TEST DRIVE ※ 1

[wildestmods]

TEST DRIVE #1

These woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but being lost in them is pretty alarming to most people. Perhaps it's lucky you're hearing what sounds like... a party?

If you follow the sounds through thinning trees, a brick-paved road rises from the ground ahead. Keep going, and you'll find yourself approaching a bustling festival. Small, jaunty, colorful buildings line a way bedecked with flags, banners, and (of course) ever-present vendors.

Good morrow! Dost thou carest for a turkey leg? Some funnel cake? Modestly priced costume jewelry? Come right this way, dear visitor! The faire is here!

First, however, the faeries would like a moment of your time. At one of the entry gates, a spritely, brightly-dressed faerie tells you, "Tickets are long-since sold out, but joy is one currency we accept. So as long as you plan to enjoy yourselves, you may enter with a day pass. However, please read the sign. By entering, it means you agree to the terms."

The faerie points to a large wooden sign with words painted on it. The sign says something to the effect that the summer faeries are not responsible for anything that happens at the faire, and by entering you're agreeing to exempt them from indemnifying you for not offering the same magical protections they offer proper ticket holders in the unlikely event of surprise and disaster, etc etc.

Fortunately, it's actually not that different from a standard legal agreement for some kind of dangerous activity like go-cart racing. Of course faeries would be careful about any legal disclaimers for events.

USEFUL LINKS

Premise/Short Facts | Arrival/Welcome | Setting Background/FAQ


A FAIRE SHAKE

A renaissance faire is in full swing in the woods today, or so it would seem. But no one here is just playing a part: these outsize personalities, bright costumes, and pseudo-Elizabethan voices are perfectly real.

It's the only place you can go for food and appropriate clothing. Also there's magic at your feet, drawing you towards others bound by the Quest magic, making it so all paths seem to lead to the Faire. Even if you don't want to enter, it feels like you have to, like there's something important to find.

a) The Faerie Toll
Some of the faeries are lighthearted and cheerful, with round and heart shaped faces and brightly colored clothes. These summer faeries are willing to part with some faerie coin in exchange for certain actions. Anyone that watches others take them up on their deals can see that the actions are indeed harmless, and there is no catch. Apparently happiness and frivolity really can be exchanged with the faeries here. Ways to earn a small bit of coin: physical comedy, agreeing to a round in the dunk tank (yes they have one), telling the faeries a good joke (but it really has to be a good one, by faerie standards), letting oneself getting pied in the face, and pieing someone you're with in the face, among other things. Silly dances are also in high demand, especially ones with actual rules vs. ones that are made up on the spot, with a clear preference for moves like tiktok dances, the macarena, or the Hustle.

b) New and In Stock

You tried to steal from the faeries instead of paying their toll, or have otherwise misbehaved. The faeries like your moxie, though. They'll let you keep what you took (if you took something), but first you're gonna have to do some time in the stocks.

Will anyone take mercy on you and bust you loose? Does anyone have a tomato? Perhaps you meet someone else while they're suffering a similar punishment in the other stocks across from you. If you didn't actually steal, maybe you got framed. Or you're in the stocks with your "partner in crime" who you were falsely accused of being affiliated.

Fortunately, you won't be in there overly long. Even if you can't escape and no one busts you out, the faeries aren't particularly cruel and the absolute worst you'll get thrown your way by the crowd is a fruit.

If you push, the faeries might also let you out if someone else agrees to be responsible for your good behavior. This could, naturally, lead to both of you doing more time together.

c) I'm Just Here For the Turkey Leg
Wandering lost in the woods is hungry work. Maybe you know better than to eat food offered by faeries, but the humans of the faire should be safe enough, right? Where else are you going to find a whole turkey leg, a funnel cake, or a cold beer around here? The lines can get pretty long though, and sometimes orders get mixed up, or someone swipes what was yours! Maybe they bump into you and spill food down your front. Or perhaps you see someone with no money and decide to offer to share.

Some of the food seems out of this world or is clearly made for a more alien palate (not always in an appetizing way). Most of the food has big enough portions if you're not the only one eating

d) Surely, You Joust
Whether you're just watching, betting on the outcome, or have convinced someone to armor you up and put you on a horse, the jousting tournament is a major event! Will anyone be able to unseat the intimidating Black Knight? Have you started a rivalry with a competitor you just met in a line twenty minutes ago? Are you helping another member of the squad by pumping them up for their match? Or are you just over here to see how many horses you can pet without anyone noticing?

Even those not interested in the competition might want to give it a whirl. There are different rewards for unseating certain levels of competitors like food supplies, flasks of boozeahol, small bags of silver or gold, and weapons of moderate quality, like swords, knives, or bows.

For those that don't own their own armor and lances, some light armor and lances are on loan but the armor is all dinged up and the lances are easily broken, putting someone using them at a disadvantage.

e) Everyone's a Comedian
You (and maybe your threadmate) are being teased by a pair of funnymen doing a bit, be they jesters, Punch and Judy style puppets, or a pair of washing well wenches. The audience is delighted, but are you? What are you both going to do?

f) Wares, If You Have Coin
You're here! You have some gold! Time to get yourself some "period appropriate" (for varying values of both words) gear. Have you found a shopping buddy? What if you resell some goods you just picked up at a slight markup? Are you suspicious of the quality of a vendor's goods? Maybe this item over here is the last of its kind, and you and this stranger want it!

g) Stop! Thief!
Someone picked your pocket or snatched something out of your hands! It might even be your thread partner. Do you give chase? If your threadmate isn't the thief, are they helping you chase the thief down or getting in your way?

h) Archery Range
Are you taking the chance to start learning a new skill on the practice targets? If it's any incentive, several fair maidens and handsome young fellows are hanging about, flirting with the best shots. If you're already good, you might be competing in the archery competition for a prize! The targets are close enough you can make conversation with the person one target over.

i) Fortune Told
A stubborn young blonde woman in a long purple robe with a pointed hat - one that looks more than a little bit witchy - is determined to read your fortune for you. Loudly. Whether you like it or not. She has to demonstrate her skills to drum up business, you see! Now please hold your hand still, she just needs to get a good look at your fate line...

(Note: Players will have to npc the fortuneteller says in their thread and can go absolutely wildly wrong. However, sometimes the fortuneteller suddenly gets more intense and guesses a few things closer to the truth...)

j) Out of Water
You draw attention to yourself with your behavior, or by how strange your manner of dress is (according to the faire folk, anyway.) Perhaps you have a still-functioning small electronic like a smartphone that's unlike anything they've ever seen. People are starting to give you the stink eye or ask you invasive questions. Will your threadmate help you out?

k) Bargaining With the Fae
There are some faeries here that are different from the sunny, cheerful summer faeries running the fair. These are the winter faeries, more ethereal and elegant, more immaculately dressed in finery that's a little too fancy for the event. Despite their beauty - or maybe because of it - these faeries are...colder. Many of them are busying themselves with maintaining magical lanterns around the edges of the faire. If asked, they tell your character they're handling security and to bug off.

But some of them maintain stands in shadier-looking areas of the faire. They're willing to offer more in exchange for greater payment. Warm, durable clothing to cut through the slight chill that comes at evening and night time. Swords made of much stronger metals than can be found elsewhere, of better make, with edges that take forever to dull. Bows with strings that rarely ever break.

Their deals are definitely backhanded though. For payment, they might say something like "we could really use your view on something, just a half hour of your time" and instead of having you participate in conversation where your insight is welcome, you lose your ability to see for a half hour.

These effects are unpleasant but usually temporary, lasting no longer than a half hour or so - but it's not like they'll tell you that. And if you try to go back to the stall afterwards to confront them, they'll have mysteriously disappeared. You'll at least get to keep whatever your bought and it will be of good quality, but the joke is definitely on you.

l) Wild Card!
You can make up anything your character might reasonably see at a normal Renaissance Faire, or place an encounter in the woods nearby! Go wild!

OOC DETAILS
❧ This counts as a plot and is part of game canon! This means that new players aren't the only ones that can make top-levels. Current characters can be thrown in like it's any other plot or event. The default for threads is that they're game canon if all characters involved are apped in or already in game, but prospective players may opt out and consider a thread non-canon if they're not happy with it.

❧ Feel free to play around with powers. If your character has powers from canon you want to play around with, go for it. If you'd like to test out possibilities for game powers, also go for it. Feel free to change it up from thread to thread if you need to. If you want to keep a thread as canon this can be handwaved as the magic making characters' powers shift a few times before settling.

❧ Potential players may use test drive threads as their log samples. However, at least one post in their thread must fit the requirements for apps, and in quality and length (200 words). If you do plan on using a thread as a sample, please make sure the writing throughout your threads is a good example of your writing skills and has some solid examples of the character's voice.

❧ Players can count TDMs towards AC, with the same AC rules as any other threads.

❧ The game is invite-only. Players without invites are allowed to tdm since some of them may know someone in game to ask for one, and since some people enjoy TDMs just for fun in games they don't plan to app into. But an invite is required during the apping process.

❧ The game is at a starting cap at 30 players. Right now the current number of invitees is likely to not exceed the game's 30 slots, but if we go a few over they will still be allowed to app during this first round. Future apps will be rolling apps and will have a wait queue if the cap has been exceeded.

❧ Invites at game start are limited to current and former players of the mods' previous game Piper90 (piper90), former players of the first incarnation of Wilderlands (wilderlands, and people friended to the main mod's plurk. If any of those individuals want to invite someone outside those pools in the first app round, they can request it when the mods make a headcount of potential appers. If the game will be under (or only slightly over) 30 players to start, some extra players may also be invited, but the mods want to limit it to exceed the player cap too much.

❧ The first game round will be apps only, no reserves. Apps open: 10/15/21. Game start: 11/01/21

Comments

[garmr]

When his eye lands on the woman, he does feel a pang of sympathy. Much like his sense of smell, this feeling had been ground down. Reduced to a dull, blunt edge from having seen a similar image far too many times in his life. Too many pleading eyes beaten down and bloodied for no reason at all, chewed up by the world at large. Besides, he'd grown up as a killer for trade. He never deluded himself into thinking he was some savior, or a man of particularly good moral character. Were it not for Need, he probably would have just kept walking.

Still, as much as he ignored or suppressed that side of him (and he was quite good at that) it wasn't snuffed out entirely. Being a woman was hard where he came from. He knew that.

"Sure," he says aloud, with not even a single noise of protest. Not his usual method, but there is no harm in it to keep the old lady happy. He would never admit he was also letting a small foothold in for his own softheartedness. That was a thing he reserved for those precious to him.

Guts expects the flinch when he steps up to her. There is just little way around the inherent threat in someone as large and heavily armed as him approaching someone - much less a lone, sickly mother - out of nowhere. Even people he knew sometimes felt that startle from the monstrous shadow at the corner of their eye. His voice, at least, is surprisingly gentle.

"Hey. I'm gathering some supplies for a long journey. Mind doing a trade?" he offers his hand in a placating gesture, doing surprisingly well to diffuse the initial alarm. He wouldn't try to patronize or pity her. It was simply a fair exchange.

[hasapoint]

Need is making this one extremely easy, not requiring anything from Guts besides a bit of time and talk; if he'd refused this outright, she wouldn't have wanted anything to do with him. She had had to learn to feel for people like this instead of dismissing them, way back in ages past when she'd been young and stupid. So maybe she'd been presumptuous assuming she had to nag him into it.

This woman's not as colorfully dressed as most of the folk out actively getting money from tourists, but some elements of her costume are clearly the same - the shoes, the full skirts - and she's got a rumpled look. Abandoning the spoon, she tugs up the front of her blouse, too tired for more than a flash of alarm. The baby nuzzles into her, making small noises, and she joggles him gently.

"D'pends on the trade, sir," she says very carefully. "I've sausages and soup. M'wife will be back soon enough if you're wanting something what takes more moving around."

:She thinks she might be hallucinating. Not getting much sleep even when the child's sleeping,: Need says. :You're not exactly someone she'd expect to see wandering around back here.:

[garmr]

Guess none of those black knights get their food around here. he thinks idly.

But then again, that should hardly be a surprise - most of the tournament contestants had been all sorts of pompous and noble in a way designed to piss him off, personally.

Guts notices the jostle of the child, but keeps his gaze peeled away from him and focused on the mother’s face. Something about the way the baby was tucked up against her chest was on the verge of kindling some uncomfortable memories. No time to linger on that, though.

“Payment’s gonna be a bit of a weird one. I picked up a sword in the stalls with healing magic, and it looks like your work’s got you pretty beat. Why not give the healing spell a spin and see how you feel?”

His hand comes to rest idly on Need, looking positively out of place on his belt.

“If it works like it’s supposed to, we can call that a fair trade for some rations of any dried meat you might have around.”

Well. That took a lot more explaining that what he usually liked to do, but he figures being straightforward about it was best. He wouldn’t mind the girl getting her rejuvenation first.

[hasapoint]

:You might be surprised. Some of them are just acting the part. But when any of those come here it's with their armor off, yes.: Need catches an image of a big-nosed farmboy who just looks dopey and confused whenever he's not affecting a sneer and elects not to pass it on. She can juggle a lot of streams of information and a few conversations at once without pausing, but it took her centuries to reach that point.

The cook pauses, visibly weighing options and trying to think past babybrain. Need dips in deep enough to see that healing is technically accessible but less so during the faire itself, when she and her wife - and that farmboy, it does take all sorts - are trying to earn money. She's been telling herself it's not bad enough that she can't tough it out.

Finally she nods, still a bit apprehensive. "Seems a fair shake, sir. I can go and test it for you. What would... how would this work?"

:Just hand me over. Don't be like Kethry unless you have to. It always took her too long to get the sword belt off, so she'd draw me, and you don't look as sweet as she did,: Need puts in dryly. The affection as she mentions her old bearer is unmistakable, but there's no ache that goes with it.

[garmr]

:I'm not drawin' a weapon on a woman.: was the immediate thought. Vague annoyance Need would think he'd have to be told that. Kethry was a mage. He'd been handling a sword in his hand before he knew right from left. He rather likes it when he's not chased around by villagers with farm tools for being a menace, as a matter of fact.

Guts sees a reaction in the lady's face that made him realize some of that internal sentiment may have come to the surface, and slackens his expression into something more neutral.

"Here. You just got to hold it in your hands, and the sword'll do the rest."

He undoes the leather belts holding the sheath in place quickly enough, for a guy with only one hand. With his history, that would probably not be surprising. He hands it over to her.

[hasapoint]

:See that you don't!: It comes with a hazy half-image of Tarma, brown and heavily scarred, putting a hand over her face and laughing until her shoulders shook while Kethry protested almost the same thing in mock outrage - she was a mage, she didn't have to know sword etiquette.

The cook bites her lip and takes the time before Guts has worked through the belts to use a shawl to make a sling keeping her baby close without having to use a hand, wrapping behind the head with special care. She takes Need with obvious trepidation, apparently expecting her to be heavier than she turned out to be. Something eases in her face almost immediately and she seems distracted, looking at the worn, stained scabbard as if in a daydream. There's no glow, no unusual sounds.

Need's Mindvoice is very slightly less clear with the distance. :I can't work miracles, but I can do contact-Healing. How long it takes depends on a few different things.:

[garmr]

Long as they ain't an enemy...

In which case he will totally draw that absurd sword of his and bifurcate like he always does. But this lady was far from that, just some beleagured soul cooking soup, so he does nothing of the sort.

Guts crosses his arms and wordlessly watches as the cook becomes transfixed on the sword. He assumes that they must be talking... or something, until Need pipes up again.

:Well, then, get on with it. I can wait.:

His mouth twitches into a scowly little expression at the sheathed sword. He trusts the old lady to do whatever magic she promised, otherwise why would she make him go through all this trouble? Guts didn't need a whole explanation for how the healing worked.

[hasapoint]

Need while awake isn't necessarily against fighting and killing specific women but she is less comfortable with that idea than she is with killing men. ...which isn't saying much. Scum can be female, after all.

:Stars, boy, you have all the tactical and strategic insight of a stone,: she rasps. Sometimes, Need's mind-voice is closer to the sounds of metal on metal than to the voice that would come out of a human mouth and throat. It often comes with fragments of memory, in this case one of her latest bearer, Kerowyn, evaluating new recruits to the company. :And what makes you think I need your permission to start? Or were you expecting sparkling lights and music?:

Unaware of this aside, the cook holds Need's sheath against her stomach and across her baby. Her back's been straightening out and her shoulders have been squaring. Something's happening, even if it doesn't show. :The point is not the metaphysical underpinnings of spell-based Healing. I'm fully aware that you're not a scholar. The point is that there are limits and magic doesn't just fix everything.: