JANUARY 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to January's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: OCEAN 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.

PLEASE NOTE FOR CHARACTER ARRIVALS: This month, all players can choose to have their characters wake up in the town of Deerington or on the Titanic.

CW: Ghost of a child, rotting corpses, drowning, hallucinations, paranoia
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

WHERE FEET MAY FAIL

For those who were left behind in Deerington while everyone else was whisked away in the flood during the New Years Eve party, they will find that the town is a little more wet than usual. The streets are still flooded, houses are damp, and the chill of winter isn't making it easy to deal with. Your hands can feel like ice any day of the week and it's hard to focus with how badly you may find yourself trembling from the cold.

But it's almost preferable to the visions. They start off while you're sleeping; large sea monsters roaming the ocean, waiting to pull you down into the darkened depths; or maybe it's a strange, ghost looking girl with glowing eyes and tattered clothing, her skin blue and rotting the way a body does when it's been submerged in water for too long. She's calling out to you, beckoning you down, and all around her are the strung up, floating corpses of the people who were foolish enough to listen.

It's just a dream though, right? Slowly you start to see the girl around town. She's still calling to you, watching you, waiting for you. If you get too close, she'll even be able to grab onto you, pulling you down into the waterlogged streets, and into what you thought was only a puddle of water. It's as deep as an ocean, and just as dark and cold too. Someone near by can grab onto you before she can drag you under and the vision will disappear. If no one does, maybe if you're a strong swimmer, you'll be able to struggle free, but when you resurface, there will be a bruise forming on your arm in the shape of a hand – something to remind you that maybe these visions are a little more real than you gave them credit for.

The only way to stay safe is to travel in pairs. The girl seems to keep her distance when there's more than one person around, but it doesn't mean she won't try to find the means to separate you. Whether it's increasing the flooding in certain areas of the street or trying to distract one of you long enough to put some distance between you and your comrade, she'll do whatever it takes to try and grab onto whoever she can.

GHOST SHIP

Those who are on the boat might find that life is a little easier, depending on what class you've found yourself in. The struggles between first, second, and third are certainly rough on everyone, but many seem to find themselves thinking this is just the way of things. Maybe your mind has been altered to just accept the class differences or your memories completely rewritten and you think you've led a completely different life so far; either way, only a handful of passengers seem to fully understand that this isn't the way things are supposed to be.

There's nothing anyone can do to change things, though, and so many find themselves getting lost in day to day activities. Whether it's working on the ship, enjoying the finer foods in the first class dining halls, or enjoying the rowdy parties in third class storage after hours, everyone seems to be finding something to keep themselves occupied. As the days pass, even those who know full well what's coming seem to forget the looming doom, and you might even find yourself feeling lost in the monotony of day to day life.

But those who stare into the water too long, who look at the strange, large shapes swimming just under the surface might find a sense of dread filling them. The paranoia will shake you to your very core, leaving you with a sense that all is not right with this journey. You can try to tell people, but most will look at you as though you're insane. Eventually, your fear will become so heavy that you start to see destruction all around you. Whole sections of the ship will look flooded, rotting wood and rusted steel taking over every inch of the once proud ship, and every section is covered in algae. You might start to realize it looks uncannily like an old shipwreck.

The ship is still floating, though, and the coarse steady. So it's all in your head, right? Staying away from the water will make the visions and paranoia eventually ebb, but any glance at the floating shapes will cause it to come back tenfold. Maybe just stay inside and away from the ship's edge. It seems a lot safer that way.

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

NOTE: Character's this month can wake up in Deerington or on the Titanic.

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, Kim is definitely being a wallflower right now. Partying isn't exactly his "thing", per se, but he needs to know more about this ship. He's been carefully listening to everything that's been going on, scribbling down notes in his tiny notebook as if he were on a case. When Amara approaches him, he shuts the notebook before she can peer into his notes.

He's also refused to dance all night. He will not be making a monkey out of himself in front of hundreds of strangers.]

I will admit, partying in the bowels of a ship isn't what comes to mind when I think of fun. But I suppose it's festive enough.

[His accent almost sounds French, if France were a thing where he was from.]

You have some truly impressive tattoos. Where did you get them?

[They're really cool, actually. If he were not a police officer, he might look into it, himself...but he has to uphold his Image of being a non-delinquent.]

[fortunately, she wasn't about to sneak a peek, even if she is tall enough to peer over. you're safe this time, kim.]

What, you'd prefer to be up in the classy areas? I couldn't think of anything more boring. [she has her own wealth, but she's never been that sort to lord it over people. it mostly went to traveling for her work. at least... that's what she believes, right now.] I've had them longer than I can remember. I think I got them when I was a child...?

[that's a bit of a hole. weird! feels like something's not connecting. oh well.]

There will probably be a few more people with similar ones when we dock.

Well, maybe not the classy areas. God knows what they'd think of me.

[He is very much Not Classy despite how composed he tries to be. The RCM is spit upon by most citizens of Rechavol--and those outside of it, as well. He just prefers peace and quiet.

What Amara definitely says strikes him as odd, but she seems to be telling the truth. Then again, most of the people on this ship act a little odd....]

Ah. Yes. Speaking of docking--do you happen to know where we're headed? No one has given me the same answer twice.

[As a police officer, it's his job to ask questions. If Amara doesn't find a way to turn the conversation, he'll probably just keep asking them.]

I could care less. People like that cause more problems than they're worth. [they just make her think of aurelia and the companies like vladov that send their armies to wars that cause nothing but suffering. she doesn't mention this, though, because obviously kim would know that!] Ah-hah. Stowaway?

[..........it's a good question.]

...Yes. I'm a stowaway. How'd you guess?

[This is his life now. Okay. He can play the part. He's gone undercover in the pinball rings for nine months. Surely, passing himself off as a stowaway in this mystery ship isn't that hard. Who cares about the fact that he doesn't actually know anything about where they're going?

Besides, it's more believable to say that he's willingly gotten onto this ship as opposed to waking up in a confused state.

The corner of his mouth twitches upwards as he attempts to muster a more confident expression.]

But keep your lips sealed--we wouldn't want the officers of this ship to overhear, would we? I'm just here to sit back and watch.

Lucky.

[he's good at playing the part-- even if it's not something she'd look into anyway. amara can read people well enough to know when they're lying, but she doesn't really notice anything off.]

I'm not in the business of ratching people out. What could I possibly gain from it, anyway? Blackmail? Please, I'm not that sort.

You'd be surprised. Plenty of people try to make themselves feel superior by bringing the authorities down on people they think are doing wrong.

[He's being sarcastic, of course. He's seen it all too often among the citizens of Rechavol--those in the gutter dragging those who try to leave the gutter right back down with them because they don't deserve to have what others have worked so hard to achieve. A vicious cycle of people wrestling at the bottom of the pyramid, too blind to see that their real enemies are those keeping them down.

Maybe a different avenue of questioning might work to glean some answers...small talk. Yeah. That works!]

What exactly do you do at these parties, anyways? So far, I've only seen people drink and eat and... [He trails off.] ...Well. Drink even more.

I am an authority, [she says with a little smirk.] But not on this boat, and not while you are no threat to anyone. If you decide to start causing trouble, then maybe we'll talk.

[she believes she might've been always by the book, but she's learned to be a little more lenient, too.

...and also, no-one has paid her to deal with stowaways, so she ain't doin' shit, bro.]

You make merry and make new friends and connections! Some of the best people I've met was at a [COV raid on a crimson raider aftermath? no, that doens't sound right. it must've been a party.] party.

You and I probably attend different kinds of parties, then. I can't remember the last time I went to a party and no one started a fight within the first five minutes.

[Is that a smile creeping up on the lieutenant's face? No. It couldn't be.]

Of course, most of that is due to the attendants already being drunk upon arrival. Why leave the partying to just the party?

That's part of making merry.

[loves a good fight, this one. she might even be the one that starts them a lot of the time. just for fun.]

And yet it seems like you enjoy them. I see that smile.