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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!
no subject
[ 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?
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even so, there's tension evident in his shoulders and back as michael circles him, and leonard's head is on a swivel, following the movements of his doppelganger. ]
42, Central City, and 2016 respectively. You?
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[ Michael can recognize Leonard's discomfort as clearly as his own. Their body language isn't the same, but it's similar. Close enough. He stops circling, forcing himself to stand still, but his eyes keep scanning, taking inventory of every detail. ]
31, Chicago, 2014. When did you go silver?
no subject
(what is his life even these days?) ]
'Bout six years back.
[ leonard deliberately relaxes and leans against the wall, hands in his jacket pockets and one knee bent so his boot can hit the brick. ]
You got any siblings?
[ does he have to worry about someone with his sister's face bumping into him, is what he really wants to ask, but he doubts michael has an answer to that. ]
no subject
[ Michael takes note of Leonard's change in posture, and relaxes some himself, jamming his hands into his pockets. He stands with a slight slouch, appearing smaller, slighter, even though they're the same height.
They've both got their defense mechanisms. ]
You?
no subject
Little sister. Lisa. Presumably not here--she'd be making noise if she was.
[ he says it with the kind of long-suffering fondness only an older sibling can have, a faint smile hiding at the corners of his mouth. ]
no subject
[ Michael smiles. He knows that look, and he's always wanted a sister. Some part of him thinks he might have gotten along better with someone softer, and more sensitive. He and Lincoln were always at odds, not that they loved each other any less for it. ]
Linc's a big guy. Tough looking, a little thuggish, but he's got kind eyes.
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'Bout so high, [ he holds up a hand ] kinda curly brown hair. Always smirking. Probably wearing a leather jacket and her gun. She's closer to your age than mine, though.
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[ She sounds like his mother, or what little he remembers of her, except his mother hadn't been toting a gun. Christina Rose was about as suburban as they came.
He makes a vague gesture to his neck. ]
You okay? I've heard those things have a nasty bite.
no subject
I've had bee stings that hurt worse than that.
[ not entirely true, but the bite was a small enough hurt that it's all but unnoticeable now. especially since leonard's got a fairly high pain tolerance. ]
I've never heard of lightning bugs biting before, though. Guess it must be a side-effect of the alien planet.
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[ Michael nods towards the towering wall separating the colony from the 'outside' of the moon. ]
You missed the horse-sized man-eating lizards.
no subject
still-- ]
Can't say I'm not glad to have missed that.