livinglot | ⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #4

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test drive meme

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #4

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 read the full premise here.
Reserves and Applications are both currently OPEN.
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 and the players agree to it.
If you are interested in additional IC and OOC plot responsibilities, consider applying for a Supervisor position. Treasurer, Wardrobe Manager, and Acquisitioner are currently open. More roles that currently need filling are listed 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.

► NOT YOUR WHEELHOUSE: 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?

► 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.

► 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?

► CAPTURE THE... EGG?: The Ringmaster likes to keep things exciting for her employees, and this time she's devices a game that mixes an Easter egg hunt with capture the flag. She's hidden various metallic "eggs" around the carnival that chime like bells when people get near, and divided participants into three teams (red, blue, yellow of course.) The carnival has been divided into three zones, and the objective is to gather as many eggs as possible for your team (three points for gold, two for silver, one for copper.) However, when you are in a zone that doesn't belong to your team, if they can snatch off your team flag they can take you to "jail" and confiscate any eggs you may be holding for their team. When in doubt, bullshit the rules! This is a prompt, after all.

► 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

Yes, but then I'd observe it in a jar! [ said as if it's the most obvious thing ever. Duh, Lambert, that's a problem. How else is he going to explore and see the wonderful weird magic of this world if it's stuck in a jar? ]

I want to see how the wisps act in the wild! How they can shift from tangible to intangible, if they truly do burn, all of those things that you cannot observe if they're stuck in a jar.

[ Strange is speaking words that Lambert technically understands, but privately and briefly he can't help wondering if the spell that keeps them all able to communicate might be broken in Strange's case somehow. He can however refute at least one point: ]

It's not really in the wild if it was captured to start with, is it? It's like ... [ He squints, trying to come up with the right analogy. ] Like letting a dog outside and expecting to learn about wolves.

[ no, it's just that Strange is a mad eccentric who likes magic way too much, that's why it's as if they're speaking different languages.

Strange can't help but frown a little bit. Still, he gets the analogy (and understands it perfectly, at least one of them's great at piecing these things out) and then decides to further continue it. ]

But if your world doesn't have wolves in the first place, then wouldn't any information be helpful?

I guess? [ Lambert shrugs. ] But what's it supposed to help? Let you make more of 'em? Figure out how to kill 'em?

[ That's what Witchers mostly care about, anyway. ]

It's learning for the sake of learning!

[ said as if it's the most obvious thing ever. Why'd he want to kill them in the first place? They seem...well, he's not entirely sure what they seem. Surely they must be useful somehow, but Strange doesn't really know how yet (which AGAIN, is why he's studying them in the first place!) ]

Uhh... [ Okay, you've totally lost him there. ] Okay, but I don't see how that helps anyone.

[ He stands with jar to hip, squinting critically into the distance and a hand absently toying with the silver wolf's-head medallion around his neck. ]

If you want to find one, can't you just use your magic to track one down? [ He doesn't understand the rules of magic Strange operates by, but he assumes he's got to know something for so basic a purpose. ]

Location spells can be very imprecise. [ And then Strange starts nattering on, as if Lambert cares about the intricacies of English magic tracking spells. He talks with his hands as he talks, making vague gestures that somehow are intended to explain the tracking spells more thoroughly. ]

It's easier to locate a specific person or a specific object over a wider concept like "any will o' wisp." For instance, I could easily see what another member of the Carnival was doing, but if you asked me to find...I don't know, let's say a pigeon or a man about to do a diabolical deed, that type of magic is notoriously imprecise and would end up with us traveling in circles.

[ All in all, Lambert's probably just as confused as he was when the conversation started. But Strange is at least treating this like he's explaining everything crystal clear. ]

If you tell me the individual name of a will o' wisp, I could easily tell you where it is.

[ Luckily, it doesn't seem like Lambert's input is required here, so he can just kind of get by with nodding in a vaguely affirmative way, but something in there does get his attention. ]

Do you usually do that? Spy on people?

[ He seems more interested than accusatory, but hey look! Magic can be useful for something! ]

It depends on the person.

[ Strange answers in a very nonchalant sort of manner, mostly because the actual answer is 'all the damn time.' Mostly it's spying on Childermass but occasionally other people get the creepy magic treatment as well. ]

I could show you, if you wish.

[ His response is very nearly instant. ]

All right. Lay it on me.

[ What could possibly go wrong? ]

Well, we'll have to go to my trailer first. The spell requires a basin which I normally don't carry with me.

[ After all, it isn't wartime. The amount of times Strange has had to do 'spying on the go' is all in all rather minimal. ]

If you wanted to get me alone in your trailer, Strange, all you had to do was ask. We don't need to hide our love.

[ It'd be easy to blame the lack of filter on the influence of the wisps, but ... nope, this is just 100% Lambert being a tit. ]

[ There's a brief pause...before Strange just lets out a small laugh. Obviously he's interpreting this as Lambert trying to get his goat and not suggesting anything serious, but might as well nip it in the bud in case he actually is serious. ]

I'm afraid my wife would object to anything more than the two of us talking about magic. [ Never mind the fact that he don't swing that way to begin with, buddy. ] Our love shall have to remain strictly platonic.

[ He gestures for Lambert to follow him as he starts to make his way towards his trailer. ]

[ The idea of a magic-user being married is just so bizarre to Lambert that it's his turn to pause, squinting at Strange like he's not sure if he's the one getting his leg pulled now before he recovers and gives him a quick smirk. ]

You sure? She can join in if she wants to. [ Pursuing that crass line of conversation is marginally less interesting than the chance to see a different sort of magic at work (particularly if there's any chance that Lambert can figure out how to avoid being the subject of such scrying spells) so he happily falls into step beside Strange, letting him take the lead. ]

Can she use magic too? Your wife, I mean.

I'd gladly extend her the invitation were she in the Carnival with us in the first place. [ instead, she's...well, kind of dead. Hopefully not for long though, as Strange's entire reason for being here is to find out what sort of magic can be used to bring people back from the dead as actual people and not hell-traumatized corpses.

Fun times! ]

Her name is Arabella. And no, she can't use magic. My England is...rather lacking when it comes to magicians.

[ there are literally two of them. ]

Lucky you. Where I'm from, you can't even shit without tripping over one.

[ Though ... that's not entirely accurate, at least not of late. Having a crazy king who really hates magic and is doing his best to eradicate it off the face of the earth will do that. ]

Does she know you can't give her kids?

[ Congrats, Strange is honestly baffled at that. Because what??? ]

Magic doesn't have anything to do with infertility.

[ You have no idea how much this'd be blowing his mind right now if he wasn't, like, slightly boozy from earlier wisp proximity. ]

'Course it does. If you use it enough, anyway. [ A pause. ] Maybe you haven't gotten there yet.

Well, we currently don't have any children, but— [ what a classy way to say 'everything works well and we totally have sex'. Congrats Lambert, Strange is a little tongue-tied as he deliberately says, ]

But it's not for lack of trying.

[ how's that for a tmi about a random stranger's sex life, LET'S CHANGE THE CONVERSATION. ] Of course, I was in the peninsula for part of our marriage. It's rather hard to keep those things happening when one's on the continent.

[ If he was keeping points on this conversation, he would have mentally awarded Strange one. Good job, man, you did it, you used a euphemism.

Although, he's not sure if 'the peninsula' is another euphemism. ]

What does geography have to do with putting a bun in the oven?

I literally mean the peninsula. Arabella was in England, I had to go to Portugal for the war.

[ Strange kept on forgetting that not that many people in the carnival were from England to begin with. Of course Lambert doesn't know what the peninsula is. ]

Nope. No idea what either of those are.

[ He probably has knowledge some thinly-skinned fantasy version of them, but maybe from a few centuries before Strange's generation. ]

[ Dude, really? Strange gives Lambert a bit of a confused look before explaining, in the simplest terms possible, ]

We live on an island but I had to go to the mainland for a bit. Satisfied?

Oh. Why didn't you just say so in the first place?

[ At least that's in terms that he can understand ... and hey, somehow they actually made it to Strange's trailer in the middle of all that talking! ]

Because most people know what the peninsula is!

[ said with a little huff, as Strange pushes open the door to the trailer. The main area's actually pretty clean, though there are signs that a teenage boy lives there (shoes near the entryway) as well as the fact that there's just so much useless tourist crap sitting in one of the trailer's windows. Like, think a jewelry box covered in seashells, an alligator skull, a bottle of sand art with Strange's name on it, there's just so much useless beach themed junk.

Somebody spent waaaaaay too much money on useless shit when the Carnival was in Atlantis.

Strange walks over towards the table where he picks up a silver basin, lying by the side of the wall. Then, he heads over to the sink. Thank God for plumbing. ]

Feel free to have a seat while I get everything set up.

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #4

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