Dark Dreams

Cast List for Dark Dreams

Name: Farrow/Narissa Lancaster
Age: 126/newborn (believes she's 18)
Race: Bound demon
Gender: Female
Power: Manipulation of cosmic energy, which really lends itself to just about anything
Bio: Narissa remembers nothing of being Farrow, nothing of olive skin or unbridled strength. Thoughts of trying to eliminate the man who had blamed her kind for the decimation of a world they had only stumbled into are the workings of fiction. The only remnants of that past life appear in her dreams, jolting her awake in the night. A face, strangely comforting though the horns sprouting from his brow should have made him hideous, and a voice sharp with the fear for a loved one, calling a name. Farrow.
That is all that is left of Andulvar in her mind. And Narissa passes these off as fancies created by an overactive imagination in the face of the cataclysm that claimed her family three months ago. Now living with her cousin, Anabelle, she finds that the trauma of losing everything has left her quite a bit different that everyone else. She has lost all ability for comfortable interaction with others, succumbing more easily to darker instinct. Too long away from her cousin, she feels something vicious and terrible moving inside of her, terrifying but somehow pure. And all the while it feels like her actions are not her own, like someone is pulling invisible strings.
That imagination, again.
Appearance:/

Name: Mariah Vane
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Power: Holy Magic
Bio: Mariah has been involved with the Church since she was very young. She prided herself on having the strongest faith of anyone in her parish. She attended every sunday mass and sat quietly, listening with rapt attentiveness to the sermons while other kids her age fidgeted in their Sunday clothes and impatiently waited for the service to end. To her, God was perfection, and through his messengers, the good would always be saved. When the demons appeared, she thought the apocalypse had come true, and that soon she would be taken to her rightfully earned place among the saved. The Pope himself recognized her faith, and invited her to join a special Corps, a group sure to be God's highest angels, he told her. He promised her God would welcome such a loyal servant with open arms and reward her richly. But first she had to help Him purge the demons from the land, and teach the sinners that supported them the error of their ways. So she became a weapon for her Lord, with a special bladed staff shaped in the shape of a cross to serve as her vessel of justice. She never really noticed that eventually the bloodstains wouldn't wash off, and that the once silvery metal had been stained permanently red. After all, her Lord would forgive her, He would welcome her for teaching the sinners to repent and crushing the angels of Darkness. And her reward will be great in heaven.
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Name: Acacia Strain
Age: 23
Race: Human, though she's been accused of acting like a demon even before the rift was open
Gender: Female
Power: Very slight precognition. She can tell when things will turn out well or poorly for her, but details are denied her.
Bio: Acacia's mother called herself a shaman. The vicious but aware called her a witch. Everyone else called her crazy. When she had her first and only child, she delved into the future, saw what would await her, the woman she would become. It is not for nothing the mercenary is named for a thorn, after all. She saw great conflict, struggles both within and without, matters of the heart fled from emotionally and dealt with in blood. She saw that her daughter would exist in the heart of a great storm, and would lose herself without guidance, taking countless others with her.
She cut the infant's face to teach her pain and give her strength. She gave her the mark of the spirit map on her navel to show her the way when all other routes are lost. And she kept her love subtle while raising her, so that she would not be coddled.
Acacia left her mother when she turned 18, with almost enough respect for the woman who raised her to replace the love that could have been there. She lived from day to day, without thought for securing her future, focusing solely on survival in a world that was wary of her difference. Mercenary work came to her easily, and it was for that reason that she was in the heart of the chaos three months ago. Even with her natural-born gift, she would have died without the lessons about strength and discipline taught by her mother. As such, she escaped with limbs that would be forever mangled by scars and a new respect for creatures she had thought would never be a part of her life.
She continues to live as a mercenary. The demons just seem more willing to hire her than her own kind.
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Name: Fayne La Roux
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Power: N/A
Bio: They tried to teach her in catholic school about religion. They tried to tell her that God was the only holder of salvation, and that sinners suffered in the life after death. They tried to tell her, and she politely told them they were wrong. The concept of God never sat well with Fayne, it never connected on the level it seemed to with other people. It just didn't seem right, a God that preached love, kindness and mercy had not been there when her father beat her mother to death. God had not been there when a drive by accidentally killed her best friend. God had not been there when the child she had been determined to give birth to whether or not its father was there to see it, slipped away, driven out and betrayed by her own blood cells. No, God had not been there in her life, she saw no reason why He should want to save her, or that she even wanted to be saved. But this was not the correct way to think, especially not when the Vatican took power, and the hunts began. There was no where in the city of humans to turn to. So she ran, made friends amongst the demons once it was clear that she held no regard for the human God. They taught her to fight so she could protect herself. She learned how to so she could protect them.
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Name: Karthak
Age: 234, doesn't really look a day over 21
Gender: Male
Race: Demon
Power: Enchantment: can control those with a weaker will than his, for varying lengths of time.
Bio: He does not like this new world. Did not like leaving the cozy home he'd made for himself only to be dropped into one so full of hate for his kind. He did not enjoy making those that came after him kill themselves or each other, but he did. Why? Because survival was the most primal rule of all. Because if he wanted to ever see his home again, he had to live. And because, in some small, tiny corner of himself, he hates humans for what they've done, the lives they've taken, the unfairness and persecution they've heaped upon him and his kind. Unlike the others who took to keeping in groups for safety, Karthak carved out his own space in this world, and keeps to it, while, like many others, he searches for a way back. And may their God help anyone who threatened him or got in his way.
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Name: Abelone Thorn
Age: 20
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Power: For small objects, she can tap into their potential energy and turn it into kinetic, resulting in surprisingly large explosions or interesting party tricks, depending on how much she decides to transfer.
Bio: Her family may have left France generations ago, but they have held on to the culture of their ancestors. The beggars, the thieves, the gypsies, all can be found in the Thorn family tree. So Abelone's views on the world may be a bit outdated, a touch jaded or flippant at times, but she's quite happy with them on the whole. Even if her refusal to bow to the whims of the church left her with no place to be safe within the new theocracy. Living on the fringes is a family tradition, after all. It came naturally to her, a part of her blood.
Though the demons seemed to be a touch reluctant about accepting her into their fold at first. They were still wary of the humans who had attacked them without cause, eager to blame their problems on anyone but themselves. But it was plain enough that she was not quite like the rest of them, in everything from her exotic manner of dress to her strange talent. At first they kept her almost as a pet, amused by her tricks and her fortune-telling, but since then she has become something else. Not quite an equal, but not nearly so inferior.
And she's quite fine with it that way, really. It is not the gypsy's way to be on even footing with those around her. If she were to find herself there, she'd suddenly feel guilty about conning them out of their valuables from time to time. Old habits die hard.
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Name: Erick Ysuelt
Age: 25
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Power: Emotion Manipulation
Bio: Father Erick has always been charming. There was something kind and generous about the young man that drew the poor, bewildered citizens in masses well beyond the holding capacity of his church. Somehow just hearing his voice calmed them, soothing their fears with promises of the demons' viscous defeat. It also persuaded them to give generously to his church so that it could continue to do just that. Erick found that his voice had more power to it than simple sound. Depending on what sort of emotion he put into his words, he could influence the thoughts and emotions of others. Stir up a bloodthirsty anger in a panicked crowd of confused citizens, for example, and set them lik rabid wolves on the demons that settled like sores upon the world. When the Pope himself approached him about helping to control a particularly powerful young woman, and assist her with the cleansing of the world for the promise of a grand cathedral and perhaps even the status of a Cardinal, he could hardly refuse. He'd dedicated himself to doing God's work. Even if the Pope hadn't approached him about assisting with the extermination of the dirty creatures, he would have done it himself. How else could the kingdom of Heaven come to Earth, if the Earth was so unclean? No, he would cleanse the ground with the blood of sinners and demons, and people would rejoice.
Appearance:

Name: Jared Fang
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Power: pyrokinesis
Bio: All his life, he has never fit in. It wasn't just his coloring, or his height that made him stand out from the rest of the kids in school, it was the things randomly bursting into flame when he was angry. At first they called them freak accidents. But Jared knew better. He knew when he focused on something hard, especially when he was angry, and told it to burn, it burned. After one particularly bad incident, he realized what caused it. Since then he took care never to direct his focus onto any person or animal. At least, no innocent person or animal. Given what he could do, it wasn't surprising that when the demons came through, people labeled him one, or sometimes as a backthrow from one, some bastard child despite the fact the gate was open for all of three months when he was twenty. Not that it mattered. He did have more in common with the demons than the panicked, mindless crowd that let the Church take over society until they had a government reminiscent of the witch-burning days. The demons too, were reluctant to accept him at first, not that he blamed them. It wasn't till he'd set a man on fire to rescue a child that he really found a couple that welcomed him. The sad thing was? His own kind were more like the evil demons of hell then ones that had fallen through the gate.
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Name: Anduvlar
Age: 210
Gender: Male
Race: Demon
Power: illusions/ soul jumping, he can insert his conscious into another body, also allows him to tamper with memory.
Bio: When they came to this world he had been frightened. It was a strange place, so vastly different from their home plane, Andulvar didn't know what to make of it. But then the attacks came. When the bindings started, he and his sister Farrow decided that was enough. They hadn't done anything, yet the residents of this world blamed their kind for its destruction. The next path was obvious. They had to get back, and after alot of research, months of searching and waiting, they found there was only one way. Through the Pope, the fat leech on the body of the society, yet proclaimed king by a terrified populace. He'd thought they'd be strong enough to bring him down. He was only human after all.
He thought wrong.
Now, sitting in his cell within the bowels of the Vatican, much, much to strong to be anyone's personal demon, Andulvar bides his time, planning his escape. He can no longer leave, because they took Farrow from him. They bound her, somehow, wrapped her mind in fog and buried her within the personality of Narissa Lancaster. It took him too long, soul searching outside of himself, to find her, but finally he has. One day soon he will free her, and then...then there will be very little to stop him from tearing this city to the ground.
Appearance:

Name: Ariah
Age: 456
Gender: Female
Race: Demon
Power: Summoning, usually she has to trade number for size, i.e. the bigger the creature the fewer she can have around at once, with the exception of her chimera familiar.
Bio: Ariah finds the human plane amusing. They have a tendency to run around like witless insects, bumping into each other and the pointing the finger at someone else. Blaming, always blaming each other. It wasn't really surprising to her when things turned violent. After only a few days of watching them she expected it. They were the foreign, dangerous presence, like the child that pokes at a disturbed ant hill with a stick. That didn't mean she liked it. She took herself and her creatures to a secluded spot, and beat off those who threatened her. She knows that if she waits long enough, things will work themselves out, one way or another.
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Name: Ryusiel
Age: 226
Gender: Male
Race:Demon
Power: Can change his flesh into anything he likes, even create seperate being from it. However, the larger and more complicated the transformation, the shorter it lasts and the more exhausted it leaves him.
Bio: Ryusiel is not someone to mess with if you have the slightest doubts about your own abilities. Volatile and prone to violence in his home plane, if anything the switch has made him more dangerous. Anyone who so much as glanced at him the wrong way was like to get a blade in his gut, and God help anyone who came at him with a weapon. He doesn't really care whether he goes home or not, at least here the demons are too scattered to restrain him and the humans are too weak to defend against him. Faintly, he remembers a time when he wasn't so...twisted. But things have gone so wrong since then, that person is little more than an insect trapped in amber. Nice to look at but unable to be touched.
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Name: Fletcher Carr
Age: 19
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Power: N/A
Bio: Fletcher never knew his parents, left on the church doorstep as an infant in a scene every bit as cliche as you can imagine and possibly then some, depending on how imaginative you are. The Father there took him in, raising him as he might his own son. For a child who was very much aware of his own abandonment, he grew up surprisingly well-adjusted, his circumstances lending him a wisdom regarding the nature of misfortune that the foolish can sometimes mistake for apathy. And for all that he may drop blasphemies as easily as the rest of us exchange greetings, he is a devoutly religious young man. He just happens to believe in the spirit of the law over the letter.
So while he isn't unhappy with the new-found control of the church, he can't say that he's overjoyed with it either. He knows his history, understands what happens when man is given too much power in the name of God. This promises to be ugly, even though things have calmed, at least on the surface, since the arrival of the demons three months ago.
To be quite honest, there's a part of him that is fascinated with these new arrivals in their world, so clearly not the demons depicted in the Bible for all that they are painted to be just that. He sees no reason goodwill and kindness should not extend to them as well. But on the few occasions when he's voiced this opinion, he received such venom from those he spoke to that he is compelled to stay quiet now.
He doesn't say all that much anymore. Not that he was ever a chatterbox in the first place.
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Name: Casinar
Age: 140
Gender: Male
Race: Demon
Power: Can speak to, control and banish spirits, and on some occasions of the recently dead, bring the spirit from the otherworld to his plane.
Bio: Cas doesn't understand what happened. He was doing has he had always done for the past century, only to find himself dumped into a world of chaos and misunderstanding. He was not used to people hating him on sight, or being chased by those armed with weapons of steal. They regretted it, of course, just because he didn't like or understand the need for violence didn't mean he could use it. So their souls became a couple more in his collection, ready to be accessed at a moments notice and bound to him so they could not pass on. It was habit, not spite. Like any other weapon, spirits dulled and broke, some got so old that they simply faded away, his bindings no longer able to hold them. So he replaced them, like one would replace a broken knife, but it was never anyone innocent. His souls were always people who had done harm...they were always people who helped perpetuate the violence and the chaos. But now? Now he drifts, looking for a way back while at the same time keeping himself as isolated and invisible as possible. The less people knew of him, the fewer that could hunt him for what he could not help.
Appearance:

Name: Roshel
Age: 132
Gender: Female
Race: Demon
Power: 'Copy cat' She can take the face of anyone she's come in contact before, and usually wears the skin of a young girl that was killed for being friends with her.
Bio: Those that meet her think she's scared of getting touched. In reality, she's scared of getting the memory of a face she doesn't want to remember. Roshel doesn't find it hard to stay separated from people, but it can get a little lonely. After all, can't really say you know yourself if you hardly remember what your real face looks like. But the face she wears is easier, for all that it is a tribute. People trust the girl who looks more human. They are less apt to hunt her, as long as she pretends to be what they think she is. The truth is the girl whose face she wears is dead. Killed by the mindless mob that thought she must be a demon herself for trying to be friends with the scared, confused creature that fell through the rift straight into an unfriendly city. She hadn't know then how to blend in, but now, she could probably pass herself off as the Pope himself, so long as the real one were kept out of sight. She owes it to the girl to survive.
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Name: Raven Constantine
Age: 26
Race: Demon, though you couldn't convince him of that for all the world half the time.
Gender: Male
Power: Constant siphoning of memories and sensations off of others across planes of existence. When he sleeps, the distinction between himself and humans his subconscious mind has fixated on is blurred and distorted
Bio: Madness runs in his bloodline, affecting those with their gift while they are young, malleable, easily swayed by strong emotion outside themselves. And there are very, very few emotions stronger than those attached to mankind. Even before the rift was open, Raven peered into Earth while he dreamed and thought that he was there, sometimes even believing that reality was the sleeping fancy.
Now that he is lost, he thinks that he is home. Usually, anyway. He has his lucid moments from time to time; a sign of his growing maturity. It is, after all, the time when those who came before him began to balance what they saw with what was true. But those who came before had never been thrust into the heart of the world they thought was theirs.
It promises to be an interesting process.
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Name: Tanner
Age: He is frozen in the time stream, has been for longer than he can remember. It happened when he was 23.
Gender: Male
Race: Demon
Power: Instantaneous regeneration
Bio: Tanner was not born a demon, any more than he was more a human. He came into life in a world neither of their kinds had ever known, though it had its similarities to both. It is also there that he died, his body and mind ravaged by a disease that stripped him both of strength and memory. It was a plague running rampant through his home, leaving no survivors.
His family was desperate, his father blessed with the gift of the magi. The incantation was a dangerous one, fatal if done incorrectly, sometimes even when the execution was flawless. The ancient ones it implored, older even than the gods, could be cruel in their whims, after all.
Death appeared before them, plucked the younger from the elder's arms. And simply vanished with him, leaving his family to believe that the effort had been in vain. But in truth, he has been 'living', as much as one can call it that, among the demons, unable to keep accurate track of the passage of time, struggling to remember names and faces of his old life. It did not take long for him to adjust to his new one.
He adjusted just as well to existing in the world of the humans. Their struggles don't truly effect him, though. It's become second nature to remove himself emotionally from those he will only outlive, and if the lives of demons seemed short, those of humans seem to pass as soon as they have begun.
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Name: Laila
Age: 78
Race: Demon, according to the human definition. Her family would be appalled to hear themselves labeled such, if they could hear it.
Gender: Female
Power: Flight and communication with animals with a particular affinity for avians
Bio: Laila was nobility in the other plane, heiress to a rather large duchy. She was raised to live her life with poise, grace, and compassion for those beneath her station while maintaining a healthy distance. As such, she didn't know very much about the way other people lived their lives. In fact, she only caught glimpses of it for the first time when travelling to meet the man to whom she was betrothed, baron a kingdom of a half to the south.
That was three months ago, when the ground dropped away beneath her very feet, dropping her and her convoy into a world that was altogether foreign and terrifying. Violence had never before been a part of Laila's life, and all at once she was submerged in it, paralyzed by a fear so intense she thought she would drop dead merely from its size and weight.
Her guards died to give her time to flee and hide. Now guilt and that lingering fear cripple her, striking both in dreams and waking thought without discrimination. She longs for nothing more than to return home, to the realm of her mother and father, where her trusted companion Calcifrax waits for her. But that seems impossible, for at least as long as she remains so wholly incapacitated.
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Name: Anabelle Lancaster
Age: 25
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Power: Holy bindings
Bio: Faith has always been a part of Anabelle's life, the Lord her guiding light in all times of her life, storm and fair weather alike. When her parents fell ill, He gave her the strength to care for them until they slipped peacefully into His realm. When her fiance turned to alcohol and abuse, He gave her the courage to leave him where others would have been cowed in the face of his anger. And when the demons came, He gave her the power to show them the error of their ways, to change them into His image, as all good things ought to be.
It is not often that she is called on for this - most of the demons are considered too dangerous for the transformation, and those that could be easily changed avoid the righteous at all costs. But. There is one. A woman, accommodating for her weaknesses by allying herself with a man much stronger than she, foolish enough to make an attempt on the Pope's life.
Nothing could be done for the man. But Farrow has been erased and reborn as Narissa, Anabelle's own cousin, and given the opportunity for a real, just, righteous life. And the Lord gives her the strength to watch her.
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