Welcome to Gaia! ::

((This is a modern setting with strong religious (Nothing overt, mostly about vampires and the apocalypse so don't be offended.), magical, and mythological overtones. Warning: There is some graphic violence, but not more than average PG13. If you are offended by bloodshed, don't post here.)

A war has been raging beyond the sight of man and beast since just before the crucifixion: one of blood, one of land, and one of powe. It is a war of clans. Vampire clans to be exact.

For nearly five millennia vampires have roamed the Earth in their highest form to yet evolve, Homo Parasitica. These are considered the common household vampire, a walking virus. They are faster, stronger and more aware of their world than the men they were born from. Their life spans reach beyond ages and they hunger for the life force of man. Everything seems fairly Hollywood from the outside, with cool clothes, lust, women/men, anything one could dream of.

But the outside means nothing. Beneath the glory and the 'immortality' lay demons and warlords, saints and prophets all vying for the top, for the fate of vampires and the fate of Men. They battle for territories in which to raise their extensive spawn, they battle for the puppet strings of mortal government, and of course they battle to be the Venerable Elder. These secret wars have spanned every country and across the oceans, into lands that seem inhospitable to man or beast. Thousands have fallen. Nature has taken a turn for the worse at these fiends' hands. ((What? You thought WWII and the Black Plague were the work of man and God?)) At the head of this war machine is the Board of Elders, a collection of the twelve oldest, wisest, and most powerful vampires that have not retired to the Matron Sleep. Master Hannibal of the Isles is the head master, and struggles to keep his own children out of the conflict.

Vampires aren't the only ones on the playing field, though. In fact, they are really the newest to the game, and they are by no means the most powerful. The MMC, the Family, and the Covenant are powerful mortal and magical forces mingling or fighting against the darkness. All of them seek some sort of advantage over mortal, or conversely immortal, forces of existence.

As it stands, the world is in danger of conflict of catastrophic proportions. Lee Crusader, the youngest member of the Board of Elders, is vying for mortal domination, a political and philosophical tactic that would reduce mankind to the status equivalent to cattle. Vampires would reign supreme and unquestioned. He has many supporters, but there are drawbacks to this idea that could rip asunder the vampire nation. GotMaschine, an honorary member of the Board has begun a campaign to have Lee and his philosophy erased from the face of vampiric history. A true believer in the status quo, he strives to raise humans to the level of vampire, introducing this vagrant culture into the mainstream of the world. This too has its problems.

The MMC has been unnaturally alert. The Magic and Manifestation Confederation is devoted to the suppression of the apocalypse, collecting any and all talents (people with unnatural skills like fire starting and prophesy) in attempt to 'neuter' their powers and conceal them from dark forces that would use them as tools. But despite their greatest effort, the prophets in custody are dying from violent visions of the coming darkness, and more and more talents are being reported around the world.

The Covenant, a league of vampire hunters stationed out of Germany, is in the middle of a crisis of faith. Members are disappearing, and there are rumors that they’ve been compromised. Vampires may be the heads of the Covenant, but nothing can be proven because the key players in unraveling the conspiracy keep disappearing never to be heard from again. All that remains of these people are their commanders saying something about a new base in Dublin.

All the while, the world continues to turn. People continue to live their lives of fast food, solitude, and restless work, oblivious of the growing scourge pressing in on their little world.

Mythology- Vampires, hybrids and talents- Oh my.
((This clarifies which myths are or are not being used. If you have any questions on a specific one just ask me. ^^))

Lets start with vampires, perhaps the least defined in most RPs.
Creation:There are various methods. There's the good old bite and drink method and this is based partially on the idea that vampirism is a virus. A vampire forces a near death mortal to drink their blood, thus transmitting the virus that creates the vampire. This is the method that we will be working with in this thread. Vampires are unable to transmit the virus until it matures, which will take about a century for most new kin.

The less common six bite method is part of some old folk lore that if one is bitten by a vampire six times that they will rise as a vampire after death. I will accept characters based on this concept, but you have to sell it to me. Magical backfire is another creation method which never really happens in modern time and has more to do with the origin of the race. A mage/shaman would be questing for Lichdom, but the spells involved would turn out to be improperly done and it converts them into a vampire at death. I mention this method because it is relevant to the Board of Elders. After these, there's just some little side marks about troubled spirits that become vampires and the creation of specific breeds. I will accept exotic vampires, but you have to know your stuff for that breed.

Additionally, vampires are dead and therefore they cannot bare children. This being said, 'full bloods' are not welcome in the mythology of this thread. The idea of a half blood would refer to a revenant, not a being born of a vampire. A revenant is a person bound to become a vampire upon their death by consuming the blood of their future sire while still healthy. These individuals acquire no extra abilities other than a weak, one way psychic link with their masters whom they serve in the daylight.


For viral vampires, the conversion process is hectic. The virus takes hold of the dying body once oxygen levels drop to the point of causing brain damage. The first several minutes of the vampire's unlife are critical to it's survival. The virus will attempt to heal whatever wounds caused the vampire to die. Flesh wounds are the easiest, fractures in bone are the next easiest. The loss of limbs are nearly impossible for the virus to heal durring conversion. The virus can process poison to a point durring the begining, but since it's busy with taking over the body, that poison metabolism capaticty is limited. From there that body enters a state of bloodlust. The virus requires a specific amount of nutrition to establish iteself in the body. If the host is unable to imbibe the necessary nutrition within a small window of time (at the most, two weeks) the vampire will starve and die. The faster the consumption of the required amount, which varies between individuals, the sooner the bloodlust stage ends. It generally last 3-7 days, and there is a high mortality rate associated with this life stage. Durring bloodlust, the vampire is little more than a hunger driven corpse. It will kill and consume the blood of any living thing that crosses it's path. Because of this, they are easy for hunters to find and destroy. If the damage to the host body was too severe, the body may not be able to find food, resulting in starvation and eventually death. Along the same line, there are occasions where the body, though uninjuried is incapable of freeing itself, and it dies of starvation. Examples of this tend to be revenants who suffer from unexpected sudden deaths like car accidents where the vehicle is lost and they are trapped with no way to escape, among other things.

Once the bloodlust stage passes, the young vampire will regain their conciousness. Their personaility, memories, and skills return, but they often have trouble returning to life as they knew it because of their new hunger.

Powers: Vampires grow in power as they grow in age. New kin have better hearing, sight and smell. Rarely, they detect body heat to find prey. They’ve developed the evolutionary advantages of retractable fangs, better reflexes than normal humans, and strength that has increased enough to overpower prey. As a vampire ages it may develop shape shifting like mist form and animal forms based of the hierarchy of animal holiness. Common animal forms include wolves, insect swarms, rat swarms, snakes, etc. These animals are traditionally considered to be close to the devil and tend to be plague bearers. Shape shifting may take centuries to develop and is a painful process that drains the creature. There is always the danger that when taking a form that they will not be able to revert if they are too weak. There are rumors of their ability to use hypnotic suggestion on victims; this is only true in the case of individuals who were already psychically active. Vampires can summon the others that they have created through the psychic link created by the conversion process. Elder vampires can also summon lycanthropes and animals from the lower rankings of animal hierarchy discussed previously.

Some breeds can drain life energy from a victim without biting them, or survive off of the life energy of plants.

All vampires regenerate slowly and only if they rest and feed after suffering a wound. Superficial wounds will take an hour or more to heal, limbs a few weeks. If a vampire is decapitated, its body returns to the state of decomposition it would have reached naturally by that time, whether that be just a slightly smelly corpse or dust in the case of older vampires.

And of course, damaging vampires! Damage eh? Well, lets start with how NOT to wound a vampire. First an foremost: STAKING A VAMPIRE THROUGH THE HEART DOES NOT NOT NOT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT kill them. Staking is only useful for holding a vampire still so you can expose them to fire or decapitate them. Holy symbols: These are only useful when the creature wielding them has strong faith in it. Holy water works about the same way. Garlic and members of the onion family are mildly harmful to vampires, causing only discomfort. Sunlight does not kill vampires. Sunlight is little more than a particularly painful nuisance at best. At worst, sunlight can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back- stopping lifesaving regeneration, and allowing the vampire to die of any other wounds they’ve suffered. Silver does nothing. Silver is a symbol of purity, and while it makes a holy symbol more potent, it has not damaging traits of its own.
So how do you hurt a vampire?

Running water is a lesser known method of harming a vampire. It burns them in the same way that holy water burns them. This method can only be employed at a river. Basically this works because of 1.) the concept of the baptism and sacred catharsis and 2.) rivers are notorious for being giant life force erasers.
Fire is always a good choice. Vampires are just as flammable as everyone else, and burns tend to be hard to regenerate. They are also susceptible to melee damage. Decapitation, severing the spinal cord, jugular or windpipe, and inducing brain death are all considered deathblows for a vampire, just as they would be for a human.

Culture: This section still in development. Vampires live solitary existences, rarely taking hunting partners that aren't just their youngest creations. The occasional family group does crop up, but the volume at which such a group feeds makes them vulnerable to detection and eventually destruction. Vampires were once humans, this being said, they posses many of the same vices- war, prejudice, politics, and so on. Because of this, they've developed the usual chaotic governing body. It does not so much rule over all vampires, but rather watches vampires, humans, and religious movements, deciding where the bud must be nipped to keep the race alive a few more centuries. Vampires do form loose communities which determine hunting ground and watch out for threats, but members of these groups do not mingle often and without cause, and will fight for good hunting ground.


Other races: Well, I don’t have any to really mention yet. The only races that have become prominent other than human’s and vampires in this universe are Nephilim- the b*****d children of the Grigori (Watchers as they’re also called, the Creator’s lookouts for mankind) and the women they forced themselves on or took as wives. These children tend to be abnormally tall, have no conscience, and are mute. They are prone to cannibalism, forming cults, and being rapists. These beings are carefully monitored by the MMC, and many of them are in confinement.

Talents: Talents are human beings that have developed psychic abilities, or have an unusual adaptation to magic. The most common varieties of talents are pyroketetics (fire starting) , precognitives (seeing the future), and telepaths (reading or speaking into others’ minds). Psychokinetics (moving things with the mind) is becoming more widespread, as is Puppeteering (exerting overt control over another’s thoughts and actions). If you choose to be an escaped prisoner of the MMC with a projectable ability (Fire starting, puppetering, telekinesis, etc.), you may be missing body parts. This is called nurturing the ability. The MMC removes the body's energy focus that allows for the use of the ability (hands, *ahem* organs, eyes, and tongues are most common.). For example, a fire starter that has to put their hands on the object to ignite it would most likely be missing their hands. This does not mean you cannot use the ability; it just makes the ability harder for you to control.

NPC quick reference guide- because forewarned is forearmed.
This is by no means a full list, but here is a quick sampling of NPCs that might pop up in the course of our adventure:

Corinthian's NPCs

GotMaschine
Full Name: William "GotMaschine" ???
Age:1978
Snapshot: Got is currently in Chicago as a favor to his long time friend Shwarz. The murders at Welt have a distinctly occult ring to them, and he's there to see if he can find out a little more and put them to a stop. Got is a necromancer by passion, and a political radical by trade. He was born in Germany and is the oldest living kin to Hannibal of the Isles. He was granted status as an honorary Elder because of his service in the last Clan War to the disenfranchised kin as their Sheppard and caretaker.

Shwarz
Full name: Joseph "Shwarz" Ames
Age: 238
Snapshot: Shwarz is currently in Japan overseeing the construction of his newest club. It has not been named yet. He is concerned about his club in Chicago, but is easily distracted from his worries by Gangouro Girls. He is the son of a French prostitute and spent his fleeting mortal lifetime as a playboy and an avid vampire hunter. Now he spends his days as an avid playboy, a preemptive vampire hunter, and a club mogul.

Lee
Full Name: "Lee Crusader"
Age: 2002
Snapshot: Lee is currently in Ireland laying low. He is aware that he is being watched by hunters, and his kin are being slain as fast as he can turn them. Lee appears to be a prepubescent boy of Asian descent, and uses his disarming appearance to pick off prey and enemies at his leisure.

Jessi Milharn:
Full Name: Jessi Elizabeth Milharn
Age: 26
Snapshot: Jessi is currently enjoying some time off in London. She is the new Retainer of the Family, as well as Got's first Revenant. What that means is that she is normally running all over the world at the beck and call of her parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, GotMaschine, the MMC, the other Elders, and anyone else that manages to corner the wide eyed girl. Her father is a Milharn, Ripper's youngest son, and her mother is of one the last full blooded Vandradee's. She spent her life not knowing Got or the Family after her parents had a fight with Louis and vowed to never let the Family near her. She was once kidnapped by Uncle V.

James Milharn:
Full Name: James Jonathan Milharn
Age: 33
Snapshot: James is currently in Illinois working as an electrical engineer for a train yard, and does a little farming on the side. He has a normal life for the most part, with a girlfriend, a job and health insurance. He’s Jessi’s half brother, and that’s what gets the poor guy in trouble. He’s Jessi’s fill in emergencies that call for her to be elsewhere. He doesn’t know the first thing about magic and is afraid of snakes.

Uncle V
Full Name: That depends on who you ask. Lord Iphsignius, or Uncle V are his two most common names.
Age: ???
Snapshot: None available. V is not currently in this dimension. Louis is his brother.

Louis
Full Name: Louis VanDradee
Age: ???
Snapshot: None available. Louis is not currently in this dimension. V is his brother.

Ripper
Full Name: John “Ripper” Milharn
Age: 90’s, not known for sure
Snapshot: Ripper died around the turn of the millennia, much to the sorrow of his 6 children, their respective children and their children too. He was Got’s last real hardcore supporter in the Milharn family tree at that point, which was a devastating blow to him and the Family. Ripper spent his life as a military man and vampire hunter which garnered him his name. Ripper fell into league with Got through his grandfather, a man Got had saved from prison in Ireland decades before Ripper was born. Ripper was the vampire’s Family Retainer (guardian of the Family) up until his death. He requested that the title be given to his youngest son (who refused, rather violently). The title was given to his youngest son’s daughter though, Jessi Milharn.

Demetrius Greene
Full name: Demetrius "D" Alexander Green- Prisoner 456493
Age: 32
Snapshot: D is in London with classified information that he's really not supposed to have. The man is a Talent, a telekenetic to be exact, and escaped from the MMC about two years ago when he was being transported for surgery. Since then, the man has been hiding out wherever he can, which boils down to living on the streets, or being granted the occasional favor by his customers.

Enyet's NPCs

Burke
Full name: Detective Iphedes Monroe Burke
Age: 32
Currently running without a partner down in Chicago PD due to a nervous breakdown with some messy murders. He still hasn't gotten his car fixed from the incident. Lately he's been getting all the strange cases no one else wants, but he's used to that, his faulrt for knowing more about the dark side of Chicago then people give him credit for. He's a habitual smoker, (usually when something is bothering him) and has unkept brown hair and unusually dark blue eyes with a tendency not to show up on any psychic radar, at all. He has one longtime friend who just happens to be wealthy beyond what is considered normal and lives in a rundown apartment on the top floor with a broken lock and a faulty air conditioner.

Kagen
Full name: Kagen Hirodeki Davis
Aliases: "Judas" "The Devils Smile" "Mephisto"
Age: 32
Independantly wealthy and currently in Chicago managing his weapons firm. Appropriatly named Kiratech the company mainly sells to private dealers with 'abnormal' problems. The majority of it's most popular stock is anonomously constructed by the company's owner who will occassionally take on custom projects provided he considers the circumstances merit it. Part technological genius and casual mage(a talent he considers a distraction at best), Kagen has the well deserved reputation of charismatic playboy a title which he makes an effort to exercise whenever possible. Lately he's been attempting to track down a hacker whose been attempting to break into his servers, the fact that said hacker has managed to break through as far as they have has not escaped him.

Agent Lawrence
Full name: Johnathan Allen Lawrence
Age: 33
Lately John has been having trouble dealing with the council and their desire to hack off various appendages of the current inmates. Despite his understanding of the necessity he's been trying to keep his young friend away from surgery in concern that the operation would do worse for him. He's a sub par mage with tidy blonde hair and an uneasy business-like expression. His concerns notwithstanding he has an unsettling loyalty to his superiors which seems more born out of fear then actual trust.


Prisoner 26304
Full Name: Aluisus Marias Black
Age: 30
Aluisus Black has been trapped in his mind for around 15 years now, unable to tell what time he's in as a result of an incident involving Johnathan Lawrence and three other friends. He since hasn't progressed beyond the mentality of a six year old. A distubingly childish redheaded man Aluisus is becoming increasingly erratic in behavior over a number of recent nightmarish visions of the future and has managed to slip out of one of the low security facilities of the MMC, wandering in search of the strange man with no aura.

Clion Detritus
Full name: ???
Alias: Lexicon
Age: ???
Lexicon has been around long enough to know when something big is going to happen. Lately it seems everything is preparing for something cataclysmic. Betrayed by a dying lover in anchient greece Lexicon consumed the core of the golden apple before death staked a claim. Since the greek has lived a mostly androgonous lifestyle with various personalities throughout the ages, prefering the arts and holding an affection for museums. Currently the curator of a small art museum in London Lexicon's newly cut wheat gold hair has alluded to the idea of a male under the identity, despite the unusually feminine face, though no ones ever wanted to ask the question. Lexicon has been casually access contacts through and outside of London in attempt to find out what new event has been unfolding, but most efforts have been met with dead ends and it's never been the immortal's policy to actively pursue destruction.

More to come!

There is something to be said for Freud, unfortunatly Clion never found any words that could be deemed appropriate. It was just poor luck that this new psychiatric hack had decended upon the gallery in a splendor of publicity as he continued with his scathing expose on so many popular artists, Picasso specifically. It was just poor luck that The Maya à la Poupée happened to be on loan this month, a work of art that had taken years of personal effort to ensure it's recovery.
It would not matter if the man, better known as Phil Hasforth had conducted his research privatly in a discreet matter befitting gentlemen of a seemingly forgotton age. Unfortunatly the good doctor prefered a spectical and publicity and it would have been far more harmful to turn away such a spectacle. It was the freudion obsession with sex that bothered the curator, who was dressed in a fine white suit, trimmed with gold to accentuate the glowing curls. It was a masked resentment that Cleon was even tollerating this farce of which one of the most soulfull painters in the 19th century must be bashed after the grave in order to progress the reputation of a glory seeking doctor.

Cleon sighed, glancing briefly at the pathetic display before retreating to seclusion among the Monets, happily or not, Mr Hasforth was far more interested in the psyche of Picasso then to destroy the honor of any other genius.

The Sommerset House held many fine works and those not owned by the museum itself, Cleon had networked for a loan. It was a personal pride and not only did the museum now possess the most well known artists of their day it also held some of the more obscure works, many of which the artists had long been forgotten for their impact on society, the only few remenants of their time on the earth locked withen an expression of oil on canvas. Blue eyes fell on the painting at the far end, a young man looking out a window onto a london street during the fourteenth century. The eyes locked with the charecter, painted with such detail in the small space. It might have been missed with the almost minute size of the man in the window, but for someone who came by the room every day it was obvious to find the gentlemen, even when he moved.

Because of this unique effect Cleon had ensured the painting be placed in a normally untravelled area in the builting, where the constant traffic might not notice the trapped man cursed to live in two dimensions, If only not to alarm the public.

There are several different ways for catching a thief. Most of them rely on getting them in the actual act of the crime. Then there are those which prevent the crime before it can be commited. Kagen Davis liked the later method, he considered it a personal failure to allow anyone to succeed in their theft before he was able to administer punishment.

The important files at Kiratech industries were secured by the most advanced firewalls that could be programmed, Kagen had seen to them himself, constructing the progream on his own to block any undesirable traffic and implanted with a virus designed to fry any server that managed to break through the serious of codes. He had been so meticulous in the design it was a small surprise that anyone could manage to get to the virus and hold it back long enough to be playing around amongst the data. This left him to suspect that whoever was taking the time and money to hack through his files they had to have a considerable amount of financing, to say nothing for intelligence.

Resigning himself to the idea that discovering his intruder would take time he chose instead to relax. Buttoning his darkend blue silk shirt he grabbed his keys and stepped out the door. Kagen Davis was a poster boy for wealth, his looks suggesting a man of Japanese/American heritage with round green eyes that always carried some hint of amusement. He wasn't taller then six feet, maybe an inch shorter with black hair styled short and spiked slightly, dyed blonde at the ends to give the hip appearence of youth. It was working very well, his appearence never being all too unpleasent to look at, being altogether handsome as was indication of how easily he was able to obtain the affection of a young lady.
Finding driving unnecessary for the moment he instead chose to walk, taking a right at the corner to start with some of the more popular clubs.
Finding his anonymous hacker would have to wait.

Iphedes Burke had been written off as a joke by the majority of officers in the district.
TTo say nothing for the fact that he went through his partners like Dirty Harry, the guy never really managed to catch a break with any of the cases he was assigned to. Most of the investigations he was assigned to usually ended up being written as unsolved due to the fact that the actual criminal was never caught, died resisting arrest, or escaped custody. After that the man's overall appearence just made it worse. He was tall, roughly six and one with most of the muscle concealed beneath perpetually unkept clothing and a long dirt brown coat that resembled a trench or duster. His hair had the style of just getting out of bed in the morning, a few rebel strands descending on his eyebrows in a pathetic tribute to bangs. His blue eyes had that constant look of indifference as he chewed on a cigarette.
His track record was so poor that it was largely wondered how the detective managed to remain undemoted and in possession of a reasonable caseload.
This mistake in filing was attributed to the residing chief who had been walking the streets long before being behind a desk and witnessed a good share of nightmares in that time. The fact that Burke managed to handle these nightmares better then most was a godsend to someone who had always dreaded a psych evaluation for some of the best officers.

Burke seemed almost to be retained solely as a method for dumping unwanted cases due to an aversion of career suicide. In fact it had been the districts infinate wisdom to make it official and threw a suspiciously useless detective in with a number of equally suspicious cases, tactfully labeling it special investigation. It was a way of maintaining sanity while keeping the crackpot cops out of the way, which made everyone happy. While Burke usually handled homicide he found himself often getting a good share of other investigations, most of which something didn't add up to the remote probability of normal. No one wanted to touch a bad career move.

He wrote so much fiction he figured he might be in for a pulitzer, or whatever they called that.
It was this thought that was running through his mind as he entered the district office, immediatly greeted by the impressive girth of a stout old man who too the cop and donuts idea too much to heart.

"Artie. How's the night?"

Arthur Miller scowled, chewing hastilly on a block of nicotine gum as he looked at the upstart embaressment to the CPD. Trying to quit had made the man irritable, but personal pride would not let him go before making a few jeers.

"Catch any fairies yet Burke?"

Burke frowned. Early on he'd made the mistake of telling the truth in his reports. Since then he hasn't lived it down. "I dunno Art, I think you ate them all."

Arthur scowled, giving the other detective the glare of death before moving on. "Boss wants to see you. make sure you can get through the month without a partner in the psych ward."

Now that wasn't fair, Frank had been a newbie, thrown on him for gross inexperience. It was poor luck that the pairing had occured during one of his nastier cases. Poor kid had never been able to handle the Lovecraft reject trying to sardine the car. Shaking his head the detective approached the office, hoping maybe he could catch a break this time. It wasn't likely.

Jessi had drifted her way through most of the Impressionist section. It had never been her cup of tea in school. It was all beautiful, but not her thing. Neoclassicism was her prefered style, followed by Surrealism, but she could appreciate others.

She lingered in front of one of Monet's Rouen Cathedral. She'd seen a few of them before in Chicago and in Cincinnati's Art Museum. Of the man's works, these were probably her favorite, and the hardest to fathom. She'd never understood the obsession behind doing one object over and over and over. She caught herself short of calling him OCD mentally. She would have had to punch herself.

She looked up from the one she was standing in front of, to the four or five others around her. For being such a small museum, they had quite the collection. She wondered if these were loaners from Chicago. She was reasonably certain she'd seen one or two of them on her last trip there.

It took her another moment of looking around to realize she wasn't alone. There was another admirer standing quietly to the side, looking over a picture that was out of place among the spatterings of indefinte color and stark brushstrokes. From the atire they were probably an employee, and a reminder that she looked like a hobo.

She jumped a little when the person spoke suddenly. "Are you talking to me?... I don't know anything about a Piccaso agreement..."

Jessi was a little bewildered, but regained her composure quickly. "I'm Jessi Milharn. You have a lovely museum...." Her eyes strayed to the misplaced portrait again as she offered her hand politely, a force of habit from meeting with Elders. There was something off about the painting that made her uncomfortable. She hoped it was just it's contrast against the works around it.

"Well now that you ask, I don't recognize that piece. Who's work is it?"