undyingcourt | Test Drive Meme

Entry tags:

Test Drive Meme - New Blood

DEC TEST DRIVE MEME

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.

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.

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?

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Ceremonies certainly were as drawn out as she'd heard. Grandmother had always done something similar, but it was neither so ostentatious or long. Her joints ached too much for pomp and frills, as she'd call it. Still, the teen looked back down and over to the one claiming they couldn't keep still.

Was she in any place to judge when all her own focus was on the hall itself? While listening earlier, at this point she was putting her attention to the details. Literally.

So she nudges to get his attention. Then points to the ceiling with its high arches and fancy art. ]

If you need to look around, look up. There's a lot being... Shown, I guess, more than told.

[Luckily it takes little effort to get his attention with the nudge and he's looking to where she's pointing with wide eyes still. Oh... oh that's way more detailed than he expected a ceiling to be.

Slowly he nods in understanding, arms crossing over his chest as he looks at one piece in general.]

I wonder how they managed to get that done with all the nooks and crannies you'd have to get around. You can see there's some imperfections in it when you look at the distance between the eyes on that one, but still.

[... Sir, how can you even tell that. And so confidently at that?]

The same way towers and how this hall was probably built in the first place.

[ That was a pure assumption, but it made the most sense. It's just that Eden was a little baffled at how easily he focused- Who was this guy? ~~At least no one could say that she was the oddest.~~ ]

Out of everything, you immediately look for imperfections? Not the story, or expressions, but that?

That would make sense, wouldn't it...

[It did make the most sense and he wasn't really an architect, after all. And even with his focusing on something, he evidently just switches back to the whole goober aspect of things like nothing had changed in the slightest.]

Huh? It's hard not to when it's so clear how wrong that face's proportions are? It's clear they were trying to go with someone humanoid, at least, but they have the face shape all wrong.

Do they, though?

[ That was the other thing. Aside from style, it seemed like everything was highly deliberate. There was also one other thing that made her wonder. ]

There's a vampire in the Silver Court group with tall animal ears. What if the face shape is exactly right?

[With animal ears? He tilts his head at her for a moment, seeming to consider that question before turning his attention right back to the ceiling.]

People that have different proportions that seem strange to people isn't really something people make paintings about. If you look at the rest of the face, the only thing that's wrong is the shape of it and the eye proportions to one another. The lips, ears, and rest of the face all fit and look in place. It's only those that are wrong.

I don't think it was deliberate.

[ So busy analyzing... Was this a common trait amongst people that lived around these things? Not that she could assume anyone's background, but there had to be something behind the criticism.

Right? ]

I wouldn't know. Then again, I'm also not the artist. They'd be the only one you could get the answer about that from, right? Or the one running tonight's ceremony, as they seem to be the leader for now.

[Well, he was more or less taken in by a rich family so kind of? But he's also just like this and can't help himself when the opportunity arises. Especially when it's easier than working his nerves about this whole ceremony.]

I guess so. Still seems like a shoddy job on their part, but that's... not the point of these, is it? [At least he's realized she probably meant to point out the paintings on the ceiling for reasons that weren't for critiquing.

Great start there, Gappy.]

Not sure why they'd have all of these on the ceiling, either. If it were me it'd just be, like, a sky scene or something.

Not the point at all.

[ She'll be blunt with that much. Even if she had less cultural experience than she had dirt under her pinky nail, it was clear that critiquing wasn't the point. ]

That I couldn't tell you. I avoided pretty much everything about the vampires until I went into town during a Finding. Save for some universal basics that were understood, of course.

[ They were supposed to be in charge of the lands. They fed on people. That... Was about it. You didn't have to experience much when you lived in the woods, okay? ]

[It's hard to not do so when you don't really tend to have opinions on art otherwise, but he's always been a bit more... literal... than he really ought to be.]

Ohhhh, really? Where I grew up they were constantly around everywhere and didn't really make it a secret. [Gold lands be absolutely wildin' and that much he will say without a second thought if asked about it.]

Kind of glad that it doesn't seem to be the same here? A lot less... attitude.

[ She's not much better, having thought of pointing the art out in a 'look at the pretty stuff' kind of way. ]

Mhm. Things are pretty lax in vampire interactions. The lottery I was in was the first that I'd come across.

[ She also lived in the woods instead of a town or village or anything, so that decreased the experiences even further. ]

Less attitude, though?

I think it depends on who you're dealing with? Because none of the ones I'd been around before were "lax". [They were kind of assholes, if he were to be honest.]

Yeah... They were always coming around the orchards and such acting like they owned the place and could do whatever they want and demand whatever they wanted. Not that any of them knew anything about what they were doing since, well, I'm sure they would've taken over way before then if they actually did. [Nah, it seemed that they needed the Higashikatas in order to help feed the rest of the people in that land, but he wouldn't put it past them to make it seem like they knew better.

Golds, man, Golds.]

[ Vampires were as absent as parental figures for Eden (the closest being the grandmother that found her.) So all of this information has Eden's eyes go a little wide.

This was certainly going to color her opinion of the court, at least a bit. When seeing the classes, she'll be even more wary past that. ]

I didn't realize there were places that they could be so controlling. What was the point; just keeping people in line or something?

[Should color her opinion of the ones that aren't here, at least. And he certainly will keep his opinions despite everything, but that's another thing entirely.]

I think so? The stuff they said was always threatening if we ever got ideas in our heads of trying to "get more power" than we were already afforded or something? Not that I think anyone was and just wanted them to leave us alone and let us do our thing?

Get more power? It sounded like you were just growing trees.

[ Why would vampires be worried about that anyway? Was there something that happened that made the gold court fear them or something? It's left Eden in 'perplexed' mode, that's for sure. ]

You said they seem to have less attitude here though, right? At least there's that...

An orchard and a fruit parlor, actually! The latter of which we'd take fruit from the orchard and make into desserts or sell for gifts if it was a particularly nice piece of fruit. [Which probably sounds weird on its own, in hindsight.] You can still buy the fruit outright, but the parlor just had the "higher quality" items specifically.

[It wasn't some reach for power or anything as far as he was aware. There was no denying that they had kind of cornered a market, but it wasn't much more than that.]

A lot less attitude here. There's still some, but that just seems to be the default for that particular kind?

That makes sense. What doesn't make sense is them thinking you'd be gaining power out of it. I can only imagine you getting more customers.

[ Which she literally doesn't see any problem with. Were gold court vampires just really sensitive? ]

Hm... Well, I suppose that takes away one of the courts I don't wish to join.

I guess being popular meant that they'd listen to our opinions or... something? Though that still doesn't make any sense since even with the numbers of humans, the vampires still overpowered everyone there. I think they just wanted to feel superior for some reason or another. [Fragile egos, he assumes.]

Probably for the best, you don't seem like the type if that's how all of them act. [Josuke you've known her for like five minutes, maybe.]

They're that worried about popularity?

[ It wouldn't be the first time, or last, that the gold court vampires threw their weight around and would want to cut down popular noble families. Not that Eden realized just how sensitive they really could be. In her mind, it was only mildly so. ]

From what you've told me about them, I'll say that's sweet of you to say. I hope I'd never end up acting like that. I'd rather be a Black Court kind of dangerous than a Gold, from what was said about them.

Guess so? I don't know how they think.

[It's all just stupid and petty to him, if he's perfectly honest. They could be bothering people that actually had plans of throwing their weight around or thinking they could take control from the vampires, but nope, bothering fruit farmers.]

It was sweet? [Huh, okay. He meant it truthfully and hadn't really thought about the emotional bit behind it.] Same. I'll take anything over being part of Gold.

[A beat.]

Josuke Higashikata.

It's how it would be considered in the towns near where I lived.

[ These are kind of hick-ish towns by an ancient forest though, in lands owned by the Red Court, so take that with a grain of salt. ]

Eden Woods. I'm from the southern region.

[ No town to be associated with or anything like that. Because this isn't some 'village hidden in leaves' nonsense. ]

... Huh. Guess I'll take it, certainly didn't mean it badly.

[Hey, he's from Gold Court lands, it's not like he's able to really say anything.]

Eden. Nice to meet you, then. And I'm from the Western region if if wasn't obvious enough from what I was saying? [It's not like Gold has much of a hold anywhere else quite like that.]

I wonder how much longer all of this is going to go on, it's kind of a drag...

It was juuust obvious enough for even me to pick up on it.

[ Which you had to be, for someone like her to pick up on that kind of thing. She was so separated from how involved the vampire courts were with the rest of society, and it might've stayed that way if she wasn't caught in the Finding. ]

From what I can tell? Until we all have a maker, it'll continue. Which, with how many of us there are, could be a little while.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Test Drive Meme - New Blood

Arrivals for the goober

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject