riverview: test drive meme

[riverviewmod]

riverview test drive meme

Welcome to Riverview's first 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 March 1st.
● All threads on the test drive meme can count as game canon once the game is up and running.
● TDM threads do not count for Activity Check, but they do count for Activity Bonus Points.

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 ● navigation

prompt i: batten down the hatches

If the sky has seemed a little more yellow-green than usual for the past couple of days, there's a reason for that. Meteorologists have been warning of a particularly nasty storm blowing in from the direction of the Delta in the Southwestern part of the Abandoned City.

The Quarantine is about to be hit by a nasty typhoon, and there's a lot to be done. Whether you're helping sandbag the banks of the river, which is bound to be swollen by the storm and flooding, weatherproofing your building, or just huddling indoors for warmth and helping reassure your friends, family, or partner that everything will be okay, it's time to take action!

prompt ii: monster madness

There's been a lot of talk around the Quarantine about the various predators and monsters outside the fence, and how they've been getting steadily more active, crowding the fences, trying to leap over them, seemingly driven by some kind of mania. There have even been increasing instances of predators that normally mind their own business attacking the fences wholesale, slamming into it over and over as if they're trying to find a weakness.

The good news? The fences have been holding. So far.

The bad news? They won't be holding for much longer.

The Perimeter Guard is in a bad way, and it's all hands on deck. They've also sent out a few of the Perimeter Guard Cadets to post up flyers around the city asking for temporary help in fighting off the beasts. So pick up whatever weapon you're best with, hop onto a truck transport, and head on over to the fences to help drive off the monsters and keep the Quarantine safe.

prompt iii: hold your lover close

With a storm rolling in that's going to keep everyone indoors, that might cause power outages, and is just frankly pretty scary, a lot of the clubs, restaurants, and hotels are doing special events to keep everyone's brains occupied and flooded with endorphins.

There are flyers around the city advertising various couples activities: speed dating, dance classes, overnight pool parties, and all-expenses-paid lovers' nights in.

The catch? The great deals only count if you're a twosome. So if you don't have someone to love, hit up speed dating in the indoor courtyard of Riverview's largest mall, or grab the first person you see and take the opportunity.

prompt iv: solution

After a day or two of storm activity, things are definitely not getting better: the rain is torrential, the monsters are attacking with increased energy and decreased rest times, and the distractions are starting to wear thin. Power outages happen off and on, a very rare situation in Riverview Quarantine.

The government has put out an all-points-bulletin imploring anyone with an exploratory spirit to help.

From what government science techs can tell, the storm isn't natural - after all, even the meteorologists were saying that the pressure systems seemed extremely strange. They've managed to narrow the cause to an area in the delta where the storm seems to be originating from, and are broadcasting the general location so anyone with the guts can head out into the storm and try to find the source of it.

Any characters who decide to penetrate the jungle in search of the source will find a device in the shape of a pyramid, with glowing blue edges about a day's walk into the Abandoned City. The pyramid is a malfunctioning weather control device that is causing wild pressure fluctuations and causing the storm as well as making the animals in the jungle aggressive and erratic. Characters can destroy or deactivate the device to end the storm.

This mission can be threaded out however you would like, in groups however large you would like, and more than one team can accomplish the goal.

prompt v: wildcard/network

Whether you're looking for help with a mission or just want to get to know your fellow new arrivals, your character can make a post to the network.

Or you can choose your own adventure and do something else in the setting!

navigation

Comments

[diagenesis]

[Ah, Hell, why not. Flint makes a gesture for another round.]

You expect they'll be paying us in any currency we can take with us when they usher us home?

[arsebiscuit]

Shiny metal bits are always 'round. Or britches. Just a matter of finding the right buyer.

[But they could just pay her in arrows in booze, really. Except for the whole 'having to pay to leave' shite she's game for most anything.]

You got somethin' waiting on the other side?

[diagenesis]

[She's so patently quirky, he can't help the faint smile that curves his mouth upwards. He settles for smoothing his moustache to hide it, though he doesn't truly care one way or another. Old reflexes. Britches, dear Christ. Is he dealing with some sort of irrepressible clothing bandit? Fucking delightful.]

Do you mean back home, or in the hereafter?

[arsebiscuit]

Home! All know what's waiting in the after after, yeah? Big blessed bosoms and the rest of it.

[Because clearly everyone here is also an andrastian. Clearly.]

It's the before that's all messy like.

[diagenesis]

[She can keep the bosoms, James' preference stray quite a distance from that proclivity. But he lifts one shoulder in an absent shrug, and takes another shot of his drink. Getting him true and proper drunk would require more than what's served here. What's on the other side, for him? There is a betrayer's fate set to befall him, a sword of Damocles above his head. Each pendulum swing is a heartbeat before he feels it at his throat.

Yet even monsters dream. What difference does it make, to tell it to a half-drunk girl in a tavern so far and away from everything he knows?]

A farm. A place to work the earth. [It would be nice to have dirt instead of blood beneath his nails.] Cattle, crops. What about you?

[arsebiscuit]

Sounds awful.

[She doesn't have the good manners to looked ashamed of it, but she mimics his shrug from a moment ago instead. She's a city girl, tried and true, could never be away from the filth and wonder of population. But...eh. Food had to come from somewhere, yeah? So long as he was happy.

With cow shite everywhere. ugh.]

Was helping save the world from a big monster thingy but...well. Sometimes the heroes are monsters too, yeah? Gotta get back. But...

[But it was good to step away from the Inquisitor and their political bullshiting. But that takes too long to explain and- damn. Drunk. She was drunk. And she groans as that knowledge hits her, her head falling forward between her shoulders- too far. She misjudged and her forehead hit the table with a firm bang.]

Maker's salty balls.

[diagenesis]

[He's seen more than his fair share of drunkards, this little misstep does nothing to phase him. Though he does take the opportunity to order her a glass of water with lemon, which he puts in front of her.]

Drink that, when you've a mind.

[It's not really an order. Some people, so inclined, would promptly tell him to go fuck himself. But he just can't bring himself to dislike her, or to leave a drunk girl alone to whatever mercies this place has in store.

He is not a nice man by any stretch. But he is rarely cruel unless called for. Sometimes the heroes are monsters too.]

What manner of 'big monster thingy'?

[His mind jumps first to bullshit (likely) and then to a sailor's stories. He's too rational a man to think that krackens exist, or any other monsters of the deep he's heard tales of, but it's certainly where his mind first strays.]

[arsebiscuit]

[She is just going to let her head rest for a moment. Not going for the water, but not throwing it on the floor at the moment. Just turning enough so she's looking at him again, face pressed to the wood of the table, not a single care for appearances. Or the large red mark on her forehead.]

Dunno. Magic shite, yeah? Don't need the full problem when I've got the answer: arrows.

[diagenesis]

[holy shit she's just the tiniest angriest pirate can he fucking keep her. Flint actually laughs at that.]

A definitive cure to most things that ail oneself. So you're from one of those worlds where 'magic' exists?

[Or she's drunk and imagining some fallible thing as being so. But then again, he's never seen anyone with pointed ears that weren't the result of some very creative scarification, either.]

[arsebiscuit]

Probably everywhere. They're just..sneaky. Those magic types. Always skulking an' drinking their tea an' 'no, Sera, the wall's aren't for climbing on' and 'go away, Sera, my sense of humor's shoved up my arse.'

[Her head stays down, but her hands come up to act as mocking little puppets as she imitates her version of Solas. Not that James'll known who it is, but when she thinks of magic these days, she thinks of the worst elf she knows.]

But then who do they come runnin' to when the world's ending? Us normal people, that's right. Bah.

[diagenesis]

[Well that's specific. He leans back in his chair, faintly humoured by her depiction and the fluttering wave of her hands.]

Depends on how you define normal, I'd wager.

[arsebiscuit]

You shoot fire from your nips?

[Laser focus. That's what this is. From her reclined position on the table, hands freezing in mid air]

[diagenesis]

[For fuck's sake, he's chuckling again. He hasn't had this much of a time of it since he and Gates sat up late into the night talking about Craig accidentally imbibing a bottle of piss.]

Decidedly not. I only meant that to some, knowing how to fight is already an aberration.

[arsebiscuit]

Tch, details. Any farmer can pick up a sword, yeah? Might not know the pointy end...but magic's magic. Gotta be all freak-like to use it. Can't go learn it when the cookie shop don't work out.

[Normal: the fact everyone can murder when they really need to.]

[diagenesis]

I wouldn't know. Magic doesn't exist in my world.

[Oh, some sailors would argue, but James has seen too much of the world. Magic, superstition, all such devilry hold no sway over him.]

[arsebiscuit]

You wait. It's got to be all over. All this...stinks like magic. Don't care what the fancy folks say.

[diagenesis]

[He pauses with his glass halfway to his lips, the barest hesitation before he follows through with the gesture and then sets it neatly down.]

I can accept that it's the most likely culprit for us having been brought here. You don't like it very much, do you?

[arsebiscuit]

It's power. Real, can blow up the friggin world power, ain't it? And people have it. Power people...they gotta have those without under heel, don't they.

[It isn't a question. It's a statement as she finally looks away and struggles to bring the water to her lips.]

Ain't natural, having something like that you can't learn or steal.

[diagenesis]

[And an unknowable thing terrifies and deceives. He understands it well. He may not be magical, but Flint is an educated man surrounded by those to whom it seems an especial sort of witchery. He has done things, manipulated outcomes in ways that built his legend and saw people fit to proclaim him as one having sold his soul. By that stroke, he has power over others that seems preternatural. But he is just a man. And he imagines, being confronted with what it is she speaks of, he would be driven to dislike it all the same.

One can't help being born rich, yet he hates that class of folk all the same. Yet one can loose wealth gambling, or on poor investments. One's wares can be seized or sunk. That power can be taken. The one she describes, it seems, cannot.]

No. I imagine it isn't. Let's speak on something else.

[arsebiscuit]

Tell me a dirty story.

[Sera is all too happy to leave magic behind. She perks up (and damn it, yes her ears wiggle a little bit as well) at this whole subject change plan. The perking hurts her head a little, and she dedicates herself to gulping down her water while waving him on to start the story with her free hand.]

[diagenesis]

[Christ, of all the things to which he's disinclined. Flint is not the least bit bawdry. It isn't that he's puritanical in any sense, but he's possessed of great reservations.

And very few of his stories can be told without cost. So, so few.

But Gates is already on his mind, and however they ended (I'm sorry, I'm sorry--) the man was a brother once. James is removed enough from the circumstances now that he can celebrate what was. Ten good years, had they. Before the last.

He can't tell it to the letter. That would give away his piracy, and open the avenues of conversation he has no desire to answer, but.]

I was working a shipbreaking job once. A group of men under me I'd known for years. One of them had a knack for finding hidden cargo and the like on old derelicts, things even the ship's captains had forgotten about. He specialized in tracking down booze. [a lift of his glass to signify his meaning.] So, we pull apart the bulkhead of an old sloop and he finds this bottle. We all think he's won the jackpot. Bastard pulls the cork out with his teeth and takes a swig've'it.

[His accent is generally a fairly cultured Londonian thing. It speaks of, God help him, elocution lessons that he never had but mimicked exactly. It slips there, at the end.]

Not water, not liquor. Straight piss. Sprayed half the rest of my work crew spitting it out again. I've never seen a man so virulently dunked in an ocean as that. Poor recompense, but I wager it made them feel better.

[arsebiscuit]

[ It wasn't the kind of dirty she was aiming for, but the punchline has he spitting water clear across the table and onto some neighboring patrons nonetheless. There are some turns and glares, but she just sticks her tongue out between her pointer and middle finger (you know the gesture) and keeps giggling. ]

Ha! Serves 'em right, chargin' in without sharing.

[diagenesis]

[sorry sera he doesn't tell the other kind of dirty, it's the best he's got given the circumstances. Oh, he's kept company with whores and rolled his eyes while men fucked on bunks beside him but he has about as much sex as your average priest and talks about it even less than that. He takes nothing as sacred, save two ghosts he loved once.

James, for his part, just watches on with amusement. He needs not rouse any hard looks for the patrons she disturbs, they seem content to pick up and move with only grumbling to mark their exit.]

I thought as much myself. So what do you do, Sera, when you aren't hating magic and shooting at people?

[Fuck the world, but he is genuinely interested.]

/whispers softly in the wind: go app

[arsebiscuit]

That's 'bout it, yeah? Arrows solve most anything. Noble shite? Arrows. Chickens gone crazy? Arrows. Not enough arrows? More arrows!

[See, she's funny. She snickers at herself as she takes another gulp of water like it's beer. Except, unlike how she'd done with the beer, she makes a face after. Medieval settings: what is clean water?]

I'm just me. Doin' what I see needs done.

ooh i didn't know they were open yet, a+ will do

[diagenesis]

[In a faint murmur,]

God save us from rampaging chickens.

[He'll drink to that, and does with a little salute of his glass. And yeah, clean water still weirds him out plenty, but it's one of those things he's had cause to adapt to. That, and the absolute miraculous invention of indoor plumbing. He is really going to miss having hot water on immediate demand.

That bit, doing what needs to be done, strikes a chord with him deeper than any he'd admit to. He rubs at his moustache thoughtfully, smoothing it down.]

And what is it, exactly? That needs done. Beyond the slaying of great monsters, presumably.