graveyardsmash | TEST DRIVE MEME: SEPTEMBER

TDM: SEPTEMBER

Welcome to the Ryslig Test Drive Meme! Below are a few prompts to get you started, but you may make up any prompt you desire! Please take a look at the navigation page for rules, setting information, and links to reserves and apps. Have fun!

SCENARIO ONE

You wake up on the beach thoroughly drenched, with your mouth full of sand. The salt water is making all the cuts and scrapes on your skin sting and the sand isn't helping. The air is slightly humid, ruining any feeling of refreshment you might have gotten from your dip in the ocean.

There are lights in the distance, but the unfriendly scent of gunpowder fills the air. If you're lucky, you're alone. If not - you might find yourself staring up into a pair of monstrous eyes or down the barrel of a local's shotgun.

SCENARIO TWO

So you've just arrived, and already some of the natives are trying to get on your good side with offers of food, shelter and other luxuries in return for hoping you don't eat them. They even have some helpful pamphlets to share with you. "How To Deal With Changes", "Alternatives to Human Flesh", "What to Expect When You're Expecting (to turn into a monster)" are all on the more informative end of the scale. There's even some detailing certain monsters, and the changes they go through. Some of these seem to have been passed down from one monster to the next.

Among these however, are some... not so helpful ones. "Bunnyipyips And You", "Axe Thief Axehounds," and "So you're becoming a Fur Bearing Trout" among others. Sometimes they have marks on them from previous readers saying they're lies, or pointing out good "jokes."

Then there are the people who aren't happy to see you at all. Glares and silent, judging stares if you're lucky, torches and pitchforks attempting to drive you out of the town if you're not. You may need a friend to help you.

SCENARIO THREE

"Seek us out," the voice whispers in your head, and before you have time to question it you've found yourself in someplace entirely alien.

Maybe it's the Fog God's ghostly town of Dyster, where exultant followers dance around bonfires and sing their praises to the skies above. Maybe it's the Fourth God's arcade, with small robots wheeling about amidst the lights and colors of old pinball machines.

Only one thing is certain: you are not alone, in this sacred place.

SCENARIO FOUR

The time has come and you've found yourself becoming a monster. Is the change instant, or gradual? Are you familiar enough with monsters to know what's happening, or is it a complete shock? Feel free to pick any monster type for this prompt, but note that you may not get the same one in game.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For any specific reason? Or are you just naturally a less emotional person?

It makes no sense to me, but the affairs of gods seldom do. In making me human, the Fog God sapped me of my strength. Then in making me a minotaur, she made me once again stronger. It was a pointless, unnecessary change.

As I said. It's complicated.

Though I'm not unhappy about it.

It may be no large change for you now. But I'm one month's time, new changes will start, and it will matter to you then.

That's what I hear.

And I won't know what exactly I'm going to be until then either.

No, you will not. You will only get some idea when the first fog rolls around and your changes begin. They may happen gradually, small pieces at a time, or they may come all at once. It is different for each of us.

But there are only a certain number of monster types, correct?

Correct. Do not ask me to list them all, for I do not know them in total.

But, even among one monster type, each individual monster can present differently. An ally and myself are both minotaurs, but I have cow features and she has goat features.

I won't ask, then.

I've yet to hear anything encouraging about any of this.

Nor will you anytime soon. The physical changes are the least of monsters' problems.

Has anyone told you about the hunger yet?

Not in any great detail.

The hunger will come. Perhaps not in the first month. But it will come eventually. None can run from it forever.

Monsters of this realm must feed to survive. And the food we are cursed to eat is humans, be it flesh, blood, or spirit.

[there's a long pause before the next response comes. Then:]

Why?

Because the Fog God is cruel and petty.

Is that really the only reason?

Why are we not being hunted down?

Some will try to tell you that we have been chosen for a higher purpose, to become our "truer selves." These people are fools, seduced by the Fog God's tricks.

Humans have tried to capture and kill monsters, but we remain more powerful. And even then, they tried to become like us, not to stop our existence.

Has no one ever been able to change back?

None to my knowledge. If it were that easy, no monster would stay as they are.

[ Well... Some might. But Angela does not agree with the few fanatics who embrace what the Fog has done to them ]