Yes, he's a vampire! In the Lore of the setting, he's a born vampire (aka never was a human, came out of the womb ready to drink blood) and in general born vampires are bigger and have more abilities. They also regenerate periodically, so he DOES age but will revert to an earlier physical state and restart aging, making him functionally immortal. Vampires also can shift into other forms, as is common in vampire lore, but the most common chosen form in our setting is a large batlike monster, which is what he usually will shapeshift into because he likes to utterly obliterate humans. The fact that his family is also one of the most physically imposing and brutal lineages is a not insignificant factor for this as well.

Nikolae CAN shift at will, but it's a painful transformation since he has to slough off his humanlike body (think The Company of Wolves and Hemlock Grove werewolf transformations - I'm sure there are other examples like that but those are the ones that immediately come to mind) and in general most of his transformations happen when he's in a heightened emotional state and can't control it. He's shifted a couple times so far in what we've written for the main story, and it is... lmao. I love him when he's Big Monster. Katya does too, although she's not ready to say that yet. 🥰

HAHA okay yeah that's fair!!

They have a kid who they name Kyle, who later changes her name to Vilayan (which is a traditional Velanian name.) Vilayan uses any pronouns, so feel free to refer to her with whichever! I will be using she/her for this ask just to simplify comprehension, but she likes he/him and they/them just as much and in normal convo I will alternate between the three.

Vilayan Loret was (unsurprisingly) not raised within the Sliasistic church and its teachings, and as a matter of fact talking about the church was pretty taboo in the Loret household. Because of this, it was a very intriguing institution to Vilayan and she became really interested in the politics and order of the modern church, and especially in Urale and his work at the Greater Imerial Academy. Kauris forbade her from ever talking about Urale or his work at the church, and for a long time Vilayan didn't even know that he was her uncle!

When ~~major plot stuff~~ happens and Urale starts spending the majority of his time at the Academy, she's in her late teens and starts attending. By this point she knows that he's her uncle (and that Nadir is his daughter who he had an incestuous relationship with,) and Vilayan is like... deeply in love with him lol. The two of them enter a sexual relationship at the same time that she becomes his apprentice, and they do a lot of fucked up medical experiments for Callanin.

Vilayan is very into sadomasochism and is extremely subby. I've often described her as very yandere as well, because she is fiercely loyal to Urale and will do absolutely unspeakable things for him. Kauris and Cevin are understandably not thrilled about this, but at this point in the story there's not really anything they can do about it, and she's pretty much cut them out of her life.

She's very smiley and chipper, taking much more after Cevin than Kauris. Urale is a little bit repulsed by her because she looks a lot like Cevin, but at that point he's extremely lonely and depressed and sickly, so having a singularly loyal teenager to follow him around and do whatever he says is extremely appealing to him. She's very intelligent but not very wise, and tends to think with her dick.

They met in therapy. Cevin is one of Kauris' ex-patients!

While he was still a priest, Kauris had a role similar to a police or military chaplain. When he left the church, he went into private practice as a psychiatrist because he already had the necessary degrees for licensing, and he needed SOMETHING to do to distract him from his pain. He specializes in treating ex-military and ex-Sliasistic folks, and is popular with them for his no nonsense attitude and bluntness.

Cevin is an elf that served in the Velanian military, and was a (very small, low ranking) part of the coup against the royal family. He has PTSD from his time serving, and had a hard time adjusting to civilian life. Because of this, he sought therapy with Kauris when he went into private practice. Fun fact: he's a mechanic, and maintains a license to make and fix archanomechanical engines.

They actually had a bit of a meet cute! I'm planning on writing a short (<20k) piece about them and how they ended up together at some point because I really like their story. Cevin was the primary driver of their relationship and pursued Kauris in a firm but non-pushy way. He actually lined up another therapist before he asked Kauris out so that they would no longer be doctor and patient.

Cevin likes Kauris because he's a very wounded person with a deep well of cruelty that is genuinely trying to better himself and to repair the harm he's caused (unless it's Urale, but he hehe.) Cevin thinks he's a very lovely person underneath his prickly exterior. He absolutely loves Kauris' dry sense of humor - he's one of the only people that actually understands when he's telling a joke.

Cevin told Kauris once that he thinks he's the most beautiful man he's ever seen, and that pretty much instantly melted Kauris' heart and made him fall in love. Kauris is full of self hatred and has always resented Urale for being beautiful, so to be seen as the most beautiful person alive is really significant to him. Kauris loves how kind and resilient Cevin is, how sweet and gentle he is while also refusing to take abuse from anyone. They're a very good match!

And then they spawn just a complete and utter freak, but Alas lmao. Can't all be winners.

Of course!!

Callanin is the President (read: dictator) of Velana, which is the country on Vuliros that Acentel and Imerial are in. He's a very traditional Vulirosi guy and he's very anti-church. Through the uprising and eventual coup that he was head of, there's been a big shift in Velena to bringing back a lot of the traditional Vulurosi ways from before the church came to Vuliros, and a lot of that involves rights for quadfolk in general and specifically the right for people not to be forced to maintain elfshape in order to exist in Velenian society. Because of all of this, the Sliasistic Church has been moving leftward in a frantic attempt to maintain control, including appointing the first non-elf to the highest office within the church (the pope equivalent, which I know I gave a proper title but I can't find that in my notes right now.)

Callanin himself is an ex-military guy, and maintained elfshape for a long time. He's notably huge, and even in elfshape he's over 7 feet tall. I'm still working out all the details of his backstory, but the main important parts are his relationship with the previous royal family and Antanaia.

Velena used to have a royal family, which was appointed by the church. The title of king would still be handed down to the king's offspring, but the church could strip them of their power and titles at any time, and for many centuries would just straight up execute them. Antanaia's family had been in charge of Velena for a while, but they were falling out of favor with the church and were at risk of having their titles stripped. Antanaia was really interested in what Callanin had to say about the political system and the church, and ended up helping him with the coup. They eventually wed (in the traditional Vulurosi style of course) and had a baby named Taliv.

Callanin's power went to his head pretty fast, and though he holds a lot of ideals that we'd consider leftist, he ends up being a very authoritarian ruler. Antanaia is not a fan of that, which is why they decide to leave him. Taliv still lives with her father because she's a daddy's girl through and through.

Callanin has a pretty important role in the major world events going on in Saints & Machines so I won't get too into where his plot is going, but I will say that he's good friends with Urale, which will be a thing that causes a lot of pain and suffering later on down the line. :^)

I have a few! I mostly pick them as I come across voices that I feel work really well for them. Urale's is Oded Fehr, who I picked very early on because his voice is just very sexy, and in some roles has almost this unsettling quality that I think suits Urale very well. Salazar's is Keston John, who has voiced a lot of characters I really like and has fabulous range, and because of that range I think he works really well for Salazar who is inherently kind of a duplicitous guy. Bunny's is Karin Heimdahl, who if I had to guess is probably best known for her work as a VA on the podcast The White Vault - although I really like the podcast she produces called Chaika, where she does lovely poetry readings between story beats! Bunny presents herself as a very sophisticated woman, and Ms. Heimdahl's way of speaking fits that very well, very proper but also almost a little sultry - and of course, she's got that very particular Swedish accent that works really well for Bunny.

Those are the main three I have nailed down for sure, at some point I'll probably spend more time researching voice claims for the rest of my roster. Again, I mostly pick voice claims as I come across ones I really like and that I think fit really well with the character. Urale is kind of an abnormality in that I very quickly had Oded Fehr picked out for him - I knew he was a good cast for him right away because I already had gone through his credits for a different OC a few years before, and knew of his work on OUaT as Jafar. 😁

As far as tips, I generally start with thinking about the Vibes that I want the character to have, and then think about characters in TV, movies, podcasts ETC that have similar vibes. I listen to a lot of podcasts so I've gotten pretty good at picking out different voice characteristics that I like, but I've also gotten very fussy about vocal performances. In general I prefer actors that have done a lot of voiceover work already, because their performance relies solely on their voice and I find they usually have much more interesting voices because of it.

The Good Place, obviously. Love a show that's light hearted and fun right up to the point that it tears your heart out. Also The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Fucking love that series.

If you like live action drama, I really like The Killing, The Sinner, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Ozark, Squid Game, Lost in Space (the new one,) Twin Peaks, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- but my main recommendation is absolutely Yellowjackets. Season 2 has been very hit or miss for me, but season 1 is just 😗👌 For dramadey, I like Good Girls, and Cobra Kai.

If you like cartoons, I really enjoy Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Be Cool Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Transformers Prime, Avatar: the Last Airbender, Gravity Falls, Amphibia, The Owl House, and of course, Tales of Arcadia -- although I can't in good conscience recommend you watch anything after the end of 3below, and there's a lot of stuff that from the beginning is just kinda..... yikes.

It's a docuseries, but I thought Queer for Fear was really interesting.

I'm currently watching Dead Ringers, Your Honor, and Undone, as well as keeping up with Yellowjackets.

I've seen a lot more shows because I actually watch a lot of TV (often as background noise to keep the demons at bay) but those are the ones that have earned a spot in my mind for one reason or another.

For me it's about The Range. My taste in ships is "the more fucked up the better," but Hellstrop naturally has that AS WELL AS a lot of sof™️ moments. In general I like my media pretty fucking bleak (or with plenty of opportunities for Bleak) but TGP has a tone that fills me with a lot of like.... melancholic hope I guess? And a lot of that extends to the Hellstrop dynamic specifically.

I really like how much they have in common, and how out of their antagonistic relationship a really beautiful and strong friendship emerges out of mutual admiration. Michael does a LOT of really fucked up shit to Eleanor (because.... you know.... eternal torture) but they still manage to get to a place where they trust each other wholly and completely. It's something that's very fucky and weird, but it's also so sweet??? The morality of their relationship is made so fucking weird by just the huge expanse of time that TGP covers, but to me it's like. Just such a hopeful message about what makes a monster and choosing to be a better person. And there's a lot of that canonically with platonic Hellstrop, but I like it even more with a sexual and/or romantic element added.

I also like both of them as aro, and to me (as an aro person) the act of choosing to build love with someone out of adversity and deep friendship is like. That's so fucking tasty to me. Glug glug glug.

Also he's her self appointed "father figure" and I'm taking that in a codependent incest way. <3

LMAO that would be fucking wild. Honestly I think a lot of it depends on the individual and how they conceive. Kauris and Urale are both quad folks that have maintained elfshape for literally centuries, and Kauris gave birth to just a single kid, who yes, probably came out as a little pup. (Nadir was basically "cursed" by Urale as an infant to be trapped forever in elfshape, which has lead to a whole host of health problems for her.)

I do think that it's the norm for quadfolk pups to be born in their natural quad state though, regardless of what form the parents primarily take, and I think it's common for quadfolks to have litters. Again, depends on the species, but I think most litters are pretty small. It's more likely to get twins and triplets than larger litters.

I've never met any kind of curry that I didn't like! I really like Indian food and Thai food in general. I usually go for medium-hot on the spice scale. I'm a big soup fan in general, my favorite is probably borscht though, or maybe this sweet potato chorizo kale soup I make sometimes. I have real bad TMJ so I prefer soft foods that don't require a lot of chewing, which sucks because I love a good steak too! Biff a la Lindström is in my top 5 comfort foods, along with köttbullar and this fish potato mash thing my mamma makes that I can't remember the Swedish name for at the moment. I don't have a huge sweet tooth, but if you put anything in front of me that has cardamom as the primary flavor, chances are I'll love it. Cardamom is very nostalgic and lovely to me.

Depends on the verse! In their (current) main verse, Katya is a vampire slayer that goes to Mokrija to avenge her mother (who Nikolae killed to bait her) and ends up being trapped there by Nikolae for a long long time. There's a lot of fucky shit that happens, including her killing Nikolae and sending him to hell (which doesn't stick because the devil ejects him back into the mortal world because he hates his vibes so fucking much,) Katya gets into a lot of witchy shit, becomes the lady of Mokrija, all that fun stuff. Also a lot of dubious and outright nonconsensual sex. Nikolae is obsessed with her, and she's got... very complicated feelings. Nikolae fully believes that they're soul mates, and Cal once told me that Katya is kind of bought into that in this verse which like... not to victim blame, but girl...

In the verse that we have for them with the steam punk trains (which is mostly what I draw for them these days) Katya as a child goes to the railroad to try to find her father (who's ALSO named Nikolai <3) and ends up meeting Nikolae instead. He takes her in as his "daughter," and as she grows older they end up in a very weird quasi-familial pseudoincestuous romantic relationship that makes everyone around them wildly uncomfortable lol. Katya acts as his second in command and enforcer, and is very brutal in her work. She's still a human for most of this, so Nikolae relies on her to be able to manage people during the daytime hours. Also, Nikolae in general is extremely lazy and would rather just dictate orders to people and let Katya actually handle running the trains. He is still very strong and capable though, again... just lazy lol. He loves and trusts her completely.

Anyway, yeah Urale and Callanin!!! They have a long friendship which is at time sexual. They actually belong to the same species of shifters, Urale just mostly keeps elfshape for various political and personal reasons. They do have freaky quadrupedal monster sex though. Urale's true form is similar in size to Callanin's, so they're both big and scary.