prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .009

navigation ⬤ faq ⬤ reserves ⬤ world ⬤ moonblessings

"Devo - Whip It (Video)" (Watch on YouTube)

You awaken amidst the darkness with only a faint light to greet you. Your body is hemmed in by shards of crystals, gently sparkling and possibly pricking your skin. The surrounding landscape is dyed in the pinks and purples of the dusk filled with crystals protruding from the ground, some as large as a skyscraper. Even the few shy moon creatures you find in the wild have strange crystal growths on their hides. This is far from home— perhaps a dream? You pinch your skin and slap your cheeks, yet nothing seems to do the trick. Searching for answers yields nothing but an endless expanse of purple dust as far as the eye can see. You have four options: one, panic; two, soil yourself; three, admire it all then soil yourself; or four, go into survival mode. Eventually, you’ll realize that you’re not alone.

After a day or two of living off the crystal wilderness, a group of people find you worse for wear. They are the gallant Moon Knights from the planet of Prismatica. After the strange phenomenon during the past months when scientists observed the sudden appearance of rainbow crystals in the sky, the government has been feverishly combing through the moon for more Moonblessed to be rescued. You’ll eventually be brought into Iris’s moon government center.

You all may have your usual inquiries — Where are we? Who are you? What's going on? Why did I inhale all those permanent markers in the third grade? — and the Prismals are almost too eager to answer. They tell you about their world and about the first appearance of the Moonblessed as the medical staff give you an examination to make sure you’re not carrying any viruses or biological hazards. If you react violently, you may be restrained and nerfed with a specialized neurotransmitting gun that releases a numbing agent through the top of your spine. Once the examinations are over, you’re informed that you will be provided accommodations on their planet during your stay.

While waiting for transport to be prepared, you may freely roam around the government center. Eventually you’re called back from exploring, escorted to the docks, and led onto a large transport vessel that makes frequent trips back and forth between the moons and the planet. Faces onboard vary from both old and new Moonblessed as well as the local Prismals. The next destination: Prismatica.

▶ Whip It Good
Iris Moon, Government Center (Arrival) and Planet Prismatica, City of Lunatia | top

Welcome to Prismatica’s hub, Lunatia, the city of your dreams! A bustling metropolis lush with bright lights, vibrant colors, luxuriant plant life, and all the conveniences of technology absent from your own world… It seems like paradise to all the uninitiated. After a quick tour of the city, new arrivals can find themselves getting cozy in their new homes.

A Settle in your new home at Level 2 to find new roommates and say hello to your neighbors! City officials will give you directions to the designated districts across Level 2 and instruct you to pick out a unit. Each apartment complex has a different aesthetic, some may look cozy, some stylish, and some bizarre. The free accommodations have a basic living space that can only fit two or three people at most in one unit.

Starter Chromaspace furnishings are provided which can be controlled with the touch of a built-in panel. Examples are color-changing curtains, transforming sofa beds, cabinets turning into tables, etc. Customizing your apartment or moving out will have to wait until you earn more chroma. Until then, why don’t you check out your new neighborhood or explore the city levels? Maybe your new roommates or neighbors can give you a “hand” with allowance for dinner.

B At the Crystarium Moonports is a new family restaurant called Grapplebears, here to serve your favorite dishes from all around the galaxy at affordable prices! The menu ranges from the atomically hot and spicy Chamakshalan curry rice, delectable dragonsaur steak served with mashed space-tatoes, to the sweet and creamy Lunatian milkshakes that bring all the boys to the yard, all prepared by their handsome and huggable bear crew.

As you might have noticed, the restaurant staff is a ragtag group with members from planets unknown to both Prismals and Moonblessed. The waiters and waitresses in particular are tall, muscular, leather-clad bears who take your order by whipping you with a special riding crop that compels you to bark out your order — but only if you ask to be, of course! They might induce you to reveal other unrelated interests so make sure you’re not thinking about anything embarrassing!

If you chat up the staff or customers, you learn more about the restaurant’s origins. The bears say their planets* were also wiped by the Calamity hundreds of years ago, and life for them has been difficult for them since then…

*Further information about these planets is unavailable at this time.

▶ Night of the Living Dummy
City of Lunatia | top

The last vestiges of Geistnacht have officially passed and the first chilly autumn breeze ushers in the new season. The city is awash in giant piles of browning leaves that decorate every walkway.

A To deal with the mass collection of fallen leaves, many buildings across the city have been retrofitted with a new disposal system to help clean up. A sprawling network of automated vacuum tubes around the city will efficiently suck all those pesky leaves right up. While children love playing inside and using them to “teleport” around Lunatia, they have also been known to spontaneously suck up anyone who’s not too careful. You may find yourself falling on some hapless bystander on their afternoon walk, or crammed in a tube with your new neighbors. Lunar Scientia officials warn everyone to be careful of where you walk, else you might need to crawl your way to sweet freedom.

B A pop-up shop in Level 1 is attracting much of the locals' attention, run by a peddler who speaks in a low, elongated hiss and wears a hood over his face. He assures you that his face is of no consequence. What is more important is his selection of wares! In contrast to his cloaked, enigmatic appearance, his travel cart is a Barbie pink explosion of frills, hearts, glitter. He will tell all visitors he comes from the Valley of the Crimson Serpents, which Prismals and older Moonblessed arrivals find odd. Wasn’t the Sanguis moon uninhabitable?

Among the peddler’s wares are adorable, wide-eyed and heavily perfumed dolls in all sorts of clothes a child dreaming of rainbows and tea parties could ever ask for. Hug and squeeze a doll, and you will be greeted by a pre-recorded voice telling you how they’re your bestest friend ever. It’s like they were made for lovin’ you! But if you look away for one moment, you can almost swear you hear a snake’s hiss, its long tongue licking the shell of your ear… The next time you see the doll, its body will be in a slightly different position or location. Is it… following you? Fortunately, a minimal amount of moonlacing will make it leave you alone. You can wait it out too, but why would you?

Destroy a doll and it will later reappear wherever you are when you least expect it, good as new, but leaking from their porcelain heads is a strange pink, glitter-covered liquid. The peddler calls it the “love juice” giving the doll an extra dose of affection for you.

▶ Bird is the Word
Level 2, Greatmoon Groves | top

As autumn paints Lunatia with its golden hues, pumpkin decorations and desserts are now in vogue. This is thanks to Chroma-infused pumpkin seeds, which allow them to rapidly grow in all sorts of sizes, shapes, and colors. The Moonblessed are invited to visit one of the largest pumpkin patches in the city housed within the Greatmoon Groves, where they can enjoy the sight of oversized, colorful neon and sparkling semi-phallic pumpkins, expertly carved to greet you with their buck-toothed smiles.

A The pumpkin patch is full of toddler-sized creatures called hugbugs. When they are not tending to the pumpkins, they follow the Moonblessed around, requesting hugs and treats in exchange for their obedience.

Reward them and they will do simple errands for you and give you compliments. They will also be your personal hype men, talking up your strengths, talents, and physical assets to all those special someones you’re trying to impress. Once you earn their trust, they will be your friends for life!

Ignore them, hurt them, or bully them, and they will cry and place a curse upon you, reducing your self-esteem to nothing and magically forcing you to cry along with them. The effects of the curse may last for up to a week if you’re not careful! But how could you do such a thing? The hugbugs are sensitive and want somebody to love.

B If you manage to survive your encounter with the hugbugs, you are welcome to join in on the Prismal knitting group and enjoy creating your own fanciful scarf made of Galadrian thread, which is known for its bright, golden sheen and aromatic properties. Give it to a friend or wear it yourself, and you will notice a strange ability to attract animals and insects of all kinds. Live out your Disney Princess fantasy! Or a Hitchcockian nightmare. It’s all a matter of perspective as a whole flock of honking birds comes bounding towards you.

▶ Questions
If you have any questions regarding this test drive meme, please ask them in the Questions thread below.

▶ As a reminder, test drive memes are for new characters only. However, current players are more than welcome to use these prompts for their own posts in the IC communities, personal inboxes, catch-all posts, etc.!
▶ As our test drive memes are game canon, feel free to keep any threads that happen here as canon for your character should they be accepted.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Sounds like a splendid time.

Akutagawa isn't looking forward to the weird occurrences, but he has no choice but to deal with them. Life here might be more bizarre, but if he can survive the slums, the port mafia and their enemies...even Dazai, he believes he can manage. He knows hell better than most people, this world can try to break him.]

It doesn't change anything, I simply have to survive, right?

[Big words, but does anyone expect Akutagawa to err on the side of caution?

Still, he doesn't know much about Ranpo, but he's a lot stronger than he thought. All he knew was his renowned sleuthing skills that the Yokohama police often uses to solve their more difficult cases. There was that recent conflict between both organizations where Ranpo went up against Chuuya and bested him. Akutagawa could even respect that loyalty Ranpo has toward the ADA's president.]

It appears you're no weakling either. Being a ghost, or fending off energy-sucking jellyfish is no simple feat.

[F-Forbidden praise...]

[Can he accept this? Would it be weird to be happy about being praised by a mafioso? Especially one with a weird Dazai-thing and an Atsushi-complex?]

[...]

[Well, he's going to anyway. #noshame]

Well, I was a founding member of the ADA. Do you really think we could have come to be so formidable without someone like me leading the way?

[Just don't challenge him to a fight, he's soft and fragile.]

[ Even Akutagawa can give credit to where it is due. Except in the case of Atsushi, he'll rather swallow a can of nails than pay the man-tiger a compliment. Sorry, not sorry.

Akutagawa nods his head in agreement.]

Well, a strong organization isn't just about the brawl, but the brains behind it. The Armed Detective Agency definitely has a few good heads on their shoulders.

[ He'll have to say the Port Mafia did have very strong members, but their boss isn't just an expert at his ability, he's highly intelligent as well. He knows he's the reason why the Port Mafia has grown so much under his command, and even Akutagawa wouldn't make allegiance with a fool.]

[Yeah, he might question whether Aku was still cursed by the hugbugs if he started singing Atsushi's praises.]

You're not wrong about that.

[It was one of the reasons the ADA was able to stand up to the likes of the mafia in the first place. In terms of sheer brute force, naturally their numbers were lacking.]

Ah, but moonlacing and chroma aren't the only thing you should know about. There's also the moonblessings -- strange changes that effect moonblessed depending on which moon is full.

And if that sounds like some kind of weird video mechanic to you-- don't worry, I thought the same thing.

[Ranpo, does Akutagawa look like someone who plays video games?]

[ Though moonblessed, moonlacing and moonblessings he's seeing a theme there.]

Depending on which moon is full? So there are different moons then?

[He's able to gather that the different moons affect them in different ways. But what does he mean by strange?]

[He looks like a hot topic mall goth, so yes.]

Yep, three of them, actually! Sanguis, Cordis, and Iris. Everyone has one that seems to affect them, but I don't think there's a way of checking until it just happens.

Mine is Cordis. And if you had run into me a few days earlier when the Cordis moon was full-- I would have had a pair of cat ears growing out of my head.

[Rude!]

[Akutagawa records all the names of the moons to memory, and he's taken aback when Ranpo mentions how his moon affected him.]

Cat ears?

[Akutagawa's gaze sharpens as Ranpo explains sprouting cat ears, trying to determine if the detective is lying. It doesn't appear to be false, so he concludes that things do get stranger. Not only does he have to worry about moonlacing, now he has to consider changes to his outward appearance too.]

Is that an attribute of that particular moon, then?

[Thankfully the results didn't seem permanent since Ranpo no longer dons those feline appendages]

One of 'em, yeah. There's a few animals associated with each moon, but it feels like the list just keeps growing.

[Ranpo's only ever been a catboy so far, but he's definitely seen some wacky things.]

But it's not just appearance, either. Some of them can grant temporary abilities, and some can even change your personality -- I've been pretty lucky not to get any of those, but some people have it pretty rough.

[ Akutagawa seems interested in the temporary abilities incentive, but he frowns at the potential of having his personality altered. It does seem disorienting, and he hadn't even experienced any of it yet.

He's even more curious when Ranpo mentions that other people have had it a lot worse. Well, he rather an idea of how bad it can be, so he better brace for himself.]

Rough as in...?

[....]

[He did this to himself-- but like hell he's going to give specific examples.]

Rough as in-- well, if your moon doesn't really align with your normal personality, it'd be weird for it to suddenly change, right? Sanguis moonblessed become really violent and possessive -- and a good chunk of the ADA here is Sanguis.

[Hm, is Ranpo blushing?? Nonsense, that's just his imagination!!]

I've heard Iris moonblessed get really physically affectionate -- so that one would probably be weird for someone like you.

[ Akutagawa remains deadpan as usual. However, he can tell his question might have been a bit more personal than he thought. Though, it's only natural for people to draw from their own experiences.

However, when Ranpo mentions that Iris moonblessed tends to be more affectionate, and how that could be problematic for him, the mafioso's face does scrunch up in disgust.]

I hardly believe I will succumb to that.

[Hmph. How dare you even suggest such a thing!]

Well, you better hope so, or you're gonna end up with one weird reputation...

[Ah yes, Akutagawa, that murder-coat wearing resting-rage-face guy who hates everything... but just wants to be held and petted a few days out of the month during the full moon.]

I haven't heard of anyone finding a way around them yet, but they're not always that bad, at least.

[ Akutagawa frowns. Not that he cares what anyone thinks of him, but he would prefer if he didn't have a weird reputation. Thank you very much.]

Not bad? I'm not sure about that.

[Akutagawa hasn't experienced it for himself, but he already hates it. Whichever moon decides to bless him didn't matter, he'll want to hide away from everyone due to embarrassment.]

In situations like these, I'm envious of those who can go along with the flow.

▶ TDM .009

no subject

1/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject