The Powers That Be ([personal profile] powersthatbe) wrote in [community profile] synodiporia_ooc2016-10-14 02:43 pm
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Test Drive #16

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.
amourtician: (confetti floats away like dead leaves)

[personal profile] amourtician 2016-10-17 12:18 am (UTC)(link)
Jay laughs, clearly delighted. He's in an ebullient mood, Proctors be damned. And hell, this fellow's smiling at him and doesn't look like the type to give him a hard time over his schtick. He can be a little less vigilant, watch the mood of the conversation a little less closely.

"More of an artistic temperament, dearest?" he says, quirking an eyebrow. "I'm a natural philosopher myself."

He's still mesmerised by the hat and trying not to show it. Honestly, how is he pulling that hat off so well? It's ridiculous. It's like something you'd see at Carnival. And Jarlaxle makes it work for him. Miracles.
acheat: (Knowledgable)

[personal profile] acheat 2016-10-17 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
Proctors be damned! If anything, he was having fun picking on them anyway. And being told that his method of dealing with them was fantastic, well how could he be upset?

"Oh anything in life can be art, can it not? Especially philosophy."

That hat is fantastic, isn't it? Amazing feathers, soft material, dashing, almost like a pirate hat. Wouldn't it be nice to have a hat like this?

You bet it'd be nice.
amourtician: (rebel rebel you've torn your dress)

[personal profile] amourtician 2016-10-17 01:29 am (UTC)(link)
Jay considers this. It's a very good point, though he admits that a little grudgingly. He is the smart one. He should be coming up with unusual insights.

"Of course, sweetness," he says, "for, ah, a certain definition of art— certainly, my trade is artistic, in a sense, though it's a brutal kind of thing. But it does require steady hands." He's slipped easily into his usual purring tones, half-bragging, half-flirting without even thinking about it. The hat must be having an effect.
acheat: (Swash that buckle)

[personal profile] acheat 2016-10-17 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
It's an excellent point, the smile looks as sweet as pie and as gleeful and cheerful as ever too.

'Sweetness'. He likes that one, he might have to try to use it on someone else later. "Brutal art is no less art, after all what would one call the art of swordplay? How brutal!" Jarlaxle met his tone with a chipper and cheerful one, egging even. He liked flirting after all, and if they were to brag, they could brag together.