October Test Drive Meme!

[reddosmod]

OCTOBER 2022 TDM

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: A snowy, rocky beach in winter. ]
[Image Two: Bowls of mushroom soup and bread. ]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Dali painting of the moon as a city]
[Image Two: Twisted, warped cityscape]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Monster choking a sleeping person to death]
[Image Two: Death hovering over a sleeping person]

BONUS PROMPT
[Image One: Liminal Space image of a nondescript room with strange ledges]
[Image Two: Cenobite woman with borg-like attachments to her face]

[NAVIGATION]

TDM Questions • Reserves • Taken • Applications • Full Navigation

[Jump to Comments]

STANDARD ARRIVAL

WHEN: First Week of NOvember
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk, Koz's Orphanage
CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

---

You're one of the lucky ones. Your journey is smooth sailing and you wind up exactly where you're supposed to: on the Farther Shores. You grow out of your squid body without a hitch, either with the help of another Sleeper or one of the Wakers, and you get to discover this new world. All new Sleepers might take some time to find their bearings. It might be tricky to remember how to use your body parts the way you're supposed to. You might stumble around the beach or forget how to talk - but don't worry! It'll come back to you sooner or later.

Hopefully, you've found something to wear, either in your Welcoming Bag or otherwise, and can start familiarizing yourself with your surroundings. Maybe you help some other squids out on the beach. Waking up sucks! You feel for the little guys. And hey, maybe you're hoping one of those squids is a good friend...Stranger things have happened.

SEASONAL DETAILS ON THE BOARDWALK
This is not the greatest month to wash up on the Farther Shores. It's November and you'll pretty much immediately hate it! The waters are frigid but not quite frozen yet, but that won't make your arrival any less uncomfortable. Thankfully the Boardwalk seems well-stocked with heavy blankets and furs to give to newly awakened Sleepers. Barrels of hot chocolate and hot alcoholic cider are readily available to warm people up. There are several stalls selling hearty soups willed with mushrooms, potatoes, beans, and other filling components.

Fresh baked bread and pastries are sold on wax paper. Enjoy a steaming cinnamon roll or croissant or just your standard bread and butter. Many bakers have set up temporary stoves and seem to invite teaching Sleepers how to cook and prepare bread and pastries. Maybe knead some dough, learn some tricks of the trade. If you help out ab baker, they might even thank you with a sack of flour or other ingredients for bread!

Like last year, as the Moon shifts to Bone, whispers and hushed talk begins anew among the Trenchies about The Tower. There are whispers that something feels wrong. "You know Trench is his body, right?" one might say. "But look at what's been happening. Is everything alright?" There is nervousness, agitation. Trenchies can't seem to put a finger on it. One of the old fishermen mutters under his or her breath if overheard in this time. "Long time since we tried to leave the Tower's shield. Hope didn't bring anything back from out there. World's a strange place."

None of them seem to have anything specific to add. They just seem nervous for some reason.

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

IMAGE OF THE SELF

WHEN: Halloween through all November
WHERE: All of Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Distorted Reality, horrifying cityscape images, mounting paranoia, displacement

---

"They say that Trench is the body of the Tower." It is a saying so often repeated during the Bone Moon season that it becomes more of a mantra. Whether or not it is actually true remains a hotly contested debate between Arcane Scholars and Disciples, one of the few times that neither side fully agrees even with themselves. Yet, if it is true, what happens if the person whose body serves as a city begins to have an identity crisis of sorts? That certainly seems to be the case this month.

At random times, it just happens. You're walking from one place to another with your friend. You just stepped out of a lantern network teleportation circle. You open a door. Suddenly, everything is just wrong. It feels like you are in a surrealist's nightmare. Walls appear to be bleeding concrete in all directions. Stairwells twist impossibly, as if M. C. Escher himself were the architect. The pathway to where you intended to go warps and transforms itself into a perilous, twisted monstrosity that you have to navigate. Worse? The way you got here is just gone behind you, leaving you only the path forward.

Navigating this isn't impossible, but you will definitely need help. It might be that one has to stand on another's shoulders to get over an obstacle and then help them up. Maybe someone very small has to crawl into an opening to reach the door handle so the way through can be found. It varies, and the effect lasts only as long as it takes to get where you're going, but while you're here the reality continues to shift and some of these twistings could easily crush you! Don't tarry too long!

NOTE: The physical danger here is from environmental hazards. Feel free to choose any you like, but they will all return to normal when your character reaches their intended destination. Trenchies know nothing about this, though if one asks one of the former wastes, they will ward themselves as if against evil. They know something, but they dare not speak and will whisper hurriedly that the sleeper had best not talk too openly about this. "Best not to draw attention right now."

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

WHEN: Last Week of October through the first week of November
WHERE: At Home, in your bed
CONTENT WARNINGS: Severe Insomnia, Sleep Deprivation, Deprivation induced hallucinations and mood swings

---

Something is clawing at your mind from the moment that the first signs of the cold coming. You can't put your finger on it, but even as you see the people of Trench preparing for the next month's arrival of sleepers, you can see they feel it too. Something claws at the mind and for a few people in Trench, this becomes a very literal problem. The thoughts are so overwhelming that you can't manage to find a good night's sleep. This problem is especially prominent for new Sleepers, who seem prone to arriving with terrible bouts of unexplainable insomnia.

That sounds simple enough to deal with, right? Perhaps some sort of sleep aid, or working oneself to exhaustion, and you can power through it, right? No. Nothing seems to work at first. Searches for a monster are futile. Warding and incense seem utterly ineffective, and no matter how hard you try, night after night you cannot sleep. You are terrified of falling asleep. If you fall asleep, you may never wake up! Even characters who do not fear a mortal death feel themselves compelled by this, and the longer that they do not sleep the more corruption risks them at its door. A night or two missed is one thing, but eventually irascibility sets in. Hallucinations may eventually start to crop up. The body needs REM sleep. It needs dreams, yet the horror that threatens the person will not allow them to sleep, for fear that it will come for them while they sleep. What 'it' is, they do not know.

There is only one solution. For those who already spend time with others? This is a simple thing, but they must still agree to do it. You can solve this curse only if you do not sleep alone. Another must stay awake for the vigil through the whole night. Simple enough given their insomnia, but they will be assailed by their own horrific lack of slumber. Only, after you have had a good night's sleep, be sure to care for the other who was so kind to you. Why? Because anyone so unkind as to not help their erstwhile companion sleep after they have finally gotten rest will find out that those fears were not unfounded and the next time they sleep, they really do not wake up!

Death, in this rare case, comes in the form of a heart attack. Its source is unknown, and all that the sleeper will remember is the worst nightmare of their life as they lay in bed, dying in soundless screams. So, be sure to take care of each other, sleepers!

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

THE VEINS OF THE TOWER

WHEN: November 1st (And only November 1st)
WHERE: Beginning anywhere, ending in A Nightmarish Place
CONTENT WARNINGS: Liminal Space, Disorientation, Hints of horrible monsters, Possible Death, Insane Zealotry, Mutilated Bodies

---

Rumors have lingered since the first encounters two months ago of a 'space between spaces' that people could accidentally fall into that this occurrence has not been entirely limited to the month it first happened in. Every once in a while, on unusual days, it has happened since that time. There appears to be little rhyme or reason to it, but it has happened again. Maybe you took an accidental step backwards. Or maybe you were crazy enough to have identified some spot you disappeared before and you were actually experimenting with the effect every day to see when it happened. You know, to chronicle the dates it happen, to keep a record, to understand it better, all of those sorts of things that cause some sleepers to poke things that are Better Left Alone because that's what some sleepers do with their free time, and then they touch the spot with something and suddenly they and everything around them are sucked in. How you got there is not important. You're here now, wherever here is.

Only this time its different. You're not in the spot you were last time, and in the distance you can hear shuffling of feet. Dread enters your heart, as you know that you do not have the means to fight whatever it is. You have an overwhelming urge to run, to flee at top speed. You and whoever is "lucky" enough to be with you must run as fast as you can, around corners, a roaring, inhuman scream echoing through the hallways, slamming into walls. You can't quite see it, not unless you want a swift, awful death at least. But around a corner there is salvation, an elevator shaft and the door is open. Frantic scrambling, running and jabbing buttons will cause the doors to close, just as something black like a giant hand grabs the far wall. You hear the rush, the scream. The elevator shudders three times as something pounds on it, but you're safe. Or, are you?

Instead of the usual moldy hallways, you see what looks like a hospital hallway. Anyone who lived through the nightmare may have awful flashbacks, but nothing is chasing you this time. The impossibly stretching hallway seems ceaselessly unchanging, each door locked, at least until you happen to notice a grate on one of the overhead air conditioners open wide. If you are curious enough to crawl up and into it, you're treated to a long scramble through the passageway, right up until you hear voices, menacing ones in the distance. Crawl quietly!

A grate emanating ugly, light is up ahead. As you and your companion work your way over, you're hopefully not heard. Through the grate, you see something awful. Two mutilated and disfigured figures speak while a third, calm and ordered looking woman listens. She seems to have mutilated her throat such that she should not be able to speak, and the other two appear have performed torturous experiments on their own flesh, their twisted visages that of the 'Zealots' that the Sleepers sometimes whisper about in fear. "It is almost time for the harvest. We made the quotas last cycle but only barely. The need is greater. Sacrifices must be made," one hisses. The other nods vigorously. "Yes. The situation is decaying. We have to move to stop this before it gets out of hand."

Before they can say more, however, the third woman looks up, directly at the grate. She smiles once, and a voice echoes from her throat as what appears to be a mouth inside of it moves, her own lips unmoving. "Continue this discussion later. It seems the problem has worsened. We will need to step up security in the meantime." She reaches out a hand and wrenches. The air shimmers around them and suddenly the duct you are traveling in collapses and breaks beneath you. Instead of falling into the farm, however, you find yourself falling through darkness for what seems an eternity, until you collapse hard to the pavement, in front of the entrance to the Gate, your breath coming back to you slowly, shakily.

NOTES: Death is possible should a sleeper assault the first creature. It is a being of impossible angles and blackness, is itself unkillable and will rend its victims to oblivion through brute force. Fighting the Zealots is not possible through this prompt. The grate cannot be opened in time to exit into the Sleeper Farm and engage them. However, the astute will be certain that there was for a moment an actual entry through and into the Sleeper Farm, somehow. Those familiar with these locations will recognize them as being Floor 1, the Stalls

[JUMP TO TOP]

CODING

Comments

[faithfulson]

Luke nodded at the gesture, stepping far enough away from the shop to show that he meant the other man no harm. Once he was outside and away from the shop, Luke closed the door, raising his ungloved hand toward the knob and focusing hard. His powers of telekinesis with the Force had not gotten any better in the year he'd been in this place, thanks to his change of blood, and so his back was to the other man for a not insignificant amount of time before he finally heard the lock click.

He let out a breath from the effort, before going to join the vampire, motioning that they should walk together before starting first, staying just ahead and to the side, continuing to be as accommodating as he could be.

"I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case," Luke replied gently. "The beings that rule this place seem to enjoy putting us through these 'trials,' for lack of a better way to describe them. And none of us really know if the Moon Presence has its own influence on this place or not."

He gestured up to the being slowly maneuvering through the sky far above them, before he let out a breath.

"I've been here a year now, and I always seem to have more questions than answers."

[whowillmourn]

Intriguing to see this young man express some abilities common to vampires. Unlike D, he's human, fully human (or as fully human as any Sleeper can be; as D told him, he can smell the difference between a human that is a Sleeper and a human that is not), so the gift comes from another source, be that the blood running in his veins or something of the universe he hails from.

"It is a strange but not entirely foreign concept," Mayerling admits, "though I would not consider most the... trials, such as they are, designs anyone"—here, he means the Sacred Ancestor—"would make whence I came." What purpose does the lack of sleep serve? Its biological functions have clearly not been overwritten in their squid biology. If it were supposed to, this world's Pthumerians ought to return to the laboratory.

"A year is but a short period," Mayerling notes. Any place that can hold D for half a year surely holds more mystery than a decade's study could reveal. "The more one learns, the better one understands how much they do not know."

Such as coming to this place at all after so many thousands of years. He had not expected such a journey in his lifetime. His eyes turn toward the bright bone moon and the being also occupying the sky. Mayerling exhales, melancholic fo all the wonder. "I shall learn little at all should I lose my faculties," he says, and worse for everyone else.

[faithfulson]

"I think a trial like this is meant to make Sleepers work together," Luke replied. "Forcing us to overcome something by either putting us in a compromising position or forcing us to seek help from others is the kind of tasks the Pthumerians seem to favor."

Luke peered over him at his comments about learning, his gentle expression stretching out into a broad smile, before he turned away, hiding a laugh behind his gloved hand.

"Sorry, I don't mean to laugh," he said. "You just reminded me of my master for a moment, while I was still in training." He peered back over to him, his expression softening. "I'm finding it so very true, now that I have people looking to me to teach them as well."

He paused as the mention of him losing his faculties, though, concern replacing his expression. D's emotions swirled around similar concerns, though he was reluctant to voice them to him, probably because he thought he could do everything himself and didn't want to put a human at risk. He wondered if this person would feel the same.

"I could try to help, if you would accept it," he said, before inclining his head respectfully. "My name is Luke Skywalker, and I'm a Jedi Knight. Jedi do what they can to help people and the galaxy as a whole back home; I'm trying to do the same here."

[whowillmourn]

Mayerling continues to watch Moon Presence, unsure what to make of the human Sleeper's statement. Puzzling, perhaps, in the way it makes human and vampire work together, an outcome he wanted very much where he was but time and again failed to find. The key, he thinks, lies in how few vampires are here, how they are not a separate category being forced together. No, they are Sleepers, and Pthumerians force Sleepers (one group) to work together. In that manner, it's a disappointment.

He looks back for he is conversing, not merely waxing poetic to himself while cleaning atmospheric scrubbers. "I am Mayerling," he says, for he has become all that is left of his family. In this distant place, he is all the more only that name, in no need of another.

"Jedi," Mayerling repeats the foreign word. Knight he is familiar with. Some sort of martial organization, then, in what is clearly a society spread across more than one planet. For all that vampires have gone to space, they rose and fell on Earth, that longing now laid to rest here in Trench as it was not in the City of the Night.

He looks at Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, for a few long moments.

"Where I am from, few humans consider me a person," Mayerling says, "Most would not do business with me, much less help me." He raises one hand gently, confident at this point that someone professing to help people and who has made as much conversation as this means it. His impression is not one of ignorance to what he is but... something normalized for Trench.

"We are both sleepers, those who have swum in Mariana's ocean with tentacles and suckers, not muscle and bone," Mayerling says, "we hail from other universes and find ourselves stranded together in a new and different world. In such ways, we could be said to be alike more than we are strangers.

"What of those who are not Sleepers? What of the people who are born, live, and shall die in this world? Those who are not transient guests but the hosts upon which we are imposed, whether they would wish to have us or not? What trials do the Pthumerians give them? What succor do you offer them?"

Even should they not be affected, the polite ways he and Luke entered and exited that business need not have been so kind. Whoever business could have found the glass broken in someone's frenzy to reach their loved one, dying, as they lose their sense of reality. One way or another, their hosts also must pay for these trials.

[faithfulson]

Luke fell quiet at his questions, folding his hands in front of him, real over fake, clearly mulling what he had to say over in his head.

"Transient guests... luminous beings..." he murmured faintly, before he shook his head. "Jedi believe that all things exist as one in the Force, and I've felt that is the same here as it is in my galaxy, whether its us or those that are born here. I would and have extended the same offers of assistance to the natives as well."

He paused a moment, again offering him that faint smile.

"Human, vampire, or otherwise... we are beings that exist here and now," he added. "We all deserve the same chances, and the same offer of help."

[whowillmourn]

Another parallel made, Mayerling notes. This time it is no simple concept but a core tenet of holy words passed down among vampires and especially within his family, within the name he solely occupies for this time, within a long lineage that too is but a transient guest upon the worlds and universes.

How strange but a pleasant surprise to find someone of a similar view. Being from different worlds, it comes in different words; philosophy over the ages treading toward the same destination from different roads.

Mayerling's smile is genuine and delighted, the smile of someone who never thought to smile again, a smile dusty and worn and forgotten even with the anchor of sadness behind it. "It pleases me to find a kindred soul in a new world," he says. Nothing too dramatic like brother in arms.

"Though we remain with the challenge of solving sleep," Mayerling returns to the exhausted and exhausting situation at hand, "In these experiments the Pthumerians shape to their wills, how do we seek the solution? Another's aid I may accept, but were a person dying of thirst, a companion without water would do little help. Something magical or mere presence?" He supposes they could have it however they please, being more akin to the Sacred Ancestor than to him.

[faithfulson]

He had a nice smile, Luke couldn't help but think, but also he could feel the effort behind actually making it. It must have been some time since he last felt the needed to, and considering what D was like, he could imagine that a full vampire's life was likely just as difficult as a half.

"We could try a presence first," Luke proposed. "Guarding one another while the other sleeps would be easier between us, I think."

He paused, before he let out a breath. "Though I admit, I don't feel like sleeping on the best of days, even without outside influences."

[whowillmourn]

Presence is simple enough to try—something they can do with no more needed than additional company and trust that they will not be harmed as they sleep (if sleep they manage at all). An awkward arrangement, should it fail, but no more awkward than social calls may demand. Mayerling has lived many periods from his carriage when he must travel. It offers no separation between sleeping quarters and any other. Admittedly, few companions have ever joined him.

"Sleep is a necessary call of biology," Mayerling notes, "even without outside influences, the lack of it will eventually drive all who need it mad. Presuming, as I do with most people, that you wish to continue living, you must then do what you need, as opposed to the urge otherwise." Not the same, by any means, as drinking human blood, but the parallel is what it is. The urge is not helpful, in the end, even to the one who has it. Some urges cannot be removed, but they can be denied.

"Be it your natural time to sleep?" Mayerling asks. "Night is when I naturally rise. If you trust me enough to sleep first, I can watch you sleep. Else"—his lips purse, not entirely approving but then... it is not his place to enforce behavior—"you can watch me come sunrise."

[faithfulson]

Luke managed a weak smile at his observation of sleep, and the lack of it. Meditation always helped, but it was nothing compared to actually sleeping, and he knew it. He had yet to master using the Force to put the suggestion of sleep into his own head too -- something always kept him from getting it to work fully, whether it be his own anxieties or other outside factors.

"If you're okay with it, I have a bedroom in my place with no windows," he offered. "You can watch over me tonight, without having to worry about needing to get somewhere safe when the sun rises. And then I can stay home and watch over you while you rest."

He... may have made it a point to take out the windows in one of the rooms in the event D ever needed a place to lay low, though he wouldn't admit it.

[whowillmourn]

A bedroom without a single window is an unusual feature. Even what little Mayerling has seen of Trench shows that. The very language Luke uses suggests it's both unusual and possibly intentional. Vampires are few in Trench but not so few as to be unknown. It gives him pause—not that Luke may try to kill him—but questions that may yet be too personal.

"The moon is bright enough that I may check how effective light is blocked," Mayerling says. "If the bedroom door leaks light, it may well be that you cannot leave your residence until sundown without endangering me." It is something a person unused to the stringent needs of a vampire may overlook. It may not matter this time, when Luke expects to watch over him the entire time, but if the man entertains others, it is best to know in advance. The same information could be used to trap and to kill a vampire, but he trusts vampires to be as careful with their well being as he must.

"We choose to trust each other," Mayerling notes. "As you trust me, I will trust you." Indeed, he expects it is a larger matter of trust on Luke's side.

[faithfulson]

Luke paused at the suggestion that the bedroom door may leak light, looking like he was wracking his brain to see if he tested for that or not, before he let out a despairing sigh, pressing a hand to his forehead.

"I... didn't think of that," he admitted, giving him a woeful look. "I have plenty of linens to stuff around the door if needed."

The matter of trust didn't even occur to Luke, if he was honest; this man was nice, and he could sense that he didn't mean him any harm. It gave him hope that most vampires were as friendly -- or, at the very least weren't as big of jerks as Reaper could be. That was why he had a moment where he stared blankly at Mayerling, before he finally smiled faintly.

"Of course," he said. "I can sense you don't mean me any harm; I have no reason not to trust you."

[whowillmourn]

"For most, it is not a matter of life and death," Mayerling says gently. No reproach. Mayerling appreciates that he can provide such advice in exchange for imposing on the man's entire day and potentially limiting his activity within his own home. Watching a vampire sleep is a dull activity, without even the tossing and turning of regular human adjustment in sleep.

Whether Luke can truly sense Mayerling's intentions or not (he does, in fact, mean Luke no harm), the statement is one he would never hear in his own world. Every human in the Frontier has reasons not to trust a Noble, even him. It sounds... naive. Mayerling can only live up to its expectations.

"Please, lead the way," Mayerling says. His knowledge of the town is limited, and he's entirely unfamiliar with Luke's domicile.

[faithfulson]

He offered him a small smile, before heading off, a comfortable silence between them as they headed down the street. It was a bit before they came to their destination: the simple little shack that Luke was working on fixing up when he wanted some privacy. Luke hesitated as they approached, glancing over at his guest and the certainly nicer clothes that he was wearing.

"Um... sorry that it's not much," he said, a faint hint of embarrassment in his voice.

[whowillmourn]

Mayerling inspects the shack intensely, focusing his vision on its structure and potential gaps in its protection from sunlight. Simple though it is, Luke or the occupant before him maintain(ed) it well enough for a single night, for an emergency like this.

"It is enough," Mayerling declares, enough they can carry forward. He'll inspect more once he's inside. "I have managed much less accommodating options when pushed to it."

He only need to walk around the puddle that looks like blood but likely is a hallucination in his mind.