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

[For a Londoner, being suddenly approached by someone with a French accent is extremely common.

For someone who's just spent the better part of a year closely affiliated with the Lonely, the cosmic entity that embodies pure fear of being and staying alone, being suddenly approached by just about anyone is startling. Martin jumps and lets out a shocked noise before he can cover his mouth.]

Oh! Um... Oh. Well, yes, I-I guess that's alright. —Wait, no, sorry. I'm supposed to see a badge before I talk to police. And are you asking me personally, or...

[Because if the police are asking for an opinion of the situation from the Magnus Institute itself, well, his answer will be. Different. Mostly in that he won't be able to give one.]

[Kim is far too aware of how different people react to the police, and his expression remains unflappable even after he's apparently startled Martin.]

I apologize for startling you, sir. And I suppose they're more personal questions--I'm just trying to make sense of where I am. It's not...really related to any sort of criminal investigation.

[His tone sounds apologetic, at least.

He's not going to mention the fact that he literally couldn't find his badge on him when he woke up. That would be incredibly unprofessional, not to mention the fact that this stranger doesn't need to know that. He'd surely think he was some sort of...terrible cop who doesn't keep track of his belongings. Like the drunken detective he was supposed to meet with a few days ago at Whirling-in-Rags who, upon finally greeting Kim, promptly informed him that he was missing his gun, his badge, and his memory.

Hopefully, if he just doesn't make reference to it, Martin won't bring it up again. Maybe.]

[Even before Martin's life had, well, become markedly more terrible, he had been awkward around the authorities. Particularly once they started to interact more and more with the Institute and the workers within it, as things went more and more wrong. Having Basira and, later, Daisy join up didn't change that very much.

Now, though, he's spent enough time alone and feeling absolutely nothing to sober his response.]

Mm. Well, that's fine, I suppose?

[He doesn't feel Peter anywhere near here, but that usually doesn't mean anything. The boat setup hasn't gone anywhere yet for Martin to make any guesses as to who might have caught him somehow. And... also caught a ton of other people.

...That might be more why Martin thinks Peter isn't around.]

Oh. Sorry, Martin Blackwood. I don't... think I'm meant to be here. But, uh, ask away.

[Whether Martin's grappling with general memory loss or what, it's unclear. Even to him, actually.]

[In truth, he doesn't know why he introduced himself as a cop, first and foremost. People aren't usually willing to answer questions in a straightforward manner if they're trying to hide things from the authorities. Granted, whenever he's introduced himself as just a regular person to the first or second class guests, they've simply laughed him off. Better to try and assert his power in a situation before getting a read on it.]

Ah--that's actually what I wanted to talk about. You see, Mr. Blackwood, I woke up on this ship with no memory of having arrived here in the first place. [A pause.] Do you mind elaborating on what you mean by that?

[The "not meant to be here" part, that is. Hopefully, if he identifies other passengers that feel the same way, he'll be able to see a pattern. A mass kidnapping, perhaps?]

[Martin hasn't quite bought into the class business yet, even though he's been apparently sorted into second—he still remembers too much, maybe. He's more concerned right now in trying to work out what exactly it is at work here, but his memory being so spotty isn't really helping.]

Well. The same thing happened to me I think. It's, um— I mean, I remember boarding. But I don't think that's real. Because I wasn't really... Before this, I wasn't somewhere I could, uh. Leave.

[Wow, his social skills have never been worse.]

[This poor, poor man. He's clearly suffering the side-effects of...you know, being scooped up and plopped down on some unknown ship. His eyebrows knit together in a mildly concerned expression. Martin doesn't seem willing to share the details of where he was before this, but that's understandable.]

It's alright if you can't remember everything, Mr. Blackwood.

[He rubs his wrist with his hand, trying to find a different avenue of approach.]

Have you heard anything from the other passengers? Have they said anything to you that you would otherwise find unusual or out of place?