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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
there isn't anything wrong with the boarding house, of course; any normal person would be thrilled to have a roof over their heads, after experiencing such a bizarre form of kidnapping(?). but dwight hasn't slept in a bed for seven years. he has grown used to the comfort and safety that a campfire symbolizes in an otherwise nightmarish hellscape. he has grown used to the cold, hard ground and, more importantly, the spaciousness of the wilderness.
dwight knows how to navigate a forest to escape a killer; he doesn't think he'll have as much luck in a cramped boarding house full of strangers.
he isn't a fool though. just because he isn't living at the boarding house doesn't mean that he won't accept the complimentary meals they provide. he swings on by for breakfast, lunch and dinner, even if he doesn't always stick around long to intermingle with the residents here.
today, he only plans to grab and go. he has been busy exploring, trying to curate a mental map of both the town and the woods surrounding it. it's important to familiarize yourself with a new territory, practically survival 101. so, he's cramming some loaves of bread and some fruits into his backpack, when he suddenly catches from the periphery of his vision, a figure vaulting over a table and rushing at him. he doesn't react in time, perhaps a troubling testament to how quickly the boarding house became a "safe location" to him. as he's tackled?? hugged??? out of the freaking blue, dwight stumbles and collides straight back into the wall behind him, his breath knocked clean out of him. he feels a pair of arms wrapped tightly around him, momentarily confounded by what the fuck is happening until he catches a familiar scent.
angling his head to get a better look at him, dwight almost immediately feels the tension leave his body at the sight of quentin. but with it comes a simultaneous sharp drop to the pit of his stomach, chilling and cautious in nature as his eyes instinctively moves to scan the interior of the building.
if they're both here, who's to say that someone — or something — else isn't as well? )
Hey Quen. ( his voice is gentle, light, as he tries to right himself, still pressed up against the wall. he returns his hug, giving him a few soothing rubs on the back. ) Hey, it's good to see you too. You doing okay there? ( because he's sort of hugging him to death rn. )
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Holy shit. What the fuck, did you just land? Where have you been, I've been here for--days, man, I was starting to think I was just onto the next one! Fuck.. [ Both palms drag over Dwight's cheeks, then finally withdraw to push through his hair. ] What are we doing here? Where's everyone else, are they here?
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he's happy to see him too. it's better he's here than in the fog. anywhere is better than in the fog. )
No. ( wow, there is a lot of touching involved as quentin cups his face between his hands briefly. ) I've been here for a couple of days too. Woke up in the woods butt ass naked like everyone else. ( his gaze flickers toward the exit. ) I've been living out in the woods, so that's probably why we haven't run into each other. ( he hesitates slightly at his next set of questions. )
Honestly? I have no idea why we're here. Maybe "she" got sick of us and spat us out into the nearest dimension or maybe we were fucking kidnapped by something more powerful than "she" is. Either way, I haven't run into anyone else we know here. ( not yet anyway. )
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( securing the bag on his shoulder, dwight exits the boarding house with quentin, scanning the area surrounding them as they go — more out of habit than necessity. But he has a feeling that he’s going to need to be even more vigilant from here on out, if possible. )
Are you... staying at the boarding house? ( he glances back at the decrepit, old building, his eyes slightly narrowing at it. )
no subject
[ Quentin hugs him again while they walk, just for a few enthusiastic seconds. ] Fuck. Dwight, we made it out. We made it out. Where have you been, when--I mean, did you just get here?
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he grew up an only child with parents who were too busy trying to put food on the table to spend too much time with him and he was fine with that. he had to be. throughout his school years and during his early adulthood, any physical contact he had with others were, to put it simply, more a detriment and unwanted than good and welcoming.
he has grown used to it though, after spending seven years in the fog. many of the survivors needed that comfort. he never did more than he had to, but he lent a shoulder and offered a hug whenever somebody really needed it. if it helped them, then that's all that matters.
truthfully, he has a soft spot for those who would come to him seeking comfort. it meant that they trusted him enough to.
trying to bite back a smile (and ultimately failing) at quentin's hug, dwight finally slings an arm around his shoulders as he nods his head affirmatively. ) We made it out. You're right. ( he can understand his enthusiasm, yet he can't match it. he hasn't allowed himself to fully give into that hope-filled thought. ) I, uh... I've been here for over a week. ( it's nice to be able to keep track of time again. ) Been living out in the woods. ( he jerks his chin at its general locale. ) That way.
no subject
You're fucking kidding me, right? [ Quentin throws a look back at the boarding house, still casting a shadow over them. ] Couldn't you get a room? Dude, you can come sleep with me, there's room in my bed, the fuck are you doing?
no subject
( the moment he stepped into that overpacked house, dwight immediately knew that no promise of hot water and warm meals was enough to keep him there overnight. he would rather just wake up early to make the trek there everyday and still get food and his basic needs taken care of. win/win. )
Besides, ( he slips his arm off of quentin's shoulder as he rolls his wrist a couple of times. ) I don't think I can sleep in there, even if I try. Like even without all the fucking people in there, I've been sleeping by a campfire for... I don't know, maybe a decade? Maybe more? Who really fucking knows, but— ( he gives a rough shake of his hand. ) I'm used to the ground. I'm used to the fire. So, honestly? I'm not even sure I can fall asleep on a bed anymore. ( and he isn't interested in testing it out. ) I'm not the only one who's living out in the woods either.
( he hasn't had any direct encounters yet, but he's seen people passing through from a distance. )
So, at least it isn't just me. ( and quentin will soon find out that his campsite really isn't that far out. it's still close enough for him to bolt into the safety of town if need be, but simultaneously secluded enough to have some peace and quiet from everything. it's also nice and open with plenty of cover. )
no subject
In the Fog, we had friends at the fire. [ That's all he'll point out carefully, hands behind his back. ] That's where the safety came from--the numbers. If there's other people out there...you're finding allies, right? Making friends?
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I will. ( despite his role in the fog, dwight has never been the most sociable person. he can teach, lead and comfort others, yet those were very much skills he had been forced to learn out of sheer necessity. when he wasn't being dwight the so-called leader, he spent more time in his own head than he did intermingling with everyone else. old habits die hard. ) Eventually. ( a lopsided shrug. ) I've been camping there for almost two weeks. Nothing has happened to me yet.
( wringing his hands, he glances over at quentin, hesitating ever so slightly before he proposes: ) You probably don't want to and it's fine if you don't, but you're welcome to... ( hm. ) There's always a place for you with me.
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How about this? [ He leans forward for a better look at the curse mark near Dwight's eye, shows his own off with a loose gesture. ] You figure out what yours does, yet?
no subject
No, and I don't plan to either.
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So...you're handling it. Like...it.
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Well, no. Not yet.
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Not yet. Dwight, you said two weeks? What are you doing?
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( he can push it off for now. )
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No. Quen—... ( man, why are they even discussing this? ) Quentin, I don't need a wingman. ( he probably does need a wingman, but that's beside the point here. ) I'll take care of it. ( some way, somehow. )
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[ There's like...a few seconds of blessed pause before he reminds one last time: ]
But if you need help...
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I don't. ( let's just change the subject. ) Camp's like maybe a half mile from town.
( they're a good trek away from the beaten path now, tall trees looming above them and the almost serene sound of nature filling the senses. it's cool and crisp out here. quiet. peaceful. it should take about a 10 to 15 minute walk to reach the campsite. )
It's really not so bad out here. ( it's pretty fucking scenic, to be honest; especially on a good clear day. )
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( he didn't really go camping even later in life, until—... well, let's not get into it. )
My parents were always too busy working and they couldn't afford to send me off to a camp. Not that I have much to complain about. I never liked camping anyway. ( which makes it all the more ironic that he's now choosing to do it. )
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Yeah. I've seen them passing through from a distance, but I've never gone over to say hi. ( he shrugs his shoulders. ) I'll probably meet them eventually. If not out here, then in town.
(no subject)
(no subject)