TEST DRIVE: JANUARY

[empevents]

— TEST DRIVE: JANUARY —

Welcome to empatheias' test drive meme. This test drive is to help interested players test their characters in the game's environment. We've included a few prompts that incorporate specific elements of the game, though you'll find all of them have a lot of leeway for players to get as creative as necessary. Before diving in, here are a few things we'd like to remind everyone about the game in general:

• Date reminders. Reserves open Friday, December 25th and Applications (Canon | OC) open Friday, January 1st.
  
  
• OC Reminder! Just a quick reminder that original characters are currently allowed. Those interested can also use the test drive. OCs do not need to be reserved.
  
  
• Emotions are key! Empatheias' premise focuses on how anyone's emotions can affect their environment, be it big or small. While not every emotion will cause a reaction, significant ones definitely will. How much effect a character will have will ultimately be up to you, the player. Also, while we're giving a lot of leeway for the test drive, keep in mind that there will be some limits in the actual game.
  
  
• Everyone has an amulet. All characters have a unique amulet that is specialized for them. It will contain all of their emotion drops and it serves as the network device. Remember, communication is telepathic. Otherwise, it works basically the same.
  
  
• Assume the character is already in the game. Because "OMG WHERE AM I IS THIS REAL LIFE" threads aren't going to be very helpful in this test drive! Plus those are going to happen in-game, anyway. So to make things easier, just assume that they've been around at least a week or so. Still learning the ropes, but not a complete "first day" experience.
  
  
• First or third person allowed. Your threads can be in either first or third, but we'd advise being flexible about it. Remember, these threads can also be used in your application for samples! Reminder: We only require one sample and it can be done in either format. We have also made a change to our sample requirements, so look over the Applications page!

Now with that out of the way, here are some prompts you guys can work from!


PROMPTS

• Prompt A: How about giving the emotions a try?

• Prompt B: Refer to the Task Board and choose a task your character may be interested in taking up. For this prompt, you could have your character ask for help, already be in the middle of the job, or react to it in some way. Perhaps they were an unfortunate victim or want to create a job countering an existing one. You could even have a prompt making a job request. Creating jobs for the purpose of the test drive is absolutely doable.

• Prompt C: How about giving the amulets a go? Start a telepathic conversation and see how it works. Remember, the amulets are sending out the owner's thoughts so might want to be careful about how the stream of consciousness goes...

• Prompt D: A new card game is sweeping through the streets of Verens: "Magica Ex Arehtei." Players take on the role of an Otherworlder and form battle decks out of minions, monsters, dunamis, and even the Arehtei themselves. It’s insanely complicated in its details, but this hasn’t stopped a seller from handing you a starter deck and all but pushing you into a chair to face an opponent… who may have just been conscripted themselves.

• Prompt E: After a long period of quiet (something about ‘emotional and physical harm to Empatheias’ and ‘manufacturing plush weapons without a Class E(X) license’), toy manufacturers have flooded merchant stalls and storefronts with a new offering, the hyper-cute stuffed Thras. No negative emotions, they promise! Plush Thras is so full of bravery, he’ll inspire anyone who holds him to new heights of courage and valor!

Naturally, magiscience has gone too far, and picking up the doll instills you with vigor, energy, and fearlessness past the point of recklessness.

• Prompt F: Thundersnow! A phenomenon in which a snowstorm is accompanied by lightning and thunder, and not a terribly uncommon one in Empatheias. But today’s thundersnow is more like an apocablizzard -- lighting lashes through the sky and lances down to catch buildings and trees with its fury, all hidden behind whirling sheets of billowing snowflakes that have blanketed the city in a foot of snow with no sign of stopping.

The outside is cold, windy, miserable, and potentially dangerous. Are you trapped in a building you didn’t expect to be in? Or perhaps you’ve joined up with an emergency emotion squad, trying to impose calm or cheer on the raging storm?

• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include lumps of coal or moose.

For your threads, put the Character Name and the Canon in the subject line to help readily identify them. You're also welcome to use more than one prompt for respondents to choose from. If you have any questions or want to brush up on the game information, refer to the Game Information entry. Otherwise, tag around and have fun!

Comments

[omnitrixter]

[Ben whirls around, hands clenched. When you fight for most of your adolescence, you kind of expect people randomly grabbing you and hauling you into an empty building to mean that someone's going to try and give you a beat down.]

If you really think you're...gonna...

[He blinks, lowering his hands when he sees no one there.]

...huh?

[lukeim_yurlin]

[So...that's the way it's going to be this time, is it? Not that Dezel isn't used to it. This is the norm back home, after all.]

[Still, he bothered to drag this kid indoors and out of the horrendously bad weather. Not one who enjoys wasted efforts, Dezel decides to stand and watch, if just to make sure Ben doesn't turn right around and go back outside. ...not that he'll make repeated efforts to stop the kid if that's what he really wants. He doesn't have that much patience with youngsters.]

[Meanwhile, the air around Ben stirs a little, ruffling his hair, causing the collar of his jacket to stir a little as Dezel "looks" at him.]

[omnitrixter]

...Oooookaaaaaay. Just gonna head on home then. No big deal...

[He starts heading towards the door, but he has a hand on the Omnitrix, ready to trigger it. Whoever had grabbed him might be shy or they might be waiting for him to relax his guard. Thanks for gifting your grandson with paranoia, Max. In either case, he can at least use the watch to transform and either head on out as he'd planned or fight. Though Gwen will kill him if he fights in the library.]

[lukeim_yurlin]

[Dezel watches as the kid turns away to head back outside, making an irritated sound a the back of his throat. Alright, fine. If that's the way it's going to be, he'll make one more effort to make Ben stay put and if that doesn't work, forget it. It's not worth it.]

[There's a buzz at the back of Ben's mind. Incoming call, buddy.]

...I didn't drag you in out of that blizzard to let you go back out and freeze.

[At the same time, one of Dezel's hands falls on one of Ben's shoulders to bring him to a halt.]

1/2

[omnitrixter]

[Ben grins and whips around again.]

AH-

2/3 I LIED SUPER HARD

[omnitrixter]

-huh?

[Still nothing.]

3/3

[omnitrixter]

Oh come on! If you're fast like XLR8, I would've at least felt the breeze when you ran off!

[lukeim_yurlin]

[Urgh, humans. Really. Frustration mounting, Dezel grits his teeth and adjusts his hat. Meanwhile, the floor beneath his feet trembles slightly, briefly, reflecting his less than pleasant mood. The sensation is a little startling for the seraph, in that he's still adjusting to this "emotions affect things" part of this new world. It doesn't help that he's of wind, not of earth. To have the ground react to him is...strange.]

I'm still standing here. You just don't have enough spiritual resonance to see me.

[And speaking of a breeze? Have one in a brief gust. Right in the face.]

[omnitrixter]

No clue what that means, dude, but I think I might be able to see you.

[And calling up the Omnitrix's holographic menu. Nope...nope...nope...there it is.]

[lukeim_yurlin]

It means you don't possess a natural aptitude for sensing the supernatural.

[Really, how difficult is that to understand and--wait, what is the kid doing now? Dezel frowns in confusion, the air currents unable to explain what they're sensing to his satisfaction. Is that bracelet some kind of weird divine artifact from his world? Why is there weird light coming out of it?]

What the hell are you doing?

1/2

[omnitrixter]

Yeah, I don't. But I may not need to.

[He slaps down on the Omnitrix and there's a bright flash of green light that Dezel can't see...]

2/2

[omnitrixter]

[Say "hi" to the giant space dog. Wildmutt flares his slit-like nostrils, trying to see if there's anything that doesn't smell like books nearby.]

[lukeim_yurlin]

[Dezel doesn't say "hi" so much as make a low sound of surprise and immediately sweep back and away a good ten or so feet. To him, Ben looks a lot like a human-turned-oddly-colored hellion, and the backpedaling is a knee jerk reaction. A survival tactic.]

[Yet there is no malevolence... Somehow, this kid has managed to change himself into...something else, whatever that is of his own free will. Some sort of arte related technique? Dezel is going to keep his distance for the moment, though, half lowered into a ready stance as he stirs the air currents around Wildmutt, examining the creature further. He also remains quiet, waiting to see what the creature will do next.]

[Meanwhile, if Wildmutt can detect Dezel's scent, he'll definitely get a whiff of leather off the seraph. After all, Dezel's dressed in a good amount of it, jacket, holsters and all. There's also the metal of his medallions and buckles, and the dirt and snow clinging to his steel toed boots.]

[omnitrixter]

[Given that Wildmutt "sees" by the tiniest changes in scent, he definitely smells the seraph. If he had a tail, it'd be wagging as he starts padding closer, nails clicking on the wood floor. Though for someone unfamiliar with Wildmutt, it probably looks pretty menacing.]

[But, nope, no malevolence here.]

[lukeim_yurlin]

[Behind Dezel, a few of the lights flicker a couple of times, reflecting his uncertainty. Whatever the kid became, it's non-human enough to allow him to locate Dezel by smell, if those flaring nostrils are any indicator. That this creature has body posture and movements similar to a dog is reassuring, however, and Dezel decides to keep his ground, relaxing a fraction. If it meant to harm him, it would be charging at him or at least approaching with far more warning signs than it's showing.]

Can you hear me, now? I can't even tell if you've got ears or not...

[He finds himself glancing to the side of the strange beast, suddenly curious about how it functions. Is it blind...?]

[omnitrixter]

[Totally blind. Wildmutt doesn't have any eyes after all.]

[Ben crouches for a moment before springing forward, bringing massive paws down on the stranger's chest. It would knock most people down, but perhaps seraphim are made of sterner stuff.]

[Regardless, Ben brings his head close to the stranger's face, opens his mouth...and licks him.]

[There's a sort of garbled sense of "I win!" coming through via the crystal. Wherever the Omnitrix stows Ben's amulet when he's in alien form, nobody's really sure, but it does the job well enough. At least his emotions aren't being sucked dry constantly.]

[lukeim_yurlin]

[While Dezel is a pretty strong guy, that's a lot of weird dog thing to suddenly have bearing down on him like that. So down he goes, back hitting the floor first. His hat, knocked from his head, ends up on the floor a few feet away.]

Huh, fine. So you can detect me now as...whatever it is you are.

[Oddly, Dezel doesn't sound too upset about that? Even in getting licked. He adores dogs and as he places both hands on the sides of Wildmutt's jaws, giving him a bit of a friendly, almost playful shake, there's a smirk playing across his features.]

Now back up. You knocked my hat off and I want it back where it belongs.

[omnitrixter]

[Not a lot of people play with Ben as Wildmutt, so Ben really enjoys it when this guy does. He huffs and jumps over the rest of Dezel going for the hat.]

[Up for a game of Keep Away? Maybe Tug of War?]

[lukeim_yurlin]

[Dezel's blind eyes open and widen in alarm when Ben leaps over him, the seraph suddenly realizing what may be about to happen.]

Hey, get back here! I don't want my hat in your mouth!

[Knowing that getting up might cost him too much time, Dezel quickly manipulates the air in the room into a gust of wind that catches his hat and pushes it swiftly along the floor as Ben goes for it.]

[omnitrixter]

[Ben's teeth close on air. He gives a playful huff, bounding after the hat. Not exactly the game of Keep Away he'd had in mind, but he'd take it.]

[lukeim_yurlin]

[Dammit. Knowing dogs the way he does and seeing as how this creature is fairly similar, Dezel is aware he's not going to win this one by simply keeping his hat ahead of it. Hell, even if he gets it back in hand, he might get jumped again and knocked down. He needs to replace what Wildmutt views as a toy with something else.]

[Once up off the floor, Dezel continues to command the wind to keep his hat ahead of Wildmutt while he gets over to the nearest window and yanks down a curtain panel. He then directs the wind to blow his hat back in his direction while he gets ready to distract Wildmutt with the new "toy"...]

[omnitrixter]

[Your plan is working, Dezel! Wildmutt is gamely continuing to follow your hat though part of Ben is starting to wonder if he should be worried about you having that curtain stuff in your hands now. Being beaten with a curtain rod isn't fun.]

[lukeim_yurlin]

[One well aimed gust of wind is enough to push the already quick moving top hat up higher into the air and into one of Dezel's waiting hands. He pulls the hat on with a smirk and then whips one end of the curtain out in front of Wildmutt, keeping a firm grip on the other.]

You want to play? Come on, then! Try to take this from me!

[omnitrixter]

[CHOMP goes Ben's fangs on the curtain. He growls and starts pulling with everything he's got. Good luck not getting knocked down, Dezel.]

[lukeim_yurlin]

[Oop, yeah, this one's definitely got a lot of weight and strength to him! Dezel finds himself being dragged forward, his boots sliding across the floor even though he's set himself in a firm stance to pull back. That doesn't mean he'll go down without a fight though, yanking back any time there's even a bit of slack and executing some fancy footwork here and there to keep balance. Meanwhile, his own sharp teeth are bared within a grin he normally reserves for combat. This isn't quite as exciting as an actual fight, but it's close.]

You've got some strength to you, don't you? Good. Makes this more interesting!