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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?
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[just medieval dark fantasy things, Ankari isn't going to bat much of an eye at eighteen as a suitable age for sex. Humans also live hundreds of years less than elves, they can't take their time like such a longer lived race can]
I would still be lost and naked in the woodlands without you, so you have my sincerest thanks. Though you asked for nothing, please know I owe you kind favor in return. Please, let me know if there is anything I could help you with.
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[ Ankari will suddenly hear Junpei’s voice in his mind, even though his lips don’t move: It can get a little annoying when people want to talk about embarrassing subject matter with everyone and there’s no blocking it out.
He then returns to speaking on the physical level: ]
So. Enjoy that.
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That's- ... Anybody here can do that particular trick?
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Yeah, and not just when you’re near each other. It means communication is fast, I guess, but I prefer the kind I can ignore if I want to.
[ Granted, not that he got very many messages on his cell phone, but it was still nice to be able to put it away for a couple hours to watch a movie or sleep. ]
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[Mentally noted! At least Ankari won't think he's going mad due to hearing voices in his head. He's used to his own wrecking his day with overthinking, but having other people in there will be new]
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[ He supposes that's it, slipping his hands awkwardly into his pockets and looking at the floor. How are conversations ended, again? ]
Anyway, you're here. You're not naked. If you're hungry they'll feed you. Some jerks may steal your food if you don't eat too quickly but that doesn't happen all the time. I'm going to go ... back to looking for work.
[ Which is definitely what he was doing and not wandering around hoping he'd see someone specific he hasn't been able to get off his mind for days. ]
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[Ankari offers a parting handshake, giving one that is formal and firm, no crushing like some do to play at asserting dominance. He can see someone gesturing him over to talk, likely a greeting and further orientation on what new arrivals are supposed to do.
At least he's gotten a solid primer from Junpei, so he won't be so shocked and appalled by anything told. Junpei will stick in his mind, so once Ankari has actually acquired a pair of higher waisted shorts and tunic to tuck down into them, he folds up the blanket.
Which room was it again? He thinks he remembers, so he goes knocking later that evening, once he's settled in some.]
Junpei-? Are you in? It is Ankari, from this morning.
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He happens to be in when Ankari comes around in the evening, engaging in his typical ritual during that time of day in this place where he's trying to replay a horror movie he saw a million times in the theater of his mind. To try and find some sort of comfort he doesn't just try to picture the movie itself, but that he's seated in the Kinema Cinema watching it on the big screen. The darkness. The boom of the special effects from the action movie in the next theater over. No annoying people chattering, though, he's the only one there.
The knock startles him out of his imagination, and he shoots up in bed from his previous horizontal position. ]
... yes!
[ He answers a touch too loudly, as if he'd been caught doing something wrong, even though he knows logically that's not the case at all. ]
Come in.
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I did not mean to startle you. Is everything quite alright?
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[ He runs a hand through his hair nervously, swinging his legs to the side so that he's sitting on the edge of the bed. ]
I was just daydreaming.
[ Junpei is going to made an educated guess that Ankari is one of those people who wouldn't know what a 'movie' was, so it doesn't seem worthwhile to try and explain himself. ]
How are you? Did you need something?
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I promised to return this. I was offered to pick out a couple clothing peices, though I was advised to dress less than this. [even if he chose very short short for his look, that's familiar to him.]
I think it's comfortable enough as is...
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[ He looks over Ankari's outfit, letting out a small snort. ]
Yeah, I had a hard time finding actual pants too. Once I get a job I'll be able to commission the tailor directly for things that actually fit. I don't care if they make fun of me, it's not as if I'm not used to it anyway.
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A tailor might be nice to visit. I prefer to wear stockings when I have pants like these, otherwise I'm all legs. [he's still all legs regardless of if they're covered a bit or not. The garters is usually wears to hold those up are also not about to draw attention anywhere else but his thighs, sooooo... they'll see about that.]
Could I inquire with you, do you know if these locals offer accessories like a walking cane? I'm very used to having one with me, it's a common piece of fashion with us elves. [he also just needs it a fair amount of the time, but passing it off as mere fashion is better to him than admitting that]
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Then at the word 'cane', Junpei's eyes widen and he turns to face the other again in a snap. It's a more exaggerated of a reaction than one might expect for the question, but he noticeably is trying to keep his tone casual in response. ]
... I know someone here who has a cane. I could ask him where he got it.
[ No. That's way too convoluted, right? Right. He internally scolds himself before adding: ]
But, it may be easier just to check the stores.
[ Not acting fishy and distracted whatsoever. ]
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[Ankari wouldn't know that "companion" is a strange word to apply, but there he goes saying it]
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[ And the word sounds much too friendly to apply to someone like House. But ... ]
He is a doctor. Or, said he was, anyway. I guess that doesn't especially help if you want a cane for fashion. His is necessary. His leg is --
[ Realizing he's rambling, Junpei deftly changes the subject. ]
Uh, did you get a chance to eat? Are you hungry? It's around the time they'd be serving dinner ...
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-Oh. Is he also human? That might not be so useful for me. Do disregard. [Another worry to keep in mind. As an elf, would any medical care here actually be sufficient for him? Will he need to rely on healing methods of his own blessing? He never has before, but... if he's free of the constraints placed on him from his royal upbringing, then... maybe...
He visible snaps out of the train of thought at the suggestion of getting dinner. Nodding hastily]
That sounds pleasant, lad. It would be an honor to join you for dinner.
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Thankfully, the other nixes the idea on his own for different reasons, and the boy relaxes again. ]
Well, I know not all of us who've ended up here are human. Maybe there's someone else who's more ... specialized.
[ It's an even further relief when the somewhat awkward subject is changed -- until it sinks in that Ankari thought Junpei was offering to have dinner with him. ]
Join ... as in ... eat together ...
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[He's sworn he's seen humans eat together casually, but maybe he's missing something about it. Wouldn't be the first time. Cultural standards are strange beyond his sheltered lifestyle of elven royalty, let alone the fact this is an all new place with traditions that appear strange to all the newcomers he's met]
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Oh, ah ... no, it's fine. I can join you.
[ He rises from the bed, attempting a smile. There's some internal disbelief that all it took was one day and he already cares about this stranger's feelings. Is he really that soft? No, it's just easier this way, that's all. Plus he is actually hungry, so it was around the time he'd head downstairs anyway. ]
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[as if hiding behind Junpei at his lanky height would do him any good, but it's a funny image. He'll not stalk so far behind the younger man this time, more casual now that they're back in the embrace of (something like) civilization]
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[ Junpei does look Ankari up and down, clearly thinking the same thing as he travels with Ankari down to the main floor. ]
I wouldn't say I'm super knowledgeable. There are still a lot of things about this place that confuse me. It's also kind of primitive compared to where I came from, so there are a lot of things I miss. You seem more suited to it than I do.
[ Not that he knew very much about Ankari, but from his style to his mannerisms he just felt like he fit more into the scenery than a teenager from 2010's Tokyo. ]
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I come across as primitive to your standards? How humbling, indeed. [Don't neg the elf prince, lad!!]
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He puts up his hands in the standard ‘calm down’ gesture, sputtering to try and walk back his glib comment. ]
W-well! It’s just …! Ugh, I wouldn’t even know where to begin explaining to you how different this place is from where I’m from.
[ His shoulders slump as he lowers his hands. ]
Some of the things I’m used to in my everyday life would seem like magic to you.
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The commect about magic is intriguing enough, though,]
Like magic, you say... but it is not magic? There is plenty of magic I am used to, lad.
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