𝔄 𝔐𝔦𝔡𝔴𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔑𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱'𝔰 𝔇𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔤 𑁍 [WINTER TDM]

[gorelord]

Welcome to the Test Drive!

The TDM is welcome to current players and anyone who wants to play in the setting and is encouraged to be used by prospective players. If you are interested in joining the game, you will need to obtain invite from the mod or through an existing member.

For information on the game premise, setting etc, please utilize the navigation pages below. Questions specific to the TDM prompts or the setting can go to the comment thread. Anything else relating to game mechanics can go in the FAQ.

Events in this TDM are considered game canon and occurs immediately after the Chapter II eclipse event between chapters II and III. Any threads in TDM are considered canon as long as both parties agree.

Please make sure to identify in your top levels as either current or new player/characters.

GAME PAGES

premise
setting
faq
rules
glossary

i.
rise:
A Dream's Beginning

(cw:nsfwl; ritual sex, mood altering substances )

It begins with a nightmare, the details of which have slipped through your fingers. Only the curling echo of its dread lingers in your chest. Something has snapped you out of a catatonic state: a gust of icy wind whistling through the crack of a window, the soft beating of drums under the melody of strings, the cold kiss of fat snowflakes catching on your eyelashes, the smell of spiced wine and evergreen.

A few things become clear: You are not where you were, and you are not alone.

Feast for Saints

Tonight is a night of celebration for the Lonely Fortress. The horrors have been set aside, replaced with the warm mirth and grace of being alive. Whether this is your first night in the Crucible or your fortieth, all are welcome to partake in this renewing fete under the silver light of a full buttery moon. Snow dances like flower petals in a lazy array, leaving a shallow blanket of white. The fire roars in the hearth of the Great Hall, spreading its warmth throughout its adjacent parlors. Despite murmurings of a recent catastrophic eclipse cleaving the castle twain, its halls and buildings show no sign of decay. The Egregore has been cleansed, balance has been restored. Spirits are high, people are at ease.

If you choose to partake, there are a few select locations where people have gathered to celebrate:

𑁍The Great Hall is open for feasting and dancing. The fortress stores have provided a wintertime feast of roasted meats & vegetables, pies, fresh and aged cheeses, dried fruits, candied nuts, and seeded cakes. The hall smells of spiced honey wine and mulled cider, both packed with a warm and buzzing inebriation that creeps on unexpectedly. A makeshift band of strings and drums plays lively music for people to dance to.

𑁍The Velvet Parlor is a smaller hall branched off of the main festivities for those looking for softer and more intimate comforts under the candlelight. Tonight, its guests pay tribute to celebrate the passion of life and to beckon the sun to rise in a ritualistic tangling of bodies. Here is the place to become a true eater of sin. All furniture has been nudged to line the walls, making way for a sea of cushions and pillows for celebrants to laze upon as they imbibe in strong, distilled spirits, as the air above them swirls with a sweet, toasty incense imbuing a mellow calm and stirs carnal appetites. A masked man plucks away a sultry tune on his lute in a corner as the night gradually gives way to passionate bodies tangled among the pillows.

𑁍The Courtyard brings a breath of fresh, brisk air as snow falls playfully overhead. Large braziers line the yard offer meager warmth from their roaring fires as exiles partake in snow fights and release wishing lanterns bearing your inner most desires into the sky. Steam rolls off the yard's central fountain, which has been fitted to disperse heated water to provide a makeshift heated pool, a perfect place to thaw chilly hands or feet (or just go all in if ye be bold enough.)

A Colder Path

If instead you choose to abstain, it becomes apparent every dream has its limits.

The castle beyond the festivities is cold, dim, and abandoned. Behind every door, a drab and empty room (if the handle isn't locked or broken). The keep's gates are closed, the sunken village beyond a frozen wasteland. The further one strays from the warmth and merriment, the colder and darker it becomes.

Isolation breeds madness, too much time spent away from others may lead to paranoia. Figures shift in the dark, a breath tickles the nape of your neck. You may see familiar faces, hear familiar voices, beckoning you to stray further from your path towards uncertain doom: a crooked nail sticking out of the floorboards, a hurried shove off the top of the stairs, a door that opens over the edge of a rocky cliff.

As determined as you may be, the only way out of this dream is through.

ii.
revel:
Trials of Merciful Holly

(cw:potential for dubcon/noncon, mood-altering.)

As the midwinter evening persists, a visitor long awaited comes knocking at the Great Hall's doors. A tall man emerges with a body molded out of braided wood, bearing thorn-tarnished armor and a tattered crimson cloak. With every step forward, thorned vines that stitch across the walls and floors, blooming with plum purple leaves and small budding flowers.

"The Briar Lord," one exile gasps. "Gregor's returned," another praises tearfully. With a bow, he treats the celebrants of the Lonely Fortress with the innocence of a festive game.

"O' eaters of sin, indulge me in this friendly Midwinter game. Ye have survived a harrowing and for that ye shall be rewarded for purging of thy wickedness. I ask thee this final offering to purge this winter and beget a new spring. Give me thy blood and affection with honor and I shall see this cold vanquished. What I am given, I will return what was given me. Then, in trust and friendship, we shall part."

Bats and Lashes

The Lord's game is a simple marital task held out in the frost covered garden: a duel of branches. Each competitor will be given handful of briar as their weapon. The aim of the game is to whip each other until the thorns of the briar's branches draw blood. The first to draw blood from the opponent is the victor and the blood price paid.

Yet, not all these branches are created equal. A fortunate competitor may be given a Bewitching Branch. Those whipped by this branch will become utterly obsessed and infatuated to whom they've been struck by for a short period of time after, beholden to their branch master until the sting of thorns wane.

Tithe of the Mistle

If you choose not to partake in the Lord's game, the Lord warns that his winter's briar will collect a tithing of affection. The vines that bloomed with his arrival grow rampant behind seeing eyes. Buds turn into flowers, petals shed as they mature into plump white mistle berries that release the sweetest scent to draw you in.

Either you have accidentally stumbled upon the mistle, or it has decidedly grown itself above you without your noticing, but you become bewitched by its scent. As the tricksy bramble coils around your ankles, giving the gentlest of biting from its thorns, it becomes clear that you will be consumed if you do not pay the mistle its tithing. For some, it only takes a kiss, for others, the mistle will demand more. Give it something meaningful. Give it something real, and you will be released.

iii.
respite:
Midwinter Mourning

All good dreams must come to an end. The following morning paints a different picture of the Lonely Fortress witnessed in the night's collective dreaming. The Crucible sits under a thick blanket of snow, the waters surrounding the keep have frozen solid. None of the warmth of the night remains; it feels as though the world has died. The whole of the Crucible feels cold, quiet, abandoned.

Every hearth has burned out, every brazier snuffed under the snow, every candle smothered. It's quiet, empty, dark. Daylight may have come, but a thick layer of storm clouds casts a foreboding shadow. If the desire remains to leave, it quickly becomes apparent there is nowhere else to go.

Warm Winter's Kiss

With luck, you have woken in a bed under a pile of old furs to keep some semblance of warmth with you. With even better luck, you've woken next to company to keep each other warm throughout a cruel cold morning. Without proper protection, the cold is biting against exposed skin. Joints and limbs become stiff and numb, making it difficult to move around without constant tending if one lacks gloves.

While hearths can be re-lit and heated baths can be drawn, the true comfort from freezing can only be found in the close company of other living creatures. Exiles on this cruel morning keep each other warm through sharing heated breaths and pressing bodies. Expressions of passion and compassion help the warmth to linger just a bit longer for those who cultivate it together, granting brief autonomy of movement before finding another's heat is needed again.

Breakfast is served, but it's nothing remotely glamorous to the feasting offered by the Midwinter dream: simple porridge that leaves a stale taste that coats the tongue, nuts and fruits that are half rancid, boiled wine that's been watered down to detract from how far along it's turned into vinegar. Its only promise is to fill an empty stomach until more food can be found.

Outside, the snow begins to fall again. An omen that this winter is here to stay. Welcome to the real Martyr's Crucible.

Comments

brienne of tarth | a song of ice and fire. ( current character )

[wenche]

courtyard

Brienne has never seen snow. She was born in a Spring, and it's been a long Summer since it began during her childhood. She seems to relish the cold, even without her ever-present armor to give her a little barrier from it.

In fact she marvels at it, eyes wide with wonder and delight, crouching down to press a hand-print into a pile of snow with a delighted shiver or stretching back to try to catch a snowflake on her tongue. She's on her second cup of cider, though it isn't one of her vices, and she's warm with the knowledge that Jaime has recovered, and Alicent remained safe, and Steve... he looks hale and hearty, and maybe everything will be all right. Maybe she made the right choice.

When a snowball explodes against the back of her neck, cold snow melting and dripping down her back, Brienne yelps with alarm. There's something instinctual that happens when a snowball fight breaks out in a crowd, as people take sides and dive for cover with laughter and shock on their tongues.

She scrambles to her feet, slipping and sliding so that her cider falls out of her hands and she's scooping up snow instead as she runs, turning to lob her own poorly-shaped projectile only to take another one right to the dome.

It may be the first unguarded smile she's ever smiled as she shouts and dives and tries again.

tithe of the mistle

( cw & note | likely description of facial wounds and scarring; brienne has some very specific kissing trauma )

This big strong lady wearing trousers, tall and bearing the scars of a lifestyle not meant for such a young and naive woman, really loves a pretty flower that isn't a rose. Brienne loves many beautiful things (she's been not-so-surreptitiously and longingly gazing across the room at the Crucible's most beautiful knight all dream), and it doesn't take much for her to drift toward the brambles to reach and feel the soft petal under her thick and callused finger.

But these brambles reach back, worse than calluses, and she gasps with the pain. Without armor and boots and a sword, she can only pull at it. More and more frantic as the bramble climbs, less and less willing to accept what she must do to escape.

"Please if you could— do you have a knife I might use? I seem to be tangled..."

warm winter's kiss

( cw | vague mention/reference to the very everpresent danger of rape in brienne's world )

She always sleeps in her armor. When there are men about, when many of them are dangerous or unpredictable as they are in the Crucible, Brienne will take discomfort over vulnerability. It is the way of it since she left her father's hall on Tarth, whether she is in Renly's war camps or on the road searching for someone else's honor. There are few men she can feel a modicum of comfort around, who she allows near to her without at least the bare assurance of a dirk stuck into her boot or her belt.

Now that she has felt the Egregore glutted on loss and pain, it will be a cold day in the seven hells before she's without her armor again. Pretty cold, today.

Her body is large and takes up a lot of the bed, long legs and long arms dense with muscle, and warm. She's a Southron girl, an island girl, used to the heat of the Summer Sea even as a cold storm rips through to batter the mainland and whatever ships are caught in the in-between. She's been battered, bruised and demoralized, and she is used to a lack of comfort.

Without armor, without the steel of duty guiding her hand, with the soft and fuzzy memory of sweet lips on hers she gives in to a moment of rest. She stretches, feels another body, and freezes in panic.

Normally low, her voice is girlish with worry as she ventures: "Hello...?"

wildcard

( give me a holler if you'd like something bespoke. i'd love to do a bewitching branch with someone with some plotting! find me over at klingoff )

tithe of mistle

[vampirella]

"Sorry, cupcake. Seems I dropped my sword." It's a real funny thing for such a slip of a girl to say. The dry raspy delivery might indicate sarcasm. Super weird joke though.

Carmilla tilts her head, dark eyes contemplating. She looks a bit like a cat that has been beckoned and is both somewhat sour about the presumption and intrigued by the request. That does look like a real snarl, but why is it her problem, exactly? She should know better than to get baited by blonde damsels in distress, she literally just died (AGAIN) for it.

She steps closer, not exactly close enough to get tied up herself, but enough to eye the plant. "Cute." She flicks at a leaf, which does not help Brienne's perdicament any. "Magic mistletoe. That's a new one."

[wenche]

Even as she towers over Carmilla, she strains to lessen herself, hunched and unsure.

An unfamiliar face, and yet again very familiar behavior, just the same as all the other exiles vaguely Brienne's age. In truth, she feels more comfortable around the smallfolk anyway, lacking the uncomfortable veneer of politesse and double-speak she never could get the hang of.

But right now she feels... mocked in the same way she does at court. Her big heart picks up speed with her anxiety, and her hands sweat. She is yet a freak to speak at and around, to pity and play with. So she focuses on what she can:

"The Hall— the feast? There should be cutlery," she nearly pleads, and the mistletoe hangs in the back of her mind. Someone has heraldry in its image. The Briar Lord, he had said...

"It's only just there." Her long arm points, the woolen sleeve of her tunic straining a little against the muscle.

[vampirella]

Carmilla sighs, like she expected more. Humans are so dull sometimes. It wounds her more, coming from a tall butch drink of water. She expects more of womankind. What about this place and its everything implies Brienne could possibly wriggle her way out of its wishes with a simple sharp off the dinner table? Of course it would never be that simple. Try to fight, and higher magic beings only twist the knife. Of all people, Carmilla knows this. Knows it to her blackened bones.

"Magic mistletoe," she repeats, as if the issue is only that Brienne simply didn't hear her the first time. "Give thy blood and affection. You're not cutting yourself out of this, cutie. So which are you offering?"

Brienne doesn't know it, but Carmilla could easily help relieve her of either. And either would be fun, which is the only reason she's still standing here. At a careful distance, of course — Carmilla has no interest in getting harassed by a plant for not playing along. She lashed some loser already, she's paid her dues. She knows better to than to fuck with fae.

[wenche]

"What?" The question is full of disbelief, humiliation, and fear. She generally gets by with sheer brute stubbornness, and though she isn't actually a dummy she can be... a little slow on the uptake. Her head shakes.

All this because she wouldn't play a cruel game?

"No. No, I cannot..." Brienne's head continues shaking. Her shoulders creep up higher and her heart races like she's being hunted for sport. Affection? Blood and affection?

A large hand reaches up to cover the scarred cheek that to Carmilla may be very obviously have been ruined by sharpened human teeth. Who would ever have affection to spare for her?

courtyard

[lambencies]

[ the moonlight is a relief. crossing the courtyard, Alicent marvels at the snow and the fullness of the moon, truly grateful that the shadow is finally gone. the castle seems whole as well and everyone who left the sanctuary returned to them miraculously. she will thank the Seven again later tonight, when she returns to her chambers.

she's lost in thought when a snowball suddenly flies past her. Alicent flinches and stops in her tracks. further away people are playing in the snow, careless like small children. the tallest one of the group immediately catches Alicent's attention. she frowns to herself, pursing her lips together disapprovingly. ]

Lady Brienne. [ she raises her voice slightly, hoping that her knight will snap back to her senses and quit the foolishness without her having to make a scene out of it. what is she doing? ]

[wenche]

( delighted, face spread open in young and nearly childish delight that alicent has seen only a sliver of before, brienne turns. her face is the picture of suffering, gnarled cheek and untouched one bright and splotchy with red, yet with eyes wide and blinking the flakes out of their lashes, and her smile showing her teeth without a hand in front of them. they are so crooked, and a gap lays between the front two as if they hate each other enough to budge the rest of their rows to keep space.

her height is now plain for all to see, the first time she has forgotten to hunch down to be more acceptable. )

My lady...!

( she does not shout, breathless from chasing cellar about. cellar, who is well and lovely, and who would do well on tarth, she thinks so suddenly. )

The snow. I—

( brienne's face falters as she thinks of home suddenly. her septa, roelle, disapproving always. angry at the state of brienne's skinned knees. chiding and biting, shoving her before the looking glass to see the state of herself, to remind her how ugly she is. to teach her how no one can love her. )

Your Grace?

( small, again. brienne hunches and casts a look behind her in shame, where she had lain in the snow and made an image of herself. enormous, and wrong. it lances into her gut and up her spine which curves down again as she scuffles her feet to offer alicent a deferential bow. )

Are you well? Is there trouble?

[lambencies]

[ instinctively, Alicent catches that brief moment of vulnerability and weakness like a bloodhound smelling its prey. it's embarrassing to witness. she's also uncomfortable with how clumsily the knight seems to realize her own mistake, one a grown woman should not have made in the first place. a sharp turn of her head as she pretends to look across the courtyard while Brienne gathers herself. ]

I would hope not, seeing that you were completely preoccupied otherwise. [ she clasps her hands tightly together, unhappy with her knight's appearance and how badly it reflects on her. she doesn't need to point out the obvious, does she? ] There are whispers of a visitor arriving later tonight. Have you heard of it?

[wenche]

( a hard swallow, shoulders around her ears, the stinky vulnerable weakness remains. worsens, even. where brienne has a healthy fear of men, who make her sleep in her armor at every moment, none can pull her apart like a woman who is successful at womanhood.

she can't help the look behind herself that she spares her fellow revelers before she comes to stand at alicent's side. her brain is a riot of thoughts, a whirlwind she can't parse through. her lady's words barely penetrate, and so she dumbly repeats: )

...Visitor?

courtyard

[longlegs]

She remembers the darkness, walking in a dismal corridor where monsters lurked and shadows danced around Steve's light. Brienne's bravery, her own helplessness when the one thing that makes her useful dried up before she could save anyone from the worst possible fate. Cellar thought that Steve had died there, but waking up here, seeing all the rotten food replaced with a feast, the wailing of suffering people turned into singing and dance, the relief of everything being all right washes her over like cool water on a summer day.

It doesn't matter how they got here, it doesn't matter that she can't quite pick up the missing memories because what's happening now is what matters: people are celebrating, people are happy, people are safe. The three of them saved the day, and Raíz would be so proud of her Cellar Spider for it. She follows her teammate outside, watches her fascination with the snow before mischief guides her hands: one snow ball rolled up to a decent enough size to get Brienne's attention.

She laughs into a hand when it hits her target, a little shocked that she did that to begin with, that she succeeded on top.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry—!"

Giggling as she says it, barely starting to make an escape when Brienne's return fire gets her with a little paf. A third person gets in on the battle, snowball to the knight's head, and Cellar gasps, pretending to be offended at the intruder.

"Hey! You respect the duel."

[wenche]

For all she swings swords and carries damsels, Brienne's resolve against the cold is waning. She shivers anew, and thinks to cease but Cellar gives her an opportunity to play dirty. And the pull she feels toward the woman is so instinctual now, in the fuzzy warmth of the dream. Her thoughts can hardly linger on the shadow, on its realness.

"Duel? 'Tis a melee! For Tarth!"

So while Cellar declares the sanctity of the duel, Brienne has made another projectile and lobs it Cellar's way before turning to book it for cover.

[longlegs]

Thus Brienne claims a squeal-scream-laugh from Cellar, shielding herself with two arms that end up being the target, hands out while she shrinks herself to protect her head. (Her face, let's be real.) As scandalized as she was to learn that Brienne was the tattler, now she sees that she's the dirty fighter, teeth clenched with the grinning resolve to match her energy.

"Get back here!"

Movements split between following her and rolling up another snowball, she puffs hair that falls on her face, breath visible in the cold air. Sniffles and laughter are the only battlecries anyone's gonna get out of her, trying to find an angle to throw it at Brienne.

"For— I don't know!"

[wenche]

The land of I Don't Know harbors a mighty warrior indeed.

Being so large, Brienne moves through the world with a lot of care. She must be wary of accidentally bumping into others, and of chairs that are a little too rickety, and of other players of this mad chaotic game— she stutters her movement just as Cellar lobs a snowball and it's Mouse Trap levels of silly.

Brienne turns away to halt herself lest she barrel into the two revelers who dart across her path. Her toe catches on a stone, and she rights herself for but a moment before Cellar's attack startles her into wobbling on one foot. Instead of flailing her arms out because of the risk of walloping one of the revelers she's just narrowly missed, Brienne over-balances and goes ass over tea kettle into the snow with an enormous puff.

tithe of the mistle.

[whitecloak]

From seemingly out of nowhere, Jaime is upon her, having abandoned his post in favor of pulling at the vines in attempt to free her. "If you kept Oathkeeper on your person, you would not have to request a knife."

But the bramble has no interest in freeing the maid or letting the knight step out of its reach and soon its thorns are pressing into his flesh as well, leaving him swearing colorfully in unrestrained ire.

[wenche]

Oh, and yet again Jaime has a criticism for her. It seems Brienne can do nothing right, despite saving his arse, and keeping his darling queen safe, and oh hm saving the seven-forsaken day.

So it snaps out of her, a rare glimpse of the girl she was when she dragged him in chains across the Riverlands:

"A bramble is hardly the place to use such a sword," she hisses in reply, and slaps at his good hand until she can wrap it around his wrist to keep him from injuring it.

"You only have the one, you fool. Go retrieve something from the tables."

Yet she does not release him.

[whitecloak]

Jaime would scowl at her if she voiced that comment about Alicent being his darling queen. He doesn't think anything of the sort and is actually quite unhappy with Her Grace at the moment for neglecting her sons. She should have been the one tending to Aegon and offering him reassurances in the aftermath of his abduction, not the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard. Not a man from well over a century past his time who knew both too much and too little about the family he's now come to serve.

"Only the one," he grouses unhappily, sneering at her without any real bite behind it. "You say that as if we both weren't there when it was taken it from me, or have you forgotten the pendant they made me out of my own severed limb?"

An unnecessary reminder, but Jaime's in a mood. Irritated with the whole... whatever this is. A dream, some say, but he always has both hands in his dreams. His right is still missing, the stump bare and useless as ever. It's not a dream, it's a godsdamned nightmare.

"You have no authority to command me about, my lady."

She doesn't release him, nor do the brambles. It has a hold of them both, keeping them bound arm-to-arm. He notices, and yet he doesn't try to pull away.

[wenche]

Oh! Jaime's in a mood, imagine that. Look out everyone Ser Jaime Lannister is in a bleeding mood. Ice is cold, fire is hot. Death and taxes, etc.

Maybe he needs a necessary reminder. Allow her to oblige:

"Nor you me," she snaps back, mulish jaw set hard. Agree as she has to helping him with his endeavors regarding the new family who has so readily adopted him, perhaps Jaime needs a reminder that she has sworn no oaths to them, nor any new ones to him.

Even as they spit at each other like feral cats and the vines wrap tighter, Brienne's hand on his wrist is gentle. She sighs, exasperated and exhausted, pulling away instinctively until the thorns pinch and she relents again.

"Look what you've done."