Special Branch Case Files (Victorian era fantasy) OOC
London, 1888
It is a time of great innovation in the United Kingdom. But it is also a time of trouble. Poverty, crime, corruption runs rampart in the City of London. Jack the Ripper stalks and kills his poor victims in the cover of the sinister London mist. The mysterious phenomenon they call Springheeled Jack torment people with his malevolent attacks. It is a time of doubt and reexamination of the world. As the new century draws near, so does many new threats, threats unlike anything the London Police has ever seen before.
To handle these new threats, the Special Branch has formed a secretive group known as the Diogenes Men. Their identities are secret, but their abilities are strong, and each member is something more than human, or sometimes less. Together they protect London from the threats it hold, as its secret protectors, its night watchmen.
This is a different United Kingdom than the one you have come to know. Men and animals live side by side and speak openly to each other. The night is a time of darkness, and only in the larger cities can people feel safe walking the streets during the darker hours. It is a world of fables as well as great beauty - and great danger.
It is a world where anything can happen. It is a world where the darkest demons of your soul are brought to life, and a world where people refuse to believe they exist. It is a world where the greatest dreams and fantasies spawned by your imagination are well within your grasp.
So, from all of us, I bid you welcome to the World of Fables.
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* * * * * CHARACTERS * * * * *
Spoiler: Jonathan SawyerName: Jonathan Sawyer
Race: Human
Age: 30
Nationality: British
Appearance: A handsome man in his late twenties, with somewhat longer dark hair, sharp features, and cold grey eyes. He wears impeccable clothes, and always wears a hat, and carries with him a walking cane and his trusted Webley-Green revolver, both of which he can use expertly.
Abilities: When the sun goes down, Sawyer becomes, unable to control it in any way or form himself, invisible. At such times he covers his face - or rather lack thereof - with bandaged wraps, and tinted glasses, to allow him not to be seen. When dawn arrives, he readily becomes visible again.
Bio: Jonathan Sawyer's past is veiled in secrets, as is the past of any and all of the Diogenes Men of Special Branch. He was once a soldier, first in the British Army, where he served in India and Afghanistan, and later, became a mercenary, training the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire's forces in modern warfare. In time he returned to London, having become quite wealthy in his travels, and began to move up in society.
One night, Sawyer heard a woman's screams of fear while travelling through the London night. he rushed to the rescue of the woman whose screams he had heard. He saw a terrible glowing man in a cape and a mask, with a claw for a hand, rip the woman's clothes to shreds. Sawyer attacked the man, fighting him with fists and cane, and skillfully dodging the man's claw. But this creature, this Spring-Heeled Jack, launched an electric green ball of energy at his opponent, leaving Sawyer blinded and unconscious.
This was Sawyer's first contact with Spring-Heeled Jack. This is also what left him with an ability that seemed more a curse than a true ability. The ability to turn invisible every night, only to reappear every dawn again. Nobody could explain the why of it. It was at this time that the Special Branch approached Sawyer, recruiting him as the very first of the Diogenes Men, with the purpose of finding and destroying the malevolent entity known as Spring-Heeled Jack. Sawyer accepted the offer.
Spoiler: Erik KristensenName: Erik Kristensen
Race: Werewolf
Age: Unknown (Appears about 40)
Nationality: Danish
Appearance: A not-unattractive man, Erik sports short, brown hair, with neat facial hair. His piercing blue eyes stand out from his dark features and seem to track people wherever they go like prey, and his mouth is often curled into a hungry smile. He is a well-built man, strength evident in his size, who wears dark clothing of brown and black.
Spoiler: Appearance
Abilities: Under the light of the moon he can transform into the beast and retain self control, although exposure to the light of the full moon while transformed drives him into a bloodcraze. Other than this he cannot transform, although he still retains some of his abilities, such as enhanced strength, speed and agility. He also possesses a powerful sense of smell akin to that of a wolf's, that he can use to track an item or victim, as if he could see the trail it leaves, and can see clearly in the dark.
Bio: Whilst the nature of those recruited by Special branch requires secrecy, Erik takes it further by not knowing much of his own history. He awoke to being pulled from the Slotsholmen canal in 1860 with no memory of his life or who he was before. Adopting the name of the man who saved him, Erik soon discovered that he was more than just a man; under the light of the moon he would undergo a hideous transformation, and unexplained acts of violence seemed to occur on those same nights.
Deciding that he had been touched by the Devil, Erik renewed his faith in God, vowing to try and turn his curse into something to be used for good. From then, he never stayed in one town for long, moving on before he could accidentally harm the family that had taken him in. Over the years, Erik has learned to control his werewolf form, to be able to prevent harming innocents, but has also started to take on wolfish aspects to his human self; he is loyal and fierce, but can suffer from bouts of violence and may think of other people as prey.
He made his way to England in 1872 to find a place to rejoin civilisation now he could control himself, and was finally approached by Special Branch with the offer of a position that would let him continue his quest for redemption, and allow him to let loose the beast inside...
Spoiler: Orabelle GrayName: Orabelle "Belle" Gray
Race: Water Nymph
Age: 25 (Not really, that is just what she tells people)
Nationality: Greek
Appearance:
Spoiler: Orabelle
Belle falls on the short side when it comes to height. She is about 5'5" and weighs around 114 lbs. Her skin is paler than most and she looks rather fragil. Her eyes are a mixture of sea-foam green and blue. She has long blonde hair that falls to the middle of her back, but most would never know this because she wears it up most of the time. When in water, her hair and skin take on a more bluer tone and her ears become webbedSpoiler: Ears
Abilities: Healing: She has the ability heal almost any wound or sickness that someone has. Althought it does take a lot of concentraion and engery to do. For instance, the bigger the wound, the more concentraion and engery. Smaller wounds take less. Control over water: She can willing freeze and move water to how she feels. Water is sometimes used during a heaing process too. Breath Under/Walk on Water: Since it's were she lives and she is a water nymph. Memories: Due to healing, Belle can also navagate the memoires of another person, dead or alive. If dead, she can only pull the most recent memoires. Alive, she can pull a whole life. When done, she actaully takes on there mind, so she feels what they are feeling.
Bio: When first moving to London from Greece, which was quite some time ago, Belle didn't have much money or belongings. She just simply roamed around, helping where she could and when she could. One day, Bellle was walking near the river district when the hear a scream and smashing window. Running toward the source, she found a shop where the windows had been smashed in and door busted. Cauiously, she approched the shop and upon getting closer she noticed a man on the ground, bleeding and dieing. Reacting quickly, Belle was able to save his life. It ends up he was a successful shop owner and low level wizard. Feeling like her owed her, he gave her a small apartment next to his shop.
Years passed and word of a wonderful healer and herblist went around, only no one knew her name, so they called her "The BoneMender." The only way to get in contact with "The BoneMender" was to go though a merchant near the river. She would come when summonded, appearing in a dark blue cloak that covered her face, so no one could see her.
One evening, while working on some medicine, she was summonded by the merchant. Throwing on the cloak, she quickly went over to his shop, expecting to find someone in the back room needing help. Much to her surprise, she arrived and no one was hurt. Instead, it was an offer to join the Diogenes Men, to which she ended up agreeing.
Spoiler: Claudius
Name:
Claudius Bouchard
Race:
Fae
Age:
23
Nationality:
French
Appearance:
Spoiler: Claude
Standing at 5'8" with a lean frame, Claude is considered generally good looking to the female population, and occasionally the males. He has medium length, curly brown hair, chocolate brown eyes, and an aristocratic face. Often seen wearing light brown trousers, a brown tweed coat, and an impeccable white undershirt, along with brown leather gloves. If he was ever bothered to remember, then he wore a plain brown tweed cap atop his head. He also carries a pipe, though it remains mostly unused he does chew on the end when he thinks.
Abilities:
His most standard ability is glamour, which allows him to make things seem as they are not, or usually to hide things that are in plain sight. His second ability, which really isn't much of an ability, and more of a sixth sense, in which he can tell when another person is not who they appear to be. Whether that means that the person is not human, or is using a glamour he cannot tell. Another skill that comes easily to him, though he hardly uses it as it messes with his head whenever he does, is empathy. Having other peoples feelings filling his head and heart gave him headaches, and afterwards it was hard to tell which were his own feelings, and which were others.
A slightly harder, and more often used skill than the previous, is manipulation. When using this skill, he can implant small ideas or thoughts into another's brain. For instance, what they should have for dinner, or perhaps fill their heads with the need to go see someone. It's really quite useful when you want someone to get out of your hair. Hypnosis, his next skill, goes hand in hand with the last one, though on a bigger scale. Using hypnosis, he can completely control someone, though it's hard to do and requires the person to stand still and focus on Claude. He finds it a good skill to have if you want to know if somebody's lying to your face. His last, and most energy consuming skill, is telepathy. This allows him to connect with someone else's mind. He can choose to communicate this way if he so chooses, or he can read thoughts, though just main ones, and not every little thought that flits through their mind. The only downside to this is that he must stay in eyesight of them, for as soon as he can no longer see them, he can no longer access their mind.
Bio:
Claude can truthfully say that he is from France. He could hardly remember a time when he was not living in France, and he'd grown up there for his whole memorable life. Eventually though, as Fey do live quite long, he grew bored of the same thing, and the same people, and the same customs, and so decided he would travel somewhere else. Wanderlust got the best of him, and he'd traveled to several other countries using the alias Claudius Bouchard, the name of an ignoramus he'd once known back in France. Of course, he wasn't an ignoramus himself, but the man would never travel and so he felt he was safe with the name.
Several countries later, and still not an interesting place at all that he'd been to, he boarded a boat headed for a town called London. Upon reaching the place he felt that the town as a whole was lacking, though several days and a surplus of uncommon occurrences later and he felt like this was the perfect place for him to be. So, using his powers, he had been staying with, and freeloading off of, a well endowed merchant who was never home. One day, while wandering the streets looking for some interesting going on's, he was approached by a seedy looking man who offered him a job as something of an investigator. Finding that the man was indeed offering a real job, he accepted. And thus, he was drafted into the Diogenes Men.
Spoiler: Winter HeartstromName: Winter Heartstrom
Race: Siren
Age: Appears Twenty Four
Nationality: British / French
Appearance: Winter has bright orange hair that falls to just below her breasts, a feature that is distinct to her as well as light blue-gray eyes that tend to change into a bright cerulean when she uses her abilities, or when she touches water anywhere on her body. She has relatively tanned skin, although it remains quite peachy still. She has rather flawless skin, with slightly doll like features.
She's relatively short, standing at five foot three inches and has a rather slim build, being considered petit. She weighs in at one hundred and three pounds, being light and would easy be knocked over if it wasn't for the fact that she took martial arts. She's well toned and muscled, though the muscle is hidden by her outfits. She also has some slight scaling on her arms and legs, and some across her
Spoiler: Winter
Abilities: Winter has the ability to heal wounds, as well use her voice to hypnotize most men , though those with a strong enough will can resist it as well as use her voice to screech, and temporarily paralyze a person. She also has the ability to use and manipulate water, being able to use the water particles around her to create water. She also grows af ish like tail similar to mermaids when she is fully immersed in water, and she also has the ability to breath under water.
Bio: Winter Heartstrom's past is shrouded in mystery, as she doesn't like to talk about it. Though she has let onto the fact that she was human at one point, though the hints have been subtle. She mostly can't remember her life as a human, though she does remember the day that she was turned into a siren. It was an odd occurrence as she encountered a siren. The siren offered happiness, though she wasn't exactly unhappy with her life as a human. She had always wished that she was more than human, so she accepted the offer.
After that day, she had to keep moving around, as whenever she sang, men were hypnotized by her voice. She discovered that her voice could be destructive as well as haunting and melodious. She had to move from her home town of Stourbridge, Britain around the year of 1798, meaning she's been around for quite a while. She moved to France and just kept moving from town to town until just a couple of years ago, when she moved to London, England.
She was just singing on the docks one night, the melody haunting and beautiful when she heard a man approaching her. She was sure that she had unwillingly lured another human with her melodies, but it was someone who had been able to resist her melodies. She turned to him, a curious look on her face before she dived into the water. Her tail came out, and she hid until she knew that he was something similar to her, a super natural being. He befriended her, and soon adopted her as his younger sister.
She was just singing on the docks once again a year later, one of her favorite spots. She had originally thought it was her brother, . Though, she quickly found out that it was someone from the Special Branch looking to recruit her into their ranks. She joined that night, and has been working with them since.
Spoiler: Jake ThomsonName: Jake Thomson
Race: Fire Kitsune Male
Age:16
Nationality: American
Appearance:
Abilities: Spirit Fire- Can summon a spiritual blue flame, the flame is his to control it only burns when he wills it to. He tends to use his fire to play tricks on people making little balls of it float about in an area causing the illusion that it is haunted by spirits.
Bio: Jake or Jacob was born in the United States. His ancestors actually hale from japan, this sorta explains the fact that hes not human..Jake happens to be Kitsune, yeah a fox boy. He hides his tails and ears very well, but some times he gets caught and has to leave the area for people believe him to be a demon or monster. Jake screwed up for the last time back in his home town of Winchester, his hate got knocked off revealing his big fluffy ears..
Besides the embarrassment from the girls giggling at him, some of the older people decided he was a monster and ran him out of town. Jacob left that life behind and joined a cargo ship as their cabin chef. Lucky for Jake he wasn't a bad cook and knew most tasty American style meals. He was able to keep his identity as a kitsune hidden for a long while on that ship, and in fact to this day they still think he was just some human boy who was very skilled at cooking.
One day while the ship was docked in London England young 14 year old Jake was sitting on the side of the dock, just kicking his feet in the water making small splashes. He looked off into the distance and noticed something strange something, well just plain odd. It looked like a giant fish, of course his mouth started watering because, he was part fox so the carnivore in him wanted a bite. Jake began to sneak closer to the strange site, only to hear it begin to sing a beautiful song, he couldn't believe his eyes it was a girl with a strange fish body? Was he going insane?
Jake had no clue at this point. He was a bit afraid to speak, but he decided to get up the courage “ummm... Hel..loo....” to his surprise the fish women was very kind. Her name turned out to be Winter, after a while of talking and Jake telling the story of his past, Winter decided to take him in as her younger brother. She of course said she would have to make a proper gentlemen out of the what looked to be seafaring boy. He smiled and laughed. Ever since that day, Winter has helped Jake out and has been his big sister, and of course he definitely would protect her and be there for her no mater what.
To Jake's dismay Winter was not kidding about making a gentlemen out of him she basically forced him into a new wardrobe and dictated how he acted, he has figured out most of this stuff by now, but she still tends to get him on how he dresses and acts when they are out and about in public. Winter told Jake about the Special Branch Unit, when he turned 16 and he was totally ready and up for the job, Finally a place where he could use his strange abilities for some good.
Spoiler: Jethro Hubble
Name: Jethro Hubble
Race: Anthropomorphic Cat
Age: 41
Nationality: English
Appearance: Jethro is a tall cat, standing at roughly six or so feet. He is naturally athletic in build and is oft seen wearing sleek black suits, parted at the chest to reveal a white tuft of fur on his chest. The white tuft of fur is contrasted by the purely black fur covering him from head to toe. His eyes are bright and yellow. He looks quite well kept, revealing his noble side, seeming upper-class.
Abilities:
King o’ the Cats – Jethro has a rather odd ability, which was granted to him, when he was revealed as the next ‘King o’ the Cats’. This ability allows him to influence other cats around him, as if he was their king. Other cats recognise him instinctively as the ‘King o’ the Cats’. Their reactions of purely at a personal level, however, most, if not all, obey him, almost all see him as their superior.
Natural Cat Abilities – Jethro has the usual abilities of a cat, excellent night vision, hearing, and distinctive sense of smell. Jethro is naturally athletic, easily being able to climb things humans can’t. Jethro is armed with sharp claws and vicious fangs. Thanks to his whiskers, he’s also able to get into places he seemingly wouldn’t be able to.
Bio:
Jethro, born in a dark corner the underground station, grew up to be an alley cat. He was as common as houses, and that’s just how he liked it. He was a “tomcat” in the east of London, where he joined a gang. The gang was always fighting for territory with the other cats. Over time the gang fights became full on gang wars and Jethro lost a lot of friends. The wars became bloodier and bloodier, until finally an urban myth revealed itself to be fact.
The ‘King o’ the Cats’ was a mythological figure amongst the cats (and some humans), who was said to be able to unite the cats and bring peace. At least that’s what the myth stated. Sadly however, that wasn’t the case as when the King o’ the Cats, the fighting got worse. Each side began trying to prove themselves worthy of his praise. In order to stop the fighting and prove both sides were foolish in their attempts, the King, committed suicide during a battle. This brought an end to the fighting temporarily, out of mourning for the King.
News spread across the country, and perhaps the world, of the King’s death, in an attempt to reveal the next King to be chosen. It was said that whenever a King died, Sekhmet chose the next king. Once told, he would realise who he was and from that day would be the King, up until his death at least.
It wasn’t long until Jethro was told. When this happened he vanished for a short time and when he came back, he was a changed man. He didn’t know why, but he took on the responsibility regardless and from then on he was the ‘King o’ the Cats’.
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