AU Workshop

[lethevale_mods]

HOW THE WORKSHOP WORKS

• Post here with your character's name, and any ideas you have for their AU backstory.


• Ask any questions you have, or anything you're still trying to figure out.


• While you wait for other players and/or mods to respond, go chat about other characters' backstories!

The workshop is open to anyone to contribute, and the mods will be tracking all responses so we can help as much as possible!


RULES OF THE AU
There are a few rules that will help to fit characters to the AU setting. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the mods here, by PM, or on Plurk at lethevale.

• All characters must be human at the point where they enter Lethevale. You may be able to transform them during the course of the game, but in their backstories and when they arrive, everyone is a vanilla human.


• Characters cannot have magical or supernatural powers. The world around Lethevale is not a magical one. Characters may be rumoured to have supernatural powers or traits, they may even be quite good at convincing other people that they do, but they cannot actually be magical.


• Lethevale exists in a world - and a Europe - very like our own. While Lethevale itself is obviously fictional, you can feel free to use real places and real events in your AU backstory. Obviously, this is with the caveat that...


• Lethevale exists in the 19th century. We're not going to be super strict about historical accuracy - part of the fun of Gothic fiction is to be a little absurd - but please try to avoid too many glaring anachronisms.


• Your character cannot be from the town. This is to ensure that every character is starting from the same position - new to the area, with no knowledge of its history or inhabitants. Your character could be from the next valley over, or they could be an adventurer from the American West five thousand miles away, but they cannot be a Lethevale resident.


• Relationships with other characters require consent. This should go without saying, but if you want your backstory to include an existing relationship with another character, please make sure that you've discussed it with the other character's player.

As a guideline, AU backstories can be as detailed or as rough as you like, so long as they cover:

• Where your character comes from.


• What kind of position they hold in society.


• How they got to Lethevale.

Beyond that, you're encouraged to go as nuts as you like. Gothic horror thrives on crazy coincidence, tragic orphans, bold adventurers, fish-out-of-water types... Please feel free to throw some wild ideas out there. This is a judgement-free zone.

COMMS	GENERAL INFO	NEW PLAYERS	CURRENT PLAYERS
main writings ooc mods mod npcs	rules setting premise faq/mod contact gameplay	reserves taken latest tdm application au workshop	contact (locked) hiatus/drop calendar latest hmd lethevale

Comments

[digiorno]

My ideas for Giorno in Lethevale are largely based on his canon personality and ideals adapted dramatically and gothically, and also stuff I think will be funny. The broad strokes are as follows:

- He is the illegitimate son of a Japanese woman and the king of (mumblemumble)vania, a country some ways to the east. His father, the king, didn't know of his existence until he was about 5; at that time, his father basically kidnapped him from the orphanage his mother had dumped him at and hauled him back to the castle, where he was kept until his recent escape.

- While Giorno's father treated him relatively well except for, you know, the imprisonment and neglect and stuff, he is definitely a tyrant who terrorizes his people. He had named Giorno as his successor, since he didn't have any other children. This was a private, but very legal affair: if his father dies, Giorno will become king of (mumblemumble)vania. Except then Giorno's plans to foment insurrection among the people and rise up against his father's tyranny got out - vive la (mumblemumble)vania? - and Giorno had to flee the country at great speed. Hence, Lethevale.

- His father is widely rumored to be a vampire but that's obviously ridiculous.

- In Lethevale, Giorno will pose as a spiritualist. You know, like the Fox sisters! Great rapping of ghosts, etc. In other words, he's a con artist. Hit him up if you want to definitely for real talk to your dead grandma. He has no great skills other than lying, charisma, and political savvy, only one of which really pays the bills.

Obviously there are some places I'm a bit thin on and could use help with. Most significantly:

- I would love any ideas for how to make Giorno more interesting to tag to a wide variety of characters! Given the time period there is somewhat less risk of younger characters not being taken seriously, but on both an IC and OOC level I want to make Giorno engaging to tag despite being a 16 year old brat. He's fully ridiculous, but how can I make him more widely-interestingly ridiculous, I guess is what I'm asking.

[tactlesstantei]

I have some plans for Masumi, so here goes:

-She's the third child and only daughter of a British woman and a Japanese father.
-Her father went missing before she was born, and her eldest brother, Shuuichi, went off looking for him and vanished as well. Whoops.
-Masumi wants her family back together, so she went off from Britain to look for them.
-She didn't even intend to end up stuck in Lethvale, she was just passing through following any hints of where her vanished family members might possibly be.
-Masumi's a bit of a detective, in that she is genuinely good at what she does (she has to be if she's trying to find two missing people!), but not a lot of people generally want a seventeen year old girl to solve cases for them.
-She'll probably be interested in figuring out what the heck is going on in Lethvale, if a bit upset that she's stuck and sidetracked from her goals.

Edit: Okay, her father, one Tsutomu Akai, went missing because he pissed off a major crime ring by being some sort of law enforcement and needed to lay very low. Her eldest brother went off to look for Tsutomu, also pissed off the crime ring, and had to fake his own death. Masumi’s trying to track down what happened and may end up doing her own share of ticking off the crime ring by, you know, asking around about her father and brother.

Edit 2: I ran into a snag. Basically I remembered that Japan was pretty isolationist for a while, and research indicates that they didn’t open the borders until 1854. This messes up my whole timeline, so now I need some way to sort it out. My current plan involves just making the family full Japanese rather than British/Japanese and having Masumi’s father vanish shortly after the borders were opened.

Edit 3: Okay, final edit I swear. New plan is that Masumi’s father left not long after Japan’s borders were opened in 1854, when Masumi was still very young, but at least sent letters. Her eldest brother Shuuichi followed when Masumi was ten, but at least also sent letters.
The letters stopped with some last ominous messages about making enemies in Europe when Masumi was about fifteen, and a year after that she decided to strike out to find her father and brother, heading west through mainland Asia and eastern Europe to eventually end up in Lethvale. (Not that she intended to be in Lethvale, she was aiming for western Europe.)

Feel free to toss input at me. I'd like her au to be pretty solid on application, so poking at any shaky areas would always be helpful.

James Fitzjames

[endofvanity]

So I'm being really lazy with Fitzjames's AU. He is still a hotshot Royal Navy officer who goes to some effort to conceal and overcome his illegitimate birth, and he's gone on an expedition that went horribly wrong—the difference is that 1. this was one of the "find the source of the Nile" expeditions and 2. he came back alive, though traumatized. He's come to Lethevale as part of a decidedly weird Grand Tour that he's on to try and pull his health and psyche back together. And so what better way to do that than to wander into a creepy small Carpathian town.

More deets in his app-in-progress!

[600million]

make way, make way for the fabulously wealthy mystery writer extraordinaire Beatrice Castiglioni, and her retinue of servants --- wait, what do you mean the servants couldn't make the trip? well, she'll just have to sort through that later. ANYWAY.

Beato here would be coming into Lethevale hot off the heels of success with the publication of her first serialized work, a thrilling detective novel titled The Golden Key, in search of inspiration for what is bound to be her next big hit. many rumors concerning her personal history abound, though the image she prefers to portray is that of a freewheeling italian heiress, which is supported by her apparent fluency in italian and american-accented english, as well as her generally fickle, independent, and spoiled nature; the truth of her origins is of course more complicated than that, and without getting into too much detail, might involve certain disgustingly wealthy elder benefactors dying under mysterious circumstances. who knows! you can't prove that's what happened, now, can you!

but yeah, that's about the rough outline of what I've got for her so far, so!!! thoughts, questions, criticisms, other input?! i'm all ears!

[major_rawne]

Major Elim Rawne is, basically, the same as he is in canon, a ruthless, ambitious Army officer with (possibly former) criminal tendencies. The major difference is that he has not, of course, lost his entire planet to the enemy, so he retains his rich family background (something brought up in the first book and basically forgotten about). He also joined up much earlier than in canon.

He's the third son of a wealthy Scottish family that bought him a commission more to get him out of the house than recognition of any real leadership abilities he had. He joined the 42nd Regiment of Foot (a Scottish regiment) and saw action in both the Crimean War and the Indian Rebellion (Sepoy mutiny).

More recently, he killed his commanding officer (something he wished to do in canon) and is on the run, hence arriving in Lethevale. He's gotten a weird tattoo somewhere to disguise his identity, and he goes by the name Ibram Gaunt, which is the name of said murdered commanding officer.

Thoughts, comments, questions, ect all welcome!

[major_rawne]

How successful was her first novel? Was it translated into English or just published in Italy?

[digiorno]

be a to ri ce

this sounds dope tbh plenty of room for Rumors to abound. i am excited to see how she responds to people attempting to figure out the actual details of her history as well. how will beatrice wiggle out of this one, tune in next time to find out

Faramir

[insufficientjewel]

Here we have Francis Fletcher, a devoutly Catholic clerk and folklorist from Warsaw, who has come to Lethevale to study the local traditions and festival customs.

"But I thought you were playing Faramir?" I am, imaginary person. I definitely am. Francis was in fact born as Faramir, to a wealthy family. His mother died shortly after he was born, and his father's resentment grew to the point that, when his older brother went away to boarding school and no longer able to intercede on his behalf, the then three-year-old Faramir was bundled off to an orphanage in Krakow, Poland, several hundred miles from home.

At the orphanage he was given a new name, Francis Fletcher, and became a ward of the state. He grew up under those circumstances, and under the care of the nuns who ran the orphanage, discovered an interest in theology and philosophy. He educated himself, and when he left the orphanage at sixteen he found various bits of work as a clerk and secretary. He moved around a lot over the next few years, mostly in Poland but also Romania and Hungary and so on, before finally becoming a clerk to a professor at the university in Warsaw. He's been working for that professor for four or five years now, accompanying him on research trips and taking on a more apprentice-like role.

The professor was meant to come to Lethevale with him but has been taken ill. Francis is planning to be in town for a three-month period, and will have booked accommodation ahead and so on. He only has very vague memories of his life before he was given to the orphanage, so as far as he's concerned Francis Fletcher is who he is, all the way down.

He might also make for a good source if you have questions about local folklore. Or Catholicism. He will talk to you for hours about Catholic dogma.

[600million]

it has so far only been published in English, and first saw serialization in a popular periodical in England, where it's considered a smash hit (even if it hasn't quite picked up as much popularity overseas)! some people might find it curious that a woman of supposedly Italian descent would choose to write and publish her work in such a way, but as far as Beatrice is concerned, that's for other people to worry about, not her.

[600million]

beatoriiiicheeeee

wiggle out of, pish posh, there's nothing at all for her to wiggle out of so long as everyone just accepts what she says out of the truth!!! which is a lot easier said than done without witch powers, but hey, maybe those will come in time....??!!

[major_rawne]

Rawne would know of it (and has probably read it but won't admit it), then. Good to know!

Joker (and the circus!)

[criminallysane]

Joker Jack runs a traveling circus, which has just arrived in Lethevale.

his background

He claims to be descended from a long line of actors, essentially theater royalty, but is actually the fourth son of a washerwoman and a factory worker. He grew up desperately poor in the tenements of NYC's lower east side, dreaming of one day escaping.

At some point in his late teens, he helped rob the safes of three NYC banks. He took his share of the haul and skipped town on a train headed west. He never told his family he was leaving, and he hasn't heard from them since.

Now going by the name Jack Napier, he spent a few years as a traveling salesman of patent medicines (which were mostly opium and alcohol) before figuring out his true calling and starting a circus.

circus history

The circus has been running now for nearly 20 years. It took a little while to get off the ground, but wound up expanding and thriving, and eventually became a success.

Then, about five years ago, it suffered a series of unlucky breaks. A bear mauled someone. A tent caught fire. Their star trapeze artist was murdered. Etc. Attendance began to drop, the problems snowballed, and eventually there was no choice but to start letting people go. Jack was determined to do whatever it took to keep the show alive, but the circus began to look shabbier and shabbier. The canvas tents were getting faded. The tours were getting smaller. The take from each town seemed to dwindle by the week. Something clearly had to be done. Tensions began to mount between Jack and his wife, Jeannie, who thought he should sell the circus and get out while he could.

A few months ago, Jeannie died under mysterious circumstances. (Not sure how yet. Probably a fall or drowning, something suitably Gothic.) And something in Jack seemed to snap. Half the circus is certain he murdered her, the other half thinks he's cursed, but everyone agrees that he hasn't been quite right since it happened.

Jack left the circus in Europe, where they'd been touring, and headed to the States, hoping to find a wealthy new wife who could help inject some much-needed cash into this enterprise.

His chosen lady: Marie D'Ancanto (allthegloves), the only child of department store magnate Owen D'Ancanto. Posing as a wealthy businessman who ran a successful circus in Europe, Jack staged a whirlwind romance between himself and Marie. He fed her stories of how exciting life was with the circus, making it all sound far more glamorous than it actually was. He claimed to be hopelessly in love with her, and swore he couldn't live without her. He begged her to come with him, to "share the adventure" with him. With a dossier full of (completely fictitious) proof of his assets, he persuaded her father to not only consent to the match, but to offer up a substantial dowry. Jack and Marie were wed a mere three weeks after they met.

He promptly whisked his new bride off to Europe, where they rejoined the circus and got it back on the road. Its first stop is the little town of Lethevale, where Jack hopes to 1) use Marie's dowry to get the circus in world-class shape again (and keep her from leaving him while he does so), and 2) find a new star attraction to help reinvigorate the public's interest in the show.

additional circus info

For the past decade or so, the circus has only been touring in Europe.

It travels by train, using a system in which fully-loaded circus wagons can be dragged onto flatcar trains for transportation. These wagons range from simple transportation for animals and equipment to elaborate "bandwagons" designed to be shown off in parades when the circus arrives in town.

Example Parade Wagons

There are also a few wagons in which the performers live while traveling between towns. (Once in town, they'll set up in tents.) Jeannie had her own, and since her death, Jack's been adamant that it be left exactly as it was. All of her things are just as she left them. At night, sometimes people think they see candlelight shining from behind the wagon window's curtains, and more than one circus worker has sworn up and down they've heard Jeannie singing in there. Jack becomes violently angry if he catches anyone snooping around inside.

In its heyday, the circus traveled with about 120 people and countless animals. There were giraffes, elephants, seals, five dancing bears, a lion named Hubert, tons of horses to pull the wagons through town, you name it. These days, the show's dwindled to about 50, and there are only a few of each type of animal left. (Hubert's still around.) The wagons and tents are faded and worn. Everything is shabby, and no one's been paid full wages in months. Jack swears that's all about to change.

The circus has three main attractions: the show in the big top (featuring animals, trapeze artists, clowns, and dancers), a beautifully carved steam-driven carousel with calliope, and a long line of smaller tents and vendors offering everything you'd expect: standard "freak show" offerings ("the strong man," "the illustrated man," etc.), midway games, carnival foods, a fortune teller, a burlesque show near the back, etc.

For overall aesthetic inspiration, think Something Wicked This Way Comes...but way, way shabbier.

join the circus!
Would you like your character to be part of the show? Come chat with me! I'd love to see any of the following:

Clowns

Trapeze artists

Dancers

Other performers. A fire-eater, maybe? A magician?

Fortune tellers/psychics/mediums

Animal handlers

Burly types who direct set-up/take-down and handle security

The costumer

Vendors (food, tickets, trinkets, games)

Musicians

"Freaks" in the loosest possible sense of the word

Anything else you can think of

[criminallysane]

Well, you had me at con artist.

How would you feel about making Giorno's act part of Joker's circus? He seems like he'd fit in well, and it might open up some interesting CR possibilities.

[takenalive]

ignore the icons, I'll also have human ones someday

Aria Alders was of a good family in the States, a family with a history of industry and politics, of funding charities while also doing kind of bad things to get their money and influence. Aria was a rising star, sharp and decisive, fiercely loyal to the family... and not much else. The family was in a competitive city and to keep ahead of the competition, Aria did... things she knew were wrong. Genuinely unsympathetic things. Things others in her family did too and kept secret. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory sort of things. And it came to light, and she was pulled out of sight so her family could save face, and they married her off.

Specifically she was married off to Mr. Visser, a brutish slumlord with high aspirations, a huge man with not an ounce of compassion in him. He wasn't really interested in women (or in men, or anyone) except aesthetically but he kept her locked in a townhouse for twenty years, with almost no contact with anyone else. She made endless plans and paced the confines and punched walls. A delivery girl she could slip notes to helped her in some way, and Aria was able to kill her husband.

Knowing her family wouldn't help, she stole some things, sold some heirlooms, and fled the country a few steps ahead of the law. Lethevale is where she ends up when she just about runs out of money. Aria's become a little wiser over the course of her captivity, a little more sympathetic to other people, but there's still a ruthless streak there. She's a short, broad-shouldered middle-aged woman who even after a few months regards the sky and open spaces with a wild mixture of fear and delight.

[warrior_princess]

The best quick description of Plourr in canon is "Anastasia becomes a space marine on her way to becoming Aragorn". So to AU her, you basically just scratch off "space".

Plourr was the heir to a small country that was very badly run. She was born along with a twin brother, Harran, who was... the kind of child who tortures animals and injures playmates, which is why she was heir and the public face. When the revolution came Harran tried to get Plourr killed. She killed him instead, was raised for a few years by a nanny, and had to get out of the country as it came out that various alarming people were interested in rumors of a surviving princess-heir.

From there she wandered, sometimes with a band of other rogues, picking up and honing her combat skills and sometimes having to leave in a hurry as official-type people rode up wanting to drag her back. She's probably been a sellsword a few times and can also tend bar. She's a huge woman with a rough, shady aspect, who nevertheless is highly literate and has a powerful protective streak. Nominally she's in Lethevale to help out the barkeep, but she's also here hiding out from princess-hunters.

[her_rose_is_red]

I love this setting and all the gothic horror themes but I'm really terrible at coming up with AU backstories, so any help or advice would be so much appreciated.

So far all I have are some vague ideas about Ib being sent to Lethevale to live with distant relatives because of... some unspecified family troubles? Maybe her parents are traveling abroad and couldn't take her with? Or maybe something happened to them?

Okay, further thoughts.

AU!Ib's father is a famous artist and her mother served as his grand inspiration. His most famous painting was 'Lady in Red' because why not be awful.

Unfortunately she died in some tragic way and he sank into depression. Ib reminded him too much of her and after a couple years he just couldn't deal with it anymore so he sent her away to live with relatives in Lethevale.

Obviously there's a lot to figure out here: where the family was from, what their last name is, who are the relatives she's going to live with, etc. So help and/or advice is appreciated.

I am in such need of ideas.

[insufficientjewel]

I'm not at all familiar with the canon, so I'm going off the wiki page and what's on your journal, but:

It seems to me like the first question is whether you want Ib to be hoping/seeking to get back to her parents. If you aren't interested in playing with that, having her sent off to distant relatives following family trouble or something happening to them might be good. Otherwise, maybe she could have got separated from them recently? Maybe they were travelling in the area, or even to Lethevale itself, and they were separated en route - for example, Ib got off a train without her parents knowing and it went without her, or something like that?

Not sure if any of that's helpful, though. (Either way, I would love to build some CR around both of them having lost their parents, Faramir is likely to be very sympathetic to that plight.)

[her_rose_is_red]

Oooh I hadn't thought of an accidental separation. That does open up new possibilities. It might make it hard on her at first though, finding room and board might be tough for a nine year old on her own. Which could also be interesting to play. Hmmm...

Maybe instead of sending her away her father was traveling to try to find new inspiration for his art and something happened that separated them just outside of town.

Really I just have to decide if I want to play out her being all alone and having to figure out how to make a living or as having some support in the form of relatives.

Either way I think I'll still go with her father being an artist because I like the way that ties back to her canon. (Which is a wonderful game and completely free and if you like horror puzzle games at all you should try it.)

Anyway thank you for the ideas!

[criminallysane]

I'd love to have her with the circus, if you're interested! Joker could easily be friends with her father (or even be her godfather?) and have agreed to take her with him when her father sank into his depression. He loves art, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch. Maybe she helps with costumes, painting sets, or taking care of animals? I'm canonblind, but I'm happy to chat/scheme/whatever if that's something you'd like to pursue.

[her_rose_is_red]

This is not something I had considered at all but I really like the idea. Ib loves animals so she'd be happy to help care for them. (And maybe there's a side act where she helps out the animal trainer because having a 'helpless little girl' in the ring with a lion or something is obviously thrilling and filled with danger.)

Also maybe before her father became famous as an artist he did circus posters. I like the godfather idea too. And Ib is just having a good time with the circus all the while believing that one day her father is going to feel better and bring her home.

[criminallysane]

Oh, I love the posters idea. A++ on that one; let's do it. Maybe Joker commissioned her father way back when, was delighted with the results, and the two became friends? Then whenever the circus passed through town afterward, he'd stop by their house to have dinner and catch up.

As for the godfather thing, I'll let that be your call. Also up to you how long she's been traveling with them, and thus whether or not she'd remember his late wife.

[her_rose_is_red]

Yes to all of that. And I say let's do the godfather thing, it seems to fit in with gothic horror motifs. And she probably calls him 'Uncle Jack.'

I was thinking she's probably been with the circus for about 2 years. Long enough to be used to it, but not so long that she's stopped believing her dad will come and get her someday.

[criminallysane]

'Uncle Jack,' oh my god. Yes. Sold.

This all sounds perfect.

V

[splitinvain]

Quick one before work:
And editing since work is done and had a bit time to reflect:

V, or rather Vere Redgrave, is the third son of Duke Sparda, a hereditary title granted from ages of military and conquests during the time of the Ottoman Empire. While his two older brothers are the twin stars of the family's expertise and looks, Vere takes after in his maternal grandmother in looks and temperament; she was Romany and Gifted with Sight and knew that she was to marry a wounded soldier her mother was going to care for. Vere has flashes of insight but not to the point of actually seeing another of note. He just gets 'feelings' before things occur.

The grandson of a Prussian Junker (aka landed nobility), he has the same name as his father despite looking little like him save when he smiles. He was raised with care by several excellent governesses and tutors until the age of ten when he was sent for further learning in Great Britain, where he showed an inclination of mimicry and mischief. When he returned home at age 18, he has thoroughly embraced Romanticism against his family's inclination towards politics and military.

- He had been engaged to the younger daughter of a viscount but she eloped to marry another. He decides that he was not going to be married off to someone he knows less about and boards a ship heading for the East Indies.

- His ship is attacked by pirates and he - along with a few other passengers - are taken as hostages for ransom. Unperturbed by the situation, he bugs the crew and befriends a few, gains a nickname and stays on even after the rest of the hostages were released

- Comes down with a strange illness and ends up staying on a South Pacific island ran by mixture of pirates and natives. One of the natives' skill with tattooing was shown to him and he made a bet that he could last longer than any other man under the needle. He was a little drunk at the time. He also won.

- Finally manages to get on an East Indian Trade Co. ship that takes him to India where he learns his maternal grandmother is dead and he inherited her estate

- Ignores his family's request to return home, changes his name and starts to write stories and poems of a romantic bent

- he was actually avoiding one of his father's men when the coach he had rented broke down a few miles from town. In exchange for stories from other people, he will read his own or spin tales of his adventures.

[ketill]

Torquil, or 'Thomas Ainsley' as he's calling himself, is the third son and fifth child of Scottish peerage who has run away from home to prove he can Make His Own Way, because he got into a fight with the one brother he really cares about and is too proud to apologize and so the only reasonable option is to take up a fake identity and run away to Eastern Europe.

He's used to not really thinking about other people, because of a life time of easy power, absent parents and mostly terrible siblings. He's a better person than he acts (or believes he is), but still not great. He's lonely, but too proud to admit it or that he could want any life other than one of power without company, even though he's run away and is pretending (badly) that he isn't quite as upper class as he is.

He has training for the church, though he has a lot more interest in music and theater in general.