TEST DRIVE MEME

[theflaws]

TEST DRIVE MEME

PREMISE PLOT ARRIVAL SETTING NAVIGATION

01. ARRIVING IN PELEA
A cold wind singing down from the white-capped mountains which hang blue-black in the distance stirs your cheek, the tall grass all around you. A bough creaks as the wind makes it tremble, and the dappled shadows drift over you, leaves rustling. As you blink awake, you hear the quiet hiss of water over stones. You are not where you once were!

You and a large group of strangers are blinking awake, pulling yourselves up off the dirt, grass, and rubble near a small wooded stream. There is no evidence of civilization in sight, and as you exchange stories you realize that you must decide what to do.

Will you head past the trees and towards the mountains? Deeper into the forest? Stay put and wait for help to arrive? You might even try to meet everyone else, and either convince them to band together... or head their separate ways.

02. CITY SLICKER
There are many cities throughout the world of Pelea, and in most player characters, the Flaws, are welcomed as curiosities. From the pastoral villages or bustling, grand cities of Shousal to the massive, sprawling bureaucratic centers of the Empire, your characters will find a wide variety of cultures and races to interact with and investigate. They could be seeking empoyment, answers to the mystery of their arrival, or a quiet place to drink away their worries.

03. WILDCARD!

Comments

[espigeonage]

[His impressive tail quivers, a bird's laugh.]

Alas! Here I'm a one-man endeavor. Looking for a cause more than money, I suppose, but it's so useful I can't say no! [Yuuya raises his body upright and half-raises his tail, a heroic pose.]

In all honesty, I'm faster in the skies than anything in this world save maybe these poor stunted excuses for pigeons. I am an amazing scout on that alone. [And he will not tell anyone about being a fighter or a master of unauthorized access unless and until it comes up.] Plus, I'm cute.

[neverlofty]

[The rich breed birds not terribly unlike this sometimes-- pay mad amounts of gold to bring in exotic ones from across the sea and mix them up with the local birds, pretty them up with magic, then sell them. She's been complicit in smuggling their like before. They didn't talk, of course, and they're not nearly this big - but they were about this handsome.

Whether they're as self-confident, she couldn't say.]

You've a lot to recommend you. I've done some scouting myself, but I've not yet met the dwarf who could fly. [She tips her head to one side, considering.] Where's Earth?? Somewhere down in Czilia?

[The flaws have, on the whole, gotten better at blending; but she's got the beginnings of a suspicion. There's plenty unusual in this world, but it's been a while since she saw a form of unusual that was also totally familiar. Or heard anyone call Pelea this world.]

[espigeonage]

What a sight that would be! [He lowers his voice to a jokingly conspiratorial pitch.] Honestly, I think you'd do better at it than these humans. Those big bodies and long legs are deeply unaerodynamic. Centralized muscle is where it's at.

[Now Yuuya shifts on the wood, rebalancing. For a spy he really could be better at dissembling and not saying potentially dangerous things.]

Ah, well! You might say my home turf's with me always, right up close to my pigeon heart. You might also say it's quite far away and rather isolated from Czilla, and much else.

[neverlofty]

[He gets a snort of laughter for that. Dwarves are many things, but aerodynamic is not the word she'd go for first.]

No need to fear; I'm not a slave-catcher. Nor from around these parts myself. [She's taking a risk, there; anyone actually from Pelea would find it odd she wouldn't think they'd just assume that, her being a dwarf. She steps up to stand beside the crate, put them a little closer together, talk a little softer without it looking unnatural.]

How isolated do you mean? Is there, say... anybody in this city who's from the same place?

[espigeonage]

Hmm, well, that's heartening to hear. [He cocks his head in a way that he knows is cute. Yuuya's picked up on some risky subjects already and can see that this isn't a meaningless admission, but he's ignorant of a lot of details. Yuuya's voice too is softer, not projecting so much. He's loud for something his size.]

Very! Unless they were human I'd know anyone from my part of Earth instantly - and if there were Earth humans here, they'd note me. Whether they'd approach me, now, that's a different subject. We don't always get along, alas.

[neverlofty]

That's a pity. [She thinks she's got her answer. Not keen to spend too long on it, except in an oblique sort of way; you never knew who might be listening or what their opinions on world-altering magic might be. But she's got a feeling she could wander this world back and forth for a hundred years and never come across Earth.]

Can't say we knew enough about birds to have an opinion on them, where I come from. [A sidelong half-grin.] The humans were assholes, too, though.

[Of course she assumes it's the humans who were the assholes, not the birds. What the hell can birds do to anybody?]

[espigeonage]

[Yuuya's tail shakes briskly back and forth. He has no hardwired impulse to laugh out loud but produces a chuckle anyway, to make things clearer.]

Ah, well! Sometimes, but I find I like them anyway. Seems you won't find anyone who's not a cloaca some of the time.

And now that we're five minutes into a conversation I really should come out and say: Yuuya Sakazaki! Fashionable young man. It's truly a sincere pleasure to meet you! [He goes and dove-bows, which involves a dramatic gesture with his head and neck.]

[neverlofty]

[The bow looks so much like the kind of shit they require you to produce in the doorways of salon parties in Orlais that Murphy returns it with one, or a slightly sardonic attempt at one, anyway. She never did get the hang of it, for all Josephine's tutoring.]

Murphy Cadash. Formerly many things, currently an unemployed stranger. Pleasure's all mine.

[espigeonage]

[Yuuya gapes his beak open in a way he knows humans, at least, read as a smile. It'd be a weird gesture to another bird.]

Ah, but is it not thrilling to be a stranger? Unemployed, not so much, at least until landlords come calling. Ahaha, I haven't found myself in that latter position for some time.