Nevermore first appears as a figure in a long, sweeping black coat and a black cavalier hat with a long white feather. Getting closer, one can see the sugar-skull embroidery on the coat, the frizzy brown hair, the rosy complexion, and the selectable pronoun pin with the label "Gender is a sometimes food." Of course, if you're that close, they've likely engaged you in a discussion of classic horror literature, so it's probably too late.
Nevy (as their friends call them) can often be found behind the counter of the bookstore where they work, or at a coffeeshop, writing or drawing in a notepad using a bic pen rubber-banded to a foot-and-a-half long ostrich quill, or in haunted houses, murmuring quietly to someone or something most people can't see.
When in doubt, assume they're doing it for the AestheticTM.
NOTE: Nevermore wears a pin at all times - "Gender is a sometimes food," with an indicator allowing them to select between "She/her" and "They/them." This pin always matches the narration being used for them in the scene, to cue others to their current preferred mode of address.
Language isn't carving. It's topiary.... Language grows. It changes. It flowers. Bits die off and fall away, or get diseased and have to be pruned.... And you... Get to choose how you prune your language.
Auntie Dandy: Nevy ran into Dandelion while in a haunted tenement building doing research for their next batch of creative output. The two have become fast friends and Nevy often visits for tea.
Mearc: The two were friends back in Chicago, bonding over a shared enjoyment of the macabre. Nevy sought him out when they moved to Philly in order to start the friendship back up and get the local lowdown for good ghost stories.
For The Aesthetic!: Nevy is remarkably flamboyant and dramatic, dressing in a style one might term "The lovechild of Edgar Allen Poe and a romance novel pirate" in everyday life. They can often be found in coffee shops, writing and drawing in a notebook with a bic pen rubber-banded to a fluffy quill at least a foot and a half long. They freely admit how ridiculous a lot of this is, and insist that's a part of the charm. They're an up-and-coming mixed-media gothic-style artist, combining elaborate macabre-themed lineart with poetry and prose on similar subjects. They recently released a self-published book, Alas for Truths Untold: A story of love, loss, tragedy and death, told in mixed artwork and poetry.
How would you like that bagged?: Nevy works for a small bookstore to help make ends meet. They haven't quite gotten the hang of finding the most obscure works, but can often be found behind the desk, and is happy to spend hours discussing the merits of Poe or Shelley vs. King or Romero. With the owner's approval, they appropriate the store's back room twice a month - once for a horror film festival, where viewers can watch the most sublime and ridiculous examples of the horror director's arts, and once for a Gothic Tea Party, where attendees can get dressed up in their most ridiculously overblown frippery to socialize over tea and pastries.
Ghost Stories: Nevy can often be found tracking down haunted locations and trying to track down the stories behind them. Some of these stories make their way into the artwork Nevy produces - a poem telling the tale of the fatal car accident which killed a young woman, or stylized artwork that depicts a gunshot wound sported by a 60-year-old ghost mourning his own untimely demise. The local supernatural communities might recognize them as a Medium and (by that measure) potential Sleepwalker ally - or tool. Or pawn.
Sometimes you feel like a chick, sometimes you don't!: Nevermore is genderfluid, sometimes presenting as female and sometimes as agender. They're a recognizable member of the local LGBTQ+ community and take part in community events fairly often, though they haven't yet stepped forward into any kind of leadership position.
Note that pictured art is illustrative of Nevermore's style, but none of the pictured works are IC creations by Nevermore. Character Art style inspired by (and all displayed artwork drawn by): MadameAce. Art used with permission.
Nevermore sells prints or copies of all works listed online, unless otherwise noted.
Alas, for Truths Untold: A book combining poetry and artwork to tell a story of longing, love, loss, death, and regret. It's very melancholy and somewhat morbid, but while it plays these things straight, it also occasionally winks to the audience to show that it's not taking itself too seriously. (created in background; no stats provided. But it's, like, totally a great book.)
Home: A piece with some inspiration from chiaroscuro style. On a black field, a black figure stands silhouetted in a doorway through which golden light streams. The figure's features are indistinct, but the posture shows weariness, fear, and powerful hope. (13 successes total, +5 equipment bonus visual art)
Predator Heart: A human heart, drawn in bloody shades of red and black. From the heart protrudes the head of a predatory beast, somewhere between wolf and lion and bear, straining to tear itself free. (8 successes total, +5 equipment bonus visual art)
The Usher Deck: Nevermore's second larger-scale project, a complete set of tarot cards, with copies available for purchase through an online print-your-own-cards site. The symbolism has similarities to the Ryder-Waite deck, but with some of the more Christian-centric concepts replaced by more ancient (and widely-applicable) ones. The aesthetic can be generally described as "Cheerfully morbid." Bad things and good things mix in life, the deck seems to say, so we might as well try to face both with a smile. (21 successes total, +5 equipment bonus visual art; any additional effects when used for tarot as yet undecided.)
White Wings: Available for sale from The Green Room (and with prints available online). A stylized albino bat on a black background, hanging upside-down from a few artful lines that give the suggestion of a branch. The bat is, frankly, adorable, with huge and guileless blue eyes - the only hint of color on the page - and an expression that mixes ageless wisdom with little bit of affable befuddlement. (+5 visual art, 5 successes total, exceptional)
Dethroned: Available for sale from The Green Room (and with prints available online). An elaborate piece of norse-style knotwork in tan over a background of darker brown and red. A closer look shows that the red is actually a second set of knotwork, behind the first and working through it. It's hard to tell where each of the lines starts in the central knot, but each has a distinct endpoint - a jagged cut, near the edge of the picture. Surrounding the knot are eight stylized rats, their tails cut off with a jagged line that matches the ends of the knotwork. Each one lies on its back, clearly dead. This is a Rat King, each of its component rats killed and tails cut off. (+5 visual art, 10 successes total, Exceptional)
Brewing Knowledge: Available for sale from The Green Room (and with prints available online). A young witch, brewing at a cauldron. The witch is lovely, but in a way that emphasizes her intelligence and power, rather than playing up sexuality in the usual Robes cut up to here and down to there way. She's looking out of the drawing with an expression of wry, knowing humor, and Nevy has used that perspective trick that makes a picture's eyes seem to follow the viewer around the room. The broad cauldron beside her is placed on top of a narrow column, almost like a coupe cocktail glass. A tawny curve tipped with a tuft of brown fur peeks out of the far end of the cauldron, as though it hasn't been mixed in quite right. (+5 visual art, 6 successes total)
The Sage: Available for sale from The Green Room (and with prints available online). A figure, dressed in elaborate brown robes with a hood. The face is indistinct, just a couple of lines, but the bearing and what can be seen of the expression show power without pretense, a kind of Big Dick Energy that radiates quiet confidence. The figure is pensively examining a spiraling white tower, the very image of Beautiful But Ostentatious Masonry. The tower is obviously very tall indeed; however, through perspective, the robed figure actually stands taller on the page. (+5 visual art, 5 successes total)
Struggling: Posted without much fanfare, not long after the successful attack against the Beshilu. Making use of Chiaroscaro techniques and negative space, this drawing depicts a stylized, indistinct figure desperately clinging to the side of an oubliette, struggling to drag itself free. clawed hands made of shadow reach up from the pit, grasping at the figure's legs and arms to pull it back into nothingness, in an echo of the figure's arms reaching up to climb. The figure's face is upturned toward the viewer. Its eyes show fear and desperation, but the set of its jaw indicates steely refusal to give in. It may fail, fall, and be dragged into the darkness, the figure's expression seems to state, but it will fight for every inch on the way down. (+5 visual art, 6 successes total)
Beneath Masks: Also posted without much fanfare. A hooded woman's face, half-covered by a series of masks, which peel off one at a time from the left to the right - first a full-faced helmet, then a batman-style mask with the chin exposed, then a domino mask, then just the exposed face beneath. The little face that's visible on the leftmost portions of face is cocky and confident, with a raised eyebrow sculpted on the cowl and a little smirk just visible. The further right on the face the expression goes, though, the more vulnerable and lonely the expression gets. (+5 visual art, 7 successes total)
Anonymous Works
These pieces aren't on Nevermore's Instagram or social media, and aren't in their distinctive style. Still, a clever observer might be able to make the connection. They're often used as part of guerrilla artbombing projects.
Stickers and flyers of a figure trudging away from the camera in a dreary city street, drawn in grayscale and sepia. A thought bubble beside them includes the word "DREAM", the letters forming a lovely, fantastical landscape. Around the thought bubble, the world and the figure take on similarly-vibrant color, almost as though the thoughts were radiating light and color into the world (used to combat the dreamcatching work in Gentryfication).
Flyers of a hard hat resting on the ground, with the silhouettes of the hat and its surroundings forming a tombstone on a hill (used to inspire sympathy toward the construction workers injured during the Gentryfication plot).
Flyers of a noose made of money, held by a hand with an ostentatious ring. Through the loop of the noose, a silhouette of a construction worker seated on a girder can be seen (used to inspire contempt against careless, heartless capitalists such as the construction company involved in the Gentryfication plot).
Messenger bag with a notebook. Bic pen rubber-banded to a long ostrich plume, often used for art. A ceramic disk necklace with a stylized rose design on it. (NOTE: A successful Wits + Occult role will recognize that the necklace's design incorporates actual occult principles. Kenning or other forms of magical perception might show that the necklace is a protective amulet against ghosts or spirits).
Other Applicable stats:
Presence 4, Unseen Sense (Ghosts), Medium, Sympathetic, Sleepwalker-by-dint-of-supernatural-merits
