E F F I G Y... OF
T H E....B A S I L I S K

THROW HIS BONES OVER

  I. FOREMOTHERS  
Pale skin and cold eyes,
Whispers of serpents as the rabbit dies.Moth-eaten canvas framed by tarnished silver, and three figures looming from above; a reflection of the future, imparted by blood. Dreams of memories that belong to another, with shadows dancing in late candlelight, leering at furtive eyes diving beneath covers.Omens incensed by burnt sage and ivory, the voice of the brood oracle relentlessly utters:“Remember always the names of your mothers.”Harbingers of ferment, progenitors of reformation, they invoke their presence to every fleeting eye, muses immortalized by beguilement weaved awry. By creeping branch and twisting vine their apostles hang strung; a hundred fangs bared to the sun, with silhouettes writhing lined one by one.In bogs of rot and cypress once they roamed; sisters in skin, it was by subversion of man that their great work was honed. Scales of white and ichor black, a body of one with eyes seeing all, its design would some day rise, subsuming the futures of man within its caul.From the remains of paramours, their love bled and exhumed, bone lies crushed beneath ashen sole,The coven of three, eternized forever in legacy for their role.Daughter by daughter, the brood oracle devised,To cast the body of insight in perfect control:“My sweet things you are, it will take two to once more be made whole.”  II.    -  III. SHELTER  
“Ow, that fuckin’ hurts, you know.”“Shut up—sit still.” Hisses between clenched teeth, and the intermittent, rumbling swell of laughter and merriment two floors below. Vestigial riff raff. A delicate thread of the needle makes its mark, stitching the spoils of reckless abandon behind half-dried clumps of bloodied hair. Trying to keep a straight face, angling aside for a better look while craning away a simpering visage. “I had already said it was fine. We could have gone on peacefully with the rest of our evening if we really wanted to.”“And let ‘em keep sneerin’ at us like that? Fuck that, he had it comin—ow, shit! Yer doin’ this on purpose.”“You are a horrid patient. There will always be an ugly bloke making nasty faces like that. Now hush and let me finish.”Grumblings of resignation, and with a twist of the needle, the burn and sting of bloody knuckles. Such warmth in odd corners, woven in a threadbare patchwork. Surely something better waits; the sort of contentment nestled far into the annals of a shoddily-thatched future. But the rowdy evenings—with bruised jaws and scraped up knuckles and belligerent camaraderie—had just as well become home. It wasn’t fair; it never would be, but it was theirs. One couldn’t help but laugh at least.“He did have it coming.”  IV.    -  V. LUXURY    It was all so very fucking dull. The wine, the dancers, and the men. Like fingers through sand memories were sifted from the warm buzz of an inebriated mind; the vain, insatiable fondness once reserved for Sandor’s parties some few years ago. But even in the dancing light of chandeliers, glamour found its banality—its wretched, saccharine cynicism that seeped its way into the skins of every self-aggrandizing viper slithering in the pit.The laughter, the theatrics, the procedural shaking of hands and kissing of cheeks and glaring of daggers—it all became a crawl. A languid, mind-numbing crawl to the bottom of the most obnoxiously lavish aperitif a dandy could be puppeted into paying for.“Care for another, madame sir?” said the same heinous attendant with the gaunt eyes and over-groomed mustache. He knew that he knew he was being watched, and didn't even seem particularly concerned with hiding it, evidenced by how he seemed to bring another glass almost every fifteen minutes. Drinks garnished with lies and contempt and the preying eyes of the carnivores they came from; the real glamour of luxury.“Oh yes. And for the love of what little is sacred, remove that dismal thing from your face before coming near me again. Or have you and your lot run out of ideas as to how to irritate me?”

CREDIT

HAVE YOU SOUGHT FORTUNE, EVASIVE AND SHY?

  NAME    Iskvandar L. Alighieri  NICKNAMES/ALIAS    Plentiful, transient, and forever trailing behind in long shadows. 'Vander' is an old one come about again.  OCCUPATION    Proprietor of the Black Lodge | | Clandestine Witch  PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION   A slender and androgynously handsome figure, tall and immaculately-postured beneath the sumptuousness of fine dark raiments and lustrous jewelry. His hair and complexion are of stark paleness, with skin of a light grey and lilac tone typically described as drow.  AGE    38 winters  DATE OF BIRTH    The 7th of Reflection  PRONOUNS    He, She, and the enveloping We  ZODIAC   The Ouroboros  CURRENT RESIDENCE   
A small home beneath the looming of the Spire.  HEIGHT    Ranges from 6'2" - 6'5" dependent on footwear.  HAIR    A silvery-white color lighter than his skin tone, silky and well-trimmed and draping past the hips. He grants obsessive pride and heed to his hair, and he’ll go to great lengths to perfect its presentation. It is sometimes braided, slicked back with oil, or held by a ribbon, and gets quite fluffy after being washed.  EYES    A cool violet color hooded by long white lashes, always lingering, and always gilded with hubris behind a veil.  CLOTHING   
Iskvandar bears a sundry wardrobe cut in lavish, draping fabrics to form a sharp and epicene silhouette typically adorned with fur and matching jewelry. Subtlety and professionalism are deftly wielded assets, as is his own vanity, and with these interests in mind he typically decorates himself in long, dark raiments, handsome dresses, and finely-pressed waistcoats. A wide, black hat tends to shadow his figure in the outdoors, and some may come to learn a brisk, familiar cadence to the clicking of tall leather boots. See: Gallery  VOICE    David Bowie | | Steve Naghavi | | Jeremy Irons
Iskvandar's voice can be difficult to place, smooth and silvertongued with a distinctly aristocratic lilt to a Southern Creole accent that rather seems to conflict with the harsher drawl of other Walljacks.
_{**Due to the nature of coming from a fantasy setting and culture, the character's voice references aren't entirely set in stone, but offer a general example for his vocal range and cadence. His real accent falls somewhere into being Slavic, Cajun, and Transatlantic-influenced.}

ISKVANDAR ALIGHIERI

  DEMEANOR    Iskvandar enters a scene in brisk, serpentine stride, poised with an upturned nose and an aristocratic tongue almost snidely for its tact. A pale shadow clad in black, he tends to come across as a sharp, ruminant type with something of a flamboyant drama to his scorn and physical mannerisms; cattiness with a wicked edge. However, as prickly and pretentiously as he carries himself, Iskvandar's demeanor proves to be protean in pleasant company, betraying the persona of a covertly vivacious and blithe individual with a taste for living eccentrically.  GENDER IDENTITY    An object, a costume, a needle, a weapon. Everything a means to purpose and pageantry. Everything transient, lurking beneath deep waters.  STATUS & DISPOSITION   Brooding in some dark and lavish roost, drinking strange intrigue and scheming grand entrance.  POSITIVE TRAITS   
- Charisma
- Proteanism
- Repose
- Sapience  NEGATIVE TRAITS   
- Envy; a state of nature.
- Paranoia; a chill of the spine.
- Contemptuousness; a culling of the gauche.
- Vanity; a lifestyle for the virtuous.  MENTAL HEALTH    Peachy.  DOMINANT HAND    Right  PHYSICAL HEALTH    Precariously played with. Pride and preparedness are instinct, and thus Iskvandar cares particularly for an agile physicality. All to say that he has a decadent smoking habit.  LIKES   Marizian wine, broody haunts, and long walks in shady catacombs.  DISLIKES    Meandering pride, amateurism, and unattended children.  WANTS   
✓ - Secure real estate
✓ - Seal a pact
- Continue threading connections
- Formally open the Black Lodge
- Swallow shadows
- Spin a web  FEARS   𓅓

  MARKS & SCARS   
- Pale scar tissue occupies the back of his right hand, carved into the form of an esoteric occult sigil. Long-since healed, it poses as a vestigial memory, covered typically by leather gloves.
- A small stab wound just above the right hipbone.
- Two matching puncture marks upon the right forearm.
- Burn scarring across the back of the left hand.
- A missing left ring finger, appearing to have been amputated.  LANGUAGES    Walljack Creole || Ancient Tongue || Common Tongue  PETS   
N/A.

CREDIT

SO WITHOUT ☿

  DIARMAIT   
Loom of Echoes, Burning Ivory
Moths Aflame, Broken Glass
Gilded in Gold, Sage & Honey
Down to the Marrow, Lilies Stained in Ash
_{Susurrus of sundered scales, vining up the spine, needled past hissing apostles. No breath of poetry without its corollary; the crunch of something brittle beneath ashen sole. Where the maw of the sepulchre rears, bared before the libations of bone and flowers.}
☨ ☨
.

  DIA   
Shades Between the Regal, Crimson Needle
Imbibement of Design, Cats' Eyes
_{There dances a shadow from behind the curtain, gold strings plucked in cadence far away. To weave with delights rich and potent, savouring the machinations of that which makes the world's tail wag.}
☨

  CORWIN    
Strange Dreams of a Feather, Ink & Leather
Betwixt Lacing Veils, Serpent Scales
_{Some dark street, a quiet thicket. Glass chimes in furtive resonance beneath the graze of musing penchant. Where tittering wiles leer in their imbibement, poised before that which glints in the shade.}
☨

  ROLLAND   
Thrice-Stitched Tatters, Snapped Antlers
_{Roaming sculptures rear their heads with the flick of a grin and brandished instrument. Splintered reeds and boots in the murk, all for seasonable prospects.}

rituals honed
before the infinite maw

  PARSNIP    
Necrotic Pride, Dregs of Wine,
Dancing Effigy, Rabbits' Ivory
Leering Rhythm, Scarlet Ribbon
Writhing Beneath, Broken Teeth
_{Rattling in the roots of the willow, lurking waters lapping at the hollow. What grace is there in shedding the cast without a thrash? Or without the glamour of luring it out from snapping brambles. From all the odd corners of the dark, where echoes vine and carve into the bones of strange animals.}
☨ ☨

  SER FALLIREN    
Vestigial Glimmer, Gilded Thread
Ambition in a Sliver, Jaunting Ahead
_{Heels clicking on a marble floor, chandeliers muse in flickers of brass abstracted. One must always respect the pageantry; to pay their rites before daring to dissent, if only for the pure theatre of it.}
.

  LADY EITHNA   
Swaying Tide, Phial of Brine
Rippling Mirror, Twisting Vine
_{Cold, lapping waters wash ashore the murmurings of elsewhere. Suspended in fog, a dream carries its talisman, flickering in odd shifts of the light.}
☨
.

  ATTICUS   
Avarice Clandestine, Festered Wine
_{The squirm and writhe of something
underfoot—rakish, vining. Bared fangs gleam beneath placid veneers, yet even rogues may stake their pedigree with tasteless sportsmanship in vogue.}

  V    
Reverie, Ash in Scatters
_{Light refracts against smoke in the dark. There's laughter somewhere in the other room.}
☨

  I    
Pretense, Burnt Feathers
_{Pour the drinks and crush the flowers.}
☨

  S    
Baptism, Shattered Mirrors
_{Fate stares back through the bleeding glint of cracked reflections.}
☨

PAGE 2 >

run for the shadows
in these golden years

< PAGE 1

  SER ADRIAN   
Petty Grace in Brambles, Dried Dandelion
Black Oil Seeping, Creaking Iron
_{Stalking the edges of a dark lake, weeds are liable to snap, and where contempt roosts so too does accord and protocol. Such are the transactions gilded in fleeting shimmer.}

  EDGARD   
Bones in the Breeze, Crows' Eyes
_{Sand trickles and trickles and trickles, pooling into a hole in the night. No more to behold and less to mourn; routine procedure.}
.

  NAME    
Relationship
_[☨]

  LADY YARROW   
Half-Scrawled Sigils, Nettles & Feathers
_{Birds harp in distant song, keying the halcyon of sneers in absent fascination. To move in lockstep is to poise the spectacle; so on and so forth, if only to brace laughter for half-vexing indiscretion.}

  LEOFRIC    
Patina of Fortunes, Lucre & Old Runes
_{Cheap thrills find their luster even in cragged and unsuspecting corners. Stroke of luck and a snap of bone; such is the stuff from where credits are woven.}

  NAME    
Relationship
_[☨]

CREDIT

  FATHER   
As Above
_{Severed pride snaps at the heels of shadows who stare behind.}
☨
.

  MARGUERITE   
Reflection
_{Shrouds enveloping, mirrors eclipsed. Where an umbra pools so too do the coiling threads of frayed tapestries. Weaving in tandem, until it lies indiscernible where one ends and another begins.}
☨ ☨ ☨

  VISSARION    
Nascence
_{Brittle wishes and ash, scattered beneath white petals.}
☨

🜍 AS WITHIN

  MOTHER   
So Below
_{A cold razor's edge bites with the tenderness of a knife. Incensed whispers trickle from the willows.}
☨

  SYVIIL   
Adherence
_{A rattle of wind in the trees carries the tidings of that which never was. Prayers on a cool breeze, whisked away in lavender and brine.}
☨.

  DESCENT   
Inheritance
_{In the caul of flickering dark you bare your fangs to the sun. Not a bone left to waste.}
☨