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singillppl2025-10-06 11:02 pm
singmod) wrote in singillppl2025-10-06 11:02 pm
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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
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.
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.
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.
power in words
He had a friend who was shipped off to the Great War. A man in uniform cuts a very fine figure indeed. The horrors of the battlefield were lost on Louis, hardly anything more than radio announcements. He had his own horrors to deal with at home.
A shot rings out in the forest, but Louis only spares it a glance. Louis watches with more interest the bodily changes in the human telling the story, how Prior's eyes widen and his nostrils flare. The offered... morsel... doesn't interest him as much as the man with blood flowing fast in him. Louis is a bit peckish; he'll have to hunt deer later.
"No thank you, different dietary needs," he says politely, all New Orleans charm. Then he breaks the spell with, "Who the hell's shootin' at this time of night?"
no subject
Along strikingly similar lines, Prior observes Louis very much as someone should when they have particular tastes. Were he in his right mind (he very much is not), Louis would receive a mirror of that charm; unfortunately, Prior's far too deep within himself to acknowledge the brilliantly colored eyes or the exotic, American-flavored accent that might otherwise pique his interest. That so rarely lasts, and if he's seeing Louis around and hasn't made his approach, it's likely for reasons outside of Prior's control (such a sense someone's eye won't wander no matter how foolishly Prior places himself within sight).
"Sounds British," he remarks, acerbic. "So I wager the English. My kind," Prior adds, pointing a thin finger at his own chest. Any accusation works, as he feels uncharitable towards himself in this state (and near every, but that's neither here nor there).
More bullets whizz and this time a low branch nearby is cut clean from the trunk, splintering into dozens of toothpicks at the break. Prior notes the woodchip that lands on his sleeve and gently brushes it from the cuff, a ginger act amidst more gunfire, less distant now.
cw: cannibalism and gore talk, toxic vampire marriage
"We're in Canada," he complains dubiously. "In the middle of an apocalypse."
He rises and finds cover behind a tree trunk but without urgency. He's been feeling low of late, so self-preservation comes slow. But his eyes dilate. Attack, defense, hunger, it's all the same. He fingers his fancy walking stick, essential accoutrement of a gentleman from the '10s. It has a knife inside.
"Last time we were attacked by people, it was the Forest Talkers or somethin' like them, and they're done."
They were defeated. Louis drained quite a few of them. Now he faces a decision. He doesn't like the whole town knowing he's a vampire. So, he doesn't like being watched while he eats. But what better way to slake his hunger and forget about his sorrows than to enter the oblivion of the hunt? He has a drinking problem.
"What are you gon' do, eat your way through their eyeballs?" says the vampire who cut off a man's ear and strung him up with his guts hanging out. But Louis is a gentleman.
cw: mentions of chemical warfare, human body parts
This version of Prior doesn't need to eat — at least as far as he and his stomach are currently concerned. It will change, but for now he considers the question as if it's nowhere near out of place.
"Well, they're not after me," he points out. British guns mean Prior's not apt to be seen down-barrel — he's got all the hallmarks of an officer without the full uniform — but the unkindness of the war reminds him of the gas attacks, where their own chemicals blew back in their faces, literally creating a cliched phrase for unintended, perhaps intentionally unforeseen circumstances. "Although that's not stopped them before," Prior adds, finally finding his own feet.
Smoothly, he chooses the tree next and nearest Louis, a flash of a thin, but straight smile.
"We've found our way to Canada, why shouldn't they?" Shoulder pressed to the trunk, he's nodding his head in the direction of the commotion, and the whistle-whump-whump-whump that responds makes Prior reach, one hand over his head, the other at Louis' sleeve, pulling them both towards the earth that begins exploding into craters around them, showering dirt and snow and pieces — small parts of people who once were and now scatter like wet, red pebbles around them.
Do you want Louis to be killing them Y/N? He could go either way
"Who are they so set on shootin', then?!" he yells above the ringing in his ears. "And get off me!" He shoves at Prior. Out of habit, he tries to avoid strangers touching him. It begets the kind of examination a vampire shouldn't court if he wants to keep his secret.
"Okay, if you don't want me usin' you as a shield, stay put!"
He doubts someone in Prior's mental state will do anything of the sort, but it's his funeral. Louis holds no hope that he himself might be able to convince them to stop shooting. He holds no affection for the British Army and highly doubts they care one wit about him either. Immortality and this world's apocalypse have deadened his fear of consequences, and he was always an outsider to any nation. Lord, he's becoming more like Lestat.
He darts into the trees in the blink of an eye. Free Runner is more taxing here than a vampire's supernatural speed back home, but Louis took to it. From beyond the thick cluster of trees come startled screams and the unmistakable truncated grunts of men struck with no warning.
Go for it! The version of Prior that Louis is apt to meet later won't recall either way!
"You're wasting your time," Prior calls after the blur, his voice like a sing-song taunt. For his own part, he's gathered a pistol from a body made out of thin air and he's moving after Louis, a smooth step of an officer told not to run. War will change in the years to come, but Prior represents a separate division where the labors of war are concerned and he can't be seen cowering under fire even if instincts demand it.
All around, more soldiers are like thunder, their marching feet in quick advance enough to rumble the earth. More rounds whizz by Prior's ears and he quickens his pace only briefly at the whistle of the mortar that splits the world behind him.
When he stumbles around the trunk of a tall tree, he's finds Louis again, his bright blue eyes sharp and patently observant. What are you up to, sir?
no subject
Prior finds Louis shoving away one of the soldiers. His body crumples to the ground. His neck is bleeding from a messy gash. Others lie between the trees around him, bludgeoned and sliced by whatever means was convenient while Louis moved faster than they could react. He has his cane knife unsheathed. Red stains it, his lower face, and down his front.
His lips move very little, lest he show his fangs. At least any one else who might arrive will have a better chance at survival. Louis doesn't like being watched while he eats.
"Can't a man go for a walk in the woods without bein' shot at? I thought I told you not to come here."
no subject
None of that seems to matter, though, because Prior shrugs at the question. "You must be very use to people listening to you," he says, easily addressing his presence as if it should be welcomed. As far as he's concerned, Louis isn't suffering for his company, although, like determining one's right mind, this is also very easily left up to interpretation.
"Why must I be the one answering for these bullets? Perhaps you should answer for where you walk. There's easily less... filling routes." If the implication isn't obvious enough, Prior reaches into his pocket and produces a handkerchief that he mimics dabbing against his mouth before offering to Louis.
And then, churlishly: "Was all that really necessary?"
no subject
Louis leans into his walk as he approaches Prior and takes the handkerchief. Why? Why does an immortal do the things they do? They've got too much time and sometimes Louis just wants to see what happens. He takes the handkerchief with his free hand, also stained red, and wipes his mouth in a deliberately indelicate way while maintaining eye contact. Such a gentleman.
"They real?" he counters with a curt question of his own. "You summon them?"
no subject
"Real?" He stares boldly at the blood being mopped away, tongue sweeping over his own lips as if he's compelled to explain where Louis has missed. "Vital, certainly, if you're any indication. And I suppose, if put to it, one could argue it would be no one but me who could. Or would."
Despite the personality that rules Prior's day-to-day being very much cognizant of the cost of war, there really is no other who might dip into this era, this scene, to otherwise play with fictional lives in the way he feels non-fictional live have been affected.
"Are you bothered by the cost?" Prior will continue picking, tempting Louis to say more, reveal more. It won't end until one of them walks away, and Prior has little reason to even resolve himself the risk of frostbite in this state, utterly incapable of feeling pain or cold, of feeling much of anything at all, save for a thick thread of contempt for all things (but especially himself).