Test Drive #16

[powersthatbe]

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 October 25th–November 1st, but for once we’re breaking with tradition and instead of an upcoming Jaunt, we have a special, upcoming, multi-week Liminal Space event called Welcome to the World Series, which heralds the end of Phase Two and the start of Phase Three of the game of Synodiporia. Having chosen their Champions in Phase Two, the mysterious entities known as the Trumps are divvying up the rest of the Travelers--and in Phase Three they’re playing for keeps.

Prompt #43 is set in an agricultural-themed liminal space—with a bit of fabrics and crafts thrown in.

Prompt #44 is set in the dreaming realm known as Questing Country. Here, with the aid of their Animal Companions, young lucid dreamers from a variety of species (crystalline Hecatites, long-lived Elves, aquatic Vodyanoi, bone-spurred and four-armed Spartoi, scaled Gorgons with their petrifying abilities and tentacled hair, and your bog-standard humans) fight together as Champions against the monsters that arise from the collective unconscious of their species… for now, anyway. At least until they grow up, burn out, or go wrong.

Prompt #43

Right now, Liminal Space is a patchwork of farmland--a literal patchwork, as the ground under the Travelers’ feet is printed fabric, sewn together as if it were a quilt. One patch has a field of lettuce, another a printed field of corn and so on and so forth. Just about every crop is represented in quilted form, including ones that aren’t exactly… standard. Or legal.

Crocheted farm animals roam atop the fields, making needle-clicking sounds whenever they open their mouths, beaks, and snouts. Here and there lie irons, face down, luckily not at all hot. If you climb on top of one, it should be possible to ride it around like a tractor.

As for the farmhouse, barn, and silo? Travelers might be able to see the plush shape of them on the horizon, but no matter how long they travel in that direction, they’ll never get any closer.


Prompt #44

Whether Fire Mushrooms from Nuclear Winter, Men-in-Black from Conspiracy Country, Plague Vectors from the Softened Caverns, Horned Masters from the Stealing Ships, or any of the manifold Nightmares that haunt Questing Country and cause it to summon its Champions, there is one thing all these enemies have in common: they arise from the fears and worries of their world.

Some of these Nightmares are seasonal.

It’s Exam Season again on Hecate, the annual time during its longer-than-Earth year when the young people of that planet take the tests that will determine both their future careers and their very right to be regarded as adults in Hecatite society--as well as the annual practice exams to ready them for it. To be young and Hecatite during Exam Season is to be in a very stressful situation, no matter your capabilities. So much is riding on the results.

So it’s really not surprising that the twenty-foot-tall Test Proctors from the Hallowed Halls of Education positively swarm from the time that the tests begin until the day the results are posted. The Proctors work to corner any young person they can find, essaying volley after volley of exam questions at them until they fail or give up or attack the Proctor--and that’s when the Proctors get nasty.

Comments

[acheat]

"Oh dear, I was just coming up with an answer to that one too." Insincere pouting, the white smile on his face was brilliant against black skin, his eyes bright with the expression of a man who had been deeply entertained. He was by all means no tall creature, a slim and short statured male with a shaven head and dressed in every possibly color imaginable.

And he had just about as good a time watching her fight as she did fighting.

"Nevertheless, my deep and sincere thanks for helping me. I was starting to run out of things to say."

A blatant lie.

"I couldn't have asked for a more fantastic ending to this quiz, in any case. It's a delight to meet you."

[ayiyiyi]

"Really," she says, with a small smile that suggests she can see that blatant lie. "Well, it's nothing. Trust me, I'm more than happy to deal with these Proctors."

They preyed on the young and the fearful, and that was something Xena could not stand for.

[acheat]

Jarlaxle may look young, but it was clear the chatty drow was anything but fearful. Maybe it was no wonder most of the Proctors seemed to be avoiding the extravagantly dressed dark elf.

"And the world is a better and brighter place for it. What is your name, dear lady? I would be honored to have it."

[ayiyiyi]

And here we go. Xena squares her shoulders, levelling raised eye brows at the young man.

"My name is Xena," she starts. "But I'm no lady, and I'm certainly not your 'dear' either."

[acheat]

"Madam, please." He removes his hat to place it on his chest, taking a bow.

"I didn't mean it as an insult. Without a name what am I to call anyone? Ma'am seemed too formal. Xena it is."

[ayiyiyi]

"Oh I'm not insulted," she says easily enough. "But just you don't get any funny ideas."

And with that she starts walking, already on the prowl for the next Proctor. There are more people in need of her help, after all, and she's beginning to suspect that this one never needed her help in the first place.

Whether or not Jarlaxle follows, well. That's up to him.

[acheat]

"I would never, madam."

Like he's not going to follow, she looks like she's a magnet for fun here. The drow trails along a respectable few paces behind, keeping up equally polite conversation.

"Am I to suppose that you are new here as I am? Or is this place a common stop?"

That is a very fancy way of asking if she comes here often. Jarlaxle no.

[ayiyiyi]

"If you're looking for a guide, you'll need to look somewhere else," she says, her eyes scanning the horizon.

No, she doesn't come here often, Jarlaxle. She's tolerating you - and you know this because you haven't yet received a chakram to the face - but she's not inclined to humour you either.

[acheat]

"Oh, I'm not. Don't worry." Don't worry, he's pretty sure she's not at all concerned about him getting lost.

"Just making idle conversation. Where did you learn to fight?" There we go, something less stupid this time.

[ayiyiyi]

"Lots of places," she answers. It might be less stupid, but it doesn't make Xena any more talkative. 'Idle conversation' wasn't exactly her strong point. That was always Gabrielle's.

[acheat]

That's fine too. Artemis was just as chatty as Xena. Slightly moreso if you included the occasional insult.

"Oh that's where I learned too." Jarlaxle. He couldn't resist the joke.

"Are you just wandering about looking for fights?"

[ayiyiyi]

"I'm wondering around, looking for people who need my help," Xena says, with a roll of her eyes. "And if you want to try doing something useful instead of yammering on at me all day, you could try keeping an eye out."