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

[morethanashadow]

Ok good. That's good enough confirmation. "Need the rundown on anything?" He hasn't been here the longest, but he's getting up there in experience.

[fruitknife]

"Think I'm managing okay so far."

There are evil exam proctors. Some of them are super weak to bludgeoning. It's enough of a purpose to being here for Shinji to work with.

[morethanashadow]

"That's good." He didn't mean Questing Country as much as the whole thing, but whatever. "Where are you from, originally?" Japan, he's guessing. Maybe Inaba.

[fruitknife]

Well, the whole thing's not that difficult to understand, either.

"Japan. Iwatodai."

[morethanashadow]

....Huh. Phillip takes a good look at Shinijiro now, and while he doesn't recognize the man, he does recognize the coat. "Do you know Ken? And Minako? Or... Minato, I guess."

[fruitknife]

"Minako, yeah, pretty well." There's something approaching a genuine smile on Shinji's face at the mention of her, but it fades pretty quickly. "Ken... would probably rather I didn't know him. never heard of the other guy."

[morethanashadow]

That's an interesting reaction. Though, then again, it was pretty clear that Ken's feelings were complicated. "Yeah, Minato's like a guy version of Minako that exists in some universes. There's a lot of that kind of thing here."

[fruitknife]

Yeah, well. If they didn't know each other, Ken's mom might still be alive. Shinji can't exactly blame the kid.

"A guy... that's just weird to think about."

[morethanashadow]

Phillip shrugs. "That's kind of par for the course, around here. We've had like 10 variations on Inaba at this point." He wishes he was exaggerating.

[fruitknife]

"The hell's so interesting about Inaba?"

Minako said she went there for a club fellowship and there was absolutely nothing of note. Shinji's a tad confused.

[morethanashadow]

"Good question. I mean, I like most of the people from Inaba, but I don't know why the Trumps are brining so many variations of their world. I would say Personas, except, you know." He gestures at Shinjiro- there's still only two versions of Iwatodai, as far as they've seen.

[fruitknife]

"Maybe their Personas in particular are more interesting or something. Who the hell knows."

He's not even clear on why they'd need more than one of Iwatodai. Seriously, how many different ways could that end up?

[morethanashadow]

Oooh, Phillip can think of a couple different ways Iwatodai could be different in the end. In his world, it at least probably still exists.

"Anyway..." Phillip says, deciding to shift to a different topic, "Want to go beat up some more proctors?" He likes shooting sparkles at things.

[fruitknife]

Even that's just a variation on the ending. Who else would have even been in a position to be the Wild Card? Yukari, maybe?

"Good plan. Rock Ekoda can't have been the only one."

[morethanashadow]

I had an AU where Ryoji was the worst wild card ever once. That was fun.

"Ekoda?" What. Phillip and Chara will pick a direction and start walking though. "Did he look like someone you knew? I guess that makes sense, nightmares and dreams are usually formed around what people already know..."

[fruitknife]

"Did Minako or Ken ever tell you much about Fuuka?"

It seems like a completely unrelated tangent, but there's a point here, promise.

[morethanashadow]

Phillip frowns, thinking about it. "I think Rise might have mentioned her, actually. Why?" It came up when he and Rise were bonding over Support Persona people.

[fruitknife]

"Ekoda was her homeroom teacher. And more worried about her bullies' reputations than the fact that Fuuka hadn't been to school in a week and a half and they might've killed her."

There's no more deserving target for a good bludgeioning. ...Well, not that actually taught people something.

"Who the hell's Rise?"

[morethanashadow]

"...Yeah, he deserved that stop sign in the face." Good job, Shinji. That guy sounds like an asshole.

"Rise's one of the people from Inaba. She's got a support Persona, so I think she was talking about that. Fuuka's got one of those, right?"

[fruitknife]

"Damn right he did." Fuuka herself was a lot more forgiving, at least of one of her former bullies. He never did figure out how Ekoda wasn't outright fired.

He nods at the explanation. "Got it. Yeah, that's Fuuka's deal. She's a hell of a lot better at it than Mitsuru ever was."

[morethanashadow]

...Phillip remembers Mitsuru. She seems scary. Even though Ryoji 100% totally deserved what he got from her. "I heard Personas can kind of do both, sometimes... I got one in Liminal that's Support, but I don't know if it can attack or anything."

[fruitknife]

"She never had much range with it. She said later her scans were crapping out about the time they found Fuuka." And that, judging by where they were poking around when he came back, wasn't even a quarter of the way up the damn tower.

...Wait a second. "You got one here?"

[morethanashadow]

Ah. So it probably wasn't really meant for that and she was just making it work. ...Which is pretty impressive on its own actually.

"Yeah. Have you heard how the Inaba people get theirs? It seemed kind of like that- you get thrown into a dungeon and then your subconscious yells at you until you agree to address your problems. I don't really recommend it." He doesn't use the word 'Shadow,' because, well. He's not sure how being a Shadow and having a Shadow works.

[fruitknife]

"Huh. Hell of a trick."

[morethanashadow]

"Yeah, I don't under how it works at all. But we learn all kinds of stuff from the worlds we go to, so..."