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countryclub2021-11-19 02:06 am
reddosmod) wrote in countryclub2021-11-19 02:06 am
Entry tags:
November 2021 Test Drive Meme
NOVEMBER 2021 TDM
NOT SO STANDARD ARRIVAL
FROZEN RELICS
THE THINGS THEY CARRIED
CODING
Another month, another test drive meme! Our test drive memes are open to anyone interested - regardless of whether or not you join our game!
All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.
Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.
Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.
If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!
IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: Perfect dog curled up in falling snow, tilting head to side.]
[Image Two: Dead man floating in water with signs of hypothermia.]
Prompt Two
[Image One: Frozen ship wreck.]
[Image Two: Frozen staircase.]
Prompt Three
[Image One: Bloody tentacles attacking soldiers.]
[Image Two: Tentacles coming out of astronaut suit.]
All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.
Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.
Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.
If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!
Prompt One
[Image One: Perfect dog curled up in falling snow, tilting head to side.]
[Image Two: Dead man floating in water with signs of hypothermia.]
Prompt Two
[Image One: Frozen ship wreck.]
[Image Two: Frozen staircase.]
Prompt Three
[Image One: Bloody tentacles attacking soldiers.]
[Image Two: Tentacles coming out of astronaut suit.]
WHEN: November - December
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk
CONTENT WARNINGS: Drowning, freezing to death, trapped under ice, hypothermia, frost bite.
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk
CONTENT WARNINGS: Drowning, freezing to death, trapped under ice, hypothermia, frost bite.
Washing up on the Farther Shores towards the end of November and the beginning of December isn't the best experience. Normally there are some Sleepers who can show up without a hitch, but as winter nears, the waters begin to freeze and it gets increasingly dangerous to arrive on the Farther Shores. Many Sleepers wind up trapped under ice. Wakers must especially be diligent this month to make sure they don't lose valuable Sleepers. Drowning and freezing to death is extremely probable. If you're lucky, you might be able to break through the ice to shriek for help. Let's just hope someone's around to hear you!
Most of the Boardwalk has been converted to save the Sleepers that do make it. Tents have been put up and inside are mattresses stuffed with hay and blankets made from wool and furs. Contained coal and wood fires keep the tents cozy, but it might take a while before you get feeling back into your toes. If you have warmblood or coldblood you will not have nearly as bad of a time with all of this. Some coldblood Sleepers might not even notice the cold! Might be good to put them on the frontlines for helping people out.
Another oddity this month is that most Sleepers seem to arrive at night rather than the typical daytime arrivals. Maybe it's because daytime hours are much shorter in December...But maybe it's something else too. This has led to Wakers making search parties to try and find Sleepers in the pitch-black night. It's a precarious situation and all hands on deck are strongly encouraged.
The Dog Keeper has come out to help the efforts. His dogs can be seen running frantically around the beach to help find people buried under ice and to help break through the ice to get them to safety. Dogs are available to help Sleepers swim to the Farther Shores, and they are also available to help Sleepers warm up by cuddling up afterward. There isn't much food to offer at this time, but you can still expect to be greeted with some hot soup. It might leave you hungry, but it definitely seems to help warm you up!
Most of the Boardwalk has been converted to save the Sleepers that do make it. Tents have been put up and inside are mattresses stuffed with hay and blankets made from wool and furs. Contained coal and wood fires keep the tents cozy, but it might take a while before you get feeling back into your toes. If you have warmblood or coldblood you will not have nearly as bad of a time with all of this. Some coldblood Sleepers might not even notice the cold! Might be good to put them on the frontlines for helping people out.
Another oddity this month is that most Sleepers seem to arrive at night rather than the typical daytime arrivals. Maybe it's because daytime hours are much shorter in December...But maybe it's something else too. This has led to Wakers making search parties to try and find Sleepers in the pitch-black night. It's a precarious situation and all hands on deck are strongly encouraged.
The Dog Keeper has come out to help the efforts. His dogs can be seen running frantically around the beach to help find people buried under ice and to help break through the ice to get them to safety. Dogs are available to help Sleepers swim to the Farther Shores, and they are also available to help Sleepers warm up by cuddling up afterward. There isn't much food to offer at this time, but you can still expect to be greeted with some hot soup. It might leave you hungry, but it definitely seems to help warm you up!
WHEN: End of November, early December
WHERE: Farther Shores/Pthumerian Ocean
CONTENT WARNINGS: Mutilated corpses, frozen bodies, possible frost bite/hypothermia, disaster-centric setting.
WHERE: Farther Shores/Pthumerian Ocean
CONTENT WARNINGS: Mutilated corpses, frozen bodies, possible frost bite/hypothermia, disaster-centric setting.
Sleepers aren't the only thing struggling in the Pthumerian Ocean this time of year. Boats come crushing in through the ice, frozen over completely by blistering winds. The ocean seems to be spitting up boats from times long past, leaving their skeletons strewn along the Farther Shores. Some are small boats, barely worth a second glance, but others are massive vessels, cutting intimidating shapes against the dark sky beyond.
Some Sleepers may even wake up in the water-submerged bowels of these boats, having to navigate a metallic graveyard. Other Sleepers might just have the sense to go and scavenge the boats for useful supplies and parts. Valuable metals can be extracted from the boats as well as other mechanical pieces - but not just that. Sleepers who explore thoroughly will discover small non-magical items from their home might be on the boats, floating in the water, or in random debris. Some boats are trader boats, having entire crates of sealed food goods like rare chocolates, fruits, and other food that is difficult to find this time of year.
You will want to thoroughly bundle up for this trip because it's much colder inside of the boats than it is outside. It's as if they have been transformed into giant freezers. Coldbloods may be able to provide their companions with steady warmth, even if their abilities are typically more ice-centric. It seems like coldbloods can manipulate the cold in these boats to be less intense. Some of the boats may have more grim discoveries: dead bodies, some skeletal, others still with the flesh intact and frozen over. It's never easy to discover the corpses of those who have tried to brave the ocean and failed.
It's easy to believe that what killed these people was the ocean or the cold...But the more bodies you discover, the more thoroughly you explore these shipwrecks, you begin to have a creeping feeling that these aren't ordinary crashes. These weren't natural causes. Some of the bodies look as if the chests had been ripped open while others, the faces have been completely distorted beyond recognition. There is an undeniable presence of something on these ships and you have a feeling whatever killed these people has now been brought to Trench...Great!
Some Sleepers may even wake up in the water-submerged bowels of these boats, having to navigate a metallic graveyard. Other Sleepers might just have the sense to go and scavenge the boats for useful supplies and parts. Valuable metals can be extracted from the boats as well as other mechanical pieces - but not just that. Sleepers who explore thoroughly will discover small non-magical items from their home might be on the boats, floating in the water, or in random debris. Some boats are trader boats, having entire crates of sealed food goods like rare chocolates, fruits, and other food that is difficult to find this time of year.
You will want to thoroughly bundle up for this trip because it's much colder inside of the boats than it is outside. It's as if they have been transformed into giant freezers. Coldbloods may be able to provide their companions with steady warmth, even if their abilities are typically more ice-centric. It seems like coldbloods can manipulate the cold in these boats to be less intense. Some of the boats may have more grim discoveries: dead bodies, some skeletal, others still with the flesh intact and frozen over. It's never easy to discover the corpses of those who have tried to brave the ocean and failed.
It's easy to believe that what killed these people was the ocean or the cold...But the more bodies you discover, the more thoroughly you explore these shipwrecks, you begin to have a creeping feeling that these aren't ordinary crashes. These weren't natural causes. Some of the bodies look as if the chests had been ripped open while others, the faces have been completely distorted beyond recognition. There is an undeniable presence of something on these ships and you have a feeling whatever killed these people has now been brought to Trench...Great!
WHEN: During Bone Season
WHERE: Throughout Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Parasitic monsters, tentacle horror, crushing/bursting styles of death, a form of beasthood, mild auto-cannibalism/self-harm.
WHERE: Throughout Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Parasitic monsters, tentacle horror, crushing/bursting styles of death, a form of beasthood, mild auto-cannibalism/self-harm.
You notice specks of blood that seem to appear from nowhere among the snowdrifts. When you pay closer attention, you may see more blood dripping...up. It doesn't look like any Sleeper Blood you're familiar with but instead appears to be black-blue colored, reflecting like glass, bubbling up out of the ground. It makes a small, glass-shattering noise when it appears before it bubbles back into the ground. It leaves a rotten odor in its wake.
The moment you get too close to the blood, even a foot away, it will expand rapidly. Bloodied tentacles will grow out of the blood and start violently lashing around at whatever living creatures are nearby. These tentacles are powerful, impervious to any weapons not reinforced with Sleeper Blood. They will grab up people and break their bodies, throwing them through the air or tearing them apart, seeming to nourish from the bloodshed.
However, some people are less lucky than a swift death. Some of these tentacles may snap right into your chest, opening up some blood portal into your soul, where this Thing will consume you. On the outside, this looks like a rush of this black-blue blood rushing into a Sleeper and then nothing. You'll feel disoriented and strange at first but will become increasingly agitated, violent with those around you. You will start to gnaw at your fingers to shed your new temporarily altered blood. Eventually, you will begin to attack other Sleepers, able to summon these bloodied tentacles and destroy anything in your path.
But this is a parasitic monster you carry. It eats away your sanity until nothing is left, and then the tentacles will burst out of you, your body left to ruin. Parasitic monsters can be removed by Blood Ministers or by forcing vileblood into the infected's body. The vileblood seems to purge the parasite without killing the host body...As long as you don't use too much. Once the parasite has consumed the body, there is no saving the Sleeper except through death. These parasites can be tracked back to the boats where people can find streaks of the unusual black-blue blood throughout the boats. This blood can be contained and isolated by darkbloods and/or Architects.
The moment you get too close to the blood, even a foot away, it will expand rapidly. Bloodied tentacles will grow out of the blood and start violently lashing around at whatever living creatures are nearby. These tentacles are powerful, impervious to any weapons not reinforced with Sleeper Blood. They will grab up people and break their bodies, throwing them through the air or tearing them apart, seeming to nourish from the bloodshed.
However, some people are less lucky than a swift death. Some of these tentacles may snap right into your chest, opening up some blood portal into your soul, where this Thing will consume you. On the outside, this looks like a rush of this black-blue blood rushing into a Sleeper and then nothing. You'll feel disoriented and strange at first but will become increasingly agitated, violent with those around you. You will start to gnaw at your fingers to shed your new temporarily altered blood. Eventually, you will begin to attack other Sleepers, able to summon these bloodied tentacles and destroy anything in your path.
But this is a parasitic monster you carry. It eats away your sanity until nothing is left, and then the tentacles will burst out of you, your body left to ruin. Parasitic monsters can be removed by Blood Ministers or by forcing vileblood into the infected's body. The vileblood seems to purge the parasite without killing the host body...As long as you don't use too much. Once the parasite has consumed the body, there is no saving the Sleeper except through death. These parasites can be tracked back to the boats where people can find streaks of the unusual black-blue blood throughout the boats. This blood can be contained and isolated by darkbloods and/or Architects.
arrival
Hang on!
[He's out with the Wakers again, when the sound of someone calling, shouting for help, hits. Running on the ice is not exactly an easy task, but he's willing to try. To skid to a stop near the hole.]
I hear you! Hold on - [The good thing about a metal fist? You can bash it into ice and freezing water without much concern. To make it larger, to hold it out for the new arrival to grab onto.]
no subject
He has human arms now, for all that his skin is turning a gnarly yellow-white from the cold, and there's no chance of his grip holding with any sort of reliability, so he settles for just kind of koala-ing onto any part of the arm he can reach, wrapping his whole arm around it and trying to latch on enough that he can be pulled up and out of the bitterly cold water.
Through chattering teeth, he forces out about the only thought on his mind, stupid as it is: ]
D-D-D-Don't d-drop me, okay?
no subject
[Soon as there's a grip, he wraps his fingers around the young man's wrist. Or elbow. Or bicep - it doesn't really matter, he's going to lock his fingers into place. Pulling with all his might. Shiro has to take a couple steps backward, to fully haul Jake out of the water. Out of the ice hole. His heels dig in, to find purchase on the slippery frozen waves.]
[Maybe he should have worn boots with treads.]
We need blankets over here! [He yells at the other Wakers, the locals nearby. But, as soon as he can, as soon as Jake's feet are on the ice, he's shucking off his own coat. To drape it around him.] You're safe - we've got you.
no subject
The thing he realizes about being cold, a moment later as the coat falls around his shoulders, is that when you're that cold, it almost dulls in a way because it's just...everything, it's universal, there's nothing in the entire universe that isn't cold. But then, suddenly, a little bit of the chill gets interrupted by the weight of the coat, and then all at once there's something to contrast all the cold to, and it hits him like a punch in the teeth just how cold he is.]
W-Who are you?
[That's a normal, sensible question. The one that follows it is considerably more questionable.]
What planet is this? You look h-human.
no subject
[The Wakers are coming. They're still too slow. He shifts, holding the young man up, so he can hold his right arm out in front of both of them. It's not like it used to be, but the purple light still gives off some heat. More like a match than a blowtorch.]
My name is Shiro - you're in a city called Trench. [It's what someone said to him, when he'd woken.] I -
[A mental record screeches to a halt.]
- Planet?
no subject
[THESE ARE NORMAL PEOPLE QUESTIONS THAT NORMAL PEOPLE WOULD ASK UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES. Clearly. He is just a sensible if disoriented young man trying to ask for directions, or something.
The strange thing is, he's not even sure why this is something that feels so important to know while he's all but freezing to death. There are good planets and bad planets, he thinks vaguely. Safe planets and otherwise.
There's a wrong answer to the question, he decides ultimately. He wonders if he'd know it if he heard it.]
We're on a planet. Whose space?
no subject
[At least the person being asked those Totally Normal Questions is someone who's aware of the concept of owned space.]
I don't know. It's closer to Earth than any other planet I've seen. But, I don't think anyone in this world has space flight.
[If they have, he hasn't seen any ships. Or spaceports. Heck, he hasn't even seen an airport. Maybe that's a good thing??]
Whose space were you in?
no subject
[He's too frozen to lie, and Marco isn't here to do it for him.
A moment later he catches himself, and wonders, wait, who's Marco?]
Long way from Earth. Long enough that there s-shouldn't be any humans. B-But this is somewhere else?
no subject
[So he shakes his head.]
I don't know Kelbrid space. But - yeah. Yeah, this is probably the furthest from anyone's space you can get.
[The Wakers finally arrive. Blankets. Hot Drinks. Trench-style hot water bottles.] Can you stand?
no subject
I have to, don't I?
[And he does, in fact, stand — he makes himself, and it's very obvious that he's keeping himself upright as much out of determination as out of wellness, balanced on shivering knees as he grabs for blankets and any heat he can get.
As an afterthought, he shucks off Shiro's coat and offers it back to him, once he's substituted a pile of blankets for it.]
Here. Thanks. Thanks for that, man. Guess I owe you one. Or a couple, maybe.
no subject
[A pale attempt at humor. Call it Shiro's defense mechanism, coping mechanism, or just a knee-jerk reaction to a situation like this one. Sometimes it helps. At least he's not making a pun.]
[Shiro sticks close, though. Ready to throw an arm out to steady Jake if he has to. The post-squid shakes are no joke. The last thing anyone needs is to fall face first onto the ice again. Or worse, slip back into the water.]
Take it slow... Legs are one of the last things to remember how to work. [He'd ended up laying on the beach for what felt like hours.] Nah, you don't. That's why I'm out here. Helping new squids.
[He'll take the coat back though. The rest of him is getting cold, even if one arm doesn't.]
no subject
[Said someone with four legs, once. Probably. When was he talking to someone with four legs? Since when do four-legged things talk to begin with?]
...What do you mean, squids?
no subject
[Yeah, that's a weird statement. A very, very weird statement. Then again, maybe the poor guy's got his brain scrambled too hard from the cold, the transformation. All of it.]
[And Shiro promptly grimaces.]
People who wash up here? They... usually start out as - well. A squid.
[He pauses.] Yeah, I know how it sounds.