Portraits.

[ze_arteests]

✏ Portraits in Décollage function the way they did in Mario 64, for those of us old enough to remember that. For those that aren’t, basically that means they’re doorways into portrait worlds! You jump into one, you jump into the world (usually) depicted in that portrait. NPCs hold games inside their own portraits. However, like in the game where you had to have enough stars in order to be able to enter one, the portraits are not always open to being entered.

✏ Dormitories. Each team dormitory is located inside a portrait. Team dorms are kept locked or opened by passwords. Teams can change their passwords whenever they want, and whoever knows the password can enter. However, if someone not on the team attempts to change the password, it won’t work.

✏ The Drop Mural. A large mural that has no associated NPCs, that sometimes characters disappear into, staying in a limbo state until it spits them back out again. It shows a room with all the currently dropped characters sleeping, peacefully. A plaque below it labels it “The Bigger Picture”.





MODERATOR PORTRAITS.

Girl with the Balloon ("Sophie")
buoyantsy
played by Vic
Description: Crude crayon drawing of grass + house + tree + sun + one happy-looking brown-haired girl with a rainbow-colored balloon. Balloon rainbow only has the colors of the teams on it. The girl is the only person in the picture.

Mary
hadalittle
played by Tristan
Patron: Saffron
Patron Deal: Individual boons for members. They must intervene in cases where a character is about to die, and guard any corpses they find until Mary may arrive.
Description: The painting shows a bright spring meadow, a breeze gently tickling the grass. A young maiden shepherdess with with the horns of a ram is lazing indolently beneath the canopy of a tree, her flock grazing nearby. She is absently petting a well-fed wolf, his head in her lap. The sheep don’t appear to notice.

NPC PORTRAITS.

The Alchemist's Apprentice
seekinggold
Patron: N/A
Patron Deal: Summoned angel servants useful for battle, on a time limit of a couple of minutes, with individual player-designed custom powers. The cost is being a test subject of the Alchemist Apprentice (Random status effects) and regularly gathering materials for her.
Played by Hinoryu
Description: A girl with red hair sitting in a stone dungeon, carefully stirring a potion in a great cauldron. Vials and flasks line a table behind her, filled with all colors of liquids, and a single red stone sitting on a parchment.

Birds of a Feather
flocktogether
Patron: Cardinal
Patron Deal: The power to inflict fear/confusion status with a bird screech. Cardinal must gather information for the birds.
Played by Karri
Description: A watercolor piece, horizontally long, in a gradating rainbow of colors. Background detail is faint, but there; the bottom a reflective pool, clouds drifting idly, perhaps some trees hidden in mist. A flock of dozens of birds soar across the entirety of the painting in similar shades to their rainbow sky, their own colors overlapping the background's a shade too early. The beginning of the painting starts in lighthearted pastels, giving a feeling of peace and serenity-- as you move on, the colors become brighter and happier. After a midpoint, they begin to dull sadly, and then finally darken with a sense of paranoia and deep depression. The birds begin to look more ragged and tired the closer to the end you get.

The Bone Witch
witchesandscores
Played by Rikki
Patron: Canary
Patron Deal: The ability to raise and control the dead. The cost is romantic affection she can voyeur.
Description: A traditional cave finger-painting, absent on the details but giving the impression of eerie cheer. There’s a curve for a cave, and a black cauldron inside, but what draws the eye is the white paint bones that litter the floor. The further you look into the darkness, the deeper the pile and larger the bones.

A woman dressed in fine animal skins, with a hand of white bone, stirs the cauldron.

A Dealer's Choice
fullhoused
played by Nikki
Patron: N/A
Patron Deal: One of the following: The ability to turn a body part diamond hard, a 50% shot of charming others into obeying them, the ability to make anyone tell the truth for five comments, the ability to induce intoxication with a touch. The cost is working at his emotionally-traumatizing casino while wearing embarrassing outfits.
Description: The painting is actually very simple! It has a black and red checkered background, and at its center are four white boxes, two in each row. Each box contains one of the suits in a normal deck of cards (from left-to-right, top-to-bottom: red diamond, red heart, black spade, and black clover). At the painting's foreground is a young gentleman, wearing black slacks, a violet-coloured long sleeved shirt, a black coat, and a hat. His face says nothing but "let the games begin".

Dragon
virgitarian
played by Excel
Patron: Celeste
Patron Deal: Absolute protection of their portrait in exchange for food.
Description: A black dragon, covered with horns and scales, lounges on a rocky beach by the ocean. Its leathery wings are curled up at its sides, and its eyes convey a feeling of brutal intelligence.

The Festival Girl
forthefunofit
Patron: N/A
Patron Deal: Temporarily blinding fireworks in exchange for cleaning up after her parties, or collecting things for her parties.
played by Chizu
Description: The scenery is that of the town’s square; in it, balloons of every color are scattered; painting captures them in the middle of being carried away by the wind. Striped tents line the back, and food booths adorn the edges of the portrait. The instruments of a musical band can be seen at the side, separated by the elevation of a circular stage. The focus of the picture is a young girl with a small bouquet of assorted flowers in one hand; she is dancing. There is a Ferris wheel in the back, past the striped tents, and the beginnings of a larger tent. If you squint hard enough, maybe you can see the traces of something that should be there-- and perhaps it's people, for the girl is the only one in sight. At the corner is a closeup of a flyer, with only the letters "WELC" in bold Old English font visible.

The Frayed
threadbared
played by Styx
Description: The Frayed's artwork is actually a tapestry-- an old one, with frayed and unraveling edges and dusty threads. The scene depicted on the tapestry is a dim room with wooden floors, lit only by an oil lamp in the corner. The room is filled with piles upon piles upon piles of unwoven threads, all in different colors, and all cast aside haphazardly without a care for organization (the room depicted in the tapestry is very cluttered). In the center of the room is a medieval style loom, which has a half-finished tapestry affixed to it. Sitting in front of the loom is a young woman with dark brown, very tangled hair that falls to the center of her back. She is clothed in a dusty brown, oversized cloak (that doesn't have a hood), and her back is to the audience so her face is obscured by her tangled mess of hair. She's pulling on several threads of the half-finished tapestry, deliberately unraveling it and casting aside the thread in a pile next to the loom. Hanging from the ceiling, suspended in the air from their arms and legs by pieces of thread stolen from unwoven tapestries, are a few (two? three? did that number change since the last time you counted?) cloth dolls.

Girl With Headphones ("Regina")
radiosnatched
played by Aaron
Patron: Teal
Patron Deal: Surgical kits, so that the team may perform surgery. The cost is collecting information for Regina, talking to her after every game, and divulging every detail of your personal life to her.
Description: The background looks like some sort of radio control tower: a long desk that you see only half of, with many buttons and levers and screens attached. It is extremely realistic, almost like a photograph, and it might not be until you touch the painting that you understand it is not a place you can enter at most times. In the midground there is what looks like a radio tower, but as your eyes go upwards the tower transforms into a girl with headphones. She has her hands placed over the headphones, like she's listening intently. Her clothes are simple: pure black t-shirt with white jeans that connect at about the waist to the radio tower -- for someone looking at the complete picture, it is as if she were a part of the tower, or if her human form was purely a representation.

She has her back slightly turned from the viewer, as if she is working on something on one of the panels. Only the barest hint of her face is visible; the expression is interested but pleasantly neutral.

The Imaginary Friend
pretendyfuntimes
played by Mori
Description: The painting shows what looks to be a stereotypical little girl's tea party in a garden - in the foreground there's an ornate white table with several matching chairs, each with a stuffed toy animal in its seat. In the centre chair (i.e. the one directly facing the viewer), sits a girl who couldn't be older than in her preteens at most, wearing orange and green, with a yellow-ribboned hat. Her elbows are on the table with her head propped up on her hands, smiling. She looks cheerful, but if you look at it long enough it simply gives the sense of being...empty, for lack of a better word. The table has a teapot, teacups, plates, silverware, and pastries of all kinds.

Despite the detail given to the foreground, the background looks more like vaguely defined shapes done in watercolour. While it's fairly obvious it's a garden (trees and flower bushes), it's a little sparse on the details and doesn't give much sense of space, in part because someone seems to have no sense of light direction and shading.

Kiss and Tell (Seigneur)
shiningarmole
played by Nikki
Patron: N/A
Patron Offer: Seigneur offers one of the following: A defensive barrier or the ability to summon a sheep butler who can use fire-based magic spells (ranges from weak-medium, depending on user's mental state).

Dark Seigneur offers one of the following: Being temporarily invisible for ten comments or the ability to summon a weapon (sword/spear/bow & arrow) or a shield -- all made from magic. The weapon's durability and strength depends on the user's mental state, as well as their physical strength. All abilities are timed.

In return, the portrait wants emotional trauma from other teams, blackmail and lies.
Description: The portrait appears as a very simple one. White background, with two girls who look exactly alike facing each other and holding hands. They both have purple hair, red eyes; but the distinguishing factor between the two is that one of them has her hair up in an English braid, while the other wears hers down.

The one whose hair is up wears armor, and has a bloodstained sword on her waist, coming off as a knight. On the other hand, the one whose hair is down wears a black leotard and thighhighs. As for the expressions on their faces, one has a very serene look on her face, while the other looks like the type to kiss and tell.

The Narrator
fairytelling
Played by Rikki
Description: It appears to be a white canvas covered in words, generally the start of fairytales. Many of the words appear melted or distorted, and it's impossible to read all of the sentences. How... Avant Garde...?!

"Rejoice"
rejoints
played by AJ
Patron: N/A
Patron Deal: One of the following:

Pavlov - the ability to inflict a temporary conditioned response in a single target.

Milgram - the ability to temporarily set up 'a rule' and each time the rule is broken the target gets a small electric shock. The shocks elevate in severity over time until the effect fades.

The cost is doing something to entertain REJOICE. This could be something they'd do anyway (playing a malicious prank, torture, something cruel in general, or just the bad side of humanity being shown!) or the team will have to entertain it with themselves.

Description: If you don't look at this painting closely you might be deceived. At first glance it looks to be an apartment bedroom - with warm yellow walls (with damask patterning!). It has a youthful feel to it - there's a bunch of dried daisies on the windowsill, and some playing jacks on the floor. There is a desk and a bed, a chair and a beautiful view out into a cityscape dominated by a church and graveyard. The bed has a pink duvet, more pillows than one needs (white in color), a teddy bear and a Holy Bible on it. The painting seems to be from the perspective of whoever is standing in the doorway - a shadow is cast across the bed.

SEEMS LEGIT RIGHT.

But if you stare a little you'll start to notice some . . . things are off. It seems like the damask pattern in the wallpaper is . . .warped? Or maybe the wall is uneven? It almost looks like there are faces behind the wallpaper but that can't be right. There's a hand and some hair emerging from the pile of pillows - maybe a young girl is just hiding? But her hand is so pale you missed it against those pillows.

Outside of the window the city is alive with people - several of them wearing black hats, some masked in shadow. There is a meanness to the city that writhes when you focus on it. And the church . . . there is nothing friendly about it and the graveyard has far too many tombstones in it. The angels marking the gates are cruel looking and the only statues not missing body parts.

And then, of course, there's the shadow . . . now that you think about it, why would a shadow be in the doorway of what might be a child's room? Why standing over the bed? The height of the shadow indicates perhaps a young man, but perhaps not . . .especially how the top of the shadow is bizarrely square. (Is someone wearing a bag on their head!?)

The Stage (Foil Archetype and Hero Archetype)
foiled_plans heroic_couplet
played by Hino and Debs
Description:
A cityscape at twilight. Two figures clash over it in an intense fight with pink sparkles everywhere. One figure is obviously 'light', considering that a ball of light surrounds her, while the other figure is surrounded by a dark ball of shadows.

Shadows by the Wall
science_mad
played by Excel
Description: A nighttime scene, desaturated in color, depicting a foggy cobblestone street. A single figure walks the street, dressed in the attire of a Victorian gentleman but distinctly female. She carries a cane and, if you look closely, small, leather case.

Systems of Contention
systems_of_contention
played by Aviy
Patron: N/A
Patron Deal: Upgrades to your body or mind: A robot arm that has lasers, or a stomach that will let you digest basically anything, or eyes that can see in infarred and heat signatures and in the dark, etc. In exchange, Systems takes over your home portrait and may steal your belongings.
Description: Looks like this, in general. However at times the background shifts, blurs of giant androids move in and out of picture. The white and black android can also at times be seen in other positions, but always pursuing some glowing white light.

Three Winged Rabbits
rabbitrabbitrabbit
played by Katie
Patron: N/A
Patron Deal: Enhancing speed for up to fifteen minutes or until it's cancelled with exhaustion based on how long they used it for, in exchange for working in garden for a certain amount of time every week.
Description: The centerpiece of this painting is three rabbits – one black, one white, one brown – chasing each other in a circle, brown chasing black chasing white chasing brown. Like in the symbol of the three hares, their ears are arranged in such a way that each one is shared by two rabbits, so only three ears are shown. Unlike the typical depiction of the symbol, however, these rabbits appear to have been given small bird-like wings, the same color as their fur.

These winged rabbits chasing each other are surrounded in turn by three vines, twisting around each other in a circle and eventually all twirling inward so that their ends spiral off inside the circle, one beneath each rabbit. In each of the four corners of the painting, meanwhile, are depicted different types of flowers: in the bottom right, cherry blossoms; in the bottom left, hydrangea; in the top left, chrysanthemum; and in the top right, poinsettia.

Tree Girl
childgames
played by Debs
Description: The painting is a large oil painting of a forest in the middle of autumn. However, while the entire thing is full of the bright oranges and reds and browns that come with fall, the thing to focus on is a large dead tree that sits in the very middle. A girl hangs upside down from the branches, her knees curled around a somewhat thick one, and she is glancing at the tree house that is precariously perched in the branches. Her expression is bright and gleeful as she peers at the building, but if you follow her line-of-sight, she’s watching what is going on in the round windows. If one looks closely, they can see the outlines of … what appears to be ghosts? It's sort of hard to tell. They're only just barely there, but there is obviously something, and that something isn't necessarily friendly. A setting sun shines down onto the painting as well, giving making the usual fall colors seem much more vivid than they would be otherwise.

The Wood
the_wood
played by Jiora
Description: The portrait is a very finely detail landscape painting of a forest. In the foreground there's the edge of a meadow, soft and soothing greens and yellows used in the grass, rather inviting really. But that warmth fades at the forest's edge. Dark tones of browns and grays are used heavily, and shadows dominate the image. Thick tendrils of moss hand from gnarled oak trees, and here and there a pine, its needles an oddly murky green, stands amidst them.

The Young Prince
cuiusregio
played by Haruto
Description: The portrait is a young boy with red hair and blue eyes, dressed regally, wearing a tarnished silver crown. He has a big grin on his face. He's sitting on a throne, lavish and elegant and much too big for him, and he's sitting on it informally - turned to one side, legs hanging over one armrest. A scepter is lying on the ground near one of his hands - but he's not holding the scepter, because he's holding a bone in that hand. In his other hand he holds a knife.



ABANDONED PORTRAITS.

Clover
fourberie
played by Celi
Description: The main focus of the painting is a young lady perched upon the tangled branches of a tree in a snow-covered forest. The girl herself is probably the most notable thing in the picture since she's the most colorful thing in the picture. Her attire is a simple, light and flowy dress that is made of yellows and greens which compliments the various flowers that decorate her outfit. Detailed, colorful blossoms could be found anywhere from her dark hair to her simple sandles and even to her fingertips, matching the bright make-up on her face as well. Every single detail is pretty impressive, except for one and that is her expression. You can still see details in her features such as her one pink eye and one red eye, but her expression is like plastic. No real emotion or anything. The rest of her is quite nice though.

The girl's colorful appearance is a stark contrast to the tree she is standing in, however. The trunk of the tree is crooked and obviously rotting, and the branches are a burned, gnarly mess. It looks like that tree is ready to keel over, but the other trees in the forest seemed to be quite healthy. Some had leaves, some had flowers, and some had nothing at all, but none of them looked as poor as the rotten tree the girl was sitting in.

The last notable thing to note is that cutting through the woods is a simple stone path. Falling off that path are footsteps imprinted in the snow, heading towards the direction of the rotten tree, and stopping right in front of it.

The Guardian ("Jack")
unguardian
played by Leif
Description: Gold. An immense, sprawling pile of wealth and jewels, treasures ranging from weapons to goblets to crowns to trinkets to jewel-encrusted instruments, every treasure imaginable, piled haphazardly in the middle of the painting. They seem to sparkle in the light, beautiful. Bones also litter the pile.

Seated atop the pile, not even on a throne, but on the pile of wealth itself, is a man, maybe mid-thirties, in a dark, grey wool three piece suit. He leans a little on an ebony cane, the head of which is a dragon carved out of silver. The eyes are sapphires. A plain ebony ring rests on one finger, and gold embroidery graces one of his lapels, the design hard to make out. The man looks austere in comparison to the gaudy hoard of treasure he lounges on.

The surroundings to the man and pile of treasure are dark and indistinct, it looks like it might be underground with the deep shadows. Torches provide the light sources, though the hoard is painted in a way that makes it seem to light up on its own, probably artistic license.

In the deep shadows of the background, immense leathery wings--or are they patterns of smoke from the torches--can just be made out if you squint, drawn in a way that gives them the illusion of coming from the man. The torchlight catches in the man's eyes, masking whatever their real color is and making them gleam orange with reflected fire.

The frame is carved cherry wood, darkly stained. The plaque reads "The Guardian" but it's clear there was another title once, though it's been so scratched out that only an R can be made out.

Just Desserts ("Salt & Pepper")
pinchandash
played by Re and Jibrielle
Description: "Just Desserts" is a painting in photorealistic style, portraying Salt and Pepper each sitting perched on the end of a table, with various spices resting at the center of it. Both of them are looking directly at the viewer with a challenging expression. The table itself is placed on top of a worn dais carved from stone, and the path leading to it looks more than a little hard to navigate; there are sharp rocks, bones and traps laid out all over it. In the background you can see what looks like ruins overrun by nature: looking like they're in the middle of a jungle.

The High Priestess
hierographic
played by Vappa
Description: A young woman stands upon a stone platform with her back to the viewer, arms outstretched and her head thrown back in reverence. Long black hair falls down her back, and she is clothed in a gauzy white sleeveless dress. Gold amulets circle her wrists and ankles, and her headress is that of a golden eagle with wings sweeping down on either side of her head. Though her face cannot be seen, there is something strong in the line of her back, triumphant in her pose.

In front of her, two statues rise up at the end of the platform in dark stone. Jackal-headed with the bodies of men, they loom over the woman each holding a staff and sword crossed over their chests. Beyond them stretches a blinding bright desert, the burning red sand only broken by a river in the distance, winding its way through the background. Here, the harsh sands give way to green and blue, even if it is only a slight respite.

Towering on the horizon, and seen between the woman’s outspread arms, is a tremendous pyramid, capped with gold. The rising sun has crested just behind it, throwing the pyramid itself into a dark silhouette.

Laughing Angel
beteblanche
played by Kai
Description: At the upper center of the painting is a rusty, iron bird swing, upon it perched a youth dressed simply in white from head to toe, one leg drawn up. Each hand grips the sides of the iron swing, and his snowy white wings arch out on either side of him, as though he were preparing to take flight. He's smiling at the viewer, golden eyes gleaming

Surrounding him are empty jail cells with bars of the same rusted, black iron. He appears to be in a dungeon, and further behind him the curved, stone walls and a stairway can be seen. The area is dilapidated from walls to floor, and the everything is overrun with flora of various colors and sizes. Light streams from the cracks in the stone, and leafy greens can be seen from a hole crumbled in a wall further behind him.

It really should be a dismal seen, but the colors are light and vivacious, and give a sense of piece. The youth at the center is the brightest and most monochrome object in the painting.

Self-portrait
andyourself
played by Floor
Description: A realistic painting of a hooded figure sitting on a stool, its back facing the observer. The figure dresses in what seems to be old and worn clothes, and they are covered in splatters of bright colored paint of different colors. The figure is holding a palette and brush, in front of it is a half-painted on canvas that depicts what seems to be a human figure, but the details are a bit hard to make out, since the style is rather surrealistic.

Next to the canvas is a table with an assortment of painting tools, paint tubes, and a small, foggy mirror that reflects a portion of the figure's face (underneath even more paint splatters). All that can be seen in the reflection is a green eye, half-covered by messy dark hair, and a bright red smear on its cheek.

If one pays close attention, it's easy to notice the figure's eye appears to be fixed on the observer.

Little Snow Prince
atwintersheart
played by Heron
Description: The hall of a majestic castle in the aftermath of a party. Through the thick glass of the windows, a snow field, a threatening grey sky, a steam locomotive barely visible in the far distance but for its headlight and smoke.

A hearth holds a dancing fire, inviting warmth. Firelight flickers upon a table covered in yellowed maps, upon a wooden chest engraved with alchemical symbols, upon filled bookshelves stretching up into the dim of the vaulted ceiling.

At the other end of the hall sits a throne; upon it, a pale youth in fur and fine clothes, a gold circlet upon his dark hair. He smiles invitingly at the viewer, yet there is something cold about his smile. In his hands is a dried wreath of flowers, promise of the spring to come.

In the shadows, the glamours fall. The golden throne is the upraised root of an old fir tree. The wall immediately next to the tree, missing; a frozen pond stretches endlessly into the shadows. His hand shadowed, his true form is revealed: near-transparent, blue-skinned and black-veined.