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Well Mod ([personal profile] wellie) wrote in [community profile] wellcome2023-07-19 04:51 pm
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3.0 Test Drive Meme

3.0 Test Drive Meme

Welcome to Well! Characters arrive a little differently this month (see the first prompt). Your character arrives this month in the middle of the formless desert with only a handful of memories, clad in old west style clothes of your choosing, with no items from home.

Anyone is free to play on the TDM, but you need an invite to apply. Feel free to use these prompts, and interact with the arrival or locations. NPCs are around, but only say a certain set of phrases. TDMs can be considered game canon.

This TDM takes place from the first week of August onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during August and September. This will be the only TDM for August, September, and October.

Applications are open July 26th until August 1st, and August 27th until September 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.

A Little Lost
Content warnings: heat exhaustion, feelings of unreality

You wake up in a sea of sand. It’s hot, and dry, and it seems to go on forever. You don’t remember much about yourself except your name and a handful of memories that most likely aren’t useful right now.

The sand slip-slides under your feet with every step. Sun beats down heavy and hot on your neck and your head. You’re so thirsty. How did you get here? How long have you been walking? Where are you headed? You can’t know. You feel like you’ve been walking forever, but the sun stays high above you, like it’s always noon. It may have been hours, it may have been mere minutes. What are those things circling in the sky above you? Vultures? That can't mean anything good.

Eventually, you find someone else, another new arrival, maybe, or a resident of the town who may have wandered a little too far into the desert. Maybe they have some water on them? Either way, company is exactly what you need right now, because there sure isn’t anything else in this desolate place. Not a cactus, not an animal, not even hints of a town.

Once you’re together, it seems a little easier to move forward. Time starts to move, too. The sun dips in the sky, your feet tread through the sand, and together, eventually you find the town.

If you take too long after you find one another, and the sun sets, be careful. Cacti sprout up closer to town, and after the sun sets, the cacti start to move, and they seem hungry for blood.

tl;dr:
  • This time, new arrivals wake up lost in the middle of a vast desert.
  • There's too much sun, too much sand, vultures circling and too little water.
  • Finding each other makes time start again, and lets you find the town.
  • If you don't make it back to town before nightfall, vicious living cacti appear to attack you.

Face Your Fears
Content warnings: hallucinations, reality shifts

In this town, fear soaks the hot, dry air. It lurks in shadows and the corners of rooms, waiting for their moment. What is it that you fear? Monsters? Disappointing your parents? Maybe you’re afraid that everyone you love will leave you, or that you’ll end up alone. Whatever it is, right now, there’s a chance of becoming very real.

It happens suddenly. Your mind drifts. You lose focus on what you were doing, and when you look up again, the world around you has shifted. What was a nice lunch with a new friend or a fun visit to the saloon becomes a nightmare. What fear manifests is totally up to you, and it can be different every time. The person beside you could become a monster you think is trying to attack you, or you could be suddenly alone in a cold dark space, desolate and empty.

Whatever horror your mind conjures up for you, it will feel real in all ways and with all senses including, of course, your perception of pain. As far as you know, you’re trapped in a nightmare with no way out.

Except, of course, there is a way out: you just need to figure out that it isn’t real. Maybe you’re strong enough to do that on your own; maybe you’ll need help from a friend or a new pal, reaching through the illusion to pull you back. After all, these hallucinations are entirely in the mind of the beholder: to everyone around you, it sure just looks like you’re yelling at your pancakes!

tl;dr:
  • You start hallucinating that the things you fear most are actually happening to you.
  • These fears feel like real, concrete sensory experiences, even though they're only happening in your head.
  • You can escape by recognizing that what's happening isn't real, either on your own or with help.



Bullrider
Content warnings: mild bovine coercion, alcohol

Come on, hot stuff. You know you want to.

Bet you can’t stay on for more than half a minute.

You don’t look too tough.

You think you can tame me?


In the saloon, you hear a voice in your head. It calls to you, the words seductive and enticing: you want to prove it wrong, you want to find out what it’s promising, you hate to lose. Whatever the motivation, you find yourself abandoning your drink and making your way to the new attraction at the back of the saloon: the bull.

It’s a big boy: a massive mechanical bull. Covered in spotted cowhide, with a bull head and big horns, this thing sits on a massive pedestal like a challenge. Around it is spread... relatively thin padding and a flimsy rope to keep the audience back an appropriate distance.

The compulsion keeps a hold on you until you’re on the bull. Maybe you’re on it with a friend, or a stranger, and it starts up with a mechanical buzzing. It starts to sway under you, and now you have just one job: stay on.

It starts easy, but gets harder as it goes along. It’s incredibly difficult to stay on for more than a minute. But during that minute, you feel amazing. You feel hot as hell, in whatever way that works for you: sexy, powerful, bold, in control.

Until he throws you off onto the padding or into the crowd! When you get thrown, there's a good chance you'll go flying into the crowd. Hopefully they're ready to catch you!

If by some miracle you manage to stay on for more than a minute and a half, the bartender slides you a bullrider special: a spicy whiskey cocktail with a hint of lime. Feel free to leave it up to pure chance, and have the mods roll a die for you to see whether you manage to stay on or not.


tl;dr:
  • There's a mechanical bull in the back of the saloon!
  • There's a strange deep voice in your head, coercing you into giving it a shot.
  • It's hard to stay on, but when you're on it, you feel powerful, bold and in control.
  • The padding's pretty thin and you'll get thrown hard when you do. You might hit someone!
  • If you stay on for more than a minute and a half, you'll get a fun little drink as a reward.



shiro2hero: (i got my tan back)

Lost

[personal profile] shiro2hero 2023-07-24 03:42 am (UTC)(link)
[Keith isn't alone for long. Fortunately. Shiro knows he shouldn't be out here - he knows he should be more careful. The desert is dangerous, even when they're not in this world. He didn't come by himself, at least. Or on foot.]

[Instead, decked out in the usual black cowboy outfit, he's astride a horse. But not just any horse, no. He's out here with Bonesy. So he doesn't need to worry about water for the horse. Just people.]

[Unfortunately, that's what Keith is going to see coming his way. A big man in black, on a skeletal horse. Heading towards the source of that shout.]
marmoron: marmoron (put em up)

i adore bonesy

[personal profile] marmoron 2023-07-25 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
[ still fanning himself with the stetson, keith continues dragging red and white boots through the sand, occasionally looking up and squinting at the distance to find that shack.

on the one hand, keith finally does spot something in the distance. on the other? the rapidly approaching speck in the distance more or less looks like a cowboy on the grim reaper's horse.
]

What the-

[ keith takes a pointless but reflexive step backward, eyes wide as he appraises his immediate surroundings. no place to hide, nothing in his pockets either. options? limited.

1. pray
2. gtovell

or you know....
]

Stay back! You're not taking me without a fight!
shiro2hero: (but then who was the phone)

bonesy adores YOU

[personal profile] shiro2hero 2023-07-25 06:06 am (UTC)(link)
[Bonesy, a very good horse, stops as soon as Keith calls out. Just plants his feet and snorts. Somehow - you know, despite the fact he doesn't actually have lungs. Shiro holds his hands in the air, slowly pushing the black hat back off his face.]

I'm not going to take you anywhere. It's okay. You're okay.

[Still keeping one hand up, he reaches around to the back of his saddle, slowly pulling out a ... oh. It's a canteen.]

Do you need some water?
marmoron: marmoron (edginng away)

[personal profile] marmoron 2023-07-27 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
[ it's okay. you're okay. it's exactly what someone trying to trick him into lowering his guard would say, no? keith lowers his fists, but only slightly, allowing his heart rate to settle now that it's at least clear the guy and his bone horse aren't about to come charging.

what is that anyway? looks like something from a creepy folk tale. maybe it's a cryptid?

either way, his attention snaps up up to the canteen as soon as it's brought up.
]

Yeah, I'm parched.

[ squint. ]

Is drinking that water what made your pony friend there all goth?
shiro2hero: (How long has that cow been there)

[personal profile] shiro2hero 2023-07-28 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
Then he- What?

[Shiro was about to toss the canteen at the kid. It seemed like a better idea than approaching him any further. Bonesy doesn't seem to mind. The skeletal horse drops its head, appearing to sniff at the ground for grass. Despite, you know, being an entire skeleton.]

[Then he was asked if the water turned Bonsey into a husk. He blinks. Looks at Keith. Looks at Bonsey.]


No. No, he's - always been like this. He's not dangerous, really. [Somehow, the bone horse sneezes.]

Do you want this or what?
marmoron: (resting bitch face)

[personal profile] marmoron 2023-07-31 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ okay, so the water isn't cursed allegedly. keith's index of suspicion drops fractionally, though he's still not sure what to qualify this as. hallucination? bizarre but real?

either way, he nods to indicate he would like that canteen of water and follows up with
]

So what is he then?
shiro2hero: (no i dunno the lyrics to Go The Distance)

[personal profile] shiro2hero 2023-08-01 04:49 am (UTC)(link)
[Still not wanting to encroach on Keith's space, Shiro tosses the canteen toward him. A careful underhand toss. Even if it hits the sand, it shouldn't spill, lid's on too secure for that.]

Far as I can tell? A magic bone horse.

[He's silent for a beat. Shrugs.]

Which means that's as good a guess as I have.