The Village Mod (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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villagememes2020-11-19 10:10 pm
villagemod) wrote in villagememes2020-11-19 10:10 pm
Entry tags:
test drive — winter
WINTER TEST DRIVE
Welcome to the test drive and thank you for your interest in The Village. This test drive is not game canon but will allow players the opportunity to experiment with game mechanics, the setting, and the flexibility of choice allowed by this game. The following prompts are examples of typical situations characters might face in the game. At least one thread from the TDM is required as part of the game's application process.
The setting details and locations are still being unveiled in the game, so prospective players are welcome to play with established locations or create their own within the general setting of Mathias.( Recommended listening: ♫ )
INTO THE ENDLESS
Winter has arrived in Mathias. Snow falls steadily, big puffy flakes that pile up quickly in drifts as the wind blows them around town. The trees in the forest are covered in it, the branches bending under the weight and shaking when the piles fall from them to the forest floor. The roofs of buildings become solid white and drifts form in doorways as the wind tries to rush inside anywhere it can.
New arrivals wake in the forest, with its winding paths twisting back on themselves as they branch in either direction. It isn't safe to stray from the path, there is a menacing fog that waits just a few yards inward in any direction, but for now, there is nothing impeding movement along those snow-covered paths that cut through the trees. Continue stumbling in one direction and you'll reach the small town, coming out near the mishmash of quaint houses that nestle beside crumbling ruins that used to be homes. But choose the other and you'll seem to stumble on forever, huddling against the wind until there seems to be a clearing up ahead—
And then nothing. The earth opens up before you in a ravine so deep that the bottom cannot be seen. The other side can be seen, tantalizingly out of reach, and there is the sense that safety is just beyond, if only you could get there. But with that sensation is also the knowledge that if you stay here, you will die. The edge seems unsteady, like getting too close would set it crumbling and send you tumbling into that dark endless nothing that waits below...
BODIES WITHOUT SOULS
Benedict Books is nestled quaintly on the square surrounding Mathias's Town Hall, a thick layer of dirt covering the front windows. Looking through those windows provides a much different view than looking directly into the shop through the doorway — vague shapes and forms of figures seem to be inside, though no details can be determined through the streaks of grime. Flickers that resemble flashlights can be seen passing along the windows from time to time, and on occasion there is even a muffled tapping sound that comes from behind the glass, as if someone is trying to get your attention. The same distorted figures can be seen looking through the windows from the inside outward, but moving from one side or the other reveals... nothing. There is nothing there, and perhaps it is all in your imagination.
A portrait hangs at the front of the store to illustrate the namesake of the little shop... that may, in fact, not be so little. Dust covers everything in sight and detritus litters the wooden floor, as if someone left the door open and allowed half the forest inside.
The books are mostly familiar titles from the 1990s and earlier, but close examination will reveal that key details seem to have been changed. They fill shelves in neat lines along the walls and rows in between, the building almost seeming to stretch on forever until, finally, a small office can be seen tucked away in the back. A glance back toward the front door gives the impression that the room isn't that big, after all. Strange that you previously thought so.
Prying the door open is the only way to get inside the small office; the hinges have rusted and are caked with dirt and grime. Search as you might, there are no interesting bits of information to be found here beyond a few inventory lists on the little desk. There is, however, a green and gold safe in the corner that, no matter how many times one turns the dial, simply clicks and clicks. Scratches around the safe indicate that someone tried to get in at one point, though there's no indication as to whether they succeeded.
THE END APPROACHES
Standing at the center of Mathias, the town hall is a modest two-story building that would be welcoming if not for the faded sign, chipped paint, and deafening silence within its empty halls. It's a typical government building, with a reception desk at the front and rows of identical offices within, the names half faded from each door. But what catches the attention is a large bulletin board on the main wall beside the reception desk, once meant to hold flyers or announcements for the community.
What it holds now is decidedly different. Tacked onto the board are scraps of paper covered in an assortment of handwriting styles — requests for supplies should anyone find them, pieces of information shared in the hopes of someone understanding the strange symbols and mathematical equations, notes about those missing or recently deceased. And over the center of the board, tacked on top of other papers, is a map discolored with age. Mathias Township can be read in the corner, a stretch of forest displayed beneath it, but everything else has been smeared to illegibility with red... ink? Upon close examination, a keen eye will realize that the ink is actually blood, though whether it is human is unknown. And scrawled across that forest, nearly covering the illustration of a clearing and a large house within, are the wordshe is coming
A number of tarnished metal pushpins are scattered around the edges of the board, waiting for future messages to be shared, and a stack of pristine white paper and pile of cheap ballpoint pens rest on one of three chairs beside the board. The chairs are clearly meant for those waiting for meetings and are covered in the same layer of grime as everything else in the building — everything except the pens, paper, and bulletin board.
Zoey Westen | Original Character
Zoey’s pretty sure she stepped through the fucking looking glass. Because it had NOT been winter when she had leapt off her motorbike and gone racing into her dad’s flat looking for him, her satchel clanking and rattling as she ran.
And now she’s here. In a forest amid snow and fog and nowhere NEAR London. “Fuckstockings,” she mutters under her breath. She turns in a slow, wary circle, taking in her new surroundings. Snow falls steadily around her, and the fog waits in all directions only a few yards away. A warning prickles along her skin. Somehow she thinks straying from the path is a very, very bad idea. Because of COURSE it is.
“Sure. Red Riding Hood. Is there a wolf waiting in this fog? Or a hunter?” She asks to no one at all, before picking a direction and starting out.
➤ BODIES WITHOUT SOULS.
A bookstore is right up her alley. Maybe there’ll be some information she can use. Something she can find. Empty notebooks and pens so she can take notes on everything. Or maybe she’ll pick up on something useful. You can learn a lot from bookstores. Also cemeteries. The bookstore is as eerily silent as the rest of the town, and she moves carefully, bootsteps nearly silent as she heads towards the bookshelves. It’s interesting, that the books aren’t any later than the 1990s.
“Why, though?” Zoey wonders aloud, flipping through a book at random. Does it mean that it was sometime then that whatever made Mathias this way happened? Did something even happen to Mathias to make it this way? Maybe it had always been this way. Or maybe something had happened elsewhere and Mathias had ended up collateral damage.
➤ THE END APPROACHES.
The town hall gives Zoey the creeps. This TOWN gives Zoey the creeps. The sort that usually tends to lead to portents and blood. (And death. Sometimes death.) There have been moments where she’s wanted to crawl out of her bloody skin. As it is she’s tense and on edge, the itch of restless energy eating at her.
So she stands at the bulletin board, reading the notes and things that have been stuck to it. The map catches her attention first and foremost. In part because the moment she draws closer, almost reaches out to touch it there’s the coppery taste of blood on her tongue. And she immediately withdraws her hand. Written in blood.
“He is coming.” Arching an eyebrow, she tilts her head. “That’s a bit fucking vague, isn’t it?” As though she’s talking to Mathias itself. The blank paper and pens, obviously left for note writing reasons, start her thinking. “I wonder.” Gods, she’s been here all of how long and she’s talking out loud? Ah well, she’s never been the right side of normal, anyway.
She grabs a piece of paper, but, rather than grab a pen, she instead pulls a hairpin from her hair and uses it to prick her finger. Using that, she writes ‘WHO is coming?’ on the paper and pins it to the board beneath the first words. Maybe the offering of blood will make a difference. She could have waited for a really bad vision to try it, but she’s not that patient. And writing a note in bloody tears seems a bit extra even for her. (But Zoey is almost certain that she WILL be having visions, here. With the way it makes her feel... Yeah. It’s practically a guarantee.)
It might not be ENOUGH blood, is the thing. And she draws the line at bleeding herself dry to test a theory. There will be more blood though, soon enough. She knows that.
➤ WILDCARD.
[Choose your own adventure!]
- Bodies without Souls
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Oh yeah. “Hi. I take it you’ve been here a while, then.”
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Hence why he looked a little dragged under a door. Hence why his hair was just a little too long for its style. Hence why his clothes are clearly not his; they're too long and his cuffs are rolled up. Hence why his features are pale and a little pinched.
"Is... is this your first stop?" he asked. "Or have you found somewhere to shelter already?"
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“One of them,” she tells him. “Wanted to get the lay of the land. Map Mathias out a little.” Wanted to try and figure out why this place gives me the heebie fucking jeebies. Not that she’d expected answers so quickly. Or easily. But she’d hoped. She shakes her head. “Haven’t found anywhere to shelter yet.”
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"You'll want to do that before nightfall," he told her matter-of-factly. "But if you want to take your time deciding, there are rooms at the boarding house still," he said pointing towards the window and, through it, the street. "You can stay there, or you can stay there until you decide if you want to take one of the empty houses. You might even make some friends and decide there's safety in numbers and take a house together."
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“Ah. Mathias is one of those towns, is it?” It’s not really a question. “Granted, given the feeling I got when I was on the path about the fucking FOG, I shouldn’t be surprised that the town is just as dangerous.” She frowns. “An entire town as a liminal space.” How the hell did that even happen? What had Mathias gone through to turn into... this? And when? Is that why there’s nothing later than the 1990s? “Boarding house or an empty house, hm?” She might try the boarding house, true, but she’s curious about what might be found in the empty houses. And she kind of prefers to have a space of her own. Even in a creepy abandoned town. Until she gets to know people, anyway. If she’s going to be stuck here, and let’s face it, she’s going to be, it looks like, she would rather know anyone she ends up sharing a space with. At least a little.
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The end approaches
Idle wandering is what brought him to Town Hall. John or Five would probably be here doing the hunting for things....thing they both do without break. He's not sure how they do it. Well. Five, he gets. The guy was stuck alone with nothing but bleak hope of getting back to the rest of them to keep him going; this isn't actually that out of the usual for him at this point. John... well, maybe it's really much of the same that drives him, too.
He wanders up the steps into the front hall of the building where the bulletin board rests. "Anything new up th--" He starts as approaches, before realizing he doesn't actually know the girl standing there. "oh. Hey, are you new?"
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The sound of another voice has her spinning on her heels and reaching for a dagger she no longer has. Not that she’s not just as dangerous without it, though. She’s learned. But it’s nothing; her skin didn’t prickle in warning at his approach so he’s probably safe. In so far that anyone is, anyway. She exhales, relaxes a little. “Sure am,” she replies, voice laced with what sounds like an English accent. England by way of a few other places, though. (It’s a bit of a hodgepodge thanks to all the moving around she did as a kid.)
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He tilts his head slightly to one side, humming thoughtfully. "You know, I hadn't considered the Lovecraft angle. Does sound really accurate for this place, though."