riverviewmod: (Default)
Riverview Moderator ([personal profile] riverviewmod) wrote in [community profile] riverviewooc2017-04-20 11:42 am

riverview: april test drive meme

riverview test drive meme

Welcome to Riverview's test drive meme! Feel free to dip your toes in on the test drive meme to try out your character in the setting, play out a mission, and get samples for your application at the same time!

Reserves are currently OPEN.
Applications open on May 1st.
● Providing all parties are amenable, threads on the test drive meme can count as game canon, as the plot in the prompts presented is game canon.
● TDM threads do not count for Activity Check, but they do count for Activity Bonus Points, so long as all characters involved are accepted into the game.
● Threading on the TDM is intended for prospective new characters, so top-levels should only be posted by players of these characters. Since the events in the TDM are considered game canon, characters currently in the game are free to use the TDM prompts logs and posts on the regular communities.

Feel free to use the prompts below or create your own scenario. The setting is built to be flexible, so feel free to make things up as you go.


information resources

premisearrivalsettingask a questioncalendarnavigation


prompt i: baiting the behemoth

Recently, a team of skilled explorers went out into the jungle to the Northwest of the city to follow up on several sightings of a giant lizardlike behemoth that's been skulking around outside the walls, a creature whose level of aggression (and therefore how dangerous it might be) was unknown. The team, while not exactly as stealthy as they were supposed to be, did manage to find the creature, which they found to have about the intelligence and temperament of a very, very, very large dog. And whom they named Liam.

Having established that the behemoth (which is around the size of a blue whale, snakelike in shape, but with four legs, brown striated scales, large claws and teeth, bad breath, and an affinity for face-licking) is not an intentional danger to the city, the authorities could not rule out the idea that it might cause accidental damage to the city, walls, or crops around the city. As a result, research has been done and a new mission has been drafted and recruited for - baiting the behemoth. The objective of this large-scale mission is for many small, quick-moving teams to take behemoth bait deep into the jungle for the purpose of luring the massive but mostly-harmless creature away from the city and hopefully to a new, less-inhabited feeding area. There is room for many different teams, and all of them should be heading deep into the jungle heading directly away from the city, going Northwest. The authorities in question have come up with a wide variety of food and pheromone scented lures that range from mild to truly stinky, so which type your team gets is up to you.

Each lure is small enough to fit in a cage-shaped canister that can be carried like a backpack by one person with average strength, and each lure-carrier will need to be accompanied by at least one or two fighters. Why, when the behemoth is peaceful? Well....


prompt ii: pest control service

The behemoth might not be aggressive, but unfortunately it's picked up some unwelcome companions. After last month's near-disaster where a colony of lizardlike monsters had taken up residence in tunnels under the city, wreaking havoc in the power grid, and were subsequently either killed or flushed out of the underground, some of the local fauna has been bumped down the food chain.

The fauna in question is a very large pack of mammalian six-limbed creatures that usually live in the trees and hunt oversized insects in the underbrush. When the lizards escaped the underground into the surrounding jungle, and drastically reduced the population of the insects the mammals usually feed on, the predators became parasites, attacking the only thing left that is more docile than the insects they usually feed on - the behemoth. These creatures are quick-moving, well-camouflaged in the jungle with mottled brown-and-green fur, and sport massive teeth and long tongues that allow them to stick to whatever surface they land on.

Hungry as they are, they will make no distinction between the behemoth's juicy hide and the lure-carrying teams that are trying to help it. Hopefully, their ranks can be thinned enough that the behemoth survives the trip to its new home.


prompt iii: rainbow bite

Not everyone is cut out for missions into the jungle or cleaning up angry predatory parasite monsters, but that doesn't mean that staying home means being safe from the weird things that come out of the portal. In the early morning of April 20th, drawn by the warmth of the rising sun, a massive swarm of rainbow-colored fireflies emerges from the portal into the quarantine. Unlike regular fireflies, though, they are bright enough to glow even during the day, and these bugs have bite! While generally harmless aside from stinging a little, the bite of the rainbow fireflies causes certain kinds of emotional response to become heightened, depending on the color of the firefly in question. While scientists have never run into these bugs before and have no idea how it works, they can cause this effect in any kind of sentient creature that is capable of emotion, including androids and characters that are usually unaffected by substances. The effects on emotions are as follows:


● RED: Lust/Anger
● ORANGE: Honesty/Openness
● YELLOW: Fear/Anxiety
● GREEN: Jealousy/Envy
● BLUE: Sadness/Grief
● VIOLET: Love/Affection

When a character is bitten, the effects on their emotions can last anywhere from an hour to a week, depending on the character's psychology and resistance to certain emotions - for example, if a character has a hard time dealing with their grief, the effect of a blue firefly may last longer than other colors. How the characters manifest the heightened emotional response or sensitivity is up to the individual player, as different body chemistry or other circumstances might change how characters are affected. Red firefly bites have a 50/50 chance of affecting a character with lust or anger, though characters who have not reached sexual maturity (underage characters) won't get get the lust effect.

Firefly effects can be easily avoided simply by avoiding the fireflies. It won't take long for some of the geniuses in the Quarantine to start making and distributing firefly repellent, and characters can expect sales of mosquito tents to skyrocket.

These alien fireflies have a lifespan of around a month, and they are unable to procreate outside their native environment, which means the last of them will be dying off around May 20th.

CLARIFICATION: In response to a player question, the effects of the fireflies CAN layer, so they can be affected by more than one at the same time. Red fireflies with the lust effect don't make characters incapable of controlling themselves, just heighten feelings of arousal/desire.


prompt iv: friendr/network

Whether your character is posting up a silly word game to distract people from the dangerous mission going on, trying to get hold of a friend, or putting out feelers for people to go out into the fray with, the network is going strong.

Alternately, an offer for a free app is popping up on new arrivals' devices - Friendr is a friend-finder and/or dating app. If characters choose to install it, they will fill out a short bio and parameters for what they're looking for, upload a snap of themselves, and then proceed to browse for matches. This is a typical swipe-left-or-right type app.

Code to post your character's bio is in the textbox below, or you can just do a text version of the information in the app. An example of how it looks can be found here.


Many thanks to [personal profile] mistojen for coding this especially for Riverview!


prompt v: wildcard

Choose your own adventure and do something else in the setting!


navigation

[jungle image is by Armand Serrano and Paul Lasaine]
snarkbark: (051.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 07:10 am (UTC)(link)
As a groupie, I understand. 🙊
lacquers: (one of my oldest friends)

[personal profile] lacquers 2017-04-21 07:12 am (UTC)(link)
[ Perhaps they can mutually agree that being as patient as possible is wise. For now, baby steps? ]

I think Fantasia would probably be your best bet, though none of them are really perfect analogies. [ He opens his hand, summoning some of the blue flame characteristic of his magic, then closes it, which extinguishes the flame. When he opens his hand again, it's empty.

He turns Axel's way, smiling a characteristically quiet Magnus smile. ]
There's no need to apologize, Axel. For one thing, our separation is not your doing. And I am fairly sure I'll see him again. In the meantime, if you don't mind, I'd be happy to get to know you.

But I completely understand if you're not comfortable with that.
nastyboys: (04. What the fuck are you talkin' about)

[personal profile] nastyboys 2017-04-21 07:13 am (UTC)(link)
You want to cook? We can talk. You wanna push? I'll talk about that too. I'll buy the little buggsies offa ya, if you got'em - but the sort of thing you're talkin' about is a partnership of sorts.

[And he doesn't give out partnership money willy nilly.]

You want in? Show me a little romance - prove you got the skill to do what you say you can. Then we can talk about me lettin' you in on this.
amorexmachina: (I'll show you what love can do)

[personal profile] amorexmachina 2017-04-21 07:15 am (UTC)(link)
I've mostly been into older things all my life. [There's a joke to be made there but it's lost on him at the moment. His focus on what Axel has started to tell him about vampires instead.]

I can't imagine the general public in my world taking it well, but Vampires can hardly be the strangest part of this experience for anyone.

It's different, but you're a person either way.

[Even as he is saying it, his eyes fix on the fangs, lingering for a moment on Axel's grin. Of course he could just be a fanatic, but Caleb is not inclined to think anything but that what Axel is telling him is the truth.]

It must be some kind of a relief not having to keep your identity a secret. [His voice is distracted. It's a lot to take in, but he's not scared, barely a rise in his pulse where it perhaps should be further spiked.]
snarkbark: (051.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 07:18 am (UTC)(link)
Wow, you're so ... sensible and pragmatic. 🙏🏻
lacquers: (a little warlock tlc)

[personal profile] lacquers 2017-04-21 07:20 am (UTC)(link)
[ Hm. He's getting that a lot again. The staring. It's interesting, because he'd made his magic so obvious in Eudio that he barely had to deal with (not that it's a burden) people reacting this way any longer.

It's really no problem, but it is interesting to him. ]


You really are being very sensible about this. [ It's basically nostalgic. ]
findingbalance: (⚖ 003)

[personal profile] findingbalance 2017-04-21 07:22 am (UTC)(link)
So you're humans with different diets and weaknesses? Or does everyone on your planet live on blood? Is the sun your planet orbits too harsh for life to survive in?

[She wonders if other species could also be vampires or weres, the way the Jedi could be found across all species. It's interesting, and something she decides to learn more about.]

Maybe your world figures things out and my galaxy is your future. Is your world a wet, green planet like this one?
spellslots: DNT (you can count on me)

[personal profile] spellslots 2017-04-21 07:22 am (UTC)(link)
So it's kind of a divine thing, then, if angels are getting involved? I'd be fascinated to hear the full explanation some time! We have a lot of non-humans back home, but I totally get it if that's a conversation better had not over text.

[He's happy to give Magnus an out to say "maybe later" even if that later never happens.]

A safe distance it is, then! If it doesn't like the taste of warlock it'd probably spit you out, that's what happened when it ate a lich.

[Which is probably close to demonic energy, although liches don't have a physical body, so that makes a difference.]

It's not like, the worst thing to ever happen to me, but it's pretty fucking annoying. You could try telling me, but I'd just see gibberish, or hear static.
warden_enchanter: (Default)

lmao sorry she's grilling u pal

[personal profile] warden_enchanter 2017-04-21 07:23 am (UTC)(link)
Too many similarities means nothing new to learn, and where's the fun in that!

What happens if someone can't control it? Or if someone is hurting people? I don't like how my world handles those things, it would be nice to hear better options.

It sounds like warlocks are how the elves say they all used to be before humans came, that they were all immortal and used magic. But no one who isn't born with it where I come from can just learn how to do it like mathematics or writing, that's certainly new. How does someone learn it that way?
findingbalance: (⚖ 004)

[personal profile] findingbalance 2017-04-21 07:30 am (UTC)(link)
[Rey frowns for only a moment, but trusts her partner to keep an ye out while she's vulnerable, closing her eyes again and focusing on the Force around them.

She could feel the trees, the rocks, the grass, the man beside her, but all of it melted together, sifting in and out of one another, almost indistinguishable.

Taking a slow, deep breath, she let it out as she tried to slowly ignore the background and focus on the cricket, seeking out the tiny chirping insect with the Force. In. Out. Breathe.

As she tried to find it, the pebbles and pieces of loose dirt at their feet rustled, shifting just slightly, a pebble tipping over, a speck of dirt skittering across the ground, each tiny piece of earth moving just slightly in the direction of the tree or coming off the ground a sliver of air.

All of it going still when she opens her eyes again.]


It's too small. Maybe I should try something else
snarkbark: (049.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 07:30 am (UTC)(link)
And when you say a while?
lacquers: (only other person i've known who)

grill away!! he may do some of that of his own though!!!

[personal profile] lacquers 2017-04-21 07:30 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, I would think we could entertain ourselves for a very, very long time speculating about different topics. What kind of animals do you domesticate, for example? Or we could talk about what our meals are called and when we eat them. How long our recorded history is, what jobs are most valued in our societies. The options are essentially endless!

There are parties whose responsibility it is to keep peace between humans and non-humans. I wouldn't recommend our system as one of the healthier ones. It's definitely not one that gives equal autonomy to all, not currently.

You have a different view of elves in your world than some I've already spoken to. But yes, it sounds at least a little bit similar! Let me see if I can explain succinctly. Those who are born with magic have it because of their blood. Those who aren't have a certain affinity for things that aren't of the human world. They can see through glamours and sense magic, things like that. We call this the Sight. Humans who possess it can sometimes, very rarely, use magic. As I alluded above though, it's much, much more limited than the kind of magic my kind use.
findingbalance: (⚖ 003)

[personal profile] findingbalance 2017-04-21 07:32 am (UTC)(link)
I would be happy to give it a try. I've thrown together pieces of different speeders to fix mine. As long as I can find a compatible way to fuse them, I could probably do it.

What's a car?
snarkbark: (078.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 07:37 am (UTC)(link)
Ahaha. Well the particular world we came from before here, it was 2017. But home-home is 2016 or the 2090's :).
lacquers: (haven't been formally introduced)

[personal profile] lacquers 2017-04-21 07:37 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, but only in the sense that we don't use "divine" in a religious context like some do. They are from heaven and demons are from Hell, but there's really no spiritual connection. It's something else I've had trouble explaining to people from worlds other than my own. I truly don't mind talking about it though! If you're interested in an explanation that will probably involve some charts and a little history, I'd be happy to share. Like I said before, I enjoy the freedom that comes with being able to discuss these things!

[ He really isn't reluctant, that's a promise. Let him talk about it and he will talk and talk... ]

I doubt I'd look as nice after being chewed up and spit out. Just a guess! Is a lich a demon?

[ Since that would presumably be the general consensus in his world. Probably. ]

Even if it's no more than "annoying," that's still quite an outcome! What if I wrote it down and gave it to you? [ Now we're just exercising all the curiosity. ]

You know, it occurs to me that I never introduced myself. I'm Magnus.
generalginger: credit: <user name=lylith-st> (035)

[personal profile] generalginger 2017-04-21 07:41 am (UTC)(link)
I typically do not interact with wildlife.

[It's not something he's thought a lot about over the years--proof that he really doesn't think he's missing out on anything; home for him is among the stars.]

I can think of a few myself. [Dead, in enemy hands--in that order.] Still, it's a bit inconvenient. [It's the understatement of the year, and for a moment his mind drifts back to what was left behind. The timing really could not have been worse.]

[For a brief moment, Hux is quiet as he appraises Axel, trying to decide whether the other man has any sort of inherent value.] Programming?
amorexmachina: (Love seems like wanting a scar)

[personal profile] amorexmachina 2017-04-21 07:45 am (UTC)(link)
I can see why people might think those things. If your world is as much like mine as it seems it might be, humans have a pretty hard time accepting things that are different. Even skin color, gender, religion- It's not a surprise to think most people wouldn't take well finding out they weren't the top of the food chain, or that vampires were real.

[He finally pulls his eyes away when the fangs disappear, only to meet Axel's with his, a creep of red up the back and side of his neck to the tips of his ears and a soft, nervous laugh on his lips.]

I didn't even mean- [He starts, just a bit flustered but shaking his head, trying to keep his mind about the conversation open. It was a lot to take in, really, but meeting a vampire wasn't even the strangest thing that had happened to him that day, and that alone was a lot to take in.]

I like to think people here would be more accepting, given the situation we've all found ourselves in. I understand not everyone will be, but - there is a giant lizard creature outside the city, and the people here named it, instead of killing it.

If that tells you anything it should tell you there's hope people can look beyond their first instincts here and see things and people for who and what they are.

You don't seem like you come off as threatening or scary, and if that's the case, why should anyone treat you like you are?

[He knows that's overly optimistic, because in matters of his mind, he's largely pessimistic. But that wouldn't be helpful or constructive to Axel.]
Edited 2017-04-21 07:45 (UTC)
findingbalance: (⚖ 004)

[personal profile] findingbalance 2017-04-21 07:47 am (UTC)(link)
Aren't you at all concerned they will bite you? Even with the repellent, agitated creatures tend to attack things they view as threats.

[She sounds curious more than anything, stepping away from another meandering firefly to give it more space and leaving the capturing to the man who was clearly, for one reason or another invested in this.]

I am not sure they will live for long in those jars.
snarkbark: (037.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 07:48 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah. The multiverse is weird. My grandparents are from the 2090's. But my parents mostly chill in worlds that are still in 2016? Is time even real?
dothelokimotion: (This is a story about you)

[personal profile] dothelokimotion 2017-04-21 07:52 am (UTC)(link)
If I was testing you, you would lose.

[ He says this rather pointedly. ]

Also, being able to use a gun is not likely to strike fear in my heart. Perhaps not being able to would be far more terrifying.
dothelokimotion: (Immortality is stupid)

[personal profile] dothelokimotion 2017-04-21 07:53 am (UTC)(link)
That seems to be acceptable quality for such a place. Perhaps you can get it broadcast.

[ At terrible times in the morning, preferably. For best annoyance factor. ]
snarkbark: (023.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 08:00 am (UTC)(link)
I mean, there might not be anything wrong with yours. There's nothing particularly wrong with mine either. My parents just like to travel.

[spoiler: this is only a half truth.]
generalginger: credit: <user name=lylith-st> (031)

[personal profile] generalginger 2017-04-21 08:00 am (UTC)(link)
[There's a brief glance over to the flies, and finally, a shrug.]

They haven't been bothered so far.

[Though he knows it's not out of the realm of possibilities--he'll deal with it when he gets to that juncture.]

The jars are temporary, until I can get them into a ventilated tank.
snarkbark: (Default)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 08:07 am (UTC)(link)
[sweats]

My mom is pretty high maintenance, so you're not wrong. :)

I can tell you about my moms pseudo-future reality though, if you want? It's kind of dark, though. Probably.
findingbalance: (⚖ 014)

[personal profile] findingbalance 2017-04-21 08:19 am (UTC)(link)
It's the second most beautiful planet I have ever been to.

[Out of four, but still.]

There are creatures in my universe who drink blood. I have never met one of them, though. But you said in a few decades. Were you able to be out in the sun before?