Empatheias Events (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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empatheias_ooc2015-12-18 01:12 pm
empevents) wrote in empatheias_ooc2015-12-18 01:12 pm
Entry tags:
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!
• 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.
• 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!
no subject
Rey rips her staff away from him viciously and raises it to take a brutal swing at his injured side. She'd rather hit him in his stupid face, but with that horrible mask on that's sadly not an option. But then his hand comes up--and she realizes she can feel him calling on his power this time, having experienced it a handful of times--and her staff stops infuriatingly short of its target. Rey struggles, fights his invisible grip as hard as she can, but her arms only twitch.
Her voice is as frozen as her body, so her frustrated scream has no outlet but through the amulet... and directly into Kylo Ren's head.
no subject
"Scream all you want, scavenger," he spits angrily, turning swiftly to retrieve the lightsaber, his coveted lightsaber, from the ground. There is no more hesitation. Even if it will not respond to his call with the Force, he can still handle it physically, and it cannot reject his hand the way it can his power. That is enough for now.
He lights the blade without a second thought, blue reflecting off his mask as he gazes at it. For a moment he loses himself in the awe, the euphoria of finally acquiring it, head canting slightly as he takes in a slow breath. The air is almost heavy around him, and the glow of the blade is brighter than usual, casting a deeper shadow behind Ren.
He regains his focus almost suddenly and whips around to point the saber at her, its tip close to her throat.
"You will learn—your—place."
no subject
He's been trained, her traitorous brain points out. You haven't.
Beat him before. Twice. She ignores the facts that he was injured and uncertain in the forest, focuses instead on his botched interrogation. He certainly has no excuse for that one, she was just stronger. And she can be stronger again.
She tries not to focus on the coil of rage in her gut when he picks up her lightsaber--Luke's lightsaber, she reminds herself--and she tries to ignore how utterly wrong it is to see blue light reflected on that horrible mask instead of red. But she can't ignore the blade at her throat or how the heat and glow of it make her heartbeat race. The snow at her feet melts into a grimy sludge, the ground underneath turning hard and cracking.
Rey stares directly where she knows his eyes are underneath all that metal, where she imagines a scar splitting his boyish face in half, and she finds her strength. Her grip on her staff loosens and tightens as his hold on her slowly weakens, and her foot shifts a centimeter or two. Then she swallows and commands her mouth to move--even if her words come out stiffly, there's a victorious glint in her eyes.
"You. First."
no subject
In response he lashes out, though with his words and the Force rather than the blade in his hand. He concentrates his full effort on holding her still, his left hand held out to assist as he pulls the blade away.
"This is not a victory for you!" he says, voice raised in the hopes that anger will cover the feeling his traitorous shadow displays. "The saber is mine—and even if you can struggle against me you have still lost it!"
He refuses to give any thought to the fact that his words are meant as reassurance to himself as much as they are an admonishment for her.
no subject
Taking advantage of his weakness, she shifts her weight in a sudden jerk forward, lips curling into a vindictive smirk. After that, his hand coming up can only hold her back so much, particularly when he pulls the stolen blade away.
He was bluffing. He was bluffing, and she called him on it, and he had no choice but to relent. And in doing so, gave her the greatest weapon of all: the masked man doesn't want to kill Rey. She doesn't bother to question his motives--she recalls him babbling about teachers in the forest--because the facts speak for themselves. Given plenty of motive, a functionally incapacitated, unarmed opponent, and two lightsabers, he chose not to harm her further. Somewhere in this creature's foul mind, he finds throwing her into things acceptable but draws the line at lightsaber wounds.
... Rey will take it.
Her body shakes from the effort of fighting his power, particularly now that he's fully focused on her, but she keeps staring into his mask, trying to slip between the cracks of his frayed control. She's patient, determined, and has just been given information that greatly decreases her fear of him. He's threatened and scared. Defeat is inevitable. Rey's lips twitch into a snarl, and she forces her voice out through gritted teeth to echo something he said to her long ago.
"We'll. See."