synodiporia_ooc | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Technically, they're from an alternative universe where the Caliphate never fell but that's really neither here nor there.

"Welcome to the Arcana's game, the rules you used to believe in are no longer true." Malik shrugged, a corner of his mouth quirking a faint if tired smile. "This is a fairly dull version of Liminal Space, and I am unsure of what wifis are but I am fairly certain that we do not have any here. Your teammates may not be here, but most of us are generally kind and accommodating."

"Arcana? Like Tarot?" He remembered that started out more of a game than fortune telling. The little tidbits he picked up here and there with research. "And gee, I was just starting to get used to the old rules." Like, don't kick the nest of Templars unless you have a few explosives around, for one.

Hearing the man call WiFi in plural he face palms, managing not to dislodge his glasses. He bit back the sarcasm about it. "Us? Other people here? Or..." He nods to the robes, shifting slightly.

"Yes, there are others who know it better but the beings who brought everyone here follow the same names and characteristics." Malik nodded.

He raises an eyebrow at Shaun, "There are other people here, we generally refer to ourselves as Travelers. If you are referring to people who are from the past... there are a few of us though I believe I and another are from the farthest back. We both fought in the third crusade, so I will apologize in advance for not knowing much about what you see as modern things."

There's a faint gesture, enough to show that the ring finger on his metal left hand is missing.

"I forget my manners. I am Malik Al-Sayf, I can show you to the Workshop if you would like to go somewhere with somewhat more sense to it... and food."

"Interesting..." Actually, he thought it was a little terrifying he had seen what the First Civilization could do, and if these guys were anything like them. He managed not to shudder at that thought.

"I'll..." Though he paused. "Third crusade right. Masyaf?" His name sounded familiar and he was trying to remember why. He remembered his manners as well, "Shaun Hastings," He replied, he did catch the missing finger. That was one thing he was glad they had fixed, not that he had a hidden blade, but his right hand did go to where the rig under his sleeve was. It hid the taser he wore. "More sense would be great, this is starting to give me a headache."

"That is one word for it anyway." Malik chuckled.

His expression shifts, studying Shaun from head to foot with a calculating gaze. "You can ask me questions about the twelfth century over drinks." He says carefully, stepping around Shaun to pull open the hatch in the ground that hadn't been there before. "After you, there is a ladder on the side if you are uncomfortable with a bit of a drop."

It's only like. Ten feet, and it is a bit of a test. Assassins are, after all, known for their ability to drop a few feet in to a safehouse. That it's Jerusalem's Bureau garden down there is... well that's the surprise after all.

"That obvious?" He asked as he opened the hatch. Shaun blinked, he glanced down, the drop wasn't far at all he had pulled off a Leap of Faith, by luck, dropping down he managed to not roll his ankle.

"And this is why Bishop would rather I not go in the field," The muttering was to himself because it was a little sloppy. Looking around he was impressed, it was amazing. "Okay, this is something that we lack in my time." He may be a tech, but he could enjoy the simpleness of the garden at least.

Malik drops down with expert grace, the hatch falling shut behind him.

"Very obvious, Shaun." He replies, "And I rather doubt you have a lack of gardens and walls in your time, there is more comfortable seating inside. Altair is... elsewhere but he is among us as well."

Inside is a fairly comfortable cross between a librarians office, a mapmaker's shop and some sort of medieval living room.

"Safety and peace, for what it is worth here. What would you like to drink?"

"Well, it's not every day I meet someone in person that I had to research to help a friend who..." He paused, it probably wouldn't do good to talk too much about Desmond exploring with/as Altair. "He's here?" Oh, this was going to take getting used to.

"We have gardens, they're just not as big a thing in the city." He followed Malik, impressed more at the decor. Pushing his glasses up stopped to look at some of the decor on the wall. "Tea's fine." He was already pretty sure this was just weird enough to warrant something stronger, but Drinking with Master Miles was one thing; one of the old masters... There was probably some unwritten long forgotten rule against that right?

"You researched me?" Malik is...way too amused by that thought really, along with a bit weirded out that he's a research topic. "Yes, he is. As was Leonardo and Ezio but they have gone away."

He bustles about for a moment, getting tea together. It's mint as opposed to actual tea but the idea is there.

"Gardens are good though, they give a home a place to think away from the mess of the rest of the world and are pleasant for sleeping in during the warmer months."

"I was doing a lot of research on the time period for a friend of mine. We were looking for something, trying to stay one step ahead of the Templars." Which was true. "You wouldn't happen to know a Desmond, would you? Because really this is weird enough." And he wasn't sure how he'd deal with seeing a friend that had died four years ago saving the planet.

"I don't think anyone does that anymore, at least not in industrialized countries. The air's too toxic to be in too long in the larger cities. Some are trying to fix it."

"Desmond? No, who is he?" Malik asked, curious even if he frowns. "If you were looking for the Apple, I do not have it and if Altair ever listens to me before either of us die it will be long gone from anywhere either of us know of by your time."

Malik's... not exactly a fan of the Pieces of Eden.

"However, if you want to look at some maps I have made you are more than welcome to do so. It is about the only other thing I have done that is of much interest to future historians. Maps are always useful."

Shaun was silent a moment. "Was a friend, and yes we were looking for the Apple. We found it, though, because of that Lucy..." He paused. Desmond hadn't been in control when he had stabbed her. "It doesn't matter anymore really." He sighed.

"That's not exactly true. Journals have their place too, as insight on, how people lived in any age. Though the Crusades, pretty sure most of what we know about it in my time was propaganda left behind to keep most of the population under the thumb of the ruling class." Because really they didn't have hackers back then to spread the truth through sites like Wikileaks or other crowdsourced resources. Though the thought of looking at maps had him grin. "Though, any points of interest you want to show off?"

Test Drive #16

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43

Re: Shaun Hastings : Assassin's Creed : #43