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graveyardsmash2021-09-10 09:23 am
ryslighelpers) wrote in graveyardsmash2021-09-10 09:23 am
Entry tags:
TDM: SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER
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 in a dark ditch, the sky cloudy overhead. Dirt cakes into your cuts and scrapes. The air is clammy and damp, and it smells like rain.
You’re in a grave. And when you sit up to inspect the tombstone marking your spot, it has your name on it. Maybe the graves next to you have the names of familiar friends, family, acquaintances. Not all of them are open like yours are. RIP.
There’s a light dancing in the distance, and you hear the jingle-jangle of heavy keys, or worse still, the gravekeeper’s massive pitchfork or shovel. If you're lucky, you can sneak out beyond his notice, and get out alone. If not - you might find yourself on the wrong end of a shovel’s swing, or worse yet, tripping headfirst in front of a pair of monstrous eyes.
SCENARIO TWO
So you've just arrived, and you’re surrounded by an incredibly odd group of natives. Some of them wear elaborate headdresses that resemble a deer, or a horse with seaweed instead of a mane, or a ferocious cat. All of them are covered in tattoos and piercings, and their clothing mirrors their ‘beast’ of choice, from snakeskin boots for the snake-people to cowhide and leathers for the minotaurs, manticore-kin, or kelpie-kin. These people introduce themselves as members of the scouting team for the Tågevalgten, and they’re here to help you settle in! They load you onto a rickety old bus and take you into Town.
The Town is called Rota, according to the rusted road-sign. And the central lodge is all decked out and ready to go for a reception, Children of the Fog welcome. There are food and drink aplenty, mostly meat-heavy, and if you ask them where the meat came from… Well! Maybe you shouldn’t ask.
The Tågevalgten gladly share helpful pamphlets for you. “Embrace Your Fog-Given Gifts,” they proclaim. Most of them are fashioned to sound like self-help with a religious bent favoring a divine entity called the Fog God: “Monster Types And YOU: What Fits Your Personality? Take Our 99% Accurate Quiz Inside!”, “Shed Your Human Skin And Thrive,” “Be Uniquely You And Uniquely Free,” “What to Expect When You're Expecting (to turn into a monster).” There's even some thick books carefully cataloguing certain monsters and the changes they might go through. Some of these seem to have been passed down from one monster to the next.
After awhile, it’s clear that the Tågevalgten are a bit too friendly and enthralled with buttering you up. In fact, it’s clear that they don’t want you to leave their fold, happy to keep you strapped together with a kumbaya around the campfire. They might not let you go until you take a bite of their Soylent Green or accept a group hunting trip with other newbies, and so on and so on. There’s always some excuse.
Maybe someone else can help you out of these uncomfortable pickles and get you away from here.
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? Does it fit you, or does it feel incongruous with your nature? Feel free to pick any monster type for this prompt, but note that you may not get the same one in game.
Need|Heralds of Valdemar? canon doesn't have an official name
sword of alone
[Need is unmoving in that open grave for a long time. It might be hours, it might be less than that, because she's all the way awake, and Mindblind, and Mageblind, and most importantly, something's happened to Kerowyn. Kero wouldn't have laid here passively upon waking up. Finally, Need says something out loud, in Kero's low voice.]
Demonsbane, girl, this isn't like you.
[Nothing happens, and she's realized that her own self isn't strapped to Kero's body anywhere. Need's spent too long imprisoned in a blade that she spelled for calm to panic easily, if ever, but she does feel herself start sweating.]
Aw, hell.
Old habits
[Need doesn't trust the people of Rota. They're friendly and have told her a lot, but they're also really intense and have a weird viewpoint. So it's a Changechild situation, with a full on Kiyamir Ma'ar level of extremity and sadistic edge? If there's any situation that makes her regret being Mageblinded it's this one.
You might find her making a sling out of cord. Good easy weapon, ammunition's everywhere, and these people don't seem to carry slings, so she might be able to carry it without anyone knowing she's armed. The usefulness of a ranged weapon is reduced in close quarters, obviously.
Bow making is harder and might be less fruitful, but she's taught a dozen bearers how and watched the hands of many more do it; it comes easily. So you might find her carving wood with a gifted knife, listening to Tågevalgten rhapsodize about higher beings.
It'd be better if there was a forge, but even assuming she could just walk into one and payment for fuel and materials isn't a thing, making a sword is an involved process and takes longer.]
You think it's even useful to have a sword here? ...Heh. I've lived too long. What a question.
[Need's asking Kero - she's afraid that her bearer is still in here and aware, beyond her ability to hear her, and it will be a slightly less awful experience if Need talks to her - but she's also asking out loud.]
obligatory what is technology
[This doesn't come out of the blue, but if you've had a passing handwaved friendly or semifriendly interaction with Need, she's fully comfortable asking for help. She taps the closed network laptop and raises Kero's eyebrow wryly.]
Permit an old woman to say 'What?' every two seconds, will you? What is this, and is it useful?
what is tech, baby dont hurt me
It's a computer, [Mariner says, and takes her own out of the bag she's managed to con out of one of those Tågevalgten guys.] I mean, I barely recognize it, it's so...it's got a keyboard, [she says, opening her laptop to gesture at it. This is perhaps less than helpful, but she wants to complain.]
It's pretty useful, I guess, [she admits mulishly.] Less useful than what I'm used to.
don't hurt me, no more
[She's mimicked Mariner and opened hers up as well, studying it with a frown.]
Looks a bit like a teleson. Haven't seen one of those in an age... I take it these flat tokens with the letters are keys.
[Need hasn't decided if she wants to be up front about actually being a spirit sealed into a sword for several thousand years or not. No one would have any reason to believe her. She can totally talk about things that would be absurdly out of context to Kero and anyone else alive in Kero's time, because literally everything's out of context.]
no subject
I know a cyborg, though, he's a pretty cool guy, and there's all sorts of artificial intelligences that could also be called computers, but that's not really a great term for 'em, it'd be like calling a human 'meatbag'. While technically true, it's really reductive.
Anyway. [She gestures at the keyboard.] Yeah, this is the keyboard. Gonna take me a little while to get used to this. Either I use holographic keyboards or I just use my voice. A mechanical keyboard's antique.
I was messing around earlier trying to get this baby to work. Found the power button - so! [She hits the power button on her laptop and it begins to boot.]
no subject
[Keep the living people in their place. No, she's not serious. Need imitates Mariner with the powering on. She's more equipped for this kind of thing than most people in her now-medievally canon, being able to remember a time with more advanced magitek.]
Now they're buttons, too? I'm assuming these are how you... talk to this thing and tell it what you want from it.
no subject
[She squints at the keyboard layout.] Wow, this is rough. People used to type like this? This layout doesn't make any sense. Nothing's in order.
[Then she sighs and moves on to hunt-and-peck.] There better be a speech-to-text function on this. This is so inefficient. [She wants her PADD, dammit.]