In the Eye of the Beholder [D&D 5E]

[Dormouse]

Ershin: both sound quite interesting.

Ok, some announcements to make today. I was hoping to have the list of major NPCs up this afternoon, but it's looking more like tomorrow or Tuesday. I hope that doesn't inconvenience anyone. If you are planning ahead and want to do some political commentary you might want to look at other places on the Sword Coast, as I won't be changing anything about their rulers/NPCs.

Also, the player I mentioned in the first post won't be able to join, so I will be accepting up to 5 players (up from 4). The deadline for applications is tomorrow night, let's say around 11 pm Eastern. I should have a decision made by Tuesday afternoon.

Love the creativity of the characters submitted thus far. The audience at the Eye will have some exciting performances to look forward to.

[TheGlyphstone]

Real Name: Dr. Henry Heid/Jackal

Stage Name: The Two-Faced Man
Class and Race: (Variant) Human Barbarian 2
Gender and Orientation: Male, Straight (Henry) or Voraciously Omnisexual (Jackal)

Personality:

Henry is very polite, precise, and often quiet, almost meek at times. He prefers to study a situation extensively before taking action and always has a mind for the long-term consequences of his decisions. He is kind and selfless almost to a fault, never hesitating to do a good turn for someone else or aid someone in need.

Jackal is loud, crude, and at times intentionally abrasive. He has a barbed, extremely sarcastic wit and sets it loose whenever he gets the opportunity, and delights in jumping into things feet-first without so much as a pause to look them over. Other people are enemies, amusements, or irrelevant as it suits him, and one can change into the other at a whim.

History: In what feels like the distant past, Henry was a well-known and talented alchemist in the city of Waterdeep. He was particularly skilled in the brewing of alchemical tonics for soothing ill-tempers and fits of mood, and made a very respectable profit from marketing them to the nobility and merchant class. But those coins could not satisfy him, for Henry too suffered from periodic mood swings - fits of irrationality, anger, and at time embarrassingly personal urges. His own elixirs did little but alleviate the symptoms, leading him to work night and day to devise an even more potent recipe capable of permanently purging those unpleasant and immortal facets of himself.

It took years of work, but eventually he believed it to be ready. Sealing himself in his laboratory, he drank deep of the experimental tincture, and awoke in the smashed and ruined remains of that same laboratory. A voice spoke to him, and he thought someone had broken in - but when it spoke again, Henry realized to his horror that it was inside his own head. The potion had been meant to gather all of the dark and negative parts of his personality and cleanse them - it had done the first, but not the second. He had torn his own psyche in two, spawning the abberant dark half that called itself Jackal and disdained him for his weakness as much as he hated and feared it for its cruelty. Desperately, he tried to recreate the recipe, but whatever had caused his equipment to be destroyed had also ruined his notes. Clearly, one of his rivals had sabotaged the work...and succeeded. Two men now lived in one body, both determined to be free of the other's limiting presence, and for a time after he fled the city Henry went entirely mad.

Eventually he and the Jackal came to terms, a truce of sorts that ended their often violent struggles to maintain control over the shared body. It was now Henry's goal to find a way to complete the separation, remove Jackal and instill it into a body of its own. In return, Jackal would aid Henry in his own way, and together they would find whoever had caused their misfortune and make them pay dearly. That seemed an impossible quest, until the first note appeared in their inn room. They ignored it and moved on, but a second note appeared the next night. The two of them spent an entire day and night arguing before it was settled by the arrival of the third note and its accompanying book. Whoever was behind this offer, they had power and resources. Power and resources that could be used to advance both of their agendas.

Audition Performance: Henry initially intended to perform a mournful soliloquy, excerpted from an ancient dwarven epic poem. Partway though, however, Jackal had other ideas and broke in to argue. The resulting back-and-forth bickering could have destroyed Henry's chances - but to his fortune, the judges interpreted it as a brilliant improvisational adaptation of the source material instead.

Future Acts: Building on their luck, Henry and Jackal have devised an assortment of two-person short dramas and plays - separate scripts combined with acrobatic movements to give the visual impression of two distinct actors onstage instead of one. Jackal wants to make exhibitions of strength and power, Henry prefers to show off his intellect and mind.

Ons and Offs: https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=51335.0

Character Sheet: Pending/In Progress

[Chulanowa]

Ugh, I've had a mess of a week. Any chance that I could get a character in today, right on the deadline? 

[Dormouse]

TheGlyphstone: It's good to see you were able to finish your concept. Interesting character.

Chulanowa: The deadline is in about 8 hours from now, so you have until then.

[Chulanowa]

Still Deciding on Image

Name: Molly Beetroot

Stage Name: Silver Gentlebow (She actually won the rights to this name from another aspiring bard in a game of cards.)

Gender / Orientation: Female / Pansexual

Race/ Class: Lightfoot Halfling, Criminal Bard

Personality: Molly comes off as a lighthearted, merry halfling woman who knows a little bit about everything. Eager to meet new people, hear new stories, see new things. And only some of that is a front; for ll the act, she has a difficult time trusting anyone who's taller than she is, and in fact has something of a chip on her shoulder regarding humans; they were hte oens sneerign at her as she fled the ruins of home, after all. Trust in general is a scarce commodity, to be honest, but since she's left the life of a common footpad, she's been able to open up more to others. She does not talk about her past; even people who she trusts have probably heared two or more conflicting stories about her background. Curiously enough, in her act the carefree nature is genuine; playing for an audience actually puts her at ease, and she enjoys showing off, bantering wit hthe crowd, teasing and flirting as she goes. It's when she has time to sit and brood that things get bad. Luckily, she's actually a "happy" drunk, so there's that...

History: Some orphans only have dim memories of their past, or none at all. They're the lucky ones, perhaps. Molly remembers that her mother Danni and father Holace ran a bakery on Eel Street. She remembers cousins and aunts and uncles coming over on the High Days to sing and dance. She remembers beign a fat child, she remembers the way master Thibdwaddle's glasses perched on the end of his nose when he was teaching her letters. She remembers the way the ferrier's son Thurfin tried to make her blush... and how his sister Estie tried her best as well.
   She remembers, but as if through a haze; not forgetful, just grewyed. Much more clear to her is the memory of hard walking, feet blistered by fire and the rough road alike. she remembers hte yawning hunger that made her not be a plump girl anymore. The single-minded gaze forward, an unwillingness to look back at what had become of her home. The drawn faces of the other halflings who had survived, and the scorn of those they passed. That part is sharp, clear, colorful, vibrant.
   Still, life goes on. There are only a few professions open to a young halfling woman and refugee in hte streets of Baldur's Gate. Fortunately for Molly, they're al ittle different from those usually encountered by women in her station. She learned to steal, to spy, to lie and cheat and swindle, always with a bright smile and a happy quip. The tallfolk might respect halflings, no, buth tye seemed strangely willing to extend trust to them, no matter the evidence. And Molly learned how to take that evidence away, too; just one more thing to steal.
   Even a skilled thief is still a hungry one though. It's a life of risk; for every mark who might forgigive a sharming Hin, there's three more who would have no issue making the thief a head shorter. And when you get hurt? Or what if you live to get old, and yourh and shakes when you pick a lock? it's a job, but not a career. Molly sought other avenues; beign a tavern's "hostess" was easy enough; it was hardly the first time she'd had large hands on her rump after all, and Olag didn't mind too mcuh if some of his more bothersome patrons were shorted a few silver. But mostly, it was to get close to the stage, to the performers that sang and played their hearts out and went home with full pockets.
   For a few years now, this has been what Molly has been up to; learnign her way around a lute, thickening the charm that Yondolla gave her, picking up tricks and hints of magic as she goes around hte tavern circuit, sometimes to play, sometimes to learn, sometimes to get drunk and squeal the night away in a room. It's a good plan, one htat was interrupted by a letter that told her that her life before - the one that she tried ot not remember now - was not random, mindless evil visited upon hapless villagers, but omething... much, much worse.

Audition: Molly went for the classics; A lute, a sweet voice, and a generous amount of dancing leg (well, considering how much leg she has to put on display at least.) It was a lively rendition of "The Seamaid's Lure," followed by "The Fishwife's Many Laments," and ending in a curious Turanian number, "Tong Fei the Forgotten Prince" - winding a story out of three ordinarily unrelated songs, from lively jig, to sultry satire, to a grand finale. It was followed by a reprise of "The Seamaid's Lure," told from the perspective of the eponymous mermaid rather than the usual hapless sailor, the jaunty tune accompanied by no small number of high-kicking dance move and salacious wriggles, which took her off the stage.

Future Acts: She would love to collaborate, especially with some of the dancer performances she's seen; she dances, but the halfling reels she knows by heart don't really wow too many folk in Baldur's Gate, and what else she's picked up is mostly just bawdy which has a limited shelf life in an act. She's always looking ot expand her repetoire of songs and poems, and has been experimenting with including more magic in her performances.

Character Sheet: WIP

[Ershin]

nsfw

Name: Erica Serrano

Stage Name: Sunshine

Class / Race: Rogue/Monk (multiclass), Human

Gender and Orientation: Female - Unsure of her own orientation as yet, though she likes the company of softer girls, usually associates muscular men with opponents from the four-sided circle.

Personality:She can appear quite hard, her physique can be a little daunting and she doesn't usually show her emotions unless either she's got a couple of drinks in her (which she can actually only handle a little of) or if she grows to know a person and become fond of them at which point she's much more willing to open up, have a few laughs and depending on the amount of liquor a good cry on their shoulder.

Acts tough, but can be a real sweety who doesn't want anything to happen to anyone in her life. A bit of a mother bear.

Erica is also quite tone deaf - Even with the contents of the tome her Patron provided burned into her mind she is unable to sing on key.

History: Born to a poor family Erica spent most of her life scraping  and stealing, her legs growing to be powerful to allow her the movement to escape the rightful owners of various foodstuffs. One day she wound up sneaking into an underground fighting pit. Despite the relative poverty of the area many of its residents came here to use what little money they had gathered from the wages of ill-paying jobs to bet on which man, woman or thing would win in a fight with nothing more than their wits and their fists. The girl got distracted by the combat, having never seen something so fierce and so blindingly fast as this human fighter pounding into the defending arms of a tough, scaley dragonborn. Which is exactly how her mark caught her, that moment of distraction was all it took for her to allow her movements to be felt and her arm snagged in what to her seemed like an immovable vice. The man was mocha of skin, slightly overweight but his physique showing where there was now fat there were once muscle. "And what essac'ly do you think you're doin' sunshine?"

---

She hated this. Five years had passed since then and the man who had caught her and rightly punished her for trying to thieve from him, the former pit fighter Jacob Merles had taken her into his gym and began training her. "If she was able to move so fast that she could almost outrun the guards at the Merry Monk," he had said, "and agile enough to get in in the first place without being seen, she may have what it takes to be a champion". She was good, she had trained hard and worked on her upper body strength. She was tones, she had abs now. Erica thought that if given the chance she could mop the floor with anyone in this place, but she was never given the chance to. Not really. Truth of the matter was she and her manager made more money losing fixed fights where she constantly gained the upper hand to tricking patrons to changing their bets in favour of her, only to take a dive in the third or fourth round. It took so much effort to control herself, to pull her punches and train day after day to hit just the right areas to not do lasting damage to her opponents all so they would be able to down her at the end.

It was because of this feeling that she turned to drink, while most of Merles' coin went to paying off ever increasing debt with a mob boss he had promised the world to in his prime, most of hers went to alcohol. She was able to work off most of the yeast in it through rigorous exercise and thankfully high metabolism but never got so blindingly drunk that she couldn't train the next day, or go out thieving to test that she still had the talents of her youth. There were only three occasions when she got pure, black-out drunk. The first time she was forced to lose a rigged match, once when her youngest sibling perished from illness and she wasn't there for him, and the last time was one year ago. The first two times Merles was there for her, making sure no one did anything, that she got home safely, tucked into bed and woken up with a bucket of ice water in the morning for being such an idiot. The third time she was covered in his blood.

Erica was sure she didn't do it, how could she have? But she ran all the same, hasn't stopped running since. For the last year she's kept on training, shaking down anyone connected to that mob and sure that it was them that did it, at times getting beat for her attempts. One night, while in the corner of a cheap, drafty room she had paid for but quickly stole the fee back, huddled under a blanket the first note came.

Audition: Precision, timing, grace. Using a mixture of dancing and the pounding of her fists and the flat of her hands onto a large variety of drums, bongos and assorted percussion instruments positioned in a semi-cirlce, almost a cage around her Erica provided her own deep overture as she swayed and danced, dodging unseen opponents and striking back at their vitals, sweat glistening on her skin as her her movements and tempo increased up to the climax and suddenly. Silence.

Future Acts: Boxing shadows, performances of graceful dancing and seductive acrobatics

[Dormouse]

Thank you all for your submissions. You've created some wonderfully detailed and creative characters, and I had a difficult decision to make. In the end, I decided to accept six characters:

Brigitte Noone Cuccioli - Brittlby
Mara Keele - Ixy
Alize Cloudborn - RedPhoenix
Sharell Zenteno - Guancyto
Henry Heid - TheGlyphstone
Erica Serrano - Ershin

Apologies to those I could not accept. I will keep you in mind should a player drop out, and will send a PM to ask if you are interested/available to join.

For those accepted, OOC thread is here. Feel free to drop by and introduce yourselves.