TDM #1 - Welcome to the Fae Wild, Winter Edition

[faewildmods]

'You find yourself wandering through a forest of strange colors. The last thing you remember is a strange ring of mushrooms in a riot of shades, singing to you in ethereal tones, tempting you and telling you to step in the midst them to discover riches beyond measure. As you do, a bright white light flashes before your eyes. When your sight returns, the forest of bizarre trees and plants looms before and around you.

As you step forward, laughter—deep and menacing and also light and tinkling—follows your footsteps. Yelling, questioning, gets you nowhere. Only a narrow path of stones allows you to avoid the foliage that seems to want to eat you alive. If you step off of the path, you find vines wrap around your legs, dragging you into the dark interior of the forest, until you wake up later, your body covered in strange symbols that will disappear after a few days. For those wise enough to not tempt fate and stay on the path, soft blue lights—fairies of indeterminate sex—appear, and beckon you to follow them down the path through the trees. A few hours of walking brings you to a village of stone and wooden thatched houses that appear as if they're both brand new and ancient at the same time.

A creature that at once appears to be monstrously beautiful and hideously decrepit steps forward to greet you, holding out a small silver hand mirror with a smile that makes your blood run cold (if you have any sense). "Welcome to the Fae Wild, child. This is the domain of the Handmaiden of the Sidhe Queens. Come with me. The others are waiting. All will be explained once we are gathered." It is then that you see the others spoken of, people that look almost.... normal and just as confused and angry as you are.

Dare you step forward to learn your fate?'

☙ Arrival ☙

So, you’ve survived the trip down the path and made it to the village that is the heart of the Fae Wild. The Handmaiden and her helpers, mostly pixies, brownies and some sylph and dryads, are handing out silver hand mirrors to all of the newcomers. Once you’re all gathered, the Handmaiden will explain that you’ve been brought here with the promise of riches and treasure through the magical fairy rings. While you’re here, you will be expected to assist the fae creatures in the activities the Handmaiden has picked for you to do.

If you agree to it, you will be richly rewarded. If you refuse? Well, how much do you enjoy the thought of being put under a cloche jar for a while? Don’t worry. You’ll be able to breathe in there. It wouldn’t be good to have someone die on their first day after all. After securing your agreement, your mirror will flash five times, and tapping the surface shows a letter-type of message in flowing script, telling you how to reach your new cottage during your stay.

Questions to the fae may or may not be answered, but never fear. They want you alive. For now.



☙ Winter Proofing The Realm ☙

As the first frost strikes the land of the Fae Wild, all the pixies and brownies are running around to make sure that the cottages, huts and communal buildings are ready for the blast of the Winter Queen’s Full Power. The sylphs and dryads are plucking flowers and bringing in as many fruit trees and bushes inside so that they can continue to provide food for the upcoming season.

Hunting parties are being arranged to stock up on meat. Other groups are being formed to fish in the lakes. (Beware of the kelpie. They bite.) You can also offer to chop wood, check all of the buildings for any repairs that need to be done, and preserve some of the more delicate foods. Just because this is a land of magic doesn’t mean that they’re immune to the change in the seasons.

Player characters are highly encouraged by all of the faeries to join in during this time. Anyone who does will find themselves given three times the berries during this particular activity.

☙ Glimpses of the Winter Court ☙

As the Winter Solstice approaches, glimpses of the Winter Sidhe (faeries of the highest order) can be caught as they travel around the whole of the Fae Realm. Frost Trolls that look like walking chunks of ice that only a mother (and maybe the Winter Queen) could love are currently pushing out the remnants of the dryads and sylphs to make room for themselves and their kind. If you look carefully, a tall horned man leading a pack of dogs and being followed by a lot of vicious looking creatures has begun to prowl and the nights are filled with the braying of His Hunting Party as they look for prey.

Asking the normal denizens of the Fae Wild will win you the name of Der Erlking and his Grand Hunting Party. Anyone caught out after dark alone will find themselves picked for the “special honor” of being prey or asked to spend the night as one of His hounds.

Occasionally, a beautiful, pale woman strolls around. She is never alone, as her entourage of grimalkin (large, black cat-like beasts) are always in attendance. Sometimes, she appears melancholic and at others, she is regal, cool and distant. Anyone foolish to try to approach her will find themselves face to face with the largest of the grimalkin who calls himself Cait Sith. And he suffers fools never.

☙ Here Comes Santa Claus ☙

Winter has definitely arrived with the first snow. Plenty of elves in striped stockings and funny shoes with bells on their toes are running around the village, demanding that all the buildings be covered in holly and evergreens. Others are hastily baking as many biscuits and cakes as they can. Player characters are not immune to the assumption of assistance. Anyone caught resisting them will find themselves suddenly about the size of a five year old, wearing the very familiar garb of ‘Santa’s Little Helpers’ and being pushed by one of the elves that calls themself The Taskmaster.

If one asks why the elves are doing this, they will find out that they’re making preparations to keep Santa Claus out of the Handmaiden’s domain. These particular elves are escapees from Santa’s sweatshop in the Winter Court, where he forces them to slave away making toys for human children with no pay, no insurance, and with only gruel to eat for every meal year round. The only way to keep him away from this area—since he’s such an important member of the Winter Queen’s Court—is to decorate it with plants of the season and to leave a gift outside the houses. It can be food, berries or shiny objects, but the Big Man must be appeased.

Of course, should you choose to not help, come the time of the 25th of December, Santa might just come and visit your house.

Welcome to our first Test Drive Meme! We encourage you to please play around and have fun. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask here. (Or elsewhere!)
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Matt Murdock | Marvel Television

[sine_metu]

Arrival

It’s the lack of sensation that startles Matt the most. His world is dark. It’s always dark but there’s no reassuring flashes of flame in his senses. The world on fire and flood of sensory information he’s used to is… gone. There’s darkness.

He’s not senseless. Luckily. It’s exactly like when he first lost his sight. Before the chemicals pushed his other senses into overdrive. It is incredibly disorienting.

A woman is kindly explaining things about fairies, riches, and helping out. Something is pushed into his hands and after feeling over the surface Matt figures out it’s a mirror. He almost drops it because mirrors are pointless even with his stronger senses. The woman insists though and makes sure it stays in his hand.

“And, of course, we’ll make sure you have help!” She claps her hand and Matt feels something buzz past his head with a little tinkle of laughter. “This pixie will make sure you get to where you need to be. Oh, one more thing before you go.”

A smooth… stick is given to him. It’s clearly wood but sanded down so it’s easy to hold. Matt taps around with it for a bit and it’s close to his cane but stiffer. Better than nothing until he can figure out where he is and why he’s lost his senses.

“Thank you,” he says because the nuns raised him well even if he’s confused and still a bit disoriented.

The pixie tugs on his hand to get Matt moving. He taps the stick ahead of him, learning more and more as he goes. Unpaved street. Muffled sounds. Snow. Cold. Buildings around him given how the sound bounces they’re probably wood.

Matt is remembering how to navigate the world without super senses as he makes his way through the village, occasionally nudged by a pixie but it’s slow going.

—

Winter Proofing the Realm

They’ve given Matt a fairly simple task, much to his frustration. Whatever it is about this place that dampens his senses back to normal it makes Matt restless and eager to prove he can still handle work, real work. Admittedly, even if he had his senses he would still operate like a normal blind person but he’s not used to the limitations yet.

He sits on a bench with a basket of walnuts on his right side lightly touching his thigh so he knows where it is. There’s another basket between his feet full of shells. On his left is the third basket with the actual walnuts freed from their shells.

A simple, easy task that a few of the elderly are doing as well. Matt assumes they’re elderly given the sound of their voices which are deeper and rougher. Whomever handed him the nutcracker had wrinkled hands, skin soft and delicate with age. As he works he’s listening to them talk about the coming winter, taking in as much information as possible.

He stops when he feels the weight on the bench change meaning someone has sat down with him. Matt turns his head in their direction.

“Just need a minute to rest?” he asks because there’s a lot going on. The noisescape beyond the gossiping elderly tells him that though it’s difficult to distinguish the fine details. Matt really misses his stronger senses.

—

Glimpses of the Winter Court

“What’s going on?” Matt asks, both hands clasped around his walking stick.

He can hear horses and dogs. It sounds like a lot of them. The vibrations coming through his walking stick also tell him it’s a large gathering of people. There’s a change in the air that’s harder to quantify as well.

Things feel… tense. Even with the noise there’s a reverent and fearful… silence around him. Whatever is happening with this large group it’s made people uneasy.

Matt rubs his fingers against his walking stick as he feels his own sense of anxiety. The feeling is a flash of helplessness for a second. Matt takes a deep breath and pushes it away. He is not helpless without his senses. Stick trained him better than that. He needs to focus and adapt but he is not helpless.

“It sounds like something important?” he asks the person nearest him. “Or is it just rush hour traffic?”

He flashes a smile, probably coming across as earnest and a little bit dorky both of which are true. If Foggy was around he’d be narrating things for Matt which helped immensely. His pixie helper doesn’t really talk much, just directs him when he needs it. He needs to rely on other people for details of the world around him.

Hopefully, whomever he’s talking to is willing to engage a stranger in conversation.

—

Here Comes Santa Claus(e)
The jingling is a little annoying because it’s hard to hear past it but Matt’s doing what he does best and that’s talk. He thinks there’s three or four of the elves around him, listening to him talk about labor laws.

This realm doesn’t have them but what he knows about fairies from fairy tales is that they like deals and wordplay. Matt, as a lawyer, also likes those things. He makes a living arguing. There’s no law library to read here but he’s studied enough cases in law school.

“A labor union is an organization that represents the collective interests of the workers in negotiations with employers,” Matt explains. “The goal is to maintain or improve the conditions of employment. An organized workforce has more power than the owners of the business. His entire profit margin comes from your labor. What happens when you take that labor away?”

A collective murmur goes through the elves.

“Unfortunately, you can no longer form a union because you’ve left the organization but if you can somehow get word to the elves that are still working for Santa Claus I might be able to help them organize and negotiate better terms.”

Another murmur, this one disappointed. And then a voice shouts about getting back to work. An elf shoves what feels and smells like a garland of evergreen into Matt’s hands. Elves scatter and someone comes stomping past, muttering about lazy good for nothing helpers.

Matt makes an attempt to hang the garland around his door but he’s having some trouble and the elves are busy elsewhere. Hopefully talking about labor organization.

—

Wildcard

Feel free to drop a different starter if you want a thread with Matt.

Glimpses of the Winter Court

[rosepaean]

If there was someone here standing alongside the Eladrin, well it would achieve one valuable thing and that was to take his mind off the bitter sting of winter and memories of that dark time within his cycle of Seasons. So as the other man asked for descriptions of what was before him, the sound of jingles and the baying of hounds, he would rest a steadying hand on Matt's forearm and then he spoke, a voice like hot cocoa-- comforting and warm.

"There is not too much surprise, in fact there is a bit of retreating going on from the surrounding fae." in the distance, slamming doors that echoed in the space of audible just underneath the noise of action, and the scent of snow grew sharper even though not even a speck of snow had fallen as of yet.

"Although we are sheltered within some trees, and as such we have escaped noticed." he said this with a patient smile that could be sensed within the words, it was the tone that was conveyed simply; and because Kristophe did not sense any immediate danger, that was why he did not make any move to walk away. There was the howl of transformation as one of the Fae is caught, and it catches like a whistle through the air-- and that metamorphizes seamlessly into the barking of a hound who is then hooked up to the sled by some attendants.

[sine_metu]

Matt appreciates the attempt at narration. The guy is trying to be helpful, clearly.

"Why are people retreating?" he asks, trying to prompt a more helpful answer from the guy. "It sounds like there's a lot of dogs and horses. I think they're horses."

It sounds like horses with the snorting and heavy vibrations. Matt's never been around horses very often except for the rare occasion he crossed paths with the NYPD's mounted officers.

Hopefully he can get a better understanding of the noise going on around him. Figuring out the world entirely through sound is more difficult than people imagine. Matt just needs someone to tell him what's actually happening in front of them.

[rosepaean]

"They are retreating because there is fear for this person who is riding through the winter, he just turned a stray fae into a hound and is now hitching him to some sort of contraption." he said this carefully as he observed from a safe distance. Unfortunately he does not have his spells or else he could fully assist in escaping detection, however what Kris is doing is blending into the green and the leaves.

"It feels though like this is expected, like it is a yearly sort of tradition. Those that have left, had the look about them that this was not the first time it happened. I attribute this to a Fae mystery steeped in some sort of ritualistic tradition."

Kris had heard something in passing perhaps 20 minutes before. "It's a hunt of sorts, to claim souls to power his ride through the forest."

[sine_metu]

"We should help," Matt says immediately.

If he had his heightened senses he would already be moving to step in and protect people. He's not helpless or unable to help right now but he needs to be more careful, more focused. And he has someone with him which always makes things complicated.

"Can we lead him away from others?" Matt's not against playing bait for this hunter. He's not sure he'd make a tempting target in his current state. Hunters like a challenge in his experience. A blind man doesn't seem like much of a challenge.

Matt will figure out something though. He's not going to let innocent people get hurt.

[rosepaean]

Now Kris was not someone who minded too much assisting or giving aid, he was after all a cleric but he knew that he would have to think creatively to figure out how he would be of any use in this endeavor. The staff he was leaning against currently was not his standard Scythe, however he was game if Matt needed assistance.

He was going to suggest the obvious; in this matter it was not something where one could avoid not using bait. "He is very focused on the hunt, and I do not think that anything is going to drag him out except for the promise of another game." And also there was the strong possibility that this could backfire and they would be turned into hounds as well.

This was rather strong Feywild bullshit. "If that is a course we should pursue then I will support you." even though inwardly Kris was making the mental calculations as to how much feywild bullshit this would get them into, and the possible ramifications.