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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
kate fuller | from dusk till dawn
INFILTRATE / CHORIUS
[ Distract, break in, grab and go. It shouldn't be that hard. How many times had she followed the exact same formula? And how many plans did she have to improvise when a lock was jammed or extra security showed up? Well, that was Mexico and this is alien. Literally.
This place — Chorius they called it — to the eye is a garbage heap but inside is where the real treasure can be found. Hidden beneath all of its shapes and steel is a piece of important technology. A key to unlock the secrets this planet holds. What it will actually do once they retrieve it, she isn't sure, but that's how most of these things go. Though she was reassured no damage would be done, she still had her concerns.
More concerning is that the city before her now is laid out completely different than what they'd been briefed on. They did more than change a building or two; the city completely restructured itself. She peers through a smeared recycled window, out into the patchwork landscape. This was not going to be as easy peasy as she thought. ]
This was not part of the plan...
GET UP / A RUINED GHOST
[ There’s nothing to explore here, nothing but rumble and ruins. Like walking through a graveyard, impossibly quiet and still. Whatever (whoever) had been here was wiped out completely and abruptly. But there had to be more to the story, otherwise they wouldn’t be here, if not for a good reason.
Maybe to find life was the reason. For Kate, the feeling it stirred in her, knowing life was ripped away so suddenly, was a haunting one. Like a memory she was forced to confront, manifesting physically. She found herself hoping, needing, to save anyone who might have survived or been left behind.
As she steps out one of the crumbling buildings, a blurred figure passes by. Maybe it was an actual person, or maybe it was only a figment.
Either way, in her haze, and suddenly startled, she jumps back and stumbles over a piece of fallen debris. She falls to the ground hard on her tailbone and then back, dirt and dust rising up around her. Groaning, she rolls over to her hands and knees, face to face with the remnants of destruction and death beneath her. Flashes of red, blood, mocking laughter enter her mind — frozen by a demon she still can’t escape. ]
( Get up. It wasn’t you. )
[ The words are repeated, not realizing who she might be projecting onto nearby. ]
WILDCARD
[ Have a starter idea for Kate? Hit me with any scenario! ]
no subject
[ Here is a general thing, loosely accusatory. It's not the planet; it's the collection of people and the missions in general. They're always scrambling. And they set out to scramble, as far as Seth can tell. It's a shitty outfit. They hadn't really needed a whole planet to get in on the act, but the show has to go on.
Kate isn't the only one thinking of Mexico. Seth's irritation is set against a backdrop of indistinct heat and dust-clogged roads. ]
Still, we get in, grab the shit, and then we get out. Easy.
[ Seth's promised easy before. It's as unlikely now as it has been every other time. ]
no subject
[ Stick to the plan, Stan. That was the Gecko way. But it's quickly becoming clear that their way isn't always going to work, not when the game and all of its rules have changed — in a big anything-can-happen kind of way.
Kate steps back from the window, her arms hanging loosely against her sides as she faced Seth. ]
What part of this is easy? And how are we supposed to do that when we're not even sure about the exits?
[ She waves one of her hands, making a vague gesture toward the city waiting outside. The clock is ticking, but she wants to make sure there isn't something he knows that she doesn't. While she trusted him as her partner, they couldn't afford to be in disagreement. ]
no subject
Because I guarantee you that one of the idiots we dropped down here with is going to be a decoy.
[ Not on purpose, and yet. ]
We'll have enough time to find the exit.
[ Kate's right, it's not a good plan. It's definitely not going to be easy. But they can't discount the pack of amateurs they've been sent down here with. ]
no subject
It doesn't help that this place is outside their usual skillset. Thieves they might be, but their jobs had never gone so Indiana Jones - if that was even what they were here for. They don't know, and it grates, but he's been on enough of these missions now to accept mindless roaming around until the answer presents itself. But the place is eerie, empty in a way that even Richard finds unsettling, yet can see the beauty in. A world interrupted.
But he can recognise those words in Kate's mind, too. He's never had to reassure himself with them so explicitly, but they've applied. It draws him closer even if her fall hadn't, coming to a stop just in front of her. Silently offering his hand to help her up, not bothering to try and articulate the sense of understanding even as it rings from his mind.]
no subject
Kate doesn't realize anyone is standing there until a hand comes into view, and all of the surrounding sounds come back in a rushing wave at full volume and her eyes snap up to his. Relief floods her when she sees it's Richie, and she starts to relax. Taking a deep, sharp breath, she eventually takes his hand to pull herself to her feet. ]
Thanks. I tripped... [ It's a lame excuse, though true, and she isn't expecting Richie to take it at face value. ]
[ When she drops his hand, she starts to brush off the back of her pants. Her attention is still somewhat distracted, taking stock of what's around them. Or what rather isn't. ]
You haven't seen anyone else around, have you?