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synodiporia_ooc2017-12-21 06:49 pm
powersthatbe) wrote in synodiporia_ooc2017-12-21 06:49 pm
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Test Drive #22
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 than 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 December 30–January 6. Our next Jaunt will be Ouroboros Retrograde: a return to the setting of our Questing Country Jaunt, in which lucid-dreaming magical warriors battle the nightmares of their various species. Here, the Travelers will find that the Champions and Oracles of the Dreaming Peoples are looking to help them escape the influence of the Arcana--but time has gone strangely out of joint and making an alliance is easier said than done.
Prompt #57 takes place in a previously unknown Jaunt to a desert world where people farm and harvest crystals to enhance their natural psionic powers.
Prompt #58 takes place in the magical-girl dreamland of Questing Country.
Prompt #59 is a liminal space setting from between Jaunts, in which everyone is getting an extra hour in theball pit snow globe sphere.
#57
The soil is loose enough to flow like water, and the people trudging through it sink in up to the calf - deeper, sometimes, when they find sinkholes that drop them down deep enough to swim, or drown. The air is crisp, cold, and dry, the sky is dark but crackling with auroral discharges that hide the stars. The goal of the veiled folk wading through the soil-sea lies on a cracked ridge a hundred yards distant - spars of crystal budding like fruit trees, ringing quietly in the wind. The gem harvest there is the prize - reverberant crystals that can enhance and weaponize telekinesis to shake apart objects, or structures - or people; archival crystals that can store experiences, feelings, and beliefs - and train others in them, even indoctrinate them -- sympathy crystals which magnify and broadcast thought and emotion, letting telepaths connect over long distances, or driving troops into killing rage or enemies to blind fear.
But between here and the ridge are a dozen things that could go wrong - sinkhole collapses could suck the raiders beneath the surface, or legless albino sandcrocs could be lurking in wait for a meal. Some of the crystals could be primed, energy stored within them to act as booby-traps, activating their functions on unauthorized contact. Or there could be guards - hidden berserkers with reverberant blades, guerropaths whose very thoughts are weapons, snipers who direct crystalline blades with the speed of thought and intensity of emotion.
#58
The Forest Pools are a very special place in Questing Country. Some of the trees are earthlike, some are massive fungi, some flowstone stalactites, some vibrant-colored wood whose branches and trunks twine and braid with themselves - the idea of ‘forest’ means different things in the dreams of half a dozen worlds, all represented here. The pools, too, are different - tidepools, mirror-bright rippling puddles, bubbling hot-springs - but each is fed by a fountain, whether lively or quiet, and each looks drinkable, desirable to the folk who recognize a given pool as belonging to their homeworld.
Mist hangs heavy over the trees and ‘trees’, but not just cloud-vapor; this is the glowing pearlescent dreamstuff that Questing Country breathes out its magic in. These pools are the places where many (perhaps most) new-woken Champions first meet their Spirit Companions, the mystical, mythical animal guides who speak with the voice of Questing Country; and where many young Champions also make their first friends. There are no nightmares in the forest; but there are sometimes free-spirited Adversaries (the selfish former Champions who use magic for their own gain) who seek to trick the young Champions - though those Adversaries must contend with the fact that in the Forest Pools, their own Spirit Companions are always mischievously turned against them.
#59
Liminal Space is up to its old surrealist shenanigans again and currently, it seems to be in the shape of a hollowed out sphere, with a radius the size of a football field. Gravity is localized to the “wall” of the sphere, and any traveler that is sure-footed enough can easily walk the circumference of it without even bothering to invoke special ways of liminal movement.
To call the sides of the sphere a “wall,” however, is somewhat inaccurate. To be a wall implies that a surface is all of one piece--or that the smaller pieces that make it up have been welded or cemented together. Instead the “walls” of the sphere are made of hundreds upon thousands of loosely packed balls that look like glass and feel like plastic. Inside these balls are tiny little models of various locations--some of which are recognizable as former Jaunts or Traveler homes, but many of which are places that are completely alien--and when one picks one up and shakes it, what looks like snow will start to swirl all around the tiny models inside. (Well. Many of the balls have snow. On occasion it’s glitter that swirls around or just colored or black flecks.)
Any attempt to burrow through these balls to reach the outside of the sphere will just result in the Traveler in question emerging from the balls elsewhere in the inside of the sphere.
Our upcoming app round runs December 30–January 6. Our next Jaunt will be Ouroboros Retrograde: a return to the setting of our Questing Country Jaunt, in which lucid-dreaming magical warriors battle the nightmares of their various species. Here, the Travelers will find that the Champions and Oracles of the Dreaming Peoples are looking to help them escape the influence of the Arcana--but time has gone strangely out of joint and making an alliance is easier said than done.
Prompt #57 takes place in a previously unknown Jaunt to a desert world where people farm and harvest crystals to enhance their natural psionic powers.
Prompt #58 takes place in the magical-girl dreamland of Questing Country.
Prompt #59 is a liminal space setting from between Jaunts, in which everyone is getting an extra hour in the
#57
The soil is loose enough to flow like water, and the people trudging through it sink in up to the calf - deeper, sometimes, when they find sinkholes that drop them down deep enough to swim, or drown. The air is crisp, cold, and dry, the sky is dark but crackling with auroral discharges that hide the stars. The goal of the veiled folk wading through the soil-sea lies on a cracked ridge a hundred yards distant - spars of crystal budding like fruit trees, ringing quietly in the wind. The gem harvest there is the prize - reverberant crystals that can enhance and weaponize telekinesis to shake apart objects, or structures - or people; archival crystals that can store experiences, feelings, and beliefs - and train others in them, even indoctrinate them -- sympathy crystals which magnify and broadcast thought and emotion, letting telepaths connect over long distances, or driving troops into killing rage or enemies to blind fear.
But between here and the ridge are a dozen things that could go wrong - sinkhole collapses could suck the raiders beneath the surface, or legless albino sandcrocs could be lurking in wait for a meal. Some of the crystals could be primed, energy stored within them to act as booby-traps, activating their functions on unauthorized contact. Or there could be guards - hidden berserkers with reverberant blades, guerropaths whose very thoughts are weapons, snipers who direct crystalline blades with the speed of thought and intensity of emotion.
#58
The Forest Pools are a very special place in Questing Country. Some of the trees are earthlike, some are massive fungi, some flowstone stalactites, some vibrant-colored wood whose branches and trunks twine and braid with themselves - the idea of ‘forest’ means different things in the dreams of half a dozen worlds, all represented here. The pools, too, are different - tidepools, mirror-bright rippling puddles, bubbling hot-springs - but each is fed by a fountain, whether lively or quiet, and each looks drinkable, desirable to the folk who recognize a given pool as belonging to their homeworld.
Mist hangs heavy over the trees and ‘trees’, but not just cloud-vapor; this is the glowing pearlescent dreamstuff that Questing Country breathes out its magic in. These pools are the places where many (perhaps most) new-woken Champions first meet their Spirit Companions, the mystical, mythical animal guides who speak with the voice of Questing Country; and where many young Champions also make their first friends. There are no nightmares in the forest; but there are sometimes free-spirited Adversaries (the selfish former Champions who use magic for their own gain) who seek to trick the young Champions - though those Adversaries must contend with the fact that in the Forest Pools, their own Spirit Companions are always mischievously turned against them.
#59
Liminal Space is up to its old surrealist shenanigans again and currently, it seems to be in the shape of a hollowed out sphere, with a radius the size of a football field. Gravity is localized to the “wall” of the sphere, and any traveler that is sure-footed enough can easily walk the circumference of it without even bothering to invoke special ways of liminal movement.
To call the sides of the sphere a “wall,” however, is somewhat inaccurate. To be a wall implies that a surface is all of one piece--or that the smaller pieces that make it up have been welded or cemented together. Instead the “walls” of the sphere are made of hundreds upon thousands of loosely packed balls that look like glass and feel like plastic. Inside these balls are tiny little models of various locations--some of which are recognizable as former Jaunts or Traveler homes, but many of which are places that are completely alien--and when one picks one up and shakes it, what looks like snow will start to swirl all around the tiny models inside. (Well. Many of the balls have snow. On occasion it’s glitter that swirls around or just colored or black flecks.)
Any attempt to burrow through these balls to reach the outside of the sphere will just result in the Traveler in question emerging from the balls elsewhere in the inside of the sphere.
Phi | Zero Escape (+Trustfell 4 CRAU) | important OOC note below
Phi has to admit that this reminds her a bit too much of Nevada. There's sand and dust everywhere and a lot of work is being done in the name of psychic power development - which, as a natural esper herself, admittedly isn't the worst possible thing, and there sure seems to be less Death And Suffering involved.
Then there's the faint sound of something flying through the air at high speed, and the next instant two things are different: there's a crystal lance half-buried in the sand behind her and a pretty severe gash in Phi's left leg. She yelps in pain, but retains enough composure to telepathically call for help.
Some asshole just threw a spear at me and I can't move!
She's clearly not happy about anything happening here.
57b
Phi has to admit that this reminds her a bit too much of Nevada. There's sand and dust everywhere and a lot of work is being done in the name of psychic power development - which, as a natural esper herself, admittedly isn't the worst possible thing, and there sure seems to be less Death And Suffering involved.
Then there's a kind of flash and Phi immediately dives to the side, just in time to dodge the crystal lance that's now half-buried behind her. A short distance away, the raider that threw it takes a step back, clearly not having expected her to dodge. You might not have seen the attack coming either, even if you were nearby.
Phi, meanwhile, runs right at the raider and goes for a flying dropkick to the face.
58
What do you do when trees are not trees?
They're certainly tree-shaped, but the strange images dancing on them and the way they move clearly marks them as anything but. If you stare for long enough, one of the trees might show for a split second something you remember, just as you remember it, before flickering away into something else. What's more, the branches are growing and dying out at a rapid pace, forming new paths and destroying them in equal measure. The almost blindingly glowy pool of energy here seems to be the only constant.
Phi, slightly older, definitely a lot bustier, and in some kind of hybrid shrine maiden outfit slash armor, can't approach the pool without tripping over new branches at every turn, thanks to... herself?
"You know how this works by now, right? Maybe it's not your turn yet, or it could be," says her duplicate matter-of-factly, "What are you going to do?"
Phi grits her teeth, but says nothing.
59
She may have experience with non-Earth gravities, but this is something no one could have prepared her for.
Phi doesn't cross the outside of the sphere by walking so much as wading. One of the smaller snow orbs, depicting a tropical island, catches her eye, and she takes it in her hand.
"Who'd have thought I'd see it like this?"
It's probably someplace she knows, if you want to ask.
----
[OOC NOTE: While personality-wise Phi isn't all that different from canon, she knows Kyrie Ushiromiya, Technically Even The Fact That She Exists Is A Spoiler (Higurashi Edition), and Gangrel the Mad King from her previous game (as well as about 29 other people from other canons which aren't also being played from here).]
59, the higurashi spoiler that walks you say
"Quite different from above then from below," she agrees. "An interesting new perspective."
she got her full name and everything, although she no longer remembers it
The intent was clear to her, it's just more fun to mess with people's expectations.
"It'd be almost more impressive."
Re: she got her full name and everything, although she no longer remembers it
"I've found both of my homeworlds. None of the ones I've visited, alas," she says. "But this Liminal Space is young yet."
no subject
An ability like that would certainly be easier to grasp the mechanics of than something like her own ability.
"This one's not home, at least not to me. I took a vacation there once."
She rustles it a little bit, thinking. The particles in it vary in consistency depending on what part of the island they're over. 'Liminal'... is this between worlds? In which case, what worlds is this between?
no subject
She holds up the shrine snowglobe. “After all, this place looks almost idyllic.”
no subject
For that matter she met the person that was the cause of many of those issues. Things maybe even turned out better for her, since now she's not in an alien-neurotoxin-induced coma.
"But based on what you're saying, that place was nothing but."
no subject
no subject
She stops dead for a moment, her face breaking into an expression somewhere between shock and an utter lack of comprehension.
"Oh god, you were involved in that mess?"
no subject
no subject
"Hanyuu told me about it."
She could stop there, but she remembers enough that even knowing that name is not a thing most people can say.
"She, I, and twenty-eight other people, humans and otherwise, ended up spending a couple months in a completely inescapable but well-furnished basement."
no subject
She shakes her head; it doesn't matter that much, save that she'd like to know how much context Phi has. "It seems the Arcana's past-time of interdimensional kidnap is far more common than is good for anyone's nerves."
no subject
She doesn't comment about the school uniform specifically because everyone at Chronos had one of those. Except the Wordsmith, who had a uniform of a different kind.
"I'm not sure who or what these Arcana are but I'm inclined to agree. At least here there's no obvious signs that our actions may have lethal consequences."
no subject
Bernkastel steeples her fingers, putting them over her mouth, touching her nose. "Not permanently so, not for us, no. The Arcana named Death has seen to it that no lasting physical harm is thrust upon us in the course of play. Nor do the Arcana as a whole seek to harm us."
She frowns. "But they do like to meddle with other worlds, with consequence to them, as we Travel on."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
57a, 1/2, stand by for Brave/Default shenanigans
“Never fear, miss - I would never allow someone so beautiful as you to be destroyed,” he says, brandishing a crystal-tipped rod. He waves it, and sparkling healing light flares blue to green around Phi...
2/2
It’s not quite enough, and he lurches toward Ringabel.
“I’ve borrowed some time,” Ringabel says. “Pray take your shot, before I default on that loan.”
no subject
With no element of surprise, she thinks better of her usual method of assault and instead justs run up to punch that sucker in the gut.
no subject
“Strong enough, it seems,” Ringabel says, brushing his rediculous pompadour out of his eyes. “Shall we make our escape while he takes leave of his senses?”
He offers his hand to help pull her along.
no subject
She pointedly ignores the hand, she's had worse.
no subject
"There's an oasis southerly," he says. "One with Infiltrated allies, if the Network is to be believed - though we may need to dress as the natives if we're to avoid attention," he says.
And raises one critical eyebrow. "On that note. Can you make due without your spectacles, or are they quite necessary for your sight?"
no subject
She'll just take off the glasses now, though.
"As for these, they don't have corrective lenses."
no subject
"But I fear I've not introduced myself! You may call me Ringabel." He's already bowed, so instead he flourishes.
no subject
"Well, of course. No one's expecting us here. I wouldn't expect that to be the case everywhere we go, but for now it's prudent. As for my name, it's Phi."
no subject
"As for water... hmn. You've seen my conjury. If pressed, I can call ice and we can drink the melt, and healing sunstroke should be no trouble." He frowns, pulling a vial from his belt. "For as long as my ether holds out, anyway."
no subject
She sees you, Ringabel, and honestly the last total amnesiac she met turned out to be It's Complicated.