TEST DRIVE :003

[onemind]

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

NAVIGATION • PREMISE • FAQ • RULES • GLOSSARY • APPLICATIONS • SYMBIOTIC SKILLS • ABILITY POINTS

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[limped]

[ Thomas startles him awake, and for once he's really glad that he's learned to be as quiet as possible in fear than to scream. His body jolts up as if Thomas's own touch has shocked him, and he narrowly misses headbutting his friend. His brain is still screaming FEAR FEAR PANIC RUN, probably not doing anything for the rest of the Nest. Newt's half asleep brain assumes Thomas is a Crank for mere seconds. Electricity tears through the room again, this time far closer to Thomas, but doesn't strike him. It doesn't help Newt any at all, if anything it terrifies him more. He assumes he was slow to wake up from a dream, his brain still saying there's electricity storms when there isn't. A rough hand grasps at one of Thomas's wrists, hard enough to hurt, probably even bruise later. It's in an attempt to ground himself.

The air is too dry, the electricity prevalent in it. Is he still sleeping? No he's certainly awake, at least he hopes he is. No more strikes happen, and the room is silent, aside from their breathing, a sound he's grown used to after running, and running, and running.

His heart hurts, and he imagines it's from the sudden burst of adrenaline that his dream and that Thomas stirred up. He's glad Thomas is there, and it shows in the way he lets out a breath and all but falls back down into his bed. ] Yeah, buggin' fantastic. [ It's sarcasm, but it's not sharp, however his voice is a lot more rough than usual. His fear ebbs out into frustration, with himself, with the situation they're in, but surprisingly not with Thomas, even if he did try to drive the older boy insane with the incessant thoughts that filtered through to Newt like he was in front row.

He doesn't bother to even apologise for 'waking' Thomas, it's clear from how clear his eyes are that he's been awake. ] Thanks, Tommy. [ A quirk of his lips that doesn't quite meet his tired and scared eyes accompanies the words, but he means them. The dreams of the Scorch were the worst -- Newt was a little more aloof in the ones of the Maze, even the ones where his leg was freshly busted and the hopelessness could nearly choke him.

His hand releases Thomas's wrist after his heart begins to slow. He's always been used to being the only one that could know what he was thinking, now that other people can -- that Thomas can, well, it's a bit unnerving. ]

[shuckit]

[ Once the second bolt nearly turns Thomas into a big slab of bacon, the hand against Newt's chest activates his ability, gradually urging his body to produce more serotonin, pumping the calming chemical through him in a high dose to combat the adrenaline and bring Newt down from his panic. At least to the point Thomas isn't about to die by hanging out in the room with him, would be nice. He won't use the ability on him for anything any less than life or death. It's clear through the mental link that he's doing it as well, so it isn't as if it's a surprise, and the moment Newt flops back to the mattress and stops trying to break his wrist, Thomas eases off it.

Letting out a slow sigh, his hand squeezes at Newt's shoulder, relaxing, but he doesn't move from where he's sitting on the edge of the bed. ]

Yeah. No problem. [ He huffs a wry laugh, dry as he typically tends to be. ] Thanks for not frying me.

[ Truly, it's nothing he feels like he should have gratitude for - Newt's his best friend, of course he'd run towards him rather than away if something crazy was going down. He has, despite being told not to. Because he's stubborn like that, but that line of thought he steers from quickly - their memories are different, and Newt doesn't need all that's in Thomas's head inside his too. Not that, anyway. ] I still have nightmares about it too, you know. The Scorch. The storms. The shuck Underground. Don't think those'll ever go away.

[limped]

[ Instead of alcohol, all Newt has to do is take shots of Thomas, apparently. It's probably a lot more amusing to him at the moment with said shot of serotonin. And while something like this would normally freak Newt out more, he trusts Thomas. He trusts Thomas to the ends of the Earth and any other planet. He thinks about it a lot, actually, has been trying to less now that Thomas just had to pay attention.

When the other boy stays where he is, Newt squirms a bit, giving him a little more space, having no issue with their closeness, instead finding a kind sense of comfort in it. When they were in the Scorch, they'd all slept in piles on each other practically. ] 'Course. I'd never fry ya on purpose, shank. [ The corner of his lips quirk up in a small smile, one that disappears rather quickly because Thomas is distracting.

He lets out a chuff of air, seeming to still be trying to figure out his own emotions. Thomas is trying to be comforting, but he's not very good at it, because he's just dredging up bad memories for both of them but the Brit watches Thomas regardless, appreciating the attempt. He's really, really glad Thomas is here too, even if their memories don't always match up. ] Yeah? Well, I don't think that sorta stuff is ever gonna go away. I'll probably be havin' nightmares for the rest of my life. [ Newt pauses and moves a hand so that he can run it through blond hair, elbow pointing towards the ceiling when he speaks again. ] Is that why you weren't sleepin'? Or are you afraid someone's gonna sneak in here and try to kill us? [ Really, Newt had had the latter fear at first, too paranoid to sleep, afraid of the possibility of another WCKD situation. If it is, he knows Thomas and him will figure out how to survive it. They always do. ] Beds are pretty comfy.

[ He can't help the worry that simmers below all the other emotions his mind is sorting out. Thomas should be sleeping, or at least trying to. And he certainly shouldn't be trying not to die from lightning strike in his own room. ]

[shuckit]

[ no, thomas is crap at being comforting and everyone who's ever met him knows that, but he tries, at least. the best he does is try to simply be there, for whatever's needed. unfortunately, sometimes he talks, and then disasters tend to follow, it's just a rule of nature. for whatever reason, his friends haven't seemed to kick him to the curb yet, so maybe being himself is all he can do. ]

Not even a little? Don't lie. [ he snorts, joking, while newt makes room for him. the conversation's far from pleasant, but thomas hasn't ever been the type to search out nicer topics when something else is more obvious. he is tired, the more he's sitting on the soft, real bed under him, considering it. ]

Pretty sure you'd electrocute anyone who sneaks in here to kill us. [ but it'd be a lie to say he wasn't braced for the very real possibility of it. they removed the tracer from their minds, but considering all the resources WICKED has, they could fool them with anything. the idea of it wears on his mind, and thomas sighs, trying to chase it out. this has been what's made sleep impossible so far. ] Just can't stop thinking.

[ shifting around, he moves to lay down shoulder to shoulder with newt instead, staring up at the ceiling. the closeness is far from new - they slept huddled up in the deserts of the Scorch, in the homestead in the glade when they'd shudder together in the night, after the doors stopped closing, waiting for the inevitable horror. Yeah, that thought's not going to help him sleep either. But back to the present - the skew between what the both of them remember. Completely separate events, people and places and names the same, newt still newt, but an escape from WICKED into the Scorch? a woman telling them he'd started the rebellion before being put into the maze at all? more puzzles, more impossible things for his mind to chew and chew and chew on. ] This whole place. Nothing makes sense.

[limped]

[ Newt lets out a small chuckle, it's honestly been a while since he's felt like he could laugh about things. He yawns, open mouthed and uncaring before letting his arm drop to his side. Thomas's humour is oddly infectious. ] Maybe a little bit. You can be a buggin' shuckface sometimes. [ No he wouldn't, he's joking too. No matter how mad Thomas made him, he'd never attack him. He'd never try to harm him. Hell, he hadn't even been able to let him go without food in the Glade. Thomas is his best friend. ]

Before or after I accidentally shock us? [ It'd be a boldfaced lie to even suggest he can really control what he's doing yet. It makes him feel a little more useful though. ] Surely, I'd at least be able to save myself first, they'd definitely go for you first. People like me. [ And he's joking again, it feels nice to be able to. But the answer to why Thomas is awake draws a sigh from Newt. ] What are ya thinking about? [ It's a question that he hopes doesn't lead to the other boy sending them on an hour long rant or something, but Thomas would listen to him if their roles were reversed.

Ah, of course he can't turn his brain off to try to sleep.

When Thomas lays down, taking up the space Newt had given him, the blond simply stares up at the ceiling too. ] None of the places we've been have really made sense. Trapped in a maze as lab rats, a desert with crazy cannibal monsters, now here? Ya don't have to figure the mysteries of the universe out immediately, y'know. [ They've apparently locked themselves down terrible topic road, because Newt's certain if he went to sleep now, he'd just end up having nightmares about the Cranks. Nearly getting his face bitten off had been traumatizing enough.

So the older boy tries a different approach. ] For the longest time, I didn't think I'd see anything beyond those walls. Now look where we are. None of it made sense to any of us at first, not even you.