spellgrinders | ( TDM

TDMs can be used for anyone interested in the game and/or testing out a new muse.

Test Drive samples are encouraged to be used for your application sample, though they are NOT a requirement.

Feel free to use one prompt, multiple prompts or make up your own!

These threads can be considered game canon upon game opening if you so choose.

Telepathy and magic can be used at any point in time on the TDM, from Prompt A to your wildcard prompt. A specific prompt exists, however, that makes sure all characters have an equal chance to use this mechanic within the TDM. You're encouraged to have characters use telepathy and their magic accidentally or even purposefully on any TDM prompt.

If you aren't set on your character's power yet or want to try out a few, you're still able to use the test drive. Maybe your character is a late bloomer and hasn't fully unlocked their intuitive drive yet. In the case of multiple powers, only prompts that contain the power you choose for your application will count as potential game canon threads.

While only one character can be apped or reserved during a cycle, feel free to post with more than one character if you like! This is for those who are uncertain of their first choice or who would like to try out different characters within the setting.

You blink and that's all it takes. At first the picture doesn't come in clear, like you're waiting for a screen to fully load -- more aptly, it's like you're waiting for a camera to focus so you can find image clarity. Before you happened to rapidly close your eyes and open them, your life was normal...well, normal for you, anyway. Fighting an alien, making a quesadilla, dying. And then that blurry picture suddenly takes over.

Depending on your situation and ability to acclimate, you may not fully understand what's happening. A dream, a hallucination. But when you feel the trunk of the trees surrounding you, it's oddly...real. The smell is real. The moisture on the ground is real. The small grass snake you find slithering close to your feet seems very real as well.

There are a few other sensations that also begin to feel a little more like reality with every passing second. Like the fact that your intuition is trying to tell you something that doesn't seem plausible. One is more obvious -- you now have a new piece of jewelry inserted snuggly between your collarbones.

Maybe that's when you realize it is real. When you realize that there's no delusion here -- you aren't where you once were. But if that's the case...where are you?

here

its own perils.

After an hour or so of trekking through the forest, you finally come upon a break in the tree line that reveals to you an area that appears to be inhabitable. Your first stop is the large mansion that sits in the valley of the opening...if anyone is here or there's a way to get out of here, the house makes the most sense, right?

There are a variety of rooms in this mansion, and you're free to explore them. You also spy a lot of crates sitting in the middle of the floor in one of the main rooms...are you curious enough to open them?

At this point you notice that you aren't alone -- there are other people in the same boat as you! When they're around you, that signet you feel in your chest tingles slightly. The sensation isn't unpleasant, but instead like a warm tingle is spreading from their neck outward. You instinctively attempt to talk to your fellow kidnapping victims, and that works just fine...but what are all these voices you hear in your head now? Are you crazier than you thought you were?

C ▢ Here's where you can play around with the telepathy mechanic. It's likely your character won't be used to it which can lead to accidental broadcasting. If they happen to tap the signet purposefully or try to pull it out, everyone within a radius of 100 feet will feel a throbbing pain in their head. But your character won't know that, will they?

For those more inclined to adventure, there's also another building to investigate. From the outside, it looks very circular and unidentifiable, but upon entering you'll discover that it's a fully-functioning bath house.

D ▢ Despite containing steamy water and luxury bathing accommodations, the bathhouse is currently being overrun with crabs. The not-so-smart members of this species have fallen into the extremely hot water, flash boiling themselves after being unable to get back out. Others are a little more intelligent but equally aggressive. Characters: watch your toes and be cautious if you really want to take a much-needed bath! They may also want to check twice before using the restroom, otherwise the experience might be more painful than they're used to.

Exploring the mansion and the bathhouse was fun and all, but aside from the crates they didn't prove to be very useful. When you came into the clearing, you also saw a row of very colorful buildings down near the beach. It makes sense that this area may be more beneficial to any escape plans you have, and taking a dip in the ocean might be nice!

It's not until you reach the beach huts that you realize that murky blue color you spied wasn't the ocean. It's outter space. There goes any hopes you had of swimming to safety.

Claim your hut, please!

Even though it turns out the ocean was a lie and you're precariously close to falling off the edge of the world, the area around the huts is decidedly beachy. Sitting on the beach is a lobster trap, though about 10 times the size of any you might have seen before. Inside are more felt sacks, though larger. The weirdest part is that peering through the bars, you notice each has a nametag attached. The reason you know this to be true is because you just spied your own name written on one of the labels.

There's also something else underneath it. The descriptor may not mean much to you yet, but it will soon: it's the title of their newfound magic.

In each felt sack is a sort of starter kit: a set of dated and drapey plainclothes, a bag of dried boar jerky, a leather flask filled with water and a small tube of sunblock (the writing is in a bizarre pictograph language, but the giant picture of the sun on the tube should explain the purpose). There's also a rolled up paper tied with a string that reads as follows: "Welcome. Things will be explained in due time. For now, understand that you have been blessed with a gift of magic. Look into your brain and feel the instinct for both. Practice makes perfect."

F ▢ Here's the official prompt for playing with newfound magic (and telepathy if you want more practice). It's likely characters have already accidentally broadcast their thoughts, utilized the C prompt or used their magic inadvertently, but maybe this new information and small explanation has motivated them to try and see what they're truly capable of. Don't worry. If they're lucky enough to stick around, all will be explained.

...What if you're a wildcard, though? Someone who doesn't play by the rules and follows a different path, no matter what direction the world may be guiding you in? This island is large and contains many areas of interest, from crystal streams to hidden locations. Maybe you want to do something different...so break the mold and explore!

G ▢ Wildcard prompt. Go nuts and utilize your own creativity within the setting. This can mean striking out on your own or utilizing a certain location in a different way. The world is your oyster!

GAME NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ She doesn't know anything about small towns. She has lived in Vos all her life, and while the insect clans boasted small villages which might've been comparable... Well, to compare them to human society was apples to oranges. (Also an idiom she would know nothing about, such fruits did not grow underground.)

However, despite finding his bragging to be rather... juvenile, the array of skills impresses her all the same. The kind of man who would be useful to have on hand, even if he was a rather soft Abovegrounder. She views all of you pink sun-walking types to be weak. ]

The bottle is fine.

[ She's a soldiering type, she is more than used to simply handing a bottle around a group. Glasses reminded her more of her mother's dinner parties... Her mother was a shrill and frivolous creature who had attempted to groom Carla in her footsteps, to take motherhood as her work. Well, Carla had assuredly shown her by joining the regiment and having herself sterilized by the age of 18. The Aranea surgeon who had performed the operation had not batted a single one of its eyes to take a patient so young.]

It will be favorable to have a competent medic in this place.

[ She'd rather not be healed with magic, it was against everything she believes in. She would rather bleed under a surgeon's knife. ]

[ As Carla talks, Whale pours himself a mug full of wine, stopping right as the wine reaches the brim. Then, he pushes the bottle towards Carla as he takes a small sip of the wine himself, just to keep it from spilling. ]

I'm more than competent. [ The bragging continues, as Whale gives a little shrug. ] Of course, competency can only get you so far. I didn't get brought here with any supplies and bandages made from scraps of clothing can't sew a person back up.

[ Egotism crushed by realism. If somebody got hurt here, there wouldn't be much Whale could do in the first place. Sure, there's probably enough to make a splint or a tourniquet, but needles? Sutures? Anything remotely resembling a sterile medical facility? He has no idea if this place has anything like that to begin with. ]

[ She accepts the bottle, taking a swig from it in a rather casual and unladylike way. There were 'ladies' in Vos, for some that was the work they chose, but femininity was more an option than a requirement for the women of Vos, and just as viable to men so long as they did the work well. That was the general ethos of the Hel-folk, make your unexpected or selfish choices: so long as you did your work well. ]

You are not ready for battlefield medicine, then.

[ No particular accusation in her tone, she'd rather know this about him now and plan her tactics accordingly in the future. ]

I could have been, once upon a time. [ After all, back in his world, in his proper world, he was almost a doctor with the army. But things have changed, worlds have shifted, and Whale's been thrust forward into a new world and new circumstances. ]

As it is, my skills are more for surgery than patching someone up on the battlefield. I can patch someone up after a car accident but I've got no idea what sort of herbs or plants help staunch bleeding.

Neither do I.

[ There's a sharpness to her smiles that makes them never quite that inviting, mirth never seemed innocent with her... ]

I am certain nothing I would recognize grows here in the sun.

[ Irritating, to be taken from all that she knows, made hapless and helpless-- And yet, there's an implicit challenge to all of this makes her determination gleam like a sword. But then it's gone as her attention returns to him, her expression more mild, ]

Our wines are stronger, but yours taste better.

[ Certain she would recognize things growing in the sun...well, that does explain the huge beach hat. Maybe Carla was from somewhere a lot darker than this place?

As she mentions the alcohol though, Whale can't help but laugh. ]

We normally go for vodka or gin to get real drunk, real fast. You drink wine for the taste more than anything else.

[ Vodka she understands, they make that from other comparable tuberous crops that can be raised beneath the earth. Gin, however... those berries required sunlight. ]

We drink spirits because our water is not always to be trusted. The water we can trust to be untainted is deep in the clans' territory. They are not always in the mood to let us draw from it.

Possibly a weird question, but where do you live in the first place?

[ No sun, no water, other clans? This is all far too confusing and fuck if Whale knows how to even deal with this new information to begin with. ]

[ The quirk of an eyebrow. It's not a weird question but at the same time... Well, answering it isn't going to tell him much. She has answered about her homeworld several times now, there a few details she can already expect to elaborate on: ]

Vos, is the name of our city. It was carved out by a clan of Dynastinaen beetles, but as they had abandoned it, the clans agreed to turn it over to us. The city as it is now was founded by refugees from the aboveground, fleeing the spread of magic after cataclysm destroyed their cities.

[ She motions to herself, sitting back languidly, ]

I am a Lieutenant Witchfinder, my regiment is charged with finding and eradicating sources of magic and practitioners thereof from the city before they can... [ A humph a shrug, and her gesture turns broad. ] Do whatever it is that is going on here.

[ Well, well, well. Finding and eradicating magic and practitioners? He can think of plenty of people back home who would have something to say about that. Once again, magic proves to be more trouble than it's worth and once again, Whale's happy that he barely has anything to do with it in the first place.

At least, not until some idiot curses the town again. But he didn't choose that sort of nonsense. ]

The world I arrived here from is full of magic--I don't practice it myself, though. I've found a stronger art.

[ And that stronger art is good, old-fashioned, cold, hard science. ]

[ A crooked smile, the opalescence flickering in the back of her pupils. ]

Then you would do well with us.

[ Hel-folk felt that magic was... cheating. A soul sickness of many symptoms but which ultimately pointed towards weakness, an inability to rise up against the hardships of reality with your own two hands, instead choosing to bend the rules. They didn't like that much. ]

Must I now inquire about your world? I suppose it must be different. Most abovegrounders are... unhinged. The magic twists them, and the fair folk seem to delight in twisting them further.

[ Faeries and elves. She's not a fan. ]

You can inquire about if you want. Though, I gotta warn you, the situation's a bit complicated. I'm originally from one world but, through a series of circumstances, got shoved into another.

[ tl;dr, magic is bullshit. ]

That sort of traveling between realms isn't common back home, but people have definitely heard of it. So I guess my question is, which do you want to know about first?

( TDM | #1 )

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