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synodiporia_ooc2014-11-21 06:44 pm
powersthatbe) wrote in synodiporia_ooc2014-11-21 06:44 pm
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Test Drive #5.
Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cuts there are three 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!
Prompt #17 is set in an unknown location, probably Liminal Space, where Travelers have little except their imagination to guide them. Confusion is expected, but what would you do, if you were floating in the shadows of the night sky, surrounded by unseen strangers and animate constellations?
Prompt #18 is an example of a steampunk jaunt, either far in the game’s past or somewhere in its unknowable future. Improvising Infiltrator backstory and playing out diplomacy, intrigue, or mad science in the skies above the Takla Makan desert is greatly encouraged!
Prompt #19 is a popular Liminal Space the travelers have visited before, a look at the dream-logic and nonsensical whimsy Travelers are trapped in during their downtime - though it can also be a source of clues they desperately need, the only form of communication from the Trumps they ever get. What does it all mean? If anything.
Prompt #17: Starry Night
You are floating in a weightless, lightless space, slightly chill. In the distance, motes of light forming abstract shapes move, jerky, robotic perambulations as they circle, but the light is too dim to show anything but the phosphor-dots itself. Whenever you speak, stardust spills from your mouth, illuminating, for just a moment, the lower portion of the speaker’s face, and there are other twinkles of stardust in the distance, but the cool air feels thick, and the light does not travel far before dissipating. What do you do, here in the dark?
Prompt #18: A Zeppelin called Zeitgeist
You’re on the observation deck of a luxury zeppelin. It's a rocky ride, the craft being buffeted below by a swirling sandstorm, but perhaps of more interest to most inside are the furnishings. A steam-powered calliope plays music in the corner. The bar, an elegant contraption of brass and stained glass, is automated and coin-operated, a rube-goldbergian series of chutes and levers clicking and unlocking bottle and glass, pouring and mixing as the coins slide down through the mechanism and click the right counterweights into place. And scattered across the floor is a late gentleman of similar composition, six spiderlike telescoping arms connected to pneumatic pumps; his face a marble mask, but his tuxedo is torn and the arachno-mechanical marvel was apparently dismantled by repeated collisions with sharp objects.
Anyone who finds the scene familiar will remember that this airship, the Zeitgeist, is the Flying Cossacks' primary exploration craft, now taking one last tour over the Golden Khanate before being mothballed. A diplomatic voyage, it's been marked so far with a number of dangerous assassins striking at the envoys aboard... it's the summer of 1896, if you're an undercover agent of the Vatican (Vatican librarians being among the most fearsome and well-informed secret agents in the world); or 1314 if, like most of Europe, you're a Sufi and part of the Ummah Caliphate. Steam power rules the world, although clockwork is fast catching up. And you might be on some sort of mission yourself…
Prompt #19: The Bouncy Castle
Color is everywhere in Liminal Space. A giant moon-bounce castle dominates the landscape, surrounded by a ball-pit moat. The sky beyond is very obviously a matte painting and not a real sky; turning slowly above them, the sun and moon as tinted spotlights. Gummy fish jump and swim in the moat, and balloon animals wander the halls, gliding along the walls thanks to helium and friction.
There are a number of more remote locations - the dungeons, accessible down a slide in one corner. The gatehouse, which has floors which are entirely trampolines, with no pretense, nothing to mitigate the bounciness - and cushioned ceilings. The cistern, a dark little room in one corner which has its own deep, round pool of multicolored balls. These places, at least, are a little more private, for anyone looking for peace and quiet amidst the rainbow extravaganza.
Prompt #17 is set in an unknown location, probably Liminal Space, where Travelers have little except their imagination to guide them. Confusion is expected, but what would you do, if you were floating in the shadows of the night sky, surrounded by unseen strangers and animate constellations?
Prompt #18 is an example of a steampunk jaunt, either far in the game’s past or somewhere in its unknowable future. Improvising Infiltrator backstory and playing out diplomacy, intrigue, or mad science in the skies above the Takla Makan desert is greatly encouraged!
Prompt #19 is a popular Liminal Space the travelers have visited before, a look at the dream-logic and nonsensical whimsy Travelers are trapped in during their downtime - though it can also be a source of clues they desperately need, the only form of communication from the Trumps they ever get. What does it all mean? If anything.
Prompt #17: Starry Night
You are floating in a weightless, lightless space, slightly chill. In the distance, motes of light forming abstract shapes move, jerky, robotic perambulations as they circle, but the light is too dim to show anything but the phosphor-dots itself. Whenever you speak, stardust spills from your mouth, illuminating, for just a moment, the lower portion of the speaker’s face, and there are other twinkles of stardust in the distance, but the cool air feels thick, and the light does not travel far before dissipating. What do you do, here in the dark?
Prompt #18: A Zeppelin called Zeitgeist
You’re on the observation deck of a luxury zeppelin. It's a rocky ride, the craft being buffeted below by a swirling sandstorm, but perhaps of more interest to most inside are the furnishings. A steam-powered calliope plays music in the corner. The bar, an elegant contraption of brass and stained glass, is automated and coin-operated, a rube-goldbergian series of chutes and levers clicking and unlocking bottle and glass, pouring and mixing as the coins slide down through the mechanism and click the right counterweights into place. And scattered across the floor is a late gentleman of similar composition, six spiderlike telescoping arms connected to pneumatic pumps; his face a marble mask, but his tuxedo is torn and the arachno-mechanical marvel was apparently dismantled by repeated collisions with sharp objects.
Anyone who finds the scene familiar will remember that this airship, the Zeitgeist, is the Flying Cossacks' primary exploration craft, now taking one last tour over the Golden Khanate before being mothballed. A diplomatic voyage, it's been marked so far with a number of dangerous assassins striking at the envoys aboard... it's the summer of 1896, if you're an undercover agent of the Vatican (Vatican librarians being among the most fearsome and well-informed secret agents in the world); or 1314 if, like most of Europe, you're a Sufi and part of the Ummah Caliphate. Steam power rules the world, although clockwork is fast catching up. And you might be on some sort of mission yourself…
Prompt #19: The Bouncy Castle
Color is everywhere in Liminal Space. A giant moon-bounce castle dominates the landscape, surrounded by a ball-pit moat. The sky beyond is very obviously a matte painting and not a real sky; turning slowly above them, the sun and moon as tinted spotlights. Gummy fish jump and swim in the moat, and balloon animals wander the halls, gliding along the walls thanks to helium and friction.
There are a number of more remote locations - the dungeons, accessible down a slide in one corner. The gatehouse, which has floors which are entirely trampolines, with no pretense, nothing to mitigate the bounciness - and cushioned ceilings. The cistern, a dark little room in one corner which has its own deep, round pool of multicolored balls. These places, at least, are a little more private, for anyone looking for peace and quiet amidst the rainbow extravaganza.
no subject
Which was a crime if you asked him but just about everything was anyway so why bother with the rules? You might live longer, but you probably won't be that much happier.
no subject
"Yeah, I know." Phillip has friends like that.
CoughToushiroucough. "But I think that's kind of silly."no subject
But then again, Phillip is still speaking to him so maybe that ain't a bad thing after all.
"Exactly. And if you can't have fun as a kid, you just end up being one of those postal guys that go crazy over not having their stapler just so so. Not to mention who actually wants to have a desk job.
It's just plain boring."
He grins. "So you got a name or should I keep calling you kid? I'm Dean." Because he gave up on the fake names about three years ago. So old news.
no subject
That’s probably just Phillip.
“Postal guys? Stapler?” What. That doesn’t make any sense. Phillip doesn’t think he would want to be one of those people because that doesn’t sound good. “I don’t want a desk job! I want to be an actor!” That’s... not a desk job, right? He hopes no.
He brightens, smiling right back at Dean. “I’m Phillip. It’s nice to meet you!”
no subject
And Dean just reaches over to ruffle the poor kid's hair (assuming he's in arm reach). "See, that's what I'm talking about. Live a little and travel! You can't exactly do that behind a desk."
He paused.
"Course, if you don't know what a stapler is, I suppose you might have a little bit of growing up to do still, but who really cares. So what kind of acting do you want to do? The crazy stuff or something more dramatic?"
Or both? Both is a perfectly acceptable and reasonable answer.
no subject
He’s quite happy for the approval, though, and he’s back to smiling soon enough. “ I’unno yet. But I’m pretty sure I want to do theater acting and not other-acting.” Like movies. A bunch of the kids in the community theater want to do movies or TV and try out for those all the time. Even at the age of eleven, Phillip is a tiny bit of a theater snob (blame the older actors who’ve taken it upon themselves to teach him).