The Powers That Be (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
powersthatbe) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
synodiporia_ooc2015-08-28 06:41 pm
powersthatbe) wrote in synodiporia_ooc2015-08-28 06:41 pm
Entry tags:
Test Drive #11.
Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cuts there are two new prompts, and here are the prompts from previous test-drives, which you’re still welcome to use in this post. When you comment, be sure you specify what prompt you want to play with, and please put up your own threadstarter - it makes for a much more friendly environment that a forest of bare toplevels! OCs are especially welcome! Please take a quick look at our Directory & familiarize yourself with the concept and setting of the game before you jump in.
Our upcoming app round runs September 1st-7th. Our next Jaunt, The Lightning Age, a postcolonial steampunk romp with a hunt for a fugitive disordering a peaceful flying city, will run September 12th-October 19th, and an alternate player-driven setting, or Walkabout, will be available (but the specific setting has yet to be voted upon).
Prompt #33 is set in the sometimes Mad-Max like post-apocalyptic academia of the Ivory Tower jaunt, where an isolated school works to restore civilization decades after a brutal war destroyed it. But off-campus, things can get a little rougher…
Prompt #34 is set in the world of Heartbreak Academy, a shoujo high school world where Social Technology, or S. Tech, allows the physical conjuration of emotions - sparkles, roses, soundtracks, emotes and rainclouds. Heartbreak Academy teaches elite students how to better master their S. Tech - and as you could imagine, this makes practical exams… very interesting...
Prompt #33: Pop Quiz.
There are chlorine bombs in the library, and snipers outside.
To be more specific, the library is an open-air market set up in a suburban French high-rise parking garage, one of the few buildings on this side of the city to survive intact, and a good place for gatherings that might need a quick getaway. Academics from across Europe use it as a trading post - bringing old books, or bringing computer printouts collected in three-ring binders, driving up in dune buggies or armored trucks, landing on the ceiling in helicopters, conducting a rapid swap of the valuables, and leaving.
But this time, the warlords knew they were coming. On each floor, among the parked cars, there’s a truck or van with deflated tires and an empty gas tank, in which an oil-drum and a detonator have been mounted. It’s overkill, but worse is the fact that in half-demolished buildings to either side are snipers. To the west, they only have crossbows, but the raider on the northeast has some sort of pre-War antimateriel rifle, and he’s already scragged a buggy in the exit ramp and shot a chopper pilot on the roof.
So now, it’s up to the academics. Those who study environmental sciences are trying to find ways to neutralize the chemicals. Engineers are working to disarm the detonators or fix the vehicles enough to safely transport the bombs. The history and humanities students are given the job of finding some way to stop the snipers, and stop raiders from getting in to steal any of their texts or other resources.
And some, of course, are caught in the fine traditions of academic debate, and may need Travelers to steer them to more decisive action… but of course, there might be Travelers among the raiders, too.
Prompt #34 Partner Exercise
The exam is simple. Each of you’s been given a spare, teacher-monitored Moe-Meter and left alone in the exam hall. Using S. Tech - not just fancy manifestations, but your words and actions, your persuasive skill and acting ability, all the skills that make you effective with S. Tech - you and your partner for this exam have to bury the needle. The problem is, you have to do it in both directions - positive emotion, maxing things out with cuteness, fondness, or warm feelings - and negative emotion, hitting empty on the meter through sadness, anger, or fear. Any sort of against-the-rules physical contact is an automatic F (if your partner reports it), but apart from that, it’s up to your imagination. You have fifteen minutes - that’s like Seven Minutes In Heaven and Seven in Hell, with one minute of cooldown in between.
Our upcoming app round runs September 1st-7th. Our next Jaunt, The Lightning Age, a postcolonial steampunk romp with a hunt for a fugitive disordering a peaceful flying city, will run September 12th-October 19th, and an alternate player-driven setting, or Walkabout, will be available (but the specific setting has yet to be voted upon).
Prompt #33 is set in the sometimes Mad-Max like post-apocalyptic academia of the Ivory Tower jaunt, where an isolated school works to restore civilization decades after a brutal war destroyed it. But off-campus, things can get a little rougher…
Prompt #34 is set in the world of Heartbreak Academy, a shoujo high school world where Social Technology, or S. Tech, allows the physical conjuration of emotions - sparkles, roses, soundtracks, emotes and rainclouds. Heartbreak Academy teaches elite students how to better master their S. Tech - and as you could imagine, this makes practical exams… very interesting...
Prompt #33: Pop Quiz.
There are chlorine bombs in the library, and snipers outside.
To be more specific, the library is an open-air market set up in a suburban French high-rise parking garage, one of the few buildings on this side of the city to survive intact, and a good place for gatherings that might need a quick getaway. Academics from across Europe use it as a trading post - bringing old books, or bringing computer printouts collected in three-ring binders, driving up in dune buggies or armored trucks, landing on the ceiling in helicopters, conducting a rapid swap of the valuables, and leaving.
But this time, the warlords knew they were coming. On each floor, among the parked cars, there’s a truck or van with deflated tires and an empty gas tank, in which an oil-drum and a detonator have been mounted. It’s overkill, but worse is the fact that in half-demolished buildings to either side are snipers. To the west, they only have crossbows, but the raider on the northeast has some sort of pre-War antimateriel rifle, and he’s already scragged a buggy in the exit ramp and shot a chopper pilot on the roof.
So now, it’s up to the academics. Those who study environmental sciences are trying to find ways to neutralize the chemicals. Engineers are working to disarm the detonators or fix the vehicles enough to safely transport the bombs. The history and humanities students are given the job of finding some way to stop the snipers, and stop raiders from getting in to steal any of their texts or other resources.
And some, of course, are caught in the fine traditions of academic debate, and may need Travelers to steer them to more decisive action… but of course, there might be Travelers among the raiders, too.
Prompt #34 Partner Exercise
The exam is simple. Each of you’s been given a spare, teacher-monitored Moe-Meter and left alone in the exam hall. Using S. Tech - not just fancy manifestations, but your words and actions, your persuasive skill and acting ability, all the skills that make you effective with S. Tech - you and your partner for this exam have to bury the needle. The problem is, you have to do it in both directions - positive emotion, maxing things out with cuteness, fondness, or warm feelings - and negative emotion, hitting empty on the meter through sadness, anger, or fear. Any sort of against-the-rules physical contact is an automatic F (if your partner reports it), but apart from that, it’s up to your imagination. You have fifteen minutes - that’s like Seven Minutes In Heaven and Seven in Hell, with one minute of cooldown in between.
Teresa of the Faint Smile | Claymore
Teresa would not even have attended the tournament, had her liege not commanded her to compete. The whole affair seemed rather meaningless to her, who much preferred to ride the skies than to engage in such political grandstanding, but such were the bonds of service. And, if she were to be honest, she wished to see her old compatriots again, to weigh their skills, rejoice in their wins and commiserate over their losses. Political shenanigans aside, Sir Teresa, Lady of the Faint Smile, welcomed to chance to reconnect with her old comrades. Perhaps once the Queen was found...
But that was a meaningless thought. The Queen was gone. This was the order -- such as it was -- that remained.
a. Soon Teresa's turn on the field of battle will come. The staging area, where various knights prepared for their events, was a hive of chaos and noise. Her young squire, a small girl with long dark hair, was run ragged helping Teresa prepare. Teresa herself seemed unperturbed by the bustle, her keen silver eyes fixed on the other knights and squires around her, searching out familiar faces. And she, with her tall build, platinum hair, and waiting broadsword, is a familiar sight herself to those Knights who remembered the Queen.
b. Even as one of the tournament's prime fighters, there's only so much fighting she can require. In the old days, Teresa would have vanished as soon as the tournament was complete, relieved to be free of all the pomp and circumstance. However, in these new days, she has a squire to consider, and so the market is treated to a rare sight: Teresa, plunging into the heaving mass of spectators and visitors, rather than striding off into the wilderness with her gryphon. Her squire can barely contain her excitement.
Prompt #27: Living in a Digital World (Investigator)
Teresa, her form limned in white, arrives pre-confined. Her first thought is to get free -- waking in confinement during a Jaunt is never a good sign -- and without thinking she draws her sword and tries to break down the glowing bar. All to no avail, though the noise of her blows echoes through all the surrounding cells.
The noise stops as abruptly as it began, as Teresa realizes that the sword in her hand is not the sword she once knew. Instead of the familiar five-foot metal blade, the sword she holds is a sleek construction of white light. (A Function, though she doesn't know that yet.).
Distracted, Teresa pokes the blade with her free hand, frowning. She's seem quite a bit as a veteran Traveler, but even this is a new one. "Where did this come from?" she mutters, testing the blade of light over and over.
Prompt #15: Mirror, Mirror (Liminal Space)
Teresa had wandered into the funhouse mirror hall out of boredom more than anything. The distortions the mirrors throw back at her are like nothing she's ever seen, and she examines each one with obvious amusement. This one tall and wobby, that one scrunched close to the floor. But then one mirror shows a reflection that draws her to a dead stop, brow creasing in confusion.
Instead of some distortion of herself as she is, this mirror reflects a young girl in worn, patched clothes. The girl's features are recognizable as Teresa's, but the reflection differs extraordinarily. Instead of silvery eyes and platinum hair, the girl's long hair is dark brown, so dark it seems nearly black, gleaming despite the girl's shabby appearance. Her eyes are warm and hazel.
"I haven't seen you in a while," she murmurs, drifting closer to the mirror without thinking.
Prompt #15
She reaches out with her senses in search of yoma energy, mainly out of force of habit; she's long since stopped believing anyone from home will show up here. It therefore comes as a tremendous shock when she actually senses something. She'd almost forgotten what that felt like.
no subject
no subject
She finds herself slowly moving towards it, pulled almost involuntarily back into the hall of mirrors she'd just been trying to leave. Can it really be her? Surely she wouldn't be here... would she?
Except that she is.
Long blonde hair and a faint smile... the unknown warrior who'd saved her, who'd freed her from the hell of her false existence... Cassandra stands transfixed, distantly aware that she should say something to the other warrior, but she has no idea where to even begin.
no subject
The sight of Cassandra in her familiar white suit is only marginally reassuring. She's no one that Teresa recognizes, and after Awakening, Rosemary had disguised herself as a warrior, after all. Still, she hopes that is another warrior. After so many Jaunts alone...
"...How long have you been standing there?"
no subject
"Don't forget the pride of being the absolute figure of that age!"
—although at the moment, she feels like something more akin to a naughty child. "...Not long."
Prompt 31 a
Many of their compatriots have, after all, off on quests of their own, assigned elsewhere by the barons and lesser lords they'd pledged their swords to following the Queen's disappearance, or simply too bitter and worn down to stir themselves after five years with no crown to serve, no purpose but what they made.
no subject
Though she leaves off his title, she's genuinely glad to see him once more. It's just that with no Queen's honor to uphold, Teresa's even less inclined than in the old days to bother with courtly manners and etiquette.
no subject
The press of people hinders his progress a little, but it still does not take long for him to navigate around the knots of people between them. He has no real fear that his squire won't be able to find him again once he's moved; even in such a crowd, he's difficult to miss.
"Do you fight under your own banner?" he asks once he's come abreast of Teresa. "Or for the honour of one of the noble houses?"
no subject
"I represent a noble house today," Teresa replies. "I suspect my lady wanted an excuse to spy on her competition... Well, it's a chance to stretch myself against some good opponents, so I won't complain."