DECEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to December's Test Drive Meme!

This month's Test Drive's theme is: PROPHETIC HORROR.

All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.

Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.

CW: Possible death via exposure (freezing), Krampus imagery, possible vore, visual and auditory hallucinations, monster violence, stalking, decapitation

Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One Prompt Two Character Arrival Master Navigation

VANISH LIKE THE WARM STOVE

Winter has set in in Deerington and it’s as harsh as one would expect for the frigid mountains of inland Maine. There’s snow on the ground, icicles hanging off of most buildings, and black ice all over the roads. Better be careful where you step or you might just slip and hurt yourself while you’re walking around town!

But there’s something unusual about the cold. It feels bone-deep and no amount of layers or staying inside seems to make it shake. Your teeth are always chattering, you feel the need to hunch in on yourself to keep any heat from escaping, and if you look at your hands, you might see them go from bright red, to white, to even the slightest tint of blue throughout the day. You’re getting colder by the minute and it feels like there’s no way to stop it. Maybe you’re just doomed to freeze.

The box is waiting on a bench. You didn’t see who placed it, but there’s a small tag with your name on it, so clearly it was meant for you. If you ignore the box, it will start to show up on random surfaces around town wherever you might be; the kitchen counter, a desk or display case at your work, the floor of your bedroom… No matter where you are, the box is there too. Eventually, you might as well just give in and open it.

Inside every box are three matches. They’re relatively long, like the sort you’d use to light a fire in a fireplace, and they appear to be completely normal. People who can sense magic won’t get a reading off of the match and no amount of testing the wood or the tip will show anything other than the exact chemical make up one would expect. So maybe they’re safe! There’s a small note tucked inside the box with only two words written in childishly messy scroll; Keep Warm.

If you light the match, you’ll find that you’re instantly starting to feel a little less cold. It’s the first bit of heat you’ve managed to snag in so long that you’ll probably find yourself a little desperate to hold onto it. The matches burn at a relatively steady rate, not too fast or too slow, and the wind can easily blow them out, so be careful! You’ll have to protect the flame from the elements if you want to keep yourself toasty. The only strange thing that you might notice is that whenever you’re near another person who has a lit match, both the matches seem to burn a little stronger and stay lit a little longer. So maybe you’ll have to pair up and learn to share. If you’re smart, you’ll light just one of each of your matches at a time, giving you a total of six chances to keep yourself from freezing to death.

There’s always a catch though, isn’t there? Each match will come with a unique vision as the flame dies out. A vision that can be seen by both of you. The vision will belong to whoever’s match as burning and it will be as vibrant and detailed as if you were really in the middle of it.

The end of the first match will show you something you want. It can be anything; a warm meal, a new bed, an object from home you’ve longed for. You’ll be able to pick it up, taste it, smell it, do whatever you would normally do; but at the end of the day, it isn’t real, and ultimately you might find that you’re just chewing on your own (or your companion’s) hand.

The end of the second match will show a vision of someone that you miss. Whether it’s from home, a previous world, or someone who’s come and gone from Deerington, you’ll see them clear as day, calling for you and beckoning you to come with them. It’s probably best to not. After all, you’d have to leave your matches behind, and it’s cold out there.

The end of the third match will show you a vision of somewhere you miss. It’ll be like you’re standing in the middle of the very place you’ve been longing for ever since you arrived in Deerington — maybe even longer. It’ll look, sound, smell, and feel like the place you’ve missed most. It’s almost easy to want to stay and forget to come back to reality and light your next match.

If you both can make the six matches stretch until the sun sets, you’ll find that the cold has finally broken, and you’re able to keep yourself warm again. If you don’t? Well, it’s time to find someone else with a bundle of matches, and hope they’re okay with some basic invasion of privacy to stop you both from getting hypothermia.

BETTER WATCH OUT

Have you been a good person this year? Probably not! This is Deerington after all and everyone’s got a sin or two they’ve committed that they’ve been carrying around some deep shame about. Whether it’s something you’ve done here or something you did back home, the things your character feels guilt over will start to plague them more and more frequently as of late. Maybe you’ll start to see small little snippets of the memory flash before your eyes, or hear the voices of the people you’ve hurt calling out to you for mercy. No matter how it manifests, it’ll be gnawing at your insides, growing more and more impossible to ignore.

It might just be the paranoia from having to flashback to your worst memories at all hours of the day, but eventually you start to feel like someone (or something) is following you. You hear the scrape of nails against cement, the thud of heavy footsteps, or the sound of a heavy sigh by your ear accompanied with the smell of rancid breath. But every time you go to look, it seems like there isn’t anything there. No matter how logical a person you might be, you still end up feeling a little on edge, and you know you’re right about being… well, stalked. You may not be the sort who usually goes for comfort from others, but something inside of you tells you that maybe you’ll be a little safer if you aren’t alone. You seek out a friend, a colleague, or even a complete stranger— just someone who might make this creeping suspicion of being watched go away for a little while.

Except the moment that the two of you are together, Krampus finally arrives. He seems to fall from the sky, landing in front of you with a ground shaking thud, his long tongue hanging out of a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. He’s ever bit the demon you’d expect him to be and he looks hungry. You can try to run or you can try to fight, but he’s quick and strong, certainly hard for any normal human to take down. And if you look into his eyes, then things are about to get a whole lot worse.

Whoever locks eyes with him will have the very thing you have been feeling guilt over put on display for both you and your companion to see. It’ll be like you’ve been transported directly into the memory, Krampus’ clawed hand gripping your shoulders and forcing you to watch whatever your shame is play out in front of you all over again. The detail is striking and there’s nothing left out, no matter how hard you or your companion try to stop it.

When the memory stops playing, Krampus will start to move his tongue around you, wrapping you in the long, blood red muscle like it’s a snake. You can try to break free and it’s possible to cut the demon’s tongue with a sharp blade if you or your companion happens to have one; whatever you do, it’s best to do it quickly before you end up a snack.

Krampus can be taken down in one of two ways; either the person who is experiencing the guilt must confess their sin out loud and profusely apologize, begging for forgiveness for their misdeeds or he can be taken down in a somewhat simple ceremony. The chains dangling from the Krampus wrists must be grabbed and somehow secured into the ground; this will weaken Krampus greatly and leave him more vulnerable to attack. Once he is secured, you must take off his head. It doesn’t matter if it’s cut off, ripped off or blown off, the moment the neck is severed from the rest of the body, the Krampus will turn a deep black, like coal, before crumbling into dust, leaving only the head behind.

A little messy, but definitely efficient.

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.

The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.

If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh. Well. 'Yoma' is a word he's just going to carefully tuck away in a box at the back of his mind, and try not to think too hard about it. Because monsters that eat human entrails and flesh hits a little... close to home, right now.]

Okay. Dunno if there's any here, but there are loads of monsters around. So, uh. [He gestures at the weapon on her back.] Your cool weapon's gonna be useful.

[She looks over her shoulder and grins; her sword is basically her baby. She loves the thing, and hearing it being referred to as ‘cool’ makes her pretty happy.]

Oh yeah? What kind of monsters? What is this place?

[She shivers again; the icy wind goes right through her leathers and armor; she can’t believe how cold she feels. She taps the match against the box, wondering if she should just light it. Maybe build a fire right in the middle of the street. No one would mind, right?]

[A blast of wind hits him and he winces, hugging himself again and rubbing his upper arms.]

Uh - sewer monsters. Moving scarecrows. Stuff that I don't even know the names of. Stuff that wants to kill us.

[He's saying that quickly, looking around for the nearest open place he can duck into. He can't deal with this weather, it's too cold for him.]

[She's thinking the same thing. It's way too cold. How the hell do humans deal with this every damn year? As he looks around, Helen strikes one of the matches -- warmth envelops her almost instantly.]

H-hey kid, move in! [She gestures for him to come closer, holding the match out.] I don't know what's up with these matches, but the flame is real warm! Better than that shitty blanket.

[She glares at the fluffy heap of material on the ground, like it's betrayed her.]

[He blinks at her, taking a step towards her before it hits him that it might not be the best idea for him to get close to fire. The last time he did it kind of sort of killed him... but then, he knows it isn't necessarily a bad thing (Flame Princess and all of Finn's feelings for her immediately comes to mind).

And he's cold.]

Uh.

[He's really cold.]

Okay.

[He takes another couple steps closer, until he can feel the heat radiating off the match. Seems like a surprising amount of heat, given the size of the match.]

Wow, you're right. This is great.

[She's as careful as she possibly can be; the last thing she wants to do is accidentally set fire to someone. That wouldn't be the greatest start to whatever this... adventure (if she can call it that) is.

The warmth envelops her like the coziest, warmest blanket in existence. She's impressed that such a small flame can manage what the blanket couldn't.]

Right? It's better than a campfire! It's... actually a bit weird, don't you think?

[Despite the fact that he's plant matter and this is an open flame he can feel the cozy warmth too, and that's making it really hard for him to feel all that concerned about potentially getting burned.]

Yeah....

[It is weird, though. He hums thoughtfully.]

There's probably something evil about it.

Evil matches? Really?

[She snickers. The idea is silly to her, but the fire also shouldn't be this effective at keeping them both warm. It's burning fairly quickly, she notices.]

Then again, the box kept reappearing. And it knew my name. Maybe I should put the flame out...

[But the flame's warmth is so comforting and she really doesn't want to give it up.]

[Fern purses his lips at the snickering. He isn't annoyed, but he's dead serious about the matches being evil. In Deerington there's at least a seventy-five percent chance of that being the case.

Still, he doesn't move to try and put the fire out either. It's too nice.]

Whatever. If some donked match monster shows up we just gotta cut it down.

[Because there's at least a sixty percent chance of that happening.]

[Sorry Fern. She'd believe him if she thought inanimate objects had the ability to be evil. She remembers being read a story about an evil book once, but it was just that: a story.

She raises an eyebrow at the idea of a match monster, and then laughs a little too confidently.]

Yeah, I think I could take it! Do you think it'd breathe fire? I hope not.

[Fern considers her question. He knows it's a joke, but here in Deerington it's a valid possibility.]

It probably would. It'd probably be made outta fire, or something.

Really?

[She's thinking this over for reals now. Would a fire monster be a fun challenge, or an absolute pain in the ass to take down?]

I don't think I've fought a fire monster before, but I think I could take i-

[The match starts to die out, and suddenly she's seeing an apple. A really, really nice-looking red apple. And it's kinda just floating in front of her.]

Why the hell is there an apple here?

[Luckily Fern sees the apple too, so hey, he doesn't automatically think she's crazy!
He does look confused, though. Apples don't just suddenly appear in the middle of bad weather. Nor do they float.

Verrry suspicious.]

- I don't think you should touch that.