The Criss Brothers
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 7:58 pm
I'm posting this pair as a duo because writing their history without mentioning one would be impossible. They also come in a 2-pack in every RP.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Player Name:Starless
Name: Phiarin Criss
Age: 26
Race: Human with slight traces of fire demon
Height:5’11”
Weight:130
Physical Description: Phiarin is the slimmer of the two brothers. He keeps his flaming red hair long and perfectly combed. His face is only slightly above average in looks but his charm is what makes him really handsome. Phiarin’s eyes are dark dark brown most of the time but sometimes they turn hazel. His clothes are always sharp and perfectly pressed, even if he has been on the road for weeks. He carries himself in a very elegant fashion which often gives people the impression that he is of noble descent. He wears a very approachable expression but it often doesn’t reach his eyes. His clothes are of decent enough quality. A black vest over a white shirt with voluminous sleeves, pants of a soft dove gray, and a pair of fine but worn black leather boots. He has a dagger tucked away in his right boot and wears a silver ring on each of his ring fingers. His demon heritage has no bearing on his looks at all
Possessions: Boot dagger, two silver rings.
Powers or Strengths:
Street Smart
He is one smart cookie when it comes to navigating Keltaris and spotting his marks.
Persuasion
He is extremely persuasive. He could sell you a bridge given the opportunity. He simply has a way with words, there is no magical ablility involved.
Charm
He has an easy way of making friends with the innocent. More street smart people tend to catch onto his profession rather quickly.
Cold-blooded
He will do anything to achieve his goals. Be it murder or otherwise
Pragmatic
Although he has his own goals which are mostly set in stone, he is willing to change his plans if the event calls for it. He also has no set alignment. If the good guys are the ones who are going to prevail in the end, he’ll be a good guy. If being a rat bastard is more lucrative, then by gosh he’s going to be a bad guy.
Weaknesses:
Greedy
Sometimes his greed drives him into really stupid positions. Since he often plays two sides of the law, he tends to walk the edge of a sword
Impulsive
Changes his mind often. It is the downside of being so pragmatic. When it works it’s called Pragmatism, and when it fails it’s called Impulsiveness.
Name: Philanfiel Criss
Age:31
Race:Human with Traces of Fire Demon
Height:6’3”
Weight:189
Physical Description: He is the bigger of the brothers. He is mostly muscles and has an impassive face which is the exact opposite of his brother’s approachable one. Unlike his brother, he keeps his red hair shorn close to his head. His eyes, unreadable even in the most heated if situations, are a light brown. A scar runs across the bridge of his nose and another across his neck. Philanfiel keeps his arms uncovered in all kinds of weather. Due to his fire demon heritage, he has partial protection against cold. On his shoulders, down his spine, and down his arms are intricate knots and swirls. He wears a jerkin made of leather and a guard that covers his heart and part of his right side and black pants made of sturdy linen and boots made out of much weathered leather. On his hips he wears a pair of curved blades.
Possessions: curved blades
Powers or Strengths:
Fire Demon protection
His fire demon heritage gives him partial protection against the cold due to a higher than normal body temperature and slightly thicker skin. This also means that weaker weapons, such as a shoddily made dagger, will glance right off his skin.
Swordmanship
Philanfiel is very skilled with his pair of swords. He acts as the muscle and intimidation of the brother’s two man group.
Level-headedness
He is as sensible as his brother is impulsive. He is the oft-ignored voice of reason
Brawler
Thanks to his upbringing on the streets he is very good at fisticuffs. He has very large hands with snuckles covered by scar tissue.
Street Smart
He is just as prudent as his brother when it comes to working the city.
Weaknesses:
Cuts loose
When he’s on a job he’s as clean as a whistle, but once they get their pay he tends to hit up gambling dens and drink until the world turns itself inside out.
Women
He doesn’t look like the sort, but Philanfiel really likes women. Short women, skinny women, tall women, they can all either be bought or charmed as far as he’s concerned.
History: Philanfiel was born in Corezo to a former beauty and a small-time criminal by the name of Arkus Criss. Arkus was an idealist at heart. He often bragged that back in the day his great great many times great grandmother had married a fire demon and so all of their progeny were cursed only with good luck. Unfortunately for Arkus this was not the case. Arkus ran a small business. His shop, a bakery with the worst bread in existence, was simply a cover for his criminal activity. He didn’t do anything too large. Petty gambling in the back room, pickpocketing, cock fights, he’d tried just about everything. Unfortunately, Philanfiel’s father wasn’t all that talented a criminal. A few months before his son was born, his bakery floundered and finally drowned under the weight of his debt. But when his son came into the picture, he saw an opportunity.
When the boy was 6, he took him out with him on a busy street and began to teach him how to pickpocket. The boy was alert and quick to learn. Soon, he surpassed his father and it was as if people’s bishani purses fell into his hands by magic. Pleased, his father moved on to the next lesson, the art of running a con. For a year Arkus and his son worked. With the boy’s then angelic looks and innocent stares it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Put the kid in some rags with crutches and people would all but throw money at him. The boy also had a gift for spotting marks once he had the trick of it. Soon Arkus didn’t even have to come with him on his cons. They worked their span of Corezo dry and soon had to relocate. Fool that he was, Arkus chose Keltaris.
Phiarin was born when Philanfiel was 6 years old. Unlike other young brothers, it was if from the beginning they were a team meant for nothing but trouble. Phiarin, a precocoious child, learned to walk at 6 months. In two more years he was able to talk. From there on, he and his brother worked together flawlessly. Cookies would disappear from the jar, pie from the windowsill. It was done so smoothly that their mother could never catch them. Soon, she gave up entirely and simply made two of everything. One day, Arkus simply didn’t come back from a con. The boys, who didn’t much care for their father in the first place, simply shrugged it off and when back to playing their mysterious games. Their mother on the other hand, who had loved her useless husband dearly was crushed. All day she would sit by the window. Then one day, a man came to their small apartment.
The man was charming, said he was from the Salinari family. He wasted little time on formalities though. He told their mother of how Arkus had been working for them and thanks to his family had garnered a small amount of debt. So he had come to her in hopes that she could pay the rest of what her husband owed and he would be returned to her unharmed. Of course she couldn’t, so slyly the man from Salinari suggested that she sell her body to them. They had a small prostitution ring in Keltaris and she was pretty enough. If she kept at it for a few years she could easily make enough to pay them off and then some. Sadly, she agreed. The children on the other hand were of no use to the Salinari so there were put out onto the streets.
The boys took up residence in a back alley they had discovered on one of their many forays out into the city with their father. The boys decided that in order to keep on living, they would have to do what they do best. They started with the simple stuff. Stealing fruit here and there, picking a pocket or two. When that wasn’t enough to keep them they moved up to small cons. The beggar child was their most lucrative but even that began to run dry. It was time they did something bigger so that’s what they did. Their first big con was what caught the attention of the Tarsis street children who had been working the area. They were ganged up on, beaten within an inch of their lives, and warned not to mess with Tarsis loot ever again.
Sore and bloody, the brothers found an orphanage and stayed there for a few months to recuperate. The women in charge of the place were spooked by these two boys. The elder didn’t seem to know any English while the younger did all of the talking. When they arrived, it was if a gloom was cast upon the place. Food started disappearing from the kitchen and bishani from the coffers. They would catch some of the orphans in the act, innocents who had never done an evil thing in their life, and try to make them confess that it was the strange brothers but they would never say a thing. After a few months had passed the pair simply up and disappeared. The orphanage breathed a sigh of relief.
While in the orphanage, the boys had come up with a plan. Find a Tarsis pickpocket, several if they could manage it, and get them caught. The bishani they stole from the orphanage was put into several purses. The boys waited on a busy street watching carefully for street kids up to no good. Soon enough they saw a handful. Philanfiel was the best at pickpocketing so he was the one who planted the fake purses. Phiarin was the one who found their ‘marks’ and told them that those kids had just picked their pockets. A great clamor arose and soon all of the street kids except one were rounded up. Of course the purses didn’t belong to the people but they took them quietly and gleefully. Philanfiel then took back as many of the bait purses as he could grab. Satisfied with their work they decided to go out and eat. They were sitting in a dive of a restaurant being eyed by the cook when an older man sat down at the table.
He was from Tarsis. That statement almost made the boys bolt from the restaurant but he calmed them. He was simply offering them a business opportunity. They were clever, and even at their ages they were prepared to get back at their enemies. The Tarsis family was now short a few pickpockets and the boys obviously needed a source of income. So he suggested that in exchange for a percent of their takings and room and board that the brothers come and work for his family. Phiarin shrugged and agreed. It was better than working for the Salinari, anyway.
They worked for the Tarsis family past their teens and into adulthood. As they grew older they rose in rank. The brothers never met the inner circle of the family but that didn’t bother them too much. Compared to the others in the family’s employ they were elites. The brothers soon grew bored with being Tarsis criminals so they left the family and went solo for awhile. They were a formidable team. At the age of 20, Phiarin could sell a snake its’ skin. At 26 he as even sharper still At 25, Phiarin was so skilled with his pair of blades that only the foolhardy dared to argue with them. At 31 he had picked up a reputation for hacking first and asking questions later. It was during this time that Phiarin and Philanfiel learned the joys of playing the sides. With the same smooth efficiency they’d perfected as children the brothers would make sure that the guard was in the right place at the right time to catch a few rats. Sometimes, they would make the guard disappear and help the bad guys. It was all a matter of which was more lucrative. On the streets they gained a nickname: The Criss Cross brothers. Any rat was careful when they were around. They never knew when the brothers would decide to make them disappear.
For the brothers, business was good.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Player Name:Starless
Name: Phiarin Criss
Age: 26
Race: Human with slight traces of fire demon
Height:5’11”
Weight:130
Physical Description: Phiarin is the slimmer of the two brothers. He keeps his flaming red hair long and perfectly combed. His face is only slightly above average in looks but his charm is what makes him really handsome. Phiarin’s eyes are dark dark brown most of the time but sometimes they turn hazel. His clothes are always sharp and perfectly pressed, even if he has been on the road for weeks. He carries himself in a very elegant fashion which often gives people the impression that he is of noble descent. He wears a very approachable expression but it often doesn’t reach his eyes. His clothes are of decent enough quality. A black vest over a white shirt with voluminous sleeves, pants of a soft dove gray, and a pair of fine but worn black leather boots. He has a dagger tucked away in his right boot and wears a silver ring on each of his ring fingers. His demon heritage has no bearing on his looks at all
Possessions: Boot dagger, two silver rings.
Powers or Strengths:
Street Smart
He is one smart cookie when it comes to navigating Keltaris and spotting his marks.
Persuasion
He is extremely persuasive. He could sell you a bridge given the opportunity. He simply has a way with words, there is no magical ablility involved.
Charm
He has an easy way of making friends with the innocent. More street smart people tend to catch onto his profession rather quickly.
Cold-blooded
He will do anything to achieve his goals. Be it murder or otherwise
Pragmatic
Although he has his own goals which are mostly set in stone, he is willing to change his plans if the event calls for it. He also has no set alignment. If the good guys are the ones who are going to prevail in the end, he’ll be a good guy. If being a rat bastard is more lucrative, then by gosh he’s going to be a bad guy.
Weaknesses:
Greedy
Sometimes his greed drives him into really stupid positions. Since he often plays two sides of the law, he tends to walk the edge of a sword
Impulsive
Changes his mind often. It is the downside of being so pragmatic. When it works it’s called Pragmatism, and when it fails it’s called Impulsiveness.
Name: Philanfiel Criss
Age:31
Race:Human with Traces of Fire Demon
Height:6’3”
Weight:189
Physical Description: He is the bigger of the brothers. He is mostly muscles and has an impassive face which is the exact opposite of his brother’s approachable one. Unlike his brother, he keeps his red hair shorn close to his head. His eyes, unreadable even in the most heated if situations, are a light brown. A scar runs across the bridge of his nose and another across his neck. Philanfiel keeps his arms uncovered in all kinds of weather. Due to his fire demon heritage, he has partial protection against cold. On his shoulders, down his spine, and down his arms are intricate knots and swirls. He wears a jerkin made of leather and a guard that covers his heart and part of his right side and black pants made of sturdy linen and boots made out of much weathered leather. On his hips he wears a pair of curved blades.
Possessions: curved blades
Powers or Strengths:
Fire Demon protection
His fire demon heritage gives him partial protection against the cold due to a higher than normal body temperature and slightly thicker skin. This also means that weaker weapons, such as a shoddily made dagger, will glance right off his skin.
Swordmanship
Philanfiel is very skilled with his pair of swords. He acts as the muscle and intimidation of the brother’s two man group.
Level-headedness
He is as sensible as his brother is impulsive. He is the oft-ignored voice of reason
Brawler
Thanks to his upbringing on the streets he is very good at fisticuffs. He has very large hands with snuckles covered by scar tissue.
Street Smart
He is just as prudent as his brother when it comes to working the city.
Weaknesses:
Cuts loose
When he’s on a job he’s as clean as a whistle, but once they get their pay he tends to hit up gambling dens and drink until the world turns itself inside out.
Women
He doesn’t look like the sort, but Philanfiel really likes women. Short women, skinny women, tall women, they can all either be bought or charmed as far as he’s concerned.
History: Philanfiel was born in Corezo to a former beauty and a small-time criminal by the name of Arkus Criss. Arkus was an idealist at heart. He often bragged that back in the day his great great many times great grandmother had married a fire demon and so all of their progeny were cursed only with good luck. Unfortunately for Arkus this was not the case. Arkus ran a small business. His shop, a bakery with the worst bread in existence, was simply a cover for his criminal activity. He didn’t do anything too large. Petty gambling in the back room, pickpocketing, cock fights, he’d tried just about everything. Unfortunately, Philanfiel’s father wasn’t all that talented a criminal. A few months before his son was born, his bakery floundered and finally drowned under the weight of his debt. But when his son came into the picture, he saw an opportunity.
When the boy was 6, he took him out with him on a busy street and began to teach him how to pickpocket. The boy was alert and quick to learn. Soon, he surpassed his father and it was as if people’s bishani purses fell into his hands by magic. Pleased, his father moved on to the next lesson, the art of running a con. For a year Arkus and his son worked. With the boy’s then angelic looks and innocent stares it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Put the kid in some rags with crutches and people would all but throw money at him. The boy also had a gift for spotting marks once he had the trick of it. Soon Arkus didn’t even have to come with him on his cons. They worked their span of Corezo dry and soon had to relocate. Fool that he was, Arkus chose Keltaris.
Phiarin was born when Philanfiel was 6 years old. Unlike other young brothers, it was if from the beginning they were a team meant for nothing but trouble. Phiarin, a precocoious child, learned to walk at 6 months. In two more years he was able to talk. From there on, he and his brother worked together flawlessly. Cookies would disappear from the jar, pie from the windowsill. It was done so smoothly that their mother could never catch them. Soon, she gave up entirely and simply made two of everything. One day, Arkus simply didn’t come back from a con. The boys, who didn’t much care for their father in the first place, simply shrugged it off and when back to playing their mysterious games. Their mother on the other hand, who had loved her useless husband dearly was crushed. All day she would sit by the window. Then one day, a man came to their small apartment.
The man was charming, said he was from the Salinari family. He wasted little time on formalities though. He told their mother of how Arkus had been working for them and thanks to his family had garnered a small amount of debt. So he had come to her in hopes that she could pay the rest of what her husband owed and he would be returned to her unharmed. Of course she couldn’t, so slyly the man from Salinari suggested that she sell her body to them. They had a small prostitution ring in Keltaris and she was pretty enough. If she kept at it for a few years she could easily make enough to pay them off and then some. Sadly, she agreed. The children on the other hand were of no use to the Salinari so there were put out onto the streets.
The boys took up residence in a back alley they had discovered on one of their many forays out into the city with their father. The boys decided that in order to keep on living, they would have to do what they do best. They started with the simple stuff. Stealing fruit here and there, picking a pocket or two. When that wasn’t enough to keep them they moved up to small cons. The beggar child was their most lucrative but even that began to run dry. It was time they did something bigger so that’s what they did. Their first big con was what caught the attention of the Tarsis street children who had been working the area. They were ganged up on, beaten within an inch of their lives, and warned not to mess with Tarsis loot ever again.
Sore and bloody, the brothers found an orphanage and stayed there for a few months to recuperate. The women in charge of the place were spooked by these two boys. The elder didn’t seem to know any English while the younger did all of the talking. When they arrived, it was if a gloom was cast upon the place. Food started disappearing from the kitchen and bishani from the coffers. They would catch some of the orphans in the act, innocents who had never done an evil thing in their life, and try to make them confess that it was the strange brothers but they would never say a thing. After a few months had passed the pair simply up and disappeared. The orphanage breathed a sigh of relief.
While in the orphanage, the boys had come up with a plan. Find a Tarsis pickpocket, several if they could manage it, and get them caught. The bishani they stole from the orphanage was put into several purses. The boys waited on a busy street watching carefully for street kids up to no good. Soon enough they saw a handful. Philanfiel was the best at pickpocketing so he was the one who planted the fake purses. Phiarin was the one who found their ‘marks’ and told them that those kids had just picked their pockets. A great clamor arose and soon all of the street kids except one were rounded up. Of course the purses didn’t belong to the people but they took them quietly and gleefully. Philanfiel then took back as many of the bait purses as he could grab. Satisfied with their work they decided to go out and eat. They were sitting in a dive of a restaurant being eyed by the cook when an older man sat down at the table.
He was from Tarsis. That statement almost made the boys bolt from the restaurant but he calmed them. He was simply offering them a business opportunity. They were clever, and even at their ages they were prepared to get back at their enemies. The Tarsis family was now short a few pickpockets and the boys obviously needed a source of income. So he suggested that in exchange for a percent of their takings and room and board that the brothers come and work for his family. Phiarin shrugged and agreed. It was better than working for the Salinari, anyway.
They worked for the Tarsis family past their teens and into adulthood. As they grew older they rose in rank. The brothers never met the inner circle of the family but that didn’t bother them too much. Compared to the others in the family’s employ they were elites. The brothers soon grew bored with being Tarsis criminals so they left the family and went solo for awhile. They were a formidable team. At the age of 20, Phiarin could sell a snake its’ skin. At 26 he as even sharper still At 25, Phiarin was so skilled with his pair of blades that only the foolhardy dared to argue with them. At 31 he had picked up a reputation for hacking first and asking questions later. It was during this time that Phiarin and Philanfiel learned the joys of playing the sides. With the same smooth efficiency they’d perfected as children the brothers would make sure that the guard was in the right place at the right time to catch a few rats. Sometimes, they would make the guard disappear and help the bad guys. It was all a matter of which was more lucrative. On the streets they gained a nickname: The Criss Cross brothers. Any rat was careful when they were around. They never knew when the brothers would decide to make them disappear.
For the brothers, business was good.