear of the target, but has a 50% chance of doing the same to the wielder.
Unmaking Needle: draw a drop of blood to unravel all cloth in the vicinity
Persephone's Promise: pomegranate seeds that magically compel the consumer to spend time and effort on whoever fed them.
PRIZED POSSESSION: A copy of The Three Musketeers in the original French.
