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

[poorlydied]

[ That's a sensible question, and Gerry will do his best to provide a sensible answer: ]

Fear.

[ Okay, that's a little cryptic, but in his defense, Gerry is still trying to figure out exactly which fears have gotten this man. Gerry's pretty sure there's more than one -- there's something wrong about this person as a person. That could be the Stranger's work, or the Spiral's, or maybe both. There's something else, too: something repeated, and that feels almost familiar.

Gerry steps in front of Ozpin and leans close, as if he's trying to read something very small printed on the other man's forehead. This is probably awkward. Gerry does not care. ]

I don't know which one, still trying to figure that out, but you better be really careful.

[ time to test a theory: ]

Who -- [ no, that's the wrong question, try again: ] -- how many are you?

[clocktowers]

[ Marked by fear. No, he doesn't follow. But the young man seems entirely serious, and entirely worried for him, so Oz stands to listen.

How many are you knocks him breathless, and for a moment the shock shows on his face. This man knows. It's not the first time someone's Semblance has put Ozpin unexpectedly under the spotlight, but the situation is so rare he'd forgotten what it felt like, to be looked at and immediately seen.

He's not ready to give a proper answer to that. He deflects. ]

That sounds like a rather abstract question. How does this relate to 'fear'?

[poorlydied]

[ Ozpin’s shock is enough of an answer to Gerry’s question. He backs up a little, satisfied he’s on the right track. ]

It is fear. Fear that you’re not who you say you are. That you can’t trust yourself, or that I can’t trust you. Fear manifests. It has names, and power, and consequences. Its aspects will try to claim you, to make you suffer. I think — but I’m not sure — you’re marked by aspects called the Stranger and the Spiral.

[clocktowers]

[ Fear that he isn't himself. Fear that he can't trust himself. Yes, oh, that does sound familiar. This boy can, what, see the scars in his Aura? It stands to reason that someone could. He can only imagine there is rather a lot to see.

He has never heard names like these, and that in itself is interesting. ]

You say these aspects will try to claim me. What precisely does that mean?

[ If this is some threat inherent to Deerington, he will not deny the opportunity to understand it. ]

[poorlydied]

[ This man’s insistence at trying to understand these powers, to know how they work, is so Eye-aligned that it would make Gerry laugh if it weren’t for the fact that this guy has “DOOMED” written all over him. Instead, Gerry just shrugs. ]

Could be they make you into an avatar, give you all sorts of weird powers at the cost of you serving them. Or, they’ll just follow you a around and make you miserable. Or both.

[clocktowers]

[ That is not terribly illuminating, but he doesn't doubt the threat when this young man seems so certain of it. If something wants to claim him, corrupt him— that is more dangerous than any simple monster. ]

And how do we stop it?

[poorlydied]

[ Now that question does make Gerry laugh, although it’s a bitter huff of one. Looks like Gerry has met another strange old person who thinks that stopping these things (which, when you get down to it, isn’t that different from controlling them) is even possible. He really could start a collection. ]

We don’t. These are powerful cosmic forces beyond our control and comprehension. The best we can hope for is to try to avoid them. All I’ve been able to do is make sure they hurt fewer people, and the only things I’ve found to be even a little effective is raw cement, explosives, and staying close to the people you love.

[ Gerry really, really hopes this man has an anchor. He’s gonna need it. ]

[clocktowers]

[ Powerful cosmic forces beyond our control and comprehension. Not his favorite variety of thing to deal with. Oz's expression is growing more gravely concerned by the second. ]

If explosives are an effective means of addressing the problem, it sounds as though these 'manifestations' can be fought. Are they Grimm?

[poorlydied]

They can be fought, but not defeated.

[ Gerry says that forcefully. It’s important this man understands that. As far as Gerry can tell, defeating the Fears would be tantamount to eliminating fear itself, and that’s impossible. ]

Look, I don’t know what you mean by Grimm, unless you mean to ask if these things are really awful, in which case yeah, they are. [ Gerry sighs. ] Best thing you can do is remind yourself of the people you’re close to. You got any of those, here?

[clocktowers]

[ Oz had been wearing an expression of reserved but serious concern. At I don’t know what you mean by Grimm, everything seems to skip a beat. For a brief moment, he looks openly stunned.

He is aware that other worlds are represented here, in this place. He is still coming to terms with what that may mean. But that those worlds are without Grimm— well.

At the question, his hands tighten on his cane. Oz tries to hold his expression in something mild, tries to show nothing more than faint regret. Tries not to betray the flash of pain at the question, the way his jaw tightens ever so and his eyes go distant.

He does not necessarily succeed. Still, his tone remains level as ever. ]

That being true, 'Grimm' are creatures of violence and destruction, attracted to negative emotion. It is possible they are called by other names in other worlds.

[ It is possible the Brothers made something altogether different, in other worlds. After they'd departed his. ]

How is it that recalling loved ones drives them away?

[poorlydied]

[ Gerry is a man prone to keen observation and uncomfortable amounts of eye contact: he notices when Ozpin’s eyes go distant. It’s not hard to guess what that means. Maybe he’s had and lost close connections, or maybe he’s never had them to begin with. Either way, Ozpin’s expression strikes Gerry as that of someone who is very much alone.

Gerry isn’t in the business of picking up strays. That’s what he’s told himself, for years. But he also understands what it’s like to be marked and alone, knows how dangerous that is. He’s had to find a place for himself in this fearful world, and that place is to make sure as few people as possible share his fate.

So, against his better judgment, Gerry offers: ]

Well, you should probably get out there and make some friends. [ Gerry sticks out his free hand. ] I’m Gerry.

[ Gerry listens to Ozpin’s description of these Grimm. He frowns. It all sounds incredibly strange. ]

If your Grimm aren’t people, then we don’t have anything like that where I’m from. We’ve got people who serve the Fears, and sometimes, the Fears will corrupt animals too — I came across this monster pig back in New Zealand, which was pretty cute if you’re ignoring the fact that it’d eat you for breakfast if it wanted. But that doesn’t sound like your Grimm. As for how anchors work against the Fears — can’t really tell you how that happens. I don’t think anyone really knows. Trying to learn too much about these things is more likely to get you killed than help you fight them.

[ That last sentence is said pointedly, as if Gerry has way too many people in his life on doomed quests trying to understand the dread Powers. Seriously, it’s not worth it. ]

[clocktowers]

[ For a moment Oz just blinks at him, at the offered handshake, taken off-guard. Then his expression softens into a faint little smile, and he clasps hands and shakes. ]

Ozpin. It is good to meet you, Gerry.

[ He means it. The information is all new, and likely useful. He has no allies here with whom things are not deeply complicated and horribly raw. It will be good to change that. ]

I see. Yes, that does sound rather unlike the threats I'm used to. This is something of your world, not of Deerington itself?

[poorlydied]

Good to meet you, too.

[ Wow! A smile! Gerry sure does have a way with the elderly. At Ozpin’s question, Gerry nods. ]

Definitely from my world. I’m not exactly sure how the Fears work, here. The fact that I can tell you’re marked means I’ve still got some connection to Beholding, but I don’t know if it’s as strong as it was back home.

[clocktowers]

[ He has many questions, and the specifics of what Beholding is do not rank highest among them. How many are you— he wonders what this man sees in him. With the eye motif inked across the young man's skin, he perhaps should not be surprised. ]

Then I will bear your advice in mind.

[ If only he had close connections with whom things were not presently... complicated, to put it very gently. But the logic is familiar. Dwelling on love, on things worth protecting— it's antithetical to forces of destruction. ]

It is very interesting that you have Fears and no Grimm. We do not generally [ generally! ] see people or animals corrupted in such a way. And I'm unfamiliar with a place known as... 'New Zealand'.