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TEST DRIVE MEME 002
⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:
Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, spiders, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, spiders, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE
The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the frost-covered mosses and ferns, the frozen soil cold and just a little damp on your bare skin. Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.
You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards emerging from a temporary retreat from the wintry weather. With your feet under you, and you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is running actively again as the weather warms back up from the recent snowstorm.
As you explore, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike, and the weather isn't quite amenable to your lack of.
Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.
This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street — a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer — while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers.
When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available — the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.
breaking and entering
If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.
Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. Parts of the house still bear the dust of disuse, gathered on various furnishings — bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. However, it's already full of people! Anyone who's already appeared in the village just as you did today lives here. Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, and some scorch marks still linger from a recent fire, and some furniture is still lying around in splinters.
Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions.
finding roommates
Don't spend too much time in the dining room going for seconds, though. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. The last people upstairs will need to double up to squeeze in. Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements.
Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with breakfast. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal — at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. As you find your way around town to get your bearings, folks are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!
OFFERINGS FOR ULANTI
The festival starts in the middle of the night, when the sun and the children are safely tucked into bed. The streets come alive with dancing locals, their faces painted red and purple and black and yellow. They all wear revealing clothing that, to your sensibilities, may seem sexually suggestive. Some individuals openly expose their breasts and nipples, while some others may incidentally reveal when they turn around to tend to their errands that their dress is backless — entirely! market stands and kind neighbors will gladly provide clothing befitting the occasion to anyone who asks.Notably, the locals' choice of clothes reveal a mark on their bodies. An astute person will notice that there are four varieties — and a very astute (
In addition to dancing and the lighting of any number of candles, you may stumble upon fighting rings inspired by Terry Silver's basement club, where the locals brawl until they're bloody and unable to move. Elsewhere, amongst the performance of a number of erotic dancers, you might come upon a face you recognize — naked and collared and caged, tongue pressed to the bars to taste anyone who'll stop and give them a little attention.
Temporary night market food stands offer various forms of alcoholic beverages and sweet and savory street food in suggestive shapes — sausages, popsicles, flowering cupcakes. many of them represent hedonistic indulgences and displays of wealth that the town usually does not seem to possess. This bounty, they attribute to the Duchess' patronage — and much of it is dosed with herbs and additives that enhance the sexual appetites and aggression in any who consume them.
Another kind of temporary stand has been erected — while new arrivals may at first mistake these for some kind of bathroom, it becomes apparent upon entry that they are partitioned stalls with gloryholes drilled between them. Some stalls are closed with an anonymous stranger waiting inside for someone to push a part of themselves through the hole to be lavished with mystery touches; others are fully unoccupied, should your character wish to lock themselves in and wait on the small wooden stool for a partner to offer themselves.
Anyone native to Rubilykskoye will take the time to answer questions about the festival of Ulanti, which functions as a way to purge their bad energy ("zadza") and sate their inner beasts ("duchozweirz"). They encourage characters to join the festivities — which range from staged sexual performances to sadism and masochism designed to feed the desire for violence. all appetites are welcome here, and there are only two rules: (1) stay away from the unmarked, which refers to the locals' prepubescent children; (2) hold nothing back.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try entering the fighting rings, watching or joining a live sex performance, or eating some aphro food (deliberately or otherwise)!
the fathomless dark of pajak wood
At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day — eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches. In the void, the air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.
Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.
In addition to the spiders, you may come across the sharp-toothed furred yetis that emerged during the snowstorm, still looking for a meal. Each one hunts alone, a fifteen-foot-tall shambling creature that drips black ooze and super-chills the air around it until your skin feels tight and icy. If it gets the drop on you, you're likely to be its dinner. It has emerged from a long summer hibernation to enjoy the colder weather, and it's starving.
Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body — what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?
In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you — people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger!
HIDING INSIDE EACH OF US
Uh oh spaghetti-os.
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
The baker, Nile Yoren, is a likable, middle-aged woman who can fill any request — wheat, rye, even nut breads. She boasts that her sourdough starter belonged to her grandmother. Today, when you enter her shop — to help out or to get a muffin or a bag of rolls — something is off. Her smiling face isn't behind the counter.
Around the back wall, you hear the crackling of the oven. But when you call, she doesn't come out. You have to go back and look for her. What you find is not just the oven crackling, but nile herself — twisted into an incandescent monster of human flame, the flickers of dark orange light like a face howling in agony amidst the yellows and reds and whites. Before you can scramble away, the creature lunges at you. Defend yourself or flee, or her inner beast will be feeding itself on you.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
someone else transforms
The baker, Nile Yoren, is a likable, middle-aged woman who can fill any request — wheat, rye, even nut breads. She boasts that her sourdough starter belonged to her grandmother. Today, when you enter her shop — to help out or to get a muffin or a bag of rolls — something is off. Her smiling face isn't behind the counter. Around the back wall, you hear the crackling of the oven. But when you call, she doesn't come out. You have to go back and look for her. What you find is not just the oven crackling, but nile herself — twisted into an incandescent monster of human flame, the flickers of dark orange light like a face howling in agony amidst the yellows and reds and whites. Before you can scramble away, the creature lunges at you. Defend yourself or flee, or her inner beast will be feeding itself on you.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
you waited too long
At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
no subject
[ He'd felt and seen the change in Daryl, but Jesse himself? No, definitely not. He knows he hadn't grown fangs or extra hair the way Daryl had, at least. And whatever he'd felt, whatever reason he'd had for going along with it when Daryl had pressed his hard cock against Jesse's through their clothes and rutted against him, for seeking out more rather than trying to get away as fast as he fucking could -
He'd just been traumatized from the fire, that's all. Delirious. He would've known if he'd changed, right? He hesitates, biting his lip. ]
I don't...think so.
But I saw it happen. To someone - to other people.
no subject
Maybe not everyone was changed. But there's the possibility. And avoiding it involves sex, and or violence, and or participation in weird rituals with strangers.
He hates this. He absolutely hates this. ]
Is that...where you got that mark on your neck? It looks...kind of fresh.
[ Well. It's a scar. But it looks fresher than the other scars, and it looks very definitely like a bite, which is not a very usual sort of scar. ]
no subject
Last month.
There was a fire at the boarding house, I dunno if you heard about it. The - person who rescued me...uh.
[ He pauses, shaking his head. Trying to gather his thoughts. ]
I guess, like, stress can make it happen too. The transformation. Even if you're doing everything else right.
no subject
The implication is someone at the boarding house transformed, though. Became a monster.
This can't be happening. They can't have been changed that way, Nate can't have been. He would know.
Wouldn't he? ]
Right. And by doing everything else right, you mean...sex. And violence.
[ He passes his hand over his mouth. ]
Alright, so this person. What did they turn into?
no subject
He hesitates again, studying Nate. He really hadn't been looking to share the whole story with anyone. He hasn't talked to anyone else about what had happened out there. But he had brought it up. And he can't really blame Nate for wanting to know more. ]
I dunno. It was dark, I couldn't see.
[ He also hadn't been entirely lucid himself. ]
But there were fangs and claws. Fur, I think. I dunno if he - if they tranformed all the way. I think maybe it was just...kinda halfway through.
no subject
[ not great.
Probably not a fun topic for Jesse, either, given that it had attacked him. ]
Well, it's not brilliant. This little town feels like the start to a bunch of fairytales. Or something worse.
[ he looks down at his plate. ]
Is there anyone waiting for you back home? I mean like... [ He rolls his eyes. ] Girlfriend, boyfriend, that kind of thing.
cw murder, trauma
[ Werewolf. It had sounded too stupid in his head to even risk saying out loud. But now that Nate has, it's too obvious to deny. He nods slowly, trying to wrap his mind around the idea. Accept it. Daryl had turned into a fucking werewolf.
And then the unspoken question: if that's what happens to Daryl, what will Jesse turn into, when it inevitably happens to him?
He's still thinking about that, focused on the current horror they're all dealing with. And so Nate's question, the sudden change of subject, catches him off guard. He looks up, startled, his eyes wide and, for a moment, terribly vulnerable. Remembering a picture, pinned to a pole. An implied threat that had become all too real. A silenced gunshot and Andrea's body crumpling lifelessly to the ground, while Jesse screamed and screamed to no avail, bound and gagged in a van across the street -
He looks down quickly, staring at his plate, his vision blurry with tears. ]
Nah.
No one's waiting.
no subject
Well shit. It's obvious that question upset him more than the talk of the attack and people literally turning into monsters, so what does that say?
Nothing good. Nate leans forward, sincere. ]
I'm sorry. That wasn't supposed to be the hard thing.
Listen, thank you, for the warning. I appreciate it. It's one thing hearing it from the members of the local cult, and something else hearing it from one of us.
no subject
[ It's not okay, but it's also not Nate's fault. Jesse blinks back the tears, shaking his head and making himself look at Nate. He even manages a small smile, though it's a little fragile and doesn't quite meet his eyes. ]
No problem, man.
Just - I know I wouldn't have believed it if I'd just heard it from them, y'know?
[ Unluckily for him, he'd been caught in the middle of it before he'd even known there was anything to watch out for. If he can help someone else avoid that, he figures it's the least he can do. ]
no subject
[ The cult vibes definitely aren't an encouragement to believe. Everyone just sounds like they're drinking the same kool-aid. ]
It's, uh. I just didn't expect to roll up in the 19th Century and get told I have to cheat on my boyfriend to stay human. Like I really just want to wake up now, you know?
cw heteronormative attitudes.
At least he manages not to say anything stupid. He's not disgusted or anything, just a little rocked by Nate's candidness. And maybe a little more curious than he would have been before his own less than heterosexual encounter in the woods a few weeks ago. He nods, giving him a sympathetic glance. ]
Yeah, I know, man.
I don't think it counts as cheating if you gotta do it to keep from...from hurtin' someone, though. You know?
no subject
Maybe.
I don't think, like, he'd hate me, or anything. I just didn't want to be that guy.
[ Monogamy didn't used to be his strong point. He didn't want to be the person he used to be, and now it seems like that's what this place requires. ]
You said violence too, yeah? Like, do I have to do the violence or...?
[ Could he just let someone hit him for a while? That'd be a lot easier. He wouldn't have to have any skill for that. ]
no subject
[ Jesse shifts uncomfortably, looking unhappy. He'd written off the violence option pretty much the minute it had been explained to him. Which left sex. ]
It's about...I dunno, releasing your urges or whatever. So yeah. You gotta be the one doing it.
no subject
The thing is, he's never really been a violent person. Even at his most anarchic, he really wasn't into that. He would've fought with Theo, but more in defence than out of any urge to fight. ]
So I can't just let my face take the hit. [ Literally. He sighs. ]
It's whatever, man. Either way it's not your problem. Sorry. I still appreciate the heads up, I'm gonna have to deal with it sooner or later.
no subject
[ That's all he'd wanted to do, really. Just give him the heads-up. Unfortunately, Jesse doesn't have any real solutions to offer. He nods. ]
No problem, man. Uh...good luck, I guess.
Oh, and thanks again. For the clothes.
[ They may not last, but it's a relief to be in something more like what he's used to for a little while. Or look and feel like he is, at least. He glances appreciatively down at his shirt, and then back up at Nate. ]
Yo, that's not something you can like...teach someone else to do, is it? The magic stuff?
no subject
The glamour? No, I'm sorry. Blood born witches only, I'm afraid.
[ But then he sits back, and lifts his shoulders. ]
I could teach other stuff, though. Herbalism, potioncraft. Some symbology. In theory, anyone could learn those.
no subject
[ It's disappointing, but not really a surprise, either. Jesse has no idea how magic works, so really, Nate could've said anything, but hearing that you have to be somehow special in order to do it, and Jesse isn't? Yeah, that tracks.
It sounds like he may not be out of luck entirely, though. Symbology sounds boring as shit, no offense, but he perks up a little bit at potioncraft. ]
Potions...like chemistry?
no subject
[ Nate's smile is a bit nostalgic, now. ]
Exactly like that. You know, that was the only part of school I liked? Only part that seemed like it mattered.
[ He lifts his eyebrows. He likes Jesse's interest, likes that he made that connection. ]
I could show you sometime.
no subject
But now that he's gotten the hang of it - in one very specific context, at least - this sounds interesting, too. He grins, nodding. ]
That'd be dope.
If you're cool with it, I mean. It's not some kinda...like...secret society shit, right? [ He watches Nate's face, only half-kidding. ] No, like, rituals or animal sacrifices or anything?
no subject
You'd find that stuff if you looked for it, I'm sure, but not in my practice.
And honestly? I've never been as secretive as I should've been.
[ he doubts it matters here, in a world where everyone's trapped in what's probably some version of hell. Nate's not going to spend all his time pretending to be something he's not. ]
no subject
[ He doesn't want to take up too much of Nate's time, though, so he pushes himself up to his feet, grabbing his empty plate. ]
Yo, hit me up if you need anything, yeah? [ Maybe he won't - after all, if he has magic, Jesse imagines, he must be able to basically wave a wand or whatever and solve all his problems. Right? But he's gotta offer, just in case. ]
Thanks again for the clothes.