livinglot | ⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #1

WELCOME TO THE SHOW!↴

Or, more specifically, Lost Carnival's first test drive meme! This is an opportunity to try out your characters in the setting before you apply, or to put together samples for characters you've never played before. There are going to be options for both new arrivals and veteran characters. Before we get started, let's lay down some details:

You can read the full premise here.
Reserves open October 5th at 12:01AM EST.
Applications open October 7th at 12:01AM EST.
You can apply as a newcomer or as a "veteran" character who has been in the carnival for up to three years.
TDM threads can be used as game canon after the fact if both characters are accepted and the players agree to it.
If you are interested in additional IC and OOC plot responsibilities, consider applying for a Supervisor position.
Supervisor applications will start being processed a few days after apps open, and will be selected on a competitive basis. If you want a supervisor position, it is best to submit your application as close to the beginning of the application cycle as possible. If you don't get chosen for your desired supervisor position, you will be given time to rework your application to be a regular veteran, or to apply for a supervisor position that is not yet taken.
Lost Carnival could use some additional moderation assistance! If you are interested, please let us know here.

NEW RECRUITS↴

You gotta start somewhere, right? These prompts are for characters who are arriving in the carnival for the first time, and who are destined to sign a contract. How they go about that is up to you, but in the meantime they can enjoy the sights and sounds of something truly out of this world. Visitors to the carnival comes from many different worlds today, as the ringmaster casts out her recruitment lures. Will you become her most recent hire?

► ADMISSION FEES: After crossing into the carnival's realm and passing through the trees, most visitors will find themselves at the front gate - though not all choose to enter that way. If they enter legitimately, however, they will have to pass by a clerk who will trade admission and tickets for various attractions and rides in exchange for "anything of value." What is of value may seem highly subjective, and so some may struggle to produce payment at first, though in actuality the carnival will take anything from mundane currency to items of purely sentimental value.

► MIRROR MAZE: The mirror maze (pictured above) is a big attraction in the carnival, and stretches much further on the inside than it looks like it will on the outside. It's hard to get through, and what's more, after you've been in there for a while your reflections will start gaining a mind of their own - mostly in order to taunt and distract you with personal information. They don't know everything you know, but they know more than they should, and their mind games can be pretty hit or miss.

► GAMER'S CIRCLE: Almost all of the game booths are organized in a large ring around the Cookhouse, called Gamer's Circle. Your can play just about any carnival game you can imagine here, for a variety of prizes sometimes traditional, exotic, or outright magical. Dart tossing? Got it. That game with the water guns? Got it. Most of these booths are currently manned by humanoid spirits who look like they are made of smoke. If they can trick you into earning debt, they will.

► TRYING TO LEAF: No matter where you came from, you seemingly emerged from a forest. Obviously, to get back home you should be able to go back in the same direction, right? It turns out you can't. Worse, trying too hard to get through the wood will result in you getting lost, or turned back to the carnival. The trees here are not normal, and are varying levels of alien, including things like trees with glowing fruit or orange flowers that constantly burn like candles.

► NOT YOUR WHEELHOUSE (NEW): Sometimes, even magical ferris wheels get stuck. The carnival's particular wheel is enchanted to create a particular out of this world experience - as you pass along the top, you feel as if they are so close to the sky that you can interact with the stars like baubles hanging above your head. Of course, the novelty probably wears off when the wheel is broken and you've been stuck enjoying the light show with some stranger for the last half hour. How are you going to pass the time?

► WILD CARD: Anything else you can imagine in this setting! There are a lot of possibilities and you're free to explore them. Check out the rest of the game info or the locations page for additional inspiration. Want to make a starter with your character experiencing their first theoretical change? Go for it!

VETERAN WORKERS↴

These prompts are tailored to the carnival's existing employees, the veterans. Odds are they've been here from somewhere between a few months and three years already, and know their way around the block. For them, this is just business as usual - and depending on their attitude towards their job, they may or may not contribute to a few people accidentally getting themselves a contract. Whatever you do, though, don't warn visitors away from the carnival - the ringmaster hates losing business like that.

► DO YOUR WORK: This one's pretty simple - just have your character doing whatever you'd like to have their job be! There is a big list of ideas over here, and you could use this to try things out with a character you intend to be a new arrival, as well.

► WILL O' WISPS: The ringmaster's will o' wisps have gotten free, and she's asked that everyone keep and eye out and help her reclaim them regardless of their official jobs. Wisps are small creatures that burn both hot and cold and comes in a few different variations of the same basic theme. Handling them physically (or psionically, or magically, for that matter) is difficult due to their near intangible nature. Touching and being around them can result in confusion and a sensation similar to being comfortably drunk.

► BREAK TIME: Whatever you were doing, it's break time! It's time for you to relax however you see fit. Do you enjoy some of the carnival attractions yourself, or is that old by now? Do you hang out in the Cookhouse to get a snack? Do you take a nap? Yolo, baby!

► RIDDLE GAME: For a bit of fun, the ringmaster has left a variety of locked chests around the worker areas of the carnival, each with instructions and a riddle written on their lids. The chest will accept three guesses from each worker before refusing to respond to them any further. If you guess the right answer, the chest will open and you will be rewarded with some manner of fun magical knick knack. If you've run out of guesses, maybe you can conspire with someone else and promise to split the prize?

► WILD CARD: Anything else you can imagine in this setting! There are a lot of possibilities and you're free to explore them. Check out the rest of the game info or the locations page for additional inspiration. Want to do a performance? Hang out in the Backyard? Choose whatever appeals!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A. Admission.

[Walter is just short of a hundred percent sure this is an illusion. He certainly hadn't heard that there was a fair going on in Bowerstone, whoever could've decided to set one up with this timing would've had to have been impossibly daft, and despite said timing... well, it looked completely untouched by the darkness. It looked like it had been dropped into the city in the middle of all the fighting after having been cut from someplace else, strange... Set pieces? Machinery? And all.

He tried to avoid going toward it - ohh, no, he wasn't falling for that - but when he turned around, the street had, apparently, filled in with trees behind him. He tried to call the Queen. No answer. Tried to call Ben, Page, Sabine. No answer from any of them, either. With the only way out of this looking to be through, he bit the proverbial bullet and started to ever-so-cautiously approach the carnival, sword drawn - and as he moved forward, the sounds of the fighting started to die.

He's at the gate now, and the fact that he's made it this far without whatever this is giving up the game and going straight to hell has him right on-edge. Still. Keep it together. Stay vigilant. Got to keep going, see where this goes...

He fishes a few coins out of his pocket with a grumble and drops them into the hands of the clerk, who tells him to enjoy.

Muffled, unhappy laugh.] Yeah, right. You will, won't you.

B. Forest.

['Hoy! Happen to be wandering in the woods rrroughly in the vicinity of this old goat?

Much as he's bursting with a weird, dread-tinged frustration on starting to see the fair that he just left through the trees, he's kind of reassured - subconsciously a little less suspicious with regards to the reality of... all of this - on seeing someone else with interest in not being on the grounds. Hope you don't mind being singled out for possible commiseration.

He slows his trudging down to a stop within reasonable communication distance, and brings up from a groan:]

Aaand... we're right back where we started! Serves one right for even trying, doesn't it!

[Hufffff.]

Balls... [Starts to slowly shake his head. And he kind of... coughs out a wry, dragging chuckle. Looks a bit more directly at whoever's nearby.] The longer this goes on, the more I start to like the idea that I've plain gone mad.

[He kind of asks himself why he even said that, after he does, but... pfhah, he knows why he did. Just trying to beat back the serious thought that he might be stuck here, period, Crawler illusion, bizarre cursed-or-what-have-you detour away from the fight for his country and the court he serves, or otherwise.]

C. Wildcard.

[Hit me!]

Walter! There you are!

[The princess pushed her way past a tree bough, hurrying forward to meet her mentor.]

You ran off so fast I thought I'd lose you entirely. I almost did. Did you know there was a carnival going on out here? I thought Mourningwood was too uninhabited for that sort of thing.

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Walter Beck | Fable | Newbie

Forest