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The background bullets and collab 
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Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 9:02 pm
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Post Re: The background bullets and collab
The Coemhghin twins, Evelyn and Kevin were born at 6:32 to 6:41 pm on November 21, 1830, in Glasgow, Scotland to the wealthy Coemhghin family of the North end. As such, they led a privileged existence that allowed access to the best tutors and educators as well as most creature comforts that could be afforded to the upper class of 19th century Scotland. Sadly, this did not include the irreplaceable love and affection of parental influence. No, the Coemhghins were always consumed by the business of managing the estate, ever adding to the family's wealth, and partaking of the social scene that wealth afforded and mandated participation in. That left the twins to the care of their nanny, A dower old woman of pure Scottish heritage that answered to the name of Catriona and had a fondness for corporal punishment.

Evelyn, stubborn, head-strong, and well educated for most of her youth, often fell under the displeasure of Catriona for multiple instances of correcting grammar and derailing stories and lessons with her tutors to debate minute details and the validity of certain interpretations of history. Kevin didn't fare too much better, though his transgressions were more along the lines of illicit use of his learning rather than just flaunting his knowledge. He'd often get into one prank or another, setting up elaborate practical jokes, or making a mockery of his science tutors.

Despite such adversities they maintained a certain pride and opinionation, that would see them getting into all manner of trouble in academic institutions and eventually drawing them towards the occult, Evelyn leading the way. The money and prestige of their family only served to grease the way towards arcane secrets and finance their odd tastes. There was a certain tolerance afforded to the fire-haired twins, possibly due to the strange mystique of the proud and the stubborn; that touch of charm and strangeness letting Evelyn spend an entirely different sort of currency for her treasured occult secrets at one point in her life. It didn't sit well with Kevin, but he didn't turn down the fruits of her labors, either.

Their studies, both mundane and occulted, kept their interest into the years of the late 1840s, when their pool of occult secrets and their interest in non-occulted sciences dried up. The twins spent several years exploring the British Isles for more esoteric knowledge and eventually came to the conclusion that they would have to travel abroad if they really wanted to get into any sort of high-level secrets. Looking for an option likely to take them into reach of their desired secrets and keep them safe, Kevin suggested joining the East India Company with him as an officer, which would allow his sister to travel with him.

Unfortunately for the Coemhghins, the East India Company's power and influence were soon drastically reduced by the British crown, just a few years after them joining. They did manage to ingratiate themselves into a few societies in India and China during that time though. This served to further increase not only their knowledge of the occult, but their thirst for more and their belief that travel abroad was the proper way to acquire it.

Their time spent in the east also placed a certain enthusiasm for both occulted and more traditional medicinal approaches, a bright point in an otherwise trying time for Evelyn due to her own lack of status because of a mere contrivance of gender. Kevin, meanwhile, dedicated himself to arts going in a contrary direction. Among the Indian natives, he learned the arts of wielding a blade and its proper place in a conflict; among the Chinese he learned the subtler and on occasion more mystical arts of hand to hand combat.

In a none-to-surprising turn of events, in January of 1874, the crown finally did in the company with their East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act. The twins, having recently heard some noise about some tribal shamans in the Americas who were supposedly able to perform all manner of interesting feats, decided to try their lot there as the company dissolved. Within a few more years, the now-middle-aged siblings managed to ingratiate themselves with an Apalachicolan medicine man through a show of their occult and ritual knowledge. He agreed to show them some of his ways for a glimpse into the knowledge of the spirits that they possessed.

For both the twins the time spent among the Apalachicola was one of refreshing simplicity and unparalleled brilliance. For the first time in years Evelyn was almost entirely free of the shackles that contemporary society had imposed on her and was learning the mystic rituals of a strange people. Kevin found himself drawn to the life of hunting and the nobility of the warrior caste. Ultimately, neither lost sight of their goal and in the quiet of the evenings both were feverishly devouring the lore the elders and their medicine man would allow them.

As they grew in esteem among the tribe they found grander and grander vistas of lore available to them from the homely wisdoms of some of the tribeswoman to the violent warrior lore of the tribe’s defenders. This all coalesced into the strange and ancient rites that would lead to their purification and exaltation from the mortal coil. As this secret unfolded before their study, all three grew more and more obsessed with its notions. Evelyn, Kevin and White Crow, the medicine man, were acutely aware of the ravages of age lurking in the lofts. Evelyn was no longer without wrinkle and now and then her memory was prone to only dredging up vagaries on topics she once knew intimately. Kevin’s own vitality had begun to wane the creaks and cracks of his hard and energetic life catching up with him.

Encouraged ever onward by White Crow, the eldest of the three, they found themselves on the eve of the ritual all the details set and all the preparations made. Only a promise held them back, one made to White Crow: to aid him in his own purification before he would divulge the final piece to their tantalizing puzzle. It was a promise easily made.

All preparations in place, they first combined their skills to complete White Crow's ritual, drawing the appropriate signs and sigils and chanting the called-for rites over his body as a powerful toxin took its effect on him. They completed the ritual and night set in. They had no idea how long the process could take, but they decided between themselves that everything was right and they'd wait a week or longer if they had to. The evening was long, indeed, as they continued to watch and wait for some sign of their success, each heart beat was an eternity, and each passing moment some greater infinity. The night soon grew old and the sun grew close to rising.

By morning, White Crow's body started to stir and, covered in white chalk sigils and candle wax drippings, he stood before them, Purified. He told the twins of a vast land of spirits, beautiful beyond imagining and how he now counted himself among their ranks. The twins, eager to join their mentor in his ascendance, quickly completed the ritual with his help and descended, together, into oblivion. The toxin’s bite was a searing moment in memory as it surged to stop their hearts in an instant, the black oblivion that swept up to meet their eyes and falling minds would stay with them for decades after. But one easily rationalized; all things had a price and immortality’s was a single death.

They found themselves in the land White Crow had described, lost for a time, though they found each other quickly. Unsure where they were, but pulled inexorably onwards towards their bodies, they travelled. They met several spirits on the way, some friendly, some less so, but their occult knowledge and their partnership kept them safe and they woke, changed as night fell in the village.

With immortality now theirs, the twins had little reason to stay with the tribe and the now ageless White Crow. With quiet farewells the two groups went their separate directions. For a time they pursued their occult interests endlessly and began to acquaint themselves with the changing times. It was not long, in the eyes of an immortal being, before the first signs of World War I began to show themselves.

Evelyn, ever the occultist and avid research, proposed a grand study of the effect war might have on spirit realm and this simple notion and the ever continuing thirst for knowledge led them to Europe. The results and experience they wrested from the cold nature of war were an invaluable find. Let alone the multiple small nuances they were able to discern from some of the battlefields. Kevin busied himself in the interim with regaining some measure of contemporary expertise in his sciences. There had been a great deal of advancements in chemistry and other things since he'd lost himself in the spiritual. These new guns and weapons would take some study, too.

When taking small breaks from their observation, Evelyn partook of some small business ventures, plying the family wealth in investments to compound their own personal holdings. With such funds she made many purchases of precious gems and gold bars to tuck neatly away in secure caches that she fashioned and buried with the aid of her brother's more physical talents. Kevin wasn't as worried about the monetary side of things. Wealth was transitive and they simply weren't. Skills and knowledge were the things he decided to focus on, for this brief time they'd allow themselves to be human again.

After the war faded, Evelyn and Kevin returned to the states, this time in Chicago and embroiled themselves in the illicit activities of the Prohibition. Looking back, neither can really tell a good reason why they did it. Perhaps they just needed a bit of extra time to stretch their legs. In any case, their reign as shadowy alcohol czars came to an abrupt end in a hail of gunfire from a rival. They decided showing themselves after such a public death would be ill-advised and returned to their shadowy haunts in the Oklahoma hills again, near where they'd once left White Crow's tribe.

During these times, neither twin being too practiced a hand at simply living off the land for extended times, Evelyn would travel to town and pose as one relative of theirs or another to buy supplies. Sometimes she'd be a distant cousin, sometimes a distant great great grand daughter, it didn't really matter. Though, eventually this caught up to her in the form of banks seeking proof of their identity. The two of them then found themselves travelling back to bonny old Scotland to sort out the papers.

Kevin's talents in getting things from people and Evelyn's more academic talents got them the papers, or stunning forgeries of them, that they needed to reassert their claim to the family fortune, though while there, they heard rumors of another great conflict brewing. Soon, World War II had erupted in Europe and Hitler's famed fascination with the occult led the sister and brother again into the dragon's teeth in search of the esoteric.

That hunt brought them to the very head of the beast: Berlin. It was there that Evelyn began her own occult studies into the lore that Hitler’s covens unearthed. Politically emancipated and jaded by the march of time as she was, she expressed something of a disconnect from the suffering the Nazis were inflicting, the situation reflecting the first world war in far too many ways for her to seriously contemplate the ramifications on anything other than the shadow and its denizens. Whilst she studied, Kevin acted on his conscience finding strange and interesting ways to ingratiate himself into various political circles and strike like lightening at the heart, more often than not with total disregard for his safety.

Evelyn’s erudite nature and seeming intimate familiarity with the supernatural world drew her recognition and attention in the shadowed circles she roamed. Soon she found herself approached by uniform officers while grocery shopping and offered a unique opportunity. She accepted, of course, and found herself initiated into one of the many occult orders that the Fuehrer favored. The unparallel access to libraries and lore in a multitude of languages soon laid the grounds for vast improvement on her knowledge of rituals and spirits. There were other benefits to her position and membership to the cult, mostly in satisfying her own lustful appetites in pursuit of occult lore and really her own insatiable drive.

Whilst she played Kevin engaged in his own sport. Utterly unwilling to become known among the various resistance movements, he operated alone stalking German officers and political figures and often striking in catastrophic suicide bombings. His predations became so severe at points that most public figures and members of the military refused to move in anything smaller then 30-40 man processions in the capital’s streets. Yet still he managed to strike, sowing fear and disarray among the Reich. The war had to end, that was inevitable, and that became too clear when the Soviet war machine rolled into the streets of Berlin. Kevin’s made his exit in the initial days of the city's storm when he was caught in the cross fire between soviet soldiers and the last hold outs of the German elite panzers in the city. Evelyn perished mere hours later caught in the throes of a dire rite proposed by the order’s Arch-Master in a last ditch effort to save the Germany Hitler had envisioned, in a state of disrobement she would regret for a great many years to come, no less. A week and several days later, they arose from the ritual crypts they had enchanted in the hills in Oklahoma refreshed and, in Evelyn’s case, embarrassed by the details of their demise.

Once more, they found themselves living out of what was by this point a fairly luxuriously equipped hunting cabin in the hills of Oklahoma. They'd recently had the cabin wired up for communications and given themselves a crash course on surfing the net when a couple feelers Evelyn's put out brought them news on the strange events that had unfolded in Springfield. In pursuit of the case, Evelyn took her time ingratiating herself with the government at municipal, state, and federal levels; tapping into a network of friends and associates that had existed for a very long time thanks to her occasional forays into the wide world of governance. The trail was hot and the hunt was on again.


Sun Dec 20, 2009 6:27 pm
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