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

"Fine, fine, Spiderant Person," she shoots back, clearly just avoiding the obvious on purpose now. Vaguely, she wonders what tech he has that allows him to walk on the walls like that. It would be useful!

Amara jumps up to scale the building -- she has no webbing powers, but she's used to parkouring and has her siren powers to propel her and aid in climbing; six glowing arms that sprout from her back... not unlike spider legs, coincidentally.

"She's tangible--" Jump up onto the roof to try and join Spiderant Person, try not to slip on all the water. "So I think zombie is the right one here. We must keep her distracted between us before she goes for someone else!"

Better the people with powers, right?

It's not the right image for Spider-Man to mutter to himself like a cranky old man, but he's going grey, he's still got that little beer-belly he's got to tone back down, he's cold, he's been thrust from one alternate universe to another and-

-and something sets his Spidey-senses tingling and he shoots his webbing at Amara's chest, yanking her hard and fast to swing her across to the adjacent rooftop, right as a large, slimy-

"Why is it always tentacles!?" Peter squawks, the slimy limb catching him across the middle and sending him almost tumbling over the edge of the roof. He goes rolling, wincing with each bit of tile and cement that jabs into him, thinking all the while:

I need to sleep for a week.

She yelps a little inelegantly as she's yanked forward-- Spiderant Person is most definitely stronger than he appears. From the momentum, she just about manages to pull herself back to her feet to look over and see what he's yelling about.

"Shit!" Why is it always tentacles? That's a very good question. "Hold on!"

It doesn't take her long to sprint back across the rooftop to Peter, skidding to halt in front of him. She crouches briefly, trying to make sure he hasn't broken anything.

"Finally, a decent fight! I don't like the idea of attacking a child!" she calls out, punching forward at the air. More ethereal fists appear (it's a theme with her) that burst up in a line in front of her, racing towards the tentacle. These spark electricity, too, though when they hit the tentacle they don't grip on. Just punch and disappear. It's enough to stun it briefly. "This planet doesn't have enough guns on it! I haven't even found one yet, honestly!"

"Guns bad," comes the immediately rebuttal, even as Peter groans quietly and sits up, shaking off the brief dizzy spell that had lingered. "So much no bueno on guns. Besides, you've got the whole zappy thing going for you, what do you need guns for?"

A pause, then, "How are you doing that, by the way?"

Taking the moment, she crouches to offer a hand to help him up.

"I'm used to being charged by about twenty people, all insane and intent on shooting me first," she recounts casually. "Even my zappy thing cannot cover that."

Amara looks back to the tentacle, trying to judge how long they have. She's (over)confident enough to think she can take that thing herself, but she doesn't want her new Spiderant themed friend to get his ribs broken by it, or whatever.

"I am a Siren, one of only six in the universe. Though it seems we aren't a concept that exists for most people I've met here thus far." It bothers her, but it's not clear in how she shrugs it off. "For the record, I am Amara. I'll keep you safe, Flying Spiderant Person."

"Okay, Siren Amara, just an fyi," Peter starts, taking the offered hand to get up, then stepping away as he puts his palms to his lower back, arching and cracking his spine with a little grunt on each twist. "It's not 'Flying Spiderant Person'. That's a mouthful. It's Spider-Man. Spidey if you're a friend, I guess. And for another, I can keep myself safe. Shocking, I know, but I'm pretty used to it by now."

Squinting at the tentacle, Peter rubs his chin for a moment in thought. "There's no point just attacking one limb. We need to see that thing's body. I can try getting it out and give you a chance to go for the body..."

She probably shouldn't be enjoying this banter as much as she is, what with the imminent danger and all. It's just... familiar. The kind of stuff the little group of Vault Hunters she was with would throw at each other in the midst of danger. It's comfortable.

"Va-va, Spidey," she says, but now is the time to get serious. "You're right. I can distract it while you do your thing, then we could both strike. This will likely be very messy."