Let's Play A Murder (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
letsplayamod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
letsplayamurder2025-06-09 03:00 am
letsplayamod) wrote in letsplayamurder2025-06-09 03:00 am
Entry tags:
LPM Test Drive
Greetings, mortals.
I thank you for accepting my plea. From across universes, I have summoned you to aid me in bringing light back to this land. Here, though, in this small pocket, we are free to relax for the moment. Steel yourself, and meet with me soon.
There is much to discuss.
Welcome to the official test drive for Let's Play A Murder, an experimental murdergame! Characters will work together to unravel an oncoming threat that strikes each week with something new to tear them apart. For now, tag around with potential picks for the upcoming game and get a feel for that sweet sweet murder CR! If you have any questions, please DM
Threads from this TDM (and others if you so choose) will count towards the RP sample of the applications.
Wherever you were, whatever you were doing... you're not there anymore. Instead, you've awoken on an unfamiliar but very soft bed. The room is sparsely decorated, ornate carvings of heroic figures intermingle on the walls with hairline cracks. This place has seen better days, but, possibly, so have you.
There is a nightstand beside your bed, as naked as anything save for an envelope sealed in wax. Inside is a letter written in a careful hand, welcoming you to this place; a safe area, free of those that would cause harm. Your host had to step away briefly, but she will return. In the meanwhile, she expects everyone to obey the rules of this place.
Included in the envelope was a small bronze key - to your room, no doubt. And luck - it unlocks your door. You're free to venture out into a semicircle of these homes you've found yourself in. And you're not alone, either.
Perhaps you should say hello to your new neighbors.
You've all become acquainted with each other, and met with your gracious benefactor. She had to dip out again, but has left you all with a veritable island paradise to explore. In the center pantheon, large profiles of each of you have been cast in the stone walls, details of your life chiseled beneath them in perhaps too much detail. Along with a set of rules cast on a bronze plaque. Seems straightforward enough.
Beyond that, it seems whatever information you'll gain will only be found by your own hand. You have the free time now, and it's a beautiful day outside. There's plenty to explore among the towering obelisks and half-standing temples. Just avoid trying to leave the edge of the island - a golden barrier will very rudely smack you in the face.
Feel free to make up locations for this. The island is anachronistic with all the amnesties of a modern home.
Purple clown? What? None of that here. But once you've found out where to leave those tribute coins you've 'earned' there's a small pile of items waiting outside your door. Some of which you might even recognize from home.
Or perhaps you've been given twenty wooden cut-outs of... who the heck is this guy.
Training exercises! In order to discern your godly nature, what better way to start than a good, very old-fashioned obstacle course.
Balance across the beams, avoid getting beaned in the head by a swinging bat. Swing from a rope. Or, if you're really feeling up to a challenge, pick up a sword and meet someone's steel with steel.
Or you can sit back and prepare medical supplies. Someone's definitely going to get hurt.
The sky darkens. Lightning overtakes the calm summers day. It's not long before the whole area is under attack.
From the very earth itself, monsters crawl from the ground; undead hands clutching rusted swords and shields. Digging themselves from their graves so that they can put you in yours. Somewhere, distantly, your mentor yells to take up arms, and is already lost in her own fray.
It's up to you to defend yourself, or to defend others. There's no honor in running away, but if you need to survive, it's not like anyone would blame you.
Congrats! You've survived the onslaught. But even as the sky clears, an ultimatum has been passed down from on high; if one of your group isn't slain by the end of the week, then the world you belong to will be destroyed.
Surely, nothing would actually be able to accomplish that, but that faint hope doesn't remove the tension from the air.
Seems that someone didn't want to take the chance.
One of your fellows has met with a gruesome end, and if up to you and everyone else to play detective and figure out just who did it. The hourglass is running out. Just try not to trip over any evidence.
Investigation’s done, it’s time for a trial! Perhaps you nailed it and someone's already confessing to their crimes. Perhaps you've been running around in circles, looking for anything that could move the trial forward. Maybe you all just decided to strip down, even if it wasn't necessary. Whatever the case, tensions are still high. Not just because you have to point out a culprit... but you have to lay down punishment for them too.
Majority vote decides, of course. This is a democracy, after all, but you can still waste time dithering on what to do next.
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No. She can control herself. She can be calm. She can have a normal conversation and she thinks out of anyone here, he would understand.]
I know.
[Even if the air is stagnant and still she can imagine her hair whipping in a breeze that shouldn't be there. Their clothing rustling as Death listened. Her eyes go to his hands, his shoes, to various elements of their surroundings--a stick, a rock, one of those discarded priest cutouts someone had tried to shove against the barrier--she can do this. She can keep calm. Keep control. She has to.]
...I cheated Him, too.
[She doesn't say Death. Doesn't want to bring it's attention towards them but she thinks Alex is at least nervous in the same way she is.]
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Very carefully, he turns and takes her in properly. There's something in her stance. Something that he recognizes in his own. The frightened animal. The cautious, careful eyes. ]
You mean you- [ No. That's not the question he should be asking. If it could happen to him. Alex Theodore Browning, all-around normal, nothing special guy, why couldn't someone else see the signs? What he should ask is- ] How do you know me?
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[She doesn't want to say but... she doesn't want it to seem like she stalked him. It was better to explain.] I should have been on that roller coaster. I saw it happen and I freaked out. Some others managed to get off of the rid, too. Then the derailment happened anyway.
[...she's looking down fully now.]
After it I heard about Flight 180. About you. I didn't think it was related but--I think you know what happened next.
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Oh, she— ]
You...had a premonition.
[ That one. That's taking him by surprise. ]
Not just signs—but a fucking vision.
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[She swallows. She doesn't say anything about the highway accident--she thinks he would just explode himself at the moment.]
But He came back for us. That's why I looked up what happened with you--there was too much the same.
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Shit. Holy shit.
[ He's re-calibrating. Give him a moment. ]
You're just like me.
[ ...But. Hopefully not just like. Because— ]
Did you beat it? Did you- did you find a way?
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There’s a pause.] It’s been months since… the last one so possibly but I can’t say that for sure.
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You can't. It's a patient son of a bitch. It'll wait months if It has to. Until your guard is down. You gotta be looking out. Even here.
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[Relentless. Sadistic. Cruel.]
Even now I can feel Him watching us… waiting… plotting.
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Alex runs a hand over the back of his neck. He feels sweaty and nervous already. ]
...I shouldn't even be up and talking, and It- He, Death. Death's gonna be pissed, Wendy. Maybe...you shouldn't hang around me.
[ An impulsive selfish thought in a void of empty nothing, and now Alex is here again, whole, breathing. ]
I don't think It's afraid of a little collateral.
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Alex—Alex! Look at me. I’m on Death’s shit list too, okay? I have a feeling I cheated it again by coming here, too—I don’t know why but I just have a feeling.
[081. 180.]
Even if I stay away from you that’s not going to change. Just—yeah, it might get messy but—just being able to talk to you makes it feel like maybe it all wasn’t just in my head.
[Kevin never really doubted her and Julie… well, she was rebellious. She definitely believed her after the horse, though. Seeing is believing, right? Other people didn’t. That it was just some kind of trauma reaction.
But it happened. And it happened to Alex, too.]
I can’t really tell anyone else here what really happened—!
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He lets out a rough, raspy sigh, running a hand down the back of his neck. ]
O- okay, okay, just— it already got me, alright? You understand that, don't you?
[ He thinks she does. She seems to have a hard time looking at him, after all. ]
cw: some descriptions of gore and allusions to suicide
[She remembers the website. She spent so long pouring over website after website about Flight 180. Someone had painstakingly and lovingly (and disgustingly) collected pictures of the fates of the survivors of that plane. From the first--Tod, strangled to death in a bath tub, though she highly doubted that was suicide despite what the police said--to the charred corpse of Clear. Though, she would never tell Alex about that one...
But of course that meant the website had Alex's own death almost sadistically recreated. The brick... it had done some massive damage.]
Of course I know that but you know if I start talking about visions or whatever, no one else here would believe me!
[It's selfish but... that sense of knowing someone else who believes her? That's something she needs. Even if Death wants them both gone, if they stick together that means Death won't go after the others.]
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Alex Browning started it all. It's only natural that his death became the crowning jewel in their sick, perverse fascination.
But Alex doesn't know any of that. He just knows the look on someone's face when they've seen something too terrible to describe.
He lets out a slow, low exhale, like a rumble in his throat. ]
I know. [ Even Clear had to see it to believe it. ] I know. Just... I gotta make sure...you know, what you're getting involved with. If it finds us here, if it finds me...
[ In death, there are no escapes. And yet here he is. Living and breathing, like he shouldn't.
His voice is soft and raspy. Resigned. ]
...Promise me you'll look out for yourself. Okay?
cw: memories of claustrophobia
But it never gets easier. It never would. She slowly nods. Her breath coming in slow.]
I will... and I know how cruel Death is. I know I need to be careful.
[For a moment she's back in the truck. The person in front of them unmoving. The couple behind peeling off to safety. The word 'control' vanishing from the display board. The radio flicking through channels.
Trying to smash their way out of the truck, the visceral pain flooding her fingers as she repeatedly tried opening the door again and again. Then the...
She swallows.]
I promise, Alex. I don't know how much that's worth but... I'll try.
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That's all either of us can do.
[ Alex lets out a slight sigh. ]
And...you know. Make sure no asshole tries to stab us in the back, unrelated.
[ Alex Browning Does Not Trust Gods This Easily ]