August & September 2023 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

August & September 2023 TDM

Introduction

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This Test Drive meme is open to all.
Welcome to Folkmore's bimonthly 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 and work like "mini-events". For new players and characters, you can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Current players are also allowed to have in-game characters post to the TDM so long as they mark their top levels ‘Current Character.’

TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.

Playing and interacting with the 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 always encouraged to tag new people on the TDM!


🦊 New Star Children meet the Fox still in their worlds, and she brings them into the new realm of Folkmore. As you follow her, your body begins to change and new characteristics emerge. These may stay for a while, or perhaps they will hide away after. And during all of this, the Fox explains to you where you will be going: to Folkmore.

and then... you fall like a shooting star, falling to the land in a burst of starlight.


🦊 Experienced Star Children are already familiar with this time of the month. There are shooting stars all across the sky, and some fall to the land, which means the Fox has brought new arrivals. These newly arrived Star Children will face some tests, but Thirteen wants the more seasoned residents to participate as well.

Perhaps you follow the falling stars on your own, or perhaps the Fox simply teleports you there, but it appears you too will be part of this.

[ Prompt One ★ Prompt Two]

Oh How Quiet . ★

Content Warnings: Difficulty seeing, possibility of drowning, forced relocation

Fog & Footsteps

Some Star Children find themselves on land. The air is foggy and damp, blurring and distorting vision making it difficult to tell where they are, what’s real and what isn’t until–finally–Star Children find themselves on wet sand. Continue marching forward and trees begin to form a skeletal border, dark shadows growing and stretching further into their depths. Star Children who have experienced being exiled before can feel a path through the trees should they choose to venture further. Star Children who haven’t been exiled can feel resentment building around them and have greater difficulty navigating the path ahead.

Anyone who glances back may find footsteps in the sand alongside theirs. The more anyone looks back, the more prints appear. They’re inconsistent like their maker hops or flies part of the time or fades in and out of the physical universe… or something else. They may be human, or animal, or something Star Children can’t quite put a name to.

The Will or the Wisp

The longer Star Children dwell on them, the more tempting they are to follow—familiarity, comfort, curiosity, something. The footsteps eventually lead Star Children down a branching path toward a wall of thick, colorless fog. Inside the fog, there are enchanting wisps of light dancing just out of reach, urging Star Children to keep following. Just a little further, the sweet voices promise.

Continue onward and soon outlines appear in the mist, showing just who (or what) the earlier footsteps belong to–distorted human or animal shapes that exist only where fog is displaced by the will-o’-the-wisps they carry like lanterns. They lure Star Children deeper into Exile, all the while making promises they have no intention of keeping...

Salvation comes in the form of a fellow Star Child guided toward someone in distress by shifting sands. They radiate starlight that pierces through the thick fog around them, allowing people to find the sandy forest path toward The Beach. Once Star Children reach it, they will both find an old, sea-battered treasure chest which offers characters a personal item from home and either a nonfunctional compass or lantern. A will-o-the-wisp will fly directly into the item, which doesn’t seem to make it work. The compass needle points toward somewhere in Exile, not north. The lantern doesn’t light up. However, when the Star Child is truly lost, the compass will point where they need to go and the lantern will light up any darkness. Each Star Child can only receive either the compass or the lantern.

A Magical Day

Whether passing directly through the forest path or guided back to it, Star Children find a shoreline extending in either direction. Some water laps against the beach, but farther out is the long expanse of tenuous reality. Come September, it fades into the distance until it can no longer be seen. The beach itself is in Exile, heavy with the weight of magic. It feels reassuring and encouraging. Star Children can indulge in a sunless day at the beach, playing in the sand, and soaking in the magic. Those wishing for a bit more warmth can explore the shoreline north to the Boat Bonanza at the port where the Encantado reaches the ocean.

Key Points:

🦊 Star Children may pass through a thick fog to reach a wet, sandy path that passes through trees and leads to The Beach in Exile.
🦊 If they keep looking behind them on the path they will find footprints following alongside their own. Those footprints will try luring characters deep into fog using will-o’-the-wisp lanterns, leading them into the swamp so they can drown them.
🦊 A fellow Star Child can act as a light to guide lost characters back to the safety of shore.
🦊 Star Children that are rescued from the lure or who rescue another Star Child will be rewarded with a non-weapon memento from home and either a compass or a lantern (not both).
🦊 Star Children that don’t succumb will simply continue forward to The Beach without issue and will have opportunities to find a non-personal item from their home worlds being sold at the market. See below.

Christening Ceremony . ★

Content Warnings: Possibility of drowning, fetch quests

Boat Bonanza

Whether venturing up the coastline from Exile, floating down the Encantado River, or simply being plopped into the water, Star Children new and old find themselves in water. A strong wave rolls up the beach to drag suspecting and unsuspecting alike. Playful pinkish-red dolphins spray people off boats into the river. Or Star Children find themselves treading water deeper than they are tall with no land in sight. No worries, those who need help getting out of the water will get it. Along the shore, spirits in boats will pick up anyone in need of a ride and bring them back through the fog to the sounds of shouts and cheers and music to a large clear spot in the fog.

Boats come into view. Boats of all shapes and sizes, from single person kayaks to large houseboats, fishing craft and sailboats. They rise and fall with the waves but aren't otherwise moving. Ropes, planks, and bridges tie the boats together. Whether approaching by river or by sea, new boats explore the outskirts of the great conglomeration of boats and attach themselves—increasing the size of the gathered ships. So many boats are gathered that the shore isn't visible from new boats tying up.

Everyone's welcome aboard and to wander from boat to boat. Starfish spirits offer games of chance at low tables on broad open decks under awnings. There are even holes in the bottom of the deck, so players can dip their feet in cool water. A cephalopod band plays upbeat music other spirits and Star Children can dance to in competition with a scavenging of seagull spirits singing sea shanties as loudly as they can two boats over. Far from them, jellyfish spirits offer places to rest in quiet, with curtains drawn and sound dampened. Many spirits offer food and drink—seafood or seafood shaped candy or in the case of mystery flavored taffy, sometimes seafood flavored candy. Those who don't want freshly rolled sushi or take a chance with the candies can always see the Wandering Dog cart on the shore, where the dogs try very hard to be included.

Flotilla Afterparty

Come September, nymphs pop up in the waters and start shooing the boats away until only the houseboats and some submarines remain. Some go off on their lonesome, but more of them form flotillas that float along the coastline continuing their activities and coming to shore to pick up any who wish to join them. A restaurant flotilla, a meditative flotilla, music performance flotillas, and even gambling flotillas. Should people want off and the boats aren't ready to go to shore, sometimes Catbus shows up, able to leap whatever the distance.

Fetchquest

At any time, during the boat festival or smaller flotillas, Star Children may find non-personal items from their home world for sale. It may be a weapon or magical item. These spirits can sense who is from the same world as an item and will only offer them to those Star Children. These aren’t free! After all, these spirits pulled up these items from chests in the water. Star Children will need to do a few favors or barter something else to obtain the item from home. Star Children who help in Vasilisa’s, now mostly staffed by spirits, will find they have an easier time bartering… unless it’s in the Cuttlefish Curiosities shop. If the cuttlefish spirit smells a whiff of the grumpy old octopus spirit who has taken over as chef, that Star Child will have to do twice the work.

Key Points:

🦊 Explore your way to Nereid where the Encantado reaches the shore or get dropped into the water.
🦊 Enjoy an enormous boat festival! All kinds of boats! All kinds of activities!
🦊 In September, the boat festival will split into multiple flotillas floating around the shoreline.
🦊 Do favors or barter goods to receive a non-personal item from home. It may be a weapon or magical item. A magical gun from your world? Yes. Your personal magical gun with your dog’s name engraved in it? No.

Comments

[apuckalypse]

[Casey shakes his head with a last lingering chuckle, obviously not offended. He'd agreed, after all.]

What counts as weird for witches?

[somehow does not think of the arsenic cookies and spider hot dogs.]

[pyrighteous]

[ Arsenic cookies and spider hot dogs are CLEARLY normal, what are you talking about.

Hunter has to think a bit. ]

The human said a lot of things were weird. Like - our islands being made up of a dead Titan, and Bonesborough having real bones.

[apuckalypse]

Oh... yeah, probably to your average human, that would be strange.

[Most people don't live on... bones.]

...Back home, I lived under a... kind of sea of bones. So it's weird, but not that weird.

[pyrighteous]

... Really? A sea of them? Giant bones or regular ones?

[apuckalypse]

Uh... different sizes, I think. I didn't look too closely most of the time. But it was mostly people... nothing as big as a Titan sounds like.

[pyrighteous]

Oh. That ... is a little weird, yeah. We don't usually keep a bunch of bones just scattered around.

[ Well ONE person in the Isles sure did, but Hunter never did find that room. ]

[apuckalypse]

We didn't keep them or anything... so many people died from the Krang, there just was nowhere else to put them.

[Couldn't bury them or anything. ...God this conversation is depressing. He shakes his head, trying to steer away from it a bit.]

Your Titan must be really huge, if it can make a whole island.

[pyrighteous]

Oh.

[ Oh. that sort of situation. They aren't at "sea of bones" level yet, especially given the Collectors generally TAKE the bodies they acquire but ... Hunter shivers anyway. Not sure if he should press on the subject? He decides to follow Casey's lead here. ]

He - he is. The entire population lives on him. It's also how we name our towns and cities.

[apuckalypse]

[You can ask if you want, Hunter, you just might not like any answers.]

Like Bonesborough? That has real bones, apparently?

[What does that MEAN though.]

[pyrighteous]

Yeah. It's based in the Titan's ribcage, so they're like -

[ Gestures to a REAL high point above his head. ]

The air just starts thinning a bit at the top of one.

[apuckalypse]

Whoa... that's really high up.

[He only knows because of some mission limitations in the past- the Krang warships are so high in the sky that any attacks on them require special oxygen filters. The name "Titan" seems incredibly fitting.]

I guess it must've been like that for a long time, to have a whole civilization living on it.

[pyrighteous]

Yeah. Uh - at least a couple thousand years, I think.

[apuckalypse]

Huh.

[A thousand years is a long time for a human, but for a world - or the growth of an island - it's not a huge amount of time. But it's a magical world, on a magical(?) Titan, so who knows the logics on that one. Uncle Tello would be so annoyed yet have a million questions about this, he knows.]

Your world seems really cool, Hunter.

[pyrighteous]

[ Hunter pinks a bit. ]

W-well yours seems cool too! Apart from the ... uh ... mass graves ...

[apuckalypse]

[Casey blinks at that, really having not expected it. His world is many things, but cool? Huh. He's never thought of it that way. What was cool for him was the people who used to live there.]

Thanks. [He thinks?] I wish I'd gotten to see more of the past version of it, though. It used to be way cooler, with more stuff to do, and better food... it had animals and all kinds of life. Like this world.

[pyrighteous]

That does seem like it'd be nicer. Yeah.

... What's the most interesting thing from the past you've heard of?

[apuckalypse]

Most interesting... huh...

[He thinks for a moment. He'd heard a lot of stories over the years. Some good, some bad. There's a handful that stick out; a lot of them are about food, but that's less interesting and more... deeply appealing, to a kid on a diet of vermin. Hm.]

I think... I'd like to try to go to an amusement park. Commander O'Neil talked about it once, and a bunch of other humans joined in to share about how fun it was when they were kids.

[pyrighteous]

[ Hunter tilts his head a bit at that. Amusement park... oh! Yes he's heard of those. ]

Like with rides? And games? And snacks?

[apuckalypse]

Yeah, exactly! I wanna ride a roller coaster. Everyone made it sound really exciting!

[Can't be an honourary Hamato without being a ridiculous thrill-chaser.]

And I wanna eat a ton of weird carnival food.

[pyrighteous]

... That must be the human version a molar coaster.

[ But okay, obviously the same thing despite the odd name. And weird carnival food is simply universal. ]

It DID look pretty good. I never got to go but.

[apuckalypse]

[A molar coaster, and a not-dog...coincidence? One world influencing another? Now he's going to wonder which one influenced the other if it were that case...]

Your world had that too? That's amazing... you should try it out, when you go back. ...When you win.

[He... will believe! The world will be saved somehow, and Hunter can ride in an amusement park. No one can tell the emperor he can't do something, surely.]

[pyrighteous]

[ Honestly? An excellent question. Hunter himself couldn't pinpoint it - probably crossovers in both directions.

Hunter brightens a little. ]

Oh - yeah. For sure. Once the Collectors are gone and the world is back. I can demand an amusement park! As emperor!

[apuckalypse]

[Casey nods - heck yeah, that's the spirit! - though it fades into a more thoughtful expression a moment later.]

So... I don't actually know anything about emperors. They didn't exist anymore. Are you like a king?

[pyrighteous]

Uh-huh. Except an empire is bigger than a kingdom.

[apuckalypse]

[Belatedly realizing he doesn't know jack about kingdoms either.]

It sounds like a ton of work. My sensei ran the resistance and we wouldn't have even populated a whole city, nevermind a country. He usually looked really tired.

[Sort of like Hunter. Dude are you okay??]