folkooc | May 2022 Test Drive Meme

MAY 2022 TDM

INTRODUCTION

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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.

[ Prompt One ★ Prompt Two]

A PLACE IN THIS WORLD

Content Warnings: Possible insanity via cuts by thorns. Temporary nullification of abilities.

DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS

The world comes into focus in one sharp, overwhelming rush. You are laying on the ground surrounded by staggering walls of flowers of all types and colors. Their sweet scent fills the air and the sky above is clear, blue, beautiful, and endless. It would be easy to be lulled into a quiet nap in such a peaceful place. You can even hear a soft, disembodied voice singing songs from some unknown place all around you. After some time, this siren song creates an intense yearning that will eventually bring you to your feet and pull you forward. You are filled with the urge to find someone important. You may know who or you might just have some aimless, faceless person at the forefront of your mind.

All you know is that when you finally find them, you'll know. Is it love? Is it a friend you have always needed? The perfect enemy? Only time will tell, but for now, you must find them. The flower maze is dense and for now, it doesn't seem like flying out and above them is an option. If you try, you just wind up vaulted back into the maze. Nope! This trial is about using other means of exploration. Maybe you can destroy the flowers, but you will find that this flower field is apparently endless. If you get cut by thorns along the way, you will become increasingly hectic about finding this mystery person. Some have been thrown into insane desperation just looking for their People among the flowers.

But once you finally find them, you're both filled with relief and the flowers around you blossom wider. You can then treat the flower maze like a solvable puzzle and get your way out of it. However, some people spend a bit more time in the maze since once you do find your person or people, you will be stricken with the urge to talk to them, to "open up" about your yearning to find them...even if you've never met them before!

OUT OF THE WOODS

Just outside of the flower maze is a little festival set up just on the edge of Willow and partway into Epiphany! Little stalls of food and drinks have been set up - and we mean little! The good folk who set up these stalls are magical cats standing upright and wearing clothes like little people! All the stalls are cat-sized and so are the dishes and food - which means most of the people walking through will likely be quite a bit bigger! That's okay, the cat folk seem happy to serve you bigger or multiple helpings of their yummy soups and bread. None of them seem able to really communicate with the new arrivals, but that's okay, their cute meows are fun to listen to anyway.

The music is a bit more pronounced here and a handful of cat couples are dancing around. Don't be surprised if they encourage you to join in the dancing! Maybe you didn't actually find someone in the flower maze - if not, the cat folk will encourage you to dance with another new arrival to get to know them! Because apparently dancing with someone you don't know is a good formal introduction? Ah well. Sometimes it's just the idea that counts.

There will also be some supplies to help patch people up who have gotten a lot of cuts from the flower maze. Some of the bouts of insanity are probably still going a bit hectic, so you might want to lay down in the recovery area until you feel a bit more stable. Talking to people apparently helps with the stability, so maybe strike up a conversation with a fellow newbie?

ENCHANTED

Content Warnings: Optional selective amensia and/or altered sense of self, possible monster/creature violence, temporary enchantments, forced relocations.

LONG STORY SHORT

You're in a very unusual, specific outfit and in a place you might have seen once or twice in a storybook or in the imagination of your childhood. For some, you might pick up on what's happening immediately. For others, you might be so immersed in the role that you don't realize it - but you're featuring in a classic fairy tale. Maybe it's Sleeping Beauty or Little Red Riding Hood or Tale of the White Snake or The Mirror of Matsuyama. Either way, you're the main character or the main antagonist and it looks like you're going to have to play out the story with whoever you're stuck with!

The other person in the trial can either match up to the other side of the story or just arrive as themselves and have to play along. Trying to just abandon the trial is quite literally impossible! You're stuck in the weird woods or high tower and trying to "leave" just results in you going in repeated cycles until you wind up where you started. You have a role to fill and you might as well get used to playing roles in Folkmore! It's time to understand how these trials work. What lesson are you supposed to take away?

If you're grumbling about it or are left confused, don't worry! Thirteen will appear to those struggling and explain the situation: "You need to play out the story! C'mon. Everyone knows this story...Right? Well, whatever, it's obvious! If you play your part, I promise I'll give you something you want." Can you really trust a fox though? Especially the fox who brought you here? She laughs before you can really pester her for more information and vanishes in a burst of red dust. Foxes really are mischievous, aren't they...At least most fairy tales are incredibly short, basic, and straightforward so most people should be able to figure it out!

In theory.

DAYLIGHT

At least the Fox wasn't lying. When you complete the task of the story, the fairy tale world will melt into one of the settings in Folkmore and you will be brought back into the current reality. You will be left in the weird clothes, but fear not! A mystery trunk has appeared in front of you and whoever you completed the trial with. Inside the trunk, you will find some of your canon clothes and a few canon items. Nearby, there will be some weapons sticking out of the ground: basic swords, guns, shields, etc. These items might not be enchanted, but at least you have something to work with!

Better yet, you don't necessarily have to complete the Long Story Short prompt to find these trunks either! They seem to be dotted around Folkmore and you might find them just by virtue of exploration! The trunks seem to mysteriously know who is opening them so you won't find someone else's stuff by accident, but you might have to fight over who gets the sword in the stone...

A word of caution to those who grab the weapons...You will immediately be tested on how good you are with them. As soon as you have pulled them out of the ground, the ground will begin trembling and a serpent-like creature will form out of the ground. If you're in Wintermute, you have a sizeable icy creature to deal with. If you're in Cruel Summer, meet the fire-breathing snakey nightmare that's going to try and roast you alive. Don't think Epiphany or Willow will have gentler creatures! They might be covered in moss or flowers but they will hit just as hard. You have to defeat the angry creature - or try running for your life. They are relatively easy to beat and people without powers can manage if they are highly skilled or...really lucky...Or if someone far more capable finds them! Good luck. As a pro-tip, maybe don't pull weird swords out of the ground in the future.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Henry looks pretty pleased with himself, even if Healing Word isn't all that impressive a spell, compared to some of the other ones he knows. ]

Oh, well, that was a little spell called Healing Word!

[To someone without magic, of course, prestidigitation is pretty hecking impressive--let alone something with an actual real-world impact.]

Absolutely brilliant. [Another moment turning his hand over, looking for the signs that this was only an illusion before giving his fingers a pleased flex.] Have you always been able to do that?

Uh, sort of?

[ It's a bit more complicated a question than the young man probably intends, but Henry doesn't see any reason to keep the information to himself, so he'll answer. ]

I learned how to do it when I was a kid, but then I went through a period where I had pretty bad amnesia, so I sort of forgot all about it for a while. I only recently started back up again.

Like a sorcerer.

[Do wizards and sorcerers care about the distinction? If anyone does, it's probably them.]

Here's hoping it's a bit easier on the second go.

Druid, actually.

[ He corrects gently. Wizards and sorcerers are things, he knows, that are slightly different kinds of magic users than druids. ]

Yeah, I hope so too. To be honest, I wasn't expecting to have to keep using magic so soon...

[ He'd just been getting used to life back on Earth, away from the magic part of his life in the Forgotten Realms. ]

[Ah yes--the third option. Well, an attempt was made.]

Apologies.

[Is Theo too old to look this sincere about magic? Possibly back home, but surely it works well enough where everyone is treating it as so casually obvious.]

Does-- [Is Theo to old to be barreling through a thousand invasive questions? Actually yes, anywhere in whichever universe.] --sorry. Just-- thank you. Very much. It feels much better.

That's alright.

[ He knows that the intricacies of different types of magic users is beyond most people.

When the young man cuts himself off, Henry smiles and moves to sit on a cot across from him. ]

No no, by all means! I'm sure you've got lots of questions, and it isn't really fair of me to just do magic on you without at least telling you a little bit about what I'm doing. Go ahead, what do you want to know?

[There's a momentary flicker of uncertainty. It's gotten more and more unusual, over the years, for Theo to be given full reign of his curiosity--or, perhaps, it's started to come at much higher costs.

But if he's really being allowed, he'll lean forward slightly on his elbows.]

Does it feel different, here?

[ Henry frowns, raising a hand and using Druidcraft to create a small flower, blooming in between his thumb and forefinger. ]

It... does, kind of? My magic is all based on nature, and so I guess if the nature of this world is different, then my magic is gonna behave differently.

[This is a genuine question and serious contemplation, but there's no swallowing back the incredibly pleased smile the flower sends flickering across Theo's face.]

"Behave?"

Yeah, behave. It's like... [ He casts about for a good example. ]

Take those cats! Cats on Earth don't cook food or play musical instruments. That would be unnatural. But here, it's natural.

[His own mind is mechanically-bent, so it takes Theo a few heartbeats before he nods, mapping out this information and his next round of questions.]

Does it-- behave differently on Earth too? Depending where you are? The way-- trees behave one way in the forest, and another in a park?

Oh, you know, I'm not sure! I haven't actually tried using magic on Earth before.

[ When he'd gotten home from the Forgotten Realms, he'd been so happy to just put that part of his life behind him and return to his new normal with his family that it hadn't even occurred to him to try using magic. ]

It's not-- uncomfortable? Having it and not using it?

[This magic had seemed less needy and grasping than the sort he was used to--but that might just be a matter of hiding the pain.]

Not really. When I first got to Earth, I had amnesia, and I didn't even remember I could do any magic. So I just... got used to living without it. And then when I went... back to the Forgotten Realms, back to where I grew up, and I finally remembered everything...

[ He sighs. ]

Most of the magic I've used has been in life or death situations. Outside of that context, it never really occurred to me that I would need it.

May 2022 Test Drive Meme

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