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Deer Country Mod ([personal profile] reddosmod) wrote in [community profile] countryclub2021-07-29 09:49 pm
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(August) 2021 Test Drive Meme

AUGUST 2021 TEST DRIVE MEME
Welcome to our first-ever live Test Drive Meme! Thank you so much for your interest! While our applications and reserves this upcoming round are for Early Access Members only, this Test Drive Meme is to open to everyone - both brand new players and old!

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: Lego face down on beach shore.]
[Image Two: Melting ice cream cone.]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Person screaming underwater.]
[Image Two: Waves crashing on rocks.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Woman on a piano in the middle of the ocean.]
[Image Two: Pirate ship on wave during storm.]

Dates to Remember!

Read our Game Open information here.

Early Access is only applicable to those who played in Deerington from Dec2020-June2021. Public Access is applicable to everyone regardless of whether or not you previously played in Deerington.

August 27th: Reserves open for Early Access Members open.
September 1st: Applications for Early Access Members open.
September 26th: Public Access reserves open.
October 1st: Game officially opens. Public Access applications open.
STANDARD ARRIVAL
WHEN: August
WHERE: The Farther Shores/Boardwalk
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

August means colorful streamers and fairy lights twinkling over the Boardwalk, lighting the way. Although Trench is a grim world, there is a distinct summer vacation feeling to the Boardwalk in August. You can smell fried dough and hot dogs being prepared - and no worries! Everything on the Boardwalk is completely free to Sleepers. The workers know it's your first stop and that you, more than most, need a bit of charity right now. Stop by and get a deluxe sundae or ice cream cone at the temporary ice cream booth. Want something besides your welcoming robes to wear? There are a few small shacks selling some solid pirate and sailor-inspired looks. There are also some cute bathing suits for those who think taking a dip in the ocean could possibly ever be fun. Get these summer goods while the going's good. They won't be around in September!

Some people have even set up some crude form of volleyball out on the beach. Join in for a game! The ball is a little leathery and strange to the touch, but it's probably for the best if you just ignore that. Hit the ball around enough and you'll notice that if it gets away from your court, it seems to roll itself towards the ocean. Pick it up again and it's just a ball again! Weird...Just play with the ball and don't ask questions.

The Boardwalk really is a gentle introduction to Trench. It's easy to forget that you just woke up to a hellscape dominated by blood. But hey. The corruption here is low and maybe that's the point. Take it easy while you can, Sleepers. The tide is coming soon enough.
DIFFERENT TIDES
WHEN: WHEN EVENT
WHERE: Among the Rocks in small crevices and caves.
CONTENT WARNINGS: Drowning, crushing bones, intense claustrophobia, flesh eating crabs, possible animal death via burning, possible hallucinations via toxins.


While most Sleepers are lucky enough to wash up on the Farther Shores, not all are so fortunate. The ocean is unpredictable and in this world, the ocean also happens to be a temperamental living creature. Come in at the exactly wrong time and the Pthumerian Mariana might decide to send you on a harrowing course towards The Rocks. Having to wake up while being slammed up against slippery slopes of stone is no one's idea of a good time, and if you're not a strong swimmer, you might die before you even have a chance to realize where you are. Even if you are a strong swimmer, it's exhausting and brutal being slammed against slate again and again. But you're not the only one suffering. There are other Sleepers crashing against the Rocks with you. Maybe you can help each other out before it's too late.

If you have the ability, you can possibly grab hold on the side of the Rocks and cling for dear life. You might even discover the advantages of your newly reborn body and blood sooner than intended. Not too many can clash against the Rocks without spilling a little sacred blood but you might just be able to use that in your favor. Sometimes shedding blood in this world means getting a hell of an adrenaline kick - and you might need it right about now. Maybe you can climb to the top and back to safety?

Not everyone has to take a beating against the Rocks. Some are sucked into the undertide and carried directly inside of the Rocks. There are dozens of small caves and channels. If you're having a genuinely terrible day, you might break the surface of the water in a pitch-black space, with rock above you, rock all around you. There may be very little space between the water and the rocks surrounding you, making it harder to breathe and concentrate and easier to panic in. Cry out and you may get some help. Find your way to one of the open caves inside.

As you try to find your way in the dark, you hear a constant clicking noise all around you. It sounds like rocks bouncing together, clacking, clicking, some plopping into the water near you. You can feel them moving around you and eventually, one drops down onto your shoulder. It's a crab! The little guy is no bigger than a golf ball and he mostly just seems curious. Another little buddy joins him on your other shoulder. Looks like you have some friends! Maybe they are here to help you.

Then you feel a little sharp jab of pain. And another. And nope- these guys are not your friends. They use their small claws to take chunks out of your flesh and eat it. They are easy enough to brush off your shoulder, but the problem isn't their size, it's their quantity. As soon as you get one off, another is falling down. And some are a lot bigger than golf balls. They get as large as basketballs and when those land on you, brace yourself, because they are dense. You'll discover that the crabs seem completely impervious too. They have rock-hard shells and are resistant to blood magic - probably because they eat nothing but blood-and-flesh creatures. But like all living creatures, they do have a weakness or two: fire and light. You can completely stun and paralyze these creatures with a flash of light. The brighter the light, the longer they will be stunned. If you have a light source to carry around, the crabs won't come near you at all. Fire won't stun the crabs, but it does terrify them and will send them fleeing. If you set a crab on fire, you'll see why: it's the only way to kill them.

So congratulations, you have Trench Crabs. Not the best experience, but it's an easier experience for some than others. Unfortunately for Warmbloods, Palebloods, and Vilebloods there's a certain toxin in the crab's flaws that can cause mild hallucinations and confusion in response to your specific blood type. Hopefully, you're stuck with another blood type who isn't affected by the crab toxins. To get rid of the side effects, you will need to thoroughly clean out all of your wounds with warm salt-water.

Let's just hope you can all make it out of the Rocks alive. Good luck.

QUICK FAQ

1. Those whose Patron Pthumerian is Mariana will be much luckier in the waves. Some may even discover that the water urges them towards safer passages. If they ask for direct help, the water might directly respond with immediate help. In the most extreme cases, the water might heal flesh wounds, but it will burn a little. Never a good idea to put salt (water) on an open wound, but hey, better than bleeding out!

This applies to the third prompt as well. 2. Characters can either find their way across the Rocks and climb to the area around the Sanguine Station or wind up at the Farther Shores. Wakers would be quick to help any mangled Sleepers.

3. Other characters can go to the Rocks and try to help save the Sleepers being brutalized. Maybe throw someone a rope or if you have the power of flight you can try and get them to safety.
OVERBOARD
WHEN: Pirates continually sail the Pthumerian Ocean therefore this event could take place at any time.
WHERE: Somewhere beyond the Fishing Zone of the Pthumerian Ocean
CONTENT WARNINGS: Drowning, kidnapping, imprisonment, "human" trafficking, cannibalism.


Some Sleepers don't make it to the Farther Shores or the Rocks. Your body might regenerate in the middle of the Pthumerian Ocean and the only thing in your favor is at least you're not reborn naked here (unless maybe you are - dealer's choice). You're cloaked in some long, white garment - not that it does much against the crashing waves all around you. This is not a great place to wake up! And it looks like you woke up in the middle of the storm only it's not really a storm...This is just the natural state of the Pthumerian Ocean: violent and unpredictable.

Waves crash and pull all around you, thundering through the air, the wind and skies above just as hostile and aggressive. You can't tell if it's raining or if you're just being constantly splattered by the mist and water of waves nearby. Whirlpools spin in gurgling clusters and it's easy to get sucked into them. Thankfully, you're not completely alone in this terrible situations. You can see other Sleepers nearby...And furniture?

Chunks of furniture float by. Couches, mattresses, pianos, bookcases. There is the debris of ruined ships too: flanks of wood, doors that could probably hold two people if you actually tried, masts, barrels, and the like. Might not be a bad idea to try and hold onto some of that stuff. Better than the alternative! Another thing going in your favor is that you showed up in August. The Pthumerian Ocean is a brutal place, but you won't be freezing to death in these waters. At least not this month. But what about where you are? Where you need to go? Well. That's answered for you.

There are few things tougher in Deer Country than the pirates who live by the law of the ocean. Their ships have been coated in blood magic, cutting through waves, navigating the tidal waves and the whirlpools with abnormal grace normal sailors could only ever dream of. But the people aboard are not human. Not anymore. Most have become completely corrupt by the violence of the ocean and they're more than happy to scoop up poor, disoriented Sleepers they find along the way. You'll find no mercy from these pirates. Instead, it's off to the brig with you! The people on the ship have disoriented appearances, looking more like sea creatures than humans, and they have the manners you'd expect from pufferfish and tiger sharks. They cannot be reasoned with - after all, they aren't just rude. They are blood corrupted and some of them are borderline on their way to full beasthood.

Pirates will value Sleepers for their blood and plan to either eat the Sleepers, use their blood for blood magic, or sell them to other pirates and most won't immediately try to kill a Sleeper. They might be violent, but they aren't stupid. Pirates may simply throw you in a cell or chain you up. They may put Sleepers in a cell together or separate them into cages. If Sleepers are especially mouthy, they may make you walk the plank, tied up with heavy chains that will surely bring you to the bottom (if there even is a bottom) of the ocean. Players can choose the severity of the imprisonment of Sleepers and how Sleepers may escape their situation. Maybe they sneak out of bond and steal a lifeboat. Maybe they overpower their captors and kill most of them or throw them overboard and steal their ship. Either way, once they have met some kind of escape, the Pthumerian Mariana will be impressed enough by their hardiness to help guide them through the currents all the way to the Farther Shores.

CODING
entreats: (over a strange inversion)

[personal profile] entreats 2021-08-01 08:21 pm (UTC)(link)
.. Wait a moment!

[ Wu may be ready to leave that fact casually behind, but apparently Ange isn't. Her eyes grow a little wider in surprise, and she glances from the direction he was gesturing into back to him. ]

You almost got eaten by crabs? [ Not a surprising danger by Deerington levels, sure, but something in Ange can't help but fuss all the same. And whereas she can usually hide that sort of thing, it's much harder right now, when she's just way too relieved and emotional to really cover everything with her usual deadpan. ] Are you sure you're okay? You didn't get hurt?
royalfling: (huh | sus | what | eyebrows)

[personal profile] royalfling 2021-08-04 01:36 am (UTC)(link)
[ Wu is a little taken aback by her reaction. She's a very even-keeled person, as far as he's known her. She never seems to be thrown by anything, taking everything in stride, so the shift in her tone has Wu looking at her with wide eyes. ]

Ah-- a little? I got a little hurt. I'm okay! I swear! Varian helped me out of it. He can firebend now! That was really something.
entreats: (a vacancy that just didn't belong)

[personal profile] entreats 2021-08-04 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Fire.. [ Huh? ] You mean like Mako?

[ But Varian isn't even from the same world as they are, right? Then why would he suddenly be able to use a power that's from a different world than his own? For what reason?

All of this is way too confusing, and seems to make little to no sense. Hence why Ange looks kind of concerned as she asks: ]


.. did you hit your head while those crabs were after you?

[ Look.

She's just saying that it would make a whole lot suddenly make sense. ]
royalfling: (scared | huh | oh no)

[personal profile] royalfling 2021-08-05 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
I-- maybe? But no, I'm not confused! He scared off all the crabs with fire. It was, it was amazing!

[ Suddenly, Wu desperately needs her to believe him. He clutches at her arms with wide eyes. ]

I swear! It was so, so strange.

[ As he says it, something equally strange happens. The image flashes in Wu's mind, and Ange herself sees it in her head too: Varian, with fire in his hand, illuminating hundreds of crabs ]
entreats: (over a strange inversion)

[personal profile] entreats 2021-08-05 05:55 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Huh.

Huh?

Huh?

Ange starts to look progressively more weirded out when she sees that flash in her head. It can't just be some overimaginative mind on her part - that looked way too real. And it just appeared in there out of nowhere. ]


Wh-- What?

[ She stares at Wu like he suddenly grew a second head. There's just suddenly way too much happening here. ]

What just happened?

[ Did he see that too? Notice that too? Whichever it is, Ange needs someone else to acknowledge that literally everything going on here is weird right now. Just to make her feel less crazy. ]
royalfling: (huh | talk | concern)

[personal profile] royalfling 2021-08-06 07:53 pm (UTC)(link)
What?

[ Wu blinks at her. He doesn't realize that he did anything. ]

Are you okay? What did just happen?

[ He looks around himself, and is a little afraid that the crabs are going to leap out and attack him again. ]
entreats: (and it ain't coming down)

[personal profile] entreats 2021-08-06 08:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I saw it.

[ Ange knows that sounds kind of vague, and omnious, and perhaps a tad unhinged, but there's just so much going on right now. There's no time for nuance, nor any time to carefully think about what she's saying here. It feels like she's going crazy.

She moves a hand up to her forehead, keeping it that way. ]


I saw Varian with fire in his hands. [ And before he gets the wrong idea and thinks that she just saw it at some earlier point too, Ange quickly adds: ] In-- In my head.
royalfling: (look | huh | interested)

[personal profile] royalfling 2021-08-08 05:10 pm (UTC)(link)
In your head?

[ Wu stares at her for a long moment. ]

Like, you imagined it? Is that unusual? Do you not have a good imagination? I, I don't think I'm following.

[ Not willfully misunderstanding, but more he can't comprehend what this might have to do with him. ]
entreats: (the pictures that she sees)

[personal profile] entreats 2021-08-08 07:05 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Honestly, even Ange isn't too sure if it has anything to do with Wu in particular. All she knows is that something weird just happened, because there's no way that sudden, almost intrusive image was something she conjured up herself.

So she quickly shakes her head. ]


No-- No, not like that! It wasn't just my imagination, it was just.. suddenly in my mind! Like a movie playing out!

[ Not that she doesn't realise that she sounds kind of crazy when she says it like that. But Ange knows what she just saw, and it's why her expression turns a bit more pleading a moment later. ]

Please believe me. [ Otherwise she's for sure going to feel like she's totally going crazy over here, with everything going on at once. ]
royalfling: (concern | frown | neutral)

[personal profile] royalfling 2021-08-10 12:23 pm (UTC)(link)
I, I do! I'm just confused.

[ Wu stares at her, at a loss. He isn't going to question her anymore. If she says she saw it, who is he to say otherwise? ]

I, well. If you saw him, you saw the fire. It was very strange. I don't know what this place did to him, but I wonder if it's doing that to, to others, too..?
entreats: (that has been calling you)

[personal profile] entreats 2021-08-11 06:42 am (UTC)(link)
[ That last question makes her arrive at a conclusion fast. Very fast.

So fast that she wonders if she isn't reading into it too much. But with how vivid that image was, especially for something she never saw with her own eyes, Ange doesn't think it can be any possibility other than this one - even if she speaks up with a frown, obviously conflicted. ]


What if.. what happened just now was like that too?

[ She shakes her head. ]

I mean, if this place gave him the ability to firebend, maybe it gave one of us some ability that has to do with what I just saw in my head. [ Even though she doesn't know if that means it's Wu's power to transmit these images, or if it's her own weird new power to see events she never witnessed. ]
royalfling: (huh | sus | what | eyebrows)

[personal profile] royalfling 2021-08-13 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know any bending like that...

[ Does that matter? He doesn't know. But it is scary.

Biting his lip, Wu furrows his brow and thinks really hard about Fritter the raccoon, bursting from his chest like she did earlier. That was sure weird, wasn't it? The image pops into Ange's head, Fritter's little fuzzy body forming from smoke from Wu's sternum.

He looks up at Ange with wide eyes
]

Can you see that?
entreats: will pave open tomorrow (if only the searing pain)

[personal profile] entreats 2021-08-13 05:26 pm (UTC)(link)
.. yeah.

[ It's a slightly slow answer, as if she's trying to confirm it's seriously not her just making stuff up. But why would she randomly think of that of all things otherwise, if Wu wasn't putting it in her head? ]

That's your.. you know. Your little buddy. [ That sure is one way to put it, but still. Point proven. ] I.. think you may be broadcasting your thoughts to other people.
royalfling: (annoyed | why | wave | arms up)

[personal profile] royalfling 2021-08-15 02:50 pm (UTC)(link)
That's, that's, how?!

[ Wu stares at her, trying to process that in his head ]

How, how?! I don't have any, any bending or, or magic or anything! That doesn't make sense! You, you have magic! You can do stuff like that! Maybe you're seeing my memories!
entreats: (what understanding defies)

[personal profile] entreats 2021-08-15 08:19 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't have memory-viewing magic! [ .. there's a slight pause, and then Ange adds, though still in the same tone: ] I think!

[ She never used to have it, anyway. And she's pretty sure she hasn't seen anyone else's memories yet ever since arriving here, though Ange supposes she can't deny that maybe the magic only started to work right now..

.. for some reason?

There would be a lot of caveats to this. ]


Why would my magic suddenly change in this place? That's just as odd as the idea of you suddenly gaining an ability!
royalfling: (scared | soft | look | concern)

[personal profile] royalfling 2021-08-18 02:36 pm (UTC)(link)