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countryclub2022-12-25 08:15 pm
reddosmod) wrote in countryclub2022-12-25 08:15 pm
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DECEMBER TEST DRIVE MEME!
DECEMBER 2022 TDM
UNFORTUNATELY ALL TOO STANDARD ARRIVAL
THE MISDIRECTED
FROSTQUAKE
CODING
Another month, another test drive meme! Our test drive memes are open to anyone interested - regardless of whether or not you join our game!
All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.
Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.
Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.
If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!
IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: Man in front of broken glacial ice]
[Image Two: Human face and shoulders, dripping blood with flaking skin]
Prompt Two
[Image One: Monstrous Human with sideways mouth and eyes]
[Image Two: Solitary Snowy Forest]
Prompt Three
[Image One: Frozen Zombie]
[Image Two: Icequake!]
All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.
Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.
Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.
If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!
Prompt One
[Image One: Man in front of broken glacial ice]
[Image Two: Human face and shoulders, dripping blood with flaking skin]
Prompt Two
[Image One: Monstrous Human with sideways mouth and eyes]
[Image Two: Solitary Snowy Forest]
Prompt Three
[Image One: Frozen Zombie]
[Image Two: Icequake!]
WHEN: Last Week of November/First Week of December
WHERE: The Farther Shores
CONTENT WARNINGS: Body Horror, Frozen Wastes, Possible Transformations, Extreme Cold, weird offers of juice under suspicious circumstances?
WHERE: The Farther Shores
CONTENT WARNINGS: Body Horror, Frozen Wastes, Possible Transformations, Extreme Cold, weird offers of juice under suspicious circumstances?
The Heart of Winter in Trench is no time to enter the city as a sleeper. The entire beach is fully iced over with a glacially thick sheet of ice. Numerous patches of thick ice and heavy snowfall can be found around town, though they are shoveled to leave the paths accessible. Where the previous year, skates were rented and offered to those who wish to skate, the ice flows are far too craggy and irregular to be safe. Instead, cleats are given to those who greet and bring the sleepers to shore. Holes are bored at regular intervals deep into the ice flows and lights are lowered down into the holes to give guidance to sleepers' approach. When Sleepers rise from the depths, they find themselves in small wooden enclosures to protect from howling winds and bitter cold, able to form their bodies there in relative comfort in front of a censor with rocks heated by coldblood-infused stones especially for the purpose.
Outside of the bitter, and vicious cold, arrival to the city is a muted, quiet and otherwise uneventful occurrence. There are no tides of monsters. There are no horrific things waiting for people who arrive. There is simply a bone-chilling cold that numbs the soul a little. To help the people as they arrive, not only are they given their backpacks but they are also offered thick mugs of cocoa to help them cope with the cold. It seems to be helping quite a bit, actually. Yet, something about all of this seems off. The people of Trench are nervous, and there is an air of uncertainty in everything.
SEASONAL DETAILS ON THE BOARDWALK
Where normally there would be large food stalls set up and games, displays of beauty such as ice sculptures, the cold is bad enough that the people of Trench want not to be out as much as possible, and doubtless neither do the Sleepers. They are hustled and bundled from one small structure to another. Heavy winter furs that look reminiscent of great wolf pelts are given to everyone, especially those who have no clothing. But it is otherwise a strangely muted affair, though the people whisper of hope that the Shedding Ceremony is about to begin, and with it is the hope of new life and new birth in the City of Trench. In time, many will find that the symptoms associated with Madame Generosity's ceremony of shedding one's older self are in full swing throughout the month of January, complete with possible transformations and itchy, scaley skin conditions. Lovely.
Before every new sleeper leaves, however, a final gift is given. It is a small box, which contains a hand written note in scrawled black ink that is alarmingly similar to squid ink. This same box appears the morning of January 1st on the doorstep of every single home of a sleeper in Trench, without fail. If a person in Trench has strange accommodations, they nevertheless find this box where they would normally wake, or around a corner in the early morning with their name on it and no explanation. Inside the box are always the same items: 1 gallon of orange juice, 6 cans of chicken noodle soup, 4 boxes of tissues and what looks like an old world-war I era gas mask. The hand written note reads clearly 'DRINK THE JUICE!' Nobody in Trench seems to know why or who gave them.
Outside of the bitter, and vicious cold, arrival to the city is a muted, quiet and otherwise uneventful occurrence. There are no tides of monsters. There are no horrific things waiting for people who arrive. There is simply a bone-chilling cold that numbs the soul a little. To help the people as they arrive, not only are they given their backpacks but they are also offered thick mugs of cocoa to help them cope with the cold. It seems to be helping quite a bit, actually. Yet, something about all of this seems off. The people of Trench are nervous, and there is an air of uncertainty in everything.
Where normally there would be large food stalls set up and games, displays of beauty such as ice sculptures, the cold is bad enough that the people of Trench want not to be out as much as possible, and doubtless neither do the Sleepers. They are hustled and bundled from one small structure to another. Heavy winter furs that look reminiscent of great wolf pelts are given to everyone, especially those who have no clothing. But it is otherwise a strangely muted affair, though the people whisper of hope that the Shedding Ceremony is about to begin, and with it is the hope of new life and new birth in the City of Trench. In time, many will find that the symptoms associated with Madame Generosity's ceremony of shedding one's older self are in full swing throughout the month of January, complete with possible transformations and itchy, scaley skin conditions. Lovely.
Before every new sleeper leaves, however, a final gift is given. It is a small box, which contains a hand written note in scrawled black ink that is alarmingly similar to squid ink. This same box appears the morning of January 1st on the doorstep of every single home of a sleeper in Trench, without fail. If a person in Trench has strange accommodations, they nevertheless find this box where they would normally wake, or around a corner in the early morning with their name on it and no explanation. Inside the box are always the same items: 1 gallon of orange juice, 6 cans of chicken noodle soup, 4 boxes of tissues and what looks like an old world-war I era gas mask. The hand written note reads clearly 'DRINK THE JUICE!' Nobody in Trench seems to know why or who gave them.
WHEN: Last Week of December through End of January
WHERE: Outside of the Main Districts of Trench, the Wilderness
CONTENT WARNINGS: Horrifying Monster, Body Horror, Being Lost, Severe Disorientation, Hypothermia, Possible Death
WHERE: Outside of the Main Districts of Trench, the Wilderness
CONTENT WARNINGS: Horrifying Monster, Body Horror, Being Lost, Severe Disorientation, Hypothermia, Possible Death
There is no real warning about what comes. Somewhere in the last week of December, people just occasionally turn up missing. The numbers are never alarming, but they're greater than should have been expected in the month of January. Trenchies seem clueless to this, and the Hunters are left scratching their heads. They do not know what is causing the added disappearances, as none of the usual signs and warnings attend the recent uptick. This alone has them unsettled, and Trenchies begin to travel resolutely in pairs and trios everywhere that they go. The reason why becomes all too clear if one strays outside of Trench's main districts and wanders the roads between the districts or anywhere near the farms during this month and a half.
There is something out there. It can never be seen directly, but the sense that you are being watched is inescapable. Hints of a figure in the shadows of the trees are nothing new in Trench, but there is a definite air of malevolence to it, one that is obvious and pointed at your person the moment that you recognize that it is present and acknowledge its existence in any fashion or form. The creature is never there if you look directly at it, but if you happen to catch it more closely out of the corner of your eye, the horrifyingly twisted form of a human being whose eyes and mouth are turned sideways is barely visible, pointing at you!
This would be the time that many good hunters would attack, yet the creature is a slippery one. It never actually attacks directly and any time a person tries to turn to it, it is simply gone. Indirect attacks can cause it to flee, but it always comes back at some point, seemingly invulnerable to attack. What it does, rather than attack, is far more nefarious as its mere presence can be disorienting to anyone who encounters it. All sense of direction becomes lost, and the person can find themselves wandering further and further out into the wilderness, even if they were originally within sight of their destination. The more lost they become, the more that their mind descends into a fugue, one where concentration becomes worse and worse, and memory seems to slip away until they lose all sense of identity. The further out, the colder it gets, and the more the smell of rotten eggs lingers, fetid in the air.
The spirit is eventually identified by some of the Arcane Scholars as not being native to Trench, and they believe it is from somewhere much further in the north, from places far removed from this town. There are only snippets about one of their kind ever being encountered in Trench before, and the reports said it eventually became lost and left again, as will this spirit. It is indestructible and unkillable, as it is already dead. The only true defense is to, when the smell of rotten eggs comes along, to cover the mouth and nose completely. The burning of incense also helps, anything to block out the foul odor, which turns out to be the likely vector of its disorienting effect. If they happen to have a compass that unerringly shows direction from prior events, those too can be a protection of sorts finding their way back. If one travels too long out in the wilderness, though, there are fears that one might become as lost as the spirit and die in the wilderness, ultimately sharing the fate that brought it into existence. Even those who escape the spirit's wrath may have lingering memory issues, though those should pass over the next week.
There is something out there. It can never be seen directly, but the sense that you are being watched is inescapable. Hints of a figure in the shadows of the trees are nothing new in Trench, but there is a definite air of malevolence to it, one that is obvious and pointed at your person the moment that you recognize that it is present and acknowledge its existence in any fashion or form. The creature is never there if you look directly at it, but if you happen to catch it more closely out of the corner of your eye, the horrifyingly twisted form of a human being whose eyes and mouth are turned sideways is barely visible, pointing at you!
This would be the time that many good hunters would attack, yet the creature is a slippery one. It never actually attacks directly and any time a person tries to turn to it, it is simply gone. Indirect attacks can cause it to flee, but it always comes back at some point, seemingly invulnerable to attack. What it does, rather than attack, is far more nefarious as its mere presence can be disorienting to anyone who encounters it. All sense of direction becomes lost, and the person can find themselves wandering further and further out into the wilderness, even if they were originally within sight of their destination. The more lost they become, the more that their mind descends into a fugue, one where concentration becomes worse and worse, and memory seems to slip away until they lose all sense of identity. The further out, the colder it gets, and the more the smell of rotten eggs lingers, fetid in the air.
The spirit is eventually identified by some of the Arcane Scholars as not being native to Trench, and they believe it is from somewhere much further in the north, from places far removed from this town. There are only snippets about one of their kind ever being encountered in Trench before, and the reports said it eventually became lost and left again, as will this spirit. It is indestructible and unkillable, as it is already dead. The only true defense is to, when the smell of rotten eggs comes along, to cover the mouth and nose completely. The burning of incense also helps, anything to block out the foul odor, which turns out to be the likely vector of its disorienting effect. If they happen to have a compass that unerringly shows direction from prior events, those too can be a protection of sorts finding their way back. If one travels too long out in the wilderness, though, there are fears that one might become as lost as the spirit and die in the wilderness, ultimately sharing the fate that brought it into existence. Even those who escape the spirit's wrath may have lingering memory issues, though those should pass over the next week.
WHEN: First week of January
WHERE: Anywhere around Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Natural Disaster Horror, Frostquakes, Falling Peril, Sinkholes, Fear of the Dark, Frozen Zombies!
WHERE: Anywhere around Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Natural Disaster Horror, Frostquakes, Falling Peril, Sinkholes, Fear of the Dark, Frozen Zombies!
At first you think you're being treated to something spectacular! There's a small scale aurora that shows itself in the sky over your head. It's breathtaking and quite stunning to behold. The truth of the matter is all too real almost immediately afterwards however. There is a dull, booming crack as the frozen ground underneath your feet breaks and shudders, giving way! It's an earthquake, or more accurately a frostquake. In and around the city of Trench, as the temperatures shift in the dead of the cold of the Bone Moon, ice flows and patches of snow shift and compress against the ground, causing localized earthquakes to occur.
These frostquakes can damage buildings, causing items to fall, breaking plaster and the like. They are not, however, strong enough to do permanent harm to the buildings unless they are themselves structurally unsound. Each of them is localized, their experience not traveling more than two city blocks way each time one strikes. However, if you are unfortunate enough to be outside when it happens, they have an alarming habit of striking under the feet of unwary sleepers. Every time one of these frostquakes occurs, a patch of ground opens up temporarily into a deep sinkhole!
Falling into the hole can be an unpleasant sequence of events, but the ground beneath is littered with snow and something soft. Though banged up, the sleeper should be able to survive the fall intact. It's getting back out that is the problem. The walls aren't sheer, but it's a difficult climb. A rope can be thrown down, but it's very dark and cold in the space, making it hard to see much of anything. The real danger lies in the fact that they find that they are not alone! The 'softness' that they landed upon turns out to be a small number of other unfortunate souls who once fell in a prior frostquake, their bodies freezing to death long ago and rising as undead, waiting for an opening to escape. They attack blindly and though they can be defeated, they are still quite strong. Unlike some zombies, they do not hunger for flesh, but for the escape from their icy tomb and will do anything to crawl their way out, where they can wreck havoc finally on the living! Better deal with them quickly!
These frostquakes can damage buildings, causing items to fall, breaking plaster and the like. They are not, however, strong enough to do permanent harm to the buildings unless they are themselves structurally unsound. Each of them is localized, their experience not traveling more than two city blocks way each time one strikes. However, if you are unfortunate enough to be outside when it happens, they have an alarming habit of striking under the feet of unwary sleepers. Every time one of these frostquakes occurs, a patch of ground opens up temporarily into a deep sinkhole!
Falling into the hole can be an unpleasant sequence of events, but the ground beneath is littered with snow and something soft. Though banged up, the sleeper should be able to survive the fall intact. It's getting back out that is the problem. The walls aren't sheer, but it's a difficult climb. A rope can be thrown down, but it's very dark and cold in the space, making it hard to see much of anything. The real danger lies in the fact that they find that they are not alone! The 'softness' that they landed upon turns out to be a small number of other unfortunate souls who once fell in a prior frostquake, their bodies freezing to death long ago and rising as undead, waiting for an opening to escape. They attack blindly and though they can be defeated, they are still quite strong. Unlike some zombies, they do not hunger for flesh, but for the escape from their icy tomb and will do anything to crawl their way out, where they can wreck havoc finally on the living! Better deal with them quickly!
hellooo!! so happy to see more obscure canon characters ♥
"Mm, yeah...I got that, too. This cold's got everyone so unprepared, but...I'd be careful about the juice." The note and urge for...whoever sent it seems a little dubious to Ochako. This is Trench, after all. "Besides, you look like you may need more than just a bit of soup, sir."
Much more. He probably needs some good starch and carbs first and foremost, as well as a bath and a nice, long rest in something soft and warm. A real bed. Whatever world this man came from before...probably wasn't the best place. But if he needs help carrying something--
"Oh, I can haul whatever you need to carry with you. My quirk--eh, I mean...I have a power suited for that sort of thing specifically. Or I could probably get Alula to do it..." Alula being her Omen - a massive grizzly bear that Ochako can summon at will. Would probably make for a decent ride if Yoichi doesn't want to walk to the actual city proper - she can hold more than one person on her back, easily.
He is excellent, albeit rather useless.
It hadn't looked like a warzone to him but this might be an unexpectedly peaceful bit. The concern over potential gas attacks makes it easy enough to wave off anything like him needing more than he has now. He'll figure it out! Somehow. In time. "Ah, don't worry about that. I'm stronger than I look." No he isn't. "I'm told there's a town around here somewhere, I'll handle the rest when I find it!" Optimism, whether or not it's deserved, because beachfront boardwalk does not count as a town even in his book.
Although he doesn't see someone else present, Alula is clearly a friend or associate of Ochako's, and she can convince that person to do carrying! ...And there's a power involved, which she more easily called a 'quirk' than 'power'. "Oh, you have powers?" Color him interested, she's not treating it like it's a dangerous secret so that's a plus. "A quirk, you said?" A turn of phrase that isn't going to be popular for some decades yet, but he likes the sound of it, made it sound more personal and individual. "I just have the pack and box of .. um, potentially .. dangerous things. Is Alula a friend of yours?"
He is doing his best.
She has food in her pantry is the thing. Once the snow really started to pile up, she began hoarding and filling her home with the essentials. Gallon jugs of water, heavy bags of rice, canned foods, pastas, and she froze what she could as well, including meats, fruits, and vegetables. Even bread, too. Being poor meant that she learned how to preserve food, and cook things that were nutrious and tasted good with what was on hand.
"Not that I know of, but Trench does have a way of being, um...u-unexpected. So best to keep it on hand, ehehe. Most of the problems right now are the cold, and I've heard there are earthquakes strong enough to rip open cracks in the earth happening in certain places. I just like to help out, it's never easy for newcomers, and this month is one of the worst times..." There's so much happening, on top of the snow and ice. Trench is just like that, and she's already hoping that the cold weather will cease somewhat once the month is over.
"I can take you to town!! I don't mind, and even the path across the ice isn't fun...and get get long with the storm. I don't know how much you found out, either, the usualy people that welcome new Sleepers are scarce because of the weather. If you need food or anything though, I can help with that. I know where the market is. It's scarce because of the time, but...there's still things to be fou--
Eh? Oh, yes!! A quirk is sort of like, and um...w-well. The best way to describe it is like a superpower. Most people have them in my world, they're passed through bloodlines and genetics. If we need to haul anything, I can show you. But I'd like to get back sooner rather than later. I want to patrol the ravines, just in case anyone fell or got trapped..."
Ochako bundles herself up again, tightening the scarf and putting her hood over her head, shoving her hands back into her mittens. When she speaks again, her voice is a little muffled, but still audible. "Alula-san is my Omen!! Everyone has one. It's like, um...well. Let me show you, are you okay to go outside, or do you need to rest a while longer?"
no subject
Instead there's fissure causing earth quakes and it's a good idea to keep a gas mask just in case. Later it's going to go into the backpack. For now, there's a brief, faint sigh of wistfulness; he'd definitely like to just sit there for quite a bit longer, but that won't do at all. "I'll be alright. For some reason the cold doesn't seem to bother me much, even when I was in the water." He'll even get back up to prove it! Carefully, very carefully. "So if you have superpowers, does that make you a superhero?" His smile is brief beneath the curtain of white hair, a touch impish. "You don't strike me as a supervillain, with plans to go out and rescue people." Far, far too friendly for that!
Of course, in the future and in her time, that's actually a thing, and he's still thinking comic books.
It's with equal care he'd had in getting himself back on his feet that he works on collecting his Free Backpack and Box Of Stuff. "I did have a few things explained, such as the magic or powers or quirks here are quite common. And that there was a place called Sanctuary, I don't know if it's near Trench or not." But first, he has an Omen to see. And apparently, a town to get to. He hoped it wasn't that far, he didn't know how much more walking he'd be able to do without significantly more downtime.
no subject
Ochako hovers by Yoichi after he stands, still not believing he's as well off as he says he is. She also offers, politely, to take the box of things he was given to lighten his load. The backpack is easier to carry, and he shouldn't have issue with that (hopefully). Once they're ready, Ochako bundles herself back up and winces as she open the door to the harsh and unyielding cold.
"The Sanctuary is farther out than the boardwalk, but it's the best place for newcomers just settling in. A lot of the people I know here work there as volunteers - they can give you food, shelter, and other necessities until you get on your feet properly, ne." Ochako whistles sharply and what was thought was just a large snowbank starts to shift and move, and then sit up and shake itself off of ice and snow. The big, furry lump is a grizzly bear, nearly double the girl's height, or even more than that... It can easily seat two people on its back, and yawns hugely, snuffling up to the tiny brunette and nudging her with its snout.
"This is Alula!! She's very friendly, I promise, even if she looks kind of scary with how big she is right now... I just needed her to be able to carry things...a-and me. You should have one, too - an Omen - but it can either be really simple or really difficult to summon it. It took me m-months...eheh."
no subject
But he'll turn his box over regardless, if a bit hesitantly. He has no worries she'll take it or anything like that, but burdening others with his stuff didn't quite seem right. Sanctuary sounded good, it might let him get his bearings, find out where on Earth he even is, and more importantly, how likely he is to stay out of his brother's reach long enough to accomplish anything. Yoichi startles visibly at the whistle, not expecting the sudden piercing sound, and then outright recoils as a giant grizzly bear lurches out of the snowbank.
Any move to grab Ochako and drag her back into the shack with him is paused mid-reach when it becomes very obvious she does actually know the bear and it's not trying to eat her. Or him for that matter. He lowers his hand after a moment, brow furrowing.
The rest takes slightly longer to process. "Your friend is a bear," he concludes slowly, carefully. 'Omen', bear, same difference perhaps! "Does .. everyone get a bear then?" Who needs horses or cars, this place has bears? "Alula, was it?" That's a bear. His idea of wildlife was stray animals in town, not actual wild animals!
no subject
She laughs, a little sheepishly, holding that enormous, fuzzy snout at bay with one arm, her hair being tousled with each of its heaving breaths. "Not exactly... It's sort of hard to explain, but everyone gets an Omen. What it manifests as is different from person to person...but it's sort of like a, eh...a spirit guardian? Sort of. I've seen wolves, a leopard, a deer...someone even had a dragon once!! But they live inside us Sleepers, and we can call on them when we need them - whether it be to fight and protect us, or just carry us around. They're really helpful. You may have one too that you can call on, at some point."
Ochako moves to load up Yoichi's things on what appear to be saddle bags on the bear's back. She sighs, shakes her head, and brushes all the snow off, lightly berating her big friend for rolling in the snow and falling asleep...everything is all cold and went now!!
"She's really friendly, I promise. And Alula, yeah...i-it's the name of a star in the constellation Ursa Major, ehehe."