The Village Mod (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
villagemod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
villagememes2021-03-08 05:08 pm
villagemod) wrote in villagememes2021-03-08 05:08 pm
Entry tags:
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.
Bulletin Board
She almost visibly deflates when it's not who she'd hoped for, somehow expecting Mal to come stumbling into town after her still. That everything they'd been through, everything they'd survived -- the battles they'd fought for and with each other. They were meant to have more time, they'd earned that. She'd earned it. Time to recover and recouperate together, see the world she'd longed to explore for so long -- even if the reason was something far more bitter than she'd imagined in her idealistic dreams.
The pen in her hand shifts slightly, returning to the simple note she'd been working on.
I'll meet you in the meadow. And then in Ravkan, she scribbles below - I'm here.
His comment, though, earns a soft huff of a sound from her as she lifts herself up to pin her note to the board.
"Seems ridiculous to leave the warning in here if we have to traverse the fog on our own to find it."
no subject
"Oh! What a great idea, but how should we do that?' 'Oh, I know, lets post things here at the town hall in the CENTER OF TOWN' 'Yes! Fabulous! That should be perfect, surely it'll be best to put it there. Everyone ends up there eventually.' 'Oh, but what about anyone dumped on the beach? Won't they be wandering a while before they find the place.' 'Shut up, Charles, no one asked you!'" He clears his throat.
"Sorry," He realizes to a complete stranger he must seem mad, going on as he is. This is his way of ranting.
"I tend to do that a bit, I'm attempting to be funny. I'm also quite put out by this." He motions to the board, hands on his hips. Though he watches curiously as Alina posts her note.
"I take it you are hoping a friend came along with you to this place?"
no subject
Her expression softens, an offer to shoot someone in the foot her usual go-to when it comes to comfort while trying to keep things from becoming too heavy.
"It's alright... And I am. Though I fear such hopes might be a waste. It's perhaps for the best he isn't here."
Not with Aleksander here with her. Better to keep Mal safe and to feel alone now than selfishly have him by her side only for him to continue to weather the Darkling's anger.
"I take it you haven't been here long, either."
no subject
"You have some dirt on your face." He states, not trying to be rude about it but he thought she may want to wipe it off. She's clearly been through something, more than perhaps what happened upon arriving here.
"No, for as well put together and calm as I may seem." Another joke, and a slight smile to go with it. Obviously, his ranting would say otherwise.
"Wherever here is anyway. There's a lot about this place I don't recognize. And I haven't a clue how long I've been wandering in that fog. I suppose I'm lucky I'm still standing."
He clears his throat and turns to her fully then, placing a hand on his sternum and bowing his head slightly in greeting, "I am Dorian."
no subject
Dirt was better than blood, hauntings deep in her soul far more difficult to wipe away -- the all-consuming guilt for the lives she's cost. For those who put themselves in harm's way for her.
His voice brings her back, smiling slightly as she begins the process of trying to wipe her face. "I'm still uncertain how I found my way out myself." If Aleksander had a hand in it or someone else. Something else. A question to ponder later as manners override her stream of chaotic thoughts.
"Alina -- And you're not alone in the unfamiliarity. There's so much I've never seen before, it's a bit overwhelming." Her gaze shifts from his face back to the board, finally noticing the red as she instinctively reaches out to touch it. "What...?"
no subject
"It seems this place holds a number of questions and even fewer answers." He sighs, eyes moving to the papers on the board as if they might suddenly hold said answers.
"I suppose it would be overwhelming to anyone." He watches her attention shift to the red markings and he'll follow her fingers to where she touches it. He'll move a few notes aside to reveal there's more, tilting his head and moving others till a part of an eye is revealed. A shudder runs up his spine, goosebumps forming over his skin and he'll turn his gaze up and around as if expecting to see someone watching them.
"Hmm... that's unpleasant." He looks back to the wet, red, eye. He'll reach out to touch it feeling it on his fingertips. "...blood?"
He frowns, "Of all the things... of course there's blood magic here."