Wilderlands Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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wildermemes2018-05-10 02:57 pm
wildermods) wrote in wildermemes2018-05-10 02:57 pm
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TEST DRIVE ※ 3
TEST DRIVE ※ 3
The spirits of the Green need defenders but the game of fate they must play makes it so that their plans are like a garden, always in need of careful pruning. Only certain individuals are capable of living a life of adventure -- and even many who are capable may not be the heroes the Wilderlands needs.
The only way for the Green to be sure is by providing a test -- and as far as tests go, this one's a doozy, because the situation is real. There are countless conflicts all over the Wilderlands that are in need of intervention, so the Green tosses you head first into one of them with no warning or explanation. During it, you may perhaps run into others like yourself, thrown in over their heads -- or into others that came to the Wilderlands before you. Either way, your only chance of getting through it is to work together with whatever other unfortunates you find.
Welcome to the wilds, hero. It's time to put on your ruby slippers, pick up your vorpal sword, and carry that ring into Mordor.
The ruling government of the Wizarding World is the Ministry of Magic, nestled away in the confines of Magical London. Most of the Ministry's departments are what one might expect of a typical government, filled with offices and cubicles and the usual trappings of government bureaucracy. Magical or not, a ruling government still needs a metric fuckton of paperwork, apparently.
But one department isn't like the rest. One department is an agency that handles the most secret and sensitive parts of the Wizarding World: The Department of Mysteries. This Department is filled with magical items and secrets from the world over, gathered by the department's mysterious agents, the Unspeakables. Here, alongside the deepest secrets of magic, the Unspeakables study the intangible mysteries of the universe, like love, space, thought, time, and death. With the Wizarding World now part of the Wilderlands, the agents have extended their secret-gathering to include secrets from the other worlds now attached to the Wilderlands, too.
You've been teleported to the Department of Mysteries for some unknown reason. It's after hours, so the Department is eerily empty and dimly lit only by blue-white torches. The spirits of the Green wants you here for a reason, but all you have are their enigmatic whispers...
See the secrets in the room full of stars. Destroy the spheres before the masked ones take them.
Whether those two ideas are meant to be related is difficult to tell, but with the many odd dangers of this place, one thing is clear:
To find out, you're going to have to survive all kinds of weird-ass magical bullshit first.
A. WRANGLE MAGICAL CREATURES
Some of the most dangerous magical creatures in existence are kept in the Department of Mysteries for study, and even more are brought in every day so magizoologists can add more data to the Unspeakables' body of research. One section of the Department is filled with pens, cages, and magical indoor habitats that house creatures like brutish trolls, venomous acromantulas, screeching banshees, ravenous kappas, and shadowy and suffocating lethifolds. With the additional exposure to new lands caused by the formation of the Wilderlands, the Unspeakables have started to collect creatures that are native to other realms as well.B. AVOID OUT OF CONTROL MAGIC
Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but today isn't a normal day. Someone has gone through the section and opened latches, shattered glass enclosures, and broken open cages. Now the Zoology Office of the Department of Mysteries is...well, a zoo. A lethal one, at that.
You may find yourself facing dangerous creatures, including deceptive ones like the tentacle monster that disguises itself as a statue in a water fountain, then drags its victims in to try to drown and eat them if they get too close.
Or you might have to face a boggart, a creature that bursts out of the wardrobe it hides in, taking on the form of someone's greatest fear. This can even include taking on the image of dead loved ones. The boggart can only be banished back into its wardrobe if the person facing it wills themselves to work past their fear and attacks it with magic or force to scare it back in.
Maybe the creature you face will come as a total surprise.
Whether you wrangle creatures just enough to escape them, or plan to valiantly try to put them back in their cages, you're guaranteed to have your hands full.
[ooc: Feel free to use any magical creature from anything with this prompt, as creatures from more worlds than the Harry Potter universe are kept here. If you want more information on a creature or want a random creature thrown your way, comment here.]
Even if your character avoids the wild creatures running loose other dangers can be found here. The Unspeakables have an entire area devoted to experimental magic, the experimental wand and staff room. Due to its security spells being disrupted, the wands are blasting magic all over the place, making it so someone that has misfortune to wander in may find themselves cursed, hexed, jinxed, or otherwise altered by a random spell.C. BEAN SOME BRAINS
Any effect could be caused by a spell, ranging from your legs turning to jelly, to your face getting covered in boils, to your hair being turned to worms.
[ooc: Again, feel free to make up any effect you want. If you'd like a random effect chosen by the mods comment here.]
In one empty room, there's an enormous glass tank of dark green liquid. In it, there are usually pearly white brains floating around -- usually -- but because the tank has been broken, the brains are on the loose, wandering the halls of the Department. Whenever they find people, they reach out and grab them with tendrils of glowing thought and memory that unravel like rolls of film.D. SEE THE DANCING OF THE SPHERES
If a brain captures you and someone else at the same time in its tentacles, you'll each see each a random memory from the other person's mind. The longer you're trapped, the more memories you'll both share, and the more intense they'll get.
It's possible to escape from the grip of one of the brains, but you'll have to fight your way free with the help of whoever you're ensnared with.
The Space Room is what the Unspeakables use to try to uncover the physical nature of the universe. This is the room full of stars that the Green wanted you to see. Here, the entire multiverse is visible, little universes floating in the starry void. The images swirl and zoom in on little worlds within those universes and show worlds getting...dismantled? Strips of land are shown getting ripped off and transplanted on to a shimmering, shifting impossible Frankenstein of a world that keeps expanding in size.E. DODGE DEATH EATERS
The dimensionally strip-mined planets that are left behind? Apparently, they cave in on themselves and crumble in a mess of fiery molten lava and earthquakes that burn away what's left of the surface, making it uninhabitable. The peoples whose lands have been transplanted to the Wilderlands have long had questions about the parts of their worlds that have been left behind and apparently the answers aren't pretty.
Even worse? Your world is visible here, too. When you think of it or wonder about it, it suddenly appears and the Frankenstein planet that is the Wilderlands is shown next to it, its magic tugging at your homeworld's skin, which is slowly starting to unravel and reach ever so slightly towards it.
The magic creating the Wilderlands is strong and before long, it won't just be fantasy worlds that un-spool and become a part of it - if the Unspeakables' projections are right, perhaps it's just a matter of time before all worlds have chunks pulled into the Wilderlands - with only disasters, calamity, and mass extinction events happening to the chunks that are left behind.
This is the other place you're needed, a massive hall filled with racks upon racks of blue globes. These globes have shimmering, moving images inside them, recorded memories of prophets and oracles relating their prophecies.F. FREESTYLE
You must destroy some of these prophecies, because the "masked ones" have come. Death Eaters - once servants of the Dark Lord Voldemort, now servants of the Unfinished Princess - have descended on the Department of Mysteries. In fact, they're the source of all the security breaches and magical creatures being sprung loose. These robed and masked wizards start flinging colorful spells and curses your way, cackling sadistically, as they chase you between the different racks of prophecies.
The Green whispers its reminder: Destroy the spheres before the masked ones take them.
The Green has enchanted you with several gifts. One is a special vision that lets you see what you need to see; the spheres they want you to destroy glow with a gentle light the same color as new plant shoots so that you can find them. The other gift is an immunity to the enchantment around the spheres. Normally, people who try to take a prophecy that isn't labeled with their name are cursed to go insane. But the Green has made it so you can pick up any prophecy you want.
Some of the ones they want you to destroy are labeled with the names of people that are leaders and people of influence in this universe: Tiffany Aching, Aragorn, Harry Potter, Aang, and others. Some of the globes may perhaps be labeled with your name or the names of those you just met in the Department of Mysteries who have been in the Wilderlands longer. Unfortunately, even if your name is labeled on a globe, you don't have time to view the prophecy within and if you hesitate the Green reassures you there are other ways to find out what's prophesied:
There are other prophets, other ways to see.
You cannot hesitate. The Death Eaters have found an immunity to the curse that protects the globes, too. You must fight the Death Eaters and destroy them first, before they fall into the wrong hands.
The Department can hold all kinds of weirdness and secrets. Feel free to make up a strange scenario or an entire section whole-cloth if you want!
✦ Feel free to play around with powers. If your character has powers from canon you want to play around, go for it. If you'd like to test out possibilities for game powers, also go for it.
✦ All the technology is broke. The magic of the Wilderlands messes up technology so that it doesn't work. Any weapons beyond the level of a crossbow will suddenly cease to function, including guns. Repair is impossible, as they'll seem to be in functional condition and still not work.
✦ This TDM is open to everyone. However, top-levels should be made for potential new characters only. Characters currently in the game should only tag top-levels.
✦ Potential players may use test drive threads as their log samples. However, at least one post in their thread must fit the requirements for apps, both in length (200 words) and in quality. If you do plan on using a thread as a sample, please make sure the writing throughout your threads is a good example of your writing skills and has some solid examples of the character's voice.
✦ Current players can count TDMs towards AC. They can only count towards comment-based AC proofs.
✦ Potential players can opt to keep these threads as game canon when they app in, or start over fresh, based on preference. The magic bringing them to the game universe can fog their memories, if players don't want their character to remember TDM threads when introing into the game.
✦ The game has limited slots. Please keep this in mind! As of this post 23 of 30 player slots have been filled, with one app still pending. This means 6 player slots are currently open.
D
[The young man that appears behind Ed looks a little strange. He's wearing utilitarian clothing that's just slightly not-of-this-world; the yellow boots and belt are normal enough, but the grey poncho is made of strange synthetic fabrics and the black bodysuit's made of something even stranger and more alien, almost too organic to be cloth.]
[He's also hella green and the way he moves is strangely precise and almost bird-like.]
[The expression on Brainiac 5's face is grave, like the concept of worlds being destroyed is painfully familiar, and the way his voice is calm...well, it's a little too calm. He has one of nature's near-monotones and that gets even worse when he's dealing with something that hits far too close to home. When facing something like this, the steady calm that usually reassures his friends turns into something far more hollow.]
There's rarely any sense to be found in destruction on a multiversal scale. It typically happens at the random whims of some deranged omnicidal maniac, usually one with delusions of godhood.
no subject
[He strokes his chin, for a moment looking way more like an old man than a teenager. There's a heaviness about him, a gravity that suggests he's not unfamiliar with apocalypse-level destruction, but that this is, perhaps, too big for him to comprehend.
And it is. An entire country being destroyed is his upper limit. The scope of this seems more like a thought experiment than reality.]
Even omnicidal maniacs— [Ed has no idea what omnicidal means, but he guesses it's like homicidal but, you know, more all encompassing.] —have patterns. All people do. Subtle hints of bias. [Finally, he looks up at the green guy, takes him in with a single glance, and gives him a nervous laugh.] Unless this isn't people. [He has no clue. This is all new to him, and he doesn't like not knowing. This guy, though? This guy seems to know.] Is it not people?
no subject
[The corner of Brainy's mouth twitches in displeasure.]
These spirits haven't exactly been forthcoming on the nature of the threat we're meant to face, just that the Wilderlands needs to be "saved" from something. We have no idea yet whether there's a consciousness behind the calamities that appear to be happening or whether it's some kind of aberrant force of nature causing worlds to bleed together.
[A pause.]
Or perhaps I should say a force of un-nature. They do exist - occasional natural calamities that occur because of different unnatural influences. Sometimes manmade interference can cause unintentional dimensional disruptions - for instance, certain superweapons or energy sources can sometimes cause unintended damage to the fabric of spacetime that can bleed into other universes.
Sometimes that means a threat of this nature can have causation that was sentient-made but that operates without a conscious being guiding it. But it's only one of many possible causes. As I said, sometimes there are malevolent individuals that decide they have the right to reshape the universe to their liking and find the means to do it.
[He says all this very quickly, rattling it all off like he assumes Ed knows at least enough science to know basic multiversal theory and what spacetime is.]
[And without offering his name. There's a problem to work on and he has no idea how long the Green is going to keep him here before sending him back to the group. This room seems important and therefore he needs to pry into his secrets for as long as they're here.]
[The room seems to respond to thought. He wills it to zoom in on the Frankenworld that seems to be the Wilderlands so they can look at it more closely.]
no subject
Because a second later, he's latched on to the problem his new green friend has put before him. It's huge. It's enormous. It's world-endingly big (literally). Which means the forces behind it are powerful enough to alter worlds. If you can alter the world, you can alter a person, and that promise of knowledge is sweet.
If he's here, he's going to make the most of it.]
How do I join up?
[He asks as he circles the world, peering at the patchwork parts of it. Some remind him of home. Some are utterly alien. He takes in shapes of places in a glance, doing a mental check against places shaped like transmutation circles. This place really doesn't need that brand of problem heaped on the rest.]
no subject
[Invisible Kid would've liked this one.]
Unfortunately, the entrance requirement remain a mystery to us. But demonstrating your usefulness to the spirits that recruited us - and that most likely brought you here - may earn you a place alongside us. This could perhaps be a test they're administering. Maybe they want to see how you comport yourself in a high pressure situation.
[Brainy moves his hands, using them to guide different elements of the different floating spheres into place so they can examine them.]
Work the problem with me. If you're here at all, helping those of us that are facing this conflict is what you're meant to do, whether it's for this very brief moment that we're sharing or whether it's because you're meant to join us permanently.
[He examines it all.]
This is meant to be a macro view of the problem, since down on the ground, my...party is forced to work with a micro view. This planet is obviously lifting pieces from other worlds in the multiverse.
[He pulls up one of them, one that's had some of the land stripped away. Horrible strips of molten ground have been left behind, scorching the rest of these planets.]
It's leaving behind disastrous alterations. It looks like the land being pulled away is leaving behind bare patches of molten magma from under the surface, which devastates the ecosystem of each world by igniting the atmosphere. But destroying what's left of these planets can't be the only reason this is happening, the only intent of what might be behind all this.
Why create a new world from the parts that have been stripped away? That means that the construction of the world we're in right now is likely the primary objective, and the aftermath of the worlds facing destruction is likely only a byproduct.
[Brainy knows at least a little of what's going on, due to having been in the Wilderlands longer. Perhaps Ed can ask the right questions to get them both on track for figuring some of this out.]
no subject
Deconstruction. Recomposition.
[He looks around, but doesn't find anything readily available, so he crouches down above the floor.]
This rock is useless, right? It's the floor, so not entirely useless, but all we can do with it is stand on it. What if we need to protect ourselves? [He claps his hands together, focusing.] We take a chunk of what's here, and break it down. [His hands fall to the ground with a crackle of blue light.] And we change it. [When he lifts his hands, he's holding a steel shield.] The floor wasn't what I needed, but it had pieces of what I need, so I changed it. Broke it down into its parts and then put them back together into something useful.
[Waving to the decimated planets, he rises, leaving the shield. It'll turn back into rock in a bit, and he can put the floor back in its rightful shape later.] Those pieces are probably necessary for something, but not the way they're assembled right now. [He thinks about Amestris, about the giant transmutation circle being built under it and the people bleeding, dying to fuel it, and he shudders.]
Where I'm from, most alchemists— [With a grumble, he transmutes part of the shield into a piece of chalk. Taking that in hand, he starts sketching a transmutation circle nearby. Something simple. Rock to brick.] —need circles like this. It tells the energy how to flow and what shape to take. [Sitting back, he points the chalk at the Frankenstein planet.] Maybe that's what that is. Taking the bits and pieces of all these other worlds that matter, making them into something like a transmutation circle, and then using the power that creates.
I'd need more data, though. What are those worlds like? Is there something unique about them? Is it maybe not that they're unique, but there are similarities from one to the next? This is helpful, but it's just stuff to look at. Nothing to really get into. [It's the composition of things that matters, not what they look like after all.]