AUGUST 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to August's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: CRYPTID 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: Violent animals, ghosts, hallucinations
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK?

Everyone loves s'mores, right? Of course you do. If you've never had them, you're gonna love them, and if for some reason you hate them, well, as it usually goes in Deerington, something inside of you will nag at you about how maybe you ought to give them another chance. There's a variety of different kinds of s'more flavors to try and plenty of perfect campfires to roast your marshmallows over. There's promise of wholesome and innocent fun to be had! Surely that won't be a lie this time.

Everyone who gathers around the fire for some tasty treats will find themselves in the mood to share creepy stories from their home worlds. Maybe they make one up on the spot or maybe it's an ancient legend that was passed down through the ages. Regardless, there's gonna be a whole variety of spooky stories, and the flavor s'more you're eating seems to dictate the theme that you'll end up leaning towards.

🔥 Traditional S'Mores will have people wanting to tell classic ghost stories. Maybe it's a haunted house you ended up in or a spirit who possessed the friend of the brother of this guy from your town once. The main theme here will be ghosts of all varieties.

🔥 Peanut Butter & Chocolate S'Mores will have people wanting to tell slasher stories. A famous serial killer from home, maybe, or the story about a group of kids who went up into a cabin in the mountains where there was once said to be a creepy caretaker and they were never heard from again...

🔥 Chocolate Chip Cookie S'Mores will have people wanting to tell monster stories. Local legends, maybe, or the classic stories about werewolves, vampires, and Bigfoot. Any kind of monsters will do.

🔥 Salted Caramel S'Mores will inspire people to tell revenge stories. These could be legendary warnings that exemplify why vengeance always leads to digging two graves. Or maybe it's your own story of revenge from home— or the fantasy revenge you'd like to get someday.

🔥 Nutella S'Mores will have people wanting to tell personal horror stories. These stories are ones that hit extremely close to home. The scariest, most bone-chilling memory you have, no matter how silly or serious it may be in comparison to those around you. Hopefully most people aren't fans of chocolate hazelnut?

Regardless of which story you hear, anyone gathered around the campfire will listen intently to all words spoken, and they will find themselves believing every word. On your walk home, you'll be filled with a sense of paranoia and dread, seeing things move out of the corner of your eye that may or may not be there. Is that a man with a hook for a hand or is your imagination just playing tricks on you? It's certainly hard to tell.

These can stay as harmless hallucinations, but for those who end up stuck in the paranoia for too long without being talked down, they will slowly start to become real. Eventually, they can become solid enough for other people to start seeing them, and the creatures from your mind may even start to attack. They can be defeated with normal weaponry or by the power of positive thinking! Wish your attacker away with enough conviction, and poof! They'll be gone.

Let's hope you can do it before you end up the victim for the next slasher story someone tells.

AHHH! REAL MONSTERS

It seems that the monsters from these stories aren't the only ones popping up in Deerington, though. There's talk from locals of multiple sightings of classic Maine legends all over town. They're easy to ignore as the townsfolk just being easily spooked for a while. But when enough stories start to line up, you might start to think maybe there's some truth to them. Or maybe you'll even end up seeing one of the monsters for yourself.

Down in Lake Tomoei, the legendary Cassie can sometimes be spotted peaking up from the water, or trying to attack anyone who even tries to go near the lakes shores. She's a nasty beast with one hell of a temper and she's quite possessive of the lake she's found herself in. 100 feet long with a skinny neck and a fish like tale, she definitely seems like a force to be reckoned with. Cassie is easily injured by ordinary weapons, but her skin is thick, so it will take a while to draw blood. Most likely, she'll disappear into the depths of the lake before she can be killed.

Up in the mountains, there's talk of the ancient evil Pamola. Penobscot legend describes him as half-man, half-eagle, with the head of a moose and a temper to match one. Pamola can't stand people visiting his mountain, even for a casual hike, and will often try to deter people away with random and unpredictable storms; thunder, snow, and powerful winds will beat down on whoever goes looking for Pamola. If you manage to find him, he will show no mercy when he attacks. Most who have tried to find him have been killed and eaten by the evil spirit. Because he's an ancient spirit, he will be particularly hard to defeat if you manage to find him; he can not be killed, but you can offer a sacrifice to quell his anger. If you have magical powers that can hurt deities, these will still be effective in weakening him until he retreats.

The final creature that seems to be wandering about is the Specter Moose (pictured above). This moose is thirteen feet tall, with thirteen foot wide antlers, and is a blinding white color. The moose can be found wandering in the park, usually, but sometimes it comes out to look around town. He may seem harmless, even cute, but don't get to close; moose are dangerous and locals fear them for a reason. They can charge at the drop of a hat and not even large vehicles tend to survive an encounter with a creature that big. The Specter Moose also seems to be incapable of being injured by normal weapons; solid objects mostly go right through it, unless it's purposefully aiming for them. You'll either have to get a shot in while he's slamming into something (or someone) or just run. Anyone who has magic or weapons that can hurt spiritual beings will be able to fight the Specter Moose as they normally would.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jack's grin broadens and he might lean closer in a playfully conspiratorial way. "Got it one. Never got anything as important as, say, the Holy Grail or the Ares Sword of New Venus, but I helped move some interesting pieces back in the day."

He'll listen to the Master, his pale eyes going slightly foggy with something like confusion. "The stories I'd heard hinted that they'd vanished, like the people of Atlantis or a hundred other lost societies, if they ever existed at all. But I take it that means they're still out there somewhere?" He might be dissembling a bit. No doubt he's heard of the Time War, but considering what his Doctor has been through, that, he figures, is something he doesn't need to bring up, not in so many words, at least.

"Vanished? Oh no. Retreated into their citadel, from which they can preserve their vision of Order. Their days of creation behind them, they molder."

His views are correct, and at once out of time but more current. Time streams are a strange thing.

"Powerful, indolent, and duplicitous."

"One man's retreating looks like a vanishing to the observers, or some of 'em anyway," Jack replies. "And that sounds about right: If you aren't getting out to stretch your legs and your boundaries, you're bound to stunt your own growth." He wonders now if this is exactly why The Doctor, his Doctor, went travelling as far through time and space as he has. He's not questioning The Doctor, he's too fond of the Time Lord, but he's starting to wonder about Gallifrey and its inhabitant.

There's good reasons to question Gallifrey and the Time Lords. And all of it had absolutely been what caused them both to leave. What caused every rogue Time Lord to leave.

It was telling that none had ever returned.

"A simple but accurate metaphor."

"That a good thing or a bad thing?" Jack asks, something puzzled behind those pale eyes, but he's pitched the question innocuously. He can't help thinking there's a few things he might address with The Doctor, but that's for another time. "And do I want to know how you found all this out, or is it simply the way most of us get our information, from what we've heard other folk pass on to us?"

He glances at the s'mores he's been puttering with. "Care for one of these? Or are these too commonplace for the tastes of a distinguished gent like yourself?"

"That answer is a matter of point of view."

To reject would be obviously rude, and this one knows something. So he chooses to take a set, nodding.

"Yes, I believe so. In a place like this, one never knows where the next meal will come from, eh?"

He can't help noting Professor Mestre overlooked his second question. Interesting, but he won't pursue it. Who or whatever the other is, he's playing the roguish himbo around him.

"Glad to share: I'd hate to eat some in front of you, since they look like they came out scrumptious." He'll hold out one s'more to the interloper, waiting till he accepts it before biting into his own.

He took the proffered food with a muttered thank you.

"Gauche, but in this case unavoidable - such things must be eaten quickly, I'm given to understand."

He leaned back, sighing.

"And in answer to what you said, my early years were spent tracking down lore - forgotten texts in dusty libraries. Unexciting, perhaps, but informative."

"Yeah, otherwise they cool down and while they're still tasty, they're not as good," Jack replies.

"Had a colleague who took care of the research end of the work. Couldn't have done it without 'em digging up the information and double-checking the accuracy," he says, and bites into his s'more, rolling his eyes blissfully. He suddenly feels a stronger than usual urge to share a story, but right now, has his mouth full...

"Ah, a partnership, then. An undoubtedly necessary component."

Looter. Grave robber. Thief.

Thus far, he is unimpressed. But this man is definitely hiding something. The key is to find out what. He feels...touched by time. And thus his usual method, the use of hypnosis, is to be refrained from.

"You got it. Can't have the one without the other. Learned more from 'em than I ever expected," he says, overly free with information in some ways, but tantalizingly secretive in others.

But even Jack feels his tongue starting work harder than before, as if something has oiled its hinges. "Though a lot of stuff I've learned in the field. Ain't always been working in artifacts dealing. Lately I've been working in ...security, I suppose, handling alien threats. Been working out of Cardiff for a while now, keeping the locals safe from the less friendly things that like to wander in from time, and at times, keeping the aliens safe from the locals. About the weirdest thing we've had inspired the city's own version of the 'alligators in the sewer' myth. We're not sure what they are or where they come from, but imagine if you will, a humanoid creature, a bit taller than the average human, flatter face, wrinklier skin, a lot less hair and with much larger and sharper teeth. Imagine small packs of these things lurking in the sewers and around the docks of the city; usually they avoid humans, preferring to scavenge whatever they can find - and trust me, these things can digest most anything, though they prefer a nice piece of meat, regardless of freshness..."

Torchwood. Oh, he knows exactly what the man means, though he'll not say anythign or let it show on his face. Those incorrigible meddlers - how many times had a plan barely begun when they had stepped in before he could take advantage of a developing situation? A half dozen times, perhaps.

He still was annoyed at their ending of that Cyberwoman - she could easily have been influenced, and then turned loose as a virus upon the rest of her ilk. An army at his disposal, instantly. A shame, really.

"I'm listening," he says, his face the acme of patience. But inwardly, the wheels turn.