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emptynesters2017-04-04 08:54 am
onemind) wrote in emptynesters2017-04-04 08:54 am
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TEST DRIVE :003
TEST DRIVE :003
WELCOME to the test drive and thank you for your interest in Station 72! To allow players to experiment with game mechanics, flexibility and to account for the fact that our TDMs tend to span a number of months to make up for our low player turnover, we've put together a game-themes random scenario generator for you to play with. Mix and match prompts at will, pick your own broodmates, experiment with abilities and specializations, talk to each other and maybe make up some pre-established CR, and generally play around however you like.
This test drive is not game canon, so take this chance to go nuts! Current in game players are also welcome to make top levels here and aren't beholden to their in-game characterizations (so if it makes more sense to be a broodmates of a character test driving, feel free to do so for the sake of these threads).
For the full experience, we strongly encourage players to write up a short blurb about what their fellow characters might know about them either through shared time on the Station or through the Nest mental link. Handy links can be found at the bottom of this entry if you have any questions and APPLICATIONS are always open if you decide you'd like to jump into the game proper. If you're having trouble coming up with a symbiote ability for your character for use in either the TDM or for your application, we have an ability workshop post located HERE.
(Mix and match these prompts at will to create your own TDM scenario - there's no obligation to use something from every category. Feel free to make up anything that isn't covered in the prompt if it lends to your playing.)
THE PLACE
1. STATION 72 consists of massive, alien sprawl. While large sections of the Station might be mistaken for a Station manufactured for use by humanoid beings - the hangar is relatively standard other than its massive size, the Life Support deck with its series of living quarters seems normal enough (if you ignore the part where none of the rooms have doors on them), and there's even a Jai Alai court -, beyond the most well trod paths the Station quickly cedes to the utterly bizarre. Corridors twist and loop back in on themselves, great verandas overlook massive empty rooms, ramps because stairs which lead to dead ends. It's easy to get lost if you don't have a destination in mind. Strangely enough, if you do know where you want to be, the Station's twisting paths will eventually get you there as long as you keep your goal firmly in mind. Knowing that is another thing entirely.
2. THE MELTED WORLD was once beautiful. Then again, maybe it's always been a toughened old rock, but at some point the planet called Ojan was glassed in the throes of a brutal war. The planet's entire surface has become a twisted, mirror-like substance by whatever super hot biological weapon was poured into it. The material isn't actually that horrible, consuming black; it perfectly reflects the empty, quiet space that surrounds Ojan: a foreboding testament to a war long forgotten. But what lies below the surface of the desolated world?
3. THE SCEPTRE is a fabulous building structure suspended from an asteroid in orbit around a planet. The Sceptre pierces down through the atmosphere of the planet below and over the course of the asteroid's orbit, The Sceptre has an opportunity to pass through every habitat and climate the world below it has to offer. The Sceptre is sleek and beautiful (or it is? Maybe it's fallen into disrepair and only ghosts remain) and its massive windows look out onto a varied, verdant world (or do they? What state is the planet below in, exactly? Has it been so thoroughly paved over that the atmosphere is the only place left to build?).
4. PENTARA PRIME is the ancient, meandering capital of the lush garden world of Pentara. Unlike most cities, it is a large, verdant sprawl, made up eighteen clustered centers - groups of low, elegant stone buildings, strung together by winding roads populated with quietly humming pods moving people from spoke to spoke. The capital is built around leisure, not production and there are far more gardens and orchards than there are buildings. The sun is heavy and low, and the air is still and buzzes with the sounds of fat-bodied insects. It’s so still, so calm. It seems empty and there is something unsettling in the quiet. --Or is it? Maybe it's bustling with energy, just as vibrant and delightful as it seems on the surface.
5. CHORIUS is not quite a planet. Not anymore. Once long ago it was, but over time it has changed - been stripped clean of every valuable mineral, every scrap of rare metal, and eventually even of atmosphere. The core has cooled perceptibly and now even its rotation period has slowed dramatically. Now it is a made up of shaped carbon and steel that bridge over the stripped surface of the planet, pulsing with energies, shielded from the harshness of the sun by a webbed dome that keeps the electric scented air from escaping into the space around it. Here nothing is wasted. Everything - everyone - is recycled and reconstituted into new forms. Every one of the cities changes daily, reformatted to meet new goals and new needs. It is a dead world filled with the living. But whether it is thriving or dying is hard to say - and what the newest change will bring with it is even more difficult to guess.
6. SPACE, THE FINAL FRONTIER. There's a lot of it in every direction.
THE PEOPLE
1. THE OUTLANDERS consist of small bands of settlers and explorers who have quested out into the unknown, the remote, and the dessicated parts of this galaxy looking for either new opportunities or forgotten mysteries. They are mostly upright though only vaguely humanoid, remnants of a civilization driven from their own failing world, each group is bound only by their own codes and personal laws. They're traders and nomads, largely peaceful but wary of the harsh, dangerous environment and beings they've crossed paths with. Don't cross a deal with an Outlander - they'll make you regret it.
2. A VERITABLE MELTING POT, the beings of this metropolis are as vibrant and diverse as is imaginable. These are a people developed by a myriad of cultural influences, technological insights, overlapping interests and clashing societal norms shaken up and spit out into something that more or less works as long as there's a whole lot of bureaucracy to keep it in order. And boy is there a lot of that. Mind your p's and q's - someone might haul you in for questioning if you cause too much of an uproar.
3. A RUINED GHOST is all that remains of this ancient civilization. Once there were people here leading brilliant or lives, or quiet ones, but all that's left are their ruined structures, old half-functional consoles and signs of lives abruptly arrested. What destroyed these people is initially unclear, but their extinction appears to have been absolute. --Or was it?
4. THE COURT is elegant and beautiful and perfect. Every being is shrouded in delicate, gauzy fabrics layered so densely as to obscure their elongated squirming bodies from head to toe. Each step sounds like a bell ringing from the the small metal plates at the bottom of their soft slippers; every gloved finger glints with small golden threads. The queens sweep through their secret insect gardens and their royal technomancers walk the halls with the glitter of hologlyphs sparkling at their fingertips and in the wake of their sweeping robes.
5. THE GREAT MILITARY is larger even than it’s name suggests. Every member of their civilization plays some part in it, every person has a rank, every family an insignia. The structure is rigid and inflexible and all-encompassing, and it has made them into ferocious enemies. They have been at war for as long as they have been a people, and their battle will never end, because if it did, they would go with it. The harshness of their life is painted on the sharp planes of their grey faces, but there is an indomitability and a pride to them that is hidden by their stern, unchanging expressions.
6. SCUM ALWAYS LIVES at the edge of the universe. Beware the dark of the space and the seedier underbelly of cities or the shadows of forgotten planet - pirates make their living there and these are desperate times, friend.
THE OBJECTIVE
1. GET UP from where you've fallen. Or get up from the nesting deck pod where you've just woken up on the Station. Or get up to Level 672 where there's a ship waiting for you. Or get up from the knee you've taken before this alien queen. Get up.
2. THE RESCUE might be saving a city from a disaster engineered by an enemy force, playing bodyguard for a government official, or liberating a rare artifact from a crumbling structure.
3. IT'S A RACE AGAINST TIME to collect the relic you've been sent to retrieve from the collapsing ruin. Or to make your way free of the military blockade. Or to make your escape from a crumbling world.
4. THE MASQUERADE is all a cover - for an assassination. For a heist. For a political coup.
5. INFILTRATE you know what you need. And you know who has it. With a little help you’ll be able to break into the place no one is supposed to go. You could sneak in… or smash in. Or maybe just talk your way past every little problem.
6. COME ON AND SLAM and welcome to the jam. It’s a ritual or maybe it’s just a pastime, but whichever it is there are rules and there is a goal. There’s probably even points. If you’re lucky, you just might score one. Avoid the spiky pits? Or maybe the thrown fruit. Or perhaps just the other team...
6. EXPLORE and uncover the secrets this place have to offer. There’s a mystery here if you know where to find it. And all you have to do is look.
7. DON'T DIE is easy to say and hard to do when you're under the guns of an armada. Or when you're trying to outwit spies. Or when the ground is literally crumbling under your feet.
INSPIRATION
November 11 || Darker Than Black || open
[ He doesn't expect the stillness. They've landed here to search for something. A relic? A temple? He's glanced at the brief and understands what he's supposed to do, but he distracted by the paved and glistening landscape. It's like an ocean of glass frozen over. Blackened by the sky and lack of atmosphere above. All that stares back is a reflection.
Carefully, he picks his way across the terrain, curiosity a dim spark in his mind. The smoothness of everything reminds him of the crater left behind in Heaven's Gate. A vast nothingness. Just an echo of what used to be there. Is this what it would transform into, years from now? ]
It's too still. I feel like something's just waiting to happen.
[ Do you feel it too? ]
ii. pentara prime
[ Now this, this is what he excels at. Parties, people, the disgusting opulence and wealth hanging in the trappings all around. The rich are not just rich, they're exorbitant. Gowns spun from silk and dripping with expensive jewels, suits lined in cloth gold, silver, platinums. He's watching the flurry of colors with a mild amusement, sipping on a green bubbly liquid that tastes like champagne (but hits you like 100 proof vodka).
Easily, he keeps track of their target– Soren Valaäd, Minister of Economics - it's hard to miss him after all. Soren is dressed to the nines, a mix of peacock colors spanning his longcoat in an intricate pattern. His heavy hands are laden with rings, glinting with every gesture he makes in conversation. November idly wonders how easy it might be to pickpocket him; a juvenile idea for a member of MI6, really, but something about Soren makes him want to. It doesn't matter though, soon they'll be rushing the minister out of the fray. There's a coup they're gently helping to incite and fortunately, Soren will need to be retained on in the aftermath.
There's also the matter of them obtaining information from a vault upstairs. He can't be too distracting to Mr. Valaäd. ]
(( Minister's in sight, 22:00 from the entrance. How goes the extraction? ))
[ It was weird at first, but he's really grown to love this whole mental communication system. So much easier. ]
iii. wildcard
[ Want to catch November on the station? Or maybe in another scenario? Go for it! ]
I
That's a bit paranoid, isn't it?
[ The wry, challenging smile she wears speaks the opposite to her words. Yes, of course, something's about to happen. ]
What do you think they're waiting for?
no subject
So for now they wait. ]
Paranoia is good for you, it keeps the coffin with your name on it empty. [ He smiles thinly, morbid joke slanting between them and breaking up tension. ]
Likely the same as us. Information, details. Better to watch and wait than to strike and cause folly.
no subject
[ A difference in worldview, clearly, a difference as vast as worlds. Well, at least both their sense of humor are morbid. It's one common point of understanding. She raises the binocular in her hand to her eyes, brows furrowing in concentration. There's nothing to see. Her groan is exaggerated, a step away from utterly childish. ]
I hate this. All this waiting. Let's just do something.
no subject
Fancy a dance? I'm told I waltz "admirably". [ The landscape under their feet is smooth and flat enough so as not to trip them up. He extends a hand to her, if she's willing to take him up on it. ]
no subject
Are you kidding me?
[ Her words lack heat, tellingly. She is giving him the benefit of the doubt, that maybe he has a plan up his sleeves. ]
It takes two to dance, both must waltz equally "admirably" right?
no subject
Me? Never. [ All the time. ]
I'll have you know I received the compliment from the Prime Minister's daughter, aged 6. She was standing on my toes at the time.
no subject
[ Be nice, it's the best insult she can come up with. It seems she's perfectly aware of its insufficiency, too, drawing in an exasperated breath as she crosses her arms with the petulance befitting that six-year-old girl he speaks of. ]
The Prime Minister or his daughter won't be able to save you if they-- [ She tips her chin toward the unnamed they, the enemy, the ones lurking in the dark. ] --decide to blow your legs off while you twirl me.
no subject
No, but that's why I have you here. Clearly I'm the damsel in this situation. [ Uh??? ]
Though between the two of us, they'd have to get close enough first.
no subject
Honestly!
[ What one says when there's little else to say, because he's hit the mark with his words, such a cleverly disguised challenge that she falls for. Hook, line, sinker. It's with furious insistence that she moves to grab him by the wrist so that she can drag him out, out toward the flat where he better not complain when she steps on his foot. ]
Come on.
no subject
At her sudden outburst, he smiles a little wider, some of it crinkling at the corners of his eyes. Well now, this should be fun. November willingly goes when Misato tugs on his wrist, silently calculating his next move. They must look a silly pair, but who cares at this point. ]
Good sir, please, be gentle. Here, like this. [ Keeping up with appearances, he gently sorts their hands into the correct positions. Except Misato is to lead. Because it amuses him. ]
Whenever you're ready. [ He winks. Actually winks. }