livinglot | ⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME: WISMUTH

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test drive meme

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME: WISMUTH

WELCOME TO THE SHOW!↴

Or, more specifically, Lost Carnival's 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 (and should) read the full premise here.
Reserves and Applications are currently OPEN.
Recruits can be either willing or tricked this month.
You can apply as a newcomer or as a "veteran" character who has been in the carnival for up to three years. In the case of veteran characters, you will need to come up with an explanation of why they haven't been around the carnival recently.
TDM threads can be used as game canon after the fact if both characters are accepted, the players agree to it, and it makes any sense contextually.
If you are interested in additional IC and OOC plot responsibilities, consider applying for a Supervisor position. Head Cook and Treasurer are currently open. Otherwise, we're pretty much down for anything, roles wise.

CURRENT STOP↴

⇨ WISMUTH ⇦
Wismuth is a large coastal city on the east shore of what would usually be the United States. The world it's part of is an Earth variant, meaning that while some aspects may be different, overall it will contain a similar look and feel to Earth many are accustomed to, including some overlapping celebrities, corporations, and technologies. Its most notable feature is that this planet is a part of what is called a 'Pillar of Creation' - a focal point of Creation's energies in the multiverse. The effects of this feature are the only aspect of the setting that will be relevant for this testdrive, as recruits will be entirely within the carnival as opposed to out in the city.

► VIBRANCY OF CREATION: The immediate effects of this trait are that everything in Wismuth, and in the carnival because of its connection to Wismuth, is filled with an unusual sort of vibrancy - colours seem brighter, sounds seems to resonate more deeply, and all other physical sensations will strike visitors as oddly intense, including their own emotions. It's a subtle effect rather than anything that will be overtly disorientating, but it's almost as if everything is more "real" here than it is anywhere else. Obviously, the locals, whom are mostly just ordinary looking humans, have had plenty of time to grow accustomed to this. On the bright side, as a tourist, you have the opportunity to experiment with this sensation as a form of recreation.

Recruits from this month will be signing on with the carnival between Day 8 and Day 11 on the season calendar.

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. 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 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.

► TUNNEL OF "LOVE": A brand new attraction in the carnival, the Tunnel of Love is mostly what you'd expect from such a ride - two people sit in a boat together which journeys through some glitter filled caves, complete with mood music. Unfortunately, there is also something else in there with you... in the form a moody kraken living in the waters, who has very particular opinions about shipping, and may either stubbornly interfere with any attempted intimacy, or may politely encourage it. Or they may just generally be a dick if they're in no mood for either. The Ringmaster insists it is a romance expert.

► 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.

► 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.

► 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!

► DUNK TANK: Sometimes acting like a dick will earn you the gentle reprimand of being sent to work in the Dunk Tank for the afternoon - you know that game where people throw balls at a target, and if they hit it you get dropped into the water? It's like that, only sometimes there are daunting (but harmless) critters in the water, or some other strange magical affects to spice things up. Hopefully, the visitors will have bad aim.

► 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

Lina turns around to see...well, she's not sure what she was expecting, considering the vast diversity of carnival workers. She eyes Rita curiously, still looking profoundly annoyed at the situation at hand. The fireball in her hand flickers and goes out, because curiosity ultimately trumps the strong desire to burn everything around her to the ground, even if it wouldn't actually do anything.

"Fae?" In all her travels, in all her pretty extensive magical research, it's not a word she's heard before. Must be something specific to this world. "What is that? Elemental spirits or something? Is that who turned you into a chimera?"

A chimera? That gives Rita pause, and a flicker of what might be embarrassment crosses her face.

But she quickly recovers her poker face, and answers. "They're magic beings with immense power. The Ringmaster of the carnival here's one of them." It's interesting that she mentions elemental spirits, though. So she comes from a world that has such things...

"Exposure to fae magic causes certain changes in mortals. So while she didn't directly turn me into anything... it is basically her fault," she says, matter-of-factly.

"Wait, this isn't the result of some kind of magic experiment?" Lina waves at Rita's whole body, the near-tantrum-like rage absolutely vanishing. Magical curiosity trumps frustration today, and she steps in closer, peering at her. "I don't think I've ever met a monster that could cause these kinds of changes just by exposure, even the really powerful ones. What other kinds of powers does she have? Are there other fae here?"

Rita's face takes on a pinkish tinge, and she averts her eyes while the other girl looks her over. Even though this is pretty much exactly how Rita would treat a strange magic phenomenon, regardless of the person afflicted with it, she can't help but get a bit flustered when she's the one under the microscope for once.

"She's the only true fae here... that is, a natural-born, full-blooded fae. The rest of us may have all kinds of fae aspects, but pretty much all of that came about through our contracts with her, or from the magic we've interacted with."

Rita continues to avoid eye contact as her explanation continues. "As for what she's capable of, I'm not sure I can guess at her limits yet. She maintains this carnival as her personal realm, can transport it to other worlds, can bestow powers onto mortals, and can apparently turn herself into a giant dragon." She shrugs. These are the kinds of things Rita's had to start accepting as 'normal', as of late.

Yeah, sorry, Rita, Lina's just going to keep unabashedly checking you out from all angles with little hmms to herself. She's seen plenty of chimera work in her world, but it's usually kind of taboo to experiment on human subjects, and it's a difficult science. Most chimera experiments wind up in...pretty abominable failures. But that last bit really catches her attention and she straightens up, blinking.

"She turns into a dragon?" Lina suddenly looks deeply thoughtful. "She almost sounds like one of the gods from my world. I wonder if this world could be one of the parallel planes...say, have you ever heard any mention of a Sea of Chaos? Or a Lord of Nightmares, by any chance?"

Rita shakes her head. "Never heard of them. But... I suppose it's possible. From what I've learned, fae can be found all over the multiverse, kinda like humans are." There's a pause, as if she's pondering something heavy... but whatever that thought was, she seems to brush it off.

"I know of a few fae with monstrous forms like the Ringmaster's, so it may be a common trait. Other commonalities include a tendency to gather servants and form rigid hierarchies, and a preference for titles rather than names."

"Hm. Well, the rigid hierarchy part sounds about right, but they tend to make their own servants -- usually from a piece of themselves." Lina rubs her chin with a gloved hand and gives Rita another curious look. "What about your world? Do you have fae there?"

"No." Her answer is confident, despite the fact that Rita couldn't possibly have scoured the world thoroughly enough to confirm that. However... "Until recently, there was a barrier around my world that protected us from anything beyond. I doubt it's a coincidence that I encountered the carnival so quickly after it was dispelled."

Which would suggest that, without that barrier, her world is now vulnerable to the likes of the fae... It's definitely not a comforting thought.

Massive magical barrier, you say? This is immediately more interesting. Lina stops with the scientific gawking at Rita's body and looks an entirely different kind of interested.

"Dispelled? What happened to it?"

Well... this stranger does look like some kind of sorceress. Rita probably shouldn't be surprised she's so interested in a barrier powerful enough to protect an entire planet.

She sighs. "The barrier was in place for so long, nobody even knew it existed... until some total idiot started messing around with an ancient, forgotten technology. He thought it'd be a powerful magic weapon he could use to conquer the world. Instead, he broke the whole damn thing and nearly doomed us all." Her tone is, of course, dripping with disdain for said idiot. His plan would've been stupid enough if it succeeded, but it's even stupider in retrospect, considering what a failure it was.

Lina lowers her face into her palm. "Of course," she mutters, her disdain matching Rita's. "When will power-hungry lunatics learn to stop trying to exploit ancient technologies they don't understand? Don't answer that, it's rhetorical."

She puffs out a sigh, rubbing her forehead. "But you saved the day in the end, is that it?"

"Working on it," Rita replies with a shrug. "Stopping the calamity is one thing. The real challenge is preparing for what comes after."

Lifting her gaze to meet the other girl's eyes, she raises an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you've heard this all before." Rita really wants to believe that Alexei's brand of stupidity is rare, reserved only for the most narcissistic of idiots... but perhaps it's too much to hope for, to want to think the multiverse isn't teeming with exactly those kinds of idiots.

'What comes after'? No, for Lina the stopping the calamity part is easily the challenge, but mostly because Lina Inverse always leaves her messes for someone else to clean up. That's the beautiful sorcery genius way.

"Not exactly, but I've killed a dark lord or two in my time," Lina says, with absolutely zero trace of modesty, "and stopped a few idiots besides. They all say they have good reasons, but that's usually a load of bull. Like the guy who made the pledge of immortality with a monster so he could do more immortality research, or the priest who thought awakening a dark lord -- sorry, the dark lord -- would cure his blindness -- and would you believe that at one point I had to deal with a bunch of weirdos from another plane dropping in so they could use my world as a destruction site for the dark lord in their world? I mean, talk about lack of boundaries."

“Right...” Rita agrees dryly, seemingly unsure of how to react to all that. Should she even believe it?

To start somewhere, she’ll go with: “So... what does this make you, exactly? Some kind of big hero?” Because even without knowing what the heck a dark lord is, that sounds like a whole lot of evil vanquished.

So glad you asked, Rita. Lina strikes a bit of a pose and grins, twirling her cape a little.

"Lina Inverse, beautiful sorcery genius!" Modesty? No thank you, Lina's good. She winks at Rita. "If I'm not a hero, then I don't know who qualifies. I'm pretty famous back home."

Granted, Lina Inverse is a household name that invokes terror and vast concerns over property damage, but sshhhh.

And here's Rita, rolling her eyes. "Wow. You're calling yourself beautiful?"

That's a level of egotism that not even Rita Mordio, mostly-average-looking sorcery genius, can achieve.

Don't you stomp on her ego like that, Rita, it's surprisingly fragile in this department. Lina looks profoundly annoyed, glaring at Rita.

"Oh, who asked you? I'm adorable! Just look at these big eyes! This cute little face!"

"Yeah. Sure."

Rita's not convinced.

She sighs, and with a casual wave of a hand, "Anyway, since you introduced yourself, I might as well do the same. Rita Mordio. I'm a mage, too. Specialties are offensive magic and magic technology."

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⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME: WISMUTH

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