Test Drive Meme: April/May 2016

[undergroundmods]

"The Jam - Going Underground" (Watch on YouTube)

Welcome to the Underground test drive meme! This is where you can try out the AU version of your character, start some potential CR and get a feel for the world of the game. Choose your character's species, read up on the available factions and you're ready to go. Put your character's name and canon in your subject line when you post, tag out, and have fun!

Note to current players: Activity in this meme counts as game canon! So you can use it for activity check. If you end up playing anything that you can't or don't want to use as game canon, it's fine to ignore it. (In that case you shouldn't submit it for activity check.)

Here are some prompts to inspire you:

1) GOING UNDERGROUND. For some people, London is an escape. A place to be anonymous. A place to be themselves. Or a place to hide. Steeped in ancient magic, it attracts supernatural types from all over the world. Of course, that doesn't mean its inhabitants are always friendly to newcomers.

2) CHOOSE YOUR LEADERS. The Night Council election campaign is in full swing and on 5th May the supernatural community votes for its leaders. Visit any supernatural haunt and you'll find people arguing about who to vote for – not to mention the volunteers handing out badges and flyers in an effort to win your support. Try to keep it civil, folks.

3) THE PUBLIC WANTS WHAT THE PUBLIC GETS. (29th April) The Night Council candidates gather in a town hall in Westminster to explain why the supernatural community should vote for them. Traditionally a noisy and raucous event, it's your last opportunity to heckle question the candidates before the election. There are four separate Q&As: first up are the candidates for Shapeshifter/Meta Human representative; then candidates for Witch Representative; then Vice President; then finally the candidates for President will take to the stage. They each make a short speech and then take questions from the audience. Or if you want, you could just turn up for a free meal: in the room next door there's a sandwich buffet plus tea, coffee and fruit juice, so it's a good opportunity to mingle.

4) FIRE FESTIVAL. (1st May) The fire festival of Beltane is a time of celebration for witches, marking the beginning of summer. Come along to the bonfire for music, food and drink, flower crowns and fertility rituals.

5) SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. (1st May) Beltane is also a time when the barrier between the human world and the Other Realm is at its thinnest, making it easy to pass from one realm to the other by chance. You might even have an encounter with the mysterious and mischievous fae.

6) WHAT'S DONE CANNOT BE UNDONE. You've gone too far, done something you know you'll regret. Maybe you ran away, broke a promise, even committed a crime. Maybe you've been supernaturally transformed. Either way, there's no going back.

7) WHAT ANGEL WAKES ME FROM MY FLOWERY BED? Oh, sweet mortal. There's an enchantment on you that makes you suddenly, devastatingly attractive. Especially to more magical types.

8) CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Anything goes.

Comments

Evie Frye | Assassins Creed | Vampire

[freelife]

1 London. Goodness, she missed it. Growing up in Crawley and spending so much of the last hundred-or-so years traveling But London was her true home. Years ago, she'd done so much for the city, with her brother Jacob at her side. But it had been some time since she'd seen him, and even longer since she returned to London.

But with the civil unrest, mostly amidst the witches, Evie knew it was time to return home again. Her train hide-out was long gone, but one of the good things about being a vampire was you tended to have quite a bit of money at your disposal. It was helpful.

Even the air here smelled different, thick with magic and smog. Sometimes it was hard to tell the two apart. With her daylight ring securely on her finger, Evie wasted no time in beginning to wander the streets again, identify what had changed, what was the same. Get to know the neighborhood again, if you will. And as always, keep one ear to the ground.

4 Even Super Serious Vampires can have fun sometimes. So it was a witch festival- Evie tried to keep out of their politics when she could, but unfortunately, witches and assassins tended to have a long history. Still, Beltane was an important holiday, and if there was a celebration going on, she was going to enjoy it.

Evie keeps to the shadows, watching, listening. It'll take some work to get her to loosen up a little, but she's willing and determined to have fun. She deserves it, after all.

"Buy a girl a drink?" That's one way to do it.

8 [you call it!]

4

[dirtyredneck]

Daryl snorted and looked at the woman like she'd gone and grown two heads, "No."

He crossed his arms and leaned against the fencing he'd been happily observing the festivities from. Happily avoiding being actively involved in anything while still sort-of feeling included.

"'Sides, ain't nothing to buy," he went on to say, voice gruff but not as filled with annoyance as his first 'no'. His eyes moved back to the gathered masses, the dancing and drinking. "Drinks are free as long as you can stumble your way over to the bar." Said 'bar' being the long tables set up with as many bottles of booze ranging from light wine coolers to the hardest vodka that people just filled with whatever they brought as they'd arrived.

[freelife]

"is it?" Evie surveys the table and has to smile just a little bit. she wasn't the drinker her brother was- keep a clear head when business was being done- but she can appreciate an open bar. Not that she could get drunk easily now. It took quite a lot to get a vampire tipsy.

"That's new." but she's not mad about it. quite the contrary.

"Last time I was at one of these they were charging."

[dirtyredneck]

"Sounds like last time you went to the wrong party," he retorted, tone taking on a little more amusement. "Only one's I know of that charge have an entrance fee, too. Bigger ones in fancier places than this. Don't think most of those ones let either of our kind in, though, even for the dancin'."

Close as she was, and as far as everyone else was, he could smell that slight difference in her scent to someone fully human.

[freelife]

"I don't know about that," she said with a wistful smile. Evie had been to a lot of parties in her days. And many of them happened to have been pretty great. "I'm not usually one for witch parties, however." Yeah, she can tell. It helps to be over one-hundred years old. Goodness, nearly 200 now.

"You say that. But that's only if you try to go in the front door."

[dirtyredneck]

Daryl shrugged again, countering with: "Wouldn't want to go in at all to a place I can't go in the front door. Wouldn't be welcome and don't see the point in being where I ain't wanted when I'm tryin' ta have fun. Not usually one for witch parties, neither. Guy at work invited all of us. Figured it was worth seeing one of these things once in my life."

[freelife]

"They do know how to throw a party," Evie will freely admit. She's worked with witches before, and won't hesitate to work with them again when she knows it's beneficial.

"Usually these aren't my sort of parties, either." She had a fondness for a rowdy night in a pub.

[dirtyredneck]

"Then why're you here?" he turned to look at her, head tilting to the right as he eyed her. "Cain't really think you'll get a bunch of people to buy you drinks just so's you can have a free night."

[freelife]

"Because I like to keep an eye out," she explains simply enough. "And you never know what you'll hear at these sorts of things."

4

[outstandingbalance]

Looks like Natasha isn't the only vampire here tonight. Not by a long shot. She supposes she shouldn't be surprised, but she's still adjusting to the way supernatural communities in this area intermingle. That hasn't been the rule other places she's been.

She watches as the other woman asks for a drink, inserting herself into the conversation smoothly. It might be a bad idea, but she's curious.

Maybe it's time to start making contact with more of the others of her own kind in the area?

"What kind of a drink were you interested in?

[freelife]

Evie's been out of London for a long time, and even if she hadn't, she wouldn't have recognized Natasha. Another vampire, she can tell at this point. Who else would ask what sort of drink, anyway?

"Can't be picky on a night like tonight. I'll take what I can get." Booze. Bloody. Water, for all she cared.

"Quite the celebration, isn't it?"

[outstandingbalance]

Judging from Natasha's accent, she hasn't been in town all that long herself.

"I'm sure you could get something to your taste if you want. But if you're not looking for anything in particular, I think I could find some wine if you don't mind taking it in a plastic cup?"

[freelife]

"I can hardly turn down wine." Evie's accent is a clipped, cool English one with older inflections.

"I haven't seen you around before." She may not have been back in town for long, but she liked to know who her fellow vampires were. There were only so many of them at any given time.

[outstandingbalance]

"I wouldn't have expected you to," Natasha agrees, shrugging one shoulder as though it's not a particularly interesting topic. "I haven't been in town long, and I don't know that we'd run in the same circles normally.

"But no reason not to see each other now?"

[freelife]

"No, I suppose not. I've only just got back into town myself." She'd been away on business.

"I'm Evie Frye. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"

[outstandingbalance]

"Natasha Romanoff, a pleasure." Natasha smiles politely as she says it, reserved but not unwelcoming as she navigates them to the concessions.

"No need to be so formal. Unless that's just you?"

[freelife]

"That's just me," she says. She'd tried to be a little less formal, but all things considered, she is less-formal for her time period.

"Lovely to meet you, Natasha. And welcome to London. She's the best town you'll find on any map."

1

[bellbound]

There's a cat-shaped shadow following the newcomer, tracking her every move. Mogget slips unnoticed through the streets, always keeping his distance but never far behind. He doesn't need to see the ring on her finger to know what she is. Another vampire, as if there aren't enough of them infesting this city. The question is, is she here to stay or just passing through?

He treads lightly, and he'll keep tailing her until she goes somewhere he can't follow or she spots him, whichever comes first.

[freelife]

You don't become an Assassin without knowing when someone is following you. Evie, however, waits. She waits until she can slide into an abandoned alley and it's then that she stops. Doesn't turn around. But she speaks, clearly and without fear.

"show yourself. Don't pretend you're not there- you'll only embarrass yourself. I mean you no harm." but show her intent to harm and it's over.

[bellbound]

Well, Mogget knows when he's caught out. From behind a dustbin the shadow emerges, padding forward to sit in the middle of the alley in plain sight. A small green-eyed cat, his white fur standing out in the dark, tail tucked neatly around his paws. Not even a stray: he's wearing a red leather collar. Totally harmless.

He sits and stares, impassive.

[freelife]

"Hello," she says, turning slowly to look at the... cat. That wasn't right. That wasn't a cat. He was fae, she could tell anywhere.

"Your real self, I don't suppose?"

[bellbound]

"As real as you," the cat replies. She's a vampire, after all, so that's not her true face. Her true face has more fangs. "Tourist, are you?"

[freelife]

This, she'd be quick to say, was the face she'd been born with. Not reborn, necessarily, but the one she'd died with, as well.

"No- I've certainly earned the title of Londoner some time ago, now." It's getting used to the way the city seems to change each time she returns. "Just came back into town, as it were."

[bellbound]

His ears flatten in disapproval. "And what business do you have here?"

It seems there are vampires around every corner nowadays, wandering the streets day and night with impunity. They may not be enemies of his mistress but that doesn't mean he has to like them.

[freelife]

"Is it a crime to return to my home?" She raises an eyebrow at the cat. To anyone passing by, this had to be the strangest conversation they'd ever witnessed. But luckily, they're far enough away from the street that no one's going to overhear them. She's sure of that.