TEST DRIVE ∞ May 2025

[thediadem]

Test Drive ∞ May 2025

The First Collision

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Jump ⇅ :: Arrival — Panorama — Fringes — Invite Request

The Diadem is an invite-only panfandom game set in a retro-futuristic world where uprooted souls find themselves deep within an eerie wasteland of roads and highways frequently assailed by cosmic storms. Three united strongholds keep the population. Its capital is Panorama, a large metropolis at the planet's center.

Soon, you realize you aren't alone. Calling themselves fluxdrifts, the "locals" have similar stories to you, either for themselves or their ancestry. You speak to an old woman who claims she hailed from another star. You meet a young man who says his great-great-grandfather knew a strange language everybody spoke "back home." As you explore, you stumble across a coin you recognize or your sister's locket. How did it get here? What does this mean? That's for you to discover.

But first, you need to find a ride.

No invites needed to play on the TDM. Everyone's welcome! Use the Invite Request thread below to request an invite from another player.

∞ Summary ∞

IC-wise, arrivals are scattered throughout the month. Events described on the TDM are also ongoing throughout the month. If you'd rather jump right into the action, you're free to begin in media res with your character having already been on the planet for several days.

Post-impact, characters will wake up in a med tent by the Scrapyard. From there, they must accept a vehicle on loan and make the 2-hour drive to the nearest city, Panorama. If they refuse the car because they don't want the loan, they'll be in debt for medical bills instead...so just take the car. It'll come in handy.

Some things to keep in mind when bringing in your character:

• Pick an injury. At minimum, they got knocked out; at most, whatever they can recover from. Medicine is decently advanced so they'll heal faster if not painlessly.
• Decide items kept. Reasonable items on their person only: photos, keys, clothes, costumes. No pets or animal companions. Wildly out-of-place tech and personal cell phones will be damaged beyond repair.
• Select a weapon. Do this only if eligible. Guidelines about weapons and powers are on the FAQ.
• Choose a vehicle. Decide whether your character gets 2-3 options or if they're stuck with something they hate. Players can pick directly from our collection or source their own images. Anything under a similar aesthetic will work. If your character needs accommodations for driving, they can have them. Ask us for details.
• Get a phone. Characters have to obtain a phone (and a SIM card) themselves. If they've got one from home, it's damaged beyond repair. Phones are cheap. It'll only take a couple of weeks to afford one. You need to know the number before you text or call anyone. Read about phones and the Forum before you hop on it.

TDM threads can be canon if characters are accepted. Top-levels made to the TDM should be open to all.

TDM Questions? Here — Game Questions? FAQ

Setting — Taken — Reserves — Applications ::: ⇅ Top

Fluxdrift

Arrival & Introduction

Date: Throughout May

You've tumbled over a cliff. You were fighting for your life. You're on the cusp of death. You slipped in the shower. Whatever the catalyst, you struggle to cling to consciousness. As darkness overtakes you, a swirling vortex warps light and shadow in a way that defies all physics. A dark wail etches into your very bones. You couldn't describe it if you tried. You can barely comprehend what it is.

Then you open your eyes.

Through the figure's mask ©, you swear the face is grinning down at you. The tent you're in smells of antiseptic, and scratchy blankets line your cot. Injuries you've sustained have been bandaged. In the corner, you spot a MedBot that's fixed you up. Depending on the extent of your injuries, the doctor on duty might give you some painkillers before you go. Thankfully, your belongings are by the exit. Sorry if anything's damaged. Your landing was pretty rough.

You follow the figure outside. They are Yom Crook, here to lend a hand to fellow fluxdrifts like yourself. Their car's parked beside them. Actually, there are lots of cars around, but Yom Crook's stands out with its painted shark mouth. They explain they found you, unconscious, in a diffusion zone and brought you here. The nearest city is a 2-hour drive northeast. Forget about walking. You'll never make it. Also, you owe the doctor a lot of money for patching you up. But you're in luck: they've got some wheels for you and if you accept the vehicle on loan, Yom Crook will cover your medical bills. That's a good deal, right? It's not the shiniest car or motorcycle, but it'll do. If fortune favors, you'll get to choose between two or three options. Plus, if you need accommodations to drive—like adjustments to your seat height or modified controls—you'll receive all that for free.

Take the vehicle. (And the loan.) Yom Crook assures you that you'll have six months before collectors come around. Any time you're ready to pay a part of it down, return here to the Scrapyard. You'll get a receipt and everything. Paying off the loan in six months isn't impossible, but it will take a lot of work. Just don't get too lax. There's a good chance you'll be juggling multiple loans as you try to get by.

You either know how to drive, or you'll have a bare-bones manual to get you started. Road rules are more a suggestion than enforced, so just hit the pedal and go. The car has some basic features. The built-in compass will help you navigate.

OPTIONAL PROMPTS: a flat tire; a body on the road (is it a trap?); a fender bender

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Panorama

Explore & Settle In

Conditions: Warm spring temperatures, light showers

After 2 hours on the road, you find civilization. The largest of the strongholds, Panorama is where the economy thrives. Massive power plants glowing red make it visible from a distance. The city is divided into three districts. For now, you can access the Pavilion and the Blocks. Don't worry about the Sanctum; they're not letting you in.

You only need to know two things about Panorama: 1) it's big, the size of a modern metropolis, and you'll need your car to get around; 2) anything goes as long as you don't pick a fight with the wrong person. Street smarts will get you far. Despite its geographical size, the population isn't huge. With roughly a million people in a city designed for over twice that number, Panorama is far from deserted, but nor is it overcrowded. It's a good thing. Resources are limited as it is.

The Pavilion: Free Samples

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Like any large city, Panorama features a couple of supermarkets. The stock's not as consistent as a proper supermarket. On occasion, shelves can remain cleaned out for a week or two. Regardless, the long tradition of free samples remains. If you're not already shopping, you'll notice the crowded parking lot and clusters of lines inside.

Try samples, push through the crowds as you shop, or give yourself a five-finger discount. If you're cautious, you can pocket a few small items without consequences. The Pavillion doesn't have the infrastructure for surveillance; unless someone sees you, you won't be caught. Steal from the store or pilfer someone's wallet. Maybe you even make a new friend if you bump into another fluxdrift. Or, start a fight with somebody who cut you off in the cheese line. Don't make too much of a ruckus, or you'll be thrown out.

As you look around, you'll see posters advertising temporary positions for the cash register or graveyard shifts in the warehouse. Seems they might've lost several employees recently (how'd that happen?), which is good for you! It's just a 6-week position, but it'll get you on your feet. The city has temporary positions like this all over. Permanent ones are harder to come by when you're new.

Samples include: steamed cabbage dumplings, synthetic cherry juice, cheddar cheese, and chocolate-covered alien eggs (it's crunchy and weirdly tasty). They're served in the usual throwaway paper cups with little toothpicks.

The Blocks: Power Outage

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Power's finicky in Panorama, especially in the Blocks. Saint Margery's Hospital, located in the same area, has priority for power so the first to go are the motels. Maybe you've been in your room for a couple of weeks, maybe you just got here—and by the way, every motel desk is happy to put the fee on your tab if you don't have the money upfront—but all the motels on the east side are in a blackout, leaving only the west side motels up and running.

What do you do? You have three choices:

• Risk leaving your room and head to the other side where there's power. Knock on some doors and negotiate with another to share the room. They might shut the door in your face, ask for a favor in return, or be nice enough to help you with no strings attached. There's no guarantee your unattended room will be untouched, though, and you'll be on the hook for any damages an intruder causes.
• Sit in the dark and deal. It's not the worst idea, but the TV's down, the vending machines are powered down, and with the entire place plunged into darkness, you risk getting robbed. If you struggle with defending yourself, you might want to find some trustworthy company. You can also sneak out of there and let them take your leftover pizza. It's not like you've got a ton of valuables, right? Plus, clobbering someone in the face with a frying pan sounds great until you realize you've gotta do something with the body. And what if this person's got a friend waiting?
• Get in your car and drive (or grab a friend for a road trip). If you scroll the Forum, you might notice reports on diffusion zones southward. Besides, these motels are hardly your forever home. The city can only provide so much. Why not go for a ride and see what you can find out there?

OPTIONAL PROMPTS: clean up on aisle 3 (what is that goo?); a knock at your door but no one's there; you hear screaming or a commotion down the hall

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The Fringes

Quad 3: Lockdown

Conditions: Stormy, with flooding roads

Felix Bjurstrom
> Date: 125-05-17
> Time: 02:15:57

> Emergency road lights have been reported in Quadrant 3! Please, can someone go see what's there? When last we chasers investigated emergency lights, a whole truck filled with sour candy had tipped over. Our stores were stocked for weeks! Oh, be careful - reception looks bad in that zone.

Whether you end up here on your own or you were following a tip on the Forum, the outcome is the same: you come to a stop in front of a 2-story office building that's flooded several inches deep. Emergency lights from a roadblock flicker through the stormy night. Stepping out of your car, you're soaked within seconds. When you check your phone, you don't have any bars. No calls in or out.

Through the open windows, a computer awakens and displays a cheerful smile. The lights inside switch on.

Pick your scenario role below. Your thread partner doesn't need to take the opposite role! They can join you in the same scenario (i.e. trapped together). Players are also free to create a generic NPC for the other side to facilitate the thread.

After characters escape, they'll find one bottle of antibiotics in their pocket or car, whether they remember taking it or not.

A: Sealed In
As you peer through the windows, you see crates of medicine floating around. Antibiotics in the diadem are valuable. Hospitals and doctors are always buying. You can keep it for yourself or make a quick buck. Or maybe you're compelled to help somebody back in the city who's in need. Whatever the reason, you decide to take the risk and step inside.

Water splashes around your ankles. The lock buzzes behind you. If you try to break the windows, you discover they're unnaturally resistant to shattering. With the whole place locked tight, the water begins to churn. Then the computer lights up again.

Warning, it flashes in large, bold text. Quarantine in progress. Release code required for exit.

• To find the code, you'll have to search. Duck under the water, go through sopping envelopes and sticky notes or pick the locks on the filing cabinets and desk drawers. You can also try hacking the computers. Use your computer knowledge or fall back on the age-old trick of seeing who wrote down their password.
• The files, notepads, and emails start innocuous, but as you look through them, disturbing phrases jump out at you—a dark thought you've had or a cruel taunt from someone in your past. The longer you're fixed on the terrible words, the higher the water begins to rise. Only another can break you out of your trance.
• With the rising water comes fear. And the more you're afraid, the more the water also rises. You begin to see faces in the water, bobbing like balloon heads. Do you recognize them? If you move to take a closer look, they will sink back beneath the surface as if never there.
• If you manage to swallow your panic, you can eventually find a triple-laminated binder with the release code and instructions. Bad news: you need someone on the outside to punch in the 6 strange symbols in order. The instructions explain that the code panel is located at the back of the building.

Let's hope a friendly face comes along.

B: Set Free
As you peer through the windows, you see not just the crates of medicine but someone trapped inside. They look like they might be in trouble, and from your vantage point, you notice that the water is bubbling strangely. It's definitely not normal rainwater. As you watch, the water rises unnaturally, stopping and starting. It's as if the water level is responding to an external stimulus.

• The glass is soundproof. You can't hear what the person inside is saying, so you'll have to communicate with each other another way. Try charades, typing on your phone, or whatever you think of. Eventually, you determine that they're stuck and that you need to enter some sort of code onto a pad located—according to your trapped partner—at the back of the building.
• Around the back, shadows swallow your surroundings. The panel must be pried open, but a slippery substance makes it hard to get a good grip. Each time the substance touches you, you grow uneasy. You swear you see eyes watching you, though when you turn around, nothing's there.
• You can't seem to keep the instructions in your mind. And those symbols...they burn into your retinas. Through them, you glimpse an incomprehensibly massive figure unfurling in the darkness, pulsing as if in a deep sleep. When you snap back to reality, you realize you've injured yourself, slicing your hand on a sharp edge or a bruise you can't remember getting.
• Once you manage to release the doors, the water inside the office drains upward into the sky as though sucked out by a giant hose. The darkness spreads. Get out of there fast before the shadows drag you or your partner into the void.

Of course, you don't have to help anyone. You can leave the individual there, make a deal, or outright extort them. But remember, you're not the only person on these roads. You might want to play your cards carefully, even if altruism isn't your first instinct.

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Comments

[mechatheism]

[Viktor's choosing this form means that it came with some instructions--luckily for Fern, he doesn't underestimate his own strength, even as she struggles against his grip. If he understands that it's the knife she's concerned about, he certainly doesn't show it, though he doesn't show much of anything like this, staring down at her with expressionless yellow eyes.

What he does seem to understand is that she is going to keep stabbing him. The shove doesn't move him, but the thrusting knife is annoying, and perhaps he's slightly offended that she's trying to attack, rather than talk.

It occurs to him, while she attempts to drive the knife into the gaps and ridges of his metal body, that he hasn't yet attempted to access his powers. Now seems like as good a time as any. The hexclaw arcs above his head, sparking with purple energy--for a moment it seems like it might unleash some sort of electrical discharge, but instead it cycles through a series of runes that illuminate like a halo around him.

Fern will find, after only a moment, that her feet have left the ground. With another rotation, the force of gravity pushes her away until she's hovering several feet away, out of stabbing range.]

Please stop.

[longtooth]

[ As soon as Fern gets a proper grip on her dagger again, she does go in for another stab, aiming for the space between what looks like a pelvic bone. The shove was useless and she doesn't even have the advantage of capturing this enemy by surprise, so it limits her options. For some reason, running or even talking hasn't occurred to her. In this strange and unexpected situation, what else could she anticipate but yet another fight?

Her stab is yet again futile, and soon after the towering skeletal figure reacts, a third limb lifting up to rotate and flash with a set of magical symbols. They mean nothing to her, but she knows they can't be good, likely signaling a spell of some kind. She tenses, prepared to dodge in a roll to the side so she can avoid any blast that comes from the claw-like appendage.

But she doesn't get the chance. Instead, she levitates, completely against her own will, hanging uselessly in the air. She struggles against the unnatural feeling, trying to regain her own footing, but it's to no avail, her legs flailing. And the creature can no longer be reached by her blade, either.

It speaks.

She glares at it, teeth bared. Her voice comes out as a snarl. ]

Are you one of Strahd's? What do you want?

[mechatheism]

[He takes no further chances, keeping her as far away from his as possible, even as (especially as) she tries to flail back within reach. The knife doesn’t hurt, but it is unpleasant. Viktor reminds himself that he must appear monstrous, and those here from other worlds may have other associations. He’s obviously never heard of this Strahd, but the idea that there might be something or someone similar to him out there in the universe is not exactly a good feeling.

He’ll keep her suspended, for now.]

I want you to stop trying to stab me.

[Beyond being useless, it is sort of rude.]

I’m not going to harm you, but I will defend myself, if necessary.

[longtooth]

[ Even if Fern has never seen a creature quite like this in Barovia, it's not as if it would be so out of place there either. It's also her primary reference point in the moment. This place is nothing like what she knows of either her home or Barovia, but given that Strahd could very well have constructed all of it, she's going to assume the worst before anything else.

Still, it's talking to her. With some amount of reason.

While that may be a way of lulling her into letting her guard down, this spell doesn't seem to be letting up any time soon. She heaves out a sigh and goes limp, eyes narrowing as she looks the strange armored figure up and down. ]

You didn't answer my other question. Is Strahd behind this?

[ While she's still gripping onto her dagger, it's at least held at her side now and she isn't actively making any attempts to stab the armor. Just how long does it intend to suspend her like this? Unsurprisingly, some other people in the scrapyard are starting to look, though no one seems to want to get directly involved, deeming it not their problem. ]

[mechatheism]

I don’t recognize that name.

[There might be the slightest hint of irritation in his voice, though he still sounds slightly impassive—and, of course, his blank expression betrays nothing. He will note that she’s dropped the knife, but until he’s certain she won’t hurt herself trying to hurt him, she’ll remain in anti-gravity jail for the time being.]

I am displaced here the same as you are.

[longtooth]

[ Fern does pick up on that slight shift in the armor's tone (Insight: 19), but if anything, it makes her think twice. A pawn of Strahd's with no orders other than to bring an end to his enemies wouldn't have a need to express emotion like this.

So this thing has ended up here, the same as her? How? From where? And if it's from Barovia, it should know Strahd.

The questions only mount, but she's still hanging here. Someone does eventually call over, asking if everything's all right, but she waves them off with her free hand before returning her attention to that metal face-plate. ]

Then we have no quarrel. You can put me down.

[mechatheism]

[Viktor keeps Fern suspended for a few long, silent moments, seemingly distrustful that she isn't just going to try and stab him again. Eventually, however, he relents, figuring it's not productive to stare at each other like this. It isn't as though she can hurt him, though he is tentatively intrigued that he might be something recognizable, to her. An uncomfortable thought, to think about beings like him in other worlds.

He'll set her down, gently, and also several feet away from him.]

[longtooth]

[ If Fern had really wanted to make a point of it, she could have tried to scream bloody murder, to cry for help, and it's likely that anyone in the area would have assumed she was the one being mistreated, with this statuesque, imposing creature hoisting her up like a fish on a line.

That would have been a terrible last resort, though; drawing attention to herself is never her first choice.

Her feet hit the ground gently, allowing her to regain her balance, and then silence stretches out between the two of them. Fern shakes out her limbs and heaves out a sigh. ]

Do you remember how you got here? I was on my way somewhere, and then— [ She lifts a hand to the red-stained bandage wrapped around her head and grunts. ] I don't know. I just know I shouldn't be here.

[ And how surreal, that she's now talking to this... thing. ]

[mechatheism]

[Luckily, Viktor doesn’t see the point of remaining hostile now that the apparent misunderstanding is past them. Still, he maintains a respectable distance, still eyeing the knife in her hand.

He does, in fact, remember how he arrived here. He’s not sure it applies to anyone else, but he supposes there’s no harm in offering her data.]

Yes. I experienced a…significant discharge of magical energy. There was no inciting incident, for you?

[longtooth]

[ A discharge of magical energy. That's something that Fern can understand, at least, and it allows her to think back to her own situation. She frowns and stares off, moving her gaze away from the strange figure for the first time since he stumbled out of that tent. ]

I'm... not sure. I was in a carriage, on the way to take on an important mission. My companions and I were on the verge of confronting the vampire lord "Strahd" who I mentioned.

[ She glances back, and while there's no expression to read on that faceplate, she doesn't sense that the living armor knows anything about Strahd despite her initial assumptions. How strange. ]

I think the carriage crashed, and then I was here. Strahd is a powerful magic user, so maybe it was something similar to what you experienced.

[ Some magical surge that flung them to this strange place. ]

[mechatheism]

[Viktor is lucky, in the sense that there is nothing for him back home, and the only desire he feels to return there is so that he can atone for his misdeeds. He'd hypothesized, of course, that it was the acceleration rune that flung himself and Jayce to the edge of the universe, but now he's having second thoughts.

He's sympathetic, though, that she was torn away from something important. He imagines many people here in similar situations. Having similar...complicated feelings, about it.]

Do you think it was his doing?

[Possible, given the way she reacted to him.]