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Our site takes places in an original universe set within the realm of Shin Megami Tensei's "Persona" video game series. We are an English-literate roleplay that emphasizes detailed, story-driven character development with a pseudo-statistical format that seeks to emulate the experience of playing the games. Form bonds with characters and roleplayers alike in an interactive Persona experience unlike any other.
Events
PROLOGUE: The site is now open under beta circumstances. What
you are viewing is a fully playable version of the site that will
evolve and release more content as you role-play. Please, enjoy
this project as much as we have had making it.
- The Velvet Room Staff
A PLACE BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY, MIND AND MATTER
Deep within the furthest reaches of the unconscious mind, a faint blue light glimmers like crystal before a candle. To gaze at this point is an instinctive reflex, a yearning to drive away the cold embrace of nothingness. Reaching for this twinkle in the void, however, produces a sensation comparable to falling through the air without a working parachute. It takes less than an instant for the azure speck to transmogrify into a whirling tunnel of blue and white, the 'falling' now closer to 'dragging', until every possible sense that could be imagined falls awash with numbing warmth.
The soft melody of a piano creeps its way into earshot. Following this is a return of vision, which is greeted by an abundance of stunning blues in varying shades and hues. Smell is the next to return, and it is greeted by the distinctive odor of poppy flowers. The exquisite choice in decorum suggested this place to be a smoking lounge, perhaps even a private drawing room, and the presence of a minibar stocked to its brim with a collection of reserves seemed to betray its inescapably surreal atmosphere.
Of course, this was not the true elephant in the room. Rather fittingly, and not without a hint of irony, that privilege belonged to the mysterious fellow with the long and pointy nose, who just so happened to be sitting squarely across the person that now existed as an occupant of this strange blue space. Sitting next to the bug-eyed gentleman in the black suit was a tall and handsome man with dull cobalt hair and pale xanthous eyes, wearing what appeared to be a stylish Inverness cape, whose stoic porcelain features painted a sharp contrast to the other person's seemingly crazed smirk and fixed stare.
"Welcome—" Speaks the old man at last, addressing his new visitor in a prolonged manner, "—to the Velvet Room."
Post by Dominic Cordon on Oct 3, 2018 9:51:11 GMT -6
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巫女
It was that underwater feeling, that ephemeral weightlessness that surrounded this sleeping man. There was no water pressure or bed; there was only nothing. Television static lulled him deeper down. An old tape had finished its course in his VCR. His eyes opened and there was no orange glow, streetlamps had disappeared from his windows. His windows themselves had gone. There was only soft blue light and shapes. Like ocean fractals above him, but sharper lines. Random, harsh geometry but with edges so precise it was nothing less than breathtaking.
He reaches, he can't breathe. He falls, but stands without landing and is pulled forward. Then, soft cushions. Plush couch, mood music. Mirrored ceiling. Odd company. His hand was still forward and he noticed it was not bare. A tapered suit of calico blue, open collared shirt, a gold chain. His eyes focused past at the crow-nosed geezer across the way.
There was a weight in his breast pocket and he dug as quickly as he noticed. A soft gold cigarette case, hand rolls inside. A cursory pat-down of his new wardrobe found the lighter, and the smoke began to roll heavy and thick. That taste was not a memory, but it became familiar after the second drag. Cuban tobacco. From home.
"I don't remember walking in here, old man. How long have you been watching me sleep?"
The annoyance was only mild. He could've very well just walked in here on a blackout. Maybe he was at a title party. He didn't remember there being a fight, though.
"Who are you...and can you tell Holmes to put his eyes back in his skull. He's creepin' me out."
A PLACE BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY, MIND AND MATTER
"I have been watching you for quite some time now." The old man's reply is both direct and cryptic at once, if such a thing was possible. While the sing-song tone of his voice seemed to indicate an element of hypnotic suggestion, what it lacked entirely was malevolent intention. Whoever he or his equally mysterious companion was, they were not here to harm this new visitor.
"This is a place that exists between dreams and reality, mind and matter," the grinning fellow says, gesturing to the wonderful space that each of them occupied. "Rest assured, you are not experiencing a delusion of the mind. You are sound asleep in your bed, drifting aimlessly within the Sea of Unconsciousness." His bulging round eyes still maintained their fixed stare against the muscular fellow in the tapered blue suit, itself a byproduct of his own unique cognitive perceptions within the Velvet Room, of which he was now a guest.
"My name is Igor, and I am most delighted to make your acquaintance," he reveals himself at last, then directs the visitor's attention toward the stoic-looking gentleman sporting the Inverness cape with a chuckle, "And this is my Assistant, Virgil." The aforementioned figure remains unflinchingly expressionless, even as his master's appearance is placed rather pointlessly under a veil of scrutiny. Igor simply pays the comment no mind; was it willful ignorance on his part, or a genuine lack of awareness?
Only that crazy-looking smile of his knew the answer.
"Do you believe in destiny?" Igor asks, rife with curiosity.
Post by Dominic Cordon on Oct 4, 2018 12:49:40 GMT -6
BEWARE - FOR I AM FEARLESS
His confused annoyance became bolder to match the smoke of his tobacco and the riddles of the crow. The suit was insanely comfortable, the chair felt almost as if he would sink into it's plush cushions, and the fog outside was more impenetrable than the coiling gaseous snake that began to constrict him.
He shouldn't be able to feel any of this. This was a dream; he was just told as much. He tried his damnedest to summon something ridiculous, to make something fly, to be wrapped in belt after belt, but nothing. The stare on him shifted, though he did not see it. He looked to the manservant Virgil and the understanding in the eyes almost frightened him. Like the attendee knew what he was trying to do. Which of the two were stopping him?
Destiny? A puff of dense smoke came out with the most condescending of chuckles.
"Guys can't believe what they do is their fault, good or bad. Destiny is a fool's excuse for their choices. You can think I make my own destiny in a way, I don't care. Why am I here?"
The eyes of this fighter seemed to glow behind the smoke, not yet anger in them. This felt like a posh meeting. If that's the case, then stop playing games, he thought.
A PLACE BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY, MIND AND MATTER
The brusque manner of his guest amuses Igor greatly, enough to elicit an audible chuckle. "Perhaps you are correct to believe in your sense of agency, especially when faced with the possibility that everything you know—" The long-nosed man taps a finger against the surface of the circular coffee table in front of his spindly frame, then pulls it abruptly upward; a matching blue silk cloth seemingly rises up from a nonexistent hole in the furniture, then perfectly drapes itself across the round flat plane as if its threads were made of water. "—is but a mere fraction of the truth."
Igor follows his little 'performance' with a theatrical sweeping motion of his hand; as it passes over the table's right side from where his guest sat, a deck of cards embellished with shimmering blue and gold leaf suddenly materializes its way into view. A bony finger deftly slides the top card from the pile and flourishes it between the others until its face image lies visible for the annoyed visitor to examine: a lantern housing an eye motif, both symbols of self-reflection and insight.
"The Hermit reveals that you are a loner, one who has withdrawn to a position of solitude among their fellow man..." Igor explains the card's divinatory meaning in a tone much closer to aimless excitement, almost like a child lost inside the world's biggest candy store. He grins wider as those bulging eyes hawk every element of their target of observation, the muscular gentleman in the blue smoking jacket. "There is an aura of solemnity within this card, suggesting that this lonely path must be traveled. Is this decision marked by personal sadness? Or a yearning for some deeper truth?" With another subtle twist of his hand, the card vanishes into thin air, never to be seen again.
"Your presence here is no accident." Igor's statement is as certain in its cadence as it is vague in its general relevance. "Only those who have formed a 'contract' may enter here, one that binds their souls inexorably to this very place. You are here because you harbor a special 'potential' within yourself." He begins to rhythmically tap his bony gloved fingertips into each other like an emaciated skeleton, feeling rather proud of his own ambiguity.
Virgil merely continues to hold himself to the robotic image he had made for himself since the beginning of this whole exchange, as if he were waiting for the perfect opportunity to speak his piece, calculating, analyzing.
Post by Dominic Cordon on Oct 10, 2018 15:06:39 GMT -6
BEWARE - FOR I AM FEARLESS
Dominic took being called dense about as well as he always did, his jaw just clenched a bit. It wasn't a lie, just an observation that was outstandingly correct. He was a boxer, seeing the whole picture was never his job. He had a target that he focused on, and was so efficient in the fact that he did have a narrow view. He was like a race horse or a greyhound in that aspect, eyes firmly fixed on the objective.
This guy must be a hit at parties. Look at this little card trick. Very fancy, Dominic however was as pained as ever. The Hermit wasn't a card he'd failed to ever see; on occasion, he had seen a gypsy once or twice. In the several years he'd been here and the few readings he had, the Hermit was always present. No one had a unique perspective on it, not even the crow sitting opposite to him. He always made sure to give the correct answer.
"I don't like people too much."
There was this sense of condescension. Dominic felt like he was in high school again, this talk of potential and special purpose. Maybe not the counselor's office, but church certainly. Coming from this fucking mutant, well...Dominic couldn't hold it. Ash halfway to the butt of his cigarette dispersed into caustic plumes, white knuckles keeping him locked into a stable position to spit them as he laughed and laughed and laughed. It was harsh and hardy, heaving hefts of breath that could, if heard far off in a dark Manhattan alley, be the call of some nightmares. Dominic was absolutely sure of the dream now; he never laughed this hard when he was awake.
"Contract?! You've got to be kidding; what kind of designer shit did that bartender slip me? Look, Igor, that's your name right? I didn't sign anything except with my second and with the American Boxing Federation. I don't know what potential it is you're talking about; I'm tapped out. I'm at the top of my game, you tellin' me I can get better? Then you better give me a contract I can sign."
He was leaned in close, cigarette wedged in his fingers right in line with that huge sniffer of the host's. It was a dream, right? Why not see what crazy shit happens?
A PLACE BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY, MIND AND MATTER
It is not the first time Igor has heard this response, nor is it the first instance he has been projected such skepticism. The muscular fellow claims to be disinclined towards the company of other human beings. It is perhaps the one aspect of his character that the goblin-nosed man could actually identify with on a personal level, albeit for entirely different reasons which just so happen to form a neat little parallel with his visitor's. From there the similarities cease, because Igor had a task to fulfill — and whether or not cigar-chomping boxer knew it, so did he.
Igor's smile curls upward evermore, a truly hideous expression of his fascination with his guest. "If that is what you wish, then so be it." He merely turns a hand over, and in that same passage of a couple of seconds, a sharp-looking ledger book materializes into view as if he had opened a nonexistent fold in space itself. To open this blue-tinged binder reveals a single document marked by a signature line for the guest to sign his preferred cognomen, along with the only chunk of readable text available on the cream-colored parchment:
Upon conferring mine name to this contract, I hereby chooseth this fate of mine own free will.
Igor's expression remains entirely concrete, unmoving, as does Virgil's. The gravitas of this situation might have been lost to the flippant man in the smoking jacket, but such a gesture of grand formality was entirely redundant for the Velvet Room's two primary occupants. The decision to sign a contract is a metaphor for the importance of choice.
But, some people need to be shown in more literal terms.
THE ALTER EGO is the original work of IGOR and XIII. Any and all content is copyrighted to THE ALTER EGO.
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The skin was created by TIMELAPSE OF WICKED WONDERLAND and editted by SKYTHE.
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