Test Drive Meme - New Blood

[undyingmods]

DEC TEST DRIVE MEME

WELCOME, VAMPIRES!

Welcome to the Undying Court Test Drive Meme! This post will allow players to test drive their AU characters in the setting, as well as meet fresh faces or even connect with those they have preexisting CR with. As with anything involved in the setting, this post will likely contain: violence, enthrallment, torture, and sexual content.

Regarding continuity, all TDM threads can be taken as in-game canon if desired. Please keep in mind that the game proper will begin in mid December, in the Winter Season, so Students/Novices should create their prompts under the assumption that the TDM takes place during the season prior to the one they will be apping as. This means that students planning to app as first season novices will be visiting Castle Courtsheart prior to their Beginning. In other words, if you plan to app a student as a second season, the TDM will take place during their first, and so on.

Feel free to brush up on the Premise, Vampire Powers, and head over to the FAQ/Game Info page if you have any questions!

• Make sure you are aware of the Rules when posting your top-level. (Content warnings are always welcome!)
• Please format your Top-level in this format: Character Name (AU Name if different) | Canon | Teacher/Student | Court
• As a reminder, a Test Drive sample is required in order to app.
• If you have any questions specific to the TDM, ask them in the Questions thread below!

Top-Level Directory:

Chat with NPC: Revar
Ace Attorney - Apollo Justice (Student)
Alice in the Country of Hearts - Alice Liddell (Student)
Attack On Titan - Erwin Smith (Teacher)
Baldur's Gate 3 - Astarion (Teacher)
Baldur's Gate 3 - Halsin (Teacher)
Baldur's Gate 3 - Raphael (Teacher)
Batman - Bruce Wayne (Teacher)
Bridgerton (Netflix) - Anthony Bridgerton (Student)
Castlevania - Soma Cruz (Student)
Castlevania: Nocturne - Maria Renard (Student)
Cosmo Warrior Zero - Harlock (Student)
Critical Role - Percy DeRolo (Teacher)
Daria - Daria Morgendorffer (Teacher)
Devil Summoner - Raidou Kuzunoha XIV (Student)
Dragon Age - Fenris (Teacher)
D&D: Honor Amongst Thieves - Edgin Darvis (Teacher)
D&D: Honor Amongst Thieves - Xenk Yendar (Teacher)
Ensemble STars!! - Mayoi Ayase (Student)
Fate/Zero - Kariya Matou (Kariya Makiri) (Student)
FE: Three Houses - Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd (Student)
FE: Three Houses - Hilda Goneril (Student)
FE: Three Houses - Lorenz Hellman Gloucester (Student)
FE: Three Houses - Marianne von Edmund (Student)
FE: Three Houses - Sylvain Gautier (Student)
Final Fantasy XIV - Estinien Varlineau (Teacher)
Frozen - Prince Hans (Student)
Genshin Impact - Diluc Ragnvindr (Teacher)
Genshin Impact - Tighnari (Teacher)
Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name - Conrad Achenleck (Teacher)
Hannibal (NBC) - Will Graham (Teacher)
Jujutsu Kaisen - Gojo Satoru (Teacher)
Jujutsu Kaisen - Toji Zen'in (Teacher)
Lucifer (Netflix) - Lucifer Morningstar (Teacher)
MCU - Loki Laufeyson (Teacher)
Original - Aurinn Laurentius (Student)
Original - Bellatrix Bakhar (Student)
Original - Christine Delacroix (Teacher)
Original - Hanako 'Rosalina' Nurumi (Teacher)
Original - Jisu (Eden Woods) (Student)
Original - Karma D'Auvergn (Teacher)
Our Flag Means Death - Edward Teach (Teacher)
Our Flag Means Death - Izzy Hands (Student)
Persona 3 Portable - Kotone Shiomi (Student)
Persona 5 R - Goro Akechi (Student)
Persona 5 - Haru Okumura (Student)
Persona 5 - Ren Amamiya (Student)
Pride and Prejudice - Elizabeth Bennet (Student)
Return to Labrynth - Sarah Williams (Teacher)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Snow White (Student)
Stargate: Atlantis - John Sheppard (Teacher)
Star Trek: AOS - James T. Kirk (Student)
Star Wars - Darth Vader (Teacher)
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order - Trilla Suduri (Student)
The Adventure Zone: Balance - Kravitz (Teacher)
The Adventure Zone: Balance - Lydia (Teacher)
The Adventure Zone: Graduation - Fitzroy Maplecourt (Student)

NEW ARRIVALS

New arrivals will be starting their first season in the winter, but they're welcomed to the castle early, under the watchful eyes of the Silver Court. Upon arrival, they will be shown to a room by a human whose eyes glow softly from within, with vacant smiles. Thralls. There, the human thralls will draw them a bath and bring them new clothes to wear to their first meeting. These are rich, expensive things made of high quality fabric. Whether it's a silk dress and a heavy velvet cowl, or a fine pants and a vest made from a brocade, the servants will provide. The new initiate's old clothes will be burned after, in a symbol of the life they are leaving behind. If they are hungry, they will be provided food. If they need anything at all, they need only ask their new servants.

Later that night they are taken to a grand hall, with high arched ceilings and candles burning in chandeliers. There are figures painted overhead, beautiful and entwined. Some have their eyes are colored to match the courts, others are gracefully placed in their death, with blood dripping from necks and wrists.

Balconies line the hall behind a forest of pillars, and vampires all watch as the group walk through (some more hungrily than others).

"Welcome to your first undying season, initiates," a pale, silver-haired vampire calls. They have silver eyes are clad in silver robes, but command the attention of everyone in attendance. They have a beauty that seems neither male nor female. They are standing at the center of a wide semi-circle of other vampires, "As the Silver Court's acting voice at this end of the Autumn season, allow me to introduce you to the Houses that will be your new homes."

The vampire, Revar, gives the newcomers an overview of all of the courts—Blue, Red, Gold, Silver, and Black—and then invites those already claimed by their Courts to join the vampires who will be their Makers.

Revar offers the Foundlings who are left a gentle, knowing smile, and then allows them to be chosen. They are like the last sheep left at the auction, and the vampires who take them may not be the enthused about it. Nevertheless, Revar waits patiently until all have found a maker.

Now that they are paired up it is expected—indeed, required—that the initiate drink from their maker. That is their Beginning. Only once they have truly begun can they can be considered novices.

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AUTUMN NOX

Silver Court is in season and for the Autumn Nox it holds a large symposium, inviting all the best vampire minds from around lands nearby and far. The whole castle is abuzz with new activity. The stables are packed full of horses, carriages litter the grounds, but somehow the castle has enough rooms to house all the new arrivals.

Novices will find that some of these vampires have not seen a human-novice in a very, very long time. These vampires might see the human-novices more like specimens, curious about their every move. They won't bite, but novices may find themselves observed as they wander the castle and its grounds.

The symposium itself is open to anyone at the castle. Scholars can present on any topic at all. Novices will find that these range from the incredibly mundane (you've always wanted to attend a history of bottom-feeding river fish, haven't you?) to the truly fascinating (new insights into how vampire hearts work) to the downright strange (the symposium has a range of lectures very close to dawn about the sharing of vampire...fluids). Seasoned novices with their own Autumn classes to attend are expected to keep up with their studies, but some teachers may let them out of a session to attend the lectures and workshops of the symposium.

The Silver Court vampires are incredibly busy between running the symposium and trying to help the new novices get settled in. They may need some volunteers to lend a hand with setting up rooms or helping scholars find their way around. In fact, volunteers might find themselves leading scholars down to the second kitchen for a bite to eat, a strong reminder that even these demure learners are still monsters who must drink blood.

PUMPKINS-GONE-WILD

The symposium isn't all that the autumn season brings. The Silver Court’s talents are on display in other ways—sometimes not in ways another had particularly hoped. An overly zealous youngblood in the Silver Court tried to grow a few extra pumpkins for the occasion and ended up with a few too many! The pumpkin vines break out of the green house and start sprouting pumpkins everywhere. These are no ordinary pumpkins, they will sprout and grow and become fully formed in the course of a night. Better keep an eye out for those vines or else your room might become full of pumpkins! Luckily, the pumpkins aren’t rotting any time soon (they’ll last until winter, or so the Silver Court vampires are saying), but it can be pretty inconvenient for them to grow everywhere. Start cutting those vines to pieces, and hope they don’t try to entangle you in the process.

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LIBRARY CLEAN-UP

Meanwhile, with all the scholars in town are making a mess of the library, much to the Silver Court vampire’s dismay. Books are being checked out and not checked back in, passed around from scholar to scholar. You might find those lost books just about anywhere. Who was reading in a tree? Anyone who collects the books and returns them to the library is sure to get a little bit of favor with the librarians, and it’s never a bad thing to have a bit of an in with a Court. If you’re worried about failing Silver Court, it’s time to get searching! Although how you’re going to convince a 300 year old vampire that time is not fake and that deadlines are real (and in fact were two days ago) is anyone’s guess.

UNETHICAL EXPRIMENTS

[CW: Torture, experiments]

Those who venture towards the basement might hear something a little different than normal. The thralls who spend their time down there are normally quiet, commanded to keep silent and pleasant for the vampires they serve. But with the arrival of the new scholars comes disquieting, inhuman screams from the darker reaches of the basement. Novices trying to catch a glimpse will be chased away, but teachers might be invited to watch as these vampires experiment on one another, all in the name of science. What’s a little torture, when you’re undying?

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Thanks for joining us for our first TDM! For any questions regarding the TDM prompts, please comment in the thread below. For general game questions, please check the FAQ/Game Info. Remember that the game proper will begin mid December, in the Winter Season, so Students/Novices should create their prompts under the assumption that the TDM takes place during the season prior to the one they will be apping as.

Comments

[seestheworld]

Kotone's not so naïve that she doesn't notice that predatory look. She's seen it before, even, just mostly on humans.

Outwardly, she just grins, maybe a little ruefully. "I think I was more of an impulse purchase."

[wonderland_vogue]

Mostly on humans but far more widespread on vampires, if she were to be perfectly honest about it. Though, really, Lydia has always been like this even before becoming a vampire.

An impulse purchase? Now that raises some questions and she's tilting her head to regard her a little closer, a brow slowly raising. "I take it that you are a Foundling, then? Otherwise someone would have already snapped you up by this point." Though, well, she can't say that's not a good chunk of the people that arrive here to begin with. "But do tell me what you expect to get out of all of this, because I can guarantee that it won't be easy and for some people it might just be better to become accustomed to the fate of becoming a thrall."

[seestheworld]

Kotone considers her answer carefully, briefly debating how candid she should be before deciding that actually, keeping her 'just happy to be here' demeanor up with this vampire would actually be very, very stupid. So just for a moment, she lets the mask fall.

"I know it won't be easy. It'll probably be more difficult than anything I've ever dealt with. But it's better than what I've had all this time even so." She eyes the vampire speculatively. "I realize this is ironic coming from a Foundling, but I'm tired of being shunted around like so much luggage without any say in the process. I want to be strong enough to make my own path - not get dragged along on someone else's until they get sick of me and throw me to someone else. I know that sounds grandiose, and I know I'll have to work my way up to that, if I can work my way up to that. But I won't know I can until I take the chance."

Left unsaid but implied: And I never want to be this vulnerable again.

[wonderland_vogue]

Oh, that is fun to see. She figured it might have been a mask of some sort since like can see like when they've spent ages doing just that. In a different way, of course, but the likeness is still there.

She remains silent as she listens to her, turning the words over in her mind as she searches for what to say. She's intrigued, certainly, and a good bit of that actually sounds far more familiar than she'd ever admit to. But it's not as if this life is really all that much freer, in hindsight.

"Unfortunately we're all still subject to the whims of the Council, but that's just how government tends to be." She starts, her grin dying down to something more neutral, which in this case is probably a good thing. "And it's actually not as ironic as you might think it is, there's a number of us who came from backgrounds... similar to that feeling. It'll be a rough time going, but if you think you can handle it, then you're doing better than most." She's already written off quite a number of the newbies as thrall bait or potential by this point, even if it's not her usual method of doing things.

"What sorts of things are you willing to do to get to that point? I promise you this isn't a threat or something like that, merely... a good way to tell where a person should be." If they won't do certain things, then, well, easy way to rule out whether she should bother or not.

[seestheworld]

Kotone thinks for a moment.

"I'm not going to say 'anything,' because that's just inviting a situation that makes a liar out of me." Also, it's kind of desperate. "I know I'm going to have to drink blood from humans. I know I'm going to need to hurt or even kill people. Manipulate them on a bigger scale than I already do." She's not too proud to admit she's resorted to that kind of thing for her own survival, though obviously not on any kind of scale that might impress a vampire. "Outright making thralls, I think, I'd have to work up to - not that I haven't had the urge to do that to certain people, but still."

She's not really trying to impress Lydia as she speaks; she's mostly voicing things she's been working out in her own mind ever since she got her feather.

"I know I have a long way to go."

[wonderland_vogue]

Potential, indeed. A lot of that makes sense to her and her not saying "anything" certainly does give her points in her book given, well, anyone that says that is a complete and utter liar. There's even some lines that she won't cross and she's fairly certain if she has boundaries than everyone else has at least something they won't do.

"You'll be happy to know you don't have to make thralls if you don't want or need to, I know I haven't bothered with such a thing. Not that there's reason to while here." The castle has its own, so what's the point of making more if they aren't necessary? Though she hums quietly to herself, seeming far more serious than previously.

Until she's reaching out a hand to just quickly boop the tip of her nose. "You're going to make a liar out of me for saying I would never pick up a Novice. But I think it's a good idea this time, I'm not lax by any means, but if anyone knows their way around manipulation and survival, it would be me." Others might argue that, but she knows exactly what she's about.

"Lydia and I'm on of the Red Court teachers here."

[seestheworld]

Social link established?

That is good to know, because honestly Kotone still finds it hard not to sympathize with them. She's not far off from possibly having become one of them, after all.

She's not sure quite what she's expecting as a further response, but a boop to the nose wasn't it. Kotone gives her a small but genuine smile. "Kotone," she replies. "It's good to meet you."

She hopes?

[wonderland_vogue]

For as much as she waves off the thralls as being useless and this being their true purposes, she had the same thoughts when first coming into this whole thing. But it kind of died off the moment she realized she was going to get through all of this. On top of it being an easy blood source if she wanted. And getting whatever she wanted out of them.

It's fine, she's fine.

"A pleasure, Kotone. I hope you don't have anything against fun in this place, with Red, that's sort of what we do. Blue claims to be the revelers, but that's all they're good at~" And already into shittalking the other Courts, but that's not really unexpected from her and with her opinions. "I do, however, suggest keeping an eye on those around you because there are some that will do more... uncouth things in order to get ahead of the curve." Mostly she means the Golds, but she may also be biased towards that end. "But there's ways of playing their games and beating them quite soundly~"

[seestheworld]

"Oh?" She almost follows that up with do tell, but all things in due time.

[wonderland_vogue]

In due time, of course.

In fact, she's grinning at her in turn and slowly shrugging. "Soon enough, darling, soon enough. There's ears and eyes everywhere at the moment so best to not tell-all here, hm?"