![]()
|
|||||||||||||||
| Welcome To The Night You find yourself in London on a dreary, foggy night like any other. But what lurks in the shadows is the stuff of fantasies and nightmares, far from mortal reality. This game uses the cursed and immortal vampiric condition as a backdrop to explore themes of morality, depravity, the human condition, salvation, and personal horror. We are a writing and roleplaying community dedicated to telling complex and engaging stories. Your fate is your own. Mingle among the ivory-tower elite in the Camarilla, join the fight of the discontented and chaotic Anarch rabble, or set out independently and attempt to survive in London's nighttime underworld. Anything is possible in our World of Darkness. Create Your Account! If you're already a member, please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| The French Inspiration - NSFW; [Presence: Intensification] Training #1 | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: Tuesday, 5. May 2015, 16:03 (307 Views) | |
| Tsar Ilya the First | Tuesday, 5. May 2015, 16:03 Post #1 |
![]()
Claiming Tsar
|
The basement of the Fortress had been defiled. It was the Tsar's will to defile it, but that didn't make it less relevant. It wasn't the first time this happened; the cop girl Clarice had been there before, staring at his screens, sharing his lack of connection with reality... But this time it was different. Two machines, broken and torn to pieces, tied to each other in the center of his basement. The center of his small world. He had removed their lower jaws, and their tongues. He had cut the tendons of their arms and legs, and tied them together. He was forced to give them blood all the time to keep them alive, while having to break them over and over to stop them from regenerating. Instead of eyes, they had blocks of wood, like stakes in their faces. They moaned softly, but they could not really articulate proper sounds. He poured blood in their throats, and they just swallowed it and lived on that. How long until they were completely broken? He wanted to experiment what would happen to their programming, should they regain the gift of sight and become able to see what was made of them, but he had made a strong decision on that regard, and his godlike status didn't allow him to back off on such decisions; these two machines were not going to ever see again. Blindness was the first step in their reprogramming and repurposing process. Ilya remembered the wisdom and skills of his old friend, Doctor Pauk... the Priest of his old Pack. Pauk could sculpt machines to make them take any form, and to perform any function. It was the most beautiful and pragmatic thing Ilya had ever witnessed. If only he had that artistic eye, those craftsman hands... but he was not that skilful, or talented. Still, there was no harm in trying. The part that fascinated Ilya the most was the brain. That soft sponge where most of the programming was stored. If he could just tweak it to make it do his bidding, it would all be so simple... But it was a complex machine, and touching it in the wrong way could yield unwanted results. After a trip to the DIY store, he locked himself in the basement. He stripped off his clothes; he didn't want to splatter his precious tracksuits with these old machines' blood, and started working. The goal was clear: he wanted to turn those two horrible machines into works of art... Something worth his time and his stature. An emblem of his royalty. His very own banner. He separated the two bodies and, ignoring their gargling screams, put them on the floor. The first step was to remove their identifying symbols; his banner should have no symbol that wasn't his. For that purpose, he grabbed a short knife, and cut just in the nape of the neck of the man. He dug with his fingers beneath the skin, and kept on making cuts. The man passed away quite fast, making skinning him a faster process. He repeated the operation with the woman. She tried to resist, but it was no use. Two hours afterwards, he had three piles: one pile of spare skin, and two piles of moaning, agonizing machines. He fed them some blood, using a funnel to just drop it in their stomach, and resumed his work. Now that they were pure and red, he felt he could arrange them in an artistic way, making them inspire the respect he deserved. He grabbed a large plank of wood, a hammer, and some massive nails. He nailed the couple to the plank, piercing their shoulders and hips in the process. Once they were secured there, he pulled the plank up, and stared at his creation, trying to imbue it with his own personal touch by witnessing it in awe. [PRESENCE: INTENSIFICATION - MAJESTY] [FAIL] It wasn't working. He choked upon the sight. The proportions were all wrong, and the disposition looked random and childish. He turned to a side, and vomited some blood on the concrete floor, desperately disappointed in himself. He expected great things of himself; those two skinned machines, nailed to a post... that would never qualify as his banner. He needed more... much more. |
|
Languages: Russian, Japanese, English, French, Finnish, German Oleg's Voice You may know me as Yuri Mikhailov or as Khoza. | |
![]() |
|
| Tsar Ilya the First | Thursday, 23. July 2015, 22:21 Post #2 |
![]()
Claiming Tsar
|
There was something evidently missing in his approach. He had tried to create a sculptural banner, something that could be seen from miles away, in a battlefield, and inspire the necessary feelings in his opponents and allies. Something that would turn the tide of a real war. But wars were not real anymore. That era was over. He had been a part of one of the last great battles, and he had hated the experience, to be honest. So, the very idea of creating such a banner was absolutely nonsensical. It just made no sense anymore. He needed to move with the times. He remembered his escapades in Moscow, witnessing in awe the creation of the first computers, those incredible rooms where honest machines processed honest answers off honest pieces of cardboard. Those times were magical. The Kindred in charge of those projects even let the flesh machines believe it was their idea all along. There was room for generosity, even. He remembered the bugged halls, the muffled conversations over the running water, the secrets and the lies, and the contained excitement that floated in the air, where the most brilliant minds of his world transitioned, night after night, between the euphoria of the discovery and the terror for their own lives. You never knew who was going to wake up missing a head, or becoming the hero of a generation. Those were brave times... and nobody used great banners to announce their presence. It was a different world back then. From the banners, to the lab coats; from the heralds, to the bugs... and the world had changed even further. Now the tracksuits and the touch screens were taking the place that once occupied more honorable props. And the Tsar knew how to adapt to the times. That was what kept him alive, and what ensured that his inner darkness didn't fully swallow him. It was what was good in him. His piety, his compassion, his sanctity. He tought all of that while staring at the rotten banner. One week had passed, and the two old monsters were barely alive, sustained by his blood. But they were rotting anyway. Their bodies had turned into living infected wounds, and they were suppurating horrible fluids into the floor. He was repulsed. He was angry. How these inconsiderate fools dared messing with his feeling of sanctity... In order to feel properly elevated, he couldn't be in the presence of such a terrible spectacle. It was all their fault. He left the basement, offended by their very existence. He headed up, to the roof. Under the sky, it was easier to feel holy. A Tsar was not only a ruler, but a ruler by the word of the Lords, after all. Ilya was not a religious man, but there was something quite spiritual in what he was feeling that night. He felt connected to a higher power, a power that made it clear that he was the Chosen One, and that his majesty would not go unnoticed through the world. As such, he needed to understand how to leave his imprint in everything he ever touched. His hands had the Holy power of the gods, the ability to create light where there was only darkness and confusion. He sat in the roof, naked as usual, and started fiddling with the hammer he had left there a while ago. If he could turn the hammer into something relevant to the times, if he could imbue it with his own sacred energy... It was a subject intimately related to art. Art was a creative and violent action, always, but it was more than that. It was a conceptual activity. Many times, the most artistic part of a piece was its title. It was not about the technique, but about the concept behind. By merely repurposing an item, it became an artistic creation. Take that hammer, for example... It was meant to stick nails into surfaces, and it had a claw in its back to extract nails from surfaces. Pretty simple. But the Tsar could decide, as it was his holy right, that the hammer now was there to smash gadgets. It was now the Gadget Smashing Hammer and, as such, an artistic creation. He placed the tool in the floor, in front of him, and stared at it, with his hands open to the sky. "From this moment on, you are no longer a hammer, but the Gadget Smashing Hammer." It was solemn and collected, and it felt important. [PRESENCE: INTENSIFICATION - MAJESTY] [FAIL] Ultimately, it was a ridiculous thing to do. Art is more than just labelling things and being smart about names, he realized. He was just wasting his time, trying to make a hammer be more than what it was. And maybe that was the key of his mistake. Repulsed, he grabbed the hammer, and threw it away, as far as he could. The tool flew for a few seconds, and then bounced in the street, making a very cold noise... a mock on metal against stone. |
|
Languages: Russian, Japanese, English, French, Finnish, German Oleg's Voice You may know me as Yuri Mikhailov or as Khoza. | |
![]() |
|
| Tsar Ilya the First | Thursday, 23. July 2015, 23:11 Post #3 |
![]()
Claiming Tsar
|
That night, he removed the nails from the old couple's bodies, and let them rest on top of a mattress. He personally bandaged their bodies, knowing that the power of his blood would help them regenerate their skin pretty fast. He didn't repair their eyes; he had promised that they would never see again, and he was keeping that promise, but he did his best to ensure that they would heal. He needed to change the angle of his investigation. He needed to find a new path. For a week, he kept on thinking about the meaning of art. Memories and concepts flooded his mind day after day, as he tended for the elder couple's wounds. Above the rest of the ideas, he remembered his adoptive father, Grigory, the one that signed the execution of his real father. He had been his bridge into the world of art. Thanks to Grigory, he could play piano, and guitar, and he had read the classics, and could appreciate a good painting. Grigory had his own theories about art. Of course, they were the theories of a flesh machine; a construct programmed to survive and multiply, without much depth... but they were worth exploring. According to Grigory, every form of art had started from the same primal impulse. From the paintings in caves, to the first tales told around the fire; from the first rhythmic sounds made by crashing a piece of wood against another piece of wood, to the first sculptures made of hardened mud... all of those artistic creations had a similar goal: they were made by people who wanted to be loved. It was as simple as that. It was beyond sex -although many artists focused their creative energy in getting laid-, it was about getting love. Attention whoring, emotional vampirism... In Grigory's eyes, an artist was a love beggar. Which, from his perspective, made artists the only truly honest people on Earth, as everybody was begging for love all of their lives, one way or another. At least, artists had the integrity to do it in a direct and obvious way. Thinking about it that way, Ilya realized that the theory had its merit. He tried to think about all the Toreador that he had dealt with, and there was that common element of the attention whoring, the love begging... many of them could not help but to try to be the center of attention at every time, by selling cheap their own vital experiences. It was sad, from his perspective... but it made sense. Art had a very clear link to love, as the act of creating art was the act of reclaiming love. Creativity was, thus, lovingness. He had tried to be Ilya the Commander in Chief, and Ilya the High Priest, and none of them had given him any results. It was his time to become Ilya the Architect of Love. He considered for a second what he had at reach that had anything to do with love. He lived a live that was as distant from that concept as it was possible; his fortress was filled with workers, selling love for hire via webcam... but there was no love there. His business was all about arranging love for money... but love was not present in those transactions. He had the old couple. They were married, after all... and a real marriage should be based on love. Waking up the couple, and dragging them to the basement, only cost him a few annoying screams. The fact that they were in pain didn't change anything about their love. If any, it could make it shine even brighter. He put them in the concrete floor of the basement, and started walking around them, trying to come up with a way of transforming their love into something palpable and visible; a symbol that anybody could understand at first glance. He decided. He took a long chain, and tied it to the man's wrist. Then he made the two of them kneel, one in front of the other, so close they could not avoid physical contact. He started walking around them with the chain in his hand, tying them in a fake hug that would last forever... hopefully. Then he tied the chain, so it was fixed. If fire was not something that scared him so deeply, he would have burned them as they were, a beautiful flame of love... but he wanted to do nothing with sparks or blazes. Instead, he could use boiling water. A love birth by water. He boiled a lot of water. The steam made him feel uneasy, but it was not fire. Once he had a full cauldron of piping hot water, he dumped it on top of the elderly couple, hoping to melt them in an explosion of love. The screams were not promising, but he was persistent. They died in the process. Not even his blood was powerful enough to save them. But their bodies, blistered and broken, were a testament for their love; pure art. [PRESENCE: INTENSIFICATION - MAJESTY] [FAIL] Or was it? The sight of that viscous rags of flesh was disturbing, and not inspiring at all. He walked away, tasking his ghoul with the non enviable job of cleaning the mess. What a terrible failure. What a defeat. |
|
Languages: Russian, Japanese, English, French, Finnish, German Oleg's Voice You may know me as Yuri Mikhailov or as Khoza. | |
![]() |
|
| Tsar Ilya the First | Friday, 24. July 2015, 00:49 Post #4 |
![]()
Claiming Tsar
|
THE MEANING OF ART PART I I've been trying to wrap my mind around what means to be creative. After all, what is a God if said God cannot create the world in six days and rest at the seventh? In my work in the North, I have organized what was disorganized; I've created order where there was chaos. And all of that, while still answering to my own chaotic impulses. Still, all of that digital creation means nothing when compared with other things in life, things that can move your soul to places that you would never imagine possible. Music escapes our control; it infiltrates through our ears like an insidious mathematical parasite that takes over, warming up even the coldest of souls. Why not tapping into such a powerful source of energy? Art, creation, deep evoking inspiration... all of that seems to be the domain of the attention addict roses... and yet, I feel it is at my reach. Is that possible? I tried first by becoming the Warrior Tsar. I built a terrifying banner, made of the bodies of evil incarnate, fused together, and clasped to wooden planks, to inspire terror and courage in equal parts. But it didn't work. At the end of the day, it was just a couple of old tortured bodies, hanging on wooden planks. I tried by becoming the Holy Tsar, granting sacred meaning to mundane objects, trying to evoke the sanctity of the holy relics, creating my own personal relics... The idea of repurposing objects to give them a soul, that idea was interesting... but ultimately bland, and just a demonstration of the lengths a wandering ego can travel. It just didn't work. A hammer is a hammer is a hammer. Finally, I tried to become the Tsar of Love; King Cupid. I fused my two evil maggots into an eternal hug, and poured boiling water on top of them, cleansing their sins, and purifying their spirits, making their love a unique symbol of the love we all feel, the love we all long for... Much to my despair, two old dead bodies, blistered and broken, cannot convey such an elevated and pure feeling. I guess love needs to be communicated by clean things such as white cotton and flowery scents. All of these failures will not dissuade me from trying to find my path. I will get there, eventually. But experience tells me that self improvement requires patience and practice. I know that leaving a permanent imprint on this land will not be a task that can be accomplished in one day. I am patient. I will succeed. |
|
Languages: Russian, Japanese, English, French, Finnish, German Oleg's Voice You may know me as Yuri Mikhailov or as Khoza. | |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
|
|
| « Previous Topic · The Borough of Enfield · Next Topic » |








1:15 AM Jul 11