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The Village Mod ([personal profile] villagemod) wrote in [community profile] villagememes2021-03-08 05:08 pm
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test drive — spring



SPRING 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.

Prospective players are welcome to play with any of the established locations within Mathias.

( Recommended listening: )





GHOSTS OF THE LIVING

The fog moves in quickly and without warning, not from the waterfront but the forest, cascading through every street in a thick wave of white. It is not a soft blanket enveloping the town, but a heavy weight pressing down, threatening to suffocate as the sky is blotted out and no one can see more than ten feet in any direction.

Those who are outside when it rolls in are left wandering blind, hoping that a randomly chosen direction will lead them to shelter or another living soul. There are perhaps even those who were lucky enough to already be inside when the fog descended, quickly closing doors and windows to keep it from creeping in. Wherever they are, the residents of Mathias will soon notice that they are not the only ones in the fog.

Anyone out in the fog is left disoriented, possibly losing their sense of time and place, and it is only after prolonged exposure that they will begin to feel off. A sense of being ill will cling to them if they are in the fog for too long, including dizziness, lightheadedness, or nausea — the time it takes to manifest varies from person to person, as does the duration it will last after leaving the fog.

With all of these elements at play, the first strange apparitions encountered may be assumed to be figments of addled minds, tricks played by psyches struggling to cope with the strange reality they've found themselves in. But before long, there will be no denying that the Others in the fog are real. Appearing almost wraithlike and startlingly recognizable, these figures even feel a bit like ghosts to those who can sense such things, though everyone will feel that there is something wrong about them. Truly, there are many things wrong that residents will begin to notice as they encounter more and more of the spectres that do not acknowledge their presence in any way. They simply exist, silent and subtly terrifying like so many things in this town.

Like misty ghosts of those who have been in the town at one point or another, the Others appear as those who have died or disappeared and even those currently within the town. The likeness is truly uncanny, to the point of being completely terrifying, made even more so when they realize there is no way to communicate with the Others. They do not acknowledge anyone's presence nor anything said to them. At times, they may be only one in an area, or there may be a dozen existing in the same space. There is no limit to how many people can see them — if they are there, they are seen by all.

The Others do not enter buildings and cannot be contained in any way. They can appear at one moment and be gone in the next, or they can exist in one place for hours on end. Whether standing stationary or slowly wandering throughout the town, there is no discernible purpose to them. There is something absent and distant in the way they hold themselves, the way they walk, and their expressions, as if even they cannot grasp what is happening.



A BIT OF EXPLORATION

There are plenty of places in which to get one's bearings and hide from the fog.

There are businesses on the square, nestled around and extending out from the Town Hall. There is a schoolhouse nestled by the southern treeline, not from the rather expansive makeshift cemetery at the end of Jackson Boulevard that is courtesy of a few kind residents in town. To the far north of the square is a sprawling garden, now covered in snow, and a greenhouse that once supplied the botanical shop. And to the east and west, beyond the business square, is are residential districts.

The eastern district sprawls all the way to the beach, with some houses in perfect condition and others beginning to show significant signs of age. The western district, however, is nothing but decay. From the beginnings of rot to completely collapsed and little more than a pile of proverbial bones, none of these homes are anything resembling livable. Well, as far as one can tell, at least. For between the streets of Hill Lane and Stine Road there is a crack in the earth. A dozen feet across and fifty feet down, there is no way across.



TO SEE AND BE SEEN

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. Covering the board are tacked-on 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 painted directly across the center of the board, visible in the gaps between the pieces of paper, is a symbol in dark red. While peering at that obscured symbol, a strange breeze ruffles the papers, revealing a little more, just enough to—

An eye. A strange, ornate eye with three lobes, painted in still-wet red. And upon close examination, a keen eye will realize that the paint is actually blood, perhaps even human.

The longer someone stands there, the more it will feel like they are being watched, even studied, with great interest. It's a sensation that lingers and stays with them even when they exit the building.



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myfavoritemurder: (I don't care if it keeps me alive)

Callisto | Xena: Warrior Princess

[personal profile] myfavoritemurder 2021-04-05 03:57 pm (UTC)(link)
ghosts of the living

[The fog reminds Callisto of the underworld more than anything else she's encountered here, and she doesn't much like it. Anyone running into her now will find her wandering aimlessly, arms hugged around her middle, woefully unsure as to whether she's still headed in the direction of the building with the food. She looks for all the world like a lost, lonely child, and she'll even let out the occasional gasping whimper. She'd been wrong, she thinks; this is still Tartarus. This is a trick, and she'd fallen for it, and any second now, she'll feel rock under her feet and the walls will start to close in--

This pitiable impression, however, will be somewhat undercut when she first starts seeing the ghostly figures. These, too, feel reminiscent of Tartarus, and so her first instinct is to strike out at them, roughly shoving and kicking and punching. When this goes unacknowledged, she gets up in their faces and yells in Greek, and when this goes unacknowledged, she lets out a wordless piercing shriek of frustration. Apologies to the eardrums of anyone who might be nearby - though maybe for someone who's been desperately searching for another living, sentient person, it'll be a blessing in disguise.]


to see and be seen

[Callisto has never seen a telephone before. She's not familiar with these numerals, and in fact does not even realize that they're numerals. But when she comes across the phone directory, she's able to match some of the markings on the pages to the markings on the dialpad, and despite having no real idea of what she's doing, she'll call up a few, pressing each symbol on the machine in the order that it appears on the page. Nobody she might manage to reach should expect a productive conversation, though: whenever she's faced with a mysterious voice that she can't understand, she'll just snap something in Greek (speaking into the earpiece, not the mouthpiece; likely it'll sound a bit muffled) and hang up on them. Or she'll leave the phone off the hook and walk away. It's a toss-up.

That's all before she notices the bulletin board, though. Once she does, she brushes past the unreadable notes and zeroes right in on the eye. The sharp, rusty smell is very familiar to her, and just to be sure, she unflinchingly dabs a pinky onto it, bringing it up to her mouth to taste. It's absolutely, unquestioningly blood.

She'll stand there for a good long while, the feeling of being watched a draw rather than a deterrent, because she's pretty sure she knows what this means: finally, finally she has the gods' attention again. She addresses Aḯdēs, who's gotten sick of her troublemaking, and she addresses Árēs, who's started to show interest in her in a way she hopes will be useful someday. Sometimes her tone is pleading, as one might expect from a mortal talking to the gods, but other times it's hostile and threatening - the words of a mortal who has nothing left to lose, and who can't bring herself to care about divine retribution or consequences for insolence.

Eventually, after a long enough time of getting no response, she'll leave the building in disgust. But over the next few days, she'll keep coming back, trying in vain to make contact.]


anything else?

[OOC: Callisto is from ancient Greece and I am in love with the fact that this game allows for language barriers to stay intact if players wish them to, so she has not been magically granted any English-speaking abilities, and she'll have to figure out language and communication stuff as she goes along! SHE WILL NOT HAVE FUN WITH THIS, BUT I CERTAINLY WILL.

Other than that, standard TDM stuff applies: feel free to shoot me a wildcard option if you want to thread but none of the above starters are doing it for you, message me on this journal or [plurk.com profile] Ihdreniel if you need anything, and check out my content warnings for this dumpster fire of a character if you're so inclined!]
setthetone: (surprised - what in the)

ghosts of the living

[personal profile] setthetone 2021-04-05 07:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[Well, that's new.

Even for a town that sent shadowy hellhounds at you and had people come back from the dead in a new body... that's very different and for the first time Carter isn't sure if he should get involved when he comes across a newcomer. He stares as the woman fights the ghosts, surprised at the choice - not his first instinct. Not even one of his many instincts by far. In fact, he was trying to get as far away from them as possible.

Carter keeps his distance lest he be the next victim of those vicious attacks but at her shriek he finally feels inclined to help.]


I don't-- I don't think they can hear you. I don't think they're real.
myfavoritemurder: (was I really supposed to do stealth?)

[personal profile] myfavoritemurder 2021-04-05 07:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[Unfortunately, but perhaps predictably, Callisto rounds on him next. But though she snarls and spits out something biting in Greek, she doesn't lash out physically at him, and the fact that he's reacting to her at all does settle her somewhat.

Somewhat.]


Who are you?

[She asks, in English, because in the short time she's been here she's started to pick up on a few things.]

Who is it?

[This last question comes alongside a rough gesture towards one of the ghosts.]
setthetone: (30)

[personal profile] setthetone 2021-04-05 07:56 pm (UTC)(link)
[Carter's hands come up at the angry string of Greek... well, cursing, he assumes.]

My name is John Carter. Them? I think they're ghosts. Figments?

[He wiggles his fingers away from each other, like smoke dissipating.]

Not real. Not here.
myfavoritemurder: (that's my leather toilet paper)

[personal profile] myfavoritemurder 2021-04-05 08:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[The meaning is clear enough, even if the words aren't: she gives a sharp nod of acknowledgement, and files away the words for future reference. Ghosts. Figments. She doesn't remember every single unfamiliar word that she hears here, but enough of them get repeated often enough that they're starting to lodge themselves in her brain.

Case in point:]


My name is Callisto. The food is--?

[She lets out a strangled snarl of frustration. She's lost, is what she wants to say, and she needs to be pointed in the right direction. Another ghost drifts by, unknowing and unseeing, and she elbows it roughly in the belly. The action relieves only a sliver of stress.]
setthetone: (neutral - hmm)

[personal profile] setthetone 2021-04-05 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Food? Are you hungry?

[Well, why wouldn't she be? Who knows where she was before all this in these strange clothes and who knows how long she had been wandering?]

There should be some at the houses nearby. I can show you the way.

[His brow furrows when he looks around, taking in the thick fog that is obscuring the view.]

I hope.

[But he should at least be able to make it back to where he came from. He hopes. He waves her along, looking for the way back.]
myfavoritemurder: (I know what you're thinking)

[personal profile] myfavoritemurder 2021-04-05 09:49 pm (UTC)(link)
[If the words general store weren't currently escaping her, she could try to explain that she'd found her way there yesterday, and that she'd been told - or, more accurately, had it pantomimed to her - that the food there was plentiful and safe. But she hasn't eaten since yesterday, she's been getting a lot of exercise, and she hasn't yet found anything to hunt with - which is to say, she's feeling a lot less picky than she normally would, and she normally isn't very picky at all. She'll follow.]

Tártaros?

[She floats the word in her own language as they walk - not really expecting him to understand her any more than she understands him, but giving it a go anyway.]

Háidēs?
myfavoritemurder: (Default)

Re: Callisto | Xena: Warrior Princess

[personal profile] myfavoritemurder 2021-04-17 02:19 pm (UTC)(link)
lmao this is a million years too late, but I just noticed that I linked... an icon... instead of my content warnings page, so: content warnings are here!