TEST DRIVE MEME!

[faderifting]

TEST DRIVE MEME

Maybe you’ve been around for a while, or maybe you’re new to the Inquisition. Maybe you’re new to Thedas, having recently fallen from a tear in reality and been collected by uniformed rescuers. Whoever you are, you’ve been sent to Kirkwall, to an outpost where many of the Inquisition’s members and allies work on some of the biggest mysteries and problems the organization must solve if it’d like to keep the world from ending, where “ending” means “falling under the power of an ancient powerful corrupted being who wants everyone to bow to him as a god.”

And just to be clear, it would like that. It would like that a lot.

I. THE GALLOWS: The Gallows is an island fortress in Kirkwall’s harbor. It’s been home to, in order: Tevinter slaves, a Circle of Magi, a lot of creepy red lyrium, and now the Inquisition, which has occupied the fortress with the provisional Viscount’s blessing. There are walls that still need rebuilding and corners that still need dusting, but for the most part the Inquisition has gotten down to business. There’s space in the stone-floored courtyards to train or spar; or, if your skills don’t lie in the realm of hitting things, there’s a large library and several offices supporting the Inquisition’s areas of research and diplomatic efforts. If you don’t know what to do with yourself, then by all means, ask; someone will definitely be able to put you to work.

II. KIRKWALL: A quick row across the harbor will take you to Kirkwall proper. The city is built into the cliffs, from exclusive and wealthy Hightown at the top to impoverished Darktown in the abandoned mining tunnels below. In the middle is Lowtown, home to taverns, merchants, and plenty of trouble to keep anyone looking for it happy. You’re welcome to spend your free time and your money here—but try not to annoy the locals too much, please, in case their welcome runs out. It’d be a shame to have to pack again so soon after arriving.

III. QUESTING: Barely had time to make yourself at home, did you, before you were sent away from Kirkwall again—but this time on a mission. There’s a rift outside of Markham, pouring demons into the fields, and the Inquisition has been asked to lend a hand. Maybe literally. If you have an anchor embedded in your palm, you’re needed to close the damn thing. If not, maybe you’re here to fight demons or guard against bandits on the road, or to gather samples and take notes on the rift’s location once its closed, or to speak to Markham’s nobility afterwards to make sure that they fully appreciate the Inquisition’s efforts. Regardless, it’s a long trip, so we hope you like campfire cooking and sharing a tent.

IV. SENDING CRYSTAL: Joining the Inquisition gets you access to the very latest in barely-understood magical communication devices—namely, a crystal, small enough to wear around your neck, that will allow you to communicate verbally with anyone else who has one. Or everyone else who has one. Say hello.

V. WILDCARD: The whole of Thedas is yours to explore, from coast to uncharted wilderness. Choose your own adventure!

Comments

[youwonscience]

Cosima grins, a bit amused to be called "my lady." (The only other person who had regularly called her that was Herian; not a bad person for Tavin to group himself with accidentally.)

"Nah, I mean, I'm sure someone is technically in charge of volunteers. Not my department." She offers her hand (not the one with the shard); she's learned not a lot of people shake, per se, but a hand clasp seems a friendly enough greeting most of the time. "Welcome. I'm Cosima. It's a little bit aaaah," light and high pitched, demonstrative, "still chaos, but I'm sure no one's going to turn down a new recruit. What's your area of study, specifically?"

[taxonomy]

Corina Flavia Sokolov did not raise an uncouth young man even if she despairs at him having reached the ripe old age of twenty-eight with no signs of even agreeing to a proposal in sight.

A firm handshake it is since this isn't the formal setting where he'd need to do the sort of hand kissing thing plus when did his face get washed? Maybe Orlais rubbed off on him even if he prefers incense to perfumes y'know? "Isn't that the nature of all things? How would anything change without such chaos? I know, I know, near blasphemy to say such things, I have wrestled with it many a time." He laughs, some of the tension leaving his shoulders, looking a little less lanky and awkward. "Zoology. A bit here and there with draconology but they're living beasts, they fall under the same banner really. And," his gaze darts about to be certain of who might be in the halls, then he lowers his voice carefully - Andraste help him he's bad at looking casual about this. "The Blight. Or rather, the effect the Blight has upon the beasts of the world that come into contact with it."

[youwonscience]

"Oh my god, if you want some time, there's actually a theory in my world called 'chaos theory,' it explains so much about Thedas." This is mostly a joke; Cosima's not a mathematician, her grasp of the theory is only slightly more advanced than 'Jeff Goldblum describing it in Jurassic Park,' but still.

"But really, oh my god, we are going to rope you into the research division so fast. That's my department -- well, not mine, I'm not in charge, but I'm in it." She grins. "Biologist, here, though I'm not from this world originally so my experience with dragons and Blight is, like, way limited so far."

[taxonomy]

What is a Jeff Goldblum, tell him one day he'll be fascinated. "For all the love I bear Andraste and the Maker, the Chantry itself is something of a barrier to the work some of us wish to do, though where I am from? We've done things differently enough that we truly rival Orlais when it comes to how we see the world. Ah, forgive me, Octavian Nestor Sokolov but please, just call me Tavin, everybody does." Only his parents when they're in one of those parenting sorts of moods, complete strangers or professors call him Octavian, what a mouthful of a name.

"A division for research? Truly, I have come to the right place at just the right time. What exactly do you study? I-- I cannot imagine what things lie beyond, is it possible to study what you do? I have a great many papers on dragons though those on the Blight were regrettably not published though I have kept all my research, of course." There's possibly a chance someone might need to go fetch smelling salts for all this excitement.

[youwonscience]

"So here I'm mainly studying rifts because I have a personal stake in that, and because the Inquisition is most interested in me as I connect to them. But back home, I focused on evolutionary developmental biology. Lots of it requires equipment I don't have here, but basically how the developmental process of organisms demonstrates their relationships to one another and to their ancestors." Sort of. Best she can do without using the word 'genetics,' at least.

"Did you study in Orlais? I've heard of their university, but haven't had a chance to see it for myself."

[taxonomy]

There are words there that Tavin doesn't really understand and after as long a journey he's had, on a horse as increasingly fed up of him and wanting to buck him off, kick him, or bite him whenever he tried to do anything, he nods politely as one should and files them away for when he's washed, slept, eaten. "You mean classification then, when you speak of their relationships and ancestors? A poor example but the dubious and tenuous positioning of what is commonly referred to as a nuggalope and where they might be related to the nug and others such as tuskets, snoufleurs though to be certain we can't ever entirely rule out the brono, the gurn, even the druffalo and the bogfisher though the people that believe the latter two were involved in nuggalopes aren't worthy of their degrees. The rifts though, it was on my way back from collecting observations on the phoenixes that I noted behaviours I'd never seen before, I thought it worthy of further study."

Not to help the people of Thedas, not really, even if they have to live with it but for science.

"I did indeed, my lady, truly a marvelous institution and the only one of its kind in all of Thedas though one hopes that Nevarra will have a rival to it so we don't have to suffer the masks and their brand of frippery. Entry into the university is something quite beyond the reach of the Inquisition, I am afraid."

[youwonscience]

He's clearly already a man after her own heart. "Yeah, exactly. I mean, in broad strokes, but how creatures are related to each other, how they evolve. What are traits that are heritable between generations, and what are the effects of environment on those traits in an individual and over time. My work is mainly with humans, not animals, but there are other people who do what I do in all sorts of species back home. Or across species."

She shrugs. "Hey, I don't expect them to be sending out invitations to cross-world refugees, especially when a lot of people outside the Inquisition still think we're demons. Still, I'd give a lot for a proper lab to work in here."

[taxonomy]

"You could make a good deal of money with some families, you know," he shrugs as if he isn't very aware of how all this sort of thing works especially back at home when it can be a bit delicate because there's the whole tentative throne business going on as it has been for some time now. "Families like to know what they're marrying into, it takes so long to go back through the history of it all. I couldn't abide it, give me the wilds and my living subjects and their behaviours and their spaces but the coin that changes hands when alliances are being made." That's before you get the Crows involved too.

"If there is a thing to be said for Empress Celene it's that she's done great work for the university. Her patronage allowed it to flourish from what it had been to what it is now, which is why so many things are so expensive to procure. Glass from Serault, for instance, for some equipment is the finest you can own and lasts a long time but I doubt the Inquisition is ever going to be able to afford it. All of you crammed in here? How do people even sleep like this?" Okay he can sleep in a tent, in all weathers, but this is basically a hovel compared to the sort of place he expected to find people going by the title of the Inquisition.

[youwonscience]

Cosima has a brief, vivid image of a Thedas-version of "Who Do You Think You Are?" which is definitely the funnier, less existentially disturbing way to frame noble families' obsession with lineage.

"Oh man," she says of the sleeping quarters, instead of dwelling on rich people trying to prove biological superiority. "You should have seen my undergraduate dorms. Three 18-year-olds shoved together in a space smaller than a lot of huts I've seen here. It could be way worse. But then, I like my roommate, so I guess that helps."

[taxonomy]

Given that his mother is the one controlling all the marriages in his family and that Tavin is the next one up on the chopping block, existential dread covers it better. Kirkwall isn't constantly on the move. Kirkwall is a place she could very well decide to come visit.

"Do we have to have roommates here? I had one at the university but even then, it isn't exactly commonplace unless you wish it to be, strongly encouraged to forge companionships that might last through adulthood. Alas, he was disembowelled by a quillback on one of his first expeditions." Tavin could try to sound more upset about it but it was years ago and it proved to be highly educational to see it for himself, not entirely in vain.

[youwonscience]

"I don't think roommates are necessarily required, no. Some of the people with more money have moved out of the Gallows altogether into Hightown or wherever. But Avery and I were rooming together back in Skyhold, it seemed easiest to just stay roommates here."

Then her brain catches up, and she says, "Wait, did you see him get disemboweled? Is that a common risk?"

[taxonomy]

"Kirkwall does have something of a lawless reputation, no more Templars patrolling the Gallows - have you read any of the books? Swords and Shields? My sister adores it, she'd quote long passages to me in letters, I think I know it by heart but I hope the guards are less inept than they are in that pulp." (Tavin has absolutely read the trashiest romance novels, we all have our vices but he is a good Andrastian, he won't be admitting to it.)

Eyes lighting up with nothing to do with a certain guard captain based on no actual real persons whatsoever, he nods very gravely. "With a quillback? Most certainly dear lady, they're very voracious when provoked and they do have quite the temper when it comes to defending their territory and resources. Resources are scarce in the Western Approach and thus a territory must be controlled through aggression and dominance, if you can't make it up to a safe spot for observation after you've laid out the bait for your subject then I'm afraid you very much become the bait and the subject." Tavin sighs as he explains, hands rather like a pair of very animated spiders as he pantomimes things that really don't need to be pantomimed. "There wasn't even anything for them to burn, what the quillbacks didn't finish, the hyenas did and they're capable of devouring bone without any trouble at all."

[youwonscience]

"Jesus," an oath which the tone makes clear even if the name means nothing. "This is why I'm not a zoologist. I mean, no offense; it's a great field, I'm just not really cut out for, uh. Peril."

Which is kind of hilarious, considering where she is. (In fairness, it was also bleakly hilarious to find out that someone was trying to kill her back home, because she's a grad student from Berkeley.)

"I've read up on Kirkwall's past a little. The, uh, stories vary quite a bit, depending who you talk to."

[taxonomy]

"Oh you have your own oaths, marvellous!" He heard rumours, he hotly argued that there was no reason why they wouldn't have things like a Maker wherever rifters fell out of. "If you take precautions and know what you're doing then it can be avoided, using the urine of a wolf for instance, will keep away all manner of beasts from your camp that you might rest well at night which reminds me to ensure the Inquisition knows to be well-stocked."

No one is going to want to camp near Tavin's tent but Tavin isn't going to get eaten by anything.

"The mages will certainly have their own opinions but they were very safe from everything that happened just before all of this. When the Qunari assaulted Kirkwall, they went for the Viscount but not the Gallows. Plenty of other people slaughtered but the mages? Perfectly safe, Templars protecting them even at risk to themselves." Tavin you have Mortalitasi family you don't get opinions in the south.