This journal is for Umbrology and her Plague, Claune-- please do not post here without her permission!
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:36 am
O you out there, inside your tiny little barge, eager to listen, following behind my ship that, singing, crosses to deep seas, Don't set out into the deep, for fear that, perhaps, losing sight of me, you be left adrift. The waters that I sail were never crossed before
Dante's Paradiso
CONTENTS Introduction Table of contents Timeline & updates Nicholas Glass Claune The painted violin Roleplay log Acquaintances Riddes & rhyme Extra artwork Possessions Credits
Umbrology
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Umbrology
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Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:40 am
OOC UPDATES 01.22.12 Journal created 10.27.12 Claune grows to Excito!
IC TIMELINE Winter 1412 Nicholas discovers that his violin is Plagued Winter 1412 Nicholas attends the ill-fated Council meeting in Helios Summer 1412 Nicholas is formally inducted into the Council of Sciences Autumn 1412 The painted violin grows into Claune, a Caedos Winter 1413 Nicholas and Claune flee Mishkan and move to Gadu Spring 1413 Nicholas establishes a lab in the catacombs and begins tutoring Winter 1414 Nicholas and Claune visit the Grimm's childhood home in Mildell
GROWTH STAGE II - III Staff constantly reviews preparedness for growth 1 meeting with the Plague Doctor (PRP) 1 growth quest 1 mission 1 shop event
REGION Born in Mildell, Mishkan Recently lived near Clearbarrow Currently residing in Gadu, Imisus
PROFESSION Council scholar, naturalist Former doctor & ship's surgeon
AGE Thirty-nine
APPEARANCE
Nicholas is slightly below average in height and possesses a spare, wiry build that suggests a spry and energetic disposition. He frequently wears a pair of small round reading spectacles, and his fingers are long and slender and slightly nervous, accustomed to performing fine tasks. Life at sea has had a clear affect on him: his skin is weathered by the elements, causing him to appear several years older than he actually is, and his hair has been colored lighter by the sun and his complexion darker until they are almost exactly the same shade (or used to be—the past two years have diminished his tan considerably, especially during the winter). His pale blue eyes seem unusually bright and piercing in contrast, like flecks of tourmaline embedded in a walnut shell. He is missing his right arm at the shoulder.
PERSONALITY
Nicholas is an intelligent man with an unswervingly rational mind, and his calm exterior often belies the depth of his passion for science. Though usually exceptionally reasonable in temperament, the value he places on his work sometimes causes him to lose perspective in other areas of his life. Calling him "married to his work" is an understatement; despite his best intentions, most of his relationships end up being secondary to his research. He is frequently so preoccupied with his studies that he forgets to eat and tidy up, to his considerable chagrin, as, being a doctor, he values both a regular diet and a neat environment as precursors to good health. Discussing his work or other topics of scientific interest is one of the few things that leads him to shed his mild demeanor and become animated, to the great peril of anyone nearby, for once he has started it is often difficult for him to stop.
In most aspects of his character, Nicholas is well-suited to being a physician. He is careful, composed, precise, compassionate, and extremely patient. Even so, he has an unfortunate habit of being overcritical of himself and privately dwelling on his faults and past mistakes. He is easily put off balance by rude mannerisms, and though he likes to think that he has a healthy sense of humor, his gullibility (he tends to assume the best of people) and various eccentricities make him a convenient target for mockery—good-natured and otherwise. He more or less tolerates being the brunt of jokes until a true nerve is struck, at which time his wounded pride makes itself known in no uncertain terms. He is not a doormat, despite his unassuming mannerisms; if he believes something truly needs to be said he will say it, and bear the unpleasant consequences if necessary.
Nicholas is a resilient man, having developed the ability to put his emotions aside and carry on early in his life as a boy, but his steadfast good cheer is often only a front following his injury and departure from The Lady's Favor. The doctor is well aware that he will never practice as a physician in any real capacity ever again, and his work as a naturalist has yet to furnish him with any real opportunities. Now, saddled with an unmanageable Plague whom he loves but doesn't have the faintest idea how to care for, Nicholas feels set adrift. The specter of the gray, unnavigable sea occupies his waking thoughts. Music, once his primary emotional outlet, is lost to him—and Claune serves as a constant reminder of its absence. It is perhaps unsurprising that he has never bothered to discontinue his use of laudanum, first begun aboard The Lady's Favor during his recovery and now an unquestionable addiction, though Nicholas would be the last person to admit it.
HISTORY
A more complete version of Nicholas's backstory up until becoming a Grimm can be found in "The Painted Violin" a couple posts down, but I strongly doubt anyone's going to go to the trouble of reading that monstrosity, so I'll get around to writing a summary here at some point. In a nutshell: Nicholas got a medical degree at Trisica University, estranged himself from his parents by deciding to work a ship's surgeon on a trade vessel immediately afterwards, pursued his interest in natural biology and taxonomy while traveling, and lost his right arm when a shrapnel injury become badly infected. He threw his beloved violin overboard while in the grips of the ensuing fever, only for it to turn up at a beach-comber's stall a year later, Plagued from contact with the corpses of diseased sailors. Since then, he has joined the Council and traveled to Gadu.
FAMILY Father Isambard Glass, physician Mother Cassandra Glass, musician
Umbrology
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Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:57 am
ITEM HISTORY
This old violin's precise origin is unknown, but its design suggests that it hails from somewhere in Ecara. An expert might recognize it as a violino di festa, or festival violin, a light instrument designed specifically for use by costumed performers in certain Ecaran festivals. It is intended to play high, merry airs and dramatic music in minor keys, and is not well-suited to a diverse repertoire containing more dignified classical Ardenian and Panymesian compositions. It was tainted after it was thrown from The Lady's Favor and came into contact with the corpse of a Plague victim while washing up on the beach about a week later.
PERSONALITY
Claune has been badly damaged by (what he perceives as) Nicholas's rejection, not only physically—for the violin is warped and peeling from its time at sea—but mentally as well. He yearns for the connection they once had as instrument and musician, when their desires and purposes were perfectly united. It wounds him that every time Nicholas looks at him now he is reminded of the loss of his arm, the unattainable vastness of the seas that he once called home, and the cruel fact that he will never play music again. Claune feels as if their damaged relationship is somehow his fault, in the confused, resentful way of a child too young to understand that the worldly misfortunes heaped upon him are not a cosmic punishment for his own wrongdoing. He is haunted by a persistent and irrational fear that one day the doctor will be unable to bear his presence any longer and will throw him back to the waves. As a result of this and his past experiences at sea, he harbors an intense fear of water. Even looking at a filled bathtub is sometimes enough to send him into paroxysms of terror, and he suffers from frequent nightmares about the ocean.
That is not to suggest, however, that Claune is a fully innocent victim of his circumstances. The qualities he possessed as a violin are still at evidence in his personality; he is a fickle, capricious, frivolous being, capable of unpredictable behavior ranging from the merely irritating to the downright cruel when not handled in precisely the correct way. Like the songs he was designed to play, his theatrical emotions rarely strike a middle ground—he is either droll and capering or moody and sulking, with little room in between. Though intelligent, and indeed often capable of both the grave wisdom and cold irony of the mournful sailor's shanties Nicholas teased from him on dark nights at sea, he exhibits the emotional wildness and uncontrollability of a child. He has a marked love of chaos. He often cannot stand his Grimm's calm, practical behavior and becomes spiteful in an attempt to force a reaction out of him, which inevitably leaves Nicholas hurt and Claune miserable and guilty. Though he loves Nicholas, his selfishness and insecurities—combined with the doctor's unhealed sense of loss—have as yet made it impossible for the two to reconcile their problems and harmonize as they did in the past.
Claune has a singing voice of almost unearthly beauty, but the activity strains him. After several minutes of song his notes always begin to slip and deteriorate into harsh, jarring sounds, and remain that way until he is tuned. This is probably due to the damage he sustained as a violin. He cannot tune himself, and so relies on Nicholas to do it for him, but the doctor, to his immense secret regret, often pretends that the act is more difficult for him to perform with only one hand that is really is. Hearing Claune's music haunts him as badly as watching ships sail out to sea. The Plague is often left silent in consequence, deprived of his only true joy.
CLAUNE LIKES
Sweets of every variety Loud, gaudy, or otherwise annoying trinkets/adornments Having secrets, withholding information Causing general mischief Being appreciated, especially for obscure or unlikely things Children (strongly identifies with them)
CLAUNE DISLIKES
Bodies of water (an extreme phobia) Being separated from Nicholas under any circumstances beyond his control Excessive quiet, stodginess, proper etiquette, pretentious/refined environments Anything that is very serious or takes itself too seriously Nosiness, attempts to pry Being ignored
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:05 am
Artwork by Rookeries
Nicholas was born and raised in Mishkan, the only son of Isambard Glass, a physician, and Cassandra, a former musician. His family enjoyed a reasonable degree of wealth and privilege as a result of a large inheritance from Cassandra's deceased parents. Though Nicholas wanted for nothing growing up, his father was a cold and sterile man who spent little time with his wife and son, gone as he was for weeks at a time maintaining his practice in Pwlanarfyll. Cassandra was a kinder influence in Nicholas's life, but her marriage to Isambard at a young age had ruined many of her prospects, most notably her musical career, and she was determined that Nicholas should experience everything that she had missed out on in her own life. Like many devoted but misguided parents, she made the mistake of resting so many of her hopes on Nicholas's shoulders that her guidance ultimately became an opportunity for the vicarious extension of her own interests, not his: a second chance to sit in the concert hall, another shot at perfection.
Nicholas spent many hours learning to play classical pieces on the harpsichord and violin when he would have preferred to play outside, capturing insects in jars. Cassandra staunchly disapproved of both this hobby and the soiled clothing that it tended to entail and discouraged him from it as much as possible. Over time Nicholas seemed to lose his interest in the creatures, but this was only for his mother's benefit; every night he opened his bedroom window and kindled a lamp, by which means he secretly acquired an expansive collection of moths.
By the age of sixteen, it was clear that Nicholas's aptitude for the violin was considerable. His harpsichord lessons were discontinued in the interest of developing this talent, but his progress, to Cassandra's great frustration, seemed to have reached a plateau—he was technically adept but put no passion into his music. The staid, traditional melodies did not suit him; he longed to fill the clean, remote halls of their home with the livelier tunes of the day. Every attempt to play a popular song or add a playful improvisation to a classical one, however, was met with a quick slap to the wrist by his prune-lipped instructor, and gradually by increments Nicholas's desires shut themselves away in a silent compartment in his chest where only he had access to them. He set free his collection of moths and watched them go forth into the quiet dark, and imagined places far away that he might escape to before his heart became as cold and brittle as his family name.
Isambard returned home the fall before Nicholas's seventeenth birthday to announce his intention to begin training his son in the family practice. Cassandra watched Nicholas leave in a carriage calm and straight-backed and hopeful, a cold breeze scattering leaves across the cobblestones in his wake, and felt her dreams driven away in the same bitter wind. Nicholas had left his violin behind.
It was clear that he took after both his mother and father, for Nicholas proved a competent student of medicine. He still felt that something crucial in his life was missing, but his busy schedule left him little time to speculate about what it might be, and his only guess was that he was beginning to feel the need to settle down with a respectable woman and start his own family; there were one or two girls in Pwlanarfyll—and then, once he began attending Trisica at eighteen, in Gadu—who had captured his attention. This was a safe, traditional sort of speculation, but it turned out to be entirely false when Nicholas eventually learned that his parents had arranged a suitable match for him back in Mildell, and intended to see him marry as soon as he graduated. The woman in question was a childhood friend named Eliza, and though Nicholas found her entirely agreeable, the thought of marriage—of being trapped and miserable the rest of his life just like his mother and father—suddenly terrified him.
And so, upon graduating and returning to Mishkan, he performed an act that he continues to be ashamed of to this day: he escaped his betrothal by boarding one of the ships out of Pwlanarfyll's docks and signing up as a surgeon. Though he was only twenty-three he was still overqualified for the job, which was less than ideal for a learned man in both wages and respectability. The merchant vessel gladly took him on. His parents, stunned by this act of betrayal, haven't spoken to him since.
Over the course of the next decade, Nicholas continued to avoid more profitable ventures in the interest of staying at sea. The panic he'd felt at the prospect of being tied down in Mildell turned out to be a symptom of a larger condition: wanderlust, characterized by an overwhelming attraction to scientific discovery. He eventually ended up on The Lady's Favor, a trading galleon of high repute, after he had accumulated half a decade's worth of experience. He looks back upon his first years of employment aboard The Lady as the best days of his life. The far reach of a trading ship allowed him to pursue his rekindled interest in insect taxonomy, which soon, in the absence of anyone's judgment but his own, became a passion; it was not long before wicker cages of butterflies and moths competed for space with the medical notes crammed into his tiny cabin.
About a year in he acquired his greatest prize: an old painted violin he purchased from an Ardenian trader, its place of manufacture unknown. It was a slender, elegant thing, lacquered as white as a seabird, with golden inlay and mother of pearl insets spanning its length. The trader was willing to part with it at a stunningly low price, for the violin was a notoriously fickle instrument—hardly anyone could play it without it releasing squeals and shrieks of a most offensive nature. Nicholas found that he was not entirely immune to its capriciousness himself, but he was able to tease a sweet, lively melody from its strings, and he felt sure that he would master it with practice. Its sound was unlike any other instrument Nicholas had ever played, especially the cheap fiddle he had previously been using to contribute a much-needed substance to the sailors' songs in the evenings. It was, he soon discovered, fashioned particularly for the types of wild, rollicking songs that he'd favored as a boy, for its construction was such that it produced certain combinations of notes with alacrity but not others. It would also accept grave, pensive airs as long as they were set in a peculiar minor key, but it would not play the staid, formal music composed of traditional Mishkan chords under any circumstances without being reduced to a horrible screeching.
This strange, beautiful, frivolous violin became precious to Nicholas, representative as it was of all the wistful boyish yearnings that he had never been able to fulfill. He played it so long and so often that The Lady's crew began to joke that Nicholas's love for that violin surpassed any love he would ever have for a woman, and they frequently imitated him playing it behind his back, much to his chagrin. Even so, few complained when the violin's music drifted across the deck at odd hours of the morning, for they were willing to tolerate a great doctor's eccentricities. If there was another reason why they kept their peace, none of them dared admit it in each other's company.
In these years The Lady's Favor was sailing on borrowed time. The threat of the Plague lurked always in the crew's mind, and The Lady's good fortune was not lost on them. Once they sailed past a quarantine harbor, its three occupants clustered together in their moorings like abandoned children, only to see a billow of flames and smoke erupt on the horizon once they had gone by. But for every port that closed, it seemed, another remained open; trade was a necessity, and The Lady carried on as the stories grew darker and the men more fearful when they came to Nicholas at night with new coughs or abscesses in need of lancing. All the while coin spilled into her coffers, and she split the waves as cleanly as she ever did. Nicholas played his violin long into the night and made the songs as merry as he could.
But The Lady had not been spared her reckoning. The day came when she was turned away from Ardenth's ports, and not kindly—the resounding boom of cannons warned her off even before they grew near enough to see the docks empty of foreign vessels. Thus the crew learned that Ardenth's borders had been closed since their departure, and that a long journey home without fresh provisions awaited them.
Two months out of Mishkan The Lady's Favor was beset by pirates, who were feasting like crows after a battle on the scores of full-bellied trade ships limping home to Panymium. The Lady managed to fend off her attackers, but at the cost of many lives. Nicholas himself was injured in the frenzy; a cannonball blasted straight through the surgeon's quarters, and though he was fortunate enough not to be standing directly in its path, his right arm was badly mangled by the resulting shrapnel. Infection set in, and a week later the arm had to be removed at the shoulder—a procedure that was performed by his assistant, a boy barely sixteen years of age and terrified by the responsibility.
Days passed, measured by drips of laudanum onto a small silver spoon. The white violin sat silently next to Nicholas during his convalescence. He awoke one morning taken by fever to find its graceful curves suddenly turned repellent, its golden fixtures bleak, like the cold salt-rimed rails of The Lady's Favor framed against a raw winter sea. Its charm had been stripped away; its true self, weary and tawdry, had been revealed. Its hateful whiteness seared the backs of his eyelids as he slept, mocking him with the knowledge that he would never play it again. Finally, only a day from port, he could bear it no longer and had the violin thrown overboard.
The Lady offloaded in Clearbarrow, and Nicholas said his goodbyes and departed there to recover. Mindful of his dwindling funds, he rented a modest two-room house on the coast—in truth more of a shack, used previously by a local fisherman as dry storage for an extra boat. Here he spent his days for some months undisturbed, learning slowly how to dress himself and write with his left hand. Once he was feeling well enough to walk about in the open he began to cultivate a habit of frequenting the beachcombers' stalls in the thin hope of acquiring new specimens to study. The haul was sometimes intriguing, especially after a storm, when strange things on the seafloor were dredged up and deposited on the shore, but Nicholas was always nevertheless reminded that the true discoveries lay across the ocean, unattainable.
As time passed and the poor residents of Clearbarrow's outlying fishing community grew more comfortable with him, prospective clients began to appear timidly on Nicholas' doorstep. He resumed his practice, after a fashion; though he could no longer stitch wounds, much less practice surgeries, he was able enough to advise on the small daily ailments he was most commonly presented with in exchange for fish and bread from the adults, captured butterflies from the children. Every once in a while bodies would wash up on the cold, narrow beach, and Nicholas helped identify them from a distance as victims of the Plague before they were burned at high tide. They had probably been thrown from vessels while still alive—a desperate effort, but a futile one. A ship stricken with the Plague was as good as sunk.
Nicholas's existence seemed to slow and blur together among the gray, seaworn lean-tos of the village. A bottle of laudanum awaited him every night in the cupboard. He was not a listless man by nature, but it seemed clear to him that his life as he'd known it was now a thing of the past; no ship would take on a one-armed surgeon, and he wasn't wealthy enough to afford travels to foreign lands for the sake of unprofitable scientific endeavors. He would have to find a different purpose in life, it appeared, but that purpose was not forthcoming. He was content in the meantime to spend this handful of months in peace, satisfied by the small fulfillments of easing cases of gout and soothing colicky infants.
Yet one day at the beachcombers' stalls, a horror awaited him: the white violin had returned.
It rested on a salt-cracked table, warped and cracked but recognizable all the same. Its paint was peeling away to reveal a horrible blackness beneath, and a strange, sticky residue tarnished the ornate depressions of its golden trim. It reeked of sour brine—and perhaps something else, but what that might have been, Nicholas could not quite say. He had been struck with the most irrational thought of his waking life: that the white violin would follow him wherever he went, haunting him with his crime. His crime! As if the violin were a person, and his impulsive fever-driven disposal of it tantamount to murder.
Nicholas was a man of logic, of science, of rationality. He decided he would rather lose his other arm than his mind. So he purchased the violin, tucked it away, and brought it home, where he placed it on a shelf among his books and specimens.
And there it waits.
If it leaks and stinks, surely this is only due to the mire of black silt and seawater that has accumulated within its cavities during its time at sea...
[SOLO]ocean deep, ocean vastSUMMER 1412 [SOLO]nightmares of the seaAUTUMN 1412 [SOLO]metamorphosisAUTUMN 1412 [SOLO]a house of leavesAUTUMN 1412 [PRP]the smell of changeWINTER 1412-13 [SOLO]ashes, dustWINTER 1412-13
[PRP]ere the falcon fliesWINTER 1412-13 [SOLO]mementosWINTER 1412-13 [PRP]the fool and the fiddleWINTER 1412-13 [PRP]secret pathsWINTER 1412-13 [PRP]a shipment of parsleySUMMER 1413 [SOLO]heart in hand, part iAUTUMN 1413 [SOLO]heart in hand, part iiAUTUMN 1413
A girl strode the shore on a fair summer's day, Her hair dark and wet, and her silver skin bare. The old sailors, they say, watched her walk from the quay; And one old sailor fell in love with her there.
When the moon gilt the water she returned to the spray And slipped away in the waves beneath the moon's stare. Each day the old sailor dared stop her to say: I love you—I love you—and you do not care.
I do not, she would say, and I never will stay; I will never come forth and there share your salt air, For my home is dark, and cold, and deep, far away— It is there that I sleep, where the tide pulls my hair.
So it went thus on a fair summer's day: An old sailor grew tired of the quay and salt air; His life had grown spare, and his heart had grown fey; Now he sleeps in the deep, where the tide pulls his hair.
Ere the Falcon Flies A stanza of a children's rhyme First used in: Ere the Falcon Flies
The wind blows ere the falcon flies; It carries fast her lonesome cries— While in the grass the field mouse sighs, And dreams of flight before she dies.
Old Man Isambard A lullaby sung to Nicholas's father First used in: Old Man Isambard
No burglars steal within to creep Through your lonely slumber deep— Your fears are all your own to keep, And now it's time to go to sleep.
Good-night, you old man Isambard! Your dreams are safely under guard Your heart is locked, your thoughts are barred, The gate beyond is strong and hard.
Oh, the bolt is steel, the ramparts steep; The moat below makes armies weep— The night is still, and silver-starred— And now it's time to go to sleep.
The doctor was far too morose But, thank Panyma, his Plague was verbose— As he sat still to brood His Plague's words accrued And assembled a balancing dose.
I once knew a substitute teacher A vaunted and venerable creature Who bravely taught class With a twig up his a** (Which was truly his very best feature).
The sheep was once part of the play But its shepherd could not bear it away— He put on a bonnet Disguised, snuck up on it And stole his true love back home without pay.
