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riverviewooc2017-04-20 11:42 am
riverview: april test drive meme
riverview test drive memeWelcome 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
premise ● arrival ● setting ● ask a question ● calendar ● navigation
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....
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.
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.
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.
Many thanks to
mistojen for coding this especially for Riverview!Choose your own adventure and do something else in the setting!
iv. friendr
[He's dying to ask about the Vampire comment, but instead-]
In a city/world where dimensional portals and giant lizards exist, I can not imagine there ever being a shortage of things to discuss.
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Sometimes I wonder if I've lost my mind and everything here only exists in my head.
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I know it is real, in theory, but sometimes it all seems so impossibly absurd and fictitious that I find myself wondering.
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Facing the reality of that is different.
Everything about this place is - all right a bit intimidating and terrifying on some levels, but mostly it just takes quite a bit to wrap my head around. Like living in a movie or a story. I can not imagine it being stranger, only a different strange than it already is.
That being said, I do find myself- I don't know how to put it really. I am relieved to be here, even among the strain it puts on the parts of my brain still holding fast to the science and understanding of my own world.
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And yeah. I imagine so.
Which- I wasn't going to ask, because it feels a bit rude in the face of all of this, but it's too new to me not to at least try to learn more.
Are you really a vampire?
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Yeah? Reading has always been something I enjoy. Music possibly as much if not more. I had a large collection of music and ebooks in my apartment, but somehow I don't think my desktop is going to apparate into existence here.
I do believe you. It's just- in my world there are so many stories about vampires, and all of them are so different. I have to admit I am very curious about what being a vampire means. How much of it, if any, is true to you.
It's always just been myth, sci-fi and horror stories to me. Much like the rest of this place.
You have me curious.
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[Much as he wants to talk about it, he also never wants to speak of it ever again. It's a conflict of breathtaking science and traumatic memories.]
Okay, yes, you caught me. But that opens up an entirely new set of questions. Like if we come from the same world or just very similar universes, if the books are different in any way between our worlds, what house you would be in-
[After Ava he should know better. After everything that has happened, he should not even be considering going to meet a self proclaimed vampire so that he can 'show' Caleb proof. It sounds like the sort of thing someone says in a horror movie before they rightfully kill and drain the idiot that agrees to it.
Then again, Caleb's curiosity and need to know always had been what got him in trouble, and it was too ingrained in him to stop now.]
All right. But if you don't mind, I would like to choose where we meet?
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[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.
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[Caleb was, surprisingly and maybe foolishly, less worried about not having witnesses around to keep him from being murdered, and more worried about feeling like the walls were closing in around him.
It wasn't that he particularly trusted Axel, he had a lot of issues with trust recently. He just didn't think Axel was luring him away to be eaten. He had a feeling if Axel was going around draining people of their lives, he wouldn't advertise his being a vampire so blatantly.]
Seven Thirty sounds good. I will meet you at the benches closest to the exit of the hub.
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Do you mind if I sit with you?
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I'm Caleb. It's interesting to meet you, Axel. [He laughs a little, a short sounding laugh, soft and quiet. s if he can hardly believe he's there.]
I meant to say before- we're a bit separated when it comes to time. I'm from about ten years in the future compared to you, though I don't know how much of a difference that makes if our universes are somehow not the same.
I was going to say mine doesn't have vampires besides fiction but- I'm not sure I would know, really. I mean I also thought we didn't have sentient AI and interdimensional travel was just wishful thinking, so
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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.]
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[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.]
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