Test Drive Meme 021

[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.

Happy testing!

Spring Cleaning

Chores aren’t for everyone. And, as the morning reaches a close, it turns out that they are especially not for wizards.

That is to say, someone may have cast a spell animating all of the mops, brooms and dishcloths on-board, which are now sweeping their way up and down the carriages, cleaning everything - and everyone - they can reach. And animating anything else they can find, for maximum efficiency. Books, clothing, cutlery-

This isn’t so bad in the bathrooms. In the library, however? The armory? Bang, and the dirt is gone.

Open Mic

The ground floor of the music carriage is usually a mess of instruments, but tonight they’ve all been tucked away neatly at one end of the room. Chairs from the upper floor have been carried down en masse, all facing towards the jukeboxes and screens at the other end.

You might not be entirely sure who rigged them for karaoke, but you know one thing: you’re here now, a drink in one hand and a list of popular (by someone’s standards) songs in the other. If people aren’t singing or waiting to sing, they’re cheering friends on, or skulking and trying everything in their power not to be called up, or even escaping upstairs to talk more comfortably.

’Til Death Do Us Part

The world of Abarranz is ruled by the Undying Lords, and has been for almost two thousand years. The civilisation has stagnated - not only due to the immortal council, but also because the majority of its citizens are undead. Some, the rich, the powerful, are able to undergo great rituals to maintain their consciousness and skill even in death; others are unfortunate enough to be dragged into death with neither, and exist as shells of themselves. The greatest necromancers of the planet are harnessing the death of a minor star in the system to fuel a mass conversion of the remaining populace, but the remaining living citizens are those who have already refused the change. Voidtreckers, they cannot resist alone.

Team One

Pockets of the living survive in hiding, but are split off from one another and unable to unify under the overwhelming forces surrounding their enclaves. This first team is tasked with clearing the mindless hordes threatening them, so that they might establish communications, venture out, and join the fight.

Team Two

The best way to escape the ritual is to remove the remaining living to another colony in the system - but the rituals and spells able to do so are all jealously guarded by the eternal council in their libraries and vaults. A viable target has been identified - the treasure rooms of the Viscount Eldermann holds a tome rumoured to contain a mass teleportation ritual. Infiltrating and securing this tome is this team’s task, and while the mission is possible, the traps and guards won’t make it easy.

Team Three

Even with these plans in motion, every second counts. This third team is given the role of saboteur - to interrupt, delay or otherwise slow the Grand Ritual of a Star’s Demise from within the stronghold of the Undying Lords. The dressing carriage - and their SCA wristbands - are at their disposal, the former for appropriate Abarranz costume and pallor, the latter to hide the telltale signs of life, should they have any.

Comments

[helborn]

He looks over at Bob and the raven just flies off. He can see where this is going and he doesn't want to stick around. Casper rolls his eyes and chuckles a bit. "It's good to meet you, too. My world doesn't have miqo'te - aside from the mythological monsters it's pretty much all what you'd call hyur."

How to describe his world... "It's a world that has a hidden population of supernatural beings - most people believe in one god, if any. But there's many pantheons with many different gods. Many cultures used to worship different sets of gods. For example, in the travel group I was in for a time there was me and Aiden. My mother is Hel, Norse goddess of the dead. Her father is Hades, Greek god of the dead. They're from different pantheons and different underworlds but do the same job - because 'what happens to the dead' is a question all cultures ask."

[fightcreamsundae]

As the raven flew off Cherry’s gaze snapped to it very much like a cat watching a bird, though Cherry made no move to even try to touch the bird. Her gaze returned back to Casper once the raven is gone.

“How can you have all kinds of creatures but no miqo’te! We’re the best!” The way she says it lends itself to a joke. She was well aware that Casper had absolutely nothing to do with that.

“So... it’s kinda like if all the primals and if the Twelve all had a secret life city they lived in? And they were all just people like us? Obviously more powerful because they all have powers...” Her eyebrows furrowed as she though about it.

“You mean the dead don’t join the lifestream?” Her head tilted to the side a little as she asked this question.

[helborn]

"Maybe? I admit I still don't have the strongest grasp on what your world's god situation is." But that's... fine.

"Oh... no, we don't have a lifestream in our world. Some of the pantheons have reincarnation, but not all of them do. Most just have a place that the dead go."

[fightcreamsundae]

“I can try to explain it if you like! My mama told me it was important to know about so she taught me all about the Twelve!” Cherry wasn’t really the religious type, but she loved stories and teaching was often done through stories back at home.

“No... lifestream?” She actually pauses and is quiet for a moment. “So, what, I die and then my aether goes to a place like a city or something and just... keeps living? Or something?” She knew what reincarnation was, at least. Aragibal had explained the Dotharl to her.

[helborn]

"Kind of, yeah. A lot of them have different sorts of... I guess you could call them districts? Like there's the not so nice one, the bigger common one, the really nice one... that sort of thing?"

[fightcreamsundae]

“Wait, really? They’re really like big ole cities? Have you been to any of them? What were they like? There’s gotta be so many people! Unless people die after they die? Like a second death?”

She catches herself again before falling into an excited spiral of thoughts, closing her mouth so he can respond

[helborn]

“Well there aren’t houses in most of them. The dead just kind of... exist. I’ve been to my mother’s the. Um. Usual way.” It’s fine, he’s fine. “She had a great hall and because she didn’t treat me as an ‘honored guest’ it was pretty disgusting. I had to bargain my way out.”

He shudders. Give him a moment. “But the realm of the dead that die fighting for the right thing is basically a bunch of drinking and feasting and fighting and training for the battle at the end of the world.”

[fightcreamsundae]

It took Cherry a full handful of seconds to realize what he was saying when he said he'd visited his mother's place and a mixture of surprise and distress blooms across her face. It bothered her, too, that his mother wouldn't treat him as an honored guest, but that could be a cultural thing. Either way, he could take all of the time he needed. Death was not so small a thing no matter the circumstances of death in your world.

There was a lot going on in everything he just said and for a moment Cherry just blinked at him as her brain tried to process and catch up with it all.

"Um... Okay, so, I'm not gonna touch on the thing with your mom. That's personal stuff and I don't wanna be the person who digs into that. And I mean I wouldn't wanna talk about it probably."

"But the whole 'realm of the dead that died fighting' thing... What about the rest of the dead, then? Like, wouldn't you want all the people you could get to fight at that battle? Or are they just gonna sit around and watch with some snacks or something?" She was making a bit light of it intentionally, but she didn't really understand what probably the vast majority of the dead were going to be doing during this supposed end of the world.

[helborn]

"It's okay. I've mostly dealt with it." He's not going to claim that he's totally over it, but he's gotten over enough to function.

"I think the idea is that the ones who aren't warriors are just going to get in the way... I'm honestly not totally sure how it's going to work out. A lot of things are the same as they are in the books I read, but a lot aren't. And I'm not really... uh. I prefer to talk to people other than my family?"

Nailed it.

[fightcreamsundae]

"That's so ridiculous! If you're already dead and unless the end of the world is gonna happen tomorrow then you'd have so much time to train people! Surely they'd get bored enough eventually that it would be a welcome change? I mean here I've gotten so bored I've taken up trying to stack the rocks in the garden car!" She doesn't sound upset as much as she's just full of energy and talking excitedly as she works through it in her head.

"I think I can kinda understand that, honestly. I know a gentleman who is like that. He said his dad was mean and his mom was absent. So he left." An awkward pause. She wasn't sure how to deal with people who didn't have good relationships with their families except to listen to them speak and be willing to be there, but unless he dove into it she wouldn't press it. "He read my fortune once, on some cards."

[helborn]

"I mean, there's a bunch of books you can read in the library?"

He smiles a little bit at her. "I've made my own family. I'm... okay with it. I like the people I've chosen to spend my time with."

[fightcreamsundae]

At the mention of reading books Cherry smiled, but it's clearly fake. Her ears falling back proves it. "Uh, yeah, that's a good idea." Her seemingly unshakable confidence faltered here...

...but it came back at the mention of found family, and she grew enthusiastic again. "Finding people you can call family is the best! I feel like I've been pretty lucky in that regard! Mr Kha and Miss Hunter and Ahweh'a and Xahqoh have all been absolutely delightful!!" She's beaming.

"And the entire Kha clan's always fun to visit, too!! It's nice to visit a tribe that's really big!! My people are way more isolated, which is kinda a bummer... Part of it, though, I guess, is that mama and some other families moved out of the Shroud and to Dravania and getting settled in a new area is always hard..." Her voice trails off.

[helborn]

"I mean, I'm sure we can find you something you like..."

Oh, but new topic. Yes. "My new family comes from... well, a lot of different worlds. I've got a big brother and a little brother and a big... sister? She's usually a girl, she can change. And I have a boyfriend who adopted a baby dragon who can also shapeshift so I guess I have a daughter? Sort of? It's confusing with everyone from such different places... but I like it."

[fightcreamsundae]

"Ooooh, that's so exciting, even if it is confusing! I hope...." She seemed to grow a little sheepish, smiling as her ears went back a little, "...that I get to be so lucky. I'd love to have family everywhere I go."

She's very candid as she starts again, maybe a little tiny bit sad. "I have my mama and my sister, back in Dravania, and then I have Mr Kha and Miss Hunter, and then Xahqoh and Ahweh'a..." She rubs the back of her head. "And with Mr Kha I have Miss Kha and the entire Kha tribe..."

Not that she felt fully connected to the Kha tribe, but they sure did make her and Miss Hunter feel welcome. "So I kinda have two moms, a dad, two sisters, a brother, and a super big extended family?"

[helborn]

"That sounds really nice. I've never had a really big extended family, blood related or not." He paused. "Well technically I have some through my mother, but... ehh." He was well aware that his grandfather's branch of the family had a very bad reputation, and that supposedly a bunch had defected to the Titans.

So the less said about them, the better. "I like making friends where I go. I... when I first showed up in the last place I was at I was kind of shy and a little desperate for attention at the same time... I've gotten a little better now."