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 of them player characters, the Flaws, are welcomed as curiosities. Whether they're among the passionate, oft thought as hot-headed, but hospitable folk of the Banner or the noble and haughty people of the Empire, your characters will find a wide variety of cultures, races and simply people to interact with and investigate. They could be seeking employment, answers to the mystery of their arrival or other folk like themselves, or a quiet place to drink away their worries.

03. WILDCARD!

Comments

[teratias]

It could have gotten away at the last minute. [He shrugs. Goats did what they want, apparently.]

They are stubborn, after all.

[animated]

[ Charlie finds it weird that Peter finds it weird, but he’s right. The crowd is oppressive and they’re not exactly in a great place for a conversation. ]

Good plan. Lead the way.

[snaphiss]

[Mara's hold on the Force is too tenuous to be able to sense anything concerning the Dark Side on purpose. Seeped in it for so long, it barely registers to her as abnormal. She is suspicious of this cloaked old man, though it's mostly because Mara Jade is suspicious of nearly everyone. Though the image of an old man in a dark cloak does conjure up some anxious memories for Mara.]

Stop, [she says, before she can, well, stop herself. Now what?] He's just a child.

[She reaches out to wrench the purse from the boy's fingers with a roughness that belies her kind word. The boy, clearly terrified, begins quietly to cry.]

[snaphiss]

[Mara can feel eyes on her back, or maybe she's just always this suspicious (or both!). She looks over her shoulder to see a child staring at her, oh joy.]

[Mara stares back, hands on her hips. She turns to face the girl.]

Let me guess. Major head injury.

[letitallout]

So am I.

[She's got that wry half-smile again. That was a very nice setup, thank you Waver.]

Do you care if the tavern's full of sailors? No one notices if you're doing something conspiratorial in a dive.

[Aila looks around the docks for someplace sufficiently disreputable, spoiled for choice.]

[teratias]

[Well, she's straight forward, Waver will give her that. It makes quite a few things easier, like not having to hide his own status, or playing coy with asking hers. On the other, such a bold question means that she must have come here recently, or else doesn't know about what his own group dealt with when they showed up.]

Not by any means.

[At least she's using the word planet. That speaks to coming from a place with some level of space exploration, he hopes.]

[letitallout]

[Aila's okay with multiple realms of existence, but they all have the same metaphysics, so this is registering as out there even by her incredibly lax standards for belief.]

That seems. Odd. And likely to lead to problems.

[Hard to set up a magic-based caste system when any idiot can learn to chuck fireballs, after all.]

[animated]

[ He shrugs. ] It’s not like we picked the system. That’s just the way it is.

[ Granted, he can think of a great many people, all of whom reside comfortably in the wizarding upper class, who are more than okay with the way things are. ]

We also don’t have, what did you call it? Conjuration?

[snaphiss]

[Mara just rolls her eyes and walks over to the woman wrestling on the floor with the screamer. Or maybe she's caught it? The thing squirms so much, it's hard to tell.]

Are you happy now?

[letitallout]

Conjuration.

[She nods in confirmation.]

The art of summoning. Haven't made a particular study of that one. I find a lot of it to be... [oogy] ...unsettling.

[Conjuration is where all the necromancy spells live, ew.]

The schools are Conjuration, Illusion, Alteration, Restoration, and Destruction. I suppose you could consider enchantment and alchemy to be schools, if you're being broad enough about the definition. And then get yelled at by a pack of theorists, but they're not here.

[She has intentionally not spent much time around academic mages because they are kind of awful and have terrible priorities, generally.]

[letitallout]

I am always happy. I am a ray of gods-damned sunshine.

[She hisses, attempting to pin a pissed-off goat.]

[nostalgiabomb]

[ Peter probably knows the city as well as Charlie does, which is to say not at all, but that doesn’t stop him from leading them through the crowd – because he has to admit, having a sympathetic ear is probably the best part of his day so far. At least this guy isn’t looking at him like a plague victim after he’s asked where the hell he can get his equipment repaired.

It’s not too difficult, at least, to orient himself toward the closest tavern or to divest a distracted, wealthy-looking passerby of his coin purse, both of which he does with practiced ease. It’s even easier to convince the bartender to give them two tankards of whatever he has on tap, because Peter learned from a young age that the clinking of coin is a near universal language, and money can turn away even the most curious of gazes.

It belatedly occurs to him that Charlie might wonder why Peter is in possession of the local currency, and that the guy may not appreciate casual acts of larceny, so with the mug halfway to his lips, he says wryly, ] You didn’t see me do that, by the way.

[snaphiss]

[Force, is this what talking to Mara is like? No, she doesn't want to know.]

Then you probably don't need any more help. [Yep. She'll just watch.]

[teratias]

[Waver is skilled at quite a few things, but being the straight man seems to be a reoccurring one.]

As long as none of them are listening, I think we'll be all right.

[letitallout]

[Did she ask for help? No, she did not.

It's just a goat and she's the Dragonborn, so the uneven wrestling match quickly resolves in her favor, albeit not without loud protest from the loser, and she uses the lead rope to hogtie the stupid thing. You have lost walking privileges, goat.

Aila cools down quickly--figuratively; she hates hot weather--and by the time she's done with goat-roping, her normal easygoing temper has reasserted itself.]

Thanks.

[That's sincere, or she's the best liar in the city.]

[snaphiss]

[So Mara continues to watch. Really, she wants to understand how one wrangles these screamers and what their use is. She's laboring under the impression that the other girl is native to this place.]

[So she puts her hands on her hips and she thinks.]

You're welcome. Is that thing yours? [She points to the screamer.]

[animated]

[ Ah, it must be nice to have so few schools to keep track of. Charlie kind of laments the Specialization system of his home, but he can also see the merits in it. One of those double-edged sword kind of things. ]

Oh. Jeez, okay. [ He ticks them off on his fingers as he talks. ] We have Animation, Elementalism, Enhancement, Defense, Destruction, Mending, Nurturing, Spiritualism, and Illusion.

And Necromancy, but nobody likes to talk about it.

[animated]

[ Charlie keeps close to his new companion. Peter has an easier time with the crowd, considering he's much taller, so Charlie just sticks to trailing along in his wake. He doesn't see peter nick the purse- he doubts he would have caught it had he actually been watching for it- so the appearance of the coins comes as a surprise.

How Peter chooses to survive in this place isn't any business of his, though, and the guy did help him out. Charlie is willing to overlook it.

Brightly, ] See what?

[tyranus]

Nirn. It was no name he was familiar with, but that could very well be the name of a continent rather than the planet itself. Without a navigation computer, it would not be easy working out his current location. Troubling.

"Then perhaps you would know where I could locate a spaceport."

[nostalgiabomb]

[ That makes Peter huff out a laugh before he takes a drink – it’s not terrible, whatever kind of ale this is, and that’s a blessing. ]

How’d that guy get you out of your jacket, anyway?

[animated]

Not by being charming and handsome, that's for sure.

[ He shrugs. ] I was looking to trade my clothes for something a little more... local. I took it off and he snatched it.

[letitallout]

He earned himself another dubious look--"space" port? Did he hit his head? He wasn't bleeding and all his speech...well, "made sense" would be putting it strongly, but it was grammatical and not slurred.

"I don't know where we are any more than you do, friend," Aila said with a shrug. Before Dooku got all misty, he should realize he hadn't been promoted; "friend" was just a verbal tic. "Once we find a town and get our bearings, I know where all the major ports in Tamriel are."

He might be an awful old man, but she wasn't going to leave him in the woods to die.

[nostalgiabomb]

[ He clicks his tongue, almost disapproving. ] Typical. No subtlety.

[ He's like 90% joking. ]

Guessin’ that means you just popped up here, too, then?

[animated]

Slow your roll, Danny Ocean. You don't need to critique his performance.

[ He's joking right back. Even if Peter is a criminal, he's a helpful one. Cute, too, which is a definite bonus. ]

Yeah. One minute I was minding my own business, and the next I'm in Narnia- only without the whimsy.

[letitallout]

Whole point of a shady tavern is to do things you don't want anyone listening in on.

[Indecisiveness has never been her problem, so Aila settles quickly on one with a leaping fish on a faded wooden sign. It has the right number of loafers who aren't obvious lookouts hanging about.]

Come on.

[She nods at her chosen dive, setting off without waiting to see if Waver's going to follow.]