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: (046.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 01:15 am (UTC)(link)
My twin brother can have that name. I'm thinking more 'Casanova Jailbait' or 'Captain Nearly Legal'?
snarkbark: (034.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 01:16 am (UTC)(link)
Story book witches, probably. Cauldrons, cats, eating children etc.
spellslots: DNT (pop that pretty question right now baby)

[personal profile] spellslots 2017-04-21 01:17 am (UTC)(link)
I'll buy you a coffee sometime to say thanks :)

[He's generally pretty friendly anyway, but the bonus of Magnus being magic makes him more inclined to be so.]

I'd probably call you a sorcerer, if I had to use a word from home. Their magic is usually internal rather than external, though they're kind of weird cause of it? I've never actually met a sorcerer, they're pretty rare.

[So it's almost the opposite, really. Learning magic is common, being born with it is rare.]

And yup. I started learning magic for my cooking show, so transmutation was a way to spice things up! I've expanded my repertoire since then. I'm kind of a mercenary now? I mean not really but work is hard to explain.
lacquers: (i should find this lydia person)

[personal profile] lacquers 2017-04-21 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
[ Yes, this seems... hm. ]

Another salient point! And very considerate. Axel, I'm getting the impression we're not acquainted. Is that right?

[ Better to just ask flat-out, he thinks. ]
snarkbark: (040.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
You're here to help? Which, I guess isn't that unlike Eudio? From what I've heard.
heavyhead: (and she slams on the brakes)

[personal profile] heavyhead 2017-04-21 01:19 am (UTC)(link)
['Scuze, he's at least 2/3 melted, thanks. He also might have just been talking out loud to himself, but he swivels his paper-crowned head around to look at this guy - employee?? - properly.

He doesn't move more than that.]


Great idea, but loitering's for paying customers only. Apparently.
lacquers: (is it from someone special)

[personal profile] lacquers 2017-04-21 01:19 am (UTC)(link)
More than I can count! Some of them certainly implied a lot of artistic creativity.
vitaars: (pic#11309140)

b. what's up fellow bioware protag

[personal profile] vitaars 2017-04-21 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
un: adaar
I think you summed up my world when you said it 'could always be worse'. No one can keep from fighting with each other for longer than three days, or keep from using blood magic.

Do you get nearly trapped on planets often?
lacquers: (we met the other day)

[personal profile] lacquers 2017-04-21 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
I've never had the pleasure of meeting anyone who would fit that definition. At least, no one who ticked all three boxes at the same time.
findingbalance: (⚖ 002)

[personal profile] findingbalance 2017-04-21 01:21 am (UTC)(link)
[It doesn't take her more than a look at Alec, his bow, and the tilt of his head to piece things together. She still keeps her grip on her staff ready but she follows along, glancing at the treeline ahead of them, rather than looking for what was following them.]

I can hear a river up ahead. It might be a good place to stop a moment and rest, maybe fill up on water if it's safe to drink. There's no telling how long it will take to get him far enough away, but I can't imagine one day's walk is going to get him far enough to not have him meandering back to the city as soon as we leave him.

[As she speaks, she's keeping her sights on the trees beyond Alec, making sure nothing flanks him while he focuses on the thing following in their footsteps.
snarkbark: (Default)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 01:21 am (UTC)(link)
Nah, I'll demote myself to Boy Mattress. It's fine. It'll better suit my future bohemian lifestyle for me and my future dog family. This isn't really helping the 'jailbait dog case' now that I've read that back.
snarkbark: (030.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 01:22 am (UTC)(link)
Do you have NICE witches?
helical: (287)

[personal profile] helical 2017-04-21 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, exactly that. I was wondering if that was a required precursor to showing up here
rydes: DNT. (010. ❚)

what uuuuup!

[personal profile] rydes 2017-04-21 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
A little more often than you'd think. It's starting to become a habit.

Now when you say blood magic...... what do you mean?
rydes: DNT. (006. ❚)

[personal profile] rydes 2017-04-21 01:24 am (UTC)(link)
No. Been across worlds, never across dimensions. First time for me.

Not you, I take it?
helical: (293)

[personal profile] helical 2017-04-21 01:25 am (UTC)(link)
You don't get stuck in Eudio. I'd say that's a significant difference
snarkbark: (051.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 01:25 am (UTC)(link)
You left out narcissistic.
helical: (171)

[personal profile] helical 2017-04-21 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
Second. I knew of other dimensions beforehand but had never traveled to one

What kind of worlds did you encounter? Anything like this before?
lacquers: (where might i find her?)

[personal profile] lacquers 2017-04-21 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
Oh? Do you have a place you like here?

[ Friendliness and curiosity about magic would be two further similarities then! ]

It's been my experience with traveling to multiple universes that terminology varies wildly from world to world, but you can usually find a thread of similarity! Thank you for taking the time to explain - it's something of an interest of mine, which means I'm prone to asking far too many questions, I'm sure.

Going by what you've said, I'd assume the nature of magic on our worlds is pretty different as well, not just the words we use to describe it. Mine was inherited thanks to one of my parents, for example.
[ This is where we always start to get a bit cagey with the details. ]

I also have to imagine any path that starts with "cooking show" and ends most easily explained as "mercenary" would have to be a little bit complicated. Cooking though - would you say you're a culinary whiz then?
snarkbark: (024.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 01:29 am (UTC)(link)
To be fair, we are in space.
lacquers: (tell me you're in love with lydia)

[personal profile] lacquers 2017-04-21 01:30 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, I've definitely met more than a few nice witches in my time!
prisonking: (41)

[personal profile] prisonking 2017-04-21 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
Michael. You?

[ It's Michael's face, alright. Down to the mole on his left temple, and the faded scar that strikes through the middle of his upper lip.

His face, but older. Harder. What he imagines he'll look like by the time everything is over. Minus a tan. Panama is sunny, after all.

Michael can't help but walk around him, the man who looks like him, in a slow circle. Seeing different sides of himself from the first time. ]


How old are you? Where are you from? When are you from?
snarkbark: (023.)

[personal profile] snarkbark 2017-04-21 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
I've been talking about myself for ten minutes and I don't know a single thing about you, except that you might have upset a cat once. For example.
amorexmachina: (I've heard your vicious words)

[personal profile] amorexmachina 2017-04-21 01:32 am (UTC)(link)
I would almost defintely be in Ravenclaw

[Though he wishes he could be a Gryffindor, and imagines most people would put him in Hufflepuff.]

It could be fun or at least interesting to compare. It certainly has interesting implications, if both our worlds have JK Rowling, what else do they share? How similar a time are we from? That sort of thing.

I wouldn't ask you to go anywhere that might be dangerous. I just would prefer to meet somewhere more open. Are you living in the housing they assigned us or somewhere else? We could meet in the kitchen area of one of the communal floors but then we'll end up with an audience. I would say Riverview University Library, but I don't think they would approve of us going there for a conversation.

How about the SkyTram Hub? It's open, there are benches, and I don't think anyone would bother us.
lacquers: (at least there'd be cocktails)

[personal profile] lacquers 2017-04-21 01:32 am (UTC)(link)
No, not necessarily. I should apologize for assuming though! We have met, but not here. And for you, maybe not yet. It's hard to tell, not knowing how old you are.

[ 21ish. That's not helpful. ]