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quaranmeme2017-10-20 08:26 pm
riverview: october test drive meme
riverview test drive memeWelcome to Riverview's test drive meme! Feel free to dip your toes in on the test drive meme to try out your character in the setting, play out a mission, and get samples for your application at the same time!
● There are currently 31 Character Slots available.
● Applications are open but the application and reserve cycle will resume with apps closing on November 7th.
● Providing all parties are amenable, threads on the test drive meme can count as game canon, as the plot in the prompts presented is game canon, and may continue while applicants are waiting on the queue (including spanning multiple TDMs).
● TDM threads do not count for Activity Check, but they do count for Activity Bonus Points, so long as all characters involved are accepted into the game.
● Threading on the TDM is intended for prospective new characters, so top-levels should only be posted by players of these characters. Since the events in the TDM are considered game canon, characters currently in the game are free to use the TDM prompts for logs and posts on the regular communities.
Feel free to use the prompts below or create your own scenario. The setting is built to be flexible, so feel free to make things up as you go.
information resources
premise ● arrival ● setting ● ask a question ● calendar ● navigation
Over the course of the past couple months, something has been changing in the Abandoned City, the part of the Quarantine that was abandoned over a decade ago after the great Epidemic that decimated the population of the sprawling city. It hasn't been independent or spontaneous either - Quarantine resident Ava Orlova has been practicing with her energy production powers outside the city in a way that has had some interesting side effects.
With burst after burst of glowing blue energy surging through a spur of one of the abandoned and neglected transit train lines, something has started stirring. The line was connected to a long-dormant hydro-electric power relay station located near on the river just before it connects to the waterfalls (see the crudely-drawn map here), and with all that power being pumped through the train line and ending up in the station, the backup generators have wheezed to life.
What does this mean for Quarantine residents?
Providing the station can be secured and brought back to full power, it means that the overall electrical grid in the city will be much more reliable, the fences will be more secure, and new methods to try to direct the portal to send mistaken arrivals home can be explored. Most importantly, the part of the Abandoned City surrounding the newly-activated power station will be much easier to tame and inhabit. The possibility of expansion is very important for the Quarantine - with new arrivals coming through the portal almost constantly, overpopulation has been a bit of a concern of late.
With all of this at stake, the Perimeter Guard and the Government of Riverview are teaming up to make sure that this new area gets explored, secured, and made useful in as short a time as possible. Anyone with even an inkling of desire to explore will see ads, fliers, or Perimeter Guard Cadets talking up the exploration mission out to the new power relay station. Head over to the Perimeter Guard Headquarters to receive a free package of exploration equipment courtesy of the Government of Riverview (complete with comfortable camouflage jumpsuit, tactical belts, and a lightweight pack with a survival kit including food, water, first aid, flares, and other similar supplies) and be issued a weapon to follow the train line out to the power station and ensure the route is safe.
It isn't just the route to the power station that needs to be cleared - with all the activity and the thrum of energy and light at the station, a swarm of interested monsters and creatures has come toward the area. The exploration team and any techs interested in helping to get the station fully operational will need protection, and the station itself will need to be cleared of all threats and secured so the engineers, electricians, and technical geniuses can safely work on establishing a power grid in the area.
Join in the fray, and back up your fellow explorers to get the area safe, secure, and able to be used!
Almost any type of monster is possible, including monsters featured in previous Test Drives, monsters that players make up on the fly, and even monsters from individual character canons that could have conceivably come through the portal. The fight, however, is totally worth it. Once this area is cleared out, there's going to be a lot more space to move around and a few interesting new locations...
During the 10th month of every year on the moon, due to a complex series of chemical, electromagnetic, and magical forces that no one has ever exactly distinguished or completely understands, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead are weakened almost to the point of nonexistence. During this time, residents of the moon are able to see and interact with the dead - ghosts, manifesting in ways that run the gamut from being a strange sense of being watched or being visible or audible all the way to more corporeal spirits that can affect the world around them. The barriers are weaker in some parts of the city than they are in others, with some areas experiencing little to no ghost activity, while others are so populated with these ghosts that residents can barely go a few feet without running into one. The ghosts are generally the unsettled dead, people who died violently, or who were lost, seeking a place to call home, and their behavior is as varied as it was while they were alive. Some ghosts are angry and vengeful, some are simply lonely and lost.
While some people tend to interact with the ghosts only a little and as necessary, others avoid them as completely as possible, and yet others actively seek out souls who are suffering and try to ease that so they can stop coming back year after year. There are other people who have found that ghosts from their home worlds have come through with them, following them through the portal when they arrived, even if they did not die on the moon...
Whether facing death or making peace with those who have died, this is a time to reflect.
A Few OOC Guidelines:
● Characters may see or interact with ghosts from the Quarantine's past. These people will be as varied as the NPCs, from a multitude of different worlds, and characters are welcome to either engage or avoid, as players wish.
● Most Quarantine-based ghosts will have died in either the Great War with the neighboring reality or in the Pandemic that wiped out the population of the Abandoned City years ago.
● Characters may also see or interact with ghosts from their own or other characters' canons, providing the character in question is dead in canon and is not currently being played in the game.
● Canon-based ghosts should not be simply transplanted into the game as they were in canon - they are ghosts, and therefore 'not quite right,' and should not be used as an excuse to NPC a canonmate for a month. These ghosts are there to be used as plot devices to open up new avenues of CR, to create angst, to help a character make peace with their past, or other similar reasons.
● Ghosts should not be complete corporeal physical presences indistinguishable from living people, but barring this, how strongly the ghosts manifest and how much they can interact with the world around them is up to player discretion. Ghosts shouldn't be present the whole month straight, but can disappear and reappear at random times.
Since October 9th, the residents of the Quarantine have been having a stranger-than-usual experience that's been drawing them closer together (or pushing them apart). The machinery in control of the process that's used for canon updates has gone haywire and is releasing nanites that usually function to restructure characters' bodies to match the updated information. The nanites are doing something different, though - they're sharing memories between characters.
Memories can be shared in several forms:
● First Person: This is experiencing another person's memory as if it's your own, seeing through that person's eyes in all its detail. This option wouldn't clearly expose the identity of the person whose memory is being viewed unless the memory includes that information specifically.
● Dreamscape: Mostly happening during dreams or with shared flashes during the day, this is watching the memory as if it were a three-dimensional movie, during which you can meet and talk with the person whose memory is being viewed.
● Network: These are memories shared through the network by accident, either as audio/video uploads or text-based descriptions transcribed to the network. These would be posted with the ID of the person whose memory is being shared.
● It is up to individual player preference how much feelings can be used in the memory, but knowing the other character's thoughts is not permitted.
● All memories must be from your character's canonpoint or earlier.
Whether your character is accidentally sharing a memory, posting up a silly word game, trying to get hold of a friend, or putting out feelers for people to go out into the fray with, the network is going strong.
Alternately, an offer for a free app is popping up on new arrivals' devices - Friendr is a friend-finder and/or dating app. If characters choose to install it, they will fill out a short bio and parameters for what they're looking for, upload a snap of themselves, and then proceed to browse for matches. This is a typical swipe-left-or-right type app.
Friendr base code is by photosynthesis.
The code in the textbox is for the default color scheme, but the Friendr app has a wide variety of themes, so feel free to customize with colors and patterns as you see fit, but do not remove the credit line out of respect for the creator of the code.
Use the wildcard prompt to choose your own adventure and do whatever else you like in the setting!
no subject
...Never seen a ghost. [Ghosts come from dead people? Okay, she can get that idea. But she still can't help but frown up at him because wait a minute mister!]
Dead people, no ghosts.
no subject
Most people can't see ghosts, but this place is kinda weird, the borders between the planes are real thin, means you can see assholes like that bad man, but they're like mist, or smoke. You can see 'em, but you can't touch 'em, that's why cha boy used magic to get rid of him.
no subject
He sounds like he knows what he's talking about, so Eleven listens carefully, doing her best to understand.
But please excuse her if the mention of the planes, and just how thin the borders are have her turning absolutely sheet white, gaze uneasily skipping around them as he was speaking, hands flexing. Planes she remembered hearing the boys talk about. How they understood what had happened in their town.]
The Upside Down.
[Was that why she'd been pulled here?
Whatever the reason, something in her eased at the last bit, expression shifting to something a bit more curious than anything.]
Magic? Like wizards?
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I dunno what the upside down is, but yeah, bubbale, I'm a wizard.
no subject
Bubbale?
[But he doesn't know... or maybe he has a different name for it. Wizards had different names for lots of things in Mike's books, and the boys had used a specific name at first. Her expression scrunched slightly as she tried to think of it, holding her hand flat, and tapping the palm.]
Us.
[Slowly, she turned her hand over, tapping the back of her hand.]
The Upside Down. Vale of Shadows.
[A slow, solemn shake of her head.]
Bad place.
no subject
[He's more curious about her explanation for the upside down, closing his own hand over the flame while he watches what she does. It sounds like maybe she's talking about a plane, but the Vale of Shadows isn't anything he's familiar with, so maybe it's just another term for something like the Infernal Plane.]
You can move between uh, worlds? Planes?
no subject
But at the moment it's more important to talk about the Upside Down, at least in this case. Normally she'd stay mum, but this man was a wizard. Maybe he knew how to handle that sort of thing better than she could.]
Yes. [A quiet huff, brows drawing slightly as she let her hand drop again.] Accident.
no subject
Can you do any other kinda magic?
no subject
It's... [Not magic? Maybe? But then again what did she know about magic, it could very well be that her abilities were some manner of magic.]
Maybe magic. [Chewing the inside of her mouth, she glances around uncertainly. Not many people, and none actually paying attention to them. Should be safe enough. Normally she'd not even consider showing her powers in front of a stranger, but this man was a wizard. Wizards were supposed to be very wise, so maybe this one would be able to help her understand her abilities.
A small patch of landscaping caught her attention, and after a moment's focus, the small white quartz stones that covered the little patch started to shift. Nothing huge, or destructive, but simply rippling like an ocean, even with some bigger waves rolling across the 'sea' for a moment before they all went still again with a simulated splash, stones clacking against each other as they settled back again.
A small smile on Eleven's face as she peered almost shyly back at the wizard, curious what he might think, paying no real attention to the new nosebleed.]
no subject
He needs more information for that, so he follows Eleven's gaze to the patch of stones, eyebrows going up as they move. It's not something big and impressive, but telekinesis is a fifth level spell, regardless of how dramatic the items being moved are.]
Shit, kiddo, that's a lot better than I could do at your age. [He's impressed, grinning at Eleven before the nose bleed catches his attention and his features pull into a small frown.] You've got a little something...
[He gestures at his own nose, rather than reaching out for her.]
no subject
But whatever the case, she draws up a bit taller at the praise, lips curling a bit more on her smile. It was nice. Not like Papa's praise that always had some part of her chilling at the underlying menace to the man even when he pretended at kindness. But something much more genuine like her friends had come to regard her with.
The gesture at his face was understood regardless, crooked smile staying put as she wiped her bloody nose again. Not a big deal, no need to frown Taako!]
Like spells?
no subject
That's kinda like a spell, for sure, but if I had to take a guess, you're more a sorcerer than a wizard, cause wizards have to learn their magic, you know? We can't do it accidentally, but sorcerers can.
[They're rare, too, Taako has only met a few in his time but they've all been powerful.]
no subject
But whatever the case, Eleven was much more interested in what he was already telling her.]
A sorcerer? [It made sense so far- no one had taught her to use her powers, other than throwing her in the proverbial deep end and seeing what happened. A far cry from spells and scrolls that her friends had talked about.]
no subject
[Because while he's fine with having this conversation and explaining things to her, he'd rather do it sitting comfortably with a coffee on hand.]
no subject
[She's not sure what a cafe was, but if they were going to it she'd see soon enough, so better to let them get on the way, shuffling a few steps closer to let Taako lead the way.]/small>
no subject
[Between Ellie and Laura, Taako has gotten pretty decent at picking up on the little cues of someone who isn't going to handle things like a) crowds and b) enclosed spaces very well, so the cafe he leads her to is relatively quiet, and he picks a table outside, gesturing for her to sit as he takes a seat himself.
Then he delicately plucks the menu off the table and offers it to her.]
Pick whatever you want, all the food here is good.
no subject
[A light tap to her own chest.]
Eleven. El.
[She didn't mind which he'd rather use. And he was right on the money. Somewhere low-key and open was definitely the way to go.
She takes the menu, slowly reading over the options with a slowly growing look of confusion before peering up at Taako uncertainly.]
...eggos?
no subject
[Eleven isn't the weirdest name he's heard, honestly, but it's another curiosity that he adds to the growing list.
When she asks about eggos, he has to quirk a brow.]
Like, eggs? Or something else?
no subject
Eggos. [A hesitation as she tried to recall what else Will referred to them as.]
...Waffles.
no subject
[Taako catches the attention of the waitress, ordering a coffee for himself, and a plate of waffles and glass of juice for Eleven, since even he's aware that she's a bit too young for caffeine.
With that done, he turns his attention back to El.]
This might be a kinda weird question, but what planet are you from?
no subject
She doesn't seem all that confused by the question, tilting her head slightly as she settles back in her seat.]
Earth.
no subject
[Oddly enough, that's not what he was expecting for once, since usually humans know what ghosts are and don't talk so easily about things like alternate planes. It does make him reconsider that maybe she's a metahuman rather than magic, but he needs more information.]
The planet I was last on is called Toril, and I'm an elf, if you were wondering. [People do] But there's a lotta humans from Earth here, so you're in good company.
no subject
[Elf. She knew that word too, from listening to the boys banter and argue whenever they were trying to figure out how to put her explanations of things into words and concepts that made sense to them.]
Elf. Not human. [Not that she minded the idea, it was just something somewhat new. It was one thing for the books Mike had to talk about other species like that, a pretend thing. It was another to have it proven as something real.
And if she was being honest, the comment about the others being good rather than bad did soothe her somewhat.]
no subject
Not human, yup. We're different in a couple ways, but the big ones are the ears and the lifespan, I'm uh... pretty old.
[Not old for an elf, but old for a human.]
no subject
...old? [She did sound a bit skeptical at that. Sure he was obviously an adult but he didn't look old.]
(no subject)