SpectreN7
Renegade For Life
"They [Witchers] are rogues without virtue, conscience or scruple, true diabolic creatures, fit only for killing."
-Anonymous, Monstrum, or Description of the Witcher
The sword of destiny has two edges.
Welcome!
I'm Spectre: a huge geek (video gamer and avid DnDer), who is currently craving The Witcher, thanks to the fantastic show on Netflix, and I'm looking for someone to satisfy this insane craving. I have played the third game, all DLC, watched the show, and have read all the books, though the latter happened a few years ago, so some of the book series is fuzzy in my memory. I'm open to roleplaying with all levels of familiarity with the series -- whether if you've only watched the show, or just played the games! Extensive knowledge is not required, as long as you get the basics -- the feel, if you will -- of the world.
A Bit About Me As A Writer:
- I adore detailed posts, though I also believe in quality over quantity. My average sits around 500 words, though I’ve been known to go double that, depending on the scene and number of characters involved.
- I can promise around 2-3 posts a week. I try for daily, but it doesn’t always happen. Anything less than a post a week, and I tend to lose interest. Please let me know if you need a break, and I’ll do the same!
- OOC communication is encouraged! I want to make sure we’re both comfortable and having fun in the roleplay. Plus, I love sharing memes. Memes make the internet go ‘round.
- I enjoy romance, but characters must have chemistry. I have a preference for writing males but can also write females as side characters; pairings will depend on the sexuality of the characters involved.
- I am over 21, and would prefer to write with others over the age of 18.
- Considering the source material, please be comfortable with darker themes (within the confines of the sit rules, of course), and let me know your limits.
- If Interested In Writing With Me: Please send me a PM with a writing sample and your ideas/interests.
What I'm Interested In:
The only canon I'm interesting in playing would be Geralt, and would only be willing to do so against a Yennefer. Yet, I'm far more craving, and interested, in playing a Witcher OC against an OC (another Witcher, Sorcerer/ess, Noble, ect.) .
My Characters:
Name: Arnbjorn of Zerrikania
Known As: Dirk; The Mountain
School: Bear
Sign Proficiencies: Quen, Aaard
Height: 6'5"
Build: Muscular
In stories, they call him The Mountain.
A Witcher who rides into town on a black stallion, covered from neck to toe in plate, with twin blades strapped across his back, and an axe hooped through his belt. When he steps from the saddle, boots kicking up dust, his height shadows all that come near. Golden eyes peer out from underneath a thick, arched brow, the left of which is marred by a scar, and his stern expression is motionless, as if carved from stone.
When he speaks to ask about the bounty, his low voice rumbles in his throat, and he fiddles with the bear head medallion chained to his neck, yet the habit is easily missed; the scar, three diagonal claw marks, running down his right eye and cheek makes for a grand distraction. The bards sing of how The Mountain obtained this scar during a battle with an archgriffin: an epic struggle that took place on the battlements of a lord's castle.
In person he is known as Dirk by most, a nickname that started as a way to amuse his mentor--who, while in the distant land of Zerrikania claimed the unborn boy through the Law of Surprise--and keep the youngster grounded during his training. Like all Witchers, Dirk is known as a crude, unforgiving, traveling mutant, a necessary evil who makes coin off the misfortune of others: a freak that has no humanity left in his bones from the Trial of Grasses. He is simply a giant killer made of stone.
Few call him Arnbjorn, the name also gifted to him by his teacher, a native of Skellige. Not even those he winters with deep in the Amell Mountains, where the School of the Bear once trained Witchers in the halls of an aged castle. Yet the mages he found cornered by Witch Hunters hungry for blood know him by his birth name, and know him for more than a Witcher, more than most men.
Name: Ryne of Novigrad
Known As: The Executioner
School: Cat
Sign Proficiencies: Igni, Axii
Height: 6'1"
Build: Athletic
To most, the Witcher who slips into town underneath the cover of a hood, the pommels of his twin swords peeping out from the dark cloak flung over his shoulders, doesn't even exist; he has no name, no past, no future. If his presence is known, he is there to ask about a posted contract, monster-hunting; if he's keeping to the shadows, he's there on other business, another contract of sorts. As the want for Witchers declines, one must find other methods to make a living, such as selling out a meteorite sword to the highest bidder, no matter if monster or human.
Witcher and assassin.
Ryne, the golden-eyed, scarred disciple of the Cat School knows this well. He was created in the last years that Stygga Citadel stood, and watched his mentor be cutdown by royals who didn't appreciate mutants meddling in their affairs; barely escaping with his life, he became a renegade, scrapping by, by any means necessary. Preferring solitude, he travels the countryside by himself, a lone wolf, and only rejoins the Dyn Marv Caravan when business is running particularly dry.
Plot Seedlings:
There are some otherworldly beings beyond comprehension, creatures that are foreigners to this dimension, whose motives are unknown, cannot be known, yet seem to exist merely to cause chaos and sow discord. There are some contracts that even Witchers refuse to take; these forces that the abominations will not dare dally with. At least, not most of them, the clever ones, as the oldest member of the Bear School would say, seated within the wide, barren halls of the aged castle situated within the Amell Mountains: both the structure, which once trained dozens of Witchers, and the old man himself remnants from a time long gone. Yet his student was stubborn, or perhaps suicidal, or most likely a dangerous combination of both, and while wandering the countryside for work, he stumbled across a rather particular barony, became intertwined with finely-laid strings masquerading as fate.
The bards in this barony tell a story from a century ago, when the land was a small Kingdom yet to be conquered, and while fighting a desperate war for freedom, its people began to revolt. In order to keep his life and title, the King turned to the dark arts for an answer, and from the void, his pleas were heard. He summoned a creature not born of our realm, a handsome lad with a devilish smile and eyes as dark as onyx; the King made a deal with this demon, and the land has never recovered since: the soil is poisoned, the people dying from starvation. And every generation, since that fateful day, the demon returns to take what he is owned; the firstborn to whoever is sitting on the throne, and if he is denied, sends monsters out during the night to raid the village.
So the sacrifice is made, on the first full moon following an heir's birth, only this time, the monsters still come. The heir, it turns out, was a secondborn, and the bastard firstborn is out there, somewhere. And on the first night of raids, a Witcher happens to be spending the night at the local inn...
Note: Plot description originally written for Dirk, but can work for Ryne easily as well!
Ideas for your character:
The bards in this barony tell a story from a century ago, when the land was a small Kingdom yet to be conquered, and while fighting a desperate war for freedom, its people began to revolt. In order to keep his life and title, the King turned to the dark arts for an answer, and from the void, his pleas were heard. He summoned a creature not born of our realm, a handsome lad with a devilish smile and eyes as dark as onyx; the King made a deal with this demon, and the land has never recovered since: the soil is poisoned, the people dying from starvation. And every generation, since that fateful day, the demon returns to take what he is owned; the firstborn to whoever is sitting on the throne, and if he is denied, sends monsters out during the night to raid the village.
So the sacrifice is made, on the first full moon following an heir's birth, only this time, the monsters still come. The heir, it turns out, was a secondborn, and the bastard firstborn is out there, somewhere. And on the first night of raids, a Witcher happens to be spending the night at the local inn...
Note: Plot description originally written for Dirk, but can work for Ryne easily as well!
Ideas for your character:
- A sorcerer/ess or Witcher hired to help lift the curse form the barony, and teams up with the Witcher to do so.
- The bastard offspring, who hires the Witcher to help lift the curse; the offspring can be a sorcerer/ess, given away due to deformity, a Witcher, claimed by the Law of Surprise, a mercenary like Renfri, whatever floats your fancy!
- The Witcher and the Sorceress: Since I adore the dynamic between Geralt and Yen, I would love to write Dirk/Ryne to a sorceress. Perhaps they both get employed by a monarch to solve a particular problem? Lift a curse from the royal family? Since I immensely enjoyed Master Mirror, the curse could be due to a deal made with a similar entity, and our characters, who start off on the wrong foot, soon realize they're going to have to work together to be able to contend with this foe.
- Silver Tongues, Silver Swords: We have one inspired by Hearts of Stone, why not another by Blood and Wine? The basis of this plot would be a Duchess, or similar ruler of a land, hires Dirk/Ryne to deal with a complicated monster problem (higher vampires, maybe?). Not being a typical ruler, the Duchess insists on tagging along with Dirk/Ryne as he hunts the beast, which will also require wading through politics, since the monster seems to have woven a web across those that hold influence. Political intrigue, backstabbing, and the occasional murder: just another day in the court.
- Those That Survived: Admittedly, don't have much for this one, but I believe playing two Witchers who trained together, and happened to be the only ones who survived their trials, would be an interesting dynamic.
Writing Samples:
Formatting did not transfer with these samples, and I’m honestly too lazy to go back and fix it all. I apologize in advance, but promise that my posts will look better.
Fifty-seven.
Maverick had been counting. Not consciously, not deliberately, but somewhere in his mind something was keeping a tally, and with each added mark, he felt the burning underneath his skin intensify.
He lifted his hardened gaze from the counter to the picture that hung behind the bar, staring holes into the image as if it could conjure answers. The frame was wooden and carved, and held lovingly a photograph taken a few years back. He was in it with his dark brown hair trimmed, jaw clean shaven, and dressed in the uniform of the Navy. He was flanked by two others: on his left, the honey blond, blue-eyed, spitting image of a Viking named Leo, who, much like his name implied, had a mane of hair and massive beard that gave him the appearance of a lion, and on his right, the spitting image of Maverick himself with a bit more age, and a longer beard.
The chiseled image of his brother, whose green eyes shined with laughter, made his stomach turn, and his fingers twitch. He hadn't heard that sound for fifty-seven days.
"Damn," he groaned, tugging at his beard-which now was only trimmed enough so it couldn't easily be grabbed-as if he were trying to rip it from his jaw.
He had to get out of here.
Tugging the bomber jacket flung over the back of his chair free, the giant, muscled, tattooed ex-soldier clambered outside the bar without so much as a word, and just started walking at a brisk pace. He didn't know where he was going; he just knew that sitting still had been getting to him. And with the anger behind his feet, people parted out of his way like the Red Sea. Or perhaps it was the perpetual scowl in his eyes, the way he marched with a defined military step, or a combination of everything that made him seem like a guy just asking for a bullet.
About half an hour later, he had wandered into a marketplace, which, due to the late time in the evening, wasn't as alive as he assumed it would be during the day. It was still noisy, however, as the city often was; he could hear cars on the street over, yelling from a floor of a building above him, and the chitchat of the merchants between the lines of tented stalls. It was a welcomed reprieve; quiet left him alone with his boiling thoughts.
He looked up at the darkened sky, taking a moment just to breathe. It was winter in the city, and each time he exhaled, the discarded air formed a shivering cloud of smoke.
When the tension finally relaxed in his shoulders as much as it could, given who he was, he began strolling through the stalls. He spotted a fruit vendor, and reached into his pocket. As he was pulling out a few bucks to pay for an apple, he felt it. Again.
It was like he was being watched; he knew that feeling on a first name basis, given his history. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, alarms triggered throughout his id, his senses went on high alert, and his body stiffened. Yet there was also a chill around him, running down his spine, and it wasn't the kind of cold produced from the weather. That he wasn't used to it. That he couldn't explain.
Unable to help himself, his head turned swiftly to scan the area behind him. Once more, nothing out of the ordinary was there. Though, as he stared motionless, he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye: a sliver of a silhouette. But as he tried to focus on it, as he had foolishly tried to do many times before, he found nothing.
He was left standing and frozen with a bitter taste on his tongue, wondering if he was losing his mind.
"Sir?"
The merchant jolted him back to life, and with a shake of his head, Maverick took his change, stumbled off to lean against a wall, and bit into the apple, keeping watch on the spot where the sensation had occurred, and resenting the fact that he couldn't shake it.
Maverick had been counting. Not consciously, not deliberately, but somewhere in his mind something was keeping a tally, and with each added mark, he felt the burning underneath his skin intensify.
He lifted his hardened gaze from the counter to the picture that hung behind the bar, staring holes into the image as if it could conjure answers. The frame was wooden and carved, and held lovingly a photograph taken a few years back. He was in it with his dark brown hair trimmed, jaw clean shaven, and dressed in the uniform of the Navy. He was flanked by two others: on his left, the honey blond, blue-eyed, spitting image of a Viking named Leo, who, much like his name implied, had a mane of hair and massive beard that gave him the appearance of a lion, and on his right, the spitting image of Maverick himself with a bit more age, and a longer beard.
The chiseled image of his brother, whose green eyes shined with laughter, made his stomach turn, and his fingers twitch. He hadn't heard that sound for fifty-seven days.
"Damn," he groaned, tugging at his beard-which now was only trimmed enough so it couldn't easily be grabbed-as if he were trying to rip it from his jaw.
He had to get out of here.
Tugging the bomber jacket flung over the back of his chair free, the giant, muscled, tattooed ex-soldier clambered outside the bar without so much as a word, and just started walking at a brisk pace. He didn't know where he was going; he just knew that sitting still had been getting to him. And with the anger behind his feet, people parted out of his way like the Red Sea. Or perhaps it was the perpetual scowl in his eyes, the way he marched with a defined military step, or a combination of everything that made him seem like a guy just asking for a bullet.
About half an hour later, he had wandered into a marketplace, which, due to the late time in the evening, wasn't as alive as he assumed it would be during the day. It was still noisy, however, as the city often was; he could hear cars on the street over, yelling from a floor of a building above him, and the chitchat of the merchants between the lines of tented stalls. It was a welcomed reprieve; quiet left him alone with his boiling thoughts.
He looked up at the darkened sky, taking a moment just to breathe. It was winter in the city, and each time he exhaled, the discarded air formed a shivering cloud of smoke.
When the tension finally relaxed in his shoulders as much as it could, given who he was, he began strolling through the stalls. He spotted a fruit vendor, and reached into his pocket. As he was pulling out a few bucks to pay for an apple, he felt it. Again.
It was like he was being watched; he knew that feeling on a first name basis, given his history. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, alarms triggered throughout his id, his senses went on high alert, and his body stiffened. Yet there was also a chill around him, running down his spine, and it wasn't the kind of cold produced from the weather. That he wasn't used to it. That he couldn't explain.
Unable to help himself, his head turned swiftly to scan the area behind him. Once more, nothing out of the ordinary was there. Though, as he stared motionless, he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye: a sliver of a silhouette. But as he tried to focus on it, as he had foolishly tried to do many times before, he found nothing.
He was left standing and frozen with a bitter taste on his tongue, wondering if he was losing his mind.
"Sir?"
The merchant jolted him back to life, and with a shake of his head, Maverick took his change, stumbled off to lean against a wall, and bit into the apple, keeping watch on the spot where the sensation had occurred, and resenting the fact that he couldn't shake it.
It felt like a lifetime since he’d just stopped. Took a breath. Closed his eyes.
It pulled at Jaxon’s soul, an exhaustion that was more spiritual than physical. The consequence of living every moment in a fight, a struggle against the world, bruised knuckles pounding against the forces that’d keep him down, blood-coated teeth grinning in denial to be broken. There was pride in the battle, even if in the end it was hopeless, so deeply defining that he had painted it into his skin, but it was so tiring. And in the quiet, it begged the question: ‘was it worth it?’.
He remembered the nights he couldn’t sleep because of the arguing, the slamming, the muffled crying.
He remembered the nights he couldn’t sleep because of the pain that came in the aftermath of his mother’s death, the unheard pleas from a damaged boy that thought he was a man.
He remembered the nights he couldn’t sleep because of the sound of gunfire and war, and the fear that monsters were real, but they hid inside men instead of under beds. The fear that there was a monster inside him.
He remembered the nights he couldn’t sleep because he would wake up with wounds that had healed years before and a sweat-drenched brow, sometimes screaming and thrashing, wondering why God decided to leave him behind.
Tightening his arm around Kara’s waist, he breathed in her scent, took comfort in the sound of her soft voice, found sanctuary in her presence, and with a heavy exhalation of air, deemed it safe enough to let his guard down.
Paying in rest long overdue, his breathing and heartbeat slowed, and for the first time in years, his mind was silent.
It pulled at Jaxon’s soul, an exhaustion that was more spiritual than physical. The consequence of living every moment in a fight, a struggle against the world, bruised knuckles pounding against the forces that’d keep him down, blood-coated teeth grinning in denial to be broken. There was pride in the battle, even if in the end it was hopeless, so deeply defining that he had painted it into his skin, but it was so tiring. And in the quiet, it begged the question: ‘was it worth it?’.
He remembered the nights he couldn’t sleep because of the arguing, the slamming, the muffled crying.
He remembered the nights he couldn’t sleep because of the pain that came in the aftermath of his mother’s death, the unheard pleas from a damaged boy that thought he was a man.
He remembered the nights he couldn’t sleep because of the sound of gunfire and war, and the fear that monsters were real, but they hid inside men instead of under beds. The fear that there was a monster inside him.
He remembered the nights he couldn’t sleep because he would wake up with wounds that had healed years before and a sweat-drenched brow, sometimes screaming and thrashing, wondering why God decided to leave him behind.
Tightening his arm around Kara’s waist, he breathed in her scent, took comfort in the sound of her soft voice, found sanctuary in her presence, and with a heavy exhalation of air, deemed it safe enough to let his guard down.
Paying in rest long overdue, his breathing and heartbeat slowed, and for the first time in years, his mind was silent.
He smelled burning smoke, faint, yet the scent was strong, and underlined with another more tainted and vile. Shifting his jaw (not out of revulsion), he slightly parted his lips, and let the air sink into his mouth, so he could taste the bitter ash on his tongue to confirm--even if he already knew--what was near. A grunt rumbled from his throat, before he subtly cast a glance out of the corner of his single, visible, pale blue eye (the other of which was covered by a patch) to examine the wall mirror within the corner of the room.
He saw what he one might expect to see at a royal party such as the likes of this: well-dressed women and men, dancing and laughing, parading around the ballroom in which he stood on the edge of, pockets of the people taking up post to talk and gossip, and a few wary, yet interested gazes thrown in his direction, which, if he cared enough to, he could pick up their whispered conversations of the savage within their King's walls. But all that hardly interested him at all.
His attention was stolen by the specter reflected back at him in the silver surface of the mirror: a woman in her twenties with a simple dress singed to pieces, exposing bits of her blackened skin. Her eyes were hollow sockets of coal, and smoke rose from her form like she was a dying fire, minutes away from fading into oblivion. And he had no time nor patience to deal with a wraith, and no fondness for the stench of burnt flesh.
Jack Walker had always been sensitive--or as his father had described it, cursed and marked by the devil--to the other side, the great darkness that stretched motionless between time. He had seen things that no living man should see, and bore scars on his muscular body from lingering spirits' wrath from when he was young and green, possessing no knowledge of how to deal with such things.
Lifting his bearded chin, his eye bore into the stare of the specter's, challenging in the calmest of ways, yet threatening the might of a storm should it push him. To stare into an abyss of hate and pain, one must be carved from immovable stone, and just as empty.
I have no fear for you to feed from, thing.
The words not only resonated unspoken within his mind, but also within the stance of his body: back and shoulders kept straight as an arrow, hefting him to his frightening full height, and left, gloved hand kept clutched at his belt, near the hilt of the silver-lined dagger hidden beneath the black overcoat he wore, which also concealed the tribal-like markings that covered his body.
And should you try, I will send you to a place worse than Hell.
He had been given to the Silver Order out of fear as a boy, by a desperate leech that could barely call itself a man, nonetheless his father, and the hunters of darkness had taught him how to commune with the same powers he now fought against, to fight fire with fire. Jack had taken quickly to it, perhaps at a frightening pace, but that was what made him valuable to the Order: his innate penchant for violence.
The charred outline of the wraith vanished from his view in response to his warning, collapsing in on itself in a pillar of sudden, bright flame, and leaving behind a puff of dark smoke only visible to those touched with the same curse. Soon, the smell of burnt flesh faded from underneath his nose, and Jack grunted once more in satisfaction. Lifting the top hat held against his side by his right hand, he settled it upon his head, before turning swiftly to exit the zoo of upright-walking animals.
He held just as little patience for the living as he did the dead, particularly those that lived locked inside gilded cages, blinded by choice to the chaos that ate away at the bars keeping them captive. If he had it his way, he would not be here, but the superiors above him within the Order would not pass up the opportunity to gain backing from the Crown, not with the visions plaguing their Grand Master. With a threat on the horizon, Jack preferred to close ranks, but his disagreements with the hierarchy had distinguished him from others of his kind.
One might ask why the Order had sent a lone wolf into a den of sheep. Uncouthly shoving past a few other guests, who muttered in disapproval under their breathes, Jack made his way toward the side entrance of the palace, and his gaze fell upon the answer. Due to the color of his skin, Abbot Deming, Jack's mentor and partner for many years, could not move around unnoticed as easily as he could.
"The place has a few lingerers," Jack spoke, his voice a low, both in volume and tone, rumble, once he had reached Abbot, and made sure no one was eavesdropping. "But they warrant no attention. The envoy is waiting for us on the second floor balcony."
He saw what he one might expect to see at a royal party such as the likes of this: well-dressed women and men, dancing and laughing, parading around the ballroom in which he stood on the edge of, pockets of the people taking up post to talk and gossip, and a few wary, yet interested gazes thrown in his direction, which, if he cared enough to, he could pick up their whispered conversations of the savage within their King's walls. But all that hardly interested him at all.
His attention was stolen by the specter reflected back at him in the silver surface of the mirror: a woman in her twenties with a simple dress singed to pieces, exposing bits of her blackened skin. Her eyes were hollow sockets of coal, and smoke rose from her form like she was a dying fire, minutes away from fading into oblivion. And he had no time nor patience to deal with a wraith, and no fondness for the stench of burnt flesh.
Jack Walker had always been sensitive--or as his father had described it, cursed and marked by the devil--to the other side, the great darkness that stretched motionless between time. He had seen things that no living man should see, and bore scars on his muscular body from lingering spirits' wrath from when he was young and green, possessing no knowledge of how to deal with such things.
Lifting his bearded chin, his eye bore into the stare of the specter's, challenging in the calmest of ways, yet threatening the might of a storm should it push him. To stare into an abyss of hate and pain, one must be carved from immovable stone, and just as empty.
I have no fear for you to feed from, thing.
The words not only resonated unspoken within his mind, but also within the stance of his body: back and shoulders kept straight as an arrow, hefting him to his frightening full height, and left, gloved hand kept clutched at his belt, near the hilt of the silver-lined dagger hidden beneath the black overcoat he wore, which also concealed the tribal-like markings that covered his body.
And should you try, I will send you to a place worse than Hell.
He had been given to the Silver Order out of fear as a boy, by a desperate leech that could barely call itself a man, nonetheless his father, and the hunters of darkness had taught him how to commune with the same powers he now fought against, to fight fire with fire. Jack had taken quickly to it, perhaps at a frightening pace, but that was what made him valuable to the Order: his innate penchant for violence.
The charred outline of the wraith vanished from his view in response to his warning, collapsing in on itself in a pillar of sudden, bright flame, and leaving behind a puff of dark smoke only visible to those touched with the same curse. Soon, the smell of burnt flesh faded from underneath his nose, and Jack grunted once more in satisfaction. Lifting the top hat held against his side by his right hand, he settled it upon his head, before turning swiftly to exit the zoo of upright-walking animals.
He held just as little patience for the living as he did the dead, particularly those that lived locked inside gilded cages, blinded by choice to the chaos that ate away at the bars keeping them captive. If he had it his way, he would not be here, but the superiors above him within the Order would not pass up the opportunity to gain backing from the Crown, not with the visions plaguing their Grand Master. With a threat on the horizon, Jack preferred to close ranks, but his disagreements with the hierarchy had distinguished him from others of his kind.
One might ask why the Order had sent a lone wolf into a den of sheep. Uncouthly shoving past a few other guests, who muttered in disapproval under their breathes, Jack made his way toward the side entrance of the palace, and his gaze fell upon the answer. Due to the color of his skin, Abbot Deming, Jack's mentor and partner for many years, could not move around unnoticed as easily as he could.
"The place has a few lingerers," Jack spoke, his voice a low, both in volume and tone, rumble, once he had reached Abbot, and made sure no one was eavesdropping. "But they warrant no attention. The envoy is waiting for us on the second floor balcony."
Thanks for reading! And remember, toss a coin to your Witcher. ~
