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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
joshua bright | legend of heroes: trails in the sky
[ From the moment they touch down on the melted world, something about it doesn't sit well with Joshua. The landing itself was completely uneventful, the mission is (supposed to be, at least) a fairly low-risk one, and the idea of walking across an endless mirror, while odd, has its advantages, if he considers it. It's never been so easy to catch a subtle movement or a change in the atmosphere. Something as inconsequential as a minor shift in the light is that much easier to catch, when it plays across the ground beneath his feet.
(And as Loewe told him so many times, nothing is inconsequential, and to dismiss anything as such is to invite it to throw a wrench into your plans.)
It's the silence, he finally decides. The same kind of silence that engulfed Hamel, when he last returned - a silence that shouldn't be, but is, a silence that's only that much worse if one considers how many things they ought to be able to hear instead.
He's trying not to think about that too hard.
The mission is the kind that's so simple it loops around to become tricky again. Investigate. Find anything here that's worth knowing about, anything that deviates from the norm. And while there's nothing glaringly obvious to point to, that hardly means there's nothing to be found.
Nothing is inconsequential. The way the light falls, the echo of their footsteps, the breeze that -
- the breeze. ]
Do you feel that?
ii. pentara prime: let's rob a bank!
[ Complacency breeds carelessness, and it's on full display on Pentara Prime. Joshua can notice it as he makes his way through the city, pod to pod and road to road. There's little of the guarded, paranoid buzz he's found in so many cities before, nobody with the closed-off, quick stride that says they're watching over their shoulder lest they be mugged (or worse). The city breathes in a lazy kind of pace that puts him more in mind of Rolent - the pace of a people that are comfortable with what they have and have faith that none of it is going anywhere.
There's a pang of regret, somewhere in the back of his mind, that they're going to shatter it, but he forces that aside. The best thing he can do is to make sure it's as quick, clean, and and precise as possible. None of the natives need to be hurt, as long as the situation stays in hand.
The bank is at the edge of a small cluster of buildings, none more than two stories in height, flanked by gardens with more kinds of flowers than he ever knew existed...and nearly no trees. It's not a conducive place to sneaking around, even as careless as the citizens are.
Unfortunate, since sneaking around is what he's best at. ]
( I don't know what it looks like on your end, but I'm feeling kind of exposed out here. )
iii. wildcard!
( Seriously, do whatever, I'll roll with it. )
no subject
They've been walking in silence. She doesn't see a need to make conversation. And then- ]
Feel what...?
[ She glances at him, good eye sparking. ]
no subject
(Which is a very wide category that can encompass a whole lot of things, so the more attention he can give it, the better.) ]
The wind.
[ He's not a scientist, but he has some of the basics - the ones most useful to him, anyway. When the surface is all flat, and all the same thing, stretching out in every direction as far as the eye can see... ]
It's differences that usually cause that, right? Different temperatures, different surfaces.
no subject
[ Asuka's eyebrows shoot straight up and she cocks her head to try and listen. It's a bit eerie, sure, but this whole planet is kind of creepy. She frowns, brow furrowed and then she hakes her head. ]
High pressure to low pressure. But what causes air pressure changes like that...
[ She shrugs. ]
It could be anything. Does it matter?
no subject
[ He'll gladly take any sign that they'll actually find something on this wild goose chase. This quiet, eerily restrained wild goose chase. ]
no subject
Yeah, well, blame them for sending us to this weird place.
[ She kicks a rock and watches it skitter over the ground, the sound fading into the still air. ]
I don't even know what they want us to do besides poke under rocks.
no subject
[ He doesn't even have anything against long hikes - it took a full loop around the kingdom to qualify for senior bracer, after all, and in the end, Cassius had been right - taking the long way instead of hopping an airship had given them a much better idea of the places they were going to be operating out of, the people they'd be working with, what to expect...
There's nothing of the sort to be gained here. Just miles of space glass and enough silence to drive a man crazy.
He stops, touching his chin thoughtfully. Okay. So scanning the surface from orbit was - for whatever reason - not considered an option. But circling the planet the long way is crazy. How else can they approach this? ]
no subject
[ Asuka snorts. She does not have a high opinion of their erstwhile leaders, apparently. Then again, blindly following authority hasn't gotten her very far in life. She did it once and it did not end well. But she's young. She bounces back.
Sort of. ]
If they wanted to be efficient, why would they stick alien bugs in our heads and then make us fight?
[ Not that she's complaining. Too much. Better than being back home, honestly. ]
But they could at least give us a plane or something. Man...
[ She's complaining. Just a little. ]
My legs are probably gonna fall off at this rate.
no subject
[ There's a prickling of something very uncomfortable on his end of the mental link - subdued enough that he's almost certainly clamping down on it, but Things In Your Head is a very touchy subject, apparently. ]
But if they wanted that kind of efficiency, the real question is why they don't go farther.
[ There's an awful lot of independent thought going on in the nest, after all, even with the level of mindmelding that's already going on.
And after dropping that charming thought, moooving right along! ]
At this rate, I'd even be content with one good tree to get the view from.
no subject
[ Hmmph. She shields her eyes with a hand and peers toward the horizon. ]
I think there's a hill or a rise over there. Think that'd work?
no subject
It'll have to. I doubt we're going to find anything better.
no subject
[ She grumbles and then settles her hands on her hips for a long moment. After that brief moment of pause she sets off, arms swinging as she marches toward the rise. ]
Well? Hurry up!
no subject
[ But he's following! Like a good boy who's used to hanging out with bossy girls. ]
no subject
[ Asuka rolls her eyes, but still leads them off, slowing down a little as the landscape starts to slope upwards. The glassy, smooth surface doesn't have the greatest traction and she pauses, gingerly snagging an outcropping and trying not to cut her hand open. ]
Maybe they should've given us rock-climbing equipment, too...
no subject
Hang on, maybe I have something...
[ Rock-climbing isn't quite what he usually prepares for, but he does tend to stay equipped for his specialties, even on missions where they're not told to expect to need him to be. So when he rummages through his stuff, underneath a few smoke bombs and sedatives, there's a grappling hook.
Only one, though. ]
no subject
Hey! You're not totally useless after all!
[ She holds out her hand authoritatively. ]
Let me see it!
no subject
[ So very deadpan.
He does pass it over, though. ]
You break it, you bought it.
no subject
[ Asuka snaps a reply and then takes the grappling hook and line. She eyes it for a moment and then gives it an experimental twirl and casts it off. It lands somewhere overhead with a clatter and she gives it a haul to test the strength. Apparently it hasn't caught on anything, because it comes tumbling down the steep slope with a clatter. ]
Watch it-!
no subject
He's not polite enough to immediately deny the possibility, and instead he just gracefully sidesteps when the hook comes clattering back down.
You can almost hear the sad trombone riff. ]
no subject
She's going to get it right this time. Just you watch.
The hook goes sailing upward again and thankfull it catches on something. Something that might actually hold her weight, apparently. ]