TEST DRIVE MEME #04

[nextnightmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME #04

Hello and welcome to the The Next Night's test drive meme for October-November! Thanks for your interest in this GPSL! In an effort to streamline our application process and avoid future confusion between incoming and existing players, we do not have a reservation period. Applications will be judged on a first-come, first-served basis.

While you're here...

• Take a look at our rules and faq pages to familiarize yourself with The Next Night.


• Next Night currently operates on a rolling app system, meaning you can app whenever you are ready! There is a player cap of 60 players. The taken page reflects the current number of players.


• TDM threads can become game canon if both players wish. If the situation isn't something that could happen in-game, you're free to chalk it up to some strange hallucination, a shared dream, or other mysterious circumstance.


• Note that top-leveling is not limited to new characters! If current players wish to post a starter, they are welcome to do so. They are welcome to make posts in the main comms for TDM events as well. Please note, however, that actual plot clues or happenings will not occur in TDM prompts.


• If you plan to apply, please keep in mind that we do require at least one sample thread on the application to be from our TDM (though it doesn't need to be the current TDM).


• You're welcome to use the provided prompts or come up with something on your own, but we do ask that all threads take place in our game's setting.


• As we no longer plan to have a bimonthly game-wide HMD meme, we require that all new applications going forward must have a HMD post somewhere on the journal and we will ask for this as part of the application process.

Thank you again, and we hope you'll choose to join us!

log prompts

TRICK OR TREAT. TW: GORE

For reasons unknown, the spirits of Beacon seem to love spooky season. And as October slowly pulls down the temperature, a few spirits get right into the swing of spooky. It's never too soon to celebrate Halloween!

Some of the celebrations are obviously a treat for residents. Spirits will leave festive surprises at doorways, under pillows, in drawers and under beds. What kind of surprise? Well, it depends. Candy is a staple, though it's not likely to be any kind anyone's ever heard of. McMillain's Candy Earlobes, anyone? Other things like pumpkins, spiced drinks, intricately cut and carved masks could be hidden around.

Less playful and more disturbing are the spirits determined to provide tricks. They're just as likely to slip something somewhere unexpected, but the item in question is a lot less fun and festive. Things like broken glass, bloody teeth, and locks of hair. Definitely not what anyone was expecting when they slipped into bed, or glanced under a table.

That's not all, either — some little tricksters seem determined to give a fright, hiding any place dark enough to hide them. And in a place that's always dark, that's practically anywhere you look. The spirit will pop out from your closet, under your bed, around the corner, inside the drawer you left something in, even falling in front of you from nowhere with an ear-piercing scream.

Last but not least, the pranksters have managed to leave trick supplies around the shops and the rest of town. Perhaps a blanket that only leaves you colder, a salve that burns instead of heals, canned food that makes the pit in your stomach a little deeper. It seems any trick item is bound to have the reverse effect of what was intended — and much like Cinderella, they will disappear without warning.

SCREAM IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT TW: BODY HORROR

Out in the dark, it's hard to note at first... vines curving down the streets, up walls, along paths. Eventually, the massive influx of pumpkins is impossible to ignore, as they dot and litter and scatter all over everything. And no amount of clipping or pruning seems to help, the determined plants will just grow back and in deeper fervor.

It seems fairly innocent at first, even nicely festive. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to last, as the plants don't seem to be particularly friendly. The pumpkins seem to have faces, when you look out of the corner of your eye. It's like they're staring, watching — but investigating doesn't show anything but a normal plant. Strange...

When the moon is high in the sky over Beacon, vines snag at feet and ankles. At first it seems a natural consequence of overgrowth, but as the vines tighten and drag into a vice, it seems more intentional. Spirits made of vines come to life, and they are determined to draw anyone they can catch into their fold. Smothering in vines and lives, the plants attempting to trickle into mouths and under skin. Slipping, sliding, slithering. Slowly taking a person over until nothing is left behind and all are one, combined. Without fire around to combat them, strength and anything sharp might be your only hope of breaking free. Or failing that, someone close enough to hear you scream before the vines curling around your throat kill the sound in your throat.

DEARLY DEPARTED.

Bonfire Square and its surroundings have once again become a temporary cemetery. The walkways, the open spaces, the riverbank, even perhaps the trees themselves now bear memorials the people who once died and now reside here. Some are shrines, others simple markers; perhaps yours is a grand mausoleum. Some have names and dates, some may not, but each is distinct. And as you walk past, you are drawn to them - drawn to place a small gift or token, or one of the last late-blooming flowers growing under the trees. In fact, the compulsion to visit these graves and leave something behind is awfully hard to resist.

When you do, you are drawn into the final moments of the person whose death the shrine marks. You experience it through their own eyes and feel it as if it is your own.

As if this wasn't difficult enough to bear, you realize this must mean somewhere in town your own death is on display. Will you let others visit freely? Will you guard your grave and its secrets? Will you try to destroy it? If you do, another will emerge elsewhere - it soon becomes obvious that trying to remove them is futile. You are, after all, really, permanently dead. No amount of wishing or fighting can change that now.

Feel free to decide how your character's grave, shrine, marker, altar, or other memorial looks, and be sure to describe what others will see when they visit!

network prompts

TEXT PROMPT

At this point, you may have accumulated a lot of treats (so to speak) from the spirits. A few days into this and after the spirits have had some time to learn what the residents of Beacon prefer as far as their offerings go, the network updates with a post:

hello! we have a game if ur interested in more treats. you give three stories: two real, one lie. if someone guesses the lie they get to keep candy. everyone gets candy but the guesser gets more. enjoy!!!

They're good on their word when it comes to this - after you share your two truths and a lie, at least one piece of candy appears at your side. There may be a few more depending on how juicy your stories get, whether or not they are real.

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