#hallowrove tag

[peliginspeaks]

Monster hunter weirdness on the brain

I wonder what lampcats think of them? With all the changes a hunter goes through after eating of what they catch (peligin eyes, improved senses, etc) I wouldn't be surprised if animals can sense it, especially ones already attuned to Zee Weirdness like lampcats are. There's a possibility the peligin would put them on edge; after all it is the colour of much bigger and deeper things than them, so maybe they'd associate it with a predator and back off. However, they certainly seem to flock around the Light-In-Exile readily enough, so maybe they recognise the scent of peligin as associated with community and protection? Perhaps lampcat colonies in big enough numbers give it off, so a monster hunter to them just smells like Friend.

One of the first things Hallowrove did after their first true hunt was going to visit Oversol and his lampcat at Haarsink's house. There's that trope when someone comes back wrong or is just Off in some supernatural way, of animals or pets being afraid of them for no discernible reason, but I think the opposite is much more fun in this case. Your friend just came back from doing ????? last night, she's smiling and carrying a packet of some unidentifiable meat brought as cat treats. Your normally-aloof cat is suddenly very affectionate toward them, winding around their legs and purring constantly, and it continues even after the food is set down and your companion is across the room. Were their eyes always that dark? You don't think so. When you knock a cup from the counter by mistake, he catches it midair without looking.

[theramblingvoid]

Waiting for the train

Been doing a lot of railway in Fallen London lately and wanted another Hallowrove done for artfight, so here's a trainguy in some historical fashion :]

[theramblingvoid]

Hallowrove kept the Singing Mandrake from Bag a Legend and carries it everywhere with them in their pocket. His name is Sneeve. He's good protection, in theory, that Dangerous score is no joke - he might be a singer but he still reverts to shrieking and biting most of the time. Primarily though, his uses are 1. As a distraction (throw him and run in the opposite direction) 2. As the regrettable opposite of a distraction (pet him the wrong way and now every monster, constable, and anything else you might be hiding from within a 10 mile radius knows where they are) and 3. As the eternal source of despair from friends who might prefer not to be in the company of a screaming vegetable. Still, as annoying as he is sometimes, Hallowrove really does love that thing. Sneeve sleeps in a bucket of fresh mud by the door in the swamp cabin. He's an intruder alarm and an alarm clock both. <3

What are some silly facts about your fl characters? I’m talkin the fun stuff! Stuff you don’t get to talk about! Stuff that seems inconsequential to others but you think are fun! Stuff you’re embarrassed to share because it’s “not important” ! Little things! Big things! Whatever you want to talk about but don’t get to!

[peliginspeaks]

Pernicious Gown

+1 KT, +5 Persuasive, increases Wounds

An elegant dress in a resplendent shade of green. The fact that the dye is quite toxic over time should be of no trouble to the right sort of person.

Inspired by recent talk of historical dyes and the daunting amounts of arsenic they apparently used (reference dress under the cut)

"Arsenic green"/"Paris green" dress, ~1860s

[peliginspeaks]

Hallowed roves

[peliginspeaks]

There's a massive body of Hallowrove Information that exists only on Discord and not here, so maybe I start doing Hallowrove fun fact of the day posts (fun-ness may vary)

[peliginspeaks]

Hallowrove likes gem-toned greens and purples, but they spent a lot of their life on the Surface learning how to dress in a way that would draw the least unwanted attention so they do still tend to favour neutrals in their everyday outfits. He likes clothing with movement and some fun flare to it (flowy coats, pleated skirts) and also favours things that give him good freedom of movement in turn. She doesn't have the patience for a lot of accessorizing every day, but a couple fun items to add interest (a scarf, some simple earrings, a fancier band for her goggles) keep her from getting bored with her clothing.

Null prefers to be on the bleeding edge of fashion, and when most of their time is spent at court this often puts them in the center of a mound of ruffles and silk. Their goal is to draw more eyes than anyone else in the room, and with their pale and unsettling base appearance they're already off to a good start. They tend towards hyper-femininity while at court (finding it makes drawing attention easiest) and show no personal preference in style, simply commissioning whatever dress is in the current trend and usually pairing it with an elaborately styled wig. They will often wear white to appear more striking, with the social misstep of mimicking a wedding dress only generating more gossip which they'll take as positive attention.

The Frostbitten Tomb-Colonist fancied a particular dress somewhere back in the mid 1800s and has simply been getting it mended and altered since then. The bodice has been removed entirely, but it doesn't seem to bother her. Anyone who has a problem with it is kindly encouraged to file a complaint via cuneiform tablet. If the grammar is good enough, it might even actually be read!

Actually on that thought, new question prompt:

What's everyone's character's preferred outfit style?

ie. preferred colours? saturated or unsaturated shades? plain or patterned? suits and/or dresses? geometric shapes vs more flow-ey designs? ruffles or lace? accesories? etc.

For example, Jamie's main colours are red, black, and white (and sometimes gold), and tends towards suits more then dresses. Loves patterned waistcoats and anything to show off, and is known to take an accesory or too. Likes to wear fanier clothes, and when wearing outfits allows it tends towards ruffles.

[peliginspeaks]

Been having a lot of thoughts about The Themes Of It All lately so here are my characters and their major themes/recurring through-lines:

Hallowrove

Cycles - the paradox of being both trapped in and relying on them. Dreading the next loop but not really being sure how to live and be happy if the wheel stops turning. Slowly becoming self-aware and having to make the decision on whether or not to try and break free, amidst the quiet fear of not being able to if they tried.

Going from searching for a place for themself -> creating one in their shape in the Neath, and the difficulty of accepting a place and a life as home after so long spent internalizing that a true home wouldn't be possible.

Sub-themes of relationship to future/present/past, use of free will to make small change in the face of oppressive power structures, distraction vs confronting, rebellion against being seen as anything other than a whole person of many parts

Null

Personhood and subtraction - asks the question What is the minimum requirement for truly being a person? Is reacting like one enough, if the mind is fully gone? Does it matter, if no one will ever know?

Greed and consumption purely for its own sake, wanting just to have, destroying just to take, the effort to fill a bottomless void

The Frostbitten Tomb-Colonist

Personhood and addition - How broad can an individual's experiences be before they stop being traditionally individual? Does living thousands of years, experiencing several lifetimes, and purposely acting against your core self for decades just for a different experience dilute or expand that core enough to no longer be one? If you are everything, everyone, does it not spill over to become nothing?

Time and scale - hard to describe this one, feels like it needs a bit more development, but there's definitely something here related to her grey morality and the belief that if a harm or joy won't matter in 200 years it never really mattered at all

(Feel free to add on your own! It was really fun for me to think about my guys like this, feels good to pick out the heart of them and look at it as it were)

[peliginspeaks]

Through the many trials and tribulations of swamp, broody terrorbird, and makeshift home defense, you have managed to make your way (more or less in one piece) over the threshold of a ramshackle home in Bugsby's Marsh.

[peliginspeaks]

Sick in bed so I am thinking about Hallowrove and her relationship to poisons, as one does. Specifically what going through BaL did to it, turning a curiosity and a bit of rashness into something more like a nervous compulsion to keep ahead of a possible threat that quickly faded into improbability.

(mild TW for unhealthy habits/self harming behaviours)

Hallowrove is not, as a rule, a paranoid or preparatory sort of person. For most situations, monster hunting or otherwise, their strategy is more reacting quickly to threats and thinking creatively in the moment, rather than preparing for possibilities before they happen. Poison, however, is not a thing you can just react to. You can't fight it like a combatant. You can't run from it like a rockfall. You can't outwit it like a monster. You can only endure, and wait. Perhaps you'll die. Perhaps you won't. The outcome was decided from the minute it poured into your veins.

So, of course Hallowrove hates that. Of course when the nuns of Hunter's Keep came after him with poison, when he realized that everything he touched and ate and drank was fair game and he might never get the chance to react, what once was a passing curiosity and an occasional game between him and Scaleflats at parties turned into dosing himself regularly, to build enough tolerance to push the inevitable into being less so. Being slightly ill and slightly weakened - even then in the thick of it - was preferable to having no tolerance and ending at the mercy of a hit he couldn't dodge, so it became almost comforting, downing the latest concoction and knowing that no matter how much pain it put him through it would still be slightly less than the time before. It felt like having a cushion to the fall, for a person whose life was strung on the high wire between the horror that hunted him and the horror that was trying to train him to defeat it. It felt like an extra card kept up his sleeve, a way to react instead of feel the fear.

And then the nuns were gone. The Vake was dead. No more reason for the poison, right? She could go back to curiosity, back to tiny swigs of unknown things just to see what they do, back to batting back and forth false slights with a friend...except for maybe whoever the Masters might hire to silence her about the victory. That could still happen. And there was always the monsters, with the venoms they carried, and those weren't the same as the poison she drank but it had to help a little bit, surely? And, well, perhaps she just likes the taste of amanitas and would like to be able to eat them with no consequence, and what if she has some other enemy she doesn't know about, and there was always that feeling that never quite went away, of a safety net, of some faint power and security that once grasped felt like danger itself just to let slip from her hand again. It wasn't...illogical, surely. There could always be more reasons. It was just better to be cautious, is all. To not overthink it too much. To just...down the vial and feel worse, to feel better when she got up again.

It's not a thing they think much about, anymore. It's been two or three years since the Vake, and they'll miss a dose sometimes, and feel safe enough to have no real need to make up for it. But they'll still throw out the cream if the bottle seems moved a little to the left from where they last put it, and they can't remember why, and their "curiosity" these days never quite seems to be satisfied enough.

[peliginspeaks]

Hallowrove is completely unmusical as far as instruments go, and frankly not a talented singer, but a very joyful one under the right circumstances. They take easily to songs that have a good rhythm or a story to them, and know a few work songs from the Surface or zee shanties picked up from their crew. They're the type of singer whose enthusiasm and genuineness is infectious enough to make you tap your foot along even if a few notes are slightly off key.

Null can play any instrument they've seen played in enough detail before, but can only follow sheet music. They physically cannot make a tune of their own.

The Frostbitten Tomb-Colonist probably knows several instruments, but strikes me as a flute person above all else. She might pull it out and recreate some ancient melodies to entertain the Stewardesses in the Adulterine Castle during whatever doesn't pass for an evening there on occasion.

i'm curious so! question time!

do your ocs play any instruments or sing?

elias sings and play the viol!

they were taught how to sing first by the servants they hung out with in their early days, and then refined it at mahoghany hall during their light fingers days!

they learned violin at jericho locks, and the swan bride taught them how to play it as a fiddle as well.

thursday doesn't currently play anything, put i want to have them learn how to sing and play an instrument in the future

marigold sings a little, but they're best when in a group, and plays piano! their brain make connections with how their fingers weave and knot their bobbins when tatting with how they play the keys

[peliginspeaks]

more Monster Hunter Weirdness that I often forget is going on with Hallowrove but is true nonetheless (mostly canon supported with a couple headcanons mixed in)

- They often have the lights in their home a couple shades too dim but don't notice. (because of increased low light vision)

- Micro-cues of sound, scent, etc. lead to an ambient impression of Where Creatures Are, oftentimes even at a distance or through walls. She knows exactly how many rats are living in her walls (three) and when they have guests over (not often. They are very polite housemates.)

- The above effect is increased when the creature is something of the zee, especially when it's marked by Neathbow colours. This gets interesting with the fact that Haarsink's lab is (...was, up until recently) directly above Hallowrove's at the university. He'll be in there fiddling with some machine or other and just come to the sudden awareness that There's A Fish Up There. And have to work with that brain notification continually going off.

- She can recognize her friends by scent. She hasn't really noticed this yet (much like she hasn't quite noticed a majority of the more ambient sensing changes) but it's become a much larger part of how she clocks who's just walked into a room than before. Oversol smells of warm wax and fine tea and cosmogone, with notes of cat fur and that little indescribable almost-citrus tang that increases when he's just stepped out of Parabola. Haarsink smells of scorched metal and violant and a trace of mildew whenever he's spent recent time in his home, plus an undertone of zee-salt that never quite fades.

- I don't personally think peligin eyes look that much different than just very dark human eyes at a distance, but I do think they do the sheep-in-headlights creepy reflective thing in the right lighting. Hallowrove deserves to accidentally spook the living daylights out of anyone who shines a light on them in a path in the marsh at night. As a treat.

@cosmogone-spectacles @indefinitely-sealed in case you were curious what your guys smell like :P

[peliginspeaks]

Happy pride month legend baggers

[peliginspeaks]

To Hallowrove: what is the most fun you've ever had hunting a monster?

"Hmm...no easy feat to pick, for that one. So many to choose...it would have to be That-Which-Makes-Light-In-The-Deep, I think, odd as it is to choose the first as a true hunter. I'd no idea what to expect. The moment I realized time would stand still for me, in the breath before everything ends...nothing else quite comes close. Of course, I hope to find something to catch me by surprise enough to match it someday." [She laughs]

[peliginspeaks]

Hallowrove's would be something cyclical, with the ending of the series of dreams leading into its own beginning. The dreams would be always related to chasing something they can't quite see and waking abruptly just before catching a glimpse of it. The atmosphere would be of eternal anticipation, restlessness, sometimes calmer and sometimes verging on desperation. A rare success on the last dream would let them catch up to see that their reflection is the object of the chase.

new prompt, inspired by messages on discord:

what would a series of dreams (think the fire sermon, burial of the dead etc) relevant to your character be like? these tend to be really abstract and aren't always tied to Parabola, so there's a lot of freedom you can have with them

(mandatory example: the courier's would be The Green Knight, themed after Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. the dreamer, who takes the place of a knight in the red-handed queen's court, continuously meets themselves in viric, and engages them in battle. they end with decapitation in all cases - sometimes theirs, sometimes the opponent's.)

[peliginspeaks]

Today I bring you month-old doodles of Hallowrove having a rough day at work. Tomorrow? Who knows?