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June-July 2024 Test Drive Meme
June-July 2024 TDM
Introduction
Welcome to Folkmore's monthly Test Drive Meme! Please feel free to test drive any and all characters regardless of your intent to apply or whether you have an invite or not.
All TDMs are game canon and work like "mini-events". For new players and characters, you can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Current players are also allowed to have in-game characters post to the TDM so long as they mark their top levels ‘Current Character.’
TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.
Playing and interacting with the TDMs will allow characters to immediately obtain canon items from homes especially weapons or other things they may have had on their person when they were pulled from their worlds! There will always be a prompt that provides some sort of "reward" to characters who complete certain tasks.
🦊 New Star Children meet the Fox still in their worlds, and she brings them into the new realm of Folkmore. As you follow her, your body begins to change and new characteristics emerge. These may stay for a while, or perhaps they will hide away after. And during all of this, the Fox explains to you where you will be going: to Folkmore.
and then... you fall like a shooting star, falling to the land in a burst of starlight.
🦊 Experienced Star Children are already familiar with this time of the month. There are shooting stars all across the sky, and some fall to the land, which means the Fox has brought new arrivals. These newly arrived Star Children will face some tests, but Thirteen wants the more seasoned residents to participate as well.
Perhaps you follow the falling stars on your own, or perhaps the Fox simply teleports you there, but it appears you too will be part of this.
Content Warnings: Ghosts, Potential Violence, Potential Death
Summer has hit. It's hot, and nowhere is it hotter than Cruel Summer. Naturally, new Star Children arrive in Cruel Summer with no indication of which direction to go to escape, unless they're so lucky as to arrive near the Selkie River. The water provides a break, and a selkie skin will protect Star Children from the heat. Though beware the cruelty of leaving a selkie without their skin. Along with the heat, Star Children can hear whispers and the echoes of screams throughout Cruel Summer. There's no obvious source of the noises. Not the normal creatures. Not anything anyone can see.
Whether new or old Star Child, anyone lost, overheated, in need of a rest, or anything else will find a friendly spirit will find them in the sands, rock, or shores of Cruel Summer. They'll guide the way toward the huts found in Cruel Summer. These huts have changed; the huts are bigger and grow together, making them one interconnected twisting winding empty town. No one appears to live there. The wooden town is in disrepair, varying from building to building. Even so, they are cool inside, a welcome break from the summer heat.
No matter how one entered, even through the swinging doors to the saloon, that exit disappears behind Star Children. There's no turning back. The only way out is to explore the way through the buildings. This fact continues to be true building to building as exits continue to vanish. The abandoned town isn't as empty as it first seems. As Star Children explore the branching paths through the wooden structures, they see ghosts of spirits going through the paces of their lives. They're familiar to these spaces and interact with missing objects that sometimes shimmer in spirit energy.
Spirit Children may interrupt these routines to try to talk with the ghosts. Some ghostly spirits are friendly. They may interact with Star Children as though they're someone else, someone the spirits used to know. Others, like the bartender, may treat them like a new customer. Other ghosts are determined to stick to their routines and, should Star Children continue to interrupt, will attack those who disturb them.
These spirits may kill Star Children when they attack. Normal weapons won't hurt them. There are revolvers, shotguns, iron pokers, hunting knives, and other plain weapons around to grab in self-defense. Salt bullets and iron will dispel ghosts. These weapons may be grabbed at any time. However, doing so attracts the creatures in Cruel Summer. A blood red worm spitting yellow acid may break through the floor to eat or spray Star Children. An enormous coyote may leap through the window. Whether attracted by the use of weapons or passing by, any dangerous creature found in Cruel Summer seems agitated when they come near these structures and will attack them and anyone inside. They will focus especially on anyone with a stolen selkie skin.
Should Star Children die, whether to ghosts or creatures, they will not immediately return to life.Do not pass go. Instead they will haunt the ghost town for one week in the room where they were killed. Other Star Children may recognize them and work to snap them out of their routines. Yet nothing will free the Star Children's spirits before the week is through. At the end of the week, they'll come to, alive, in their bodies in the room they died in. Best get through and out of the ghost town before dying again!
A constant through these scenes are the spirits' spoons, visible somewhere in each scene. The ghost spoons are whole. Once free of the ghost town, Star Children may choose to travel to the Shattered Spoon Shrine in Never Fade to search for the broken fragments of any of these spoons. They are in such small pieces, however, that no Star Child may feed them enough Lore alone to bring the spirit back. Two or more Star Children may spend time in the Shrine creating and feeding Lore toward the spoons to heal them. It just may be enough to bring someone back.
Summer has hit. It's hot, and nowhere is it hotter than Cruel Summer. Naturally, new Star Children arrive in Cruel Summer with no indication of which direction to go to escape, unless they're so lucky as to arrive near the Selkie River. The water provides a break, and a selkie skin will protect Star Children from the heat. Though beware the cruelty of leaving a selkie without their skin. Along with the heat, Star Children can hear whispers and the echoes of screams throughout Cruel Summer. There's no obvious source of the noises. Not the normal creatures. Not anything anyone can see.
Whether new or old Star Child, anyone lost, overheated, in need of a rest, or anything else will find a friendly spirit will find them in the sands, rock, or shores of Cruel Summer. They'll guide the way toward the huts found in Cruel Summer. These huts have changed; the huts are bigger and grow together, making them one interconnected twisting winding empty town. No one appears to live there. The wooden town is in disrepair, varying from building to building. Even so, they are cool inside, a welcome break from the summer heat.
No matter how one entered, even through the swinging doors to the saloon, that exit disappears behind Star Children. There's no turning back. The only way out is to explore the way through the buildings. This fact continues to be true building to building as exits continue to vanish. The abandoned town isn't as empty as it first seems. As Star Children explore the branching paths through the wooden structures, they see ghosts of spirits going through the paces of their lives. They're familiar to these spaces and interact with missing objects that sometimes shimmer in spirit energy.
Spirit Children may interrupt these routines to try to talk with the ghosts. Some ghostly spirits are friendly. They may interact with Star Children as though they're someone else, someone the spirits used to know. Others, like the bartender, may treat them like a new customer. Other ghosts are determined to stick to their routines and, should Star Children continue to interrupt, will attack those who disturb them.
These spirits may kill Star Children when they attack. Normal weapons won't hurt them. There are revolvers, shotguns, iron pokers, hunting knives, and other plain weapons around to grab in self-defense. Salt bullets and iron will dispel ghosts. These weapons may be grabbed at any time. However, doing so attracts the creatures in Cruel Summer. A blood red worm spitting yellow acid may break through the floor to eat or spray Star Children. An enormous coyote may leap through the window. Whether attracted by the use of weapons or passing by, any dangerous creature found in Cruel Summer seems agitated when they come near these structures and will attack them and anyone inside. They will focus especially on anyone with a stolen selkie skin.
Should Star Children die, whether to ghosts or creatures, they will not immediately return to life.
A constant through these scenes are the spirits' spoons, visible somewhere in each scene. The ghost spoons are whole. Once free of the ghost town, Star Children may choose to travel to the Shattered Spoon Shrine in Never Fade to search for the broken fragments of any of these spoons. They are in such small pieces, however, that no Star Child may feed them enough Lore alone to bring the spirit back. Two or more Star Children may spend time in the Shrine creating and feeding Lore toward the spoons to heal them. It just may be enough to bring someone back.
- Whispers, echoes of screams, etc become common throughout Cruel Summer
- Huts become bigger, interconnected, growing together. Anyone lost, overheated, in need of something in Cruel Summer gets a friendly spirit redirecting them to these buildings
- Buildings will still be in some state of disrepair, but like a whole twisting winding town
- Insides are a cool respite
supernatural ghost spirit air conditioning - Only way out is through, no turning back, as the exits disappear behind you
- Many are friendly, but some are not. One can attempt to talk to them, but how interactive they are varies
- Occasionally other creatures from Cruel Summer may burst in and attack
- If a Star Child dies, rather than return to life immediately, they stay a ghost for about a week, part of the tour
Content Warnings: Fire, Coerced Confessions
Fire! Fire across the realm! For the second half of June, wildfire burns everywhere. While it doesn’t hurt Star Children, it can reduce everything else to ash: homes, businesses, gardens, spirits. The local spirits will be in a panic and beg Star Children for help from small ice mice in Wintermute to fennec foxes in Cruel Summer. How can Star Children help? Confessions. Anything the person they are with doesn’t know. The more earnest and meaningful the better.
When wildfire erupts and spreads, Star Children may stand in or in front of an area they want to protect and confess something to another Star Child who happens to be nearby. Their neighbor? Their partner? A stranger lost in a new land? These confessions simply need to be something the other person doesn’t know to protect structures and spirits. Memories related to the confession will show in the fire. The fire will fuel these memories until they run out of energy, dying down to embers. At least in that place at that time.
Should something start to burn before someone confesses, multiple confessions are necessary to catch the wildfire’s attention and distract it from the fuel source it is feeding on. Two or more Star Children will need to make confessions whose memories are shared in the flames. Water powers can also help quell the flames, but confessions are necessary in the end.
Once July hits, the wildfires are mostly gone, only sparking up here and there on occasion. In their stead are embers. They spark in the air like fireflies and fly around Folkmore, attracted to Star Children. These embers land on Star Children and make them glow. There’s no pain. In fact, the embers provide sparks of insight into memories, situations, and other emotional dilemmas that Star Children haven’t previously understood. Talking the issue over with another Star Children provides further emotional clarity.
Spirits are welcoming to both embers and Star Children. Confessionshelp Folkmore grow as well. Gardens bloom in beautiful displays. Crops grow healthy and joyful. It’s even possible to hear humming from some of the vegetables and fruits. The land grows with the Star Children. Anyone who lacks a green thumb can work their way around that with confessions! Save that dying plant and grow those tomatoes.
One time that a Star Child confesses, either to wildfire or to embers, they will find a jeweled box shaped like a flame. The peak of the flame comes off to reveal the insides. Within, there is an item from home. It may even be a weapon or magical item. Larger more meaningful confessions are more likely to receive weapons. These items may even be larger than should fit in the box or its entrance. Whether the box should only hold a single ring or fill the palm of one’s hand, these items fit. Star Children also can keep the jeweled box, and this one item from home can be stored within the box. Other items too large to fit the box will not enter it. Only the one from the box.
Fire! Fire across the realm! For the second half of June, wildfire burns everywhere. While it doesn’t hurt Star Children, it can reduce everything else to ash: homes, businesses, gardens, spirits. The local spirits will be in a panic and beg Star Children for help from small ice mice in Wintermute to fennec foxes in Cruel Summer. How can Star Children help? Confessions. Anything the person they are with doesn’t know. The more earnest and meaningful the better.
When wildfire erupts and spreads, Star Children may stand in or in front of an area they want to protect and confess something to another Star Child who happens to be nearby. Their neighbor? Their partner? A stranger lost in a new land? These confessions simply need to be something the other person doesn’t know to protect structures and spirits. Memories related to the confession will show in the fire. The fire will fuel these memories until they run out of energy, dying down to embers. At least in that place at that time.
Should something start to burn before someone confesses, multiple confessions are necessary to catch the wildfire’s attention and distract it from the fuel source it is feeding on. Two or more Star Children will need to make confessions whose memories are shared in the flames. Water powers can also help quell the flames, but confessions are necessary in the end.
Once July hits, the wildfires are mostly gone, only sparking up here and there on occasion. In their stead are embers. They spark in the air like fireflies and fly around Folkmore, attracted to Star Children. These embers land on Star Children and make them glow. There’s no pain. In fact, the embers provide sparks of insight into memories, situations, and other emotional dilemmas that Star Children haven’t previously understood. Talking the issue over with another Star Children provides further emotional clarity.
Spirits are welcoming to both embers and Star Children. Confessions
One time that a Star Child confesses, either to wildfire or to embers, they will find a jeweled box shaped like a flame. The peak of the flame comes off to reveal the insides. Within, there is an item from home. It may even be a weapon or magical item. Larger more meaningful confessions are more likely to receive weapons. These items may even be larger than should fit in the box or its entrance. Whether the box should only hold a single ring or fill the palm of one’s hand, these items fit. Star Children also can keep the jeweled box, and this one item from home can be stored within the box. Other items too large to fit the box will not enter it. Only the one from the box.
- Last two weeks of June, wildfire burns across Folkmore. After that, they are rare.
- Confessions can protect or rescue buildings, land areas, and spirits.
- Come July, embers spark across Folkmore like fireflies. They provide insight for Star Children. Talking helps.
- Confessions help the land grow.
- Confessions reveal a jeweled box containing an item from home.
Nie Huaisang | Mo Dao Zu Shi | Familiar | Newbie
[Nie Huaisang is slumped with exhaustion near the ruins of Guanyin Temple when the Fox appears to him. He clutches his enemy's bloodstained hat in his hands, still processing the simple fact that after ten years of relentless strain, his lonely struggle to finally get justice for Nie Mingjue, Sisi, and Jin Guangyao's other victims was finally over. He still had much work to do like reversing the damage he'd done to his sect's standing over the years and building a path for himself to the Chief Cultivator's seat before yet another monster motivated by selfishness and greed can replace him. For now though, he's free to listen to the Fox and the tantalizing offer she presents: a world of possibility and a life completely opposite to the one he'd been living.
Part of him wants to mistrust it, to ask her what the catch is, but before he can speak them, she answers all of his nervous questions, breaking down his resistance to changes that he has to admit to himself, as scary and alien as they sound, sound positive. So swallowing hard, he departs with her, forcing himself not to look back at the body and his burden of responsibilities that he's leaving to become... what? He doesn't even know who he is anymore and hasn't known for years but the more they travel, the more he finds that he wants to learn with a desperation that's surprising even to him.
As he travels, he's barely aware of the physical changes in his own body. His ears shift, becoming feline and covered in soft grey fur darkening to black and blending into his hair on top of his head. A large, fluffy cat tail sprouts and unfurls from his tailbone. His canines elongate into fangs and his eyes lighten to a vibrant gold-green, pupils turning into slits.
Eventually, the journey ends with Nie Huaisang falling with a startled yelp into a completely unfamiliar landscape, clenching his newly clawed hands.]
Ghost Tours
[After wandering around lost and panting in the heat for what seems like forever, hugging himself against all the weird screams and noises sounding across the landscape. Is this place haunted? It's haunted right? And here he is lost along without any of the men he depends on to take care of such things. He lets out a joyful cry at the sight of the huts, running toward them in a graceless, bumbling dash. Shelter, there's shelter! Where there's shelter, there's people so surely he'll be saved!
Only once he's actually in the town, he can't find hide or hair of anybody in sight. He's oddly reminded of Yi City only in this case, he sincerely hopes there aren't any mass-murdering demonic cultivators ready to turn him into a fierce corpse lurking about for him to run into. So far, Nie Huaisang doesn't see any but he does see an awful lots of ghosts, more than enough to make him nervous when he doesn't have a single spiritual tool or talisman on him. He doesn't even has his fan to fend off the heat.
So with great reluctance, he timidly calls out in the middle of town, hoping that maybe some stroke of luck he'll find someone else who's actually living.]
H-Hello? C-Can somebody help me? I'm new here and don't know where to go from here.
Flames to Embers
[This place is weird. The rules of this place are weird. That's what Nie Huaisang decides when wildfires start erupting all over the place. Part of him wants to curl up in a ball and find someplace to just hide given how completely out of depth he feels with pretty much everything he's experienced since choosing to follow the Fox. In many ways, he still feels like he's falling through the sky into the unknown, utterly petrified of himself and what he might become without the restrictions, guidance, duty, or expected roles he's played under the scrutiny of others his whole life.]
What do I do? Please tell me what I'm supposed to do! I don't know how to do anything!
[It's not true, Nie Huaisang has a lot of skills, talent, and accumulated knowledge he he isn't tapping into. It's just that removal of the crutch he's relied on in order to function and guide him forward for so many years is now gone and it's sending him into a blind, flailing panic. As the flames crackle around him, he breaks down into sudden tears, wailing like a frightened child who's been separated from his parents in the marketplace instead of the grown man approaching middle age he actually is]
Wildcard
[Newcomer here! Huaisang's post-canon. If you have any other ideas, feel free to PM!]
Flames to Embers
Mostly by necessity.
A forcefield with a magenta aura wraps around them both, keeping the fire from advancing any further towards them. ]
I don't imagine this will make much sense, but the fires want a confession. [ She offers a small smile, an attempt to be comforting. ] That should be simple given neither of us know anything about each other.
no subject
Confessions? How can a confession stop a fire? Shouldn't they throw water on it? But then again, maybe fire works differently here. He's certainly seen some rather strange sights in this place. so far.]
What kind of confession? Will any kind of confession do? I failed all my classes in school. Does that help?
[He offers up something small and easy, hoping that might do the trick. It seems to be doing something, there's ghostly images of a teenage boy getting hit with scrolls as scolded by a much taller, muscular man in flickering in the flames, at least.]
no subject
At least it seems to have actually done something. Which meant that at smaller things could do something. That's a positive thing to actually learn about this situation. She's willing to accept any bit of positivity that will be thrown at this situation right now.
The second she realizes the flames are still there and clearly wanting more she sighs. Of bloody course. A dozen confessions flit through her mind and she discards each of them for being either too violent or just too personal. There is one thing she can think of that won't really make much sense to anyone but her. ]
I sold my sorrow to a magical Ogre in Forest of a Thousand Sorrows.
[ The flames flare up to show a massive humanoid creature with horns like a bull standing in front of Betsy as they make their deal. The flames flicker down in acceptance of her confession. ]
Flames to embers
no subject
[At the moment, Huaisang's too focused on the flames engulfing the area to put a whole of thought into why Jin Ling of all people is here beside him during this very trying situation.]