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Entry tags:
September 2022 Test Drive Meme
SEPTEMBER 2022 TDM
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Folkmore's monthly Test Drive Meme! Please feel free to test drive any and all characters regardless of your intent to apply or whether you have an invite or not.
All TDMs are game canon. You can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Each TDM will provide a scenario for how characters arrive in-game that particular month.
Playing TDMs will allow characters to immediately obtain canon items from homes especially weapons or other things they may have had on their person when they were pulled from their worlds! There will always be a prompt that provides some sort of "reward" to characters who complete certain tasks.
Current players are allowed to have in-game characters react to TDMs via the Network or make a log with the prompts. Current players are always encouraged to tag new people on the TDM!
TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.
Content Warnings: mood-altering substances.
What a Wonderful Harvest
"TRICK."
"TREAT."
What a Wonderful Harvest
It's harvest season in Folkmore. Apples, squash, potatoes, onions, peaches, sweet corn... all manner of crops are ready to be gathered, and golden fields fall willingly before the scythe. The air has a chill to it that you can mostly ignore in the sun but runs deep when you stand in the shadows.
After arrival you will find yourself out in said fields, maybe a little disoriented but not in any danger. It's peaceful.
In the farmlands you might be able to hear music floating on the wind. Follow it, or just wander by accident, and you'll find yourself coming upon what looks like some kind of costume party: people dressed up in cloth and vegetables - mostly gourds as masks - are singing and dancing around an enormous pole surmounted by the biggest Jack-O-Lantern you've ever seen.
The pumpkin people seem shy, but they won't turn you away if you wish to join their celebration - there are other Star Children like yourself here, and you might feel a little more comfortable with them. At least you can see their real faces. You can drink some apple cider and carve some pumpkins yourself if you like, or help out by husking some corn.
At some point, you will become aware of the fact that the dancers have stopped, and the object they've been dancing around has moved. The Jack-O-Lantern is looking at you.
The pumpkin king leans down, eternally smiling.
"Trick or treat?" he asks you in a deep voice. You'll have to pick one!
"TRICK."
The partygoers all watch you carefully. The lord of the harvest appears to think for a moment, then nods his massive head. One of the veggie dancers approaches you with a tray upon which are five cups of cider.
"Pick your poison," you're told, and you can only hope it's not literal!
Four of the cups of cider will have no effect whatsoever. But the fifth?
That fifth cup of cider makes you feel more social. Less reserved. Downright friendly, even. You want to talk and joke with people even if that isn't normally something you'd do. You might even join the vegetable dancers for a spin, and drag someone else along with you! Your judgment isn't quite impaired, but your inhibitions are definitely lowered. Might be a quick way to make some new friends, though!
"TREAT."
You are offered a large basket, held so that you cannot see inside. After some fumbling, you pull something out. What is it? It's an envelope. Or a cassette tape. Or a photograph. It might be the mixed tape you created for your high school crush, the poem you wrote about your broken heart, the letter you never mailed to your estranged father. It's something personal that is connected to someone from home somehow. As you hold it in your hands, you will feel an irresistible urge to explain it to the person next to you no matter how embarrassing or painful it might be. You can only hope that they aren't a colossal dick about it.
Content Warnings: aggressive dogs, decapitated spectres, potential violence.
GET AHEAD
GET AHEAD
The sun sets earlier and earlier every day, but that doesn't mean there's suddenly nothing to do! The warm lights of homes all over Folkmore welcome people inside for parties. Of course, the Spirit People of Folkmore are rarely humanoid, so you may find yourself at a dance for frogs or a cocktail party for round fuzzy critters with giant eyes. Regardless of what kind of creatures you wind up partying with, they are excellent hosts!
When food has been had and drinks are flowing, someone suggests a time honoured tradition: the telling of ghost stories.
The guests take turns, spinning tales both familiar and not. One such tale is that of the Horseman and his Hounds.
This, the storyteller insists, is a true tale, and is as follows:
Folkmore is home to many Spirit People, and many other creatures besides. While most of these wish only to live their lives, there are certain powers that Thirteen leaves to their own devices, no doubt for reasons all her own. When the autumn harvests come and the leaves burn with colour and fall to the ground, the dominant spirit of lonely places is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. Some versions of the story claim the horseman's head is carried before him on the pommel of his saddle, while others say instead the spirit carries a lit Jack-O-Lantern in place of it... and wishes to find a more suitable replacement. No matter the variation, the rest of the legend is the same: in autumn, on lonely roads, unlucky travelers will hear the baying of hounds. Moments later they will see the Horseman upon his stallion, and then the unholy troop will pursue the hapless travelers across hill and valley.
Some tales are told of Star Children fighting off the spectral hounds and challenging the Horseman to a fight, with varying levels of success. All are in agreement, however, that the sure method of survival is to escape over running water. Easy enough in some parts of Folkmore... less so if you happen to be caught out in the desert of Cruel Summer.
All parties must end, and this one does too, which means you now have to make your way home. Not that you're scared or anything, but maybe it's wise to walk with someone else tonight...
Not that it matters. Ultimately you and your companion will find yourself on a lonely stretch of road somewhere, and just as you've managed to convince yourselves that nothing out of the ordinary is going to happen you hear it.
The Hounds.
Turn and you'll see them, dark and sleek, and beyond them their infernal master. Atop a gleaming black stallion, the Horseman is gigantic in height and muffled in a cloak.
Whether you run or stand and fight is entirely up to you. As if to make it more of a fair fight, there are weapons hidden off the road - stumble into a ditch and you might find a rifle or a sword. The Hounds have very sharp teeth but they themselves cannot be injured - if struck they simply turn to black smoke and vanish. The Horseman cannot be killed - he has no head! - but if you fight him to a standstill he will reward you with the gift of something from your homeworld. This can be a weapon or magical item.
If you manage to cross a stream or a river, the spectres will vanish with howling and laughter.
ODDS BODKINS
You're likely to be shaken up after your encounter, so it's relief when you see that there's a bonfire lit not far past the water you've crossed. Perched all around it are a bunch of different owls, many wearing hats. They all swivel their heads to look at you before they hoot and gesture for you to come near. There, set up to one side of the bonfire, is a long low table laden with drinks in many different colours and little cakes and cookies. You always thought owls ate mice, but whooo's to say? Hoo? Get it? On another low table are supplies for patching people up in case your fight with the Horseman got a little intense! The owls don't have hands, but maybe there's a kind stranger nearby who'd be willing to help you? Or maybe you just want to talk to someone who has their head on right!
no subject
[But that does make sense of her not being Lady de Rolo yet. Of course, it also means that Keyleth will not have met him yet, given that he's a toddler in their time.]
So, I'm from the furthest in the future then. Do I need to be careful about telling you things?
no subject
[She can't really blame Caleb for that. She didn't ask and it hadn't come up until it did. And, well, she hasn't told the rest of Vox Machina about that, but not because she didn't trust them with the information, but because it just hadn't really been important with all of the other things going on around them.
She takes a deep breath and smothers the burning question she wants to ask.]
You should always be careful, Orym. You are from over thirty years in the future. A great many things have happened in that time. And I doubt all of them are as good as you telling me that I marry Percy. [She manages a weak smile.] That's a bit of a foregone conclusion at this point.
no subject
[And many of them are good, but there is at least one thing that Orym is aware of that is not good. And he won't be the one to visit that news on anyone. If he thought the future could be changed, well, maybe he'd say something.
If he thought the future could be changed, he'd beg Vex to tell Keyleth about an attack that will come, in not quite thirty years time, where shadowy assassins would show in Zephrah to make an attempt on the Tempest's life, eventually defeated, leaving no trace but taking the life of his husband and his father-in-law.
Instead he takes a breath to steady himself, nodding.] I'll keep the future to myself. [Even if Vex really should know she has very cute children too.]
no subject
[She'll have to talk to Percy about this because she can't handle the pressure of knowing this tidbit. It's a lot different than knowing that Caleb is from twenty years in the future on a different continent. Orym is from Zephrah and that changes things a great deal.]
It's selfish of me to ask you to do that, but the things you could tell us... It's not really known if we will take it with us if we go back to our worlds here. That could affect your future in ways neither of us can really know.
[She'd love to know if Vax is alive at that time, if he and Keyleth are still together, but she stops herself.]
So, tell me, what have you seen here in Folkmore? I've been here for a while and would be happy to show you around. You can pay me back for it later.
no subject
[It's not the way the world works. As much as he might wish it were. He's a practical enough man that he won't risk it for his own selfish ends.]
That's not how life goes.
[He shakes his head.] Not much. I woke up in a cornfield thinking I was dead. Starting to doubt that now at least.
[Still alive. He'll take that for the time being over being dead and in a very weird afterlife.]
no subject
[Considering none of her friends are from the same point in time, that's an understatement. She's just glad that they've all come from at least around the end of the Chroma Conclave and not earlier.]
This isn't the afterlife, so there's that I suppose. I've come to think of it as a vacation from Exandria. It's been... interesting so far.
no subject
[Life is complicated enough in any world moving only in one direction. No need to make it harder.]
That's a start, right?
[Not dead. But a vacation? He tilts his head, considering that.] A vacation? That'd be different. But I'm worried about my friends. We were in a battle, last thing I remember. And it wasn't going great.
[And he's the fighter. He's supposed to be there to try to keep his friends safe.]
no subject
[Exandria Copium at its finest, huh?]
Well, this might help you. The Fox, who goes by the name Thirteen—don't ask why—seems to pick new 'Star Children' to bring every month. If we're lucky, there's a chance that your friends might be chosen to come. Time here seems to continue on while time at home appears to freeze of a sort.
And there is a chance that you can return to Exandria and then come back here as well. [She grimaces a bit.] Thirteen has the attention span of some fey creatures and the impulse control of them as well. So, anything is possible at this point.
I apologize if that's not strictly comforting, but that's what we're working with right now.
no subject
[How dangerous is this place? How strange? If it's run by some fey creature with no impulse control, well, that could be bad. To put it mildly. Though time freezing is, perhaps, a bit comforting? Maybe. It's less like he's leaving his friends in danger without being there for them.]
But if we're returning at all, it's at her decision and not ours.
[And that sure does seem to be a problem.] No, don't apologize. It's better to know the truth than just the sunny parts.
no subject
[Has it been difficult to face her memories and her future? Yes, but she's had to do that many times before she came here and will continue to have to do it back on Exandria. And at least here she's had the time to process her memories in a less stressful situation than back home.]
No, when she brought us here, she always gave us a choice. I think that's still viable for when we return. We have a choice if we want to come here and if we want to return if we do go home. Remember that when Thirteen shows up, she asks you if you want to come to expand and fulfill your potential.
I don't want to overwhelm you since your new, but don't look at this like a terrible experience. It's just new. Use it to grow in ways we might not be able to on Exandria.
no subject
[Orym concedes. Even if he would very much like to see the others, he doesn't think they need the extra weirdness that he's found so far here.]
Yeah, it was something like that.
[It was disorienting is what it was. He'd fallen in battle, found himself with a Fox looking back on his fallen self and genuinely assumed the afterlife was a messed up thing with not nearly as many ravens as expected.]
I've been having a lot of new experiences lately. Seems like that's the phase of my life I'm in.
no subject
[All she wants him to know is that he doesn't have any control over if his friends show up or not. If they did, she's sure that the makeup of the population of the Star Children would be vastly different.]
I can sympathize with that. That seems like all the last few years have been: new experiences.