Party Banter Meme

[faderifting]

In the Dragon Age games, as you travel Thedas with your best pals, they have a lot of short conversations about politics, the weather, butts, etc. So this is the Fade Rift equivalent, in four easy steps!

1. Imagine your characters are on a very long walk toward a mission objective, or on a very long walk back after kicking ass, or standing guard together, or gathering herbs, or working in the library late at night, or something. Anything sort of boring that might make people want to have a dumb conversation just to break things up a bit.

OPTIONAL ASSISTANT: Since so many people reported being out of it, we made a random generator to help you come up with some general banter prompts for your top-levels.

2. Post a few remarks your character might say (similar to TFLN, except spoken out loud and less ridiculous and sexy, maybe. maybe not. we don’t know your life) while passing the time.

3. Tag around to reply to those general remarks or to start new/wildcard conversations! Threads should be pretty short and involve minimal action; there’s no need to turn anything into a big production. Multiperson threads are encouraged. Series of conversations between the same two characters occurring on different days are also encouraged.

4. Gather up all of your little conversation snippets like a bouquet and keep them forever, because they’re game canon. Banter threads can't be used for Base AC, but do count towards AC Rewards points.

Comments

[bouchonne]

Bastien, don't ask questions like that. You know I can't read.

[cozen]

Of course, forgive me. My favorite is The Wintersent Warrior. If you ever learn to read, you can borrow it and tell me if it is fair to your countrymen.

[bouchonne]

Hmm. What's it about?

[cozen]

The daughter of an Arl, raised as the ward of Orlesian occupiers—it never says what happened to her parents, but we can guess, ouais? But with her parents gone she is raised by these elegant, cultured, intelligent, colorful, fascinating, well-educated, musically-inclined—

[ He’ll keep going on this note for a while if allowed. ]

[bouchonne]

Et cetera, et cetera -

[cozen]

Et cetera, [ agreeably, ] Orlesians, and grows into a lovely woman with soft hands and a respectable understanding of the socially appropriate height of a neckline. Understanding enough to allow her to sidle right up to the edge of propriety, you know.

[ He makes an illustrative gesture on Byerly’s chest, where a titillating neckline would fall. ]

But along with all of this, she has lost touch with her people. And that is only the prologue. The story truly begins in the middle of winter—you could guess the title—when she discovers massive, rugged man, wounded and unconscious, bleeding scarlet into the snow—but still breathing. Still handsome. I assume if he were not handsome they would have left him there to die.

[bouchonne]

As is right and proper.

[cozen]

Of course you would think that. But lucky for him, he is handsome, so the lady—her name is Alarra—and her faithful companion Kinnon—

[ He holds up a hand to mark an aside. ]

Kinnon follows her around for the entire novel while she tells him everything, clearly in love with her, and the narrator never so much as notes his hair color. So we must assume he is not handsome. Or at least not threateningly handsome. And he is pathetic, [ with a heaping pile of self-deprecating self-awareness, ] and I hate him.

[ End aside. ]

Alarra and Kinnon load the man into their wagon and take him home to keep in the barn. I understand that is the correct place to store enormous Fereldan men? And of course the old stable master sympathizes with the Fereldan Rebellion and helps them dress his wounds and keep him hidden while he comes back to himself. The first time he opens his eyes, Alarra is there to be shocked by how green they are. Green as the land he fights for—so sort of a muddy moss green, I assume, with a lot of brown mixed in.

[bouchonne]

Perhaps in the first draft they were a startling, rich gray. Gray as last night's dinner, she thinks to herself.

[ The bit of self pity remains unremarked upon. Poor Bastien. ]

[cozen]

Eugh. [ He shudders, cheerfully, self-pity already forgotten (until next time). ] I would not be surprised.

So... she is startled by his greyish brownish greenish eyes, and while she is being startled, he is caught by her face—soft and delicate in a way he has not often seen, but with a little bit of wild still in her eyes. But as the second tick by and his awareness broadens to include her Orlesian dress and Orlesian hair, his heart hardens into ice. As hearts do. And she slowly remembers her kind guardians, unaware that she is harboring in their barn a man who would certainly kill them and make a hat out of their skin. And—

And I will not tell you the entire story. You will have to learn to read.

[bouchonne]

Bastien!

[cozen]

Believe me, By, I would love to tell you in detail about the battle scars covering his torso and how they remind Alarra of the fractured stained glass in Chantry window, like a holy monument to masculinity, an altar where she must worship—but I cannot reward laziness. You are a grown man. It is time.

[bouchonne]

You truly are a beast of a man, Bastien. Beastien. Orlesian monstrosity.

[ Then, dropping the act - ]

Do Orlesians actually read that? Despite my years in Orlais, the Orlesian attitude towards the Occupation remains a mystery to me. Beyond, of course, their orientation towards it as something that might possibly get the Fereldan they're drinking with stirred up enough to punch them in the jaw.

[cozen]

I actually read that. And I have known a Baronness or seven to want a man to paint himself with kat— kad— [ He means kaddis. ] —that dog paint, and carry her around over his shoulder. Not me, of course.

[ He holds an arm up, forearm dangling in the floppy opposite of a bicep flex. There is a bicep in there, of course, but the point remains: his hulking brute impression is pretty unconvincing. ]

But, mm. I do not think Orlesians think about it as much as Fereldans. The privilege, ouais, of having it happen on the other side of the mountains. Most people never saw the blood. Our fathers might have had their wounds, when they returned, but they did not tell their children they earned them burning fields and hurting women. So a generation passes, and it is just something that happened a long time ago, far away. I suppose that is true of most things.

[ But—and he means it, openly searching for any twitch or breath that might give away a dishonest answer— ]

Does it bother you, when I make fun of Ferelden?

[bouchonne]

[ And, honestly, without pause - ]

No. Not when you make fun of it.

[ He glances over. ]

Does it bother you, when I poke fun at your commonness?

[ Since the two seem to him a rough equivalent. Fereldans stepped on by Orlesians; the small stepped on by the great. (As much as Byerly can be considered great.) ]

[cozen]

[ He hums and wobbles his head, considering. (Unnecessarily. It’s fine.) ]

Maybe if you were better at it.

[bouchonne]

I'm amazing at it. I'm devastating.

[cozen]

[ He laughs, but not like Byerly’s said something stupid. ]

You know, I believe you. And I am very grateful for your restraint. We will have to add that to our agreement, as future rivals: no poison, no total emotional devastation. Partial—maybe.

[bouchonne]

Or at least nothing deliberate. Accidental seems inevitable.

[cozen]

Do you think so? Such a pessimist.

[bouchonne]

The nature of a Fereldan man, no? Or at least a man of Dragonmount. Our lands are poor, and there's little good that springs from that soil. So too is it in the heart of men.

[cozen]

[ For a moment he looks like he's thinking of saying something cute, in the light-and-trite sense of the word, maybe offering to sell Byerly one of the terrible gardening manuals he still hasn't managed to fully liquidate, but he rolls his lips through his teeth as if to wring the smile out of them and manages to contain the impulse. ]

Well. You might be right. But if I unintentionally devastate you, let me know, and I will try to fix it.

[bouchonne]

[ By frowns very slightly. ]

What were you about to say?

[cozen]

[ His face only gets halfway into arranging for innocently confused before he thinks better of it. ]

Something flippant. But I think you have probably earned the right to be a little dire.