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DECEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE

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.

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( the match burns, warm blooming from the wick but that doesn't seem possible. it's such a small thing but it's almost like there's a fireplace in front of him because he's warm. he's used to being cold, doesn't really bother him but a part of him hopes that this match never goes out so he can always feel this warm.

the longer the match burns, the stranger things get. he blinks and sees one thing. he blinks again and it's gone. but it doesn't feel like a hallucination. it feels like something else entirely but it's not something he's going to question until the hurried, frantic statement reaches his ears and his focus tears away from the match to the girl.

there's a glow to her and she looks almost blurry. he blinks again, shakes his head but when he opens his eyes, she's still there but she hasn't solidified. )

What's happening to me?

( what had this box done to him? what had this match done to him? it doesn't hurt but it's definitely causing some kind of reaction in him that he can't stop. )

[ she forgets how she may appear to an opposing eye, often not taking into account how the flickering translucency of her might not always appear welcoming, especially in a town so often haunted by surrounding ghosts and mystic illusions, such as whatever might be taunting him now by the confusion in his gaze.

she looks down at the box in his hands to see if there's any hint to their trickery now that he's put it to use, but there's no hint of any difference aside from the lasting flicker of the match. ]

It's likely playing with your mind. Most things that they offer for free here tend to have that effect. You can't always trust what you're seeing.

Does that include you?

( he's seeing her but she's...off. she's blurry, smudged, not quite solid and it gives him the impression that maybe she's something he's seeing that he shouldn't trust.

the question becomes why would see her if he doesn't know her? his car was familiar and the face of his friend was achingly recognizable but she wasn't. )

Though, I don't know why I'd be seeing you when I'm pretty sure I haven't seen you before in my life. ( unless he has and he doesn't remember it. ) Right?

[ right.

she holds up her hand to look at, the shimmer of paleness there reminding her of her current appearance in these latest days. if it were reversed, she'd be the first one skeptical at such a sight, and perhaps it's smart of him to hold his doubts. ]

No, you shouldn't know me. [ there's no reason at all to fool him otherwise. ] I don't normally look like this, but this is the sort of thing this town does to people. It tries to change you, sometimes in your mind, sometimes your body.

[ she shrugs a shoulder, as she diverts her focus back on him. ]

You don't have to trust me, but if you sense something strange happening to you, I can guarantee it's likely to do with that match in your hand.

This place...made you like that?

( again, it's not an unfamiliar concept. look at what mystic falls had done to so many people since he'd been born. it had taken innocent people with their lives spread out before them and turned them into monsters in the blink of an eye.

and no matter how many times he tried to run away from it, start again, create a new life for himself, things like this always caught up to him. )

Strange things tend to happen to me a lot. ( he shrugs one shoulder. ) What happened to you that caused this? What did this place do to you?

[ he appears confused about the current state of things, but he doesn't necessarily look panicked or frightened by it; really, that's for the best in his benefit, since things tend to amplify consistently here. whatever is happening now is probably nothing in comparison to what's likely to come eventually.

she presses her lips together with his question, not necessarily eager to answer, but she had approached him, so it might not be fair to loom around as some unreliable mystery. ]

They stole my heart, and not in the romantic sense. [ and maybe not even literally, but it was the taking of her heart that started all of this, to begin with. ] Now, I'm not quite dead, but I'm — something of a ghost.

[ a ghost — she's never liked to take that title, but it's the simplest way to describe it. ]

Not just ghosts. They've turned others into things like werewolves and vampires, too.

How is that possible, though? How does a place take someone's heart or transform them into a werewolf or a vampire?

( as far as he knew, taking someone's heart (including his own) would kill them. and to become a vampire or a werewolf meant either being born with gene or dying with vampire blood in your body.

the sun doesn't just rise and suddenly turn everyone that it touches into whatever it wants. it's not possible. he doesn't think she's lying but it doesn't sound possible. )

Are you stuck like that forever? [ a life sentence akin to his own? ]

If I knew those answers, I probably wouldn't be stuck in this predicament in the first place. [ she isn't snapping at him necessarily, but there isn't a bit of a frustrated knitting of her brow at the thought.

she'd been in this town for months, and in all this time, she was no closer to understanding its methods any more than she had when she'd first arrived. even with all that sodder's tried to provide them, the mystery only strengthened with each passing day.

his question leaves her hesitant to answer, lips sinking into a subtle frown as she tries to consider it. ]

I don't ... I don't know. But most things here are based on magic, and though sometimes it limits us, sometimes outside powers and abilities still work. And I'm a witch, so — there has to be some spell that exists to fix it.

[ hopefully. but with that, she adds on, tackling what's important. ]

But if I have learned anything, it's that whatever this place is capable of, it tends to target the mind, like it's trying to break us down until we can't fight anymore, so — it doesn't have to be me, but if you want to survive whatever tricks they're inevitably going to throw your way, you have to find people you can trust to help pull you out. It sounds silly, but it's the only way you're going to survive.

It doesn't sound silly at all. ( it sounds familiar. it sounds exactly like what he'd been doing already, leaning on those in mystic falls who'd make sure to keep him in check, bring him back, be honest with him, and do whatever was needed if he got out of control.

her words might sound like an afterschool special but he's experienced just how helpful a support system can be and that's after going for years and years without. )

I've known a few witches in my time. They're pretty resourceful and usually figure out things before the rest of us. If I knew anything about magic, I'd offer to help but I'm woefully lacking.

( that was a slight lie. he wasn't anywhere near bonnie's level of knowledge but he knew enough to get by. )

[ it sounds entirely silly. but, still, it's the honest truth, if only because it's advice she's tried to ignore for months on end. she's learned that in times she tries to withdraw herself most, take on those challenges by herself, the circumstances were only ever inevitably worse. ]

Well, I'm glad, at least, that you hold a positive outlook on witches. [ many don't. ] Anyway, magic helps, but it's not required to get by. Just ... second guess everything. Practice telling the differences between what's real and what's not.

I'm pretty good friends with one. She's taken me down a several pegs a few times so I know just how powerful witches are and that I shouldn't be getting on their bad side.

( miss you, bonnie. )

I've gotten pretty good at that, admittedly. ( he'd had to all things considered. ) But, it's good to hear that reiterated. I didn't think this was just some unpaid vacation but it's good to know that it's...going to try and mess with me. I'm used to that.

Well, good to know we have that understanding then. [ not a threat, but rather amusement, the corner of her lips even curving upward a little. she's not always fond of being feared, but she does hold a bit of pride in being a witch.

he seems to understand the rest of it just fine, which makes this easier. ]

But you should do alright, then. Just be careful with those matches and — [ a pause, and then, ] I'm Wanda Maximoff. If you find yourself in trouble and don't have anyone, just find me. I can try to help.

I don't intend to do anything with these matches. I'd rather freeze. ( well no, he'd rather not but he also isn't going to be tempting fate so soon after arriving in a town that he doesn't understand. )

Stefan Salvatore. It's nice to meet you. ( good to know that as things changed (mystic falls to deerington), things stayed the same (there were always witches willing to help). )

I appreciate the offer to help. I hope I don't have to need it but I appreciate that it's there. Feel free to do the same. If you need me. ( not that she knows what he can do but maybe he'd tell her.

next meeting. )

Well, don't freeze, either. [ good to play smart, but there's a difference between that and being stubbornly stupid. ] I've heard it's been chilly indoors too, but there are still plenty of places with good insulation and common fireplaces. Try to stay around there until the worst of the weather fizzles away.

[ until then, she might be on an unintentional patrol, making sure no one else gets into the same kind of trouble.

still, it's appreciative that he's willing to return the favor. always good to start off on the right food with the newer sleepers. ]

Then I'll be seeing you, Stefan.

Thank you for your help.

( he nods gratefully. )

Stay warm and I'll talk to you soon.

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