Test Drive Meme | August-September 2016

[wearethecrystalmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to the Cosmographia Test Drive Meme! This is a place for you to test out any characters you've been considering for the game or just to splash around in the waters and see what's right for you. Give our infopages a glance over and use the prompts below as a jumping off point! Threads from prompt A and B can be made canon for the game so long as both parties agree to it! Prompts C and D, unfortunately, cannot, as they take their cues from events and Excursions already run in Cosmographia. In short - pick a character, write up a starter and have a blast!

PROMPT A - ARRIVAL

You don't remember getting in this hole but you definitely remember falling out of it. You go tumbling out into the heart of a cavernous temple. Sparkling Gems suspended in bubbles float lazily about the ceiling, just a little out of reach. There's a greenish glow cast over the room by the huge crystal looming before you in the center. It's... curiously heart shaped, now you think to take a closer look at it. If you're curious enough to touch it, you'll get some basic answers about your situation... but then again, there's no guarantee you're just going to walk up to a giant weird thing in the middle of a giant weird room and touch it, right? Why not take a look around and see for yourself what kind of place this is? Perhaps you'll run into someone in the same predicament as you, or perhaps you'll run into someone who can help explain why there's a weird rock now affixed to your body?

PROMPT B - THE FARMER'S MARKET

It's Thursday in Waverly Bay, and that can mean only one thing: the weekly Farmer's Market is here again! The town plaza is all abuzz with activity today. Stalls not only from farmers on the outskirts of town but from crafty residents with interesting homemade items to sell, and businesses looking to attract the Market's crowd are all here! The weather's a little chilly but it's still an excellent place to spend the day, so long as you've got some money to spend. Are you shopping for a good deal on vegetables for dinner? Or perhaps you're getting a feel for the residents, having recently arrived? Or, perhaps, are you an industrious gem who's looking to set up shop? Either way, you're bound to run into somebody in this bustling, busy place.

PROMPT C - INVESTIGATION

Now that you're starting to get a hold of your powers, you've been sent through the warp pads on some kind of mission to the Gem Observatory. From the sounds of things, there's an ancient relic here somewhere that could serve useful for the Gems in the Temple and someone has to go out and find it. ... the only problem is that you're not exactly sure where you should start looking in this place. And on top of that, it's a complete mess. Junk and debris and books and papers everywhere with no clue where this relic could be. You're going to have to do some serious digging to find this thing. And on top of that, you might find that when you try to go back the warp pad you took here has managed to stop working in between your arrival and now. Maybe something went wrong back in the control room? Or the pad itself needs fixing? You'll have to poke around in the guts of the machine to try and figure this one out.

PROMPT D - COMBAT

Uh-oh! Looks like you've run into a monster! These critters can pop up anywhere around Waverly Bay so it doesn't really matter where you were before or what you were up to. All you know now is that you need to buckle down and beat this thing! Giant Mothwing - With broad wings that shed scales on the wind, this corrupted Gem bears a striking resemblance to a large moth or butterfly. The body between its wings is no beauty, though - it usually stays rolled into a wheel-like spiral to protect its flat, pinkish gem, but when it uncurls to attack it looks more like a worm with teeth. Yikes! Loud noises make it lash out in agitation. Even when it's not attacking, it flies around restlessly, shedding sharp, glasslike scales that can leave nasty cuts as they whiz past. It'll be hard to get close to it unless it's lured down out of the sky. Chameleoid - The shape of this monster's body is more like a tardigrade than a lizard, but its camouflage ability and long, sticky tongue are worth commemorating. The Chameleoid can flatten and expand its body, and change the color and texture of its outer hide to blend in seamlessly with its surroundings, and it uses this ability to duck in and out of battle. Keep an eye out for suspicious movement when it vanishes from view. The Chameleoid shoots out its 20-foot-long tongue to disarm, trip up, and gross out Gems, but it's not averse to eating any small objects it might grab. The inside of its mouth looks softer than the rest of it, so maybe you can turn that to your advantage...? Strawberry Spider - Though its long, spindly legs holding it off the ground make it look like a spider, this monster is actually mostly made up of plant material. Trees and strawberry plants are rooted in the corrupted Gem's featureless, geometric body, forming woody legs and blanketing the monster in foliage and strawberries. Its aroma may be sweet, but the Strawberry Spider is ruthless and very, very perturbed. It stands 15 feet tall and 25 feet wide, and its skittering feet move fast to stomp on attacking Gems. Thinking of cutting off a leg? Try it, and hundreds of strawberry runners will immediately sprout from the stump to ensnare you. The strawberries are hungry, and they've got a "taste for blood"... Damaging the plants living on it won't actually hurt the corrupted Gem, and they grow back fast. This will be a tough monster to defeat. Wildcard Option - Make your own! You know by now that you've got some special powers just from being a Gem. Apparently, from what little you've heard, you can shapeshift into things and pull a weapon from your gem, and you have some sort of unique special power. But maybe you don't know what it is yet, or you're still not used to using it? Guess you're going to have to learn on the job. Don't leave your fellow gems hanging if you see them fighting one of these little guys either! You're going to need each other to take 'em down!

PROMPT E - WILDCARD

Not into any of these prompts? Thought of something more fun? Go for it!

Comments

[domeinion]

[Alice fidgets and clears her throat.] Ah, well, welcome! My name is Alice. You must be new. I'm sorry, I mistook you for -- naturally, it would've been another version of you, considering how these alternate worlds end up going. All the Gems here are from different worlds, and while some of the others are from worlds similar to mine, no one's ever heard of Voices or a Randomizer or gods like Dome, they're all different. If you're not Marc's Shadow, then do you have a name?

[psywaves]

Alternate worlds...

The concept is roughly familiar. It tells Mewtwo what it needs to know - that this girl is a complete stranger.

It responds with a...you could call it a glare, but it's not really angry, just intense. Intense, affirmative eye contact. But Mewtwo can't speak to tell her its name (and, honestly, it wouldn't think it had reason to even if it could.)

[domeinion]

[Alice chews the end of her pencil.] Oh, I guess you can't talk. Sorry. Pokémon can communicate with humans in my world, but Marla and Amélie say they can't in theirs.

[psywaves]

[It makes a voiceless tchh noise in response, affirmative again, though it's tucking the information away for future reference. A world where Pokemon communicating with humans is commonplace...and the names of two other trainers, neither familiar.

Mewtwo points, steadily, over Alice's head, to the cave exit.

It wants to know about out there.]

[domeinion]

This is Waverly Bay's Temple. Outside of the Temple, there's a small town. It's warm, coastal, and full of both regular people and Gems, which is what we are now. [She gestures to the Dome Fossil-shaped gem on her face.] A lot of us work in the town, if just to make money for food, but also to contribute to the town that's housing us. We also fight off these monsters, which used to be Gems at one point, and put their gems in spheres like these bubbles in the Heart Room until we can find a cure.