singillppl | October 2025 Test Drive Meme

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October 2025 Test Drive Meme

OCTOBER 2025 TDM

PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST: A new group of arrivals find themselves lost in the frozen wilds and vulnerable to the dangers of nature. With luck, they make it to the town of Milton, and to a friendly face offering food, warmth and shelter — and the current inhabitants, their fellow survivors.

PROMPT TWO — POWER IN WORDS: Interlopers gather around the campfire and decide to tell stories: only to find their stories begin to come alive right before their very eyes.

PROMPT THREE — FRONTIER COMFORTS: Interlopers come across a surprise baker in Milton, offering up tasty treats — with unexpected effects.

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

WHEN: Mid-month.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential animal attacks, potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk.

'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.'

It’s the last thing you hear. A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. You feel afraid. Maybe you’re dreaming, maybe you’re wide awake. You saw the lights, and then your world went dark. But you hear it in the blackness, you won’t forget those words.

These are the words of the Darkwalker, you’ll soon come to find.

You awaken. You are not where you were before. It’s different for everyone, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern in where you find yourself. You may open your eyes to find yourself in a cold, dim and dank cabin. The air is stale, dust hangs in the rays of weak sunlight that shine through the tiny windows. Someone lived here once, but they aren’t to be found. This place has been ransacked, abandoned long ago. It is quiet. The wood creaks around you.

Or perhaps you may awaken to find yourself shivering in the yawning maw of a cave, the freezing stone below you. Or maybe you’re unfortunate enough to sit up to find yourself lying in the snow, in the middle of the wilderness. Snow lies thick around you. It’s freezing out. You haven’t felt a cold like this before in your entire life. Cruel and biting. You have no idea where you are, and what’s worse — you are completely alone.

The sun is bright, enclosed in light fog. It is a strange kind of twilight.

You may feel different, too. Any powers or magics you may have feel... absent. Disconnected. Things that may not have affected you previously now do. Something in you has changed.

You know you can’t stay where you are. You’ll need to move, try to work out where you are and how you came to be here. So you walk, head out into the unknown, in hope of finding a trail or a road. You’ll find one soon enough. It’s here you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear howls of wolves around you, and the terrain is difficult: slips and falls are likely. You’re completely vulnerable out here in the open.

Or it’s possible you may come across someone else here. Someone who looks far better prepared to deal with the freezing cold and frozen landscape, out hunting or gathering. They’ll likely offer help and get you into town. However, for the unlucky ones who don’t come across anyone, you’ll carry on until you see it: the lazy trail of smoke rising in the air. Fire. Not just one, but several. Civilization...?

Follow it, and soon enough the way you’ve taken will certainly become a path or road. Unfolding before you in the mountainous forests, you’ll see the most welcome of sights: a small mining town tucked up in the valley. Battered, rusted road signs will direct to “MILTON, POP. 947”. You’re almost there, you keep going, and it looks like other people have had the same idea as you. In fact, you’ll hear the muffled sounds of life. People! In the town!

As you head into the outskirts and then further into town, you’ll find it’s a little easier to walk but the cold has gripped you hard. You’ll find the buildings, both shops and homes, some are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up, some of them are occupied. People are going about their business, or stood watching from their tiny porches of their small, timber homes. For a town this big, there doesn’t seem to be many people. Several dozen at most, but no more.

Towards the center of town, you’ll find the building from which the biggest of the smoke trail rises: a school-house of sorts, or some kind of community hall. Perhaps both. You’ll find more and more people all drawn to this place, each and every one of them in the same position as yourself (and your companion, if you’ve found one). Some are in worse states than others: some are bloodied, nursing bite wounds or cuts; others might have some other kind of injury sustained in the journey here from falls. Others may look as if they could faint from the cold at any second.

The door opens, and you’re greeted by the gnarled, wizened face of an elderly man, dressed in thick furs. He has a kind face. He smiles warmly, and with pity, ushering you in with haste.

“Ah. Once more, you poor souls come.” he nods gravely. No, this is not the first time that this has happened. “I am Methuselah. I welcome you, Newcomer, although I’m sorry for how you’ve come to find yourself here. You are not the only one, the lights are changing things. Come. Mother Nature has not been kind to you, but there are plenty here to help.”

The room is dim, lit only by natural daylight through the windows. A roaring fire sits at one end of the huge hall. It crackles, bright and cheerful... and warm. Even as big as this place is, the room is pleasantly warm. You’ll also find basic cots set up down one side of the hall, and while it seems there's a few people already living here, there's enough space for those in need of them. There's places to rest for a moment and get your bearings, or just trying to recover from the cold. Down the other side are tables and chairs, and long tables laden with food, drinks and bottled water similar to one might find at a soup kitchen. Once again, Methuselah offers a feast, aided by some of the other Interlopers.

There are canisters with hot herbal teas, mostly. But some coffee can be found. There’s also soup and stew and trays of charred deer and rabbit meats, plus some grilled fish. It’s very basic, but it’s hot and filling. A feast for those who have battled the cold to come here.

Methuselah will continue to busy himself, still; there is plenty to do. He will fetch blankets, tend to wounds, serve food and drinks — aided by a handful of others in the Hall. Your fellow survivors, but those who have been here for some time now. He does not have much time to talk. More and more people seem to be coming in from the cold. He will not stop to sit and rest until everyone is seen to, taking up a place by the fire to gaze silently into its flames.

He will encourage newcomers to get warm and eat, and when they are ready to — they can explore the town and find one of the many empty homes to call their own. He will not speak much, but gesture to your fellow survivors. They will have better answers than him.

POWER IN WORDS

WHEN: The month of October.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: reality warping; potential fourth-walling; horror monsters/creatures; potential character injury; potential character death.

They say there’s nothing more powerful than stories. Tales of caution told to little children to mind the great and terrible things out in the darkness of the world. Accounts of folk horrors or great adventures to thrill and entertain. Or perhaps stories of valour and hope to help inspire the hearts of the downtrodden and destitute. Words have been spoken over campfires for eons, passed down from lips to lips.

In the Northern Territories, there is plenty of time on one’s hands. The hours seem to crawl by, and there is very little in terms of entertainment to keep one’s mind busy after the chores and business needed to survive is done. Sometimes all there is left to do is to sit by the fire and talk. And with winter quickly approaching, huddling around a fire certainly isn’t a bad idea after all.

And certainly, Interlopers have found themselves compelled to gather around fires as of late. To spend time with their fellow Interlopers, to enjoy the sense of community and togetherness.

Considering the time of year, it’s October — a favourite time of year for some. Halloween draws close, and what better way to celebrate it in a world where nothing much can be celebrated by telling some of your favourite spooky stories for the evening? It feels like as good a time as any, after all.

So you gather around a fire with your fellow Interlopers and begin to tell one another stories. They might be retellings of your favourite horror movies, folktales from your country, stories that freaked you out as a kid. Stories of cryptids or the monsters under the bed. Maybe it might be some supernatural encounter you once experienced. Something to really spook your fellow Interlopers for fun.

… only it isn’t just for fun.

In a world where there are bigger powers at play, there is so much power in words spoken. As you tell your story, something… unexpected happens. Interlopers will find that the horror stories they tell around the fire will start to become a reality. The cryptid from your hometown may just start stalking you from the shadows. The werewolf from that favourite horror film of yours? You hear it howl in the distance. The ghosts you swear you saw once as a kid will appear before you.

You have brought these stories to life, accidentally.

How do you deal with such a thing? Well, how does it end in the story? Your creations only have as much power as the stories that hold them. Stake through the heart for a vampire, a ring of salt for ghosts, silver for werewolves. And you better deal with it quickly, less you become just another victim in the story.

Fortunately, if you’ve talked yourself into a bit of a jam, the monsters you’ve spoken into life will eventually disappear into nothing by the time the sun rises again. You only have to survive the night first.

FRONTIER COMFORTS

WHEN: The month of October.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: altered/magical food items; severely altered/warped behaviours; potential personality switches/animalistic behavioural characteristics; minor body horror; loss of senses; physical age changes; precognition/future visions.

In the month of October, Interlopers have been practically plagued by the delicious scents of homebaking that fill the air in and around Milton. Following their noses, however, has turned up nothing,and no one’s been able to find the source of those smells no matter how hard anyone’s tried to look. Interlopers aren’t exactly living on the most luxurious of diets, and often the most basic and simple of meals is what’s on the table for them in the general day to day. Whatever this is smells practically divine, and no one is immune to being enraptured by them.

One particular day, as you walk around Milton, the scent is particularly strong and this time you’re determined to find the source of the baking. Maybe whoever it is might be in a particularly charitable mood, or might be willing to trade for whatever it is you’re baking.

You see lights on in one of the cabins that had once otherwise been empty, or maybe you’d just never noticed someone lived there. But as you draw closer to the front door, the scents of home cooking are overpowering and you knock, hoping and praying for an answer.

The man who answers the doors isn’t someone you recognise. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about him: he is middle-aged and tall, with a thick beard. Behind him is a busy scene: a roaring fire and the ongoing process of baking. He chuckles at your staring and invites you in. Inside, you find the source of the smell: home-cooked pies of varying types; some more rustic than others, with golden pastry and rich-smelling fillings.

You’re not sure if the man is a fellow Interloper, or perhaps one of the folks from Silverpoint — a Milton native who’s returned home. Or maybe he’s neither. He doesn’t speak much, and only beckons you to pull up a chair at the large kitchen table and eat.

He offers a selection. The choice is yours, Interlopers. But trying out one of these pies might have you biting off more than you can chew.

STALKER’S PIE: A rich pie made with Bear and Wolf meat. Dangerous, mysterious filling. This pie gives the Interloper eating it an animalistic instinct. Your senses are sharp, keen. You hear, smell and see as an animal would. Your nails are sharp like claws, your teeth are now fangs to bear and snap. You see the world in black and white: predator and prey.

PREPPER’S PIE: A dense pie made from foraged vegetables. Rough around the edges. After eating this pie, you feel your mind is clear and untroubled. You feel prepared… in a way you didn’t think possible. For a time, you are able to see things in the immediate future around you. And with that, you are ready for anything.

DOCKWORKER’S PIE: A satisfying pie made from the day's catch. The taste of the sea. As you eat this pie, you feel a sensation of waves washing over you. A gentle rocking, as if you are a vessel on the ocean. With each gentle rock, you feel yourself shift. You’re still you, but another kind of you. Maybe if you’d made another choice, or maybe you hadn’t been chosen. In this world, this timeline, things had gone differently. And now so are you. Different. An alternative version of yourself, rippling through.

BREYERHOUSE PIE: A pie any meateater would love. Lunchbox-ready. Chowing down on this heavy, meat-filled pie reminds you that you too are just meat. And like the game butchered and broken down to make it, the same can be done to you. This pie will temporarily take away one of your five senses: sight, touch, smell, taste or hearing. You may find yourself feeling completely numb to touch; or unable to hear or see anything.

PEACH PIE: A pie filled with sweet, canned peaches. Reminds one of warmer seasons and brighter days. Eating this pie will change your physical age to a younger version of yourself. It will be of a time when things were simpler, happier. The world around you did not feel so empty and terrifying, and you now see it with eyes of wonder and an unbridled heart.

Afterwards, you’ll find you can’t find the man or his cabin again. Once you leave the area and try to return, you’ll find the cabin empty, with no trace of the man or his baking to be found.

FAQs

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

1. Arrival threads can be treated as game canon.

2. Items characters have brought from home can be found either strewn around them when they awaken, or in the community hall — as if someone left them out for them to collect. Methuselah will not know how they got there, and will be quite bemused by the happenings.

3. Reminder that all characters are now depowered upon arrival. They can choose not to notice it at first, or can immediately sense something is different about them.

4. If asked any personal questions, Methuselah will smile and say "Oh, you don't want to know about an old man like me. But I have lived all over in these parts for all my life." He will be more concerned with trying to help Newcomers, and is genuinely concerned for them and their well-being. Other Interlopers will say much of the same — there's little to know about him.

5. More information about Milton can be found here.

POWER IN WORDS

1. While any monsters are fine to bring in, we do ask that players are mindful of bringing in gigantic monsters (ie. Godzilla) that could potentially break the game's setting.

2. Players are welcome to go with monsters from their character's canons, or make up their own ghost stories or go with real-life examples of ghost stories.

FRONTIER COMFORTS

1. The effects of the pies will last between eight hours to a week, depending on how much was consumed. Nothing can be done to alleviate symptoms. You will feel incredibly hungover the day after the effects have subsided, like you've eaten something way too rich, but feel completely fine after that.

2. Dockworker's Pie can be any kind of AU, whether that's a canon AU (ie. Endverse in Supernatural) or a player-made up AU. Genderswaps would also be acceptable in this instance.

3. Peach Pie is flexible in how it can be played out. Characters can keep their normal mind/memories, or they can revert themselves to their literal child stage. Or even an in-between point where they find others around them (ie. CR/canonmates) familiar but can't really truly suss out their current situation.

TALES FROM THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES NEWSLETTER

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i. arrival

[For a woman who grew up in a desert the cold and dampness of the North is a shock. One that the cadin'sor a garment made for the dust and hot sun keeps her unprepared for. The snow she's had to trample through soaks in and it's only in that moment that she understands the abundance of water that it is, though she'd not heard of any wetlander location like this. The way the light reflects off the snow is unnaturally bright and though she typically veils only to fight, as it tradition, a glance around her shows that she's still alone and pulls her hood down and veil up trying to deflect some of the sun in any way she can to deal with the brightness.

Footsteps are easier to track in the woods then they are in the sands of the waste back home. Quickly deciding that finding people is her only chance of survival she follows only her heart starts to jump when it she comes across one. Internally she reaches for the source of her powers only to find it empty, powerless, though she doesn't have time to process the loss instead she's made the wrong choice instead of going for the spear on her back. Adapting to changes will cost her dearly if this person is hostile and her eyes are sharp as she watches for signs.]

Is there a place to escape this water nearby?

[She doesn't know a word for snow.]

ii. methuselah's feast

[The communal nature of living back home means that Aviendha takes to the offerings of blankets and food kindly. Not a though of disregarding the help though she knows she'll have to so something for it sooner or later. Her bones far too chilled to want to avoid anything that can involve drying off or warming up. What should wouldn't give for a sweat tent right now, even if it was with a long shift of tending the coals for the Wise ones. After spending time on a ship she'd once thought that any land would be better then water, but she's not convinced of that anymore.]

Is there an ocean near by that the fish come from?

[She'd not understood the terrain, but fish are familiar enough in her travels away from the waste. She takes another bite of the soup, feeling the warmth coat her throat and start to warm her from the inside. It's a comfort she'd not known she needed.]

I've never seen a place like this.

iii. power in words

[The pull of communal fire is welcoming and warm. Sitting at at a spot as close to the flame without putting herself in an absurd position is a learned skill from nights in the desert. Aviendha herself has always enjoyed the community of her clan and then her sisters. The company this time is at least better then the Wise One's lessons around them as of late and so she listens to stories they tell yet unaware of the strange goings on that may happen in the area. When it's hurt turn it's not scary stories of imagination she goes for, but of the shadow itself. Different Shadowspawn.]

Along the north runs the blight. Overtaken by the shadow. Trollocs are beasts mixed with men. That walk on two legs and carry weapons but can't speak but they're bloodthirsty. One or two are no problem for they're quite dumb as rocks but...

[There's a pause a shiver down her spine.]

An army of them lead by a Fade. A snakelike mouth and no eyes. They can battle like the best of warriors.

iv. wildcard

ooc: feel free to wildcard me wherever. also up for the pie prompt with any of them. pm for contact. Aviendha is from a warrior clan in the desert so this whole snow and cold thing is a whole new experience.

Edited 2025-10-09 03:21 (UTC)

[Less mindful of the fire, D'Artagnan has one foot near too close to the flame, and he can feel it through the worn sole of his boot. Having made do with a blanket from the gathering hall earlier, he's since ransacked one of the abandoned cabins and come across an odd black coat, one not so heavy as he might imagine needed for the warmth of it, a bit too short in the sleeves and too broad, with a strange fastening he plays with idly, trailing the zipper up and down its broken line, for he's worn it open, his own thinner leather jacket beneath. The woman speaks of impossible creatures, as many had before her, and he remains quiet for he's nothing to share himself, no tales of great beasts or dark legends, and he might at best talk of wolves slaughtering the sleep in the field. As such, he tends towards a snorting repudiation of what he feels are exaggerated or contradictory statements.]

These Trollocs, they're bloodthirsty and stupid beasts, but they've managed to sort out weapons?

Edited 2025-10-10 12:52 (UTC)

[She'd noticed the man before. Quite thought he might set his boots aflame with the way he's playing with the fire but she doesn't say anything just watches. An occasional intense look that's then cast upon the next person in her gaze. One that says she's sizing people up not simply for everything being so different from home. Bain and Chiad she thinks would have had much more fun with tormenting this man.]

Bludgeoning ones. There's no finesse when it comes to those, they don't need it they're eight or ten feet tall.

[Her foot idly kicks at a rock in frustration. She should be back home, helping, not wherever this is. At first she'd thought it some of the other continents she'd heard about.]

The darkness draws even good people to violence and murder, it's own creations well, they're inherently that.

[It doesn't track for him, the irritable kicking of the rock whilst speaking of the beasts, but he does note it, hand straying closer to his back within reach of his main-gauche, the rapier too obvious should he rest his hand there. Men are inherently violent, a statement he might make with confidence, and he doesn't consider himself overtaken by darkness to have participated in either that nor murder. Something sounds in the near distance, just beyond the reaches of the light from the fire, and D'Artagnan flicks his gaze that way instead of making his argument.]

You speak of darkness as if it an entity, as if men may be possessed by devilry.

[Despite the prevailing opinions one may announce in his time, he doesn't believe in such things, witchcraft and demons from the pits of Hell that might come forth to roam the earth.]

[Her eyes narrow at the way he speaks. It's a questioning statement and one that seems so obvious to her. A simple fact of her world and how it works. Like the attitudes of Wetlanders who act like they know everything, even if the topic is different. Perhaps that's how she must think of all of these people]

The Dark one will use anyone weak who doesn't fight for the Light. There's dark friends across all of the world who might seek to end it and fight against the Light.

[Yet as she looks at him there's something past the fire that catches her eyes. A movement in the shadows that she doesn't quite place. When she looks again it's gone and her eyes flick back to the man.]

It's why we must always be ready to dance in my home. Though swords are forbidden by our customs.

[Her hand motions to the spears at her back in comparison to the strange blade she sees at his waist, a different style then the long heavy swords of some Wetlanders or the curved blades of the borderlands. In Aviendha's mind it's obvious that to dance is to fight.]

[The further explanation only strikes D'Artagnan as religious connotations, a church order unknown to him, beliefs of a people he's unfamiliar with, and he nods then, an awkward acknowledging twitch of his lips. One eyebrow turns down as she continues, and he looks off to the side; she's made little sense with her dancing. But as he's ready to speak on that, to make a remark or deem her mad, something has moved out of the light of the fire, a tall shadowy form that he can't quite get focus on, and then there is nothing but the blackness, unmoving and silent.]

Swords.

[It's spoken quietly and without the intent to do so, half distracted, but his own voice returns him to the conversation as an understanding presents itself.]

Always ready for battle, you mean, to fight this dark one and his supporters?

Aviendha | Wheel of Time

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i missed you in my inbox!

same!!

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