M. Blackwell's Institute for Extraordinary Youth [Sandbox/LBGTQ Welcome!]

[Miss Nyx]

( a school of magick, lost in time . . . )

"Our Game is now Live In-Character, but we invite you to check us out, we are actively accepting new players! " - MN

For centuries has Mary Blackwell's Institute existed... nestled on the precipice of space and time, hidden well from the realm and judging eye of the run-of-the-mill mankind. Headed by the illustrious and capricious Madame Mary Blackwell, the Institute caters to the unique, the unusual, the rare and gifted of all sorts and most especially youth who may otherwise be shunned, outcast and rejected by mortal society. Madame Blackwell created the Institute with a single philosophy in mind: A home for all, no matter how great or small. Everyone has a place at Blackwell's Institute... no power is too great, no curse too frightening, and no youth unfit to dwell at the Institute.

Youngsters beginning at the mortal age of sixteen years and beyond are given room and board, and the freedom to cultivate their talents and capabilities beneath the keen and caring eye of a handful of the Institutes esteemed staff, specializing in various fields of study from Spell-Craft and Divination, to the Fine Arts, and everything in between. For select students in attendance, the option may be available for them to continue on as educators themselves at the Institute, should they find it difficult to part ways with the Institute, or should they fear the traditional route of carrying on lives while remaining hidden in plain view.

The Concept:  For the most part this idea rings in the popular style of mutants and freaks coming together to live in harmony, or so one would assume. Think along the lines of 'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children' crossed with 'X-Men' and 'Charmed'... you get the idea I gather. I anticipate a good splash of fantasy to drive this game and it's characters, and at present I'm open to literally any sort of being you can think of--vampires, witches, faeries, reincarnated deities and then some. In this way, it isn't to be compared to a universe like that of J. K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter'. The game is much more free-form, and will be anticipated as a Sandbox style game, with more of a 'key plot-point' ledger of events to drive the games focus without restricting everyone's ability to make this story their own.

You're welcome to exercise your creative prowess when creating a character, and at present you are welcome to play either a Student or a Staff Member to the Institute. As one should expect all inhabitants of the Institute must have some manner of peculiarity that sets them apart from the run-of-the-mill human population. There is no formal invitation to the Institute, it is a purely word of mouth sort of establishment, and many of the youngsters who come to find themselves in the care of Madame Blackwell are often recruited personally if their family has not opted to send them to the safe haven.

The time setting is presently 1939, and the location is well in the outer country of France at present. The nearest city is Marseille, and it is strictly off limits to students--they are forbidden to leave the time-loop the Institute is located in due to a mysterious organization that is well known for hunting and kill non-human kind. Characters may come from all manners of time zones and environments, seeing as the Institute is nestled in it's own personal dimension, and so long as the inhabitants remain on the grounds they neither age nor know any season but the eternal spring of France in the year 1939.

The Rules:

• Elliquiy's Rules come first and foremost. Everyone is expected to adhere to their standards of RPing, please don't be "that person."
• We will be hosted in Extreme Small Groups. Some violence and possible death may occur, at the players discretion of course.
• This game is LBGTQ friendly!
• Your GM is MistressNyx. Any questions, concerns, and character sheets should be directed accordingly. Please refrain from posting a CS until it has been approved by the GM.
• Mary-Sue characters are strictly prohibited. Well-rounded characters with strengths and weaknesses and character flaws make the world go round, so please keep that in mind when creating your characters. As a rule of thumb at this present time, it's encouraged to avoid overtly powerful characters--less is more, we'd love to have a wide variety of presences.
• The role of staff member is limited (3/6). As long as the game continues to flow I'll allow as many students as you all care to create, with a character cap of three per player at present.
• While Demi-Gods and reincarnated God-characters are permitted, please avoid having all-powerful characters or characters that might otherwise fall into 'God-moding' on a regular basis.
• This game is free-form/sandbox style, meaning you are welcome to play among one another, in sub-groups or in full groups. Regular event-style 'key plot point' situations may arise, and as such we will assume a posting order to keep things interesting. In order to remain active in this game, you are expected to post at least once a week--more often is encouraged, but we all understand life and muses can be tricky to balance. If you anticipate being absent please inform a GM, and if you expect you can no longer keep up with the game a polite notice of withdrawing is expected.
• Images should be realistic, and you are welcome to any Face Claim that has not been previously taken by another player. You are welcome to use realistic art for your character, but anime images are not preferred for this particular game.
• This game is for literate players. Expect at least two paragraphs of content excluding dialogue on the regular. Mirror posting, and proper grammar and spelling is encouraged! We will be posting from a third-person point of view.
• Smutty things happen, it's expected and typically anticipated, but please be aware this game will also be exceptionally plot-driven. I'm not particularly picky if you take your steamy scenes to private message or play them out on the board, all I ask is that you keep things one-on-one--as in sexy scenes during key-plot time is ill advised.
• Have fun! Be polite to other players, plot/ship to your hearts content, make this story your own!

CS Template:

Code Select Expand



[float=left][img height=300 padding=10]PHOTO LINK[/img][/float]
[b]Player Name:[/b] You are.
[b]Character Name:[/b] Your character.
[b]Alias(s)[/b]: Nicknames your character goes by.
[b]Position:[/b] Staff Member (Elaborate on position), or Student.
[b]Age:[/b] Your character's truthful age.
[b]Gender:[/b] Your character's gender.
[b]Race:[/b] Your character's race.
[b]Sexuality:[/b] Your character's preference.
[b][u]Talents/Abilities:[/u][/b] No more than three.
[u]Talent One[/u]: Description.
[u]Talent Two[/u]: Description.
[u]Talent Three[/u]: Description.

[b][u]Physical Appearance[/u][/b]: A brief description of your character.
Height:
Weight:
Hair Colour:
Eye Colour:
Physical Age:
[b][u]Persona:[/u][/b] How does your character act around their peers or superiors?
[b][u]Biography:[/u][/b] A brief recollection of your character's history.
[b][u]Additional Info:[/u][/b] Any further details you may like to include.
[b][u]Weaknesses/Flaws:[/u][/b] Either race-related or otherwise.

[b]Ons:[/b] Intimacy your character enjoys.
[b]Offs:[/b] Hard limits of your character.

The Cast

 
 

Madame Blackwell Headmistress Eva Green - MistressNyx

Teddy Tennyson III Student D. Sprouse - MistressNyx

Talia Elthion Student Unspecified - Jefepato

Liliana Blackwell Student Ksenia Solo - LamentingQuill

Sven Wodensson Student Alexander Ludwig - Cold Heritage

Rhiannon Smith Student Julia Zabolotnikova - Callie Del Noire

Johann von Schauffhusen Staff Member Unspecified - TheGlyphstone

Josephine Schapiro Student Gigi Hadid - PearlRuby

Hikaru Matsukoto Student Gackt - LamentingQuill

Brighid Staff Member K. McNamara - Caela

Selene Kane-Waite Staff Member K. Knightly - Callie Del Noire

Ebon Veilflare Student M. B. Jordan - Juggtacular

Claim Reserves: Jhené Aiko - MistressNyx
Concept Reserves: To avoid duplicates of the same concept, feel free to reserve your character concept.

Informational Links
Out of Character - Index  - Character Archives - Introduction Thread - Scene Plotting - Relationships - Discord Chat

Game Links
Manor Center - West Wing - East Wing - Estate Grounds - History - Outside World

[Wicked Vixen]

Interested!

[Aethyrium]

This I believe I would play in. Also, if you're wanting some Co-GM help, I can certainly assist with that. This springs some ideas! I'll send a PM your way later when I have a spare few, or if you want to shoot me one with what you've got in mind, I can look at that.

[Dragonslayer]

I am interested as well

[Sapherno11]

I've not seen the show, but...This sounds fun, I'd be interested as well :)

[Miss Nyx]

Ever happy to see I’ve garnered some interest already. I’ll take it as an invitation to fully flesh things out for you guys.

This I believe I would play in. Also, if you're wanting some Co-GM help, I can certainly assist with that. This springs some ideas! I'll send a PM your way later when I have a spare few, or if you want to shoot me one with what you've got in mind, I can look at that.

Thank you kindly for the offer darling, I’d love to take you up on it. I’m off to work for the night but as soon as I’m home and settled in I’ll pitch you the full scale of things and we can go from there. 

[Cold Heritage]

Tentative interest!

[Miss Nyx]

I've not seen the show, but...This sounds fun, I'd be interested as well :)

Splendid to have your interest, and don’t worry, you need no knowledge of any show or movie I’ve referenced.

[Chantarelle]

Staff member please. Ooh, could she be an angel with the job of student counselor?

[Miss Nyx]

Staff member please. Ooh, could she be an angel with the job of student counselor?

I'll reserve a space for you dear. Love the idea by the way... who better for the students to turn to with their worries and problems than an angel? c:

[Chantarelle]

Yay! 🥰 That’s what I thought.

[Jefepato]

I'm interested, although I need to catch up on a few other games I'm already in right now.  I'm kinda thinking of playing some sort of magic-user with a faerie ancestor, but I need to flesh out the idea some more.

[Amarlo]

Well if Aeth is here, then I suppose I'll have to show my interest too. ^^;

[Z Kami]

Gotta admit I'm a bit interested as well. I'll be keeping an eye out at the very least but I'll see if I can work up a character to play if this gets rolling.

[Amarlo]

Out of curiosity, because I'm not sure if it was ever specified, but is this a sort of high school aged setting? (My best guess, at least.)

[Juggtacular]

I'm down for this. Magic school for badass students hell yeah.

[Miss Nyx]

Fantastic to hear of further interest! It’s safe to say there are more than enough potential participants to go forward with everything, I’ll have character sheet templates up for you dears shortly.

Out of curiosity, because I'm not sure if it was ever specified, but is this a sort of high school aged setting? (My best guess, at least.)

I imagine most of the students will be high school aged, but I’m not at all against the prospect of older youth or “alumni” being in attendance as well. The Institute in itself is more of a safe haven for unusual beings than a rigid academic establishment. Classes are offered to help youngsters better control and understand their talents and capabilities, to better blend into everyday society should they wish to attempt to lead “normal” lives when or if they depart. Madame Blackwell isn’t in the business of kicking anyone out unless they pose a serious threat to others.

So as a general rule of thumb, from 16-25 would be the average student’s age.

[Amarlo]

Oooooh... That's actually really neat. I like it. I'm really looking forward to building a character for this. 

[Miss Nyx]

Annnnd the CS template is now available. :) Looking forward to seeing all the interesting little weirdos you dears come up with!

[Aethyrium]

Yes, yes, come pretties and fill out the template. Let us see all the things you have in store! Also hi, it's me. Yay Amarlo, and welcome everyone!

*Edit: I guess I'll also drop a faceclaim for Goncalo Teixeira. For a staff member.

[Jefepato]

Regarding a faceclaim: I was not able to find the name of the model pictured here, but she's well suited to the character I have in mind.

Just out of curiosity, how powerful are students expected or allowed to be?

I assume that students shouldn't have complete mastery of their powers (if they did they probably wouldn't need this school), of course, but that could mean a lot of things.  I'm kind of envisioning my character having fairly impressive (for an amateur) magic within her areas of specialty, but also some standard fae weaknesses like iron.

I should have a proper character sheet written up in the next couple of days.

[Amarlo]

May I faceclaim Park Hye Min, please? ^^

Edit:

To quote a part of your description, and just so I make sure I understand what you mean - "Characters may come from all manners of time zones and environments, seeing as the Institute is nestled in it's own personal dimension, and so long as the inhabitants remain on the grounds they neither age nor know any season but the eternal spring of France in the year 1939."

By that, does that mean characters can be from 100 B.C.E or 3010 A.D? o.o Just for example.

[Aethyrium]

By that, does that mean characters can be from 100 B.C.E or 3010 A.D? o.o Just for example.

After speaking with Nyx, it appears that is the case yes. She'll need to clarify, but within the pocket realm that is the institute time doesn't pass. So a character could easily be thousands of years old in actual time, if they had entered the school that long ago and never left it. I can tell you that the current time outside of the institute grounds is 2019. And our talks seem to rationalize the concept of alternate "places" (universes/dimensions/times), so something future based shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility.

[Crasey]

Nothing more than a friendly suggestion: Maybe, given the fifth rule, flaws or weaknesses could be worked into the character sheet template? Unless the idea is that discovering them is part of the fun, of course. 

[Aethyrium]

Nothing more than a friendly suggestion: Maybe, given the fifth rule, flaws or weaknesses could be worked into the character sheet template? Unless the idea is that discovering them is part of the fun, of course. 

Great suggestion. I'll poke Nyx about this and see where we stand. My current understanding is that the weaknesses are meant to be roleplay features for you to explore, not necessarily explicit kryptonite style weaknesses. But, will get some clarity for this.

Also, sort of for everybody who is going to submit a concept, please be sure to send your PM with your character sheet to both MistressNyx & I. It makes communication between her and I a hundred times easier, and that way we don't get our wires crossed! Thanks!