Test Drive Meme 015

[voidtreckermods]

Welcome to the Test Drive Meme! Here is the place to see how your character might fit the setting, grab samples and have fun!

1. Post with your character, including their name and series in the subject. We’ve written out some prompts but feel free to make up your own, you have a whole train to play with!

2. Assume they've been around long enough for threads to jump right into the action.

3. Have lots of fun. Mandatory, mod-sanctioned fun.

Happy testing!

A Quiet Place

A double carriage with a staircase at each end, the quiet coach has five booths on each floor. With frosted glass doors, locks on the inside, and a pair of comfy benches each, they’re luxuriously private on a train that’s anything but. There are no ICP screens, and each booth is completely soundproof.



Granted, two of the rooms downstairs have been merged in an act of vandalism and are now a workshop-slash-forge, but that has its own attraction. Plenty of things to mess with, plenty of boxes of scraps. The main tinkerer’s not home. Hey, isn’t that a welding torch?



No? Well, you were early enough to snag a room for yourself. Perhaps you’re not alone, or you’re expecting company. Or maybe you forgot to lock the door, and now someone’s in here with you. Awkward.

Too Many Cooks

Once a single room, the kitchen now sprawls over two floors. Banks of industrial electric ovens, a long, steel countertop facing them. Cupboards full of oven trays and pans, racks of implements and appliances. On the first floor, sinks and modern appliances, and cupboards full of crockery.



This month, the month of Harrow, the recipes are centred around chocolate. Chicken Mole, chocolate ravioli, cocoa chilli… it may begin to taste a little sickly sweet after the first week. Fortunately, there’s plenty of room for experimentation as people start to beg for other meals. And a lot of chocolate going spare.



And when the preparation is finished, and the meals have been sent over to the dining carriage… there are stacks, and stacks, and stacks of plates. Pots. Cutlery. And no dishwashers.



Well, no, that’s not strictly true. You’re there.

Allegorical Devices and Other Foes

The world of Torcera, designation #450720816. With a civilisation level roughly equivalent to the medieval ages, the train has deposited its Voidtreckers in a castle town, in which several kingdoms have assembled for an annual tournament. Banners fly from every roof, chattering squires and servants tug mounts this way and that. Some resemble horses with trailing antlers and four lidded eyes, others great flightless birds, and a third popular choice is a species of lanky winged dogs, albeit for the sake of fairness their wings are strapped loosely to their saddles. As a world ignorant of Void travel, you have all been given access to the dressing car’s voluminous stores. Dresses, chainmail, jerkins, or even a few suits of full plate… and plenty of hooded capes. Evil is afoot at the tournament, and you are to root it out.

Team One

Courtiers and their adjutants have travelled from all corners of the planet to assemble for the tournament; the empress herself is said to be participating, and stakes are high. Your team has been tasked with determining the identity of the empress in the tourney, and the identity of her foes, so that Team Two can move in. To this end, you are to mingle with the court and, if necessary, break into personal quarters. Brief instruction in protocol will not be provided.

Team Two

Once you know the identity of the Empress, you can move to defend her - you’re relatively sure she’s either the helmed hedge knight of the crested monlion, or the masked outrider with the seagoose crest and a mount with plumage of deepest blue. But you can’t be sure, and until you are, you’re to sign up for the tourney and look for troublemakers. The melee will be held in the afternoon, and tomorrow the individual lists. Mounts are available, as are a staggering number of weapons. Ideally, the final round would be a number of Voidtreckers, and the Empress. How to arrange that?

Team Three

Team One is in the court. Team Two in the lists. And you, Team Three, are amongst the common folk. Rumours abound, the atmosphere is festive, and several events are open to ordinary citizens on the second day, including one bohort with a single wish of the Empress as the prize. No great problem, perhaps... if not for the tales of a younger brother, long lost, looking to usurp the throne. Unrest is stirring in the town behind the colourful stalls and laughing children, and it's up to you to determine where, and why.

Comments

[fun_thementalist]

"Oh?" Gen sounded curious. "I have to admit, I'm a fan of science as well, if a poor student. I do my best to understand it. Were you a scientist before boarding this train?"

[hisblueskies]

Alfredo shook his head.

"Unfortunately no. I was never able to attend schooling; I'm mostly self-taught."

With a combination of an upper-class child's homeschooling, but his enjoyment of the written word was his own.

"I was friends with a very good doctor before coming here, however; he lent me some of his books."

Alfredo sounded just a bit happier upon bringing him up; Doctor Casella was a very good man.

[fun_thementalist]

"As am I," Gen shared with him, quite freely. "And much of what I learned a few years ago only scratched the surface of scientific knowledge available. Since gaining far more intelligent friends, I've needed to play catch-up."

His smile was kind. "What sort of doctor had he been? Medical? Or did he have a different scientific doctorate?"

[hisblueskies]

Alfredo at last shared a smile in return.

"Science advances all the time, no matter where we are."

It was something he could count on.

"He was a professor as well as a doctor; he hadn't mentioned what his specialties were, but I've met some of his students."

History would have been a good candidate if not medicine, however.

[fun_thementalist]

"That's a universal constant," Gen agreed readily. And he could give several examples if needed.

This young man appeared to be far happier to talk about his friends than whatever he'd been brooding on before, that was rather easy to read.

"It sounds - though it hadn't been official - you'd become his informal student as well," Gen pointed out. "What sorts of books were you able to borrow? Do these -"

He indicated the stack with a small gesture, "- include old favorites, that you're revisiting?"

[hisblueskies]

If humanity stopped having any of its positive traits then, well - then what hope would they have?

But that discussion was for another time.

"... I suppose so," Alfredo replied, smile broadening just a bit.

"But these aren't old books to me, no; they're rather ahead of my time, in the literal sense. When I'd left my world," he explained, "it was in the middle of what you'd call the Industrial Revolution."

He'd learned at least that much context, history-wise.

[fun_thementalist]

"Ah, that's actually rather extraordinary. I can see what you mean by feeling like you must catch up a bit. The world's made a lot of progress since such an era," Gen noted.

There's a pause, and it's not a secret, before he revealed for context, "I'm from an era that had all of this, so-called modern technology ... but then lost it for thousands of years, after a worldwide attack," Gen told him. "I was working with a group to bring science back to civilization before I was kidnapped."

[hisblueskies]

"I can only imagine," Alfredo said - but soon, he would know, which was far better than just imagining!

Alfredo's eyes widened as Gen explained. "Why, that's terrible! Why would someone do that to the world, not just some people but all..."

He was breathless, and could no longer focus on his book; closing it for the moment (he'd remember the page, if nothing else), he sighed.

"If only we could help the worlds we come from, not just those we seem to have been fetched for."

If God were doing this, that was one thing; Alfredo already knew His means and methods were inscrutable, if not necessarily this unorthodox. But when run by an unknown-

Well, he couldn't help but be suspicious. And worried.