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

[ Reset. It's hard to be angry that he left now that she knows that he's at least cured of one of the multiple things that had plagued him here. She can see how much it's taken out of him and if they were anywhere but a dollhouse, she would have dragged him back to bed to get rest.

She should probably focus on getting out of this situation. Instead, she goes to put a hand on either side of his face, and pushes herself up on her toes so she can place a firm kiss on his forehead, and then moves to hug him tightly again.

Maybe if she just stays like this long enough, she'll forget the images from his stupid ghost. ]

I missed you so much.

[He'll be better once he eats. A lot. Too bad all the shit in this house is fake, so getting out is definitely a high priority for him. He doesn't feel like collapsing because he couldn't get a sandwich fast enough.

A slight and comfortable smile crosses his features when she takes full advantage of being able to touch him again by holding his face and kissing his head. It's nice. Though his mom did the same to him like a hundred times and much more aggressively when he went back home, it's still nice. Even if the reminder of his mom sends a pang through his chest.]

I missed you too.

[Once he remembered her again.]

[ After several mantras in her head telling her not to cry, Chloe finally pulls back, """"discreetly"""" rubbing any signs of tears away from her face before she starts to look around the actually fairly small bathroom they've just squished themselves in. ]

Guess we should keep looking for a way out, huh?

[ She's pretty sure that there is probably going to be worse things than just creepy looking dolls watching them if they don't, even if she has no idea what that is. ]

I dunno about yours, but everything in my room was super fucking useless.

[He smiles softly at her when she pulls away, but doesn't mention the tears she's wiping away. There's no discreet way to do that, everyone knows that, but Chloe is someone he wouldn't call out on this.]

Yeah, my room just had more dolls put in weird places.

[He rubs one of his arms, which feels a bit more plastic and doll-like than a few minutes ago.]

And is it just me or is our skin changing?

[ Her forehead wrinkles as she goes to lift up one of her hands. ]

I don't think sooooo—oh fuck. [ The joint at her wrist is definitely looking more doll-like than it had before. ] This shit was weird enough the first time, I'm not really keen on going full Chucky all over again.

[ Which is why she's absolutely gonna pull him towards the hall to start looking elsewhere. ]

Yeah, that sucked big time. Did I ever tell you my stupid action figure arm fell off and I never found it?

[He says it as he lets her pull him towards the door, just trying to distract them both from impending doll life while they search for a way out.]

No? Gross. What happened when you turned back to... you?

[ She has an idea, but she doesn't wanna think about it. Instead she'd opening up the doors along the hall, to try and find something useful.

Like a staircase to an attic. That seems promising. ]

There's probably ghosts up there.

It had to grow back. It sucked about as much as you can imagine.

[He looks up at the attic door and sighs before reaching up to pull the string.]

I think we'd be lucky if that's all it is.

[Considering all the other shit Deerington has thrown at them, ghosts feel almost quaint.]

That's... kinda metal.

[ She means it mostly as a joke, because it sounds awful and disgusting, like everything else in this place.

There's no time like the present, though, and she's quick to start to climb the step ladder that appears from the ceiling. ]

If I go full on Exorcist, I'll try not to puke on you.

Actually, it was really flowery.

[He'll leave what that means up to her imagination and climbs up after her.]

You're so thoughtful.

[ She wrinkles her nose, because in Deerington, that's probably still gross as fuck.

She looks around the attic when she makes it to the top. Man, it's dusty up here. ]

That's me. Selfless as ever. Why does no one ever dust their attics? It's like... asking for trouble with the supernatural.