DMZ
A lot of the time it can be difficult to figure out how characters from disparate factions or backgrounds can get together, meet, and let you make beautiful plottiness together. Welcome to the DMZ, your all-character-ages-allowed deus ex machina for giving your characters a chance to meet and greet.
Business Owners: Charmaign and Fletcher
Description: DMZ has been around (with varying names and decors) for well over a century and has been under Charmaign and Fletcher's ownership for that entire time. Any preternatural resident of San Francisco knows DMZ and knows that it's one place you can go, even in the middle of a turf war, and not end up with someone's fangs in your throat (unless you ask nicely, dear.)
The outside of the club is relatively unremarkable, blending into the Castro's overall architecture without standing out. It's barely noticeable that the club takes up easily a third an of entire city block. (The benefit of having been there from the city's early history.) The first floor windows are nothing more than cosmetic because the lush drapes visible from the outside are covered on the inside by solid steel shutters that admit no light and cannot be opened by anyone but the owners.
If you're a straight human with no psychic or magical ability, your eye will slide right over any of the DMZ's three entrances without even registering their presence. Unescorted humans who somehow stumble past that aversion ward can go in, but the supes won't tone themselves down on the human's account, and if things get a little too weird, it's not unheard of for Charmaign or Fletcher to pay the human a little visit to help fuzz their memory when they leave. Humans may come in with an escort and not expect that to happen, but their escort will be expected to exercise good judgment in terms of whom they invite.
Directly inside each of the three entrances is a coat, weapon, and holy item check room. You don't have to check your coat, but any obvious weapons and all holy items must be checked at the door. If a member of the staff spots that you've sneaked any of those items further into the club, you will be politely asked (with bouncer backup in the wings) to return to the check room and leave them there. Refusal will result in ejection and a black mark on your club record.
The first floor of the club is open to a level of approximately two stories. It has been neatly divided straight down the middle by a wall with many open archways to allow free passage between the club's two halves, and the decor is dichotomous at best.
One half appears to have been done up in an overblown version of a 19th century Englishman's library/study. Fletcher has designed his side of DMZ with their wizardly and magic-using clientele specifically in mind, although anyone is welcome. However, in deference to the particular difficulties inherent with mages' powers' interactions with modern technology, most tech is pre-20th century or inactive the majority of the time.
There are signs on the walls on Fletcher's side warning patrons that the management will not be held responsible for damage to laptops, cellular phones, MP3 players, or any other electronic devices. The archways were designed by a particularly gifted, but more than half-mad mage/architect, and their unique design and arrangement help to deflect both sound and magic from exiting one side of the club into the other.
The seating is leather, overstuffed, and very comfortable, the lighting is provided entirely by gaslights, the pool tables are a complimentary golden wood with purple felt, and the walls of the open second-floor area are lined with enough books to make a small-town library envious. The books, which are nothing you couldn't find in most libraries (barring Fletcher's gay pornography section,) are free for the patrons to read, but have security sensors in them just as with a library, and the bouncers tend to get testy with anyone who sets off the door alarm taking a book out.
The second floor shelving area of Fletcher's half has a balcony where Fletcher may oversee his half of the club while having a bit of privacy. His balcony just happens to have a clear view of Charmaign's dais through an open archway. Admission to the balcony is by invitation only, and Fletcher's attention may be riveted on the other side of the club even if someone is invited up there with him.
Wait staff will circulate throughout the library half or patrons may visit the bar that runs the majority of the club's back wall, bridging the divide between Fletcher and Charmaign's halves of the first floor. While the club is not strictly a restaurant, there is a small kitchen that can meet the many dietary needs of any club patrons who eat solid food. Some of the wait staff (human, shifter, and changeling) will be willing donors for vampire patrons for a fee and a percentage off the top for the house. Donor staff wear dog tag style chains with blood type indicated and tuck the tag away if they've donated for the night.
Charmaign's half of the club is self-described by him as "modern harem." The floor is cold concrete, as are the pillars, but textured and finished in a way that almost resembles marble in pattern. Surrounding the good sized dance floor are lucite tables and bar stools bolted into the ground.The dance floor itself is lit up by a variety of lights in cold colors, shedding yellow, green, blue and fuchsia in a spattering of colors over floor and patrons alike.
The music here is loud and pulsing, usually playing the typical modern pop or rap that Charmaign finds appealing at the moment. Though that is subject to change depending on Char's mood or the mercurial theme for his side of the club. The theme will change as often or not as he likes, running the gamut from 80's glam nights, trailer bashes, island nights, and a variety of other little themes that Charmaign decides will add to the atmosphere of fun and debauchery. So long as the patrons remain playing by the rules, of course.
Along one wall of Charmaign's half of the DMZ run little nooks stuffed with pillows. One could consider this a private conversation area or perhaps something more. It would depend on how low the lights were played and whether or not anyone was paying attention.
Charmaign himself holds court on another wall near the place where the clubs join. There is a small, raised dais upon which sets his honest to god fainting couch covered in purple velvet. The babies' beds are placed around the dais as well. On a good night, any and all may approach for a greeting, or a dance or whispers of intrigue that Char will pretend to dismiss. On a bad night, one shouldn't bother, lest one weather a scathing remark about the quality or fashion of one's dress or demeanor.
Technology reigns on this side of the club (as proven by Char's one handed texting, do forgive him if he does so while speaking to you) and he will get a bit testy if wizards wander over and blow out the sound system and lightboard settings.
The second floor has secure meeting rooms. They don't come cheap, but they do come with privacy with fantastic soundproofing and security that extends into the magical as well as physical realms. A meeting conducted in one of DMZ's meeting rooms is as secure as more than a century's application of magic and technology can permit. Any leaks will come from the attendees, not security oversight. As a result, celluar telephones and wireless internet will not work in those rooms. Inconvenient, but unavoidable. In emergencies, there is a land line available in each room.
The rooms themselves vary in size from intimate - a few chairs, a table, and the telephone - to a full boardroom arrangement with conference table, wet bar, and wired telephone. Every so often someone will reserve a meeting room for a few days' stretch; Charmaign and Fletcher ask no questions, but will pointedly remind the client that the DMZ is not a boarding house and that they don't take sides if the client is on the run from someone.
The third floor is residential. Fletcher and Charmaign keep their separate apartments here and it is accessible by invitation only.
The roof is also by invitation only because it cannot be secured the way the rest of the building can. Rooftop access to the interior is as well-warded and secure as ground-level access, but there's never a guarantee that something big enough and mean enough can't land up there and make some trouble on the roof. Fletcher keeps his greenhouse there, and Charmaign uses the roof for painting.
The basement has an extensive wine cellar and emergency accommodations for vampires or other nocturnal clients caught by the sunrise. The proprietors will frown on vamps taking advantage of their hospitality a little too often, but they endeavor to make all of their guests comfortable.
Pictures: Fletcher's Half/ Charmaign's Half
Neighborhood: Castro on the Haight side
Hours and Opening Rules: Never closes. Ever. Players may open bar posts (one bar post per day please) and lock specific threads/interactions, but the overall bar post must be open for other characters to drop in on because this is a gathering spot for all supes.
When opening DMZ, please c/p the following OOC note. Feel free to add your own notes as needed, but keep the main content, please.
[ooc: Please see http://epicentric-mods.livejournal.com/11088.html">here for the info post on DMZ. Wizards are encouraged/expected to stay on the low-tech side of the club. Char will be very put out if a wandering wizard blows out his multimedia system. Violence is absolutely not tolerated on the premises. If violence comes up ICly, please contact http://community.livejournal.com/epicentric_apps/1098.html">Charmaign or http://community.livejournal.com/epicentric_apps/811.html">Fletcher's players to make arrangements for action by the owners or bouncers (depending upon time of day.) http://epicentric-mods.livejournal.com/11088.html#the_babies">The Babies are around almost constantly except during the five days immediately prior to the http://fullmooncalendar.net/">full moon, feel free to have fun with them.
Anyone may open a post, for DMZ if there isn't one open for that day already, but please go http://epicentric-mods.livejournal.com/11088.html#ooc_note">here to get the ooc note that should accompany all DMZ posts. Just c/p and you're good to go.]
House Rules: No fighting on the premises (see the section on neutral ground). This will be enforced by a small army of preternatural bouncers during the day, and by bouncers augmented by Charmaign and Fletcher during the night hours. If you want IC intervention, ping this post to make arrangements for interventions on violence, for plottiness, or for questions about the club.
Security: Multiple preternatural bouncers (shifters, vampires, and faeries) depending upon the hours. The building has both magical wards and physical alarm systems as well as state-of-the-art fire suppression systems and emergency generators. Those sensitive to magic will feel the wards the moment they walk through the doors and that they weren't done by a second-stringer wizard.
Persona Non Grata: Because of their oaths of neutrality, Charmaign and Fletcher will always be loathe to declare an individual persona non grata at DMZ, but it does occasionally happen. It is entirely on their IC discretion what offenses will bring that down on someone, but include killing, attempting to weaken or bypass the wards, or bringing a fight into the club from outside. Only actions that happen inside the DMZ or directly affect the club will be taken into account for PNG status. The most evil guy in town and the city saint are both welcome in the DMZ unless they screw up in a way that affects the club.
Usually a single bar fight-type incident of violence won't be enough to be declared PNG, but repeat offenses will earn it. The same goes for shifters losing control at the full moon - the proprietors are well aware of their clients' special needs, but expect shifters to be even more aware and act accordingly.
Repercussions of being declared PNG extend outside the club. Being banned from the DMZ tells everyone in the preternatural community that the PNG has poor self-control and cannot be trusted to honor common codes of conduct. It can result in a certain degree of social ostracism as well as being cut off from the main preternatural gathering place.
Please contact Charmaign or Fletcher's players before doing something you may think will result in your character's being declared persona non grata at the DMZ.
Regarding Charmaign, Fletcher, the babies, and Tinkerbell
Charmaign and Fletcher are the owners of the DMZ, a pair of vampires who have been together for more than six centuries and who have been superficially on the outs with each other for the past forty years or so.
On their own, they're both quite pleasant in their different ways. When they're together, they tend to spitefully pick at each other, bringing up grievances dating back centuries.
For those able to sense such things, taken separately, neither Charmaign nor Fletcher seem more formidable than the average 600+ year old non-master vampire (which is formidable in its way, but hardly earthshaking). It might beg the question of how they can be counted upon to maintain the city's neutral ground and actually have any muscle to put behind it.
If they're on their separate ends of the bar/building, that's all they are and that's all anyone will sense. When they come together (within 20 feet or so) that will change radically and those two non-masters suddenly hit the radar as master vampires with power building the closer they get, though very few people ever have the privilege of seeing what it's like when they actually touch. It may provide observers with a guess as to why they stay together when they seem to hate each other so much.
The Babies (Zizi, Jouir, Precieux, Trique, Bidi, and Cariad) are six overly spoiled Scottish terriers who have free run of the club the majority of the time, barring the five days leading up to the full moon when they are kept in their masters' apartments for their own safety. If you ever want to piss off Tinkerbell (in the day) or Charmaign and Fletcher (at night) then mess with the babies.
There are organic dried liver dog treats available from dispensers throughout the club. Feel free to buy their love with treats, it's easy. The babies are accustomed to supes, being raised around them from puppyhood, so will have unusually calm reactions to lycanthropes and other preternatural beings.
The dogs have a habit of rushing people en masse, leaving them surrounded by six demanding canines until they are satisfied and head off to bother someone else. Feel free to NPC the babies being dogs (including having alpha shifters simply intimidating them into shutting up), just don't hurt them. Hurting the babies will bring down the wrath of Charmaign and Fletcher and will require pre-approval.
Tinkerbell is the club's day manager and Charmaign and Fletcher's pomme de sang. Picture Puck from a Midsummer Night's Dream meets Hard Gay,* with Dr. Girlfriend Mrs. The Monarch's voice. He's competent, capable, and loyal to Charmaign and Fletcher for reasons none of the three expound on. We are seeking a player for Tinkerbell, feel free to ping here or inquire with Charmaign or Fletcher's players for information.
*It should be noted that Tink dresses that way completely ironically and that in fact, his sexuality is never actually revealed. With Tink, it's very much true that "still waters run deep."
Staff: If you'd like one of your characters to get a job at DMZ, contact Charmaign or Fletcher's players to discuss what kind of fit can be found.
Business Owners: Charmaign and Fletcher
Description: DMZ has been around (with varying names and decors) for well over a century and has been under Charmaign and Fletcher's ownership for that entire time. Any preternatural resident of San Francisco knows DMZ and knows that it's one place you can go, even in the middle of a turf war, and not end up with someone's fangs in your throat (unless you ask nicely, dear.)
The outside of the club is relatively unremarkable, blending into the Castro's overall architecture without standing out. It's barely noticeable that the club takes up easily a third an of entire city block. (The benefit of having been there from the city's early history.) The first floor windows are nothing more than cosmetic because the lush drapes visible from the outside are covered on the inside by solid steel shutters that admit no light and cannot be opened by anyone but the owners.
If you're a straight human with no psychic or magical ability, your eye will slide right over any of the DMZ's three entrances without even registering their presence. Unescorted humans who somehow stumble past that aversion ward can go in, but the supes won't tone themselves down on the human's account, and if things get a little too weird, it's not unheard of for Charmaign or Fletcher to pay the human a little visit to help fuzz their memory when they leave. Humans may come in with an escort and not expect that to happen, but their escort will be expected to exercise good judgment in terms of whom they invite.
Directly inside each of the three entrances is a coat, weapon, and holy item check room. You don't have to check your coat, but any obvious weapons and all holy items must be checked at the door. If a member of the staff spots that you've sneaked any of those items further into the club, you will be politely asked (with bouncer backup in the wings) to return to the check room and leave them there. Refusal will result in ejection and a black mark on your club record.
The first floor of the club is open to a level of approximately two stories. It has been neatly divided straight down the middle by a wall with many open archways to allow free passage between the club's two halves, and the decor is dichotomous at best.
One half appears to have been done up in an overblown version of a 19th century Englishman's library/study. Fletcher has designed his side of DMZ with their wizardly and magic-using clientele specifically in mind, although anyone is welcome. However, in deference to the particular difficulties inherent with mages' powers' interactions with modern technology, most tech is pre-20th century or inactive the majority of the time.
There are signs on the walls on Fletcher's side warning patrons that the management will not be held responsible for damage to laptops, cellular phones, MP3 players, or any other electronic devices. The archways were designed by a particularly gifted, but more than half-mad mage/architect, and their unique design and arrangement help to deflect both sound and magic from exiting one side of the club into the other.
The seating is leather, overstuffed, and very comfortable, the lighting is provided entirely by gaslights, the pool tables are a complimentary golden wood with purple felt, and the walls of the open second-floor area are lined with enough books to make a small-town library envious. The books, which are nothing you couldn't find in most libraries (barring Fletcher's gay pornography section,) are free for the patrons to read, but have security sensors in them just as with a library, and the bouncers tend to get testy with anyone who sets off the door alarm taking a book out.
The second floor shelving area of Fletcher's half has a balcony where Fletcher may oversee his half of the club while having a bit of privacy. His balcony just happens to have a clear view of Charmaign's dais through an open archway. Admission to the balcony is by invitation only, and Fletcher's attention may be riveted on the other side of the club even if someone is invited up there with him.
Wait staff will circulate throughout the library half or patrons may visit the bar that runs the majority of the club's back wall, bridging the divide between Fletcher and Charmaign's halves of the first floor. While the club is not strictly a restaurant, there is a small kitchen that can meet the many dietary needs of any club patrons who eat solid food. Some of the wait staff (human, shifter, and changeling) will be willing donors for vampire patrons for a fee and a percentage off the top for the house. Donor staff wear dog tag style chains with blood type indicated and tuck the tag away if they've donated for the night.
Charmaign's half of the club is self-described by him as "modern harem." The floor is cold concrete, as are the pillars, but textured and finished in a way that almost resembles marble in pattern. Surrounding the good sized dance floor are lucite tables and bar stools bolted into the ground.The dance floor itself is lit up by a variety of lights in cold colors, shedding yellow, green, blue and fuchsia in a spattering of colors over floor and patrons alike.
The music here is loud and pulsing, usually playing the typical modern pop or rap that Charmaign finds appealing at the moment. Though that is subject to change depending on Char's mood or the mercurial theme for his side of the club. The theme will change as often or not as he likes, running the gamut from 80's glam nights, trailer bashes, island nights, and a variety of other little themes that Charmaign decides will add to the atmosphere of fun and debauchery. So long as the patrons remain playing by the rules, of course.
Along one wall of Charmaign's half of the DMZ run little nooks stuffed with pillows. One could consider this a private conversation area or perhaps something more. It would depend on how low the lights were played and whether or not anyone was paying attention.
Charmaign himself holds court on another wall near the place where the clubs join. There is a small, raised dais upon which sets his honest to god fainting couch covered in purple velvet. The babies' beds are placed around the dais as well. On a good night, any and all may approach for a greeting, or a dance or whispers of intrigue that Char will pretend to dismiss. On a bad night, one shouldn't bother, lest one weather a scathing remark about the quality or fashion of one's dress or demeanor.
Technology reigns on this side of the club (as proven by Char's one handed texting, do forgive him if he does so while speaking to you) and he will get a bit testy if wizards wander over and blow out the sound system and lightboard settings.
The second floor has secure meeting rooms. They don't come cheap, but they do come with privacy with fantastic soundproofing and security that extends into the magical as well as physical realms. A meeting conducted in one of DMZ's meeting rooms is as secure as more than a century's application of magic and technology can permit. Any leaks will come from the attendees, not security oversight. As a result, celluar telephones and wireless internet will not work in those rooms. Inconvenient, but unavoidable. In emergencies, there is a land line available in each room.
The rooms themselves vary in size from intimate - a few chairs, a table, and the telephone - to a full boardroom arrangement with conference table, wet bar, and wired telephone. Every so often someone will reserve a meeting room for a few days' stretch; Charmaign and Fletcher ask no questions, but will pointedly remind the client that the DMZ is not a boarding house and that they don't take sides if the client is on the run from someone.
The third floor is residential. Fletcher and Charmaign keep their separate apartments here and it is accessible by invitation only.
The roof is also by invitation only because it cannot be secured the way the rest of the building can. Rooftop access to the interior is as well-warded and secure as ground-level access, but there's never a guarantee that something big enough and mean enough can't land up there and make some trouble on the roof. Fletcher keeps his greenhouse there, and Charmaign uses the roof for painting.
The basement has an extensive wine cellar and emergency accommodations for vampires or other nocturnal clients caught by the sunrise. The proprietors will frown on vamps taking advantage of their hospitality a little too often, but they endeavor to make all of their guests comfortable.
Pictures: Fletcher's Half/ Charmaign's Half
Neighborhood: Castro on the Haight side
Hours and Opening Rules: Never closes. Ever. Players may open bar posts (one bar post per day please) and lock specific threads/interactions, but the overall bar post must be open for other characters to drop in on because this is a gathering spot for all supes.
When opening DMZ, please c/p the following OOC note. Feel free to add your own notes as needed, but keep the main content, please.
[ooc: Please see http://epicentric-mods.livejournal.com/11088.html">here for the info post on DMZ. Wizards are encouraged/expected to stay on the low-tech side of the club. Char will be very put out if a wandering wizard blows out his multimedia system. Violence is absolutely not tolerated on the premises. If violence comes up ICly, please contact http://community.livejournal.com/epicentric_apps/1098.html">Charmaign or http://community.livejournal.com/epicentric_apps/811.html">Fletcher's players to make arrangements for action by the owners or bouncers (depending upon time of day.) http://epicentric-mods.livejournal.com/11088.html#the_babies">The Babies are around almost constantly except during the five days immediately prior to the http://fullmooncalendar.net/">full moon, feel free to have fun with them.
Anyone may open a post, for DMZ if there isn't one open for that day already, but please go http://epicentric-mods.livejournal.com/11088.html#ooc_note">here to get the ooc note that should accompany all DMZ posts. Just c/p and you're good to go.]
House Rules: No fighting on the premises (see the section on neutral ground). This will be enforced by a small army of preternatural bouncers during the day, and by bouncers augmented by Charmaign and Fletcher during the night hours. If you want IC intervention, ping this post to make arrangements for interventions on violence, for plottiness, or for questions about the club.
Security: Multiple preternatural bouncers (shifters, vampires, and faeries) depending upon the hours. The building has both magical wards and physical alarm systems as well as state-of-the-art fire suppression systems and emergency generators. Those sensitive to magic will feel the wards the moment they walk through the doors and that they weren't done by a second-stringer wizard.
Persona Non Grata: Because of their oaths of neutrality, Charmaign and Fletcher will always be loathe to declare an individual persona non grata at DMZ, but it does occasionally happen. It is entirely on their IC discretion what offenses will bring that down on someone, but include killing, attempting to weaken or bypass the wards, or bringing a fight into the club from outside. Only actions that happen inside the DMZ or directly affect the club will be taken into account for PNG status. The most evil guy in town and the city saint are both welcome in the DMZ unless they screw up in a way that affects the club.
Usually a single bar fight-type incident of violence won't be enough to be declared PNG, but repeat offenses will earn it. The same goes for shifters losing control at the full moon - the proprietors are well aware of their clients' special needs, but expect shifters to be even more aware and act accordingly.
Repercussions of being declared PNG extend outside the club. Being banned from the DMZ tells everyone in the preternatural community that the PNG has poor self-control and cannot be trusted to honor common codes of conduct. It can result in a certain degree of social ostracism as well as being cut off from the main preternatural gathering place.
Please contact Charmaign or Fletcher's players before doing something you may think will result in your character's being declared persona non grata at the DMZ.
Regarding Charmaign, Fletcher, the babies, and Tinkerbell
Charmaign and Fletcher are the owners of the DMZ, a pair of vampires who have been together for more than six centuries and who have been superficially on the outs with each other for the past forty years or so.
On their own, they're both quite pleasant in their different ways. When they're together, they tend to spitefully pick at each other, bringing up grievances dating back centuries.
For those able to sense such things, taken separately, neither Charmaign nor Fletcher seem more formidable than the average 600+ year old non-master vampire (which is formidable in its way, but hardly earthshaking). It might beg the question of how they can be counted upon to maintain the city's neutral ground and actually have any muscle to put behind it.
If they're on their separate ends of the bar/building, that's all they are and that's all anyone will sense. When they come together (within 20 feet or so) that will change radically and those two non-masters suddenly hit the radar as master vampires with power building the closer they get, though very few people ever have the privilege of seeing what it's like when they actually touch. It may provide observers with a guess as to why they stay together when they seem to hate each other so much.
The Babies (Zizi, Jouir, Precieux, Trique, Bidi, and Cariad) are six overly spoiled Scottish terriers who have free run of the club the majority of the time, barring the five days leading up to the full moon when they are kept in their masters' apartments for their own safety. If you ever want to piss off Tinkerbell (in the day) or Charmaign and Fletcher (at night) then mess with the babies.
There are organic dried liver dog treats available from dispensers throughout the club. Feel free to buy their love with treats, it's easy. The babies are accustomed to supes, being raised around them from puppyhood, so will have unusually calm reactions to lycanthropes and other preternatural beings.
The dogs have a habit of rushing people en masse, leaving them surrounded by six demanding canines until they are satisfied and head off to bother someone else. Feel free to NPC the babies being dogs (including having alpha shifters simply intimidating them into shutting up), just don't hurt them. Hurting the babies will bring down the wrath of Charmaign and Fletcher and will require pre-approval.
Tinkerbell is the club's day manager and Charmaign and Fletcher's pomme de sang. Picture Puck from a Midsummer Night's Dream meets Hard Gay,* with Dr. Girlfriend Mrs. The Monarch's voice. He's competent, capable, and loyal to Charmaign and Fletcher for reasons none of the three expound on. We are seeking a player for Tinkerbell, feel free to ping here or inquire with Charmaign or Fletcher's players for information.
*It should be noted that Tink dresses that way completely ironically and that in fact, his sexuality is never actually revealed. With Tink, it's very much true that "still waters run deep."
Staff: If you'd like one of your characters to get a job at DMZ, contact Charmaign or Fletcher's players to discuss what kind of fit can be found.