The Powers That Be ([personal profile] powersthatbe) wrote in [community profile] synodiporia_ooc2018-12-29 06:06 pm
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Test Drive #26

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 will run from January 1-8. Our next Jaunt will be Market of the Vanities, a political-ish thriller in a Purgatory still reeling from the Travelers’ last visit there. The accompanying walkabout, Brockengard, is a talking-animals adventure a la Redwall.

Prompt #66 is set in Liminal Space, reflecting a recent player-driven plot event.
Prompt #67 is a preview of events that may come to pass in the upcoming jaunt (or maybe not, who knows).

Prompt #66

Liminal Space is a flowered field under a clear sky - perfectly pleasant, if rimed with frost. It’s also a bowling alley. The lanes are made of flattened, lacquered holly; the balls and pins are flowers encased in ice; the ball returns are lined with pine garlands, and spit the balls out of lions’ heads. Knocked-over pins are reset by invisible machines.

Just behind the lanes is a figure-eight of more lacquered holly, lined with both doors to various Traveler-created rooms, and tables and chairs that look like stone but feel like vinyl and plastic to the touch.

And then there’s the shoe rental area.

Drawn upon the floor in white chalk is the outline of a fifteen-foot figure, who as far as can be told by the silhouette seems to be mostly a cloak with two pairs of limbs. At the foot of the outlined figure is a door. Imposing, gothic, dark walnut with wailing faces patterned in the wood grain, a sword, wand, trumpet, and crown are engraved on the panels. Crime scene tape decorates it in arcs and ruffles the way a string of fairy lights might usually, and the locking mechanism is a clock, with multiple ticking hands moving different directions and speed on ratchet-mounted dials that can be slid out or pressed in.

If any Traveler should touch the door and fail to open it, or step within the chalk outline, the sky overhead immediately darkens, as though a storm is imminent. Balls bowled down the lanes while the sky is darkened produce actual thunder; strikes call up lightning, sparking upward from the ground at a random point along the edge of the chalk outline. This lasts for a couple of minutes before the sky clears and the more peaceful mood reasserts itself.

Prompt #67

Every now and again in the Market of Tech Duinn, an angel or a demon oversteps their bounds where the Old Man of the Market can hear. Even in Purgatory, each is used to wielding supreme moral authority, and of course, they have the military power, while the inhabitants of Purgatory don’t.

The old man’s response is always the same. “By the power of Dhuosnos invested in Tech Duinn, by the Compact of Purgatory and the law of Desmesnes, I deprive you of the communion of the market and the fellowship of the hearth, I exclude you and all your brethren of the Tiers and Choirs of the Freedom of the Market, I deliver you into the Asphodel Meadows to wander unroofed and far from home, from this moment to the next verse of the Eschaton! So be it! So be it! So mote it be!”

With the tolling of a bell, the slamming shut of a book, and the dashing of a candle against the ground, wind carries his commands - for every angel or demon in the market, a page of parchment with letters writ upon it in fire flies to them, interposing between them and the center of the market, and pushing out steadily in a ring until every angel or demon is left beyond the outermost ring of tents, banished until the next day.

There’s something both ominous and comic about the way the pages herd them and pursue them from the middle of their conversations and transactions - but to the natives of the Market, half-fallen angels of the Sithen, ageless and magically undying once-human Immortali, or grey-fleshed lost souls of the Peregrines, there’s another meaning, and another mad scramble.

In that hubbub and commotion, it’s an absolute guarantee that at least some of the banished angels and demons dropped something valuable. Whether it be a burning sword, a forbidden text with teeth between its covers, a flower made of glass, a fruit of paradise, a vial of Sin or Virtue bottled for sale and spell, or any other rare and magical thing, it’s fair game, and the ragged opportunists of the Market miss very few chances to enrich themselves.

Afterwards, they might wander to the outskirts of the Market - to resume their conversations with angels and demons, maybe, or maybe to sell them back their own lost goods at a mark-up.
keepcalmcookon: (1 movement)

COME ON YOU TWO... also yeah spoilers for FFXV on Ignis's face AS ALWAYS

[personal profile] keepcalmcookon 2019-01-07 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Ignis could hear the commotion from quite the distance away, especially as the two of them grew louder. He's still a good distance away, perhaps another half-minute of running to get there with his long legs, but he doesn't have time to get close before things get worse.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Ignis calls out, rushing towards them as quickly as he can.