SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

[sodder]

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.

Comments

[themuseabandonsyou]

Oh no. By this point Orpheus is starting to recognize that critical look some people give him when he introduces himself, and he fidgets a bit awkwardly under Nico's gaze. When he fails to ask him about his quest to the Underworld, Orpheus can't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

"Okay, um," he says, off to a great start. "This is all a little confusing, and I may not have some of the details right, but Deerington - this town? Is all the dream of a young girl named Sodder, who may or may not also be a goddess? She pulls people here from all sorts of different worlds as they dream, and none of us are really sure why."

Orpheus thinks it's because she's lonely and wants company, but he doesn't have much basis for that or confidence in his own theories, so he leaves that out.

"So things might not work here like you expect? Strange things happen all the time here, like, well, this." He gestures at the thin wooden walls with hands that are rapidly turning shiny and porcelain-white. "I don't know what this is exactly, but it's probably not good?"

[obitus]

"A daughter of Morpheus or Hypnos?" he questions; it would explain the way he got pulled in despite his unusually good control over the dream spaces he tended to inhabit. Clovis, a demigod son of Hypnos that he knows, has a habit of accidentally jerking him off course in a way that's not completely dissimilar to this. Though, if Sodder is young an inexperienced enough...

But all of that flies to the wayside when Orpheus starts gesturing and the light catches on his skin. Or—not skin, as it were. Nico's eyes widen, and he throws a look back over his shoulder towards the kitchen where all those dolls sit. His own fingers ache sharply on the tails of realization (assumption, really) and a subsequent twist of horror.

He doesn't fear death, but he is not looking to be stuck in a dollhouse for eternity if what he thinks is happening... is happening.

"We need to get out of here," he mutters, rubbing his own arm nervously. He should probably ask for more of an explanation, but he's a little distracted now. "Did you see a way?"

[themuseabandonsyou]

Oh, so he does know the same gods as Orpheus! That's exciting, and puts them at least a little closer to being on the same page when it comes to this whole situation.

"Maybe a great granddaughter?" says Orpheus, frowning in thought. "She's the granddaughter of a powerful goddess called the Pthumerian Queen, we know that much, and almost no one here knows the same gods as us, or if they do they think they're just stories?" It's all very confusing and disorienting, and Orpheus can't say he totally understands any of it. But it looks like there's more pressing issues than getting Nico oriented.

"I didn't," he admits. "None of the doors open, and I'm not strong enough to break them down." Even as flimsy as they look like they should be. He'd thought to try using his music to coax them open, because sometimes he can do things like that when the need is dire enough, but his guitar is basically just a toy prop right now, and he's not sure he could do it with just his voice alone. "I haven't looked through every room yet, though. Maybe there's something higher up?"

[obitus]

Great grandaughter, he supposes that's possible. But as he usually does with the Greek side of the family, Nico's brain tries desperately to shut off any association past immediate relative. If he didn't, well, case in point with Orpheus being the son of a muse, all nine of whom were daughters of Zeus (Uncle Zeus? Ugh, no thank you) and therefore Nico's nieces, which would make him Nico's... grand-nephew?

It's just, a weird way to think about someone definitely older than himself. So he tables that for now, frowning at the staircase that would take them back up to the second floor.

In general his instinct is not go to up (See: Uncle Zeus, Ugh), but since he's tried everything he can think of down here he guesses that Orpheus has a point. "I can't break them down either," he admits a bit grudgingly, though he's definitely usually strong enough to get through an ordinary door. He almost suggests himself that Orpheus sing, but he's wary of that, too. The weaknesses of a divine parent tend to be amplified in their half-mortal children, and Nico does not want to turn into a fool around a famous hero like Orpheus. "There was another staircase on the next floor that I haven't tried yet."

[themuseabandonsyou]

"It's probably worth looking," says Orpheus, blissfully unaware of any of Nico's concerns with regards to their familial relationship or his singing. "If we don't find an exit, maybe we'll find out why we're here, or something about what's happening?"

Or they'll find some horrible creature or get turned the rest of the way into dolls, but he's trying very hard not to worry about that possibility. Quietly, just in case there is something stalking the halls, he heads for the stairs, climbing until he reaches the attic.

It's mostly empty, but there's a bookshelf against the far wall, a few dusty chairs, and a wooden chest sitting in the corner. Orpheus pauses at the top of the stairs to make sure Nico is following him, then starts to head over to the chest, cautiously.

[obitus]

Nico migrates towards the nearby plastic window to push on its edges and try to get it to open out, keeping an eye on Orpheus' progress with the chest in case he has to jump into a fight. Not that he thinks he would be much help to anyone right now, given that his sword is a useless hunk of plastic and there are no dead to raise to fight.

... The dolls, maybe. But Nico is trying his best not to think about those.

No luck with the window. He tries not to get frustrated enough to drop the temperature in the room, and succeeds mostly by taking up pacing along the walls. "Have the gods made any contact with you here?" Part of what has Nico so on edge has been the lack of anyone showing up to demand he run their errands, honestly.

[themuseabandonsyou]

"No, none of them have," says Orpheus. Which is a little odd, because usually Hermes checks in on him every now and again wherever he is. Of course, it could be that he's just giving him some space after... everything that happened. But it could also be the town. "I'm not sure they can reach us here? At least, not in any direct ways. There's a daughter of Ares here named Clarisse, and she says she hasn't heard from them either in the months she's been here."

He fiddles with the latch on the chest, having some difficulty with his fingers going stiff as they are, but eventually he manages to get it open, only to find... doll clothes. Frowning, he shuffles them to the sides in the hopes that there might be something underneath them, only to be further disappointed.

"Nothing in here," he says. "Have you found anything?"

[obitus]

Nico nods, having already run into her at the Hart Mart. She'd already explained this stuff, but honestly, he finds it so hard to swallow that he hasn't quite managed it.

Especially with meeting Orpheus himself, who is straight out of the myths and legends that he's been told haven't managed to travel here with them. It is true obviously, but it doesn't feel true yet. "Yeah, I saw Clarisse," he wonders if he should fess up to the identity of his own godly parent, except his eyes choose that exact moment to skip over the suspicious scratches across the floor and he seizes on the distraction with both hands. He's not ashamed to be his father's son, but also when people know they act different. He'd like to at least not be trapped in this dollhouse when it happens.

"Why would there be marks from moving furniture in a dollhouse?" He squints up at the unassuming bookcase that they lead to. There should be no need to drag anything across the floor if you can reach in and pick it up with your fingers, but it looks like it has been moved in an arc away from the wall instead, enough times to leave a mark. "Maybe there's something behind it?"

[themuseabandonsyou]

"Do you two know each other? She said she was looking for others from, um." He casts about, trying to recall what she'd said, exactly. "Camp Half-Blood, I think? I didn't know what she was talking about, but maybe you do."

Orpheus figures it's kind of a long shot - there have to be at least a few places out there where their gods are known - but it seems worth asking. He wanders over to check the floor where Nico is looking, frowning in confusion. That definitely doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the house.

"I don't know," he says. "That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Should we try moving it? Here." Orpheus braces himself against the wall, putting his hands against the bookshelf and getting ready to shove it aside. "On three?"