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

[mountreal]

[ Shane's opponent isn't wrong, he's had far worse, but something about the sharpness of it and the way it had cut through his dissociative terror had made it hurt all the worse. He seems to shake himself back into consciousness with the taunt, because at least that's something Shane knows. You can't let them see that you're rattled.

But he is rattled, and it does rattle him worse when the man is too fast to be hit. Shane purses his lips in a tight line and scowls in a way he always intends to look hard and which... never does. ]

I just don't want to hurt you.

[ Because obviously if he tried harder, Shane could win. It's not like his whole personality is staked on competition or anything.

His second swipe is more collected, determined. It's clear he's already feeling more himself. He's not quite as graceful off the ice but Shane does a lot of footwork in the gym and he charges forward to close the distance. The swing he tries to land is meant to be hard enough to regain some of his wounded pride. ]

[nettling]

[ Lestat's eyebrows leap up as he's still nudging fabric up his elbow when Shane goes in for his second strike. Their branches cross and tangle as he attempts to deflect the oncoming blow, as though it's only barely caught him off guard. ]

He doesn't want to hurt me, he says. [ Lestat muses, shaking his wrist as he falls back to detangle them both, hand twisting to note the pink scratch along his arm. The vampire's eyes bolt upwards at his opponent as it already begins to fade. ]

How about you don't hold back, and I won't.

[ Fair is fair (until it isn't) Lestat wields his branch like the sword he used to kill wolves with. Not the most skilled of swordsmen that roam this castle, but he can thwap the boy on his thigh if he lands his counter swing right.]

[mountreal]

[ Closer, okay. From that scratch it looks like he connected, but barely. Why is this guy so good at this? The insults too, they seem to come naturally to the guy - more naturally than they come to Shane, even after a whole career of experience slinging it and hearing it thrown back at him.

His shit-talk is generally mild but hell, do taunts get to him. ]

Oh yeah? Fine.

[ See? Real cutting stuff, Hollander. Face a little flushed now, freckles standing out, Shane takes another quick few steps forward. He's distinctly irritated and falling squarely back into his body, into his training, as he aims a slapshot-formed forehand swing at Lestat's arm. The willowiness of the branch makes it snap forward in a satisfyingly whip-like way, covering the distance between them unexpectedly quick. ]

I'm telling you. You don't want this.

[ Shane's broken records with the strength and accuracy in his shots, after all. He's too humble to put it that way, to actually say it out loud, but this still seems like a stupid matchup that's going to get one of them (not him, of course) badly hurt if they don't stop. ]

They can't really make us fight. Right? Can they? This is... insane.

[nettling]

[ The next lash makes better contact, the long scrape of thorns leave multiple marks along Lestat's skin. A hiss snarls his nose, revealing the barest flashing of fangs. The Frenchman fights forward to grab the branches by the thorns before they slip too far, careless for how they pierce his hand. Recklessly, he steps in and attempts to pull Shane closer to lock his fingers around one wrist. Blood trickles down his forearm, staining a bit of the scuffled snow between their feet. ]

It's just a game, mon chou. [ Even as he holds the other man close, the scrape along his forearm heals, leaving only the streak of bright red blood. A smile lopsided, to him...that's really all it is. ] Is it so horrible a thing to have won?

[mountreal]

[ Shane catches the fangs because he's looking at his face, worried he's hurt him like Shane warned him would happen, and he recoils a step instantly from the sight. It isn't fast enough somehow and Lestat catches him, horror in Shane's face now at the way the other man has taken hold of the thorn branch. The way he's bleeding but won't let go. Shane is used to blood, but not drawn like this. ]

Hey! Stop that!

[ He sounds so genuinely disturbed, even more so when he tries to wrench his wrist out of Lestat's grasp and can't. ]

C'est pas un jeu. [ His accent is clunky, always has been, but he throws back in French because he wants to find some way to push back, to not feel so powerless. He understood the French pet name and he's having none of it. ] Pas pour moi. I don't want to win if there's blood!

[ But then the skin of the man's arm closes, heals all on its own, and Shane just stands there and stares. Openmouthed, self-preservation forgotten. ]