rubimemes | TEST DRIVE MEME 004

Entry tags:

TEST DRIVE MEME 004

⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ 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: spiders, animated skeletons, aphrodisiac effects, exhibitionism/voyeurism, bdsm, kink negotiation, knifeplay, potential dismemberment.

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

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 despite the growing chill.

wildlife encounters

The longer you hike, the more unsettling sights await you: animal remains, some partially stripped of their flesh or discarded entrails left exposed to the cold. As you continue on your way, you might even swear you catch a glimpse of what appears to be a fully-formed skeletal creature observing you from a distance. Surely, that’s just your mind playing tricks on you... These creatures may be unsettling, but they show no signs of aggression to folks who keep their distance.

In the forest, 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.

SETTING: CRIME

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. It's already full of people who appeared in the village just as you did today.

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!

RECUMITA

The festival fills the streets with dancing locals and all the stuffs of a street market. Despite the challenges posed by the snow-in-summer, farmers are grateful to announce that the situation is not as dire as initially feared. As a result, the harvest festival of Recūmita becomes a celebration of unity and gratitude to their fellow townspeople for salvaging an almost-frozen harvest, the Duchess' magic for protecting and reviving it, and the 'Void-Touched' who braved the Void to strengthen her.

Over the weekend, all regular work is put on hold, except for the necessary festival preparations. The streets come alive with vibrant stalls and stands, offering a wide array of delectable treats and refreshing beverages. From barrels of beer and cups of kvas to mouthwatering roasted meats, delightful squash-based dishes like pumpkin latkes, honey-glazed brussel sprouts on skewers, hot borscht in both pork and vegetarian variations, and tantalizing mushrooms stuffed with leeks, cranberries, and bryndza cheese, there is an abundance of flavors to indulge in.

The first day of the festival transforms the streets into a bustling night market, where shopkeepers organize an assortment of carnival-style games. Test your strength in arm-wrestling contests or challenge your pain tolerance in contests where individuals whip each other to determine who yields first, whether to pain or pleasure. In one corner, Terry's Rubean student sets up an unsanctioned fighting tournament, while in another area, a path of hot coals awaits the daring souls who wish to traverse it. Instead of traditional pie-throwing stands, knife-throwing stands attract participants who willingly become targets.

Enthusiastic Rubeans, particularly those involved in integrating the Void-touched, take it upon themselves to enhance the festivities. They recruit local participants and willing Void-touched individuals to partake in an impromptu stage performance, with no need for rehearsals. Come as you are and join the spectacle! Once the performance begins, the passion and excitement behind their efforts become truly evident, as all the performances call for explicitly sexual or violent acts to be performed together.

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

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.

FAQ: DEATH RULES

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.

FAQ: MONSTER CURSES & TIMELINES

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

Rubilykskoye's performance troupe is thrown into a state of panic as they make a shocking discovery: Vyanchaslav, their unofficial manager and conductor, has vanished without a trace! Vyanchaslav plays a crucial role in the troupe, overseeing small inter-troupe matters and having the final say on casting and rehearsal time. He is known for his reliability, making his sudden disappearance all the more perplexing, especially right before a major event.

The last time anyone saw Vyanchaslav was in their usual rehearsal space, just before a crucial run-through of their upcoming performance. His absence during that rehearsal was highly unusual, and it left the troupe members worried and confused. They are now frantically trying to piece together what might have happened to him.

As they search for Vyanchaslav, they notice a faint sound lingering in the air – the distant whine of a fiddle. However, there is something unsettling about it. As they follow the source of the sound, the room grows darker, and an eerie chill runs down their spines. Those who draw close enough to properly hear Vyanchaslav's song will feel inclined to dance themselves til their feet bleed, til their lungs give out. That is, provided they don't cut a devil's bargain with him first, selling something else to the devil in exchange for their freedom.

(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?

RULES: CONTENT WARNINGS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Out of the Woods
[cw: description of dead animal]

[Nausea is one of those feelings that he thought would go away. It didn't. It doesn't. In fact, Astarion would argue that he's felt sick more in the past 200 years than at any point in his life prior.

Suffice to say, feeling nauseous upon waking is not the thing that bothers him. It's the fact that he is entirely naked and, as far as he can tell, alone. Perhaps the latter is for the best. There is no one to see his momentary panic when he realizes there is--nothing familiar here.

Really he would prefer to stop waking up in unknown places with little memory of how he arrived there. It's only happened a few times in his life but surely that is far too many. The walk helps to clear his head, and when he comes across the first large patch of unbroken sunlight, Astarion tentatively steps into it. No burning. Well, there's that at least.

Astarion moves cautiously through the unfamiliar woods. He only stops to examine a mutilated animal carcass of some kind, and it takes a moment to identify what it might have been. As far as he can tell, it hasn't been eaten, just torn apart.]

Well, that's somewhat disconcerting... What happened to you, my flayed friend?

[He trails off, looking further into the woods. There is certainly something watching. Astarion gets up slowly and continues on, absently licking the wet (and cold) blood from his fingers. He keeps his attention on the skeletal thing that was watching him, but it seems like it won't come closer. Thank the gods for tiny, miniscule, almost insignificant miracles.

When he arrives at a cheerful-looking stream, he crouches down and splashes could water on his face.]

Hells, [he hisses.] I suppose it was too much to hope for a hot spring. Or a divan draped with warm blankets and people waiting to feed me grapes and rub my feet.

[His gaze cuts up as soon as he spots movement on the other side of the stream. Ah, good. There are other people here.]

Unless you're up for the job, darling.

This Provincial Life
[cw: transactional sex]

[Astarion can't decide if he's thrilled to see signs of civilization or disappointed. A little of both, if he's honest. It looks like an established town, but it's hardly a city, now is it? Much harder to disappear in. Much harder to go unnoticed in.

Places like this make him think of torches and pitchforks. He'll have to make the best of it.

The pale elf keeps his chin up as he strides past the gates, ignoring how exposed he feels with the scars on his back just there for the world to see. Hardly the first time. And he doubts it will be the last. Still, the sooner he finds something - a blanket, rags, a generously sized cup or bowl - the better. It isn't difficult to find people selling blankets and cloaks. Astarion offers the only thing he has to pay for one: himself. Perhaps it means disappearing into an alley or ducking beneath a counter, but one way or another he gets what he needs.

The people are... surprisingly welcoming. No one is staring, nor is anyone ridiculing. It isn't difficult to find someone who will point him to the boarding house. He accepts whatever clothes he can find - a simple pair of trousers and tunic - and by the time the communal dinner is served he's feeling slightly more himself.

All that's left to do is find a room. And something he can eat, but there are probably rats no one will miss. He'll deal with that later.]

Now then, who has some room in a bed or on their floor? I'm willing to make it worth your while - I can be a very agreeable roommate.

Waited Too Long
[cw: monstrous transformation]

[It's a miserable existence, but at least he's free. He's spent the last few weeks finding things to eat where he can. He sticks to vermin, animals that people won't miss: rats, pigeons. The livestock is terribly tempting, but he manages to keep himself under control. He would hunt larger game but... that's off the table for now. He isn't strong enough now.

The hardest part is when people are asleep in the boarding house. He slips into the room he's sharing and he can hear their hearts beating, blood pumping just beneath the surface. One night he bites his own arm to keep from going for his sleeping roommate(s). He will not.

He goes on like that. Until he can't.

Astarion attempts to barricade himself in a room, or in a cellar, or anywhere that he might be able to keep walls between himself and people. His fangs elongate, his entire jaw aches. The hunger he feels is worse than anything he's endured before, his stomach twisted in knots like it might try to eat itself to find some satisfaction. Well-manicured nails grow into claws and he can feel pressure in his back. He can only scream when the wings break free.

He barely hears someone banging on the door over the cracking of his own bones, but he does hear it.]

Please, [he whispers, voice cracking.] Please no, no--GO AWAY!

Notes/Wildcard

[I'm happy to match style! If you prefer prose, go for it. I welcome wildcards of all kinds! If you're interested in the transformation prompt, we can figure out how violent we'd like it to be/how far you want it to go. Or we can just roll with it - I'm fine with going hard. If he kills someone, he'll have to live with it.

Info/Warnings; PM or ping me at givemedragons

Astarion is a vampire and he will be doing his best to hide this fact for as long as he can. Those who are aware of things like that are welcome to clock him. He has large scars on his back. I can avoid spoilers for the game, he's from an early point.]

Edited 2023-11-16 17:02 (UTC)

[ Khoriya had opted to take shelter in the stable rather than bunk down with the throng of new arrivals who had gathered at the boarding house, knowing he could never bring himself to relax around so many strange humans. Clean straw and an empty stall are all he needs; the stablehands wonder at the way their horses shy and stamp, uneasy with the presence of a predator in their midst, but take no note note of the large pawprints mixed among those of hooves and human feet.

His ears prick and he lifts his head when he hears the doors creak open in the dead of night - who might be coming in at this late hour? Rustling, faint movement in the dark, followed by a terrified rodent shriek and the coppery spill of fresh blood... and another scent that causes his nose to wrinkle, black lip curling back in instinctive animal rejection. Something human, but other - a scent that would not otherwise be offensive except in the lingering whiff of unnatural death that fills his lungs and escapes his jaws in a low growl.

When Astarion looks up, he'll find an enormous wolf staring at him from across the stable, teeth bared in a snarl and one golden eye reflecting the dim moonlight. But... where he expects to find somethings half-corpse and half-shambling monstrosity, there is only a pale human(?) kneeling there upon the ground. ]

What are you? [ His voice comes forth a low, vicious growl. ]

[ ooc: lmk if there's anything you'd like me to change up! i'm also down with khoriya getting bitten/attacked/some variation on transformation too. ]

[Can something be humiliating if he's never known anything else? Astarion considers that as he stalks a rat. He's light and quiet, and snatching up a creature that's nearly blind is not very difficult, so long as they don't smell him first. He kills it quickly, he hates the wriggling. He's barely had a mouthful when he hears a growl, and then a voice. Hells.

He drops the rat in case he needs both hands, which he might, given the creature staring at him. He bares his own teeth briefly, not nearly as impressive but nothing to meddle with either. Elegant, pointed ears might suggest he's something other than human, but a close enough relative.

Gods, he feels so weak. He isn't sure he could win a fight if that's what he's faced with. He doesn't think he can play off what he just did. He's quite sure he still has blood on his lips.]

Trouble, if you aren't careful.

Edited 2023-11-16 23:08 (UTC)

[ Now that he's had a good look, Khoriya doesn't know what to make of the... elf? Is it an elf? The pointed ears ought be a dead giveaway, but the antlers are missing... and even beneath the stink of undeath, this creature smells nothing like the green-and-growing aroma he associates with most elves.

A thinking, speaking being, not one of the mangled necromantic horrors he'd instinctively emerged to put out of its misery. Khoriya cocks his head, uncertainty warring with aggression in his mind. He's seen and heard of all manner of strange and alien things since arriving here, so perhaps some dead creature scuttling around, scavenging rats like a barn cat isn't unusual for this place.

But seeing it bare its teeth back at him, speak words of challenge? No, he won't back down. ]

Oh, I doubt that. [ Khoriya pads forward one step, then another in a sinuous, bestial prowl. Any sudden movements, and he'll throw himself forward in a lunge, trying to tackle Astarion to the ground. ]

[Astarion is thinking much the same as he stares down this would-be predator: this is a thinking creature. The fact that it talks should give that away but he's met plenty of things that could talk and had nothing else going on behind the eyes.

He watches the beast move and he feels a wretched hunger twist inside him. His mind races as much as it can with the scent of blood on the air. Gods but it would be so easy to give in entirely. But he knows people here turn into things now and it's possible someone would miss this one. Astarion has to contend with a wave of dizziness, but it passes.

He doesn't stand up from his crouch, but he does move away from his barely-touched rat.]

It's not worth it, puppy. [He means it as a threat but it comes out sounding almost like a plea.] Go back to your bone or whatever it is you keep yourself occupied with and I'll find another place to... hunt.

[ooc: if he does anything that would trigger a pounce, I'm absolutely game for it.]

Edited 2023-11-17 01:32 (UTC)

[ Astarion gets to witness the unusual sight of a wolf visibly rolling its eyes, not at all deterred by his half-hearted threat. Human or elf or whatever this creature is, the condescension is all too familiar - what is it about these furless, flat-faced races, thin-skinned and weak, but somehow all too eager to sneer down upon what they consider little more than a talking animal. ]

And what will you hunt, undead filth?

[ The growl comes rumbling forth from deep within his chest, and Khoriya is already loping forward, tail up, ruff and mane bristling in threat as he tenses to spring. Even lost in a world beyond his wildest imaginations, Khoriya is still a soldier, a beast of duty who follows stark and unyielding line of thought: what threat does this aberration of nature pose to the innocent? ]

Edited 2023-11-17 02:57 (UTC)

Excuse me, I may be many many things but filth is not one of them, [he snarls right back--oh. Oh shit, it's coming closer.

Astarion has the good sense to launch himself backwards, but he lacks two things at the moment: his usual effortless coordination and open space. His back hits the stable wall and he curses. This really is the worst possible time for him to try to evade a bloody werewolf or whatever the hells he's looking at.

He isn't as fast as he should be. He's so damned weak. So is there any point in trying to get away? He stares at the wolf-creature and in the dark he has the same eyeshine as any other nocturnal creature. Hells. Hells.]

I don't want to do this.

[Somehow that feels like the most pathetic thing he's managed to say since waking up in the sun. But that is all he says before throwing himself forward. If he can't run, then he'll try to make it bleed.]

Astarion Ancunín | Baulder's Gate 3 | Diabel

wildcard!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

this provincial life

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

This Provincial Life

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Out of the Woods

soft yelling!!

:3

no subject

no subject

Waited Too Long

cw: monstrous transformation, blood

no subject