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

'Course I am. What, you think I'm normal and just wanna look like this for fun?

[That's a rhetorical question, and he's giving a side glance down at the few people further down, two of whom are scurrying off. He isn't sure if boats have law enforcement, but it can't mean anything good and he remains tense.]

I'm grass now, and before this I used to be two swords. One of 'em was grass, and the other one used to be human.

[That probably doesn't clear anything up if she's surprised he's a plant, but there isn't really any way around his whole situation, so he might as well be direct and get it over with as fast as possible.]

I- I'm sorry. I don't want to be insulting but. That's... just not possible.

[ Alana has a string of letters after her name that attest to her education. While biology isn't her area, she knows enough of it through studying neuroscience to understand that--

why is she trying to justify this to herself? ]

Organic matter like grass can't... doesn't... [ Except her eyes are telling her an entirely different story. ]

[He's insulted regardless. Of course he is, who wouldn't be when they're being told by a total stranger they shouldn't even exist? And she's sort of right too, so on top of being insulted he feels discomfited.]

I'm not gonna pretend I know how the magic keeping me together works. It just does.

[It's not as if he's a wizard, geez.]

But I wouldn't be standing here talking to you if grass couldn't be alive. [Sentient, he means sentient.]

Magic-- [ She's being incredibly rude, even in her shock she knows this. But while waking up on the Titanic is one thing, meeting someone made of living grass is another entirely.

And it just keeps on being a thing. ]

Does that mean-- you don't know how you-- [ The more she thinks about it, the more confused she is. She pinches the bridge of her nose. ] Are-- is it normal for grass to be alive, where you're from?

[She's still in disbelief. If they were talking about anything else aside from his literal existence it wouldn't be a big deal, but they aren't and Fern's discomfort is becoming more and more visible. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, folds his arms tightly.]

Not like me.

[And from around the corner he notices a few men appearing, looking none too pleased in his direction. For a split second he tenses up again, nearly forms a sword, but thinks better of it and takes another step back.]

Geez, I gotta go.

[ As the ----boy's discomfort grows more apparent, Alana feels more guilt rising up alongside her shock. Whatever he is, she's behaving extraordinarily rudely to someone who really looks quite young.

She follows his gaze when he declares he has to leave. In her line of work Alana has often seen how people react when they think they're in danger, and she wonders if--

It takes her less than a moment to decide on a course of action. Whatever is going on with him, the looks on those men's faces aren't pleasant. ]

Follow me. [ She starts walking down the deck, away from the men.

There's no point making a scene. There were a lot of views about the acceptable treatment of outsiders in the early twentieth century that, by modern standards, are really quite barbaric. Confronting those men wouldn't change their minds and wouldn't help-- this young man.

Not far away there's a passage through to the second class library, which Alana's found is quieter than many other places on the ship. It's where she'll go, if the young man will follow. ]

[Kurt had told him to be wary of the passengers, but between one person and a group of them the individual seems like a better bet. If things go south it's a lot easier to fight one person than a bunch of them.

Fern hesitates a beat, staring at the group, then nods and turns and follows her. He'll keep his eyes on her, ready to form a sword if needed.

Thankfully, it doesn't look like it will be. He pauses briefly at the entrance when he realizes where she's led him. A library. Ships have libraries, apparently. Who knew people would want a library on a ship? He's hoping it'll be as quiet and dead as the one in Deerington. Plus, he hasn't searched for more Sleepers here, so there might be one or two holed up.

His attention is pulled off of her and onto their surroundings
as they head in.]

Thanks. Pretty sure those guys were bad news.