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

[Here's a strange sight for Carlos to write down about: someone who looks a bit like a demon with horns, bone wings, and claws sitting on a bench. He's eating some food out of a bag with the logo of one of the local hangouts on it. Next to him is a half-grown deer with a most curious coat pattern.

He appears to be having a conversation with the deer at his side as he feeds him bits of carrots. It sounds one-sided, though he pauses occasionally as if hearing an answer.]

You don't have to do this all the time. I'm not helpless, you know-- no, no, far be it from me to tell you what to do-- I'm merely stating if you have something else you want to do, you don't have to spend all your free time helping me-- What? No, of course not. You have my thanks, Spirit.

[He scratches the deer affectionately behind the ears. Spirit is the first one to spot Carlos, turning his long neck to the side when he sees a newcomer. He bumps the blind Zabrak gently with his head to let him know he'll be right back and so he trots on over to the scientist. A moment later Maul senses a new presence. He smiles with a mouth full of sharp fangs as he hears the trit-trot of hooves moving a little farther away.]

It appears he likes you.

[Carlos has just enough tact not to take notes about everything he sees, no matter how strange or new it might be. For a moment, he thinks vaguely of the angels - which the town of Night Vale, and Cecil in particular, say do not exist - but this person doesn't look like them. He's lost in that particular thought when the odd little deer approaches.]

Oh, hello.

[And then the person - man? - comments on the odd introduction. Carlos clears his throat and looks back down at the deer.]

Does he?

[Carlos tucks his notepad away and moves closer, if only to make sure the deer does not wander too far from its person.]

Yes. Spirit is a most-helpful deer. He has been a friend to me since I first woke up in this place.

[Maul doesn't move from where he's sitting. Instead, he raises a clawed hand, and gestures. Without actually moving his feet, Carlos will find himself dragged forward, closer to the strange man. There's a brief moment of invasiveness, a mind pressing into his own before it disappears again after he finds what he's looking for.]

You haven't been here for long.

[It's not a question, just an observation. Spirit comes trotting back over to the two of them. He noses Carlos' hand, hopeful the man might have carrots or something else tasty to offer him.]

[Carlos makes some attempt to dig his feet in as he's pulled forward, but it's really no use. So rather than hurting himself, he stops resisting.

And while he might feel that invasive press, Maul might find that it would be difficult to unduly influence Carlos to do anything he wouldn't normally do. If Night Vale revealed anything, it was an uncanny resistance to mind control.

But not necessarily telepathy]

No, I haven't. Newly arrived, in fact.

[He rubs his hand over Spirit's head, though sadly he has nothing to offer but scritches.]

You could have asked me to come closer.

Well, then. Welcome to hell.

[He pauses, once again seeming like he's listening to something that the half-grown deer is saying despite the lack of actual spoken words. The deer leans in slightly as he's rubbed behind the ears, blue eyes closing in pleasure.]

Spirit welcomes you as well.

[Maul smirks, an already disconcerting expression now made even more eerie by the addition of fangs. Most who had telepathy as an ability used it more cautiously because they had morals. Maul? Not so much.]

Where's the fun in that?

I don't think it's hell, [he starts, though he realizes he has no empirical data to prove that. He just doesn't think it is, and that's as good a hypothesis to start with as any. He's heard a lot of theories already, the most prominent one being that this is a dream of some kind. He isn't ready to discount any of it, but there is so much here that reminds him of Night Vale that... it makes him wonder about Night Vale.

Carlos takes some comfort in the presence of the little deer, mostly because of the cute way it's leaning up against him. He continues to pet it. At least it is not trying to haul him around telekinetically.

The smirk is not the most disconcerting thing Carlos has ever seen. That might still belong to the Erikas.]

Does it matter that I'm new?

Maybe not literally. But it is a place of great suffering and misery. Hell is as good a name for it as any.

[He reaches into the bag and pulls out a small container of fries, offering them over to Carlos, waiting to see if the man trusts the food yet enough to eat it. It's been trial and error for Maul to discover which places can be trusted with the food and which can't.]

Not especially. You will either survive or you won't. That is the way of the world.

[Carlos takes a fry since it seems like the polite thing to do. So far he hasn't had any adverse reactions to the food or drink here. He believes Cecil would have warned him if there was something he should stay away from. Or, well. There's always the scientific method of trial and error.]

That's the way of any world, [he points out.] Even mine, and Night Vale is unlike any place I've ever been. Well, until now.

[Maul feeds the deer a fry as well before taking one himself. Is it wise to be giving a deer fried potato with salt? Well, who knows, but he's not about to check and see if it's healthy. Spirit can make his own decisions.]

Well put. Perhaps you will survive this place alright. [The name he mentions stirs something in Maul's memory.] Night Vale? Do you know a radio announcer with an exceptionally good voice who used to live there?

[He can't remember Cecil's name at the moment.]

[Carlos can't really help the smile that spreads across his face at the description.]

Cecil, yes. He's my husband.

[Though, he's noticed that Cecil isn't wearing his ring. Does he have it? Carlos hasn't thought to ask, too caught up in all the newness of being in Deerington and being here with Cecil. It's not been the first thing on his mind most days.]

Oh, you're the one he's been talking about when he speaks on the network.

[From the expression he hears in Carlos' voice, he can guess these two are very much in love. What an utter pair of saps.]

Cling closely to one another while you are here. It just might save your life.

That sounds rather ominous. [But he suspects that is the point.] We do our best to take care of each other.

[He can say that without wondering. Cecil is a rock for him and Carlos tries hard to give his husband the same support. It doesn't matter whether it's here or Night Vale, they do well together.]

It should. This place could test even the strongest of people. So having someone to care about may help you survive.

[He stands up and Spirit gets up, going over to the man and putting his head right up against his waist to let him knows he's there. He's been helping Maul as a guide deer as of late.]

Enjoy your stay here. Thought I doubt it will at all be a pleasant one.