SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to September's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: CHILDREN/YOUNG ADULT 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: Evil dollhouses, potential body horror (turning into a doll), heights, pranks with the potential to cause harm, some stalking vibes
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

THE EVIL DOLLHOUSE

When you wake up, you find you're not in your own bed, your own room, or even your own house. The room is well decorated, almost Victorian in fashion. The bed is pretty uncomfortable and you're not even sure the mattress is a real mattress. The chairs look like they might be made of plastic and the doors are flimsy. But it might not be what catches your eye, especially if you look out the window.

Through the clear panes (which also seem to be plastic), you will notice you do not see the town of Deerington, or even the outdoors at all. You see a living room that feels larger than life. There aren't any people in it, but as you look around at the fake looking furnishings and the strange view, you might be hit with a realization: you're inside a dollhouse.

The dollhouse has three floors for those who explore; the second floor you woke up on has two bedrooms and a fake little bathroom, all decorated in the same Victorian dollhouse style as the room you originally found yourself in. The bottom floor has a cute little kitchen with small porcelain dolls sitting around the table, a living room with all the basic furniture one would expect to find (in fact, it looks a great deal like the living room outside the windows), and an office filled with books that can't actually be pulled out of the shelves. On the very top floor is an attic. It's dusty and filled with broken toy beds and chairs, a few shattered doll pieces, and on the far wall you'll see another bookshelf. All seems... fairly standard, really, if you're used to seeing dollhouses.

But what there doesn't appear to be is an exit.

While searching, you may run into another Sleeper. A friend or a stranger, it's clear you're both stuck here together. And the longer the time ticks by, the more concerning things get. You might not notice at first, but anyone inside the dollhouse starts slowly... changing. It seems to go at a different pace for everyone, but the results are always the same. Your skin will start to become porcelain, your cheeks more rosy, your clothes made of cheaper cloth material, your joints become stiffer, and your eyes will start to become more and more glass like. If you don't get out of the dollhouse soon, it's clear that you may become the next doll at the kitchen table.

Searching the house again may feel fruitless, but keen observers may find light scratches on the floor in front of the bookshelf in the attic. Maybe they were like that because of someone moving things around or maybe there's a reason. If you decide to eventually pull the bookshelf aside, there will be a large door in the wall. It may seem strange, given that the wall only leads to the outside, but it's the only door to the outside that actually opens. You expect it to open up into the living room, but instead you'll see the grass of the park below. Far below. It's likely you could get hurt jumping, especially if you've started to turn to porcelain, but what other choice do you have?

Once characters take the plunge, they will find that they land rather softly in the grass, despite how high the jump may have seemed. As soon as you are out of the dollhouse, your body will have returned to complete normal.

And the house with the dollhouse in the living room will be nowhere in sight.

THOSE PESKY KIDS

You start off thinking maybe you're just forgetful and moved minor pieces around in your house without paying attention. You might think you're just seeing strange things out of the corner of your eye, because why wouldn't you? It's Deerington. Things are always strange. But each day, there's something weirder going on. Small objects might turn into entire rooms being rearranged, strange sightings out of the corner of your eye might turn into you swearing you saw a lake monster running through the street, and you swear you can hear the rattling of chains or the sounds of someone telling you to leave echoing in your house at night or following you down the street.

A haunting seems plausible. It wouldn't be the first time in Deerington. But no amount of herbs burned, or exorcisms performed, or chants and spell cast will make these things go away. In fact, they seem to just becoming more and more frequent, and more and more intense. Eventually, the strange creatures you see running around may start to try and attack you. They may start to try and kill you. But they always run off before you can attack back or show yourself to be stronger than them. It's probably the first time the monsters have ever been so easily scared.

Anyone who looks into it further may start to find weird clues lying around after a monster has been chased off. Footprints that don't look quite monster-like, tapes or records that when played will make strange rattling sounds like the chains you've been hearing, a piece of rubber that looks a lot like the monsters skin... Huh. The more you follow the clues, the more they'll lead you towards the answer to your dilemmas; these aren't hauntings.

They're pranks.

People can work together to catch a monster or ghost (or killing it, if you decide to); catching them will lead to them getting quite flustered and angry, struggling to get away. Pull off the mask or the sheet and underneath you'll find... a very disgruntled townsperson. Maybe your business was taking too much money away from theirs and they were hoping you'd close down with enough scares, maybe you talked back to them one time and they were looking for revenge, maybe you ruined their house or garden when you were fighting the things in Deerington that actually try to kill you, or maybe they were just having some "harmless" fun; they all have a different excuse, but they're clearly angry about getting caught.

They woulda gotten away with it if it weren't for you pesky Sleepers, after all.

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

Oh. We had more technology and all, before the outbreak back home. So I think I get it?

[Sanguinem was a huge difference to life before, back up above ground and all. Communications and such were damaged and destroyed in the wake of the outbreak and emergence of the Horsemen monsters and such. Still, he tilts his head as he listens to Lev try to explain about the infected back home, the demons.]

Lost themselves? That's....sad. Vampires, they're. You know. They feed on our blood. Fangs, red eyes. Really strong and fast. It's why when the adults and older kids were dying from that virus, they gathered us younger kids to take us to their underground city. To feed from us.

[And given the vampires are that much stronger and faster, it isn't like the kids had much if any choice in resisting. In not going. Yuu escaped at the cost of the other orphans he had lived with being killed in the escape attempt. His lips purse as his gaze lowers while he talks about the vampires.]

...Some people think that the Old World stuff caused the outbreak.

[He used to think that. He's still mistrustful of the "Old World" but he's learned to accept more of it.

But holy shit. Another person who's heard of the outbreak. Or... an outbreak. It doesn't sound the same.]

...The Demons back home... they're covered in fungus. The spores, that's what causes the infection, and... if they bite you, you become one of them. After a few days... there's nothing left of you anymore. Just a Demon in your body. Even the Demons can't think. They're just beasts.

[He inhales and then looks at the other boy.]

The Vampires... if they bite you, you can still... be you? And they know what they're doing?

They think the technology did it? I mean. I guess. People make medicine and vaccines? So maybe it's possible? But....that sounds different. To the vampires back home.

[Vampires weren't even supposed to feed directly that the children in theory shouldn't have worried about actually being bitten. But it's clear from the needle marks at his neck that he was still taken for his blood. That he was used to sustain the vampires with his blood the same as all the other children. Not that it being illegal to feed directly stopped some vampires doing so anyway. Encouraging it in exchange for things like actual food rather than the nutrient pouches they were given, for example.]

They weren't supposed to bite us. Not allowed to feed directly. Some still did, but. Mostly, it was just them taking our blood with needles and all. I dunno what any of them were like before they became a vampire though to say if it changed them. But they absolutely know what they're doing. Telling us they'll give us food if we let them feed from us directly.....

[Yuu shakes his head at the memory of seeing Mika return to their housing like that. Hating that the other gave his blood to feed them that meal of curry. Their last together. He wonders if this thing in the woods, was this a vampire? He hadn't seen any around thus far....]

Mmm. We don't have things like that anymore. The Old World collapsed during the outbreak. [Lev has to shake his head a little. He can understand the concept of being terrorized by inhuman creatures but to be ruled by them...? That's chilling. If the Infected could think or speak, Lev is quite sure that there wouldn't be any humanity left.]

The demons... Vampires? [He says the word in a way that makes it clear he's never heard it before.]

They were holding you captive? And could use stuff like needles?

The outbreak -- the virus killed most all the older kids and adults. So the vampires needed blood. We survived, so they rounded us younger kids up together and took us to their underground city. They had this system set up where they gathered us in groups and took some blood from us.

[Yuu's lips purse at the memory. As used to it as he was after four years, he still really hated it. The needle jabbing into his neck and how weak he felt after giving blood. He shifts his hoodie a little to reveal the marks and slight bruising from the needle in demonstration.]

They gave us basically the bare minimum to survive. Not even proper food. These gross nutrient packs. I dunno if this thing is a vampire too but if it is, I'm definitely gonna kill it.

[Lev shakes his head and looks away, feeling a little woozy and also really sorry for this other boy.

He's used to gore and blood but needles? He can't stand that sort of thing. Especially the kind that take your blood. Even sewing up wounds sometimes makes him a little nauseous.

He can't imagine going through something like that. He notches an arrow.]

Yeah. If it's something like that, we need to kill it. I'll help, I won't let it take your blood anymore.

Good. For what they did....all of them deserve to die.

[And well. If this was a vampire, even if not one from Sanguinem that had been living off of his and the other children's blood, they were still living off of others here? So he figures his wrath and vengeance, his fury still seems justified. Not that he is necessarily sure this is a vampire, but for all he knows it might be. He readies his gun, giving a nod and figuring to follow Lev's lead if he's more experienced with this, given his knowledge of the gun.

At the least, if they can't kill it, they could hurt it enough to make it stop, and figure what was going on? What it was?]

[Lev nods, unperturbed by the declaration. He kills demons without remorse. He's killed his own people, the WLF, and hunters to save himself, his sister, and Abby. It's part of the world he lives in. It's necessary to survive.

The problem is when it goes too far.

But he doesn't think this is one of the monsters that the other boy was held captive by, the vampires. There's something off about what they're hunting. Something that doesn't feel natural.

Lev creeps through the underbrush, closer and closer to the figure, finally he gives the other kid a signal, stands, and fires off his bow. It hits the figure in the shoulder, piercing straight through. The figure cries "What the-!" in a very human voice and Lev frowns. He stands up and approaches the figure.

It's a guy. Just a guy wearing a weird costume.]

What the fuck?

Edited 2020-09-03 15:47 (UTC)

[Yuu is only familiar with vampires. So far only has a major declaration of vowing to kill them all. Not so much other monsters but of course he would want to try defend himself or others anyway. He pauses in being about to shoot, lowering the gun and frowning when Lev's arrow hits and the person? talks? Yuu tilts his head, pouting slightly after his lips initially parting in surprise. He cautiously approaches, frowning up at them. His free hand not holding the gun reaches for the costume.]

What's with this? You're freaking us out like this.