Duplicity Re-Application
Nov. 19th, 2022 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Name: Festival Door: n/a (re-entering as a Dominant) Canon: Original (homebrew tabletop RPG world using some elements of the Golarion setting) Canon Point (updated as of re-application): One month after the end of the main campaign (after saving the world and returning to his home city-state of Boywold) Age: 32 Appearance: Festival is an amurrun (a race commonly known among the humans of his world as "catfolk"): a humanoid with predominantly feline features, including fur, a cat-like face and ears, digigrade feet, a long tail, and stubby-fingered hands whose fingertips end in small retractable claws. He's of roughly average size for his race, though he's short and lightly built in comparison to an average human man at 5'2". He's utterly lacking in brawn, though there's a grace to the way he carries himself. His delicate features and pointed ears are more reminiscent of a domestic cat than a large predator, but his coat is marked with charcoal leopard spots that fade to stripes and blotches on his arms, legs, and tail. He's tidy in his appearance and fastidious with his hygiene, despite his preference for gaudy clothing and jewelry. He has a large, ragged scar over his heart. Fur does not grow on the scar tissue and that portion of his chest looks a little misshapen due to underlying rib damage and a surgical plate. It's very rare for him to voluntarily take off his shirt in front of others. History (cw body horror; suicide): Festival grew up in a city-state called Boywold, the son of itinerant performers who had fled from unrest in the more rural south. He learned music and acting from them and found as he neared adulthood that he had the ability to use magic through the power of his performances--a phenomenon not unheard of in his world. He used this power mainly to get himself and his friends out of scrapes and to scam for free drinks until he was discovered by a recruiter for the king's personal guard, who convinced him to make a career as a covert bodyguard. After several years of training he became the king's court jester, which provided an excuse for Festival's presence at court functions as well as an opportunity for his inner attention hog to shine. Years later, Festival learned of a threat from the south. A warlord known as Spineripper the Merciless had succeeded in uniting the tribes of the Bate Wastes, after which he turned his attention to the "civilized" countries of the surrounding area. With Spineripper's horde approaching Boywold, Festival did something very brave and very foolish: he abandoned his post, infiltrated Spineripper's camp, and assassinated the warlord and attempted to usurp his place. He successfully impersonated Spineripper long enough to convince the horde to return south and to implement some changes to make life more equitable for its members. However, he had severely underestimated the social and political complexities of tribal culture and was discovered by one of Spineripper's lieutenants, who summarily executed Festival in secret lest the truth about their leader's ignominious death become known. That should have been the end of Festival's story. As a good and faithful worshiper of Cayden Cailean, the god of ale and freedom, Festival was granted entrance into one of the heavens...only to be ripped from it a few hundred years later when a desperate mage exhumed Festival's body from Spineripper's supposed grave and forced a resurrection upon him. Festival was informed that after two previous attempts by great heroes had failed, he and seven of history's greatest monsters had been brought back to life to deal with a world-ending threat in the form of a mysterious expanding red dome that had absorbed great swathes of the countryside along with several cities not far from Boywold. It quickly became clear that the mage believed Festival to be Spineripper. Wanting to help and suspecting that he might be rapidly returned to the afterlife if the mage learned of his mistake, Festival refrained from correcting him. He also rather suspected that the mass murderers he was sent to work with might return him to the afterlife themselves if they saw him as an outsider or perceived weakness in him, so he took up the guise of Spineripper among them, aggressively playing up the persona of the warlord. Through a series of investigations, the group discovered that the red dome was actually an enormous prismatic sphere (a magical shield made up of seven layers, each with its own dangerous magical effect). It had been created by a master artificer known as the Lord of Icy Mists, a dragon who had been inflicted with a mind control device powered by an abyssal parasite. Further investigations in the Lord of Icy Mist's library revealed that he had been enslaved by Avanostrix, the angel whose duty it was to guard the material plane against the creatures of the hells and abyss. The dragon had fought the mind control and succeeded in leaving behind the tools and information to build a failsafe device to counteract the prismatic sphere before he had died. In order to counteract the prismatic magic and safely enter into the sphere to face whatever was inside, the group would need to combine the essences of seven rare artifacts into one magical object. The first item was a gem they found embedded within the dead dragon's brain, where he had grown it bit by bit with his own magical powers, slowly killing himself in the process. The next was the Poison to Kill the World, a bioweapon created by a black dragon who had long terrorized a human settlement defended by a human oracle called Blind Agnes. The group was split on how to handle the issue, particularly after the dragon in question offered to trade them a sample of the poison in exchange for killing the oracle. Festival, who was entirely opposed to this plan, managed to nudge certain suggestions to the forefront and stir the pot long enough to cause Ailish, the group's necromancer, to become frustrated and take matters into her own hands, negotiating a deal with Blind Agnes by which the group would instead ambush the dragon with the oracle at their side. Festival's private self congratulations were cut short when several members of the group turned on Blind Agnes during the fight. They ultimately slew the dragon, but Blind Agnes suffered an agonizing death Festival was unable to prevent. Horrified by what he had witnessed, he had a breakdown in the wake of the fight, showing the first major cracks in his Spineripper facade. With their life forces tied to the mage's magic, all of the motley resurrectees had a choice: they could do his bidding and save the world, or they could be returned to the dead. Fearing a return to the various hells from which they had been restored, the others quickly began plotting ways to ensure their own continued survival independent of the magic sustaining them, to Festival's secret distress. Their next effort was to collect a Soul Beyond Redemption, for which they traveled into an undead city and fought a cruel ghost king to imprison him within the gem. They managed also to capture an air djinn who had been prisoner of the ghost king and who would have fulfilled the qualifications for the fourth item, the Essence of the Storm, but agreed to release him and seek out his ne'er do well cousin instead in exchange for a set of wishes from his brother. Unable to prevent the others from wishing for their own immortality and at his wit's end trying to keep up a ruse that was no longer working, Festival came clean in the most dramatic way possible: he stole a magical-mechanical heart another member of the group intended to use to gain a new lease on life and used the device to cut out and replace his own beating heart, hoping to fulfill the next requirement: a Pure Heart. His leap of faith proved founded and the gem accepted the essence of his heart. With his secret out Festival half expected to be killed on the spot, but his hope was that his sacrifice would render it unnecessary for the others to attack anyone else they deemed to be of pure heart in order to power the gem. They ultimately chose not to kill him, though he found himself ostracized and bullied from that point onward, his words no longer carrying the same weight as those of the others. Fortunately, by this point they all agreed that the world would not be worth living in if they did not put an end to the threat they had been resurrected to counteract. Chasing down the other djinn for the Essence of the Storm and obtaining the Shoes of the Traveler from a magic college proved somewhat less harrowing, though the group picked up a hanger-on by the name of Danariel, a young paladin. Danariel, an honorable young man of good intentions, chose to take up the quest with them despite receiving a vision of his own death--a vision Festival would later see for himself when the group retrieved the final artifact, the Eye of the Blind Prophet. Angry after learning that the Eye's guardian had manipulated events to create the rise of two of history's greatest monsters to ensure a prophecy would come true, causing untold suffering, Festival swore to himself that he would not allow Danariel to die as he had foreseen. If fate needed mortal hands to come about, he reasoned, fate was clearly just a bunch of bullshit. With the gem fully powered, the group made their way to the ever-expanding prismatic sphere and used the gem to pass safely through its shell. Inside, they found an eerie, unnatural world of law and peace, where every single animal, plant, and person absorbed into the sphere had been remade into perfect, idealized duplicates. There was only one species of each kind of plant or animal, no predators, and all the people were humans exactly alike to each other, all of them mind-controlled into perfect obedience to the law by the same type of device that had been used on the Lord of Icy Mists. Here, too, they met the heroes of the realm and the great heroes of history who had gone before them to attempt to undo this threat only to also be captured and put under the control of Avanostrix, who was in turn working for the goddess Vildeus and believed himself to be saving the world by ridding it of war, strife, and free will in general. An epic battle ensued in which Danariel was killed exactly as the vision had foretold, only to be resurrected moments later by one of the party members who had turned from his evil ways. Even though Festival ultimately had nothing to do with it, he felt vindicated that they had cheated fate in this manner. Just as they felled the mind-controlled heroes, Avanostrix sacrificed himself to summon Vildeus herself. Festival pleaded with the goddess to understand that what she was doing was evil, but was unable to win her over with creatures of true evil at his side and still attacking her. It was only when another party member went through Avanostrix's bag and found the orb that he had used to conjure the demiplane on which they currently stood that the fight was brought to an end. Making a snap decision, Pestilynz threw the orb to the ground, breaking it; the sky followed suit by cracking open above them. The last thing Festival knew was the feeling of Kadian's hand grabbing the back of his tunic and yanking him away with teleportation magic. Additional History - Re-application and Canon Update: Festival arrived in Duplicity as a Dominant, and lived in the city for approximately two years. In that time he made a number of friends, as well as a handful of enemies. Some of these, such as Jonathan Sims (also known as the Archivist) he aggressively befriended despite their best efforts to warn him off, while other friendships evolved out of Festival's desire to help and support people he saw struggling, and still others from simple proximity as he sought various types of work to support himself. Festival made an enemy of Tim Stoker after he misunderstood the relationship between Tim and his Submissive, Charlotte Lowell. Because Festival believed Tim was abusing Charlotte, Festival went to great and illegal lengths to attempt to interfere in their contract and free Charlotte from her Dominant. Naturally, this only made things worse for everything involved, and it wouldn't be until much, much later that Festival would recognize he'd been at all in the wrong. Festival also clashed with Rhys Dashasa over core differences in religious beliefs on several occasions, but ultimately decided to refrain from involving himself with Rhys (at least on days when he wasn't feeling particularly petty). The animosity between Festival and Philippe, Chevalier de Lorraine, on the other hand, was nothing but childish from the start--after being snubbed when he requested an invitation to one of Chev's parties, Festival made a practice of needling the man every time he saw one of his posts on the network. Festival supported himself through a variety of odd jobs, including steady work as a camboy on the network to fulfill the majority of his monthly quotas (a fact he kept secret as much as possible from those close to him). He also took on sporadic, semi-secret work from the Archivist in tracking down dangerous artifacts for destruction. However, his primary income came from his work as a musician at various venues, primarily Guiltea, where he found emotional as well as financial support from Alfred Pennyworth. Festival's closest relationship throughout his time in Duplicity was with his long-time Submissive contract partner, Chris Sonom. Hailing from similar worlds, and with Chris appreciating Festival's attempts to entertain him, the two initially contracted for convenience and safety but grew closer over time. Festival saw only the good in Chris, oblivious to or actively overlooking the more morally gray aspects of his partner's mindset. In some ways the Dominant/Submissive aspect of their relationship was, at least in private, flipped--Chris was more often the one catching Festival out in a lie or forcing him to deal with a problem he'd tried to sweep under the rug. Aside from the Archivist, who'd seen Festival's memories, Chris was the only one to learn much of what had happened to Festival in his life before Duplicity. Initially Festival was more or less forced to tell him some of the truth about himself after Chris caught him in a lie, but as time went on Festival trusted Chris with more and more truths about himself, even though he often still struggled to talk about difficult feelings and memories. When Chris disappeared for several months, Festival was despondent and struggled to form a new attachment to any eligible Submissives. Festival abruptly disappeared from Duplicity around two years after his arrival, going back to his own world in the moment that the magical dome cracked above the head of himself and his villainous companions, threatening to kill them. Not remembering his time in Duplicity, Festival would have been content to die in that moment based on what he'd been through in his own world and the promise of heaven awaiting him. He was, however, rescued by Kadian, the party member who had resurrected Danariel. The entire party was able to teleport away and survived, with the exception of the Bog Lady's dinosaur companion, and they quickly went their separate ways. Festival returned to Boywold; though all the people he had known in his life prior to resurrection were long gone, he wished to help the influx of refugees from the lands ravaged by the sphere, scout out and train the next generation of heroes, and ingratiate himself with the court in order to keep an ear out for news from throughout the lands in case any of his former traveling companions made trouble. With many of them now reformed (or at least having fulfilled or lost their various needs for vengeance), Festival hoped to have peace, knowing that if he were to hunt any one of them down he would risk the others coming after him together. At the time of re-application, Festival has been back in Boywold for only a month. The most significant changes from his previous canon point are that he knows he survived the would-be apocalypse, there's no immediately apparent danger to his world (but his previous companions are still a potential long term threat), and that he had begun to settle into a lonely but fulfilling life in a city that no longer knew him. Personality: Positive Trait: Pure-Hearted Festival has a horrifying anecdote and a nasty scar to prove the purity of his heart...that is, he would if he were willing to talk about it. Despite all he's been through, Festival remains a creature of good and of charity. If anything, he has grown more keenly aware of both his ability and his duty to protect others from great evil as well as unreasoning forces of supposed good. He abhors slavers and bullies of all kinds and has proven himself willing to put himself in harm's way (up to and including RIPPING OUT HIS OWN STILL-BEATING HEART) to protect those who can't protect themselves. Negative Trait: Foolhardy As a rule, Festival does not think very far ahead at any given moment. He lives in the here and now; while he's quick on his feet and can occasionally be clever, he tends to choose and commit to a course of action quickly, usually without thinking it all the way through to the endgame or taking heed of danger, and is just as quick to suddenly abandon a strategy in favor of something equally rash and grandiose as it occurs to him. His original decision to assassinate and impersonate Spineripper is a prime example; beyond the assassination itself and a rough plan for how he would disguise himself, Festival had no real plans and simply trusted that he would figure it out as he went, with lethal results. Similarly, he repeatedly bungled relations with the group of villains by first faking an identity he still couldn't maintain and then revealing himself in the most dramatic, alienating way he could. Finally, he had several opportunities to allow the worst of the villains in the group to die during the final battle but chose to heal them because he thought he needed their help in the moment and was troubled by the idea of it, failing to see the bigger picture and the good he could do by simply not helping someone who would inevitably go on to wreak havoc on the world if they survived. Negative Trait: Attention-Seeking Festival is accustomed to being liked and his efforts at entertainment appreciated, so it has been a terrible shock to him more recently to be among people who don't care for him or share his values. He has handled it poorly, becoming surly, depressed, and sarcastic, but will likely bounce back if he can find at least a handful of people in Duplicity who appreciate his music and his sense of humor. He is inclined to go to inappropriate lengths to grab people's attention and show off. Negative Trait: Judgmental Once he believes someone to be of evil intent, Festival generally draws his conclusions from there without digging any deeper. This is what lead him to assume that Spineripper and his lieutenants were lacking in intelligence and his plan to take over the barbarian horde would work--it simply did not occur to Festival that someone could be a barbarian warlord and also be an intelligent person. Similarly, he did not bother to learn much about the villains with whom he was forced to work, despite the fact that knowing them better might have made it possible for him to sway them to the side of good--those who did ultimately redeem themselves did it on their own rather than with Festival's help. Personality Notes for Re-application: Festival did, indeed, bounce back from his surly attitude and become his cheerful, lying, vain self again in Duplicity. He still tends to leap before he looks, and if anything has only become even more hedonistic than before. He has, however, become more capable of facing hard truths and sharing (if only with those very, very close to him) his true feelings and the trauma behind them. The biggest change is that he has learned (albeit slowly and incompletely) to re-examine his snap judgments about other people. After meeting several perfectly nice people he assumed were inherently evil monsters based on their appearance, Festival began making an active effort to un-learn racist stereotypes from his own world. Additionally, his experience with Tim and Charlotte was a lesson in learning more about a person and their situation before making potentially harmful decisions. In general, Festival has become more aware of his flaws when it comes to being judgmental and acting too rashly, but he remains impulsive despite his best efforts and this self-awareness leads more often to making apologies than it does to actually avoiding the problematic behavior that necessitates those apologies. Powers and Abilities: [General Notes: In terms of tabletop mechanics, Festival is an illusion-focused level 20 Sound Striker Bard in the Pathfinder roleplaying system. The list below is simplified and in some cases nerfed via the omission of certain abilities and spells. Specific spells and links to their full text can be provided on request. General nerfs: All magical effects will be negotiated with players on a case by case basis and will prove ineffective in situations where players do not give permission for them to work. Furthermore, I expect abilities to be nerfed by game events and mechanics as needed.] Bardic Performance Through the power of music, Festival can generate various magical effects on himself and the people around him. These effects include frightening opponents, inspiring courage and great deeds in allies, magical healing, and causing physical damage to people and objects with the sound of his voice. At its extreme end, he is capable of causing someone to literally drop dead of either joy or sadness in response to his musical performances. Illusion Spells Illusions are Festival's specialty; the false images, sounds, and smells he's able to generate are highly convincing. These include vocal alterations, such as the ability to make himself louder, to project his voice and perform magical ventriloquism, or to make himself sound like another person. He can also project images into minds; these visions are typically something nightmarish and intended to incapacitate. He can disguise himself and others; beyond the ability to take on the appearance of another person, he can give himself an air of authority, disguise his aura as that of another person, or make himself invisible. He can create a backup singer by making a shadowy duplicate of himself. Finally, he is highly competent at general illusions, able to create phantom sights, sounds, smells, and even thermal effects; these can be created on the fly and allowed to dissipate, but he is also able to create illusions that are activated by specific events or actions, and he's able to create permanent illusions. Freedom Spells Festival has no great talent for escape work, but he has a few tricks up his sleeve. He is able to open any imprisoning bond with a knock of his knuckles, though doing so makes a very loud sound. Similarly, he is able to throw off mental effects and enchantments by letting loose a primal scream. Finally, he is capable of short range teleportation, able to move himself and allies up to about a city block. Other Spells Like most magic users of his world, Festival has picked up a variety of helpful spells. He is able to detect the presence of magic and to dispel it to a small extent; lift small objects by pointing at them; perform small prestidigitations that include magically cleaning, heating, or adding flavor to materials; speak and understand languages; conjure musical instruments; conjure a shadow horse to carry him; and see things that have been made invisible. Notable Omissions: Unlike most bards, Festival has made a point of never learning any spells or performances he views as mind control; according to his personal code of ethics, mind control is a form of slavery and to be abhorred. He does not know even the most basic suggestion/charm spells and effects, let alone spells that would allow him to directly command another person. Physical Abilities Festival possesses retractable claws on both hands and feet, which make him an excellent climber but do little to aid him in combat. He sees well in the dark, has excellent reflexes, and can be very stealthy when he so desires. He's trained in sword fighting, but does not particularly care for it as an actual form of combat. Inventory: 1. Handy haversack (a normal-looking leather backpack that can hold 100 cubic feet of materials but never weighs more than five pounds) 2. Lute (good craftsmanship) 3. Rag doll in the shape of the first Razor Knight Samples: Network Log |
