TEST DRIVE MEME!

[faderifting]

I ROLL TO SEDUCE THE BEAR

Tucked between the massive Lake Calenhad and the icy Frostback Mountains in Ferelden’s chilly, hilly south, the Hinterlands are a region covered in patchy forests, small farms, and a bustling fishing village called Redcliffe. The region was recently the frontline of a war between mages and Templars, but the Inquisition’s military presence has restored order and is now focused on helping the locals and influx of refugees rebuild their lives. Whether you’re a recent recruit or a hardened veteran, a Fereldan local or someone who recently fell out of a rift from another world, you may be asked to go lend a hand.

I. FLOODS

A burst of unseasonably warm weather (in no way inspired by real life events) is initially greeted with relief, gloves discarded and scarves unwrapped—but followed within the week by severe flooding across the region. Maybe you’re sent out to help debris from a road or collect the bodies of those swept away. Or maybe you’re less lucky and instead there when the waters come, shepherding refugees to higher ground, or caught riding in the flow on a dislodged roof or log. Maybe there’s a bear on the roof with you.

II. TREASURE HUNTS

Given the lack of banks and lockboxes, when the people here have something they value, they often hide it—under the ground, in a tree, behind a waterfall. So here you are, with a sketch of some landmarks found on a body, trying to find… something. If you find it, it might be useful: weapons, runes, a stash of supplies. Or it might be someone’s box of racy letters and a request to deliver them to a now-married woman who will slap you on delivery.

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.

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[intruthandlove]

There's barely a moment between when the words are spoken and the next when Diana is tossing her weapon aside, moving grimly forward to kneel before Coupe. Careless. When was she last so careless? Certainly not since she was a child, still learning her way around a sword.

"You fight beautifully, sister," Diana says with all the formal solemnity a princess can possess, offering Coupe her hand, "You honor me."

She does not ask the woman if she can stand. To concede defeat, to fight so long with such an injury. Diana knows better than to ask this sort of warrior if she needs assistance, but the offer is there: Silent and steady.

[limier]

Sister. For a second, Diana’s not the only one hit with the blunt shock of home.

Wren trains with the others, of course; Inquisition recruits, and mercenary forces, and even the scattered remains of their Order. It’s different now. There’s no love in the bond, so little trust she can extend.

Sister. A pang for Val Royeaux, leagues and years distant.

"My thanks," Wren manages, takes the hand. She may be proud, but she’s not stupid. Humility has already been served today. There’s nothing to prove by falling on her ass again and puncturing something important. "You — do. Likewise."

A huff of effort as they rise, a weary glance aside to her armor. She’ll need to ensure that's seen to. There are few here willing to abscond with a templar’s mail, but they're here all the same. One of the scouts can look to it; she'll wave someone down.

"Where did you — ah — learn?"

The healers’ tents are blessedly not far.

[intruthandlove]

How to describe it in a way that fit this world? She hadn't been long in the Patriarch's world before the gods commanded her people to reveal themselves and even then, the myths of the Amazons had already existed.

"My sisters taught me," Diana says, weighing her words as she helps Coupe across the way to the healers' tent. She takes her cues from the older woman as to how much help is permissible, but she doesn't stray very far, "I was raised in a place... a bit like a convent. The women who raised me taught me to fight."

There was precious little way to describe the Themyscira of her childhood, beautiful jewel set over the teaming roiling evil below they had been tasked with guarding. That Themyscira didn't exist anymore, hadn't for years now, but the wound still ached now and again.

[limier]

It fits more closely than she has any way to expect. Wren nods stiffly as they walk. Talking hurts, but it's a welcome distraction. She wants to know more of this world Diana holds such evident affection for; these scattered pieces more alike her own than the others yet.

(It doesn't occur to her that the other woman might be editing to suit.)

"The Chantry — the same." The retired Brothers taught combat more often, a gender imbalance as old as the Order. But there had been Sisters, Mothers aplenty. "Fifteen on."

Late, beside all those given as children to the ranks. That doesn't matter. The Chantry had as much a hand in shaping her as her blood.

[intruthandlove]

"We were not quite like your Chantry," Diana says, "We were far more secluded, on an island far from the rest of our world."

She hasn't told this story to anyone, not for years. There were always so many other stories to tell, when there weren't battles to fight. There were others to tell the story, in their own way. All of her sisters, her Mother. Gone now. Dead or spirited away by the gods. Her heart aches, so

"Our makers sent my people, my sisters, to the island, to guard against the evils that lay in it's depths, to ensure they could never reach the world beyond. We trained and lived in service to that, in penance." Difficult to explain in penance for what, to explain the weight of the silver bracelets around her wrists that served both as protection and reminder of a past far more complicated than the story would have one think. "I was the first child born there."