Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
faderifting) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
allthisshitisweird2015-12-01 07:58 pm
faderifting) wrote in allthisshitisweird2015-12-01 07:58 pm
Entry tags:
Test Drive Meme!
'Tis The Season...
...To Still Be In The Hinterlands
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.
Lately the Hinterlands have also been full of mages and templars and rifts, all threatening to turn once-peaceful countryside into a dangerous warzone. 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.
NOW WITH ADDED SNOW.
1. I CAN'T BEAR THE COLD
You have turned the wrong corner in the snow, forded the wrong stream in the snow, crested the wrong hill in the snow, entered the wrong cave in the snow. Maybe you are far from camp, in the snow. Maybe you are in camp, which is also snowy. Whatever has happened, wherever you are: you are being chased through the snow by bears. Did you throw a snowball at the bears? Are they huge and snow-dusted? Babies burrowing through the snow drifts and coming for your ankles? Fade-touched in addition to snow-touched? Controlled by cold mages who are hiding in the snow? Popping up out of the snow like a game of whack-a-mole? What are they chasing you away from in all of this snow? What are they chasing you into, other than more snow? What warm things do you plan to make out of their hide if you kill them in the snow? What do you think they'll craft out of your hide if they kill you in the snow? P.S. It's snowy.
2. GIVE ALL THE TOYS TO THE LITTLE RICH BOYS
Winter came. The villagers are freezing. Recruit Whittle totally saw this coming. Now he might have sent you haring (get it) across the countryside in search of supplies that apostates or bandits may have hidden in caves and crannies. He might have handed you some sticks and told you to build a fire. He might have eyed your nice coat with a contemptful gleam that suggested you'd better find some blankets if you didn't want to have your own clothing requisitioned. Nobody's freezing to death on his watch--except maybe you, if you're really bad at finding hidden caches. In the snow.
3. DON'T SHOOT ME SANTA
The sky is beginning to darken and white snow continues to fall, but you and the supply wagon you're protecting should make it to the little Hinterlands village before sunset. The wagon is laden with food, blankets, and other sundry supplies, and so it's important to stay sharp and alert as you make the trecherous journey. And for good reason: an arrow is fired from the tree line and topples an Inquisition soldier from his horse. Beset by bandits, will you manage to fight them back? Or do they overwhelm your troupe and you are forced to flee? Or, perhaps, you could attempt a negotiation, knowing they could be as hungry as the people you protect.
4. DOES THEDAS HAVE FIGGY PUDDING?
It is not only snowing, it's blizzarding, and the tavern in Redcliffe is the closest and warmest place to duck into to wait it out. Unfortunately, half of the Hinterlands had the same idea. The Gull & Lantern is so packed with thawing visitors that it's hard to walk from one side to the other, the owner has given up on telling these Fereldens they can't bring their dogs inside, and that lady in the corner is almost definitely someone you've tried to kill before, or vice versa. But there's a fire going, and the bartender seems to think that giving everyone half-price drinks might prevent a brawl instead of causing one, and there aren't any demons indoors, so it could be a lot worse.
5. WILDCARD
Hunt game in the snow, kill demons in the snow, dig under the snow for herbs, track bandits through the snow, deal with someone charging extortionist coat prices now that it's snowing, fall off a deceptively tall rock into the snow, 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 in the snow, climb trees or abandoned towers covered in snow, rummage around in empty homes to get out of the snow, run from a dragon in the snow, cry over how cute that fennec fox you just shot in the snow was, set up camp and chat around the fire because it's snowy and cold, knock yourself out (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are yourFrostback Mountainoyster, topped with snow.
no subject
[ Focus, Merrill. ]
Perhaps the mages and templars woke the bear up. I imagine I'd also be quite grumpy if I were tired and hungry and covered in snow.
[ Still, it doesn't really matter -- the bear attacked and had to be stopped, and now it's been stopped. ]
From what I hear, yes. A friend of mine is already there. Besides- we live in this world, too. We want to help.
no subject
[Alistair. Oghren. Zevran when he wouldn't shut up. Wynne whenever she opened her mouth. Leliana when she wouldn't put down that damn lute.]
Be thankful you have been spared the sight of a corrupted bear from the Darkspawn taint.
[She could show you. She's a shapeshifter and she could traumatise everyone and everything. Think what a letter home that would be.]
How fortunate, I also have the luck ['luck' is a very, very loose term] to know a friend [also used loosely, so loosely it might slip and crack its thick skull] in the Inquisition. Or affiliated, as things stand.
no subject
[ Even the Dalish care about the Blight, and Merrill did quite a bit of reading while in Kirkwall when she wasn't traveling with Hawke. Anything to try and make the new culture surrounding her seem less strange, though it very rarely worked.
The mention of corrupted creatures, though... ]
When we still lived in Ferelden, there were ruins in the forest. There- um, there was a bear like that there.
[ Clearly not something she wants to talk about. Oh, Tamlen. She was able to keep herself from contracting the taint, was able to fix the eluvian, but... not enough. Never enough.
Time to change the subject! ]
Are you headed that way, then?
no subject
[A pity, she can all too easily imagine him and his slobbering mabari getting involved in all that's going on, or at least being smoeone within Ferelden with the power to have an opinion that matters. He was a fair man, she remembers that much.]
There were blight wolves too, bolder even than the beasts we see now, feeding on the corpses of those caught in Darkspawn attacks or in the civil war. [But she makes note of that Merrill, because there were certain places she went, certain clans she might have stolen a certain book from.
A book in her possession.]
We both are, I hope to provide what aid I can with my skills and where I go, he goes.
no subject
[ It bothers her, not knowing where Hawke is. She's not sure if Morrigan was a friend to the Hero -- she imagines she must have been, to stay with him for so long, but humans are strange -- but surely it must still bother her. ]
I wonder if there are creatures like that below ground, with the dwarves. I never saw any, but we didn't stay in the Deep Roads for long.
[ And Varric isn't helpful on the matter. ]
Well, if you'd like to camp with us for a while, you're more than welcome. I know a big group isn't always the safest, but that's true of small ones, too. Even if it's just for the night.
no subject
[And she had gone, after that battle, had slipped away as was her wish to work in secret and private until arriving in Orlais. She misses one of the few friends she had but this was always the plan and if the plan goes as it should, why should she feel anything but satisfaction when she isn't looking over the work yet to be done.]
We met brontos curiously uncorrupted unless such aggression is no longer characteristic, plenty of deepstalkers too though if any would know if they had the Blight, I cannot say. Blighted beasts are of the surface when they burst to the ground, they are rotting and rabid, like as to tear themselves apart as they are to do anything else.
[What she saw in the Deep Roads was corruption; Darkspawn, the broodmothers, Branka and her party, those angry spirits and the Archdemon flying overhead. Creatures would not survive long the further you ventured.]
I prefer a small camp, something I am more accustomed to.
[Even with Jonas and co it had been just her, her little tent, her little fire and soon they'll be somewhere they can find rooms for a night or two before making the final leg of the journey.]
no subject
[ Clan meant a great deal to the Dalish; it always had. Merrill had been secluded, the black sheep, but everything she had done had been for her people. Everything she does now is still for them, though her people have expanded beyond elves to include her friends. ]
We fought some beings made of rock, which were very strange. I wonder if I'll go back, someday; it was all very interesting.
[ Dark and creepy, but interesting. ]
Oh, that's fine! Is there anything you're short on? We may have some to spare.
no subject
[Honestly she didn’t really get on that well with most of those Jonas had managed to assemble to fight the Blight with and she had been glad to be out of their company when she had slipped away after the last battle. Her own agenda had been the reason she’d stayed, her own agenda the reason she made for Skyhold now.
People could call her selfish but they hadn’t lived through Flemeth’s upbringing first.]
Golems? A mad paragon bent them to her disposal against us and then we had the chance to meet Caridin himself. Also a golem.
[Dwarves are wild.]
Tis but the lad and I, and I grew up in the Korcari Wilds, the Hinterlands are abundant enough for us both. But my thanks, in such times an offer like yours is rare indeed. I am sure your people would be proud of the intent if not the recipient.
no subject
[ Humans are very strange. The lack of clan structure will never fail to make her wonder just how they live in harmony -- and she's rarely surprised, as a result, when they don't. ]
No, not golems. These were more natural. Old things from stories forgotten.
[ She shakes her head, moves past the thought of the rock wraiths. ]
Some, maybe. But few of us would refuse to help a child, if nothing else.