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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
no subject
On his arm, Shiro's hand steadies and Keith works to follow suit. Adrenaline still pumps through his veins, his death mere minutes ago, still too heavy on his mind to ignore. No one here is dead, except him. Maybe this is some weird alternate dimension.
He doesn't know and he's pulled too tight, stretched too thin emotionally.
In truth, though, he's been a noone for a long, long time. Being with the paladins was the best year of his life, despite the struggle last few months of struggle. For all that he purports himself as a loner, as someone who works best alone, he sure did like his new family.
Which was why he had to do what he did, why Voltron had to leave, why he had to stay, why he had to give the rebels a chance. Every Blade knew what their life meant when they joined up. Keith knew.
He swallows, looking up at Shiro. That tickle at the back of his mind grows into more of a prick, a heavy dread that he can't shake and can't source.
If he cares about the other paladins, he won't burden them with this. If he wants to be a leader, he won't bring down others around him.]
Sorry. I'm just... [confused? wired? on edge?] tired.
I THOUGHT I REPLIED TO THIS ALREADY DHFKS
[His grip tightens a fraction. In what he means to be reassurance.]
It's okay.
[And he means it. From the core of him, he means it. If it isn't okay now, he will make it so. By whatever means necessary. He'll let down the walls. Just enough for that to come through. Just enough to hope it passes between them. It will be okay.]
You don't have to apologize. It's a lot to process. And trying to figure out the timeline thing can wait. [Until you're ready, goes unsaid.]
[Because this is his friend. This is part of their team. Trusting him goes without saying. Whatever this is, he'll hear it when Keith is ready to say it.]
[He tries for a smile, then, something flickering and fragile and relieved. All the confusion and weirdness aside, internal selfishness aside, it's good to see him. Good to see someone from home again. If Keith doesn't protest, tense or pull away, he's... just going to hug him. Here in the hallway.]
We've really missed you.
no prob homeslice!
Still, Keith swallows as much of his ego down as possible. It’s okay he’s dead. It’s okay Shiro doesn’t know. Be a leader.
He doesn’t think he can do this, any of it: keeping secrets, remaining calm. Shiro offers a smile, but it’s not quite reassuring. Neither is his teammate’s words.
When he left the paladins, he’d felt loved, despite he ridt, but every occasion they spoke after was all business, if they spoke at all. Maybe they held his failure against him, or his apparent abandonment of the team. Shiro pulls him into a hug; however, Keith can’t bring himself to believe the sentiment behind the gesture. To open himself up would be too painful, too much for him right now.
Luckily, he’s covered in slime and can use that as an excuse.] Think I should wash up first.
[Most of his words are lost to Shiro’s shoulder, but he figures his lack of hug in return should also translate his message.]
this hurts
[Or shake off the feeling of dread.]
... I can show you where. If you want.
[He steps back, at that. Letting his hands drop to his sides. As if he's stepped over some kind of line he didn't realize existed now.]
Keith.
[Before he knows what he even wants to say, it comes out. Maybe there's something Pidge didn't tell him. Or something she didn't know about. Something that happened between when he last saw everyone and the wormholes she talked about. Something to put what feels like a rift between them.]
[It feels wrong.]
[They should be glad to see each other again. They should be talking. Catching up. Not standing here with the feeling of a sword over their heads.]
You know if... there's something you need to talk about... You know I'll listen.
sorry for the delay ;;
He doesn't look up, instead turning to gaze into some middle ground. His body is starting to slow down, devour his energy in huge gulps, leaving him with little in the way of defenses or emotional energy.]
Not this. [Keith blurts out before he can stop himself. His exhaustion weighs down every bone in his body, fills his head with fog as adrenaline leaks from his system. He hates that he's already breaking, that he can't seem to keep a lid one thing. His death was necessary. In the grand scheme of the universe, he was never more than a fleck of dust.]