villagememes | test drive

test drive — autumn
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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.

Since not all setting details have been made available yet, you are welcome to invent your own general locations for this test drive. There are no living souls in Mathias Township beyond the player characters. In fact, there are no signs of life at all... We hope you enjoy your visit.

( Recommended listening: ♫ )

— the fog —

It moves in quickly and without warning, not from the waterfront but the forest, cascading through every street in a thick wave of white. The fog is not a soft blanket enveloping the town, but a heavy weight pressing down, threatening to suffocate the sky is blotted out and you can see no further than your outstretched hand.

Those outside when it rolls in are left wandering blind, stumbling toward shelter as you're unable to even see your feet beneath you, let alone any obstacles in your path. Perhaps you call out for help, hoping for another voice to guide you toward shelter or simply another living soul. Or perhaps you were lucky enough to already be inside when the fog descended, quickly closing doors and windows to keep it from creeping in. Can you hear those voices crying out? You recognize some, but the others... Are they really there at all, or are you alone here and simply beginning to finally lose your mind?

And perhaps the most important question: Do you answer?

— portents —

You wake up with an ache in your head and a cloudiness to your thoughts, your body sprawled on the ground in a location you don't remember going to. As you sit up, the world spins and start to clutch your head — to realize there's something on your hand. A symbol, a word, a streak of wet paint or ink. You don't recognize it or have any memory of how it got there...

Or how the much larger depiction came to be on the wall or the floor around them. You can see it shining wet in the glow of whatever light source is nearest, but something instinctual urges you not to touch it. If you defy that urge, it burns, a searing pain that radiates from the matching mark on your hand.

Did you do this? Or was it done to you? The person approaching may have answers — or accusations.

— past deeds —

The Town Hall stands at the center of Mathias Township, a modest two-story building that would be welcoming if not for the faded sign, chipped paint, and deafening silence. 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 your attention is a large bulletin board on the main wall, once meant to hold flyers or announcements for the community.

What it holds now is decidedly different. Tacked onto the board is a torn scrap of paper with words scrawled almost illegibly in dark red ink.

why did this happen

Upon close examination, a keen eye will realize that the ink is actually blood, though whether it is human is unknown. And beside that scrap, a symbol has been drawn in dark black marker — it resembles a feather or a branch, but you've never seen anything like it before. It scares you even as you know it is perhaps the most important thing you have ever seen in your life.

On the floor below the bulletin board are more scraps of paper scattered amongst grime and dust, most blank but some with other strange symbols scrawled in a variety of inks, perhaps matching the pens and markers scattered near the baseboard. Some are small enough that they might have once been part of the same page, creating something larger. And to the far side, a pristine stack of crisp white copy paper and an unopened box of ballpoint pens.

What do you do?

code bases by tricklet

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Then I take it that you're not a fan of "haunted diary."

[ John slips out of the room he was in, looking at Eliot with an eyebrow raised. He's already reaching for a cigarette with a casual shrug. ]

There's always worse than that out there. Unless, you know what those scribbles mean by chance.

If I wanted to deal with hauntings, I would have taken the haunting electives in school.

[ Eliot glances away from the papers and to the man who's joined him. ]

I'm also not really that great at cryptic puzzles. Can I have one of those?

[ A cigarette, he means. ]

[ Haunting ... electives. What, is this Harry Potter now? One eyebrow raises but he shrugs. Why the hell not.

He reaches into his pocket and offers one to the other man. ]

Magic is a bit cryptic puzzle, a bit spooky scribble, and a lot of tricking the universe, mate. You sure you are in the right field of work?

Believe me, I know all about creating circumstances for casting.

[ Eliot takes the cigarette gladly. Call it a small comfort. ]

If this is work, then I want to speak to the HR department, because I have not been fairly compensated for my hours.

[ John fishes out his lighter next and flicks it on. Just in case the man needs a light too. ]

Oh, right. The HR department of the abandoned town. Tell you what. Find them and make a formal complaint for me too, yeah? I don't enjoy being kidnapped willy-nilly and forced into a game of spooky scribbles.

[ If anything they can be irritated together. ]

I don't really think anyone enjoys that. Well. I don't know. Billions of people in the world, it's probably the kink of at least one of them.

[ Eliot shrugs. He takes the lighter to light the cigarette and hands it back. ]

Thanks. So, the town is abandoned but people had time to write spooky, unhygienic messages in blood before hitting the road? Sounds promising.

[ There's a nod to that before he pockets it. ]

Now, whoever said they hit the road?

I doubt if they dematerialized they would have had the time to leave us a goodbye letter.

[ Eliot takes a drag from the cigarette, looking at the little message as if he actually might find some meaning in it. ]

Or do you think it was here when this was a bustling rural metropolis? Which gives me more questions, actually.

Could of happened before The Great De-materialization. Lots of people go mad if they think the end of the world is coming.

[ John seems almost indifferent to it. No that he really is. Just... trying to fit the pieces together and where they might go. ]

If any of them had a hunch of what was about to happen.

test drive — autumn

ii past deeds (slides one magic moron at you if that's okay!)

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