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allthisshitisweird2016-09-15 06:33 pm
faderifting) wrote in allthisshitisweird2016-09-15 06:33 pm
Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE MEME!
Surprise, Beartch
Bet You Thought Etc.
Maybe the Inquisition sent you, maybe you came seeking the Inquisition. Maybe you fell out of a rift into this world last week and are still just trying to find your feet. However it happened, early fall finds you in the Hinterlands. Tucked between Ferelden's massive Lake Calenhad and the icy Frostback Mountains, the Hinterlands are a hilly region covered in patchy forests and small farms trying to eke out a living between the boulders. Though somewhat remote, the area is rich with game and minerals and home to Redcliffe, a bustling town on a busy trade route.
The Inquisition has set up several camps and sent personnel to try to restore order to the region, unwilling to let it slip into chaos. There's a lot to be done, some of it straightforward killing bad things, some of it weird and nebulous morale-building.
I. DRAGONS
There is a dragon in the Hinterlands. Everyone knows this. It's difficult not to notice when a dragon flies overhead with a mouth full of screaming sheep (alas, the poor dead sheep) or scorches your fishing boat and makes you swim for it (alas, the poor soaked fishermen). But she's only rarely sighted, and her lair is as of yet unknown, if "yet" is defined as "the moment before this exact moment, right now." Because you've found her. She is, at this very moment, screeching so loud it rattles the cliff sides that are trapping you in her territory and raining fire down over the only clear path of escape. She and her two dozen children don't care if you only wanted some elfroot and spindleweed. They also don't care if you have a sword. You look way more delicious and less woolly than a sheep.
II. CROSSROADS
In the year since the Inquisition's formation, the Crossroads have changed. Most of the refugees from the Mage/Templar War have moved on--if not back home, to new places--and there's been some progress rebuilding the homes and fortresses ruined by the war. Very few people are still living in caves. But rather than quieting down, the Crossroads have begun to bustle. Between the Inquisition's locally stationed forces and the increasing number of travelers and merchants now that the roads are safer, there's enough business to support a tavern with a few rooms for rent, and the Crossroads are becoming a trading post in their own right rather than a dot of houses on the path to Redcliffe--a great place to stop for a drink, to buy basic weaponry, or to unload all of the bear skins you've collected.
III. BEARS
You have turned the wrong corner, forded the wrong stream, crested the wrong hill, entered the wrong cave. Maybe you are far from camp. Maybe you are in camp. Whatever has happened, wherever you are: you are being chased by bears. Did you provoke the bears? Are they huge? Babies? Fade-touched? Mage-controlled? What are they chasing you away from? What are they chasing you into? What do you plan to make out of their hide if you kill them? What do you think they'll craft out of your hide if they kill you?
IV. CRYSTALS
Members and trusted agents of the Inquisition are given access to one of the Inquisition's stores of ancient, mysterious sending crystals, allowing them to communicate instantaneously by voice. It's magic. And a magical excuse to ask everyone what their favorite constellation is in the middle of the night.
Or to call for help because you've been treed by bears.
Either way.
V. MISCELLANEOUS
Choose your own adventure! Hunt game, kill demons, gather herbs, track bandits, haggle over the price of armor, fall off a deceptively tall rock, get lost circling the same hill ten times trying to find a way up to the weird glowing skull on a stick you can see is up there, climb trees or abandoned towers, rummage around in empty homes, run from a dragon, cry over how cute that fennec fox you just shot was, set up camp and chat around the fire, knock yourself out (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are your Frostback Mountain oyster.
bilbo baggins / the hobbit (rifter)
[ it's one thing to face a single dragon, and quite another to face one joined by an army of younglings. this particular dragon is smaller than smaug had been, but just as fearsome and not half the conversationalist.
luckily, hobbits are very good at slipping away undetected, and though bilbo has sting drawn as a precaution, he's able to duck swiftly behind a boulder as the dragonlings trample past without so much as sparing him a glance. he intends to stay there, tucked away unseen, until the beasts move on but he notices a (possibly brave, possibly foolish) stranger fighting the things on their own.
not for the first time since arriving here, bilbo laments that the magic ring hadn't followed him. it would be a great help right about now.
still, he plucks up his courage and dashes forward, slashing sting at one of the small dragons as it lunges at the stranger's back. the blade doesn't do much damage against its scales, but the creature seems stunned by the blow all the same, and bilbo takes the opportunity to shout: ]
There are far too many! Run!
v. misc. (lake-town. oh wait no redcliffe.)
[ this land is just as different from home as it is alike, but there's something about redcliffe village that makes bilbo feel a little less discontented. it reminds him of lake-town in a way, if lake-town's master had been a better man. he visits as often as he can, delighting in the shops and trade stalls and puzzling over bits of overheard conversation concerning mages and rifts and demons.
today he finds himself at the docks, simply gazing out at the horizon as he enjoys crisp red apple. ]
If I look hard enough I can almost imagine home is out there somewhere. [ he gestures out across the water. he doesn't just mean the shire, of course, but middle-earth. ] I know it can't be, but it's a nice thought. Makes all the rest of this seem less strange.
v
[ Vida passes down a bit of cloth-wrapped cheese. A Redcliffe specialty, she's told, as though isolation didn't make half of Ferelden's recipes unique. ]
I'd thought it might be easier, to think of us as separate. A peculiar dream. Here, you must try these together.
no subject
[ he takes the cheese gratefully, but doesn't try it right away. instead he considers her suggestion, brow furrowed. ]
I thought so, too, at first, [ he admits, ] And I was wrong. I want to help the Inquisition, I do, but I also like to think that when it's all said and done I'll have my own home to go back to.
[ he sets his food aside for a moment to fish around in his pocket for the acorn he'd picked up at beorn's. when he finds it, he holds out for her to see. ]
I picked this up on my last adventure. I wanted to plant it in my garden – I still want to.
no subject
It's lovely. No doubt it shall be a grand tree. [ Like the ones in the alienage, she thinks, but he doesn't need to know that either, how vivid the oak a symbol of squalor. ] Perhaps you might bring something of ours back, when you go.
[ She smiles a little at that. ]
What is it like, your home?
no subject
[ there are striking similarities between darkspawn and orcs and goblins too but he'd rather not discuss dreadful things like that, nor dragons. not right now. ]
I'd say our homes are far more alike than they are different. They're just a little too far from each other.
v
it's a unique opportunity. one he cannot refuse. ]
You would be better off gazing across the Sea, Master Baggins.
[ he waits until the hobbit looks at him, and he is all warmth and the slight tilt of his lips that indicates a smile, or at least amusement. he is certainly not so richly robed as when they last met, nor bejeweled. there is no hint of a crown on his brow. ]